Hey guys,

This is the last chapter for this year. I wish you the best for 2021!

And thank you for taking the time to review the story. I always appreciate your little notes

R&I

She did what?" Maura asked while pouring herself a glass of wine. Jane closed the door to the fridge and turned around with her beer to face Maura. "She hit on me." The brunette giggled. The doc grunted. "I'll give her a piece of my mind tomorrow."

"Are you jealous?" Jane giggled some more. She was pleased somehow. "Me? Never!" Maura exclaimed. They took their beverages to the living room and sat into their usual spots on the couch.

"Oh yes, you are." Jane teased her and Maura shrieked.

"No!" she said seriously and then glanced at her girlfriend who watched her with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, maybe a little bit. But I have never been jealous." Maura scratched her head as if trying to solve a hard mystery. "Have you ever been in love before?" Jane tried to help her.

"I guess not like I am with you." Mystery solved Jane thought and patted Maura's knee reassuringly. "Neither have I. But if Juliet would have hit on you, I would be jealous too." She admitted making the doc feel better.

"I bet she's pretty confused about the relationships going on at the precinct though." Jane laughed.

"She probably thinks that you and Gabriel are having Marcella. But she cant figure out how I fit into the puzzle. She kept giving me relationship advice in Nairobi whenever we were fighting."

Maura looked surprised at the new information and Jane shrugged. "Did you follow them?" the doc asked curiously over the rim of her wineglass.

"Some of them yes. But not because she told me but because I would have done it anyways. I hated when we fought."

For the first time in a long while Nairobi came up and Jane wasn't sure if it was that good. It seemed to be so far in the past. Probably because so much had happened in the meantime. Her eyes followed Maura tilting the wine in her glass with a pensive expression. Was this going to cause some more fuss between them?

"I just wanted you to know, that it was never just stress relieve when we slept together. My feelings were confusing me, and I know that I wasn't being fair. It hurt you when I said it and I want to apologize Jane." The doc spoke up into the lingering silence. Their eyes met in the soft light of the fire which was burning in the chimney.

Jane nodded. "Thank you."

Maura made a helpless gesture and Jane scooted a bit closer to put her arm around the doc. Then she sighed. It had been another long day at the precinct. After making the list they had tried to find something that could link all victims. They had informed the detectives responsible of the possible victims and asked them for an exhumation.

The documents which had been faxed by the Austrian law enforcement were resting in Maura's bag. The blonde had mentioned earlier that she wanted to read all the forensic reports later that evening, when Marcella was asleep.

The girl was playing on the carpet in front of them with her cars. Jane gently stroke over her head while watching her. "Are you hungry?" she asked Maura who was looking at them with a gentle smile.

"Maybe a little." The doc admitted. "How about I cook us some pasta with vegetables and watch Marcella so that you can read the files?" the brunette suggested. "This would give us more time later. We could take a warm bath and go to bed early."

"I can watch her while reading the files. Pasta sounds great though." Maura said and Jane stood. She left a gentle kiss on Maura's lips and walked off.

By now, the doc had gotten used to the toddler and her insecurity seemed to have vanished. Jane watched them from the kitchen while cooking. Marcella had found her way onto the couch and sat next to Maura with sleepy eyes. They had fed her earlier.

There was this moment when Maura lifted her eyes from the papers to see Jane watching her. They both smiled. Janes heart melted at the little family they were becoming.

R&I

Back at the precinct the next morning, the whole group gathered around the huge conference table to discuss their findings and information. It turned out to be a very short exchange because they all had basically found out the same things.

When it was Maura's turn to talk about the forensic reports all eyes lay on her. "Nothing." Maura shrugged and surpassed a yawn. It hadn't been the files that had kept her up so long but a certain brunette and her sexy body. "We know how they were killed but we still have no other physical evidence like fingerprints or so."

Jane decided that it was about time to throw the word Neonazi into the room. Juliet and Gabriel gasped at the same time. "Just heard some rumors." The brunette congratulated herself for busting both agencies for not telling the entire truth.

"How about you tell me what you know, because you haven't clearly given us all information that you have." She glared at Gabriel who seemed to shrink away in his seat.

"I don't know what you are talking about." He tried to sound cool, but Jane had been married to him for several years and knew well enough that he was lying. At least he had the decency to redden a bit she thought.

Juliet shot her an impressed glance. "You are really as good as I thought you were." She stated without elaborating what she knew about Neonazis. Jane turned to her. "You said in Nairobi that we didn't know what we are dealing with. What did you mean by it?" she questioned now her in her dark voice.

Unlike Gabriel, Juliet kept her stare and shrugged. "We assumed at that point that we were dealing with a Neonazi organization. Because of the weapon used. One of our crime techs was able to track it down to one producer. Following the lead, we came to a German organization. But we have debunked the theory after sending one of ours to become part of that group." She simply explained.

Frost coughed to catch Janes attention. Then he pointed to the screen of his computer which only both could see. Jane realized that he had hacked into the FBI and whistled at his skills. Theory debunked by MI6 was written in the opened file. Jane grunted.

"See, that's why we don't withheld information." Gabriel stubbornly said. "We came to the same conclusion." The brunette almost laughed. Spying on the MI6 was what he called their conclusion. Instead of saying anything further she dropped into her chair.

"Well, we got a theory about a fraud gone wrong." She finally said with a glance at Maura. Frost projected their list of names onto the wall with a beamer. Juliet looked interested at the names of the travel group and the assumed and confirmed real names of each person.

"We managed to link Louis Grat to a fraud which happened in the 90's, thinking that the culprits would be in the right age of our fellow travelers. It was a huge thing back then and millions of Dollars disappeared from the world bank. Only one person was caught and convicted. The first one who died on the vacation – Louis Grat. And only one of two who died alone. The problem is that all of the couples killed were just kids when it happened which means that their ages don't match, and it gets difficult to link them to the fraud."

"Maybe revenge?" Frost said. "Lets just assume that all of the people involved in the fraud have kids. What if its them who are getting killed as revenge for something?"

Jane scratched her head. It was an idea. Why not? "Maybe they had problems splitting the money? Or someone felt treated unfair and is now revenging his injustice by killing the kids?" the brunettes eyes glanced at the whiteboard with the names. 7 couples.

"Its worth a try." She finally said. "Frost try to find out as much as possible about their parents. Lets see where they were during the time of fraud and if there are any connections."

The young detective nodded. "It still doesn't make sense, Jane." Gabriel spoke up. "Why kill their partners too?"

"Deflection." Frost replied for her and Gabriel shook his head, laughing. "I hope you'll understand that we will follow some other leads." He stated and stood up from the table.

Juliet followed him out of the room, leaving Frost, Korsak, Maura and Jane alone around the table.

Jane finally got off the chair and padded to a second whiteboard and began writing the list of the victim's names one more time. But this time in the order of their murder. Under the names she wrote the location and the date. Then she walked to the map of the world which was hanging on the wall.

"Jane, I don't think that Cavanaugh will appreciate.." Maura said when she saw her girlfriend holding a box of pins in hand. But before she had finished her sentence Jane had already pushed the first into the location where the first couple had died.

When finished she sat down onto the edge of the conference table and studied the map and the list with the dates. Maura saw what she saw: there was finally a pattern. The murders had started in San Francisco, next they had happened in Boston, Germany, Austria and up in Africa. The pins almost formed a circle on the map. And the murders had occurred every two weeks.

They turned their heads at the opening door and watched Juliet walk back into the room. "I checked with my supervisor. We think that your theory is very interesting." When her eyes fell on the map, she looked surprised.

"You said something about a weapon. Have you found out what weapon was used for the murderers?" Jane asked as Juliet padded around the desk to take a closer look.

"A walking stick. German fabricate. It was more or less developed by two students as a toy. Usually, they use soft gun bullets. Not deadly unless you used poisoned bullets." The MI6 agent said.

Jane crossed her arms in front of her chest and thought about checking the passengers list around the time of the murders. If the murderer had always used the same alias, it could give them new clues. If not, it was like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack though. Not to mention the number of airlines operating these routes or that they didn't know when in the two weeks in between the murders the culprit had flown.

While thinking she felt a long stare from Juliet. The woman was obviously still trying to figure out the relationships which amused Jane slightly.

One of the officers entered the room with a box of files. "More faxes for Dr. Isles." He said, annoyed about the fact that he had to carry stuff around. Maura thanked him politely and opened the box to find the files from Germany. "Im going to have a look at them right away." She stated and disappeared into her new kingdom – the morgue.