Trick House (2/5)
Previous Parts: Prologue, Part One
Part Two
There was a slight chill in the air. Not because it was cold; if anything it was a touch on the warm side. However, it was because of the dawning realization that, yet again, they were dealing with Red John. Lisbon didn't know whether or not to be pleased that she was right or devastated because everything had suddenly become all the more complex. Worse, it was clear from the only piece of evidence they had to hand that Red John was trying to lure them into some kind of morbid treasure hunt, as such. The last time she had been involved in one of those, she had landed up being strapped into a bomb vest and had felt the threat of death close to her heart - quite literally. That was a situation that, naturally, she wasn’t all too keen to replicate. It wasn't long before the silence grew unbearable and eventually, it was Rigsby who broke it.
Lisbon had almost expected him to be the one. A simple glance in his general direction had told her all that she needed to know. He was the one who was feeling the worst about this, she could tell. Jane's expertise had rubbed off on her, if only a little. Her capabilities when it came to reading body language had grown considerably, if only to ensure that she remained at least two steps behind Jane, rather than trailing back further and further.
"The kid, Julie Coulson's kid, she goes to the same preschool as Ben."
Van Pelt gasped audibly and Cho simply nodded in response. Lisbon frowned; somehow, she knew that could only mean bad news. Red John had clearly targeted the Coulson family for a reason, as a message to them. He must have known that the Rigsby family had connections to the Coulsons, otherwise why would he have chosen her? Of course, that didn't necessarily exclude any other motives; it just added another one to the list. At the very least, it was definitely something they needed to consider seriously while tackling this specific case.
"Right," Lisbon answered slowly. She took a couple of steps closer to Rigsby and touched him lightly on the left arm with two fingers. "You okay, Rigsby?"
"Yeah," he said, before repeating himself. It sounded like he was trying to convince himself, more than anything else.
"You sure?"
She eyed him seriously and he nodded. However, he continued to wring his hands desperately and was unable to maintain eye contact with her. Yes, she decided, he was definitely lying to her. Naturally, she refused to judge him. After all, she herself had lied about how she was feeling barely fifteen minutes earlier. Instead, she had chosen to compartmentalize her fears for Jane rather than divulge them to the others. In reality, it was for their sanity as much as her own. If she told them every single time she worried about one (or more) of them, they would have decided to either take action, or grown concerned about how fit she was for duty.
"Can I take a look at that receipt?"
"Of course.”
Without another word, Lisbon placed it carefully into an evidence baggie and then handed it over to him. His eyes darkened as dawning comprehension struck him. Van Pelt cocked her head quizzically and asked him what was wrong moments before Lisbon herself had decided she needed to know what was up.
"The code,” he whispered tentatively and all eyes fixated on him.
"Yes?"
"It's my zip code."
Rigsby clearly went into a state of panic and it was Cho who reacted first, administering first aid as Rigsby hyperventilated. Lisbon stepped up, instructing him to think about his breathing, to bear in mind that there was nothing to worry about right at that moment. When she repeated Pat's words - that it could have been merely a coincidence - Van Pelt snorted derisively and Lisbon shot her a dirty look in response. That wasn't helping the situation and Rigsby, justifiably was immensely concerned. It was hardly surprising; it was clear that the life of his child - and now, fiancée - was on the line. The sooner that they knew Sarah and Ben were safe and well, the better. It was understandable that he was reacting like this; anyone would have done if they were in his shoes at this moment in time.
Once Rigsby had managed to get control of himself, Lisbon decided quickly upon their plan of action.
"Rigsby, go home. Check on your family," she instructed; this was one of those situations which called for compassion. "When you know they're okay, call me and get back to the CBI headquarters. I want you to find out everything you can on Julie Coulson. Why was she targeted, are there any other plausible motives? Okay?"
"Yes boss," he muttered and he scurried away before she had a chance to even start talking to the others.
Cho and Van Pelt eyed each other warily. In the midst of his panic, Rigsby had dropped the receipt and it was Van Pelt who picked it up. Lisbon took a deep breath; she had to treat this like any other investigation. If she lost her head, as Jane often did whenever Red John was back on the scene, then they'd have no chance in hell of gathering any scant information from this recurrence. Red John was only human; he made mistakes and she knew that they were more than clever enough to pick them out. The only question was putting in the time and effort - and capitalizing on them before the trails became meaningless once more. They couldn't let the Coulson death become another Rebecca, another Lorelei. They had to get into action, and fast.
"Cho, I want you to go to this grocery store, find out who bought these items. It might have simply been Coulson herself, but I don't think so. If Red John was out buying groceries, then we may have a witness."
She handed the receipt over to Cho and he too, disappeared off to carry out the tasks he'd been left with. After that, Lisbon turned to face Pat, thanked her quickly for her work and made her promise to keep her up to date with whatever she found out from the body. Then, she shoved her hands in her pocket, turned to face Van Pelt and announced that they were to go and talk to the neighbors and then to Coulson's widow. As far as Lisbon was concerned, telling somebody that their loved one had been brutally murdered was always the worst part of the job. She never had any choice but to turn their life upside down, and it never really got any easier. Worse, it was suspected that the daughter was missing too. Julie's husband could have lost not one, but two people in one go.
Before they did the rounds of the neighborhood, Lisbon took a brief moment to try and call Jane. He needed to know that she’d been right, that this was an important case. That it wasn’t just another run-of-the-mill killer they were dealing with, but Red John. If she tried to hide anything relating to him from Jane, she knew he wouldn’t forgive her for it. When he stubbornly refused to answer, she scowled and pocketed her cell phone and made a mental note to try again later.
The neighbors provided little information. One confirmed that Julie had been with her daughter in the moments leading up to her death. Neither of them had left the house for two days straight. Amber Coulson had apparently been feeling unwell, suffering from a touch of head cold and thus, unable to attend preschool. Julie had been the one to take the time off work to nurse her daughter back to full health. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Lisbon realized that that meant they had to tell the husband that his wife and been killed and daughter was missing, presumed dead. As far as they knew, there had been no ransom note. And as it was Red John, it was safer to assume that the child was dead.
It also meant that Red John was changing M.O.
Whenever Red John changed M.O. and that always meant bad things. Normally, or as close to normal as it was possible to get with a serial killer, that meant he was trying to play mind games with them all. Or, it meant that he was trying to stick the knife into Jane further. The last time Red John had killed a child, it had been Charlotte Jane, after all.
And the little girl that had now gone missing had links to Rigsby's son. Lisbon could see the link all too clearly: it was just one step away from it actually being Rigsby's son. Red John seemed intent on hurting everyone on the team. It just seemed like it was a case of them each waiting their turn to be brought into center play. Lisbon knew that Van Pelt would never truly get over what had happened to her with Craig O'Laughlin, Red John had already asked for Lisbon's own head in a box. Was now the time for him to truly damage Rigsby? And why now? Was it because he was finally setting up home with Sarah? Because he was truly happy and supposedly needed to remember what the darker things in life were like?
Lisbon shook her head. These thoughts were only serving to make her feel all the more uneasy.
"Boss?" Van Pelt eventually spoke.
"Yes?"
"What do you think all this means?"
"I don't know."
"Really?"
She could tell by the tone that Van Pelt did not believe her for one second. If she hadn’t been driving, Lisbon would have taken a moment to rub her temples to clear her thoughts. Instead, she merely furrowed her brow and tightened her grip on the steering wheel. Though the case had something to do with Rigsby, she swore that it had more to do with Jane. After all, it seemed all too convenient that he had been neatly cast aside just when Red John appeared to have struck again. That and he had been behaving in a particularly unusual manner of late.
“I think we need to get hold of Jane.”
“I agree,” Van Pelt said with a decisive nod. “You’re worried about him.”
“Yes, I am,” she confirmed.
xxx
It was his cell phone that eventually dragged him out of his trance. The videotape had long since stopped playing and the television screen merely showed a blank black image. Jane shook his head as he dug the offending object out of his pocket. Typically, it went to answer phone before he had a chance to take the call. However, Jane was entirely unsurprised to see that the caller was Lisbon. Of course she would have been the one to pull him out of this reverie. She was the one person he could rely on, no matter what, himself included. In a way, that made him feel somewhat better. In reality, he knew that her timing had been down to serendipity, chance, but it at least felt like she was watching out for him without even being present.
He didn't bother to call her back, however. Jane already knew that she would most likely be insisting that she needed his assistance on the case - whatever it was - and that he needed to drag his sorry ass back to the CBI headquarters. Lisbon was a competent cop; she didn’t need his help on every single case thrown in her direction. It was just a simple fact that he made it a hell of a lot easier on her and she liked having him around. And she worried about him, far more than was entirely necessary. With her, it wasn’t a case of ‘out of sight is out of mind’. She probably wanted him back just so she could keep tabs on him once more.
Well, that was going to have to wait. Somebody - no, Red John - had other games in mind for him. Intuitively, Jane knew he had no choice but to follow through with them. Once this house of tricks was done with him, then he could return to the land of the living.
And back to Lisbon.
For now, he had certain memories he was being forced to relive.
When his fingers clasped around the door knob, it wasn't a surprise that he was released from this specific cage. He didn't bother to head for the front door; this first room had been there simply to set the rules of play out in the open. The exit was still firmly shut and Jane didn’t need the physical confirmation to be able to tell. Now, part of him was dreading whether or not it would ever actually be open again. Though he tried to understand the mindset of Red John, he had always remained several steps behind. How was he to know whether or not the serial killer was using this as his final hoorah?
Maybe this ‘memory palace’ was his way of saying goodbye to old memories, to Jane himself?
Jane pushed the thoughts stubbornly down. Now was not the time to be thinking like that. If it was, then he only had himself to blame. After all, he had made the executive decision to pay attention to the note. He could have just as easily ignored it. Then again, Red John clearly understood his mindset. Sooner or later, he would have made the journey out here. It simply turned out that his resolve had crumbled within two days.
Instead, he made a beeline for door number two.
When the door swung open, Jane almost laughed at the sheer predictability of the second memory that Red John had selected as a part of this game. In a way, he had expected Red John to be a little more inventive in his choices, but then again, why did he need to be? It had been the best part of a decade and this specific set of murders were still the ones that haunted his scant nightmares the most.
The master bedroom of Jane's family home had been recreated right down to the finest of details. Nothing was too much of an effort for an artiste like Red John. Warm morning light trickled through the curtains, though Jane already knew it was merely an effect. For a start, his cell phone informed him that it was 01.34pm. Secondly, no amount of special effects could disguise the thrumming hum of rain beating out its military tattoo outside. At some point during his revisitation of Ms. Earnshaw’s murder, the heavens had opened up. It was only the discrepancy between sight and sound that had really made Jane pulls his socks up and take note.
The door slammed shut behind him. Immediately, Jane wheeled around on his heels and automatically, he tried to open it again. As expected, the door had been locked behind him. Red John had more surprises up his sleeve that he wanted Jane to uncover first, clearly.
It was strange; this was probably the Red John murder that he was most familiar with. It was certainly the one he focused on the most. What new tricks were hidden inside, he didn’t know. He didn’t really want to know either. As far as Jane was concerned he already knew everything he needed to know about Charlotte and Angela’s murders. There was nothing left that could change his perceived view of the murder. Obviously, Red John disagreed.
The words he himself had spoken on that old videotape echoed uncomfortably in his mind. Jane didn’t need reminding that it was ultimately his fault that they’d died. He was the one who had played with fire and they had gotten burned as a consequence.
As he ambled around a room that was all too familiar for him, he nearly tripped over one of Charlotte's stuffed toys - an orange rabbit with a rainbow pattern on his stomach - not so inventively named 'Rainbow'. Ignoring the fact that his eyes were misting over, he picked up the poor neglected stuffed animal to scrutinize it. The thing could quite easily have been the original; Jane wasn't entirely sure what he'd done with the majority of the contents of the master bedroom after their death. The manic depression he had slipped into had stolen those memories from him and now, more than ever, he bitterly wished it hadn't.
With a sigh, he placed the stuffed toy carefully down on the bed. The linen was freshly laundered, but that made very little difference to Jane. After all, the smiley face still loomed down on him aggressively. That seemed to be one feature that, thus far, was strongly present throughout this house. He hadn't been in a single area of it without its looming presence staring down at him. Red John had clearly made his mark on this property. He'd transformed it from an old dilapidated home, in need of some love and attention before it could safely become another home, into Jane's personal hell.
Then again, that was entirely the point, wasn't it? Red John had already asserted as much with his note underneath the first face.
Briefly, he wondered whether this replica smiley face was, too, painted with the blood of his wife and daughter. Jane wouldn't have put it past Red John to take a sample when he’d killed them; after all, what better way to rub salt into the proverbial wound?
Jane sat down beside Rainbow the rabbit (or at least, his identical twin). The mattress was soft and forgiving, just the way that Angela had insisted their marital bed should be. He'd never been able to stand such soft bedding, but endured it especially for her. After everything he'd put his wife through, he'd believed she'd deserved to live in the lap of luxury. She certainly didn’t deserve to die the way that she had done so. He sighed heavily; what was it he was meant to do in order to move on from this room? He knew everything about it, the contents of each draw, the clothes that hung in the closets, the way that sun basked the bed whenever they woke up. How Charlotte would come barging in at six a.m. in the morning, pushing open the oak door and shouting happily for them. Their own personal little alarm clock, he'd joked once.
Never again would he be awoken by his daughter's childish shrieks. She wouldn't demand her morning breakfast of strawberries and chocolate pancakes any more. That hadn't happened for years and yet, it still hurt as if it had happened just yesterday.
Eventually, his eyes lingered on the draws next to Angela's side of the bed. Top draw, underwear, middle, socks. He knew that by rote. The bottom contained mementoes and the like - things from their childhood, objects relating to Charlotte's birth, her diary...
Her diary. Jane had never once taken a peek in Angela's diary. Why would he have needed to when he had been able to read her like an open book? He knew when she was happy, he knew when she was sad and he could always tell how and why she was in such a mood. However, she still insisted upon writing it all down. 'I don't have a memory palace like yours, my love,' she'd said. 'I need to write things down to be able to remember them'. And he'd always respected her privacy; he wasn't going to go scrabbling through her memories, just as she wasn't allowed inside his memory palace, either. The glimpses they shared with one another were more than enough. Anything else was completely private and deserved to remain as such.
However, she was dead now. She would never know if he broke her confidence by taking a peek in her little book of notes. Jane smirked; would Red John even know that she'd kept a diary, from her youth and right up until the day that she died? Would he really have been able to keep it just that accurate? He scrambled up the bed, not particularly caring about the fact he was trailing muddy shoes across the white linen and leant down to the first draw. His hand quivered against the handle. What was he doing, why was he doing this? Surely the furniture was just for show and didn't actually contain replicas (or otherwise) of their personal possessions?
Jane opened it slowly, tentatively, with his eyes screwed tightly shut. It felt heavy to the touch, like it was filled to the brim, just as Angela's draw had been. Reluctantly, he took a glance and laying pride of place was the diary, just as it had looked ten or so years ago.
He allowed his hands to run over the smooth cover before picking it up. Silently, he told himself it had to be empty, that it couldn't be filled with things that Angela deemed important enough to record, surely.
After a few seconds of just holding the thing, he opened it. The handwriting was unmistakable. It wasn't Red John's, or anyone else's. It was too painfully familiar for that. No, this was the exact diary of Angela Ruskin-Jane. Even now, his wife's touch was familiar. In shock, he dropped the book and it fell open on the ground towards the end of the diary.
Frowning, Jane reached down to pick it up and return it to its rightful position. Instead, his eyes were drawn to the words and some choice sentences:
I do love Patrick, but is it enough? He never listens, is so stubborn and he barely spends time with Charlotte and I. And James is so kind, so caring and is brilliant with my daughter. He understands me and shows me the love and affection that Patrick denies me. Is it really possible for me to love two men at the same time?
To Part Three
Part Two
There was a slight chill in the air. Not because it was cold; if anything it was a touch on the warm side. However, it was because of the dawning realization that, yet again, they were dealing with Red John. Lisbon didn't know whether or not to be pleased that she was right or devastated because everything had suddenly become all the more complex. Worse, it was clear from the only piece of evidence they had to hand that Red John was trying to lure them into some kind of morbid treasure hunt, as such. The last time she had been involved in one of those, she had landed up being strapped into a bomb vest and had felt the threat of death close to her heart - quite literally. That was a situation that, naturally, she wasn’t all too keen to replicate. It wasn't long before the silence grew unbearable and eventually, it was Rigsby who broke it.
Lisbon had almost expected him to be the one. A simple glance in his general direction had told her all that she needed to know. He was the one who was feeling the worst about this, she could tell. Jane's expertise had rubbed off on her, if only a little. Her capabilities when it came to reading body language had grown considerably, if only to ensure that she remained at least two steps behind Jane, rather than trailing back further and further.
"The kid, Julie Coulson's kid, she goes to the same preschool as Ben."
Van Pelt gasped audibly and Cho simply nodded in response. Lisbon frowned; somehow, she knew that could only mean bad news. Red John had clearly targeted the Coulson family for a reason, as a message to them. He must have known that the Rigsby family had connections to the Coulsons, otherwise why would he have chosen her? Of course, that didn't necessarily exclude any other motives; it just added another one to the list. At the very least, it was definitely something they needed to consider seriously while tackling this specific case.
"Right," Lisbon answered slowly. She took a couple of steps closer to Rigsby and touched him lightly on the left arm with two fingers. "You okay, Rigsby?"
"Yeah," he said, before repeating himself. It sounded like he was trying to convince himself, more than anything else.
"You sure?"
She eyed him seriously and he nodded. However, he continued to wring his hands desperately and was unable to maintain eye contact with her. Yes, she decided, he was definitely lying to her. Naturally, she refused to judge him. After all, she herself had lied about how she was feeling barely fifteen minutes earlier. Instead, she had chosen to compartmentalize her fears for Jane rather than divulge them to the others. In reality, it was for their sanity as much as her own. If she told them every single time she worried about one (or more) of them, they would have decided to either take action, or grown concerned about how fit she was for duty.
"Can I take a look at that receipt?"
"Of course.”
Without another word, Lisbon placed it carefully into an evidence baggie and then handed it over to him. His eyes darkened as dawning comprehension struck him. Van Pelt cocked her head quizzically and asked him what was wrong moments before Lisbon herself had decided she needed to know what was up.
"The code,” he whispered tentatively and all eyes fixated on him.
"Yes?"
"It's my zip code."
Rigsby clearly went into a state of panic and it was Cho who reacted first, administering first aid as Rigsby hyperventilated. Lisbon stepped up, instructing him to think about his breathing, to bear in mind that there was nothing to worry about right at that moment. When she repeated Pat's words - that it could have been merely a coincidence - Van Pelt snorted derisively and Lisbon shot her a dirty look in response. That wasn't helping the situation and Rigsby, justifiably was immensely concerned. It was hardly surprising; it was clear that the life of his child - and now, fiancée - was on the line. The sooner that they knew Sarah and Ben were safe and well, the better. It was understandable that he was reacting like this; anyone would have done if they were in his shoes at this moment in time.
Once Rigsby had managed to get control of himself, Lisbon decided quickly upon their plan of action.
"Rigsby, go home. Check on your family," she instructed; this was one of those situations which called for compassion. "When you know they're okay, call me and get back to the CBI headquarters. I want you to find out everything you can on Julie Coulson. Why was she targeted, are there any other plausible motives? Okay?"
"Yes boss," he muttered and he scurried away before she had a chance to even start talking to the others.
Cho and Van Pelt eyed each other warily. In the midst of his panic, Rigsby had dropped the receipt and it was Van Pelt who picked it up. Lisbon took a deep breath; she had to treat this like any other investigation. If she lost her head, as Jane often did whenever Red John was back on the scene, then they'd have no chance in hell of gathering any scant information from this recurrence. Red John was only human; he made mistakes and she knew that they were more than clever enough to pick them out. The only question was putting in the time and effort - and capitalizing on them before the trails became meaningless once more. They couldn't let the Coulson death become another Rebecca, another Lorelei. They had to get into action, and fast.
"Cho, I want you to go to this grocery store, find out who bought these items. It might have simply been Coulson herself, but I don't think so. If Red John was out buying groceries, then we may have a witness."
She handed the receipt over to Cho and he too, disappeared off to carry out the tasks he'd been left with. After that, Lisbon turned to face Pat, thanked her quickly for her work and made her promise to keep her up to date with whatever she found out from the body. Then, she shoved her hands in her pocket, turned to face Van Pelt and announced that they were to go and talk to the neighbors and then to Coulson's widow. As far as Lisbon was concerned, telling somebody that their loved one had been brutally murdered was always the worst part of the job. She never had any choice but to turn their life upside down, and it never really got any easier. Worse, it was suspected that the daughter was missing too. Julie's husband could have lost not one, but two people in one go.
Before they did the rounds of the neighborhood, Lisbon took a brief moment to try and call Jane. He needed to know that she’d been right, that this was an important case. That it wasn’t just another run-of-the-mill killer they were dealing with, but Red John. If she tried to hide anything relating to him from Jane, she knew he wouldn’t forgive her for it. When he stubbornly refused to answer, she scowled and pocketed her cell phone and made a mental note to try again later.
The neighbors provided little information. One confirmed that Julie had been with her daughter in the moments leading up to her death. Neither of them had left the house for two days straight. Amber Coulson had apparently been feeling unwell, suffering from a touch of head cold and thus, unable to attend preschool. Julie had been the one to take the time off work to nurse her daughter back to full health. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Lisbon realized that that meant they had to tell the husband that his wife and been killed and daughter was missing, presumed dead. As far as they knew, there had been no ransom note. And as it was Red John, it was safer to assume that the child was dead.
It also meant that Red John was changing M.O.
Whenever Red John changed M.O. and that always meant bad things. Normally, or as close to normal as it was possible to get with a serial killer, that meant he was trying to play mind games with them all. Or, it meant that he was trying to stick the knife into Jane further. The last time Red John had killed a child, it had been Charlotte Jane, after all.
And the little girl that had now gone missing had links to Rigsby's son. Lisbon could see the link all too clearly: it was just one step away from it actually being Rigsby's son. Red John seemed intent on hurting everyone on the team. It just seemed like it was a case of them each waiting their turn to be brought into center play. Lisbon knew that Van Pelt would never truly get over what had happened to her with Craig O'Laughlin, Red John had already asked for Lisbon's own head in a box. Was now the time for him to truly damage Rigsby? And why now? Was it because he was finally setting up home with Sarah? Because he was truly happy and supposedly needed to remember what the darker things in life were like?
Lisbon shook her head. These thoughts were only serving to make her feel all the more uneasy.
"Boss?" Van Pelt eventually spoke.
"Yes?"
"What do you think all this means?"
"I don't know."
"Really?"
She could tell by the tone that Van Pelt did not believe her for one second. If she hadn’t been driving, Lisbon would have taken a moment to rub her temples to clear her thoughts. Instead, she merely furrowed her brow and tightened her grip on the steering wheel. Though the case had something to do with Rigsby, she swore that it had more to do with Jane. After all, it seemed all too convenient that he had been neatly cast aside just when Red John appeared to have struck again. That and he had been behaving in a particularly unusual manner of late.
“I think we need to get hold of Jane.”
“I agree,” Van Pelt said with a decisive nod. “You’re worried about him.”
“Yes, I am,” she confirmed.
xxx
It was his cell phone that eventually dragged him out of his trance. The videotape had long since stopped playing and the television screen merely showed a blank black image. Jane shook his head as he dug the offending object out of his pocket. Typically, it went to answer phone before he had a chance to take the call. However, Jane was entirely unsurprised to see that the caller was Lisbon. Of course she would have been the one to pull him out of this reverie. She was the one person he could rely on, no matter what, himself included. In a way, that made him feel somewhat better. In reality, he knew that her timing had been down to serendipity, chance, but it at least felt like she was watching out for him without even being present.
He didn't bother to call her back, however. Jane already knew that she would most likely be insisting that she needed his assistance on the case - whatever it was - and that he needed to drag his sorry ass back to the CBI headquarters. Lisbon was a competent cop; she didn’t need his help on every single case thrown in her direction. It was just a simple fact that he made it a hell of a lot easier on her and she liked having him around. And she worried about him, far more than was entirely necessary. With her, it wasn’t a case of ‘out of sight is out of mind’. She probably wanted him back just so she could keep tabs on him once more.
Well, that was going to have to wait. Somebody - no, Red John - had other games in mind for him. Intuitively, Jane knew he had no choice but to follow through with them. Once this house of tricks was done with him, then he could return to the land of the living.
And back to Lisbon.
For now, he had certain memories he was being forced to relive.
When his fingers clasped around the door knob, it wasn't a surprise that he was released from this specific cage. He didn't bother to head for the front door; this first room had been there simply to set the rules of play out in the open. The exit was still firmly shut and Jane didn’t need the physical confirmation to be able to tell. Now, part of him was dreading whether or not it would ever actually be open again. Though he tried to understand the mindset of Red John, he had always remained several steps behind. How was he to know whether or not the serial killer was using this as his final hoorah?
Maybe this ‘memory palace’ was his way of saying goodbye to old memories, to Jane himself?
Jane pushed the thoughts stubbornly down. Now was not the time to be thinking like that. If it was, then he only had himself to blame. After all, he had made the executive decision to pay attention to the note. He could have just as easily ignored it. Then again, Red John clearly understood his mindset. Sooner or later, he would have made the journey out here. It simply turned out that his resolve had crumbled within two days.
Instead, he made a beeline for door number two.
When the door swung open, Jane almost laughed at the sheer predictability of the second memory that Red John had selected as a part of this game. In a way, he had expected Red John to be a little more inventive in his choices, but then again, why did he need to be? It had been the best part of a decade and this specific set of murders were still the ones that haunted his scant nightmares the most.
The master bedroom of Jane's family home had been recreated right down to the finest of details. Nothing was too much of an effort for an artiste like Red John. Warm morning light trickled through the curtains, though Jane already knew it was merely an effect. For a start, his cell phone informed him that it was 01.34pm. Secondly, no amount of special effects could disguise the thrumming hum of rain beating out its military tattoo outside. At some point during his revisitation of Ms. Earnshaw’s murder, the heavens had opened up. It was only the discrepancy between sight and sound that had really made Jane pulls his socks up and take note.
The door slammed shut behind him. Immediately, Jane wheeled around on his heels and automatically, he tried to open it again. As expected, the door had been locked behind him. Red John had more surprises up his sleeve that he wanted Jane to uncover first, clearly.
It was strange; this was probably the Red John murder that he was most familiar with. It was certainly the one he focused on the most. What new tricks were hidden inside, he didn’t know. He didn’t really want to know either. As far as Jane was concerned he already knew everything he needed to know about Charlotte and Angela’s murders. There was nothing left that could change his perceived view of the murder. Obviously, Red John disagreed.
The words he himself had spoken on that old videotape echoed uncomfortably in his mind. Jane didn’t need reminding that it was ultimately his fault that they’d died. He was the one who had played with fire and they had gotten burned as a consequence.
As he ambled around a room that was all too familiar for him, he nearly tripped over one of Charlotte's stuffed toys - an orange rabbit with a rainbow pattern on his stomach - not so inventively named 'Rainbow'. Ignoring the fact that his eyes were misting over, he picked up the poor neglected stuffed animal to scrutinize it. The thing could quite easily have been the original; Jane wasn't entirely sure what he'd done with the majority of the contents of the master bedroom after their death. The manic depression he had slipped into had stolen those memories from him and now, more than ever, he bitterly wished it hadn't.
With a sigh, he placed the stuffed toy carefully down on the bed. The linen was freshly laundered, but that made very little difference to Jane. After all, the smiley face still loomed down on him aggressively. That seemed to be one feature that, thus far, was strongly present throughout this house. He hadn't been in a single area of it without its looming presence staring down at him. Red John had clearly made his mark on this property. He'd transformed it from an old dilapidated home, in need of some love and attention before it could safely become another home, into Jane's personal hell.
Then again, that was entirely the point, wasn't it? Red John had already asserted as much with his note underneath the first face.
Briefly, he wondered whether this replica smiley face was, too, painted with the blood of his wife and daughter. Jane wouldn't have put it past Red John to take a sample when he’d killed them; after all, what better way to rub salt into the proverbial wound?
Jane sat down beside Rainbow the rabbit (or at least, his identical twin). The mattress was soft and forgiving, just the way that Angela had insisted their marital bed should be. He'd never been able to stand such soft bedding, but endured it especially for her. After everything he'd put his wife through, he'd believed she'd deserved to live in the lap of luxury. She certainly didn’t deserve to die the way that she had done so. He sighed heavily; what was it he was meant to do in order to move on from this room? He knew everything about it, the contents of each draw, the clothes that hung in the closets, the way that sun basked the bed whenever they woke up. How Charlotte would come barging in at six a.m. in the morning, pushing open the oak door and shouting happily for them. Their own personal little alarm clock, he'd joked once.
Never again would he be awoken by his daughter's childish shrieks. She wouldn't demand her morning breakfast of strawberries and chocolate pancakes any more. That hadn't happened for years and yet, it still hurt as if it had happened just yesterday.
Eventually, his eyes lingered on the draws next to Angela's side of the bed. Top draw, underwear, middle, socks. He knew that by rote. The bottom contained mementoes and the like - things from their childhood, objects relating to Charlotte's birth, her diary...
Her diary. Jane had never once taken a peek in Angela's diary. Why would he have needed to when he had been able to read her like an open book? He knew when she was happy, he knew when she was sad and he could always tell how and why she was in such a mood. However, she still insisted upon writing it all down. 'I don't have a memory palace like yours, my love,' she'd said. 'I need to write things down to be able to remember them'. And he'd always respected her privacy; he wasn't going to go scrabbling through her memories, just as she wasn't allowed inside his memory palace, either. The glimpses they shared with one another were more than enough. Anything else was completely private and deserved to remain as such.
However, she was dead now. She would never know if he broke her confidence by taking a peek in her little book of notes. Jane smirked; would Red John even know that she'd kept a diary, from her youth and right up until the day that she died? Would he really have been able to keep it just that accurate? He scrambled up the bed, not particularly caring about the fact he was trailing muddy shoes across the white linen and leant down to the first draw. His hand quivered against the handle. What was he doing, why was he doing this? Surely the furniture was just for show and didn't actually contain replicas (or otherwise) of their personal possessions?
Jane opened it slowly, tentatively, with his eyes screwed tightly shut. It felt heavy to the touch, like it was filled to the brim, just as Angela's draw had been. Reluctantly, he took a glance and laying pride of place was the diary, just as it had looked ten or so years ago.
He allowed his hands to run over the smooth cover before picking it up. Silently, he told himself it had to be empty, that it couldn't be filled with things that Angela deemed important enough to record, surely.
After a few seconds of just holding the thing, he opened it. The handwriting was unmistakable. It wasn't Red John's, or anyone else's. It was too painfully familiar for that. No, this was the exact diary of Angela Ruskin-Jane. Even now, his wife's touch was familiar. In shock, he dropped the book and it fell open on the ground towards the end of the diary.
Frowning, Jane reached down to pick it up and return it to its rightful position. Instead, his eyes were drawn to the words and some choice sentences:
I do love Patrick, but is it enough? He never listens, is so stubborn and he barely spends time with Charlotte and I. And James is so kind, so caring and is brilliant with my daughter. He understands me and shows me the love and affection that Patrick denies me. Is it really possible for me to love two men at the same time?
To Part Three