A/N: At this point I feel ashamed even to apologize for how late this update is...but I'm going to say "I'm sorry" anyway. My life has been absolutely manic these past few months. Before that I had the worst case of writer's block EVER with this story. Excuses, excuses, I know. Also, this chapter is pathetically short. I owe you guys so much more. But it's all I can get out in the time I alotted myself. There is definitely more in the works, with some steady progress towards our Rizzles endgame. I promise you that. :) In the meantime, please enjoy this little appetizer while I work on more of the main course.

Maura's phone buzzed obnoxiously from her nightstand just a little after 5 a.m. She'd just been dreaming about wanting to talk to Jane again, but being constantly interrupted.

"Doctor Isles." Her voice scraped out of her throat in a grossly unprofessional croak.

"Doc," came the familiar voice from dispatch, "there's been a girl found in an alley dumpster downtown. They want you to come take a look. We're texting you the address now."

She sat up and swung her feet down over the side of the mattress. "Alright. Thanks. Tell the team I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"You got it. I'll pass that along."

Her phone chimed with an incoming text message the moment she ended the call. With the address in hand, she readied herself as quickly as possible and arrived promptly on the scene.

Uniforms were setting up ladders against the sides of the rusty, green, industrial-sized dumpster. The garbage container was against the wall of a nightclub, now closed for the day. A service door leading from the back of the club opened up a few yards away from the dumpster. Aside from the usual busyness of a fresh crime scene, the surrounding streets were eerily quiet and still. The city's night-owls were retreating to sleep off the night's revelry, and none but the earliest of risers were out and about at this time. She wondered vaguely which of the two varieties of city dweller lie dead in the dumpster.

A premature cold snap that belonged to early autumn had made its move southward from Canada, stealing the moderate morning temperatures from the typical late summer Boston climate. A brisk wind swept down the nearby cross-street, causing Maura to draw the edges of her blazer more tightly around herself. She ducked under the crime scene tape. A uniform turned to her from leaning a ladder against the dumpster.

"Made sure not to move the body, Doc. Figured you'd wanna take a gander at her the way she was found before we disturbed anything."

Maura proffered a grim, tight-lipped smile to the baby-faced officer and snapped on some latex gloves. "Thank you," she said with a nod. Mounting the ladder, she couldn't help but think the young man reminded her of Frost in a lot of ways.

She reached the highest rung she was willing to stand on and peered down into the reeking refuse. A pale, redheaded woman, likely in her early twenties, was sprawled unceremoniously on top of the heaps of waste. One foot still had its stiletto heel on; the other was bare. She was clad in a short, strapless cocktail dress whose hue Maura would have characterized as a pale peach. A closer glance drew her eye to a small slip of paper tucked between the top hem of the dress and the woman's left breast. Maura reached with a gloved hand to remove it. An achingly familiar voice murmuring from the mouth of the alley about the cold and the "ungodly" time of day stayed her hand.

Jane was hunched with tension and cold, her face drawn and shadowed. Her arms were stiff, her hands jammed so deeply into shallow pockets, Maura feared for the soundness of the seams. Maura's left fingers curled more tightly around the unyielding metal lip of the dumpster as she pushed herself to a more upright position. It was a moment before she even realized she was imagining Jane's hand in hers as it used to be some days; tendons, muscles, veins and bones rolling delicately beneath her fingertips as she attempted to massage the cold-induced ache from scarred appendages.

Jane's eyes shifted upward, and Maura felt the exact moment that the detective registered her presence. A palpable air of apprehension settled around and between them, and those dark chestnut eyes flickered with hesitation and…longing? Maura shifted her weight on the ladder and returned to the bit of paper tucked in the dead woman's dress. She pulled it free without disturbing the body unnecessarily, and unfolded it. A white lily, pressed and dried, fell from the folds. The scrawled note read: Time to pay the piper.

"God, she scares me every time she does that," Jane murmured to Korsak. She felt herself twitching with worry as she observed Maura's precarious descent from the dumpster to the asphalt. When her heels reached the ground, Maura looked up, her warm gold tresses flicking back from her face and over her shoulders. Their eyes met, and Jane lowered her gaze sharply. Her eyes locked on Maura's hands. She pointed. "What do you have there?"

Maura proffered the folded note to Jane. "He left us another message."

Jane quickly pulled on some gloves of her own and plucked the note from Maura's hand. "'Time to pay the piper'?" She cocked a brow in spite of herself and looked to Korsak as he stepped up beside her. "Who's paying the piper and what are they paying for?"

Korsak shrugged. "I think Doctor Isles will agree that we have to know more about the victim before we can say what that means."

Jane nodded and looked to Maura. "Find anything else on the body?"

"I haven't finished looking at her yet." She turned back and retraced her steps to the ladder leaned against the dumpster. Jane followed. "I wanted you to see that note first. But there was another dried lily inside the note, too."

"Hm. And what are the odds she's got some nasty mix of oxycodone and ketamine and God only knows what else in her bloodstream?"

Maura shrugged. "I'm unable to speculate until I've completed an examination."

Jane hesitated awkwardly at the foot of the ladder, eyes downcast. She bit the inside of her cheek.

"Oh. Rhetorical question," Maura amended. "Sorry."

"Mind if I…?" Jane asked, gesturing up the ladder sheepishly. Maura nodded her assent, and as Jane ducked her head to begin stepping up the rungs, she could have sworn she saw the ghost of a smile on the detective's lips.

Raised voices and the sound of guns being drawn halted Jane's progress up the ladder and brought Maura's head around sharply.

A skinny kid in a stained hoodie and torn jeans was standing right against the crime scene tape with his hands in the air and wide eyes. A number of uniformed officers working the scene now had their weapons trained on him.

Jane practically bounded back down the ladder. "What's going on here?" She demanded.

"He just tried to duck under the yellow tape," Korsak murmured matter-of-factly.

Jane huffed in exasperation. "Of all the moronic, dangerous…damnit, kid!" She stalked over to the edge of the crime scene to where the adolescent was still standing, frozen.

"I just wanted to talk to somebody about the girl!" he said, his voice pitched with fear. He pointed toward the dumpster with a shaky finger, not daring to put his arms down. "I saw some shit last night…"

Jane scanned his face for a moment, then turned to the officers at her back and raised a hand. "I'm gonna talk to him," she said in a level voice.

"Stand down," Korsak ordered, and all drawn guns were swiftly holstered.

Jane turned back to the young man. "You can put your hands down now." She lifted the tape as he tentatively lowered his raised arms. "I'm coming out there. I want to hear what you have to say." She cast a glance over her shoulder as she ducked under the tape, catching both Korsak's eye and Maura's.