Jane showed up at Lisbon's apartment at an ungodly hour the next morning, insisting on testing all the beverages and every last article of food in her refrigerator for organophosphate residue before he would permit her to eat breakfast. When that effort yielded nothing, he went through all her bath products and makeup. After that, it was testing her sheets and laundry detergent. He even tested the vents to ensure that the poison hadn't been introduced via the central air unit. Lisbon was slightly disturbed by the number of different ways Jane could think of to poison her.

He went through the same process before he would let her get in her car, swabbing the door handles, the steering wheel, and the gear shift with the cotton swabs that Dr. Cavendish had given them. He helped her with the standard bug sweep, commenting that poisoning someone by leaving residue in less obvious places would be a rather ingenious method of transmitting the poison if the culprit knew of the bug checks. Lisbon just hoped the person who was actually responsible for poisoning her wasn't as creative as Jane.

When they got to the office, Jane enlisted the rest of the team to help with the task of identifying the source of the poison. They had been informed of Lisbon's diagnosis the previous night in the course of their usual check-ins, but hadn't been caught up yet on the revelations from their visit to Hightower. Lisbon gave them the salient points and was keen to discuss the new developments with the rest of the team, but they were all in agreement with Jane and didn't seem interested in talking about anything but how she might be being poisoned.

They huddled in the bullpen, discussing ways and means of poisoning their hapless team leader. Van Pelt kept patting Lisbon's arm absently, almost as though to reassure herself that Lisbon was still really there. Lisbon let her, thinking it must be making Van Pelt feel better somehow, but this uncharacteristically demonstrative gesture from Van Pelt made Lisbon notice the equally unusual behavior of the rest of the team. They were all standing unnaturally close to her and she realized they had unconsciously formed a protective circle around her. She was touched by the sentiment, but somewhat exasperated by the fact that its practical effect was to force her to crane her neck to look any of them in the eye. As the shortest person on the team—okay, as the shortest person in almost any group of people, anywhere—she was sensitive to having her personal space invaded because it meant other people loomed over her. She tried shifting away subtly so she could look at Rigsby without getting a crick in her neck, but it didn't work; the rest of the team merely followed and then closed ranks around her again. She gave it up and let them loom while they brainstormed possible methods to kill her.

Cho thought someone might have poisoned her water, but Van Pelt pointed out that Lisbon normally drank water out of the water bottles in the fridge supplied by the CBI, which any number of people might have ended up drinking. Rigsby came up with the idea that someone might have dusted her computer keyboard with poison. Jane tested all the theories they come up with, just in case, but so far nothing had panned out.

"I don't get it," Lisbon commented as she watched Jane check the bulletin board in the bullpen. "Why go to all this effort to poison me? Why not just kill me and have done with it?"

"Because of me," Jane said tightly. "He knows this is the best way to torture me. He already knows I don't deal with loss well. What could be a more elegant means of destroying me than putting me in a situation where I'm forced to watch you slowly waste away, knowing there's absolutely nothing that I can do about it? He's crafting a private little hell, tailor made for me."

Lisbon had no idea what to say to that.

"Jane, did you try the couch in Lisbon's office yet?" Rigsby called from the opposite side of the room.

"Good idea," Jane said. "I'll be right there."

But the couch was a bust, too. After several more unsuccessful efforts, Jane was getting visibly frustrated. "Think, people. What other ways could Red John have used to poison Lisbon?"

"You said organophosphate poisoning could have happened through inhalation," Cho said. "You think she might have breathed it in somewhere?"

"No," Jane said. "It would have to be airborne for her to have been able to been exposed through inhalation. He wouldn't have done it that way. Unless it was in her apartment or her car, it would be too hard to target her specifically."

"What about absorbing it through the skin?" Van Pelt asked. "He might have sneaked in here and gotten it on her skin like he did to Rebecca Anderson."

"No," Jane said again. "Lisbon doesn't like to be touched. If someone she didn't know well started brushing against her regularly all of a sudden, she would have noticed."

"Doesn't necessarily have to be touch from a person," Cho pointed out. "It could be residue on an object."

"Yes, but we've already tried most of the objects she comes into contact with on a daily basis, and we haven't found residue on any of them. It can't just be any old object, or there would be too great a risk that someone else might pick it up by accident, or that Lisbon wouldn't pick it up at all. Besides, the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced he wouldn't have used an object. It's not…personal enough."

"Not personal enough?" Rigsby echoed.

"Yes. Poisoning is a very intimate way to kill someone. He'd want to have the opportunity to watch her absorb the poison, to take it into herself willingly without knowing what she was doing. That would appeal to his ironic sensibilities. Yes, I'm almost certain he would have chosen ingestion as the means of delivering the poison."

"Someone at the snack cart," Van Pelt suggested. "Lisbon goes up there pretty frequently when she forgets to eat lunch."

"A definite possibility," Jane agreed. "Although it doesn't explain why she would be sick more often in the morning; she usually only becomes aware of her stomach when she's literally about to faint from hunger, and that tends to happen more frequently in the late afternoon or evening." Then he stopped. "Wait. I know what it is. I can't believe I didn't think of it before—it's completely obvious how he's doing it." He went to the break room and everyone else followed. They watched him open the cupboard and pull out a white CBI mug. He held it aloft. "This is it. This is how he's poisoning her. Everyone who knows anything about Lisbon knows about her caffeine dependency. He's poisoning her coffee."

"Anybody could drink out of that cup," Lisbon pointed out. "Isn't that the point you were just making? He couldn't be certain that no one else would drink from it."

"Yes, he could," Van Pelt said. "Everybody knows that's your favorite mug. No one else uses it because they wouldn't want to make you mad if you couldn't find it."

"I would not get mad if someone used that mug," Lisbon protested. "It's not like it belongs to me. People are perfectly welcome to drink out of it whenever they want."

"Uh-huh," Cho said, in a tone that implied that he didn't believe her.

Rigsby raised his hand. "I wouldn't drink out of it," he volunteered.

"See?" Jane said. "People fear your wrath if they came between you and your coffee."

Lisbon rolled her eyes. "You really think someone is poisoning my coffee?"

"Definitely."

"Well, go ahead and test it, then," she said, resigned.

Jane did so. The liquid in the vial remained clear. "Huh."

"Back to the drawing board, eh?" Lisbon sighed.

Jane didn't budge. He stood there, still staring at the vial. "This doesn't make sense. I was so sure it was the coffee."

"So we'll try something else."

"No. This has to be it," Jane said stubbornly. "If I were going to poison you, I would poison your coffee."

"Me, too," Cho said.

"Same," Van Pelt agreed.

"Definitely," Rigsby put in.

Lisbon looked at them, slightly disconcerted that everyone on her team had apparently considered on at least one occasion in the past what means they would employ to poison her. "I don't know what to tell you guys. The liquid stayed clear, so apparently Red John doesn't know or care about my love of coffee."

Jane shook his head. "No. Everyone knows the best way to poison you is through your coffee. Even Carmen knew it, remember?"

"I'm not likely to forget, thanks," Lisbon said sourly.

"He must have managed it some other way," Jane mused. He went through the kitchenette and tested the coffee pot, the creamer, the sugar, the coffee filters, and the coffee itself. He even tested the decaf, which everyone knew Lisbon wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. He looked at Lisbon. "We're missing something. Something about your habits. Tell me your daily routine again. Leave nothing out."

"I've already told you five times," Lisbon protested.

"Tell me again. You must have forgotten to mention something."

Lisbon rolled her eyes, but complied. "I told you. I get up, drink my coffee, eat breakfast, then go for a run or to the gym. Then I shower and get dressed and come to work. I'm usually here most of the day, unless I have to go into the field or I have a meeting with Bertram at the capitol or have to go to court or something. Then I go home, grab a bite to eat, and watch TV or read for awhile before getting ready for bed."

"Unless you get up late," Rigsby pointed out. "Then you stop for coffee on the way to work."

Lisbon frowned. "I guess. But that doesn't happen that often." Then she realized that wasn't strictly true, at least recently. Lately, she'd been staying up later than normal talking on the phone to Jane, and she'd been oversleeping in the morning more frequently as a result. She realized with a sinking feeling in her stomach that what had once been a rare indulgence had become more of a habit. Lately, she'd probably been stopping to grab coffee from her favorite coffee shop two or three times a week.

Rigsby shrugged. "Maybe not. But yesterday you brought us all muffins from Marie's, and Van Pelt said you got pretty sick after."

"You love Marie's," Jane said. "You always say they have the best coffee in the city. But you don't usually indulge yourself on the good stuff because you think it's too expensive to buy for yourself all the time."

"I—I guess I've started going there more often, lately," Lisbon said, still reeling from the implications of what they were suggesting.

Jane closed his eyes in frustration. "And you didn't think it was important to mention this?"

"You said to tell you my daily routine," Lisbon said defensively. "I don't go there every day."

"That makes sense," Cho said. "You haven't been sick every day. It's been off and on."

Lisbon swallowed. "You really think—"

"That someone at Marie's is poisoning you," Jane finished. "Yes. At this point, I'd say it's almost certain."