She had been angry.
A home burglary had gone wrong. What had started out as a quick Smash and Grab had escalated into a double homicide when the black masked invaders found a pretty babysitter watching the homeowners' kid. She'd fought hard; Jane had to give her that, and might have actually made it if the damn neighbors next door could have been bothered to just call the cops when they heard all hell breaking loose. Or even just texted. Instead, they'd just turned the television up louder and went back to the game and now there were two new bodies in the morgue.
One with the baby soft curls that only three year olds had.
She had stood there just staring, while in her ears roared the guilt every beat cop and homicide detective felt when they didn't come in time, until the sound blocked out everything else—Maura's voice recording facts, the refrigerated hum of the 'meat lockers', the laughter of some conversation just outside—and suddenly the guilt became hot Italian anger.
She'd used words then that would have made her family's Priest faint, spitting out the curses that if there was any justice left in the universe would damn the killers screaming to hell forever.
It wasn't until she'd thrown Maura's nerdy science humor coffee mug across the length of the morgue and it exploded in sharp edged white and black shards exploding hot coffee all over the wall like blood splatter at a crime scene and everyone had froze, that she came back to herself suddenly, shaking and sweating and gasping for breath.
And she had looked into Maura's eyes and suddenly there was nothing left in her but grief.
She had bolted then, out the heavy doors and to the precinct locker room. To the farthest corner alcove where there were only shadows and the half forgotten recycling bin. There she had wedged herself as if she were that three year old child, wrapped her arms around her knees and wept.
For that brave babysitter who would never go to college.
For the three year old with the baby curls who would never go to kindergarten.
For two families whose ordinary worlds would never be safe or right again.
And for herself, who now had two more faces to haunt her dreams at sweating nightmare nights.
Jane had no idea how long she'd been there weeping in the shadows of that corner. She only knew that at some point there had come the familiar sound of Jimmy Choo shoes and the soft fine scent of French perfume.
Then Maura was holding her and rocking slowly back and forth.