Chapter 3
The next day, everyone sat in the office, silent except for the sound of Rigsby chewing a slice of apple. Pale, silvery juice dripped down his chin, forcing him to grab the napkin on his desk. In the process, he nearly upended the dark blue fruit, which came dangerously close to falling off the desk.
Within minutes, Lisbon entered the office. "I just got a call from the coroner," she began. "Remember the body we found yesterday? Looks like someone's stolen Anthony Padilla from the lab."
"What?" asked Van Pelt. "Who? How did they do it?"
Lisbon frowned. "We don't know," she said. "The cameras were disrupted for about ten minutes last night. Before they stopped working, Anthony was right where he was supposed to be. Once the cameras came back online, he was gone. And nobody seems to be able to explain why."
She turned to Jane, as if silently asking him for help. "What are you looking at me for?" he asked. "I don't know about supernatural stuff."
"What, you're saying a ghost did it?" Cho asked.
"Probably," said Jane. "Or more likely, it's just a person with a magnet or something to cut the cameras out for whatever length of time they need."
Lisbon shook her head, mildly exasperated. "Whatever," she said. "Van Pelt, Jane, go down to Ian Hecox's house again, ask him if he's got anything more to tell us. Rigsby,Cho, check into anyone else who might know what's going on. Family, friends, neighbors, anything." Everyone set to work instantly, and Lisbon retreated into her office so she could ponder the situation in solitude.
While Van Pelt spoke to Ian, Jane proceeded to explore the house in search of anything Ian could have used to interfere with the cameras, but found nothing. The only remotely promising thing he did pick up on was a faint sound of laughter in the bedroom, which seemed to be coming from within the walls. Jane looked at the walls for a moment, then shook his head, deciding it was just pipes gurgling. He had no idea that Anthony was in fact hiding in the secret room behind the bedroom wall, watching everything inside the house and laughing as the CBI people practiced surprising incompetence.
But Jane soon found a shoebox under Ian's bed, and inside it was a tube of red liquid, which he instantly recognized as Cackle-Bladder. Once again, he was right about something and Lisbon completely failed to believe him.
And then, something even more impossible happened. Anthony started carving letters on the inside of the door, in mirror images so they could be seen on the outside as well. Jane stared for a second, then called Van Pelt into the room just in time for Anthony to finish carving his message: "ANTHONY LIVES, BITCH!"
Van Pelt frowned at the carving on the wall. "Where is this coming from?" she asked.
"The other side, clearly," said Jane. On the other side, Anthony laughed his head off at the incredibly lame pun.