Chapter Six

Darkness fell quickly after that. Jane wasn't sure how long it took for the agency to secure the building, start interviewing everyone inside. Hightower conducted some of them personally – Lisbon and Jane could hardly interview themselves. He answered the questions obediently, but inside he was seething. Red John had been here. So close. So close to them all, to where they had been several minutes before. Lisbon and himself had just left that interview room, Cho was about to escort the Joliss parents into it. Sarah had remained in there, only to be slaughtered. He was furious, not only at Red John and the situation, but also at himself. He'd been that close to him, a corridor away, and he'd had no feeling. No sense of danger. No inkling of the oncoming horror.

Lisbon approached the couch, watching as Jane sat there unmoving. One leg crossed over the other, forced up to one side as he made no move to spread across the couch. He propped his head up on one hand, the fist clenched against his temple. She crouched before him, putting her hand over the one that lay restless on his knee. "Jane, there was nothing you could have done," she whispered.

"I could have stopped him," he told her.

"Could you?" she challenged him.

"I should have," he insisted.

"Patrick," she sighed.

"When can we leave the building?" he asked coldly.

She was quiet for a moment, not commenting on the harshness of his voice or the way that he was avoiding her eyes. "Not for another hour at least," she told him. "Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt are still questioning the maintenance staff."

"He was here, Teresa," he said helplessly.

"Patrick-"

"He was right here," he shook his head, unsure whether he was more angry or upset about that fact.

"Yes, he was," she confirmed.

"He knew where the cameras were. He knew where they were, he knew which direction they were facing. He knew how to get in and he knew how to get out again. He knew where we were and how long we'd be there for. Once again, he knows more than we give him credit for," he shook his head.

"We're going to catch him this time," she assured him.

"No, we're not!" he shook his head. "He's been here, we're not sure for how long. We can only assume that he was watching us, observing us. This wasn't like Rebecca and Bosco's team. He was here himself. He's seen us, seen the team with his own eyes. He knows where you sit, where you keep your coffee mug, where Rigsby hides his extra food, what book Cho's reading, how often Grace watches Rigsby...he's always watching me. He never stops."

He caught her eyes for a moment, and that was enough for her to understand. "You really think he saw us last night, don't you?" she realised, now fully convinced of the fact herself.

"Yes, I do," he confirmed. "I think what he did to Sarah was a warning."

"What he did was brutal," she murmured.

"If the warning was brutal, imagine what the punishment will be," he pointed out.

The tone of his voice was chilling. She hated hearing him talk like this, that's why she'd made him promise last night. She'd believed him at the time, she believed that he wouldn't lie directly to her face seconds after they'd shared their deepest secrets, how they spoke of their stolen children, but now? Now he looked like he might tear Red John to pieces with his hands. Perhaps that's why they were clenched so tightly, he was afraid of what they might do.

"Do you regret it?" she asked him hesitantly.

He shook his head, his voice becoming softer. "No," he told her. "No, I don't regret it."

"Really?" she checked. "It sounds like you do."

He sighed, leaning forwards so that they were eye to eye. "Do you understand what him seeing it means?" he asked her seriously. "He killed my wife and child because he knew that it would destroy every part of me that he could possibly get to," he explained. "He knew that taking my family would be worse than taking my life. They were my reason for living. They were every second of my day. And now he's seen you, he's seen us together, and with intelligence like his I'm sure he knows exactly what you mean to me."

Lisbon swallowed the words that she wanted to say. Now was not the time to ask exactly what she meant to him. They had more pressing matters to deal with. "You think he'll come after me," she realised.

He nodded. "Yes, I do."

"Because you care about me."

Jane was silent for a moment, and then nodded ever so gently. "There are three people whom I knew from the start it would hurt me to lose," he whispered. "My wife, my daughter, and you." Put that that context, Lisbon felt like a dirty mistress on the side of his marriage. "I never intended to have feelings for you, and I certainly never intended for Red John to find out about them."

"You never intended for him to come in here and kill Sarah Walcott either," she pointed out. "But it happened, and we have to deal with that now."

He put his hand over the one on her knee. "Teresa, if he gets the chance, he will kill you."

"I know," she nodded.

He frowned slightly, reading her face. "Why aren't you afraid of that?"

She shrugged a little. "What good would it do to be afraid?" she realised. She stood up and went to Van Pelt's desk for a moment, returning with a stack of papers in her hands. "Here's Sarah's assignment notes, and Melissa's parents gave us her notes too. We'll track her tutor down first thing in the morning. Until then, we aren't allowed to leave the building so we may as well do something worthwhile," she said, putting her game head back on.

Jane shook his head slowly. "I've been through this already," he told her.

"And we'll go through them again," she told him. "Red John put himself into Melissa's essay, it was a message to us and she was part of the delivery. The assignment was the information, Melissa was a warning, and Sarah was a threat that he would go through with it. These notes are all we have for now, but they're the most he's ever given us. If he made the mistake to let information slip, then we'll find it in here."

Jane sighed, nodding. "Ok."

Lisbon nodded along with him, surprised by his lack of protest. Submissiveness wasn't something that Jane was known for. "I'll get coffee," she said, heading towards the kitchen.

"Tea," he said softly. She nodded again, and continued walking, but before she could enter the hall he called her back. "Teresa?"

His words were quiet, but she still turned. "Yeah?"

He kept his hands on the papers, but his eyes were on her. "I won't let him kill you," he told her.

From the intensity in his eyes, she knew that he was sure of this. "I know," she gave him a small smile. "That's why I'm not afraid."

She left, going towards the kitchen, and when she was out of eyeshot, Jane finally unclenched the fist at his temple, the space revealing a scrap of paper. He unfurled it, staring at the red words on the white page that chilled his blood every time he looked at them.

She's next.

He stayed there all night and into the morning, they all did. Though they had every right to go home and catch some sleep, every agent employee remained in the building. Intern agents and those newly employed were the ones who kept getting stuck with the task of replenishing the endlessly required stocks of coffee, sugar and milk, with not nearly enough to go around once people started needing it every ten minutes to stop themselves falling into a coma. Jane knew for a fact that Lisbon had four cups alone before nine o'clock came around, especially when it was becoming impossible to trace Melissa's tutor, even with the contact details supplied by Mark Joliss.

At ten past nine, Jane could no longer sit on his couch, read through the notes, and be a good boy. Every second that the clock ticked it was becoming harder and harder to breathe at a regular pace, to hold back on his blood boiling, and to stop himself locking Lisbon into a high security padded cell, convinced that this was the only place that Red John might not be able to get to her. He waited with bated breath every time that she left the room, whether she was gone for thirty seconds or, when he almost lost his mind early that morning, thirty minutes. It had taken less than five minutes of them leaving Sarah's presence for Red John to complete his massacre, surrounded by agents. With all the work going on, and all the confusion, he was half assured that the monster himself was still inside the building, taunting them with his background presence.

He stood from the couch, shoving the scrap of paper into his pocket. He could stand it no more, so he went into Lisbon's office, ignoring her confused glance when he shut the door, locking it behind him and then also shut the blinds. Her eyes followed him the entire time, her coffee mug half raised to her lips. The steam off it showed that she'd made it freshly, and she clearly needed it judging from the dark circles under her eyes – although an uninterrupted nights sleep would obviously be better for her than her caffeine addiction.

"What are you doing, Jane?" she asked him. He leaned against the door behind him, closing his eyes for a moment and letting out a deep breath. Now, she was really frowning. "Are you ok?"

"You were in that room five minutes before," he told her, his eyes still closed.

"Yes, I was," she frowned.

"That could have been you," he said quietly.

She nodded. "If you want to put it so bluntly, yes."

Jane opened his eyes. "He slaughtered her in the one place she should have been perfectly safe, the one place he shouldn't have been able to get to her, and it could have been you."

When she saw the look in his eyes, she turned the chair to face him, setting the coffee mug down. Standing, she walked over to him, standing immediately before him. With a strange twist in her stomach, she realised that the last time she had stood this close to him, there had been an embrace, a confession, an invitation to stay...and then a kiss that lead to so much more. She pushed the feeling aside. "Patrick, I'm fine," she assured him, her voice whispering his first name in an attempt to convince him further. It still felt alien to her. "I'm right here, and I'm fine."

"You could have been killed," he choked.

"But I wasn't," she assured. "I'm fine."

"This time," he pointed out. "What about next time?"

"Next time, we'll catch him," she insisted.

"You said that last time," he shook his head.

"Patrick-"

"If you'd-"

"Jane, no," she said sharply, perhaps more sharply than she should have done. "We're not going to stand here and you tell me what you would or wouldn't have done if it had been me in there. I'm here. Yes, it could have been me. Yes, he could have killed me. But he didn't. What is it going to take for you to realise that?"

No sooner had she spoken, she was almost lifted of her feet with the force of his arms pressing her body against his. His lips found hers expertly, as if they had been doing so for years, and there was an urgency to accompany his passion. It thrilled her, shocked her, but she felt like she wasn't allowed to enjoy it because of the circumstances. He was using this to comfort himself, to assure himself that she hadn't been killed, that she hadn't been hurt, but it still sent a fire surging through her, a familiar fire that she'd felt guilty about after the first time. Last time he'd kissed her like this, it had built slowly to this ferocity, but this had started off with that, and it was almost shameful how quickly she forgot about everything.

When he released her lips, his next words were whispered against them. "I'm so glad it wasn't you," he told her.

"So am I," she replied.

Jane pulled back a fraction, letting his arms release her. "He wants you next," he insisted.

She shook her head again. "Jane, we've been through this-"

"I took this off Sarah Walcott's body," he said, fishing out the scrap of paper and placing it in her hands.

She stared at it, holding it in her hands. She frowned, a small line appearing between her eyebrows. "You took evidence from a crime scene?"

"Teresa, he wants you."

"That could mean anybody," she excused.

"No, it means you," he said surely. "First the peekaboo message, and now this?" he shook his head. "He saw us together. He's been watching us. He knows that the best way to get me now is to have you."

Lisbon swallowed rather loudly. "Then he knows where I live," she realised.

"And here isn't any safer for you to stay," he pointed out.

She sighed. Apparently her first floor apartment wasn't safe from Red John, and Jane was right, here definitely wasn't any safer. But he wouldn't come back if it meant he would get caught. Red John never returned to the scene after he'd made his mark...except Melissa's bedroom. Nothing about this case was usual or normal, even for the madman's methods. "If he wants me, then he's going to get me. You do realise that?"

"Can you understand why I'm slightly upset about this?" he begged her, his eyes pleading.

"Well, yes, but this is our way to lure him out."

Jane took hold of her upper arms, shaking his head firmly and quickly. "I won't stand by and let him take you."

"He'd have killed us both in that room we'd been there," she pointed out. "And if he gets me, I know that the team will figure out a way to find me before he kills me."

"He could kill you straight away," Jane knew.

"No, he won't," she said, her voice now trembling with every word as she thought of the possibilities. "He'd be torturous, he'd make it slow, he'd make it painful, but he wouldn't make it immediate. He's not merciful. If he wants to use me to get to you, he's going to drag my death out as long as possible."

Jane's eyes flashed as the images passed before his eyes, an anger that this may happen again burning through his veins. "Before you start forming this plan you have to be prepared to die for me," he snapped. "Because that is what will happen if he gets close enough to you."

"Perhaps I am," she said quietly.

He stopped, whether it was just his movement or his heart he wasn't sure. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," she said, no more loudly than she'd spoken before.

"You'd let him kill you," Jane tried to comprehend.

She nodded. "This would be the second time that he'd specifically targeted a CBI agent. That would look very bad on his long rap sheet when he finally takes the stand. I promised you he'd get the sentence," she reminded him.

"Not at the expense of your life," he breathed out.

"Does it mean that much to you?" she asked, almost a little confused at the matter.

"It should mean more to you," he urged.

"It clearly means something to you," she noticed, also noting that he ignored her original question.

He leaned in close to her, almost close enough for their lips to touch again. Their noses rushed against each other and he sighed, closing his eyes. "How could you even consider the idea that your life means so little to me?" he asked her in a whisper.

"Jane, what's really going on here?" she asked him.

"This shouldn't be happening," he whispered to himself.

"The Red John-"

"No," he cut her off, shaking his head even thought he movement almost pulled their lips together. "I shouldn't...I shouldn't be falling for you."

She inhaled sharply. "And are you?" she asked.

"I don't..." he sighed, putting his fingers through the ends of her hair. "I think..." he broke off again, moving his other hand to the small of her back. "I don't know what to do about it," he settled on.

She rose herself on her tiptoes, sealing their lips together in a kiss that caused his hands to move – one threading deeper into her hair, and the other skimming underneath the hem of her shirt, discovering the bare skin beneath it, she poured whatever emotion she could into the movement of her lips. It only took him a second to respond, and soon they were clutching each other closer than they had been in their last kiss. This was the sort of kiss that had lead to their more passionate clinch the other night. Lisbon was the first to pull away, placing another kiss on his cheek and then his jugular, causing a guttural groan in his throat. "That's what you do about it," she told him, and when she didn't get a response she assumed that he was pleased with this idea. "But in the meantime, I need you to help Cho figure out where Red John is," she told him.

Hours later, Lisbon walked out of her office. She'd drunk so many coffees that she was sure her body was going to shut down in retaliation at some point. "Tell me we have something," she snapped as she walked out of her office. It had been hours, and no word on Melissa's tutor, which hadn't pleased her at all.

Van Pelt stood up, approaching her with a sheet of paper that was freshly coming out of her printer. "Melissa's tutor was going by the name of John Marlowe," she said, reading off the paper but then shaking her head. "I've checked everything I can but he's a dead end. Everything was fake."

Rigsby agreed with her, not standing but turning his chair to face Lisbon. "He got himself a fake degree and posed as an ex-English Literature professor from Harvard. I contacted the university personnel, but no John Marlowe has ever been employed. It's an alias."

Lisbon sighed, nodding. "Figured as much. What about the contact details he gave to Mark Joliss?"

"We're tracking the number now but the phone's not in use so it's taking a while," Cho told him, watching the trace on his computer.

"Keep tracking it," she ordered. "Let me know the second you get a fix."

"Yes, boss."

"Boss?" Rigsby called as she turned to go back into her office.

"Yeah?" she asked.

He cleared his throat. "Jane's...gone," he said slowly.

"Gone where?" she asked.

"We don't know."

That had her attention.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" Lisbon asked him, stepping up to his desk and seeing for herself that Jane's couch was, in fact, empty. There was barely even a dent where he'd been laying.

"He got stressed out an hour ago and said he was going downstairs for some air. He never came back."

An hour. He'd been gone for an hour. During a Red John case. After all those things he'd said to her in his office. She tried not to appear as scared as she suddenly felt. The last thing the team needed was for her to start having a panic attack. She'd never thought she'd be as involved in a Red John case as she was in that moment. Had Red John still been in the building, as Jane had guessed, and had he taken him when he went for air? Or worse, had Jane received his usual brainwave and gone after the killer himself? She was actually hoping for the first option. If Red John had taken him, he'd have done so for a reason and there would soon be a message. But the latter option...it didn't bear thinking about. Jane's motives had changed in the past few days. He was more concerned two hours ago about her safety, not in his vengeance mission. At least Jane looking for vengeance was predictable. She had no idea what lengths he was capable of at the moment. The last time he'd made a random bid for her safety had resulted in him picking up a loaded shotgun (weapons, he hated weapons) and he had shot a man holding her at gunpoint – the man being the only one who could have led him to Red John.

What lengths was he going to in an attempt to protect her from Red John's message?

"Grace, call him," she instructed the younger agent.

She nodded, not pointing out that she had done several times in the past thirty minutes. "Voicemail," she confirmed, when there was no answer.

"That means the phone's still turned on. Track it."

"Boss-"

"I said, track it," she repeated.

The program didn't take long to pick his location up. "He's at his house," Van Pelt confirmed.

Lisbon turned to Cho immediately. "Cho, go get him," she ordered.

"Is Jane ok, boss?" Rigsby asked.

No, she wanted to answer. We're ridiculously close to talking about feelings that can never be taken back, we've just kissed several times in my office, we slept together the other night, and now Red John may be after me because of this. Oh, and Jane may have gone after Red John alone from stopping this happening.

"Yeah," she lied with a thick voice. "Hightower wants to see us in an hour for the press conference and I need him to be here for that."

Jane was right, she thought as she went back into her office, letting out a shaking breath only once she closed the door behind him. She couldn't even lie to herself.