A/N: Thank you all for reviewing.
Disclaimer: I do not own The Mentalist.
2013
Saturday, May 11
6:30 pm
"Lissa, Lissa, Lissa."
"What, Rosie, Rosie, Rosie?"
Rosie responded by banging out another stumbling rhythm on the long-suffering backs of Lisbon's pans.
"Im playing."
"Yes, you are." After giving Rosie a wan smile, Lisbon returned her tired eyes to the ground beef sizzling in her frying pan.
The little girl had cried for most of the night before finally settling down only hours before dawn. By the time she awoke late that morning, she had miraculously seemed to reconcile herself to her situation and decided to behave. Unfortunately, Lisbon had not had Rosie's luxury of taking a nap that afternoon and so, instead of feeling refreshed, felt as though she could fall asleep right at the hot stove had it not been, well, a hot stove.
"Lissa?"
"Yep?"
"What we eating dinner?"
Lisbon turned to the baseball cap that covered most of Rosie's face. It had belonged to one of her brothers—Tommy, probably—and once Rosie found it on her ventures through Lisbon's closet, she refused to take it off.
"We're having spaghetti, remember?" she said, kneeling down to Rosie's level and readjusting the cap so that, at least, she could see the child's face.
"Psapgeti?"
In spite of herself, Lisbon grinned. "Noodles. We're having noodles."
"Oh. Ok," Rosie conceded breathily before continuing her banging.
The stove timer read eleven more minutes. She wasn't sure she could handle eleven more minutes of Rosie's "playing." Then she remembered Van Pelt's bag of books.
"Hey, Posey? What if we read a book?"
"Abook?"
"Yes," Lisbon replied before scooping Rosie up, removing a wooden spoon from her grip, and placing it on the counter next to a bubbling pan of red sauce. "You can pick one out."
"Ok."
The backpack was just about overflowing with board books and coloring paper and crayons. Rosie dumped the entirety of it on the living room floor and proceeded to search through the rubble. "This one."
"The Jungle? Sounds good to me."
They sat together on the couch as Lisbon read:
"'In a faraway land called Sasafrassand, there was a jungle as big as the sea. This magical place held every race of animal, from mouse to monkey to me.'"
"And me."
"And you," Lisbon agreed, continuing. "'Come and meet them, if you can. Come and meet them in Sasafrassand. There's the deer and the lion, the bear and the bird, the donkey, the rhino, and an elephant herd.
"'Wait, we're not done! Stay for more fun! I spot a leopard, a lemur, a lamb—'"
"Lammy!" Rosie pointed to the tattered pile of felted fleece lying across the room.
"You're right. Just like Lammy." Lisbon flipped the page. "'…A frog, a squirrel, an orangutan.
"'And can you see who's hiding by the tree, just waiting to play with you and with me?...'"
Rosie pointed to the page. "Tiger."
Lisbon nodded. "'Yes. It's a tiger, with stripes on his face, the ruler of this magical place.
"'Now our time is up, we've reached the end. But come again, my little friend.'"
The timer rang.
2013
Tuesday, May 14
1:52 pm
"Agent Van Pelt's desk, Jess Bailey speaking."
"Bailey?"
"Jane? Is that you? What—How is she? Is everything—"
"Bailey, I need you to go to evidence and pull the boxes on Sofia Morrison, Dr. Jeremy Becker and David Townsend. Morrison was 2011. Becker and Townsend were last year."
"Um, ok. Did Agent Lisbon—"
"Of course she did. Are you going to get the boxes or not?"
"Uh…right now?"
"Yes, Bailey. Right now. Call me back when you get them."
The click of his cell phone went off like a gunshot in the darkened basement of the research facility. Jane leaned back against an exposed pipe and felt the current of heat moving under its metal casing. His hands burned. His eyes closed.
2013
Saturday, May 11
6:46 pm
Rigsby glanced at his watch, nodding vacantly at Dr. Romero's retelling of a childhood incident that he supposed would normally function to set patients at ease. It was, however, doing nothing for his need to get back to the car before Grace decided to leave for dinner without him.
"…and so, you know I never did that again. Especially after Mamá made me scrub the entire thing with a toothbrush."
"Hmm. Sorry to hear about that," Rigsby breathed, trying to indicate his desire to leave by glancing sideways at the door in what he hoped was a subtle fashion.
"Oh, I was mad as a hornet. But how else do young boys learn?" Dr. Romero shrugged. "Well, Mr. Rigsby, it was a pleasure to meet you. And you tell your mother-in-law she has nothing to worry about. We'll get these filed and then we'll see her bright and early Monday morning." He waved the insurance forms in a salute as Rigsby said his goodbyes and gratefully headed out the door.
He checked his watch again. It wasn't too bad. They could still make it by seven. Now, if he could only remember how to get out of this maze and back to the elevator. He walked the long hallway searching for a directory, but the only writing on the blank white walls was the bold print of the name plaques posted outside every office.
Pausing next to an open door and debating whether to enter and ask for directions, Rigsby realized he knew the occupant's name from somewhere. Dr. Edgar Flanders, Head of Research: Abnormal/Criminal Psychology read the name plate. Yes, he had definitely heard that name before. It was going to bother him. And he was going to be late otherwise, so why not just go in and ask for directions? Maybe this Dr. Flanders would recognize him. Two birds. One stone.
He was about to knock when he heard voices. Apparently Dr. Flanders was in a meeting. Oh, well. Next door—
"…yes, I know we agreed, Edgar. But we also agreed about going too far, and not to do it."
"Too far? Stiles, if you're going to pull out your humanitarian side, I would like to remind you, my good friend, that it was you who first agreed to let me study the boy."
Rigsby froze. Stiles. Flanders. That Becker case. Of course. Dr. Edgar Flanders was Becker's mentor. During the investigation, he himself had contacted Flanders about Becker's regular calls to the doctor's cell phone. Turned out to be nothing important. Just something about a research project.
Stiles. That couldn't be Brett Stiles? They hadn't heard from him in months. Stiles knew Flanders?
"Yes, well I never imagined you—or he, for that matter—would go to such lengths for your work, my very good friend," Stiles' voice countered.
Rigsby peered through the crack between the door and its frame. The office appeared to be empty. He pushed the door open further. No one was sitting at the polished oak desk, but he could see another doorway in the back corner of the office and, through it, part of a chair and table—a conference room of some sort. Stiles and Flanders must be in there.
"Oh, spare me the sermon, if you please," Flanders snapped. "And you're one to talk, after the measures you took to keep him from me—to protect him. Or were you protecting yourself?"Flanders' hollow laugh reverberated into the empty hallway. "We both know he's smarter than any of us."
"Precisely. Tell me, Edgar, have you thought of what he might do if he were to find out about your little project?"
Silence. After scanning the hallway for observers, Rigsby stepped carefully into the vacant office.
Stiles continued berating his companion. "Or is that part of your plan? To study his reaction to the inevitable discovery that you, my excellent friend, have been dogging his every step since he was five years old?" A chair squeaked as Stiles stood abruptly. "Planning on finding all the golden bits of knowledge in his artful dissection of your dead body? Or mine? Or that little girl's?"
More silence.
"Yes, that's right. I know you were watching her. Too perfect to pass up. A juicy little cutlet of the imagery you both worship—Tyger and the Lamb, as your beloved poet would say."
Flanders' voice was cold. "His poet. Not mine."
"No, but you would think so to look at you—the way both of your lives revolve around his trite symbolism. Now, had Becker been tracking her for long, or did you have her name down in that little black book of yours before she was born?...No, of course not. How could you have known what it would be? And how flawlessly it fit into your little puzzle. Are you waiting for her to die so you can publish? It would undoubtedly make a fitting final chapter—so rife with conclusion and 'fearful symmetry.'"
A pause. Then, "What's it to you, Stiles? What the devil is any of this to you, with your 'greater good' and your endless, useless proselytizing…" A sneer crept into Flanders' voice. "If you must know, before you murdered him, Becker was tracking many things for me. It was the young Ms. Morrison, whose untimely demise you also orchestrated, that first informed our dear Becker of the ties between your Visualize and my study—or didn't you know?"
It was Stiles' turn to remain silent.
"Yes," Flanders persisted gleefully. "It was your intern who led Becker out of his purgatory of sniveling patients and back to me. You killed her for her prying, but what you had hoped to prevent, she had already done. Her death only assured Becker of his mission—and it had become one—to aid me in one of the most important studies of human behavior ever conducted. So, in your insistence on closing the door in my face, you threw it open wide. And I thank you for it."
Stiles sighed loudly enough for Rigsby to hear from his position, rooted to the spot across from Flanders' desk. "Oh, Edgar. Everything is a game to you, isn't it? What a very great pity you cannot win. Just tell me one more thing: how many more of them are you going to let die before you stop him? Or can you stop him? With all of the abundant ways you have explored the inner workings of this man, do you know him at all? Or does he, despite your crazed obsession with his mind, still manage to outwit you?"
"My dear Stiles. I'll have you know that, with the exception of that idiot Renfrew and his call-girl in Mexico, I have foreseen every one of his killings. Every one. Would you care to see my register?"
Footsteps. Rigsby, after a few frozen seconds, ducked into a nearby closet and closed the door only moments before Flanders' voice announced his and Stiles' arrival in the front room of the office.
Rigsby had been hanging on every word that passed between the two men, listening so intently he was sure he could hear the rustling of their garments as they moved. He could venture a guess as to the subject of their conversation, but was almost afraid to let himself complete that train of thought.
Flanders continued, "It resides in what you incorrectly referred to as my 'little black book.' And you profess to know of my so-called obsession with symbolism. If you did, you would have guessed…my book is Red."
Rigsby's heart beat tinnily in his ears and for a second it was all he could do to keep his mind from derailing as he attempted to piece together a course of action.
"How eloquently appropriate," he heard Stiles sneer. "Do please inform me: which one of us will be the next victim of your fixation?"
Then his heart stopped altogether at the mentioning of their names. Every one of their names. Out of order, out of context, embellished by some sort of analysis that didn't matter because all he could hear were the words next victim…little girl…watching her…fearful symmetry…and the echo of their names. The pieces fell together.
When the heartbeat returned it was deafening, a tidal wave inside his head that wiped out every coherent thought save for those attached to the primal actions of breathing and preparing to kill.
He almost didn't hear the metallic creak of a drawer being opened and the rush of air that immediately followed before an invisible hand shoved him violently backward and things fell apart.
2013
Tuesday, May 14
2:05 pm
"Ok, Jane. I've got the boxes."
"Good. Now open Becker's box and read me the contents list."
"Um…ok. Here it is. One stapler, twelve mechanical pencils, one butane lighter, one spiral-bound notebook—"
"Take out the notebook. Keep reading."
"Two framed photos, one coffee mug, fifteen cassette tapes—"
"Take the tapes out. Are they research notes?"
"Hang on…No. It looks like just music."
"Read the titles to me."
"…Johnny Cash, Barry Manilow, John Denver, Sting, Rod Stewart, Morrison—"
"Jim Morrison?"
"No…It just says Morrison. Handwritten. Must be a mix-tape or something."
"Send me a copy of that. Now."
"Um. Ok. I'll have to take it down to tech. It might take a few hours."
"Fine. Is there anything else in there that references Morrison?"
"No. That was the only one."
"What about Edgar Flanders?"
"No. Nothing…Wait. There's an E.M. Flanders listed on the cover of this magazine. Marvels of Modern Psychology. Could that be it?"
"Possibly."
"I could send you the link. It's also published online. You have a computer?"
"No, but I can find one."
2013
Saturday, May 11
6:54 pm
Rigsby was choking. Choking on air. Every breath scorched the inside of his chest, but he couldn't stop, not when the distant buzzing behind his eyes told him there was no oxygen in the room. He needed to move. Now.
Propping himself up on his elbows, he raised his spinning head from the carpeted floor of the closet and felt for the door. The metal burned his hands. Fire. Smoke. It stung his eyes as he stumbled out of the enclosed space and into a world turned upside down. Everything glowed orange. The office was unrecognizable. He felt a strange sense of nauseating vertigo as he ran into wall after wall of blinding smoke. It was oddly silent. But a loud silence that came in flashes.
There was a dark shadow of movement to his right, and a white light blinking over the orange. Fire alarm, he thought. Follow the light. He stepped toward the movement and was swept into a sea of rough garments pulling him to what he hoped was air and space. Someone's hand brushed against his side as the tide carried them both through the panicked stream of people escaping the burning building.
2013
Tuesday, May 14
2:41 pm
Jane deftly slipped the card into the lock. It had been easy enough to convince the teenaged desk clerk that Lisbon's copy had gone missing, and could she please make him another.
A solid click told him that, although the young clerk did not know much about protecting guests' privacy, she was otherwise capable of performing her duties. The door swung open and he was greeted with the gust of Pine Sol that seemed to be the trademark scent of hotel rooms. It had dissipated a little since their arrival last night, but still remained in a high enough concentration to remind them that this place was foreign.
He made his way into the room, eyes darting around in search of his prize. He spotted it nestled between the pillows of an overstuffed chair. Lisbon's computer case.
Tucking it under his arm, he made his way to the door, closed it gently behind him, and strode down the hallway, ignoring the thoughts buzzing in the back of his mind. Though he had taken Lisbon's things before, he no longer had that sort of half-permission that came with actually being on speaking terms with her. But some things had to be done. And if no one else would do them, he certainly would. He had to.
2013
Saturday, May 11
8:15 pm
Lisbon could barely keep her eyes open as she filled the sink with water. Spaghetti may not have been the best idea; Rosie had ended up with more sauce in her lap than in her mouth. But, after a good bath, the little girl was clean once more and happily entertaining herself on Lisbon's kitchen floor with a ring of measuring spoons, a plastic cup, and Lammy, who appeared to be the guest of honor at an imaginary restaurant.
Unlike the child, the dishes were still in need of washing and despite how good bed looked right now, Lisbon knew she would not get around to doing them in the morning. So, she dispensed what was probably a disproportionate amount of soap into the sink and began to scrub.
The phone rang.
Discarding the sponge and retrieving the dirty saucepan from the stove, Lisbon made her way across the kitchen to answer it.
"Lisbon."
"Is this Teresa Lisbon?"
"Yes. Who is this?"
"This is Officer Don Abram of Des Moines PD. I was asked to contact you by an Amos Van Pelt whose daughter and son-in-law were involved in an accident earlier this evening…"
She must have left the stove on. The room was getting hotter. Cloudy. Slow. Like she was trying to breathe inside a pressure cooker. Why were words not making sense? Dead? She tried listening harder, but there was a ringing in her ears that only got louder as she tried to hear over the lump in her throat. She could see through the space between her heartbeats. Nothing made sense anymore. The voice was fading away behind a muggy cloud of water in her ears.
Then, an explosion of sound and heat that jerked her out of her space, floating in nothingness. She blinked down at her shirt. Had someone shot her? She reached her hand to the red spatter across her chest. Not blood. Red sauce. She had dropped the saucepan. She had dropped the saucepan.
Rosie was screaming.
And then there was only action. She was reaching down and lifting Rosie from the floor, holding her to her chest as she continued to scream. She was leaning back against the counter, sliding down, and coming to rest on the cool tile. She was finding her voice and whispering to Rosie again and again that they would be fine. She was listening to the phone asking her if she was there and deciding she wasn't.
She sat back against the cupboard door, arms wrapped tightly around Rosie, the image of the red stain smeared across their chests swimming in her eyes as she struggled to expand her lungs.
2013
Tuesday, May 14
2:53 pm
Marvels of Modern Psychology, while having its beginnings as a reputable scientific publication, made its name within the psychiatric community by publishing what were essentially puff pieces on the community's celebrities. Among these was Dr. Edgar Flanders, whose research in abnormal and criminal psychology afforded him considerable prestige and recognition, including a four-page cover story in the February 2012 edition of Marvels.
"Arguably one of the most influential criminal psychologists of the modern era," Marvels' young journalist gushed, "Dr. Edgar Flanders has been conducting and publishing landmark studies throughout his considerable tenure. Perhaps most notable, however, is a work-in-progress that began in the infancy of his 52-year career, but as yet remains unpublished. A case-study following a budding sociopath through his formative years and into a life as a kind of self-professed criminal artist, this remarkable piece of research, though incomplete, has captured the interest of several national and international organizations, including FBI criminologists. There is speculation among close colleagues that, once published, the study may bring the illustrious Dr. Flanders the one recognition he has yet to win: the ever-coveted Nobel Prize. A former student, Dr. Jeremy Becker of Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento, California—"
Jane stopped reading when a vibration in his pocket reminded him to breathe.
"What?"
"Jane? It's Jack Seymour. Bailey's still down with tech converting that tape you wanted. I just wanted to let you know…I think I found something."
"What?" Jane repeated, though with more urgency.
"Well, it might not mean anything, but I was going through those boxes Bailey brought up and…again, it might be nothing, but…both David Townsend and Jeremy Becker had a copy of this old newspaper article. Something about a kid surviving a fire back in 1964. Nothing really important, but I just thought, it's kind of a strange thing for the both of them to be holding on to. You want me to scan you a copy?"
"Yes. Now, if you can."
"Sure. Oh and hang on one second…Ok. Bailey wants you to know they're done with the conversion and she'll be sending you the audio files…now."
2013
Sunday, May 12
7:08 am
"Des Moines PD is heading up the case. Right now it looks like the explosion was intentional. The bomb was wired to the drawer of filing cabinet. They still don't know why Rigsb—why he was in there."
Lisbon balanced Rosie on her hip as she spun absently through her kitchen, trying to remember where she kept her cups.
The two men sitting at her small round table were silent.
She whirled around. "I'm going." Cho looked up. "I'm going to Des Moines." She said it again, as if daring either of them to stop her. "I don't want Grace waking up without Rosie there." Turning back to the counter, she was glad for the weight of the child in her arms. It kept her from floating away.
Something brushed against her hand. She looked down to see Jane gently removing a carton of orange juice from her grip. Absently, she had filled the cup to overflowing; juice was spilling in rivulets down the glass and pooling onto the counter. They watched together as the puddle grew. In the cool morning sun, everything faded together in washed-out shades of white, like a Polaroid slowly developing, a blurred picture beginning to form behind a curtain of smoke.
A chair creaked as Cho stood to join them.
"We're going with you."
2013
Tuesday, May 14
2:56
According to the Des Moines Charger, Shelby Solomon was five years old when he survived the house fire that killed both of his parents. Jane read through the article, unassumingly titled "Young Boy Survives Deadly Fire," four times before resigning himself to the fact that, although it was almost definitely significant in that both Townsend and Becker had a copy in their possession, he could not see anything noteworthy in the contents. Tragic, yes. But not immediately relevant to his investigation at this point.
He then began the tedious task of downloading and organizing the set of audio files Bailey converted from the Morrison tape. After a moment of confusion, he realized they were broken down into fifteen-minute segments and each attached to a separate e-mail. Jane sighed. Bailey may be filling in for the other agent, but a Van Pelt she was not. He tried not to think about how Van Pelt was not necessarily herself either, and instead focused on the first file, which had begun playing.
"Speak into the microphone, sonny… No… Oh, well I guess that works, too…Alright, I'll be just outside. Remember, you can say anything you like."
Rustling, then a child's voice. "Hello. It is August the fourteenth, 1964. I am making my first tape. I am supposed to tell about all of the things that are bad that I have done this week. But first, I want to tell you about my aunt Ruby. She has brown hair. She has blue eyes, like mama did. She does not like pancakes, but she made me some anyway when I told her to. She used to have a cat but it died."
A sigh blew into the speakers. "They said I was bad this week because I used matches to put fire on the flag outside. They told me not to. I don't care. I wanted to make a picture, so I used the matches. They don't understand. They didn't see it. But I did. And I remember it like the fire in the kitchen. Except I made it, not Daddy. And I was not angry. I made it and it was pretty. It was beautiful. It was like lemons and sugar. It was pretty and scary at the same time."
Jane reached for the article. Brett Stiles knew too much. He had always known too much.
2013
Sunday, May 12
9:15 am
"The flight leaves tomorrow morning at 7:30. Layover in Denver then to Des Moines."
Lisbon nodded.
"Minelli arranged for Bailey and Seymour to fill in." Cho glanced at a Post-it note. "Ron and Julian from cold case will be on call if they get a case. Everything's set."
Thank God for Cho. She knew this had to be hitting him hard, but he was barely showing it. Over the past two hours, he had made at least a half-dozen phone calls to Minelli, the CBI office, the airport, and the Des Moines PD to arrange for their leave of absence.
She managed a small smile for him, which he returned, handing her a glass of water and taking Rosie from her arms.
Jane hadn't moved from his spot on the couch.
"You ok?"she asked, taking her seat next to him on the edge of the cushion.
He turned to look at her. Sometimes, when things were good, she forgot how empty his eyes could get. Sometimes she thought she believed him when he smiled, or played jokes, or hid Van Pelt's car keys. Sometimes it seemed like he had left Red John and everything else behind him. But then a case would come along, and he would stare right through her, as if she were invisible, as if he were looking beyond her at something on the horizon. And then she remembered. He was unreachable.
The glass of water trembled a little, water sloshing against the sides of the cup like a small sea storm contained in the palm of her hand.
She placed the glass in his hands.
She was Lisbon, the fixer. And, as she watched Jane stare into the water as if it held all of the answers in the world, she realized that what she wanted most to fix was the one thing she absolutely couldn't.