Lisbon spent the next week poring over construction permit filings from all over the state, only occasionally stopping to glance at her rose as it expanded into perfect bloom. She did her best to ignore that warm glow that kept threatening to suffuse her insides when she looked over at it, trying to remain focused. The rose had been relocated from the water bottle she'd placed it in to a beautiful cut glass vase which had mysteriously appeared on her desk the day after Jane had visited the Carters' priest. Her office smelled amazing. Jane had been right. Perhaps she did need to appreciate nature more.
She signed off on the paperwork to clear Cho for active duty with mixed feelings. On the one hand, she was pleased that he was recovered; on the other, she worried that clearing him for active duty put him more firmly in the path of danger.
This was irrational, she knew. He wouldn't be in any more danger than the rest of the team, and she couldn't very well confine them all to desk duty for the foreseeable future. Maybe that was the problem. She was secretly worried about all of them, but with Cho she felt even more protective because of his recent injury.
Rigsby still hadn't made much progress on Rebecca Anderson, but he was working doggedly on the Todd Johnson connection. Cho hadn't turned up much in his discussion with Gupta's co-workers, but he was sifting through reams of military records that a friend of his from the Special Forces had helped him get access to.
For the past several days, Jane had been disappearing to Visualize, of all places. He still hadn't told her exactly what he was doing there. When she asked, he replied cheekily that he was engaging in a study of 'Cult Recruitment 101.' He was still good about his check ins, though, calling to chat with her for a few minutes every couple of hours when he was 'between sessions.' He still insisted he would explain everything to her, once he had finalized his theory. Leaving him to his own devices in the company of someone as creepy as Bret Stiles made her distinctly uneasy, but she swallowed her objections and let him pursue his mysterious theory without interfering.
Now, Jane was in his usual place on the worn leather couch, eyes closed, but not asleep. Lisbon had learned to recognize by now when he was actually sleeping and when he was pretending to do so for the benefit of passers by. Right now he had his eyes closed in the way that meant his brain was busy whirring away beneath the surface, turning over a particularly interesting puzzle.
Since Cho was still mired in files of military personnel, he had a perfectly reasonable excuse to be at his desk despite the fact that Lisbon had cleared him for active duty the day before. Rigsby, on the other hand, she suspected of delaying his next interview for the express purpose of lingering in the bullpen to catch the first glimpse of Van Pelt when she returned.
Sure enough, Rigsby spotted Van Pelt getting off the elevator before anyone else had even registered the ring of the elevator chime. "She's here!" he announced eagerly. He'd been tipping back in his chair to secure the best vantage point from which to observe the elevator, and he nearly toppled over in his haste to get up and greet Van Pelt in the hall. "Let me grab those for you," he offered by way of greeting, relieving Van Pelt of her bags.
"Thanks, Wayne," Van Pelt said, giving him a grateful smile. He beamed back.
"Welcome back, Grace," Lisbon said, pleased. She was so ridiculously relieved to see her she surprised herself by giving the younger agent a quick hug. It wasn't like she'd really expected Red John to follow Van Pelt to Iowa or anything, but she had to admit she felt better when her team was all together these days.
Van Pelt returned her hug and smiled at her. "Thanks, boss."
"How was your flight?" Cho asked.
"Not too bad. I got a lot done." Van Pelt had taken a red eye back to Sacramento, but she didn't look a bit tired.
Her eyes held that glittering intensity that Lisbon associated with the manic or drug-addled. In this case it was the former; Van Pelt seemed to have passed that threshold of sleep deprivation Lisbon remembered from college where you could suddenly write that ten page paper you hadn't had a clue how to start for the past three weeks.
"How's your family?" Rigsby asked.
Van Pelt shrugged. "They're good. My mom was driving me crazy by the time I'd been there two days, but it was good to see everyone. And my nephew is gorgeous," she added proudly.
"Did you find anything interesting about O'Laughlin?" Jane asked.
"Yes," Van Pelt said excitedly. "I think so, anyway. If I'm right, it could be the key to how Red John connected up with him."
Lisbon felt a stirring of excitement herself. God, they could really use a break on this one. "What is it?"
"Craig was adopted," Van Pelt announced.
Was that it? Lisbon realized how the rest of the team must have felt when she had announced her little revelation about the dams. Her idea must have sounded as crazy and far-fetched as Van Pelt's did now. She'd been pushing them too hard, she realized. They were all grasping at straws, including her. She was still convinced she was on the right track with her theory about the dams, but she had to admit that despite the progress she'd made, she still didn't have solid evidence to back it up. "Over a hundred thousand children are adopted a year," Lisbon pointed out. "Most of them don't end up setting people on fire and trying to kill their fiancées."
"It's funny, though," Rigsby commented. "Johnson didn't live with his birth parents, either."
Jane raised his head with interest. That had gotten his attention. "Didn't he?"
Rigsby nodded. "Yeah. He was kicked around different foster homes most of his life."
Lisbon shook her head. "Lots of people grow up in the foster care system. That could be a coincidence."
"Let's hear Van Pelt out," Jane said slowly. "I want to know why she thinks the fact that O'Laughlin was adopted is significant."
"It's the only thing that makes sense," Van Pelt said immediately. "I built a timeline for Craig's life, and it's the only thing that stands out. I talked to his friends, his family, and everyone says he was dead normal. He was smart, good-looking, had pretty girlfriends and tons of friends."
"So?" Lisbon asked.
"So if his life was so perfect, what could Red John have to offer him to convince him to join him?" Van Pelt said.
"Fair point," Lisbon admitted.
"I talked to his mom, though, and she told me he was adopted when he was ten," Van Pelt continued. "He had kind of a troubled childhood, and he was pretty messed up when he first came to their family. He used to have these fits of rage. He got into fights at school, destroyed things in the house, that sort of thing. They lived in California when they first adopted him, but he got in so much trouble one time that the school he was attending expelled him. She wouldn't tell me exactly what it was, but it caused some pretty bad blood in the town where they lived, so his dad got a job in his hometown in Iowa, and they moved so Craig could have a fresh start."
"What town was it that they lived in before they moved?" Jane asked curiously.
"Lodi," Van Pelt told him.
Jane frowned, but didn't say anything more.
"So did O'Laughlin do better after they moved to Iowa?" Lisbon asked.
"Not right away," Van Pelt told her. "He was still moody, and still got into trouble a lot. But then when he was fifteen they sent him to this football camp back in California he'd been begging to go to, and his mom said he was like a new person when he came back. All of a sudden he was confident, sweet, considerate. He started doing better in school, made the varsity football team, started getting really popular."
Lisbon shook her head. "I don't see how this has anything to do with Red John. It sounds like the intensive training experience at the camp did him good and it turned him around."
"Here's the thing, though," Van Pelt said. "He never went to that camp."
Lisbon frowned. "What do you mean?"
"It seemed strange to me that his personality seemed to change so much after that one experience, so I called the coach who ran the camp. He said Craig was registered to the camp, but he never showed up. He called the contact information listed on Craig's paperwork when he didn't turn up after the first day. He said Craig's father told him Craig had decided not to attend the camp, but he could keep the money. He remembered because when Craig was drafted into the NFL, he remembered thinking it was a shame that he hadn't ended up attending after all, because he could have used the fact that he made it to the NFL as a way to promote the camp."
"Where was the camp?" Jane asked suddenly.
"Modesto," Van Pelt replied.
Lisbon looked at him. "Why do you want to know that?"
"I'll tell you in a minute," Jane said. "Go on with your story, Van Pelt."
"I talked to Craig's dad about what the coach said, and he had no idea what I was talking about. He said Craig called them every week and told them he was having a great time at camp. He never talked to the coach at all."
"If O'Laughlin wasn't at the camp, where the hell was he?" Cho asked.
"Exactly," Van Pelt said. "A fifteen year old kid disappears for three months and no one can account for his time? And then afterwards he's like a completely different person? That has to be when Red John recruited him."
"It's definitely worth looking into," Lisbon admitted.
"I was hoping you'd say that," Van Pelt said.
"I take it you have a plan," Lisbon commented.
Van Pelt nodded. "I'm going to try to find out what happened to him when he was a kid. I think whatever it was might be connected to this violent streak he had that Red John apparently was able to take advantage of and cultivate in him."
"How are you going to do that?" Cho wanted to know.
"Craig's mom said that Craig came to them from the foster system, so I'm going to talk to the social worker who was in charge of his case. I have an appointment with her this afternoon."
"Where are you meeting her?" Jane asked.
"At the county social services office," Van Pelt told him.
Jane turned to Rigsby. "Where did Todd Johnson grow up?"
Rigsby blinked. "Uh, just outside Tracy, I think. A little town called Vineland."
"You're meeting her at the county social services office that serves Lodi, right?" Jane asked Van Pelt.
"That's right."
"Where are you going with this?" Lisbon asked him curiously.
"Lodi and Vineland are both in San Joaquin County," Jane told her. "And Stockton is the county seat in San Joaquin County."
"I'm aware of that," Lisbon said impatiently. "What's your point?"
"Hardy's friends told me he lived in Stockton before he moved to San Angelo. I figured it was just part of an elaborate backstory for his cover identity, but what if that part of it was true? The best lies contain an element of truth, after all."
"That's a hell of a coincidence," Cho remarked.
Jane was thinking. "Hardy would have been a minor when his father was arrested. It's possible he might have spent some time in the foster system, as well. Maybe that's part of Red John's recruiting ground."
"But Orville Tanner already knew Red John by that point, or he never would have ended up in jail," Lisbon said. "Didn't Hardy meet Red John through his father?"
"Bear with me for a moment," Jane said to her. "Suppose Hardy didn't know anything about Red John until after his father was arrested. What if he got tossed into the system and Red John approached him afterwards as a way of making amends to Orville? Hardy and his father might have bonded over their relationship with him after the fact."
"It's possible," Lisbon conceded.
"If Hardy didn't have any other family besides his dad, he would have been lonely and isolated after his arrest. The perfect prey for Red John when he was looking for recruits."
Lisbon frowned, remembering. "Rosalind was in the foster care system, too. But I don't see how Red John could have caught sight of her that way. She got out of the system when she was only three years old and went to live with her grandmother."
Jane shook his head. "Rosalind wasn't one of his recruits. He always concealed his true self with her. It's possible that her tenure in the foster care system holds some significance, but presently I'm inclined to think Rosalind falls into a separate category than these three young men. I think we should focus on the connection between them, for the time being."
"All three of them would have been pretty emotionally isolated if they grew up in the foster care system," Cho commented. "One of my buddies from the army grew up in the system and he had some pretty awful stories about what it was like. Sometimes where they send you isn't all that much better than what you're getting away from."
"That's true," Lisbon said. "Foster kids often come from environments of abuse, and sometimes the system doesn't do the best job of placing them in safer homes. It would be easy for a man like Red John to take advantage of their vulnerability and turn it to his own purposes."
"Yes," Jane agreed. "And incidentally happens to fall in line with a theory I've been developing."
"The theory you've been refusing to tell me?" Lisbon said, piqued. His evasiveness on the subject to this point still rankled. "That theory?"
Jane flashed a grin at her. "Yes, that theory."
"So are you going to tell us about it now, or what?" Lisbon demanded.
He tapped his lips with his index finger as though to signify he was considering the question seriously. "I believe the time may be ripe to share my theory, yes. Since you asked so nicely, Lisbon."
"Let's have it, then."
"You know what I've never been able to figure out about Red John?" Jane asked philosophically.
"You mean besides how to catch him?" Lisbon said tartly.
Jane ignored this remark. "I've never been able to figure out how he inspires such unwavering loyalty in his followers."
"I thought you believed Red John offers his followers something they want that they can't get for themselves," Lisbon said.
"Yes, but it has to be more than that, doesn't it?"
"Why?" Cho asked.
"Because they stay loyal to him no matter the circumstances, regardless of the cost to themselves. They refuse to betray him even when they've been captured and they have to know giving the police information about him would help them cut a deal."
Lisbon thought about Hardy, laughing in Jane's face in his last breath, and Todd Johnson, taunting him after O'Laughlin had burned him alive. "They're willing to die to protect his secrets."
"Right. That's not the behavior of a rational being with a healthy sense of self-preservation. The question then becomes 'What is he offering them that is worth more to them than their own lives?'"
"Beats me," Cho said. "What do you think it is?"
Jane shrugged. "What are people willing to give up their own lives for?"
"To save the life of another," Lisbon said, thinking of her family and her team.
Jane smiled at her. "That may be true of you and your fine compatriots here, Lisbon, but for the sake of argument, let's assume Red John's minions are not motivated by such heroic instincts. What else would convince someone to die willingly to protect the secrets of someone else?"
"A promise of something better if they did," Van Pelt suggested. "Life after death."
"That's right. Gold star goes to Van Pelt," Jane said, sounding pleased.
Rigsby frowned. "You think Red John is some kind of religious leader?"
"Not exactly. I admit I was leaning in that direction for awhile, but after talking to the Carters' priest, I started to rethink that idea. I think it's more likely that Red John has qualities of a cult leader."
"That's why you've been hanging out at Visualize all week?" Lisbon said incredulously. "Why the hell didn't you just say that before? I thought you'd convinced yourself Bret Stiles was Red John and I was going to have to go over there one of these days and rescue you from being made a sacrificial offering between seminars."
"I told you, I needed to work through the idea in my own mind first."
Lisbon shook her head. "I don't believe you. You refused to tell me what you were doing just because you couldn't stand the idea of admitting you might be wrong if your theory didn't pan out."
"Really, Lisbon, I—"
Cho cut them off. "You think Red John is connected to Visualize?"
Jane shook his head. "Not necessarily. I'm not going to rule out the possibility, of course, but I suspect Red John wouldn't like the idea of tying himself to a large organization like Visualize. He prefers to operate alone. However, I thought it would be worth observing the members of Visualize to gain insight into the cult mentality, to try to learn what attracts people to the fold."
"So what did you find out?"
"Emotional isolation is definitely one part of the appeal of the cult organization. Most people long to feel like they belong to something greater than themselves, and the cult offers that."
"What does this have to do with the Carters?" Lisbon wanted to know.
"Mainstream religious organizations provide many of the same benefits that cults offer. The promise of life after death, that feeling of belonging to something larger than one's self."
"Okay…" Lisbon said, annoyed by the comparison.
"So why would the Carters, who already belonged to a church, be attracted to a separate cult organization?"
"I don't know. Why?"
"Because they are getting something better than what the church offers them."
"What could be better than the promise of heaven?" Van Pelt asked.
"The church promises access to heaven only after a lifetime of slavish devotion to goodness and prayer."
"So?"
"That's an awful lot of work for something that is never guaranteed. Church members have to take the promises of heaven on faith, without ever receiving proof that it truly exists. Cult members, on the other hand, have a low tolerance for uncertainty. And let's face it, who can blame them? Wouldn't it be better if you not only received the promise of a better life after you died, but you knew for a fact that you were going to get it?"
Lisbon sighed. Only Jane would require so much build up to answer one simple question. "What's your point, Jane?"
"I think Red John promises a better life to his followers if they die for him. And I think he has some way to prove to them that what he is promising is real."
"How could he possibly prove that?"
"I have no idea," Jane said. "That's what I still have to figure out."
"So we think we're looking for someone who kills people, builds dams, leads a cult, and targets foster kids as his recruits," Cho summarized.
"That's right," Jane confirmed.
"Busy guy," Cho commented.
"We think we're looking for someone with those qualities," Lisbon emphasized. "So far all we have is theories. We still need to find the proof." She looked at Cho. "What about Deutsch and Gupta? Do you think this potential foster care connection could apply to them, too?"
Cho considered this. "Maybe. I won't be able to tell for sure until I can get a clean ID on Gupta, though. Deutsch is a possibility. I haven't found out anything about his childhood yet, but I'm pretty sure Ronald Deutsch was his real identity. He was definitely a loner though, so the cult thing seems like a good fit."
"All right," Lisbon said. "Grace, good work on O'Laughlin. Go ahead and follow up on the foster care angle. Your interview with the social worker is this afternoon?"
Van Pelt nodded.
"Take Rigsby with you," Lisbon said. "Check if there's any kind of connection with Johnson."
"See if you can find anything about Hardy, while you're at it," Jane instructed them. "Although for the purposes of this particular inquiry, I suppose it would be better to check under the name of Dumar Tanner."
"Do you want to go with them?" Lisbon asked him.
He shook his head. "Rigsby and Van Pelt can handle it. I think my skills will be of more use here for the time being."
"Okay, then. Van Pelt and Rigsby will go down to the social services office in Stockton this afternoon and find out everything they can about Craig O'Laughlin, Todd Johnson, and Dumar Tanner. In the meantime, Van Pelt, go home and get some rest. You can pick up Rigsby here once you've had a couple hours of sleep. Rigsby, can you keep yourself entertained until then?"
Rigsby nodded. "Yeah. I found a neighbor of Rebecca Anderson's who's willing to talk to me, so I can go over to his place and do that interview now." He checked his watch. "It might be kind of tight getting back here, though. Van Pelt, why don't I just pick you up at your place when I'm done and we can leave from there?"
Van Pelt shrugged. "Works for me. Can you drop me off on your way, too? I took a cab here from the airport."
"No problem," Rigsby said. "Your place is on the way, anyway." Lisbon knew that Rigsby would have volunteered to drive Van Pelt home even if it meant an extra twenty hours in the car, let alone twenty minutes, but no one challenged his assertion.
Rigsby and Van Pelt left, and Cho turned to Lisbon. "Have you made any more progress with the construction permits?"
"Not as much as I'd hoped," Lisbon sighed. "Every time I think I've found a connection it seems like it remains just out of reach. I'm sure it's there, though. I just need to keep at it a little longer. But I'm taking a bit of a break from it today, to be honest. I think it's one of those times when I need to step back from it for a little while to get a better perspective on it, you know?"
"I'm glad you're taking a break, Lisbon," Jane said. "It's a refreshing change from your usual conviction that you can solve any problem by running yourself into the ground. I suppose it's too much to hope for that you've been shut in your office eating popcorn and reading back issues of Cosmo?"
"Yeah, I thought about doing that," Lisbon said dryly. "But then I thought I'd like to keep my brain cells intact and decided to look more deeply into Orville Tanner, instead."
"What have you found out about him so far?" Cho asked.
"Most of what I know I've found out from his prison records," she told him. "Reports from the security officers indicated that he was quiet, kept to himself most of the time, but he could be violent if someone provoked him. I've been trying to track down the letters his son sent to him, in case they were part of his personal effects when he died, but no luck so far. No idea yet how he first connected up with Red John." She shook her head. "I still can't believe he took the rap for Red John's first murder for him."
"The first we know of, anyway," Cho said.
"You're right, Lisbon," Jane said, thinking of Tanner and his son. "It is strange that Orville Tanner took the blame for it."
"Why is that strange?" Cho asked. "You were just talking about how he could convince his followers to do whatever he wanted with his freaky cult powers."
"It's strange because he didn't stay one hundred percent loyal to him," Jane said. "His behavior was never quite consistent. He pled not guilty when he was accused of the murder. Then once he was convicted, he told anyone who would listen that Red John was the real killer, but he never filed an appeal. His son said Red John was his friend, but he still revealed Red John's identity to Jared Renfrew."
"I was never as convinced of that as you were," Lisbon said. "I still think Jared was playing you, making it seem like he knew more than he did so you'd help him get out of prison."
"If he didn't know anything, why would Red John have bothered to kill him once he got out of jail?"
"I think Red John believed Orville Tanner told Renfrew something. That doesn't mean he actually did."
This was an old argument, and Jane was under no illusion that rehashing it now would get them any closer to settling it than they ever had been.
"Be that as it may," he said smoothly. "The significant thing here is that despite Orville Tanner taking the rap for Red John's misdeeds, it appears he was conflicted in his loyalties, at the very least. What interests me is why Red John didn't just kill him."
"How do you know he didn't?" Cho asked.
Lisbon shook her head. "I was able to get Tanner's medical records from the prison. He died of kidney disease. He suffered from it for years before he died. Jane has a good point. Red John has killed other followers of his for far less. Hell, he's killed some of his followers who never even showed any sign they might betray him, just to prevent the possibility."
"Any theories why Red John never killed him?"
"I think," Jane said slowly, "that Orville Tanner and Red John had a deep personal connection. What the nature of that connection was, I don't know, but I'd be willing to bet something about it made Red John reluctant to kill Tanner."
"I haven't been able to find out much about his early life so far," Lisbon said. "I know he was born at Sparrow's Peak in San Angelo, but I don't think he grew up there. Maybe that's where the connection between him and Red John is—somewhere in those missing years."
Jane frowned. "I did some research of my own at one point on Orville Tanner. At the time I didn't think anything I found was particularly important, but I'm wondering now if something I thought was irrelevant at the time might seem more important given what we know now."
"How's that supposed to help us now?" Cho asked.
Jane shrugged. "It's possible I might have noted something about it in one of my notebooks."
"Thought you had all that stuff locked up in your memory palace," Cho commented.
Jane shook his head. "I only store things in the memory palace that I know are important. It gets too cluttered, otherwise. I use the notebooks to keep records of information when I'm not sure if it will be useful or not. Besides, the act of writing helps me sort out what needs to be added to the memory palace in the first place."
"You think you might have some more information on Tanner in one of your notebooks?" Lisbon asked.
"It's possible. I'd have to go through them to check. There are a lot of them, though. It might take awhile."
"Lisbon and I could help," Cho suggested. "If you don't mind us reading your stuff."
"I don't mind," Jane said. "It's not like I use them as diaries, or anything. They're just full of notes. They might be kind of hard for you to make sense of in some places, though. A lot of times I end up writing them in kind of a stream of consciousness state. I'm afraid they may border on the rambling and incoherent sometimes."
"Do you want me to go up to the attic and get them?" Cho asked.
"How are you going to know how to find them?" Jane asked him with a lopsided grin.
"They're under the third floorboard from the far wall," Cho said.
"That's right," Jane said, looking disconcerted. "How did you figure that out?"
"Boss has sent me up to get you a couple of times when you were up there pacing like a lunatic. The third floorboard creaks more than the others."
"Well played, Cho," Jane said, though he appeared rather disgruntled that his secret hiding place had been so easily discovered. "Nicely deduced. You should think about becoming a detective or something."
"Whatever. Do you want me to go get them, or not?"
Jane gestured his assent. "Go ahead. Looks like I'll have to find another secret hiding place anyway, so I suppose it can't do any harm to let you clear them out from the old one."
Cho left and returned a few minutes later with an armful of leather bound notebooks. He set them down on his desk, dividing them into three roughly even piles.
Lisbon looked at the piles in dismay. "Jeez, Jane, have you been secretly writing a novel about Red John or something? There have to be a dozen of these things."
"No, I'll leave the secret writing of mystery novels to our literary friend here," Jane said, gesturing to Cho. No doubt this was revenge for Cho discovering his hiding place.
Lisbon paused and looked at Cho. "Seriously?"
"No," Cho said. "Can we please focus?"
Lisbon picked up the first notebook in the stack nearest her, feeling curiously reluctant to open it. She didn't care what Jane said, the idea of reading these notebooks felt like a terribly intimate intrusion into his private thoughts. Also, knowing what she did about Jane's feelings on revenge and how much time he devoted to thinking about Red John in general, she found she was not eager to face further evidence of his obsession.
Cho appeared to have no such compunctions. He flipped open the first notebook in the pile nearest him and started reading.
Jane, as usual, seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. "Don't worry, Lisbon, I saved all my particularly murderous ramblings for that notebook over there," he said cheerfully, pointing to one at the bottom of the stack furthest from her.
"What a relief," she said dryly. She gingerly opened the notebook in her hands. She was relieved to find that this particular notebook seemed to contain mostly lists of names and addresses. After reading through them, she realized she recognized many of them as the names of witnesses and suspects they'd interviewed in the course of their investigations over the years. Jeez, he really was suspicious of everyone. Occasionally there were questions scribbled in the margins, or theories written out. She sat down absently at Rigsby's desk, absorbed despite herself. However mundane reading Jane's nearly endless compilations of lists may have seemed, she found that the way in which he organized and prioritized them gave her an unexpected glimpse into the inner workings of his mind. The sections with the longer musings gave her even more insight into his thought processes. Despite what he'd said about having a tendency to ramble, she found that she could follow the threads of his thoughts easily. With few exceptions, she found his writings remarkably clear and well-ordered. His intuitive leaps were easier to follow when he outlined the seemingly disparate steps between them in writing. She also found several doodles and sketches interspersed throughout the pages.
She'd never known that Jane could draw. He was a decent artist, though she didn't know why she should be surprised by this fact. Jane always seemed to be annoyingly good at anything he put his mind to, and she'd always known he knew a lot about art. She paused when she came across a full page sketch of a young girl who she recognized as his daughter, Charlotte. The picture showed the little girl in the rain, standing in a puddle in her bare feet, damp curls hanging down her back, her eyes sparkling with mirth. Her cheeks dimpled as she reached out her arms towards the unseen artist in the clear expectation that he would pick her up and spin her in the rain. Lisbon stared at the drawing for a long time, a lump the size of Texas forming in her throat. God, it was heartbreaking.
Her heart went out to Jane. It was heartbreaking, but at the same time, she was glad to see evidence that he occasionally allowed himself to indulge in what was clearly a happy memory. It was a relief to her to know that he could remember some of the good times with his wife and child without the taint of Red John darkening all his memories. She looked at the little girl's joyful expression and she could easily imagine a younger, carefree Jane going to her, picking her up, and spinning her around in the rain until they both collapsed, dizzy and breathless with laughter, not caring a bit that they were both soaked to the skin. She ached for his loss—the loss of moments like this one, and the promise of more like it. Sometimes she thought she'd give damn near anything to be able to give that back to him.
She stared at the picture a few minutes more, finally forcing herself to turn the page because she knew she was going to start crying if she kept looking at it, and she didn't want Jane and Cho to see.
She flipped through a few more pages and came across a particularly long section in which Jane attempted to deconstruct the "He is mar" clue that Jared Renfrew had left for them. He'd written out about a hundred variations of how the sentence might have ended, but she could tell he'd reached no meaningful conclusions. The sense of his frustration was palpable, and she found herself wanting to reach through the pages back to the time when he'd written them to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder, despite the fact that the man himself was sitting not fifteen feet from her, looking perfectly composed as he leafed through another of his own notebooks.
Then she came across something completely unfamiliar to her. It was a poem, titled simply, 'The Jade Raven.' She read through it twice, but even after reading it a second time, she had no clue how it might relate to the Red John case. She definitely didn't remember it from any of their investigations. Some of the stuff in the notebook was a bit obscure, but usually after a bit of thought, she could figure out how it might have connected to something Jane might have been thinking about at the time when he'd written it. This poem was totally unrecognizable to her. Of course, she was no great poetry lover, but she had gone to college, after all, and she thought if it had been a really famous poem, it would have seemed at least a little familiar to her.
"Hey, Jane," she called over to him. "What's this?"
"What's what?" Jane said, idly turning a page in the notebook he was reading.
"This poem."
"What poem?" Jane said distractedly.
Lisbon looked back at the title. "It's called 'The Jade Raven.'"
Cho looked sharply at Jane. Jane, for his part, grew very still.
"'The Jade Raven,' did you say?" Cho asked her, his eyes still on Jane.
"Yeah. I don't recognize it, do you?"
"I've never heard of it before," Cho said. "But I think I have a pretty good idea who the author is." For some reason, this comment caused Jane to glare at him.
Lisbon frowned. "You do? Is it a William Blake poem? Does it have something to do with that poem 'The Tyger' that Red John quoted to Jane when he held him hostage?"
"Nope, not a Blake poem," Cho said, smirking. "I'm pretty sure this is a lesser known writer. Not too many people are familiar with his work. What kind of poem is it?"
Lisbon looked over it again. "A sonnet, I think. Fourteen lines, ends in a rhyming couplet?"
"Oh, yeah, definitely a sonnet," Cho said. He seemed to be enjoying himself immensely for reasons she couldn't fathom. Who knew Cho was such a poetry fan? He leaned back in his chair. "Why don't you read it to us?" he suggested to Lisbon with another sidelong glance at Jane.
Jane jumped up from the couch and hurried over to stand next to her, looking as though he intended to snatch the notebook out of her hand at any moment. "That's not necessary."
Cho raised his eyebrows at him. "Why not? Unless there's some particular reason you don't want Lisbon to read the poem?" he challenged him.
Jane opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
"That's what I thought," Cho said, looking satisfied.
Lisbon looked back and forth between them uncertainly. She could tell she was missing something, but she had no idea what it was.
"Go on, boss," Cho said, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers together behind his head. "I want to hear how the author handled the challenges of iambic pentameter."
Jane cringed and closed his eyes, but made no objection.
Shrugging, she obliged Cho and read the poem aloud.
"Not bad," Cho commented when she was finished. "The author spends a lot of time talking about the creature's sly wit and knowing eyes for a poem that's supposed to be about a bird, but overall it wasn't as terrible as I was expecting."
"Well, I think it's pretty," Lisbon said. "It's kind of a weird topic, I guess, but it's kind of nice how the writer takes this ordinary bird and makes it sound like something fierce and beautiful."
"Ravens aren't ordinary," Jane said, bristling with indignation. "They're sleek and graceful and highly intelligent." He caught himself, and coughed. "They're very unjustly overlooked."
Cho nodded. "Definitely underrated, as birds go."
Lisbon looked at them as though they were crazy, but neither of them seemed to think they'd said anything the least bit odd. She thought about the poem again. The beauty of the raven stood out. It was a lovely poem, really, but it was kind of sad, too. The author wrote about the raven like it was his dearest friend—more like a treasured companion than a wild animal. Yet despite his obvious admiration for the raven, something was holding him back from being as close to it as he longed to be. There was a hopeful note at the end, though, like maybe someday he would be able to reach out to the raven the way he wanted to. "So what's the deal? Why'd you copy this poem into your notebook?" she asked Jane. "If it's not by William Blake, does it have some other connection to Red John?"
Cho answered before Jane could. "The poem doesn't have anything to do with Red John."
She frowned at him. "How do you know?"
"The same way I know he didn't copy it out," he said, nodding to Jane.
"What do you mean?" Lisbon said, puzzled. "It's right there in his handwriting."
"Yeah, but he didn't copy it from a book or anything."
"Then where did it come from?"
Cho looked unfazed by her obtuseness. "He wrote it."
Lisbon looked at Jane in surprise. "You wrote this?"
Jane looked like he was wishing the ground would open up and swallow him, which was an expression she'd never seen on him before. "Yes. I wrote it."
"It's good," she told him. "I had no idea you ever wrote poetry."
He cleared his throat. "Ah, well, you know. I, uh, dabble, on occasion."
Lisbon looked at Cho. "That doesn't explain how you knew Jane wrote the poem."
"Yes, how did you know?" Jane asked curiously.
Cho rolled his eyes. "'The Jade Raven?' It's kind of an obvious metaphor, don't you think?"
Lisbon frowned. "A metaphor for what? What is the poem about?"
Jane shot Cho a warning glance, but Cho ignored it. "The poem's about you," he informed her.
"About me?" Lisbon said, startled. "What do you mean, it's about me?"
"I mean, it's about you. You're the subject of the poem," Cho said.
She shook her head. "No. It can't be about me."
"Yeah. Except it is," Cho said.
She attempted a smile that didn't quite take. "This is a joke. You guys are playing a joke on me, right?"
"'Fraid not," Cho replied.
"Jane?" she said uncertainly.
Jane met her eyes hopelessly. "He's right, Lisbon," he said, looking nearly as uncomfortable as she felt. "The poem's about you."
Lisbon stared at him. "You wrote a poem about me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
He shrugged helplessly. "What can I say? Even I get tired of my own obsessive thoughts, on occasion. Sometimes in the middle of the night when I can't sleep and can't bear to think any more about my perpetual guilt and continued failure, I turn my thoughts to pleasanter fare."
She swallowed. "And I'm… that?"
He attempted a semblance of his usual light-hearted air. "Certainly. You're an attractive woman, Lisbon, and I spend more time with you than anyone else on the planet. Who else am I going to write poetry about?"
Lisbon could think of a few names that came to mind, but she was too dumbfounded to come up with an intelligible response.
He smiled at her a little ironically. "I told you you were sonnet-worthy."
Lisbon turned so red she was sure she could have powered a fleet of solar-powered cars with the heat coming off her face. "Well, thanks," she said awkwardly. "It's a nice poem."
"You really liked it?" he double-checked.
She looked back at him. "Yeah, Jane. I really liked it."
He seemed pleased by this. "Good."
He went back to his couch, settling in and looking like the picture of composure once again.
Jane and Cho tossed several ideas back and forth about how various tidbits from Jane's notebooks might be relevant to their current investigation over the course of the afternoon. Lisbon listened to them with half an ear, but for her part, she couldn't face looking through any more of Jane's notebooks after the experience of reading the first one, so after a few minutes, she retreated to her office and buried herself in research on the life of Orville Tanner for the rest of the day.
Not before she had committed a certain poem to her own memory palace, however.
Xxx
Jane kept his face smooth and kicked himself inwardly. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten about that damn poem. He'd written it one night when had been feeling particularly depressed about the lack of progress he was making on the Red John case and hadn't been able to sleep. He'd gotten to a point where he could go no further on the theory he'd been working on at the time. He remembered being at that particular pitch of exhaustion where he'd been so desperate to sleep he could have wept. Desperate to think about something else, he'd cast about for something else upon which he could direct his focus. Without consciously choosing to do so, he found his thoughts drifting to Lisbon.
She'd been in a good mood that day. Jane had been distracted with his thoughts on the Red John case and hadn't been very helpful. Although at first she'd been annoyed by his failure to help on the case, the team had solved it in record time without him, and having another example of the virtues of good, solid police work to back her up in her arguments with him on such matters always made her happy. She'd come up to the attic to gloat about their triumph to him. She tried to get him to come downstairs and partake in some closed case pizza, but he'd declined. Taking note of his distraction, her teasing smile had faded and she'd crossed over to where he'd been standing by the window, touching him lightly on the sleeve to get his attention. She'd said his name in that soft way she had. He remembered turning and seeing those eyes full of compassion fixed on him with patience and understanding. And for that moment… he'd felt better.
He'd felt worse again after she left, and had buried himself once more in his Red John research, but later that night, when he was longing for a reprieve, it seemed only natural that his thoughts turned to Lisbon of their own accord. Sweet, strong Lisbon who had no idea the extent to which he relied upon her. Over the years, she'd become a source of comfort to him, a touchstone. So when he needed to step outside himself for a moment, it became instinctive to close his eyes and imagine her green ones before him.
The actual poem had started in one of those moments. He'd been thinking about her eyes and doodled a few lines on the page, trying to put words to the look and depth of them, and then he'd thought that yes, this was a far more pleasant way to pass the time than dwelling endlessly on Red John. It occurred to him that trying his hand at rearranging and expanding the words he'd written to fit the structure of a sonnet would keep his brain more pleasantly occupied than it otherwise might be. So he'd written the poem, and then fallen into a deep sleep from which he hadn't woken until Lisbon herself came up to find out what he was up to halfway through the next morning.
He hadn't really thought about the poem again after that. It had been an outlet, a pleasant distraction, but once he had completed it, he'd moved onto other things and hadn't thought much about it.
At the time, it had never once occurred to him that Lisbon might actually read it one day.
Once Lisbon had shut herself in her office again, Jane dropped his unaffected air and turned to Cho with a glare. "How could you sell me out like that?"
"If you don't want people to bust your chops, you shouldn't write poetry about your boss," Cho said, unrepentant.
"You're supposed to be my wingman," Jane grumbled.
"I am being your wingman," Cho said, turning the page of the notebook he was reading. "Women like it when guys write poetry about them."
"How the hell did you know that poem was about Lisbon, anyway?"
Cho shrugged. "Boss has black hair and green eyes, and you wrote a poem called 'The Jade Raven.' It wasn't exactly a big leap."
"Lots of women have dark hair and green eyes," Jane protested.
"Yeah, but Lisbon's the only one of them you stare at when you think no one's looking."
Jane ignored this. "How'd you know I wrote it?"
"It's kind of a no brainer, Jane. It was in your notebook and you're not the type to copy out someone else's work for fun."
"I still don't see how you knew it was about Lisbon," Jane said sulkily.
Cho rolled his eyes. "You think you're the only one around here capable of being observant?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Who else would it be about? She's the only woman you've even looked at since your wife died."
"That's not true. I went out with Kristina Frye."
"Yeah, on one date. That doesn't count."
"Why not?"
"Because you weren't seriously interested in her."
"I might have been, if she hadn't been kidnapped," Jane said defensively.
Cho shook his head. "No. She was just your test run."
"My test run?"
"Yeah, to see if you were ready to date again."
"I went on a date with her. Therefore, I was ready to date."
"No," Cho said. "You weren't ready then. You are now, but you're afraid Red John will kill Lisbon if you make a move."
Jane was silent. That pretty much summed it up.
Cho shook his head. "You're an idiot. Red John already knows how you feel about her, so you're just making yourself miserable for no reason."
"What makes you so sure he knows?" Jane said, his insides twisting with fear. He'd been convinced for some time that Red John had deduced this critical fact, but he had been able to maintain a small thread of hope that Red John still remained unaware of the nature of his attachment to Lisbon. To have that hope dashed by an outside party was an unexpected blow.
Cho looked at him. "Anyone who's ever seen you look at her would know."
"You're wrong," Jane said weakly.
"Whatever." Cho returned his attention to the notebooks.
Jane thought about what he'd said. Red John already knows. You're just making yourself miserable for no reason.
No. Cho was wrong. Maybe Red John knew the truth, but so far he'd left Lisbon alone. As long as he knew Jane was still trapped in his wretched half life, perhaps he would be content with feeding on that evidence of Jane's despair. But if Jane committed the offense of actively seeking happiness by pursuing a more than platonic relationship with Lisbon, he was sure that would be the tipping point. Red John would come after her to punish him for his hubris once again.
According to Cho, he'd already been dangerously obvious. He'd have to curb his instincts to let his gaze linger on her. He had to stop allowing himself to be distracted by aches, green eyes, and thoughts of how prettily she blushed when she found out he'd written a poem about her.
He picked up the next notebook. He just needed to focus, that was all. From now on, his interactions with Lisbon had to be all business.
Later, after he and Cho had finished going through the rest of the notebooks, Jane went into Lisbon's office with a slight feeling of trepidation, uncertain as to how well his resolution would hold up when confronted with the woman herself.
She turned tomato red again when she looked up and saw him, but she managed to keep her voice relatively calm in a desperate attempt to maintain her usual cool. "Hey, Jane," she said, her voice only slightly higher than normal. "What's up?"
He held up a slip of paper between two fingers. "I found something in my notebooks that might be useful after all."
Lisbon looked at it warily, as though frightened that the small scrap of paper might contain a haiku dedicated to her. "Yeah?"
He handed her the slip of paper. Lisbon nearly jumped out of her skin when their fingers brushed as he handed it to her, but he pretended not to notice.
Lisbon was so busy avoiding his gaze it took her a moment to process what was written on the piece of paper. "Adelaide Tanner," she read aloud. "Tanner's mother?"
"Sister," he corrected her.
"Orville and Adelaide? Their parents must have been sadists."
"Yes, the names are rather unfortunate," Jane agreed.
"What's her story?"
"I don't know much about her. She was three or four years younger than Orville, I think."
Lisbon frowned at the paper, and Jane idly noted the adorable way her lower lip jutted out. "Do you have any idea where she might be living now?"
Perhaps the resolution was a bit harsh. Surely there was no harm in just looking. He'd gotten away with that particular indulgence so far, hadn't he? "Afraid not. I only heard her name mentioned in passing one time. At the time it didn't seem significant so I didn't inquire further."
"Still, it's a good clue," Lisbon said. "She might be able to tell us something useful. I'll see if I can track her down. She raised her eyes to meet his. "Thanks, Jane."
At that moment, he abandoned the resolution as completely impracticable. Hadn't he already proven he was incapable of staying away from her? He'd just have to find some other way to keep her safe.
Resolution summarily discarded, he looked back at her without reservation, drinking in sight of the utterly artless expression on her face as she met his gaze. He was going to need to work on his poetry skills, he decided. He really hadn't done justice to the rich color of her eyes in his first effort. Perhaps his next poem would be called 'The Emerald Sea.'
