A/N: Thank you all for reviewing. I hope I didn't miss anyone.
2013
Tuesday, May 14
7:23 pm
She leaned back against the porch swing, watching the chains strain as she pushed off a little with her foot. The wood creaked under her. A firefly blinked near a flowerpot balanced on the whitewashed railing.
Jane stood in the far corner of the porch, barely a grey silhouette against a hazy pastel sky. The sun was setting.
They hadn't spoken in several minutes, Jane absorbed once more in the recording he was playing and Lisbon a little too lost to leave him just yet.
There was something he wasn't telling her. He was desperately searching for answers anywhere he could get them. But answers to what? She wasn't sure she wanted to know, to get caught up in the tide of obsession that was carrying him away. Rigsby was gone. And somehow, Jane was trying to bring him back.
Once, in the basement of an old shack, he had all but admitted he would kill himself for a chance at Red John. She had protested, and he had responded by telling her that some things—that he could not be fixed. That it was the way of the world.
She was so goddamn tired of the way of the world.
But she believed him, now. She looked across at him, standing there like everything was coming down around him, and believed that there was nothing in this world she could do to save him.
The firefly blinked again near her shoe.
Footsteps echoed from inside.
Cho threw the door open. "It wasn't him!"
Lisbon jumped up from the swing. "What?" She saw Jane turn around to look at them.
Cho, out of breath, was caught between disbelief, bewilderment, and stark relief. "The DNA results came back. It wasn't him!"
Lisbon felt the world lurch back into place.
2013
Sunday, May 12
10:59 am
The woman at the counter was staring. He couldn't remember why that bothered him. He simply shoved a fistful of cash at her and said "Sacramento." The word rumbled in his throat, but it didn't look like the woman had heard him. He said it louder. She jumped, spilling a cup of ball-point pens across the scarred plastic counter.
A minute later, he had the ticket in his hand.
2013
Tuesday, May 14
8:05 pm
Detective Gorman was pacing in front of his desk, holding a file folder and occasionally glancing up at a white board cluttered with photos, notes, and screenshots.
"Hey, Chambers, get me that—" Gorman stopped mid-sentence when he saw them all standing in the doorway. "Agent Lisbon, come in."
She stepped inside, Cho, Grace, and Jane flanking her. "What happened?" was all she asked, though she wanted to drag them all into a closet and tear them apart.
"The DNA came back. It wasn't a match. We ran it three times." Gorman sighed, looking down at the file once more and then letting his gaze travel over them all. They had come directly from dinner. Grace still had a paper napkin balled up inside her fist and, despite her obvious fatigue, had insisted on coming. The stress in her face was evident, as was her determination to remain standing. Lisbon was sure the rest of them looked nearly as bad. "I'm very sorry to have put you all through this."
They remained silent.
Gorman turned to the white board. "There was another entrance into Flanders' office from the next hallway over. It led into the conference room. But we didn't think to look at the tapes from that hallway because it looked like the two bodies found in Flanders' office were already accounted for. Two in, two out.
"But when the DNA results came back, we started rethinking our timeline."
Cho coughed.
Gorman continued after a backwards glance. "It seems that another person entered the office through the conference room door at around six o'clock that evening. It is possible that he was the other body, and that Mr. Rigsby, if he was able to walk, could have left the scene during the time when the cameras were obscured."
"But where is he now?" Grace stepped forward, her voice barely audible. "Why didn't he come back?"
"I don't know." Gorman shook his head. "We have BOLOs out at all the hospitals and airports. Our ME says he would have been disoriented, at the very least. He was probably pretty banged up. You never know, he might have been taken to a hospital and been unable to tell them his name. We're doing everything we can, ma'am."
Lisbon bit back a comment at those words. She had used them many times herself, but to be on the receiving end at a time when "everything we can" had obviously not been enough was maddening. Grace had clearly felt it too, but made no move to challenge the detective. In fact, she looked as if she were about to collapse onto the floor. Lisbon quickly grabbed her elbow and steered her into a nearby chair.
"Grace." The younger woman didn't respond, and Lisbon reached a hand to grasp her wrist. "Grace." This time, Grace turned to face her, meeting her concerned eyes but seeming unable to focus her gaze. Lisbon felt her chest tighten. "Grace, do you want some water?"
Grace seemed to be processing her words, but didn't immediately reply. Finally, she nodded.
Spotting a water cooler in the corner of the room, Lisbon made her way over to it and was able to catch snippets of Gorman's continued analysis of the case. How the DNA sample taken from the second body had not come up with any matches in the database. How they were beginning to cross-reference names of employees and visitors on the seventh floor with a list of survivors to see if anyone was missing—if anyone could be that body in the office. How no John Does had showed up in nearby hospitals, but they were still looking. How the BOLOs sent to airports and train stations were just covering all bases. How they were sure Rigsby would turn up somewhere in Des Moines very soon. She vaguely registered Cho muscling his way into a group being sent out to canvass.
Lisbon returned to her seat, handed Grace a paper cup filled with cool water, and watched as she brought it to her lips. The jagged cut across the young agent's forehead had begun bleeding a little into the white bandage taped across it, a small red stain seeping slowly into the cotton. Her face, if at all possible, had grown paler in the last hour.
"I don't think I can do this."
Lisbon turned at Grace's words. The younger woman's eyes were searching the office frantically, as if looking for somewhere to hide from her admission.
"Yes you can," she replied fiercely.
Grace met her eyes. "What if he really is dead? What if all of this is just some—just prolonging it? I'm not brave enough to do this. If it happens again…I can't. I just can't."
Shaking her head, Lisbon took Grace's hand and gripped it tightly. "Yes you can. You will not give up. You're too strong for that. Do you understand me?" She could feel Grace beginning to slip away too. And she was not about to let that happen. Not now, when, by some miracle, there was still something left of them to fix. She placed her other hand around Grace's, encircling the thin fingers with her palms, and willed Grace to stay with her, to stay together. "Do you understand me?" she repeated sternly.
Grace sighed, and then nodded, a tear slipping down her cheek.
"Good."
2013
Sunday, May 12
9:03 pm
He held the photograph in his fingers, tracing the fold that ran like a fault line across the baby's face. There was something tenuous surrounding it, but something real and immediate. It felt as if the picture was tethering him to his seat, and his mind to the moment. He could almost feel a physical manifestation of the tether every time his eyes tried to close, every time his mind tried to drift. He was glad for it, because otherwise, he wasn't sure he would be able to breathe. It was like being stuck in a dream, unable to wake up. If he stared at the picture for long enough, maybe it would bring him back to wherever he was supposed to be, to whatever he was supposed to do.
Something brushed his shoulder. He turned, struggling to focus on the brown eyes staring back at him from the face of a young man.
The young man's mouth moved and he gestured at Rigsby's shoulder.
He looked down to find a rusted stain on the edge of his collar.
The young man stared at him concernedly, but relaxed a bit when Rigsby shrugged and growled out the word "shaving."He seemed to accept it as a reasonable explanation.
Thin fingers reached for the picture. Rigsby tightened his hold, looking accusingly at his companion. The fingers withdrew, but the young man's mouth formed words. Something apologetic. "Just asking," or so Rigsby thought.
Rigsby stared.
The young man repeated. "Is that your daughter?"
The tether tightened.
2013
Tuesday, May 14
8:27 pm
"Lisbon."
She looked up to see Jane standing over her. He seemed to be contemplating whether to talk to her or take off in the opposite direction. She waited until he made up his mind.
"I need to tell you something."
Nodding, she released Grace's hand gently, not wanting to wake her, and followed Jane out the door and down a dim hallway.
He walked briskly, and Lisbon almost had to jog to keep up. Then, just as suddenly, he stopped and spun to face her.
"Do you remember the Morrison case? The intern at Visualize was killed?"
Lisbon nodded, bewildered.
"Then, a year later, the Becker case."
Knitting her eyebrows, Lisbon nodded again. "Yes. They were both killed by David Townsend. But Jane—"
"And then David Townsend was killed."
"Ye-es." Lisbon stretched out the word, still unsure of what Jane was getting at.
"They were connected, Lisbon. All of them."
"Well, yes. They were. Visualize hired Townsend to kill Morrison and Becker and then they killed Townsend before he could incriminate himself…" She left the sentence open, waiting for him to fill it in with something relevant.
Jane paced in front of her, agitated at her lack of understanding. "Yes, but why? Why would they kill their cleaner when they could just get him off like they did before? And why would they kill Morrison and Becker? Two people, a year apart. Did we ever even answer that question?"
Lisbon sighed. "We assumed they had done something to anger Visualize, obviously. Shared some proprietary information. That's what that phone call from the restaurant was, right? But Jane, what does this—"
He stopped pacing to face her. "Everything, Lisbon. It has everything to do with everything. They killed Townsend not because they were afraid he would incriminate them, or himself. No, they killed him because he knew the same thing Morrison and Becker did. The same thing that got them killed. Lisbon, they knew—they knew the identity of Red John."
She blinked.
Jane's hands began to shake. He ran one over his face. "Lisbon, they knew who he was." Turning away, he sighed and whirled on her again, his eyes swirling with a dark intensity that caused her breath to hitch. "The vent videos. Remember them? Well, they had the same thing back in 1964, recorded on cassette tapes. 1964, the same year a little boy named Shelby Solomon survived a kitchen fire and came to live with his aunt at Visualize. The same year a young Dr. Edgar Flanders, a school friend of Brett Stiles, began his case study on an unnamed child sociopath."
Lisbon opened her mouth, but Jane was too caught up in the momentum of his theory to notice or care. She shut it again, not knowing what she would have said, even if she had the space to speak.
Jane continued eagerly. "Fifty years later, Sofia Morrison serves coffee to Dr. Jeremy Becker, one of Flanders' former students. As part of her internship at Visualize, she is assigned to organize and transcribe the old vent tapes. Same old story. I cheated on my wife, I didn't do my homework, I only pretend to like that dress. Except, whoops! The early life of a serial killer, recorded for your convenience. She brings the tape to Becker, who snaps out of his midlife crisis, conveniently becomes a member of the cult, and calls old Flanders, who is delighted to have an assistant with insider's access to Visualize. Stiles had begun to close him out in recent years. Afraid Red John would find out he was being pandered to an overeager psychologist with a flair for drama."
Lisbon breathed deeply, trying to keep up with the trajectory of Jane's statements.
"But of course, he found out. Of course he did. He always does… Stiles flew here, to Des Moines, to see Flanders. He must have followed him. That's how it must have happened. But they like to watch their work. So he would have been there. To watch it burn."
She shook her head. "Jane, I don't—"
"He set the bomb."
"Who did?"
"Red John!" Jane practically yelled. "Red John set the bomb in Flanders' office to destroy the research—to kill Flanders as well. Don't you see? Red John found out about the project—that they had been watching him, tracking him this whole time. And nobody knew. He didn't know. But Stiles did—and that's how he knew. About everything. About my wife…But then Morrison and Becker were killed, and then Townsend. A neat little trail back to Stiles and Flanders. Stiles meant to cover it up, of course, by killing them. But it just led straight back to him. The fool. And now. Now he knows." A strange grin broke out across Jane's face. "He's not invincible. And he knows it."
They stood together in silence, Jane's eyes flitting around the darkening hallway, entirely lost in the waves of discovery that were crashing over him, and Lisbon attempting to sort through all of the information that had been thrown haphazardly at her in the last minutes.
"So, you're saying, you're guessing, that whoever that boy was from the fire, in 1964—that that's Red John? And Edgar Flanders has been studying him all this time? Jane, that's—"
"Impossible? I know," he said breathlessly. "Which makes it all the more damaging. He's been operating under the assumption that he is in control. Of his kills. Of everything." Jane leaned toward her, his breath brushing across her cheeks, eyes boring into hers. "But he's not. That means there's a way…to track him, to anticipate him. Flanders did …and now, he's unstable. Now he's broken pattern. Or returned to pattern. Fire." At that new thought, Jane turned away, bright anticipation burning in his eyes. "This is it."
Lisbon swallowed. "Jane…"
"We could catch him this time, Lisbon."
2013
Monday, May 13
2:43 am
The loud city lights glowed distantly overhead. Something like old socks and exhaust from a thousand cars clogged the alley as he stumbled over a discarded beer bottle. Catching himself against a cool brick wall, he stared out through the smog at the neon sign for a Chinese place. "Open All Times," it read, and he figured it was as good a place as any.
Rigsby stepped carefully across the street and opened the door with some effort. The cramped store was painted a faded pastel green and smelled strongly of frying oil. An older man peered at him from behind the counter, moving his mouth into shapes that looked something like "…elp you?"which Rigsby took as his opening.
"Do you know where I can get a cab?" he threw out, hoping the scratchiness in his throat was a sign that it was issuing noise.
The man squinted at him from behind thick lenses and pointed a finger toward a folded paper menu lying on a nearby table.
Rigsby shook his head. "No, I don't want food."A lie, really, as he had probably never wanted food so much in his life. However, there were more pressing things to be done. "I want a cab. You know, like driving?" He made steering motions with his hand.
The man shook his head back and moved his lips again. Rigsby didn't catch any of it this time.
Sighing, he sat down in a plastic chair at an equally plastic table. He didn't know why he was bothering. It wasn't as though he would be able to direct the cab even if he could somehow manage to call one. The cabbie wouldn't know where he lived any more than he did.
He flipped open the menu, searching for something recognizable. The man had come up behind him and was hovering over his shoulder.
"Egg foo yung. Please," he grunted, pointing at a digital photo next to the number 67. The man nodded, grinning.
The food was surprisingly good, given its birthplace. He supposed that was always the way it was with restaurants—the shabbier the building, the better the food.
It wasn't until he reached into his wallet for a ten and two ones that he saw it. His driver's license. Complete with a rather unbecoming picture of him gaping at the DMV camera, his loopy signature, and…his address. Or what he hoped beyond hope was his address. It was something anyway, a place to start.
He waved the man over, handed him the check, and headed down the street to a 24-hour drug store. The teenage girl behind the counter stared, but offered to call for him once it became obvious he couldn't use a phone.
Twenty minutes later, he leaned once more against the leather of a cab's bench seat and watched the buildings flash by in blurs of light, heading to somewhere called Sangrey Street.
2013
Tuesday, May 14
8:46 pm
Footsteps echoed in the hallway behind them, but Lisbon didn't bother to turn around.
"Agent Lisbon?"
She looked at the young man gazing intently at them in the dim light of the hallway, his breathing nearly as ragged as Jane's.
"Agent Lisbon, you should come with me."
The insistence in his voice was unmistakable, and Lisbon made to follow him. Absently, she registered the sound of Jane falling into step behind her.
The bullpen was practically buzzing with energy as they passed through the doorway.
"Somebody ID'd him off the local news broadcast," Gorman flung out over his shoulder before turning back to the whiteboard.
Lisbon's throat clenched. "Where is he?"
"We don't know. We're—"
"You just said someone saw him!" She didn't bother keeping the edge of desperation from her voice.
Gorman turned to face her, a look of forced patience plastered messily across his face. "Yes, but not today. The person who ID'd him was a sales clerk at the ticket desk at Des Moines International Airport. Apparently, Mr. Rigsby bought a ticket there Sunday night. We're trying to track down the airline. Warrant is in the works for the plane's manifest when we find it." He spun back to the board and continued scratching the word "missing" under a picture of Rigsby's face.
His back held a note of finality that Lisbon recognized. It was the look of determination that often wove itself through their own bullpen at the beginning of a promising lead. The same breathlessness, the same resolve, the same reckless pacing to get to the bottom of it as soon as humanly possible and move on. You never found out whether it was worth your time until you were finished spending time on it.
She found her seat by Van Pelt and sank heavily into it, knowing that anything she did or said right now would upset the chaos that was Gorman's well-oiled machine. It was only as she let her eyes drift over the young agent's sleeping form that her mind attached itself to an unending stream of questions, not least of which were "What on earth was he doing on a plane?" and, more importantly, "Why would he leave her?"