Chapter 1: The Sting

The long tanned fingers lightly tapped on the downturned cards, the faintest hint of a smile passed his lips as he felt his wife's appreciative gaze. She had already expressed her appreciation, several times by his recollection, before coming down to the gaming floor.

He would not normally look at his wife while he was concentrating, but the stakes were getting higher than his hand justified and he could tell from the not so subtle eagerness of the man opposite, that he had a winning hand. He raised his eyes to meet hers and recognising her subtle note of caution, he folded in his hand and departed from the table.

It had been another profitable evening, although that was not his primary motivation, it was more the thrill of the game that had persuaded him to try his hand again tonight. He thrived on the challenge of pitting his mind against the other players, who had given him quite a run for his money tonight.

Lisbon had wisely forewarned him not to make draw attention to himself, she didn't want any of the trouble that seemed to follow Jane around. There was still the lingering threat of the Blake Association and they certainly did not want people to start noticing them.

Lisbon couldn't deny that she had enjoyed seeing the old Jane razzle dazzle again, that slightly raffish side of him had always excited her and made him seem slightly dangerous at times. Despite their new found bliss, she didn't want him to be completely reformed. After all it had been that element of risk that first attracted her and she knew he needed it as well; you could only play at being love birds for so long.

They were relishing the novelty of being husband and wife, having only tied the knot a few days earlier. Lisbon had not expected it, assuming they would just drift along for a while, not even sure whether Jane would ever want to get married again. They had barely been in Vegas 24 hours before he unexpectedly popped the question. In retrospect, it was obvious he had planned this for some time but it took her completely by surprise, not that she had to think twice before agreeing.

"Well Mrs Jane, let's see whether we can find something to spend my ill gotten gains on. Perhaps some emeralds to go with your eyes?"

"You've already given me everything I want and more." Lisbon was still not comfortable accepting gifts, even from her husband. Having been an independent woman for all those years, she was still having difficulty coming to terms with Jane's disclosure that they were actually quite comfortably off. Not that money meant that much to either of them, so long as there was enough. Neither was given to ostentatious displays of wealth.

They paused briefly at the roulette table; everything about casinos fascinated Jane, if he wasn't playing he just enjoyed people watching, looking for the crooked dealers and the scams they were working.

Sure enough before long he had spotted something. The blonde dealer had a distinctly weary air about her and was clearly, to Jane at least, turning a blind eye to the top hatting going on at her table. The scam normally requires a collector, mechanic and distracter, traditionally a collector places high value chips on the table and after the ball has dropped a distracter diverts the dealer's attention, while the mechanic moves the chips on to the winning number. In this case no distracter was necessary, as the croupier was clearly in on the scam.

It was none of Jane's business, after all casinos were hardly running at a loss. He was just an amused spectator, wondering low long it would be before security picked up on it.

Determined to show Lisbon the sights before they set off on the next leg of their odyssey, Jane had persuaded Lisbon to go to the Stratosphere Observation Deck to see the stunning views over Vegas. As they walked hand in hand, Jane couldn't help giving a slightly caustic running commentary on the passersby.

"Look at this one in the tacky shirt, I'd guess he wears a uniform at work but over compensates in his own time. Probably thinks he's the epitome of cool, someone really should have a word with him. That's not a good look on a man his age."

"I would say it's not a good look on a man of any age." Lisbon laughed, Jane was clearly enjoying showing off to her.

"New money."Jane observed his latest subject dismissively. "No amount of expensive accessories or suits will make a man look good, if he doesn't know how to wear them. Everything is too new, it stands out a mile."

Lisbon just shook her head, Jane was irrepressible at times.

"A little bit over made up - she's just broken up with another boyfriend, so she's looking for love. Keeps on going after the same type, it's always going to end in tears." Jane paused before turning it back on Lisbon "Your turn, have a go."

Lisbon looked at the middle aged woman on the opposite side of the road and started uncertainly. "Well, she's looking around all the time and she's clutching her bag to her - I'd say she has trust issues, thinks everyone is out to get her." She looked at Jane for confirmation.

"Not bad. Either that or she's a compulsive gambler, who's just made a significant cash withdrawal and is worried about being mugged." He added, unable to let Lisbon have the last word. He shrugged apologetically, knowing a better man would have kept that thought to himself.

Lisbon just ignored it she had got used to his ways, at least he had the decency to look embarrassed these days when he slipped up.

A woman's scream came from a side alley. Instinctively Lisbon reverted back to cop mode and ran to see what was going on, ignoring Jane's pleas to stay out of it - so much for keeping a low profile. Jane knew all too well the sort of people Vegas attracted.

The woman was clearly badly shaken by the incident. Lisbon managed to find out her name was Gina, apart from that all she would say is that some muggers had attacked her.

Jane immediately recognised her as the croupier from the night before and he wasn't buying the story at all.

"Hmmm, more likely you've got in over your head Gina and they won't let you walk away." Jane commented looking her straight in the eye.

Gina spluttered, "I really don't know what you mean. Who are you? Just leave me alone." She tried to walk away but Jane stepped in front of her.

"What started it? I guess you got into debt and needed the money. You have a weary look about you, permanent shadows under the eyes, probably struggling to make ends meet." He scanned her face for a reaction. "Let me guess. Sick child perhaps - couldn't cope with the medical bills then someone offers you a way out. Understandable really, you've run out of options but there's no way out now you've been drawn in."

"My son needed an operation and the insurance wouldn't cover it, so I took out a loan but couldn't meet the repayments. I told my boss and he offered me a way out. How did you know?" She looked perplexed.

Lisbon smiled, how many times had she heard that question? "You need to tell us everything then we will see what we can do."

Lisbon looked cautiously at Jane, to see if he was in agreement. Lisbon hated violence against women having been on the receiving end of her father's drunken rages and she knew they had to do something to help; there was no way they could just walk away.

The operation seemed to revolve around three people, the floor manager Gus Travers and the punter Chas Carter and his girlfriend Carrie. Gina filled them in with as much information as she could but they needed to find out more about their personal lives.

The dealers soon got to know Jane as he flitted between tables, he always had a pleasant word for them but there weren't many opportunities for conversation, so he needed to find another way in.

"Excuse me sir, coming through"

Jane side stepped to let the teller through to his position, where he waited to be called by the floor manager. Jane surveyed the scene, as the tellers were directed by the autocratic Gus Travers to maintain the money supply at the optimum level on the floor. Travers ran it with military precision, as the tellers scuttled in between the clients then back to the vaults. They reacted to his peremptory flick of the wrist, indicating where he needed them to go. Never looking them in the eye or acknowledging them, unless they were unfortunate enough to catch his attention for the wrong reason, when his eyes would narrow indicating they were in trouble.

Travers turned on the charm when he was stopped by a client for directions, turning his fake smile off like a switch as soon as they were out of sight. Definitely not a man to cross Jane surmised.

Jane soon engineered the opportunity to chat with one of the tellers. Traverse was in his mid thirties, good looking in a square jawed sort of way, his height and build made him an imposing figure and he knew it. It seemed Travers liked to live well beyond his means, he had an eye for high class ladies but not the means to match. He was always monetising looking for new revenue streams, the latest scam was probably one of many and when security rumbled it, no doubt it would be Gina that paid the price.

Jane and Lisbon had to lay a trap for him that would get him out of the loop, before they turned to the other side of the problem. They learned that although the casinos turned a blind eye to the hospitality staff fraternising with the customers, it was strictly forbidden on the gambling floor.

Lisbon had been pretty inconspicuous to date but it was her turn to take the limelight. She sashayed down to the gambling floor in a knee length dress that accentuated her assets, without being over revealing. Travers' eyes had followed her across the floor to the black jack tables and he had noted the sizeable stack of high value chips before her, which marked her as a person of interest to him.

Jane was already positioned some way behind the dealer and was able to watch the game without drawing attention to himself. A simple signal had been agreed, which could be varied so it wouldn't be too conspicuous, if Jane touched any part of his head, it meant hit anything else meant stand.

The strategy was to lose a few hands then slowly increase the stakes and start winning some hands. They would keep losing a few hands along the way, so it did not seem too obvious but by the end of the session Lisbon would be well up on the night. Lisbon was coquettish and noisy when she won and looked up to see Travers watching her. She caught his eye and smiled like a cougar, as she ran her eyes over the younger man then she twisted sideward on her chair, crossing one slim leg over the other, to display her legs to their best advantage.

Travers eventually approached her and introduced himself. "Good night at the table madam, is there anything I can do to help you?"

"Why, that's a leading question," she drawled raising her eyebrow.

"It's all part of the service Madam, we always aim to please." He said softly as he leaned in to help her off her chair. Travers turned on his legendary charm, escorting her to cash in her chips.

"Well, I can only commend you on your customer service, I just hope the room service is as good." Her eyes left little doubt what she was suggesting.

Travers gave Lisbon his business card. "Just call me if you need anything Madam, room service is my speciality." She gave him a knowing look and made her way across the gambling floor, gently swaying her hips.

Jane just raised an eyebrow when she finally made her way over to him, in the far recesses of the room. "Very convincing, I hope you're not going to make a habit of picking up younger men."

"Hush! He's a real creep, makes my skin crawl." Lisbon left Jane in no doubt how she felt about her conquest.

Sure enough, when Travers received the call he was more than eager to oblige. Lisbon had the wine on ice ready for his arrival and it did not take Travers long to start getting up close and personal. Lisbon played along, resisting her natural urge to sock him one, knowing Jane would not leave it too long before making an entrance.

Travers head shot round when he heard the door opening, this wasn't going to plan.

"Darling I'm back, I managed to get an earlier plane." Jane called out as he entered the suite.

Jane stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Lisbon and Travers together. "Not again! Can't I trust you even for a day. Who is it this time? Well at least this one is old enough to know better."

Travers jumped to his feet "I can explain Sir. I was advising your wife on the high stakes games."

"Over champagne, what kind of fool do you take me for?" Jane growled.

Jane man handled Travers out of the room. "Just stay away from my wife."

"Very brave sweetheart, of course you knew he couldn't fight back." Lisbon mocked, after all Jane was not exactly known for his bravery. "How long shall we leave it before we call security?"

"Anytime now," Jane proceeded to make the call to security reporting that his wife's bracelet had been stolen and planting the blame firmly on Travers.

Travers looked circumspect, he knew might get in trouble for being in Lisbon's room but was not expecting to be accused of stealing her bracelet. He was astounded when the bracelet was found in his pocket and vehemently protested his innocence. Travers shot Lisbon an incredulous look when she started making a scene; the bracelet was apparently a wedding gift from her darling husband. Now she chose to remember that she was a married woman. Jane agreed not to press charges, provided that Travers was suspended with immediate effect pending disciplinary action.

Now for the second part of the sting, Jane called in a favour from a waitress he had helped out of a scrape a few years ago. Her role was to act as the distracter in the scam on the roulette table. Whenever Carter and his girlfriend deployed the scam, she would divert Gina's attention, thereby giving Gina an alibi.

Jane sidled up to a particularly disgruntled gambler; who Lady Luck had well and truly deserted tonight. "Well I'll be damned - did you see that?" Jane asked him, knowing full well he hadn't.

"Look , they did it again. Did you see that, they're cheating." Jane whispered.

"Yeah, someone should do something about that."

Jane had picked his bellicose stooge well, he had lost heavily and was in no mood to see anyone else win.

Sure enough within 5 minutes it happened again and the stooge alerted security and Jane tactfully withdrew from the scene. Meanwhile Jane's distracter had also beaten a hasty retreat and after a quick change in the wash room she was barely recognisable.

The security footage was conclusive evidence of a fraud and Carter and his girlfriend were handed over to the police, though nobody could identify the third member of the team, who was nowhere to be seen.

"That was fun, I feel a bit like Robin Hood" Lisbon declared. She had insisted they redistribute her winnings; there was still enough cop in her to ensure that she stayed just about on the right side of the argument but the buzz from the sting was undeniable.

Jane had been amused how she had thrown herself into the sting. "You're quite the cougar, Mrs Jane." Without the restraints of the rulebook, Lisbon had quite a wild side to her that definitely merited further exploration.

"Says the man, with a dubious friend for every occasion," she batted her eyelids.

"A degenerate gambler as well, Mrs Jane," he shook his head reprovingly. "Really, I'm beginning to wonder what I've let myself in for."

"Lead you astray, Mr Jane - I'm afraid that boat has sailed," she retorted.

"No reason you can't keep trying though, is there?" He said with a twinkle in his eye.

The following day a final meeting with Gina had been arranged, as Lisbon had misgivings about how things would pan out. Lisbon felt it only fair to warn Gina things were not that clear cut. "Look, you've got some breathing space but the chances are that Travers will be re-instated at some stage. He's good at his job and the casino won't want to lose him, they'll just keep him under wraps for a few weeks. My advice would be cut your losses and move on while you can."

Jane concurred. "Have you got somewhere you can go? It won't be long before they send someone else in and start pressurising again."

"I've got an Aunt in San Bernardino. We could stay with her for a while but I'll need a few days to pack and sort everything out." Gina replied.

"We want you to have a clean start. Please take this and pay off your loan, you can use anything leftover to set yourself up again. Don't worry it's the casino's money not ours, we just won it. Look on it as severance pay, after all they should have protected you from Travers." Lisbon tried to put a logical twist on it, knowing Gina would not want to accept charity.

Unbeknown to them Travers had smelt a rat and had followed them, he soon guessed what was going on and spoke to some friendly contacts in LVM PD, who were very interested in the name Patrick Jane.

The Janes had no reason to stay in Vegas and decided to do the sensible thing and make tracks in the Airstream. Lisbon had left Jane doing final checks on the vehicle, while she replenished their supplies. On her return she could hear raised voices from the Airstream. "You've picked the wrong people to cross, people who mess with us have an unfortunate habit of getting hurt."

The threat was enough to make Lisbon liberate a gun, which she had secreted in the side storage of the Airstream. In deference to Jane's dislike of guns and not anticipating any problems, she had not been armed for the last few days.

She listened in to see if this was just a warning visit or something more sinister; unfortunately there were two of them and they were not going to leave without teaching Jane a lesson.

Lisbon put on her best cop act as she launched herself into the Airstream.

"Put your hands in the air, first one to make a move gets a bullet." Jane's assailants slowly raised their hands. Lisbon spotted that one was contemplating making a move to take Jane as hostage.

"Jane, get out of the way quick." She shouted.

Jane nimbly avoided the attempted action and warned them not to mess with her. Before long he had secured their hands with plastic ties, that he kept in the Airstream and the captive assailants were dropped off on a beaten track, a few miles out of town.

Speed was of the essence, as it wouldn't be long before their assailants were picked up. They called Gina to get ready quickly, as they knew she would be the next target. They would take her to San Bernadino stopping overnight at a site enroute.

Gina's son Luca looked pale and tired, he was recovering from orthopaedic surgery following an accident and still had a cast on his leg. Jane and Lisbon soon made him feel at home, it would be a bit cosy in the Airstream but they would all cope for one night. Jane and Lisbon took it in turns to drive; Lisbon smiled as she heard Jane entertaining Luca with tricks and stories. Luca's worried face soon lit up, as he enjoyed the full Jane charm offensive. Lisbon could not tell who was enjoying it more, the big or the little kid.

Lisbon realised that they have never discussed kids; she assumed that had all passed her by, raising her brothers had been her stint at motherhood by proxy. To some extent she was more than content to enjoy what they had for a while, without any added complications.

Although she was married now, she was not comfortable with the idea of losing her financial independence and her severance would not last forever, so at some stage she would have to return to work again and was not sure how that would work with a family.

She guessed they ought to have the discussion at some stage. Although it was still early in their marriage, time was not on their side if they wanted to give it a go.

The following day they dropped Gina and Luca off at her aunt's home, before setting off towards Tijuana to continue their journey.

Jane sensed Lisbon had something on her mind."What's up, you've been very pensive today."

"I was watching you with Luca, you are so good with kids. We've never discussed having children." She said tentatively, not knowing how the subject would be received.

"To be honest, I've not thought that far ahead. I guess it's something you have mixed feelings about?" He looked quite serious.

"Yes. The selfish part of me wants to spend more time alone with you, after all we have been through the past few years. Then I see you with Luca and I feel I may be depriving you of the chance to start over and frankly time is not on our side." Lisbon was trying to be as honest about it as she could be.

"Look if it happens, it happens. We would both love any child that came along but it's not top of my agenda. Let's just make the most of what we have got for now and see how things pan out. We may feel differently when we are settled down but there are other options even if we don't have a child of our own." Jane guessed they were of one accord on this but now she had raised the subject, he wasn't sure he would cope with putting himself through fatherhood again, it might raise too many painful memories.

Lisbon took some solace in this, as it left the option open but allowed her to enjoy this period of freedom in her life, after so many years of responsibility.

Jane just leant forward planting a kiss on her forehead. "You're thinking too much Teresa. It's not an issue don't worry about it."

Lisbon smiled gratefully at him then tried to lighten the mood "So where are we going on the next stage of our Odyssey? Do you think we might be able to steer clear of trouble for a while?"

"Highly unlikely. What with St Teresa trying to fight everyone's battles for them." He responded affectionately.

Jane knew they had both enjoyed their recent adventure and were not cut out for a hum drum existence. He suspected they would continue to attract trouble along the way and mete out their own particular brand of justice.