Self isn't something you find
It's something you create
The more action you take
The more progress you make.
the Mentalist, S1E18
The morning bottleneck. The worst part about working for the CBI. The daily ritual of misery. Standing in line at the security checkpoint with all of the other agents who happened to arrive at the same time, getting bags checked and badges scanned, waiting to be allowed access to the building.
Every.
Single.
Morning.
That morning, mercy of mercies, Ronnie arrived to work at roughly the same time as Cho, Lisbon, and Jane. If nothing else, at least they could spend the next fifteen minutes keeping each other company while they waited to be patted down by guards they'd known for forever so that they could go inside and sit at the desks they'd driven for years.
Jane spotted her first, locking his vintage car manually with his key before trotting over to her with the brightest, crinkly-eyed smile. "Good morning, Ronnie my dear. And don't you look nice?" He looped his arm through hers and cast an cheerful glance at her work outfit for the day.
She was pretty pleased with it too, if she did say so herself. Bright, bold red Henley snug around her curvy form, her thick thighs wrapped in stretchy skinny-cut dress pants, pulled together with a fitted black blazer and knee-high chunky sole boots. She'd been waiting to wear that outfit for ages but had never worked up the courage to go to work in such a tight, bold shirt and risk the teasing comments about her big clunky boots.
Something had come over her unexpectedly that morning and granted her the confidence to wear it. After a thorough examination of herself in the mirror, she'd concluded that she looked great and that no amount of teasing could change that fact.
"Thanks," she flashed him a cheeky grin and let him lead her towards the building where they joined Cho and Lisbon. "Good morning."
The boss nodded a greeting back, her gaze locked on her phone screen. "Morning everyone."
In the seconds that followed, while Jane yammered on for a moment about how sweet the air smelled and how warm it was for even so late in the year, Ronnie caught Cho giving her a once-over.
He's checking me out?
Of course he's checking me out.
I'm wearing my lucky outfit.
Everybody's gonna check me out.
"Morning." Cho uttered gruffly, holding the door open for them. The three colleagues passed through before him, each saying polite thank yous before shuffling to the end of the security line. The room was exceptionally full of agents and police officers and lawyers, backing up the checkpoints and slowing down the progress of the morning.
When Ronnie zoned back in to Jane's monologue, he was gesturing across the room to a woman who wore a matching red skirt suit, currently going through a metal detector.
"Okay. Lady in red. Guess."
At Jane's invitation, Cho followed his eye line and studied the languid movements of the woman as she collected her things from the guard. "She's, um..."
The woman pressed a dainty finger under her nose and sneezed.
"...Allergic to perfume." Finished with his guess, Cho turned his eyes back to Jane, who was very simply unimpressed. "It's a good guess." He defended himself. "She just sneezed."
That infuriating little smirk was tugging at Jane's lips, causing Lisbon to roll her eyes and smile warily at her agents as she watched.
"She's having an affair." Jane said. "Next?"
Lisbon butted in, unable to help herself. "Hold on. Having an affair? You made that up."
"Not at all. If you look closely, she has a very peculiar—"
Before he could continue, the front doors banged open haphazardly and a focused voice reached their ears, followed by the scraping and thudding of something being dragged across the floor. All four of them turned to look.
"...my attitude towards life determines life's attitude towards me..." an exceptionally tall, stocky man in an ill-fitting business suit shouldered his way into the room, hauling an oversized black sack along the ground behind him. It was heavy, evident by the effort in his voice as he spoke the verses, and the jagged movements as he tugged the sack through the doors. "...you got a job to do, you do it right..."
Crimson smeared the floor in the trail of the sack and Ronnie realized it was blood, thick streams of it pooling in the wake of the black cloth. She had her service weapon drawn by the time a pale, sickly arm flopped out of the side of the bag.
That got the room in an uproar. Voices cried out and shouted, and suddenly the line was moving in all directions.
Beside her, Cho yanked his weapon from its holster and took up a ready position at her flank. He reached forward and tapped her elbow, signaling for her to circle left and form a large perimeter around the threat. Her feet moved quickly as she jumped to do as instructed.
Lisbon was already moving in on the lumbering man, pistol drawn. "Stop. Put your hands in the air now."
The people who had been waiting in line disappeared to the other side of the room, well out of the line of fire and leaving the homicide unit to address the situation alone.
So, what else was new.
Jane stayed tucked neatly behind Lisbon, his eyes wide and unbelieving at the scene unfolding before him. He leaned like a giraffe to try to glimpse the guy over Lisbon's shoulder, but his feet remained still. "What is it? What's he doing?"
The guy leaned back, face red and puffing breathlessly as he gave a wry chuckle at the perceived audacity of the three agents in front of him. His eyes fell to Ronnie, who was closest. "Make a federal case out of it, why don't you?"
Cho edged closer, putting Ronnie behind him. It was a ridiculous gesture, as the massive man didn't seem to be armed and showed absolutely zero signs of putting on a threatening front. "Drop it," he ordered with great command. "Drop the blanket."
Seeming incredibly confused, the guy glanced from Cho to Ronnie to Lisbon before easily tossing aside the blanket.
A woman lay at his feet, lifeless and bloody, her skin deathly pale.
Ronnie's heart pounded at the sight. She hated the bodies—the bodies always got to her. Desperate to focus on any other angle of the situation, she turned her attention to the body language of the giant man and noted the relaxed expression on his face as he looked down at the woman blankly and then back up at the agents.
There was something psychologically unnatural about his demeanor, given the situation. Everything about him felt off, even without the body at his feet.
"Your hands, sir." Lisbon barked. "Both hands."
The guy scoffed, shaking his head as he stepped away from the body. "That's gratitude for ya."
"Hey!" Cho snapped as he eased closer and tucked his hand into his pocket. "Put your hands above your head."
"I bring you a gift and this is how I'm treated?" Throwing his hands up at Cho's aggression, the guy was still laughing in appalled disbelief, but his words had caught Jane's attention.
"What gift?" The mentalist questioned curiously, poking his head around Lisbon's shoulder.
Ronnie moved in to put herself in a defensive stance as Cho rushed forward to restrain the man. Given their size differences, one good heave from the strange fellow could put Cho's head through the brick wall.
"I dragged it three blocks." The man claimed as Cho yanked his arms around behind his back and clicked him snugly into a pair of cuffs without issue.
Ronnie put her gun away. She met Cho's eyes, silently mirroring his expression of mild confusion.
Discomfort itched at the small of her back.
It's the Henley. I didn't cut the care tags off of it.
Just ignore it.
Newly interested in the recent turn of events, Jane scurried past Lisbon—despite her protests—and stopped right in front of the restrained and indignant newcomer. He craned his neck to look up into the man's small eyes, completely ignoring the way Ronnie grabbed his elbow to hold him back. "Pupils are dilated. Are you on drugs, Mr.—"
"Resnick. Carl Resnick." Resnick grunted as Cho pushed him back against the wall. "I don't do drugs. Crack is whack."
Crack is whack?
Ok, why not.
Jane pressed two fingers to the man's throat. "Steady pulse. Steady as a rock for someone that dragged a body three blocks."
"Let me handle this, Jane, I'll do it." Nodding to Ronnie to pull Jane back, Lisbon inserted herself quietly, holstering her weapon.
Jane firmly ignored her, but couldn't fight being wrangled by Ronnie as she tugged him back to stand behind her. He kept questioning Resnick without allowing Lisbon to get a word in. "So this is a gift? Is that why you brought her here to us?"
Carl's eyebrows lifted and he looked down at the body again, his face a portrait of cluelessness. "Her? Them."
Ronnie met Cho's eyes and held his gaze, anything to keep from staring down at the body again. The longer she looked, the more nausea churned in her stomach.
"There's more than one?" Jane demanded.
"It's a whole bagful, fella. What do you need, glasses?" Carl Resnick chuckled.
"A bagful of what?"
"Potatoes." Resnick said the word like he couldn't believe what kind of alien could see the body he'd dragged into the CBI and not know it was a bag full of potatoes.
Lisbon stared at Resnick, visibly growing frustrated.
"Potatoes." Jane repeated flatly.
"I'm supposed to deliver them to the police. You are the police."
Jane waved his hand in front of Carl's face, watching the slovenly reactions to his movement. "Near enough. He's a perfect subject."
"Subject?" Lisbon repeated.
"To plant a suggestion. He's hypnotized."
the MENTALIST
"Are you good?"
After they'd deposited Carl Resnick into an interview room and dealt with the forensics techs about the body, Cho and Ronnie stole a moment to convene in the kitchen and take a breath.
She turned on the electric kettle with the flip of a switch. "Yeah, I'm good. You?"
He hadn't been asking casually. Cho stepped in closer, standing at the counter close enough to brush against her arm. "I meant with the body."
Pulse quickening, Ronnie swallowed roughly. "You know I'm fine." She pulled a mug down from the cabinet, her favorite dark blue one that had Van Gogh's Starry Night printed on it, and selected a tea bag from the drawer. "I've been getting better."
Her back stung in protest as she bent to fish a spoon out of the cutlery drawer.
It doesn't hurt that bad. Focus on Cho.
He was watching her rip open the tea bag. "Tea instead of coffee?"
"My throat's kind of sore." She answered dismissively, and then turned to lean against the counter as she waited for the water to boil. "I really have been getting better, Cho."
He relented with a nod, leaning into her shoulder ever so slightly. "It's okay if it's still hard, you know. What you went through wasn't something you're expected to just get over."
What she went through. What Carla put her through. Her physiological intolerance to being in the same room as a human body probably hadn't recommended her for the position of being attached to a homicide unit.
"I'm okay." She promised, and met his eyes.
Cho frowned down at her with eyebrows lowered in concern, mouth pulled down tightly at the corners. He crossed his arms over his chest. "Okay."
She poured the water over her teabag. "Wild morning, huh?"
the MENTALIST
"So, Carl. Why would you bring a bag of potatoes to the police?" Cho placed a thin folder on the table and stood across from Resnick in the interview room.
Neither of them looked at her as Ronnie put herself in the corner, leaning against the wall comfortably. They also didn't notice her subtle little flinch.
Her legs hurt.
She rubbed her thighs together discreetly, hoping to alleviate the itch of pain that rushed over them like a sudden nerve flare.
Focus on Cho.
It just itches.
Ronnie turned her attention back to the large man cuffed to the table and her partner, who leaned over it assertively.
She liked it when he was assertive. And he had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing the veiny muscles of his forearms the way that she so admired.
Maybe he wasn't conventionally attractive—and maybe a suspect interview wasn't the time to be pondering on such things—but Ronnie couldn't help taking deliberate note of the fact that her grumpy curmudgeon partner had many physical features that she very much liked.
Focus on Cho.
Like the way his white dress shirt stretched over the hard muscles of his back when he leaned over the table like that.
Damn, I'm all sorts of desperate, aren't I?
Focus on Cho.
Ronnie crossed her arms under her chest and tapped her fingertips against her bicep to ground herself. The rhythmic pressure on her own skin brought her mind back around to the moment, where she stood in a very warm room with a very odd suspect and a hardworking CBI agent who was mercifully oblivious to her inner musings.
It had been a very long time since she'd been on a date.
Carl, meanwhile, had grown deeply concerned since realizing that he was actually in custody. "I don't—I...I can't—"
"Potatoes to cops. Potatoes." Cho stared at him earnestly, willing him to come up with a good enough answer that could prove that he was screwing with them and that Jane was wrong. "Not donuts, but potatoes. Someone tell you to do it?"
Carl glanced at Ronnie, seeming to note her presence for the first time, his face lighting up. "Yes! Yes."
"Who?"
"Uh," Carl grimaced helplessly. He shook his head in defeat and stared down at his cuffed hands. "I can't remember."
"Try." Cho implored bluntly.
Resnick sounded wounded. "I'm trying."
Never one to pity a person who dragged a young woman's body three blocks and then pretend he had no notion of the fact, Cho wasn't swayed by the kicked puppy demeanor before him. "What if I told you it wasn't potatoes? That in fact, it was a dead girl you were dragging around."
Carl frowned in disgust and a bit of concern. "You have a twisted sense of humor."
Cho passed him a printout shot of the body, angled to show only the shoulders and the face. "Here's proof, Carl. What do you see there?"
Carl's confusion only grew. "Potatoes."
the MENTALIST
"Assuming we're not taking Jane's word as law, he's either an exceptional liar or he's definitely hypnotized." Ronnie sank into her desk chair and did a little twirl, kicking up her booted feet to boost her momentum. In her spinning peripheral, she caught a glimpse of Lisbon, Jane, and Van Pelt walking past and heard snippets of their conversation on Resnick's professional background.
Cho perched on the edge of her desk and handed her a new mug of tea before sipping cautiously from his own coffee. "I trust Jane. I'd believe he's hypnotized."
Ronnie stopped her spinning chair before she could fall out of it and cupped her hands around the mug. Her ears rang and her throat ached like she was sick.
It's the weather changing.
Turning her seat to face Cho, she propped her elbow up on his knee and cradled her face in her hand, blowing absently on the hot beverage. "Rigsby's running the girl's prints. Should hopefully have a hit within the hour."
Cho's empty hand came to rest on her upper back, his dark eyes peering down at her over his coffee cup. "You good?" He wondered, visibly analyzing the way she was leaned into his space and using his lap as a tabletop to rest her arm on.
It wasn't unusual for Ronnie to teasingly disregard his personal space, and he'd known he was only asking for it by sitting on the edge of her desk, but she usually paired her physical contact with some kind of verbal flirtation just to get under his skin.
She leaned back to look up at him, but kept her arm on his leg. Ronnie's back felt hot under his touch.
He's touching me now?
Without me being injured?
Yeah, sure, why not.
If nothing else, it keeps things interesting.
Meeting his eyes, Ronnie gave a tired little smile. "I'm good. All good. Just thinking—Jane said that even the most hypnotized person cannot be compelled to do something that they wouldn't morally do in the first place. So even if Resnick was hypnotized, that means he would have to already be a killer. Or willing to become one."
Cho removed his hand from her back and let it hang between his knees just inches from her own arm. "Or someone else killed her and hypnotized him to dispose of the body."
"Bringing it to the police isn't exactly disposing of it. But either way, I see your point. Likely whoever hypnotized him is the killer." Ronnie absently poked at the thick, vascular veins running over the back of his hand. "We should get back in the observation room and see if he's twitchy."
Her fingers trailed up and down the angles of Cho's hand until she found herself holding it distractedly, running her thumb over those veins again.
Her vision went fuzzy. Heart hammering in her ears, darkness flooding in around the edges of her sight, a strange stinging sensation emanating from her legs again.
You're holding his hand.
Ronnie blinked a few times, the view coming back into focus. She stared down at their intertwined fingers and felt his pulse beat against her own.
You're holding his hand.
A quiet slurping sounded above her head as he sipped from his coffee cup, apparently not totally appalled by the fact that her distracted sensory fixation had wound up with them holding hands. He was used to her wandering hands, though that end result was a first.
If his non reaction was any indication, he didn't mind too terribly.
You're holding his hand.
What is he thinking?
Ronnie shot a quick glance up at him, expecting to see him completely zoned out and chewing on the lip of his coffee cup, oblivious to the fact that they were holding hands. What she found instead was his own wandering eyes stealing a stray glance down at her.
But it wasn't her face he'd stolen a look at.
He'd been looking at the way her Henley stretched over the rather pronounced curves of her chest.
She never wore anything so low cut, nor did she wear anything so low cut that also had a couple of buttons to deepen the plunging dive of her shirt. He hadn't been able to help himself from his convenient, eagle eye view of his well built partner.
Normally hidden under ballistics gear or compression bras or loose button downs, he'd never really realized that she'd been quite so genetically blessed, nor had he realized how amplified those genetic features would become after years of working chest in the gym.
Ronnie's face flamed when she caught him, both of them abruptly looking away. "I'll head over to the observation room." She popped up from her seat and crossed the room in a few quick steps.
This is what we're doing now?
Cho's staring at my boobs?
Sealing herself into the observation room, Ronnie planted herself in a chair before the one way glass and fixed her attention on the fidgety, reasonably distraught figure of Carl Resnick.
Alright. Not what I expected.
I can roll with this.
Ronnie put a hand to her stomach and took a long, deep breath.
This can be good.
I never imagined this one.
Her partner's visibly evident appreciation of the figure she cut in her new lucky outfit came back to mind as she tried to pay attention to Resnick's body language. He wasn't just looking her over, taking in what she was wearing for the day, or accidentally looking at a woman's boobs before realizing they were his partner's.
He'd been checking her out.
I can't be the only one who notices how physically appealing my partner is.
the MENTALIST
"Mary Beth is dead? Oh my god."
Cho glanced at Ronnie before fixing his gaze on Resnick. They'd gotten the ID on the body from one of the local school systems where she used to teach. "You knew Mary Beth, then?"
"Sure." Carl admitted easily. "I met her at the Model Life Center. I'm taking Dr. Daniel's NLP course to help me be a better salesman."
Jane had explained that Dr. Royston Daniel, the head of the Model Life Center, specialized in a psychological conditioning tool referred to as Neuro Linguistic Programming. Jane had seemed fairly dismissive of the practice, but Ronnie had taken the information seriously.
Carla used to know a guy who specialized in that sort of thing. He used to hypnotize Ronnie sometimes when she was young, to make some of her assignments a little easier.
He'd been nice.
Ronnie had been grateful for the kindness he'd spared her.
Cho took a seat at the conference table next to Resnick. After his relative innocence had been established, they'd let him out of the interview room and allowed him to sit in one of the conference rooms where he could move around and see out the windows.
"Did you spend a lot of time with Mary Beth?"
Resnick explained bitter sweetly that he'd met her once when he was struggling with a class exercise and she went out of her way to help him understand it, including skipping her lunch to explain it. He went on to insist that she was a great, patient teacher, even with someone like himself, whom he viewed as diminutive and insignificant.
"So, now do you remember who hypnotized you?" Cho asked gently.
"I got nothing. I'm sorry." Resnick shook his head, his eyes filling with tears.
Ronnie passed him a tissue and took a seat next to Cho. She couldn't imagine being used the way someone had used him. If she had been in her past, she certainly didn't want to know.
Her throat burned painfully.
Pressing a hand to her collar, Ronnie closed her eyes and waited for the piercing sting to fade, and rubbed her thighs together once more as the pinching nerve reaction kicked into overdrive again.
It will pass.
It will pass.
Focus on the case.
the MENTALIST
Arlov yanked Ronnie down from where she hung from the rafters and grunted as her body fell limply over his shoulders. Blood spilled from her legs by his knife soaked into his shirt and dripped down the backs of her knees, creating a rose petal trail in the hay beneath his feet.
He'd noticed the change come over her hours before, when she'd stopped flinching away from his touch.
Her screams came freely at each moment that his knife touched her skin like she'd entirely abandoned any attempt to hold back.
And still she fought.
Hanging from her hands, bound and bloody, burns marking and gouging into her stomach, cuts from his blade slicing through her back and legs, and still she took the abuse without a single cry for mercy.
He'd grown furious.
He could not control an unbreakable woman.
All of that would change when he retrieved her partner.
Arlov threw her down on a steel table and began strapping her to it with thick leather cuffs. Her eyes were wide open, staring blankly at the ceiling, her chest heaving with panting breaths. Slick sweat coated her skin, her fingertips tapping rhythmically against the surface of the table.
He leaned in close to her face and earned no reaction from the bruised and battered woman.
Before he switched tactics, he had one thing left to try.