A/N: Hello. Sorry for the wait on this one. Real life has a way of getting busy exactly when you don't need it to. As always, thanks for your reviews.
Disclaimer: I do not own The Mentalist.
2013
Tuesday, May 14
3:15 pm
Jane had never been much of a runner. He usually left the suspect-chasing to Cho or Rigsby. They were the ones with the handcuffs, anyway. But he did imagine things. And he imagined that a runner would feel much the same way after a race as he did after solving a puzzle. Breathless, fatigued, and somewhat high on adrenaline.
He reached for his phone, let his finger hover over the 'one' button, and then froze. As much as habit would direct him to push it, common sense and the memory of Lisbon's eyes moved his finger instead to the 'recent calls' list, where he settled on the much safer and, at the moment, better equipped 'Seymour.'
Two rings.
"Jane?"
"I want everything you can get on Shelby Solomon."
"The kid from the fire?"
"Yes. The newspaper article says he moved out west after the fire to live with an aunt. Check for a sister of his mother's named Ruby. Then look in the Visualize records for the same woman. She should have been a resident chef there sometime during the sixties."
"Visualize? Jane—"
"Then I want you to look into Dr. Edgar Flanders and see if he ever had contact with Visualize, Ruby, or this boy. Becker's psychology journal says Flanders was working on a research project involving the development of a young sociopath. I want you to call the journalist who wrote the Flanders article and get me whatever you can. His name is Timothy Alstead—A-l-s-t-e-a-d. He works for the journal Marvels of Modern Psychology based in Sierra Vista. Drive there if you have to. There has to be a connection. They're all dead because they had this information. There has to be a connection."
"Jane—"
"No. Sofia found the tape. A tape with a very disturbing young child proclaiming his love for setting things on fire. She's killed by David Townsend. But before she dies, she calls Becker, the friendly neighborhood psychiatrist spilling his midlife crisis to Sofia, the waitress who serves him his coffee every morning. He needs a project. She supplies the specimen. Bam! She's dead. Becker, the nosy old codger, sees the opportunity as too good to pass up. Pretty soon, he has the tape and a newspaper article on a suspiciously familiar kitchen fire. Then he turns up dead, killed by the very same person as Sofia Morrison for possessing the very same information. And then his killer is killed for taking a copy of the article. There has to be a connection. Shelby Solomon is the connection."
"Jane. I'm not telling you there isn't a connection. But Visualize…those people don't keep records of their members. At least none that anyone can actually access. And if this is for Rigsby, as much as I want to, I can't get a warrant. That's Des Moines' case, not ours."
"The Red John case is ours."
Jane had expected silence, and it came. For almost twenty seconds, he listened to his own breath echoing back at him through the phone. He wondered at how he could be breathing in two places at once: in in Iowa, out in California. In in California, out in Iowa.
"The Red John case?" Seymour's voice lost half its volume. "You mean—"
"I don't mean. I think. And I can't know until you get me the information."
"Jane, I don't have access to—"
"Seymour, I would normally have time to listen to your legal dribble, but I am sorry to say I don't particularly care right now. The difference between you and me is that you can have access if you tried, whereas I can't. And, as this is somewhat urgent, I would appreciate your cooperation. Call me back when you get it."
Jane found it difficult to drink tea from a shaking cup. So, for the first time in a long time, he got up, walked to the sink, and watched as the dark liquid stained the white porcelain and slipped quietly down the drain.
2013
Sunday, May 12
9:15 am
The park bench was shaded by an ancient oak tree. Its long leaves cast shadows that rippled around him like sunlight under water.
Had it not been for the fact that his charred lungs were able to take in air, he would have believed he was underwater. Everything sounded so far away, muffled by some invisible screen he didn't remember placing around himself. He didn't remember much of anything at all.
There was a rusting bandage around his wrist, placed there in such a hasty manner that the crooked strip of white tape was beginning to peel away. A man with a radio. That was the flash of memory attached to the bandage. A man with a radio and flashing red lights and people pressing in around him. Chaos. The smell of smoke.
Something pressed into his side as he leaned back against the bench's wrought iron armrest. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a rectangular piece of leather. A wallet. Gingerly, he flipped through its leaves. Money, a driver's license, credit cards, and a photo. A photo of a little girl, eyes wide, looking at the camera from behind a single lit candle. A birthday cake.
And then he remembered one more thing: a desperate need to get home.
2013
Tuesday, May 14
6:09 pm
Rosie's hair was a mess. She had refused to let Lisbon anywhere near it that morning and the result was a rather straggly ponytail that very much resembled a palm tree in a hurricane.
"Your mommy's coming home tonight," Lisbon whispered to the little girl on her hip, wrinkling her nose as a few wisps from the palm tree tickled her cheek. "Do you know that?"
"Momma?" Rosie questioned.
"Yep. Poppy's bringing her home from the hospital. And we're cooking her a big dinner." Lisbon turned around to let Rosie observe the chaos spread across her grandparents' kitchen.
The little girl stretched out her hand for a spoon resting against the side of a bubbling pot. Lisbon stepped closer, bringing it within her reach. Rosie grasped the spoon and clumsily began to stir.
"You helping Miss Lisbon with dinner?" A frail voice came from behind them.
"Nana!" Rosie screeched in Lisbon's ear.
The older woman was thin, almost skeletal, and her skin had a strange look to it, like parchment pulled too tightly. A gangly string of wooden beads hanging heavily against her chest, a gift from Rosie, seemed the only thing anchoring her to the ground. But her smile was bright and open and her eyes, though somewhat glassy, shone in a way so breathtakingly similar to Grace's that Lisbon had been taken quite aback the first time they met.
"Hey there, kiddo." Joanna Van Pelt held out her arms for the child. Lisbon was hesitant to hand Rosie to her grandmother for fear that they would both topple to the ground. But Joanna was deceptively strong, and took Rosie with what seemed like the smallest effort, settling her against her chest and beginning a conversation about nothing.
Lisbon reveled in the simple elegance of this fragile person whose once refined clothing hung around her like cheap apartment drapes. If she had ever wondered where Grace had gotten it, the answer stood in front of her in thick woolen socks, in a kitchen glowing with warmth, looking like someone had lit a lantern inside her chest as she laughed with her granddaughter.
A sudden tightness caught Lisbon's breath as she saw the lovely picture in front of her being ripped apart and scattered in the breeze. Good things just had a way of unraveling. And nothing she did could hold them together. She had tried before, when she was younger. When all the innocence in her brothers' eyes slowly drained away, in spite of her desperate patchwork of homemade dinners and homework checking and strained family photos taken in between school and the night shift. It still drained away, slipped through her aching fingers like seawater cupped in the palm of her hand, leaving only bits of sand stuck in a salty film, remnants of the life that used to be there.
It was happening again, and she felt lost. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Not again.
Jane sat across the hallway, dead to the world and strung out on theories like some illicit substance she should confiscate, except it was very probably the only thing keeping him from drowning.
2013
Sunday, May 12
10:36 am
The leather seat smelled strongly of cigarette smoke and grease. Still, Rigsby leaned his head back against the headrest, too exhausted to care that he was adding the scent of fast food to the already putrid mixture of smoke and sweat permeating his clothing. The smell of stale hamburger reminded him of his empty stomach, and he tried to remember the last time he ate. Yesterday, probably.
By some miracle, he had managed to hail a taxi and direct it to the nearest airport. It was odd. He knew from the feeling in his throat that his voice, though hoarse, was working. But he couldn't hear it coming out of his mouth. The haggard taxi driver had gawked a bit as Rigsby shouted his destination at him, but he wasn't sure if it was because of the volume of his voice or the ragged appearance of his clothing. Nevertheless, they were now heading down an unfamiliar road, the cab's old engine vibrating jarringly beneath them as the driver sped through Des Moines toward the airport.
Now if he could only remember why he needed to get there.
2013
Tuesday, May 14
7:12 pm
Grace was fading. Her red-rimmed eyes drifted sluggishly, when they moved at all. Her pale skin dipped into the hollows of her cheeks, and when her folded hands parted to run themselves over her temples, Lisbon could see the sticky residue of the medical tape that had held the IV in place on the back of her hand.
But she smiled thinly at them all as they sat around her at the dinner table, making light conversation and responding absently to Rosie's chatters. Her parents tossed worried glances at the back of her head, meeting Lisbon's eyes once or twice, but then returned to their casual discussion of the new restaurant in town and the plays made by a promising new quarterback at the college where Amos Van Pelt had coached.
They were hovering in limbo, everyone keeping up appearances for the other and each longing for the retreat that could only come after an acceptable amount of time was spent having dinner together.
Except for Jane. Lisbon knew he had never cared much for keeping up appearances, preferring to state things as frankly and bluntly as possible, even in politically or socially tense situations. Especially then. And sometimes, when her job wasn't in danger, Lisbon secretly enjoyed seeing those pretentious socialites taken down a peg. But, dammit, this was for Grace, not some adulterous senator. And he could listen to that goddamn tape some goddamn other time.
She felt the stress and grief and anger and every other emotion of the last few days well up inside her, like the lockbox in which she had hidden them away suddenly broke open, spilling toxins into her system. A cold heat sparked in her chest, and, as she watched Jane tighten his grip on Cho's mp3 player, the faraway light of obsession clouding his eyes, she nearly choked on it.
"Jane."
He didn't respond.
She jerked up from her chair, startling everyone out of the quiet exchange of words they had fallen into.
"Excuse us," she said, struggling to keep her voice within its normal register as she crossed the table, yanked the earphones from Jane's ears and strode to the screen door leading to the porch. He followed her out, the bang of the door against its frame thrusting them into the next moment.
The air was thick and heavy, buzzing with the sounds of summer insects. It was almost claustrophobic, closing in around them as they stood facing each other across the weather-beaten porch.
He looked calm, expectant, a glint of annoyance in his eyes. It was barely there, well contained behind that mask of superior intellect and eerie composure. She wanted to hit him, to shove him into the whitewashed wall and tell him he was an idiot. A cold, selfish idiot.
"Why do you do this?" she said, letting the accusation in her voice bite through the space between them.
"Why do I do what, exactly?" His voice was calm, collected. She wanted to scream.
"Close yourself off, pull away. From us—everybody." Her voice rose. "Like you're the only one who's feeling this. Like it didn't happen to all of us."
He remained silent, staring holes through her like she wasn't there. And maybe she wasn't.
She whirled around, steadying herself against a railing. "And not just this, Jane. Not just now. You do this with Red John. Whenever he comes back, it's like none of it matters anymore. Like we never—like it never meant anything. That they risk their jobs and their lives trying to help you catch him. Why doesn't that matter to you?"
Something darker was swirling behind the façade, but he his eyes met hers with that same wall of maddening composure.
"Dammit, Jane," she stamped her foot against the worn wooden floorboards, sending a vibration through the porch. "You're not invincible. You can't do this by yourself, no matter how much you think you want to. Or have to, or whatever the hell goes on in your mind." Lisbon took a step toward him, the bell of a wind chime inches from her nose. She looked at him through the metal bars. "You're not invincible. We want to catch him as badly as you do. Why—"
"Don't ever make the mistake of thinking that."
His voice startled her, both in its presence and in the fierce tone it took. He was searching her face, the composure still there, but lessened somehow in the obvious effort it took him to keep it.
She stared back questioningly, the heat of her anger fading a little as the day cooled to evening around them. "What?"
"Don't make that mistake," Jane repeated, his eyes leaving hers and flitting around the porch. "You don't—you can't want him like I do." He sighed deeply, a shuddering sound, as he ran a hand over his face. The wall holding him together was crumbling. "Do you think I want this for you—for any of you? Do you think I want you to risk your lives to help me?" Jane turned away, his hand coming to rest on the head of a terracotta tiger. It looked for all the world like he was simply observing the way the trees swayed in the summer breeze, but Lisbon could see the lines deepen on his face. He was rebuilding the wall.
She shook her head, trying to process the absurdity of the words coming out of Jane's mouth. "Jane, we're officers of the law. It's our job to catch people who break it. And yes, sometimes we risk our lives to do that. It's what we were trained to do."
His eyes traced the lengthening shadows of the birch trees, his voice deliberately steady. "Yes, Lisbon, well I'm not trained to watch you throw your lives away. I don't need more blood on my hands."
The anger began to burn again, this time behind her eyes. "Jane, if you still think it's your—"
Jane turned again to face her, his gaze resting heavily on hers. "Don't be naïve, Lisbon. Of course it's my fault." His voice softened dangerously. "I let them die. I could have changed, but I didn't. I was too late."
Lisbon only watched as he crossed the porch and reached in his vest pocket for the mp3 player. You could change now—you have changed.
His voice floated back to her, mixed with the chirping of crickets and the rustling of long summer grass.
"You can't want him as badly as I do… you don't deserve to."