the veil that keeps me blind, 3/15
Title: The Veil That Keeps Me Blind
Chapter: 3/15 (Book II)
Notes: When I originally planned out this story, everything from Book I was supposed to also go in the prologue, and this was supposed to start Chapter 1. Then I started writing, and the prologue turned into 6,000 words. At which point I realized my original planned word count of 10,000 was not going to be happening. I'm sure you're all thrilled to know that ;) And now, on to the story!
Book II
Chapter 3
xxxxx
six months later
xxxxx
Jane tries not to look at her empty office. If he doesn’t look, it’s easier to forget just how long it’s been empty. If he looks, it becomes glaringly obvious.
It will be six months soon. Six months since the day he arrived at Lisbon’s front door only to find that she had disappeared, leaving her apartment to two summer interns from the DOJ. He had seen them several times over the course of the summer when they had come to CBI Headquarters on various errands. Lisa, the redhead whom Jane had met when she appeared at Lisbon’s door, introduced her dark-haired, dark-skinned roommate as Renee. They were pleasant, easy to talk to, and they had the good sense not to press him for details as to whether or not he had called Lisbon. But summer had long since come and gone, and Lisbon’s apartment remained unoccupied since the two girls returned to their respective colleges at the end of August.
In truth, he had waited almost five weeks to call Lisbon again, secretly hoping that she might contact him first, but to no avail. He finally tried her cell phone twice, giving up when it went to a forwarding service. With all the tools and resources of the CBI at his disposal, Jane knew he could locate her if he tried; however, her unspoken message was perfectly clear. If Lisbon had wanted him to know where she was, she would have let him know by now. That knowledge left Jane to his own devices, with nothing but his own thoughts and theories to fuel him through the long, hot summer and into the fall.
All Hightower had told the team was that Agent Lisbon had been temporarily reassigned and that their unit would have its caseload reduced for as long as they were without their team leader. With Hightower’s assistance, Agent Cho would temporarily assume the lead role as the team’s most senior remaining agent. The arrangement had worked out well, mostly because Hightower took on virtually all interaction with local law enforcement and had carefully screened every case that they were sent prior to assignment, diverting some and accepting others based on her assessment of how the team was managing at any given time. Or, more specifically, how the team was managing without Lisbon. It was clear, although no one would acknowledge it outright, that her absence left a gaping hole in the team that nothing or no one else could fill.
Jane himself had inquired after Lisbon only once, about a week after he arrived at her place to find that she had vanished. Hightower informed him that she was not in direct contact with Agent Lisbon but would be receiving reports from time to time and could get a message to her if Jane so desired. Jane hid his dejection well and declined Hightower’s offer. A message through however many channels it took would not serve as a substitute when whatever remained of their relationship (if anything remained at all) was at stake.
On good days, Jane doesn’t think about her much. He goes about his daily life not dwelling on the fact that he doesn’t know where she is or if she is safe, or that she left with everything between them still uncertain, hanging in the balance. Lisbon always said that she wanted him to move on from vengeance and Red John, to take the best parts of his old life and create something new for himself, something that would make him happy. Jane started taking her advice even before Red John’s death; he had been unaware of how much the time he spent with her had become an integral part of his life. But now he is taking her advice in earnest, and it almost does not seem real simply because she is not there to witness it, to share it with him.
It boils down to one simple fact: he misses her more with every passing day.
It isn’t even that he is the only one who does. Van Pelt and Rigsby often lament her absence, the former in particular. Even stoic, solemn Cho will frequently defer to her authority for a few moments before realizing that role is his for the time being. But Jane always holds his tongue and keeps of his own feelings carefully under lock and key, lest his reveal something altogether too private and personal. Six months later, and still the sting remains fresh and new.
Today is not a good day, and it hasn’t been one from the moment Jane awoke early that morning. He has suffered through fewer nightmares and a significant decrease in sleepless nights since Red John’s death, but the previous night, he had been restless, waking several times from the throes of a terrible nightmare. This particular variation on a dream is a new one, painfully reminiscent of that day in June when Red John met his end. The details change every time, but the result is always the same: Lisbon, lifeless and covered in blood, while he is bound and helpless but still alive, having lost the one thing he had left to lose.
And then he wakes up and he realizes that he lost her anyway.
On this particular morning, the team is in between cases, so even work does not serve as a suitable distraction. The entire team is gathered in the bullpen; even Cho, who had been offered use of Lisbon’s office until she returned. Cho had refused. He occasionally went into Lisbon’s office to retrieve forms or to make a phone call, but the office remained otherwise unoccupied during its rightful owner’s time away.
Jane spends his time lying supine on his beloved sofa and casually listening in as Rigsby and Van Pelt discuss everything from upcoming holiday blockbusters to their picks for the NFL playoffs all while trying not to let their true feelings for each other show. Jane couldn’t see from his current position, but he had no doubt that Cho was rolling his eyes as he filled out forms from the team’s last case.
This is exactly how Agent Hightower finds them nearly three hours later.
“We’re going to San Francisco.” Hightower’s announcement cuts quickly through the suddenly silent room. There is a hint of urgency in her usual matter-of-fact tone, and that gets their attention more than anything. “I just got a call from the FBI Field Office. I’ll tell you what I know on the way.”
Hightower turns and takes two steps before turning back around, concern creased into her brow.
“I want to leave as soon as possible.” She casts a telling glance toward the empty office behind her. Almost as an afterthought, she adds, “It’s about Lisbon.”
They are on the road in less than five minutes.
xxx
It is probably for the best that Rigsby drives.
Jane’s first instinct had been to take the keys himself or follow in his own car, but as soon as they pull out into traffic, Jane realizes there is no way he could be driving. Not at that moment. (There’s a voice in the back of his head, Lisbon’s voice, telling him that Rigsby is the fastest driver anyway. He and Lisbon have had that argument more times than he can count.) Instead, Jane sits in the back seat of the van, listening intently as Hightower tells them what little she knows.
It takes all of the biofeedback control mechanisms in his arsenal to appear calm and in control. He envies Rigbsy, who can hide behind the distraction of the road ahead; Cho, whose facial expressions rarely change; and Van Pelt, who wears her emotions on her sleeves anyway. Jane has not felt this distracted and anxious since the day Red John died.
“Lisbon has been working with the Violent Crimes Department at the FBI.”
Hightower is sitting in the front passenger seat, but she turns around to face them as she explains, “Their SAC had been looking at a few senior agents, and Lisbon was one of them. He came to me right around the time that everything broke with Red John. It was her choice, but she wanted to go.”
This, at the very least, is not a surprise to Jane. He had assumed as much; as Lisbon is not one to take a vacation, much less an extended one, a temporary offer from another unit made the most sense. He listens intently as Hightower continues.
“There’s been a case that the FBI has been trying to keep out of the media. In the last 24 months, five women have disappeared from a battered women’s shelter just outside of San Francisco. Within a week from the time of their disappearance, they’ve all turned up dead.”
Van Pelt, who is too shaken to process this information as quickly as she usually would, interrupts. “What does that have to do with Lisbon?”
“The FBI doesn’t want it getting out that the shelter could be dangerous. But they don’t want women staying with abusive husbands out of fear of the shelter, either.” As he speaks, Jane hides his hands in his lap, protected in the back seat of the van, but does not put on his usual cheerful yet detached airs as he might if this were about anyone else. “I would guess that they asked at least four or five other female senior field agents to be on their task force.”
Hightower nods. “That’s what I’ve been told. They asked six including Lisbon, but only four accepted. The lead agent, Mark Redmond, called me this morning because for the past five months, they’ve been conducting an undercover operation at the shelter. Another female agent has been posing as a volunteer, and a few weeks later, Lisbon went in herself as a victim of abuse.”
Before Hightower gets a chance to say any more, Rigsby voices what everyone else is thinking (the same question that has haunted Jane every night for the better part of six months).
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t know,” Hightower releases a shaky sigh and rotates her neck to look at Rigsby although his focus remains straight ahead. “No one knows. Lisbon didn’t check in with her contact last night, and she missed her back up contact this morning. The agent who’s been working as a volunteer can’t officially confirm that she’s missing, but no one can remember seeing her since before dinner last night.”
Hightower’s voice remains even and professional, but her words are ominous.
“Redmond wanted to know if any of us knew somewhere Lisbon might have gone if she needed help, maybe someone she used to work with at the SFPD.”
Not anymore, Jane forces his hands to remain still as the realization washes over him, unbidden. With Bosco gone, she’s the only one left.
Lisbon never spoke of her old team, she kept those secrets well-guarded, even from him, but Jane’s own innate curiosity got the better of him. When he had first realized that Bosco had been her supervisor, a quick internet search revealed that of the two remaining members of Bosco’s SFDP unit, one was shot and killed in the line of duty not long before Lisbon transferred to the CBI, and the other had died suddenly of a heart attack at age 43.
At the time, he noted the unit’s strange disposition for dropping dead prematurely, and that had been before Bosco.
Just then, Hightower’s voice breaks Jane’s train of thought.
“I did a quick check in the system. Since nothing turned up and Virgil has been in Seattle for the past month with his sister, I thought we would be best served heading to San Francisco ourselves.”
The other agents all murmur their approval at this.
“Do you know anything else?” Van Pelt frowns and twists a strand of hair around her right index finger, a nervous habit of her adolescence that she rarely displays anymore.
“I don’t. I told Redmond to call me directly if he had any updates, but I doubt we’ll know anything more until we get there and someone briefs us on the details of the case.”
With that, Hightower turns around in her seat and faces forward once again, and the car settles into complete silence for the remainder of their trip, each one of them lost in their own thoughts and apprehensions.
Outside, the sky is dull and gray; the mood in the van is not much different.
For his own part, Jane passes the trip in varying parts numbness and disbelief. As Rigsby speeds through light traffic, Jane does not take in the scenery or observe the passengers in the other cars, as is often his custom. On particularly long drives when it was just him and Lisbon, he would frequently entertain her with stories of where each car was going and what they’ll be doing when they get there. Lisbon would laugh and roll her eyes, and yet, she would always listen. In the past six months, his instincts have still been to share those stories with her, and he would often start to speak before he would remember that she was not there.
With thoughts of the past running through his mind, Jane barely registers when they arrive at the San Francisco field office, but he comes back to himself when he enters the building. The task force is located on the third floor, in a large open area surrounded by big windows and glass-encased offices. Several agents are on the phone, several others are bent over files or peering up at white boards with months and months of investigative work arranged in time lines and bullet points.
Hightower crosses the room to speak with a tall, lanky man with dark hair, presumably Mark Redmond as he appears to be the agent in charge. Cho, Rigbsy, and Van Pelt linger on the outskirts, a little out of place as they are the junior law enforcement officers for a change. Jane, however, immediately centers his focus on the empty desks in the far left corner of the room. One empty desk in particular, the one that the other agents won’t look at directly, averting their eyes on instinct.
Lisbon’s desk.
Jane approaches it tentatively, examining her workspace with careful eyes but never allowing himself to get comfortable. He runs his hand over the back of her desk chair, but chooses to remain standing. Rummaging through the drawers does not turn up much, which makes sense given the limited amount of time Lisbon would have spent in the office before going on assignment. However, the top right drawer does reveal three well-hidden photographs, buried under a stack of unused notebooks.
The first two are familiar: the photo of her brothers, the same one that sits on display in her apartment; a photo of the team from the CBI 4th of July picnic. It’s the third picture that catches Jane’s eye. It’s an older photo of a man and a woman, just slightly faded and frayed around the edges. Jane can’t make out their faces because they aren’t looking at the camera; they’re looking at each other. It doesn’t take a has-been fake psychic to know that these are Lisbon’s parents, back when they were young and in love.
In all the hours Jane has spent in Lisbon’s apartment, he has never seen a single picture of either of her parents. The thought saddens him, but there will be time to dwell on that later. For now, he pushes the twinge of regret aside and focuses his attention on the sudden bustle of activity at the center of the room.
Everyone turns at attention when a stout, balding man clears his throat. Although short in stature, he has a commanding presence, political and authoritative in nature, and every agent in the room regards him with equal parts admiration and disdain. It does not come as a surprise to Jane when the man begins speaking by addressing the visiting CBI contingent directly, introducing himself as Peter Stratton, Director of the San Francisco Field Office.
“One of our own is missing today,” he continues, stiffening his posture in an attempt to stretch upwards and make himself appear taller. He is obviously warming up for a press conference that Jane can only hope Lisbon will be around to hate. Stratton is a little old to be making the jump to career politics, but he certainly wouldn’t be the first.
“But I have every confidence in the men and women who stand before me...”
After that, Jane’s interest in whatever the man has to say is minimal at best, and he tunes out, although he at least keeps up appearances and feigns interest. Irritating a man like Stratton will only backfire, likely wasting everyone’s time and limiting his own access to information.
The usual rules, in this case, stopped applying a long time ago.
xxxxx
Chapter: 3/15 (Book II)
Notes: When I originally planned out this story, everything from Book I was supposed to also go in the prologue, and this was supposed to start Chapter 1. Then I started writing, and the prologue turned into 6,000 words. At which point I realized my original planned word count of 10,000 was not going to be happening. I'm sure you're all thrilled to know that ;) And now, on to the story!
Book II
Chapter 3
xxxxx
six months later
xxxxx
Jane tries not to look at her empty office. If he doesn’t look, it’s easier to forget just how long it’s been empty. If he looks, it becomes glaringly obvious.
It will be six months soon. Six months since the day he arrived at Lisbon’s front door only to find that she had disappeared, leaving her apartment to two summer interns from the DOJ. He had seen them several times over the course of the summer when they had come to CBI Headquarters on various errands. Lisa, the redhead whom Jane had met when she appeared at Lisbon’s door, introduced her dark-haired, dark-skinned roommate as Renee. They were pleasant, easy to talk to, and they had the good sense not to press him for details as to whether or not he had called Lisbon. But summer had long since come and gone, and Lisbon’s apartment remained unoccupied since the two girls returned to their respective colleges at the end of August.
In truth, he had waited almost five weeks to call Lisbon again, secretly hoping that she might contact him first, but to no avail. He finally tried her cell phone twice, giving up when it went to a forwarding service. With all the tools and resources of the CBI at his disposal, Jane knew he could locate her if he tried; however, her unspoken message was perfectly clear. If Lisbon had wanted him to know where she was, she would have let him know by now. That knowledge left Jane to his own devices, with nothing but his own thoughts and theories to fuel him through the long, hot summer and into the fall.
All Hightower had told the team was that Agent Lisbon had been temporarily reassigned and that their unit would have its caseload reduced for as long as they were without their team leader. With Hightower’s assistance, Agent Cho would temporarily assume the lead role as the team’s most senior remaining agent. The arrangement had worked out well, mostly because Hightower took on virtually all interaction with local law enforcement and had carefully screened every case that they were sent prior to assignment, diverting some and accepting others based on her assessment of how the team was managing at any given time. Or, more specifically, how the team was managing without Lisbon. It was clear, although no one would acknowledge it outright, that her absence left a gaping hole in the team that nothing or no one else could fill.
Jane himself had inquired after Lisbon only once, about a week after he arrived at her place to find that she had vanished. Hightower informed him that she was not in direct contact with Agent Lisbon but would be receiving reports from time to time and could get a message to her if Jane so desired. Jane hid his dejection well and declined Hightower’s offer. A message through however many channels it took would not serve as a substitute when whatever remained of their relationship (if anything remained at all) was at stake.
On good days, Jane doesn’t think about her much. He goes about his daily life not dwelling on the fact that he doesn’t know where she is or if she is safe, or that she left with everything between them still uncertain, hanging in the balance. Lisbon always said that she wanted him to move on from vengeance and Red John, to take the best parts of his old life and create something new for himself, something that would make him happy. Jane started taking her advice even before Red John’s death; he had been unaware of how much the time he spent with her had become an integral part of his life. But now he is taking her advice in earnest, and it almost does not seem real simply because she is not there to witness it, to share it with him.
It boils down to one simple fact: he misses her more with every passing day.
It isn’t even that he is the only one who does. Van Pelt and Rigsby often lament her absence, the former in particular. Even stoic, solemn Cho will frequently defer to her authority for a few moments before realizing that role is his for the time being. But Jane always holds his tongue and keeps of his own feelings carefully under lock and key, lest his reveal something altogether too private and personal. Six months later, and still the sting remains fresh and new.
Today is not a good day, and it hasn’t been one from the moment Jane awoke early that morning. He has suffered through fewer nightmares and a significant decrease in sleepless nights since Red John’s death, but the previous night, he had been restless, waking several times from the throes of a terrible nightmare. This particular variation on a dream is a new one, painfully reminiscent of that day in June when Red John met his end. The details change every time, but the result is always the same: Lisbon, lifeless and covered in blood, while he is bound and helpless but still alive, having lost the one thing he had left to lose.
And then he wakes up and he realizes that he lost her anyway.
On this particular morning, the team is in between cases, so even work does not serve as a suitable distraction. The entire team is gathered in the bullpen; even Cho, who had been offered use of Lisbon’s office until she returned. Cho had refused. He occasionally went into Lisbon’s office to retrieve forms or to make a phone call, but the office remained otherwise unoccupied during its rightful owner’s time away.
Jane spends his time lying supine on his beloved sofa and casually listening in as Rigsby and Van Pelt discuss everything from upcoming holiday blockbusters to their picks for the NFL playoffs all while trying not to let their true feelings for each other show. Jane couldn’t see from his current position, but he had no doubt that Cho was rolling his eyes as he filled out forms from the team’s last case.
This is exactly how Agent Hightower finds them nearly three hours later.
“We’re going to San Francisco.” Hightower’s announcement cuts quickly through the suddenly silent room. There is a hint of urgency in her usual matter-of-fact tone, and that gets their attention more than anything. “I just got a call from the FBI Field Office. I’ll tell you what I know on the way.”
Hightower turns and takes two steps before turning back around, concern creased into her brow.
“I want to leave as soon as possible.” She casts a telling glance toward the empty office behind her. Almost as an afterthought, she adds, “It’s about Lisbon.”
They are on the road in less than five minutes.
xxx
It is probably for the best that Rigsby drives.
Jane’s first instinct had been to take the keys himself or follow in his own car, but as soon as they pull out into traffic, Jane realizes there is no way he could be driving. Not at that moment. (There’s a voice in the back of his head, Lisbon’s voice, telling him that Rigsby is the fastest driver anyway. He and Lisbon have had that argument more times than he can count.) Instead, Jane sits in the back seat of the van, listening intently as Hightower tells them what little she knows.
It takes all of the biofeedback control mechanisms in his arsenal to appear calm and in control. He envies Rigbsy, who can hide behind the distraction of the road ahead; Cho, whose facial expressions rarely change; and Van Pelt, who wears her emotions on her sleeves anyway. Jane has not felt this distracted and anxious since the day Red John died.
“Lisbon has been working with the Violent Crimes Department at the FBI.”
Hightower is sitting in the front passenger seat, but she turns around to face them as she explains, “Their SAC had been looking at a few senior agents, and Lisbon was one of them. He came to me right around the time that everything broke with Red John. It was her choice, but she wanted to go.”
This, at the very least, is not a surprise to Jane. He had assumed as much; as Lisbon is not one to take a vacation, much less an extended one, a temporary offer from another unit made the most sense. He listens intently as Hightower continues.
“There’s been a case that the FBI has been trying to keep out of the media. In the last 24 months, five women have disappeared from a battered women’s shelter just outside of San Francisco. Within a week from the time of their disappearance, they’ve all turned up dead.”
Van Pelt, who is too shaken to process this information as quickly as she usually would, interrupts. “What does that have to do with Lisbon?”
“The FBI doesn’t want it getting out that the shelter could be dangerous. But they don’t want women staying with abusive husbands out of fear of the shelter, either.” As he speaks, Jane hides his hands in his lap, protected in the back seat of the van, but does not put on his usual cheerful yet detached airs as he might if this were about anyone else. “I would guess that they asked at least four or five other female senior field agents to be on their task force.”
Hightower nods. “That’s what I’ve been told. They asked six including Lisbon, but only four accepted. The lead agent, Mark Redmond, called me this morning because for the past five months, they’ve been conducting an undercover operation at the shelter. Another female agent has been posing as a volunteer, and a few weeks later, Lisbon went in herself as a victim of abuse.”
Before Hightower gets a chance to say any more, Rigsby voices what everyone else is thinking (the same question that has haunted Jane every night for the better part of six months).
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t know,” Hightower releases a shaky sigh and rotates her neck to look at Rigsby although his focus remains straight ahead. “No one knows. Lisbon didn’t check in with her contact last night, and she missed her back up contact this morning. The agent who’s been working as a volunteer can’t officially confirm that she’s missing, but no one can remember seeing her since before dinner last night.”
Hightower’s voice remains even and professional, but her words are ominous.
“Redmond wanted to know if any of us knew somewhere Lisbon might have gone if she needed help, maybe someone she used to work with at the SFPD.”
Not anymore, Jane forces his hands to remain still as the realization washes over him, unbidden. With Bosco gone, she’s the only one left.
Lisbon never spoke of her old team, she kept those secrets well-guarded, even from him, but Jane’s own innate curiosity got the better of him. When he had first realized that Bosco had been her supervisor, a quick internet search revealed that of the two remaining members of Bosco’s SFDP unit, one was shot and killed in the line of duty not long before Lisbon transferred to the CBI, and the other had died suddenly of a heart attack at age 43.
At the time, he noted the unit’s strange disposition for dropping dead prematurely, and that had been before Bosco.
Just then, Hightower’s voice breaks Jane’s train of thought.
“I did a quick check in the system. Since nothing turned up and Virgil has been in Seattle for the past month with his sister, I thought we would be best served heading to San Francisco ourselves.”
The other agents all murmur their approval at this.
“Do you know anything else?” Van Pelt frowns and twists a strand of hair around her right index finger, a nervous habit of her adolescence that she rarely displays anymore.
“I don’t. I told Redmond to call me directly if he had any updates, but I doubt we’ll know anything more until we get there and someone briefs us on the details of the case.”
With that, Hightower turns around in her seat and faces forward once again, and the car settles into complete silence for the remainder of their trip, each one of them lost in their own thoughts and apprehensions.
Outside, the sky is dull and gray; the mood in the van is not much different.
For his own part, Jane passes the trip in varying parts numbness and disbelief. As Rigsby speeds through light traffic, Jane does not take in the scenery or observe the passengers in the other cars, as is often his custom. On particularly long drives when it was just him and Lisbon, he would frequently entertain her with stories of where each car was going and what they’ll be doing when they get there. Lisbon would laugh and roll her eyes, and yet, she would always listen. In the past six months, his instincts have still been to share those stories with her, and he would often start to speak before he would remember that she was not there.
With thoughts of the past running through his mind, Jane barely registers when they arrive at the San Francisco field office, but he comes back to himself when he enters the building. The task force is located on the third floor, in a large open area surrounded by big windows and glass-encased offices. Several agents are on the phone, several others are bent over files or peering up at white boards with months and months of investigative work arranged in time lines and bullet points.
Hightower crosses the room to speak with a tall, lanky man with dark hair, presumably Mark Redmond as he appears to be the agent in charge. Cho, Rigbsy, and Van Pelt linger on the outskirts, a little out of place as they are the junior law enforcement officers for a change. Jane, however, immediately centers his focus on the empty desks in the far left corner of the room. One empty desk in particular, the one that the other agents won’t look at directly, averting their eyes on instinct.
Lisbon’s desk.
Jane approaches it tentatively, examining her workspace with careful eyes but never allowing himself to get comfortable. He runs his hand over the back of her desk chair, but chooses to remain standing. Rummaging through the drawers does not turn up much, which makes sense given the limited amount of time Lisbon would have spent in the office before going on assignment. However, the top right drawer does reveal three well-hidden photographs, buried under a stack of unused notebooks.
The first two are familiar: the photo of her brothers, the same one that sits on display in her apartment; a photo of the team from the CBI 4th of July picnic. It’s the third picture that catches Jane’s eye. It’s an older photo of a man and a woman, just slightly faded and frayed around the edges. Jane can’t make out their faces because they aren’t looking at the camera; they’re looking at each other. It doesn’t take a has-been fake psychic to know that these are Lisbon’s parents, back when they were young and in love.
In all the hours Jane has spent in Lisbon’s apartment, he has never seen a single picture of either of her parents. The thought saddens him, but there will be time to dwell on that later. For now, he pushes the twinge of regret aside and focuses his attention on the sudden bustle of activity at the center of the room.
Everyone turns at attention when a stout, balding man clears his throat. Although short in stature, he has a commanding presence, political and authoritative in nature, and every agent in the room regards him with equal parts admiration and disdain. It does not come as a surprise to Jane when the man begins speaking by addressing the visiting CBI contingent directly, introducing himself as Peter Stratton, Director of the San Francisco Field Office.
“One of our own is missing today,” he continues, stiffening his posture in an attempt to stretch upwards and make himself appear taller. He is obviously warming up for a press conference that Jane can only hope Lisbon will be around to hate. Stratton is a little old to be making the jump to career politics, but he certainly wouldn’t be the first.
“But I have every confidence in the men and women who stand before me...”
After that, Jane’s interest in whatever the man has to say is minimal at best, and he tunes out, although he at least keeps up appearances and feigns interest. Irritating a man like Stratton will only backfire, likely wasting everyone’s time and limiting his own access to information.
The usual rules, in this case, stopped applying a long time ago.
xxxxx