AN: Thanks for your comments and kind words! I'm not able to respond to all of them, but I do read them all. Hopefully this chapter is similarly thought-provoking!
I'm going to try to finish posting this story in the next couple weeks. I have five more chapters written but not edited, and I probably have two chapters left to write. So updates should be every couple days or so.
Jane decides to arm himself with a coffee and bearclaw before proposing his planned getaway to Lisbon, realizing that his chances of getting her to agree to skip work are much higher if she's properly fed and caffeinated.
She's already there, of course, when he arrives, filling out paperwork at her desk, and he has to push some of the papers aside to make room for his offerings.
Her eyes narrow at him suspiciously. "What did you do?" she asks. Despite this, she takes a couple gulps of the coffee and then tears off part of the bearclaw.
Jane's eyebrows skyrocket in an exaggerated expression of innocence. "Me? I'm just bringing my girlfriend breakfast—since I have a feeling she failed to procure sustenance on her own this morning."
Even though he'd closed the door to her office behind him, he keeps his voice low, respecting her wishes to downplay their relationship, though he grins when she fumbles with her pen as he says the word "girlfriend." The pen rolls away from her, and Jane snatches it before it can topple off the edge of the desk.
Her holds it out to her, and she takes it from him, her steady fingers giving nothing away. Her wide eyes reveal more.
"'Girlfriend,'" she quotes, as though testing the word out.
He leans his hip against the side of her desk, crossing his arms across his chest.
"My girlfriend," corrects Jane, and he is not prepared for how ridiculously pleased he feels when she smiles at this.
Lisbon ducks her head, returning to the papers in front of her. "Your girlfriend," she says, "has about two hours' worth of paperwork to fill out regarding your kidnapping."
"Ridiculous," says Jane, still leaning against her desk. "I was gone; now I'm back. Why does that need to be recorded in ink?"
She gives him an exaggerated roll of her eyes as she signs her name on several lines, one after the other.
"Ask that question to the powers that be," says Lisbon with a shrug.
Jane moves around the corner of the desk so that he's standing next to her. "Speaking of questions, I have a proposal to make."
He hadn't realized how this would sound before the words are out, and he hurries to reassure her upon seeing her face lose all of its remaining color.
"Not that kind of proposal," he says gently. "Though of course I won't rule it out someday."
Lisbon gapes at him, and he decides to move onto his real question before he digs himself into a hole from which he can't escape.
"How would you feel about leaving work a few hours early this Friday and showing up a couple hours late next Monday?"
Lisbon takes another gulp of coffee. Jane is relieved when she doesn't immediately say no.
"Depends on the occasion."
Jane grins.
"Refusing to let happiness pass us by," he says, knowing she'll understand.
She immediately picks up on the reference to the film they'd seen together. "You didn't," she says, her tone half worried and half disbelieving, but her expression is all excitement.
"I didn't buy any tickets yet," he confirms. "But only because I knew you wouldn't like me overstepping bounds. I wanted to ask you first. So Lisbon—what do you say? How about a weekend in New York?" He'd promised he would take her there sometime. And he'd always intended to make good on that promise he'd made in the darkened, deserted theater.
He watches her internally debate this, knowing she'll feel guilty for leaving work—if only for a few hours—so soon after her brother's murder and so soon after getting her position back. But eventually, the same expression crosses her face that she wore when she agreed to spend the day helping him look for apartments rather than going into work, and he knows that despite everything, she is making a commitment to living here, to living now, with him.
Her smile makes him literally weak in the knees, and he tries to reach for the desk surreptitiously to steady himself.
"I'd love that," Lisbon finally says.
"I'll book the tickets." He knows she's trying to keep all this under wraps, but he has a feeling he's going to let the secret out because he won't be able to wipe the stupid grin off his face.
Lisbon reaches out to touch his elbow. "I'll book the tickets and the hotel tonight," she says. "You paid for everything in Chicago; I got this."
"New York is more expensive."
"Then you can pay for the shows," she says. "But at any rate, don't book anything while we're on the clock, Jane. We need to be above reproach."
But even her gentle chiding cannot dampen his mood.
She shakes her head at him. "Go," she says, waving him out of her office. "Help Barnett out with that mountain of evidence she's sifting through."
He'd been so preoccupied with Lisbon that he hadn't even noticed the rookie agent had taken over the conference table in the bullpen, surrounded by evidence boxes, bags, and chain of custody forms.
Jane frowns. "She's still here?"
Lisbon glances at him.
"I just assumed that since you got your job back, Barnett would have been reassigned."
"I think it's a temporary thing," admits Lisbon. "But it seemed unfair to give her to another team so quickly after she'd arrived here. She didn't do anything wrong, after all." She looks through the glass and into the bullpen. "She'll make a good agent someday," Lisbon continues. "She noticed we'd hit a dead end on, well, pretty much everything associated with Red John, so she went down to Evidence and pulled everything on the most recent cases to see it for herself."
Jane straightened up and moved around Lisbon's desk, peering out at the younger agent as well.
"She was working my case?" he asks, referring to his abduction.
Lisbon nods. "She was the one who phoned the ambulance when she heard you'd been found." She glances at him. "I think she's clean, Jane," she murmurs.
He'd already come to this conclusion himself, of course, but he's relieved that Lisbon thinks the same. "I agree. I don't think she's working for him."
"So help her out?" asks Lisbon. "Make her feel a part of the team, alright?"
Jane gives her a soft smile. "Of course, my dear."
And he exits her office, the glass door swinging shut behind him.
Grace nods at him when he walks into the bullpen, her expression unreadable, and he wonders vaguely if she knows that he and Lisbon are together. He suspects that she suspects as much, though she has too much tact to say anything to him.
"Where are Cho and Rigsby?" asks Jane.
"Testifying," says Grace. "They were subpoenaed for the Williams case from a few months ago."
Jane moves toward the conference table and pulls out the chair next to Barnett, who is meticulously taking notes on evidence from the Antonia Sutton case. She looks up at him, wide-eyed for a second before recovering a more neutral expression.
"Need a hand?" asks Jane, sitting down.
"That'd be great," she says, nodding.
Barnett is quiet yet intuitive, and Jane thinks that if it were possible to mix Cho's and Grace's personalities, the result would be very much like the new agent. Over the two hours they sit together combing over everything from diaries to purses to personal effects, she asks him a handful of questions, all of them insightful, and Jane thinks that Lisbon had been exactly right in her statement earlier.
Barnett will make a great agent someday.
Jane frowns suddenly, halfway through the personal effects of Deborah Cole, the victim who'd been found at the old movie theater. He'd been digging through her wallet before coming across a well-hidden slit containing a single slip of paper that had failed to be removed from the wallet upon the first run through of evidence. He removes the paper.
It's a ticket stub, he realizes, from an event at Sac State dated to the beginning of the summer.
Jane freezes when he realizes the event was held by the psychology department. He examines the stub more closely. Though it's slightly worn, he can just make out the words.
The Sac State Psychology Department Welcomes Dr. Timothy Carter
Jane realizes the date on the ticket reads May 16th—the day after he'd met Carter in the mall.
He's been still too long, drawing Barnett's attention. "You find something?" she asks.
"No," says Jane, and his voice doesn't waver at all. "Just an old movie ticket."
Barnett returns to perusing the evidence in front of her.
When she's not looking, Jane slips the ticket stub into his pocket. Now concerned, he reaches for Cole's daily planner, hoping she hadn't written down the event.
He swears internally when he realizes she had.
Jane moves through every page in the planner, being careful not to linger too long on the week of May 16th. But even a glance at the page tells him all he needs to know.
Carter guest lecture: 7 PM
He begins to panic, knowing there are at least two pieces of evidence tying Carter's identity to the crime scenes. He wonders how it's possible that Red John had chosen now to become so careless—now that Lisbon's safety depends on Jane keeping her from figuring out who he really is.
Jane knows he has to take the planner as well. This, however, will prove more difficult to remove than the ticket stub. He doubts the ticket stub was listed on the chain of custody forms; the planner will undoubtedly have been.
Well, Red John will just have to figure out a way to alter the forms, Jane thinks. It's not like he's lacking the connections. And Jane himself certainly cannot manage it.
His opportunity arises when Lisbon calls Barnett into her office for a quick meeting, and Jane tucks the planner into the pocket on the inside of his suit jacket before she returns.
For the remainder of the day, the ticket stub and planner rest over his heart, literal and metaphorical weights that threaten to drown him.
Jane waits until Lisbon heads to an interrogation before moving upstairs to his attic.
He pushes the desk to the side, uncovering a floorboard he'd once noticed was loose. The piece of wood is easily removed, and Jane stashes the planner and ticket stub there before moving to cover it back up.
He pauses.
Remembering the burner phone still in his pocket, he straightens up and dials the only number programmed into it.
"Patrick." This time, Carter's voice sounds slightly surprised. "More news for me so soon?"
"The new recruit was going through evidence on your four most recent murders," says Jane, knowing his time is limited and not bothering with pleasantries. "She nearly stumbled on something directly tying you to one of them and indirectly tying you to two of the others."
"Yes?"
"You gave a talk at Sac State at the beginning of the summer," Jane says, keeping his voice low. "Deborah Cole had a ticket stub from that event in her purse, and she noted it in her planner." He considers this for a moment. "That is the connection, isn't it?" he asks. "The Sac State Psychology Department. Your public lecture was held the day after you and I met at the mall. Did you choose your victims at that talk?"
Carter is quiet for a second too long, and this is all the answer Jane needs.
"You have a man in CBI Evidence, don't you?" asks Jane.
"I own both of the men who work in Evidence for your unit," says Carter. His tone is clearly aggravated, as though he'd found it insulting that Jane would have to ask.
"Tell them they need to alter the evidence logs," Jane says. "I removed the ticket stub and the planner. I'm putting them in my attic—I assume your men have told you about this room?"
"I knew about it the day after you found it," Carter confirms. "My men will collect the evidence from your dingy little attic."
Jane breathes deeply through his nose. "This shouldn't have been necessary," he nearly hisses. "There shouldn't have been any evidence for Lisbon's team to find. Why were you so careless?"
He's suddenly furious—at Red John, at the situation, but mostly at himself. When he'd made the deal with Carter, he'd known what he was getting into. But actually tampering with evidence, actually impeding one of Lisbon's investigations, has shaken him to the core.
A thought occurs to him.
"This was a test," Jane says slowly, disbelieving. "Because you wouldn't actually be so careless. You planned this after we met but before the lecture at Sac State. You knew I'd eventually agree to your terms, and you wanted me to find that evidence. You planted it. You wanted to know if I'd actually tell you about it, or if I'd give it to Lisbon."
There's a soft chuckle on the other end of the line. "You are mostly correct in your assumption," confirms Carter. "Yes, I wanted you to find the evidence. Yes, I knew you'd agree to work for me. However, I didn't plan this after we met. I knew I would pick three young women from the crowd during my lecture the moment you revealed to me that you were in love with Teresa."
Jane's grip on the phone becomes so tight he feels his muscles protest against the action. He makes a conscious effort to relax, and he almost ends the call. But then Carter begins speaking again.
"Congratulations, Patrick," says the nasally voice on the other end of the line. "You've passed."