Chapter 2

It was still dark when Maura woke up. She wasn't sure what had woken her. She had a panicked feeling as if she'd just escaped a nightmare, but she couldn't recall a dream. Jane was sound asleep beside her, sprawled on her stomach with her dark curls spread out over her pillow. They were both naked, as they had been celebrating six months of marriage well into the night. Maura had fallen asleep feeling blissful. She didn't know what was causing her dread now, but she couldn't escape the feeling that she was missing something, some important detail, and that not finding it was putting Jane at risk somehow.

She wracked her brain. She couldn't think of a logical reason to feel this way. They had both spent the previous day on paperwork. There were no new active cases, no impending trials that Jane would have to testify in, no random threats that Maura knew of. It was possible she'd had a dream she couldn't remember. Maura had a lot of dreams about Jane being hurt or in danger because she'd seen it happen so many times. And every time, it nearly destroyed her, but she would never ask Jane to take a less dangerous job. Being a homicide detective was a big part of who Jane was; to ask her to change was to wish a different kind of death on her. Maura knew what she was getting when she married Jane, and she fully accepted the situation. But she was still going to do everything in her power to protect Jane when necessary.

She didn't know what she could do about that right now, though, so she just reached out and gently moved Jane's hair out of her face before leaning down to kiss her forehead.

Jane stirred a little at this. "I'm tired, Maura," she mumbled. "There's no way I can get you to 600 tonight."

Maura broke into a smile. At least she knew what Jane was dreaming about. But before she could settle back down beside her wife and try to snatch a little more sleep, both of their cell phones rang. Maura watched in amusement as Jane blearily patted around on the nightstand for her phone.

"Rizzoli," she said hoarsely when she'd finally found it.

Maura picked up her own phone. "Isles," she said brightly. "Okay. I'll be there as soon as I can." She hung up and smiled at her wife. "Guess we're starting early today."

"Yeah." Jane pushed her tousled hair out of her face and gazed up at Maura. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Wake up looking the same as you did when you went to bed. I've never even woken up looking human, in my life."

Maura shrugged. "You move around more in your sleep."

Jane wriggled into her robe and started to set off in search of work clothes, but then turned back. "Aren't you getting up?"

Maura sighed. "Yes. I just…have a bad feeling."

Jane squinted at her. "You look like Maura," she said, "but you don't sound like Maura. You have a bad feeling?"

"I woke up with it. I want to tell you to stay home today, but since I don't know what the bad feeling pertains to, I don't really know how to advise you. Maybe you'd be safer at work."

"Okay, this is turning into Invasion of the Body Snatchers real fast. My wife doesn't just get a 'bad feeling' for no reason and try to plan her day around it."

"Intuition is simply when our brains gather and process information on a subconscious level. There may be a fully logical reason for my bad feeling that I just don't consciously understand yet."

"Oookay. So, what is does this bad feeling relate to?"

"You. I'm worried someone will hurt you."

"Who?"

"I'm not sure."

"Sweetie, you're freaking me out here."

"I'm sorry." Maura climbed out of bed and put on her own robe. "We have a double homicide. Let's get ready to go."

Maura was hypervigilant on the way to the crime scene. They had a 45-minute drive, as the murder had taken place in one of the new constructions on the outskirts of Boston.

"I hate this neighborhood," said Jane. "All the houses look practically the same."

"The houses literally look the same in our neighborhood."

"Yeah, well, at least in our neighborhood, they look interesting. These just look like boxes in different shades of blue and beige. I don't care how many kids we have, Maura. You're never going to get me to move out here."

Maura smiled. "This isn't the neighborhood I was thinking of moving to. I want a Victorian house."

"Mm. We can maybe work with that." They got out of the car and met Korsak in front of the house.

"It's a couple, so it might remind you of Hoyt a little," Korsak warned Jane. "But the MO's different. Everything's different."

Maura instinctively reached for Jane's hand. If someone was copying Hoyt, that would give her reason to be worried for Jane's safety, but it didn't explain why she had a bad feeling before the call even came in.

Jane took a deep breath. "Okay then, let's see it."

Korsak led them through the front door. A man, probably late twenties or early thirties, lay on the floor in pajamas with his throat slit.

"Looks like he might have just answered the door," said Jane, walking carefully around the body to look at it from all angles. "Except he's not right by the door. It's like he let the person in."

Maura knelt down beside the body. "Rigor's just starting in the face," she observed. "He's been dead about five or six hours."

"A neighbor noticed the front door was open, came over to check on them, saw his body," Korsak explained. "The wife's upstairs."

Maura finished her preliminary examination of the man's body and then followed Jane up to the master bedroom. Here was a completely different picture: the woman was sprawled on the bed, covers tangled around her, with multiple stab wounds to her chest and abdomen. Her mouth hung open in a silent scream.

Jane whistled to herself. "Looks like she was the main target," she said. "It takes a lot of rage to hold someone down and stab her that many times. This was personal."

As Maura examined the body, Jane walked around the room, the wheels in her head turning. "They're in bed. There's someone at the door, husband gets up to see who it is. He lets the killer in, so it has to be someone he trusts. The killer takes the husband out quickly, comes upstairs to find his main target, the wife. He must know her as well, because he hates her with a passion. He stabs her a zillion times and then goes back out the way he came in, leaving the door open."

Most of that sounded like wild speculation to Maura, but then, she wasn't a detective. She'd learned through the years that Jane was usually right, even if it did sound like she was jumping to conclusions.

"Do you think it could be connected to Hoyt in some way?" she asked.

Jane shook her head. "I don't think so, at least not right now. It's not similar enough, and it seems too personal. We need to look into who might have had a beef with the wife."

Maura nodded. She didn't see how her bad feeling could possibly be connected to this murder, which meant she still had no idea what had caused it.

XXX

"I know that look in your eyes," Jane told Maura as they drove to the BPD after finishing at the crime scene. "That hypervigilance. I've seen it on you before, and I've seen it in the mirror. I think I know what caused you to have a bad feeling when you woke up."

"What?"

"Honey, it's obviously PTSD-related. Something triggered you. That's all. It's not intuition."

Maura was quiet for a minute. "Just because I have some post-traumatic stress doesn't mean there can't be real danger in the present moment that I am unconsciously picking up on. Intuition is the result of experience."

"I know, sweetie, and I know it's really hard to tell if what you're experiencing is real or if it's just the PTSD. I'm not trying to put down your intuition; it's just that if it were because of something you'd actually seen recently, you'd be able to figure it out, wouldn't you?"

Maura looked down at her hands. "Maybe. But maybe I just haven't figured it out yet."

"And maybe you will, but until then, let's not let fear take over, okay? Whatever might have happened to make you nervous, we're safe right now. Everything's fine. I'm here with you, and we're just doing our normal thing. No one's threatening us."

Maura nodded. "You're right. I just can't stand the thought of anything happening to you again. I want to protect you."

"I know. I feel the same way about you. But I try not to let it keep me from enjoying you in the present."

Maura put her hand on Jane's knee. "I love you. And I always enjoy you." She looked out at the sunrise, focusing on her breath, trying to convince herself that her feeling was just the result of lingering PTSD.

But the feeling wouldn't go away.