Chapter 1.
When Patrick Jane opens his eyes the following morning, he smiles to himself; Lisbon is fast asleep, resting her head on his chest. He had imagined this scenario a a million times that he cannot believe that this is real; to be honest, the past few days have been a bit of a blur for him, ever since the bomb. Last night was incredible, he tells himself. The rain had stopped battering the window in the kitchen hours ago; they had pulled all of the cushions off the sofa and found several blankets in the cupboard. Having both been soaked by the rain, they changed into fresh clothes – Lisbon had to borrow a spare t-shirt and pair of shorts from Jane, her clothes still smell of smoke – and curled up under the sheets together. They talked for a while, both learning more and more about each other, things that they had previously kept safely guarded behind several firewalls, before closing their eyes and spending the night in each other's arms. Jane watches her, and gently lifts his free hand to stroke her hair. She moves slightly in her sleep to get comfier and twists her injured wrist, the pain wakes her up from her slumber; at first she isn't sure where she is, sitting up to get a better view of her surroundings.
"Lisbon," Jane calls softly to her, stroking her hair.
"Jane," she smiles, and leans back to get comfy again.
"Good morning," his voice is low and sexy.
She mirrors his tone, "hey."
He kisses the scar on her forehead; she closes her eyes, taking in how good she feels at the moment.
"Sleep well?"
"Like a baby," she smiles, "you?"
"The best that I've slept in years," he replies honestly, pulling her closer until they are millimetres away from each other, "I'm so glad you came here last night."
"So am I," she tells him before kissing him.
Their kiss is broken by Lisbon's phone ringing.
"Don't answer it," he tells her, pulling her closer.
"Mmmm," she murmurs, lips still pressed against him, but the ringing gets to her and she gets up to find it.
"You are on leave, aren't you?" Patrick asks, gathering momentum to sit up.
"Yes, it's Cho, so shush!" she raises her eyebrows to him and he keeps his lips together.
"Lisbon," she answers.
"Hey boss, sorry to disturb you, but we've got another body," the other agent replies.
"Great," she asks, Patrick joining her side, "we'll get there as soon as possible."
"I've got to tell you, this is an odd one," Cho tells her.
"Hang on, I'll put you on speaker," she presses the button on the screen, "go on."
"The victim, Caucasian male, late 40's, no wallet or means of identifying him, one puncture wound to the neck," Cho informs them, against the loud background noise, "it's really inflamed around the area, looks like some sort of poison, ME is trying to identify it now."
"Right, text me the address and we'll be on our way."
"Will do boss," he replies and then he ends the call.
"Thoughts?" She asks Jane.
"Mmm…" he mumbles, pulling her closer, "we could leave in about half an hour, we could give the excuse that we were stuck in traffic."
"Nope, I'm not going to lie to them," Lisbon replies, "so get changed."
"Aww," he gives her his best puppy impression.
"Jane, come on, we need to get going," she gives him a quick kiss on the lips before pulling away and collecting her clothes from the fireguard, they are a little crispy, but since she has nothing else to wear, they'll have to do.
Jane, meanwhile, makes his way to his bedroom to find a clean 3 piece suit to wear for today's antics. The thought of last night still plays over in his head, if he hadn't gone after her, what would have happened? But none of that matter now, he smiles to himself, peeling his t-shirt off and replacing it with a crisp sky blue shirt and iron grey waistcoat. His shoulder hurts less this morning, whether that is due to it healing quickly or the fact that he and Teresa had spent the night in each other's company, he isn't fully sure.
He is just buttoning up his trousers when Lisbon walks in, already fully dressed.
"Hey," she begins, "I just wanted to ask you something."
"Yeah, sure," he replies, giving her his full attention.
"You know the rules about…y'know…co-workers and such…" she isn't completely sure how to phrase it.
"I get it," he tells her, "I won't say anything."
"Thank you," she smiles, "it's just…"
"No worries, okay? I won't say a word about us."
"It's not that I didn't enjoy last night, because I did," she bites her bottom lip, "I just don't want us to get into trouble."
"My lips are sealed," he tells her, "I promise."
"Good, well, we'd better get going then. I've got the address."
The alley smells foul, the large skips beside them are filled to the brim with discarded rubbish from passers-by. Rigsby and Van Pelt have gone away to canvass the area, trying to find any witnesses, leaving Cho alone with the local Medical Examiner to go over the body and crime scene. They are just putting the body onto the gurney when Jane's car pulls up on the other side of the street. They race across to examine the body before it is put into the van.
"Hi," Cho greets them, "sorry, ME wanted to get him back asap, just in case whatever poisoned him is contagious."
"Robbery gone wrong?" she asks.
"Could be," Cho replies, moving aside to let them see the crime scene as a whole, "no wallet, phone, nothing. We'll pull his prints and run them against the criminal and DMV database."
"Who found him?"
"Over there," Cho points to a woman who looks like she has seen a ghost.
"Jane, you coming?"
"Err…I'll be there in a minute," he replies, crouching down beside the flags marking out where the body was.
"Ma'am," Lisbon addresses the lady, "I'm Agent Teresa Lisbon with the CBI, is it alright if I ask you a few questions?"
The still terrified woman nods in reply and begins to fiddle with a crumpled up tissue in her hands.
"Did you recognise the man that you found this morning?"
"No," her reply is short and hurried.
"About what time did you find him this morning?"
"Around 7.30, I was walking to work when I…" tears begin to form in her eyes.
Her attention turns to Jane when he joins them, he whispers something in Lisbon's ear before taking the traumatised lady away from the opening of the alleyway.
"What did he say?" Cho asks Lisbon, when the pair are out of earshot.
"Check the wall," she replies, unsure as to what he meant.
"I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name," Jane speaks calmly and slowly, so not to spook the terrified woman.
"Dorothy Kent," she whispers.
"Okay, Dorothy, I'm Patrick Jane and I'm a consultant with the CBI," he tells her, stopping before turning to face her head on, "just take a few deep breaths, and when you're ready, tell me what happened this morning."
Cho follows Lisbon down the alley; they walk slowly, inspecting every brick in the wall until they complete a whole circle, it takes time and is very tedious but they know from experience that good detective work is being thorough and not skipping any corners.
"What do you think Jane meant when he said that?" Kimble asks.
"Goodness knows," Lisbon responds, "it's probably one of his riddles."
"No it's not," Jane startles them both, "Mrs Kent over there said that she saw no one fleeing the alley, nor anyone hanging around that looked suspicious at the time when she found the body."
"That fits, the ME reckons that the time of death was around two o'clock last night," Cho chimes in, "so, what's this about a brick?"
"Over here," Patrick leads them to the wall behind the flags, and points to a brick about six feet up the wall, on one of the rough imperfections of the brick is a dark coloured fibre.
"I'll get forensics to bag it, nice eye," Cho waves one of the forensics officers, who brings a bag and a pair of tweezers with him.
"So far, we have a time of death and a fibre that might be form the killer," Lisbon sums up, "besides that, what else do we have?"
"Rigsby and Van Pelt are canvassing at the minute, hopefully, they'll unearth something," Cho replies.