Chance Encounters

Chapter 9

Pairing: Jane/Maura
Rating: M
Disclaimer: Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles do not belong to me.


Jane stumbled and almost fell but caught herself with one hand on the pavement. "Damnit," she said, as she watched the basketball roll to the fence.

"That was terrible," Frankie said, laughing as he went to retrieve the ball. "This is embarrassing. Damn, is this what love does to you?"

"Love?" Jane scoffed. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You brought a girl to meet Ma. She called me later to tell me all about it and ask me why I wasn't bringing home such nice and pretty girls." Frank sank a jump shot over Jane's head.

Jane dribbled the ball out to the point and checked it to Frankie. "Yeah, well, bringing her to dinner with Ma doesn't mean anything." Jane dribbled half-heartedly and took a shot, missing badly. "And the 'girl' hasn't called me since, so maybe bringing her to meet Ma wasn't the greatest idea."

"It's only been a few days. Did you call her?" Frankie asked as he retrieved the missed shot.

"I sent her text Monday. She responded that work was really busy this week and she'd let me know when she was free. I haven't heard anything since."

Frankie scored again and tossed Jane the ball. "I wouldn't worry about it. But that explains why you called me on a Wednesday to play basketball. Do you have some excess energy and tension you need to work off?"

Jane clanked another shot off the backboard. "Ugh. Gross. You aren't supposed to say stuff like that to me."

"I know, it's disgusting," Frankie said as he drove by Jane for another easy layup. "But it's the only thing you hate talking about so it's one of the few ways to get under your skin."

Jane bounced the ball hard in frustration. "This sucks. Let's go get a beer."

"You only think it sucks because I'm beating you but that's fine, let's go," Frankie agreed.


Jane didn't hear from Maura all week. She tried not to worry too much about it, after all the previous week she had been too busy at work to do anything. Jane tried to focus on work. All of the pieces of the case were coming together. It was the largest case her and Frost had been involved in and it felt good. The brass was happy, there was good press. They were going to close the murders of the three young women.

During the interviews conducted with the young women found in the warehouse, the detectives showed them pictures of the three unidentified murdered girls and were able to confirm that those girls were also victims of the trafficking/prostitution ring. The consensus was that the women were killed when they refused to be prostituted.

The two guards arrested at the warehouse flipped easily once they knew the women were talking. Over the weekend more members of the crew running the prostitution ring were brought in. They all happily said that Nicholas Massino was the one and only guy responsible for any killing that went on, and no, they had no idea why anyone would have wanted to kill him.

As far as Jane could tell that seemed like an accurate assessment. Nicholas Massino was little more than a low-level thug. He wasn't on anyone's radar until he was killed. The most likely candidate to be his killer would have been someone seeking revenge for the murdered women, but they had no one here who cared about them at all.

Jane was still working with Korsak on the Massino murder. Korsak had hinted that Jane was being considered for a promotion to Homicide so she tried to focus as much attention as possible on Massino. The thing they couldn't figure out was the ice pick. It made little sense for someone to use an ice pick to try to implicate or frame Paddy Doyle over a decade after his disappearance. But it also didn't make any sense for Doyle to return to Boston and announce his return by killing someone as inconsequential as Massino. A copycat was a possibility, but using an ice pick wasn't the easiest way to kill someone.

So even though it didn't seem reasonable, at the moment Doyle was their best suspect. Jane read and re-read Doyle's file and the files of everyone associated with the prostitution ring, looking for any possible connection, any possible reason Doyle would want to kill Massino. Korsak made the rounds to talk to his confidential informants from South Boston, bringing Jane along to introduce her. But mostly Jane and Korsak waited for something else to happen or new information to surface.


Maura spent the week half wishing that her father hadn't come to visit her and half wishing that he would come back. She threw herself into work to try to keep her mind off of him. She found herself frequently losing focus, but her thoughts weren't on her father as much as they were on Jane.

Their first two meetings and then running into each in the Arboretum seemed like chance meetings. But what if they weren't. Could Jane have been following her, setting her up in order to get close to her?

Maura knew she wasn't always adept at social situations. She was too literal, she was too honest, and she often said the wrong thing at the wrong time. But Maura could also read people. She could read body language and facial expressions. The way Jane looked at her, touched her, Maura was sure it was all real, unless Jane was an exceptional actress.

Maura thought about when Jane came to clinic to confront her about being Patrick Doyle's daughter. That conversation didn't make sense if Jane was trying to trick her. Jane had asked Maura that day if she wanted to know what crimes Patrick Doyle had committed. At that time Maura didn't think she did. Now though? Maybe her father was right. Maybe it was time her to grow up.


Saturday morning found Maura knocking on Jane's door.

A groggy Jane opened the door. "Hey," Jane said with obvious confusion upon seeing it was Maura who was knocking.

"I want you to tell me everything you know about my father," Maura immediately said.

"What? What are you talking about?" Jane asked as she ushered Maura into the apartment.

"I want to know everything about what he's done or been accused of doing."

Jane sighed, shaking her head. "I don't think that's a good idea."

Maura took a seat on Jane's couch. Pursing her lips she made a final decision about whether to confide in Jane. "He came to see me."

"What? When? Where?" Jane asked, sinking onto the couch next to Maura.

"Monday night at the clinic. He was just there and we talked briefly and then he was gone."

"Fuck, Maura. What am I supposed to do with this information?"

"Please don't tell anyone," Maura said, although she realized the futility and stupidity of those words as she was saying them. If she wanted to protect her father she wouldn't have told Jane she saw him.

"Like hell I'm not going to tell anyone," Jane said, jumping back up off of the couch. "I'm a police officer, Maura. He's on the FBI most wanted list and he's a suspect in an active murder investigation. I can't just ignore that he's making visits to you now."

"Active murder investigation?" Maura repeated.

"Shit," Jane said.

Maura then gasped, covering her mouth with her hand as the realization hit her. "The ice pick." After another moment, Maura said slowly, "In high school, I overheard some other students talking about my father when they didn't know I was nearby. Or maybe they didn't know he was my father. And I heard them say something about an ice pick and I didn't understand. I didn't remember hearing that conversation when you first mentioned the ice pick. Is that..." Maura trailed off, unable to finish the question.

"It's his...calling card," Jane said, answering the unasked question.

Maura shook her head as she felt her eyes well up with tears, internally cursing her inability to control her body's reaction. "When you talked about the murder investigation and told me about the ice pick, was that some sort of test? Did you want to see if I was telling the truth about what I knew or didn't know about him? Or maybe you wanted to catch me off guard, see if I was more involved than that?"

"I honestly don't know why I said anything about it. You asked me about the case. I had no plan to talk about it or mention the ice pick, and I regretted it as soon as the words were out of my mouth. You told me you didn't know anything about your father's crimes and I believe you. I don't think you're involved in anything illegal, let alone a murder. Jesus, Maura, I...I really, really like you. But this is a big deal."

"What are you going to do now?" Maura asked.

Jane paced back and forth in front of the couch. "I have to do my job. I can leave you out of it, but I have to let people know that he's been seen in Boston."

Maura was slumped resignedly on the couch. "He told me you would pick your job over me."

"I'm not picking anything over you. Wait," Jane said, stopping her pacing. "He knows about me?"

"He's been having me followed," Maura replied.

"And you didn't notice? I thought you were an expert on that," Jane said accusingly.

"Maybe recently I've been distracted."

Jane grabbed Maura's arm and pulled her up off of the couch and started toward the door. "You have to go."

"What do mean?" Maura protested.

"Maura, he's got people who will do his bidding on the streets and in the police department. And he's got lots of enemies. If we aren't careful we're both gonna end up either dead or in jail."

Maura wrenched her arm out of Jane's grasp. "So you're just going to throw me out? I thought," Maura yelled before pausing and saying more calmly, "I thought you liked me. I thought I meant something to you. I thought you felt what I felt."

Jane ran her hands over her face before saying, "My partner told me not to get involved with you. He said you were going to be too much trouble."

"Do you wish you had listened to him?"

"No," Jane answered honestly.

"My father told me you were using me to get to him. I decided not to listen to him. I don't trust him," Maura said. "I trust you, Jane."

"You have to understand that I am not going to protect him. He's a criminal and probably a murderer. My feelings for you have to be separate from my job and from him."

Maura nodded and asked. "Will you show me his file now?"

"Are you really sure you want to do that? Once you know this stuff, you can't un-know it. You'll never be able to see him in the same way again."

"I think it's too late for that. I feel like everyone knows all of these things about him but me. I've been intentionally ignorant and I was able to ignore the things I had heard for a long time, especially when I was living away from Boston. I don't want to hide from it anymore."

"Okay," Jane agreed warily. "Take a seat. I'll show you what I've got and then we're going to have to talk about what's going to happen next."