The next day, Lisbon had a meeting at the Capitol first thing, then headed back to headquarters.
Van Pelt accosted her in the hall. "I'm so glad you're all right," she said, giving Lisbon a hug.
Lisbon, caught off guard, awkwardly returned the hug. "Thank you."
"Listen, I know it's the last thing on your mind, so I picked up your dress for you," Van Pelt went on. Her relationship with O'Laughlin had progressed to an engagement. Rigsby had been moping around about it for weeks. Now that Lisbon realized she was going to have to wear a horrible pink dress for the occasion as a result of recklessly agreeing to be a bridesmaid, she was starting to share his chagrin.
"So thoughtful," Lisbon said, hiding a grimace.
"The satin bow is gorgeous. I can't wait to see it on you. I left it in your office for you." Van Pelt shot her a sunny smile. "Make sure it fits!"
Lisbon approached her office with dread. Sure enough, the dress was an even more lurid shade of bubble gum pink than she'd remembered. And the bow…she suppressed a shudder. Still, she had agreed to be a bridesmaid, so she might as well face her fate.
She managed to get the dress most of the way on, but was still struggling with the zipper when the door swung open.
"Lisbon, any word on the Cash In Motion records?" Jane said, then stopped and stared when he caught sight of her.
Lisbon straightened hastily. "Jeez, Jane, you mind knocking?" she snapped.
"Whoa," Jane said, still staring.
"Ugh, never mind." Jane was never going to learn to behave like a normal person, so he might as well make himself useful. "Just come over here and do me up, will you?"
Jane took half a step back. "No way. I'm not going near you in that thing. Not after last night."
She stared at him, incredulous. "You cannot be turned on by this."
Jane covered his eyes and gestured vaguely in her direction. "I can see your collarbone. You know I have a weakness for your collarbone."
Lisbon did, in fact, know this. "This dress is hideous," she said flatly. "Van Pelt must die."
Jane peeked through his fingers. "You look beautiful. Like an angry little princess. Somebody stole your tiara."
Lisbon extended her middle finger to him, and then Cho walked through the door.
"Got a hit on the Cash In Motion list," he said, unperturbed by Jane, the dress, or Lisbon's middle finger. "Sac PD got an anonymous tip this morning. Found a guy named Max James killed in his house this morning. They think he's been dead about four days. Turns out it's the same Max James as the one on the list. We're heading over there now." His eyes flicked to the dress. "You might want to change first."
xxx
Max James turned out to be Madeleine Hightower's cousin. He'd been killed several days before, so there was every indication the killer had only gone after Dinkler to get the Cash In Motion list when he'd failed to torture the information he wanted out of Max James first.
There was also every indication that the killer had been Red John.
All of it—Gupta, Dinkler, the bombing, and now Max James. They were all tied to Red John. And all of it meant that Red John was hunting for Madeleine Hightower.
Which was how two days later, Lisbon came to be at a cabin in the Sierra Nevadas on protective detail for Hightower and her kids.
Jane had come up with an elaborate trap to identify Red John's mole by giving them each suspect from LaRoche's list—Bertram, O'Laughlin, Brenda Shettrick, and Ardiles—a different hotel room as the location of Hightower's supposed hideout. After a hired assassin turned up in the room assigned to Bertram, Jane had busied himself setting up the next phase of his plan. He was working on securing information about Red John from Bertram, with the help of Cho and Rigsby. Lisbon had taken charge of ensuring Hightower's safety. Lisbon was anxious about leaving Jane alone to do God knows what, but in the end, the need to protect Hightower and her kids outweighed the rest. Besides, Rigsby and Cho were with him. She trusted them to keep him out of too much trouble.
Still, as she did the dishes while Hightower settled the kids in bed, her mind kept straying to Jane and the trap he was planning for Red John. He'd gotten that manic look in his eyes, the one that meant he was about to do something particularly reckless. He insisted that he was one step ahead of Red John, that his plan was foolproof, but he'd been certain before, and Red John had slipped the trap every single time. Lisbon wasn't as convinced as Jane that Red John had fallen for the trap this time. And if he hadn't, then Jane was most likely walking into one himself.
A sharp pang shot through her chest. Maybe she should have insisted on staying with him. Rigsby and Cho would let him run roughshod over them, they didn't know how to protect him like she did. She checked her watch. God, where the hell was Grace? Van Pelt was supposed to come relieve her any minute. As soon as she did, Lisbon was getting straight into her car to go pull Jane out of whatever mess he was sure to be getting himself into. If his stupid plan got him killed, she was going to kill him.
She exhaled through her nose. It would be okay, she told herself. Jane had told her he was springing the trap in a public place—a shopping mall. How much trouble could he possibly get into surrounded by hundreds of people in a shopping mall?
She finished the dishes and turned off the faucet. Her phone buzzed from the next room where she'd left it on the coffee table.
She hastily dried her hands and went to pick up her phone. Just as she did, there was a knock on the door. Van Pelt—finally.
She glanced at the display as she went to let Van Pelt in. Jane. Thank God. She hit send. "Hey, Jane. Hang on one sec, okay?"
She opened the door. Van Pelt was there, as expected, but she'd brought O'Laughlin with her. Lisbon tamped down her irritation and summoned a smile. "Hey, guys." She wasn't thrilled Van Pelt had let O'Laughlin in on Hightower's location, but Van Pelt had been ducking her fiancé while he was under suspicion, so Lisbon supposed this was her way of making it up to him.
Hightower came downstairs to greet them and Lisbon returned her attention to her phone. "Hey, Jane. What's up?"
Static crackled on the line. "…five-oh-five…Bertram."
Lisbon frowned into the phone. "What? I can't hear you."
Then suddenly the signal was crystal clear and Jane was saying, "O'Laughlin. Red John's man is O'Laughlin."
For one fraction of a second, Lisbon was frozen in disbelief. Then her body went into autopilot mode. Her hand went to her gun at her hip even as she turned, but O'Laughlin had anticipated her—his gun was already drawn. He fired.
She felt the impact of the bullet before her brain registered the sound of the shot. Like taking a sledgehammer to her left shoulder. She gasped in pain and fell backwards, banging her side hard on the coffee table before landing on the ground with a sickening thump. The air whooshed out of her lungs.
Pain seared through her whole body, shooting out from her left shoulder. For a second, it was all she could do to keep breathing. She stared at the ceiling, dazed. Distantly, she heard Van Pelt saying something, her voice full of anguish and distress, but her brain couldn't process the words.
Van Pelt. Van Pelt and Hightower were still in danger. Lisbon stirred. She would be damned if she was going to let O'Laughlin hurt either one of them, after everything. She groped for her weapon. She'd dropped it when she'd fallen, and it was somewhere out of reach.
Her left hand was numb and useless. With her right, she searched for something, anything, she could use as a weapon.
Her fingers landed on a cushion. She must have knocked it to the floor when she'd fallen. It was soft and plush under her fingers. Some weapon. But it was all she had. Perhaps it would be enough for a distraction.
Summoning all her strength, Lisbon gritted her teeth and hurled the cushion at O'Laughlin, hissing out in pain at the movement.
It worked. It struck him in the chest. His blink of surprise was all Van Pelt and Hightower needed to draw their own weapons and empty their clips into his chest.
Lisbon fell back, weak with relief and overpowered by pain. She coughed—she couldn't seem to get her breath properly.
Van Pelt was bent over O'Laughlin's body. Hightower had rushed upstairs to Will and Mimi, shielding them from the scene.
A muffled voice called Lisbon's name, sounding echo-y and far away. "Lisbon! Lisbon!"
Jane. He was still on the other end of the open line.
Lisbon struggled to sit up and found her phone on the floor. Breathing was still a challenge, so she cut to essentials. "O'Laughlin's dead," she wheezed. "I'm wounded, but I'm okay." She thought so, anyway. She wouldn't have managed sitting up and throwing a pillow if she weren't, right?
"What happened?" Jane said sharply.
Lisbon took a moment to answer, her breathing still labored. "O'Laughlin shot me," she said finally. "Grace and Hightower shot him." She cast her gaze over to Van Pelt, still kneeling over O'Laughlin in a state of shock. Lisbon raised her voice. "Grace, call 911 from the land line."
"You've been shot?" Jane's breath was loud in her ear.
Lisbon blinked slowly. Everything seemed very fuzzy and far away. "Yes," she said finally.
There was a long pause. "Hold on," he told her. "I'm on my way."