Ricochet (24/25)
Chapter Twenty Four
The blood on the wall was still damp. Like with Cho’s father, the body had been discovered incredibly soon after the murder itself had occurred. Van Pelt was outside of her cousin’s home, being held closely by Wayne Rigsby. Of course, he was going to be the one to offer her gentle comfort. It was the role he was designed to play, after all, he was her lover. And despite it going against the rules and regulations, Lisbon had no doubt that he would have made Grace a sweet and conscientious lover. She couldn’t begrudge the happiness they found in one another; that was something she had experienced herself in the past, and something she continued to deny herself at this very moment in time. But on the one hand, it made her uncomfortable to think that they were openly opposing the rules. However, she couldn’t think of anyone that Van Pelt needed more right now.
She stared bitterly at the leering smiley face. Hours before, she had been wondering just what would happen if somebody else on the team was exposed to Red John’s brand of evil. Lisbon hadn’t wanted Van Pelt’s hopes and dreams to be swatted like a fly, but something like this could easily destroy any positivity that the youngest member of the unit felt for the world. Like Cho, her only crime had been working with the Serious Crimes Unit, focusing on the Red John case whenever the serial killer chose to act. And like Cho, she had been damned by association.
This was all her fault. She was dragging the team down. She could only hope they could cling onto their last vestiges of sanity. After all, every time she saw that face on the wall, she could feel those same thoughts clawing at her mind again.
Vaguely, Lisbon wondered if her cutting ties with the unit would make any difference now or if it was already far too late. The latter, she considered, was far more probable. And besides, she doubted that Jane would even allow her to leave. He thought she was safer where she was, that their danger was a part of their job description and that there was no point in hiding. Anyway, her assistance was ‘vital’ to the team and especially to the Red John case. But, they had closed cases before her and would close cases after. Did it really make all that much of a difference whether or not she was there? They already had targets painted on their backs. And it really was too late; Red John wouldn’t care where she was now. They had been too welcoming for too long and had already allowed her in way too close.
And worse: for a short spell, they had made her happy. That was the most heinous crime of all from the viewpoint of the malicious serial killer.
“What do you think?” she asked Jane quietly.
“I think she truly believed she was a psychic, but of course, she wasn’t, although Grace would never believe me,” Jane answered and Lisbon shot him a scathing look. “I also think that you need to stop blaming yourself because this isn’t your fault.”
“I can’t say either way on your first statement, but you’re wrong about the second.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. If I didn’t know Van Pelt, then Red John wouldn’t have held a grudge against her either way. Like Cho’s father, he would have had no inclination to kill Yolanda Phillips.”
“So you don’t believe that Red John held a grudge against Miss Phillips for masquerading as a psychic in much a similar way to you used to?”
“Is there any evidence of her peddling her trade on television, or of her having any insight into the Red John case?”
“No.”
“There you go then.”
“Being sleep-deprived makes you a little peevish, my dear,” Jane said lightly.
She shot him yet another dirty look, as if to say ‘well that is your fault’, but she didn’t dare say the words. You never knew who could have been listening in and besides, the words could easily have been misconstrued. They hadn’t done anything untoward, even the kisses had been comparatively chaste. Lisbon had stopped it before it had gotten any further. This was just a confirmation that she had made absolutely the right decision on that front, however much it made her heart ache. Desperately, she tried to put those thoughts back in their respective boxes. She knew that she just couldn’t handle feeling lovesick for the two men she couldn’t have: her husband and Patrick Jane.
“Red John makes me peevish,” she corrected automatically.
“You need to rest.”
“I need to work this case.”
“Which is something we can both do after we’ve rested adequately,” Jane retorted and stared her direct in the eye. “You’re only going to do yourself more harm if you keep doing this to yourself, Teresa. Take it from somebody who knows.”
Lisbon’s shoulders sagged in defeat and nodded. Despite being the one who could read people, hypnotize them, come up with all sorts of theories about cases and prove to be right time and time again, she had more than met her match in a certain Patrick Jane. With seemingly practiced ease, he could talk her into almost anything and she hated it. It reminded her of her relationship with her father almost too much on occasion. However, the key difference was she trusted Jane and knew that any decision he made was for the greater good. He just had a tendency to take things that little too far sometimes. And, Minelli agreed with her sentiment. Therefore, she felt reassured with her assessment of their relationship.
Suddenly, Jane’s cellphone rang and he held up a hand to indicate that he wasn’t done with her yet. However, he stepped to one side to take the call, mostly so that he could focus on the call instead of Red John. Jane didn’t mind her hearing his side of the conversation; he never did. It didn’t take her long to figure out who was on the other end of the line, and of course, she couldn’t help but listen in.
“What the hell, boss?” Jane seethed and Lisbon took a step closer to remain within earshot. “It’s another Red John, we can’t just- okay, fine. We’ll tie up here as soon as we can. Just get Cho to the crime scene as soon as possible.”
Warily, Lisbon watched as Jane bid farewell to his superior and then, he returned his full attention back to her. She felt drawn thin; prior to him pointing it out, Lisbon had actually felt okay. The knowledge that Red John had struck again, and affected somebody so close to her, had reawakened her senses. Only now, the tiredness was beginning to fight back. And from what she could tell, it would still be a long while until she actually got to rest properly. Now, she was beginning to seriously regret spending the vast majority of the night awake and in Jane’s company. He was right; she was exhausted and wouldn’t be of any use to them like this.
“Minelli?” Lisbon asked and Jane nodded.
“He wants us to work another case.”
“He thinks working Red John and another case at the same time is wise?”
“Apparently so. Minelli believes that Red John ‘isn’t going anywhere’ even with this new murder. His suggestion is that Van Pelt and Cho focus on the new case as they are now too close to Red John, Rigsby and I work Red John… and you split your time between the two.”
“And he really thinks we have the manpower to be able to cope with this?”
“We were requested specifically again. You take down one killer -“
“And three crop up in his place,” Lisbon concluded with a heavy sigh. “I know.”
“Is it absolutely necessary for you to see the crime scene?”
“I think, on this occasion, I might be able to get by with just photographs.”
“Good,” Jane answered back. “I’ll tell you as much as I can later.”
“Are you well enough to keep going yourself?” she asked dubiously.
“Me? I’m practically sober now.”
She was skeptical, but she didn’t argue. Jane was the boss. Besides, she had never seen him suffer from serious consequences after a night drinking. And within the space of an hour, from appearing on her doorstep to her bidding him goodnight, he had practically transformed in demeanor. When he had bounded upstairs, having heard her fall, he was his normal self. But that wasn’t enough to stop her from worrying; that was an inherent characteristic she would never shake off. Lisbon had always lived in fear for those she cared about and some things would never change.
Despite the fact it was already four a.m., Lisbon vowed to be back at the office by midday at the latest. Then, she drove home, already skeptical about just how much sleep she was going to get. It was only natural; not only did she have to contend that Red John had decided to strike down the most innocent member of the unit due to her, but there was this new case too. She didn’t know anything about it, but already she believed that Virgil Minelli just made an uncharacteristic grave error of judgment. Stretching the team this thin just felt like it was going to translate into disaster, one way or another. Red John was at his most deadly and who knew what this new case would entail? As a consequence, by the time she actually got home once again, Lisbon had stressed herself out. There was far too much on her mind and justifiably so.
In spite of her concerns, the moment her head hit the pillow, Lisbon promptly fell asleep. Exhaustion just took over her body before she had a chance to think otherwise, and mercifully, the rest was entirely dreamless. The last thing she had wanted was nightmares toying with the seemingly monumental problems she was already facing in reality. A couple of hours later, she awoke, feeling surprisingly refreshed but no less apprehensive about what the day would inevitably hold in store for her. Reluctantly, she pulled herself back together and headed into work. There was no point in delaying the inevitable.
When she arrived at the CBI headquarters, Jane and Rigsby were out, chasing down leads relating to the Red John murder. Briefly, her heart ached to be with them; she understood Red John and she feared that they might miss out on something that only she could notice. Meanwhile, Cho and Van Pelt were in the office, working studiously hard and the familiar wave of guilt rushed over her. They were broken individuals; both had endured a similar intimate loss that she had. It wasn’t fair; they should never have been put into this position. But Red John had chosen the team as his playthings and seemed determined to break them from the inside out. Still, she couldn’t shake the nagging suspicion that it wasn’t the fact that they were working the case, but because they knew her that he objected to.
“Hey Lisbon,” Van Pelt said quietly; she looked exhausted. Lisbon knew from a managerial point of view her presence was necessary; they simply couldn’t operate a team member down at this moment in time. However, she couldn’t help but wish the woman could have a little time off to grieve for her cousin. After all, she probably felt like it was her fault that Yolanda had died too.
“You want a coffee before we get started?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
Lisbon could feel Cho’s skeptical gaze boring into her. He may have been quiet, he may not have worn his heart on his sleeve, but he still felt deeply. Cho just had more subtle ways of showing emotion. Thankfully, he didn’t press her for essentially lying to him, instead he dove straight into updating her on the case. The crime scene photographs made it appear pretty rudimentary, or at least, as rudimentary as a crime scene could be. It was a sparse warehouse, empty apart from the body, the blood spatters and the dust. The man had died in situ and the location immediately intrigued her. However, she was relieved that she couldn’t notice anything that required further investigation from the photographs. Any information she needed could easily be ascertained from elsewhere.
Cho suspected the murder was related to two local biker groups, fighting over territory; something which made Lisbon relieved that Rigsby was being kept away from this case. However, the victim, Anton Mendes had nothing to do with either group. Ultimately, if Cho was right, then it was a case of the poor man being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Something about it felt off though, or at least, she believed the situation was far more complicated than Cho made it out to be. Then again, it was her job to work it out and she knew she couldn’t complain about that. All she could do was hope that Jane and Rigsby were making progress with Red John, for Van Pelt’s sake, and that she could crack this one before the guys needed her.
Eventually, they left the confines of the office in order to carry out interviews and chase up leads. Lisbon kept a cautious eye on both of them throughout the time they spent together. She felt like it was the very least she could do. But, she was pleasantly surprised at just how well they were holding things together, especially Van Pelt. With the latter especially, she suspected she was still in denial and glad of the distraction from the painful grief that came from losing a family member to a notorious serial killer. When it hit her, then she would have problems, but for now she was okay. But that would never be enough to stop Lisbon’s concern for her, not until she knew that Van Pelt had truly achieved closure. While she was also worried about Cho, she could tell this was the first major family death that Van Pelt had had to deal with, and it had occurred so soon after she had watched somebody commit suicide before her very eyes. It was a lot of burden on young shoulders.
The case developed quickly. From the moment that Lisbon met Anton Mendes’ wife, she suspected that something wasn’t quite right about her. While she appreciated that the woman wasn’t desolate with grief, she seemed almost ambivalent about the death of her husband. Her demeanor made it appear that she felt like a weight had been lifted and like she was truly free again. But, if she had been shackled to a marriage, why hadn’t she just left? It was the twenty-first century; divorce was seen as being entirely acceptable, especially amongst the secular community. There had been no real need for her to stay.
Slowly but surely, the case against Maria Mendes built up. It took a couple of days of intensive work, but the effort was almost worth it. Only almost because she felt virtually cut off from Rigsby, Jane and the Red John investigation as a consequence. She hated that, even though she knew they would drag her back in if it became entirely necessarily. When it came to the Mendes murder, Lisbon knew that the wife was an accessory to murder at the very least, but also didn’t think she was the one to literally pull the trigger. When they discovered that she had contacts within the Sinner Saints, everything just fell into place. Maria Mendes had been courting a member of the Saints, had been trying to ingratiate herself in their community as a lover of one of the bikers. The innocent husband, however, had gotten in the way. They attempted to frame the murder as one carried out by the rival gang, and had taken him into their territory and shot him at point blank range. Lisbon shuddered; it was no way to find out that your spouse was cheating on you, and no way to die either. The ultimate betrayal, she surmised.
And that was when the team ran into problems. When they finally had enough evidence to warrant arrest, Lisbon, Van Pelt and Cho had found themselves in the middle of a face-off between the two cycle gangs. Her heart sank; she knew something was going to go wrong when the team was as over-stretched like this. She couldn’t help but feel that if they had either focused on Red John or Mendes, then they would never have ran into this problem. Inevitably, however, somebody was going to get hurt and that someone was her.
A few gunshots fired up into the air, but she wasn’t hit. Then, the loud sirens and flashing blue lights of assistance came sweeping into the area and some of the members of both gangs panicked, fleeing the scene. One rider clipped her on the shoulder and Lisbon collapsed, hitting her head hard on the concrete sidewalk. As tense as the moments leading up to it had been, this was when the nightmares really began.
She was back on the carnival circuit, a girl of nine years. Her father had already been honing her natural abilities for reading people, hypnotism, card tricks, misdirection and the like for four years. Soon, young Teresa Hamilton would become her father’s cash cow and the only protection she had was in the form of her precious mother. And the only friend she had was Andrew Lisbon, son of carnie royalty. They were currently resting in California for the winter season; nobody much liked the idea of carnivals in January. Usually, Teresa liked this time of the year; she wasn’t being forced to put on a show. This time, though, her father was trying desperately to make sure the carnival’s newest act would be ready in time for spring.
Her mother promised she would take her away before it happened. This wasn’t the life she had wanted for her daughter, far from it, in fact. In silence, Teresa’s mother placed a cross pendant around her neck, promising her that God would always be by her side. Teresa vowed never to take it off; she believed in her God and she believed her mom.
Unfortunately, they were overheard.
Teresa didn’t know of this, of course, until three nights later. She had been trying to sleep in her cramped bed in the family caravan. Her fingers remained clenched around her precious new pendant which her mother had entrusted her with. Her mind was overrunning with thoughts about how she and her mom were going to escape, how they were going to become normal people. The idea of such a change should have been daunting, but Teresa could only be excited. She hated this life; she had always wanted to be normal. If she could have had everything her way, she would have taken Andrew with them, but just leaving was her priority.
Then, she heard the piercing scream. It was familiar; she immediately placed it as being her mother’s. She was meant to be oblivious to the fact, but Teresa knew that her father had beaten her mom on several occasions. Almost immediately, Teresa flew out of bed, changed as quickly as possible and rushed to the truck. Hiding in the back, she watched as her reluctant mother was corralled into the vehicle and soon, they sped off to an unknown location. Abruptly, they pulled up in front of a dingy motel and for a moment, both the Hamilton women were paralyzed with fear. Teresa stayed frozen to the spot for fifteen minutes, but she still heard the screams of her mother. Only when they quieted down did she dare to creep off the truck and up in the direction that she had seen her parents disappear off to.
When she reached it, the door to their motel room had been left open, almost invitingly. With her heart beating painfully, Teresa pushed it open gently. Her mother was lying on the bed, bleeding to death. Jason Hamilton was standing above her, laboriously painting a smiley face above her head. It was only when he knelt to dip his fingers into his wife’s blood once again that he spotted his daughter standing there. Teresa opened her mouth to scream, to say something, but no words came out. She watched with her mouth agape as he finished painting the smiley face and then he hopped over to her side. Placing a hand on each of her shoulders, he stared her direct in the eye and smiled.
“Teresa, honey, you shouldn’t be here.”
Tears sprang in the corner of her eyes and he wiped them away. Then, he began to use the very same tricks on her that he was trying to teach her to do. Teresa could feel her eyes getting heavier, her breathing getting increasingly labored as she slowly but surely fell into a deep trance…
…and then, she woke up.
But Teresa Lisbon could remember it all. Every minute detail felt utterly real. That was when, finally, that the scream she had been holding during the dream managed to escape from her mouth. It took Cho several minutes to calm her down and then, Lisbon realized exactly where she was. She wasn’t back at the carnival circuit, she wasn’t in the middle of the street facing the Sinner Saints, but she was in a sparse hospital room, with gleaming white walls staring around her. She shuddered; instinctively, she remembered the time when there had been a lock on the door and she hadn’t been able to escape, however hard she tried. This time, mercifully, the door had been propped open. She wasn’t trapped in here.
“I know who Red John is,” she muttered and Cho eyed her suspiciously.
But she did. It explained his intense fascination with her. It explained how and why her father had never been truly able to let her go. Once she remembered his dirty little secret, once she had been able to unravel the hypnotic trance he had set on her all those years ago, she became dangerous.
Even so, she had to fight desperately against the urge to vomit. It was a natural instinct. She had buried down this memory so deeply that she had actually been blinded to the idea of her father being Red John. Lisbon felt like she had been simultaneously betrayed and humiliated. Parents were meant to care for their children, not destroy everything that they held dear. First, it had been her mother. Her husband and daughter followed next. In the intervening time, he had killed many other women to feed his bloodlust. And recently, he had turned on her adoptive family: the team. Now, all she could think about doing was telling Jane, before it was too late.
“Not yet,” Cho said when she told him and he placed a firm hand on her shoulder. “The doctor needs to assess you first.”
“Fine,” she retorted back angrily and crossed her arms.
“I’m going to get a coffee. I’ll come back when the doctor is done.”
“Fine,” she repeated, but then she softened her tone. “Cho? Did you get Maria Mendes?”
He nodded gently. “Yes.”
“Is she being questioned by Van Pelt and Ron?”
“Yes. Stop worrying, Lisbon,” he instructed before vacating the room.
She tolerated the examination, but only because she knew she had to get out of here as soon as feasibly possible. Lisbon knew that she was of no use cooped up in a hospital bed, and besides, she felt more in tune with herself than she had done for her entire adult life. For the first time in a long while, everything made sense. She wasn’t even living in fear of Red John anymore; she knew who he was and what he did. He was human, he had weaknesses.
And Lisbon knew that she was his Achilles’ heel. Red John was going to be brought down, even though he was her father. If anything, she felt the desperate need for justice more than ever before.
As promised, Cho waited outside for her. She smiled gently at him; the doctor had given her a clean bill of health. Of course, she had lied to him about the headache, but she didn’t care. She needed to get out of there and she physically felt fine. Besides, if she didn’t hurry up, then she knew her father would try and take down another member of the team. The question was, would it be Rigsby or Jane next? Lisbon didn’t like the idea of it being either of them, but a part of her couldn’t help but feel like Jane was the one to be more concerned about. After all, she had always shared the more intimate relationship with him. If Jason Hamilton was going to directly kill one member of the team, it would be Patrick Jane. There were no doubts about that in her mind.
With a severe sense of déjà vu, Lisbon checked her cellphone only to discover she had missed several calls and text messages, this time from both Rigsby and Van Pelt. The same applied to Cho. Quickly, they shared a nervous glance before climbing into the SUV. Lisbon waited uncomfortably in the passenger seat as Cho placed the call through to Rigsby, immediately switching onto speakerphone. Unusually for Rigsby, he didn’t bother with preamble; he just got straight to the point.
“Jane’s gone. Red John has taken him, but there isn’t a body, just the smiley face in his office.”
To Chapter Twenty Five
The blood on the wall was still damp. Like with Cho’s father, the body had been discovered incredibly soon after the murder itself had occurred. Van Pelt was outside of her cousin’s home, being held closely by Wayne Rigsby. Of course, he was going to be the one to offer her gentle comfort. It was the role he was designed to play, after all, he was her lover. And despite it going against the rules and regulations, Lisbon had no doubt that he would have made Grace a sweet and conscientious lover. She couldn’t begrudge the happiness they found in one another; that was something she had experienced herself in the past, and something she continued to deny herself at this very moment in time. But on the one hand, it made her uncomfortable to think that they were openly opposing the rules. However, she couldn’t think of anyone that Van Pelt needed more right now.
She stared bitterly at the leering smiley face. Hours before, she had been wondering just what would happen if somebody else on the team was exposed to Red John’s brand of evil. Lisbon hadn’t wanted Van Pelt’s hopes and dreams to be swatted like a fly, but something like this could easily destroy any positivity that the youngest member of the unit felt for the world. Like Cho, her only crime had been working with the Serious Crimes Unit, focusing on the Red John case whenever the serial killer chose to act. And like Cho, she had been damned by association.
This was all her fault. She was dragging the team down. She could only hope they could cling onto their last vestiges of sanity. After all, every time she saw that face on the wall, she could feel those same thoughts clawing at her mind again.
Vaguely, Lisbon wondered if her cutting ties with the unit would make any difference now or if it was already far too late. The latter, she considered, was far more probable. And besides, she doubted that Jane would even allow her to leave. He thought she was safer where she was, that their danger was a part of their job description and that there was no point in hiding. Anyway, her assistance was ‘vital’ to the team and especially to the Red John case. But, they had closed cases before her and would close cases after. Did it really make all that much of a difference whether or not she was there? They already had targets painted on their backs. And it really was too late; Red John wouldn’t care where she was now. They had been too welcoming for too long and had already allowed her in way too close.
And worse: for a short spell, they had made her happy. That was the most heinous crime of all from the viewpoint of the malicious serial killer.
“What do you think?” she asked Jane quietly.
“I think she truly believed she was a psychic, but of course, she wasn’t, although Grace would never believe me,” Jane answered and Lisbon shot him a scathing look. “I also think that you need to stop blaming yourself because this isn’t your fault.”
“I can’t say either way on your first statement, but you’re wrong about the second.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. If I didn’t know Van Pelt, then Red John wouldn’t have held a grudge against her either way. Like Cho’s father, he would have had no inclination to kill Yolanda Phillips.”
“So you don’t believe that Red John held a grudge against Miss Phillips for masquerading as a psychic in much a similar way to you used to?”
“Is there any evidence of her peddling her trade on television, or of her having any insight into the Red John case?”
“No.”
“There you go then.”
“Being sleep-deprived makes you a little peevish, my dear,” Jane said lightly.
She shot him yet another dirty look, as if to say ‘well that is your fault’, but she didn’t dare say the words. You never knew who could have been listening in and besides, the words could easily have been misconstrued. They hadn’t done anything untoward, even the kisses had been comparatively chaste. Lisbon had stopped it before it had gotten any further. This was just a confirmation that she had made absolutely the right decision on that front, however much it made her heart ache. Desperately, she tried to put those thoughts back in their respective boxes. She knew that she just couldn’t handle feeling lovesick for the two men she couldn’t have: her husband and Patrick Jane.
“Red John makes me peevish,” she corrected automatically.
“You need to rest.”
“I need to work this case.”
“Which is something we can both do after we’ve rested adequately,” Jane retorted and stared her direct in the eye. “You’re only going to do yourself more harm if you keep doing this to yourself, Teresa. Take it from somebody who knows.”
Lisbon’s shoulders sagged in defeat and nodded. Despite being the one who could read people, hypnotize them, come up with all sorts of theories about cases and prove to be right time and time again, she had more than met her match in a certain Patrick Jane. With seemingly practiced ease, he could talk her into almost anything and she hated it. It reminded her of her relationship with her father almost too much on occasion. However, the key difference was she trusted Jane and knew that any decision he made was for the greater good. He just had a tendency to take things that little too far sometimes. And, Minelli agreed with her sentiment. Therefore, she felt reassured with her assessment of their relationship.
Suddenly, Jane’s cellphone rang and he held up a hand to indicate that he wasn’t done with her yet. However, he stepped to one side to take the call, mostly so that he could focus on the call instead of Red John. Jane didn’t mind her hearing his side of the conversation; he never did. It didn’t take her long to figure out who was on the other end of the line, and of course, she couldn’t help but listen in.
“What the hell, boss?” Jane seethed and Lisbon took a step closer to remain within earshot. “It’s another Red John, we can’t just- okay, fine. We’ll tie up here as soon as we can. Just get Cho to the crime scene as soon as possible.”
Warily, Lisbon watched as Jane bid farewell to his superior and then, he returned his full attention back to her. She felt drawn thin; prior to him pointing it out, Lisbon had actually felt okay. The knowledge that Red John had struck again, and affected somebody so close to her, had reawakened her senses. Only now, the tiredness was beginning to fight back. And from what she could tell, it would still be a long while until she actually got to rest properly. Now, she was beginning to seriously regret spending the vast majority of the night awake and in Jane’s company. He was right; she was exhausted and wouldn’t be of any use to them like this.
“Minelli?” Lisbon asked and Jane nodded.
“He wants us to work another case.”
“He thinks working Red John and another case at the same time is wise?”
“Apparently so. Minelli believes that Red John ‘isn’t going anywhere’ even with this new murder. His suggestion is that Van Pelt and Cho focus on the new case as they are now too close to Red John, Rigsby and I work Red John… and you split your time between the two.”
“And he really thinks we have the manpower to be able to cope with this?”
“We were requested specifically again. You take down one killer -“
“And three crop up in his place,” Lisbon concluded with a heavy sigh. “I know.”
“Is it absolutely necessary for you to see the crime scene?”
“I think, on this occasion, I might be able to get by with just photographs.”
“Good,” Jane answered back. “I’ll tell you as much as I can later.”
“Are you well enough to keep going yourself?” she asked dubiously.
“Me? I’m practically sober now.”
She was skeptical, but she didn’t argue. Jane was the boss. Besides, she had never seen him suffer from serious consequences after a night drinking. And within the space of an hour, from appearing on her doorstep to her bidding him goodnight, he had practically transformed in demeanor. When he had bounded upstairs, having heard her fall, he was his normal self. But that wasn’t enough to stop her from worrying; that was an inherent characteristic she would never shake off. Lisbon had always lived in fear for those she cared about and some things would never change.
Despite the fact it was already four a.m., Lisbon vowed to be back at the office by midday at the latest. Then, she drove home, already skeptical about just how much sleep she was going to get. It was only natural; not only did she have to contend that Red John had decided to strike down the most innocent member of the unit due to her, but there was this new case too. She didn’t know anything about it, but already she believed that Virgil Minelli just made an uncharacteristic grave error of judgment. Stretching the team this thin just felt like it was going to translate into disaster, one way or another. Red John was at his most deadly and who knew what this new case would entail? As a consequence, by the time she actually got home once again, Lisbon had stressed herself out. There was far too much on her mind and justifiably so.
In spite of her concerns, the moment her head hit the pillow, Lisbon promptly fell asleep. Exhaustion just took over her body before she had a chance to think otherwise, and mercifully, the rest was entirely dreamless. The last thing she had wanted was nightmares toying with the seemingly monumental problems she was already facing in reality. A couple of hours later, she awoke, feeling surprisingly refreshed but no less apprehensive about what the day would inevitably hold in store for her. Reluctantly, she pulled herself back together and headed into work. There was no point in delaying the inevitable.
When she arrived at the CBI headquarters, Jane and Rigsby were out, chasing down leads relating to the Red John murder. Briefly, her heart ached to be with them; she understood Red John and she feared that they might miss out on something that only she could notice. Meanwhile, Cho and Van Pelt were in the office, working studiously hard and the familiar wave of guilt rushed over her. They were broken individuals; both had endured a similar intimate loss that she had. It wasn’t fair; they should never have been put into this position. But Red John had chosen the team as his playthings and seemed determined to break them from the inside out. Still, she couldn’t shake the nagging suspicion that it wasn’t the fact that they were working the case, but because they knew her that he objected to.
“Hey Lisbon,” Van Pelt said quietly; she looked exhausted. Lisbon knew from a managerial point of view her presence was necessary; they simply couldn’t operate a team member down at this moment in time. However, she couldn’t help but wish the woman could have a little time off to grieve for her cousin. After all, she probably felt like it was her fault that Yolanda had died too.
“You want a coffee before we get started?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
Lisbon could feel Cho’s skeptical gaze boring into her. He may have been quiet, he may not have worn his heart on his sleeve, but he still felt deeply. Cho just had more subtle ways of showing emotion. Thankfully, he didn’t press her for essentially lying to him, instead he dove straight into updating her on the case. The crime scene photographs made it appear pretty rudimentary, or at least, as rudimentary as a crime scene could be. It was a sparse warehouse, empty apart from the body, the blood spatters and the dust. The man had died in situ and the location immediately intrigued her. However, she was relieved that she couldn’t notice anything that required further investigation from the photographs. Any information she needed could easily be ascertained from elsewhere.
Cho suspected the murder was related to two local biker groups, fighting over territory; something which made Lisbon relieved that Rigsby was being kept away from this case. However, the victim, Anton Mendes had nothing to do with either group. Ultimately, if Cho was right, then it was a case of the poor man being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Something about it felt off though, or at least, she believed the situation was far more complicated than Cho made it out to be. Then again, it was her job to work it out and she knew she couldn’t complain about that. All she could do was hope that Jane and Rigsby were making progress with Red John, for Van Pelt’s sake, and that she could crack this one before the guys needed her.
Eventually, they left the confines of the office in order to carry out interviews and chase up leads. Lisbon kept a cautious eye on both of them throughout the time they spent together. She felt like it was the very least she could do. But, she was pleasantly surprised at just how well they were holding things together, especially Van Pelt. With the latter especially, she suspected she was still in denial and glad of the distraction from the painful grief that came from losing a family member to a notorious serial killer. When it hit her, then she would have problems, but for now she was okay. But that would never be enough to stop Lisbon’s concern for her, not until she knew that Van Pelt had truly achieved closure. While she was also worried about Cho, she could tell this was the first major family death that Van Pelt had had to deal with, and it had occurred so soon after she had watched somebody commit suicide before her very eyes. It was a lot of burden on young shoulders.
The case developed quickly. From the moment that Lisbon met Anton Mendes’ wife, she suspected that something wasn’t quite right about her. While she appreciated that the woman wasn’t desolate with grief, she seemed almost ambivalent about the death of her husband. Her demeanor made it appear that she felt like a weight had been lifted and like she was truly free again. But, if she had been shackled to a marriage, why hadn’t she just left? It was the twenty-first century; divorce was seen as being entirely acceptable, especially amongst the secular community. There had been no real need for her to stay.
Slowly but surely, the case against Maria Mendes built up. It took a couple of days of intensive work, but the effort was almost worth it. Only almost because she felt virtually cut off from Rigsby, Jane and the Red John investigation as a consequence. She hated that, even though she knew they would drag her back in if it became entirely necessarily. When it came to the Mendes murder, Lisbon knew that the wife was an accessory to murder at the very least, but also didn’t think she was the one to literally pull the trigger. When they discovered that she had contacts within the Sinner Saints, everything just fell into place. Maria Mendes had been courting a member of the Saints, had been trying to ingratiate herself in their community as a lover of one of the bikers. The innocent husband, however, had gotten in the way. They attempted to frame the murder as one carried out by the rival gang, and had taken him into their territory and shot him at point blank range. Lisbon shuddered; it was no way to find out that your spouse was cheating on you, and no way to die either. The ultimate betrayal, she surmised.
And that was when the team ran into problems. When they finally had enough evidence to warrant arrest, Lisbon, Van Pelt and Cho had found themselves in the middle of a face-off between the two cycle gangs. Her heart sank; she knew something was going to go wrong when the team was as over-stretched like this. She couldn’t help but feel that if they had either focused on Red John or Mendes, then they would never have ran into this problem. Inevitably, however, somebody was going to get hurt and that someone was her.
A few gunshots fired up into the air, but she wasn’t hit. Then, the loud sirens and flashing blue lights of assistance came sweeping into the area and some of the members of both gangs panicked, fleeing the scene. One rider clipped her on the shoulder and Lisbon collapsed, hitting her head hard on the concrete sidewalk. As tense as the moments leading up to it had been, this was when the nightmares really began.
She was back on the carnival circuit, a girl of nine years. Her father had already been honing her natural abilities for reading people, hypnotism, card tricks, misdirection and the like for four years. Soon, young Teresa Hamilton would become her father’s cash cow and the only protection she had was in the form of her precious mother. And the only friend she had was Andrew Lisbon, son of carnie royalty. They were currently resting in California for the winter season; nobody much liked the idea of carnivals in January. Usually, Teresa liked this time of the year; she wasn’t being forced to put on a show. This time, though, her father was trying desperately to make sure the carnival’s newest act would be ready in time for spring.
Her mother promised she would take her away before it happened. This wasn’t the life she had wanted for her daughter, far from it, in fact. In silence, Teresa’s mother placed a cross pendant around her neck, promising her that God would always be by her side. Teresa vowed never to take it off; she believed in her God and she believed her mom.
Unfortunately, they were overheard.
Teresa didn’t know of this, of course, until three nights later. She had been trying to sleep in her cramped bed in the family caravan. Her fingers remained clenched around her precious new pendant which her mother had entrusted her with. Her mind was overrunning with thoughts about how she and her mom were going to escape, how they were going to become normal people. The idea of such a change should have been daunting, but Teresa could only be excited. She hated this life; she had always wanted to be normal. If she could have had everything her way, she would have taken Andrew with them, but just leaving was her priority.
Then, she heard the piercing scream. It was familiar; she immediately placed it as being her mother’s. She was meant to be oblivious to the fact, but Teresa knew that her father had beaten her mom on several occasions. Almost immediately, Teresa flew out of bed, changed as quickly as possible and rushed to the truck. Hiding in the back, she watched as her reluctant mother was corralled into the vehicle and soon, they sped off to an unknown location. Abruptly, they pulled up in front of a dingy motel and for a moment, both the Hamilton women were paralyzed with fear. Teresa stayed frozen to the spot for fifteen minutes, but she still heard the screams of her mother. Only when they quieted down did she dare to creep off the truck and up in the direction that she had seen her parents disappear off to.
When she reached it, the door to their motel room had been left open, almost invitingly. With her heart beating painfully, Teresa pushed it open gently. Her mother was lying on the bed, bleeding to death. Jason Hamilton was standing above her, laboriously painting a smiley face above her head. It was only when he knelt to dip his fingers into his wife’s blood once again that he spotted his daughter standing there. Teresa opened her mouth to scream, to say something, but no words came out. She watched with her mouth agape as he finished painting the smiley face and then he hopped over to her side. Placing a hand on each of her shoulders, he stared her direct in the eye and smiled.
“Teresa, honey, you shouldn’t be here.”
Tears sprang in the corner of her eyes and he wiped them away. Then, he began to use the very same tricks on her that he was trying to teach her to do. Teresa could feel her eyes getting heavier, her breathing getting increasingly labored as she slowly but surely fell into a deep trance…
…and then, she woke up.
But Teresa Lisbon could remember it all. Every minute detail felt utterly real. That was when, finally, that the scream she had been holding during the dream managed to escape from her mouth. It took Cho several minutes to calm her down and then, Lisbon realized exactly where she was. She wasn’t back at the carnival circuit, she wasn’t in the middle of the street facing the Sinner Saints, but she was in a sparse hospital room, with gleaming white walls staring around her. She shuddered; instinctively, she remembered the time when there had been a lock on the door and she hadn’t been able to escape, however hard she tried. This time, mercifully, the door had been propped open. She wasn’t trapped in here.
“I know who Red John is,” she muttered and Cho eyed her suspiciously.
But she did. It explained his intense fascination with her. It explained how and why her father had never been truly able to let her go. Once she remembered his dirty little secret, once she had been able to unravel the hypnotic trance he had set on her all those years ago, she became dangerous.
Even so, she had to fight desperately against the urge to vomit. It was a natural instinct. She had buried down this memory so deeply that she had actually been blinded to the idea of her father being Red John. Lisbon felt like she had been simultaneously betrayed and humiliated. Parents were meant to care for their children, not destroy everything that they held dear. First, it had been her mother. Her husband and daughter followed next. In the intervening time, he had killed many other women to feed his bloodlust. And recently, he had turned on her adoptive family: the team. Now, all she could think about doing was telling Jane, before it was too late.
“Not yet,” Cho said when she told him and he placed a firm hand on her shoulder. “The doctor needs to assess you first.”
“Fine,” she retorted back angrily and crossed her arms.
“I’m going to get a coffee. I’ll come back when the doctor is done.”
“Fine,” she repeated, but then she softened her tone. “Cho? Did you get Maria Mendes?”
He nodded gently. “Yes.”
“Is she being questioned by Van Pelt and Ron?”
“Yes. Stop worrying, Lisbon,” he instructed before vacating the room.
She tolerated the examination, but only because she knew she had to get out of here as soon as feasibly possible. Lisbon knew that she was of no use cooped up in a hospital bed, and besides, she felt more in tune with herself than she had done for her entire adult life. For the first time in a long while, everything made sense. She wasn’t even living in fear of Red John anymore; she knew who he was and what he did. He was human, he had weaknesses.
And Lisbon knew that she was his Achilles’ heel. Red John was going to be brought down, even though he was her father. If anything, she felt the desperate need for justice more than ever before.
As promised, Cho waited outside for her. She smiled gently at him; the doctor had given her a clean bill of health. Of course, she had lied to him about the headache, but she didn’t care. She needed to get out of there and she physically felt fine. Besides, if she didn’t hurry up, then she knew her father would try and take down another member of the team. The question was, would it be Rigsby or Jane next? Lisbon didn’t like the idea of it being either of them, but a part of her couldn’t help but feel like Jane was the one to be more concerned about. After all, she had always shared the more intimate relationship with him. If Jason Hamilton was going to directly kill one member of the team, it would be Patrick Jane. There were no doubts about that in her mind.
With a severe sense of déjà vu, Lisbon checked her cellphone only to discover she had missed several calls and text messages, this time from both Rigsby and Van Pelt. The same applied to Cho. Quickly, they shared a nervous glance before climbing into the SUV. Lisbon waited uncomfortably in the passenger seat as Cho placed the call through to Rigsby, immediately switching onto speakerphone. Unusually for Rigsby, he didn’t bother with preamble; he just got straight to the point.
“Jane’s gone. Red John has taken him, but there isn’t a body, just the smiley face in his office.”
To Chapter Twenty Five