Jane didn't sleep well that night. He was up late, turning Lisbon's new evidence over in his mind with what they'd discovered about the foster care system and weighing it all against everything else they knew about Red John. He was confident the team had those aspects well in hand, now that the critical connections had been established. Since the next steps would doubtless involve more tedious research, he was content to let them lead on that front. He would take any new information into consideration and apply it to the big picture, of course, but for the present, he intended to focus his own mind on the puzzle of Red John's fixation on Madeleine Hightower.

For the first time in a long while, he stayed in the CBI attic all night. Lisbon didn't like it when he slept there. It always caused her to worry that he was sinking too deeply into his own mind and losing touch with reality. He didn't understand why she believed this would be the case any more in the attic than in his hotel room, but he knew that no amount of logical argument on this point would sway her opinion on the matter. To him, the location was of less importance than the subject of his thoughts. When he had something he needed to think about deeply, he naturally withdrew from others in order to concentrate without interruption. The appeal of the CBI attic was that it was quiet, and when he wanted to focus, it was more convenient to spend the night there than to waste time driving across town to the hotel. He had been making a conscious effort of late not to add unnecessarily to Lisbon's burden of worry, however, so he hadn't been spending quite so much time in the attic. This night, though, he had been caught up in his thoughts and had lost track of time. By the time he'd realized how late it was, it really did seem pointless to go back to the hotel, so he'd settled on his makeshift cot for a cat nap.

He woke at seven, his eyes gritty from the lack of sleep and his back stiff from sleeping on the hard surface of the less than ideally cushioned cot. He stretched, brushed his teeth in the tiny bathroom at the head of the stairs, and then headed down to the CBI gym in the basement to shower, hoping he had a clean suit in his locker. If he got himself cleaned up well enough, maybe Lisbon wouldn't notice that he'd spent the night at the CBI again.

He had to reevaluate this once he arrived in the gym, however. Lisbon was there, working out, and since she was between him and the men's locker room, the chances of her not noticing that he was wearing the same clothes as yesterday went pretty much straight down to zero the minute his foot crossed the threshold.

In lieu of a regular workout on the treadmill or weight machines, she was training in some kind of martial arts with a partner. Kickboxing, or karate, or some combination of the two. With a little wrestling thrown in. It wasn't a real fight, of course—the combatants took care to pull back the weight of their blows before making contact with their opponent's flesh.

Jane stopped dead when he saw them, transfixed by the sight. Lisbon wore capri length black workout pants as well as a tank top and sports bra, and her feet were bare. Her hair was tied back in a long ponytail. She had an expression of fierce concentration on her face, and he wondered if there was anything she did in life with less than one hundred percent worth of effort.

Lisbon, naturally, was the smaller of the two. It made sense that she would choose a training partner larger than herself, since any physical confrontation she was likely to get into in the course of her job was likely to involve an opponent over a head taller than her and who outweighed her by at least fifty pounds. She acquitted herself well, though, despite her opponent's larger size. He may have been bigger, but she was smart and quick; she was holding her own in their mock battle.

Despite the physical disparity between the two combatants, they were fairly well matched. What Lisbon lacked in size, she made up for in intensity. She was agile and lightning quick, striking swiftly and decisively whenever the opportunity presented itself. She fought smart, patiently drawing her opponent into more and more reckless attacks, tiring him out. She knew she would lose the fight if she allowed herself to get trapped in a situation where the outcome relied on a straight match of size and strength, but she was confident enough in her stamina to know she could outlast her opponent if it came down to endurance at the end.

"Show me that move again," she was saying. "I want to get a handle on it before we call it a day."

Her companion obliged her. He indicated for her to begin her attack, and she struck at him. He blocked the move and when she struck again, he used her momentum against her, flipping her over his hip and pinning her face down on the ground.

"Okay," Lisbon panted from her prone position. "I think I know what you did there-" she stopped, catching sight of Jane standing there staring at her. "Jane?"

Her opponent looked up, and Jane realized it was Cho. A fact he surely would have noticed if he hadn't been so preoccupied watching Lisbon in this unexpected environment.

Cho let her up, and Lisbon scrambled to her feet. "What are you doing here?"

"I was just going to the locker room to take a shower," he said, slightly dazed. Lisbon was flushed and sweating from the exercise. A long black strand of her hair had escaped the confines of her ponytail and was sticking to her neck. Jane stared at it, thinking about what she would taste like if he were to take leave of his senses and sweep that strand of hair away from her neck and replace it with his lips.

"Oh," Lisbon said, flustered. "Um, Cho and I were just working out."

Jane forced his eyes over to Cho. Cho was wearing an Oakland A's t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, but otherwise, he just looked like Cho. "I can see that."

"Cho's been showing me some moves he knows from being in the Special Forces," she continued.

"Good," Jane found himself saying. "That could be useful." Then his brain caught up with what she had said and he looked at her again, this time with an entirely different thought in mind. She was as petite and slender as ever, but her arms looked even more toned than usual, the muscles in her biceps and shoulders more clearly defined. She had been training for awhile now, he realized. This wasn't a casual sparring match between co-workers; it had a specific purpose.

She took in his rumpled suit and unshaven face and narrowed her eyes. "Did you sleep here last night?" she demanded, putting her hands on her hips.

"Just a cat nap," he said, his mind rapidly calculating all the facts he had at hand. Lisbon liked to stay fit, but this was more than that. She hadn't started this regime for vanity's sake. She normally preferred to work out alone, but she had forsaken her long runs for sparring matches in the gym. No, probably not forsaken them—just added this into her rotation as part of a cross-training routine. She'd asked Cho for help, and he'd be willing to bet Rigsby and Van Pelt had been tapped as fighting partners as well so she could test her skills against different opponents. In addition, she had convinced Cho to show her moves he had learned in the military. She wasn't working towards some ridiculous fitness goal or even just trying to improve her fighting skills for the usual action she encountered in the field. She was preparing her body for combat.

Jane started to shake slightly as he processed what this meant. Lisbon believed she would be involved in the final conflict with Red John, he realized. She'd finally figured out that as the person closest to him, she was the most vulnerable, and she was taking steps to make sure she could protect herself as well as she could when the final confrontation occurred. The idea of Lisbon calmly resigning herself to the need to sharpen her self-defense skills as preparation for the likelihood of being captured by Red John made him sick to his stomach.

Then it occurred to him that she probably hadn't figured it out at all, and he felt even worse.

Upon reflection, he decided this was the more likely scenario. She had never considered that she might be at any greater risk than the others. She simply assumed she would be there because she was the agent in charge, and she damn well wasn't going to let Jane go after Red John alone, once they finally figured out who he was. In fact, she probably had every intention of doing everything she could to keep Jane out of the fray entirely. As the team leader, she was prepared to assume the greatest risk by confronting the mad man herself. She'd prefer to do it with a gun in her hand, but if that didn't end up being the case, she wanted the security of knowing that she could face him unarmed, if need be.

Lisbon, who had started lecturing him about the evils of what she called his 'horrible old attic,' broke off mid-tirade. "Are you all right?" she asked him with a frown.

He smiled weakly and thrust his hands in his pockets, that she might not notice them trembling. Damn. Ever since Lisbon had taken her little trip to the mountains, all his biofeedback tricks had really gone to hell. "Fine," he said lightly.

Her frown deepened, but before she could interrogate him further, her phone rang. She sighed. "I'll be right back," she said, crossing the room to fetch the ringing phone out of her bag.

Jane watched her go, finding it much easier to calm himself when she was still in his line of sight but her green eyes weren't boring into his.

Then he realized Cho was watching him stare at Lisbon's retreating figure. He looked away from her and met Cho's gaze.

Cho shook his head. "You're in a bad way, man."

"Tell me about it," Jane said gloomily.

Lisbon came back over to them, snapping her phone shut. "We've got a problem," she said.

"What's up?" Cho asked her.

"Clarissa Allen is dead," she told him.

Jane frowned. "The social worker Van Pelt and Rigsby talked to about O'Laughlin?"

"Yeah," Lisbon confirmed. "She was stabbed to death in her office last night. We've got to head down to Stockton to check out the scene."

"Got it," Cho said.

Lisbon checked her watch. "I'm gonna hit the showers. We're leaving in twenty minutes."

Xxx

When they arrived at the social services office in Stockton, the scene was a mess. Rigsby and Van Pelt were already there, arguing with several extremely disgruntled looking members of the local PD. They'd managed to keep the Stockton PD from trampling all over the crime scene, but Rigsby was looking a bit tight about the mouth and Van Pelt looked like she was ready to deck somebody.

Lisbon waded into the fray straight away, leaving Jane and Cho to survey the scene. She stated firmly that the case belonged to the CBI, calmly smoothing any ruffled feathers she perceived to be a potential problem while leaving no doubt who was in charge here.

"Looks pretty bad," Cho remarked.

He was right. The victim was slumped over her desk, wide eyes staring, and there was blood everywhere. So much that it seemed incredible that it could have all come from one person.

Having dispatched the local PD to "secure the scene"—which really meant not allowing anyone else to wander in- Lisbon and the others joined them.

Rigsby was frowning at the wall. "There's no smiley face."

"True," Jane agreed.

"What do you think that means?"

"It means Red John didn't kill this woman herself," Jane said.

"You don't know that," Lisbon said. "He might have done it and decided not to leave his signature to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to himself."

Jane shook his head. "No. Red John never allows anger to rule him when he kills. He's too disciplined for that. The person who did this was furious and out of control, slashing everywhere. Red John is brutal, but precise. To him, every cut is almost like a caress. This isn't consistent with his cutting style at all."

"So you think it was one of his disciples," Cho stated.

Jane nodded. "I'm betting it was Red John's man on the inside who did the actual killing. He may have been acting on Red John's orders or he may have simply discovered that she had told us about the connection between the four boys and killed this poor woman to protect himself."

"But in either case, whoever did this did it because they felt like they had to act to protect Red John," Van Pelt surmised.

"Good," Lisbon said grimly. "That means we're on the right track."

"I agree," Jane said. "If the person who did this had waited, it might have taken us weeks or months to figure out who it was. As it is, he's not only confirmed that Van Pelt's theory is correct, but run a great risk of exposing himself. I doubt it will be hard to figure out who committed the murder. It's almost certainly someone who worked here with her, so all we have to do is rattle a few cages around here and someone's bound to point us in the right direction. It's going to be actually finding the culprit once we know who it is that's going to be the tricky part."

"One thing at a time," Lisbon said. "First we have to finish processing the scene, just like we always do. Is there any sign of the murder weapon?"

Cho shook his head. "Not yet. Looks like some kind of sharp implement. Not sure yet if it was a knife or something else. Killer must have taken it when he fled the scene."

"It will be something that was already here," Jane said. "This murder wasn't planned. The killer grabbed whatever was nearest to hand that could get the job done."

Lisbon looked around at the blood spattered walls. "I'm inclined to agree. If it were planned, the killer could have bought himself some more time by killing her at home. The victim lived alone, so it's possible no one would have even noticed she was missing right away."

"What's our next move, boss?" Cho asked.

"We're going to talk to every damn person in the building until we can find someone who saw something last night," Lisbon said decisively. "We'll split up. Cho, you check the security footage. Rigsby and Van Pelt, you guys take the third and fourth floors. Jane and I will take the first two. We'll tag up in two hours and see how far we've gotten."

The team dispersed, but before the allotted two hours had passed, Rigsby and Van Pelt came back downstairs to find Lisbon and Jane. "What's up?" Lisbon asked.

"We think we know who it is," Van Pelt said breathlessly.

Lisbon blinked. "That was fast."

"We talked to Clarissa Allen's co-workers. They said she was here late last night catching up on paperwork. She and her supervisor were the last ones here. And get this. The supervisor didn't report for work today."

"Son of a bitch," Lisbon breathed. "What's the supervisor's name?"

"Irene Gregson," Van Pelt reported. "She fits the profile, boss. She's worked here more than twenty-five years, and as the supervisor for all the case workers on staff, she would have had access to files for all the foster kids in the county."

"Good work," Lisbon said. "Go meet up with Cho and let him know what you've found. See if you can get a lock on what time Irene Gregson left the building from the security footage. Jane and I are going to go to her house and try to pick her up for questioning."

"Will do."

Jane and Lisbon got the address of Irene Gregson's house from the human resources department and drove across town to pay her a visit.

"She's not going to be there," Jane said once they'd gotten in the car.

"That's possible," Lisbon agreed. "But we have to check. And even if she isn't there, she might have left something at the house that will help us figure out where she's gone."

"She's gone to Red John. She won't have left anything at the house that will give us any clues about who or where he is."

"We still have to check," Lisbon said patiently. "So far, the only thing we know for sure is that she didn't show up for work today. She might have just come down with a stomach bug or been in an accident or something."

"You don't believe that. You think it's her. You can feel it in your gut, just like I can."

"Yeah, well, I've been wrong about feelings in my gut before, and so have you. Besides, District Attorneys tend to frown on investigations that are conducted based on the lead investigator's gut."

"When have I been wrong about a feeling in my gut?" Jane demanded.

Lisbon rolled her eyes and didn't dignify his question with an answer.

When they got to the house, Lisbon knocked on the door, but there was no answer. Jane peered in through the front window. "Uh, Lisbon. I think there's something on the front table that you might find interesting."

Lisbon went to look, too. She could feel the warmth of Jane's body at her side as she stood next to him at the window. There was a letter opener lying on the front table, the kind one might find in a typical office setting.

It was still dripping blood onto the carpet.

"Congratulations, Jane," Lisbon said. "You just found us probable cause."

And then she kicked the door in.

Jane trailed in after her. "I could have just picked the lock."

She shook her head. "Forced entry is easier to explain in reports than a note saying 'and then I ordered my consultant to pick the lock.'"

"But you aren't reporting to Bertram on this case, so what does it matter?"

Lisbon took a photograph of the murder weapon on the table with her phone. "Not now, I'm not. But once it's all over, I will. Assuming he doesn't turn out to be a mole for Red John, of course."

"Why bother at all? Once it's over, Bertram isn't going to care about the reports. He'll be too busy lining up press conferences to take credit for all our hard work."

"We need to be accountable for our actions under the law, Jane," Lisbon said, putting on a pair of latex gloves and bagging the letter opener as evidence. "That's the only way to build a case and ensure that justice is served."

"The only way to ensure justice is served by the long arm of the law, you mean," Jane corrected her. "There are other means of serving justice."

"Yes, I'm talking about the word justice the way normal people understand it," Lisbon agreed. "Not the version you practice, where you manipulate people into falling for your schemes so you can mete out some punishment you've devised on your own based on what you think the person deserves."

"It's called poetic justice, Lisbon."

"It's called due process, Jane," she countered. "I know you think the rules don't apply to you, but society would fall apart if everybody acted like you. Justice can't be based on the arbitrary judgment of a single individual, and it can't be selectively enforced based on the whims of one man. We have a social contract that mandates that we all be treated equally under the law."

"That's a stirring speech, Lisbon," Jane said. "The CBI should be sending you into schools to inspire America's youth."

She scowled. "Are you going to mock me, or are you going to help me search the house?"

Jane dutifully helped her search the house, but they didn't find anything much besides the murder weapon and some bloody clothes on the bathroom floor. Jane did find a four piece matching set of luggage with one of the pieces missing, and they agreed that it looked as though Irene Gregson had quickly packed a suitcase and gotten the hell out of Dodge. She certainly hadn't made any effort to cover her tracks or divert suspicion onto anyone else. Lisbon found this encouraging, because it meant they had a clear chain of evidence, but Jane thought it was a bad sign.

They'd been at it about twenty minutes when Van Pelt called.

"Any sign of Gregson at her house?" Van Pelt asked.

"No, but we found the murder weapon on her front table," Lisbon told her.

"Find anything else interesting?"

"Not really. Jane and I have searched the place pretty thoroughly but it looks like she came home to clean up a bit and then just packed up a suitcase and left. How about you?"

"Gregson left the building at about 11pm last night," Van Pelt said. "Security footage has her walking to her car at that time."

"Great. Were you able to get a read on the plates?"

"Yeah, we have them."

"Put a bolo out on the car and make sure her photo is circulated among all the major media outlets. I want to make sure she can't buy a stick of gum without someone recognizing her, let alone get on a bus, a train, or a plane."

"You got it, boss."

Lisbon hung up, and turned back to Jane and relayed the information Van Pelt had given her.

"Gregson didn't make much of an effort to cover her tracks, did she?" Jane remarked.

"Yeah, getting a conviction should be a slam dunk once we catch her," Lisbon replied.

"That's the problem, though, isn't it? We're not going to catch her."

"What? What do you mean? It's a bit soon to be giving up, don't you think? We haven't even started looking for her yet."

"She made no effort whatsoever to conceal the fact that she murdered Clarissa Allen. Murdering someone isn't that hard if you don't care about anyone finding out. It's covering it up that poses the problem for most people."

Lisbon sighed. "What's your point?"

"Look at this place," Jane said, gesturing to their surroundings.

Lisbon looked. She saw a lot of comfortable looking furniture, some awful flowered wallpaper, and not a whole lot else. "What about it?"

"She has no photographs in the whole house. You know what that tells me?"

"What?"

"That there's no one in her life that she cares about leaving behind. She has no ties holding her to this place."

"That doesn't necessarily mean we are not going to catch her."

"Yes, it does. She's going to go straight to Red John, and he's going to make her disappear."

"We're going to find her, Jane. She is going to lead us to Red John."

Jane was less optimistic. "We'll see."