Author's Notes: I realized there's something I forgot to address, which is that I decided to include Frost in this fic. I'm not too hung up about exactly where in the timeline of the show this story would fall. It's more about capturing the rhythm and flavor of the characters than it is about the actual context of the show, if that makes any sense. That's why I put Frost in here, because I loved him dearly and I miss him. And since this is my imagination, I decided to resurrect him.

That's all. Happy reading!

Henry and I worked day and night on this investigation for the better part of a year, and we generated quality leads and evidence, as you will hear about in this season. We made a significant impact on the case, and we're proud of what we've done.

But I gotta tell ya, we're pathetic compared to the three detectives that the BPD assigned to Charlotte's case. We were given unprecedented access to their investigation, and you'll get to hear much of that in the coming episodes. But let me introduce you to the players.

First up is Sargent Detective Vince Korsak. He's been with the force for over 30 years, and he's a wealth of experience and know-how that makes him an essential and valuable team leader. He's also literally the sweetest man I've ever met. I'm serious. Check out our website; I posted a video of him playing with his new litter of puppies that is so cute you'll vomit.

Next we have Detective Barry Frost, the newest and youngest detective in Boston Homicide. But he's not green by any stretch of the imagination. He's sharp and observant, funny and smart, and devastatingly handsome—although I may be a little biased about that. He could also give Korsak a run for his money for sweetness. But again, biased. He's strong and brave, and endlessly loyal to his partner: Detective Jane Rizzoli.

That's right, people. This is not a drill. We got Rizzoli.

Any true crime addict has heard her name. If you're having a hard time remembering, maybe this will help: Charles Hoyt. Yeah. She's the woman who locked up the infamous serial killer Charles Hoyt.

I'm not going to say anything else about her, though. I want you to hear it for yourself.

And just wait until you meet her girlfriend: Dr. Maura freakin' Isles, the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Stick around, guys. It's gonna be a great season.

-An excerpt from To Charlotte, With Love – S2E1 "The Detectives"

Winters and summers were equally unforgiving in Boston, and this year was no exception. "I can't with this heat," grumbled Jane, fiddling with the air conditioner as she drove. "Frost, make it frosty in here, will ya?"

"You got it, partner," said Frost, and two seconds later the air coming out of the car was nothing short of frigid.

"What the… How the hell did you do that? Show me."

"How about we focus on the case huh?" suggested Frost, waving the folder he'd taken from Cavanaugh in the air.

Jane snorted. "Young detectives, always trying kiss some brass. Alright, then, let's hear it."

"Charlotte Turner, daughter of Charles and Stephanie Turner, born in Philadelphia. The family moved to Beacon Hill a year before Charlotte disappeared."

"Do the parents live anywhere near Maura?"

"Yes, actually," said Frost. "They're divorced now, but her mother lives just a few streets over from Dr. Isles, it looks like. The father's got an apartment on the other end of the district."

"So they're well-to-do. They got any other kids?"

"None. It was pretty clear after Charlotte vanished that they were headed for divorce."

This did not surprise Jane. The Turners weren't the first couple to fall apart after losing a child to violent crime. Very few murders resulted in only one victim. "Amicable?"

"No," answered Frost. "Sally Stark talked to both of them at length, and they gave candid insight in to what happened between them. It wasn't pretty. Never got violent, but it was ugly."

"Who's Sally Stark?"

"The podcast host."

Outside their windows, the houses they passed gradually became larger and spaced farther apart as they moved towards the wealthier part of the city. Some of these homes even had lawns, a true sign of an owner who belonged to a higher socio-economic status. The shift was familiar and comforting to Jane, although it hadn't always been that way for her. For the majority of her life she'd envied and resented people who could afford to live in a place like this. She'd looked down on them, believing that none of them had ever had to struggle or work for anything the way her own family did.

Now, this area of the city was intrinsically linked in her mind to Maura, and Maura absolutely deserved everything she had. For all the good she did for this city, the least the city could do for her is a home with a yard in Beacon Hill. Of course Jane wasn't deluded enough to believe that everyone who lived here was as pure a soul as Maura, but it helped prevent her from automatically assuming the worst of anyone who had money.

"Have you actually listened to this podcast?" Jane asked.

"Yeah, I listened every week while it was airing," said Frost enthusiastically. "It's really good. It makes you feel feelings in your heart."

"Feel feelings in your heart?" repeated Jane flatly. "Really?"

"Hey, don't knock it till you try it, partner. I love true crime podcasts, and To Charlotte, With Love is one of the best. I bet it'll win a Peabody this year. They released the last episode of season one last month, but there's been no word on when season two was going to start. I guess now we know why: They wanted to follow the BPD in their investigation."

"I don't get you, Frost. You don't see enough murder during regular business hours? You gotta go home and listen to people talk about other crimes, too?"

Frost shrugged. "I like it."

"What, murder?"

"The puzzle," Frost corrected. "I like trying to solve it, and so do you."

Jane smiled. "Fair enough." It was true. Jane did like to solve a case like a game of chess, using all the pieces in a winning strategy to reach a solution. She lived for that sweet moment when all the hazy bits and pieces fell in to place, illuminating the truth with blinding clarity. "Alright, so walk me through Charlotte's last day."

Pulling a page out of the file, Frost launched in to the story. "She woke up about seven AM and her father made her pancakes. Then she got on the school bus at about 8:06 AM. Nothing unusual happened that day. She was on time for all her classes. At lunch she went to visit the janitor Gary Hopkins in his office with her two best friends, identical twin brothers Rich and Robbie Dunbar, but multiple unrelated sources say they did that a lot so it wasn't unusual. After school she went to softball practice, which ended at approximately five PM. Everyone is absolutely positive she changed in the locker room after practice, and then she was seen leaving the school grounds at about 5:20. And that's the last time anyone saw her."

"Not much to go on," said Jane thoughtfully. "I'm assuming all the CCTV footage has been checked?"

"Every camera, every minute. Nothing there."

"Then maybe she never actually left the school. Did anyone check those cameras?"

"Yeah, they were all checked."

"Well, shit," said Jane, blowing air straight up her face to get that one unruly tendril away from her eyes.

Frost nodded. "Pretty much. The most plausible theory anyone's been able to come up with is that she was snatched in a blind spot somewhere and taken away in a vehicle."

"And if that's true," said Jane as she pulled in to the parking lot of John Adams High School, "there's no way we'll be able to find her. Not without checking every single car caught on CCTV that day."

"Which they did try, but unfortunately the video quality back then wasn't great and they weren't able to decipher every plate." The two of them climbed out of the car and headed towards the front of the building. Standing there waiting were two strangers carrying audio equipment, a man and a woman. "This is so cool," said Frost as they approached. "I can't believe I'm about to meet Sally Stark!"

Rolling her eyes, Jane muttered, "Turns out you're the biggest nerd of all. What a twist."

"Detective Jane Rizzoli?" asked the woman in a strong, confident voice. She strode forward and offered Jane her hand. "I'm Sally Stark. It's nice to meet you."

Sally Stark's handshake was firm, and Jane liked her at once. Nothing about Sally was what Jane was expecting. Self-assuredness colored her every movement, and she met Jane's gaze evenly and easily. Though she was dressed casually and comfortably, Jane was sure Maura would approve of her outfit and general appearance. She had short, stylish red hair and wore rectangular black glasses. It wasn't hard to understand why the people in Charlotte Turner's life were willing to open up to Sally Stark. She had a respectful, gentle concentration about her. "Likewise," said Jane sincerely. "And this is my partner, Detective Barry Frost."

"It's a real pleasure, Miss Stark," said Frost with a huge grin. "I'm a big fan of your show."

"Thank you Detective," Sally said pleasantly. "We always love meeting our fans. This is my producer, Henry Simon."

Jane and Frost shook Henry's hand. Jane liked him as well. His smile was genuine and seemed to lack the kind of bravado that she was used to seeing in men. Although, admittedly, most of the men Jane knew were cops. But Henry was clearly the type of guy who didn't mind sitting back and letting his female co-worker get all the credit.

"So let's get down to business, shall we?" said Jane. "You think the body is in the school?"

Her words caused an immediate flurry of activity in the two reporters as they hurriedly turned on their audio equipment. "Just a moment, please," said Sally, pulling a microphone away from the rest of the recorder and holding it out towards Jane. Henry did the same but held his in front of Frost. "You don't mind if we record, do you?"

Eyeing the microphone dubiously, Jane grumbled, "I guess not."

"Great," said Sally briskly. "To check our audio levels, why don't you both tell us what you had for breakfast this morning? Detective Frost?"

Frost cleared his throat. "Um, I had Frosted Mini Wheats."

The answer wasn't long enough for Henry to get a good read, so he prompted: "Did you have coffee, too? How do you take it?"

"Actually I don't drink coffee first thing in the morning," said Frost, and Jane raised an eyebrow at him. "I prefer a cup of English breakfast tea, which I drink black. Then once I get in to the office I have coffee, also black with two sugars."

Satisfied, Henry nodded. "Thank you," he said.

"What about you, Detective Rizzoli?" asked Sally, fitting her headphones over her ears.

"I had coffee at home with tons of cream and sugar and then we stopped for croissants on the way in to the precinct," Jane responded.

"'We?'" prodded Sally, her eyes flashing with interest.

"Yeah, me and my friend Maura."

"Would that be Dr. Maura Isles, the chief medical examiner?"

"Yeah, but I didn't have her for breakfast so I'm not sure why you're asking about her," said Jane drolly, but there was no malice in her voice. In a way the reporter's curiosity reminded Jane of Maura. She seemed to share that same quality that made it impossible for her to refrain from asking questions, no matter how awkward or irrelevant the topic. Jane found it endearing in a weird way.

Somewhat bashfully, Sally admitted, "I'm sorry, Detective. Full disclosure: I'm a bit of a fan myself. I've followed your career for a couple of years now. You've solved some real stunners in your day. You've got the highest closing rate in the entire city. You're obviously an excellent detective. I was really excited when the BPD assigned you to Charlotte's case."

When Sally was finished speaking, Jane let the silence stretch a little longer than necessary before responding. She waved her hand as though trying to make Sally keep talking. "Is that it? You don't have anything else you want to flatter me with? You didn't even mention how tall, dark and handsome I am."

Sally laughed. "Those particular details don't really translate well in audio format."

"Well go get a damn camera, because I have it on good authority that I'm gorgeous." She smiled as she remembered Maura telling her as much as they shared a bottle of red wine in the morgue. If someone who looked like Maura thought Jane was gorgeous, then it must be true. "Have you leveled your levels? Let's get started on this case, shall we?"

"Of course," said Sally, businesslike once again. "We believe we have an idea about where Charlotte's body might be hidden."

"Inside the school?" asked Frost, squinting in the afternoon sunlight. "It's been searched pretty thoroughly."

"Multiple times," added Sally helpfully. "But the short answer is yes, we think it's here. If we can just take a look at something in there then it'll be worth giving you the long answer. We wanted to go in ourselves but the school administration won't let us inside. They say it's against school policy to allow press inside the school."

Jane blew a raspberry in irritation. "That sounds like total BS to me. They're probably worried about the publicity. Can't imagine they feel good about the idea of digging in to old wounds. But don't worry; they won't turn down the cops. We can get you inside."

Sally blinked at her. She'd never even considered that the school's administration might be lying about why she and Henry had been denied entry to the school. She'd assumed it was the truth. In that moment she understood that there was a vast difference between what she and Henry were doing with their podcast and what Detective Rizzoli did in her everyday life. Clearly, she had much to learn from this woman. She dug a small notebook out of her pocket and jotted the thought down.

"What did I say?" said Jane, nosily leaning closer to try and read what she was writing.

Laughing again, Sally showed her the notebook. "It's not a secret, I promise. We make notes while we're working so we can plan what to put in the narrative voiceover of the podcast. By the way, if there's anything you don't feel comfortable having in the show, just let us know and we'll honor that. The last thing we want is to hinder your investigation."

"Our investigation?" asked Frost.

This time it was Henry who piped up: "Of course. The investigation became yours the minute you were assigned to it. From here on out, we're observers. We'll assist you however we can, but ultimately we understand that the goal is to solve this case, and you two have a lot better chance of doing that than us."

"Alright then," said Jane, beginning to grow impatient. It was hot and she wanted to go inside the school to where there was sure to be air conditioning. "Let's go investigate, shall we?"

The four of them headed in to the blessedly temperature-controlled school, Sally and Henry dropping back to follow behind Jane and Frost. It had been a long time since Jane had been inside a high school. Some things had changed, like the fancy computers in many of the classrooms, but other things were exactly the same. The walls were still lined with lockers, there were still flyers for student elections, trash still littered the hallway, and perhaps most notably, the students were still rowdy. As they walked along towards the reception office, one male teenager wolf-whistled at Jane.

"Yo, lady, what subject you teach? Whatever it is, I want in," he catcalled.

Jane put her hands on her hips, pushing back her blazer to reveal the gun and badge clipped to her belt. "Criminal Justice 101. Keep talking and your first lesson's right now," she replied, and all the teenagers in the vicinity erupted with laughter and jeers at the student who had engaged Jane.

"That's definitely gonna end up in the show," murmured a highly amused Frost, and Jane grinned at him.

They entered the reception office and Jane approached the desk. She and Frost both flashed their badges at the secretary. "Good afternoon. I'm Detective Rizzoli, this is my partner Detective Frost. We're with Boston Homicide. We'd like to speak to whoever's in charge here," said Jane in a clipped tone that left no room for anything but obedience.

"Uhh…" stammered the secretary, already rising from her chair. "S-sure. Let me just go see if Principal Barker can see you. Have a seat."

"What's she so nervous about?" asked Sally the moment the secretary had left.

"Two badges in her office, I'd guess," ventured Jane.

"The badges or the guns?"

"Oh, the badges for sure," said Jane. "Anyone can get a gun, but not everyone gets one of these bad boys. Even innocent people get nervous around cops. Most of the time it doesn't mean anything."

"But sometimes it does," added Frost.

"Sometimes it does," agreed Jane.

"Then how can you tell the difference?" said Sally.

"We're detectives. We detect," Jane said with a shrug. "For what it's worth, I doubt that secretary murdered Charlotte Turner."

"Don't let Dr. Isles hear you say that," laughed Frost. "She'd have you opening a whole new investigation in to the poor woman."

Jane cringed. "You're right. Maybe I should have them leave that out of the podcast."

Henry and Sally were following the conversation with interest, although they were clearly a little lost. Taking pity on them, Frost explained: "Dr. Isles is very by-the-book, and she absolutely refuses to guess."

"She sounds like a consummate professional," commented Sally. "I hope we get to meet her."

"Stick around this one longer than an hour or two and you definitely will," said Frost, jerking his thumb in Jane's direction. "They're practically joined at the hip." He braced himself for the inevitable punch on the arm from Jane, but it never came.

Instead, she simply patted him on the back and said: "He calls 'em like he sees 'em."

That's interesting, thought Frost, and he filed it away for later investigation.

The secretary returned and announced: "The Principal will see you now. If you'll all just follow me through here."

Chad Barker was one of the largest men Jane had ever seen. He seemed to fill the office with his enormous body, and when he sat down in his desk chair after all the introductions had been made, she swore she heard it creak in protest. The walls were decorated with his diplomas and photographs, and Jane looked at them from her chair while she let Frost handle the talking. As he was explaining what they were doing there and about the two podcasters, Jane spotted something that caught her interest and she stood and crossed the room for a closer look.

The photograph was of a somewhat corpulent middle-aged man wearing a janitor's uniform, two identical twin boys, Charlotte Turner, and Barker himself. They were standing outside the school in almost the exact same spot where Jane and Frost had just met Sally and Henry for the first time, and they were all smiling. The janitor had a hand on each of the boys' shoulders. "Are these Charlotte Turner's two friends, uh…" She snapped her finger at Frost behind her without looking away from the photograph, and he promptly supplied the names.

"Rich and Robbie Dunbar." He stood and joined Jane near the photograph. "And the janitor, Gary Hopkins."

"It is indeed," replied Barker, not rising from his seat.

"When was this taken?" asked Frost.

"About a month before Charlotte…" Barker trailed off, his voice thick with emotion. He was blinking rapidly and not looking at the two Detectives.

Jane and Frost waited, but he didn't seem to want to complete the sentence or offer anything else. They exchanged glances, and then Jane unclipped her phone. "Do you mind if I take a picture of your picture?" she asked, starting up her camera app.

"Be my guest."

After she snapped a picture she noticed there was a text from Maura waiting for her, but she resisted the urge to open it at once. Instead, she clipped her phone back on her belt and said, "Alright then, we'll get out of your hair. We're just going to take a look around. You won't even know we're here."

As they started to file out, Barker said, "The school has already been searched by dozens of detectives over the years and nobody's found anything at all."

"Yeah? Well it's about to be searched by two more," said Jane, and then she turned and walked out of the room. Outside the reception area, Jane made a sweeping motion with her arm towards the hallway ahead of them and said to Sally: "Lead the way."

As they walked, Frost asked, "Where are we headed?"

"The basement," replied Sally confidently. "We've never actually been here but we pulled the blueprints from the local library, so we have a pretty good idea where we're going."

"The blueprints are public record?" asked Jane, eyeing the teenagers around them, who eyed her right back.

"The current ones aren't," said Sally, stopping the group in front of a door and pushing it open, "but the ones from ten years ago are."

Jane and Frost exchanged another glance and followed the podcasters down the stairway beyond the door.

It was quieter in the basement, and it didn't look at all like Jane had been expecting—she might as well have walked on to the set of a creepy horror movie. There were random piles of chairs, desks, and old books strewn about in seemingly random places, and pipes ran visible and exposed all along the ceiling. There was a steady dripping sound echoing from somewhere nearby. It was relatively well-lit, but it was so dusty and disorganized that the place still managed to feel dark and dank.

The podcasters led them through the maze of hallways, and eventually they reached a part that was in much better shape than everything they'd seen before. Up until this point the floor had been made of concrete, but here it was the same shiny linoleum that paved the hallways of the upper parts of the school. It was still dusty but clearly newer than the concrete they'd just left. "When did they renovate this portion?" asked Jane.

"After Charlotte disappeared," replied Sally, pleased that Jane had caught on so quickly. "It took us the better part of six months to find this information, but we recently learned that the construction crew was down here within two weeks of her disappearance."

"Have you been able to narrow the exact location where the crew was working from day to day?"

"Not quite that specifically, but we know they were in this wing. I can see you're thinking what we're thinking, that Charlotte might be under here," said Sally.

But Jane shook her head. "It's tempting to think that, but it's pretty unlikely," she said. "Not unless this whole floor was dirt before the renovations, but as we saw back there, it was concrete before it was linoleum."

"That's not all we found, Detective," said Sally, looking like the cat that ate the canary. They paused again before another door. "This is the place." The sign next to it labeled it as a supply closet. Sally went to push it open but Jane threw out her arm to stop her.

"Don't touch anything. There's probably no ten-year-old forensic evidence here but we need to be careful just in case."

She and Frost pulled out blue latex gloves and pushed the door open. It was the biggest supply closet Jane had ever seen, and it was jam-packed with old desks, the kind where the desk and chair are physically attached to one another. It was so full that there was no room for them to enter, but that didn't stop Jane from trying to get her tall, wiry frame through the tangle. A few minutes later she was forced to give up on it, though, and she rejoined the group in the hallway.

Frost looked over at Sally. "What makes you think she's in there?"

"A couple of different things. According to the blueprints we pulled, this closet used to be the janitor's office," replied Sally.

"Hopkins' office was in the basement?" Jane asked, pulling off her gloves and crossing her arms over her chest as she shifted easily in to detective mode. Sally felt a thrill run down her spine—this was the legendary Detective Rizzoli, and she was a paradigm of focus and concentration.

Sally nodded again. "They moved him up when they began renovations, and when they ran in to funding issues and were forced to abandon those renovations, they decided to have him stay up there instead of coming back down here. We've been trying to get inside the school so we could see if the floor here had been replaced, because this particular portion of the building was conspicuously left off the construction company's records. And now we know it has been replaced, just like we thought."

"That's awfully convenient," muttered Jane. "We're gonna need to see everything you got from the builders." A hundred questions were forming in her mind, and she pulled out her own notebook to make some notes.

Beside her, Frost was doing the same. "We need to find out who put those desks in here," he said.

"I was just thinking that," agreed Jane. "What else makes you think it's here, Miss Stark?"

"Oh, you can call me Sally," said Sally with a negligent wave of her hand. "We discovered that Gary Hopkins used to work in construction. He was a jackhammer specialist."

"Hmm," said Jane. "So he knew how to tear up stone floors."

Sally was practically vibrating with excitement. "And that's not all," she said, her voice wavering. "We know he owned his own jackhammer at that time, and we can prove it."

"How?" demanded Jane at once.

"We have the notarized bill of sale from the guy he ended up selling it to, dated seventeen days after Charlotte went missing."

Jane unclipped her cell phone and pushed a button on her speed dial. "The tip is good," said Jane when Korsak answered, watching Frost as he began taking photographs of the office with his own phone. "Get me a search warrant. We're gonna need a jackhammer and a forensics team at John Adams High School."

As the logistics of the investigation fell in to place, Jane was confident that there was nothing left for them to do here for the day and announced they should all head out. "I'm gonna go back to the station to run a search on Gary Hopkins," said Frost as they emerged back out in to the afternoon sunlight. "I'm sure it's been done before by other detectives but maybe I can find something they missed."

Jane wasn't listening. She was grinning at the text that Maura had sent her, which was, in usual Maura fashion, quite long and detailed. In it she suggested listening to To Charlotte, With Love while she worked on the sink in the master bathroom, and it included specific instructions on how to find the podcast on the internet, which was redundant information because Maura had also included a direct link to a website where she could stream it. Then she went on to explain where she kept her portable speakers, and where in the master bathroom to place the speaker to avoid the risk of accidental electrocution. And Jane, in usual Jane fashion, replied: "Nice to know you think so highly of me that you assume I don't know how to not electrocute myself to death."

"Detective Rizzoli?" It was Sally's voice, and this time Jane did look up. All three of her companions were standing there staring at her.

"Sorry," she said, a little flustered. "Damn millennials and their phones, right? What were you saying?"

"I wanted to say thanks for letting us come along today. We'll drop by the station tomorrow to catch you up on some other stuff it might be helpful for you to know," Sally said.

"You guys are welcome to hang around at the station with us while we work the case. We could probably use your help," said Jane. After today, she wasn't going to turn her nose up on anything Sally Stark thought might be important.

Overwhelmed with delight, Sally said, "We would love that. Thank you so much."

"No problem," replied Jane. "And I'll give the program a listen tonight."

"We have transcripts for you both," said Henry, and he fished through his bag and pulled out two thick packets of paper. He handed one to each detective.

It was a thoughtful and helpful gesture, and Jane appreciated it immensely. It would be great to be able to take notes on portions as she listened. "Thanks," she said sincerely. "And thanks for your tip. If we find her I'll buy you both a beer." Once the podcasters had left, Jane said to Frost, "You mind dropping me at Maura's? We're so close and it's almost quitting time anyway. I promised I'd fix her sink."

"Is that a euphemism?" countered Frost with a shit-eating grin.

"Ha ha," laughed Jane sarcastically. "Such a funny guy, that Detective Frost. Shame he never returned from that cold case assignment in Beacon Hill."