Okay, so here's a nice-sized update for you all! Thanks for sticking with me and this story, despite my lack of updating due to grad school. Who knew I'd be spending more time answering dumb questions from my students in the forensics lab I TA for than I would be on my own classes? I blame them for my lack of time to update, and you should too. I mean, how hard is it to simply read and follow instructions? Argh! Anyways, I hope you enjoy this update, and things will start wrapping up in the next few chapters with plenty of Rizzles included (but not in this chapter, sorry).

Chapter 26

"I think I found something!" shouted Megan, causing Maura to jump slightly in surprise. The honey blonde had been reading Jane's last text and was daydreaming about her girlfriend and how she probably had her hair pulled back, exposing her long, tanned neck, and the way her strong hands gripped her gun, and so many other thoughts that were hardly appropriate for the workplace. Maura was actually glad that Megan had interrupted her daydreaming.

"Oh wonderful! What is it?" asked the doctor. If the young woman knew that Maura hadn't been paying attention, she made no indication of it, but instead thrust a report towards the ME. Blinking a few times to focus her eyes, Maura began to scan the page full of numbers and data points, trying to find what had grabbed Megan's attention.

As Maura continued to look over the report, the young woman stood up and began to pace, a few pages of Jessie's personal notes clutched in her hand. "First of all," she began, "no one would have even noticed this unless they really knew Jessie. When we first met, we were in our first year of college and happened to be living in suites right next to each other on campus. We had no clue until we both showed up to softball tryouts a few weeks into the semester and started talking while we were waiting for our turn in the batting cage. For some reason, when they called her for her turn, they had mixed our names up and called her Jessie Anderson. We had just looked at each other and laughed it off, but as soon as Jessie went to duck under the net and into the cage, her foot caught and she ended up falling flat on her face and breaking her bat. The team ended up calling her the 'clumsy Anderson' and it kind of stuck. After that, any time Jessie made a mistake or did something embarrassing, she'd just shake it off and say 'Oh that's just my clumsy Anderson side coming out'."

Hazel eyes flickered up to the grad student in confusion. "That's a nice story, Megan, but I'm not sure I see how that relates here."

Megan simply smiled and let out a soft laugh as she walked back towards the medical examiner. "If you look right here, the results of the screening tests run that day were all coming back as normal, until this one." The young woman ran her finger down the page the pointed at the line for sample 4367A. "This one here came back as positive for several contaminants including opiates."

The honey blonde looked at the line for 4367A and then began flipping through the rest of the report, confusion written across her brow. "But wait, if it came back positive, wouldn't there have to be a confirmatory test performed? There is no mention of a confirmation test done for this sample number. All I see is a note saying a test was unable to be performed and the sample was just passed through untested."

"You are correct, Dr. Isles. A confirmation test would have to be done in order for these results to carry any significance. However, that note there didn't make sense until I looked at Jessie's bench notes from that day," Megan said, waving the pages in her hand in the air to emphasize her words. "Jessie had noted that 4367A had screened positive for contaminants and that a new label, 4367B had been created for the confirmation test. However, she did write that a confirmation could not be performed due to sample loss. Jessie explained once to me that 'sample loss' means that something happened that compromised the integrity of the sample, so ethically, any results would not have mattered since they couldn't use it. So I looked over the rest of the page of notes and found a small asterisk in the corner and next to it she had written 'Clumsy Anderson'."

The grad student met Maura's eyes and grinned, waiting for the doctor to make the connection. After a full minute, the blonde's eyes lit up in understanding. "Oh my god!" she exclaimed, leaping up from her seat. "Jessie ruined the sample!"

"Yes. My guess is she dropped it, or somehow broke the container, easily making it look like an accident, but she made a note to herself to differentiate it from other mistakes like that. I looked back through some other pages of notes and saw that there had been times she dropped a sample and simply wrote that the sample loss occurred from a dropped container. So I wondered, why the 'clumsy Anderson' note? Then I saw the same notation on several other days over the past few months. And do you know where all of those samples were collected from?" Megan's eyes burned with intensity as if she was uncovering the world's biggest secret, just like Jane's when she broke a case wide open. It was that look that told Maura exactly what the answer to Megan's question was, no guessing involved.

"The water surrounding the Four Luck warehouse," said the doctor. "We just connected them to Jessie's work, and the pattern corresponds with our belief that she had been covering up results for them for a while."

Maura paused. This was huge. They'd just found solid evidence of why the Four Luck ring would have wanted Jessie dead. She'd been hiding their secret, but at any time she could have exposed them. Jane had to know what they found, what Megan had found. If the detectives were there now, they could arrest the ring members and bring them in.

"I have to call Jane and tell her," said Maura, fumbling with her phone, her fingers searching out the speed dial number for the detective. Holding the phone up to her ear, the doctor watched Megan drop onto the couch, a gentle smile gracing her lips and moisture building in her eyes. If Maura was a guessing woman, she would have sworn that she saw the young woman mouth the words "We got 'em Jessie." But she wasn't, so the doctor continued to listen to Jane's phone ring, waiting for her favorite raspy voice to answer on the other end. No answer came, so instead Maura left a voicemail telling the brunette to call her as soon as possible and that they had found something big. After their shared texts, Maura figured that Jane was fine and was just busy talking to the other detectives, or even to their suspect, and would call back shortly.

Placing her phone into her jacket pocket, the blonde looked up towards Megan who was now leaning against the back of the couch, eyes closed. "Megan?" the young woman perked up. "How about we go get some lunch while we wait for Jane and the other detectives to get back."

"Mmm that sounds great," said Megan, her response accompanied by a loud growl from her stomach. She grinned shyly as she grabbed her bag. "Fantastic actually."

"Perfect. Let's head up to the café and go see Angela, I'm sure she'll be happy to hear of our progress."

With that, the two made their way upstairs to eat while they waited for Jane to call them back.

Shots rang out. The thunderous echoing of guns firing filled the warehouse. As soon as Jane had pulled open the door, they saw a man fire a single shot into the leg of their suspect, before firing two more rounds, one into each of the two men who had been standing beside EJ. The man stepped up to stand above EJ, his pistol pointed right at the now cowering EJ's head while a second man stood by, an automatic rifle at the ready in his beefy hands.

"You see Mr. James, the Boss doesn't like it when one of his promising young dealers draws unneeded attention to our little club. Especially when he'd had such high hopes for you," the man sneered. "Personally, I was hoping you'd find some way to screw up so that I could be the one to send you on your way. Too bad for you, you just couldn't get rid of your little girlfriend cleanly, so here we are. Goodbye, Mr. James." The man cocked his gun and pressed it to EJ's temple.

The detectives, who had silently made their way into the warehouse and hidden behind a shelf full of containers of chemicals, could no longer sit by and watch their suspect get killed. Frost signaled for them to move and Jane nodded, following closely on his heels as they made their way from behind the shelf, gun raised and ready to fire.

As soon as they stepped out, the man with the automatic rifle spotted them. "Boston Police!" the pair shouted in unison, just before the man with the rifle turned and opened fire.

"Shit!" screamed Jane, as she and Frost dove back behind the shelf and returned fire. The man with the automatic rifle continued to fire at them as the other man pulled back from EJ in surprise. The man gave him a swift kick to the ribs causing EJ to fall over in pain, while he joined his partner in firing back at the detectives. However, when both men inevitably had to reload, Jane and Frost were ready for them.

The two sprang out from behind the shelf and charged toward the men, guns raised. When the men lifted their weapons again, Frost didn't hesitate to send two shots straight into rifle-guy's shoulder while Jane dropped the other man with a single round to his thigh. Rushing over, the two detectives kicked the guns away from their two new suspects. Frost leapt onto the back of the bigger guy and yanked his arms behind his back, ignoring his shrieks of pain at the movement of is injured shoulder.

"Oh shut up you big Hulk! It's just a flesh wound. You'll live," growled the younger detective, snapping handcuffs around his wrists while Jane moved to check on EJ. At that moment, Korsak cautiously entered the room with his weapon drawn.

"You guys alright?" The pair nodded. "Good. Back-up should be here in two minutes and so should the paramedics."

"Good thing you called them too, Mr. James and his buddies here look like they could use a bit of help," said Jane a little smugly, motioning to the man who was rolling around on the ground clutching his leg in pain. "That's what you get for killing Jessie you bastard."

Once help had arrived, the three detectives had no problems placing EJ and the other men under arrest before throwing them into the back of ambulances, not too roughly though. Korsak had made the call to let Cavanaugh know that they had gotten the man who probably killed Jessie and would be questioning him at the hospital later. He also informed the lieutenant of the other men they found at the scene and that a few uniforms should be sent over to the hospital to keep an eye on them.

After hanging up, Korsak turned to the other two detectives and let out a deep breath. "Man, glad that's over. We need to clear some stuff up but at least we can let Megan know that she can go home and that we got the son-of-a-bitch that killed her friend."

"Thank god," huffed Jane, running her hands through her thick curls then down her face. "That poor girl needed some good news. And I'm pretty sure she was more shaken up about all of this than she let on. At least now she can go home and grieve properly without fearing for her life. Speaking of which…" Jane ended her sentence as she reached for her phone. "…she and Maura were looking over files and were supposed to call me if they found anything."

The brunette faintly recalled feeling her phone vibrate as she and Frost were preparing to enter the warehouse, but wasn't sure until she saw the blinking message that she did indeed have a new voicemail. Dialing into her voicemail, the Jane couldn't help but smile when she heard Maura's cautiously excited voice and listened to the message. "Looks like they did find something," she said to her partners. "I'm going to head back and see what they found. Hopefully it's enough to nail this case shut."

As she spoke, Jane saw Frankie sprinting up to them waving.

"Hey guys!" he said out of breath. "Everyone alright?"

The three detectives looked confused. "Yeah little brother, we're all good here. Why?" asked Jane.

"I was just grabbing some coffee and talking to Ma and Maura in the café when news came in of shots fired at this warehouse and that ambulances were needed for several gunshot wounds. I knew this was the place you guys were headed to so I rushed over to check it out."

"Wait, you were with Maura when the news came in?" Jane's voice carried a slightly worried tone.

"Yeah. And Ma. Megan was there too." Frankie saw the look of something he could only describe as fear wash over his sister's face. "What's wrong?"

Jane felt her heart drop to her stomach. "You left Maura in the café, with Ma, with the knowledge that shots had been fired at the location I was currently at, and that there had been several people shot, quite possibly including me, and then bolted out of there?"

"Yeah. Why? I don't see what the big deal…" Frankie's eyes widened as he realized what his hasty departure from the café at the news of shots fired must have looked like the Maura. Maura, who had already seen Jane get shot once and who never guessed or assumed, except where Jane's possible safety was involved. Maura, who probably thought Jane was lying in the back of an ambulance with a hole through her with no one to tell her otherwise.

Frost and Korsak exchanged worried glances. They too knew that for a woman who didn't assume things, Maura was probably beside herself right now with the idea that Jane might have been one of those shot, especially since the brunette hadn't answered her phone, or called back yet.

"Jane," said Frost, placing his hand lightly on Jane's shoulder. "Uhh, you might wanna head back to the station and check in with the Doc. Just to… you know…let her know that you're okay."

"Yeah I think I'm going to go do that. You guys okay here?" They nodded. "Okay. I'll meet you back there, and whatever happens, please don't arrest my girlfriend for assaulting an officer."

Jane then bolted to the cruiser as the other men chuckled and let out shouts of, "You might want to use the sirens to get there faster!", and "Drive safe so the Doc will have her chance to kill you!"

Korsak then turned to the younger Rizzoli and Jane sped off. "Nice one Frankie. You sure know how to set your sister up for trouble. The Doc is going to kill her for making her think that Jane was shot."

Frankie simply ducked his head. "I didn't mean to make Maura think that, I just wanted to be in on the action. You know, get some more experience under my belt, not send her flying into a panic."

Frost and Korsak just laughed heartily before Frost spoke up. "We all know that if thinking rationally, the Doc wouldn't have reacted that way. But I'm pretty sure Jane is the only one who can cause her to think irrationally, and man did you prime her for that. She probably does think Jane is on her way to the hospital now and never called her back because she had been shot. I'd pay to see what the Doc does to Jane when she comes waltzing in to the station in one piece without even a call."

"Well then let's finish up here and get back. We might get lucky enough to see that, and maybe give Jane a little backup if we feel like it," chuckled Korsak. "Who thought we'd see the day that Jane Rizzoli was so whipped that she'd rush back to comfort her girlfriend, or that Dr. Maura Isles would jump to conclusions?"

They all laughed and then headed back towards the warehouse to help process the scene. However, no one noticed the black SUV parked in the shadows by the next building over. Later on, when they had finished up and all of the cruisers pulled away and headed back to the precinct, the SUV quietly rolled away, heading for the turnpike that led straight towards Fenway and Megan's apartment.

Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Hopefully Maura doesn't give Jane too hard of a time! I mean it's not like it's really Jane's fault for making her think she was hurt. I blame Frankie... and my students. Until next time! tah-tah -ME