Disclaimer: I own nothing, except my own creations.

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Standing in the observation room, her head rested against the glass as she looked into the interview room where Cho and Jane were interviewing Hugh Lombard. Rigsby and van Pelt were in the bullpen with the other two Lombard children and Henk had plastered himself to van Pelt and was refusing to let her go.

She may have been physically there, but as she struggled to focus her eyes on the sight before her, her mind felt like she was a mile away and looking in from outside of her body.

'You knew that your daughter had killed your mother,' pressed Cho. 'Why did you cover it up?'

'She was my daughter,' sobbed Hugh Lombard. 'My wife was gone, and I couldn't let anything happen to my baby girl. She's my daughter!'

'What happened that night?' said Jane. 'You came home and discovered your daughter standing in the kitchen with a bloody knife and your wife on the floor dead. Am I right?'

'I don't want to talk about it.'

'Your daughter is gone Mr Lombard,' said Cho. 'Tell us what happened.'

There was a silent moment before the floodgates opened. 'When I got home that night I knew that something was wrong. The lights were on in the kitchen – and it was far too late for anyone to be up. I walked over there and there she was. Hannah was holding the bloody knife ... and ... and Glyn was just dead. I raced over and tried to do find a pulse, but there was nothing. Hannah was just standing there with this blank look on her face.'

Hugh Lombard's gaze glazed over as he continued. 'I stood up and took the knife off her. She was shaking, but when I touched her she jerked back. She's always hated being touched since then. I asked her what was going on and she said that it had to be done. She hadn't believed Glyn's explanation about why she was home late. She thought she was lying. Which she was,' corrected Hugh. 'But only because she was planning a surprise party for Hannah's birthday this weekend. She wasn't having an affair.'

'But you were,' interjected Jane. 'And you knew that if your daughter found out, then she'd be furious. That's why you helped cover up the crime.'

Hugh nodded miserably. 'I made Hannah go take a shower and go to bed. I made the kitchen look like someone else had come in and then disposed of all our clothes. And then I just went to bed. It felt like such a bad dream, but I knew that I had to protect Hannah.'

'You knew that your wife had been killed,' said Jane incredulously. 'And yet you let your son find her in the morning?!'

'I wasn't thinking straight at the time,' confessed Hugh. 'I was so worried about Hannah. I'm so sorry that Horatio had to find his mother like he did.'

'You didn't think,' scoffed Jane as Cho took over once again. 'I can see that you wanted to protect your daughter. Is that why you kept throwing names at us? You doctored the letter to make Mrs Ravensthorpe a suspect didn't you? After Matt Burrie fell through.'

'Yes.'

'But it all fell apart when Hannah discovered that you were having an affair didn't it?' continued Cho. 'Why is that?'

The man before them leaned forward and clasped his hands as he hung his head. Taking a deep breath, he avoided the eyes of his interviewers as he looked off into the distance. On the other side of the glass, Lisbon felt he was talking right to her. 'Hannah was raped by her best friend's father when she was just thirteen years old. She'd caught him in bed with one of the other ladies who lived on our street. They were having an affair.'

'Why didn't you press charges?' asked Jane exasperatedly.

'We couldn't,' responded Hugh in a defeated tone. 'We just couldn't.'

'So after that you sent her off to boarding school?' said Cho. 'Problem solved?'

'No! She asked to go,' shouted Hugh. 'She was doing real good. But she wasn't the same.' He sniffled and brushed his tears away from his face as he continued. 'She just couldn't be with us anymore.'

'What happened this afternoon?' questioned Cho.

'Hannah found out that I was having an affair. It's your fault,' said Hugh as if he had just come to a realisation. 'It's your fault she's dead. You told her was I was having an affair.' By now he was standing up and shouting furiously as he pointed at the mirrored window that Lisbon was standing behind. 'It's your fault.'

'Sit down sir,' said Cho in a hard tone. 'Now.' The man moved to sit once again as Jane shifted to the left and stood between the observation window and the table. 'I will ask you again. What happened this afternoon?'

'I have a gun in the house for safety purposes, and when I got home from a quick trip to the store, Hannah met me at the door and threatened to kill me. I tried to reason with her, but she wouldn't listen to me. Then the agent called and she looked like she might be wavering,' said Hugh in a shaky voice. 'I told her I was sorry. And then I just told her to go. I told her to run...'

'And then she killed herself,' stated Cho.

'No,' shouted Hugh. 'She didn't plan to kill herself. She just wanted to get away from this all. I told her to take the Mini and go. She wasn't supposed to die. She wasn't supposed to die.'

Hugh Lombard grieves for a minute in silence as Cho tosses between adjourning the interview to a later time and pressing on, but the decision is made when Jane steps forward and places his arms on the table and looks the distraught father in the eye. 'There's really only one question left here,' said Jane. 'Why did Hannah suspect that her mother was having an affair?'

'I don't know,' said Hugh sitting back in his chair.

'Perhaps not,' said Jane in a careless manner. 'Though I have my suspicions. Your youngest son and Hannah have a close relationship – closer than any other bond in your family. My guess is that when Hannah went away to boarding school, they became pen pals. And it was in those letters – those same letters that you got your son to doctor – that Henk told his older sister that their mother was having an affair. What I haven't quite figured out is why he would do such a thing. Do you know?'

'I don't know why he would say that,' said Hugh, his eyes dropping to the table.

'Yes you do,' pushed Jane as he dropped down to meet Hugh's gaze. 'Henk wanted Hannah to come home didn't he?'

The man sighed. 'I don't know. Henk had always missed Hannah when she went away to boarding school. Maybe he just wanted her to come back.'

Lisbon slipped from the observation room then. She didn't need to hear or see anymore. She went through the motions of organising Children's Services for Horatio and Henk and couldn't bring herself to care as Henk screamed and threw a tantrum as he protested being taken away from van Pelt. She spared a thought for the other son though.

Hugh Lombard was taken down for arraignment and as night fell, she sat at her desk, the lines on the paperwork before her blurring as she propped up her head in her hands.

When there was a tentative knock on her door, it took all of her strength just to raise her head slightly and turn it to the left. There in the doorway stood her team. Van Pelt opened her mouth to say something, but she dismisses them. 'Go home.'

Defeat was present in every pore of her body when Jane stepped into the empty doorway minutes later and raised his hand to knock. She beat him to it.

'Don't.'

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Next Chapter: 'I don't want to talk.'