A/N: References herein include Laura, The Damned Don't Cry, and Out of the Past.

Maura got cute at the racetrack.

The three of us laid down our bets, Maura dropping more dough than Dennis has probably made in the last five years. I wasn't too invested in any of the horses running, but out of habit I played along and pitched in. I couldn't pass on the opportunity to make a few bucks, even if I wound up losing some in the end. I figure that's the best approach to most things in life: risk the ride. If you don't, you'll always wind up wondering what could have been.

Whoops, excuse me for talking out of my philosophical ass for a second there.

Dennis clapped his hands together, still wearing that insufferable grin on his face. "So! Ladies, how shall we kill the time before the race starts?"

"I could go for ice cream, Dennis," Maura said, her voice sweeter than any dessert item could ever hope to be.

"An excellent choice!" he proclaimed. Judging by the way he was looking at Maura, I guess he'd have had this reaction even if she'd suggested we all go inspecting the local septic tanks. "I think I saw a cart just down—oh, there it is!"

"You two go," I said. "I'll find us a table."

"Can we get you something, Jane?" Dennis asked. "Vanilla?"

Maura raised her eyebrows at me in faux innocence. Maintaining eye contact with her, I said, "My taste runs more towards strawberry."

And there went Dennis talking about excellent choices once again as he took Maura's arm and led her in the direction of the cart.

There was a small group of little round tables lined up just in front of the bleachers for the game. Each one had a fancy daisy-colored umbrella propped open on it, and each was taken. But I spotted one at the end near the ice cream cart where a man and woman were just getting up, collecting their things, leaving a second woman behind. I was wondering where I'd seen her before, and I realized we'd met at that underground club where I'd first seen Maura. I'd recognize this redheaded chick anywhere. She was putting her things into her own bag, shooting furtive glances at the couple who'd just left.

"Excuse me," I said, walking over. "Are you about to vacate this table, by any chance?"

"Call me the wind, 'cause I'm gone," she said, putting her compact away and finally looking me in the eye. It's hard not to feel flattered when you make people's eyes go wide like that. She cleared her throat and sat a little straighter. "You… alone?"

It's even harder not to feel flattered when you've reduced someone to caveman speak. I sat down next to her and nodded in the direction of the ice cream cart, where Dennis and Maura were last on line. "Those are my pals over there," I said. "I promised to flag down a table." Their arms were still linked together, and Maura was laughing at some story Dennis was telling. Even from here I could tell her laughter was about as sincere as a gangster's deathbed repentance.

"Nothing like advertising," chuckled my redheaded friend.

Dennis' hand was creeping towards Maura's backside, and I wondered if there were any security guards on hand to give the guy a bum's rush out if he got too indecent. "Real couple of lovebirds, huh?" I said.

"And they're leaving their droppings all over the place." The woman's smile faltered when Maura glanced over her shoulder to grin and wave at me. "Blow me down and pick me up! Is that Maura Isles?"

"Yes indeedy."

"I'd watch myself if I were you, sister."

"Why's that?"

She leaned closer, lowering her voice even though there was no need to. Whispering helps people feel either important or intimate, I've found. I think this woman wanted to send both messages.

"I went to school with that chippy. She's got real round heels." (I tried to look surprised, as if I didn't wasn't wise to just how easy it was to roll Maura right into bed.) "She was a real nut, too."

"How d'you mean?"

"Dangerous. She had this way of always just sort of slanting the truth enough to avoid having to go to confession for lying. With that face and those gams? She never got into trouble. There were rumors, though."

"What sort?"

"Types of trouble she might have gotten into with …types of men," the woman answered lightly. "Garrett Fairfield, for instance. Not a lot of people know this, but he and Maura were involved just after high school, even though it'd pretty much been decided that she'd marry the oldest brother in the bunch. Oh I don't think there was ever any romance with Garrett, but…" She laughed, and it was a strange sound. "The played a bit of patty cake, if you catch my drift."

I caught it all right, even if it was a curveball. After years of experience, I had learned how to tell gossip from speculation based on fact. And this wasn't gossip. This broad was on the square.

"How'd you find out about her and Garrett?" I asked.

"Oh, I have my ways," she said. Any air of mystery she had been aiming for was lost instantly when she again leaned in close. "I saw them rattling a few drawers in a classroom after hours, once. I'd been staying late for the yearbook committee, and I don't think they knew anyone else was still around. Phew!" She leaned back, watching Dennis and Maura order their ice cream. "I may have to get some of that myself to cool off!"

"Know when they stopped doing the deed?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I can't say for sure, but I figure Garrett was always jealous that the family lined Maura up with Adam. Maybe his parents told him to lay off."

I thought of Patrick Doyle, and Korsak's guess that Maura was really his daughter. "Do you think maybe one of Maura's parents might've been disapproving?" Yup. It was the bottom of the barrel, and I was scraping it.

"Oh, I don't know!" the girl laughed. "They were always traveling. I don't think they could've cared whether Maura slept with Adam, Garrett, or the President of the United States, so long as she kept her mouth shut about it—and she always was good at keeping secrets. So long as the Isles could go around high-hatting us poor simple folks, I really don't think anything else would matter."

"Say honey, you'd better blow," I said, when Maura and Dennis started approaching the table.

"Roger that. It's been swell talkin' to ya!" she giggled.

It took me all of about two seconds to figure why Maura had been hungry for ice cream and not some other snack. The moment she sat down, I wanted to ditch Dennis—not to have Maura to myself for pleasure, but to force some real information out of her for once.

But Maura wanted to play first.

"Vanilla for you, hm?" I asked Maura, as I took my cone from Dennis. She nodded and I asked him, "What do I owe you?"

"It was my treat," Maura answered before Dennis could so much as open his yap.

I raised an eyebrow at Dennis. "That's refreshing," I said. "A man who's willing to let a woman pay."

"Yes, well, she was quite insistent," Dennis chuckled. "And you know Maura!"

I turned my eyes to Maura, but addressed Dennis. "Do I?"

"She can be mighty persuasive when called upon!"

"That so?"

They both saw I might have been addressing either of them now, and Dennis took a large, sloppy lick at his scoop of pistachio. Maura's pinky was slightly extended as she held up her cone. "You tell me," she said.

There was nothing subtle about the way Maura proceeded to eat—at least, not to me. In fact, she was about as subtle as an anvil to the head. Yet Dennis looked pretty ignorant, content to sit there and eat and glance at the race track while he waited for Maura to finish.

She ran her delicate pink tongue from the tip of the vanilla white mound down to the top of the cone. Dennis had started asking me if I was familiar with some of his work, and I mentioned the name of some paper I'd seen an illustration of his in, and that somehow led to the beginning of a monologue about his outstanding and brilliant career. All I had to do while he bumped his gums was give him an occasional "mm-hm," which was easy enough as my mouth was already occupied with strawberry-flavored ice cream. My eyes remained on Maura, who had to drop her own occasionally to keep sure of her technique.

Maybe this ice cream was just bland, but it didn't taste as sweet as those lips of hers.

I preferred not to show off, or at least show my hand, as much as she was. I opened my mouth wide enough to slurp down a large portion of the strawberry, enjoying the sensation of letting the coolness trail my upper lip.

"…which is when I figured hey, this whole Rockwell business—say, Jane! You better be careful not to eat too much of that so fast! It'll freeze your brain! Isn't that right, Dr. Isles?" Dennis asked in that annoying good-natured voice of his. I could see Dennis hadn't made much progress in his ice cream, which I guess isn't surprising considering how much yammering he'd been doing, like a lecturer hopped up on happy pills.

"You really should slow down Jane," Maura said in her syrupy way. What a pip. She really was enjoying this. This time when her tongue dipped down, she swirled it all the way around the small mound before pushing it into the middle, lapping it like a cat—when I watched her tongue go back in, I saw just a peek of vanilla on the tip.

This wouldn't have been quite so tortuous if I wasn't uncertain whether she was playing me for a sucker or not.

I reached the end of my cone first, but waited to see her move before I did anything too unsavory. Once her ice cream was level with the top of her cone, she straightened a little in her chair and rested her elbow on the table. She might have been about to make a toast with a flute of French champagne. Instead, she dipped that fearless tongue of hers back down to get at the rest of her treat, slowly turning the cone so her outstretched tongue could gather as much of the vanilla as possible. The circular motion made me think of the racetrack we were at, how there was no chance in hell we'd be around long enough to see who won.

My turn at bat. In a move one of my friends had innocently taught me as a kid, I bit off the bottom of the cone and started to suck. I closed my eyes and it was suddenly very easy to picture that I was doing something else, and Maura's short, almost indiscernible gasp was a tremendous aid in that effort. I nibbled off a little more, letting the strawberry drain into my mouth.

"…but I've always thought it should be more about your inner winner, rather than all the awards and—Jane, is that really an effective method?"

A schmuck like Dennis would ruin my fantasy. I snapped my eyes over to him. "Works for me," I said.

"Not me," Maura piped up. "Dennis, be a dear and find me a spoon, would you?" He obligingly stood up, and once his back was to us, Maura got to her feet as well. "Let's go," she said crisply to me.

At my recommendation, we took a cab to my apartment. I led Maura to believe I was thinking of the newshounds and help at her home, but really it was because I needed the home court advantage. No wine, no candles, no barber talk. Straight to it.

I locked the front door. "Can I ask you something, Maura?"

"Well, you've clearly already done so," she said with a grin, shrugging off her coat. "But you may ask me something else, yes. What is it?"

"You spoken with the police yet?" I asked, heading for the kitchen. "Surely they must have asked for some sort of get-together after your fiancé showed up dead."

"They've been keeping their distance, actually," she replied.

I could have asked for more explanation, but I didn't need it. Of course families as loaded as the Fairfields and the Isles could afford shysters who'd keep the police at bay, all under pretense of the need to grieve. Lawyers are on the last rung as far as I'm concerned—especially ones with rich clients. Sure my morals are pretty nonexistent, but at least that gets me someplace. Mouthpieces like the ones who'd kept Maura and the other Fairfields from the harsh interrogation they deserved? Nope.

"Ever been arrested?" I asked, opening a drawer by the hot plate I never used.

Maura had walked over to see what was keeping me. "As a matter of fact, no," she said.

Easy enough to believe someone like her had never been pinched, much less seen the big house. "Never even been pulled over?" I tried, turning to face her with my hand in the open drawer. She was eying it closely. "Never had to walk a straight line for some bull just 'cause you tipped a few too many?"

"No."

I pulled a billy club out of the drawer before snapping it shut, and I slapped it into my open palm. Maura's trap fell open as I took a step forward. "No, what?" I whispered.

"No sir," she said breathlessly, as if a ghost had just passed through her.

Her eyes swung up and down with the night stick as I brought it down one, two, three more times into my hand with each step. "Would you like a practice interrogation?" I asked, knowing I wouldn't have to wait for an answer. The look in her eyes said enough. "Turn around," I whispered. "Get those mitts up against the wall."

Although she obliged, she couldn't help turning her head to try and look at me over her shoulder. "This is customary for interrogations?"

"Have to make sure you aren't armed, first."

Hiding a weapon under her dress would've been about as easy as charting a flight to the moon, but if anyone could've done it, it would've been Maura Isles. I traced my hands down her arms, then slowly down her sides.

If I may, just a moment to disprove one of my brother's notions: Tommy has it in his head that women are like cars. Fast, powerful, beautiful. To be used. The comparison always bothered me, but not because I'm a woman and found it offensive. Tommy's a jackass and always says stuff like that. But really, there's just one way to start up a car. Fire up the engine, and no matter the model or the year, you're good to go. Women are so much more complicated, and each one is turned on by different things.

I had already set Maura's engine ready to combust.

When my hands reached her hips, she arched her ass out towards me with a soft moan, as if it was an automatic reflex. One I took full advantage of, I admit. It's like her ass was sculpted to fit just my palm and my fingers, and it would be a royal waste to pass on the opportunity to bring them together like they were clearly intended to be. Then I moved one hand up to her breasts, and also must admit it was difficult to retain a joke about checking for booby traps (wouldn't you have said it, though?). She moaned again, longer, louder this time.

"Is that…everywhere?" she asked, still breathless.

"I don't know," I said, kissing a spot behind her ear. "Is it?"

My right hand rested on her hip, and the left came around to the front, still clutching the billy club. I used it to touch her knee, then moved it slowly upwards. Normally I think Maura would have complained about the astronomical dry-cleaning bills I was about to foist upon her, my dirty nightstick dragging up the fabric of her custom-made dress, but money wasn't on her mind right now. The club reached her thigh, and I rubbed it back and forth.

Her head dropped and she took a sharp gasp. Her legs were already quivering. She was a spinning top starting to wind down.

"I've got just one question for you, Miss Isles."

"Detective?"

I pressed myself flush against her, lifting the club higher. "Was Garrett Fairfield a good lay?"

"What?!"

"You heard the question. Was. He. A Good. Lay?" I stepped back enough to allow Maura the space to turn around, which she wasted no time doing. But before she could do much more than catch my eye, I grabbed her wrists and held them above her head. "You aren't leaving, Maura." I banged the club against the wall by her leg. "Not until I've gotten the straight skinny from you."

When we were all kids, Frankie caught a mouse and kept it shut up in a box in his room. He had it there for days before I happened to find it, and the thing emanated fear like a perfume. He was shivering in the far corner of the box, scared, caught.

That was the look Maura was giving me now.

"Jane, I trusted you," she said shakily.

"And I've tried trusting you. But you batted those eyelashes and crossed your legs at me so many times, you got me to fall like an egg from a tall chicken. I don't like being lied to, Maura."

"What a happy coincidence," she said. "I don't like lying." Her attempt at scorn was about as convincing as a toddler's attempt to act tough.

What's more, I didn't buy it. "Yeah? Do you love it? Cause it seems to me you've been making an art form out of manipulating words. You oughtta be in pictures, sweetheart."

"So should you. Or you should at least be in some line of work that doesn't require—"

"Following my gut?"

She snorted. "You shouldn't listen to your intestines, Jane."

Refusing to acknowledge what she had just said, I whispered, "I'm gonna ask you a straight question, and I want a straight answer. Have you ever slept with Garrett Fairfield?"

The loudest silence of my life passed before she said, "Yes."

"How many times?"

It was clear she had to bite her cheek, probably to keep herself from reprimanding me for my perceived impertinence. This was no longer about jealousy; it was about the case. I couldn't let myself get soft for a legitimate suspect.

"Once," she finally said.

"When?"

"High school. We were kids, just fooling around."

"Do most men you fool around with go disappearing days after their brothers have been murdered?"

"Oh yes, a fair majority, I'd say."

"That sarcasm, Dr. Isles?"

"I thought that was a quality you liked in a woman, Detective Rizzoli."

"Not when I've got somebody zotzed and somebody snatched, with one person linking them together."

"You think I'm responsible for this."

"Here's all I can figure, Maura. You went out of your way to avoid telling me you and Garret had a relationship."

"We did not have a relationship!"

"You had relations, then."

"Once! Years ago!"

"Ever wonder why Adam wouldn't sleep with you? Is it because he found out? Is it because someone told him his baby brother had taken the bloom off the rose?" Her face was harder to read now, but it was also hard. I knew I was making her furious. I had long since released her hands, and although she had lowered her arms, she had made no move to get away from the wall. I leaned closer. "You been trying to make a chump out of me? Stringing me along? Avoiding the cops so your name won't get spread any more in the scandal rags—well guess what, it's too late now. So what's the excuse, huh? You waiting for me to cave? Waiting for me to give it to ya?"

She drew the line at further action: I accented the last question by sweeping the billy club between her legs. It had been impulsive. Maura shoved me away and took a step forward from the wall.

"Jane, you're involved now. I've been trying to protect you."

"From what? I'm a big girl, Maura, I can take care of myself. You've been playing innocent, and you've been keeping things from me. From where I stand, that's obstructing justice. So what is it? Are you getting something from it, or is it just habit now? Is it just that you're used to lying and cheating and double-crossing? Because hell, you can almost make it seem good."

"I can't believe I thought I needed you," she spat. "Sure, I need you. I need you like the axe needs the turkey."

"That the beginning of a confession?"

"What difference does it make? You've already made up your mind I'm guilty."

I held my hands up. "Nope. I haven't. Not if you can convince me otherwise."

"You manhandled me."

"You wanted me to."

"Well if I'd known this was what you had in mind, I'd have been singing a different tune."

"Yeah? How did you see this conversation unfolding, then?" She pursed her lips and I forced myself to say strong. I didn't care if she gave me the Bambi eyes or let me screw her on the side of the bed—I wasn't going to let her get away with anything. "Scout's honor, Maura. I like you. I'll be damned if I know why, but I like you. Or liked you. I thought you felt the same way."

"I did," she said, regret laced into her voice.

"Then why did you hold out on me?"

"I had reasons."

"If someone's threatening you, I can protect you. You know that, right? You need to trust me enough to do that. It's simple. This isn't the type of thing you can only do halfway. What I need to know is whether I can trust you."

"What does your gut tell you?"

"Hard to say. It's fighting for control against something else."

I could see her trying to work it out: my brain, my heart, or lower even than my gut? Then she shook her head and checked the door, making sure it was locked. She walked to the window, made sure I was shut, then drew the curtains closed. She sat herself primly on the sofa and waited for me to join her, which I did only after letting the billy club drop the floor. I had noticed the end of it wasn't as dry as it had been when I'd first pulled it out of the drawer, but I didn't bother mentioning that to my affronted guest/suspect/possible ally.

"What all do you know about Patrick Doyle?" she asked me. I don't blame her for looking confused when I laughed. "Care to fill me in on the joke?"

"Maybe in a minute." I jabbed my thumb over my shoulder, indicating my back. "Incidentally, Maura, you ever ride a jackass?"