Tap Tap Tap. Lisbon stirred as her mind tried to focus in on exactly what it was that was tapping her shoulder. Somewhere far away, she heard a voice, like liquid silk, calling her name.

The

"Lisbon. Wake up. It's time to go now." She saw the face of her best friend all through school, a boy named Tony. Antonio Albertelli. His parents owned the local pizzeria. Second generation Italians, originally from New York, they had moved to Chicago before Tony was born, and the whole family worked in the restaurant at some point or other. The face looking back at her was the Tony she knew in the eighth grade. He was tapping her shoulder. She raised her head and looked at him and he smiled at her, and said, "It's time to go." She looked around the empty classroom. Everyone else had left for the day.

It took her a moment to realize she was safe in the classroom. She couldn't believe she fell asleep in class. Her heart sank. If her teacher called home, her father would kill her. Maybe literally. That thought made her bolt up out of her chair.

"Relax, Tree. I told teach you're sick, and that's why you fell asleep. It's okay. I don't think she'll rat you out."

Lisbon nodded her thanks. She looked up to find Tony studying her carefully—wanting to ask, and at the same time, not wanting to ask—maybe because he didn't want to know, or maybe because he wasn't sure what he would do with the information once he had it. She had never asked him. It was enough that he stuck around, and was there when she needed a friend.

When her eyes met his, he spoke. "Tree, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. I just didn't sleep last night. That's all."

She couldn't exactly tell him that her dad was drunk again, and she was up all night trying to shield one of her brothers from his wrath over the latest perceived infraction, and then driving him to the hospital when the former effort was not entirely successful. She didn't think he would understand. Most didn't. He looked like he was going to say something, but she cut him off before he could speak. "I have to go. I'll see you tomorrow."

She needed to get her homework done before she went home. She detoured by the public library, where she sat at a table, alternating between writing a paper and figuring out what she was going to feed her brothers for supper.

Tap Tap Tap. Lisbon sat up and stretched tired muscles. Her neck ached from the way it had been lying on the table, on top of her notebook.

"It's time to go now." She yawned mightily and opened her eyes. Tommy Olds and Tommy Volker sat across the table from her, grinning maliciously at her. She let out a strangled scream and felt hands on her shoulders.

"Lisbon, wake up. Come on, open your eyes." The voice she heard spoke safety. Slowly, she opened her eyes and for a brief moment, she looked around the room, blinking in confusion.

"Shhh. Just breathe."

Slowly, she came back to herself. Jane sat watching her, stroking a hand up and down her shoulder. "Shh. It's all right. Just breathe. Everything's okay."

Once she had calmed down enough to know where she was, Jane sat back and looked at her.

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, Jane."

"You're having nightmares. About the case?"

"No." Lisbon paused. That wasn't exactly true. "Sort of. It didn't start out that way. And I really don't want to talk about it." Suddenly the realities of the past days hit her like a ton of bricks and she stared at Jane in horror. "Did you and Fischer find Millie?"

Jane shook his head. "We'll talk about that later. If we don't leave now, we run the risk of missing our plane."

(0o0)

The plane landed without incident and Jane hailed a taxi to take them to the hotel they were to spend the night in. Jane walked Lisbon to her room, and before he left her there, he said, "Meet me downstairs in an hour for dinner?" Lisbon nodded and disappeared into her room, closing the door behind her.

An hour later, Lisbon made her way to the lobby. She made her way to the restaurant lobby, briefly wondering where Jane was. A moment later, Jane stepped up behind her and said, "The restaurant here is lovely. Shall we?"

"Let's."

They were seated quickly, in a secluded corner. When they had ordered, Jane spoke up. "You never did tell me what happened last night."

Last night. Had it really been less than 24 hours?

"Last night?" Lisbon asked, sweetly.

Jane smiled and said, "Yes. You remember—Cho and I were called because you were found unconscious at the edge of the woods behind your house. I'd like to know what happened."

"I'm still sorting out all of the details. We'll talk about it later. Besides, I'd rather not discuss it here. Never know who might be listening."

"Fair enough."

"What about Millie?"

"I think we'll come back to that conversation a little later as well. Let's talk about something else during dinner. Something non work related."

Jane tried to entertain her at first with a couple of his mentalist tricks, akin to the circle inside the square trick, but those were starting to draw an audience, so he was forced to stop. So they spent the time during dinner engaging in their usual banter about nothing in particular. Jane regaled her with interesting facts that most of the rest of the world wouldn't care about—facts pertaining to the intelligence levels of different species of monkeys, and how many ants it would take to make up one metric ton.

She enjoyed herself, as she always did when Jane was intent on entertaining her, but by the time dinner was over, she felt her energy slipping away again. Lisbon also had a wicked headache from the blow she had taken to the head, and all of the caffeine she'd had earlier in the day. The strange feeling of being detached somewhat from her body was coming back.

"I think you've had enough for one day. Let's get you upstairs."

(0o0)

The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, Jane and Lisbon headed to the courthouse in Sacramento, to the District Attorney's office. Nicki Weymouth met them in the lobby. She escorted them through security and into the elevator and up one floor to her office. She motioned them both to chairs and then sat down behind her desk.

"Theresa, I have you scheduled to speak with ADA Reynolds and Jane, I have you scheduled to speak with ADA Jimenez. I've had a request from Dennis Abbott of the FBI for a copy of the records of each of the cases you worked involving Tommy Volker, Tommy Olds, and Brenda Shettrick. You can pick those up from the records office before you leave California.

At that moment, two younger lawyers walked into the room. At the direction of Nicki Weymouth, each of the Assistant District Attorneys escorted Jane and Lisbon to their respective offices for questioning.

Lester Reynolds ushered Lisbon into his office, and walking in behind her, he closed the door. He held a chair for her and when she was seated, he walked around to the other side of his desk and sat down. He studied the woman across from him for a moment.

Lisbon had learned a few things from Jane in all the years they had worked together, and one of those was how to keep people off balance. So, she spoke before he did.

"I don't believe I know you. When did you join the District Attorney's office?"

"Yes, the district attorney felt it was better if you were deposed by someone you don't know. That way, there's no possibility of prejudice or partiality. Now then, I presume you know why you are here."

"We're supposed to be deposed as witnesses against Brenda Shettrick, Tommy Olds and Tommy Volker."

ADA Reynolds made a non-committal sound. Then he asked, "Can you say, with certainty, that each of these cases, and the cases surrounding them, were handled by the book?"

"Yes. Everything was done by the book."

He nodded.

"Tell me about Amanda Shaw."

"What do you want to know that her record doesn't tell you?"

"For one thing, I'd like to know why you didn't buy the coroner's assessment that she died by suicide."

"Who says I didn't buy it?"

"The fact that you paid out of pocket for a second autopsy."

"I don't know how to explain why. Something about the way Volker sat there at the scene, as if he were mocking us. Call it Cop's Intuition. My gut told me that there was more to the story than we were seeing. I needed to know for sure."

"Okay. So you brought down Volker, and then less than a year later, your unit was dismantled due to widespread corruption and criminal activity found within the CBI."

"My unit was completely cleared of all charges, and in fact, we were the ones that uncovered the 'widespread corruption and criminal activity' as you called it, which by the way, was not confined to the CBI, but instead also touched other major law enforcement offices across half the country, including the FBI. But I'm sure your records say that, if you bothered to read them."

Her eyes were flashing in anger and she fought to keep control of herself. She wouldn't do anyone any favors by losing control.

"Your consultant, Patrick Jane, fled the country after killing a man, or three."

"Patrick Jane cut a deal with the FBI, as you well know if you've read the records. We're done here."

She stood abruptly and moved toward the door.

"Sit down, Ms. Lisbon."

She didn't. "That's Special Agent Teresa Lisbon. As I said, we're done."

Without another word, she moved through and closed the door behind herself.

As she stalked down the hallway, another door opened just beside or slightly behind her, and a familiar figure fell into step behind her.

Speaking quietly in her ear, Jane said, "Let's get out of here."

She nodded, not breaking stride. Suddenly, she felt herself being pulled to the side and through a door. They were in the stairwell. She shot Jane a sideways look.

"They'll be expecting us to come down via the elevators. I don't think they'll try to stop us, but let's not take any chances."

"Agreed."

Hardly daring to breathe, she followed Jane down the two flights of steps to the ground floor. She breathed a sigh of relief as they burst out the door onto the street without interference. The bright sunshine hit her full force, making her squinty. While she was letting her eyes adjust to the change in light, Jane hailed a taxi and they were off to the old CBI building, where they had been told the records were kept.

As they approached the front of the building, alarms started sounding and a stream of people poured out of the building and onto the sidewalk. Thick black smoke billowed out of the windows.

Jane called out to two of the people standing on the sidewalk. They turned around.

"What's going on?"

"There's a fire in the records office. Something in one of the boxes was combustible, apparently."