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Lisbon watched Jane out of the corner of her eye as he slowly walked to the door of her apartment. He paused at the door and looked back at her, wanting to reassure her but unable to find the words. She looked away, blinking back tears, until he finally left. When she heard the door close behind him, she walked over, locked the deadbolt, turned and leaned back against the door, and slid down to the floor. She crossed her arms tightly across her chest and sobbed, letting her mind go black, her body releasing days of suppressed anguish.
After a while, her sobs subsided and she wiped her face on her shirt. She stood, headed to the kitchen for a beer, then returned to sit in the chair she’d been sitting in less than a half hour ago, when Jane had tried to retrieve her memory. Her thoughts stubbornly returned to the problem of her memory gap. She hadn’t really stopped worrying about it since she woke up Wednesday morning, even before they’d found McTeer’s body. What had she done after work on Tuesday? Why couldn’t she remember? Then, after they’d found the body and especially after her fingerprint had been found on the gun, she’d begun to panic. Had she killed him and blotted out the memory? She’d tried to bluff her way through Sam’s questioning and then through a polygraph, and she’d failed and been relieved of duty.
She was afraid for her future, but more than that, she was afraid of going through this alone. Of course, she knew her brothers would always stand by her, but this wasn’t their world and she didn’t want them even trying to get involved, when there was nothing they could do.
She’d always been able to count on the support of her mentors, first, Bosco and then, Minelli. But these two men, who’d believed in her through the years, were now the very ones doubting her, investigating her, maybe even judging her. Hell, when Minelli had informed her that she was relieved of duty, he’d been downright angry. She was no longer one of them. She was a suspect.
Then, there was her team. She knew Cho, Rigsby, and Van Pelt were still working the case, looking to exonerate her, but she feared they were losing faith in her, too. Cho had just texted her that their last lead, a ten-thousand dollar payment to McTeer’s former cellmate just to lure him to the alley where he’d been killed, could not be traced. Even if the team still believed in her, her instinct was to protect them, and they were already putting their careers at risk. She’d texted Cho her thanks but told him to leave the investigation to Bosco.
There was Dr. Carmen. His insistence on having her return week after week without signing off on her following the Tanner shooting was annoying, but he was a psychiatrist. She should be able to trust him when she was having a problem with her memory. She’d gone straight to him after turning in her badge and gun to ask whether her worst fear could be true, that she had killed McTeer and was blocking out the memory. When he didn’t give her a straight answer, she’d asked him how she could get her memory back and he’d basically said to give it time. He was useless.
Finally, there was Jane. Her relationship with him was complicated. Her attractive consultant was brilliant, no doubt, and she thought they were friends. But he was also a conman with no regard for boundaries, who already could read her so well that he might as well be a mind-reader. He was the first one she’d told about her memory gap, and he’d immediately offered to hypnotize her to retrieve her memory. But he was the last man she wanted to give an all-access pass to her mind. She had a few thoughts about him that she wanted to keep secret. So, she’d refused his offer until she’d failed the poly, been relieved of duty, and found that Carmen couldn’t help her.
Jane was her last resort. She’d spent so much time and energy trying to guard her thoughts from him that it never occurred to her that he could fail to find her lost memories. But he had failed and then had called it “interesting.” Interesting? Terrifying, yes. Devastating, yes. Interesting, no. This wasn’t a puzzle, this was her life. Maybe Jane just didn’t get it. She’d asked him not to tell anyone, he’d left, and that’s when she fell apart.
And now she was alone and out of options.
XXX
Lisbon was the strongest person Jane had ever known. He’d relied on her strength since coming to the CBI more than she could imagine, and he’d tried to let her know that, as broken as he was, she could rely on him, too. That trust fall months ago was his awkward attempt to convince her of that, and he’d meant it.
But now she was vulnerable and afraid, and he had let her down when she needed him most. She’d looked so miserable after he’d been unable to access her lost memories that he’d just wanted to hold her close to reassure her, but she wanted to be alone to fall apart. So, he left, but he’d only gone as far as the nearest diner to sort through the problem.
He needed to figure out what was blocking her memories. Had he forced her into a trance before she was ready? No, she’d been more than ready and had been able to easily remember her thoughts before leaving the office Tuesday. Were the blocked memories especially traumatic? That was certainly possible, especially given they might involve murder. But even though he believed that anyone, including Lisbon, was capable of murder, he didn’t believe she’d committed this murder.
What else could account for her blocked memories? He pondered this as he drained his cup of tea and looked around for his server to bring him another. He saw the tired, older woman behind the cash register, frowning slightly, and digging in her pocket. She pulled a small bottle out of her pocket, opened it, and shook a couple of pills into her other hand… Drugs. Some drugs could block memories. Lisbon hadn’t recalled under hypnosis taking so much as an aspirin before leaving the office. What if someone else had dosed her without her knowledge? He needed her to review everything she’d consumed that day.
XXX
Lisbon’s phone rang and she let it roll over to voicemail, but it rang again and again until she was so annoyed she picked it up to turn it off. She saw that all the calls were from Jane and rolled her eyes, but she decided to check voicemail before turning off her phone. She listened to his message.
“Lisbon, I have an idea about what’s blocking your memories. Please call me.”
Just as she was about to call him, she heard someone knocking on her door.
“Lisbon, it’s Jane. Please let me in.”
She knew he wouldn’t go away, so she opened the door.
“What’s your idea, Jane?”
“I think you might have been dosed. Some drugs can block memories.” He sat down at her table. “Try to remember everything you ate or drank on Tuesday.”
She shook her head slightly, doubtful that someone had dosed her, but she sat down at the table and began, again, to try to remember Tuesday.
“I grabbed a coffee and a donut at Marie’s on my way in. I got another cup of coffee in the breakroom mid-morning and another at lunchtime. I skipped lunch, but I got a protein bar out of the vending machine…”
She rubbed her forehead, trying to remember. Jane was about to offer to hypnotize her again, when she said, “Oh, yeah. This was weird. Dr. Carmen brought me a cup of coffee that afternoon. He said he needed to reschedule me a half hour earlier for my Wednesday session and he brought me a coffee by way of apology for the late notice. He said he’d made a special trip to the coffee shop because I always complain about his coffee. It seemed strange, excessive.”
Jane said, “Of course. Carmen dosed you. He’d be able to get the drugs, and your coffee habit is well known. And the timing is perfect.”
Lisbon’s scowled at him skeptically, then suddenly her eyes widened and she inhaled sharply.
“Just before I asked you to hypnotize me, I talked to Carmen, and he said something about child molesters being incurable and whoever killed McTeer saved children. I thought he was trying in some weird way to reassure me, but maybe it was his own justification for taking money to kill McTeer and frame me. Cho said McTeer’s cellmate was paid ten thousand just to lure him into the alley. Carmen could have gotten a million.”
“Carmen kept you coming to see him to give him time to figure out how to frame you, apart from your connection to McTeer’s case. He was able to get your fingerprints from a coffee cup and plant them on the murder weapon. He learned how much your career meant to you, so he knew that by drugging you and causing you to lose your memory for the time of the murder, you’d try to cover it up and fail the poly.”
“But who paid him? And why frame me?”
“Hmm. Plenty of victims’ families hated McTeer, but they wouldn’t want to frame the cop who caught him. Maybe Whelan, the father who blamed you for not arresting McTeer earlier? Or maybe killing McTeer wasn’t the goal, but just the means to frame you. Maybe that guy Howard you were going to testify against wanted to discredit you? Let the team keep working on that. We’ll get Carmen and get you off the hook.”
“How do you propose we do that?”
Jane got a gleam in his eyes. “Well…you’re understandably upset by all this, and Carmen is the CBI shrink. I think we can work with that.”
Lisbon frowned. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“Trust me, Lisbon. Carmen has been working to take you down for weeks. Don’t you want a little payback?”
“God help me, yes. So, what’s the plan?”
XXX
Her “breakdown” at the CBI had worked perfectly. They’d let only Cho, Rigsby, and Van Pelt in on the plan and they acted appropriately concerned about her. She’d approached Bosco on the mezzanine floor of the CBI overlooking the bullpen for maximum impact. First, she told him loudly about the leads that she and the team were going to investigate, knowing that he would have to object because she was relieved of duty and Minelli had given him the case. When he took her aside to reason with her, she “lost it” shouting at him and everyone else to stay away from her. Then she hurried down to her office and threw a chair through her office window, causing widespread alarm. As planned, Jane arrived just then, acting worried, and she left with both Jane and Bosco watching. Word spread and Minelli came to Jane to ask about her. Jane gave him the impression he was worried about her mental state, knowing that would lead him to ask Carmen to check on her.
XXX
Lisbon went home and set the scene for Carmen to discover her apparently wasted with a bottle of booze set out on a table and pills spilled across it. Jane texted her when he arrived and she let him in.
“Great work back there, Lisbon. You really sold it.”
“How’d you like the chair through the window?”
“Bravo. Inspired improvisation,” Jane said, smiling. “Now for act two. I see the scene is set. But let’s think about wardrobe. The oversized jersey is good, but maybe lose the jeans? You want to look like you’re not planning on seeing anyone.”
Lisbon frowned at Jane, who was enjoying this a little too much, but she went to her bedroom to slip off her jeans and returned feeling a little self-conscious. Jane couldn’t help but glance appreciatively at her legs, but covered by saying, “That’s the idea. OK, so, you’ve been drinking, you’re letting loose, maybe you’re listening to the Spice Girls and dancing.”
Lisbon frowned, wondering how he knew…then she glared at him.
Jane shrugged. “One little off-topic question when you were hypnotized. Just one. But it would fit the scene.”
Lisbon grudgingly agreed.
“Now let’s go over how you’re going to get him to slip up.”
“I’m going to be acting drunk, erratic, waving my gun around casually, with the safety on, of course, but it’ll scare him. I’ll blame him for getting into my head and messing me up. I’ll tell him sometimes I get so angry I want to kill people, so maybe I killed McTeer.”
“That’s good. He’ll try to calm you by telling you it’s justified and, if you act upset about the blocked memory, he’ll probably use a guided imagery technique to plant a false memory, prompting you with details he knows because he’s the killer.”
“OK. I think this could work. You’ll be on the stairs recording him and Rigsby is down the road ready to provide backup.”
“You’ve got this, Lisbon,” Jane said. “Let me just…” He mussed up her hair in the name of authenticity. She gave him a swat and shooed him to the spot on the stairs where he could hide but not miss anything.
XXX
Jane watched Lisbon from the stairs fascinated. She’d always resisted assuming a role for one of his cons, but she was throwing herself into this one as if her life depended on it, which, in a way, it did. Carmen hadn’t even arrived yet, but she was dancing to her music, swigging tea from a whiskey bottle, immersing herself in the part of a drunk on the verge of a breakdown. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought it was real. His chest tightened as he realized that she couldn’t have been so convincing if she weren’t truly getting close to the edge. He’d been there. He knew.
Where the hell was Carmen? It had been a couple of hours since he’d talked to Minelli, and he was sure the boss had contacted Carmen immediately. Was he hoping she’d kill herself to help his frameup? Jane didn’t want to break Lisbon’s focus by talking to her, but he was beginning to worry. Never, well, except for when he was pursuing Red John, had he been so anxious for one of his plans to work.
XXX
Lisbon was oddly relaxed for the first time in days. Even though she was dressed in her nightshirt, dancing, aware that Jane was watching her every move, and waiting for a murderer to knock on her door. She was acting as out of control as she’d been feeling lately, but the act was strangely cathartic. And she finally felt in control of what was happening, because Jane had been there for her after all. She hadn’t regained her memories, maybe never would, but she knew she hadn’t killed McTeer and she was going to take down the bastard who’d set her up.
Finally, Carmen knocked on the door. Show time. She picked up the nearly empty whiskey bottle and her gun, safety on, and let him in. She staggered a little, dropped the bottle, and waved her gun. He asked her to give him the gun, and she knew she’d sold the act. She leaned into it, telling him how she thought she’d killed McTeer but still couldn’t remember. Just like Jane predicted, he tried some guided imagery and used details about the crime scene, including the sign with a cross behind the door where he’d stashed the body. She dropped the act and let him know he’d incriminated himself. Then Jane appeared and laid out how they’d unraveled his plan. After cuffing and arresting Carmen, Lisbon called Rigsby to come and take him to the CBI. Rigsby reported that they’d finally traced back the payments to Howard, who’d done all this to stop her from testifying against him. Looked like she would be after all.
XXX
“Enough tea,” said Lisbon after Rigsby left with Carmen. “Time for a real drink to celebrate, and I guess we both missed dinner. I’m starving. You?”
“Me too,” said Jane. “Want to go out somewhere?”
“Uh, I’m not exactly dressed for it. Why don’t you order a pizza while I find my jeans?”
“I’ll order the pizza, but no need to get dressed on my account,” he teased.
Half an hour later, Lisbon and Jane sat on her couch with a pizza and a couple of beers on the table in front of them, Lisbon having cleared up the mess she’d staged earlier.
“To the best actor in our unit,” Jane said raising his beer to Lisbon. “You have real talent, Lisbon.”
“I don’t know. How about Cho as a player on the case with the pick-up artist?”
“Hmm. He was good, but you have more range,” he said, grinning.
“Rigsby as mob muscle on the case with the victim in witness protection?”
“He didn’t even know why he was there, but he looked the part.”
“Van Pelt as Rigsby’s redheaded date on the case in Napa Valley?”
“Please. Typecasting.”
“Well, we all seemed to have had the same director,” said Lisbon raising her beer to Jane. “To the best director.”
“Never thought you’d be giving me any awards for that,” he said with surprise.
“For tonight only. Tomorrow, I’ll be back to yelling at you.” She smiled.
“Good, I’d lose my bearings otherwise,” he smirked.
“Seriously, Jane, I don’t know how I would have gotten through the last few days without you.”
“Lisbon, when I said you could trust me to always be there for you, I meant it.”
She touched his arm and looked at him closely. “I know. Thank you.”
He returned her gaze, covered her hand with his own, and said, “Anytime, my dear.”
XXX
As he left Lisbon’s that night, Jane could no longer deny that something had shifted inside him. If he was being honest, he’d been drawn to Lisbon since they’d met. But he told himself that it was their partnership in pursuing Red John. Then, a few weeks ago he’d killed Hardy, his best Red John lead, to save her life. But he told himself that he’d just done what any decent man would do. Still, he’d begun to realize then that Lisbon was becoming as important to him as his quest for vengeance. Now, they’d reached a new level of closeness in bringing down Carmen, and, despite himself, he was beginning to long for more.
He brought her donuts from Marie’s the next day and saw Bosco talking with her and suddenly he could see that Bosco loved her. How could he not? After Bosco left, he commented on it, she denied it, and he passed it off with a joke. But, unbeknownst to her, as he left her office, he leaned back in the doorway and took a long look at her. She was so precious to him, which thrilled and terrified him in equal measure.