Chapter 86: Consequences of a Venomous Tongue
"I heard you're helping the police track down that terrifying serial killer. What's his name?" the host continued on TV.
"Red John," Patrick Jane nodded, adding, "He draws a smiley face on the wall with his victims' blood. As far as we know, he's killed at least eight women. The police asked me to try using my psychic abilities to locate him, to see if I can sense what kind of person he is."
"How do you do that?" the host asked, the question everyone was curious about. "How do you use your psychic powers to track him down?"
"Well, David, you know," Patrick Jane smiled, using the classic deflection tactic, and then he began his performance. "True evil burns like fire, a cold, dark flame that ignites within me. I force myself to stare into those flames, and then I can see the perpetrator. This time, the killer is called Red John. He's a pathetic, tormented little man, a lonely soul. Pitiful, truly pitiful."
CBI Headquarters.
"How dare he!" JJ stared in shock at Patrick Jane, who was openly taunting Red John on television.
"Finally," Gideon muttered, his eyes narrowed. "When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back into you."
Unit Chief Hotchner silenced JJ and Reid with a look, not elaborating on the significance of this moment.
The interview continued.
Patrick Jane, with unrestricted confidence, displayed the charisma of a successful performer. The male and female hosts worked in perfect harmony. Hearing through his earpiece that the show was rating well, he broke into a brilliant smile.
Late that night,
a self-satisfied Patrick Jane concluded the interview and drove back to his suburban home.
It was an elegant two-story house with large windows that let in abundant natural light. Through the glass, under the soft glow of a nightlight, he caught sight of the piano in the living room, and a smile of pure contentment crossed his face.
His angelic daughter, Charlotte, had already begun piano lessons with her mother, and seeing the piano reminded him of the beautiful moments they shared playing together.
He quietly opened the door with his key and entered, gently moving his daughter's abandoned tricycle out of the way. He climbed the stairs where happy family photos lined both walls. Reaching the second floor, he slowed his pace, careful not to wake his wife and daughter. The smile on his face suddenly froze.
In the dim glow of the nightlight, he spotted a note taped to their bedroom door, and dread washed over him.
He approached and read the message: "Dear Mr. Jane, I don't appreciate being slandered on television, especially by filthy, money-grubbing frauds. If you were a real psychic, and not a despicable con artist, you wouldn't even need to open this door to see what I've done to your lovely wife and child."
Patrick Jane's hands trembled as he turned the doorknob. With a creak, it swung open, and in the darkness, a shaft of light illuminated the wall before him. On it was a blood-red smiley face.
At that moment, Patrick Jane's heart stopped, and his entire life flashed before his eyes.
He had been a poor kid, dragged by his con artist father across the country, running scams at traveling carnivals and state fairs throughout the Midwest.
Perhaps he'd inherited his father's gifts, but he was naturally talented. With careful training and guidance from his worldly, experienced father, he could easily deduce a person's background from surface observations before he even turned eighteen.
His father began using him in increasingly elaborate cons, but their first major scheme involved a little girl with cancer from a wealthy family. When medical treatment failed to save her, her family turned to alternative solutions.
He played the role of a mystical young medium who could communicate with spirits. He was supposed to convince them to buy a supposedly sacred crystal heirloom at an exorbitant price to cure the little girl's cancer.
Everything was proceeding perfectly, but when he saw the desperate hope in that dying child's eyes, he finally drew the line, choosing to break with his father and go out on his own.
Even with his extraordinary abilities, a teenager surviving alone wasn't as simple as he'd imagined, and he endured many hardships.
Then he met Angela, a girl whose name meant Angel. Her family had once been involved in the carnival business, but they had evolved from small-time cons to operating a successful theme park, no longer dependent on scams for income. Her family was quite well-off.
To a poor kid like him, she was a wealthy princess.
It was cliché yet classic: the princess fell for the poor boy, even willing to elope with him, marry him, and eventually bear him an angelic daughter.
With a happy marriage and a flourishing career, everything seemed perfect, and he basked in it all. The caution he'd once maintained as a con artist had long since disappeared, and he let his arrogance run unchecked.
It wasn't until he saw that blood-red smiley face illuminated on the wall that he realized with horror that he had made a catastrophic mistake.
It was Red John's signature.
As the psychic detective hunting Red John, he had studied the files on how the killer treated his female victims.
But book knowledge is always superficial; true understanding comes only through experience.
Only now did he truly comprehend what that blood-red smiley face meant to the victims' families.
With rigid steps, he gripped the doorframe and slowly entered. The glaring red filled his vision, and he squeezed his eyes shut in anguish.
His daughter Charlotte was still small, and whenever he came home late, his wife Angela always slept with her in the master bedroom.
Neither of them was in bed. The en-suite bathroom door was slightly ajar, light spilling through the crack.
Fighting back overwhelming terror and grief, he stumbled forward and saw two figures, one large and one small, lying in pools of blood.
"Angela... Charlotte..."
Patrick Jane collapsed, his screams tearing through his soul.
His cries echoed throughout the house.
"Still got that smart mouth now?"
After what felt like an eternity, when his screaming had devolved into broken sobs, a low voice suddenly emerged from the darkness.
"Who?!" Patrick Jane whipped around toward the corner of the dimly lit bedroom.
"Who's the lonely, pitiful, tormented one now?"
Along with the voice, a figure slowly stepped out of the shadows.
"It's you!" Patrick Jane was stunned when he saw the face revealed in the darkness, then his mind caught up and he suddenly reached out to touch the figures in the blood. The sensation wasn't normal skin at all, but plastic. He immediately understood what was happening. Wiping his tears away, he cursed loudly, struggled to his feet and charged forward with bloodshot eyes: "Son of a bitch! Chuck Wolfe, you bastard! You've gone too far!"
(End of Chapter)
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