A/N: Thanks for the support on this story, I really appreciate it! I'll update A lie Close to the heart as soon as my beta get back at me, but as I told you- life sucks, sometimes, and I guess wea re both in that situation right now. Or, you know- just busy having a life in general. eh.

Anyway. thnaks to anon reviewers, and noiw chapter 3 without further ado!

She had hoped that Luke would have been able to quickly identify the mystery man Angela had been last seen with, but, even with Vice's records, she seemed to be hitting wall after wall. Too short, too tall, too muscular, too young, that looks a bit like him but I'm not completely sure, and I'm supposed to be sure about these things, right?. None of them seemed to match the description of the ghostly "Rick".

Teresa tried to resist looking at the kid like she wanted to strangle him on the spot, didn't scream nor tried to play bad cop with him- Ron had questioned him for half an hour and had gotten nothing out of the kid –but the whole thing was starting to get on her nerves. The case alone was bad enough given the repercussions that she knew were waiting for them just around the corner, but added to that there was the personal connection she shared with the victim, the fear and guilt that she could have been partly responsible. And the fact that she felt like she didn't know Angela any longer, all because she had practically abandoned her; besides, Lisbon couldn't wrap her mind around the fact that Angela had had an affair: The Ruskins had always been faithful Catholics, and Angela had practically behaved like a nun her whole life, it was completely out of character. But then again, what did Teresa know about it? It wasn't like she had been around that much since she had turned twenty-one: situations changed, and with them, people too. As far as she knew, sleeping around would have been impossible for the old Angela, but what about the new one, the one molded by events out of her control, by a choice that had been of Angela and Angela alone, but really wasn't?

Then, as she was about to give up, and declare that the gigolo wasn't, apparently, a gigolo as he wasn't on record, Teresa had a sort of epiphany. Luke was already standing, shaking his head in disdain and saying again and again he was sorry, his eyes always pointed in direction of Teresa's open buttons, when she suddenly asked him something.

"Would you do me one last favor, Luke? I think there may be still an angle to cover…" Smiling, she guided him toward a small, secluded and dark corner, void of any light, where a young, pretty red-head, a little older than her witness, was boringly going through case-files, getting info others had taken out into the street into a computer- Not what I signed for when I joined the academy, she liked to tell her boss. But Grace Van Pelt was the newcomer, and there was a certain order to things. A long time before, she would have started checking the streets and giving parking tickets, nowadays she was instead a little more than a "lab rat", and all because she happened to know how to use a computer.

"Van Pelt, would you like to help me out on a case?" Teresa asked, and the red-head jumped- literally- at the occasion, standing on her feet so quickly the chair fell on the floor at her back.

"What can I do for you, boss?" She asked, her eyes teary with anticipation and emotions. Teresa felt almost bad for what she was about to ask the girl; Grace seemed to think she was going out in the field, ready to fire her gun, and she didn't even suspect what her boss had planned for her.

"Agent Van Pelt" She said, clearing her voice, blushing a little, knowing what a delusion it would be for poor Grace. "This is Luke Donovan, and he is the one who found Miss Ruskin dead. Mister Donovan saw our victim in the company of a young man, but we didn't have any luck until now in finding him in our archives. We were wondering if you could give us an hand."

"Uhm. Sure?" Grace asked, feeling that there was something behind the whole thing, something she wasn't going to enjoy one bit. Her enthusiasm quickly died down, and soon she found herself sat again in her chair, extremely composed and a bit awkward.

"This person of interest in the case… we suspect he may like hanging around with the beautiful people. So, as I've been told you're an authority in gossip, I was wondering if you and Mister Donovan could have a look at some on-line sites, and see if we could come up with something."

"Oh." Grace said, her voice little as she lowered her head. "Uhm. Sure, ma'am." Teresa sighed. It was never a good sign when Van Pelt called her ma'am, it meant that the poor girl was really disappointed. One of these days, I'll take her with me, the cop promised herself as she went back in her office and thought about her next move in the incoming crime war in Sacramento.

Half an hour later, Grace was knocking at her door, asking her boss to follow her to her desk; Teresa did so, and kneeled in the small corner, and looked at the brand new Full HD LED flat screen – a personal purchase from the redhead –and was grateful for the girl's constant rabbling about gossip. Teresa was almost positive that the redhead had done so only in the vain attempt of finding a common ground with her superior, but at least it had been proven useful in some way.

"Ok, who am I looking at?" Teresa asked.

"We don't know yet." Grace explained as many pictures, taken at various parties in the Sacramento area, showed middle-aged women in the company of the same man. Barely resisting sighing, Teresa had to agree with Donovan: he looked like an Adonis, and just looking at his pictures made her lose a beat or two and the breath dying in her throat. She even felt a gush of desire, and she immediately got mad with herself. That man was… well, he wasn't a good man, and she had never met him in person. There was no way she could desire him. It was completely irrational: only little girls pined after men they had never met, actors, singers and such.

Pathetic. I definitely need to get laid, she thought, nodding to herself. Maybe she could have given a call to her ex, Walt, for old times' sake. Or maybe she would have asked Wayne to have a drink with her at a bar nearby, and then, she would have allowed things to escalate on their own accord. Rigsby could be a real knight, but he had never turned down a night of sex with her since they were teenagers, there was no reason to think he would have said no just now.

"Then, why am I here?"

"Well… I put his picture in the facial recognition software, and maybe… if he has priors in others states or as a minor, we could get a result." Teresa sighed, but paced the room, awaiting for the software to stop running. When it did, she saw the image of a sixteen years old glaring at her, impudent and smart-ass. And yet, already beautiful.

Patrick Jane was born in Maine on January the 31st in 1981; mother unknown, his father was Alexander Samuel Jane, some kind of circus royalty who had traveled the States along with his son with a psych act- the boy being the main star of the event, with the stage name of "The Boy Wonder".

Then, in 1997, Patrick's traces vanished, and the boy resurfaced only two years later, in 1999, as soon as he had turned legal. The address was the same as a woman called Mariah Sheldon, 38 years old, and there was a note in the file that said that the former Mister Sheldon had denounced her, fearing that they boy was a minor and his wife an unfitting mother with child-molesting issues; coincidentally, Mariah was also the heir of one of California's greatest real estate fortune, and her ex had married her just when her trust found became accessible to her. Checking some details here and there, it didn't took them long to see that everything at the end was cleared out, and Mariah turned out to be just one of those women falling crazy in love with much younger men who could have been their sons, a much younger man who left her after few months, with thousands of dollars in his pockets and a Vintage car worth six figures. The money was a problem, Teresa thought, but the car had belonged to the ex-husband, so, really, Teresa was kind of glad. If that wasn't divine justice, she really didn't know how to call it.

Since that day on, there were pictures of him hanging around with the beautiful people, impressing older woman and getting whatever he wanted whenever he fancied it- sex, money, car and jewels or clothes, apparently it didn't matter. Mancini at Vice didn't know of him, but his partner was old-school, and remembered the "kid", as he had nicknamed Jane. He didn't have a record with them, but he had paid him a visit a couple of times – always in clubs and such, as apparently Jane didn't have a proper home- accusing him of being a male escort. Jane had simply laughed, and turned his charm on the cop, and Lorenz had to admit that it had been hard even for him, a well-known womanizer, resisting temptation.

Luke had been right, apparently: with this Jane guy, it wasn't just about the sex, but being around him and making him happy. They couldn't prove he was a male escort or a con-artist, as the money was willingly given by women he often lived with, there were clean records of the transitions, and the things he received were gifts for the perfect boyfriend.

And then, zero, nada, night. Seven months prior, there weren't new images of famous womanizer Patrick Jane in the net any longer. If Luke hadn't seen him, she would have said he was dead, despite the lack of death certificate. It was like he had vanished: his assets were like frozen, his IDs never showed up on any radar, and Lorenz had told her he had started to assume he had either gotten married, left or being killed and disposed by some cheated spouse.

Instead, he had lived for over six months inside that hotel room with Angela Ruskin-McAllister, as her kept-man, and now that Angela was dead, he had vanished yet again. Teresa sighed. How the hell could she find him? She was starting to think the man had been merely a witness, and now who knew whom could be hot on his heels. Maybe even McAllister's men. Patrick Jane had been raised to be a con artist and a womanizer, he knew what he was supposed to do, knew how to vanish; he wasn't oblivious, and he was probably aware that he had people looking for him, and not only the Police. That, if he was still alive, and she would have never pout anything behind McAllister's men.

And then, someone in one of the pictures took her attention, and she immediately dialed a number she almost knew at heart, thanking God for her luck- and who knew, if she was really lucky, she could even manage to kill two birds with one stone.

"Good morning, I'm Teresa Lisbon. I'd like to book an appointment… yes, it's been a long time, Gladys, I know… yes, it's urgent. This afternoon? Perfect." She smiled, and went back to her office, and took her jacket. There were a couple of people she had to see, if she wanted to get at the bottom of this, and then… then, Patrick Jane would have been hers, and with him, the chance to send Red John on death row.

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She parked her car not so far away from the smoky bar, a place where people usually discussed (dirty) business while drinking Irish beer and playing few games of darts and pool, all the while looking at the races or some soccer game on an old TV that had seen better days since it had come out from some European factory of the East in the Eighties. She left her badge and her on duty gun hidden in the car, making sure, though, that the one on her ankle was fully loaded. She knew that she really didn't need it, as she was more than capable to put down men twice her size, but she knew too well where she was going.

She felt a bit like Dante Alighieri when, in the Divine Comedy, he read "All hope abandon, ye who enter in!" on the doors of hell. She was nervous, and yes, even scared, because there were people knowing who and what she was without needing to see her badge, but she really didn't know how to act otherwise; he would have never talked with her if she had arranged a date, or gone to his apartment.

She spotted him almost immediately, ruffled semi-long dark hair, old, dirty clothes, worn for way too many days, and when she spotted the all too familiar empty glasses of scotch in front of him, she froze. Right there before her eyes there was the evidence of her greatest fear turning into reality, the evidence of her failure and of her many mistakes. Once again she wondered what she did wrong, when all she had at heart was their good. Hell's roads are paved with good intentions, she read once, and apparently, it was true, because all around her there was only destruction and pain.

"Ehy, Tommy." She said in a low voice as she approached him, an hand on his shoulder to reassure him, just like she did when he was a child and their father beat them. But they weren't' children any longer, both their parents had been long dead, and Tommy, her sweet, beautiful, smart and caring little brother, the one she had tried to rise as her own, had turned into a drunk just like their father- a drunk who didn't give a damn about his life, or the ones of the people who cared about him.

He didn't give any sign of wanting to acknowledge her presence, so she sat at his side, and asked at the bartender one of whatever her little brother was having- Tequila was his poison of choice – and told him why she was there. "I just need to ask you a couple of questions about Angela."

"You are such a cop, Reese…" Tommy chuckled, sipping his drink quickly. He shook his head, and wondered what Teresa would do if he were to leave in that moment. "Well, word in the street is that she is dead. And I've also been told that it's you she has to thank for that. Care to share how you feel about that, sis? Or you just don't give a damn you ruined her life, just like you did with ours?"

"I didn't force Angela to marry him, Tommy. She did it on her own accord." She got colder and colder, her breath hot on his face as she hissed the next words at low voice. "like she choose to have an affair. So, what's the word on the street about that, uh? That Thomas knew and decided to punish her because she was supposed to be his propriety?"

"And how am I supposed to know this, sis?" he chuckled, almost evilly, gesturing to the bartender for another drink; Teresa felt herself getting sick with the smell of alcohol and the pain, running through her veins like liquid fire, but the cop in her remembered her that the more Tommy got drunk, the easier it would be to get information out of him. She hated this, hated even herself, but she had tried to help him, and he had pushed her away. At least… at least, this way, all the pain was going to be of some good.

"Do you remember when the family kicked us out because you wanted to join the police? Or when Angie had to marry Thomas because you had refused to do as you've been told since we were kids?" Tommy hissed, his teeth clenched, his fists closed. Teresa saw his dark eyes, filled with pain and rage, as he turned to face her, and on instinct she felt like reaching for her gun. Her hand went to her hip, but she found the spot naked where there usually was cold metal, and she berated herself for having being scared of her little brother. There was no way Tommy was so far gone. He couldn't hate that much- not even her.

"I'm not a stupid, Tommy. You like being an informant, getting the best out of both worlds. Small time criminal by day, and by night you get your ass saved because you spill your gut." She chuckled, shaking her head. Tommy was peculiar; being the good older sister wasn't going to work with him. Better the bad cop attitude, with a guy like him. "So, what, did Thomas discover of the affair, or was Angie thinking of coming to us?"

"We aren't part of the family any longer, Reese." He justified himself. "I've heard only rumors."

"It's enough, Tommy." She told him, her hand again on his shoulder, plea in her sweet, big eyes. "I don't have a lot, but I'm willingly to listen to rumors too. And then, if I'm right… you could stop being scared, always looking behind your back. You could have a normal life…" she paused. "You could get Annie back in your life."

Tommy shook his head, sobbing at the mere mention of his daughter's name; he hid his face behind his palms and sobbed some more, wondering how old she was now, how could she look like; it had been years since he had last seen her, when her mother had given him an ultimatum, and he had given her the wrong answer.

He took a big breath, and looking at his reflection in the mirror before him, he started talking.

"I don't know, I'm not sure. But, people says Thomas got mad when he discovered Angie was having an affair. You know how he is, right? She got scared…"

"And?" she pushed. Her stern look had always worked with him, there was no reason to doubt it was going to fail her now, even if they weren't children any longer.

"And… I'm drink buddies with Shawn, one of Thomas' men, and when he got drunk… well, he likes to talk, and he is prone to blackouts. So, anyway, couple of weeks ago we get drunk together, our usual thing, and he says that Thomas is mad because a USB Stick has vanished from his cellar after Angie had gone there to take a bottle of red. Shawn guessed that she had gave it to lover boy as some kind of insurance, in case something like that happened to her."

That's why the room was a mess. They were looking for the USB Stick, she thought. "Any idea if Thomas did it or it was lover boy?"

Tommy shook his head, gulping down a mouthful of saliva. "Reese, I swear on mum's soul, I don't know who did the killing, nor where her lover may be." Her phone beeped with a text, and she immediately looked at it; her booked appointment had turned into a simple phone call, but she still had gotten what she needed, apparently.

"Yeah, well, just my luck I do, then." She said at low voice, holding her breath. She left her spot at the aisle, paid the bill for both her and her brother, and patted him on the shoulder once more. "Thanks, Tommy, and take care." She didn't need to tell him to call her whenever he decided it was time to get help, she had already said it too many times to count, and he already knew that she would have been there for him when he would be ready to get help.

She went to her car, and inserted in her GPS the address she had been just texted, belonging to Jane's latest conquests before he started seeing Angela: Marie Jarrett, ex-wife number one to her one-time fling, Walter Mashburn.

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Ok. She could do this. she had worked vice for over a year when she had left the academy, playing jail-bite, so she could really rock the undercover gig. She just had to believe it, and act like it was natural for her wearing a designer short, form-fitting dress who showed so much décolletage it was like she wasn't wearing anything.

But the dress wasn't really a problem. It was having a gun hidden in her purse, instead than on her. she wasn't used to this, and the sensation made her feel like she was naked. She hated feeling that way, exposed. Her gun and her shield were like an armor, and made her who and what she was; without them, she was back to that eighteen years old, with no future but the one forced upon her by her family, just a piece of a collection, a means to an end, a piece of meat.

A niece, sweet piece of ass, Ray had rudely called her when they had first been officially introduced to each other, back when she was sixteen, with a crude laugh and an hand patting with force her behind, like she was nothing but her father's daughter, her grandfather's heir, and not a real person – her own person.

But, she couldn't think like that, not now. She closed her eyes and held her cross for an instant, praying that she had been lucky and right, and that he indeed was there. Criminals always returned to the crime scene, right? It was in profiling 101. And Jane was in trouble, and apparently, he had been quite fond of this particular "victim", so maybe…

She knocked with all her strength on the door, and then started to ring the doorbell, never stopping pushing until a brunette went to answer the door. When it happened, Teresa put on her best mad expression, and waked past the woman inside.

"Where is he? I know he is here!" Teresa grunted, faking tears of rage. All she had to do was thinking about something that would make her mad, and the tears would just come her way- Shakespeare at school had been useful, who would have ever guessed so?

"What? How dare you…" The woman said, grabbing Teresa for the arm. "Out of my house!"

"The hell!" Teresa answered, getting free from the brunette's hold. She heard water running on the first floor, a shower, if she could make an educated guess. "Where's Walter? You two think I don't know he is been sleeping with you again?"

She stormed into the general direction of where the sound was coming from, and when Marie was already trying to stop her again- futile, as Teresa had stopped people bigger than the rich divorcee – Teresa opened the door of the bathroom, and stormed inside, sniffing like she was a child whose favorite toy had been stolen. The steam and the humidity were suddenly glued to her skin, and she remembered that whoever was in the shower -and she wasn't sure yet it was Jane- was naked, and well… maybe she wasn't exactly pure, but she was a good Catholic, and well… there could be a very sexy naked man in the shower…

She took a big breath, and shook her head. She definitely needed to get laid asap, if thinking about her potential murderer/witness/person of interest got her all aroused.

"Walter! I know you are there!" she screamed as she pulled open the curtains of the shower, revealing underneath the cool jets and around a curtain of steam a man younger than Walt, blonde and sleek and damn sexy, still busy shampooing his hair. "You… you are not Walter!" she said, blushing and babbling a little, like it was part of the play.

"Well, obviously not." He said, rinsing his hair as her eyes were glued to what she could see of him of his profile, the toned back, and the… Feet. Big feet. Concentrate on his feet. It's not the first time you see a naked man.

"But… I think you already knew it. Just, you can fool Marie, but me? Not so much." He said as he left the shower, standing naked and dripping water on the marble floor right before her, smirking with his arms crossed. "But don't worry. Your secret is safe with me. I'll not tell Marie that you are a Police officer that entered in her home without being invited or a warrant."

"How do you…" she said as she held her breath, the smirking man getting closer and closer until he had cornered her. He was so close their noses were practically touching, she could almost feel his breath on her lips, and his fingertips were dancing sensually and teasingly on her right shoulder.

"That's all right, I told you, your secret is safe with me. But I need you to relax and count back from ten to one if you don't want to give yourself away. A charge against you wouldn't look good on your résumé, right? Because I know how much you like being a cop… ten, take big breaths and close your eyes… nine, think about your office, and the steady weight of your gun in your hands. It's good, isn't it? You feel so safe… eight… yes, people are looking at you, saluting you. Just think about how your future may be bright if you'll not have issues… no charges, no suspicions on you… seven…"

And that got her. That wasn't her life, just a dream. She lived with suspicions every damn day, had done so for over ten years, and just because this man said that it wasn't real and that she could have a dream happy place, or whatever, it didn't make it true.

She sighed, between half-closed lids, and looked at him dreamily. Then, when he was finally letting it go of her shoulder, she grabbed him for the wrist, and with a martial art move she got him on the ground, underneath her, still naked and wet, and kept hold of him by grabbing his rebel curls.

"Ehy, show some respect!" he pouted.

"Really, Mister Jane? You tried to hypnotize me and you tell me about respect?"

"Ok, Listen" he tried to defend himself, trying to find a middle ground, lifting his hands in surrender as much as he could in that position. "Why don't we find an agreement? I'm sure that I can provide you with whatever you wish for. You… you lost someone, right? I'm a psych. I could try to… Ouch, woman!" he sighed in pain, as she made something very painful he wasn't even sure the nature of. The woman had probably studied abroad with the Holy Inquisition or the Mossad.

"I know you are just a con artist, just another fraud looking for eager marks." she whispered in his ear as she helped him to stand, still holding him at his back, one hand to his hands, the other in his hair. "So, sorry, mister. Your magic doesn't work with me." her breath was hot on his neck, and yet he shivered as she spoke, her words like honey running all over him, and collecting in his groin.

"Yeah, I know." he whispered, half-closed eyes, his voice a husky whisper. "Not everyone is able to resist hypnosis- especially when I'm the one hypnotizing them."

"Well, good then, because apparently I'll be the one looking after you, mister Jane." She said, as she threw him in the closest bedroom, launching him on the bed when she freed him so he could get dressed, never stopping to look at him as he put on his expensive clothes, her hand always on her purse, ready to take her gun as soon as he would have showed signs of not wanting to help her out. "I'm SACPD Detective Teresa Lisbon, and I'm investigating the murder of Angela Ruskin-McAllister."

The breath died in his throat, and the smirk vanished from his face. She thought it was because she had talked about Angela, but she was wrong. Only, she didn't know it yet- and she wouldn't for still a long time to come.