TBH...sometimes I wonder what the heck I am doing on here, I'm no writer.
I blame that for the delays in posting. My greatest issue is i end up writing several scenes and they are great and flow and all that...but I have to get to those scenes somehow otherwise it only makes sense in my head...so I have to write the in-between scenes and that's where I get tripped up and it's so slow because It doesn't just flow the same. I have written the whole end already but now I am trying to get all the right characters there while keeping the emotion and entertainment value. Sometimes it's a mess when I start...One day I might just post all the scenes exactly as they come to me...you guys can just fill in the gaps right? lol. It might be as entertaining as the story is to see how my crazy mind works...:)
As always...thank you for reading, commenting, and showing me how much you care. I hope I continue to meet your expectations. Blessings, Jam. xx
Chapter Th1rt33n
"Maura. What are you doing?"
Maura doesn't move. She keeps her eyes closed and blanket drawn up to her neck.
"I am meditating."
Jane taps her fingers against her leg a few times, "Are you done?"
Maura snorts a laugh at the usual impatience of her closest companion, "What is on your mind, Jane?"
Jane massages her palms as she stares at the ceiling, "Do you have any regrets?"
"I suppose I do."
"You do? You're so calm and put-together. Every decision you make seems to work out well."
"Hmmm," Maura contemplates, "Other than...dating serial killers or criminals, ending up in prison...oh and getting married when I was drunk...other than that, I think I would agree with you."
Jane giggles, "Oh I forgot about the last one."
Maura joins Jane in a good laugh.
Their chuckles die out after a few minutes.
"Do you have regrets Jane?"
Jane rolls onto her side so she faces Maura's profile, "I have a lot of regrets."
Maura turns her head and is met by big brown and slightly sad eyes, "You have never said anything before Jane."
"I know. Just since...you know...the baby. I wonder if it has all been worth it."
"What would you change?"
Jane sighs heavily, "All of it. Maybe. How easy life would have been if I had become...I don't know...a plumber."
Maura rolls onto her side and faces Jane, "I don't think I would like that very much, Jane."
The corners of Jane's mouth move upward forming a smile, "Oh...You wouldn't like that?"
Maura's expression remains serious, "We would never have met."
They don't break eye contact and a long minute passes while Jane tries to read Maura,"Well...we might have...I mean, you do have at least one toilet in you house. Or abode thing."
This gets Jane a smile which quickly fades again.
"If we did met in passing...we wouldn't be friends, not like we are now."
Jane frowns slightly at the sadness in Maura's eyes, "I suppose." She thinks for a moment carefully before smiling softly, "In that case...maybe I can live with all my regrets."
Janes smile is subtle but it's there and it isn't a teasing joking smile and Maura smiles inside because of it and what Jane said.
"I'm sure all the other people you have helped would be happy to know that as well."
"What do you regret Maura?" Jane says as she breaks eye contact and wiggles to get more comfortable shifting her forehead a little closer to Maura.
"Well," Maura smiles slightly, "I do regret something I didn't do earlier."
"What did you do that you should have done earlier?"
"I haven't done it yet."
Jane squeezes her eyes closes and sighs, "Maura, how is it possible you even manage to make regrets complicated?"
Maura crosses her arms and rolls onto her back again, "I am not making anything complicated."
"You can regret something you have done, or didn't do, you can't regret something you haven't even done yet?"
"I can, because when I do do it, if it works out, I will wish I had done it earlier."
"But...If you did do it earlier it might not work out the same as if you did it later. Whatever it is." Jane says with an annoyed tone and waves her arms around to exasperate her point. "Then it is possible you might regret not waiting to do it later. Or that you did it at all if it doesn't work out. And it will then be in the past so then you would be regretting something you had actually done which you would now be telling me about and I wouldn't be regretting bringing this up in the first place." Jane ends her speech with an intake of air and an exasperated sigh and Maura laughs softly solely at her annoyance. She can't help it. The detective is so cute when she is annoyed.
"Maybe..." Maura says as she rolls on her side again facing Jane, "There is only one problem with that Jane."
"Do I want to ask what the problem is?" Jane says rolling her eyes and closing them before wiggling down into the blankets again to get even more comfortable.
Maura studies Jane's face as it slowly relaxes, all frustration fading. Her eyebrows even out and her jaw relaxes. Maura moves closer until her forehead is almost touching Jane's. She can tell Jane is starting to drift off to sleep by her breathing and the soft sigh that escapes her lips.
Maura almost whispers "If I had done it earlier and it didn't work out well...we would not be having this conversation."
Jane smiles softly, part of her wants to continue the debate, the other part is curious to know more about what it is, and the rest of her just wants to sleep in this soft warm comfortable bed beside her best friend. She always feels calmer and safer than normal when Maura is this close to her physically although she hasn't yet figured out why.
Maura continues to watch Jane's expression. She can tell Jane is trying to fight off sleep and focus on her response. She watches as ever so slowly...sleep wins out.
And when she is confident Jane can't hear her, Maura reaches out and lets her tips of her fingers graze the side of Jane's cheek slowly. And she whispers, "I love every minute I spend with you Jane. I regret that I haven't told you how I really feel about you because I really want to spend every minute of the rest of my life with you."
"I took the wrong woman," Casey grumbles his face taunt and eyebrows furrowed together in thought, "I regret that."
Maura tries to hide her own frown, occupying the same space as this man has been truly testing her social skills. For the most part she cannot understand his changing behavior and cognitive patterns.
Casey looks back at her slightly puzzled, "Based on your uncharacteristic behavior Dr. Isles, I think It is possible that I could have harmed Jane more by taking her instead of you. Strange isn't it?"
Maura looks at her feet. She won't assume that he is right, she only knows in part how Jane is feeling based on what she heard, seen in photo's, on television and what Casey has told her, however true. But he might just be right because she loathes every single second of this, not knowing what he was doing to Jane was the worst part, even more than what was happening to her own self.
She tried to imagine what Jane would be thinking if she was sitting on this mattress chained to this bed with Casey plotting to harm her best friend. Would Jane be as distraught not knowing what was happening...or what was. Would Jane be coping as badly as she has been. Or would Jane be brave and cunning and find a way out physically or psychologically. Would she play to him, would she be seductive so he wouldn't harm her friends and family. Could she out play him, would she. Or could Casey destroy her in a completely different way. What things would Casey make her to to save herself, or them...what things would Jane do for Maura.
She didn't want to think about it. About what Casey was capable of.
"You don't know me." Maura growls at him defensively, "And you don't know Jane."
Casey raises one eyebrow at her and she glares back at him.
"I thought her not knowing who took you would drive her crazy...but you, knowing it is me and what I am capable of, seems even more effective than I imagined was possible. Or perhaps I underestimated the bond between you both."
Casey picks up a photo of Jane and scowls at the smiling face in the picture, "And...the things I could have done to her if she were here. She might be a bitch but she has a killer body. You know that don't you?"
Maura imagines Casey's uncaring harsh and cruel hands forcefully and un-consented on Jane's soft tender body and her stomach turns.
Casey drops the photo which drifts onto the ground.
Then he turns to face Maura, "I know what to do..."
Maura swallows and looks up at him.
He smiles wickedly back at her, "...I can have you both."
At 1:10pm Jane receives an email from a bogus email address :- ticktockjane
The body of the email simply and painfully says
Detective Rizzoli. You haven't figured it out yet? I was under the impression you were good at what you do.
It's your move.
Someone is depending on you and time is running out.
The attached photo is of Maura and she looks terrified.
Wide eyes in horror, nose flared and mouth open like she is on the verge of a scream. Arms out in front of her defensively. Protectively. Her lip is cut, bruised cheek and her hair is matted, her top bloody and torn. It's the sort of photo one might see on the cover of a thriller movie...only this isn't staged, there is no director, no acting. The fear, the terror, it's all real.
It's a message to her...just like when Hoyt cut his hand on camera right before he came for her.
Her stomach is in her throat and her whole body feels like ice.
Jane doesn't even have time to tell anyone about the email before she races ungracefully to the bathroom releasing a sound that gets everyones, within earshot, attention.
Several minutes later when Jane re-emerges from the bathroom she is red eyed and looks like she has been crying. Officers glance at her somewhat surprised. She ignores them all, she doesn't care what they think about her, she doesn't care if her reputation is in tact at the end of this...only one thing matters now...Maura's life.
She approaches her desk to find Nina sitting calmly at her computer. Jane clears her throat and Nina stands and without a word, her eyes a little moist, she pulls Jane by her arm into her own tech room and then into a tight hug.
Jane doesn't resist it, but she doesn't accept it either. She cannot let down her composure right now because she will find it too hard to pick up again. She swallows the lump in her throat. She needs inhumane strength to find Maura against all odds before time runs out. And she doesn't know how much time that is.
Nina pulls back and looks at Jane, it's like she knows what Jane is going through and doesn't need to say a word. Jane gives her a weak smile yet her eyes are full of serious questions.
"IP address from the email is bouncing from canada to china and everyplace in between. I'm sorry Jane, this guy is a pro."
Jane huffs out her nose, she isn't surprised, she doesn't expect to get a break on this case.
"Photo is legit and was taken today. Nothing else helpful in the metadata" Nina adds.
Jane shakes her head softly and sits down almost ready to accept defeat.
"I'm sorry Jane."
Jane rubs her face with the palms of her hands, "So nothing?"
"We will find something."
Korsak arrives a minute later and puts a hand on Jane's shoulder causing her to jump in surprise.
"Jane, who is this guy? Who would be doing this to you?"
"I don't know. Damn it." She growls, "I have tried to think of every person I know and I don't believe any of them would do this. Would even be capable of something like this." Jane slumps in the chair. She has pushed away all the feelings that it's personal because she knows it is personal, but focusing on it will most certainly break her. If something happened to Maura.
"Who talks about how good you are at your job?"
"Me. You. My mother. This department. I don't know..."
"And Maura." Korsak adds
"Maura." Jane mimics, and again she wonders if it is personal to Maura and not her. A deep unrealistic hope that this isn't her fault. That this is to punish Maura, and that means maybe she has a chance to stop it. But who could hate Maura, who would want to hurt her. Who would know how to hurt Maura...they have Maura so why would they need to play games. She growls under her breath. No...there was something else, something deeper. Nothing in Maura's past fitted with any of this anyway. They were still clutching at straws.
"Wait," Jane says loudly, "What makes you think it's a guy?"
Korsak scratches the back of his neck, "Well, It was a guy that stole the body and tried to pass it off as Maura."
Jane stands up angrily, the chair rolling behind her and colliding with the wall, "What? Why are you only telling me this now?"
"There was no definitive connection between the two cases yesterday."
"No define-..." Jane took a deep breath, getting angry that no-one believed her that they were connected was not going to get them anywhere right now, "You got an ID on the guy?"
"No. No hits. The footage is really bad Jane."
Jane scoffs, "Let me see."
Korsak nods to Nina who brings up the footage and plays it. Jane watches in silence as the grainy footage plays, a man in coveralls, hat and sunglasses breaks into the funeral home.
"Who is that?" Jane whispers angrily.
Korsak watches her with interest, he watches the emotion on her face, the anger, pain, confusion, a slight hint of recognition that vanishes again.
"Is that..." The footage is to grainy to be sure, to even be close to sure.
Then the man re-emerges with a covered body on a trolley, and then she can't immediately see past the memories of how she saw that body less than 5 hours later. She can only imagine how he might move Maura's body in the same way. Uncaringly. Roughly. Angrily.
She wonders if this unsub has Maura captive himself or if he is working for someone else.
How many hundreds of people had she met over the past eight years.
How many of them how she allowed closer to her than she should have.
How many of them had her Mother gossiped to about her family.
It could be anyone...almost anyone.
But it isn't anyone.
It could be someone Hoyt trained years ago to get revenge. It could be one of Alice Sands groupies from the tunnels. It could be a family member of someone she locked up, or a grief-stricken family member of a homicide case she worked. It could be one of the Fairfields coming after her. Her head starts to spin at the spirals it is going through.
She studies the movements trying to understand who this person is that is trying sending her a personal message. See's the slight limp occasionally, she see's the heavy build and the calculated movements. It reminds her of Bobby and she shudders. Trained but dirty cop. But Bobby is dead. She shot him before he could hurt anyone else. And the guy is this footage has a very white complexion ruling out a lot of the department. Considering the changes to the dispatch and her getting calls...it could easily be someone in the department. Crowe. Davies. Lewis. Talbot. Duncan. Forman. Guthrie. Burns.
But for the few comments she had hurled at them or them at her...would they really risk losing their job...or worse...going to prison. She doubted it. Plus the department heavily vetted their people.
This unsub moved more like a member of the SWAT team than the police. Or the Navy maybe. Military even.
It is someone that knows her, and probably that she knows. Her brain runs through lists of people she knows that might be even mildly upset with her, filtered to only white males this time. Again she comes up empty handed.
She can't think of anyone that hates her enough to do this.
Jane's broken voice finally breaks the silence, "Send a reply."
"What?" Nina and Korsak reply in unison looking at each other
"Tell that asshole he can have me instead."
The reply from the unsub was not immediate but, when it came, several things happened.
Jane's heart beat double time, from fear and also from relief. This was the closest they had been to anything in four weeks.
Jane also became very aware that she valued Maura's life more than her own. Maybe she always knew, maybe she knew when Hoyt attacked Maura, but this time it was a fully conscious decision, even if she hadn't expected the unsub to take her up on her offer. She was going to take Maura's place. This wasn't a split second decision where she didn't think about the consequences. She knew maybe too well what she was accepting...and why.
Frankie tried to talk Jane out of it. Of course he did. He cared for Maura, but Jane was his sister, his flesh and blood. He also knew what she was accepting. His secret nightmares from when Jane joined the force were quickly becoming a reality. But Jane would not be dissuaded and the look in her eyes when she put her hand assertively on her brothers arm and said 'I'm so sorry.' had told him that.
'Frankie. Don't let Ma find out...ever.' Was her final request of him.
Korsak started organizing a team, without thought or question to if it was or was not a good idea. Maybe he himself had already concluded that this maybe their one and only shot, or maybe he just knew Jane too well.
And Cavanaugh was brought up to speed.
"No" he had said. "It's too risky."
"I will take the risk" Jane had replied softly choosing not to get defensive at this point.
"No." He had said again. Jane just looked at him, no anger, no defiance, just waiting.
Cavanaugh shook his head, picked up and re-read the emails.
-Detective Rizzoli. You haven't figured it out yet? I was under the impression you were good at what you do.
It's your move.
Someone is depending on you and time is running out.-
-You want me. Let Maura go and take me instead.-
-Be at the train station at 9am. Go to the ticket counter and ask for a note for you. No weapons, no tricks. Come alone or I will kill Maura.-
"Sean," Jane pleads, "Please, It is the only way."
Cavanaugh looks at her, his eyes almost begging her not to ask him for this.
"I have got to get Maura back. We've got nothing else."
He shakes his head trying to come up with a good argument.
Sending his best detective into an unknown situation like this is just a bad idea.
On top of that, he cares for her like a daughter even though he always has to remain professional.
Jane stands up straighter, "I am going to do this, Sean. I guess the question is whether I am doing it as a detective or as a civilian."
Cavanaugh sighs heavily. He purses his lips together. He knew how stubborn Jane was especially when she had made up her mind already, her determination is the reason he respects her so much, her dedication the reason she is so good at her job. How can she be the best if he denies her the things that make her excellent. If it was his daughter standing in front of him, he would want to both help her and protect her. And with Jane there was only one way to do both.
"Fine. But I want this by the book Jane. This will be Korsaks operation and if it goes sideways, you remember that it will be his job on the line. By the book Jane. You got that?"
"Thank you" she breathes as she puts her arms around his shoulders in gratitude. She could kiss him but she won't.
She has work to do.
...to be continued...