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2. Bitemarks and Bloodstains
Van Pelt pushed her way through the doors to the office, her stomach still roiled from the scene she'd accidentally witnessed out front. They didn't even have caution tape up yet -- the mess was enough to keep anyone with an ounce of common sense well away. The glass panels lay in a shattered heap, a chaotic mass that had little definition save a single area at its center completely bare of shards, which was, coincidentally, man-shaped. As if to make up for the absence of debris, this eye in the storm was stained with a large puddle of blood, which had somehow managed to flow and solidify in a perfect fromation around a hastily drawn grinning smiley face. At the sight of this, she had decided to head around to the back entrance.
Upon entering the office, her mood was lightened only by the fact that she didn't have to figure out her reaction just yet, as everyone seemed completely absorbed in the office speakerphone around which they were huddled. Her feelings about Jane had been indecipherable before, a strange mix of admiration for his skills, disdain for his lack of faith, and pity for his past; his brush with death had now complicated matters further.
"So what are the doctors saying?" Rigsby asked the speaker, nodding to her discreetly as she slipped in.
"He'll be in surgery for another hour," came Lisbon's voice, stressed and raspy from overuse. "One shot went wild and hit him in the shoulder – that was the lucky one. The other one was worse; the bullet came within a few millimeters of collapsing his lung."
"How long until the drugs wear off and we can talk to him?" Cho jumped in.
"There are no drugs," she replied.
"I thought you said he was in surgery," said Cho.
"He is. They couldn't give him anesthesia."
There was a sharp intake of breath, and Van Pelt covered her mouth. "Why?"
"Some sort of bad reaction – I don't know," she replied, but it was hasty defensive, and she quickly changed the subject. "What I do know is that we have an attempted murder case to work on. Rigsby, you talk to forensics; until I can talk to Jane, we're going to have to operate on guesswork. Cho, I want you going over security footage and traffic cams for a possible ID – start at 11:30 and go from there. Is Van Pelt there?"
"Here, m'am."
"Head over here. I need you to take some casings to ballistics."
She furrowed her brow. "You said there weren't any at the scene."
"I know. An orderly found three in Jane's pocket when he was logging his belongings."
"In his pocket?" said Rigsby incredulously. "What, he was planning on being on the clock right till the end?"
Van Pelt shot him a look that could only be described as scathing. The humor didn't comfort her.
"That's all," concluded a weary Lisbon. "I'll call you if I get any news."
The device started to beep softly after, with a muted click, she hung up.
-----
A light flared in the dark.
"Mr. Jane? Mr. Jane."
The light fell in the manner of a dramatic spotlight on a gorgeous grand piano, the harsh glare glinting off mahogany polished like prize silver.
"Mr. Jane, if you can hear me, I need you to wiggle your fingers."
He walked up to it, running his hands over its gleaming surface Briefly, he put a knee up on the bench and fiddled with the keys, tapping out a lees-than-impressive rendition of "Hot Cross Buns".
"Confirm – positive response to directions. Mr. Jane, my name is Doctor Muehler. Do you remember what happened to you?"
Softly, he tapped his foot in rhythm, and suddenly, another beat joined his. From the instrument suddenly issued the wandering melody of Für Elise.
"Dun-a dun-a dun-a dun-a dun, da dun-a dun, da dun-a dun…" he hummed with a grin.
"Amend that – subject is not coherent. What's he humming?"
"Beethoven, I think."
"Anyone have a copy?"
Turning, his eyes went wide as they fell on a figure he hadn't seen in years. Smiling to proudly reveal several missing teeth, she laughed at his expression.
"I learned it just for you, Daddy," she said, still playing. "Do you like it?"
"It's beautiful, sweetheart," he mumbled, fighting back tears. The pain of it seemed a tangible thing, something seated deep in his gut that wouldn't leave without a fight.
With a flourish, she finished the song and sat back with a pleased shrug. "I love you, Daddy. Mommy and I miss you a lot. When are you coming home?"
"Not just yet, honey," he forced himself to say; by now his teeth were gritted – the pain had built to that level. "Where is your mommy? Do you know?"
She sighed. "She says she wants you to find them."
"Who? Who do I have to find?"
"The other girls. The first girl told me – you caught the man that killed her, remember? – she told me that there were others. You have to find them, Daddy."
"I'll find them… I promise…" Breath wasn't coming easily to him now. As if from far away, he heard the song start again.
"I know you will," she said with another toothless grin. Scootching over on the bench, she put her arms around him, and he hugged her back so intensely she squealed with glee. Still locked in his arms, she turned her head to whisper in his ear.
"Red John says he'll help."
Suddenly, her loving arms went cold, and he sat up suddenly, letting out a yell of panic as the scene evanesced into a white hospital room. Details came quickly as they always did for him – a light, warm sheets, masked faces and bad breath, one of those clocks he hated that didn't tick, the unpleasant and yet comforting smell of a sterile environment, green tiles that had gone out in the seventies, a freshly applied saline drip, and a very familiar face caught in a rare moment of powerful expression – Lisbon.
"Jane?" said Lisbon.
"Lip gloss and a miniskirt," said Jane.
-----
"Hold up a minute," said Lisbon. "What?"
"I said, where would a girl from a neighborhood like that – like the one we found her in – get a tailored Prada skirt and designer lip gloss?"
After a half an hour of talking, Jane still wasn't making much sense. She had a hard time following his theories when he was up to his usual smooth-talking, always-grinning standards. After losing one-quarter of the blood in his body and undergoing major surgery, she could have gleaned more information from a doorknob, or, possibly, the doctors, and that was seriously saying something. The two agents posted outside the door were surely hard-pressed not to break their stoic poses and laugh out loud at the attempted conversation going on in room 113.
"Jane, I don't know what you're talking about. Can we talk about what happened last night?"
His eyebrows went up, and a grin crept across his face. "That's quite forward of you." He tutted in a comedy of a motherly fashion. "Tell me, Lisbon, do you deserve Christmas presents, or have you been naughty?"
"I'll forget you said that," she replied tersely, "but just because you're so out of it."
"Out of it? Au contraire, my dear Lisbon, I want in on this case."
"And someone wants your head. I vote we keep you out of this for now."
"Okay, Jane," said Lisbon, flipping shut her notepad and crossing her legs with a sigh as she glared at the pale, drawn, and irritatingly cheerful figure in the hospital bed. "You're in my position. You have one injured agent. You have to solve this case. What do you do?"
"Live bait," he proclaimed.
"Excuse me?"
"Whay bother running around, poking and prodding and asking questions, when, in a few hours, I could have the killer come to me? Set the one he wants up as bait, and—"
"—and this is exactly why I'm in the driver's seat and not you," she interrupted. "I think we'll try finding him the traditional way first – by looking."
"I know things you don't," he taunted her, abandoning this other front.
"Which you're not going to tell me anyway. Jane, you almost died. I think you should sleep on it, don't you?"
"I don't sleep, remember?"
"Not according to the blood tests they ran on you," she said, pulling her Trump. "With all the pills you've been taking, you must be sleeping like a baby these days."
Jane lay quiet, searching her eyes with his, the cheer suddenly gone from him.
"For God's sake, Jane, quit the charades for just a minute and tell me the truth. What's been getting to you?"
For a minute, he seemed on the verge of giving a serious answer, but this was an urge he, as usual, resisted. "Two psychopathic killers, or so it would seem."
"Two?"
"Of course, the shooter… and Red John."