Chapter 1

One day, one very ordinary day at the station, dealing with what is, for once, a very straightforward case, something is different. No, Jane tells herself, when she thinks about it again. Not different. Nothing has really changed. It is the same as it has been for some time, perhaps since that very first day in that bloodbath of a family home, when Maura, this vision of style and beauty and poise at a crime scene, had appeared out of nowhere in a designer outfit and high heels to carry out a medical examination on those two tragic victims of Charles Hoyt's twisted and depraved legacy, and stepped right into Jane's life and into a position she had since never left. Dr Isles, all class and intelligence and charm, had fixed her with that gaze, noted at once Jane's injury, and leaned forward to reset her broken nose with a painful tweak, those elegant, delicate, talented fingers making sudden contact with Jane's face, twisting and healing in one sharp, shocking, and yet somehow gentle motion. A searing, almost nauseating, pain for a moment, there and then gone again, leaving a strange sensation behind. It was, in part, a warm, secure feeling: of having been healed, and fixed, by someone who knew exactly what she was doing. But something else was there too, and it was something Jane had barely dared to admit, even to herself, ever since she had first noted its presence. Because the presence was really an absence. An absence of - Jane would not have let herself even consciously think that thought, let alone say it out loud.

Late at night, or early grey mornings when exhausted and yet so far from sleep, thinking about Maura, somehow, and still hesitating in naming why she would think of her friend so often and so meaningfully, telling herself that Casey was who she was really in love with, really wanted, really missed, because surely she couldn't have this... Yearning... for... Jane wants to smile, in spite of herself, terrified and elated all at the same time, because yearning is so very definitely a Maura Isles sort of word, and it has somehow now, today, of all days, nestled itself comfortably in the front of the conscious part of her brain, a spiralling, now settling thought, a beautiful, delicate butterfly composed of impossible colours, that have finally stopped flitting and came into absolute focus, almost painfully sharp relief.

You yearn for Maura. You want Maura to touch you. You have always wanted this, ever since the first time she did.

A warm feeling, somewhere in the gut. Lower? Higher? Perhaps there is a medical term for this strange, glowing, balance-threatening... whatever it was. Maura would certainly know.

What was Jane thinking? She was having... thoughts? about Maura? Touching her...? Those soft, talented hands –

Conscious thought is halted by a sudden vision that all at once sears across Jane's brain. A premonition? A fantasy? Jane feels herself redden.

A vision of Maura, wrapped up in crisp white sheets, her honey blonde hair tangled around her shoulders, gently waking from a morning slumber, hazel eyes opening to sunlight crisscrossing the bed, Maura so languidly gorgeous, totally irresistible and perfect; so absolutely her.

Jane swallows hard.

You want her in your bed. You want to be in hers.

Jane is not gay. Never has been gay. Never ever even been with a woman. It is all very clear-cut, Jane has told herself, whenever the issue has come up, and it often has, random and not-so-random people are forever throwing out "dyke" or "lesbo", just because Jane finds trouser suits practical, knows the rules to various sports, excels in a male-dominated profession, can't seem to find the right guy and when she does, well, oops he is off to Afghanistan, leaving Jane behind to spend as much free time as possible with her best female friend... It really is just typical of people and their stereotypical attitudes to assume that a tough woman is a lesbian. But some people's minds just work that way.

Patrick Doyle Sr, for example, well, that old villain had only termed them a couple, had only called Jane Maura's girlfriend - Jane's mouth is dry again - within five seconds of meeting them, to goad them both. His viciousness was random and without foundation. Impossible that he had managed, upon such brief acquaintance, to alight on anything close to the truth. And Jane's mother, in all but suggesting the two of them go to couples therapy, or that she would like to have a doctor in the family, or even, astonishingly, musing aloud whilst Jane sat but a foot away, still recovering, "the candle or the clam...?" - that was simply her mother making her usual off-key remarks. Once or twice, it was true, Jane had felt a sudden terror grabbing like a fist in her stomach, that her mother was going to ask her that question (she didn't want, here, to count the candle or the clam incident), but Angela never quite did, and Jane had made sure, just in case her mother's wild ideas had become completely insane ideas, to point out to her mother that she and Maura were not a couple, weren't together, could not be compared to those in a relationship, except –

A flash, again. Maura in the bed. Now rolled over on her back, sheets arranged haphazardly, smokey "come-to-bed" eyes. Jane obeying such eyes. Skin so soft and tender, a physician's healing hands tracing Jane's criss-crossing of stomach scars over and over, sliding her hands up around Jane's waist –

All these years, Jane had told herself the reason she was single was a simple one. Like many successful women of her generation, she wanted a lot out of life and love and had just never quite met the right guy. It wasn't so strange. Maura hadn't met the right guy yet either, after all. The fact that Jane had found herself wanting to spend all her free time with Maura, a new best friend - someone she had met and got along with instantly - that was just two women connecting because they understood where each other was coming from, despite their apparently outward differences. Jane was a cop, didn't know how to be anything else, wouldn't have ever tried. Maura was a doctor, but also a medical examiner, and also, in recent years, something of an unorthodox criminal investigator, throwing herself into police work and all it entailed with enthusiasm. She was well-educated, sophisticated. Knew about wine and books, had had a classical education. Maura's life fascinated Jane, even as she openly mocked it from time to time when Maura quoted Greek or Latin and corrected Jane if she had mistaken one for the other. Jane knew that Maura knew that Jane knew more than she let on, but Maura still knew more: about everything. The woman was fascinating, infuriating, intoxicating, gorgeous – she was everything.

Jane closes her eyes. Surely she couldn't want... Want... Why today, on this insignificant day? - why was today the day for her to start to be honest with herself about her feelings for her "best friend", the woman who had always been more, whose eyes and smile had reached deep down inside Jane and touched something she kept locked away out of fear? Today like so many other days that have gone before, Maura says something infuriating and precise and geeky and adorable and sexy (a gasp, somewhere, in Jane's brain. Maura is as sexy as hell) and funny and charming, and Jane wants to ask Maura if it is indeed medically possible for her heart to skip a beat, because it is undoubtedly the kind of thing that Maura would know, chapter and verse, and Jane could swear that hers just did.

"... in a reasonably advanced stage of decomposition, having been buried for between five and eight weeks in soil that has a limestone base."

Maura pauses in the examination and looks up at her friend, who is being uncharacteristically quiet this morning and, it must be said, looking slightly peaky. Jane is, Maura knows, not squeamish about dead bodies, and there is nothing about the corpse on the slab that Maura would have thought would especially upset Jane. An adult male, likely early thirties, possibly late twenties, dead from two or three heavy blows to the back of his head, none of which taken separately would have been fatal, but which together, contrived to kill him. Jane gets angry about women and children subjected to men's cruelty in particular, and Maura has seen her brush away a tear now and again for such victims that she has left pass unmentioned. But this body is, sorry deceased gentleman - fairly run of the mill.

Possibly it is man trouble again, Maura thinks. Jane has been waiting around for Colonel Casey Jones, Maura knows, despite her ill-advised entanglement with the somewhat odd Gabriel Dean in the interim. More out of boredom and loneliness than anything else, it seemed; Dean had been frankly below the standards Maura expected for Jane and there was something ever so slightly creepy about him. Casey was more up to the job, at least, but had gone very quiet of late. Maura's thoughts paused. Why was she thinking about Jane's love life now, in the middle of an examination? Jane was the closest friend Maura had ever had, and their lives now overlapped sufficiently that Maura thought of Jane's own mother as family. Although she doesn't think of Jane as a sister, Maura muses. Something else...?

"Maura."

Jane stands expectantly. It appears she has asked a question. Seeing Maura's uncharacteristic distraction, Jane unfolds and refolds her arms, and tries again. "You think he was murdered?"

"Think?"

Jane feels the corners of her mouth turn up slightly. Maura's infuriating, intoxicating need for precision.

"In your opinion as a medical examiner, was he murdered?"

"There's no way from the angle that he could have struck himself three times to cause these skull fractures - leaving aside the fact that any one of them very possibly would have rendered him unconscious - and the repetition suggests it was no accident."

"So he was murdered."

"I can't conclusively say."

"Fine, I'll say it."

I want you, Jane thinks, this the only "it" remaining in her mind as Maura bites her bottom lip endearingly and tries to avoid, Jane sees, a pout at Jane's connecting of dots that Maura would always rather leave unconnected until all the evidence is in.

"We can safely assume that… uh…" Jane pauses again, glances down at the back of her hand, back up. "It's a suspicious death."

She's so distracted today, thinks Maura. She nods. "I'm comfortable, for the purposes of your establishing facts for your investigation. with you saying you will treat it as a suspicious death."

I want to kiss you, Jane thinks. That's the very next thing I want to do. The last words out of your mouth were "suspicious death." They were the last words out of my mouth too, but I don't care. I want to press my lips against yours. I am lost, to just standing here thinking about kissing you.

This is what Jane is thinking when her phone begins to ring with a special ringtone designated for someone in particular.