A/N: Thank all of you for the reviews, both positive and negative or critical. I hope you find this chapter to your liking. Next chapter is the last one, and I hope you find it well. Thank you.

Chapter Twelve: Caught In A Trap

His mind raced frantically as he punched through the streets toward Joshua Lake. All the thoughts of what he had said to her and accused her of came flooding back surreptitiously when he was trying to form a plan once he got there. Red John was incredibly smart and cunning. If he didn't come up with something quickly, he'd be leaving the ring in his pocket without its owner.

He took a hand off the steering wheel and felt in his pocket for the ring. He dug it out and looked at it in between cautious glances between the road and the bloody ring. Without much thought, he placed the ring on his ring finger. It fit well. He thought about the comfort that ring gave her and how he had witnessed on more than one occasion the strength she had invoked of it. He, by wearing the ring, was invoking some of that strength now.

He could see the large lake in the distance, the cabins huddled around it in cluttered, juxtaposed positions. It struck him as he sped up his car that he didn't know which cabin was Lisbon's. The cabins of the lakes around here were not individually addressed. They were known by the road that fed the cabins. He shook his head at that bit of disappointing news and pushed it from his head. He only could think of Teresa and of getting to her on time.

"Come on, sweetheart," he said to the empty car. "Keep him busy. Keep him talking."

He knew if she could keep him talking until he could get to her, she had a chance. But he also knew that Red John was not without a plan of his own. He wanted Jane to play this game because he wanted them both in the same place. When Red John had killed Lisbon's husband and son, he had proven that he was not afraid to swerve off his motives. He'd kill whenever and whatever served his purpose.

As he turned into the back road that led to the cabins, he could see nothing out of the ordinary. From experience, that didn't mean anything was happening. He stopped about half a mile up from the cabins, turned off the ignition, and got out, tucking his Glock service weapon beside him, facing it down but keeping it ready should he need to use it. He started walking down the dirt road, his heart hammering in his chest. Lisbon was in one of those cabins. What was more? A sadistic serial killer who murdered his wife and Lisbon's family. And he was about to show down with him. This would be Patrick Jane's justice. For any number of things.

He knew that when he finally had Lisbon back in his arms, he wouldn't let her go. He'd tell her everything. Everything that he had been hiding or avoiding. He'd apologize for his harsh treatment of her. For not believing in her when she said she felt something was wrong. He'd tell her the one thing that was missing in his life since Lucy died. Her. Falling in love. Being in love. With her and for her.

He came to the back of the first cabin and peered inside. In the pitch blackness of the vacation home, he could see nothing. It was empty of furniture inside; just a black box of shadows. He reached down and tried the door. Locked. He was pretty sure this wasn't the cabin, and he was sure Red John would not use the first cabin, even if it was. The trouble was he didn't have his flashlight with him, and these kinds of cabins cut off the electricity off-season to save money and to keep away transients.

He moved on to the second cabin, peering inside. While it was dark, the rays from the moon shined brightly into the windows, lighting the room up. It was filled with furnishing covered in plastic. There was nothing here. He was grateful that these cabins didn't have separate floors; the bedroom, bathroom and living areas were all together on one floor, separated by just a folding door for each. He was about to move onto the third cabin when he heard a noise coming from the forth.

Raising his weapon, he peeked into the third to clear it and kept moving in the darkness toward the forth. He couldn't make out exactly what the sound was, but he thought it sounded like a disjointed radio or interference from an off-beat station. Guardedly, he neared the fourth cabin's back door. He tilted his head and listened. It sounded like snowy interference.

"What the hell?" he whispered to himself. "What the hell is that?"

Peering into the fourth cabin's window, he could see an empty room. Empty all save a body lying on the floor. Jane's breath caught in his throat as he looked at the shadowy body on the floor. He didn't hesitate. He leaned back, took his foot and rammed the lock of the back door. He slammed his foot into it again and again until he could hear the wood splinter and crack.

"TERESA!" he called out frantically as he continued to kick the heavy wood door. "Teresa! God, no!"

Finally, with one final heave of his boot, the door swung open and Patrick Jane stumbled inside, falling to his knees beside the still body on the cold, wood floor. Flipping over the body, he cried out as he felt the viscid blood soak into his skin.

Van Pelt bit her nails as she sat there waiting for any word from Jane. In a little over fifteen minutes, they would be heading out to aid Jane at Joshua Lake. It was as she was sitting there contemplating if she wanted to get her fourth cup of coffee when Minelli came storming out of his office, his face red, and his patience thin.

"The search for the two missing cops is half over," he told her and Rigsby. Cho was down at forensics with the box. "Daniel Otero was found in his police squad car just outside city limits. He's dead."

"What about the other cop? Uh, Royce?" Van Pelt asked. "Is he deceased, too?"

"Presumably. We can't locate him," Virgil said, tapping a hand on his hip. "We know Red John pretty well. I mean, he doesn't like loose ends. I have to wonder if he's leading Jane into some kind of trap using the Lisbon woman."

"You think maybe the stealing of the file was a misdirection?" Van Pelt asked.

"Possibly."

"He stole the file, boss," Rigsby told him. "Why would he steal it for the address if he wasn't going to use it as a killing room floor?"

"It's Red-fucking-John," he answered. "Why do you think he'd steal it?"

"To set Jane up," Van Pelt said, following her boss' train of thought. "Send him on a wild-goose chase before he finally kills Lisbon."

"Who is to say he isn't waiting to bushwhack him or us for that matter?"

"Lisbon told me something that wasn't interesting enough at the time, but is very interesting now," Minelli said. "She said Red John likes to play games. He's melodramatic. Why give such an easy hint leading to Joshua Lake?"

"What do you want us to do, boss?" Rigsby asked. "Should we head out to Joshua Lake? See what's going on?"

"No. In case we're wrong. We don't want to jeopardize Jane or our witness. Wait until I give you the okay to go. I just want you to be conscientious when the time comes. We don't know if this is a trap or not. It doesn't smell right," he told them. "Let's hope he doesn't get there too late."

"This is a tangled mess," Van Pelt told him. "If only Sac PD had-"

"We don't need to hear this, Grace," Virgil scolded her. "What's done is done. We told him one hour, and that is what we are going to give him."

She nodded her head. "Okay."

"My point was that we don't know what this psychotic person is going to do. It could be a trap for all we know. Be open-eyed."

He sighed and turned around, making his way to the small kitchenette to make himself some coffee. He felt the uneasiness creep over him as he headed back to his office once his coffee was poured.

As soon as he sat down, he could see the small light blinking on his phone. He sat his coffee down and picked up the receiver. He pushed the button on the phone and slipped the phone to his ear.

"Minelli."

He listened to the other end, which was the Sargent in charge of the Homicide unit over at the Sac PD. He told Minelli his business for calling. Minnelli sighed, thanked him, and hung up. He rose, walked over to the bullpen, and pointed to Van Pelt and Rigsby.

"You two," he told them. "Go ahead up to Joshua Lake. Take your Kevlar."

They rose and looked worried. "Something happen?" Rigsby asked.

"They just got a signal off Royce's radio," he told them. "It's coming from Joshua Lake. Something is happening there. We can't wait any longer."

"Okay, boss. Is Sac PD going to meet us there?"

"Yeah," he confirmed. "They are lead on this. It's one of their own. You surely can feel for them."

They nodded their heads and headed for the elevators. "You bring Jane back. You bring him back here, Agents. Alive,"he called after them.

Lisbon sat up straight as he re-entered the room. Well, as straight as the manacle around her ankle would permit her. Propped up on her elbows, she saw him bring over a chair she had in the corner of the room, sitting it directly across from her. He took out something from his pocket, and she only realized it was a pair of handcuffs when she heard the clicking of one of them tighten and lock.

"What are you planning?" she asked him hoarsely, watching as he turned toward her, his face carefully obscured by the dark shadows. "You are too smart for this. This isn't how you do things," she told him. "I suspect you have gotten cocky and disillusioned to the fact people haven't caught onto you."

He smiled. She could tell by the movements of his veiled face. He was enjoying this. Relishing the reading she was doing on him. She recoiled when he stepped forward. Facing him, the moonlight flowed across his features and she got a good glimpse of who he was.

"I sense that you knew it was me all along, Teresa," he told her, laughing softly. "You knew about me a long time ago. Suspected me."

She stuck her chin up defiantly at him. "I didn't have the proof then," she said. "But I was close, wasn't I? That's why Lucy and Kari had to die. They were close to the truth, too."

"They died because they couldn't stop digging! That is why they had to die," he walked around her, coming to stop in front of her, where he knelt down to her level. "You... I thought that giving you a lesson would make you understand, Teresa. I enjoyed you. I really did. How you got people to buy into your ESP and crap. I serve to give people the power of suggestion to be what they can be! You lie and scam and make accusations you can't back up! Oh! Oh! You were so good, Teresa!" He laughed uproariously. "But then you had to stick your goddamn nose where it didn't belong! And you made my choice of victims very, very easy."

"You're sick and deranged!"

"Maybe," he said. "But it is tons of fun! You meet the nicest people late at night when you see them begging for their lives." He tilted his head at her. "So, tell me, Teresa. How did you know it was me? And don't say you saw it with that psychic stunt. We both know what you really are."

Lisbon lifted her head back as he tried to touch her cheek with his hands. She was afraid that he would take advantage of the fact she only wore a torn, dirty nightshirt. She was surprised when he pulled his hand back and tsk-tsk'd her.

'Well, I suppose that can wait for Patrick to arrive," he told her, standing. "Assuming he's lived thus far."

"What are you doing to him? Wasn't killing his wife enough?"

"Marginally," he countered. "But then he came to your rescue, didn't he? Trumped my work. I don't like being interrupted, Teresa. Since then, he hasn't let you go. Peculiar. But then it all came together, didn't it?"

"What?"

"He's inlove with you. I swear you aren't quite good at this whole psychic stuff. It's a wonder people believed you. Oh, but therein lies the problem. Believability!"

She said nothing. She didn't want him to reach out and try to touch her again or anger him enough to do the unthinkable. He scoffed at her and walked away from her.

"Shame I have to kill everything he loves," he added. "Purely coincidence, though."

"Why are you doing this to him? I know why you want me," she said softly. "But why Jane? It can't be just because of me or your sick need to cut down all who cross you."

He laughed loudly. "Oh! Now we are getting somewhere! He never told you the story, huh? Oh! How nice of him. I suppose I will ask him to recite it once...excuse me, if he gets here!"

With that, he walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. She could hear his laughter disappear in the distance as he went. Right now, she was at the mercy of a serial killer. She was a pawn in this game of his. Killing two problems in one fell swoop. There was something she was missing... something didn't add up. She didn't have time to think about it, though. She could hear Red John coming back up the stairs.

He recoiled back from the body. It wasn't Teresa. It was the chubby cop from the stationing at the front of the gates. Jane pulled out his cell phone and lifted the illuminated screen to take in the body. He shined the light on the face of the obviously dead cop and found that his throat had been cut from ear to ear. No doubt Red John's handiwork. Pinned to the cop's chest was a note. The same red typeset telling him what he already figured out:

THE GAME IS NOT THAT SIMPLE, PATRICK.

I'VE LEFT A CLUE TO FINDING HER.

YOU'VE GOT A DEADLINE. ONE MORE CHANCE.

Jane was distracted by the garbled radio coming from the dead cop's waist. He was preoccupied not because it was simply snowy interference, but because it was blinking red and was counting down on the window of the radio. To his horror, he realized that Red John had booby-trapped the body. When Jane touched the body, and turned him over, it started the bomb attached to the cop's radio.

"Shit!" he said, panicking as he stood up. The counter, at last glance, said he had thirty seconds to get out. "SHIT!"

He lifted the phone up so that the light could brighten where he was looking as his eyes frantically searched the floor around the body. Nothing. He ran around the room, the light bouncing over everything he could see. Finally, as his eyes took in the closed front door, he could see it. On a hook on the back of the door was a photo frame. The missing frame Lisbon had said her photograph had been in on her dresser. Red John was holding Lisbon at the scene of his crime against her. He tucked his gun in his waist and widened his eyes in horror.

Jane didn't hesitate, this time. He turned himself around, jumped over the body of the deceased cop, and dove out of the doorway to the dirt behind the house just as it imploded. The scattering of wood chunks, glass. Pieces of sinks and food from the fridge and a body part or two cascaded down around him. He didn't have time to waste.

He didn't even look back or try to locate the phone that flew from his hand as he got to his feet and took off. He didn't have his phone to guide him back through the dirt and gravel, and he tripped on the pieces scattered up the road. The fire wasn't bright enough to guide him, but he had no time to worry about that for right now. Only when he found his way back to his car did he look back. By then, the entire cabin was engulfed in flames and was spreading to the one on either side.

He turned over the engine, backed up his car, and took off at a high rate of speed. Red John's game had nearly killed him, but it would be no match for what was going to happen to him if Teresa Lisbon wasn't located alive. He'd have his showdown with the serial killer and put him to bed once and for all.

He headed back the way he came, his little car heading to Teresa Lisbon's home. He prayed to God as he fingered the ring on his finger that she was still alive. Somewhere in his heart, he felt she was. But not for long unless he played his cards right. Why was Red John playing this game? Why was he stepping up his melodramatics? The cop had to die, but why blow up the cabin?Easy, Jane thought. Diversion. Send all units to the blast at Joshua Lake so that he wouldn't be interrupted with Lisbon or himself. Without a diversion, they'd go to the next plausible scene: her house. Use that against him. Cunning and smart. And he had no remorse. That was a deadly combination.

He could still see the raging fire in the distance as he got back within city limits a while later. He could see fire trucks and police in the other lane, but he ignored them and kept going. He pulled up to the house he had rescued Lisbon in the first time. Cutting the engine, he got out. He did not pull his weapon, however. Instead, he crept up to the front door. Trying the knob, he found it unlocked. The police tape had long been taken down, so he only had to walk straight in.

The house was pitch dark and silent. If she was here, Red John was doing a good job of keeping her quiet. He didn't even want to know how. He walked to the stairs, peering up into the blackness. Step. Step. Step. Step.He stopped. Looked around again. Step. Step. Step.Nothing but fingerprint dust and a stray plastic glove or two.

"Teresa?" he called out. "Teresa, are you here?"

He got no answer. Not that he didn't expect that. He did. When he got to the top landing, he ignored the other doors. He knew which one she was behind. He stepped up to the bedroom door he had found her bleeding to death in, and slowly opened the door.

As soon as he stepped inside, he could see her chained to the floor, lying on her back. Her eyes found his in the dusky moonlight, but she said nothing.

"Teresa! Oh, thank God!" he said, relieved. "I thought-"

Then he felt the cool, sharp edge of a knife digging into his back, cutting off his words.

"Glad you made it, Patrick," the voice said. "I was concerned you'd be in pieces by now." He reached into Jane's waist and took his gun from him. He placed the gun in his waistband. "This wouldn't be as fun. Let's go show you off to Teresa, shall we?"

"What are you going to do? Make me watch her die? Then kill me?" Jane asked, lifting his hands in a defensive pose as Red John marched him across the room, the knife still pointed in his back.

"Well," Red John replied with a smile. "And here I thought Teresa, here, was the psychic phony."

He sat Jane down on an old chair across from the floor in which Teresa lie still. He brought out a pair of heavy duty cuffs that were affixed to the chair and cuffed Jane's one wrist to the chair's handle. He watched as Red John walked over to Lisbon, kneel down at the manacle around her ankle, and lift her to a standing position, the knife across her throat, tearing the stitches she had from his previous attempt on her life.

Red John leaned forward, exposing his face and identity. "Surprise."

"You!" Jane called out, astonished.

"Now is when you say goodbye, Patrick," he told him. "I am sorry it had to be this way. I do hate dual killings. But you leave me no choice. I have to get rid of you, too. You wouldn't leave well enough alone. It would have just been Teresa. Shame."

Jane fought against the cuffs as Red John swiped his knife across Teresa Lisbon's throat and she screamed.