Chapter 2

Two things crossed Jane's mind as he entered Uninhibited Night Club with a cotton hoodie pulled up over his head. One, that he could've thought of a better name for a nightclub and if given a chance would be sure to make his sentiments on that matter known, and two, hoodies were really very comfortable.

Of course he would always prefer his suits to everyday casual wear, but there was something to be said for the way Lisbon's eyes had roamed his body when he'd come out of the strip mall, they'd stopped at after they left the airport, in jeans, a light blue t-shirt and gray hoodie. She'd definitely liked what she'd seen. Despite the limping.

Not limping was becoming increasing difficult, especially as he made his way through the orgy of swaying, sweaty bodies, in the dark club to the far wall where he had a reasonably good view. For all his complaining of boredom over the last few days, he was starting to think that maybe Abbott had been right about him staying out of the field for awhile.

Ten minutes, he reminded himself as he lifted his watch to see how much time he had left. He told himself and the team that all he needed was ten minutes. Lisbon hadn't liked it and had told him that if he wasn't back in exactly that time she was coming in after him. She was worried for him. He didn't have a gun or any of those hand to hand fighting combat skills, and even though he'd never admit it, he also couldn't use his normal fall back of running, and Lisbon knew it.

So, ten minutes was it. He couldn't have her coming in after him, or any of the team for that matter. He had a plan forming in his mind and that plan necessitated that his identity, Lisbon's and the teams as a whole, remain secret. Which was exactly why he'd chosen to go with the hoodie.

He'd thought about sending in one of Don Matthew's men, but since this was the club where Don's undercover agents spent a good portion of their time, blowing their covers apparently, and after talking with them via video conference, on the flight over, Jane had absolutely no confidence in their ability to do what needed to be done.

He scanned the room until he saw what he was looking for: a group of men trying hard to be inconspicuous and failing miserably at it. He hadn't even needed to be anywhere near this club to know that wearing a suit here would make you stand out like a sore thumb. All he'd needed was one picture of the outside of the building, and that had barely anything to do with his skills of observation. Not one man in the line had been wearing a suit. Amateurs.

"Hey baby," a low female voice interjected as he watched the men across the club. They were now seated in one of the leather booths. It took him a minute to register that he was the one being spoken to and he was sure he wouldn't have noticed, if the scantily clad woman with long blonde hair, hadn't stepped right into his line of vision.

He looked at her slightly perplexed.

"Looking for a dance partner?" she asked, heaving her chest forward in a manner that he supposed was meant to seem subtle.

He cringed. "No," he said and stepped to the side so he could see the group of men again. They were clearly in the middle of a business meeting and Jane was a little disappointed to see that while there was clearly a chain of command here, these men were all pretty far down on the totem pole.

"I'm a really good dancer," he heard the woman say as she laced her hand around his bicep and stepped into his personal space.

He immediately started to lift his left hand to show his ring, his fall back whenever he wanted to get out of this kind of situation, but suddenly it felt wrong. Yes, he was one-hundred percent taken, but no longer by the woman who had given him the ring. He felt a small pang of guilt and lowered his hand again.

"I could show you moves you've never seen before," she said once again shoving her dangerously large breasts at him.

"I neither want a lap dance from you, nor could afford one, now move along," he bit out.

The woman's face blanched and she let out an undignified shriek before turning and pushing into the crowd.

He looked back at the men and after another minute was able to identify the one in charge of this group. He was about six feet tall with a long nose and slicked back hair. He was wearing an Armani knock-off that he had way more pride in than he had right too, and was wearing a bright red tie. The man had no patience, but the other men took his verbal abuse without a word. It was obvious he was the leader of this particular pack, and he was heading out. Jane turned and started back through the crowd, wanting to beat the man outside. He looked at his watch as he went, noting that he had two minutes left.

He was almost out the door when the blonde busty nightmare, he'd just acquired, came pushing her way toward him, with someone Jane could only assume was a bouncer. He shrugged in irritation as she pointed at him and quickly reached into his pocket removing two one dollar bills that he'd shoved in there earlier. He separated them and threw them on the ground.

"There!" he yelled, pointing at the money. "It's a hundred dollar bill! Two of them!"

Everyone directly around him looked where he was pointing and immediately starting shoving toward the bills. He turned and pushed through the crowd when two men shoved him roughly one after the other in their attempt to get to the money. He twisted his bad leg and let out a bark of pain, before noticing that his red tied gangster was almost out the door.

He limped out of the club, feeling the pain of his sprain as though it were fresh and was particularly gratified when he saw Lisbon coming to him from the van. Her face dropped when she noticed his limp was worse and she picked up her pace.

"What happened?" She ran up to him and put his arm over her shoulders.

He had to fight everything in him to not ham it up. "We have to hurry," Jane said nodding in the direction of red tie.

She didn't ask questions, knew immediately what he wanted, and helped him get into the van.

"What happened?" Abbott asked from the front passenger seat.

"We need to follow the guy in the black suit and red tie," Lisbon told Fischer, who was behind the wheel, just as the man got in his car and pulled out of the club's parking lot.

Fischer immediately did as she was instructed, throwing the van into gear and pulling into traffic.

After half an hour of following red tie around the city, Wiley identified him as Kevin Mead. They stopped in front of a four story brick building in the outskirts of D.C. and watched as Kevin made his way inside. Jane cringed as he noted the two women who proceeded Kevin inside, then shook his head.

"We won't be here long," he announced to the team.

"How could you possibly know that?" Fischer asked looking back at him.

"Don't ask him. That's what he wants you to do," Lisbon said, looking up from Jane's foot, which was resting in her lap with an instant icepack on it that she had thrown in her purse for just such occasions.

Fischer looked at her and smiled.

Jane glanced over at Lisbon and felt an overwhelming desire to kiss her. He would have done too, if he'd thought he could get away with it. Instead he got back on topic. "It's a whore house," he said. "I give him twenty minutes tops."

Abbott and Wiley both coughed back laughs. Lisbon rolled her eyes.

"You couldn't possibly know that," Fischer accused.

"Want to bet?" Cho said looking at Fischer, his watch hand raised.

Jane could hear Wiley tapping on his computer in the seat directly behind his.

Fischer shook her head. "No, not that—although I doubt Jane could guess something like that. I meant that he couldn't know it was a whore house."

"He's right," Wiley announced, "although they go by 'call girls' on their website."

"That's disgusting," Fischer said.

Jane looked at Lisbon and raised his brows; she mirrored the gesture with a grin and a shake of her head.

"But why twenty minutes?" Wiley asked.

Jane looked over his shoulder, noting that Cho had already moved on and had started reading a book. "This isn't a man with patience. I'd have given him less time than that if I thought he wasn't worried about ruining his suit. So ten minutes to change, five minutes to deal with money matters and…"

Lisbon swatted his shoulder, "Oh, stop."

He grabbed her hand and held it. She blushed, but didn't pull away and he reveled in it.

Abbott turned in his seat, amused smirk firmly in place. "So, what's this all about? Why are we following this guy?"

Jane was quite impressed with Abbott's patience thus far. Jane had kept his suspicions quiet until now, wanting to confirm some of his theories first. He was willing to share some of them now as a reward. Abbott had really gone to bat for him, even arguing with Don about his methods and had insisted that Jane be allowed to do what he would, stating that otherwise there was no point in having the team here in the first place.

Don hadn't liked it one bit, but the Director of the FBI was breathing down his neck and further had the added pressure of being responsible for the five extra teams that were called in to work the case. Jane had been sure that Don was about to send them back to Austin, which he was just fine with, when Abbott convinced him to allow their team to work separate, telling him that he could call them his wild card.

Don gave in and looked at Lisbon informing her that if it hadn't been for Pike's insistence that she and Jane were the people for the job, he would've have sent them away. Jane had been very proud of how she'd handled that. She was completely calm and in control—on the outside. Only Jane could have guessed what she was truly feeling. Although Jane had the sneaking suspicion that Abbott might be aware of it too.

Abbott had had his back and he felt he owed him something. "Don's teams are going about this the wrong way. These men are smart, and from what I read in the case files…"

"Excuse me," Lisbon said, "who read the case files?"

Abbott chuckled.

"And from what Lisbon related to me from the case files," Jane continued as though Lisbon hadn't said anything, but rubbed his thumb over the top of her hand, "these murders are deeply entrenched in several areas of crime in the D.C. area. Thefts, murders, prostitution, drug deals—even Pike's team is linked to this. Whoever is responsible for the murders is very cunning. Smart enough to out and kill five undercover agents. He's like a virus in this city and there's only going to be one way to heal it."

Lisbon chuckled. "Inject him with an antibody?"

"Exactly," he said looking at Lisbon, the urge to kiss her returning to the fore.

"And how exactly to you propose we do that?" Abbott asked. "We don't even know who's in charge."

He pulled his gaze from Lisbon and placed it back on safe territory: Abbott's face. "We will know soon though, I'd dare say by tomorrow morning. After that we'll need to threaten everything he's worked for, and do it right under his nose."

Abbott's brow furrowed. "Don's had men trying to find the ring leader for months and you're going to do it in twenty-four hours?"

Jane was insulated. "Yes."

"Look," Fischer announced as Kevin came out of the building.

"Cho," Jane said, offense immediately forgotten, "time?"

Cho looked at his watch. "Twenty-one minutes."

Jane hummed. "Someone took his time." He looked over at Lisbon and winked.

"Wow, you nailed it Jane," Wiley said.

Cho chuckled. "Nailed it?"

Jane and Lisbon both looked back at him and smiled.

Kevin went home after that and most of the team managed some shut eye. Jane and Lisbon took the first watch, Cho and Wiley the second and Abbott and Fischer the third. When it was his turn for sleep, he instead turned his attention to Lisbon. Mouthing "I love you," before she too, drifted off, with a soft smile in place. Jane had been irritated then that they weren't on a bench seat, but at least he'd gotten to hold her hand.

Kevin was up again and on his way by seven in the morning, but he hadn't the heart to wake Lisbon and let her sleep, and Cho, as Fischer followed him to a what appeared to be a very expensive hotel. Only limos and million dollar cars were pulling in and were driven by people dressed to the nines. Large potted plants hung from the overhang giving the gray building boosts of purples, greens, yellows and pinks as well as several stained glass windows in golds, greens and reds, and bell boys in red suits with gold trim on the lapels were greeting the guests with the enthusiasm of one who expected a hundred dollar tip. Kevin parked across the street and stopped at the door, clearly waiting for something.

"Doesn't really seem like he fits in here," Abbott observed.

Jane tapped his finger to his lips. "No, it doesn't."

They watched for a few more minutes when a man, who was clearly a guest at the hotel, with dark thick hair combed neatly to one side, wearing a double breasted suit with a dark blue tie, came out and briefly spoke with red tie. Kevin very clearly received instructions and headed back to his car. Jane was surprised when the man that Kevin had spoken with stayed and waited until Kevin was in his car before going back into the building.

"Who is he?" Abbott asked.

A moment later Wiley informed them. "His name's Jacob Brown. He owns this hotel and several others, also several other businesses around town."

Fischer was about to follow Kevin when Jane noted a woman leaving the hotel.

"Wait," Jane said reaching out and touching Fischer's shoulder. "Don't follow him."

That caught everyone's attention.

Abbott was the first to speak. "Why not?"

"We need to get rooms at the nearest hotel, four should suffice," Jane told them.

"I'm on it," Wiley chimed in from the back.

"Four?" Fischer questioned? "There's six of us."

"That's right, only four of us will be staying there," he saw both Abbott's and Fischer's faces drop, but continued. "We need to go shopping."

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter! It will start to resemble Rear Window more in the next chapter. Reviews are always appreciated.