Ricochet (18/25)
Chapter Eighteen
For a while, the case had hit a stalling point. Their prime suspect - the fired bartender - Richard Lyons, had somewhat unsurprisingly decided to evade arrest. Jane was naturally convinced of his guilt: going on the run was never a good way to prove your innocence. Lisbon still felt uncomfortable about it though, even a week into the investigation. Lyons committing the crime on his own just didn't sit right with her. It seemed too simple, even if Jane’s hunch about it was a solid idea. Though she knew he was involved somehow, she couldn't help but think that the situation was more complicated than it appeared at face value. And despite her track record when it came to assisting in the closure of cases, the others were all too keen to shoot her theories down. Jane needed an easy win, and as a consequence, that was what the rest of the team hoped for as well. After all, one missing perpetrator was a heck of a lot easier to deal with than a network of them. At the moment, Rigsby was putting all of his efforts into tracking down Lyons as the rest of the team worked on following the other leads. Jane had thrown himself wholeheartedly into the case and it worried her. Although his brothers had taken charge of organizing the funeral and that was inevitably a weight off his mind, Jane still seemed to be living in denial about his brother's death. She couldn't blame him for that; the world always got that little bit darker once you started to truly comprehend the death of a loved one. That was something he understood due to the scars of his past, and wasn’t something he’d anticipated facing again so soon. Lisbon knew that he had always believed that he would have been the first to pass on of his siblings, mostly due to the virtue of his job.
Lisbon spent the morning working with Rigsby. Lyons had always been his lead and she knew that he was the key to busting open the rest of the case. They were trying to work out the man's social network, trying to see who would either help him with murder or at least, help him literally get away with it. In spite of working on it for a week, Rigsby hadn't gotten very far. Lyons had no living relatives to speak of, no girlfriend and seemingly, no friends either. The BOLO that was out on his car had proved to be useless; the car had been left on his driveway for the whole week. His house appeared to be deserted, but Judge Davis had been reluctant to give them a warrant to search the premises; insubstantial evidence, or so she had claimed. If the autopsy report had come back with evidence of recent drug use then maybe things would have been different. After all, they had at least been able to prove that Lyons was a current user during this frustratingly quiet week. But Lisbon knew the real reason for her reluctance: Jane was seen as a public menace and unfit to be a cop by those in the courthouse. They only accepted him grudgingly based on his second to none closed case record. But that didn't mean they were above trying to make it difficult for him to do things the legal way, though. Maybe if they had given him a little more rope, he would either have started to do things properly or hung himself by now.
That didn't help Rigsby in any way however. The reason that Lisbon had opted to help him now was to double check he hadn't missed anything and to make sure that he hadn't been looking at things in the wrong way. Lisbon sat at her desk, engrossed in the paperwork. Unlike many people, she actually quite enjoyed this aspect of the job. The methodology required made it a time to think more clearly, to focus on one task and look for the links. Besides, paper trails always provided them with rock solid evidence. Even more so if somebody tried to tamper with them, because that indicated that there was something to hide. The others avoided it because they reveled in the thrill of fieldwork. Lisbon understood that all aspects of police work meshed together in order for them to be able to not only close a case, but get it through the courts as well.
She ran a finger over the paperwork, frowning. There had to be something, one loose end for them to pick up on. Nobody was that clever, nobody could cover up their trails that well, not even her. It was no wonder that Rigsby had gotten so frustrated with his precious lead, causing Jane to focus on the other avenues and other cases. Every aspect just pointed towards it being a dead end, but Lisbon knew that people didn't just disappear off the face of the planet. Richard Lyons had to be somewhere. Besides, it felt like she was missing something, something obvious. She closed her eyes briefly and pinched the bridge of her nose in a vain attempt to get rid of some of the tension she was carrying. Then, she opened them again and stared at the accounts form she had been looking at for the past half hour once again.
“Hey, Rigs?” she called.
Rigsby jerked his head away from his computer, and wheeled his chair around to look at her. Then he stood, closed the distance between them and hovered over her shoulder for a second. Wayne Rigsby was built like a tank, and although he was fiercely protective of people he cared about, he was genuinely a sweet guy. He just knew how to control the inner grizzly and that was what made Lisbon - and a certain Grace Van Pelt - feel safe around him.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“The money he’s been paying out. I presume it’s…”
“A dead end. It’s been deposited in an off-shore bank account in the Cayman Islands. I haven’t been able to work out who he’s been paying it to.”
“Where’s he getting the money from? Where is he paying it in from? Online or…?”
She looked at Rigsby pointedly and it was almost as if a light had switched on inside of him. He had spent the whole week trying to find out who owned the account rather than trying to track down Lyons himself. Though who it was going to was, of course, important to the case, getting hold of Lyons was even more so. After all, he had been present at the bowling alley. He had seen the body, all mangled up in the machinery. Lisbon shuddered; it had literally taken them hours to extract Edward McKinnon from that pin spotter. Despite his past misdeeds and his mother’s perception of him, the boy deserved justice. His killer had to be found. It must have required a heart of stone for somebody to leave him in such a mess, and leave those two women traumatized. Especially the girlfriend; from Jane’s reports, she was still struggling to come to terms with what had happened to Edward.
As Rigsby rushed back to his desk, Lisbon returned her attentions to the files in front of her. On paper, it should have been easy. Lyons was making regular payments to somebody, presumably, based on his medical reports his drugs dealer. It wouldn’t have been a surprise if the dealer had an off-shore bank account due to the legalities of his business. If Lyons owed them money - or was dealing on their behalf - then that would easily explain the regular payments. And if Edward had once been a user, and Lyons needed the additional money, it didn’t take much thought to consider the fact that Lyons was probably trying to make him crumble once more.
But then, why would he have traumatized the women instead of keeping it simple? During the interview with Bex and Renee, Lisbon had noticed Lyons’ eyes lingering on the brunette woman on more than one occasion. Maybe the drugs had just been an excuse to kill. Maybe he had wanted to be the knight in shining armor, swooping in to comfort Bex. But why had he run instead? Had he realized that she had noticed his reluctance to talk? Had he known that she had seen straight through his lies during that ten minute interview they had shared? If he had been high at the time, then it was entirely likely that he had grown paranoid, hence the fact he had fled and somehow managed to disappear for a whole week.
“Lisbon?” Rigsby’s voice cut through her thoughts once again. “You were right.”
“Okay. We should get moving then?” she asked.
He didn’t need to answer; Rigsby had already picked up his gun and handcuffs. Clearly, he was eager to get on the move, and he also wanted her company as he made this bust. She smiled briefly as he clarified his breakthrough while they headed towards Jane’s office. Lyons had been depositing all his money at one bank. He went there every other day at 3.30pm exactly to do this. Just after the morning and lunch rush, but before the evening crowds had a chance to descend. It was quiet enough to carry out his business, then. Lisbon glanced at the clock; it was already 2.30pm and thus, they had no time to lose. After a brief meeting with their illustrious boss to tell him what they were doing, they were both ready to make their way to the bank. She had half hoped that Jane would come with them, if only to get him out of the confines of the office. However, he had insisted that whatever he was doing was infinitely more important. To her, it looked distinctly like relaxing on his couch, but the whole team had long since accepted that there was a method to his madness. Even Van Pelt had adjusted to this little fact by now. But that didn’t change the fact that Lisbon wanted him out of there, and to stop brooding. The funeral in the morning was plaguing on her mind too, and she knew it would be so much worse for him. However, distraction therapy had been working up until this point and Lisbon had been keen to continue with it. Jane, meanwhile, wasn’t playing ball and grown increasingly stubborn. Lisbon knew when not to put up a fight and this was one of those occasions.
An hour later, Lisbon found herself deeply regretting not being more forceful with Jane. She knew she wasn’t the boss, and she did respect Jane’s authority, but really, they needed him here right now. There was absolutely no way that she was qualified to be in this position. Lisbon felt ill-equipped; even her experience with guns was next to useless as she was currently unarmed. And besides, she hadn’t had the years of training in order to provide adequate backup to a cop and it showed. She trembled as a man dressed in a slick black suit approached her. He was unarmed; she could tell by the distinct lack of bumps in his suit, but that wasn’t enough to stop him from being highly dangerous. Lisbon was certain that he could do more than enough damage with his bare hands alone.
She wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, but somehow, the moment they had tried to arrest Lyons, they had been swamped with people and suddenly kidnapped. When they had entered the bank, she’d had an uneasy feeling and sent a group message to Cho, Van Pelt and Jane. She’d sent them another when they had reached this warehouse and then, her cellphone had been confiscated. All she could do now was hope that one of them would get the message and come to their rescue. She didn’t much like being the proverbial damsel in distress, but what else could she do? Rigsby had been separated from her and she dreaded to imagine what was happening to him. Damn it, she should have known that Lyons was involved in some dangerous business when they realized just how untraceable his drugs dealer was. This was the kind of empire which narcotics specialized in, while they dealt purely with homicide. Just because she had occasionally offered her services to other units, it didn’t necessarily mean she was au fait with their method of operations.
“So, what’s a pretty little lady like you hanging around with the cops for, huh?” the man snarled as he approached her. “You shouldn’t be messing around with things you can’t handle.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Please, don’t treat me like a fool. If you knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t be here now, would you?”
“No,” she conceded and cocked her head slightly to one side. “But, like you, I’m not the one in charge. I was just following orders.”
It was strange just how little it took to tip a big guy like this over the edge. In a mass of fury, he lunged at her, but Lisbon managed to take a side-step out of the way. However, she couldn’t evade him all day. Despite his stature, the man was surprisingly light on his feet. Eventually, those strong fingers she’d spent a moment to acknowledge made their way around her neck. Briefly, she felt nervous, but Lisbon wasn’t inclined to feel scared, even during an hour of need. The carnival lifestyle was essentially like living on the run; she had to be hyperaware at all times. However, that didn’t mean she was above feigning fear. This man liked to display power and physical prowess. He wanted to show her that he was in charge, and that he could kill her with his bare hands if he chose to do so. The fear in her eyes was something that he needed to see in order to feel like he was doing his ‘job’ right.
But Lisbon knew she could get out of this anyway. The elbows were a weak point in the body. God’s design had weaknesses - or flaws - depending on how you looked at it. That was merely something that she could take to her advantage. It meant that there was always a way to escape, and always a method that could be used to turn the tables. In just one second, Lisbon turned her head slightly and the fingers that had a seemingly cast-iron grip around her neck immediately loosened. Moments later, she used her hand like a knife and cut down into the elbow joint. Unable to resist, her assailant’s elbow joint bent and her neck was free. His knees buckled, not due to the pressure she had applied, but the sheer surprise of it all. He stumbled slightly in attempt to stop himself from falling to the floor. Lisbon automatically pulled a fist and stared at him warningly. She knew where to aim if she really wanted to knock him unconscious. But, she didn’t need to use it. Just in the nick of time, the door flew open and Jane - and his gun - came rushing through. She was pleased to see him naturally, but Lisbon knew that she would have appreciated it if he had decided to turn up just a little bit earlier. Then, she wouldn’t have had a sore neck nor would she have felt like her heart was trying to escape from her chest.
“Nice moves,” Jane said admiringly as he whipped out his handcuffs. “I didn’t know that you’d studied martial arts.”
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me,” Lisbon replied coyly. She didn’t actually know much about self-defense, even if she had taken a couple of lessons. But, something had stuck and she was grateful for it, she considered as she massaged her neck. Jane didn’t need to know that, of course.
“Really?” Jane asked with a grin. “I’d like to know more.”
“Ah, but a girl has gotta have her-“
She was unable to reach the end of her sentence. A gunshot rattled through the warehouse and Jane begged her to go investigate further while he dealt with their first arrested man. Lisbon sent him a pleading look; she had already felt out of her depth more than enough for one day, but she understood the necessity. It was her opinion that he trusted above all others. He needed to know whether or not Cho was responsible for the shot, or if one of his team had been injured. That was when the real fear set in; it had been her assistance in the lead that had brought them to this place. If any one of them got hurt, then as far as she was concerned, it was solely her fault.
When she finally reached the room the others were located in, she was relieved to see that it was Van Pelt who was holding the smoking gun. The rookie looked more than a little shocked at what she had had to do, and with shaking hands, she replaced her gun in its holster. Across the other side of the room, Lyons was laying on the floor, clutching at his shoulder. He was still alive, but was lucky that Van Pelt’s shot hadn’t been a few millimeters closer to his heart. Of course, he still needed major medical attention, but Lisbon couldn’t muster much sympathy for him at that moment in time. Rigsby was unconscious, tied up and had been beaten black and blue. Cho kept shooting nervous glances at him as he arrested the other man, presumably, the one who had been responsible for Rigsby’s current condition.
After replacing her gun, Van Pelt drew out her cellphone but Lisbon took it away from her. The youngest member of the team had a more important role to play. Lisbon knew that she could take care of hailing medical attention for both the injured men in this building.
“Go to him,” she murmured and the redhead nodded.
Lisbon knew that Rigsby and Van Pelt were dancing on the edge of a relationship. Of course, the rules forbade it, but that didn’t stop the underlying attraction. As much as they tried to pretend otherwise, Van Pelt needed to stand by her man. Lisbon hated the fact she was encouraging them to break the rules by doing this, but human empathy meant she had to do it. Besides, it wasn’t her place to forbid them from acknowledging their feelings anyway. She was just the consultant and they were two young people in the first flushes of love. All she could do was convince them to be careful at a later date.
They were all incredibly busy for the rest of the afternoon. With one member down, and three people to interview, everyone was rushed off of their feet. By the end of the day, Lisbon felt like all of her muscles ached and that wasn’t entirely surprising. What was was just how easily they managed to get confessions for the Edward McKinnon murder. Lyons had been responsible, and he had been driven by three motives: love, money and revenge. It was practically the perfect trifecta for motives for murder. He wanted Edward’s money, but he also wanted his girlfriend. Like herself, Lyons was much stronger than he looked. The surveillance tapes confirmed that he did affix the dead body into the pin spotter at the bowling alley on his own. He had wanted to be the one to comfort Bex after finding the body, but Renee had gotten in the way. And before he had a chance to really talk to her, even in an inebriated state, he had been shooed away by the manager. He wasn’t meant to be there; he’d lost his job at the alley just over a week ago.
The mess with the drugs dealers came in easily. Lyons had been indebted to them for years; because of this specific gang’s way of dealing with interest, he would never have been cleared of his debt. He had been stealing profits from the bowling alley in order to pay off his dealer, but it had never been enough. Edward had been the one to spot him doing so, the one to report him to the manager. Edward, having been clean since he had found himself in the job, had felt morally obliged to report it. And thus, the third motive fit into place. Now, the only question that was hanging over their heads was why the bowling alley had never pressed charges against Lyons for the theft. But that was something that Jane was confident they would get an answer to by morning. As far as he was concerned, the case was essentially closed and they were free to go home.
But, that didn’t stop her from lingering in the offices for just a little while longer. She filled in her fair share of paperwork at the table in Jane’s office as he, unusually, sat at his desk. Eventually, he realized that she was stalling and took matters into his own hands.
“Don’t you have a father to get home to?”
“Shouldn’t you be thinking about leaving too?” she countered.
“That’s not an answer.”
“I know.”
Lisbon didn’t want to go home for precisely that reason. She dreaded seeing her father again; she doubted he would appreciate the fact that he had been unable to contact her directly for hours now. Her cellphone had been destroyed by their captors and although the CBI had promised to replace it in due course, this would make her father believe all kinds of irrational thoughts about her.
“Lisbon, I’ll go home if you do,” Jane said quietly.
“Resorting to bribery, Agent Jane?”
“If it works, I don’t care.”
“Fine,” she acquiesced.
They bid farewell to each other in the parking lot. As she drove that lonely drive back home, Lisbon found herself growing increasingly uneasy. It was funny really, though there had been moments of sheer panic throughout the day, this was the thing that really worried her. Every day, her father was a little bit better. His physiotherapist was encouraging him to get out of the house more and more, to try and grow more independent once again. Much to her surprise, Jason Hamilton was taking this advice deathly seriously and had been trying his hardest to recuperate. It wasn’t enough to stop him from bothering her on an hourly basis though, but it was at least something.
She tried to slip in the house as quietly as possible, but her dad was sitting on her couch and drumming his fingers impatiently against the arm rest. He glared at her, but she ignored him until she had slipped off her work jacket and placed her belongings on the side table. Then, she turned to face him and smiled slightly. It immediately fell when he didn’t bother to return it. Lisbon gave him the quick once over. His arm was in its sling and the look in his eyes suggested that he was still in a lot of pain and had resorted to painkillers to control it. And, of course, he was fuming at the fact that she hadn’t been in contact with him throughout the afternoon.
“Why didn’t you answer my calls?”
“Oh, good evening Dad. I’m fine thank you, work was busy, like usual. Thanks for asking,” she snapped back sarcastically.
“And your phone?” he persisted.
“Oh, it was destroyed by a drugs dealer after I was kidnapped.”
“You were what?” he asked, incredulous and the anger disappeared in an instant. Even her flippant tone wasn’t enough to temper the blow. “No, don’t tell me. Explain over dinner, you must be starving.”
The sudden shift in his mood surprised her. But it was easy for her to understand; the realization that he could have lost her today had taken him off-guard. And it was… nice of him to spend the time preparing her dinner. As a consequence, she decided to accept his offer of an olive branch as such and did tell him as much as she could about the day’s events. It felt surreal, being domestic with her father, but it was surprisingly nice to be able to get it all off of her chest. However, a small part of her mind couldn’t help but question what his real motives were. He never did anything unless there was something he could get in return.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked as he cleared the plates away.
“Work,” she answered stiffly. This was what she had been suspicious of; this was what he wanted to know, to use and abuse.
“You’re lying.”
“No I’m not.”
“Please, Teresa, don’t treat me like a mark. I’m no fool,” Jason answered back and he took a step towards her. “You’re my daughter and I taught you everything you know.”
“That doesn’t mean you know everything about me.”
“No,” he conceded, “but I can read you like an open book. So, what are you really doing in the morning?”
Lisbon glanced away. As far as she was concerned, it wasn’t any of his business. Yes, she had welcomed him into her home, but it hadn’t been entirely willingly. She knew that he needed her, that she was all he had left, but this was exactly what she had feared. He was trying to take control of every aspect of her life once again and she desperately wanted to keep him out of it. Even though he hated it, she didn’t need him anymore. In truth, she hadn’t really needed him since she and Andrew had first left the carnival together. But somehow, he continually wormed himself back into her life, like a snake. She just couldn’t shake him away.
“I’m going to a funeral.”
“Whose?” he asked and he stared at her pointedly. Lisbon could feel his eyes boring into her very soul and she hated it. There was no point in lying to him; he would only work it out in the end.
“Edward Jane’s,” she admitted reluctantly.
“Jane… brother of your boss?” he asked, piecing together the scant things she had told him about her daily routine.
“Yes,” she answered back bluntly.
“Why?”
“Because he needs a friend to be there with him,” Lisbon said and she genuinely believed that.
“No, that’s not it, I can see it in your eyes,” he replied, shaking his head sadly. “You may still wear the wedding ring of your sadly deceased husband, but you’re a little bit in love with Patrick Jane, aren’t you?”
“No,” she denied quickly.
“No, you’re right. You are in love with him. You’re just too foolish to admit it even to yourself.”
To Chapter Nineteen
For a while, the case had hit a stalling point. Their prime suspect - the fired bartender - Richard Lyons, had somewhat unsurprisingly decided to evade arrest. Jane was naturally convinced of his guilt: going on the run was never a good way to prove your innocence. Lisbon still felt uncomfortable about it though, even a week into the investigation. Lyons committing the crime on his own just didn't sit right with her. It seemed too simple, even if Jane’s hunch about it was a solid idea. Though she knew he was involved somehow, she couldn't help but think that the situation was more complicated than it appeared at face value. And despite her track record when it came to assisting in the closure of cases, the others were all too keen to shoot her theories down. Jane needed an easy win, and as a consequence, that was what the rest of the team hoped for as well. After all, one missing perpetrator was a heck of a lot easier to deal with than a network of them. At the moment, Rigsby was putting all of his efforts into tracking down Lyons as the rest of the team worked on following the other leads. Jane had thrown himself wholeheartedly into the case and it worried her. Although his brothers had taken charge of organizing the funeral and that was inevitably a weight off his mind, Jane still seemed to be living in denial about his brother's death. She couldn't blame him for that; the world always got that little bit darker once you started to truly comprehend the death of a loved one. That was something he understood due to the scars of his past, and wasn’t something he’d anticipated facing again so soon. Lisbon knew that he had always believed that he would have been the first to pass on of his siblings, mostly due to the virtue of his job.
Lisbon spent the morning working with Rigsby. Lyons had always been his lead and she knew that he was the key to busting open the rest of the case. They were trying to work out the man's social network, trying to see who would either help him with murder or at least, help him literally get away with it. In spite of working on it for a week, Rigsby hadn't gotten very far. Lyons had no living relatives to speak of, no girlfriend and seemingly, no friends either. The BOLO that was out on his car had proved to be useless; the car had been left on his driveway for the whole week. His house appeared to be deserted, but Judge Davis had been reluctant to give them a warrant to search the premises; insubstantial evidence, or so she had claimed. If the autopsy report had come back with evidence of recent drug use then maybe things would have been different. After all, they had at least been able to prove that Lyons was a current user during this frustratingly quiet week. But Lisbon knew the real reason for her reluctance: Jane was seen as a public menace and unfit to be a cop by those in the courthouse. They only accepted him grudgingly based on his second to none closed case record. But that didn't mean they were above trying to make it difficult for him to do things the legal way, though. Maybe if they had given him a little more rope, he would either have started to do things properly or hung himself by now.
That didn't help Rigsby in any way however. The reason that Lisbon had opted to help him now was to double check he hadn't missed anything and to make sure that he hadn't been looking at things in the wrong way. Lisbon sat at her desk, engrossed in the paperwork. Unlike many people, she actually quite enjoyed this aspect of the job. The methodology required made it a time to think more clearly, to focus on one task and look for the links. Besides, paper trails always provided them with rock solid evidence. Even more so if somebody tried to tamper with them, because that indicated that there was something to hide. The others avoided it because they reveled in the thrill of fieldwork. Lisbon understood that all aspects of police work meshed together in order for them to be able to not only close a case, but get it through the courts as well.
She ran a finger over the paperwork, frowning. There had to be something, one loose end for them to pick up on. Nobody was that clever, nobody could cover up their trails that well, not even her. It was no wonder that Rigsby had gotten so frustrated with his precious lead, causing Jane to focus on the other avenues and other cases. Every aspect just pointed towards it being a dead end, but Lisbon knew that people didn't just disappear off the face of the planet. Richard Lyons had to be somewhere. Besides, it felt like she was missing something, something obvious. She closed her eyes briefly and pinched the bridge of her nose in a vain attempt to get rid of some of the tension she was carrying. Then, she opened them again and stared at the accounts form she had been looking at for the past half hour once again.
“Hey, Rigs?” she called.
Rigsby jerked his head away from his computer, and wheeled his chair around to look at her. Then he stood, closed the distance between them and hovered over her shoulder for a second. Wayne Rigsby was built like a tank, and although he was fiercely protective of people he cared about, he was genuinely a sweet guy. He just knew how to control the inner grizzly and that was what made Lisbon - and a certain Grace Van Pelt - feel safe around him.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“The money he’s been paying out. I presume it’s…”
“A dead end. It’s been deposited in an off-shore bank account in the Cayman Islands. I haven’t been able to work out who he’s been paying it to.”
“Where’s he getting the money from? Where is he paying it in from? Online or…?”
She looked at Rigsby pointedly and it was almost as if a light had switched on inside of him. He had spent the whole week trying to find out who owned the account rather than trying to track down Lyons himself. Though who it was going to was, of course, important to the case, getting hold of Lyons was even more so. After all, he had been present at the bowling alley. He had seen the body, all mangled up in the machinery. Lisbon shuddered; it had literally taken them hours to extract Edward McKinnon from that pin spotter. Despite his past misdeeds and his mother’s perception of him, the boy deserved justice. His killer had to be found. It must have required a heart of stone for somebody to leave him in such a mess, and leave those two women traumatized. Especially the girlfriend; from Jane’s reports, she was still struggling to come to terms with what had happened to Edward.
As Rigsby rushed back to his desk, Lisbon returned her attentions to the files in front of her. On paper, it should have been easy. Lyons was making regular payments to somebody, presumably, based on his medical reports his drugs dealer. It wouldn’t have been a surprise if the dealer had an off-shore bank account due to the legalities of his business. If Lyons owed them money - or was dealing on their behalf - then that would easily explain the regular payments. And if Edward had once been a user, and Lyons needed the additional money, it didn’t take much thought to consider the fact that Lyons was probably trying to make him crumble once more.
But then, why would he have traumatized the women instead of keeping it simple? During the interview with Bex and Renee, Lisbon had noticed Lyons’ eyes lingering on the brunette woman on more than one occasion. Maybe the drugs had just been an excuse to kill. Maybe he had wanted to be the knight in shining armor, swooping in to comfort Bex. But why had he run instead? Had he realized that she had noticed his reluctance to talk? Had he known that she had seen straight through his lies during that ten minute interview they had shared? If he had been high at the time, then it was entirely likely that he had grown paranoid, hence the fact he had fled and somehow managed to disappear for a whole week.
“Lisbon?” Rigsby’s voice cut through her thoughts once again. “You were right.”
“Okay. We should get moving then?” she asked.
He didn’t need to answer; Rigsby had already picked up his gun and handcuffs. Clearly, he was eager to get on the move, and he also wanted her company as he made this bust. She smiled briefly as he clarified his breakthrough while they headed towards Jane’s office. Lyons had been depositing all his money at one bank. He went there every other day at 3.30pm exactly to do this. Just after the morning and lunch rush, but before the evening crowds had a chance to descend. It was quiet enough to carry out his business, then. Lisbon glanced at the clock; it was already 2.30pm and thus, they had no time to lose. After a brief meeting with their illustrious boss to tell him what they were doing, they were both ready to make their way to the bank. She had half hoped that Jane would come with them, if only to get him out of the confines of the office. However, he had insisted that whatever he was doing was infinitely more important. To her, it looked distinctly like relaxing on his couch, but the whole team had long since accepted that there was a method to his madness. Even Van Pelt had adjusted to this little fact by now. But that didn’t change the fact that Lisbon wanted him out of there, and to stop brooding. The funeral in the morning was plaguing on her mind too, and she knew it would be so much worse for him. However, distraction therapy had been working up until this point and Lisbon had been keen to continue with it. Jane, meanwhile, wasn’t playing ball and grown increasingly stubborn. Lisbon knew when not to put up a fight and this was one of those occasions.
An hour later, Lisbon found herself deeply regretting not being more forceful with Jane. She knew she wasn’t the boss, and she did respect Jane’s authority, but really, they needed him here right now. There was absolutely no way that she was qualified to be in this position. Lisbon felt ill-equipped; even her experience with guns was next to useless as she was currently unarmed. And besides, she hadn’t had the years of training in order to provide adequate backup to a cop and it showed. She trembled as a man dressed in a slick black suit approached her. He was unarmed; she could tell by the distinct lack of bumps in his suit, but that wasn’t enough to stop him from being highly dangerous. Lisbon was certain that he could do more than enough damage with his bare hands alone.
She wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, but somehow, the moment they had tried to arrest Lyons, they had been swamped with people and suddenly kidnapped. When they had entered the bank, she’d had an uneasy feeling and sent a group message to Cho, Van Pelt and Jane. She’d sent them another when they had reached this warehouse and then, her cellphone had been confiscated. All she could do now was hope that one of them would get the message and come to their rescue. She didn’t much like being the proverbial damsel in distress, but what else could she do? Rigsby had been separated from her and she dreaded to imagine what was happening to him. Damn it, she should have known that Lyons was involved in some dangerous business when they realized just how untraceable his drugs dealer was. This was the kind of empire which narcotics specialized in, while they dealt purely with homicide. Just because she had occasionally offered her services to other units, it didn’t necessarily mean she was au fait with their method of operations.
“So, what’s a pretty little lady like you hanging around with the cops for, huh?” the man snarled as he approached her. “You shouldn’t be messing around with things you can’t handle.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Please, don’t treat me like a fool. If you knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t be here now, would you?”
“No,” she conceded and cocked her head slightly to one side. “But, like you, I’m not the one in charge. I was just following orders.”
It was strange just how little it took to tip a big guy like this over the edge. In a mass of fury, he lunged at her, but Lisbon managed to take a side-step out of the way. However, she couldn’t evade him all day. Despite his stature, the man was surprisingly light on his feet. Eventually, those strong fingers she’d spent a moment to acknowledge made their way around her neck. Briefly, she felt nervous, but Lisbon wasn’t inclined to feel scared, even during an hour of need. The carnival lifestyle was essentially like living on the run; she had to be hyperaware at all times. However, that didn’t mean she was above feigning fear. This man liked to display power and physical prowess. He wanted to show her that he was in charge, and that he could kill her with his bare hands if he chose to do so. The fear in her eyes was something that he needed to see in order to feel like he was doing his ‘job’ right.
But Lisbon knew she could get out of this anyway. The elbows were a weak point in the body. God’s design had weaknesses - or flaws - depending on how you looked at it. That was merely something that she could take to her advantage. It meant that there was always a way to escape, and always a method that could be used to turn the tables. In just one second, Lisbon turned her head slightly and the fingers that had a seemingly cast-iron grip around her neck immediately loosened. Moments later, she used her hand like a knife and cut down into the elbow joint. Unable to resist, her assailant’s elbow joint bent and her neck was free. His knees buckled, not due to the pressure she had applied, but the sheer surprise of it all. He stumbled slightly in attempt to stop himself from falling to the floor. Lisbon automatically pulled a fist and stared at him warningly. She knew where to aim if she really wanted to knock him unconscious. But, she didn’t need to use it. Just in the nick of time, the door flew open and Jane - and his gun - came rushing through. She was pleased to see him naturally, but Lisbon knew that she would have appreciated it if he had decided to turn up just a little bit earlier. Then, she wouldn’t have had a sore neck nor would she have felt like her heart was trying to escape from her chest.
“Nice moves,” Jane said admiringly as he whipped out his handcuffs. “I didn’t know that you’d studied martial arts.”
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me,” Lisbon replied coyly. She didn’t actually know much about self-defense, even if she had taken a couple of lessons. But, something had stuck and she was grateful for it, she considered as she massaged her neck. Jane didn’t need to know that, of course.
“Really?” Jane asked with a grin. “I’d like to know more.”
“Ah, but a girl has gotta have her-“
She was unable to reach the end of her sentence. A gunshot rattled through the warehouse and Jane begged her to go investigate further while he dealt with their first arrested man. Lisbon sent him a pleading look; she had already felt out of her depth more than enough for one day, but she understood the necessity. It was her opinion that he trusted above all others. He needed to know whether or not Cho was responsible for the shot, or if one of his team had been injured. That was when the real fear set in; it had been her assistance in the lead that had brought them to this place. If any one of them got hurt, then as far as she was concerned, it was solely her fault.
When she finally reached the room the others were located in, she was relieved to see that it was Van Pelt who was holding the smoking gun. The rookie looked more than a little shocked at what she had had to do, and with shaking hands, she replaced her gun in its holster. Across the other side of the room, Lyons was laying on the floor, clutching at his shoulder. He was still alive, but was lucky that Van Pelt’s shot hadn’t been a few millimeters closer to his heart. Of course, he still needed major medical attention, but Lisbon couldn’t muster much sympathy for him at that moment in time. Rigsby was unconscious, tied up and had been beaten black and blue. Cho kept shooting nervous glances at him as he arrested the other man, presumably, the one who had been responsible for Rigsby’s current condition.
After replacing her gun, Van Pelt drew out her cellphone but Lisbon took it away from her. The youngest member of the team had a more important role to play. Lisbon knew that she could take care of hailing medical attention for both the injured men in this building.
“Go to him,” she murmured and the redhead nodded.
Lisbon knew that Rigsby and Van Pelt were dancing on the edge of a relationship. Of course, the rules forbade it, but that didn’t stop the underlying attraction. As much as they tried to pretend otherwise, Van Pelt needed to stand by her man. Lisbon hated the fact she was encouraging them to break the rules by doing this, but human empathy meant she had to do it. Besides, it wasn’t her place to forbid them from acknowledging their feelings anyway. She was just the consultant and they were two young people in the first flushes of love. All she could do was convince them to be careful at a later date.
They were all incredibly busy for the rest of the afternoon. With one member down, and three people to interview, everyone was rushed off of their feet. By the end of the day, Lisbon felt like all of her muscles ached and that wasn’t entirely surprising. What was was just how easily they managed to get confessions for the Edward McKinnon murder. Lyons had been responsible, and he had been driven by three motives: love, money and revenge. It was practically the perfect trifecta for motives for murder. He wanted Edward’s money, but he also wanted his girlfriend. Like herself, Lyons was much stronger than he looked. The surveillance tapes confirmed that he did affix the dead body into the pin spotter at the bowling alley on his own. He had wanted to be the one to comfort Bex after finding the body, but Renee had gotten in the way. And before he had a chance to really talk to her, even in an inebriated state, he had been shooed away by the manager. He wasn’t meant to be there; he’d lost his job at the alley just over a week ago.
The mess with the drugs dealers came in easily. Lyons had been indebted to them for years; because of this specific gang’s way of dealing with interest, he would never have been cleared of his debt. He had been stealing profits from the bowling alley in order to pay off his dealer, but it had never been enough. Edward had been the one to spot him doing so, the one to report him to the manager. Edward, having been clean since he had found himself in the job, had felt morally obliged to report it. And thus, the third motive fit into place. Now, the only question that was hanging over their heads was why the bowling alley had never pressed charges against Lyons for the theft. But that was something that Jane was confident they would get an answer to by morning. As far as he was concerned, the case was essentially closed and they were free to go home.
But, that didn’t stop her from lingering in the offices for just a little while longer. She filled in her fair share of paperwork at the table in Jane’s office as he, unusually, sat at his desk. Eventually, he realized that she was stalling and took matters into his own hands.
“Don’t you have a father to get home to?”
“Shouldn’t you be thinking about leaving too?” she countered.
“That’s not an answer.”
“I know.”
Lisbon didn’t want to go home for precisely that reason. She dreaded seeing her father again; she doubted he would appreciate the fact that he had been unable to contact her directly for hours now. Her cellphone had been destroyed by their captors and although the CBI had promised to replace it in due course, this would make her father believe all kinds of irrational thoughts about her.
“Lisbon, I’ll go home if you do,” Jane said quietly.
“Resorting to bribery, Agent Jane?”
“If it works, I don’t care.”
“Fine,” she acquiesced.
They bid farewell to each other in the parking lot. As she drove that lonely drive back home, Lisbon found herself growing increasingly uneasy. It was funny really, though there had been moments of sheer panic throughout the day, this was the thing that really worried her. Every day, her father was a little bit better. His physiotherapist was encouraging him to get out of the house more and more, to try and grow more independent once again. Much to her surprise, Jason Hamilton was taking this advice deathly seriously and had been trying his hardest to recuperate. It wasn’t enough to stop him from bothering her on an hourly basis though, but it was at least something.
She tried to slip in the house as quietly as possible, but her dad was sitting on her couch and drumming his fingers impatiently against the arm rest. He glared at her, but she ignored him until she had slipped off her work jacket and placed her belongings on the side table. Then, she turned to face him and smiled slightly. It immediately fell when he didn’t bother to return it. Lisbon gave him the quick once over. His arm was in its sling and the look in his eyes suggested that he was still in a lot of pain and had resorted to painkillers to control it. And, of course, he was fuming at the fact that she hadn’t been in contact with him throughout the afternoon.
“Why didn’t you answer my calls?”
“Oh, good evening Dad. I’m fine thank you, work was busy, like usual. Thanks for asking,” she snapped back sarcastically.
“And your phone?” he persisted.
“Oh, it was destroyed by a drugs dealer after I was kidnapped.”
“You were what?” he asked, incredulous and the anger disappeared in an instant. Even her flippant tone wasn’t enough to temper the blow. “No, don’t tell me. Explain over dinner, you must be starving.”
The sudden shift in his mood surprised her. But it was easy for her to understand; the realization that he could have lost her today had taken him off-guard. And it was… nice of him to spend the time preparing her dinner. As a consequence, she decided to accept his offer of an olive branch as such and did tell him as much as she could about the day’s events. It felt surreal, being domestic with her father, but it was surprisingly nice to be able to get it all off of her chest. However, a small part of her mind couldn’t help but question what his real motives were. He never did anything unless there was something he could get in return.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked as he cleared the plates away.
“Work,” she answered stiffly. This was what she had been suspicious of; this was what he wanted to know, to use and abuse.
“You’re lying.”
“No I’m not.”
“Please, Teresa, don’t treat me like a mark. I’m no fool,” Jason answered back and he took a step towards her. “You’re my daughter and I taught you everything you know.”
“That doesn’t mean you know everything about me.”
“No,” he conceded, “but I can read you like an open book. So, what are you really doing in the morning?”
Lisbon glanced away. As far as she was concerned, it wasn’t any of his business. Yes, she had welcomed him into her home, but it hadn’t been entirely willingly. She knew that he needed her, that she was all he had left, but this was exactly what she had feared. He was trying to take control of every aspect of her life once again and she desperately wanted to keep him out of it. Even though he hated it, she didn’t need him anymore. In truth, she hadn’t really needed him since she and Andrew had first left the carnival together. But somehow, he continually wormed himself back into her life, like a snake. She just couldn’t shake him away.
“I’m going to a funeral.”
“Whose?” he asked and he stared at her pointedly. Lisbon could feel his eyes boring into her very soul and she hated it. There was no point in lying to him; he would only work it out in the end.
“Edward Jane’s,” she admitted reluctantly.
“Jane… brother of your boss?” he asked, piecing together the scant things she had told him about her daily routine.
“Yes,” she answered back bluntly.
“Why?”
“Because he needs a friend to be there with him,” Lisbon said and she genuinely believed that.
“No, that’s not it, I can see it in your eyes,” he replied, shaking his head sadly. “You may still wear the wedding ring of your sadly deceased husband, but you’re a little bit in love with Patrick Jane, aren’t you?”
“No,” she denied quickly.
“No, you’re right. You are in love with him. You’re just too foolish to admit it even to yourself.”
To Chapter Nineteen