I was blown away by the reaction to the first chapter; thank you to everyone who followed, favorited, and most of all reviewed last chapter. At this point I would like to confess my utter ignorance of police procedure and Boston geography so if anything seems strange I promise it's not a clue, it's a mistake; I hope you'll forgive any errors you come across. And you can all rest easy because no, this is not a Maura/Frankie fic. They're friends and colleagues, and I promise that's all.
I think that's about everything I have to say for now. I hope you all enjoy the next chapter, and don't forget to share your thoughts in the reviews. Here you go.
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8:14 pm.
"Come on," Korsak muttered impatiently, tossing another empty coffee cup into the trash can and looking around at the others. Both Frankie and Frost were at their computers, looking through current cases and everything they could find of Maura's schedule. "There has to be something we've missed. What do we have?"
Frankie and Frost shared a look, both unwilling to tell their superior that they had absolutely no leads. After a quick stare-down, Frankie balked. Giving Frost a pointed glare, he turned to Korsak and said, "We know Maura left the building at six. She took her own car, and as far as anyone knows she was going straight home." He cleared his throat, hoping Frost would step in, but everyone was silent. "She was meant to meet me at her place at seven, but she never showed up," Frankie went on reluctantly. "There aren't any high-profile or controversial cases going on at the moment, so she's mostly been working on more mundane things."
"Mundane?" Korsak interrupted, glancing between Frankie and Frost.
"Non-homicide cases," Frost explained. "You know, suicides, accidents, that kind of thing."
"The kind of thing that probably wouldn't get her kidnapped," Korsak said, nodding. "Anything else?"
"Her phone's off, so we can't track it by GPS," Frost offered, and Frankie breathed a sigh of relief now that he was out of the spotlight. "We've got a BOLO out on her car but so far nothing's come of it."
"So we have nothing," Korsak summarized. When nobody contradicted him, he leaned forward and rested his head in his hands. "We have nothing," he murmured again, and in the silence that followed their thoughts all turned to the events of two years ago.
This time Frankie took it upon himself to change the subject. "She's only been missing for an hour," he pointed out. "That means that if something did happen to her, we've still got time to find her."
"What do you mean, 'if'?" Frost asked, frowning.
"She might have just turned her phone off," Frankie said. "It's unlikely, but it's possible."
"Right." Frost tapped a few keys, not typing anything, just thinking. Then he stood up and walked over to the board they'd been using to brainstorm. There wasn't much on it, just a picture of Maura and some lines connecting her to a few things – an article about her in the local paper, a picture of her house, a list of cases she'd worked on recently. His eyes skimmed over all of it, and then he sighed. "And we're sure she wasn't acting weird?" he asked, turning back to his colleagues. "She didn't mention anything that might have indicated that something was wrong?"
Frankie leaned back in his chair, thinking, and then he shook his head. "Nothing that I can think of," he said. "We didn't talk much today, but seemed like she is every day. You know, friendly enough but kind of distant."
"I only understood about half of what she was saying," Frost added with a chuckle, "so she can't have been too troubled."
"What if -" Korsak started, but at that moment a loud beep interrupted his words. He glanced around the room, a mildly indignant expression on his face.
Frost, however, leapt into action, hurrying back to his computer and surveying the screen without even bothering to sit down. His eyes lit up and he was reaching for his jacket before he'd even finished his sentence. "The BOLO came back on Maura's car," he said. "We've got an address."
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8:17 pm.
"So you're still not going to tell me your name?" Maura shifted in her seat, trying to get a better look at what the detective was doing. But as soon as the other woman moved, Maura suddenly wished she hadn't. The detective had been standing by a table, sorting through something, and Maura had forced herself to believe that it was simply documents or photographs. But when the detective moved to the side, Maura got a clear view of the array of scalpels spread out on the table.
"You don't need to know it," the detective responded, picking up the closest scalpel and turning it over in her hand. The light glinted off the wickedly sharp edge of it, and Maura flinched, an involuntary action in response to an alarming stimulus. And something that she hoped the detective hadn't noticed. Any sign of weakness would only spur her captor on.
Silence fell again, and while the detective went back to organizing the scalpels, Maura used the time to try to figure out anything she could about the other woman. She watched her carefully, adding up the facts, trying to piece together a picture of the strange woman.
Scars on both palms, unlikely to be self-inflicted, not recent. Likely one to two years old.
Dark circles under the eyes, likely due to lack of sleep and/or excessive stress.
Signs of malnourishment but nothing requiring immediate medical intervention.
Left-handed, but hesitance seems indicative of a past injury, not entirely healed.
The detective turned to face her again, and Maura braced herself, not sure what she was expecting but knowing it couldn't be good. But the detective didn't say anything; her eyes skimmed over Maura, taking in the ropes holding her to the chair and – to Maura's embarrassment – the fear that was plain on her face. Then the detective turned away again, and Maura switched her focus from physical signs to behavioral ones.
Clear agitation and signs of paranoia. Possible persecutory delusions.
Professional handling of the scalpels indicates some level of medical training.
Hesitation indicates unfamiliarity with the situation. Likely a first-time offender.
"Why are you doing that?" Maura asked, surprising herself. It surprised the detective even more, because she spun around, scalpel in hand and eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Doing what?" Her voice was gruff, unfriendly, but Maura couldn't sense any real malice in it. She added this to her list of observations, although the significance eluded her at the moment.
"You keep reaching for your belt," Maura pointed out. "Like you're checking that something's there." She paused, something clicking in her mind. "Or reaching for something that used to be there."
"Not that it matters," the detective said, narrowing her eyes even further, "but that's where I used to keep my gun."
The past tense tripped Maura up. It sounded like the detective hadn't carried a gun for a while, but she couldn't figure out why. Maybe the detective had resigned, or been fired. Or maybe something else had happened to her.
"Used to?" Maura echoed, deliberately keeping her voice even, not wanting to risk setting the detective off. She didn't know how unstable her captor was, and she didn't want to do anything to anger her. "Why don't you carry it anymore?"
The detective didn't answer, but she also didn't turn away. She just kept watching Maura, a faint hint of surprise on her face, but almost entirely masked by… nothing. Her expression was carefully neutral, not giving anything away. That is, when her eyes weren't darting anxiously around the room.
"Did someone take it from you?" Maura pressed, well aware that she was going down a dangerous path, but she hoped that if she got the stranger to open up she might be able to talk her out of whatever it is that she was planning on doing. "Is that why you don't carry it anymore?"
The detective stiffened, and then, to Maura's surprise, she answered. "Yes."
The word was so quiet that Maura almost missed it, but she didn't miss the hidden vulnerability in it. She ran through the evidence again in her mind, and then she said softly, "The person who took your gun… did they hurt you?"
For a moment there was silence, and then the detective tightened her grip on the scalpel, exhaled sharply, and said, "He didn't have a choice."
This was the closest the stranger had come to opening up, and Maura stayed quiet for a moment while she tried to decide how to use this information. Before she could think of what to say, the detective set the scalpel down on the table and picked up another one, and as she held that one up the sleeves of her jacket slid down – revealing thin scars encircling both wrists. Something nudged at the edge of Maura's mind, but she didn't want to consider it. She couldn't. It was too awful to even contemplate.
"Did someone do that to you?" Maura asked, dipping her head to indicate the scars on the stranger's wrists.
The detective paled and shook her sleeves back down, but Maura could tell she was unsettled. And suddenly she knew what her game plan was going to be.
"Can you tell me who did this to you?" Maura had to fight to keep her voice under control now, because she was beginning to get an idea of what the stranger was like – someone volatile, unstable, possibly delusional. Someone whose temper could flare up in a second and end up getting someone hurt.
Without answering, the detective dragged the chair back in front of Maura and sat down on it, backwards again, a scalpel still in her hand. She was looking at the instrument, not at Maura, which told the medical examiner that she'd struck a nerve.
"If you're in trouble, I know people who can help," Maura offered. "Just let me go, and I can take you to them."
The detective raised her eyebrows, incredulity written on her face. "You think you can help?" she scoffed. "You really think anything you say is going to help?"
"Please," Maura said, her voice shaking despite how hard she was trying to keep it level. "If you just let me go, I can take you to the station. My friends are there. They're good people, and they can help find whoever did this to you."
"Your friends," the detective repeated, eyebrows still raised, disdain dripping from her words.
"Yes," Maura said, trying to keep the stranger engaged, to keep her talking… to stop her from using those scalpels. "They're detectives, and they can -"
"They can what, Dr Isles?" the stranger cut in. "Arrest me for kidnapping the Chief Medical Examiner?"
"They won't," Maura said quickly, although she knew she couldn't guarantee that. "I won't press charges, I swear. We just want to help."
The detective snorted, and Maura's heart fell. Maybe this wasn't the way to get through to her after all.
"And if you don't let me go, they'll find me," she said, careful not to make it sound like a threat. If she made the detective feel threatened, she knew the other woman would get defensive – and likely dangerous. "They're probably already looking for me."
"Oh, I'm sure they are," the detective smirked. "And I'm sure they'll like the clues I left them."
"Clues?" Maura echoed. Again, she realized that this woman wasn't desperate – she was determined. She'd planned this, every bit of it, and that meant she probably wasn't going to stop. But still, Maura couldn't stop trying. There was more to the story, and she just had to find out what it was.
Again the detective didn't answer, but for a split second she did look troubled. Then she shook her head slightly, as if to clear it, and smiled. "Let your friends look for you," she said, her voice catching ever so slightly on the word friends. "I covered my tracks. They're gonna have a hell of a time finding you."
"They'll find me," Maura insisted, but the tremble in her voice did nothing to help her argument.
The detective laughed, and then she held her arms up so that her sleeves fell back down, revealing the scars on her hands and wrists. "Like they found me?" she asked scathingly, the challenge clear in her voice.
And suddenly all the pieces fell into place. The scars, the paranoia, the fact that she called herself a detective. Maura knew who this was, but she couldn't believe it.
Because sitting in front of her was Detective Jane Rizzoli, who'd been missing for two years. Presumed dead, Maura was told when she started working at BPD a year ago.
But the person in front of her was very much alive… and intent on making sure that Maura herself would soon be dead.
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Still with me?
Oh and by the way, something someone said in the comments got me thinking, and that got me writing, and well... I know it's early days yet, but would any of you guys be interested in reading another R&I fic by me? It'll have the same kind of dark feel but a different storyline, and I can start publishing that as soon as I finish with this one, if anyone's interested.
So read, review, you know the drill. See you next time!