Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who's still following along! Your feedback means the world to me. :) If anyone has Jeller drabble prompts for me, feel free to send me a message. I don't write about pregnancy or non-consent, but anything else, I'm happy to write for! Anyway, enjoy the chapter.
"You think that's Jane's ex-fiancé?" Zapata asked, studying the sketchbook page with the drawing labelled 'Oscar'. "Yeah, he definitely looks like her type. Not bad at all."
Weller tried not to glower as Patterson brought up the scanned image on one of her lab screens. Before he could say anything, Reade stepped forward.
"I've seen this guy before. That's the guy in the CCTV footage, the one who drove Carter's car to where the cops found it. Mayfair was trying to track him down before she got framed."
They were all silent for a moment, each of them processing what that meant: that Jane was associated with Carter's killer, or at least with an accomplice who'd disposed of his car.
"Do we really think Jane is involved with the people who threatened Reade's and Mayfair's lives? Who framed Mayfair for murder?" Patterson asked, one step ahead as usual.
Weller cleared his throat to try to dispel all emotion from his voice. "I think we have to assume so."
Patterson's expression reminded him of a kicked puppy's. "But she's our friend. Right? She was as shocked about Mayfair as the rest of us."
"Yeah, or a really good actor." Zapata scowled, on the warpath now. "We have to track her down. She could have been there when Mayfair got shot. Or she might have even been the one to shoot her."
No.
Weller's every instinct rejected the idea that Jane had put Mayfair's life in jeopardy. It just didn't add up. That she was involved with the people who had in some way, though—that looked more and more likely.
"Let's stick to what we know. I also found a second drawing that stood out. Patterson?"
Patterson brought up the second sketch, of Jane with longer hair and no tattoos. "Okay, so Jane drew this self-portrait, but I don't think she was just using her imagination. Either she remembered seeing herself in the mirror or someone—probably Oscar, whoever he is—showed her pictures or video footage of herself."
"Being approached by someone who knew who she was must have been a pretty powerful draw for her," Reade said, his voice non-committal. When Weller glanced over, Reade was looking at him, as if assessing how he was holding up.
"Especially if she remembered being engaged to him before. There must have been a strong connection there."
"One she didn't bother to mention to any of us, which means she must have known we wouldn't like what we found out about her past life," Weller said, trying to keep the bitterness from his words.
"Yeah, that makes sense, considering what she wrote below that picture." Patterson brought up the enlarged words on the screen.
You did this to yourself.
"Whoa," Reade said.
"She played us." Zapata crossed her arms over her chest, her voice taut with anger. "She played us from the start."
"No, we don't know that," Patterson protested. "Her memory loss was real. All the tests confirmed it: the polygraphs, the scans we took of her brain..."
"Why else would she have Weller's name tattooed on her back and Taylor Shaw's DNA switched out for hers? Before she wiped her own memories, she found Weller's vulnerabilities and she targeted him, won our trust because he trusted her, and now Mayfair might be dead." Zapata turned to Kurt. "Now, what are we gonna do about it?"
He was silent for a moment, adjusting to the sting of her words. It was nothing he hadn't figured out for himself since he'd found the notebook last night, but hearing it from someone else's lips renewed the hurt.
"I don't know," he said finally. "Whatever Jane was planning before she got her memory wiped, she had no idea about it when she came to us. I'm guessing the old Jane knew she wouldn't trust Oscar when he approached her after she got ZIPped, so they would have had to plan for that. Our Jane wouldn't have put her faith in him without a good reason, I believe that much."
"Agreed," Patterson said softly.
Zapata rolled her eyes, but remained silent. Reade just watched and waited.
"Now that we know Jane might know where Mayfair is, it's critical that we find her. We need to look over that whole notebook for clues, even the things that seem like nothing. If Jane helped design her own tattoos, she might have hidden the same kinds of messages in there for some reason. It's a long shot, but at this point, we don't have a whole lot to go on."
"I'll scan the whole thing for you guys and put the original through forensics," Patterson said.
Kurt continued, "Now we know Jane has a connection—through Oscar—to Carter's murder. The files Mayfair left us point to Carter being involved with Orion, which we know now was a special ops project involving Navy SEALs in the Middle East. We know both Mayfair and Carter were involved in the illegal Daylight program, and that Jane's tattoos pointed to federal corruption. My name was tattooed on Jane's back, but it's starting to look like Mayfair was the old Jane's target all along. The question is, why go to all this trouble—tattooing Jane, sending her to us—when they could have just tried to kill Mayfair like they killed Carter? It feels like there's some bigger plan here we don't know about."
"I'm running Oscar's face through facial recognition software, but it'll probably take a while because it's a sketch. I'll let you know if I get something," Patterson added.
"Let's get to work." Weller left the lab before any of them could say anything else, making for the sanctuary of Mayfair's—now his—office. He needed some time alone before he dove any further into this, to catch his breath and lick his wounds.
He doubted Oscar would turn out to be much of a lead. The information contained in Jane's tattoos indicated that someone involved with her had high-level federal or military clearance, which meant any intel relating to Oscar had probably been redacted or erased. Maybe they could get lucky and track him down, bring him in for interrogation, but it was a long shot. It seemed long shots were all they had to work with now Jane was out of reach.
Something told him they wouldn't get anywhere until they found where she was being held, and that might never happen. Meanwhile, Oscar and anyone else involved with him were still out there, planning whatever came next for them.
Maybe Oscar would find Jane before Weller could. If he freed her, would she try to come back to the FBI, or would she side with her ex-fiancé?
God, he wished Mayfair was here.
