FIC: Acrimonious (11/21)
Title: Acrimonious
Author:
sirenofodysseus
Disclaimer: …it’s probably better that Bruno Heller owns The Mentalist, really.
Rating: NC-17
Summary: After FBI Agent Susan Darcy is overheard telling Special-Agent-in-Charge Luther Wainwright that Patrick Jane may be working with Red John, Red John steals Jane’s body and begins to destroy the team’s lives one-by-one.
Spoilers: Brief spoiler for Crimson Hat (4x24), but the rest of this story is set after Something Rotten in Redmund (4x20).
Warnings: Violence, language, drug use, sex, non-con situations, mentions of child abuse/domestic abuse, negative character portrayals, major and minor character death.
Pairings: Red John/Teresa Lisbon, Patrick Jane/Teresa Lisbon, Wayne Rigsby/Sarah Harrigan, Kimball Cho/Summer Edgecombe.
11-
“Are you sure?” Red John asked into his cell phone as he stood within the dingy attic of the CBI one month after he had murdered Kayla and Madison Rivet as a part of his master plan, which was all starting to finally take shape. He idly watched a spider weave its gossamer web between two cracked windows while he waited for Thomas to respond to his question.
Red John wasn’t in any hurry for the accomplice to answer his question though, due to the fact that he spent the past few weeks holed up in Patrick’s despicable attic and nobody-with the exception of Teresa for high-profile cases and the random sexual act-had taken to disturbing him or distracting him from whatever he had been doing on his lonesome.
“I am absolutely positive, sir.” Thomas responded. Red John smirked at the sound of glee peppering his accomplice’s voice; after Patrick and Teresa, he had been waiting for almost five years to destroy the other individuals on the unit. He had Patrick incapacitated-Thomas had explained nearly two weeks ago that Patrick had finally stopped having seizures and instead, had taken to lifeless staring at the ceiling within the bathroom for long hours, in and out of consciousness-Teresa wrapped around his little finger-Teresa had fallen for him and if he asked her to jump for him, he had a feeling that the woman would ask how high?-the upper management within the CBI on edge-Wainwright had called Teresa into his office, weeks ago, to ask about his wellbeing. Teresa had lied for him, as he had told her: I don’t want Agent Wainwright knowing that I’m going through a hard time, because I want to work this case. I need to work this case, Teresa. And Wainwright had bought the lie, but he knew the man was keeping an extra close eye on him at crime scenes-but he hadn’t yet been able to do anything to the team in his past four months as Patrick Jane. “Everything was put into place this afternoon, sir, long before the vehicle had even been claimed from the parking lot.”
“And all I have to do is hit the space bar?” Red John asked.
“Yes, sir.” Thomas responded and Red John glanced away from the spider to the slender, black laptop sitting atop Patrick’s musty cot. The piece of technology he had gotten from one of his accomplices within the CBI after Thomas had rigged the entire system with a remote detonator. At the time Thomas had explained the entire process to him, he had been halfway between Teresa’s front door and her bedroom to help the woman out of her bra weeks ago, Teresa had understood his need to take the “extremely” important phone call and he had spent the rest of the evening-after the phone call-eating her out in a blissful haze at the good news. “You can set off the device any time after this phone call, as it is now in place.”
“Did you watch the vehicle as it left the parking lot this afternoon?” Red John hoped he had as he didn’t want to kill the only member of his inner circle left.
“Personally, no.” Thomas answered and Red John pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers; he had killed Rebecca with poison after she had been taken into custody, Todd Johnson with fire after he had almost spoken with Patrick, and if Thomas had to die for cause a major flaw in the plan, Red John would kill the man by drowning him in the ocean. “I had a problem with our patient earlier.” Red John furrowed his brows. Around others, they had both decided to use the word patient for Patrick Jane as it allowed for them to avoid suspicion around others. He hoped Patrick hadn’t started to seizure again as he didn’t want his body to be bruised black and blue from the man’s damned thrashing. “Don’t worry, sir. He grew a little aggressive this morning and threw himself-hard-into every surface within the room; his body is a little battered, but nothing rest won’t fix. The doctor,” which meant Thomas, “had to restrain him and put him back under. He’s now resting quite comfortably.”
Red John almost snorted. He doubted Thomas had given Patrick a comfortable sedation, especially as the accomplice had been given the order to do anything to keep Patrick under.
“Because of this, I put Dawson on watch.”
Red John removed his fingers from the bridge of his nose and rolled his eyes. Thomas hadn’t picked the best accomplice to send into watching the CBI parking lot, but Red John understood that most his other accomplices had other various tasks to accomplish and Greg Dawson was the only one, who hadn’t yet been assigned a task to evaluate his usefulness.
“Dawson called about fifteen minutes ago, sir. He said he noticed two individuals getting into the vehicle.” Red John waited for Thomas to continue. “One female, one male. The female was not a redhead.”
Relief flooded through his veins and his small smirk became a full-blown smile at the newfound information. His meticulously thought-out plan could continue and nothing, not even the feelings he held for Teresa, would stop him from destroying the Serious Crimes Unit now.
“Did you instruct Dawson to follow the vehicle?”
“I instructed him to do everything that you had instructed me to do, sir.”
“And?” Red John asked, as he tapped his foot against the attic floor.
“Dawson said they’re stopped at a gas station. The tire he managed to deflate will keep them there for another fifteen-or-so minutes.” Thomas answered and Red John continued to smile. He wouldn’t have to execute any of his accomplices for their failures and that made him happy. “Dawson isn’t sure how you want to go about this though, sir.”
That made him lose his smile. “What do you mean Dawson isn’t sure on how I want to go about this, Thomas?” Red John scowled. If Dawson or Thomas had changed the dynamics of his plan in anyway, both of them would quickly find his knife buried within themselves at their utter stupidities. “Did I not tell you to follow the vehicle and only deflate the tire? I never said that you should try and do anything else to them.”
“You did tell us that, sir.” Thomas agreed. Red John opened his mouth to curse when Thomas continued to speak. “However, Dawson’s idea does have some merit to it.”
His temper flared. “And my idea doesn’t?” Thomas said nothing. “I think you all have forgotten that I am in charge and that you do nothing without my order, whether I am personally there or not.” He had built the persona Red John from the start, when the name had been nothing more than a footnote and he wouldn’t allow for anybody-especially, two of his associates-to smear his good name. “I will not have your stupidities ruining the highpoint of my career, Thomas. You swore your loyalties to me, after I saved you from your whore of a mother. Don’t make me regret my decision of picking you off the streets, Nathaniel.”
Thomas said nothing and Red John shook his head. Years ago, Nathaniel Thomas had crossed his path as a young teenager, who had felt cheated by the hand of cards that life had dealt him; he had no father, his mother opened her legs for every man, woman and child, who would help further her cocaine addiction and Thomas-an innocent, on the verge of manhood-had fled from a place filled with unspeakable tortures.
Red John, feeling almost sympathetic toward the youth’s plight after he had found the teen trying to pilfer one of his platinum kitchen knives, had taken Thomas off the streets and away from disorganized crime to give the boy more than his cocaine snorting, whore of a mother had ever given him-excluding giving birth to him and breastfeeding him with those rather large tits of hers that had looked good on the floor, covered in her own blood.
He had provided Thomas with asylum from the criminal justice system, a “free” education to one of the best colleges in the United States, a place to live, an abundance of warm food to eat, a soft bed to sleep in at night and a father-figure to learn from, all in exchange for the boy’s complete loyalty and trust.
At the age of nineteen, Thomas had decided-with a little push in the right direction, of course-upon obtaining a degree in Criminal Justice and until one month before the boy’s graduation at the age of twenty-two; Thomas had never realized he was Red John.
It was only after Thomas had chosen his final research paper on Red John in one of his upper-level Criminology classes that he had decided to let Thomas know who he truly was and Thomas-still innocent and still very much curious-had watched his first murder with a gaping jaw.
“You’re Red John?” Thomas had asked in awe as the bloody smiley face had slowly started to form from Red John’s gloved fingertips. He-mask and all- had merely nodded and had prepared himself to kill Thomas for falling back on his promise for complete loyalty and trust.
But instead of running, Thomas had asked him, “Why?”
And over a cup of warm tea, free from all the blood and bodily fluids that a kill usually brought, Red John had told him the story of a little boy, who had wished for so much more than the daily beatings from his father and ridicule from people, who had known absolutely nothing about him. He had told about the little boy’s mother, who had ended her life in front of her only son, who had also been given the gift of a ruby smile to remember her by before her bloody death.
He had also told about the little boy’s father, who had become so overwhelmed with his grief and sadness that the little boy feared coming out of his closet-sized bedroom in case his father beat him within an inch of his life like he had done many times before.
Red John scowled. Patrick Jane often reminded him of his father, especially after the man had lost his wife and child: grief-stricken, unstable, depressed and consumed with rage. Only Patrick had been able to channel his anger into something other than a helpless child, who had done nothing wrong.
“You killed your mother.” His father had spat. His breath, Red John remembered with a shiver, reeked of alcohol and onions as the man leaned over him with his teeth barred. “You stood there and watched her die with a sick little smile on your face, you twisted fuck.”
He had tried to tell his father that his mother had dragged him into the bathroom, had tried to tell him that she had made him watch the last moments of her life fade from her eyes-her bare chest had risen and fallen, along with the scarlet waves that sloshed around her-but his father had never listened to him and he had stopped trying as the leather belt had found every inch of his body and the neighbors simply turned off their lights, because “nobody wants to involve themselves in our family matters, boy. They know you deserve this too.”
“You’re right, sir.” Thomas said, after a long period of silence. Red John refocused his attention from his thoughts to Thomas’s voice. “We shouldn’t have gotten ahead of ourselves, sir. I’m sorry. Please forgive me?”
“You’re forgiven.” Red John replied. In his ear, he heard Thomas exhale sharply and his grimace became a smirk again. Thomas, much like all of his accomplices, had learned early on that crossing him lead to death and if anyone didn’t execute each order perfectly; Red John had no qualms in killing to make examples out of each accomplice. “As you’ve put me in a charitable mood, tell me what you found about Greg Dawson’s plan that makes it merit worthy?” Thomas was smart; he knew what merit worthy was and what merit worthy wasn’t. Red John trusted his judgment to an extent and if the man felt the need to say something-especially, at the risk of his own life-the idea that Dawson had presented to him must have been pretty damn good.
“If you set the detonator off at the right moment, sir, Dawson pointed out that you have the possibility of a few things happening.” Thomas stated and Red John nodded, although he knew the man couldn’t see the action. “You could kill both individuals in the vehicle…”
“This is what I obviously want.” Red John interrupted, hastily. “What good are they to me if they are alive, Thomas?”
“I know this, sir. However, you also risk the chance of killing only one or killing neither, their injuries being the worst of all the damage.” Red John rolled his eyes again. He knew that. He had spent weeks planning out every little detail-researching every possible idea to maximizing damage, calculating every possible outcome and thinking about which outcome, out of the ones he had thought of, would hit the Serious Crimes Unit the hardest-and at the end of all that, he still knew his plan could fail but he had think that it wouldn’t. Failure didn’t set right with him; a serial killer, who had spent months doing the unthinkable to teach others a lesson. “Dawson thought about taking a shot to maximize the chances of death or to at least, maximize the amount of injury involved.”
Red John turned away from the laptop and ran his unoccupied hand through his hair in frustration. Dawson’s idea did hold merit, a lot actually. If the sharp-shooting accomplice shot someone in the vehicle dead and the other person survived the initial blast, the psychological effects (plus whatever injury was obtained) would do more than enough harm to everybody, who stood in the path of hidden destruction.
Besides, Red John thought, death is too good for them all.
“I can tell him no, sir.” Thomas continued. “Merit or not, this is your operation and…”
“Tell him yes.” Red John decided. “But he should only shoot the female, if he has a clear shot. Leave the male for me.” He didn’t wait for Thomas to reply as he ended the call, turned on the ball of his feet and grabbed the laptop from atop Patrick’s cot.
If he was going to blow somebody up using his laptop, he wanted others around to ensure the blame would be well placed and what a better place for everything to happen than within Teresa Lisbon’s cozy little office?
With a smile and a light skip in his step, Red John made his way to Teresa’s office as he hummed Bach’s Prelude in C under his breath.
Old habits, after all, did die hard.
Lisbon frowned as she scanned her latest email from Wainwright, who had felt the need to hold another budget meeting on top of her already full schedule for the week. She had three cases to testify in, another informal meeting with Susan Darcy to discuss Red John who had slipped through their fingers again after another one of Jane’s plans had gone awry and a case involving a local college campus, where nobody wanted to cooperate with them at all.
She reached for her lukewarm mug of coffee. If she was going to survive another two-hour drive to Cavalry College with a broken AC in the sweltering heat to question the faculty again; the more caffeine she had in her system, the better she was prepared for another day of getting nothing from anybody and working another case without Jane.
Jane, she thought with a frown.
The man had been even more of a recluse than usual lately, spending all of his time holed up in his attic which reminded her of his behavior after Kristina Frye had been kidnapped by Red John years ago; bitter, sad, vengeful and closed off from them all. Back then, Lisbon had tried to convince him that they-the unit-were his family and he had done nothing but toss her words away, obtain an illegal firearm and keep secrets from her.
After Madeleine Hightower had been framed for murder and Jane had failed in getting Danny Culpepper to steal the list of suspects in Todd Johnson’s death from J.J. LaRoche, Jane had turned to her from his world of reclusiveness and secret-keeping to trust her with his plans. Lisbon had liked being in the loop for once and she didn’t want their relationship to revert back to before their nights together, where Jane would keep everything from her until it blew up in both of their faces.
Lisbon knew Red John was the only person who could throw Jane off his game. Every Red John case proved that undeniable fact: from the Plaskett case, where Jane had rushed into a situation without taking the proper precautions to Rosalind Harker’s emergence into Witness Protection, which could have been prevented if Jane had just left the poor woman alone. It was why their last case had unnerved him even more than usual; the death of mother and daughter had sent Jane back into his world of solitude and she was worried about him.
Jane had said he was fine over and over again, but he knew how to lie to her and because of that, she couldn’t take his words at face value anymore.
“Lisbon?” Jane’s voice interrupted her from her musing and she glanced up from her computer to stare at him, as she sat her coffee mug back down. His jaw line, she noticed, was unshaven and covered in the beginning traces of peach fuzz and his hair remained unruly; the blonde locks curling wildly atop his head. Jane gave her the impression of a man about to drop from exhaustion with his bloodshot eyes and she quickly motioned for him to sit down on her couch. “Am I interrupting anything?
Lisbon shook her head. “Reading an email from Wainwright. I believe I can multitask though.” She kept her eyes on him. Jane settled himself on the white couch he had bought her while she noticed the laptop in his hands. “Did you need something, Jane?” He balanced the laptop on top of his uncrossed legs and opened the top of the machine before it started to hum. Lisbon wondered what he was doing as Jane plus technology had never mixed well together and if he had stolen the laptop from Van Pelt, she didn’t want to hear about it later.
“Besides you?” Jane responded with a playful smile on his lips and she fixed him with a stare. They were at work and that type of conduct between anybody-employee or not-was strictly against the rules, which Jane very well knew. “Not really. I borrowed the laptop in hopes of helping you do paperwork, as I feel I should be doing something around here.” She watched him frown, his eyes focused on the illuminated laptop screen. “But I can’t seem to work the space bar.” She sighed. Only Jane could manage to stick a key on a laptop that he didn’t even own. “Anyway,” he continued, “tell me about your latest case. Rigsby said something about a college campus parking lot feud, just without the mud and more blood?” Lisbon rolled her eyes at his choice of words.
“Calvary College is a little rural college, located two-hours away from here. The college has two parking garages: one for students and one for staff. Assistant Professor Zoe Henderson drove into work on Monday and found the body of Andrea Lee, the head of the anthropology department, in her parking spot.” Lisbon explained.
“I’m guessing she didn’t just walk there, did she?”
“Considering she’s missing the lower half of her body, no.” Lisbon responded, dryly. She watched Jane hit his hand against the keyboard before she spoke again. “The local PD can’t handle a case of this magnitude, which is why we were called in.”
“It can’t be that big of a case.” Jane stated. “She’s only missing her lower half.”
“It’s not.” Lisbon answered. The president of the college, Dr. John Marks-a squirrely fellow with wide, yellow eyes and a bushy mustache-had connections with the town’s governor, who was also apparently his wife. “The president has connections within the government and doesn’t trust the local PD to conduct the investigation.”
“You sound frustrated.”
“I am frustrated.” Lisbon replied; the entire case was giving her a migraine. “The president wanted us there, but he refuses to give us anything to work with. Students refuse to talk and we’re going back up to question the staff later today, just to see if we can’t find out anything more about Dr. Lee.”
“Ah.” Jane stated and Lisbon stared at him. While he had been holed up in his attic, doing God only knew what; the world hadn’t stopped spinning and the murderers of California hadn’t suddenly stopped killing others in his absence. Their caseload had increased to a staggering amount, which had prompted the continuous presence of Luther Wainwright in her office to see why they were behind.
Of course, it didn’t take a special-agent-in-charge to tell them all what they already knew.
The Serious Crimes Unit, whether she wanted to accept it or not, needed Patrick Jane’s help.
“Well, Lisbon.” Jane said to her. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. You are smart after all.”
She continued to stare at him.
Due to his lack of presence, their closed case ratio had plummeted and despite the numbers within her daily meetings with Wainwright, Lisbon had thought her team could solve cases without Jane.
But Wainwright had disagreed with her and that had been a week ago.
In anger, Lisbon stood from her desk and joined him on the couch. She hit the space bar with her hand, irritated that the man had been more interested in his paperwork than a case that just screamed Jane. “There.” Lisbon hit it again. “Now, it works.” Jane blinked in surprise. “Maybe you’ll help me now, instead of worrying about your paperwork.” She almost did a double take at her words. Had she really said that to him?
Jane nodded with a large smile across his face and she rolled her eyes at his behavior. It was just a space bar, not as if he had just won a million dollars or something like that.
“Patrick doing paperwork?” Lisbon heard Susan Darcy ask. She glanced away from Jane to stare up at the blonde FBI Agent, who stood in the doorway to her office.
“I try the best I can, Susan.” Jane replied. “I’ve learned where to sign my name. Maybe later Lisbon can teach me how to forge her signature.”
Darcy ignored Jane’s comment, as did she. “I hope you don’t mind me coming over unannounced. Over the phone, you said you had a busy week and I thought we could get this meeting out of the way.” Darcy glanced at them both; Lisbon pulled her hand away from Jane’s laptop. “Unless you both are busy, of course.” Lisbon shook her head and moved from the couch to sit back behind her desk.
“We can do the meeting now, Agent Darcy.” Lisbon replied. “I was just helping Jane out.”
“She was.” Jane said still with his huge grin. “My space bar was stuck and she helped me free it. Agent Lisbon is a life saver.” She threw him a glare to shut him up.
“As you both know, Red John has gotten away once again.” Darcy said after she had cleared her throat. Lisbon pulled her eyes from Jane to Darcy. “Agent Wainwright said Red John’s latest victim was one of yours?”
“She worked with us in conjuncture with the Elizabeth Shannon case.” Lisbon clarified.
A brief frown crossed Darcy’s lips. “The girl who was found in the basement of her parent’s home?” Lisbon nodded. “Poor girl.” A week after Kayla had been killed, Lancaster had gone hard after the Shannon family who eventually cracked under pressure and told him that they had kept their little girl in a cage. “Either way, I’m sorry for the CBI’s loss.”
“Thank you, Agent Darcy.”
“I’ll be honest with you, Agent Lisbon.” Darcy spoke. “The FBI and I are baffled as to why Red John would feel the need to stray from his pattern to kill two instead of one.”
“Does a serial killer need a reason to deviate from their pattern, Susan?” Jane asked, coolly. “Red John does whatever he wants, because he can.”
Lisbon watched Darcy spare Jane a glance. “Thank you for your input, Patrick. I’ll be sure and tell our FBI profiler that tidbit of information.”
“The next tidbit will cost you.” Jane replied and Lisbon glared again. “Red John killed Kayla and Madison Rivet to send a message, Susan. He probably doesn’t like the fact that my spare time isn’t spent tracking him down anymore.”
“You think Red John cares about your personal life, Patrick?” Lisbon almost groaned at her question. Jane had passed her lie detector test; he wasn’t Red John, he was just a man who was obsessed with the serial killer.
“I know he does.” Jane said. Darcy opened her mouth, when Jane continued. “Red John has moles everywhere; I doubt they’re here just to undermine the investigation.”
“Red John had a mole in the FBI too.” Darcy reminded them. “While it might have seemed that O’Laughlin was spending most of his time here, Craig O’Laughlin’s primary place of employment was the FBI.”
“I don’t forget that O’Laughlin was one of yours, Susan.” Jane answered. Darcy blinked. “It’s obvious, Agent. You showed up months after O’Laughlin had been murdered and you hold yourself as a woman who has lost someone dear; Craig O’Laughlin, perhaps?”
Susan bristled in anger. “What exactly are you implying, Patrick?”
“I’m implying, Susan,” Jane started, his tone overly sweet, “that you and Craig O’Laughlin were engaged sexually, outside of work.”
“Jane!” Lisbon exclaimed, horrified at Jane’s words toward the FBI agent.
“Did it hurt knowing that Craig had two others more important than you in his life, Susan?” Jane continued. “His life belonged to Red John. His heart belonged to Grace.” Jane’s smile grew. “Tell me, Susan. What part of him belonged to you?”
“You’re way out of line, Mr. Jane!” Darcy shouted, as she stood from the chair that she had claimed with her fists clenched. “You have absolutely nothing to base these accusations on and I would appreciate it, Mr. Jane, if you just kept your mouth shut on things that don’t concern you.”
“Everything involving Red John concerns me, Susan.” Jane stated. “From who he is to the moles he employees and the females that his moles bed.”
Lisbon opened her mouth to intervene when her cell phone shrilled into the office. With an apologetic smile, she excused herself from the room and answered her cell phone in the empty hallway.
“Teresa Lisbon?” A voice she didn’t know greeted into her ear.
“Yes?” Lisbon answered.
“This is Placerville General Hospital.” The voice responded again and Lisbon raised her eyebrow in confusion. Placerville, California was thirty-nine miles away and she didn’t know anybody from that particular county. “Do you know a Kimball Cho?”
“Yes, he’s one of my agents.” Lisbon informed the unknown speaker. Cho had asked to leave work a little earlier than usual, due to a personal situation that he had to deal with. “Is something wrong?” A call from any hospital, she had quickly learned, never meant anything good. The silence ticked on and finally, after what had felt like forever, she made her voice work again. “Hello?”
Her heart pounded wildly in her chest.
Cho’s probably fine, she tried to tell herself, there’s been a...
“There’s been an incident, ma’am.” The voice interrupted her thoughts and Lisbon’s heart shot into her stomach. “We don’t know all of the details yet, but there’s been one confirmed death and…”
She didn’t hear anything else.
Her cell phone slipped from her grasp and the object clattered to the floor.
One confirmed death, keep going through her mind as she slid her back against her office window, one confirmed death. Cho’s dead?
She barely heard her office door open or feel the pair of arms that had wrapped around her, until Jane’s voice was in her ear.
“What’s wrong, Teresa?”
“Cho.” She whispered. “Cho’s dead.”
And with that, the entire world fell apart before her eyes-seam by seam-until there was nothing left to grasp at, except for Jane.
--
Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five 1/2 - Part Five 2/2 - Part Six - Part Seven - Part Eight - Part Nine 1/2 - Part Nine 2/2 - Part Ten - Part Twelve - Part Thirteen - Part Fourteen - Part Fifteen - Part Sixteen 1/2 - Part Sixteen 2/2 - Part Seventeen - Part Eighteen - Part Nineteen - Part Twenty 1/2 - Part Twenty 2/2 - Part Twenty-One