Unforgettable face (part 1)
Author: Little_Firestar
Artist: miss_peg
Link to art: here
Word Count: ~10760
Rating: T (on the safe side)
Summary: After a one-night-stand of comfort sex, Lisbon, needing to distance herself from Jane, travels to Queens, to take in custody a person of interest in a cross jurisdiction case; there, she’ll not only find Jane already waiting for her, ready to try to win her over once and for all, but also someone she and her consultant know all too well: Jane’s brother-in-law, Danny Ruskin, now posing as Queen’s Robbery and Homicide Detective Roe Sanders. Is the con-man up to something, or, when Lisbon allowed him to walk away, something in him changed? And when and if the truth will come out, how it will affect Danny’s budding relationship with tech expert Tanya?
Disclaimer: The Mentalist and Unforgettable are both trademarked and propriety of CBS Productions.
Notes: Post My Blue Heaven and Green Thumb for the Mentalist, and around the season 1 finale for Unforgettable. X-over with the show “Unforgettable”, au-ish, playing with the fact that the characters of Danny Ruskin on “The Mentalist” and Roe Sanders on “Unforgettable”, shows both aired and produced by CBS, were both played by actor Kevin Rankin.
Theoretically speaking, it should have been an easy assignment, but Teresa Lisbon was supposed to know better. When exactly, in the last twelve years, had anything been easy in her life, after all?
But easy, that was only how the case had looked like at first. And, after the last few weeks she had had, Lisbon had been even glad that Abbott had taken pity on her and had decided to ask her to go and take Winston Monroe in custody from the Queens Homicide Unit. Many would have felt demoted, but she knew it wasn’t the case- even if she was technically a newbie and she would have deserved even less. Even Fisher had been a bit envious when their boss had given her the assignment. After the last few weeks, God only knew if her team didn’t need a break- and she, along with Jane, were the ones who needed it the most. It wasn’t just the fact that the last case had hit too close to home for comfort, with that awful Red John copycat that awoke dreadful memories she, Jane and Cho had tried to bury. It was what had happened during that case.
She sighed.
She had been a stupid if she had hoped that the past could be completely forgotten. There were wounds that couldn’t be healed, scars that would stay with them, no matter what. Intellectually, the had knew right from the start that this murderer of women and children wasn’t the real deal, but that hadn’t made it any easier for Jane. He was still the scarred animal she had met so long before- maybe because he had never learnt to properly let it go of his past. Apparently, he had told Fisher so on the Island, and he had repeated the words again to Lisbon herself, just few days after they found out about the second double murder. The moment was still imprinted in her memory, and she wondered if she was ever going to forget his words and his hunted and lost look.
No, she realized, shaking her head. There was just no way. Now when those words and that look were connected to what had followed, to her other senses, to a much more carnal memory. They had made a mistake, and she didn’t know if Abbott knew it or not, but surely he had sensed that something was wrong with them and that she and Jane were in need of some time apart. Or maybe, she needed the time and space apart- Jane, as always, was ready to jump in head first. But right now, she wasn’t ready to follow him. There were too many questions, too many things running through her mind, and to sort everything out, she needed time-alone. It wasn’t like she wasn’t respecting Jane or she was mad with him (although she was, a bit), she just wasn’t ready to admit to him that he was right, and he always had been: she was afraid of commitment- and there was nothing more scaring than committing herself to Patrick Jane, mind, body and soul, because anything between them was going to be total and eternal, and she remembered all too well what kind of heartbreak that kind of relationship could cause. She had witnessed it with her parents, and with Jane’s marriage. She didn’t want to end like her father if something was going to happen to him while they were in a relationship- his sting in Vegas and the two years apart after Red John’s murder had been already hell, and back then they had been just friends. And besides, she was making him a favor, too. Hadn’t he suffered enough after Angela? Did he really think he could handle being in a relationship with a fed, someone who was paid to get in dangerous, life-or-death situations all the time ? She didn’t think so.
But now, it wasn’t time to dwell on the past. She had already reflected on how she hadn’t handled the outcome of their actions, and how she could let him down gracefully, on the plane on her way to New York, and now it was time to stop. She knew the case, knew the people involved, and now it was time to do her damn job. She was good at it, always had been, and right now, it was her unique certainty in her life. As much as she had always wanted Jane to be in her life, she didn’t know if she could handle a relationship with him, not with so many things between them.
She shook her head, sighing, and strolled outside the gate of the JFK, and almost immediately she noticed an energetic redhead, a bit younger than her, holding a sign with FBI-AUSTIN written in bold letters. With a bright smile- she knew how much federals could be disliked- she went in the woman’s direction, and offered her hand to shake, first thing first.
“Queens Homicide?” Lisbon asked.
The redhead shook her hand, with strength, and yet carefully, still smiling. There was something mischievous about her- something that, Lisbon was scared of admit, remembered her of Jane a bit too much - but overall Lisbon had a good impression. Whoever the redhead with the shield was, she didn’t feel threatened by the FBI working the case with them. It was a rare exception to the general rule, and who was she to look a gift horse in the mouth?
“Yep. Detective Carrie Wells, nice to meet you, Agent Lisbon.” Lisbon looked at the cop with suspicion; she didn’t know if being flattered or what by the fact that Wells knew her own name. But thinking about it, it wasn’t that strange and she should stop being that paranoid-Abbott had probably called ahead and told Queens PD everything they needed to know in order to fill the necessary paperwork for Monroe’s transfer. Strange but true, the Queens PD hadn’t had any trouble at all with sharing the detainee with them; they probably even preferred if a man who murdered young women and their baby girls ended up being judged in Texas, where death penalty was still applied. Personally, she thought that solitary was as good as a punishment as any, but she could understand why someone could wish death to such a viscous creature.
Carrie smiled, again that mischievous smile, and Lisbon found out that she already liked the other woman at a skin level. She seemed interesting, and had what Jane referred to as “damaged intensity”, something that only someone who was in their line of job- and had endured personal loss- possessed. It was the same thing that Lisbon possessed as well, what, according to Jane, made her attractive: strength and endurance molded over sufferance and survival.
“You know, Agent Lisbon…” Carrie started as they were walking outside the airport, but the FBI newbie stopped her before she could move further on with her line of thoughts.
“Please, Lisbon is all right with me.” she paused and made a strange movement with her nose, a bit like Samantha in that old sitcom, “Bewitched”. “I just joined, and it’s still weird. Especially since I used to dislike the FBI.” She smiled, something that she hadn’t done in a while, but she couldn’t help it. For someone as closed off as her, it was a strange feeling, but she liked this woman. She felt secure, in a twisted and strange kind of way, like they shared something. Being women in a field mostly filled by men was already a good start, but Lisbon guessed there was more than that- something that “Carrie” seemed already aware of, and that Teresa could just feel.
“Yeah, don’t tell me. I used to work in a small town, so I understand how you must have felt when the FBI came down on your own precinct back in Cannon River…”
As the detective said so, Lisbon suddenly stopped where she was, barely avoided by the sea of people convulsively walking and running all around them. She knew there was something… odd about Carrie, but what did it mean? Had the detective googled her or what? And even if she had, why? Carrie seemed to trust her: was it because she liked what she had discovered, or was there something more sinister hidden in the shadows? She knew that after crossing paths with Red John she had become paranoid, and even when she had finally acknowledged the existence of a quieter life when the nightmare was gone, she had always felt a bit on edge, being very protective of her privacy. But this was different, not something dictated by fear and inklings. It was something real, tangible.
“How do you know…”
Carries stopped and turned to face Lisbon, almost face-palming, like she was sorry she had forgotten something vital. The mischief was back in her eyes- and Lisbon found out there it reminded her way too much of Jane. “Oh, please, I’m not some kind of cyber-stalker. Not that I don’t know my way around a computer- even if it’s not my area of expertise- it’s just that your partner explained to me that you aren’t our usual FBI agent because of your previous employments.”
“My…” She paused, filled by fear and anger. It wasn’t possible. She didn’t want to believe it. And yet, if she moved her head a bit to the right, she could already see it in the distance, the body of proof. “My partner?”
They started to walk again, and in no time they reached the red Corvette, and here he was, leaning against the hood of the car, with crossed arms, just like Lisbon had feared, her “partner”.
“Jane?” It wasn’t exactly a question, nor an affirmation. All she knew was that he could read all her mixed feelings in her eyes- and that she was a bit ashamed of it. She didn’t want to hurt him, that was why she had asked for a bit of time apart. She just needed to understand herself - and her feelings for him -first.
“Well, if you think this is a surprise…” He almost whispered, and she lifted her eyebrows, because it wasn’t the behavior she was expecting from him, not in this situation, at least. But then, as Carrie was already entering in the car, in the driving seat, she saw that there was another person against the other side of the vehicle, a man that Jane indicated with a small movement of his head.
“Lisbon, allow me to introduce you to detective Roe Sanders…” And when Roe turned and gulped down a mouthful of saliva, she understood why Jane was behaving so oddly. She looked at him, quizzically, wondering if he knew what was going on, looking for an answer, but in his eyes she could see he knew as much as she did-meaning, nothing at all.
Without saying a word, her eyes wide open in shock, Lisbon shook the young man’s hand- and wondered what the hell Danny Ruskin- Jane’s former brother-in-law- was doing in New York City- and, even worse, working in the force. With a false name: Roe Sanders. “Ehy, Al, we’re back with the feds!” As Carrie strolled into the office before them, Lisbon’s thoughts went immediately to the past, her happy- or at least, happier- days at the CBI. It wasn’t only the whole atmosphere, though, to awake her senses; it was the fact that Danny Ruskin was there.
Danny Ruskin. Aka Jane’s (former) brother-in-law. Aka the guy she had been supposed to arrest six years before and she left escape. Aka Detective Roe Sanders, Queen Homicide. The man she shook hands with just half an hour before. She didn’t like this whole situation- and yes, the fact that the guy had the potential to destroy her career factored in her opinion as well. Jane had always told her that, deep down, Danny was a good “boy” (although she didn’t know how Jane could describe as boy someone who had been almost 30 years old the last time they met) but she wondered if it wasn’t guilt to make him talk like that. She wouldn’t have been surprised if the mentalist thought of it like some kind of cry for help or a form of jealousy because the older man had stolen- and gotten killed- his older sister, Angela. After all, wasn’t she there when Danny told Jane that Angela had always been the only good and sane thing in his life?
As she shook hands with Al Burns, she shivered, and Carried looked at her with a strange mix of emotions. Yes, she was wondering what was going on with the fed, but her eyes were also shifting to Al- something that didn’t go unnoticed to Jane. The woman was probably misreading Lisbon, seeing a bidding attraction towards the lieutenant where the was just uncertainty. The mentalist would have smiled if things would have been different, because he really couldn’t understand how no one in the room understood that Al and Carrie desperately wanted to be in a relationship. Well, no-one but the old woman looking at the murder board in the corner-her little smile at the scene spoke volumes.
When Al offered his hand to Jane, the consultant just crossed his hands behind his back, rolling on the heels of his feet like he was an annoyed toddler who couldn’t care any less about the world outside what he wanted. “Yeah, well about this… as I am not here for an actual work-related reason and it’s not like my presence is really needed, I was wondering if you could show me a place where it’s actually possible to find decent tea.”
At his statement, Lisbon rolled her eyes and barely resisted the urge to grunt. She should have understood that the man had probably taken few days off and followed her around the country- taking a flight with no changes just to arrive earlier and be there to welcome her. If things had been different, she would have been mad with him; getting there for a job-related reason, that, she could accept. But he had blatantly refused to give her the space she had asked him for. She knew he wanted to prove her he was serious and he didn’t want her just because it was convenient or because it was easier, given their shared history, but by being so stubborn, he was just proving her fear right, that he didn’t really wanted her as she was, but just because she was the closest woman to him. It was stupid and a bit irrational, but it was what she thought. They had been at each other’s side for years, and yet, despite one single confession of love, later denied, he had never done anything to show that he cared for her more than a friend. What she understood was that Jane was probably sick and tired of being alone and a bachelor, and she was there.
But, despite everything… she was glad that Jane was there. Otherwise, she didn’t know how she could have handled this whole thing with Danny/Roe. Jane, well, he knew the guy, and he knew carnie people. He had his way with them- he was probably already thinking about how to get him to confess to whatever he was planning to do, or had done. Or whatever.
Now that she thought about it… despite Jane’s fixation with tea, it was probably why he had asked to be shown a good place for his beverage of choice. He was already planning on cornering Danny. She just wondered what they were going- and could do- about the thing now. She guessed they could expose him, but she didn’t think that Jane, with his sense of guilt, was going to agree with her. Also, there was the fact that she had allowed Danny to escape the last time they saw each other: just a word from him could bite her in the back. They had to be careful, as they were navigating dangerous waters that could easily turn deadly. She had made already enough mistakes in her life, and she didn’t want to add saving Jane’s only family to the list of regrets she carried around. She had never done so in the past, if she had to be honest, and she hoped she wasn’t going to in the future.
“Actually, Mr. Jane,” Burns started, looking a bit confused (she didn’t blame him) “I talked with Agent Abbott, and he said that, since you are here, you could provide us with further knowledge of the Red John case. If I understood correctly, you assume that your Red John copycat, Discoes, killed earlier with Monroe, and then they went their separate ways and kept killing on their own. I think we could really appreciate your insight, serial killers that brutal aren’t usually our thing.”
Jane shook his head, no, but then his eyes fell on Lisbon, her green eyes flaming and shining with rage. He knew it was hard enough for her to accept his presence there, and he guessed it was time to accept that they needed some middle ground. Show her he was doing his best- and helping out with a case (although already closed) was going to make him look good in her eyes. He mentally sighed, realizing that if he wanted any chance to enter again in her bed, and her life in general, he had to start to act on his best behavior.
“Well?” Al asked, his arms crossed. He was eyeing Jane not exactly suspiciously, but maybe like he had two heads. As soon as Carrie and Roe had called and said there was one more person to add to their visitor log, he had googled Jane’s name out of curiosity, and frankly, he wasn’t getting what Blondie was about. On paper, he seemed like some kind of crazy genius, a first class closer, but right now, the first impression wasn’t exactly any good. More than anything, Patrick Jane looked like a gambler with a lucky star who solved cases because the solution used to fall in his lap.
“Uhm… well, as I already told my… boss,” he hissed the word, almost disgusted, like thinking about Agent Abbott as his boss was somehow a shame or a sin. “I think Monroe, your killer, and the man we caught, Discoes, had been working together in the past. Our first victims were a young child and a woman who took self-defense classes with good results; one killer would have never been able to subdue her on his own. I think that at least that one case was the work of a team, and in fact, if you look closely, you’ll notice that there was a slight change of MO in the following double homicide.” Al opened his mouth to ask something again, and Jane saw that also Lisbon was going to ask him something. She looked rather annoyed, and he guessed he knew the reasons. First, he had followed her, and second, he was behaving like an annoying knew-it-all, the man who knew he was the smartest in the room: she had never liked when he made fun of cops, and pretended to be better than them, a weapon that couldn’t be renounced; she had tried to tell him more than once that she had always closed cases without him (even if he helped to increase the numbers) but he still liked to make his point.
He grinned, and looking with unmasked pride at his lady-cop friend/girlfriend of sort, he went on, showing off as his usual. He couldn’t wait for the moment Lisbon would roll her eyes at him, or glare in his direction; he loved to drive her crazy, and it was something he thought he couldn’t make without.
“Anyway, Lisbon, to get to your question, and yes, I know what you were going to ask me…” He said, pointing his right index finger in her general direction. “As I was saying, I highly doubt we are dealing with a Blake Association rogue cell. Someone that close to Red John would have hit before in order to get me back here in the States, hurting someone I cared about, first thing first. If we’ll give another look at the first case in Texas, it’s unlikely that we’ll discover that Monroe or Discoes were connected to them. Back then, there had been that special on television about the Dresden case we worked on, and I remember Red John was mentioned when they made our profile. They probably took inspiration from that clip, and they discovered the rest thanks to the internet- by the way, ask our tech experts to check their computers and phones, I’m adamant they were so sure we’d never find them that they didn’t even bother to erase their browser history.”
Jane paused, then turned to look at Al once again. His eyes were darker, he was suddenly more serious. He hated with every cell of his being those two monsters, who re-opened an old wound that had never healed properly, but he was compassionate for the victims of the two killers; women and children, all innocents, wives and daughters of innocents men, men who, contrary to him, had done nothing to awake the desire of revenge and the rage that had hit their beloved.
“The first cut is the deepest, it’s said, and it often awakes a desire and need for further blood. Discoes was a killer in the making, his profile is school-book. Once he had the first taste, he found himself unable to stop, like an addict. Monroe left Texas for New York few weeks after the third homicide, he didn’t have anything to do with it, but he knew who was the culprit since he heard the news. Who knows, maybe Discoes even went to him himself to tell him of his spree. Monroe got scared. He didn’t want to be dragged down with his old pal, so he flee. He knew that otherwise he would have gone to him, helped him out. But then, he sees that we arrest his friend in Texas, and that, is what is referred to as a trigger. He starts to kill, maybe because he thinks there’s nothing holding him back now that his old predominant partner is down, or maybe he thinks of this as some kind of mission. And just like he thought… once he starts, he can’t stop.”
He took a big breath, his eyes a bit lost. Just because it was the only thing he was able to do, just because it was his job, it didn’t mean that he had to like it. Lorelai Martins, in that, had been right. But for the wrong reasons. “Monroe became a killer as part of a killer team, and he was the subdued unit. It means that now that his old partner is gone, he has turned himself into the dominator. You should look for someone else- I’d say a young man who’s probably scared to death and held captive somewhere. Look at the relatives and friends of the first victims here, he may be connected to them. Look for dried tears on the crime scenes, he probably cried as Monroe forced him to kill.”
He put his hands in his pockets, and turned on his heels, and without adding another word, he flee the scene, Roe hot on his trail, with a lot of questions, and maybe no answers at all for his former brother-in-law.
Artist: miss_peg
Link to art: here
Word Count: ~10760
Rating: T (on the safe side)
Summary: After a one-night-stand of comfort sex, Lisbon, needing to distance herself from Jane, travels to Queens, to take in custody a person of interest in a cross jurisdiction case; there, she’ll not only find Jane already waiting for her, ready to try to win her over once and for all, but also someone she and her consultant know all too well: Jane’s brother-in-law, Danny Ruskin, now posing as Queen’s Robbery and Homicide Detective Roe Sanders. Is the con-man up to something, or, when Lisbon allowed him to walk away, something in him changed? And when and if the truth will come out, how it will affect Danny’s budding relationship with tech expert Tanya?
Disclaimer: The Mentalist and Unforgettable are both trademarked and propriety of CBS Productions.
Notes: Post My Blue Heaven and Green Thumb for the Mentalist, and around the season 1 finale for Unforgettable. X-over with the show “Unforgettable”, au-ish, playing with the fact that the characters of Danny Ruskin on “The Mentalist” and Roe Sanders on “Unforgettable”, shows both aired and produced by CBS, were both played by actor Kevin Rankin.
Theoretically speaking, it should have been an easy assignment, but Teresa Lisbon was supposed to know better. When exactly, in the last twelve years, had anything been easy in her life, after all?
But easy, that was only how the case had looked like at first. And, after the last few weeks she had had, Lisbon had been even glad that Abbott had taken pity on her and had decided to ask her to go and take Winston Monroe in custody from the Queens Homicide Unit. Many would have felt demoted, but she knew it wasn’t the case- even if she was technically a newbie and she would have deserved even less. Even Fisher had been a bit envious when their boss had given her the assignment. After the last few weeks, God only knew if her team didn’t need a break- and she, along with Jane, were the ones who needed it the most. It wasn’t just the fact that the last case had hit too close to home for comfort, with that awful Red John copycat that awoke dreadful memories she, Jane and Cho had tried to bury. It was what had happened during that case.
She sighed.
She had been a stupid if she had hoped that the past could be completely forgotten. There were wounds that couldn’t be healed, scars that would stay with them, no matter what. Intellectually, the had knew right from the start that this murderer of women and children wasn’t the real deal, but that hadn’t made it any easier for Jane. He was still the scarred animal she had met so long before- maybe because he had never learnt to properly let it go of his past. Apparently, he had told Fisher so on the Island, and he had repeated the words again to Lisbon herself, just few days after they found out about the second double murder. The moment was still imprinted in her memory, and she wondered if she was ever going to forget his words and his hunted and lost look.
No, she realized, shaking her head. There was just no way. Now when those words and that look were connected to what had followed, to her other senses, to a much more carnal memory. They had made a mistake, and she didn’t know if Abbott knew it or not, but surely he had sensed that something was wrong with them and that she and Jane were in need of some time apart. Or maybe, she needed the time and space apart- Jane, as always, was ready to jump in head first. But right now, she wasn’t ready to follow him. There were too many questions, too many things running through her mind, and to sort everything out, she needed time-alone. It wasn’t like she wasn’t respecting Jane or she was mad with him (although she was, a bit), she just wasn’t ready to admit to him that he was right, and he always had been: she was afraid of commitment- and there was nothing more scaring than committing herself to Patrick Jane, mind, body and soul, because anything between them was going to be total and eternal, and she remembered all too well what kind of heartbreak that kind of relationship could cause. She had witnessed it with her parents, and with Jane’s marriage. She didn’t want to end like her father if something was going to happen to him while they were in a relationship- his sting in Vegas and the two years apart after Red John’s murder had been already hell, and back then they had been just friends. And besides, she was making him a favor, too. Hadn’t he suffered enough after Angela? Did he really think he could handle being in a relationship with a fed, someone who was paid to get in dangerous, life-or-death situations all the time ? She didn’t think so.
But now, it wasn’t time to dwell on the past. She had already reflected on how she hadn’t handled the outcome of their actions, and how she could let him down gracefully, on the plane on her way to New York, and now it was time to stop. She knew the case, knew the people involved, and now it was time to do her damn job. She was good at it, always had been, and right now, it was her unique certainty in her life. As much as she had always wanted Jane to be in her life, she didn’t know if she could handle a relationship with him, not with so many things between them.
She shook her head, sighing, and strolled outside the gate of the JFK, and almost immediately she noticed an energetic redhead, a bit younger than her, holding a sign with FBI-AUSTIN written in bold letters. With a bright smile- she knew how much federals could be disliked- she went in the woman’s direction, and offered her hand to shake, first thing first.
“Queens Homicide?” Lisbon asked.
The redhead shook her hand, with strength, and yet carefully, still smiling. There was something mischievous about her- something that, Lisbon was scared of admit, remembered her of Jane a bit too much - but overall Lisbon had a good impression. Whoever the redhead with the shield was, she didn’t feel threatened by the FBI working the case with them. It was a rare exception to the general rule, and who was she to look a gift horse in the mouth?
“Yep. Detective Carrie Wells, nice to meet you, Agent Lisbon.” Lisbon looked at the cop with suspicion; she didn’t know if being flattered or what by the fact that Wells knew her own name. But thinking about it, it wasn’t that strange and she should stop being that paranoid-Abbott had probably called ahead and told Queens PD everything they needed to know in order to fill the necessary paperwork for Monroe’s transfer. Strange but true, the Queens PD hadn’t had any trouble at all with sharing the detainee with them; they probably even preferred if a man who murdered young women and their baby girls ended up being judged in Texas, where death penalty was still applied. Personally, she thought that solitary was as good as a punishment as any, but she could understand why someone could wish death to such a viscous creature.
Carrie smiled, again that mischievous smile, and Lisbon found out that she already liked the other woman at a skin level. She seemed interesting, and had what Jane referred to as “damaged intensity”, something that only someone who was in their line of job- and had endured personal loss- possessed. It was the same thing that Lisbon possessed as well, what, according to Jane, made her attractive: strength and endurance molded over sufferance and survival.
“You know, Agent Lisbon…” Carrie started as they were walking outside the airport, but the FBI newbie stopped her before she could move further on with her line of thoughts.
“Please, Lisbon is all right with me.” she paused and made a strange movement with her nose, a bit like Samantha in that old sitcom, “Bewitched”. “I just joined, and it’s still weird. Especially since I used to dislike the FBI.” She smiled, something that she hadn’t done in a while, but she couldn’t help it. For someone as closed off as her, it was a strange feeling, but she liked this woman. She felt secure, in a twisted and strange kind of way, like they shared something. Being women in a field mostly filled by men was already a good start, but Lisbon guessed there was more than that- something that “Carrie” seemed already aware of, and that Teresa could just feel.
“Yeah, don’t tell me. I used to work in a small town, so I understand how you must have felt when the FBI came down on your own precinct back in Cannon River…”
As the detective said so, Lisbon suddenly stopped where she was, barely avoided by the sea of people convulsively walking and running all around them. She knew there was something… odd about Carrie, but what did it mean? Had the detective googled her or what? And even if she had, why? Carrie seemed to trust her: was it because she liked what she had discovered, or was there something more sinister hidden in the shadows? She knew that after crossing paths with Red John she had become paranoid, and even when she had finally acknowledged the existence of a quieter life when the nightmare was gone, she had always felt a bit on edge, being very protective of her privacy. But this was different, not something dictated by fear and inklings. It was something real, tangible.
“How do you know…”
Carries stopped and turned to face Lisbon, almost face-palming, like she was sorry she had forgotten something vital. The mischief was back in her eyes- and Lisbon found out there it reminded her way too much of Jane. “Oh, please, I’m not some kind of cyber-stalker. Not that I don’t know my way around a computer- even if it’s not my area of expertise- it’s just that your partner explained to me that you aren’t our usual FBI agent because of your previous employments.”
“My…” She paused, filled by fear and anger. It wasn’t possible. She didn’t want to believe it. And yet, if she moved her head a bit to the right, she could already see it in the distance, the body of proof. “My partner?”
They started to walk again, and in no time they reached the red Corvette, and here he was, leaning against the hood of the car, with crossed arms, just like Lisbon had feared, her “partner”.
“Jane?” It wasn’t exactly a question, nor an affirmation. All she knew was that he could read all her mixed feelings in her eyes- and that she was a bit ashamed of it. She didn’t want to hurt him, that was why she had asked for a bit of time apart. She just needed to understand herself - and her feelings for him -first.
“Well, if you think this is a surprise…” He almost whispered, and she lifted her eyebrows, because it wasn’t the behavior she was expecting from him, not in this situation, at least. But then, as Carrie was already entering in the car, in the driving seat, she saw that there was another person against the other side of the vehicle, a man that Jane indicated with a small movement of his head.
“Lisbon, allow me to introduce you to detective Roe Sanders…” And when Roe turned and gulped down a mouthful of saliva, she understood why Jane was behaving so oddly. She looked at him, quizzically, wondering if he knew what was going on, looking for an answer, but in his eyes she could see he knew as much as she did-meaning, nothing at all.
Without saying a word, her eyes wide open in shock, Lisbon shook the young man’s hand- and wondered what the hell Danny Ruskin- Jane’s former brother-in-law- was doing in New York City- and, even worse, working in the force. With a false name: Roe Sanders. “Ehy, Al, we’re back with the feds!” As Carrie strolled into the office before them, Lisbon’s thoughts went immediately to the past, her happy- or at least, happier- days at the CBI. It wasn’t only the whole atmosphere, though, to awake her senses; it was the fact that Danny Ruskin was there.
Danny Ruskin. Aka Jane’s (former) brother-in-law. Aka the guy she had been supposed to arrest six years before and she left escape. Aka Detective Roe Sanders, Queen Homicide. The man she shook hands with just half an hour before. She didn’t like this whole situation- and yes, the fact that the guy had the potential to destroy her career factored in her opinion as well. Jane had always told her that, deep down, Danny was a good “boy” (although she didn’t know how Jane could describe as boy someone who had been almost 30 years old the last time they met) but she wondered if it wasn’t guilt to make him talk like that. She wouldn’t have been surprised if the mentalist thought of it like some kind of cry for help or a form of jealousy because the older man had stolen- and gotten killed- his older sister, Angela. After all, wasn’t she there when Danny told Jane that Angela had always been the only good and sane thing in his life?
As she shook hands with Al Burns, she shivered, and Carried looked at her with a strange mix of emotions. Yes, she was wondering what was going on with the fed, but her eyes were also shifting to Al- something that didn’t go unnoticed to Jane. The woman was probably misreading Lisbon, seeing a bidding attraction towards the lieutenant where the was just uncertainty. The mentalist would have smiled if things would have been different, because he really couldn’t understand how no one in the room understood that Al and Carrie desperately wanted to be in a relationship. Well, no-one but the old woman looking at the murder board in the corner-her little smile at the scene spoke volumes.
When Al offered his hand to Jane, the consultant just crossed his hands behind his back, rolling on the heels of his feet like he was an annoyed toddler who couldn’t care any less about the world outside what he wanted. “Yeah, well about this… as I am not here for an actual work-related reason and it’s not like my presence is really needed, I was wondering if you could show me a place where it’s actually possible to find decent tea.”
At his statement, Lisbon rolled her eyes and barely resisted the urge to grunt. She should have understood that the man had probably taken few days off and followed her around the country- taking a flight with no changes just to arrive earlier and be there to welcome her. If things had been different, she would have been mad with him; getting there for a job-related reason, that, she could accept. But he had blatantly refused to give her the space she had asked him for. She knew he wanted to prove her he was serious and he didn’t want her just because it was convenient or because it was easier, given their shared history, but by being so stubborn, he was just proving her fear right, that he didn’t really wanted her as she was, but just because she was the closest woman to him. It was stupid and a bit irrational, but it was what she thought. They had been at each other’s side for years, and yet, despite one single confession of love, later denied, he had never done anything to show that he cared for her more than a friend. What she understood was that Jane was probably sick and tired of being alone and a bachelor, and she was there.
But, despite everything… she was glad that Jane was there. Otherwise, she didn’t know how she could have handled this whole thing with Danny/Roe. Jane, well, he knew the guy, and he knew carnie people. He had his way with them- he was probably already thinking about how to get him to confess to whatever he was planning to do, or had done. Or whatever.
Now that she thought about it… despite Jane’s fixation with tea, it was probably why he had asked to be shown a good place for his beverage of choice. He was already planning on cornering Danny. She just wondered what they were going- and could do- about the thing now. She guessed they could expose him, but she didn’t think that Jane, with his sense of guilt, was going to agree with her. Also, there was the fact that she had allowed Danny to escape the last time they saw each other: just a word from him could bite her in the back. They had to be careful, as they were navigating dangerous waters that could easily turn deadly. She had made already enough mistakes in her life, and she didn’t want to add saving Jane’s only family to the list of regrets she carried around. She had never done so in the past, if she had to be honest, and she hoped she wasn’t going to in the future.
“Actually, Mr. Jane,” Burns started, looking a bit confused (she didn’t blame him) “I talked with Agent Abbott, and he said that, since you are here, you could provide us with further knowledge of the Red John case. If I understood correctly, you assume that your Red John copycat, Discoes, killed earlier with Monroe, and then they went their separate ways and kept killing on their own. I think we could really appreciate your insight, serial killers that brutal aren’t usually our thing.”
Jane shook his head, no, but then his eyes fell on Lisbon, her green eyes flaming and shining with rage. He knew it was hard enough for her to accept his presence there, and he guessed it was time to accept that they needed some middle ground. Show her he was doing his best- and helping out with a case (although already closed) was going to make him look good in her eyes. He mentally sighed, realizing that if he wanted any chance to enter again in her bed, and her life in general, he had to start to act on his best behavior.
“Well?” Al asked, his arms crossed. He was eyeing Jane not exactly suspiciously, but maybe like he had two heads. As soon as Carrie and Roe had called and said there was one more person to add to their visitor log, he had googled Jane’s name out of curiosity, and frankly, he wasn’t getting what Blondie was about. On paper, he seemed like some kind of crazy genius, a first class closer, but right now, the first impression wasn’t exactly any good. More than anything, Patrick Jane looked like a gambler with a lucky star who solved cases because the solution used to fall in his lap.
“Uhm… well, as I already told my… boss,” he hissed the word, almost disgusted, like thinking about Agent Abbott as his boss was somehow a shame or a sin. “I think Monroe, your killer, and the man we caught, Discoes, had been working together in the past. Our first victims were a young child and a woman who took self-defense classes with good results; one killer would have never been able to subdue her on his own. I think that at least that one case was the work of a team, and in fact, if you look closely, you’ll notice that there was a slight change of MO in the following double homicide.” Al opened his mouth to ask something again, and Jane saw that also Lisbon was going to ask him something. She looked rather annoyed, and he guessed he knew the reasons. First, he had followed her, and second, he was behaving like an annoying knew-it-all, the man who knew he was the smartest in the room: she had never liked when he made fun of cops, and pretended to be better than them, a weapon that couldn’t be renounced; she had tried to tell him more than once that she had always closed cases without him (even if he helped to increase the numbers) but he still liked to make his point.
He grinned, and looking with unmasked pride at his lady-cop friend/girlfriend of sort, he went on, showing off as his usual. He couldn’t wait for the moment Lisbon would roll her eyes at him, or glare in his direction; he loved to drive her crazy, and it was something he thought he couldn’t make without.
“Anyway, Lisbon, to get to your question, and yes, I know what you were going to ask me…” He said, pointing his right index finger in her general direction. “As I was saying, I highly doubt we are dealing with a Blake Association rogue cell. Someone that close to Red John would have hit before in order to get me back here in the States, hurting someone I cared about, first thing first. If we’ll give another look at the first case in Texas, it’s unlikely that we’ll discover that Monroe or Discoes were connected to them. Back then, there had been that special on television about the Dresden case we worked on, and I remember Red John was mentioned when they made our profile. They probably took inspiration from that clip, and they discovered the rest thanks to the internet- by the way, ask our tech experts to check their computers and phones, I’m adamant they were so sure we’d never find them that they didn’t even bother to erase their browser history.”
Jane paused, then turned to look at Al once again. His eyes were darker, he was suddenly more serious. He hated with every cell of his being those two monsters, who re-opened an old wound that had never healed properly, but he was compassionate for the victims of the two killers; women and children, all innocents, wives and daughters of innocents men, men who, contrary to him, had done nothing to awake the desire of revenge and the rage that had hit their beloved.
“The first cut is the deepest, it’s said, and it often awakes a desire and need for further blood. Discoes was a killer in the making, his profile is school-book. Once he had the first taste, he found himself unable to stop, like an addict. Monroe left Texas for New York few weeks after the third homicide, he didn’t have anything to do with it, but he knew who was the culprit since he heard the news. Who knows, maybe Discoes even went to him himself to tell him of his spree. Monroe got scared. He didn’t want to be dragged down with his old pal, so he flee. He knew that otherwise he would have gone to him, helped him out. But then, he sees that we arrest his friend in Texas, and that, is what is referred to as a trigger. He starts to kill, maybe because he thinks there’s nothing holding him back now that his old predominant partner is down, or maybe he thinks of this as some kind of mission. And just like he thought… once he starts, he can’t stop.”
He took a big breath, his eyes a bit lost. Just because it was the only thing he was able to do, just because it was his job, it didn’t mean that he had to like it. Lorelai Martins, in that, had been right. But for the wrong reasons. “Monroe became a killer as part of a killer team, and he was the subdued unit. It means that now that his old partner is gone, he has turned himself into the dominator. You should look for someone else- I’d say a young man who’s probably scared to death and held captive somewhere. Look at the relatives and friends of the first victims here, he may be connected to them. Look for dried tears on the crime scenes, he probably cried as Monroe forced him to kill.”
He put his hands in his pockets, and turned on his heels, and without adding another word, he flee the scene, Roe hot on his trail, with a lot of questions, and maybe no answers at all for his former brother-in-law.