"It's not Red John," Jane said to Lisbon in a low voice an hour and a half later, after they'd finished examining the scene. The victim was Marley Sparrow, a college student who had been killed in her dorm while her roommate was out with her boyfriend.
Relief flooded through her. "Are you sure?"
"Too sloppy," he confirmed. "It's a copycat."
She exhaled. "Thank God."
He shook his head. "This copycat is playing with fire. If Red John finds out about this, he won't be happy with them."
"I'll make sure the details aren't shared with the press," Lisbon assured him.
"Mm," Jane murmured, and went off to antagonize Partridge.
They drove back to the CBI together, but Lisbon had to stop by the forensics department to undo the damage from Jane's poking at Partridge, so she didn't get back to her office until about twenty minutes later.
He was in her office again. "We have a problem," he informed her.
"Another one?"
"Kristina Frye wants to work the case."
Lisbon's heart sank to her stomach. "Oh, crap."
"She asked Hightower about it. Claims Marley 'spoke' to her," he said with a derisive snort.
"Sheep dip. Do you want me to talk to Hightower about it?"
He shook his head. "I told Hightower I wouldn't work with her."
"Was Hightower okay with that?" Lisbon asked dubiously.
"Yes, but she told Kristina to call her directly if she learns anything useful," Jane said. "I know Kristina. She's going to keep showing up all through the case."
"Okay," Lisbon said slowly. "Would that be so bad, though? We've worked with her before."
"She knows about the Red John connection," Jane said grimly. "I don't like her proximity to a Red John case, even if it is a copycat. She can't be involved."
"Okay, calm down," Lisbon said. "You said Hightower agreed she won't work the case, right? I'll tell Hightower that if she hears from Kristina, she should keep her involvement very low profile so we don't risk details of the copycat angle leaking to the press."
"Kristina wouldn't leak that to the press," Jane protested.
Lisbon rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll tell Hightower I can't have Kristina in the building or I'll claw her eyes out in a fit of jealousy because you asked her out on a date."
"There's no need to be sarcastic about it," Jane muttered.
She stepped forward and touched his arm. "Jane. What are you so worried about? No one knows you asked Kristina out on a date, right? And she's not going to work on the case directly, so she won't even be around." She looked at him closely. "Do you really have a crush on her? You wanted to go out with her for real? Is that why you're going into paranoid overprotective mode?"
Jane exhaled through his nose. "I just have a bad feeling about this."
xxx
The press got wind of the Red John connection. After Rigsby and Cho found a room covered from wall to wall with red smiley faces at the address of a classmate of the victim, there was no chance of keeping it quiet. A reporter broke into the scene after Rigsby and Cho had left it secured with the local PD and ran a story with half the front page taken up by a color photograph of the scene.
Lisbon and the team were busy tracing the elusive classmate, a boy named Wesley Blankfind, when Jane's dire prediction came true. Kristina Frye appeared on a televised interview and made an appeal to Red John.
Jane bolted from the room when he saw it. Lisbon followed soon after and found Jane in Hightower's office.
"She needs 24 hour protection," Jane told Hightower, a mix of desperation and anger in his voice. "The best you can manage." He looked up and met Lisbon's gaze. "She did exactly what I did," he said helplessly. "She went on TV and talked about him like she knew him."
Lisbon wanted to take his hand to reassure him, but as they were in her boss's office, she only said, "I'll coordinate the detail."
"Thank you," he said curtly. "Excuse me." He left, and she made no move to stop him. She knew he needed to retreat to his couch to think through all the implications of what had happened, to think through any points of weakness to any protection strategy they came up with.
"He's taking this pretty hard," Hightower observed.
Lisbon shrugged. "He sees this as a replay of what happened to his family. He doesn't want her to get hurt."
"That's understandable. He was so angry with her, though, when she was in here a few minutes ago." Hightower shook her head. "I'm not used to seeing him betray emotion like that."
"It's a reflection of his anger at himself," Lisbon said. "Tough to see your mistakes reenacted by someone you care about. And he doesn't have any control over the situation. You know that makes him crazy."
"True," Hightower said with a sigh. She looked at Lisbon. "Watch out for him, will you?"
Lisbon was already on her way out the door. "I always do."
xxx
Lisbon set up a rotation for Kristina's protective detail, taking the first shift herself, along with Jane, who would be useless at protecting anybody, but was good at identifying weak spots, and in any case, needed to feel he was doing something to keep Kristina safe.
They got Kristina settled in her house, surrounded by cops, but they hadn't been there twenty minutes when Lisbon got a phone call from the FBI.
She returned to Jane and Kristina, dread pooling in her stomach. "Red John killed the woman who interviewed you," she told Kristina soberly.
Jane sucked in a sharp breath. Kristina looked shell-shocked. She hadn't truly believed Red John was a threat to her, until now. "Oh, no," she said, covering her mouth with her hand. "Oh, my God."
"Where?" Jane asked tersely.
"Reno. I called Van Pelt. She's going to take over the rest of our shift so we can go up there and check it out," Lisbon told him.
Jane glanced at Kristina. "Okay."
They didn't talk much on the drive to Reno. Jane's tension level ratcheted up another notch with ever mile they traveled.
Once they got there, Jane made quick work of the scene. "It's Red John," he said shortly.
Lisbon had already figured out as much, but it was still a blow to hear confirmation from Jane, whose judgment in such cases she trusted implicitly. "Okay." She blew out a breath. "I'll make sure the Feds keep us in the loop."
"We need to get back to Kristina's place," Jane said.
Lisbon shook her head. "Van Pelt is with her. The place is surrounded by cops. He's not going to go there. We should go back to the office and work the Marley Sparrow case."
"No. What if—?" Jane swallowed. "What if he knows about the date?"
"How would he know you asked her out?"
Jane shrugged helplessly. "How does he know any of the things he knows? How did he kill Rebecca inside a building full of law enforcement professionals without anybody seeing a thing?"
She looked at him a long moment. "Okay," she said softly. "We'll go back."
xxx
They went back to Kristina's house. Jane managed to provoke Kristina into not speaking to him within half an hour. Lisbon found it obscurely comforting to see another woman get as annoyed with him as she did an average of two or three times a week.
They finished their shift, Jane managing to make it up to Kristina before they left, though her goodbye to him was a bit frosty.
When they got back to the office, they resumed working the Sparrow case.
They'd discovered a photo shrine to Marley at the home of Wesley Blankfind, revealing an unhealthy obsession Blankfind had developed with their victim. Jane examined the photos of Marley, digitally altered to include Blankfind in scenes he had never shared with her in real life. He scanned the board, then commented, "There's a photo of Wesley standing on the corner with a Kenny's Chili logo in the background."
"Kenny's Chili?" Cho asked.
"Fast food chain in southern California," Jane informed them. "There are about fifty or so."
"Fifty, huh?" Lisbon said. That was good. A relatively narrow pool.
"The angle of the sun suggests he's standing due east of the Kenny's Chili," Jane said. "There's a hardware store and a diner on the same block, that should help narrow it down."
"We'll get on it," Cho said. He and Rigsby left.
"Thank you," Lisbon said to Jane. She studied him. "You doing okay?"
"Meh," Jane said. But she could tell he was agitated, distracted.
"Look, you should go back there," Lisbon said. "Apologize again."
"But I'm right!"
"You're not apologizing about that, you're apologizing for being a jerk about being right."
Jane blew out a breath. "Yeah. All right."
Lisbon went back to work while Jane went to apologize to Kristina.
xxx
The next morning, Lisbon's phone woke her up.
"'Lo?" she said groggily into the phone.
"Lisbon, I found it," Jane said without preamble. "The place where Wesley's photo was taken. I'm here now."
Lisbon blinked herself awake. "Did you drive all night?"
"Pretty much."
"Where are you?"
"I'm in a little town called Salanger Mill. There's an old theater in a building called Hotel del Coronado. I think Blankfind might be hiding there."
"Jane, do not approach him, do you hear me?" Lisbon scrambled out of bed and started hunting for clean clothes. "His obsession with Red John and his emotional reaction to killing Marley could be a particularly dangerous combination. I'll be there as fast as I can."
"Okay. I'm going to—" A hesitation. "There's a diner about a block away. I'll wait for you there."
"All right. Jane?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for calling."
"I'll see you soon."
While she dressed, she called Salanger Mill local PD and instructed them to head to the theater. It took some persuading, but eventually they agreed to send over a unit once the officer who had the keys to the one patrol car in town could be dragged out of bed.
She looked at a map and determined that even given the hassle of security and the need to rent a car, it would be fastest to fly. She called Cho and told him to drive down with Rigsby as soon as possible—she was catching the next flight out.
Just as she was boarding, she got a call from Salanger Mill PD. "Ma'am? You said your agent, Jane, was in Pete's diner, didn't you?"
Lisbon's fingers tensed on her phone. "That's right. Did you speak to him?"
"No, ma'am. I'm at Pete's now, and there's no one here by that name."
Lisbon swore. Damn Jane and his curiosity. She knew exactly where he was. "Listen to me. You need to get to the Hotel del Coronado. Bring backup. There is every likelihood that the killer we're tracking is there."
"Hotel del Coronado? That place has been boarded up for years. There's nobody in there."
Lisbon gritted her teeth. "You need to get over there right now. Consider the suspect armed and dangerous. As I said, I strongly recommend you call for backup immediately."
"Backup?" The officer sounded dubious. "Old Grant Miller in the sheriff's office is over thirty miles away. He's not going to want to come over here on some sort of wild goose chase."
"Call him now." Lisbon's tone brooked no argument.
xxx
When she landed, she had a voicemail from the sheriff's office. "Uh—ma'am? Your man Jane has been involved in an incident with Red John. Please call me back at the earliest opportunity."
Lisbon's heart stopped. Red John. Red John had been there—he'd gotten to Jane. Had—what had he done to him?
Now her heart beat in her chest like a rabbit fleeing a hawk. Jane and Red John. Her fingers found her cross. No, no, no, don't let it be true, she prayed. Jane had to be okay, he had to. God, what had Red John done to him?
She called the sheriff's office back, but couldn't get through. She couldn't reach the Salanger Mill officer she'd spoken to earlier, either. She dialed Jane, but it went straight to voicemail.
It was only when she was less than ten miles away from Salanger Mill, her mind buzzing with panic, when she thought to call Cho.
"He's okay," Cho told her immediately. "Red John killed the kids who killed Marley Sparrow and saved Jane."
Jane was alive. Relief flooded through her, chased by a sick-making sensation that caused her ears to ring and nausea to pass through her like a wave. Then the rest of the story penetrated. "What the hell?" Red John had saved Jane? She shook her head a little. No. That didn't matter right now. "Where is Jane now?"
"He's still at the scene. Local PD don't know what to do with themselves. Most they ever have to do is deal with bar fights and break ins. Murder is out of their league."
"I'm almost there."
"We'll be there in two hours."
xxx
Lisbon came to a screeching halt outside Hotel Del Coronado—she'd driven 85 miles per hour all the way from the airport.
She passed an officer retching into the gutter as she raced inside, a man in a sheriff's uniform patting him awkwardly on the back. He looked up, startled, as she sprinted past him, flashing her badge before tucking it away once she stumbled into the dark theater.
She blinked, trying to get her eyes to adjust. "Jane?" she called, her heart still hammering in her chest.
"In here." His voice sounded subdued, but it was him. He was really alive.
"Oh, thank God." She rushed over to him, half stumbling in the darkness, and threw her arms around him. "You're not hurt?" she said into his neck, taking big, gulping breaths to calm herself. He was here, she could feel him against her. He was warm and alive and he was here.
He extricated himself gently. "I'm not hurt."
Lisbon let him pull away, but only so far. She caught the hem of his jacket sleeve. "What happened?"
"Red John saved me." His voice was dull. "The roommate and the boyfriend kidnapped Wesley's mother and were forcing him to play the part of Grady Schipp. They wanted him to kill me so they could film it."
"Jesus." Lisbon's eyes had adjusted to the darkness now. Marley's roommate and her boyfriend were prone on the floor at the back of the theater, lying in twin pools of blood. Lisbon and Jane were at the front of the theater, standing over the body of Wesley Blankfind. Jane stared down at the body, his expression unreadable.
"Red John stopped them before they could finish the job." He swallowed convulsively. "I could smell their blood on his knife."
Lisbon's fingers tightened on his sleeve. "Did you see him?"
Jane shook his head. "He wore a mask." He gestured to his face. "It distorted his features. And he wore a long coat and gloves, so I couldn't see any part of him—nothing to identify him."
"Did he say anything to you?"
A fraction of an instant of hesitation. "No," Jane said. "He didn't say anything."
xxx
It took a long time to process the scene. Cho and Rigsby showed up midway through, which speeded thing considerably. When they finished, she sent Cho and Rigsby back to Sacramento, letting them know she and Jane would stay to wrap things up with the local PD.
She worked with Salanger Mill PD while Jane roamed the streets and demanded of anyone he saw whether they had seen anyone going in or out of the theater in the last day. This suspiciously resembled canvassing, an activity Jane normally turned his nose up as too boring for words, but he was in manic Red John mode, so the usual rules didn't apply.
Lisbon joined him after a while, but after another hour failed to turn up any new leads despite Jane's best efforts, she was ready to acknowledge interrogating passers by wasn't getting them anywhere. Jane would have kept at it all night, if she'd let him, but she touched his sleeve and said softly, "Jane. Come on. It's time to give it up. Nobody saw anything."
His shoulders slumped. "Yeah. Okay."
Jane had taken a room on the outskirts of town when he'd arrived in the wee hours of the morning, and Lisbon drove them there. She took his hand while she drove and refused to let go when he would have pulled away.
She followed close on his heels when he let himself into his room.
Jane tossed his key card on the desk. "I suppose you want to go through the whole thing again," he said wearily.
"No." Lisbon bolted the door behind them and crossed to Jane in two strides.
He eyed her warily. "Are you going to yell at me? Because I've had a rough day, and if you could just hold off for a bit—"
Lisbon pulled him towards her by the lapels and kissed him.
"Oh." Jane put his arms around her and held her a little too tight. "That wasn't an angry look."
"No," Lisbon agreed. She kissed him again. "It was an 'I was afraid you were dead and I'm glad you're alive' look."
Jane's hands found her hair. "I'm glad I'm alive, too. I'm still not entirely sure why I'm alive, but—"
"No." Lisbon interrupted him with another kiss. "We're not talking about that right now. You can analyze later."
"Ohh," Jane sighed, tilting his head back when her lips found his neck and settling his hands at her waist. "Ah-kay. But I thought we weren't doing this anymore."
"We're not." Lisbon started in on his vest buttons.
"All evidence to the contrary," Jane said, his hands tightening at her waist.
"We're not resuming our arrangement," Lisbon told him, kissing her way up his neck again. "This is just an aberration."
"An aberration," Jane repeated. He fingered her buttons thoughtfully.
Lisbon gave him a look. "You wanna argue about it, or do you want to get on with it?"
"No argument here," Jane said quickly, renewing his attentions to her buttons with increased energy and focus. "Let the aberrating commence."