A/N: Thank you MentalistLover, Snow'sLuckyCat, Habeous Corpus, YukinaKid and Sophie Fatale for reviewing the last few chapters. It means a lot to read those reviews, to know that people are reading and enjoying the story, that it's deemed good enough to comment on. Thank you!
Jane wasn't sure how many days he had been kept captive in the house. He was starting to feel the effects of not sleeping and not eating, but he didn't seem to retain the capability to care any more. He did his best in trying to fool the old lady of the house, and her husband seemed to agree with Jane as he hadn't regained consciousness at all for the past two days, but that was his way of trying to ensure the safety of his team.
One thought had joined the merry go around in his head, a thought that begged him to escape as then they wouldn't need to hurt the team. They would only punish him if they caught him, but they would leave the team alone as the leverage would be gone. There was nothing he could do for Lisbon any more, but he could do this final act for his team.
Jane was aware that in his present state, he wouldn't last long outside. He was too weak to walk far in the deep snow and the cold would kill him soon enough as he didn't have any winter clothes. The best he could hope for was to get far enough before he was missed so that he would be dead before they found him. However, he was guarded whenever he was out of his room making escape difficult. Maybe that maid would help him as she had seemed genuinely upset about his predicament?
Jane looked down at the man resting on the bed and wondered idly, who he was as he had never been given any introductions. He had just assumed that the couple were wealthy and in her grief, the soon to be widow had turned into a most unexpected source to communicate with her dear husband, although that explanation had gone out of the window by the meanness of the old lady and the presence of the guards.
Jane didn't really care, but his mind had cleared slightly of the fog of grief and he thought that he should at least know who the people responsible were for Lisbon's murder and his own downfall.
"Who is he?", Jane said into the quietness of the room startling the guard.
"You don't need to know", came the reply from the frowning guard.
"Oh, but I do. I will need to know who he is, so that I can drag his ass to Hell with me when he dies. And I need to know the name of that old woman so I can come back to haunt her until her time is up and I will be waiting for her at the gates of Hell", Jane quietly said, visibly causing shivers go down the guard's back as the deliverance of the threat was done in a such a cold, calm way that it scared the hell out of him. The guard struggled to stay quiet.
Before Jane would have figured out the name in few moments, but he wasn't in any shape to force the issue, so he let it lie. He was nudged from his thoughts by the dinner bell, which would mean that he would be escorted to his own room for the rest of the day unless there were any changes in the old man. Jane got up from the chair while the guard had opened the door and followed him out. They started the familiar trek along the long, draughty corridor, meeting one of the faceless maids going towards the old man's room to change the bed linen judged by the sheets on her arm.
XXX
The maid was getting ready for work in her room. All the staff lived in the house and were allowed to the town only under guard to stop them from mingling with the local folk, to keep the house and its occupants as private as possible.
She had been given the duty to serve the Lady for the past day stopping her from seeing Patrick. She wanted so badly to tell the man to hang in there, that she had managed to get a word out, that maybe someone would come for him soon.
Tonight she was back tending to his room and she hoped that the news would make him to cheer up so that she could get him to eat something.
When she heard the dinner bell, she was on her way to the kitchen to fetch the tray for Patrick and to wait for a guard to accompany her. She carried the tray carefully up the stairs when she could hear a scream from somewhere. The guard turned speedily, shouting questions to his ear piece, leaving the maid scared and not knowing what to do.
XXX
Jane and the guard hadn't gone very far when they heard the scream coming from the old man's bedroom. They both turned back while the guard was visibly hesitant in what to do. Apparently he got orders from his ear piece as he sternly told Jane to go back to his room and not cause trouble, and took off running where they had just come from. How they expected him to follow those orders was beyond him.
Jane stepped aside next to the wall when a stream of other guards and a doctor went running past him. He then walked away, keeping in the same corridor before finally finding himself outside the kitchen. He could see a door leading out, probably for service staff and kitchen goods. He tried the handle. It wasn't locked.
Jane opened the door closing it behind him and quietly slipped away in the midst of the mayhem in the house.
XXX
Cho burst into Lisbon's room holding a paper in his hand and talking on his mobile. Lisbon could tell that he was excited and adamant about something and impatiently motioned him to tell her what it was.
Cho flipped his mobile shut and announced, "We have a lead and it sounds like it's finally a solid one!"
Lisbon let a breath out as she had been holding it in anticipation.
"In an obscure town in the middle of nowhere, near Alaskan border, a police officer was given a note by his son, who said that a lady in a grocery store asked him to deliver it", Cho continued.
"It said: Patrick Jane is being kept in Darkwood Mansion against his will. Please, come and help him."
Lisbon felt a rush of relief in hearing the news that Jane was alive. She needed to get to him now! She had to pull her thoughts together and concentrate to listen to what else Cho had to say. She was hungrily mopping up everything, even the tiniest details.
Cho continued explaining that luckily the police officer was a smart man and up to date, so he had contacted FBI almost straight away knowing that they were looking for a man called Patrick Jane. When the FBI started looking more closely into the situation, they had found a gold mine. Apparently the house belonged to a wealthy couple that they have been looking for a long time, without knowing it.
Lisbon looked confused so Cho carried on relaying what he had learned from the FBI.
"The Mafia in the USA has always been thought to operate in loosely connected Families, each Family having their own area and their own field of speciality, be it money laundering, prostitution, guns etc. However the FBI has long speculated that the Families are too well organised and synchronised to be only loosely connected. They have suspected that there is somebody pulling the strings, a so called mastermind, but they have never had any hard evidence and all the informants have heard only vague rumours about it", Cho said.
"Makes sense, but what does that have to do with me and Jane?", Lisbon asked confused.
"It looks like the house where Jane is being held is the home of this mastermind", Cho answered.
Lisbon could only stare at him. This couldn't be happening. They had had nothing to do with the Mafia for a long time and surely they hadn't been aware of any grudges against Lisbon or Jane. She still couldn't understand what a Mafia mastermind would want with Jane or why they would want her dead. It didn't make any sense.
"The FBI has pulled together a very respectful amount of information in a very short time and they are pulling together a full tactical team to take the house. They are certain that they have finally found the Mastermind", Cho then said gathering his things.
Lisbon got out of her bed, grimacing when she felt the pain in her stomach and shoulder, but put a hand on Cho's arm.
"I'm coming too", she announced seriously, looking at Cho.
"I know. They are waiting for us", Cho answered. He had known that nothing would keep Lisbon in the hospital once he had told her what was going on. He had cleared it with the FBI and they were willing to allow her to observe with the team, but he had been told very clearly that they would not be participating in the actual operation.
Cho had taken care of the paperwork at the hospital and had even gotten a prescription filled for Lisbon so they could just walk out. Cho handed the bottle of painkillers to Lisbon when they got to his car, Rigsby and Van Pelt visible inside.
"Take them when you need it. Jane will need you to be able to go to him", Cho said quietly before they got in. Lisbon smiled at him gratefully while slowly and carefully climbing onto the car to be greeted enthusiastically by the team.
Cho drove to the nearby military airport to catch up with the plane FBI had arranged for them. When they were speedily strapped into place and took into the air, Lisbon could finally let herself hope that they would find Jane. A week had gone by with no word of him and she was going crazy with worry. She could only hope that Jane had managed to hang on, now that he knew that she loved him, that maybe he would find strength in that knowledge.
Little did she know that because of that love, Jane had been broken again.
TBC
