Trick House (1/5)
Previous Parts: Prologue
Part One
It was raining by the time that Lisbon reached the crime scene. She scowled; so much for the blazing sunshine that they had been blessed with earlier in the morning. Just because California was famed for its bright weather, it didn’t mean that it couldn’t turn on a dime on occasion. She hurried to join the rest of her team; Van Pelt and Rigsby were huddled under an umbrella, while Cho had decided to brave the elements. A little bit of water never hurt anyone. Well, except for the Wicked Witch of the West, but that didn’t particularly count. Lisbon smiled weakly as she joined them, but nobody said a word.
She was still in a peculiar mood; it always worried her whenever Jane chose to skip out on a crime scene. They, after all, provided him with a significant amount of insight into what the victim had been like as a person. On occasion and it was still somewhat baffling to her, he had even managed to provide them with a plausible motive for murder. And besides, since his faked breakdown, Bertram had personally hailed her to his office. Not to fire her, thanks to the bogus arrest by the lunatics at the FBI as she had expected, but to personally request she kept an even closer eye on her errant consultant. It was a job she had taken on more than willingly; however, she suspected that Jane knew she had been keeping even closer tabs on him than beforehand. That was something that had probably irritated him no end; as far as he was concerned, he didn't need a boss, never mind a babysitter.
And the fact that he had now taken to avoiding her entirely, rather than just skirting around certain issues, was worrisome. With Patrick Jane, that translated to one thing and one thing only in her mind: trouble.
"You alright, boss?" Van Pelt asked as they approached the house.
"Fine," she lied though it was obvious she was anything but. "What do we got?"
Cho updated her on the case, as Rigsby lamented about the fact she was a mom with a young daughter. Cases involving children had hit them harder ever since Rigsby had been thrust into fatherhood. It was a role that, despite his reservations, he had been practically designed for. Barely a day went by when he didn’t enchant (and irritate) the others with descriptions of the antics of young Benjamin. Generally, it made Lisbon smile; partially because it showed just how much Rigsby had grown as a person, but mostly because she hadn’t been subjected to it as much as the other two had been. When Lisbon discovered that the kid was missing too, she grew even more disconcerted. However, that was a concern that she knew would have to wait until later. For now, they had a body to inspect.
When she realized that the coroner on this particular case was Pat, Lisbon breathed a sigh of relief. During Jane’s disappearance, Pat had proved to be a godsend, offering her support at a time when she’d felt like she had none. As a consequence, the pair of them had bonded closely. She nodded her acknowledgement at the coroner as she let them into the house and led them through to the lounge, where the body was apparently located. A somber mood hung in the air, as it often did at a crime scene. The black humor of what they did for a living would come later; for now, they had to respect the dead.
Lisbon took one look at the body of Julie Coulson and her heart immediately sank. She could recognize that very specific cutting style anywhere. There was one minor difference, however; she was missing the index and pinkie fingers from her left hand. Despite that, Lisbon immediately scanned the rest of the modest lounge desperately. The only thing that appeared out of place was a smashed glass; presumably, the woman had dropped it when she had been taken off guard by her murderer. However, that wasn't the kind of clue she was looking for. No, she was desperately searching out for something far more ostentatious than that.
There hadn't been any macabre etchings on the woman's body, excepting the marks inflicted on her by a knife blade. And it wasn't hidden in plain sight either; cleverly located in a photograph or the painting that hung on the wall.
Slowly, Lisbon rounded on Pat, who took a step back, clearly worried about the panic in her eyes. Then again, as far as Lisbon was concerned, she had every right to be panicked. Damn it, she knew there had been a reason why she felt like Jane needed to see this specific crime scene. She had felt it right the way down to her bones; almost like a Jane-hunch, she surmised. And instead, he was god knows where rather than picking what had suddenly changed from a mundane crime scene to one of immense importance.
"Where's his calling card?" she asked and Pat frowned. "Where's the smiley face?"
"There isn't one."
“But it’s just like Red John…”
Pat carefully reached out and Lisbon flinched uncomfortably as her fingers grazed her left shoulder. She was far too agitated for comfort like this. After brushing aside the coroner, Lisbon took another step closer to the body, this time to scrutinize it thoroughly, to make sure that she wasn’t making any rookie errors. The missing fingers didn’t throw her off guard; after all, Jane had informed her of the instructions Red John had barked at Lorelei that one time. Two fingers - it didn’t matter which. And as Julie was missing precisely two fingers, she couldn’t help but wonder if it was some sort of a message.
That and she held a fleeting resemblance to Red John’s ally too. The woman had never talked. In the end, Red John had somehow gotten hold of her once more and their link to him had disappeared like sand through an hourglass. Lisbon was still hurting about that, but she didn’t doubt that Jane was reeling from the blow even more. It had certainly made things all the more tempestuous between them, and she just wished she could fix him, somehow. However, she had pretty much run out of tricks in her arsenal and was simply relying upon picking up the pieces whenever that was required of her.
But that didn’t change the simple fact that this was one of those rare occasions when she needed him. The fact that she felt so certain that this was Red John without his assistance was worrying. Whenever it came to Red John, she was always skeptical about his hunches and had often claimed that he’d tried to see things that weren’t there. His usually impeccable skills were always off-kilter when he was faced with Red John. And yet, here she was, feeling the way that he presumably did. And she didn’t like it one iota.
“I know,” Pat answered slowly, “but it is possible that this is just a coincidence.”
“There’s no such thing as coincidence when it comes to Red John.”
The others nodded in assent. She knew that her determination to prove that Red John was responsible for Julie Coulson’s death had unnerved them. Why would anyone actively want the serial killer to have murdered somebody? And besides, if it was Red John, it made the damn thing all the more complicated. Nothing was simple whenever he was on the scene. Lisbon shook her head once more and stared sadly at the body. If she was right, that meant the Coulson family wouldn’t get the closure they deserved. Or at least, it was going to be infinitely more difficult. Slowly, she stood and stared at the others. All of them were practically cowering.
"Are you sure there isn’t anything?" Lisbon said persistently.
Pat nodded and Lisbon's frown deepened. Cho and Rigsby exchanged cautious glances that didn't go unnoticed, but at that moment in time, she didn't care. Instead, she locked eyes on the painting once more. Ordinarily, this was the place where Red John would leave his mark, to ensure that the world knew he was responsible for this specific death. Immediately, Lisbon closed the distance between herself and that picture of a forest with a buck in the foreground and much to her co-workers shock, she roughly pulled it off the wall. This was her last ditch attempt to prove her point and she sincerely hoped she was right. Otherwise, they would have every right to say she hadn’t gotten her touch back.
And naturally, there was nothing. So, he hadn't covered it up in the style of an amateur, either.
She bunched her hand into a fist and felt the desperate urge to punch something. It wasn’t fair. Whenever Jane had a feeling like this, he was rewarded instantaneously. And yet, when she tried it, she landed up looking like a fool in front of people who she craved the respect of. The anger bubbled in the pit of her stomach. It seemed so obvious; she was so convinced that her thoughts had been right.
When she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder, Lisbon wheeled around and Van Pelt was lucky not to get a blow to the head.
"Boss? This came loose from behind the painting."
She snatched it out of the younger agent's hand and made a mental note to apologize for her erratic behavior later. It was just a simple receipt from the local grocery store and Lisbon nearly screwed it up in frustration.
When she looked at the back, she was thankful she hadn't. Alongside an obscure set of numbers laid exactly what she had been looking for: the Red John smiley face.
xxx
Jane glanced around the house and on each of the four doors a red number had been painted on them. He scrutinized the number one, trying to work out whether or not it had been daubed in blood or paint. Suddenly, he shuddered; this was Red John, of course it was going to be blood. The question was whose. He knew the team was okay; he'd even spoken to Lisbon relatively recently and she hadn’t expressed any concern for the others. Of late, whenever the serial killer took somebody's life, there was usually due course or reason behind it. It was either because that person had hurt his 'integrity' one way or another, or simply because he knew that it would deeply affect Jane himself. Each time Red John killed to seek out revenge, it made Jane feel partially guilty. It was his fault for letting people get too close to him; because of him, they were being drawn into Red John's games, becoming pawns of some variety.
It was the reason why he had taken to keeping Lisbon at arm's length at all times. He'd slipped up pretty badly on occasion, and that had only made things all the worse. Now, he knew for certain that his boss was on the serial killer's radar. Red John had confirmed it as such when he'd suggested that she would make the perfect sacrifice in order for Jane to show his new-found loyalty. Like he were some sort of a god, who needed blood sacrifice left on his altar of worship. Jane knew he should have expected something like that when he’d started that elaborate trick; Red John always seemed to have ideas above his station. And of course, Jane would never have played that card. For a start, he wasn't about to sacrifice anyone in order to get into Red John's inner circle. However much he wanted him dead, that was a price he simply could not pay. Except for, maybe, his own life of course.
But now, even his death would have consequences on people he cared about deeply. (Or loved, even?) There had once been a time when he hadn’t believed there could be such a thing as a life after Red John. Now, he just wanted to be past it to be able to finally put those demons to bed and move on in the ways he really wanted to.
Still, he decided to worry about the blood dilemma later. Instead, he pushed the wooden door open slowly and took his first tentative steps into the room. Starting with room number one seemed like as good a place as any to start. He hadn't been given direct instructions about which room to investigate first, excepting the numbers, of course. If he had, then maybe he would have chosen to behave more contrarily. However, it just felt logical, if a little predictable by most people’s standards, to begin there.
On a whim, he briefly changed his mind and decided to try each of the other doors in turn. As his fingers clasped around the doorknobs and he tried to twist, they stubbornly refused to budge. Numbers two, three and four had all been locked. Red John had expected him to behave in this way and this was how he was being manipulated into behaving as he should. Then, he scrutinized the hallway; clearly, he was being monitored in some way, shape or form, otherwise, how would Red John be able to control which room he entered, and when? The bugs and cameras weren’t obvious, but Jane was certain they were there. It was just too dimly lit to be able to see them clearly. Sure enough, when he ran his hands along a wall, he felt the telltale sign of wiring underneath his fingertips. And finally, that led to the dawning realization that it was impossible for him to be alone in this house.
His eyes were slowly dragged to the floor and he was rewarded with the sight of a hatch. So, there was a cellar in this old building. However, that too had been painted on, with the number five. Clearly, that was destined to be his last port of call before leaving.
Unless…
Jane headed straight back to the front door, but as he expected, that too had been locked. Instead, he returned his attention to the number one. It looked like he had no other choices at this moment in time. Besides, if he really didn’t like what he saw, he knew he could at least try and duck out of a window, if nothing else.
The room was dim when Jane took his first tentative steps inside. Slowly, but surely as he approached the center of it, the lights brightened. Soon enough, he was presented with a lounge. The couch was a bright red, dressed with a purple comforter and cushions to match. Underfoot were polished floorboards; the quality of them certainly didn't match the shambolic shack that featured on the outside of the building. Along a mantelpiece laid several photographs of a happy family and a couple of some pet dogs. Jane headed towards them, and lifted one off to investigate further.
After all, he was having a strange sense of deja vu, and yet, was struggling to quite place it all.
The smiling face of a woman peered back at him and then, it hit him. This wasn't Red John's first murder, not like he'd partially expected, based on the message outside of the room. Instead, it was his fifth. A woman named Sophia Earnshaw. She'd just given birth to her second child, a son, on the day she died. At the time, Jane had found it quite tragic, especially given how young Charlotte had been at the time. The death, as a father, had given him cause for concern. What would happen to Charlotte if either he or Angela suddenly passed away?
Glancing to his right hand side, he spotted a fine trail of blood spots. On the wall opposite the door was an all-too-familiar smiley face, but Jane ignored it. Instead, they traced along to the white outline of a small body. The placement was in the precise place he remembered Sophia’s body being. Then, he rushed to the exit, only to find it had been locked. Obviously, there was more he had to investigate, more he had to remember, before he was going to be allowed to exit this place.
Jane had long since committed the Red John case files to memory. He knew Sophia’s date of birth, when and where she’d died, how many people Red John had (officially) killed prior to her death.
He was also more than aware that this was the first - and last - Red John crime scene that he had personally attended to before the death of his wife and child.
That was the importance of this specific murder and in an instant, Jane knew that that was the exact reason why Red John had wanted him to revisit it here and now.
Why else would he have picked this murder as being one worthy of attention, when he could have picked his first one? Or at least, the first person he'd killed and left the macabre smiley face beside? Jane was certain that there were more, unknown, deaths that simply couldn’t be linked to him. Red John may have labeled this house as his supposed memory palace, but in reality, it appeared that this was his memories that linked to Patrick Jane and were the ones that were designed to hurt him the most.
Suddenly, his legs felt like jelly and Jane sank to his knees. What else did Red John want from him? Why had he decided that now was the time to force him to acknowledge these deaths, these memories here and now? Had he suddenly decided that Jane wasn't under enough pressure, being taunted enough? What meant it was now the time to have a much more personal assault?
He continued glancing wildly around the room from his position in a crumpled heap. Somehow, the man had managed to reconstruct it, right down to the tiniest of details. It was literally a perfect reconstruction of the original; it could have been lifted from one house and replaced in this one, item for item, right down to the blood. Jane was quietly thankful that the body - or just a body - was mercifully absent. It was bad enough that he was being forced to recall the time when he had essentially sold his family to the devil, but having more blood on his hands just so it could be that accurate? That would have been a step too far.
Slowly, his eyes focused on the television set. It was an old one; the same model that the Earnshaw family had owned back in 2003. However, it looked dated by current standards. Attached to the set was an old VHS player, and there was the single difference between the crime scene and this replica.
The VHS player had a video poking out of it.
Jane didn't need a sticker on it to know that it was essentially saying 'play me'. That Red John wanted him to see exactly what was on it. Even without playing it, he had a shrinking suspicion of what the contents of the film were. Still, he knew that he wasn't going to be allowed out of there before he endured it.
He didn't bother standing. Instead, Jane slowly crawled over to the player and with a feeling of trepidation, he lifted his hand. It dithered over the player for a second, but at the same time, he knew he was just wasting time. The sooner he got this over and done with, the better. Reluctantly, he pushed the video in and within second, the screen burst into life.
He wasn't surprised in the slightest when he saw his face fill up the screen.
"I force myself to look into the flame and I see an image of the evil-doer, in this case, Red John…”
This was the interview he gave precisely two nights before his family was killed.
To Part Two
Part One
It was raining by the time that Lisbon reached the crime scene. She scowled; so much for the blazing sunshine that they had been blessed with earlier in the morning. Just because California was famed for its bright weather, it didn’t mean that it couldn’t turn on a dime on occasion. She hurried to join the rest of her team; Van Pelt and Rigsby were huddled under an umbrella, while Cho had decided to brave the elements. A little bit of water never hurt anyone. Well, except for the Wicked Witch of the West, but that didn’t particularly count. Lisbon smiled weakly as she joined them, but nobody said a word.
She was still in a peculiar mood; it always worried her whenever Jane chose to skip out on a crime scene. They, after all, provided him with a significant amount of insight into what the victim had been like as a person. On occasion and it was still somewhat baffling to her, he had even managed to provide them with a plausible motive for murder. And besides, since his faked breakdown, Bertram had personally hailed her to his office. Not to fire her, thanks to the bogus arrest by the lunatics at the FBI as she had expected, but to personally request she kept an even closer eye on her errant consultant. It was a job she had taken on more than willingly; however, she suspected that Jane knew she had been keeping even closer tabs on him than beforehand. That was something that had probably irritated him no end; as far as he was concerned, he didn't need a boss, never mind a babysitter.
And the fact that he had now taken to avoiding her entirely, rather than just skirting around certain issues, was worrisome. With Patrick Jane, that translated to one thing and one thing only in her mind: trouble.
"You alright, boss?" Van Pelt asked as they approached the house.
"Fine," she lied though it was obvious she was anything but. "What do we got?"
Cho updated her on the case, as Rigsby lamented about the fact she was a mom with a young daughter. Cases involving children had hit them harder ever since Rigsby had been thrust into fatherhood. It was a role that, despite his reservations, he had been practically designed for. Barely a day went by when he didn’t enchant (and irritate) the others with descriptions of the antics of young Benjamin. Generally, it made Lisbon smile; partially because it showed just how much Rigsby had grown as a person, but mostly because she hadn’t been subjected to it as much as the other two had been. When Lisbon discovered that the kid was missing too, she grew even more disconcerted. However, that was a concern that she knew would have to wait until later. For now, they had a body to inspect.
When she realized that the coroner on this particular case was Pat, Lisbon breathed a sigh of relief. During Jane’s disappearance, Pat had proved to be a godsend, offering her support at a time when she’d felt like she had none. As a consequence, the pair of them had bonded closely. She nodded her acknowledgement at the coroner as she let them into the house and led them through to the lounge, where the body was apparently located. A somber mood hung in the air, as it often did at a crime scene. The black humor of what they did for a living would come later; for now, they had to respect the dead.
Lisbon took one look at the body of Julie Coulson and her heart immediately sank. She could recognize that very specific cutting style anywhere. There was one minor difference, however; she was missing the index and pinkie fingers from her left hand. Despite that, Lisbon immediately scanned the rest of the modest lounge desperately. The only thing that appeared out of place was a smashed glass; presumably, the woman had dropped it when she had been taken off guard by her murderer. However, that wasn't the kind of clue she was looking for. No, she was desperately searching out for something far more ostentatious than that.
There hadn't been any macabre etchings on the woman's body, excepting the marks inflicted on her by a knife blade. And it wasn't hidden in plain sight either; cleverly located in a photograph or the painting that hung on the wall.
Slowly, Lisbon rounded on Pat, who took a step back, clearly worried about the panic in her eyes. Then again, as far as Lisbon was concerned, she had every right to be panicked. Damn it, she knew there had been a reason why she felt like Jane needed to see this specific crime scene. She had felt it right the way down to her bones; almost like a Jane-hunch, she surmised. And instead, he was god knows where rather than picking what had suddenly changed from a mundane crime scene to one of immense importance.
"Where's his calling card?" she asked and Pat frowned. "Where's the smiley face?"
"There isn't one."
“But it’s just like Red John…”
Pat carefully reached out and Lisbon flinched uncomfortably as her fingers grazed her left shoulder. She was far too agitated for comfort like this. After brushing aside the coroner, Lisbon took another step closer to the body, this time to scrutinize it thoroughly, to make sure that she wasn’t making any rookie errors. The missing fingers didn’t throw her off guard; after all, Jane had informed her of the instructions Red John had barked at Lorelei that one time. Two fingers - it didn’t matter which. And as Julie was missing precisely two fingers, she couldn’t help but wonder if it was some sort of a message.
That and she held a fleeting resemblance to Red John’s ally too. The woman had never talked. In the end, Red John had somehow gotten hold of her once more and their link to him had disappeared like sand through an hourglass. Lisbon was still hurting about that, but she didn’t doubt that Jane was reeling from the blow even more. It had certainly made things all the more tempestuous between them, and she just wished she could fix him, somehow. However, she had pretty much run out of tricks in her arsenal and was simply relying upon picking up the pieces whenever that was required of her.
But that didn’t change the simple fact that this was one of those rare occasions when she needed him. The fact that she felt so certain that this was Red John without his assistance was worrying. Whenever it came to Red John, she was always skeptical about his hunches and had often claimed that he’d tried to see things that weren’t there. His usually impeccable skills were always off-kilter when he was faced with Red John. And yet, here she was, feeling the way that he presumably did. And she didn’t like it one iota.
“I know,” Pat answered slowly, “but it is possible that this is just a coincidence.”
“There’s no such thing as coincidence when it comes to Red John.”
The others nodded in assent. She knew that her determination to prove that Red John was responsible for Julie Coulson’s death had unnerved them. Why would anyone actively want the serial killer to have murdered somebody? And besides, if it was Red John, it made the damn thing all the more complicated. Nothing was simple whenever he was on the scene. Lisbon shook her head once more and stared sadly at the body. If she was right, that meant the Coulson family wouldn’t get the closure they deserved. Or at least, it was going to be infinitely more difficult. Slowly, she stood and stared at the others. All of them were practically cowering.
"Are you sure there isn’t anything?" Lisbon said persistently.
Pat nodded and Lisbon's frown deepened. Cho and Rigsby exchanged cautious glances that didn't go unnoticed, but at that moment in time, she didn't care. Instead, she locked eyes on the painting once more. Ordinarily, this was the place where Red John would leave his mark, to ensure that the world knew he was responsible for this specific death. Immediately, Lisbon closed the distance between herself and that picture of a forest with a buck in the foreground and much to her co-workers shock, she roughly pulled it off the wall. This was her last ditch attempt to prove her point and she sincerely hoped she was right. Otherwise, they would have every right to say she hadn’t gotten her touch back.
And naturally, there was nothing. So, he hadn't covered it up in the style of an amateur, either.
She bunched her hand into a fist and felt the desperate urge to punch something. It wasn’t fair. Whenever Jane had a feeling like this, he was rewarded instantaneously. And yet, when she tried it, she landed up looking like a fool in front of people who she craved the respect of. The anger bubbled in the pit of her stomach. It seemed so obvious; she was so convinced that her thoughts had been right.
When she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder, Lisbon wheeled around and Van Pelt was lucky not to get a blow to the head.
"Boss? This came loose from behind the painting."
She snatched it out of the younger agent's hand and made a mental note to apologize for her erratic behavior later. It was just a simple receipt from the local grocery store and Lisbon nearly screwed it up in frustration.
When she looked at the back, she was thankful she hadn't. Alongside an obscure set of numbers laid exactly what she had been looking for: the Red John smiley face.
xxx
Jane glanced around the house and on each of the four doors a red number had been painted on them. He scrutinized the number one, trying to work out whether or not it had been daubed in blood or paint. Suddenly, he shuddered; this was Red John, of course it was going to be blood. The question was whose. He knew the team was okay; he'd even spoken to Lisbon relatively recently and she hadn’t expressed any concern for the others. Of late, whenever the serial killer took somebody's life, there was usually due course or reason behind it. It was either because that person had hurt his 'integrity' one way or another, or simply because he knew that it would deeply affect Jane himself. Each time Red John killed to seek out revenge, it made Jane feel partially guilty. It was his fault for letting people get too close to him; because of him, they were being drawn into Red John's games, becoming pawns of some variety.
It was the reason why he had taken to keeping Lisbon at arm's length at all times. He'd slipped up pretty badly on occasion, and that had only made things all the worse. Now, he knew for certain that his boss was on the serial killer's radar. Red John had confirmed it as such when he'd suggested that she would make the perfect sacrifice in order for Jane to show his new-found loyalty. Like he were some sort of a god, who needed blood sacrifice left on his altar of worship. Jane knew he should have expected something like that when he’d started that elaborate trick; Red John always seemed to have ideas above his station. And of course, Jane would never have played that card. For a start, he wasn't about to sacrifice anyone in order to get into Red John's inner circle. However much he wanted him dead, that was a price he simply could not pay. Except for, maybe, his own life of course.
But now, even his death would have consequences on people he cared about deeply. (Or loved, even?) There had once been a time when he hadn’t believed there could be such a thing as a life after Red John. Now, he just wanted to be past it to be able to finally put those demons to bed and move on in the ways he really wanted to.
Still, he decided to worry about the blood dilemma later. Instead, he pushed the wooden door open slowly and took his first tentative steps into the room. Starting with room number one seemed like as good a place as any to start. He hadn't been given direct instructions about which room to investigate first, excepting the numbers, of course. If he had, then maybe he would have chosen to behave more contrarily. However, it just felt logical, if a little predictable by most people’s standards, to begin there.
On a whim, he briefly changed his mind and decided to try each of the other doors in turn. As his fingers clasped around the doorknobs and he tried to twist, they stubbornly refused to budge. Numbers two, three and four had all been locked. Red John had expected him to behave in this way and this was how he was being manipulated into behaving as he should. Then, he scrutinized the hallway; clearly, he was being monitored in some way, shape or form, otherwise, how would Red John be able to control which room he entered, and when? The bugs and cameras weren’t obvious, but Jane was certain they were there. It was just too dimly lit to be able to see them clearly. Sure enough, when he ran his hands along a wall, he felt the telltale sign of wiring underneath his fingertips. And finally, that led to the dawning realization that it was impossible for him to be alone in this house.
His eyes were slowly dragged to the floor and he was rewarded with the sight of a hatch. So, there was a cellar in this old building. However, that too had been painted on, with the number five. Clearly, that was destined to be his last port of call before leaving.
Unless…
Jane headed straight back to the front door, but as he expected, that too had been locked. Instead, he returned his attention to the number one. It looked like he had no other choices at this moment in time. Besides, if he really didn’t like what he saw, he knew he could at least try and duck out of a window, if nothing else.
The room was dim when Jane took his first tentative steps inside. Slowly, but surely as he approached the center of it, the lights brightened. Soon enough, he was presented with a lounge. The couch was a bright red, dressed with a purple comforter and cushions to match. Underfoot were polished floorboards; the quality of them certainly didn't match the shambolic shack that featured on the outside of the building. Along a mantelpiece laid several photographs of a happy family and a couple of some pet dogs. Jane headed towards them, and lifted one off to investigate further.
After all, he was having a strange sense of deja vu, and yet, was struggling to quite place it all.
The smiling face of a woman peered back at him and then, it hit him. This wasn't Red John's first murder, not like he'd partially expected, based on the message outside of the room. Instead, it was his fifth. A woman named Sophia Earnshaw. She'd just given birth to her second child, a son, on the day she died. At the time, Jane had found it quite tragic, especially given how young Charlotte had been at the time. The death, as a father, had given him cause for concern. What would happen to Charlotte if either he or Angela suddenly passed away?
Glancing to his right hand side, he spotted a fine trail of blood spots. On the wall opposite the door was an all-too-familiar smiley face, but Jane ignored it. Instead, they traced along to the white outline of a small body. The placement was in the precise place he remembered Sophia’s body being. Then, he rushed to the exit, only to find it had been locked. Obviously, there was more he had to investigate, more he had to remember, before he was going to be allowed to exit this place.
Jane had long since committed the Red John case files to memory. He knew Sophia’s date of birth, when and where she’d died, how many people Red John had (officially) killed prior to her death.
He was also more than aware that this was the first - and last - Red John crime scene that he had personally attended to before the death of his wife and child.
That was the importance of this specific murder and in an instant, Jane knew that that was the exact reason why Red John had wanted him to revisit it here and now.
Why else would he have picked this murder as being one worthy of attention, when he could have picked his first one? Or at least, the first person he'd killed and left the macabre smiley face beside? Jane was certain that there were more, unknown, deaths that simply couldn’t be linked to him. Red John may have labeled this house as his supposed memory palace, but in reality, it appeared that this was his memories that linked to Patrick Jane and were the ones that were designed to hurt him the most.
Suddenly, his legs felt like jelly and Jane sank to his knees. What else did Red John want from him? Why had he decided that now was the time to force him to acknowledge these deaths, these memories here and now? Had he suddenly decided that Jane wasn't under enough pressure, being taunted enough? What meant it was now the time to have a much more personal assault?
He continued glancing wildly around the room from his position in a crumpled heap. Somehow, the man had managed to reconstruct it, right down to the tiniest of details. It was literally a perfect reconstruction of the original; it could have been lifted from one house and replaced in this one, item for item, right down to the blood. Jane was quietly thankful that the body - or just a body - was mercifully absent. It was bad enough that he was being forced to recall the time when he had essentially sold his family to the devil, but having more blood on his hands just so it could be that accurate? That would have been a step too far.
Slowly, his eyes focused on the television set. It was an old one; the same model that the Earnshaw family had owned back in 2003. However, it looked dated by current standards. Attached to the set was an old VHS player, and there was the single difference between the crime scene and this replica.
The VHS player had a video poking out of it.
Jane didn't need a sticker on it to know that it was essentially saying 'play me'. That Red John wanted him to see exactly what was on it. Even without playing it, he had a shrinking suspicion of what the contents of the film were. Still, he knew that he wasn't going to be allowed out of there before he endured it.
He didn't bother standing. Instead, Jane slowly crawled over to the player and with a feeling of trepidation, he lifted his hand. It dithered over the player for a second, but at the same time, he knew he was just wasting time. The sooner he got this over and done with, the better. Reluctantly, he pushed the video in and within second, the screen burst into life.
He wasn't surprised in the slightest when he saw his face fill up the screen.
"I force myself to look into the flame and I see an image of the evil-doer, in this case, Red John…”
This was the interview he gave precisely two nights before his family was killed.
To Part Two