A/N: Yay that everyone is liking both the case and the character stuff. This chapter is a bit of a mixture of both. Thank you to everyone who's reviewing; sadly I can't take credit for the basic character plot. It's honestly straight Jane Austen.

This one's going up a bit early since I'll be gone most of the day. Hope you enjoy it.

xxxxx

Chapter 5

xxxxx

Lisbon idly stirred sugar into her morning coffee, waiting for the rest of her team to wake up a bit before they set out.

Van Pelt walked over to her, her own coffee in hand. "Morning," the redhead said with a smile.

"Morning Van Pelt," Lisbon replied. "Ready to check out the victim's houses?" she asked with exaggerated cheerfulness.

Van Pelt laughed softly. Rigsby walked up with a grin. "I know I'm excited," he told his boss. "And I bet someone else is too."

Lisbon looked confused.

"Sheriff Granger," Rigsby clarified. "Lou seemed pretty interested in what Jane had to say last night. Those two were pretty cozy at the bar if you know what I mean, and then they disappeared together, for what, like an hour?" he asked Van Pelt.

Van Pelt was too busy shooting him a glare over the top of her coffee mug to reply. She would have been angrier, but Lisbon didn't look particularly upset. Maybe their boss really didn't care what Jane did.

"All I'm saying is that I bet the sheriff makes sure she's searching the same house as Jane," Rigsby concluded.

Lisbon shrugged, determined not to let it bother her. What did it matter to her if Jane made friends with Lou? Lisbon had no claim on him. Besides, she wanted him to be happy. The young woman seemed nice enough, and she was clearly fascinated with Jane and what he did. Lou'd asked the consultant endless questions at dinner the night before. Lisbon suspected that it was only Sophie's presence that had caused any shift in the conversation at all. Besides, Lou was lively and friendly; she was quite willing to spend her evenings relaxing in a bar with her colleagues. Of course Jane was drawn to her. As long as it didn't interfere with the case Lisbon wouldn't interfere.

A few minutes later the three Agents were joined by Jane and Cho. Not too long after that Sheriff Granger arrived.

"Alright," Lisbon said as she rolled her shoulders. "So we're assuming that Church was our killer's original target and that Golding just showed up at the wrong place at the wrong time, right?" When everyone nodded she continued. "Then it seems to me that today we should focus on going over Church's house and maybe Greenwood's. Church's might show us stuff we're missing, Greenwood's might tell us where to look for her, assuming she's not at her aunt's summer house."

"Sounds good," Van Pelt said. "Rigsby and I can go to Greenwood's if you like," she suggested. "We can see if her house matches up with what her secretary told us about her."

"Alright," Lisbon agreed. She was about to continue when Cho beat her to it.

"I'll go with you," he told them. When Lisbon looked at him he shrugged, "Hey, I've already talked to the aunt. I know a bit about the family. Plus if there are three of us we might get done more quickly, in which case we can always head over to the second victim's house. That'll give you and Jane time to go check out Church's place so hand give him ample time to poke his nose into whatever he wants."

Lisbon narrowed her eyes at her senior agent briefly. He'd been the one to leave he and Jane alone the day before as well. She wondered briefly if her team had some sort of ulterior motive. Then she brushed the thought aside. They were probably just hoping to provoke a reconciliation. If she and Jane could be in the same room together without tearing each other's heads off then her team would probably get to see Jane more often than once a year. "That sounds good," Lisbon agreed finally.

"If you don't mind I'd like to go with you," Lou told her. "That way I can show you what we've already done." Lisbon nodded. "Besides," the sheriff added. "I wouldn't mind seeing Patrick Jane in action again. I find myself intrigued by your work," she told him.

"Well then I hope I don't disappoint you," he replied cheerfully.

"Alright, then what are we waiting for?" Lou asked as she bustled out of the room, Jane and Cho following more slowly.

"Told ya," Rigsby said to the two remaining women.

Lisbon playfully slapped him in the arm with a file before she followed the others out.

xxxxx

Lisbon finished going through their victim's kitchen; she hadn't found anything worth mentioning. Apparently their victim had liked to cook, but she somehow doubted that was relevant. Jane and Lou were upstairs searching the bedroom. Lisbon had offered to check out the downstairs, finding herself tired of hearing Lou extol Jane's virtues while the consultant preened and showed off. Sheriff Granger was many things, but subtle was not one of them.

But then again, on the surface neither was Jane.

Lisbon sighed as she took off her gloves and headed upstairs. She hoped the two of them had better luck. When she reached the top of the landing their voices caught her attention. She knew better, but she couldn't help herself. She paused on the landing outside the door, telling herself she just wanted to hear what they were talking about. She'd interrupt them in a minute but they obviously hadn't heard her come up the stairs yet.

"Church was certainly organized," Lou said as she looked at his bookshelf and noted everything on it was arranged alphabetically, then chronologically by author.

"Everything had its place," Jane agreed, again apparently distracted by the man's closet. "Probably why he liked the law, he enjoyed the order, the rules involved."

"Agent Lisbon seems very fond of the rules," Lou remarked absently to her companion. Lisbon froze. Well, she couldn't interrupt them now. It'd be unbelievably awkward.

"Yes," Jane told Lou with half a laugh. "She can be a bit of a stickler for them sometimes, but she's very good at her job."

"Oh, I'm sure she is," Lou said immediately. "I don't doubt that. You can totally tell the way everyone acts around her. Still..."

"What?" Jane asked, his eyes warm, open, encouraging the confidence.

"Well..." Lou hemmed.

"Yes?" Jane pressed.

"I probably shouldn't be telling you this," she told him guiltily.

Jane shrugged, "What do I care? I'm not law enforcement remember? I'm a freelance consultant, a lone wolf. I'm on no one's team now."

Lou laughed, clearly amused. "Right, I keep forgetting. Well, it's just, since I got this job all the rules are kind of driving me crazy! I don't know how she does it."

"Everyone has different styles," Jane said diplomatically. Lisbon rolled her eyes, remember countless occasions where her ex-consultant had mercilessly teased her (or worse) for her commitment to procedure.

"You seem like you're a bit more lenient," Lou pointed out. "Maybe a bit of a rebel. You take risks."

"Not everyone thinks that's a good thing," Jane reminded her gently.

"Still, you get results," Lou insisted. "You push boundaries and it pays off."

"Most of the time," Jane admitted.

"I love that," she told him. "I mean, protocol is all very well and good, but I don't think I could ever let it get in the way of solving a case. The idea of a killer going free because of protocol just makes me crazy. In this business you've got to trust your people, and you've got to catch the bad guys. And to me, that's all that matters. I can't possibly be worried about dotting every 'i' and crossing every 't.' I absolutely refuse to obsess over every little thing so much that I miss the big picture. Sometimes you just have to trust your gut and go for it you know?"

Jane paused, "I know exactly what you mean," he told her softly. "Sometimes I wish more cops thought like you. Those were strong opinions; you should stick by them."

Lou smiled warmly. "I say what I mean."

"It's a good quality," Jane told her. "Try not to lose it."

"It's how I got this job," she told him with a shrug. "People trust me."

Jane didn't answer.

Outside in the hall Lisbon was frozen. Is that what he thought? Is that honestly what he thought? That she was that rigid about the rules? How could he possibly think that? If it was true she wouldn't have lasted with him as a consultant for a week, let alone the years they'd worked together. And of course she followed procedure most of the time. It was necessary, and it'd saved his bacon more than once. Yes, she'd lied to him about Red John. But she'd lied once, and to protect him. How many times had he lied to her over the years? Twenty? Fifty? A hundred? That ungrateful...

Lisbon checked herself. She'd known he was angry. Now she realized it wasn't just anger, it was resentment. Clearly there wasn't all that much point in trying for reconciliation with Jane. She figured it would be best to just try and get through the case as quickly as possible and then they could part ways again. She was pretty sure it was what Jane wanted.

Lisbon slowly crept back down the stairs. When she came back ten minutes later the bedroom was silent. "Find anything?" she asked with forced cheerfullness.

Jane looked briefly confused by her tone, but she ignored him.

"Well, our victim seems to have been a bit of a packrat," Lou told her. "We've found ticket stubs to movies dating back years along with the programs from what I'm guessing is every single performance at the theatre he's ever gone too."

Lisbon sent her a tight smile, "I meant anything useful," she clarified.

"Not really," Lou told her. "Well, not that I can see, I can't speak for Mr. Jane."

"Jane?" Lisbon asked her tone a bit short.

Jane raised an eyebrow at the tone, but apparently decided to ignore it. "Well, I can tell you a bit more than nothing," he told her. "The man was organized, methodical. Nothing out of place. Except," he told her opening the closet door with a flourish, "In this half of the closet."

"He had a frequent visitor," Lisbon surmised.

"A very frequent visitor," Jane told her. "I'll bet we'd see something similar at Golding's."

"Not a surprise," Lisbon told him. "We knew they were in a committed relationship already, remember? You already guessed and their secretaries confirmed it. So unless you're about to tell me that you thought there was trouble between them, or maybe an affair, I don't really see how their relationship status is relevant at this point."

"Patience Lisbon," he told her, his tone mildly scolding. "Actually, what I can tell you is that it was quite the opposite. Based on the placement of the pictures on the wall, the equal mixing of items belonging to both men in the bathroom, the overall set-up of the house, I'm fairly confident that the relationship was going strong. I'd be very surprised if either of them was having an affair."

"Well good for them," Lisbon muttered.

"At least we can rule out a romantic motive now," Jane told her, his brow furrowed. Lisbon wasn't acting like herself. Something was wrong. He brushed the thought aside. It wasn't any of his business anymore, and she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She'd told him that more times than he could count.

"There's nothing here," Lisbon said with a sigh.

"Told you," the sheriff said pleasantly, removing her own gloves. "We searched the place pretty thoroughly before you got here and we came up with the same thing."

Lisbon really, really wanted to smack her now. Not because the woman was wrong, but just... Oh, why wouldn`t this case just end? She really needed to catch a break.

"Alright," Lisbon said. "I'll call the others, see where they are and if we need to meet them at the other victim's." With that she abruptly turned and went back downstairs.

Jane nodded, ignoring Lou's cheerful chatter as he watched Lisbon walk out the door. She looked almost... defeated, which really wasn't good. He hoped nothing had happened. The two of them may not have been the best of friends anymore, but he certainly didn't wish her any harm.

He frowned again. His concern was unexpected.

xxxxx

Turned out that without Jane and his insistence on going through people's sock drawers, the others had been able to double check the homes of the two other partners in the time it had taken her, Lou and Jane to do one. Lisbon would have been more pleased except that her three agents hadn't found anything either. Because she knew Jane'd ask, Lisbon made Rigsby look in Golding's closet before they left. Storing the contents in her memory just in case, Lisbon told the others to head back to the station and they'd meet them there.

Walking over to the SUV where Lou and Jane were waiting for her, Lisbon brought them up to speed. "Nothing of note at either of the other two residences," she told them. "I know you'd checked already," she said for the sheriff's benefit. "But we had to be sure." She unlocked the door. "Oh," she said, turning back towards Jane. "I made Rigsby look in Golding's closet. Seems the contents were almost identical to Church's. No obvious signs of an affair there either. Guess you were right about the equal partnership."

"Nice job," Lou told him, clearly impressed.

Jane sent Lou a brief smile for the compliment before turning his attention back to Lisbon. He was surprised she'd bothered to check that for him at all. "Thank you Lisbon," he told her sincerely.

"Thank Rigsby not me," she told him with a shrug. "He was the one who did the actual looking."

"Still," he told her.

"It's the job right?" she asked him. "Gotta get it done."

Jane frowned, examining her face closely. He noticed her eyebrows pinching together slightly. Wordlessly the consultant took his ex-boss by the arm and led her around to the passenger seat.

Lisbon was too surprised to jerk her arm out of his grip. "What do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

Jane ignored her indignation and opened the door. "Get in," he told her.

"What?" she asked him, hands on her hips. She so did not have time for this right now.

"Get in," he repeated. "You have a headache. There's Tylenol in the glove compartment."

"Jane I am perfectly capable of driving..." Lisbon started to tell him.

"I know," he interrupted. "But I think Lou's feeling a bit unproductive this morning given that we didn't find anything so we're going to let her drive back. I know you hate my driving, so she's got to be preferable to me in the driver's seat. The break will help. I insist."

Sighing Lisbon decided she just didn't care anymore. She tossed Lou the keys (perfect Lou and her perfect driving skills, if the Sheriff got so much as a scratch on the car...) and got into the passenger seat in a huff. "Fine," Lisbon snapped at Jane.

"Good," he replied a hint of irritation in his own voice as he barely stopped himself from slamming the door after her. Stupid, stubborn woman. Had to make a big production out of the littlest things. She couldn't just accept that maybe she should someone else do the simplest thing sometimes. No not Teresa Lisbon. Heaven forbid she loosened her iron-grip on life and went so far as getting in the passenger side of a car. She'd try the patience of a saint.

Still, Jane couldn't help smiling just a little when he saw her reaching for the painkillers.

She'd feel better once she got her blood sugar back up.

xxxxx

Lisbon walked quietly into the station. The good news was her headache was starting to fade. The bad news was that Jane was confusing the hell out of her. The past twenty-four hours she wasn't sure he'd said more than fifteen words to her that didn't directly pertain to the case. Now suddenly he was noticing that she had a headache and giving her painkillers? What was a girl supposed to think?

That he was still angry was clear. But she guessed he didn't actually want to see her in any sort of physical discomfort. Lisbon blinked. Well... that was almost nice.

He didn't want to work with her on a regular basis, didn't like her particular style of solving cases. He'd basically implied as much to Sheriff Granger earlier after all, but apparently Jane wasn't going to be so petty as to let her sit around in pain if he knew about it. Not that she'd have let him live in agony if she could prevent it either, but still.

Maybe she and Patrick Jane could salvage some sort of professional relationship after all.

She joined the others in the station. "Any news on the warrant yet?" she asked.

"On its way as we speak," Lou told her, pleased to see the senior agent was looking better. Lou wondered how Jane had known she wasn't feeling well. She shrugged it off. It was probably just one of the many wonderful things about people that Patrick Jane just knew.

"Good," Lisbon said with a smile. "Why don't we break for lunch then and meet back here in an hour. We'll leave then."

"Sounds good," Rigsby said eagerly. "Who's up for Mexican?" he asked excitedly.

Van Pelt looked at Lisbon desperately. "I was going to go to a little sandwich place around the corner," Lisbon told her. "It looked cool and quiet. Want to join me?"

"You read my mind," Van Pelt said, smiling in relief.

Before they could leave one of the local officers interrupted them. "Agent Lisbon," he said from the doorway, "I think you're going to want to hear this."

"What is it?" she asked.

"Tina Lopez, our first victim's secretary," the deputy replied. "She came in this morning while you were out and offered to go through some of the files in the office that was broken into more closely. You know, to see if anything was missing. Since she already had an airtight alibi and we'd cleared her for the murders, we figured, why not?"

"Is something wrong? Did something happen?" Lisbon asked quickly. That was the last thing she needed.

"No, nothing like that," the deputy hastened to assure her. "It's just, well, she found something."

He gestured to a woman in the hallway and Mrs. Lopez herself walked into the room. "Agent Lisbon," she said. "As you just heard, I offered to go through some of Mr. Church's files more closely to see if anything had been tampered with?" Lisbon nodded encouragingly, so Mrs. Lopez continued. "And well, like the deputy said I noticed something."

"What was it?" Lisbon prompted.

Mrs. Lopez paused. "You've got to understand, Mr. Church was very organized," she told them.

"We know; we saw his bookshelves," Jane supplied.

Mrs. Lopez nodded, "Oh. Okay then. He didn't have a disorder or anything, but with Joe everything had to be exactly in its place. Everything. Even the papers within a file. There was a certain order he liked to keep them in. I've been working for him long enough that I put things in that order without even thinking. But I noticed something when I was going back through some of the files; all the individual papers were there..."

"But they were out of order," Lisbon guessed.

"Exactly," she told her. "Just some of them, and not always the same ones each time. But someone was in those files, someone other than me or Mr. Church. I wrote down a list of the ones I found that had been opened," she added, handing Lisbon a piece of paper. "It's well, it's most of our more important clients."

Lisbon scanned the list quickly. "It certainly is," she agreed. "Thank you very much Mrs. Lopez, this is extremely helpful."

"Anything to help catch the piece of scum that did this," the woman said. "I worked at the firm for Mr. Church for almost twenty years Agent Lisbon, and Joe and Clem, they were good people. Clara too. I really hope she's okay. I know what people are probably saying, and I know what it looks like, but I'm telling you Agent Lisbon, Clara Greenwood had nothing to do with this."

"Right now we just want to talk to her," Lisbon assured the other woman. "We do need to find out what happened, and if she knows anything about it."

"Well good," Mrs. Lopez said. "I'm going to go back to those files now if you don't mind. I'll let you know if I find any more that have been touched."

"I appreciate that," Lisbon told her. "Thank you again Mrs. Lopez."

Lisbon waited until the woman was out of sight before speaking. "Well that was interesting," she said to the others."

"Looks like information theft may have been the motive," Cho supplied.

"But then why kill either partner?" Rigsby asked.

"Maybe he caught them in the act and then he had to get rid of them," Van Pelt suggested.

"That's possible," Rigsby said. "But if that's the case then why is Clara Greenwood missing? Think she's in on it?"

"Maybe, but stealing from her own firm?" Van Pelt asked.

"Hey you can make a lot of money selling the right kind of information about the right people to the tabloids," Cho told her.

"True," Van Pelt agreed. "What do you think Jane?" she asked.

"I think," Jane told her, "That we should all go for lunch. And then afterwards we should go and see if we can find Clara and ask her."

"Spoilsport," Rigsby told him. "Hey!" he said suddenly. "Are you two going to ditch us and go off on your own again?" he asked, gesturing between Jane and Lou. The two of them shared a look but didn't say anything. "What were you two doing off on your own last night anyway?" Rigsby asked with a grin.

"We went for a walk," Jane replied.

"A walk?" Rigsby asked, clearly not believing him.

"Yes Rigsby, a walk," Jane confirmed. "Lou offered to show me around, so I could get the lay of the land so to speak. I figured it was better than deciding I wanted to go for a midnight snack and ending up lost halfway across town. You should be thanking her. Her little tour might end up preventing me from having to call you in the middle of the night to come and find me."

"And that's all it was?" Rigsby double checked.

"That's all," Jane told him.

"Whatever," Rigsby told him. "Seriously though, who's up for Mexican?"

Lisbon and Van Pelt shared a look before wordless grabbing their purses and leaving the station ignoring the bickering behind them.

xxxxx

About an hour and a half later two SUV's pulled up in front of rambling house on the beach.

Lisbon got out of the first one. "Alright, Rigsby, Cho, you take the backdoor. I'm not anticipating any trouble, but there's always a chance Clara might try to run if she's here. The rest of us'll try the front.

Her two male agents nodded and headed around back. Lisbon and Van Pelt started up the path, the other two behind them. Somewhere along the way Jane was distracted by something in the garden, and the Sheriff was only too willing to ask him what it was. Lisbon ignored them and headed directly for the door.

Lisbon knocked on the door of the house. She was mildly surprised when a man answered. "Hi, my name is Agent Teresa Lisbon with the California Bureau of Investigation. I'm looking for Clara Greenwood, is she here?" she asked him.

"Why? What's she done?" he asked.

"I'm sorry sir; I can't release that information at this time. Is she here?"

"Well..." he trailed off.

"Sir, we have a warrant to search the property for any sign of Ms. Greenwood or any other evidence that pertains to a double homicide we're investigating," she added, holding up the piece of paper.

The man hesitated.

Suddenly a voice from the inside drifted out, "Who is it Harry?"

"Ms. Greenwood?" Lisbon asked, stepping inside. The woman looked suddenly terrified. "There's no need to be alarmed Ms. Greenwood," Lisbon assured her. "I'm Agent Teresa Lisbon. I'm with the California Bureau of Investigation. We've been looking for you. We need to ask you a few questions." When the woman paused Lisbon added, "If you're thinking about running I should warn you I have agents posted at your back door and we have a warrant."

"Okay, I'm sorry." She said. "I know I've been stupid. I should have gone to the police right away, but I was scared."

"Why were you scared?" Lisbon asked, putting her badge away.

The woman looked at her like she was an idiot, "Because Clem and Joe were dead, and I was worried I was next!"

It was at this point in the conversation when Jane finally decided to make an appearance. "Harry!" he said in recognition.

"Patrick?" the unknown man who'd answered the door replied, clearly shocked.

Lisbon pinched the skin between her eyes. Harry. Jane's friend. Well, of course he was. She could almost feel her headache coming back.

xxxxx

TBC

Okay, this one was a bit of cliffy again, but I'm updating once a day so I really don't think you guys can complain.