By the next morning, Jane had done the thinking he needed to do and was ready for action.
He called Lisbon at six.
"What?" she said grumpily when she picked up the phone, still half asleep.
"Wake up, sleepy-head," Jane said briskly. "You have a busy day ahead of you."
"You know I have a gun, right?" she growled. His Lisbon was not a morning person.
"Yes, but you'll have to get out of bed if you want to shoot me," he pointed out.
She muttered a rather unladylike suggestion as to what he could do with himself and his early morning phone calls.
"That's a fine thing to say to the man who just got a major break in the biggest case of your career," he chided her.
"You found something?"
"I did indeed."
"What is it?"
"You need to come to the office right away. I'll tell you about it then."
"Need I remind you that I'm your boss? I'm the one who gets to decide where and when communication occurs. Just tell me now."
"No can do. But I can tell you that it's big."
"How big?" Lisbon demanded.
"Really big."
"Tell me!"
He paused for dramatic effect. "I have a name."
He heard the rustle of bed clothes as she sat bolt upright in bed. "You have a name?"
"Yes."
"Red John's name?" she double-checked.
"I believe so, yes."
"What is it? What's the name?"
"Come to the office and I'll tell you," he said, and hung up.
Xxx
To his surprise, Cho and Van Pelt beat Lisbon into the office, arriving within moments of each other.
"Boss called us," Cho informed him, off Jane's surprised look. It was very early, after all.
"Did you really find out Red John's name?" Van Pelt asked.
"Yes," Jane told her. "I think so, anyway."
"So what is it?" she asked eagerly.
He shook his head. "I'll give you the whole story once everyone's here."
Van Pelt looked disappointed, but unsurprised. "Okay."
"Did you guys find anything new yesterday?" Jane asked.
"We found out Kellan Howard was definitely having an affair with Janine Taylor," she told him. "His widow is still alive and she told us he confessed the affair to her a few years after it happened. He left out the part where he killed her, though. She didn't know anything about that."
Lisbon showed up then with Rigsby in tow.
"What kept you?" Jane demanded.
"We had to stop on the way," Lisbon responded, shooting an annoyed look at Rigsby, who was devouring a breakfast sandwich from a fast food establishment as he walked.
"'m sorry!" Rigsby said around mouthful of his breakfast sandwich. "I was hungry."
"Never mind," Lisbon said impatiently. "What did you find out, Jane?"
"Noah Plaskett knew Red John in the army," he told them. "Red John killed a local girl while they were overseas and tried to get Plaskett's friend Tom Cassidy to cover it up for him."
Lisbon frowned. "Tom Cassidy? Wasn't that the name of the man who was sheriff in San Angelo before Hardy?"
"The very same," Jane confirmed. "He and Plaskett were army buddies."
"Did Cassidy help Red John cover up the murder?"
"No. Cassidy refused, and Red John had to come up with a different way of getting cleared. After Cassidy refused to back Red John's story, Red John had him kicked out of the army for trying to ruin his reputation. When he came back, he couldn't get a job, so Plaskett helped him get set up on the San Angelo police force."
"How'd he get cleared?" Cho wanted to know.
"He managed to produce some surveillance footage of himself at the project site and he framed the girl's brother for the murder, killing him for good measure."
"Why do you think this man you're talking about is Red John, if he had an alibi for the murder?" Van Pelt asked.
"He painted his victim's toenails in her own blood," Jane told her. "You think that could be a coincidence?"
"No," Van Pelt admitted.
"How could there be surveillance footage of him somewhere else if he was off murdering someone?" Rigsby asked.
"Obviously, this was one of his first forays into accessing a secure system and manipulating its data. I have no idea how he did it, but I'd bet my only pair of shoes that he tampered with the security footage somehow."
"But the army suspected him at the time?" Lisbon asked.
"The girl's brother—the one he ultimately framed—accused him, so they launched a full investigation. The army cleared him once he came up with the security footage, and then he turned around and demanded that they prosecute Cassidy for incriminating him."
"Where does Noah Plaskett fit into all of this?"
"Plaskett spoke in Cassidy's defense. He told the army Cassidy hadn't done anything wrong, and essentially called Red John a spoiled brat for going after Cassidy in the first place."
Lisbon sucked in a breath. "Jesus."
"Once they all got back from the army, Red John arranged for Cassidy to die in a suspicious accident and then set up one of his followers as his replacement as sheriff. Death was too good for Plaskett, however, because he insulted him, so Red John set about crafting a more complex revenge against him: he went after his three children instead."
"Three?" Cho asked.
"Yes, three," Jane confirmed. "Red John was trying to recruit Drake to join his followers."
Lisbon blinked. "Seriously?"
"Yes. I believe that was Hardy's primary reason for being in San Angelo. I think Red John sent him there specifically to persuade Drake to join Red John's followers."
"I thought you said Red John only helped with Maya Plaskett's kidnapping because Hardy asked him too," Cho said.
"That's what I thought at first," Jane admitted. "I thought Red John chose Emma as his victim because Hardy asked him for help getting Maya for himself. But now I don't think that's true. Red John was the one who chose them. Hardy was just there to do Red John's bidding."
Lisbon shook her head. "But Hardy said he was in love with Maya. He was the one who told us that Red John helped him because he wanted Maya to be his wife."
"We always knew that Red John rewards his followers when they are faithful to him. Offering Hardy a wife was meant to be a token of appreciation for Hardy's loyal service. Red John might have let Hardy choose which one of the girls he would keep and which one would be sacrificed to Red John, but Red John was the architect of that delusional romance, not Hardy. "
"That doesn't explain the part about wanting to recruit the brother. How did Hardy think he was going to do that when Red John kidnapped Drake's kid sisters?" Cho asked.
Jane told them what Drake had told him about Hardy and the 'Red Room.'
Rigsby shook his head when he had finished. "That's nuts."
"Why do you think Red John let Hardy take on such a risky task?" Lisbon wondered.
"I don't think Red John meant for Hardy to try to hypnotize him. He was just supposed to prime Drake for when Red John was ready to make his move. I think Hardy acted independently when he set up his so-called Red Room."
"Why would Hardy do that?" Lisbon said skeptically.
"Remember what Maldonado told us about being taken into a special place where Red John showed him visions of the future? I think Hardy was imitating something very close to what Red John does to cement the loyalty of his followers. He was trying to impress Red John and decided to try to persuade Drake to join Red John for him. It backfired, though. He didn't know the first thing about hypnotism, and he didn't read his mark properly, so he botched the whole thing. Red John was furious. Hardy ruined Red John's chances of ever convincing Drake to join him voluntarily. He punished Hardy severely for that bit of initiative."
"Why was Red John so set on getting Drake to join him in the first place?" Rigsby wanted to know.
"There's a twisted kind of elegance to it, if you think about it," Jane said. "He kills one of Plaskett's children, kidnaps the second, and takes the third as his own. Plaskett would be dealing with grief of the certain loss of one child, the torture of wondering about the unknown fate of the second, and then to top it all off, his last remaining child would be turned against him by his enemy."
"All that just because he thought Noah Plaskett humiliated him?" Lisbon said in disgust. "God, Plaskett was right. He really is childish and petty."
"His revenge didn't work, though," Van Pelt pointed out. "He killed Emma, but we found Maya, and Drake didn't want anything to do with Hardy after he tried to hypnotize him."
"If what Jane is saying is true about Red John wanting revenge against Plaskett, why would he just give up?" Rigsby asked. "Why didn't he just wait til we'd all gone back to Sacramento and kill Maya Plaskett in her bed or something?"
"I don't know," Jane admitted. "That's one thing that's stumped me about all this."
"There's something else bothering me about this whole thing," Lisbon said to Jane.
He turned to her. "What's that?"
"Why would he wait so long to get his revenge on Cassidy and Plaskett? Why the delay? They all got out of the army years ago. Why not just kill them and have done with it instead of waiting for Plaskett to have three kids and let them all grow up before going after them?"
Jane frowned. "That's an excellent question."
"Maybe Plaskett did something else to Red John more recently that he didn't tell you about," Cho suggested.
"I don't think so," Jane said. He thought for a moment. "I think Red John's reasons for killing have changed over the years," he said at last.
"In what way?" Lisbon asked.
Jane shrugged. "Let's look at his history."
He closed his eyes, his mouth softly parted, and Lisbon was forcibly reminded of the air he adopted when he was pretending to be a psychic. This time, though, his manner wasn't affected- he was merely concentrating: piecing together the fragments they'd collected with his incredible intuition.
"He was born to a prostitute named Janine Taylor," Jane began. "He never knew his father. His mother raised him, but she suffered from depression and was struggling to survive, and went through periods where she distanced herself emotionally from her son. Lonely and depressed, she began an affair with Kellan Howard. She was an attractive woman, and Howard was powerfully drawn to her. But he had issues of his own and grew paranoid that someone would find out about the affair. Ultimately, the strain of the constant secrecy and his inability to deny himself her presence while she was still alive pushed him over the edge, and he stabbed her to death. Red John witnessed the murder when he was only eight years old, and the experience scarred him for life."
He spoke in a smooth, hypnotic lilt of a master storyteller, half entranced by his own narrative. "After his mother's death, he was full of rage. He was thrown into the foster care system and couldn't relate to anyone around him—none of them had gone through what he had. He lost his temper easily, withdrew from everyone. He locked down the rage he was feeling, but every so often, he lost control, acted out. Because of these incidents, no foster family would keep him for long, and he grew even more socially isolated. Then he met the Tanners. He was older, stronger, and smarter than they were- they admired him, looked up to him. This was a new experience for him. He enjoyed the attention, and experimented with manipulating them—alternatively charming them and meting out punishments to see how far he could bend them to his will. He was incredibly intelligent and precocious. Reading his subjects and what motivated them was laughably easy, and he succeeded beyond his wildest expectations. His petty domination of them opened his eyes to a sense of his own power, and at the same time, it increased their dependence on him for emotional security."
"Meanwhile, he was planning for his future. He hated foster care and wanted to be independent. He was smart, so he applied to college early. He went to Stanford and graduated with a degree in civil engineering. Then he joined the army, determined to put his past behind him."
"Wait a minute," Lisbon interrupted. "Red John has a degree in civil engineering?"
Jane's eyes popped open. "Did I mention that he was sent overseas to build a dam?"
"No," Lisbon said, mind reeling. "You failed to mention that."
"Well, you were right all along," Jane told her. "He's an engineer, and apparently something of a genius when it comes to construction. Probably has advanced mathematical training. I could see physics being very appealing to him."
"Can we come back to Red John's math skills later?" Van Pelt said impatiently. "I want to hear the rest of the story."
Lisbon gestured her assent. "Go on, Jane."
"Where was I?"
"You were about to tell us how he ended up killing this girl in the desert," Cho told him.
"Ah, yes," Jane said. "The girl in the desert was probably his first murder. It was sloppy, uncontrolled. I'd bet anything her death was unplanned. She was beautiful, and he was entranced by her. He followed her. Perhaps he even succeeded in seducing her. But once he had her, he discovered that exploring her sexually wasn't enough for him. He craved something even more intimate from her. For the first time since his mother died, he felt truly alive, emotionally engaged. His passion took over, and he killed her. He'd been fighting his dark urges since he was a boy, and all of a sudden, far from everything he'd ever known, he lost control and found himself with a dead body on his hands. But instead of being horrified and remorseful, he was thrilled, excited. Then the girl's brother accused him, and he was caught off guard. He probably panicked at first when the brother pointed a finger at him and caused the army to suspect him, but he found that coming up with ways to outsmart the army was just as thrilling as the murder itself. To him, it added another element to the game, a way of extending the initial pleasure derived from the act of killing."
Rigsby shuddered. "Some game."
"It's all a game to him," Jane said. "He's used to running circles around anyone he meets, intellectually. He needs something to stimulate him, to challenge him. The murders themselves are intimate, an emotional release. But the planning for them, covering them up—that's fun for him. Over the years, though, his standard mode of operation became commonplace to him. He needed more complex challenges to stimulate him."
Lisbon shook her head. "Let's stick with the first one, for now. You're saying once he got cleared, he just went straight back to the irrigation project like nothing had happened?"
Jane nodded. "He likes having the respect of men in authority, likes that they are impressed by his brilliance. The army gave that to him through their need for his engineering skills. He didn't want to lose that, so he went back to work."
"If he was in the army and maintained strong ties with the military, that would explain how he connected up with Gupta and Jennifer Mundy," Cho commented. "He might have been an instructor in one of their training sessions at Fort Irwin."
"Makes sense," Jane agreed. "In any case, when his service was over, he continued his work as an engineer, building an empire for himself, currying favor with important political figures and amassing a fortune while he was at it. But having killed once, he found that he had a taste for it. He couldn't be satisfied unless he continued to feed that craving. He started thinking about Kellan Howard, and couldn't imagine a more deserving target for his wrath. He went after Howard, but he was still young and inexperienced. It was one thing to kill a defenseless young woman, but killing Howard, a career cop, was an entirely different matter. He failed to take into account Howard's strength and experience, and Howard managed to wound him in the altercation. He was forced to improvise, and slit Howard's neck before Howard could get the better of him. For some reason, he didn't hang onto the nail that Howard managed to wound him with and which he ultimately used to kill him. He left it behind by accident, only realizing much later that he'd left a damaging piece of evidence behind."
"He went back to his normal life, but everything was flat and faded. After the thrill of killing, nothing else could satisfy him. Eventually, he reconnected with the Tanners. He seduced Adelaide just because he could, but her slavish devotion to him quickly became boring to him. He recognized, however, that it could be useful. He thought about how he could use it to his advantage. Meanwhile, he was more and more preoccupied with what would come. He decided to try killing again, but this time, he would plan every detail. He would ensure there were no mistakes. He searched for a suitable candidate to be his next subject, and finally settled on another young beautiful woman. One he could be assured of finding at home alone one evening."
"He conscripted Orville Tanner as a lookout. Orville went along with it without knowing exactly what Red John was up to. Only later, when Orville became a suspect in the young woman's murder, did he finally realize the truth of what Red John has done. At the same time, the scope of Red John's vision was expanding. He killed several more times, but by that point he already needed more. He experimented with Adelaide, seeing how far she was willing to go for him, and she never disappointed him. Unlike her brother, she would do absolutely anything for him."
"Why would Red John kill Adelaide, when she was so loyal to him, and leave Orville free to tell anyone who cared to listen that Red John was the one who really killed the woman he'd been convicted of murdering?" Rigsby asked.
"Because he's a misogynistic bastard?" Lisbon suggested.
Jane frowned. "Actually, I think you might be right about that, Lisbon."
"Of course I'm right about that," Lisbon said, exasperated. "That's the one thing we've known about him all along, remember?"
Jane shook his head. "No, I mean I think the way he relates to women is very different than the way he relates to men."
"Doesn't everybody?" Rigsby wondered aloud. "I mean, not with the killing and everything, but, you know—"
Jane ignored him. "He associates women with comfort and emotional release, and those feelings are intensified when he finds one he believes to be worthy of being one of his… projects. He's charming, charismatic, and an expert at manipulating people. Seducing women comes easily to him. In a way, men are more mysterious to him, and because of that, he values them more than he does women. He never had a father, and he craves the approval of any man whose intelligence he respects. Now, with Orville, there was another level of complexity to that need."
"What do you mean?"
"His relationship with Orville was very complicated. Orville grew up with him, idolized him. He must have thought of Orville almost like a brother. He might have even seduced Adelaide in part to test him, as brothers test each other. But I think something very interesting happened when he did that. Orville was no prize, but he was always protective of his little sister. Orville was very unhappy with him when he did that. I bet he already had reservations about helping him with this mysterious errand he'd asked him to assist with, but I think his eyes were really opened to what Red John truly was when he learned he'd seduced Adelaide. And in a strange way, I think Orville's sudden failure to be completely enamored with Red John made him more interesting to Red John. He respected him more. He even cared for him, perhaps more than anyone else he'd encountered since his mother's death. Orville, meanwhile, was finally seeing who he was, and was ready to cut all ties. I bet Orville tried to warn Adelaide what he was really doing, but Adelaide was so in love with Red John she was blind with it. She wouldn't listen to a thing her brother said on the matter. She was never disillusioned with him the way her brother was."
Lisbon shook her head. "If Orville was so disillusioned with him, why would he write all those letters to his son telling him how great Red John was?"
"We don't know what was in those letters," Jane countered. "Hardy told us that his father wrote him every week. He never said what the letters were about."
Lisbon frowned. "It was implied."
"Based on what we know now, I don't think Orville mentioned Red John at all in his letters. I don't think he would have wanted his son anywhere near him. But after he died, Red John approached a grieving Hardy and told him he was an old friend of his father's. He knew all sorts of stories about the kid's old man, and Hardy was probably desperate for any kind of word of his father that showed him in a better light than the one he was accustomed to people pointing out to him, that of a murderer who deserved to rot in jail. Red John might have told him Orville would have wanted him to look out for him, if something happened to him. Hardy ate it up, and next thing you know, Red John has his next disciple."
"But why wouldn't Orville have rolled over on him completely, if he was so disillusioned with him? Why wouldn't he have told the police Red John's real name, instead of just complaining to his cell mate that he'd been set up?"
Jane thought about this. "Perhaps Red John threatened his son, or his sister, if he squealed. So Orville was stuck in jail, fuming about having allowed himself to have been manipulated into this situation, but powerless to change it."
"What about Irene Gregson?" Cho asked. "How does she fit into all this?"
Jane tapped his finger against his lips. "Good question. I'd be willing to bet that he seduced Irene Gregson, too, just like Adelaide. Once he had secured her devotion, he asked her to let him know if she came across any, shall we say, promising subjects, for his endeavors in the course of her work at the social services agency. She fed him names of emotionally isolated young people she suspected of having latent violent tendencies, and he would approach them independently, offering them something they needed—a job, a home, a means to gain influence with the people around them. He charmed them, offered them a place in the world when no one else would have them."
"Makes sense," Rigsby commented.
Van Pelt looked at Jane admiringly. "How did you figure all that out, just from what Drake and Noah Plaskett told you?"
He shrugged. "We've collected a lot of information about him over the years. At this point, putting together the whole story is simply a matter of filling in the gaps between all those disparate pieces of information in a way that makes sense. Like a puzzle. The more of it you have completed, the easier it is to find where the next piece fits in with the whole."
"It does seem to fit," Lisbon admitted.
"So what's his name?" Cho asked.
"His name?" Jane repeated.
"Yeah. Boss said you figured out Red John's name. I thought that was the whole reason for calling us in here early in the first place."
"Yes, I suppose it was," Jane said.
Cho gave him a look. "So what is it? What's Red John's name?"
"His name is Jonathan Russo," Jane told him.
"Never heard of him," Rigsby said, sounding disappointed.
"You were expecting to?" Van Pelt said.
"Well… yeah," Rigsby said. "Given everything he knows about us and about the investigation, I kind of thought he would be someone we knew."
"So did I," Jane admitted.
"Jonathan Russo. That name is familiar to me," Lisbon said slowly.
Jane stared at her. "You know him?"
Lisbon shook her head. "No. But I know the name. Hang on just one minute." She went into her office and returned with an open file. She flipped through the sheaf of paper until she found the page she was looking for. She ran her finger down the sheet and stopped about a third of the way down. "Here it is. Jonathan Russo. President of Steele Industries."
Jane felt a rush of adrenaline course through him. "That's him. My God. We've got him. All we have to do now is find him."
"Not so fast," Lisbon said. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."
"What do you mean, not so fast?" Jane demanded. "It's been ten years, Lisbon. What are we waiting for?"
"All we have right now is a lot of guesswork. We could build a case on the circumstantial evidence we've collected so far, but I'm not willing to take that risk. We need proof."
"Lisbon, this is him! How can you even consider the thought of letting him walk free for one more moment than is absolutely necessary?"
"We don't have the evidence," she said stubbornly. "If we bring him in now, he could walk."
"We have the nail he used to kill Kellan Howard," he reminded her. "It has his DNA on it."
Lisbon shook her head. "That might be enough to bring him in for questioning, but any lawyer worth his salt would argue that the chain of custody for that piece of evidence is sketchy at best."
"What are you talking about?"
"Think about it from a judge's perspective. We have no idea how Rance Howard got his hands on that nail, and we don't know how long he was carrying it around. Then he gave it to Hightower, who was running for her life all over the state and at this point has had it in her apartment for at least the past two years. Not in an evidence locker with a solid paper trail to back it up. How is a judge supposed to know we didn't just manufacture this evidence to suit our theory that Jonathan Russo is Red John?"
"It has his DNA on it," Jane repeated.
"It might have been tampered with."
"It hasn't been!"
She held up a hand to forestall him. "I know. But that's what any decent lawyer will say in Russo's defense, and we can't prove that it hasn't been."
Jane ground his teeth. "I can't believe you are letting your love of bureaucracy stop you from bringing down Red John when he's finally within reach."
Lisbon looked as though he'd slapped her. The rest of the team shifted uncomfortably. "I'm not letting anything stop me," she said, her voice carefully controlled. "We have to be smart about this. The worst thing we can do right now is rush right into Steele Industries and arrest Russo without having solid evidence behind us. I'll be damned if I'm going to let him to get off on a technicality."
Jane bit back the retort that there was no way Russo was going to be walking anywhere once he got his hands on him. Lisbon lifted her chin and stared at him with a challenge in her eyes, as though she knew exactly what he was going to say. There was an awful tension in the room as they locked eyes, each unwilling to give an inch.
For once, Jane backed down first. He looked away. Though he'd always maintained that Red John belonged to him, he found he couldn't quite bring himself to repeat the familiar words when Lisbon was looking at him like that. He had a terrible suspicion that if he did, she might cut him out for good, having Rigsby lock him up in a cell downstairs until they had solved the whole thing without him.
"So what's our next move, boss?" Van Pelt said timidly, finally daring to break the silence.
Lisbon tore her eyes from Jane and refocused on the team. "Cho, I want you to see if you can get hold of Russo's military files. I'd like to learn more about his service history. Van Pelt, you start digging into property records. I want to know about any properties registered to Jonathan Russo or to Steele Industries."
"You got it," Van Pelt said.
Lisbon turned to Rigsby. "Rigs, I want you to help me go through the files for the other businesses we've been looking into, see if we can't find a definitive link between Jonathan Russo and the other Cut Iron construction companies."
Rigsby blinked. "Okay."
Lisbon returned to her office to collect the files she needed to give to Rigsby.
Jane followed her. "Lisbon…"
She ignored him.
"I'm sorry about the bureaucracy crack," he said grudgingly. "I didn't mean it."
She nodded, but didn't meet his eyes as she sorted through the stacks of files on her desk.
He watched her. "Really. I was out of line."
She looked up and met his eyes. "I know you think the way I do things is foolish, Jane, but that doesn't give you the right to undermine me in front of my team."
"I don't think the way you do things is foolish," Jane said, horrified by this characterization.
"I took an oath to protect the law," she continued. "And I intend to do just that, no matter what you think."
"I don't think that's foolish," he repeated. "I think it's… honorable."
"Right. Cause that word means so much to you," she said sarcastically.
It did, actually. "Look, I know we don't always agree about how to get things done, but I have always respected your perspective and the way you do your job."
She snorted in disbelief. "Yeah, right."
"It's true! I have the utmost respect for you."
She met his eyes. "You sure don't act like it sometimes."
He stepped towards her, desperate to make her understand. "Lisbon, if I have any idea what the word honor means, it's because of you. You're the most honorable person I know. I know you think that doesn't mean much to me, but believe me, it does. I've learned so much from you. As much as it frustrates me sometimes, I have always been impressed by your unwillingness to compromise your principles. You have no idea how much I respect you for that. Your integrity is one of the things that first made me—"
He broke off, scared of how he might end that sentence.
Lisbon looked at him, eyes wide. "First made you what?"
"First made me admire you," he managed, feeling light-headed. He'd almost slipped. He let out a shaky breath. God, this would be the worst possible time for a slip up like that. They were so close now. He just needed to be strong a little while longer.
"And don't worry about the team," he added, before she could examine his meaning more closely. "They would walk through fire for you. There's nothing I could do that could undermine you in their eyes."
"Be that as it may, I would appreciate it if you didn't belittle me in front of them," she said, her tone stiff.
"I didn't—"
She cut him off with a look.
He put up his hands in surrender. "It won't happen again," he promised.
"See that it doesn't," she said crisply.
He watched her as she went back to sorting through the files, arranging them in distinct piles. "How many of those files have you got to go through?" he asked abruptly.
"About twenty," she said, startled by the unexpected nature of his question. "Why?"
He held out his hand. "Give some of them to me."
"What for?" she asked suspiciously.
"I'll help you go through them, look for other connections to Russo."
She stared at him. "You want to help look through files?"
He avoided her gaze. "Yes, well, that evidence you're so set on isn't going to find itself, is it?"
"You, Patrick Jane, are volunteering to engage in what you call to my face 'tedious drudgery' at least twice a week?" she asked incredulously.
"Do you want my help or not?" he said.
Wordlessly, she handed over the files.
He hoped that meant his apology was accepted.
Xxx
By the end of the day, the entire team was tired and frustrated. As Jane had predicted, locating Jonathan Russo was not so simple a task as one might expect. Rigsby gave up first, checking his watch around seven and announcing he had to go pick up Ben at Sarah's place. They'd found no mention of Jonathan Russo in connection to any of the files for the Cut Iron construction companies aside from Steele Industries. Cho was the next to leave. He had spent all day on the phone trying to get hold of Russo's military records, but so far his usual sources hadn't been able to help him.
Van Pelt was the only holdout, aside from Lisbon and Jane. She had found a PO Box for Steele Industries located in Los Angeles, but had yet to find a single property owned solely by Jonathan Russo that might give them some clue about where he lived. Currently, she was attempting to relieve her frustration by looking for a photograph of Russo that they could use to pin on the murder board. Unfortunately, so far, this had turned out to be an even less rewarding search than the hunt for property records.
Van Pelt scowled at her computer. "How the hell can there not be a single photograph of this guy on the entire internet?" she complained. "It's not possible."
"I'm guessing he's pretty camera shy," Jane responded as he leafed through yet another file.
"Seriously. There's not even a single snapshot of him in the company newsletter."
"Which company?"
"Any of them," she groused. "I checked."
"Mm," Jane said, lost in his own thoughts.
After awhile, even Jane needed a break. He went down the street to buy a cup of tea, foregoing the usual stock in the break room so he had an excuse to stretch his legs for a few minutes.
When he got back to the CBI, however, he found he wasn't quite ready to go back inside. It was a lovely night, and he decided he might as well ponder the latest developments in the Red John case outside as in. The fresh air would do him good.
He sat down on the curb and sipped his tea, thinking about Jonathan Russo.
His phone rang in his pocket, interrupting his reverie. He answered without bothering to look at the display. "Hello, Lisbon."
"Where are you?" she demanded.
"I'm outside," he told her.
"Outside where?" Her voice was urgent, almost desperate.
"I'm in the parking lot," he said, taken aback by her tone. "Why?"
"Don't move," she ordered.
He frowned at the phone. She had hung up on him. He didn't have long to wonder at her odd behavior, however, because she showed up outside the main entrance to the CBI less than a minute later. He saw her look around frantically, apparently scanning the parking lot for his Citroen.
"Hello, Lisbon," he greeted her. "Nice night, isn't it?"
She turned towards the sound of his voice and seemed surprised to see him sitting on the curb. Her expression was full of anxiety, and he saw relief wash over her face for the briefest instant before she walked over to him. "What are you doing out here?"
He shrugged. "Thinking." He looked up at her. Her eyes looked wild, desperate.
"Thinking," she repeated in disbelief. She sat down next to him heavily and buried her head in her hands.
He was instantly on the alert. "What's the matter? What's happened?"
She shook her head, but didn't answer, which did nothing to reassure him.
He gripped her arm. "Lisbon. Tell me what's happened."
She laughed shortly. It was a harsh, humorless sound. "Nothing's happened."
This was so clearly untrue that he ignored it entirely. "Something with the case?"
She looked over at him and his heart stuttered in his chest at the look in her eyes. "I went to the attic to look for you, and you weren't there," she said shakily.
Light dawned. "And you thought I'd run off to hunt down Red John on my own," he realized.
She released an unsteady breath. "Yeah."
"Lisbon, I—" he broke off. He couldn't say, 'Lisbon, I would never do that to you,' because neither of them would believe the words were true. Instead, he said lamely, "I'm here."
She passed a hand over her eyes, still trying to regain her composure. "Okay."
"I'm not likely to set off on my single-minded quest for vengeance just yet," he said, attempting to reassure her. "I don't know where he is, remember?"
Too late, he realized his words had had the opposite effect of what he'd intended.
Lisbon sucked in a sharp breath. "I thought you'd found a lead. In the files. A location."
Tentatively, he reached out and slid his hand into hers. "I'm afraid you're giving me far too much credit, my dear. I remain as much in the dark about Red John's true location as I ever was."
"Jane, I know I don't have any right to ask you this, but please promise me you won't go after him alone," she said seriously. "I know you want your revenge, and I…" she swallowed. "I may not be able to stop you. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if we're going to find him tomorrow, or in another six months. I'm not going to cover for you, and I won't help you break the law, but I won't ask you not to seek your vengeance in the way you see fit. Just, please, don't try to take him on by yourself."
"And you won't try to stop me?" he asked, watching her closely.
The corners of her mouth turned down and she bowed her head. "What do you want me to say, Jane? That I'll just watch happily while you take another person's life? That it won't matter to me if you ruin your own life in the name of revenge?"
"That's not an answer to my question," he observed.
She sighed. "Fine. Yes. I'm still going to try to stop you. I care about you. I don't want you to be killed. I don't want you to spend the rest of your life in jail. But if I find him first, I promise you that I won't leave you behind. All I'm asking is that you do the same for me."
"If you find him first, you're going to take me to the scene and make Rigsby sit on me somewhere out of the way so I can't make trouble, aren't you?" Jane said, smiling despite himself.
Lisbon refused to be deflected by humor. "Promise me," she said fiercely. "Promise me you won't go after him without me."
He looked at her unhappily. Revenge aside, she was asking him to take her into the lion's den. How could he make this promise to her without ultimately betraying the promise he'd made to himself, that he would protect her at all costs? Whether she liked it or not. Still, as he'd reflected the night before, he probably owed her this much, at least.
She squeezed his hand painfully. "Promise."
He met her eyes. "I promise, Lisbon. I won't go after him alone."
Her shoulders sagged with relief. "Thank you," she whispered.
Somehow, this didn't seem like quite enough. "Lisbon…"
"Yeah?"
"You have a right to ask," he said softly.
She looked at him, startled, but before she could respond, Van Pelt came outside, looking disgruntled.
"There you are," she said to Lisbon grumpily. "You're supposed to tell me if you're going out when I'm assigned to protect you, remember?"
"Sorry, Grace," Lisbon said, releasing Jane's hand.
"S'okay," Van Pelt said irritably. "Just let me know next time. You ready to go?"
"Yeah," Lisbon said, standing up and dusting off the seat of her jeans. "I just need to go inside and grab my stuff."
"I'll come with you," Van Pelt said.
"No need," Lisbon said. "I'll just be a minute."
Van Pelt rolled her eyes. "Boss, no offense, but you really suck at this whole letting people protect you thing, you know that? I'm coming inside with you."
"Okay," Lisbon said, looking chastened. She let her hand rest briefly on Jane's shoulder. "See you tomorrow, Jane," she said quietly.
"See you tomorrow," he echoed.
He watched them go and thought about his promises. His promise to his family, to avenge their deaths. His promise to Lisbon, not to leave her behind. And his promise to himself, to keep safe the only thing that still mattered to him. Was there any possible way he would be able to keep them all?
