The alley where Detective Jane Rizzoli had chosen to make her stand smelled like the brine of the ships that docked in the harbor nearby. She leaned her head back against the damp bricks and took as deep a breath as her damaged ribs would allow. She had always known that she would probably go down fighting crime in Boston. It was her job. It was her home. But Jane's best friend was trapped in the building she was leaning on. So today would not be the day Jane would fall.
She checked the radio on her hip again, more out of habit than hope. Not surprisingly, it had splintered when Royez kicked her down the stairs.
"Well," she thought to herself, "when I let him kick me down the stairs."
But, in her defense, he had tricked them all really, even Korsak. After all, Mark Royez came across as the perfect victim at first- scared and grieving. His brother had been brutally murdered in what everyone assumed was gang retaliation. It wasn't until Royez's cousin showed up dead that Jane had begun to suspect the hispanic college student. The unassuming collector of two life insurance claims.
Jane wiped her lip and spat the blood out of her mouth. She needed to stop taking so many faces shots, it was making her mother even more neurotic than usual to see her only daughter constantly coming home with fat lips and black eyes. Four in the past month alone, and she would be lucky if she didn't pick up a couple more that night. The rising gang violence by the docks was keeping her concealer busier than usual. To top it all off, as if her mother wasn't enough to deal with, the Chief Medical Examiner of Massachusetts, who also happened to be Jane's best friend, insisted on coming every time Jane followed up a lead on the wharf lately.
A rising panic at the thought of Dr. Maura Isles forced Jane to clear her mind. Maura was in there. With Royez. They had caught them by surprise when they got there. He had been packing. He still managed to pull his gun first, however, and he held the doctor at gunpoint while he had backed Jane up to the stairs. His dark eyes betrayed no emotion as he landed a well-placed kick to her ribs and sent her toppling down three flights. Luckily, the old wood had rotted enough to soften the fall to a non-fatal although still extremely unpleasant tumble.
The scream that ripped through Maura as Jane fell echoed through the detective's thoughts as she prepared to re-enter the building. She drew her gun, and eased the door open. Royez already knew she was there, although she assumed he thought she would at least have been knocked unconscious from the fall. She smirked. Maybe he wasn't as clever as he thought.
As quietly as possible, she made her way back up to the third story. Royez was probably planning on holding Maura hostage while he made his get away, apparently via boat. Well, that wasn't going to happen. Not while Jane still was still breathing.
She swung through the doorway with the lithe grace her long limbs offered, but she saw only the dusty twilight of an abandoned room. Royez was gone. And he had taken Maura with him.