A/N: Waterbaby and I thank you once more for the wonderful reviews you've left for our story! We really do appreciate them and read every one gratefully.
This chapter nearly ate my lunch, but I hope my struggles pay off for you. A lot happens, and I'm anxious to hear what you think. So, without further ado, I'll take a deep breath, close my eyes and cross my fingers, and let you read…
Chapter 9
At first, Jane thought it was morning, his brain still in a sensual fog. But he remembered that it must only be about three a.m., so the red glow from the window couldn't have been the approaching dawn. He hadn't been out of the bed since Lisbon had attacked him—he grinned at the memory—so since he wasn't sleeping anyway, he gently disentangled himself from Lisbon's sweetly sleeping form and rolled to the edge of the bed. His feet planted now on his grandmother's antique rug, he rose and walked idly to the barred window. He lifted the sheer white curtain, then he gasped in horror.
"What is it?" asked Lisbon sitting up in bed.
"Get up and get dressed," he snapped. "The house is on fire."
"What?"
This bedroom faced the rear of the house, and the thick foliage in the backyard likely made it impossible to see from the street the fire that was burning just below the window.
They smelled the smoke at the same time. Jane reached for the overhead light switch, but the electricity was off. It occurred to him that the lamp being out earlier hadn't been simply a problem with the bulb.
Red John had found them.
Jane was glad Lisbon's training made her calm in a crisis. She got up, and they reached for their pants and shirts, quickly pulling them on. Jane went to the bedroom door and felt it. He hadn't shut the door earlier, he realized. Someone had been in the house.
"Holy shit!" he exclaimed. The door was burning hot.
Lack of electricity explained why there had been no alarms from the security system.
"Where's our phones?" Lisbon was asking.
Jane looked bleakly at her in the flickering candlelight. "I took them apart. They're in the kitchen."
Lisbon went to the window herself, looking for the latch that would release the bars. Jane shook his head.
"No one was living here," he said. "I didn't think much about fire safety."
Lisbon frowned. She'd seen this kind of thing before, too many times. Paranoid people had died in their homes when the iron bars that had been installed to keep bad people out had imprisoned the owners in a death trap of their own making.
"What do we do now?" she asked, trying desperately not to panic.
"We have to try to make it back through the house. Stand back from the door; I'm opening it."
"Jane—wait! You could be fried in an instant."
He hesitated, then his eyes scanned the room, feeling nervous sweat trickling down his back, the seconds ticking away in his mind. There had been many days he'd felt like dying in the last ten years, but today, with Lisbon at his side, was not one of them. The room was rapidly filling with smoke. Lisbon began coughing and holding the hem of her shirt to her nose. Jane forced his brain to calm down, to concentrate.
He quickly picked up the candle and went to the far corner of the room, his eyes going to the ceiling. There was a metal grate there, and he knew that there was a matching one on the other side of an airshaft in the second story parlor. He remembered sleeping in this room as a child, listening to the comforting sounds of his grandparents talking and laughing upstairs. The grate was covered by a small area rug in the summers when the heat was turned off, and it still was since it hadn't been in use for years. He pulled a chair from the vanity table and climbed on top of it.
"Hand me your knife from dinner," he said.
She pressed it into his palm like a surgical nurse. He allowed himself a small smile at the image, and proceeded to insert the top of the case knife into the two screws on one side of the grate, willing his hand to move steadily. She took the candle from him and held it up so he could see. Several precious seconds elapsed until at last, the screws clattered onto the floor and the metal grate swung out, hanging by its hinges.
It would be a tight fit, but they should be able to climb through the grate and up to the second floor.
Lisbon realized his intentions and shook her head. Her voice came out around a hoarse cough.
"Won't the opening upstairs be screwed down as well?"
"Yes," said Jane, coughing now too. They could hear the sounds of the fire crackling on the other side of the door and outside the window, and the acrid smell of smoke was nearly overpowering. It irritated their eyes, and Jane wiped at the tears that were now flowing down his cheeks.
"I've got an idea," said Lisbon, and, setting down the candle, she went to the end of the four-poster bed. She began to unscrew one of the posts from its base; her parents' bed had worked this way, she recalled.
Jane felt like kissing her as she handed him the heavy post. His first try struck unforgiving metal, but then he reared back and put all his strength into it. It took two more tries before the grate flipped up above him, and he was able to reach up into the parlor and drag the small rug away. He was relieved that he didn't feel any direct heat upstairs.
"Hold the chair," he said.
Taking a deep breath of the fresh air above him, he climbed up the ladder-back of the chair and managed to gain purchase of the heavy couch near the grate above. He pulled himself up, and almost laughed when he felt Lisbon helping him by pushing on his ass, then the bottoms of his feet.
When he finally hauled himself into the room above, he rolled onto his back, tempted to stay there and rest, wishing fleetingly that he'd kept himself in better shape, but Lisbon was already pushing the chair downstairs against the wall and reaching up toward him. He put his hands down through the air shaft and caught hold of her wrists, then slid his hands up her forearms. Lisbon didn't weigh much over one-hundred pounds, but pulling her up wasn't as easy as he would have thought. He got her up into the parlor as far as her elbows, and they both managed to get her up the rest of the way.
She got to her feet and wiped her eyes, taking her own grateful breaths. The windows in the parlor were also barred, since there was the eave of the lower floor right beneath, but Jane knew the front windows had no bars.
"Come on," he said, pulling her through the parlor and out into the hallway. They must have been over the kitchen, for the hardwood floor was getting hot beneath their bare feet.
They reached the front windows in his grandparents' old bedroom, and Jane pulled back the curtains, lifting up the window and kicking out the screen. The smell of gasoline was strong in their nostrils. One storey below them was the front lawn. It would break their fall, but it would likely also break their legs if they simply jumped.
He was about to suggest they lower themselves down partway with some tied together bedding, when movements outside caught his eye. There was a streetlight on the corner of the lot, and by that light, Jane and Lisbon watched a dark, hooded figure moving to the edge of the lawn. They heard the strike of a match, saw it flare up in the figure's hand before he tossed it onto the grass. Instantly, the ground came to life with fire, and they watched in awe as the flames followed a path no doubt made with gasoline. It began to take shape—a circle. Three more matches were struck and flicked into its center, and the familiar eyes and grinning mouth of Red John's calling card flared into sinister relief.
The man below must have sensed he was being watched, for he suddenly looked up at the window. The pair stepped back, but Jane was certain they had been seen. Then, in the light of the fiery smile, Jane saw the man's face. He gasped as he recognized one of seven visages he had stared at for weeks, one that he had seen countless times over the last ten years and had discounted until Lorelei Martins had given him that fateful clue.
"Partridge," Lisbon whispered beside him, grasping Jane's arm tightly in shock.
Brett Partridge smiled from beneath his hood, bowed dramatically, and began pouring gasoline from a plastic fuel can onto the grass below the window, then splashing it onto the wall of the house.
"No!" cried Lisbon involuntarily.
"I win, Patrick," he called cheerfully, and with a final match, set ablaze their only apparent means of escape. They watched in horror as Red John melted into the darkness from which he had come.
In the distance, they heard the screaming of approaching sirens.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Then next morning, when Lisbon and Jane weren't in the office again, Cho was seriously worried. This wasn't like them, to not even call and check in. Red John's slaying of Lisbon's brother had suitably spooked Cho into believing the serial killer was amping things up again. He only hoped Jane and Lisbon's disappearance was just a strange coincidence.
Van Pelt and Rigsby arrived in the bullpen soon after, each glancing at Lisbon's office, and then at Jane's couch. Cho shook his head. They wondered how long they could put off the investigators into Reede Smith's death. Then Bob Kirland showed up.
"Where's Agent Lisbon?" he asked curtly.
"Taking some bereavement time," said Cho easily. "She's entitled, don't you think?"
Kirkand's eyes narrowed, but then he opened the folder he was carrying with him, tossing it like an accusation on Cho's desk.
"Ballistics came back. The gun that killed Reede Smith was a Glock."
Lisbon uses a Glock, thought Cho, trying not to let the Homeland Security agent notice how tense he'd become.
"So?" said Rigsby.
"We didn't find the weapon…yet. But there's some other interesting information to report, and I'm sharing this with you as a courtesy because of your vested interest in the Red John case."
"What is it?" asked Cho.
"There was a rental car parked across from Smith's home. Turns out it was rented the day of the murder by a man who paid the car company double to allow him to pay cash instead of using his credit card. His signed name was practically illegible, but the desk clerk described the renter as of medium height and build, mid-forties, wearing a three-piece suit and sporting blond, curly hair. Sound familiar?"
The team chose to take that as a rhetorical question, but they each felt their stomachs flip over uncomfortably.
"Well, turns out," Kirkland continued, almost pleasantly, "fingerprints on the door handle and the steering wheel match those belonging to one Patrick Jane."
"That doesn't prove anything," said Rigsby.
"It proves that Jane was at the scene of a murder."
They could say nothing to that.
"Now, I suggest that if any of you know the whereabouts of Mr. Jane, you tell me right—"
Cho's desk phone rang, and he rudely moved to answer it.
"Cho."
"Agent Cho," said the gruff voice on the other end. "This is Sergeant Richner from Oakland PD. I was told that your unit was the one to call if we ran into anything related to the serial killer, Red John."
Cho carefully averted his eyes. "Yeah," he replied.
"Well, we have a situation here. A house burned down early this morning. Arson, by all accounts. A funny thing though-our arsonist made a big smiley face out of gasoline on the front lawn. Lit it on fire and everything. Hell of a yard decoration. Not that it matters—the house was a total loss."
"Anyone killed?" asked Cho.
"We're not sure. The house is still too hot to search yet. Uh, but that's the other thing, Agent. I hate to have to inform you, but we found a Ford Mustang registered to a Teresa Lisbon, parked in the driveway. She one of yours?"
"Yeah," Cho said grimly.
"Do you know what business she might have had in this house?"
"No idea."
"We traced the owner of the house, but it's still in the names of a deceased couple who died nearly twenty years ago. Do the names Michael and Charlotte Sommers mean anything to you?"
"They might."
"The neighbors said no one lives in the house, but it was always sealed up like Fort Knox. The company that provides the security system called the station when they reported a suspicious power outage to the house about thirty minutes before someone called in the fire."
"What's the address?"
The sergeant supplied it, and Cho assured the man they'd be right there.
"We caught a case," he announced, after hanging up the phone.
"Anything I can help you with?" asked Kirkland suspiciously.
"No, thanks."
"If you hear from Mr. Jane, you'll let me know, understood." It was clearly both a command and a warning.
"Of course," said Van Pelt, as she grabbed her gun and tablet computer from her desk drawer. No way she was hanging around the CBI with the FBI and Homeland Security hovering over her shoulder. The other two retrieved their own weapons, then took their suit coats and headed for the elevator without another word to Kirkland.
"Sorry," Van Pelt felt compelled to say as she moved to follow after the guys.
"You can trust me, Grace," said Kirkland, his quiet voice stopping her in her tracks.
She turned to look at him, but all she could think to do was nod. She didn't in fact trust him, not as far as she could spit.
The ding of the elevator made her hasten out of the bullpen to follow the rest of her team.
She didn't look back again.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In the company SUV, Cho filled them in on the call from Oakland PD.
"Oh, my God," said Van Pelt. "What if they were in the house?"
"Let's not jump to conclusions," Rigsby repeated his earlier admonition. He was sitting in the back seat with her, and he took her hand in his. "The boss and Jane are pretty resourceful. And who knows what kind of game Red John could be playing."
Cho agreed. "Van Pelt, look into the owner of that house. 3903 Rhoda Avenue."
She fired up her tablet and began checking into the CBI's database.
"You said the names of the last owners were Michael and Charlotte Sommers? That's probably not a coincidence."
"I didn't think so either," said Cho.
In a few moments, Van Pelt had confirmation. "Those were the names of Jane's maternal grandparents. They died within a year of each other back in 1998. I'll check to see the records for who's paying the bills now."
She did her magic, and in no time she had pulled up the information.
"Utility bills are sent to a post office box in…Sacramento. According to the City of Oakland, electric and water are always paid anonymously with a money order. Property taxes are up to date, and are paid by…Patrick Michael Jane."
"Well, that explains it," said Rigsby. "I bet they were hiding out in his grandparents' house because one of them knew they'd be a suspect in Reede Smith's murder. Unless Smith was Red John, or it was in self-defense, there's no way the boss would have killed him. Maybe it was Jane…"
"Could be," said Cho. They all remembered how easily it was for him to kill Timothy Carter when he thought he was Red John.
"But if Red John burned down that house, Reede Smith wasn't Red John," said Rigsby.
His words hung in the air as they contemplated all the ramifications of what they'd learned that morning, combing it with their speculation about Eileen Barlow-Turner's death and the murder of James Lisbon. Van Pelt wished she'd gotten those files on Eileen Barlow before they'd left the CBI. Cho was right that things seemed to have snowballed from there.
"I can't help but think this is somehow centered on Lisbon now," ventured Van Pelt, another thought occurring to her. "You saw how concerned Jane was about her going after Stiles. Lisbon is trying to find Red John, the man who killed her brother. Jane is either helping her, or trying to stop her, and Red John isn't liking any of it very much." She sighed, worry furrowing her brow. "I just wish to hell they'd call."
"We'll know more when we see that house," said Rigsby, trying to comfort them all.
"I hope so," she said.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
There wasn't much left of Jane's grandparents' house but smoldering rubble. Van Pelt felt a lump in her throat as she looked at it, and she said a silent prayer that Jane and Lisbon hadn't been in there. Cho parked the SUV on the street near the remaining fire truck, whose firefighters stood by in case the fire flared up again. A couple of police cars were still on the scene as well, to hold back curious onlookers marveling at the giant, charred, smiling face. It was almost as macabre as when they'd seen others on TV, created in blood.
The team was surprised to see the CSI van there, with Brett Partridge and his new assistant busily taking pictures of the black smiley on the lawn. Cho bristled immediately, disliking the guy almost as much as Jane did. The media had also gotten word that the fire might have been related to the infamous serial killer, so a couple of camera crews were already set up for the morning news. Of course, this meant that Kirkland and Agent Broome wouldn't be far behind.
"Dammit," muttered Rigsby, echoing everyone's thoughts.
They reluctantly got out of the vehicle, and while Cho spoke to the cops from Oakland PD, Rigsby approached what was left of the house, noting the strong smell of gasoline. He itched to step inside the remains of the structure, but smoke still rose from its innards, as if taunting him. He could tell from the way the house had collapsed that the fire had likely started from the back of the house.
He glanced up to see Van Pelt gingerly skirting the perimeter, heading for Lisbon's familiar dark blue Mustang. The paint on the side nearest the house was bubbled and scorched by the heat, and she hoped Lisbon's insurance would pay for a new paint job. Other than that, it appeared to be fine, which only made Van Pelt more nervous about why she would have left it there.
She wouldn't have, Van Pelt thought, not If she were alive.
She tried the car door and found it to be locked. The local PD had only bothered to run the tag, apparently.
Silently asking for her boss's forgiveness, Van Pelt picked up a charred two-by-four and bashed in the passenger side window. Rigsby joined her and watched as she unlocked the door and brushed the glass from the seat. She sat in it to open the glove compartment; that's where most cops kept their weapons when they traveled. There was a 9 mm, but no Glock. She couldn't decide whether that was a good thing or a bad. She reached over and popped the lever for the trunk, and she and Rigsby looked inside, both of them grinning at Lisbon's arsenal of rifles and a couple more handguns, but no Glock.
She shut the trunk and the car door, but Rigsby sat in the driver's seat.
"Jane must have been driving," he said. "The seat's not all the way to the steering wheel like it is when Lisbon drives."
Cho joined them, surveying the car before looking back at the destroyed house.
In a rare display of emotion, he echoed Van Pelt's earlier thought: "I hope they weren't in there."
Rigsby and Van Pelt silently concurred.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Six hours earlier…
Jane and Lisbon had found a side window where the fire wasn't licking as high up the side of the house. There were no bars on it, but there was a straight drop to the sidewalk below that went along this side of the house. Between the sidewalk and the house was a hedge that was burning merrily. Lisbon looked down in trepidation as Jane opened the window of the bedroom they were in, her cheeks red with the encroaching heat. They could feel the house beginning to shrivel up and die around them, and both knew there wasn't much time to waste contemplating broken legs. It was either jump or burn to death. Not the best of choices, but there was an obvious winner between the two.
"Here," he said, quickly pulling up the bedspread from the full-sized bed in the room. This had been his mother's bedroom when she was a child, but he pushed back the familiar sadness of loss and focused on Lisbon. "Wrap yourself in this. It should protect you from getting burned going down, and maybe pad your fall some. Try to jump out over the sidewalk and into the garden."
She looked at him fearfully. "What will you do?"
He shrugged. "Land on you?" he asked with a wry smile.
"What if we both jumped at the same time?" she suggested desperately, her voice trembling.
"No, I really might land on you then."
"Here," she said. "At least take the sheet."
"Okay."
He pushed her gently toward the ledge. She was about to jump, when a terrible thought occurred to her.
"What if Red John is down there, waiting to get us if we try to escape?"
"Then we kill him with our bare hands, of course. One life-threatening crisis at a time, woman, if you don't mind."
The sirens were getting closer, and they had agreed that it was better if they could get away from the house without the authorities knowing they'd escaped. It would be best if everyone thought they were dead—especially Red John—at least until they could clear Lisbon's name. Also, now that they knew his identity, they could find the bastard and put an end to this nightmare forever.
Lisbon looked up from the inferno and turned to look at him, kissing his lips softly and looking into his eyes. He could see the reflection of the fire in their watery green depths. She touched his stubbled cheek with an ice-cold palm.
"I love you," she told him, but before he could reply, she jumped.
Jane's breath caught in his throat, both at her words and the suddenness with which she had disappeared from his arms. He leaned out and cringed as she just missed the brightly burning hedge and the hardness of the cement sidewalk. She yelped when she hit the ground, and he heard the rustling of the dense foliage as she disappeared down the steep incline of the yard.
"Lisbon!" he called, but there was no answer.
The floor began to burn beneath Jane's bare feet, and the walls of the house began to creak and crackle as the fire gnawed at its bones. Outside, the flames had now risen to the window ledge, and Jane knew he was out of time. He wrapped the sheet around himself, then jumped out as far as he could. The edge of the cloth fell into the fire, leaving a fiery trail as he rolled into the undergrowth. Rose bushes scratched at his face and hands. Rocks tore at his clothes, bruising his body as he helplessly continued to roll. It was a tree that finally stopped his momentum, and he let out a startled bark as he slammed hard into its trunk. He heard the bone in his arm snap an instant before sharp pain jolted through his body. He rolled to his back, trying to catch his breath.
Then he realized the sheet was on fire, and with a surge of adrenaline, jumped up and dislodged his burning shroud before kicking dirt over it with his bare feet.
Lisbon emerged from the darkness and was at his side almost immediately.
"Jane! Are you all right?"
"Yes," he puffed. "But I think I—I broke my arm. Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Just bumps and bruises."
By then, two fire trucks and a score of police cars had arrived, their bright red lights flashing eerily in the night.
"We need to get out of here," she whispered.
Together, they found their way through the trees and bushes, doubling back through neighbors' yards until they emerged at a cross street, Jane holding his broken arm to his side. Dirty, barefoot and aching from their falls, they huddled close and moved as quickly as they could down the dark sidewalk, leaving their would-be funeral pyre behind them.
"Too bad your car keys are on the kitchen counter by our phones," he said morosely, as they stumbled along.
"It'll look more like we're dead if we don't take it, anyway," said Lisbon. She allowed herself about a minute for regrets, then made herself forget about everything unimportant right now. There were other cars, other houses, but not another Jane, and likely not another chance to fool Red John.
It was only a few blocks to the Dimond District, and the welcome lights of a convenience store beckoned to them. The early morning traffic was light, and they j-walked across the main thoroughfare easily enough, Lisbon pushing open the heavy door of the store, while Jane leaned on her with his good arm.
"We've been in an accident," Jane told the startled clerk. He was certain their ragged appearance and harried expressions more than backed up the lie. "Can we use your phone?"
"Uh, sure," said the clerk, handing him a cordless telephone. He caught a whiff of the acrid smell of smoke, and involuntarily took a step back.
Jane tried to recall the number he needed from the huge data storage of his mind, but his normally quick brain was foggy with pain and the aftershock of their ordeal.
"Who are you calling?" Lisbon prompted, thinking it would be Cho.
The number he sought suddenly occurred to him, and he began rapidly pushing buttons.
"You're not gonna like this," he told her as the line began to ring, "but trust me, okay? I think this is the best place in the world to seek refuge."
He brought her head to his chest and kissed her forehead. "Yes," he said when sleepy sounding woman picked up on the other end. "I know it's early, but I need to speak to Bret Stiles. It's an emergency..."
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Later…
Brett Partridge wandered over to Lisbon's abandoned Mustang, took a few pictures, and turned to the team.
"Why are you here?" asked Rigsby. "There haven't been any bodies found that we know of. This is just an arson case—not your area of expertise."
"I'm trying to deduce why Agent Lisbon's car was here, but no Agent Lisbon," said Partridge. "And since Red John seems to have had a hand in this, it stands to reason—"
"No," protested Van Pelt. "This proves nothing. Unless I see a body, I won't believe it."
"What about Jane?" asked Partridge, and there was no mistaking the barely-contained glee in his voice. "He and Agent Lisbon seem to be joined at the hip. If she was here, I'll bet-"
"Call us if you find anything," said Cho dismissively, and he steered the team to walk ahead of him toward their SUV. He felt the sudden urgency to get out of there before Kirkland showed up.
Acting suitably offended at Cho's rudeness, Partridge went back to his assistant, and the pair began chatting with the Oakland cops, leaning against their squad cars, their backs to the smoking building. As Cho continued down the sidewalk, he spied a piece of cloth in the bushes. He parted the greenery and bent over to see a singed white bed sheet. It must have come from the house, but how? He squatted down to pick it up, and it was then he saw the imprint of a bare foot in the soft earth. Its size indicated that it was likely made by an adult male.
"Hey, Cho. You coming?" called Rigsby from the SUV. Cho wadded up the sheet and kicked it further into the foliage out of plain sight, moving his foot over the print to conceal it.
Jane was out there somewhere, and from the looks of things, he and probably Lisbon too were in big trouble. And though it rankled a bit to be left out of the loop, Cho couldn't help feeling there must be a very good reason for it. Well, he would help them whether they liked it or not, but the first step would have to be finding them.
He stood up and got back on the sidewalk, striding quickly now to catch up with his team.
A/N: Phew! Did you survive? Did it challenge your credulity too much? Please let us know. More action ahead, and waterbaby certainly has her work cut out for her after the mess I left, lol. Thanks as always for reading!