Disclaimer: I own nothing, except my own creations.

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Hannah Lombard was back at the station the following morning, and Lisbon deviated from her journey to the kitchen as she approached the teenager in surprise. She hadn't expected to see her again after yesterday's events. 'Hannah? I didn't expect to see you here. Has something happened?'

The teen's face was blank, free of any emotion whatsoever, as she held out an envelope to Lisbon. 'I think this might help.'

'Ah thanks,' said Lisbon accepting the proffered object. 'What is it?'

'It's a letter from Mum. She sent it to me when I was at boarding school,' said Hannah as Lisbon opened the envelope. 'She mentions a woman named Ms Ravensthorpe – a woman she worked with – who was kind of stalking her.'

'Okay, thanks for that,' said Lisbon gently as she reached forward to touch the teen's shoulder but Hannah backed away as she looked her in the eye. 'Maybe she and Matt Burrie were working together and she killed my Mum? Maybe it had something to do with the affair they were having?'

She could almost hear the hopefulness in the teen's voice that she had somehow broken the case and her mother's killer could be caught. Well, at least she could put her mind to rest about something. 'Your mother wasn't having an affair Hannah.'

'She wasn't?' was the shocked response.

'No, she wasn't,' confirmed Lisbon.

'But...'

'Agent Lisbon?'

Lisbon turned her head at Cho's call, before nodding her head that she would be there momentarily. Turning back to Hannah, she saw that she was gone, the teenager's long brown hair just out of sight around the corner. 'Hannah...'

Frowning slightly, she entered the bullpen with the letter. They had a new suspect. 'Guys, what can you tell me about Ms Ravensthorpe?'

'Ravensthorpe?' questioned Rigsby as van Pelt flicked through her notes. 'Didn't she work with the victim?'

'Apparently so. Didn't you interview her when you went to the workplace?'

'She wasn't there,' piped up van Pelt. 'She called in sick that day.'

'What's it to us?' questioned Jane, sitting up on the couch.

'Hannah Lombard dropped off this letter just now,' said Lisbon as she opened the letter. 'Apparently our victim had a stalker.'

Jane didn't ask for permission as he plucked the letter from her hand. 'Who still handwrites letters these days?' asked Cho as Jane held the letter to the light. 'My mum does,' defended van Pelt as Jane uttered a certain 'ah huh!' 'This letter wasn't written by her mother guys.'

'How do you know?'

'Well, first of all, do you know of any 45 year old woman who writes like this?' Holding the letter up to the light once again, Jane continued with a flourish. 'And secondly, this letter has new information. The signature and those two lines here are new.'

'Are you saying these letters are forged?' asked Rigsby as Jane turned with a grin and pointed in his direction. 'No. I think that Hannah does actually write letters home and someone responds to them – but it isn't the mother. I'd place even odds that it's her brother.'

'Which one?' asked van Pelt as Rigsby ventured a guess. 'The emo one? Horatio?'

'Possibly. Possibly,' considered Jane as he squinted into the light once again. 'You think it could be Henk – your budding serial killer?' suggested Cho as Jane turned the letter from side to side looking for a good angle.

'I don't have time for this,' said Lisbon exasperatedly as she gave her orders to her team. 'Find this Ms Ravensthorpe.'

'Gotcha!' declared Jane as the team got to work. When no explanation was forthcoming, Lisbon sent him a look. 'Well? What?'

'The letter was originally signed with an 'H',' said Jane with all the pomp and ceremony of a grand announcement. 'Guess what? It's a boy!'

'You're a pain in the ass,' said Lisbon as she turned to her office.

'And what a fine ass it is!' declared Jane after her – just out of her hearing. The heads of the three detectives flew around to look at him so fast that it was a great possibility that they might have gone flying off. 'What?' laughed Jane, continuing to hold the letter.

'You are one brave man,' said Rigsby shaking his head.

'I like to live on the edge,' said Jane cockily.

'I hope you've got a safety net, cos I get the feeling that you'll be falling off soon,' said Cho.

'Pfft,' scoffed Jane, waving the letter in the air as he left them and headed toward Lisbon's office.

She wasn't in the mood to see him and when he stepped in and started to warn her off Ms Ravensthorpe as a suspect, she had had enough. 'Don't you think it's all a little too convenient. We lose one suspect, only to be handed another?' said Jane. 'I mean come on, the letter was forged.'

'You're looking for things that aren't there,' said Lisbon looking up from her computer screen.

'And you're too blinkered and not letting yourself see,' retorted Jane. 'She's reeled you in hook, line and sinker.'

'That's rich coming from you,' fired Lisbon back at him. 'Who are you to talk to me about objectivity? Not after what happened two days ago.'

She watched as Jane's face went blank and he turned from her office without another word.

When she stepped into the bullpen forty minutes later, Rigsby was putting a call through to Ms Mae Ravensthorpe, Cho was looking at some paperwork and van Pelt was busy on the computer. Jane was lying on the couch, arms tightly crossed over his chest with his eyes shut as he refused to interact with anyone around him. It was a very quiet office until van Pelt looked up from her computer screen and caught her eye. 'Ah boss, you need to see this.'

'What?' she said as she made her way over.

'Jane asked me to look into what happened around the time that Hannah was sent off to boarding school...' trailed off van Pelt as she looked between the consultant on the couch and her superior.

'Well, what?' pushed Lisbon impatiently as Rigsby and Cho joined them, and a second later she sensed Jane come over too. Van Pelt took a deep breath as she turned back to the screen. 'Hannah Lombard was raped by a man two years ago.'

Damnit. 'Why didn't this come up earlier?' asked Lisbon as van Pelt turned to her. 'The man she alleged raped her was Mr Keller Duckworth.'

'Oh no,' said Rigsby as van Pelt nodded her head with a wince. 'Being such a good friend of the police, the charges just happened to go away and it wasn't on the files. I had to do some serious digging to get this.'

'And so that was why Hannah was sent off to boarding school,' surmised Cho as Jane's voice finally entered the fray.

'It's all this bloody Daffy Duckworth's fault that any of this happened,' said Jane loudly, thrusting his hand out against the screen. 'Why didn't you find this out earlier Grace?' shot the furious consultant at the shocked seated agent. 'We could have prevented this whole crime if you'd all done your job in the first place.'

Rigsby steps in front of van Pelt in defence as Cho places a hand on Jane's arm in an attempt to calm him down. Lisbon's response was much more to the point. 'Jane get into my office.'

He ignores her.

'Office. Now.' The tone was hard and each short word was dripping in ice in a voice that left no room for discussion. Jane stormed into her office and when she shut the door behind them he spun on his heel, ready for confrontation. She turned from the door and met his furious look with one of her own.

'What is going on?' she seethed. 'You had no right to abuse van Pelt that way. She was just doing her job.'

'She made a mistake...' started Jane angrily.

'She didn't make a mistake,' interrupted Lisbon. 'The police made a mistake two years ago when they let Keller Duckworth get off.'

'It's mistakes like these that mean that Red John gets away every time,' shouted Jane as he turned away from her.

'Red John,' scoffed Lisbon. 'Is that all you can think about?'

There was no response from the man with her back to him as he faced her wall.

'There's more to life than Red John Jane, and this obsession is doing you no good,' Lisbon continued, gathering momentum with each word. 'The revenge. The vengeance. The chase. When is it going to end?'

'It will end when it ends,' said Jane in a hard tone. 'Justice. And nothing is going to stop me.'

'If you're going to act like this, I can't have you here,' said Lisbon in a tone of finality as Jane turned back to her once again.

'What are you going to do Teresa?' said Jane bitterly as he made his way toward her. 'Fire me?'

'Are you trying to push me away?' shouted Lisbon as she looked up at him, their faces now mere centimetres apart. 'Because you're doing a mighty fine job of it.'

Whatever might have happened next was interrupted when Cho knocked on her office door and opened it a crack. Both heads went flying around at the same moment. 'What?!' It must have certainly been something, as the usually unflappable Cho took an involuntary step back. 'Ms Ravensthorpe is here.'

Lisbon nodded her head in understanding as Cho left, shutting the door once again, and she turned to Jane. 'We'll get another chance. Okay?' she promised as he let out a heavy sigh. 'We will catch Red John, but you've got to stop putting walls up. You've got to let us in. You've got to let me in,' said Lisbon softly as she took a step back. 'Go home Jane.'

She turned to her office door and prepared to exit, but was stopped when Jane grabbed her elbow. Perhaps part of her expected an apology of sorts, but as she turned she saw that he seemed to be in a far off place. 'Home?'

'Yes Jane. Home,' she said. Receiving no response she searched his face. 'Jane?'

'I know how she did it,' he said slowly as his eyes focused on her once again. 'I know who killed Glynis Lombard.'

'Who?' asked Lisbon in confusion.

'Her daughter.'

'Hannah?' responded Lisbon incredulously. 'You think that Hannah killed her mother? What?! Jane, you've been after that girl since the first moment you saw her and...'

'Think about it,' interrupted Jane, now on a roll, neither realising that he still held her elbow. 'Who told us about Burrie? Who told us about Ravensthorpe?'

'So?' shrugged Lisbon. 'What possible reason could she have for killing her mother?'

'She thought her mother was having an affair.'

'But she wasn't,' said Lisbon in confusion. 'Her father was.'

'We know that now, don't we? But she obviously thought otherwise,' said Jane as Lisbon remained unconvinced. 'She killed the wrong parent Lisbon.'

She doesn't want to think that this could possibly be true, and when Rigsby gives an almighty yell, she puts thinking on hold for a moment as they both dash from her office and into the bullpen where Rigsby is frantically waving them over to where van Pelt is talking into the phone. 'Boss. Horatio Lombard's on the phone. Apparently Hannah is threatening to kill her father.'

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Next Chapter: The race is on.