MAURA

Jane waits for me in the kitchen the next morning, her head lolling on her shoulders because she's been up for at least four hours. I know, because when I woke up halfway through the night, she wasn't there.

"Hey," I say, gently.

"Hey."

"How-how, um-"

"I'm okay, Maura. Really." She blinks and turns away. "I just didn't sleep is all."

"Nightmares again?"

"Nightmares?" She has to think about it, then shrugs. "No." A slim finger traipses across the countertop to the pile of sugars she dragged out of one of the cupboards. Jane uses her teeth to open four at a time, then dumps them all into her mug. She curses when one of the packets slips from her grip and falls into her coffee. It takes her a minute to get it out, and while she's distracted, I move closer. I can hear her muttering to herself. "Couldn't breathe, couldn't close my eyes. I couldn't move, goddamit. I couldn't move."

"Jane."

"And that turtle. My God, Maura, he just thunks around all over the place."

"I can put him outside," I offer. Then, quieter, "and maybe call your mom?"

Jane's body tenses. I can see every muscle harden beneath her tee, watch her spine stiffen bone by bone. "Don't call Ma." It comes out as a growl, and she shakes her head, her body flopping back into that lifeless, gelatinous state. "Sorry. I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

It is the wrong thing to say. Jane jumps to her feet, knocking her mug over with her forearm. The chair she had been sitting on tumbles over, missing Bass by an inch and a half, give or take. I flinch, and she starts pacing furious, oblong shapes in the path between the fridge and the sink on the opposite wall. "It's not 'okay,' Maura. I-they're not going to let me work this." She looks at me, her face stricken and drained to a color that rivals the perfectly white, powdery paste of plaster. "Oh my God. Maura, they're not going to let me work this."

"It's going to be-" I clamp my mouth shut, allowing myself to think. When I speak, my words are quiet. Even though they've been chosen with great care, there's still a possibility that they'll be wrong again. I've never been great in these kinds of situations. "It's going to get better. Later."

Jane nods, probably mostly for my benefit. "I want to sit in for the autopsy."

"Oh, Jane. I don't think-"

"I'm going to," she says, more calm than I've heard her all morning. "I'm going to have to tell his family something, aren't I?"

Really, she probably won't even have to do that. We can send people-uniformed, anonymous cops; newbies who are starting out, maybe, or long-standing vets with sincere, reverent voices-out to the farthest corners of Boston. We can have them find his family, his Army buddies. We can have them say the words I'm sorry for your loss. We have people for this.

Only I know she won't stand for that. "I can tell you whatever you need to know."

"No you won't." Jane snorts and even starts to laugh these startling, hysterical giggles. An ascending set of bubbling gurgles that are a cross between hiccups and terrified, childlike sobs. "You won't, Maura. Not if it's bad enough."

"I will," I say.

It's the first lie I've allowed myself to say in over thirteen years.