Big Bang Fic: Runaway Chapters 10-15
Chapter 10
Lisbon sat in the hospital room slowly going crazy. She understood why she was still here, knew that it was the best for her physically, but the inability to do anything to help the people she cared for was going to driving her insane. When she’d called Cho this morning and told him that she wanted to meet with him and Rigsby, it was because she knew that they needed it. As much as she was sure that they would deny it, she knew that both Cho and Rigsby were at a loss for what to do.
For a moment she wished that Jane could be there with them, helping to find Grace, before she remembered that it was his fault that they were in this position to begin with. No, that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t all his fault. There was blame to go around to all of them. A good portion of it fell squarely on her. She should have nipped Jane’s insanity in the bud, but instead she’d allowed him to run wild.
And Grace…how did these men keep finding her? Lisbon felt sorry for the younger woman. All she seemed to want was a man to be there for her when she came home at night. Lisbon had long ago given up that dream, but Grace had been so young, fresh faced and naive when she’d first joined the team. Lisbon was afraid that this last incident had broken her for good. That there was no coming back for Grace. She hoped she was wrong.
She looked toward the door when she heard Cho and Rigsby out in the hallway. Not that they were talking, but the way they walked was very un-nurse like.
“Hey, Boss.” Cho said as they walked in. Rigsby said nothing, just looked grumpy and sullen.
“Hey guys.” She tried to sit up straighter and gasped. The pain was still intense. She was trying not to use the morphine, but it was hard. “How’s it going?”
“Still can’t really work. Jane’s still in jail, Van Pelt is still missing.” Rigsby said; a touch of bitterness in his voice.
“Right, well, life sucks sometimes. At least you two aren’t in the hospital because a psycho shot you.” She snapped back. “What matters is that we’re here for each other, and for Jane, and for Grace.”
“Yeah. A lot of good that’s going to do.” Rigsby muttered under his breath. Lisbon ignored him.
“Have either of you gone to see him?” She asked.
“He’s not allowed to have visitors right now. But his lawyer might be able to get us into see him.” Cho said, knowing that Rigsby had been so focused on Grace that he wouldn’t have bothered to check.
“Any chance of getting in as law enforcement?”
“No. We’ve been put on a black list. The guards have been informed that none of us are to see Jane. And that he’s not allowed to receive packages. A letter might be ok, but not with anything in the envelope.”
“What the hell?”
“He’s escaped from jail once. The DA successfully painted him as a renegade with no ties to the community who would think nothing of breaking out and going on the run. He’s not even in the general population. And his bail has been denied.”
“Lovely. Well, not much we can do there can we? At least not now. Who’s his lawyer?”
“Some newbie public defender. I don’t really see Jane ponying up the cash to pay for a better lawyer.” Cho said with a huff.
“Maybe we can help him out. We know some people in high places that Jane has helped out. When we’re done here, you two see if you can get in touch with any of them about helping Jane financially.”
“Right.” Cho said, looking at Rigsby who nodded after a moment.
“Any news on Grace?” Lisbon asked after a slight pause.
“Not really. Still no leads. There aren’t a lot of man hours being dedicated to looking for her since it looks like she wasn’t abducted. Her disappearance has been relegated to the locals, who don’t really care what happened to someone who was dating a cop killer.” Rigsby said.
“Cop killer?”
“No one told you? Turns out that O’Laughlin didn’t just shoot you. He also shot the two local cops that were acting as surveillance. They never saw him coming, didn’t even have a chance to pull their guns.” There was an almost vicious tone to Rigsby’s voice.
“What do we know about Grace?” Lisbon said, speaking firmly, wanting to bring Rigsby back to focus on what was important.
“Um…the town she was last seen in has a bus station that has a lot of buses coming and going. Seems it’s a bit of a hub for the area. No one’s checked the buses to see if she got on any of them. If she did, she could be out of the state by now.”
“OK.” Lisbon paused. She had to word this next part carefully. “Rigsby, I know you still love Grace, but you need to think about why you want to find her so much.”
“What do you mean? I want to find her and bring her home. I love her, yeah; sure, we all know that. She needs me right now. I can help her get over that asshole that she was dating. I can help her.”
There was desperation in his voice, and Lisbon felt for him. She wanted to be able to tell him that wanting Grace to come back because he loved her and because he thought he was the right man for her was a good thing. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t because she didn’t think that it would help Grace. Because Grace had run away from the life that she’d had, because she was broken. Maybe beyond repair, though Lisbon hoped not.
“Rigsby, that’s not going to help her.” Lisbon said firmly.
“The hell it is! I’m her friend. I was her lover. I know how to help.”
And as much as she wanted to believe him, she didn’t. “We need to think about Grace right now and what she would want. We want to find her, but we need to make sure that it’s not going to scare her away when we do.”
The room was silent: Rigsby not talking, Cho knowing it wasn’t his place.
“See what you can do, but don’t push her if you find her.” Lisbon said at last, known that Rigsby was going to do everything he could anyway.
~*~
Jane was sitting in his closet of a cell staring at the slit near the ceiling that served for a window and contemplating his life. Or what he now had that passed for a life. None of the team had been to see him. This bothered him. He figured that Lisbon would be pissed off at him, but that at least Cho would come to see him. There was a clanking at his door and he sat up.
“Lawyer’s here.” The guard huffed at him. The shackles were put on, and Jane shuffled down the hall to the room where he’d last met with his lawyer. After Jane was chained to the table, the guard left.
“Hello, Mr. Jane.” The lawyer said cordially. “No news on your case, but I do have a message for you.”
“A message?” As much as he tried to act disinterested, he was intrigued.
“A letter really, delivered to me by messenger just an hour ago. I thought you might like to read it. I suppose that your friends thought that by sending it with me it would get to you sooner and not be read by the guards. But, the note with it said that it didn’t matter if I read it. So I did. You’ve managed to annoy a lot of people Mr. Jane.”
The young man handed Jane an envelope that had already been opened. He recognized the handwriting on the front as belonging to Lisbon, and he smiled in spite of himself. He knew she would be in contact. He pulled the letter out of the envelope and tried not to let the disappointment show on his face as the letter appeared hastily written and was only on one sheet of paper. Putting aside his disappointment he began to read.
Dear Idiot,
As much as I’m sure you don’t care that you’re in jail and that your scheme to catch Red John has thrown the rest of our lives in to a tizzy, I thought you’d like to know that we still care about you. As I’m sure you don’t care about your legal counse,l I asked Cho to see if he could persuade some of the people we’ve helped in the past to help pay for a decent lawyer for you. Not that your public defender isn’t perfectly capable, but it’s looking like you’re facing capital murder charges in a very high profile case. That’s not really something that someone who just got out of law school would be familiar with.
Because of the hell you’ve put the team through the past few days, I’m not going to be out of the hospital for at least another week. The doctors said that stress is affecting my body’s ability to heal properly. Not sure why I’d have stress.
Grace is still missing. I’m sure you don’t feel responsible for that at all. Rigsby is going to try and get you to help him find her. Please don’t. I know you find the idea of them as a couple sweet and endearing, but this is not the time for Rigsby to try to save Grace. He wants to find her to fulfill some romantic notion that she’ll come running back to him. We both know that if this happens, Grace is only going to pull further away.
Good luck with your trial. We’ve been put on a black list and can’t come to see you, but we’re trying to work on that. It’s a bit hard when I’m still in the hospital and they guys are still on leave.
It wasn’t signed, but Jane didn’t need it to be. He’d never been one for following rules, but this time he thought he might be able to.
Chapter 11
There was a calendar on the wall of her room. Grace hadn’t noticed it the first day she was there, but she looked at it every day now. She counted the days from her spot on the bed. Two weeks. Fourteen days. Almost half a month since her world was turned on its head and she had left. Run away. Perhaps it wasn’t the grown up, adult thing to do, but it was what she had done.
She’d left this room very little the first few days. Food was an afterthought, and it was only the visits form Dr. Ryan that made her think to eat. She’d gone to the small general store and bought the necessary toiletries, but that was it.
In the weeks that had passed, she’d started moving through the town. At first she just sat out in front of the diner on a bench and watched the cars go by. The bus, she discovered, only came by on Mondays. It made her wonder how long it was that she drove around the California Mountains not knowing what was going on or where she was going. She’d not really paid attention to when she’d gotten off the bus.
The week after she got there, she’d moved off the bench. The tiny town didn’t have many roads, but she walked them all. She didn’t pay much attention to the houses or other buildings that she passed, but she did notice the way that the sun filtered through the trees leaving a dappled pattern on the sidewalks and streets. The play with the light and shadow exemplified how she was felling.
She was in her room now, lying on the bed. The quilt felt homemade, and without realizing she started thinking of home. Her grandmother had made all of her grandchildren quilts for Christmas one year. They were made out of fabric scraps, and Grace remembered the hours spent with her sister looking over their quilts and pointing out the fabric with which their grandmother had made outfits for them before.
Grace didn’t want to think about her sister; she tried not to. Even before all of this had happened, she didn’t want to think about her. She missed her. And it hurt, that she hadn’t told her what was going on. That her sister hadn’t confided in her about the pain she was feeling. Grace wondered idly if anyone on the team felt that way: if they felt hurt or betrayed because she had run away instead of staying in a place that had caused her so much pain.
Rigsby she knew would want her to come back. But she wasn’t going to date him. She didn’t want to open herself up to anyone right now, and she knew that if she were to come back-to go back to Sacramento-that it would be the first thing on his mind. He wouldn’t think that she was hurting; he wouldn’t think that she was in pain, that she was just betrayed by her fiancé; he would only think of himself. He was like that. Even when they were dating before. And she just couldn’t put up with that.
Jane wouldn’t miss her. Not really. She was someone to mess with, someone to torment and tease. The way that all little boys do on the playground. Besides, if he’d really missed her, Grace was sure that Jane could have found her by now.
Cho, he wouldn’t look. Her problems didn’t directly influence him, and he was the closed off type. While he was kind and probably considered her a friend, they had never been very close and had never hung out outside of work.
Lisbon though, Lisbon she felt bad about. The woman was shot by Craig. Lisbon was shot by the man that Grace thought was in love with her. That she was weeks away from marrying. And what did she do? She ran away. Sometimes she thought that she should go back, for Lisbon’s sake, but she couldn’t.
It was still painful. It still hurt. To think that she had been the one to put the team at risk. That her trust had been betrayed again. If this was the first time, she thought, the team might forgive her. But this was the second time that someone she was with, someone she was dating, had tried to hurt them. And this time it was worse than Jane being temporarily blind.
She stood up and walked towards the bathroom. She didn’t look in the mirror. She hadn’t really looked in a mirror since the first day she was there. Since the day she saw the sunken faced pale woman staring back at her. And she couldn’t bear to see that again. When she showered, she didn’t wipe the fog off the mirror. When she brushed her teeth, she closed her eyes. She didn’t know why she had been avoiding her reflection, but she decided to look now.
Her hair was flat, more so than usual. She was pale, and her eyes looked tired. She had no makeup-not that she would put it on if she had any-and her face looked odd to her without it. She picked up a brush and ran it through her hair. The ends floated up, dry and charged with static electricity.
She’d always had long hair, since she was young; she’d only ever trimmed it. Her sister’s hair, however, had changed the style the way some people changed clothes, but it had always been beautiful. Grace had never been that brave. But today she decided that she was done. Done with the long hair. Done with the safe styles. Done with being plain, safe, predictable Grace.
She knew that there was a barber shop in town, right next door to the diner. She didn’t know if the man who ran it would be able to cut a woman’s hair, but she didn’t care. She’d cut it herself if she had scissors. She just wanted a change.
She walked down the stairs towards the diner. She didn’t pay attention to the people who were there eating their lunch; she didn’t care if they looked at her. She didn’t care that in this small town her appearance and apparent physical and emotional distress had become a topic of gossip. She just didn’t want to go home. And she didn’t want to be the way she had been when she was younger.
The barber shop was dark and dusty. There were a few older men who were sitting along the wall; most of them were bald, which almost made her smile. She looked around, hoping that one of the men would start to talk, just so she wouldn’t feel so awkward.
“Can I help you?” a man wearing a blue jeans and a cowboy shirt asked, standing up. He had a white apron wrapped around his waist with a comb sticking out of the pocket.
“Um, yes, I’d like a haircut.” She said, surprised at how timid her voice sounded.
“What did you have in mind? A few inches off the bottom or something else?”
Grace looked around at the men. Most of them were trying not to look at her, but failing miserably. She wanted a transformation; she wanted to change what was most recognizable about herself.
“I want it all cut off.” She said, taking a seat in the chair that the man indicated.
“So you want to look like those guys?” He said gesturing to the men behind them.
“No, just, I want something different. Something new.” She looked at her reflection in the mirror in front of her. Noticed the barber standing behind her, hands hovering in the air near her shoulders. She watched as he picked up her hair and let it float down.
He nodded and looked at her in the mirror before he swept a gown over her clothes. She looked in the mirror one more time and shut her eyes, saying a silent goodbye to the woman she used to be: the woman who had needed a man to feel complete, a woman who was willing to let a man walk all over her for love. When she opened her eyes again it would be the beginning of a new life, of a new woman who would stand on her own two feet and not let anyone take advantage of her.
Chapter 12
Rigsby looked up at the schedule board in the small overheated bus station. He’d been here every day for a week trying to track down the drivers of all the buses that had left this hell hole of a town the day that Grace disappeared. Despite Lisbon’s words of warning, he’d been looking into all the angles possible for finding Grace. This had been his last hope. He didn’t know if he’d be able to get into see Jane; he’d not even really considered it.
He’d managed to talk to all but three of the drivers. They were all on routes that took them into other states and didn’t come back to this station in California for a while, which was disheartening. He’d tried getting security video of the bus station on the night that she disappeared, but without a warrant, the station manager wouldn’t give them to him. Not that it would help. None of the employees in the bus station seemed to recognize the picture that Rigsby had of Grace.
He sat down heavily on a bench in front of the bus station and looked at the picture. It was one that he particularly liked of her, taken while they were dating. Her hair was braided off to the side and pulled over her shoulder. She had been sitting under a tree, and the sunlight dappling through the leaves cast shadows on her face that seemed to highlight the color of her eyes and made her skin look radiant.
He loved her so much. It had killed him when she had started dating O’Laughlin. But there wasn’t anything he could do about that now. O’Laughlin was dead, and if Rigsby managed to find Grace, he would tell her that he loved her, that he would protect her. That’s what he’d always done. He’d always been there for her when she needed it. Of course, usually he knew where she was.
Rigsby leaned back on the bench and sighed. He needed help: needed someone who would be able to charm their way into getting that security footage, or at least, someone who could tell him how to do it himself. He needed Jane. He knew it would be hard to get in to see him. Hell, it would be nearly impossible. But he needed to do something. Rigsby pulled out his cell phone and started making calls.
He had an idea.
~*~
The lawyer was nervous. He’d never done something against the rules. He’d been warned, of course, that breaking the rules was something that Patrick Jane did as easily as breathing and to not get sucked in. And so far he hadn’t. But he felt sorry for the man. Other than the one letter he’d delivered to him over a week ago, there had been no visitors, no contact. Nothing from his friends in the CBI.
Maybe they were all just following the rules, but from the gossip around town he knew that wasn’t the case. He suspected it was only a matter of time before he was asked to bend the rules again. This time perhaps doing more than just delivering a letter that the guards didn’t need to read.
So when he’d gotten a call from one of the agents that worked with Jane at the CBI, he couldn’t say he was surprised. He’d been expecting it. Now, standing in the lobby of the jail waiting to be shown to an interview room, the lawyer could feel his heart racing. He was sweating profusely and hoped that the guard wouldn’t say anything.
It had been slightly unusual for him to come to see a client with another person in tow, but he simply explained that the man with him was going to be working as a researcher for the trial. It was a capital murder case after all, and he needed to meet Mr. Jane. Surprisingly, the guard bought the half-baked story.
“All right,” the guard said, coming towards them, “we’ve got your room ready. You want to come back and get your stuff set up while we bring him in.”
“Thanks.” The lawyer said, walking behind the guard and hoping that Agent Rigsby would be smart enough to follow.
The settled into the visiting room and waited in silence. He wanted to ask the agent beside him what was so important that he had to see Mr. Jane, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. There were some things he just didn’t want to know about his client.
He looked up when he heard the telltale jingling of chains that meant a prisoner was approaching. To his credit, Jane didn’t look surprised to see someone else in the room when he walked in and refrained from talking until after the guard had left them alone.
“Rigsby,” Jane observed calmly. Thought I’d see you a lot sooner than this.”
“Sorry, Jane, it was harder to get in than I thought it was going to be. Besides, I was trying to find Grace.” Rigsby shifted uncomfortably, his form seeming to overfill the small metal chair. He kept trying to scoot closer to the table then falling back into the chair when it didn’t move.
“I know.”
“You know what?”
“I know that you were trying to find Grace.” Jane leaned back as much as he could in his chair and sighed. The lawyer was surprised. This was the first time he’d seen the supposed psychic look tired. It was as if in the one movement, he’d aged ten years. “I can’t help you.”
“Wait, what?” This was obviously not the answer that Rigsby had expected and his voice betrayed his frustration and anger.
“Lisbon asked me not too.” Jane’s voice was sad, resigned.
“Since when has that stopped you? You’ve never done what Lisbon has told you to.” Rigsby stood up, pacing around the room in frustration.
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life,” Jane said quietly, forcing Rigsby to stop pacing and come closer to hear him. “If I’d listened to the people I cared about, the people who cared about me, even a little bit more, I wouldn’t be here right now. Lisbon wouldn’t be in the hospital, Grace wouldn’t be missing, and my family wouldn’t be dead.”
He paused, seemingly waiting for something, though the lawyer didn’t know what. Rigsby sat down in the chair next to him again; a quick glance at the agent’s expression, and the lawyer knew that he wasn’t going to fight.
“Wayne, I know Grace means a lot to you, but what you want isn’t the important thing right now. What is important is why she ran away. Why she’s not been in touch with anyone. She’s hurting. The last thing she needs is to have you come changing into her life like a knight in shining armor set to rescue her. She needs the freedom to sort out how she’s feeling. To heal.”
Rigsby nodded, and the lawyer gawked at the transformation that came over the man next to him. When he’d first met him, he had been super charged and energized: chomping at the bit to reach Jane. And now he was…deflated. He shoulders where hunched in, and he looked like a smaller man. Whatever had happened-and the lawyer still wasn’t sure of all the details-It had obviously affected both men very much.
Chapter 13
Grace walked through the back garden of the diner. She’d fallen in love with the space in the months that she had been here. The flowers that grew were wild and tangled but unrestrained. They weren’t made to conform to someone else’s ideals. She’d discovered a bench in a corner under a large shade tree and had taken to sitting there for hours, looking out at the flowers. She’d purchased a notebook and spent hours writing about nothing in particular.
She’d written about her childhood: the time spent with her grandmother in her garden. Her grandmother’s garden had been well kept. She’d grown roses and had spent hours pruning and weeding and fertilizing. It was the opposite of this overgrown space. She also wrote about her mother’s garden. No roses there, but pansies and daisies and other small simple blooms. But it was still well-manicured and structured: pruned and planned until any whimsy that could have come from using such small happy flowers was gone.
She wrote about her sister. The happy memories of when they were girls. How they grew apart as they aged; the pain she felt over her sister’s death. Why hadn’t she confided in her? Why had Grace been left to wonder, like the rest of her family, why none of them had seen it coming? This speculation in turn made her wonder, had her friends and family seen this coming? Had the team at work known that Craig wasn’t what he seemed? Had Jane suspected something but not said anything?
And she wrote about Craig. About how she met him, and how she loved him. About the plans she had for their happy life together. And about his betrayal: about how he shown up in that cabin, pulled his gun and caused her world to come crashing down around her.
She stood in the middle of the garden now, looking at the mustard plants that were growing up between paving stones. She loved the yellow of the tiny blooms and the pale green of the stems and leaves. They made her think, oddly, of one of the first cases she’d worked at the CBI. One night, she’d been bait for Jane to catch a killer who had a thing for red heads. She’d walked through the back roads of a small resort town and, though she was petrified at the time, she remembered the trees and the smells. And the mustard in front of her reminded her so much of that time.
She walked on, passing other flowers, other bushes. She was sure that if her mother or grandmother came into this space, they would start by pulling up all of the wildflowers, all of the plants that would be called weeds in a more controlled, structured garden. But this was how she liked it.
She sat in her chair and pulled out her notebook. She started writing about the team. This was the first time she’d thought about them, really thought about them. Not in conjunction with that horrible day at the cabin with Hightower and Craig, but as the people she’d known and grown close to over the past three years.
Wayne is a sweetheart. I loved him once, but that seems so long ago. He tries to act tough, but he’s really just a big teddy bear. He’s good at his job, good at helping people. And he knows about fires. On our first real date we went camping. Not most people’s idea of a date, but that’s what we did. He lit the fire and told me all about the way that the flames would climb up the logs based on the amount of newspaper he used to kindle the spark. I’d never even thought about it before, but since then every time I see a flame, from a candle or a fire place, I think about that talk and wonder how the flame will climb, how high it will get.
Cho is a puzzle to me. He’s always so quiet, so reserved. Once I saw him out on a date. The woman he was with was young and beautiful, and Cho looked so relaxed. Different than he ever did at work. Well, there was that one time when he dressed up as a Casanova and hit on women in a bar at that spa. He looked relaxed there. It was so un-Cho like.
Lisbon is like a sister to me. Knowing that I caused her to be hurt is worse than the thought that I might have played a part in anything else that may have come from the disastrous Red John ‘trap’ that Jane had set up. She puts on a gruff prickly appearance to drive people away, but she cares about her team, and about her family. The night that Wayne and I…that I called off our relationship, she was the last person I thought I’d see. But she was there in the elevator with me, and was a shoulder to cry on when I had no one else to confide in. And she was even willing to be a bridesmaid: willing to put up with dress fittings and screaming bubble girl talk with all my friends from Iowa. I wonder what she thinks about my running away? I hope that my leaving the way I did doesn’t make me weak in her eyes.
Patrick Jane. I can’t think about him right now. I’m still mad at him. He’s never cared for anyone but himself. His single minded focus on revenge was the reason I met Craig, the reason that I shot him. But I know it’s not Jane’s fault, not really. Sure, he was the catalyst, but I was the receiver. I was the one who let Craig in. But no longer. I will be stronger. I will be the one to say when. I will not let others walk over me.
She put down her pen, thinking. She looked up through the tree: the sky was barely visible through the thick leaves. She was picking up her pen to start writing again when she heard footsteps on the path. She arched her neck, trying to see who it was that was out in the garden and gasped. She’d not expected to see who was standing there, as if summoned from the words she had just written, and she didn’t know what to say.
Chapter 14
Teresa Lisbon was not used to taking it easy. She wasn’t used to not going into work every day. She wasn’t used to just sitting around waiting for things to happen. The team had finally-almost four months after the fatal shooting of FBI Agent Craig O’Laughlin-been cleared of any wrong doing. They had been given slaps on the wrist for the part that they had played in Jane’s scheme to catch Red John and were allowed to go back to work. The only thing she was waiting for was a clearance from her doctor that she was okay to resume active duty. She’d never been shot before and hadn’t known that it would take this long to heal properly. And the amount of physical therapy that she had to do was almost obscene.
So, instead of sitting around at home twiddling her thumbs or watching trashy daytime TV, she was doing the one thing that she’d instructed Rigsby, time and time again, not to do. She was looking for Grace. She was worried about the young woman. Teresa had talked to Grace’s family at least twice a month since she’d gone missing and knew that Grace hadn’t contacted them.
Lisbon was afraid that Grace was sitting somewhere thinking that the team was angry with her: that they were blaming her for the things that had gone wrong that day. But they weren’t, at least not now. At first there had been anger; there had been blaming. Even Cho had blamed Grace a bit for the part she had played in letting O’ Laughlin near the team. But in the months that she had been gone, cooler heads had prevailed; they had all realized that she was no more at fault than Angela Jane for dying and setting her husband off on a crusade to find and kill Red John.
Lisbon had done the one thing that Rigsby hadn’t thought of: she’d gotten in her car and driven the bus routes that were running the night that Grace had gone missing. She’d always prided herself in knowing her team well enough to know what they would like or where they would go in an emergency and this was no exception. The first bus route that Lisbon had followed had ended in the desert wastelands that were on the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Southern California. While there were other bus routes that left from that terminal, Lisbon knew that Grace had not gone this way. She would not have ended up in a dessert.
The second bus route that Lisbon followed seemed to be the right one from the moment she started following it. The route led into the mountains and passed through a series of smaller and smaller towns. And then, just when Lisbon was sure she’d missed where Grace had gotten off the bus, she came to a “blink and you miss it” town that didn’t have more than a bench to mark that the bus came through there at all. The town had an air about it as if it had been lost in time and that anything that was to land there would get lost as well. And Lisbon knew, just knew, that this is where Grace had come.
She parked her car around the corner of what looked like the main street and then walked back towards the bus bench. She had a feeling that Grace would be somewhere near there, though she wasn’t sure why. She wondered idly if this was how Jane felt, knowing something, but not able to articulate the reasons behind it. There was a barber shop, a mom and pop diner, a few houses that had been converted into shops and what looked like a doctor’s office. She stood looking around, trying to figure out where to try first, when a slender man with thinning hair came up to her.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Ryan.” He said, holding his hand out. Lisbon shook it, giving the man an odd look.
“Teresa Lisbon. This seems like a friendly town.”
“We don’t get many visitors here, so when we do, people tend to take notice.” He stood in front of her, scrutinizing. She looked away from his face, trying to decide if he was odd or merely trying to protect someone. After a minute of awkward silence he spoke again. “You should try the diner; they have the best meatloaf and chicken soup.”
As he walked across the street from her towards the house that she had thought was a doctor’s office, Lisbon wondered what had just happened. It had seemed almost as if the doctor was sending her on a mission. Who stopped a random stranger, stared at them and then told them to try to local cuisine? It was just odd. Maybe he could recognize, somehow, that Lisbon was looking for Grace. Maybe he was trying to tell her that she was at the diner.
Lisbon shook her head to clear it and walked into the diner. She smiled when her eyes had adjusted to the dim interior. The diner looked like somewhere she would have gone with her family when she was younger. If Grace was here, Lisbon could see why. It had an air of relaxation about it.
“Just go ahead and sit anywhere!” called a waitress from behind the counter. Lisbon smiled; the woman was everything she thought of when she thought of a greasy spoon waitress. She sat at a table near a window so she could look out over the street and looked at the menu that was tucked between a napkin dispenser and bottle of ketchup.
“What can I get for you?” The waitress asked after Lisbon had been there for a few minutes.
“I was told that the meatloaf was good, “Lisbon said looking up at the woman and noticing the name on her name tag: Raeleen. Just the type of name that you would expect a waitress to have.
“You must have seen Dr. Ryan. He does love the meatloaf. I think it’s pretty good myself. Comes with mashed potatoes and carrots. That sound good?”
“Sure does.” Lisbon smiled as the woman walked away. She liked this place. She liked the town. She looked out the window and thought about Grace. She hoped that the younger woman was ok and that her coming wasn’t going to upset her.
She wasn’t paying attention to what was going on around her and jumped when someone sat down across from her. She stared at the waitress and opened her mouth to speak when she was interrupted.
“I try to keep out of other people’s business, but sometimes I can’t help myself. I know why you’re here. I’m sure you can guess we don’t get many visitors here, and the last one to come here, before you, was a scared young woman in need of a break from reality. I’ve grown to care a lot for her in the last few months. I don’t want to see her get hurt more than she has already.” The unsaid threat hung in the air.
Without the waitress having to say, Lisbon knew she was talking about Grace. “I’m a friend,” Lisbon assured her. “I care about her. I waited this long to come looking for her because I didn’t want her to run even further. But I need to know that she’s ok, and I need her to know that everyone at home still cares about her.”
Raeleen looked at Lisbon, the same penetrating look that Dr. Ryan had given her just moments earlier. When she spoke it was with calm determination. “She’s out in the garden. Go down the hall and take a left just after the bathrooms. And be gentle.”
Lisbon didn’t wait for her food. She got up and walked toward the hallway that Raeleen had indicated. When she stepped outside she was surprised at the state of the yard. She hadn’t expected to find an award winning garden, but the amount of over growth shocked her. Even though it was overgrown she could still see a type of beauty in it. She saw a path that seemed at first glance to go around the outside of the garden and she decided to follow it, hoping that it would lead her to Grace.
She walked quietly, not wanting to disturb the serenity that was in the garden. She was just rounding a corner when she saw Grace. She was sitting in a white wrought iron chair under a large tree. Her head was bent over a book, and she was writing. Lisbon noticed the way that her hair was hanging on the side of her face and realized with a jolt that she’d cut it. It was just shorter than shoulder length and looked shaggy but well kept. Lisbon didn’t want to disturb her, but just as she was backing up, Grace looked up from her writing.
“Hi, Grace.” Lisbon said by way of greeting.
“Lisbon.” Grace said faintly, staying in her chair, book in her hand.
“How are you doing?” Lisbon asked, taking a few steps forward.
“I’m doing ok.” There was hesitation in her voice and Lisbon realized how fragile Grace still was.
“I just wanted to make sure you were ok. We’re all worried about you.” She paused, and when Grace didn’t say anything, she kept talking, coming to crouch beside the chair so that she was eyelevel with Grace. “We don’t blame you for anything that happened. I don’t blame you for anything that happened. I’ve been worried about you. I just wanted to let you know that I miss you. We all do. And that we’d like you to come back.”
When Grace didn’t say anything, Lisbon wasn’t sure what to do. She wasn’t sure if she should just leave, or keep talking. She decided to stay a bit longer.
“Jane shot a man. He says it’s Red John, though we don’t know that for sure yet, if we’ll ever know for sure. He’s been in jail since…” Lisbon wasn’t sure how to qualify the length of time. Since Lisbon herself was shot? Since that disastrous day at the cabin? Nothing seemed right, so in the end she didn’t say anything. “Your parents are worried. I talk to them as often as I can.”
Again there was silence. Lisbon sat on a small patch of grass that was next to the chair. She crossed her legs in front of her and looked up at Grace.
“I wanted you to know that I made sure Rigsby didn’t find you. He wanted to, but I figured you’d need some time. I want you to know that I don’t judge you for leaving. I understand why you did it. I’ve been smoothing things over with Bertram. If you want to come back, there will be a place on our team for you. If you don’t, I understand. Just, please know that I’ll always be a friend for you, no matter what you decide.”
They sat in silence for a few more minutes before Lisbon got up. “We miss you. You don’t have to come back, but please, just think about calling once in a while.”
As she walked out of the garden, she didn’t notice Grace look up at her and smile.
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Chapter 15
Grace stood across the street from the building she’d spent most of her time in since she moved to California three years ago. There were so many memories present there: hope, love, fear, hatred and loathing. She almost wondered why she had come back at all. Why she was looking at it.
After Lisbon shattered her mountain sanctuary, Grace realized how much the real world had moved on while she was gone. She’d been putting off thoughts of coming back to Sacramento, back to a life she didn’t know if she could handle anymore, but somehow she knew that she needed to do it. She needed to come back.
She hadn’t wanted to leave. The garden had been her sanctuary, the town her salvation. The people there had welcomed her without question, without demand. She had felt safe. She hadn’t needed to put on a show, put on a face so that no one would know what was wrong.
But she also knew, as she’d always known that flowers that grew in a place that was carefully sheltered were never as beautiful as those allowed to grow free. At least, she’d never thought so. And sanctuaries were not meant to be permanent, much as she might wish they were.
Lisbon’s visit had given her the courage that she didn’t realize she was lacking. She walked across the street to the building that she thought she’d never return to, ready to rejoin the team that had never lost faith. Ready to start over as a new woman: a woman who could stand on her own.
She pushed open the door and stepped inside.
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