Chapter 7 - Dead End
Grace Van Pelt was startled to see two plain-clothed officers from the Sac PD outside the gates of the cabin. She pulled up alongside them and put her brake on. Rolling down her window, she turned toward the chubby cop with a large drink clutched in a fat hand. She leaned over the passenger seat and called out to him.
"Hey!" she shouted, motioning for him to put down the window. "Did Minelli assign you outside the gates?"
The fat cop smiled, the residual remnants of burrito stuck in his teeth. "Sure did, Ma'am," he told her. "After what happened with the photographs, he laid a call to Sarge and here we are."
"And your buddy?" She nodded toward the skinny cop with the birds nose. "Him, too?"
"Who? Danny?" he said, turning to the other cop. "He's my partner. My name's Royce."
"Well, can you open the gates, please? I am here to see Agent Jane," she said, pointing up toward the house. "Have you seen anything suspicious lately while on patrol?"
"Not a thing, Ma'am," he told her. "Can I see some ID? No offense, lady, but we can't just let anyone in here," the fat cop named Royce said. "I'm sure you can understand that."
She took the badge hanging off her lapel and handed across to the cop, who looked it over and nodded his head, handing it back. He motioned for his bird partner to get out and punch in the code, letting the doors open freely for her. She took back her badge and re-positioned it back in her lapels, thanking them as she put her car in drive and turned into the long, winding drive up to the cabin. In the corner of her eye, she thought she saw something flash by. She slowed, ignoring her usual penchant for wanting to investigate. Up here, animals flew back and forth all the time.
She got up to the front of the large cabin and parked, tapping her brake and cutting the engine. She exited the car and looked around. It was nice. Much nicer than any holed up place normally looked. She lifted herself over the two large, stone steps and knocked on the large wooden doors with floral designed panels.
At first, nobody came to the door. She stood there and tried to peer into the glass, but she couldn't see a damn thing. Nothing surprising. Drug lords often tinted glass or made some kind of decoration change so they couldn't see inside. She raised her hand and knocked once again, this time seeing a shadow just behind the panels.
"Jane?" she called out. "It's Van Pelt. Minelli told me to come by. Something's happened."
"Grace?" he called out. "What's happened?" She could hear a little of worry in his voice. "Shit! Where did I put the key? It was in my vest. Give me a second, VP."
She could hear him move away from the door. He was gone for about two minutes before he came back, his voice angry and hard. She could hear him kick the door hard, crying out in pain when he hurt himself.
"She stole my fucking key!" he said irately. "She's gone, VP."
"Can you get the door open?" Van Pelt asked.
"Not without a key. Come to the back. I'll open the patio doors," he instructed her. "Cover your ears, Grace."
She moved around the large cabin, following the wooden pickets that held the foliage in beside the house. Finally, she came upon the double patio doors in the back. She saw Jane coming toward her, his face twisted in anger and worry. He was dressed in a white t-shirt and dark blue jeans, his blond hair dark from a fresh shower. He slid the lock and opened the door, setting off the high-pitched squeal of the alarm. He grabbed her gently by the wrist and yanked her inside, closing the door and locking it, sighing as the alarm quieted and fell silent.
"She's gone! She stole the key out of my vest and took off when I was in the shower! She had the manners to lock the goddamn door behind her," he said angrily, sitting down on the couch and putting on his socks and shoes. "She's too much! Oh! She is way too much!" he grumbled. "What are you here for?" he finally asked Van Pelt, turning to her as he put his holster on. "What happened?"
"Minelli told me to tell you—"
"You know what?" he said, cutting her off, "save it for when we find this crazy woman and bring her back. Where the hell does she think she is going to go? There's a fence higher than my goddamn ego around this place!"
"Why can't you get out from this side?" Van Pelt asked.
"Paranoid drug lords, Grace," he told her. "They rigged it so only a key can get you in or out. Useful for our situation, too, if she hadn't manipulated me into stealing my key!"
"Manipulated?"
He cleared his throat and headed for the patio door. "Don't ask. Come on."
"Won't the alarm go off? We have to get back in somehow?" Van Pelt said.
"We're going to find Teresa Lisbon and my goddamn key," he promised her. "She had a fifteen-minute head start," he said. "She couldn't have gotten far."
"You're worried about her," Grace observed. "You seemed kind of stiff and mean when we met. I didn't think you cared about anything."
"She's my responsibility, Grace," he told her. And I think I may be attracted to that pain in the ass, he added silently.
"Minelli is going to be pissed if you lost her while trying to protect her from a serial killer who is trying to finish his job."
"Shut up," he said.
"What was she wearing?" she asked, remembering the flash of something she saw while driving up.
"Tight blue jeans and a green blouse with the top button undone," he told her. "What? I am a man..." he added off her look.
"I think I might have seen her running along the drive when I was driving up. I thought it was an animal," she admitted.
"Well, then we know where to start. Come on. You can tell me about Minelli and your presence here while we hunt this pain in my ass."
She made her escape while he was taking a shower and changing out of his suit. She had thought about it like she said, but in the end, she couldn't sit back and relax knowing that nothing could ever be enough between her and Red John's grip. She had slipped out the front door, locking it behind her, and had taken off, running down the path and into the dense shrubs and trees surrounding the property.
She had seen a car passing her just as she ducked into the trees, but she didn't think the driver saw her. Whoever they were, they were heading up to the cabin, and Jane would soon know she had escaped. She slowed down, massaging a stitch in her side and leaned up against a tree, trying to decide where she was going to go when she was free of the cabin in the hills and Patrick Jane. She didn't have many options. There was a cabin her husband and herself had on the lake a few miles away that they use for summer vacations, but she didn't know if she could risk it. She had thought about turning around and going back, but she didn't think that would be wise. She was doing what she thought was right. Plus, something about this whole arrangement didn't sit right with her. Only Jane to "protect" her? No phone contact? Why would a boss with a very meticulous set of standards be okay with this? It didn't sit too well with her.
Then there was Patrick Jane himself. She could no longer deny being attracted to him. She felt it and she knew he felt it, too. She couldn't do this. She wouldn't let her mind open and her heart splayed out for him to pick apart. It was better that she not get too close to him. She pawed the ring around her neck and kept moving. The front door key in her pants pocket dug into her leg as she ran.
She could see the large stone barrier ahead of her, and she knew she was just on the fringe of the property. Freedom was just over that. She looked up at it and cursed under her breath.
"Damn," she said, looking at the twelve-foot structure. "How the hell do I climb that?"
Far off in the distance, she could hear two voices calling out her name. It was Jane, but she couldn't make out the female voice. A pang of jealousy, unreasonable and unwanted, hit her. She pushed that to the side and looked up at the structure again. There was no way she'd be able to make it over that. She'd have to double around and find the gate.
She jogged along the fence and followed it until she gave way to the pavement on the other side. She could see the fence just a few feet away. She was about to step out and try to squeeze through the gate's iron arms when someone grabbed her from behind, spinning her around and smiling at her.
"Got you," he said as she gasped.
Jane and Van Pelt met up with Royce and Danny, who had Lisbon sitting in the back of their unmarked car, twenty minutes later. Jane motioned for Grace to go back to the cabin and head home. She had told him about Minelli and what happened, which seemed to make Jane even angrier. After Grace departed, he asked Royce and Danny to step out of the car so he could speak to Lisbon alone.
"From now on, I will sponge bath," he told her. "You took off and put yourself at risk, Teresa. You stole my key from my vest. Neat trick, by the way. Don't do it again."
"You will regret not listening to me, Jane," she told him, turning toward him. "He's got a plan. He's just waiting it out."
"You abide by my rules, Teresa! Not your own! I am protecting you! I am the one who was worried sick tailing you! Wondering if you were going to go do something stupid!" He was angry, his voice loud and booming in the small car. "You manipulated me into telling you something so you could steal the key from me. Clever. Should have figured you actually didn't care!"
"I do care," she said softly. "I didn't only do it for the key, you know."
"Bullshit, Teresa. You can't be trusted. I knew trying to trust you was wrong. It bit me on the ass. You are difficult and tiring and I don't know that I can deal with this anymore."
"So, you want to pawn me off on those idiots," she chinned toward the two bumbling cops now playing a game of rock, paper, scissors in front of the car. "Give me to them and let Red John kill me? Or would that be too much for you?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"I don't want you playing hero and trying to make up for what happened to your wife by saving me," she told him bluntly. "I'm not her."
"You aren't," he said softly, sighing and sitting back in the seat. "And I am doing my job. My job is rescuing people, Teresa. Well, rescuing their family from the unknown. I don't want to be your hero. I just want to keep you safe."
"You know that place is no safer than my house in which you saved me from," she said. "And you can't be mad at me for trying to save myself."
"I am not mad at you," he told her. "I am, that was a lie. But you have to trust me." He held up a hand. "I know, I know! You don't trust me, but you are going to have to. I am all you got."
"I have them," she said with a small smile, pointing to the two plain clothed Sac PD officers now fighting over who won the game they were playing.
He cracked a smile. "Good luck."
"I'm sorry," she said.
"No, you're not."
"I'm not."
"This was a very stupid thing to do, Teresa," he told her. "Where would you have gone if you even got past everything? There's nowhere for you to go."
She looked over at him and chose that moment, to be honest. It was the least she could do for the trouble she'd caused. "My husband, Sam, owned a cabin on the lake. I still own it. I was thinking there," she said, shaking her head, "but I didn't think I would get there without someone noticing."
"Sam?" he asked, blinking. "I thought his name was Max?" He looked at her sharply. "You lied about that, too, didn't you?"
She shrugged. "It's what I do, Patrick. Lie. Trick. I play games. But you can look at my file if you want," she told him. "Sam was my husband and Lucas was my son."
She was sad reciting their names. She knew it reflected on her face, too, because Jane's expression softened. She saw his eyes dart to the two standing in front of the car and he shook his head at her.
"Later," he told her. "I still can't believe Minelli called Sac PD and had them bring two idiots over here." He shook his head at her. "Speaking of Minelli, Grace was here to tell me something."
"Oh?"
"They stole your file," he told her.
She looked at him and frowned. "Who?" she whispered.
"That's the million-dollar question, now isn't it?" he told her.
"Red John took it," she whispered, her breath catching. "It had to be him! He had to have taken it! He knows I am here!"
"Shh!" he told her, bringing a hand up to her chin and turning her to look at him. "We don't know that, Teresa. And we don't put witness protection in files," he assured her softly. "Whoever took it obviously doesn't know where you are."
"Are you sure?" she asked.
He smiled at her question. She was going to trust him on this. She trusted him to tell him the truth about her family's name. It was progress. He nodded his head at her.
"Yes," he said. "Positively positive. Now, let's have these two idiots drive us back up to the cabin and you can clean yourself up. You have tree in your hair," he reached up and pulled a green leaf from her dark hair, "and you have dirt on your beautiful face." His thumb smudged a dirty spot on her skin.
He let go of her chin and opened the door of the unmarked car, telling to two cops that he'd appreciate a drive up to the cabin. They agreed readily and got inside, starting the car and drifting up to the cabin. They could hear the alarm from around the house. Royce told Jane and Lisbon he'd check it out and close the door for them. He came back a few minutes later and gave them a thumbs up.
"All clear," he told them.
"Thanks," Jane told him, pushing Lisbon along toward the front door. "The key."
Lisbon took the key from her pocket and gave it to Jane, who turned it in the lock and opened the door. He ushered Lisbon inside and watched as the car with the two cops fell out of sight. He turned to Lisbon and frowned at her.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"I don't feel safe here, Jane," she told him. "Something is wrong."
"Teresa," he said, sighing. "Nothing is going to happen to you. I've been through this with you."
"Jane, I don't feel safe!"
She was nervous and on the verge of tears. "It feels like the night I found my husband and son!" she told him. "Please. Believe me!"
Jane closed the gap and reached out for her, bringing her in his arms. "Shh. Don't worry, Teresa. I won't let anything happen to you. I need you to know that."
He tilted her head back and took hold of her chin. Looking down at her watery green eyes, he smiled softly at her. "I've been trying to do this for days," he told her. He brought his mouth down to hers and kissed her, his hand sliding down to the small of her back and bringing her flush against him.
Lisbon did not refuse this time. She allowed him to kiss her, bringing her hands up to paw through his curls. She hummed lightly against his mouth, pulling him harder against her mouth. With a gasp, she broke the kiss and stepped back from Jane, putting a hand to her lips and licking them.
"I'm sorry," Jane told her. "I didn't mean..."
"It's okay, Patrick," she told him, though she turned around and ran into her room slamming the door behind her.
Jane stood there in his white t-shirt and jeans, his lips still humming with the taste of her, watching the closed door for a moment. After a moment of hesitation, Jane walked over to her bedroom door, opened it, and stepped inside, closing the door behind him.