Title: Charlotte's Web (Chapter 60)
Rating: M for graphic violence and language
Fandom: The Mentalist
Summary: Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim… if not his sanity, itself.
Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews, especially with the FF story alert function being FUBARed (FUBAR= Fucked up beyond all recognition, if you're wondering what that acronym means). I really love reading your reviews. They put a smile on my face. And not an RJ smiley, an earnestly delighted smile. If you guys are interested, I made a list of the "top" 50 songs or so I used while writing this fic, and they are listed on my main profile page. Those are not the only songs I used, but I listened to a lot of the original soundtracks without words (while writing) and a large number of songs with lyrics when ruminating about where I wanted to take this. If you are looking for some songs you might like, there might be something new in that list. - Lex
"Though I saw it all around
Never thought that I could be affected
Thought that we'd be last to go
It is so strange the way things turn
Drove the night toward my home
The place that I was born, on the lakeside
As daylight broke, I saw the earth
The trees had burned down to the ground"
-Don't Give Up by Peter Gabriel (Featuring Kate Bush)
"Wolf! Right here and now!"
― Peter Straub, The Talisman
"When my childhood began coming back to me, I went off the rails for a bit. I became what you could charitably call "colorful." After a year or so of disgrace, I remembered that I was thirty-odd years old, no longer a child, that I had a calling of a kind, and I began to heal. Either childhood is a lot more painful the second time around, or it's just less bearable. None of us are as strong or as brave as the children we used to be."
― Peter Straub, The Throat
As Lisbon had predicted, Charlotte stopped pressing about what was in the files regarding the child that Red John had once been... as soon as she was told she could come with them on their road trip and miss a day of school if she let the subject drop.
She let the subject drop.
Jane unlocked the front door, and they entered the apartment. Dixon ran up to Jane, then Charlotte, then Lisbon, unsure of which human to greet first, which one to lick. His tail was wagging so fast it was comical.
"You should take him out to pee," Jane said tiredly as Charlotte dropped her backpack by the front door and wandered into the kitchen. Dixon followed Jane into the living room, sat down on the couch next to the head of the household. Lisbon smiled at the dog, pet the big, boxy head tenderly and sat down in a plush reading chair. Dixon licked her hand, grinned his doggie grin, happy that humans were home, again.
Dixon liked it when the humans were home. So much less boring.
"Charlotte? Are you listening to me?" Jane called. He sounded more or less like his usual self, but Lisbon could hear the strain in his voice, barely concealed. If Charlotte heard the same strain, she didn't seem overly bothered by it. She didn't bother to respond, but Lisbon heard the sound of the fridge being opened.
"Charlotte?!" Jane called, a bit louder, when it became obvious she was ignoring him. He heard the microwave beep, heard the microwave start humming as she nuked something... probably a pop tart, if he knew her well.
His kid wandered back into the living room, then, a fruit roll up wrapped around one finger, a can of Pepsi in the other hand. Her shoes were already off (kicked off and squished down at the back heels and left to decorate the front hallway, not untied as Jane had asked her multiple times to do, to preserve the life of the shoes) and Lisbon could see she was wearing mismatched socks. One had a bunch of sloths woven into the fabric, the other sock appeared to be the photorealistic face of an angry tiger. Huh. Either Charlie didn't give a damn about matching socks or the mismatch was intentional. Either scenario was likely.
"I don't need to take him out. He peed on a puppy pad," the teenager dismissed, and flopped down onto a special "gamer" chair Jane had gotten her from Amazon. It sat close to the ground and was curved, like a rocker, but padded. There were pockets on the side for remote controls and other knick knacks. Charlotte pulled the television remote out from the chair's pocket and turned the TV on. It winked itself on and she hit some buttons and the red welcome screen for Netflix appeared. Jane sighed heavily, loudly, not bothering to censor himself or his stress.
"That's not the point. The dog needs to go outside because he needs to learn that he is supposed to piss outside," Jane said, voice now obviously strained. Lisbon looked at Jane with an eyebrow up. She couldn't ever remember him sounding so cross with his kid, and even Charlie noticed the change. But, she wasn't intimidated. Of course not.
And even if she was, she had been raised in such a way as not to show intimidation. And not to back down. Or maybe such severe defiance was a genetic trait shared by the Janes? It was anybody's guess, really.
Lisbon looked over at the teen, still sitting in her rocking, gaming chair, taking sips of Pepsi and sucking on the fruit roll up, relaxed as could-be, almost obnoxiously so. To the untrained eye.
Lisbon knew she wasn't as care-free as she seemed. But, she was in stand-off mode. Lisbon knew well the expression on her face. Her younger brothers had given her the same look when they were growing up and she was trying to parent them and they weren't having any of it.
"He already pissed!"
"Take the dog out!" Jane said, and this time his voice, while not technically rising to the volume of an actual shout, was more than strained. Jane was in angry-father-mode. No other way to interpret that tone. Even Charlotte, as socially dense as she could be on occasion, gave him the once-over.
"I want to watch Dexter, Patrick," she said flatly. "I think some looney toon is going to try and kill Harrison."
Lisbon watched this scene unfold and kept her mouth shut. For years, she had dealt with Jane's instransigence and marveled at his ability to get his way. But Jane was highly emotionally manipulative, and not only manipulative, but very skilled at charming people into doubting themselves. Ultimately, they usually ended up giving in to Jane, not to make him happy, but because he master-minded them into thinking that what they actually wanted was whatever suited Jane at the time.
However, Jane had been at ease and relatively unstressed during those interactions. Currently, he wasn't operating at full capacity for emotional manipulation.
He wasn't at ease and free of stress, now, and Charlotte- as canny and clever as she was in many respects- lacked Jane's finesse at manipulating others. She intellectually understood how to manipulate others, but it wasn't something that came naturally to her. She wasn't a natural mentalist. If anything, she had many of the traits Lisbon associated with high-functioning autism.
She tended to be more upfront, earnest, direct and when those traits didn't get her what she wanted, she flat-out stonewalled or refused to comply, physically refusing to move if need be. Charlie's responses were almost comical and even kind of cute, on occasion... if you weren't on the receiving end of them, nursing a developing migraine and filled with adrenaline and existential anxiety.
Her reactions weren't working with Jane's current mood, sadly.
"Do I look like I care about your television show?" Jane said with faux bland indifference, and forced himself to speak slower, to be more calm.
Charlotte shot him a dubious look. She narrowed her eyes as she assessed his facial expressions, his body language. Jane let her "scan" him, let her take her time.
"No?"
"That's because I don't care, right now, if you would rather watch TV. I asked you to do something, and I'd like you to do it, please. Now."
Charlotte stared at Jane, a hard stare. Lisbon could see the little hamster wheel in her brain spinning, the Rube Goldberg machine that were her thought processes begin to trip off. Balls were rolling down ramps, wheels were turning, little plastic birds wearing top hats and full of red fluid were dipping their plastic beaks into glasses of water...
"I don't want to take the dog outside," Charlotte said, glancing over at Lisbon. Brilliant response. Just brilliant. Lisbon bit the inside of her cheek, because she wanted to laugh out loud at that comment. She reminded Lisbon, in that moment, of a toddler who had learned to say no and was challenging Daddy to a staring contest. But laughing would only encourage her, and Jane was on thin emotional ice.
"Charlotte." Jane was staring right back.
"I can take the dog out, Jane," Lisbon tried, but Jane held up a hand, the universal gesture for silence.
"That's a nice offer, Lisbon, but it's Charlotte's chore. It's her responsibility and we've discussed this issue before. Multiple times. I asked her to do one of her chores, and I'd like her to comply."
"I don't comply," Charlotte said, still staring at Jane with her electric green cat eyes. Feral cat eyes, they appeared to be in this moment. "I'm not a robot. Robots comply. So. Fuck you, Patrick. With your compliance."
Jane sighed. Brought his hands up to his face and rubbed his face with his hands. His shoulders slumped. Lisbon wasn't sure if he was deep breathing or counting to ten or what, but she had never seen Jane this far off the mark before, and she knew Charlotte had enough of her father in her not to back down. Their respective manipulative abilities might be at opposite ends of the bell curve, but they were both on the extreme right side of the bell curve when it came to human stubbornness. Defiance. Obstinance. Whatever word you used for it, both of them shared the same trait, and in spades.
In this respect, Charlie was a chip off the old block.
"Okay," Jane said, and his voice was strangely light. "If you're not going to listen, I'd like you to go to your room, please. Now."
"I thought you wanted me to take Dixon out to piss? Now, it's my room? Make up your mind, man." Charlotte said, and Lisbon thought she almost saw a smirk in the deep sea-green depths of her eyes. Jane wasn't amused.
"Please go to your room."
"But it's not nearly beddy bye time, father." Now Charlotte was getting sarcastic and cute.
Lisbon sucked in a breath. Uh oh.
"Okay, then," Jane said. He got up off the couch, and before Charlotte understood what was going on, he was over to her side. He had the remote control to the television out of her hands before she could react, and he turned the television off. It winked off with a barely audible noise, something like static. Bye-bye, Charlotte. Come back and watch me soon!
"Patrick!"
"Go to your room, please. I'm not in the mood for messing around tonight," Jane said.
He had a funny little smile on his face now. He was trying to stay calm, to stay in control, to regain control here, but the strained smile and a slight tic in his right eyelid spoke of his incredible strain. Charlotte saw the smile, though, and the eyelid tic, the way his mouth was jerking to the side just a bit, and Lisbon saw something in her face change. For a moment, just a moment, there was a flicker of genuine fear. Before Jane could react, before he could say anything more, she looked down at her lap.
The fight went of her, and in a strange hurry. She gave the faintest of nods, sucked heavily on her fruit roll up. She kept her head down, fruit roll up still in her mouth, Pepsi can in one hand, and slowly walked out of the room, giving both Lisbon and Jane a wide berth.
Lisbon half expected a bedroom door to slam somewhere. It was what her brothers would have done if she had ordered them and they were pissed. There was no slammed door, nothing. Just that strange, sudden, subdued compliance.
Dixon looked at Jane, then Lisbon, a slightly confused, guilty look on his face as if maybe- just maybe- this current tense atmosphere might be in part his doing? Maybe? Then he looked in the direction Charlotte had gone, got up off the couch, yawned, and trotted after his real master. Lisbon heard his unclipped toe nails click against the linoleum in the hallway.
"Shit," Jane said tiredly, and rubbed his eyes again. "I really fucked that up."
"You're exhausted and you're stressed. Cut yourself some slack," Lisbon said, finding Jane's eyes, trying to soothe him. He sighed deeply and nodded. Ran a hand through his golden curls.
"Yeah," he said. He stood up, sighed again.
"Look, I'm going to go get the dog and take him out. If there is anything in the kitchen you'd like, Lisbon, please help yourself."
"Thanks," Lisbon said softly, and smiled at her partner. The man she had come to think of as her partner. Jane walked down the hallway. Lisbon heard a soft tap on what she assumed was Charlotte's bedroom door, a few exchanged words. She couldn't make out what was said.
Jane came back down the hallway with the dog trailing after him. He pulled Dixon's leash off a hook on the wall, bent down and clipped the leash to the pitbull's collar.
The door opened and he stepped out into the orange haze of a Sacramento sunset, now in silhouette, a dark cut-out shape of a man with a boxy, muscular dog. The door closed softly.
Lisbon sat on the couch. Thought about what had just happened. After a minute or two, she heard padded footsteps in the hallway. When she looked up, Charlotte was standing half in and out of the hallway, watching the older woman with a strangely guarded expression on her face.
"He take Dixon out?" She finally said, voice little more than a whisper.
"Yes," Lisbon said.
"Okay." She still had most of the fruit roll up hanging out of her mouth like a neon rainbow tongue. Lisbon watched the girl pass through the living room and into the kitchen again. She heard the soft noises of cupboard doors opening and closing, of the fridge door opening and closing, a sound like the cuttlery drawer opening.
Charlotte appeared a moment later with a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew, a carton of almond milk and a jumbo-sized box of what looked to be unopened Cookie Crisp cradled in her arms with a plastic cereal bowl. Her High-Fructose-Corn-Syrup babies. A spoon was now hanging from her mouth with the fruit roll-up.
"You can't possibly still be hungry?" Lisbon asked kindly, hoping to stall the girl until Jane came back in and they could make peace.
Charlotte shook her head.
No. She wasn't still hungry. Not now, anyway.
The teenager walked back into the hallway and Lisbon heard the trapdoor that led to Charlotte's attic hidey hole open, heard the slight creak of the accordion-style stairs pull out. There was the sound of footsteps, then no more noises from the kid.
Jane came back into the apartment a few minutes later. Dixon was released from his leash and bounded over to Lisbon. If he had been a bit nervous ten minutes earlier, he seemed completely content now. He bounded over to Lisbon happily, tongue hanging out, butt wagging and licked her hand.
Jane went into the hallway. Lisbon heard him walk back towards his kid's room, then heard his footsteps come back down the hall.
"She go up into the attic?" He asked Lisbon, sitting down on the couch next to the CBI agent. Lisbon nodded.
"Yeah."
"She'll come down when she gets hungry. Which, these days, seems to be every twenty minutes."
"She took soda and cereal up with her," Lisbon said, looking at Jane apologetically.
He nodded. Tented his fingers in front of his chin and lips and considered Lisbon's words.
"Yeah. I spooked her."
"Jane-"
"No, Lisbon. I did. She has a hair-trigger for potential threats, and I crossed the line. I shouldn't have smiled at her when I was angry. A smile at the same time as anger is a huge threat in her mind."
Lisbon wanted to argue, but she knew Jane was right.
"I bet Red John smiled at her when he was pissed off..."
"Jane. She knows you're not Red John."
He was silent a moment.
"Does she? Does she, really? How do we know that?"
Lisbon stared at Jane. His face was lined with pain and stress and exhaustion.
But he was right.
Charlotte had come back to them terrifed. And even though she was trying her damndest to fit back into Jane's life and to be normal, she'd never be normal. She was traumatized, and she'd been traumatized by someone who bore a face eerily like her father's. Who sounded like him, more or less. Who had many of the same peculiarities and quirks. She'd been not just traumatized, either, but programmed, over the course of a decade, during the most psychologically malleable years of her life. A lot of her damage was permanent. It was ingrained, now, etched into the fabric of her brain. Her mind.
Lisbon nodded.
"She just needs to calm down. Collect herself. She's a smart kid, Jane." Even as she said the words, she knew how dense they sounded.
"Intelligence is not the issue here, though, Lisbon. Trauma is. A life full of terror is. I shouldn't have ordered her to go outside."
"You just wanted her to complete a chore," Lisbon reminded him.
Jane shook his head.
"No, it's more than that. She tries to hide it, but she's scared of going outside by herself. Scared Red John is out there... just waiting for her. I pushed her to do something that she is terrified of doing because I am off my game, and I pushed her to do it in front of you, which only added to her embarassment. Of course she'd stonewall. Of course she'd resist. How could she do anything but?"
"She could have reminded you of her fear," Lisbon said softly. But that was wrong, too.
Jane shook his head. "She doesn't admit to fear unless forced into a corner. Admitting to basic human emotions- especially of the negative variety- is like showing her belly. She doesn't trust, Lisbon. Not enough. Not yet. And I knew that..."
"Jane. You're human. You're not her therapist, you're her father. There are going to be days like this."
Jane sighed again. He didn't particularly like being reminded he was human. But he was smiling now, a somewhat reproachful smile.
"I am, indeed, human. And so was Red John. And... I just want her to know that. That he is dead. That human beings are capable of dying and staying dead."
Lisbon was silent. Jane caught her eye.
"He is dead. It's not just me, right? You think he is dead, too, don't you, Lisbon?"
It was now Lisbon's turn to sigh.
"Jane... he's... he's... Red John."
She didn't have to say more than that. Red John was his own thing, Red John was sui generis. Red John played in peoples' nightmares the way toddlers played in sandboxes. He delighted in deceit. And he was damned good at it.
Was he dead? Lisbon could only hope and pray that he was.
But if she was in Charlotte's shoes? If she was in Charlotte's shoes, had lived what Charlotte had lived, she wouldn't have wanted to go outside alone, either. Especially not on the cusp of night, as the sun was going down and the shadows and gloom were taking over and regaining control of the imagination.
Things lived in the night that couldn't exist in the daylight, and those things were usually pretty good at staying outside the range of sodium-vapor streetlamp light.
"Yeah. He is. But.. if he's still alive, I mean. I haven't seen him. That wouldn't be like him." Jane was thinking aloud now, trying to comfort himself. He pulled his arms around himself, was holding himself in such a way that Lisbon felt the need to hug him. She didn't, though.
He was holding himself like he was trying to keep his innards from spilling out.
He needed space.
"It would be just like him, to die in such a way that his death would be, at least from Charlotte's point of view, up for debate. He played his game, and he didn't get what he wanted. He lost. And Charlotte lived. He wasn't planning on that. He expected her to..." Jane trailed off. His eyes were far away, inward-looking, remembering the hideous time when his little girl had been buried alive in a coffin and sentenced to a fate of suffocation under ground.
Jane'd saved her, he'd managed to get her out, and get ber back, but that had been a fluke. A miracle, for the folks who believed in miracles.
Even Red John hadn't forseen that outcome.
Hence, he wasn't alive. He'd lost his game, and gone out in a blaze of glory, sentencing his own niece to death and his twin brother to a horrific fate of losing his only child not just once, but twice.
Jane nodded to himself, running scenarios through his mind, and Lisbon knew he was trying to reason the entire thing out. He was trying to apply reason to the actions of a madman, so he could move on with his life. So they could all move on.
What else could he really do?
Except... the actions of a madman weren't confined to the limits of logic and reason.
"You could go and talk with her," Lisbon suggested, looking up at Jane. "I'll come up with you. Put her at ease?"
Jane winced. The idea that his own child might need to be put at ease about him and his nature was painful to him. He shook his head.
"We can't do that right now, Lisbon."
"Sometimes it's better not to let too much time elapse when someone is afraid or-"
Jane cut her off.
"No, I mean, we can't. She pulled the pull-cord up with her. There is no easy way to get up into the attic right now, and trying to enter by force is likely to do more harm than good."
"Oh."
"Yeah," Jane said softly.
"Well... she'll come down when she finishes off the Cookie Crisp." Lisbon said, smiling a little bit to herself.
"Yeah." Jane said, nodding. "So... not too long a wait."
Lisbon smiled at him. Reached over, finally, and patted his shoulder.
"I can't do that again, though, Lisbon. Scare her. Try to force her to do something she's not emotionally ready for."
Lisbon nodded.
Jane reached over, pulled the remote control off the side table he'd placed it on, and clicked the TV back on.
"Maybe we can lure her back?" Jane said, smiling a little bit, but there was no real joy in his smile.
"Maybe. She likes cartoons, doesn't she?"
"Yeah," Jane said, and channel-surfed till he found the appropriate channel. He turned the volume up.
Lisbon looked at him expectantly.
"Now we wait. While we wait, it might be a good idea for me to go over those files. I can be reasonably sure I won't have to hide them anytime soon."
"Okay," Lisbon said simply. She hesitated, clearly wanting to say more, but she was tired, too.
It had been a very long, strange, emotional day.
"I... do you mind if I get a shower?" Lisbon said, and Jane nodded.
"Mi casa es su casa," he said and Lisbon nodded, smiled. Left Jane to his files and his fears and his self-recrimination.
Sometimes, as much as one wanted something, there was nothing left to do, nothing left to say. Sometimes, people just had to wind down on their own.
Charlotte sat at her desk in the attic and contemplated the nature of her father. He'd smiled at her. A smile... but the smile had been tinged with anger and frustration. His eyelid had been ticking from stress. His mouth, one side of it, had been jerking.
She'd seen Red John with similar facial expressions, and she felt a cold, lonely sadness work its way through her guts like a tapeworm. The attic was almost always warmer than the rest of the apartment, sometimes stiffingly so, but tonight that warmth was needed. She felt cold and shivery.
She was eating Cookie Crisp out of a bowl with Disney cartoons printed on the side and surfing the internet. Nothing gory or creepy, just fun stuff. She was on youtube, and my god, there was funny content on youtube! Here! A compilation video of dogs skateboarding! So funny! Maybe she could train Dixon to ride a skateboard? Maybe...
She got up, mouth full of Cookie Crisp, and went to the loose floorboard. Took out the coffee tin with the stolen credit cards in them. Counted them. They were all still here, Patrick hadn't taken any. Most of them were still good.
If things got weird, she could always leave. If he became... if he turned out to be like...
She closed her eyes and forced air into her lungs. Her thoughts were very dark and sad and full of grief. She smelled the inside of the coffee tin, inhaled deeply. Coffee grounds always smelled so good.
She put the lid back on the coffee tin, put it back in the floor, dug around blindly and found a can of Monster energy that Patrick had failed to find and confiscate. She popped the tab and chugged half the can before returning to her desk. She glanced around the attic. The beanbag to sit on in the corner. Shelves bolted to the narrow wall, before the walls began to slope at 45 degree angles to make up the interior of the roof.
She got up and went to the shelves. Lined up on them were little toys she'd collected since coming back into Patrick's life. She looked at the toys, the brightly coloured figures, picked up a Zelf. The Zelfs were new, were imported from Australia. They looked like a hybrid between traditional troll dolls and elves. They had long, vibrantly-colored manes of hair which stood straight up like trolls, which could be brushed, could be styled. Patrick had purchased her one a week for good behavior, for doing her homework, for making her bed and taking a multivitamin every day. For trying.
She picked up a Zelf doll and stared at it. It's name was Lil 'D, the Firesprite Zelf. It was a bright orange colour, with vivid green eyes (much like her own) with huge black pupils and the shock of hair on the top of the head was yellow and red. It had been the first Zelf toy Patrick had purchased for her.
The original packaging had long been recycled but the slogan for the Zelf, written in white letters on the box was "Fear is so (yawn) boring". The "Zelf Power" for Lil 'D was "bravery". Charlotte gently picked the toy up and stroked the hair. Knowing Patrick, seeing as this was the first of these little knick-knack toys he'd purchased for her as a reward for good behavior, she knew intuitively that there was meaning here. Was he asking her to be brave? Telling her she already was brave? Both, at the same time?
She stood standing over the shelves and the toys lined up so neatly, so carefully arranged. It was as if, with these little toys, she could buy back, bit by bit, small pieces of her childhood, of her innocence and sanity. The cost for a tiny plastic injection-molded effigy puzzle piece of her innocence or sanity ran anywhere from 4.99 upwards of 15 dollars. She didn't play with them, but she picked them up, arranged them in lines, smelled them. It made her happy to see her collection grow, to stand them up however she wanted, to make them her own.
As if these little toys could ever replace what was stolen. Charlotte felt a burning in her eyes, the back of her nose. A twisted, deeply pained grief in her throat, in her chest and lungs and heart. Before she could stop the process, tears were slipping out of her eyes, running down her cheeks.
"Fuck," she said to nobody, and angrily wiped the tears away. She took the little orange Zelf back to the desk and stood him up next to her laptop. He stared at her with his green cat-eyes.
Be brave, Charlotte. Be brave.
"You can never replace what is gone. You're just plastic. Just plastic." Her words trembled, and more tears spilled out. The urge to sob was growing, a desperate, wounded animal need to sob, to keen, to wail.
She could not let that sad animal out. Patrick would hear, and Patrick was already acting weird. Maybe it meant nothing.
Maybe it was just a matter of him being stressed, and frustrated and over-worked.
But what if it was more than that?
No, she could not weep. She could not make a sound.
She bit the inside of her cheek, hard. The urge to wail didn't go away, it just spiked in intensity. She quickly found another funny, silly youtube video. Angry-looking cats wearing clothes as their goofy owners laughed and filmed their bitch-faces.
She forced herself to stare at the screen and breathe deeply. The pain would not go away, would not leave, the ancient, aching grief. A terrible, acidic sense of loss and betrayal and confusion and frustration.
Tears continued to fall. Let them fall. As long as they didn't make any noise, they could fall all they wanted.
She reached out, grabbed the spoon from her bowl of Cookie Crisp and spooned another bite of (now mushy) cereal into her mouth. Chewed loudly. So good. Such a real cookie taste, just like promised in the commercial!
Another swig of Monster energy drink. A swig of Mountain Dew. The urge to sob was slowly taking its cues from her brain and diminishing.
No tears.
No crying allowed.
No noise allowed.
Be strong, Charlotte.
Face neutral.
Focus on the pissed-off cats.
Finally an inbred looking Persian with a terminal case of the grumpies caught her eye. White persian, gorgeous powder blue eyes, and a face like a muppet. The persian was wearing what looked like a white, frilly baptismal dress for a baby girl. It even had a frilly white bonnet on its head.
The cat looked like it wanted to commit mass murder, and was mewling at whatever sadistic human had decided to film this utmost of transgressions. Loud, wailing mews. Angry mews. Finally the cat hissed and reached out with one chubby, expensive paw and whacked the video camera out of the hands of the human filming its misery.
"Princess Buttercup, no!" Said an effiminate sounding male.
Charlotte felt her chest contract. Felt the laughter start. She took another swig of Monster energy and now the persian was hissing and running around a rather yuppie-ish living room, knocking shit off side tables. Finally it managed to leap onto the mantelpiece over the large, expensive-looking stone fireplace and proceeded to smash little glass statues to the floor. All the while hissing.
The video ended as a painting of Siddhartha Gautama fell to the ground with a crash.
Now she was laughing so hard she was crying. She picked up the (almost empty) can of Monster, the bottle of mountain dew, and went over to her bean bag and sat down. Proceeded to giggle into the cotton-blend material of her hoodie. Tears continued to fall, leak out, snot and saliva and repressed pain in the form of near-hysterical giggles, until the front of her hoodie was soaked with tears and spit.
Finally, she was done. Spent. Emotionally drained and very tired, despite all the caffeine in her system. She got back up, retrieved her spare vape from a little wooden box on top of her computer desk, came back to the beanbag and sucked in nicotine vapor.
She considered Lisbon. Lisbon seemed okay. Fair and emotionally balanced, honest, compassionate... for a cop. But was Lisbon really okay? How could she sure?
How could she be sure of anybody?
Dixon?
Dixon was okay. Dixon was a dog, an animal. And if she knew anything about trust, animals were generally deserving of trust. Animals- unless they had been severely abused or had brain tumors or distemper or something medical going on with them- generally were safe.
Dixon was downstairs with Patrick and Lisbon. Innocent and happy and tongue-lollingly obedient.
Charlotte felt a sharp pang of betrayal... she had left Dixon with people who unnerved her.
How was that being a good owner?
Except... Patrick and Lisbon were probably safe. Intellectually, she knew that some people, probably, probably, were safe by most standards.
Intellectually, she knew that she was damaged.
But it was hard to turn those intellectual positions into emotional certainties. It was hard to feel safe. Hard to feel that others were trust-worthy.
Her instincts and emotions didn't line up with what her rational, logical mind told her was her current living situation.
Which part of her was right? Her emotions and instincts had kept her alive when she had been under Red John's rule. She couldn't very well deny their influence, their protection.
But... but... what if they were wrong, now? Scaring her about people who didn't deserve fear, and distrust and wary distancing measures?
She didn't know. And she didn't know how to find out, either.
She held the little Zelf doll as she puffed on nicotine vapor, and looked it over. Cute little toy. Patrick had got it for her because he knew she liked little mythical creatures that were small enough to hold in one's hand and which could be organized and lined up on a desk. Like little plastic soldiers, almost.
He hadn't had to buy it for her. He hadn't made her do anything unsavory to earn it. He had only rewarded her for doing things which- rationally- she knew would benefit her and her life.
That was nice of him.
But was it a trap? A trick to lure her into trusting him when he was otherwise devious?
He looked so much like Red John. There were clear differences, of course, but sometimes just the look of him sent a chill through her, made her want to recoil from the sound of his voice, the intelligent glint in his eyes, his wry smile.
Red John was his twin. Had been. Was? Either way, how different could they really be?
What if Red John had known- somehow- that she would run away and go back to Patrick? What if Patrick had been informed by Red John? What if, now, they were playing a mind game on her, another level of betrayal?
The thought made her feel like the bottom was dropping out of reality. Made her want to scream until her throat bled, but she could not do that. Could not show that fear, that torment and confusion.
It was also a possibility that Patrick was safe, was good, was really what he presented to himself to be...
But he had manipulated people for a living. He had conned grieving people into giving him money and lied to them about being able to speak to their dead loved ones. Charlotte considered that maybe there really were psychics out there, people who really could communicate with ghosts and disembodied spirits. Maybe. But Patrick? Patrick had known, even at the time, that he wasn't a psychic.
And he had conned hundreds of people. Minimally, hundreds. Probably a lot more. And taken their money. So.. presenting a false exterior to the world wasn't something he was unable or unwilling to do.
So... what if he was doing the same, now? With her?
Thoughts battled for dominance, and there was no way to know which hypothetical reality was "correct".
It was enough to make a kid crazy.
Finally, Charlotte began to feel pressure in her bladder. All the soda and energy drink liquid was building up.
There was nothing in here she could use as a chamber pot, either.
And she would have to go back down, eventually. At least pretend to be on good terms with Patrick again. No way of getting around that.
Patrick hadn't picked her up from school, because he had been sick. And there were those files. Little Red John with his head shaved very near to the skin. Like he was a soldier, or something. Or a concentration camp victim.
What were those all about? What if Patrick had been sick, reading those files?
What if that really was the reason he hadn't been up to the task of driving her home?
If that was the case, wouldn't it mean, at the very least, that Patrick was bothered by sad and cruel information? If he had gotten sick (and she'd been able to smell the faint lingering tang of vomit on his breath when Lisbon had brought her to the CBI offices)... if he had vomited over those files, then, right there, that suggested he was functionally very different from Red John.
Unless all of it was staged, even the vomiting. To lure her into a false sense of trust.
Charlotte shut her eyes and prayed inside her head.
God, can you hear me?
Nothing. Just blackness and random thoughts and images popping their way into her mind's eye to be witnessed, but nothing of interest or real importance.
God, I need to know... can I trust him? I need to know. I have to know. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. Please help me.
Still nothing. God was either busy or didn't find such questions important enough to answer. Or... didn't exist.
She waited and finished the mountain dew. Continued to vape. Finally the urge to urinate couldn't be denied. The teen got up off her beanbag, crossed over to the trap door in the floor and pulled on the pull-cord. The little door opened and the stairs eased themselves out.
She walked down the stairs, inspected the hall. Nobody was in the hall. She could hear the noise of some old cartoon on, lightly, in the living room. Sounded like Masters of the Universe, maybe. The 80s and 90s cartoon channel.
Charlotte crossed over to the bathroom, opened the door, closed it gently, locked it, and peed. Flushed the toilet. Came back into the hall.
She could go back up into her attic, right now, and nobody would be the wiser.
But... if Patrick was trust-worthy? What then? And Lisbon?
And she wanted to hug Dixon. Wanted to pet his flat, sturdy head. Her heart was beating very quickly.
Slowly, tentatively, she moved towards the living room, Zelf doll in her pocket like a good luck charm.
No use avoiding the inevitable.
Jane sensed movement in the hall. Looked up from his files. He'd read them several times already. There wasn't much there, but he wanted to commit everything that was there to memory.
Charlotte was standing at the end of the hall, looking at him, at Lisbon. Dixon got up immediately and came over to her, excited to see her again. She didn't say anything but petted his head.
"Hey," Jane said calmly. He smiled, what he hoped was a warm and comforting sort of smile. "Are you feeling better?"
Charlotte stared at him. Had he figured out she had been crying? She'd checked her eyes in the bathroom mirror after urinating and they hadn't been particularly red or buggy. Had she made too much noise? She didn't think so. The laptop volume had been on and dumb animal videos had been playing, making noise.
There was no way he could know she'd been upset as she had been. But... Jane seemed to have a sixth sense about such things. Or, maybe he was just referring to her irritation at being sent to her room?
"I'm okay," she said softly, and looked over to Lisbon. Lisbon smiled at her. Not a giddy smile, but a soothing, accepting smile. They had no doubt talked about her in her absence. Of course.
"Do you still want me to be in my room?" Charlotte said, not making a move to enter the living room area.
"I shouldn't have sent you to your room. I was- am- stressed right now, and I didn't handle the situation very well," Jane said, meeting her eyes.
Charlotte shrugged. "You asked me to do something and I didn't listen to you. That deserves punishment."
Jane winced a bit at his choice of words. Shook his head.
"You're scared of being outside alone, I know that, and I shouldn't have forced the issue. I'm sorry."
"I'm not scared of being outside alone," Charlotte mumbled. Shot a look at Lisbon to see if Lisbon believed in her so-called fear. Lisbon's face was unreadable. Jane just stared at her.
"I'm not," she said again, stubborn as ever.
"I think you are, and I understand why you are. And if I was in your shoes, I'd be spooked, too. If I believed Red John was still alive, and I'd lived the life you've lived, I'd be terrified of being outside alone."
Charlotte stared at her father. Ground her back molars. She could feel the weight of the Zelf doll in her pocket, her good luck charm. Be Brave.
Fear is so (yawn) boring.
Be brave.
"Charlotte?" Jane said after a moment. She was staring off into space.
"Uh... yeah. I'm not afraid of going outside alone."
"You seem to be resistant to the idea, generally," Jane said patiently. "If you're not afraid... why don't you want to go outside?"
"TV is more fun," Charlotte said stubbornly.
"Okay. I see you're sticking with that story. So I'll let it drop. But I am not going to force you to go outside by yourself anymore. Okay? It's unfair of me to do that to you, no matter what explanation you give me for preferring the great indoors."
Charlotte processed his words. He was telling her he didn't believe her tough act. He wasn't going to accept a lie. But he wasn't going to force her anymore, and that was good. And his comment let her save face.
"Okay," She said stolidly. Jane had the file from earlier out, spread out over his lap. Charlotte eyed it from the hall.
"Can I read that file?" The teenager asked softly.
"I don't think that would be a good idea right now," Jane said softly.
"Why not?"
"This file... contains information which might upset you."
"About me?" There was already more than a hint of adrenaline and fear in her voice.
"Not about you. About Red John."
"When he was a kid?" Charlotte guessed.
Jane nodded. "Yes. When he was a kid."
"Why can't I read the file then? It might help me understand him."
"It won't help you understand him. It will only confuse you more, I think. And I think you're already confused enough with regards to Red John."
Charlotte wanted to argue with Jane. Wanted to tell him no, hell no, she wasn't confused about Red John. But, honestly... she was. She was confused about whether or not he was evil, about his origins, about whether or not any part of him had ever loved her, and if so, how? If he had loved her at all, how could he have done what he had done? And if he was incapable of loving her, was it just her he couldn't love, but everybody? Was he truly without a conscience, and if he was, had he been born that way? Had he been turned into a monster somehow? Or some combination of the two?
Yes, she was confused. It wasn't a nice feeling.
"Did you throw up because of that file?" Charlotte said softly, and gestured at the papers spread out over Jane's lap.
Jane considered the question.
"I've been under a fair bit of strain lately, anyways-"
"Because of me?" Charlotte asked, cutting him off. Jane shook his head.
"No. Not because of you. Because of Red John, and memories that have been coming up for me..." Jane trailed, looked over at Lisbon, who was watching him intensely.
"So the files there are not why you got sick?"
"I think these files were just the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak," Jane said, nodding his head towards the papers in his lap. He picked them up off his lap, tapped them into place on the coffee table. Got up and left the room for a moment. Charlotte could hear his footfalls in the hall, heard the sound of his bedroom door opening and closing. He came back into the room, sat back down on the couch where he had been sitting before. He looked at his watch.
"I guess your schedule is a little bit off tonight, right?"
Charlotte looked at her own watch, a mint green seiko digital watch with a backlit screen. She nodded.
"Yeah. A little bit."
It was just after 9:30 pm. The schedule for today was shot.
"I'll count the time up in your attic as your free time for today. Okay?"
Charlotte nodded.
"I already took Dixon out, but he'll have to go out again before bed in about an hour," Jane said, running Charlotte's schedule through his memory banks.
"Yes," Charlotte said softly.
"I or Lisbon will take him out with youm okay?" Jane said, before she could begin to obsess.
"Okay," the teenager said softly.
Jane got up, went into the kitchen, pulled the laminated schedule off the fridge and came back with it. He looked it over.
"You already had dinner with Lisbon. And your snacks, right?"
"Yes."
"The main things that have to be done are homework, shower, brush teeth..." Jane ran through the remaining items on the list. "Do you want to check to see if any deliveries were made today?"
"Okay. Can Lisbon come with me? In case... there are more than a few boxes?"
Jane smiled sadly. Nodded. Nice save, kid.
"That's up to Lisbon. Lisbon, would you help Charlotte bring the deliveries upstairs?"
Lisbon nodded immediately, as Jane knew she would.
"No problem. But what deliveries?"
Jane looked to Charlotte to explain.
"We order stuff we use all the time like toilet paper and dog food and cereal from the Walmart website and they deliver. Saves time on going shopping, saves more time for fun time on the weekends."
"Smart," Lisbon said, smiling at the girl. Charlotte nodded back.
"Turns out we go through a lot of dog food and cereal."
Lisbon smiled, thought about how often Charlotte was eating sweets, nodded.
Charlotte went to the front door, wriggled back into her shoes (again, without unlacing the laces first) and Lisbon walked over to where her shoes were sitting on the shoe rack, took them off, put them on.
They went out together.
There were very few boxes to be delivered. A large bag of kibble, some more Tide pods, a few boxes of cereal and cans of chef boyardee and some packs of Capri sun for lunch. Charlotte put the stuff away in under 5 minutes, flattened the cardboard boxes after cutting the packing tape with a steak knife and flattened them with her foot.
"Now we have to go back and put the cardboard in the recycling downstairsa."
"Okay," Lisbon said agreeably.
"Why don't you take Dixon out so he can do his nightly business now? Kill two birds with one stone?"
Charlotte nodded, called her dog and he came bounding over to her. She clipped his leash onto his collar, and they left the apartment again.
5 minutes later they were back. Charlotte kicked her shoes off again, caught Jane's eye and put the sneakers on the shoe rack. Lisbon smiled, watching them interact.
"Okay, what do you want to do now? Shower and teeth and stuff? Or homework?"
"Can't I do my homework in the car tomorrow? On our road trip?"
Jane looked over at Lisbon.
"What do you think, Lisbon? Does that sound fair to you?"
"Sounds fair to me," Lisbon said maternally. "As long as you're not prone to car-sickness, Charlie."
"Nah," Charlotte dismissed with a wave of the hand. "Not really."
"Okay then... shower, pajamas, teeth. You know the drill."
Charlotte nodded, got up. Lisbon and Jane heard her enter her bedroom, saw her come back out into the hallway moments later carrying her pajamas, a two piece set with Snoopy screen-printed on the shirt.
She went into the bathroom, closed and locked the door. The shower water began to run.
"She's very agreeable in regards to that schedule," Lisbon mused, a little awe-struck.
"We worked it out together. I think that's part of the reason. It gives her a chance to have something tangible and physical to do at any given time, something that helps her get out of her own memories for a bit. A sense of structure, of safety."
Lisbon nodded at Jane's explanation. "Still... amazing how it being printed out and laminated compels her to stick to it. Really amazing."
Jane grinned at Lisbon's reaction.
"I know. I was a little surprised by how easily she follows it. But, I guess, if you've never known a sense of safety and predictability, such a subjective sense of stability might be a godsend. She sometimes acts put-out when I ask her to do something on the schedule, but I think it's a ruse to save face and appear indepdendent. She follows the schedule too easily for someone who hates it."
Lisbon nodded.
"After the shower, then what?" Lisbon asked. Jane handed her the laminated piece of paper.
"Floss, brush teeth, gargle, dry hair, put dirty clothes in the hamper... then wind down time it looks like."
"Yeah," Jane said.
"Is that TV?"
"Sometimes, but Charlotte's on a Dexter kick these days and watching a likable sociopath butcher other sociopaths is not something I want her watching right before sleep, so tonight it will probably be reading or something."
Lisbon smiled.
"Should... do you want me to sleep on the couch tonight?" Lisbon ventured.
"You can have my bedroom, if you're okay with that. I plan to sleep on the couch."
"Okay," Lisbon agreed.
Five minutes later the sound of the running water stopped. Then started again. Two minutes later she was out of the bathroom, dressed in her snoopy pajamas, wearing Pokemon slippers. Dixon followed along beside her.
"Clothes in the hamper?" Jane asked paternally. Charlotte nodded.
"Can I watch TV now?"
"What do you want to watch?" Jane said, already knowing the answer.
"Dexter?"
"Not before bed. Sorry. We've had this discussion before."
"Walking Dead?"
"Again, same problem as Dexter. Not before bed," Jane said patiently.
"Anime on netflix?"
"That sounds okay, but not a full-length movie. Something maybe 30 minutes long. And nothing gory, or you'll spend the rest of your time tonight reading."
Charlotte turned to Lisbon, made a face.
"He sure is a power-tripper, isn't he?" The teen said blandly. Lisbon grinned in response. That was one word for Jane.
Charlotte settled into her gamer chair, remote now restored to its usual position in the pocket of her chair, and turned Netflix on, scrolled through the selections until she found Pokemon, and started an episode.
"Does this suit your requirements, Herr Führer?" She asked, voice dripping with gleeful sarcasm, as the hyperactive intro to the cartoon began to play its music.
"One episode, and then bed," Jane responded, and grinned at Lisbon.
"Yeah, yeah," Charlotte said, dismissing Jane's proclamation with a wave of the hand. Dixon settled down on the floor, head in his master's lap, and looked Jane and Lisbon over with happy, shining canine eyes, eyes that were almost smug, eyes which said- in Dixon's opinion- that he had the best seat in the apartment. Finally the dog yawned and shut his eyes, content to sleep with his head in Charlie's lap.
When the cartoon was over and the next one began, Jane looked up from the couch, where he was reading.
"I said one episode. I know that's a new episode. You can fast forward through the opening credits all you want. I still know what you're up to."
"It's a two-parter episode. So it counts as one," Charlotte said slyly.
"No. You watched your show. Go to bed, please."
Charlotte eyed Lisbon jealously.
"Lisbon gets to stay up."
"It doesn't take Lisbon three hours to fall asleep most nights," Jane said patiently.
"And, actually, I was just about to go to bed, too," Lisbon said diplomatically.
"See? You have no excuses. Bed, please," Jane added.
Charlotte eyed Jane.
"Aren't you going to sleep?"
"I will when you go to bed first," Jane countered.
"Liar."
"Charlotte," Jane said tiredly. "Do you want to come with us on this roadtrip tomorrow or not?"
That did the trick. Charlotte turned the television off, got up off her gamer chair, patted her thigh to get Dixon to follow, and slouched out of the room. Her bedroom door opened, there was the sound of a noise machine (tonight's musical selection was 'summer crickets'), the light in her room clicked off. Silence.
"You're really acing this single parent thing, aren't you?" Lisbon said, raising her eyebrows.
Jane grinned back. "I hope so."
"Goodnight, Jane," Lisbon said, hesitating for a moment. Jane smiled. Kissed her cheek.
"Goodnight, Lisbon. Sleep well."
And then she was gone. And it was just Jane, and his thoughts, and the long night ahead to ruminate.
But twenty minutes later, lights off, changed into sweats and a t-shirt, blanket over his lap, he was asleep, too.