Don't forget to read my comments at the bottom, they might prove illuminating, who knows? Heck, I ain't no pope. *guffaw*
"Aunt Constance?"
The redhead turned to face her niece, her hand freezing in mid air as she reached for a bedtime story. "What is it, darling?"
"Why do you take care of me?"
Constance sighed, and her arm fell to her side. She moved Maura's legs over and sat down on the girl's bed, taking time to rearrange her covers as she mulled over the question.
"Well, your mother has a lot of work to do." She answered simply. "And I love you."
"Does mother not love me?"
"She does." Constance smiled softly. "In her own way."
Maura's eyebrows knitted in confusion. "I was walking in the basement today."
Constance cocked her head to the side. "Were you?"
"Yes." The little blonde nodded, her curls bouncing up and down. "And I heard two men talking. One was father, and the other, I'm not sure. I didn't recognize him."She paused. "They said "Constance's daughter. Many times." Next to her, her aunt looked down at her shoes.
"You have a daughter?" Maura asked, sitting up in bed. She folded her hands in her lap, waiting patiently, a gleam in her hazel eyes.
"I do." Constance smiled weakly.
"Why do you take care of me, but not of her?"
"I did, once." The woman pushed a strand of hair back behind her niece's ear. "She was very much like you. She had long, curly blonde hair, and an easy smile." She took a deep breath. "But she made a mistake. Something she shouldn't have. And one day she left. I haven't seen her since."
"Do you miss her?"
"Terribly."
"She must have had a reason!"The little girl protested.
"She did."
The blonde bit the inside of her cheek, she knew she wasn't going to get a straight answer. She never did. Instead, she smiled. "I'll never leave you, Aunt Constance. I promise."
"You saw the pictures."
Paddy Doyle's back was to her, his shoulders hunched over in defeat or determination, she couldn't tell.
Maura had seen the photos. In them, her aunt was sprawled on the sidewalk, blood and guts spilling out. It was grotesque, ghastly to look at, but she hadn't been able to tear her eyes away from the photograph and its protruding muscles and bones.
"Yes. I did." She murmured.
"Pike finally ruled it a homicide."
She snorted. "Pike's a bloody fool. Anyone with a pair of eyes could have told you that a week ago."
He ignored her outburst. "He said the wrench was the object that killed her. She drowned in her own blood." A sob escaped from the corner of the room. Maura was astonished to find Hope, her mother, standing there. She hadn't noticed her, she usually didn't. Hope was always so easily lost in the throng that inhabited the household. Paddy turned to his wife, and landed a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"You should go to bed. You're tired." He whispered to her. She nodded once, shakily, then a second time as if to convince herself before moving past Maura, barely acknowledging her, and leaving the room. The door shut behind her with a click.
"She's shaken up by this." Paddy said, his own voice thick with exhaustion.
"We all are." Maura replied quietly. She pitied her mother. The once amazing woman that could single handedly have lead a team of men into the thick of it was now only a shell of her former self. Always tired, always depressed. She watched her father carefully for the same sign of weakness, then prompted him. "Pike?"
"Yes." He shook his head. "He was able to properly go over her body himself before the rest of his department could." He picked up a manila folder and threw it over her desk to her. She picked it up and leafed through it as he continued. "Three shots to the stomach, a pipe wrench to the throat."
"This makes no sense. They haven't used a pipe wrench as their signature in over twenty years."
"It's never too late to honor a father." Paddy responded.
These pictures she hadn't seen before and she pondered over them almost greedily. Every shot was of her aunt at a different angle, body on a cold slab in the Boston Police Department's morgue. In some, Pike's hand or a wayward shot of his blurry face ruined the photographs, and at those she couldn't help herself from grimacing and frowning in disgust. The last page was Constance's report, and her hazel eyes scanned the sheet of paper quickly.
"He changed her name." A manicured finger ran over a line that had been blacked out in pen and rewritten. Her eyebrow shot up. "So that's why we held a service for Marisol Gray."
Paddy growled. "It was better that way. After Joey's monumental screw up last year, I couldn't risk us being in the spotlight again. If the police got a whiff of this, they'd hit us when we're vulnerable."
"Can't have that happening." She muttered.
He gave her a hard stare. "Damn right we can't." She threw the folder back at him, which he caught easily.
"What do we do now?"
"We get back at the Rizzolis for this."
Maura stared at him, puzzled. "We already did."
"Excuse me?" Paddy's gaze finally left the window to glare at her. Whereas hers were a warm hazel, his were ice blue, unforgiving and unyielding. She found herself involuntarily taking a step back, her hip hitting the oaken lamp table by the door.
"Frankie Rizzoli."
"What of him?"
"He's dead."
He bristled, his shoulders hunching up underneath his suit. "Come again?"
She licked her lips. "He's dead, father. Last Tuesday." How does he not know? Why wasn't he told? Why in the name of all that is holy am I the one telling him this? "Shot in the head."
His eyes had broken from hers, and he now stared at his desk, color mounting up into his cheeks. "Did you order this?" He asked quietly.
"No." Never. I value my life. I know not to try and run anything past you. She failed to add.
"One of the boys?"
"Not that I know of." She took a deep breath, her heart racing in her ears. "I thought you-, I mean-"
His fist hit the desk, and she heard the wood splinter beneath his flesh as she jumped in surprise. She blinked rapidly. "Father-"
"Someone dared to kill a Rizzoli without my permission?" His voice thundered and boomed around the small room.
Her voice betrayed her. "I don't know. I don't-." She hadn't asked to be born his daughter. Hadn't asked for the money and the dread that came with her name. She hadn't asked to be pulled out of university for this; she would rather have stayed there, comfortable as she was. She certainly hadn't asked to be the messenger tonight.
And it was in moments like these that she truly feared her father.
Early the next morning…
"Why would they hit Frankie?"
Jane exchanged a glance with Barry Frost. The team that had assembled around her that morning before dawn had been privy to Constance's death, but not that she had been finished off with a pipe wrench. The black man shrugged at her.
"Most likely because they think we popped Constance." She replied carefully.
The man who had asked the question snorted. "Damn Irish and their assuming." He shifted in his seat, trying to get comfortable. He never was. Enemy fire through his spine during the Great War had rendered Casey Jones's legs and everything else below his waist useless, and everything above it an endless ball of over excited nerves. He was still the best marksman Jane Rizzoli had ever seen.
"She's just a sister in law, too. Who cares about sisters in law?" Giovanni asked from his corner. He raised his eyebrows in question. "If we were gonna kill somebody, we woulda killed someone important. Obviously."
"Everyone is important to a leader of men, Giovanni." Gabriel Dean muttered from across the room. He barely glanced up from his nails as he cleaned them with his knife. "You might say the same of Ma. 'Frankie's just her son. Who cares about a son'?" He glanced up at Jane, and she nodded at him.
"So what do we do?"
"We get back at the Irish." Jane responded breezily.
"Their house is a fortress." Casey snorted. "Armed guards around the clock, scent hounds, a ten foot barbed wire gate that's been conveniently disguised as an outer wall. You'd have better chance of breaking into Fort Knox."
She grinned. "Who said anything about breaking in?"
Gabriel leaned forward, a smile grazing his otherwise static face. "What are you thinking, Rizzoli?"
I'm sorry this chapter is so…bleh, but I needed a transition, so…to appease you, here's a little taste for the next chapter ;)
"Jane's mask itched terribly, but she kept her arms at her side as the guard patted her down a little bit too vigorously. Instead of dwelling on his roaming hands and the many ways she could have stopped his heart, she thought of her happy place. One that involved beer and women.
She knew for certain one of those dreams would come true tonight; the Irish never left their guests down."
Props to those who figure out the murderer. But I don't think you will, at least, not yet. It's pretty complicated in my own head, I can't imagine yours. I hope my words are flowing as well on the page as they are in my daydreams.
Reviews make my world go round! I treasure each one, and grow and learn with every word you write to me.