The rest of their trip to London had been very pleasant. While Maura had finished up at the conference, Jane looked up an old police academy friend who'd migrated to England a few years after their graduation. When they were together they explored the city a bit, and Jane got a kick out of meeting Constance's sister, who was very unlike Constance. She and Jane hit it off instantly and that had made Maura very happy because she'd been close to her aunt growing up. While her parents were traveling it had been her aunt who looked out for her while she'd been in boarding school, and on school holidays it had been her aunt's home where she would stay. Before getting on the plane to head home Maura and Jane promised each other they'd return to the UK for a proper visit sometime soon. Maura liked that she'd ignited a desire to travel in Jane and spent the whole flight home planning out future trips.
It had been a long flight and as they made their way through the courtyard gate of Maura's house all they could think about were showers and crawling into their own bed, but the moment they stepped into the courtyard those thoughts were wiped away. Jane noticed the busted stain glass window and her arm flew out to her side to stop Maura from walking any further into the yard. Dark, alert eyes scanned the courtyard, the windows, and the door. "Stay here." Jane commanded in a gravely whisper. Maura looked at her busted window, shocked, and just nodded.
Jane moved carefully towards the front door, which was ajar, her hand going to her hip for her gun. She made a face, her nimble body doing that little jerking motion that was Jane's version of stomping her foot in a tantrum. She didn't have her gun, her gun was in a lock box inside the house in the back of Maura's massive closest. Stepping closer to the door she looked over her shoulder to make sure Maura was still standing by the gate and mouthed, "Stay put!" before using her elbow to push open the door. The living room and kitchen were trashed, completely ransacked. Chairs were knocked over, drawers were pulled out, pillows tossed to the floor, the tv dismounted from the wall, the doors of cabinets left open, knickknacks moved, some were smashed. The floor was littered with glass, papers, busted pieces of wood. Jane's heart was thundering in her chest as she slowly made her way through the house. Concern for Jo Friday and Bass, anger over this kind of assault on their personal space, and worry for Maura who would be heartbroken when she saw their home like this. There was also the overwhelming fear that this had something to do with something very bad, or someone one.
When Maura stepped into her home anger swelled in her chest as her eyes welled with tears. A soft gasp tumbled over her lips before her hands flew up to cover her mouth. Who would do this? Why would someone do this? Despite the much darker things she saw on a daily bases at work Maura still found herself asking why someone would do something like this to someone else, and what had she done to someone for this to do this to her?
"I thought I told you to stay outside?" Jane said when she came back into the living room with her gun in her hand.
"Jane, who would do this?" Maura asked as she continued taking things in. Then she gasped when her shoe crunched some glass. "Bass! Jo! Are they ok?"
Jane nodded as she slipped her gun in the waistband of her jeans so she could pull Maura into her arms. "They're in Bass' sunroom. They're fine. He's a little freaked out and Jo's shaking like a cold Chihuahua but they're ok."
"Is there anything missing?" Maura asked as she took in the comfort of Jane's embrace.
"Doesn't look like it." Jane said as she pulled out her phone to call Korsak. After calling him and telling him what happen Jane called to check on her mother. It was late enough in the day that she'd have been at the café for hours. If Angela had been home she'd have seen something or heard something going on in Maura's house. So if they could ask Angela what time she'd left that morning they could get a time frame. When she hung up she had an odd look on her face.
"What's wrong Jane?" Maura asked as she tried to sooth Jo Friday and Bass. As soon as Jane had let her go she'd made her way back to them, with Jane following as she spoke to Angela. From where she was crouched on the floor, one arm hold Jo while she used the other hand to stroke Bass' shell, she looked up at Jane, watching her facial expressions as she talked to her mother.
"Ma wasn't home last night." Jane said, looking confused.
Maura raised an eyebrow. "Where was she?"
"She wouldn't say." Jane answered. "But she's on her way here now."
When Korsak, Frost and the crime scene unit got there everyone looked at the mess Maura's house was in with shock and anger. Maura was one of their own, which meant if you messed with her you messed with the whole homicide unit if not the whole damn BPD. While the CSU techs did their thing looking for prints and other evidence, Korsak asked the girls some questions. Jane told him what time they got home to which he said, "So it could have happened at any time between nine last night and one this afternoon."
"Why nine last night?" Jane asked with narrowed eyes.
"That's what time Vince picked me up." Angela said carefully.
Jane looked between her mother and her old partner turned sergeant with narrow eyes and a what-the-fuck look on her face. She was about to go off on them, gearing up for an interrogation, when she felt Maura's hand on her arm. That simple touch calmed her down enough to just huff softly like a caged bull.
"While I was in London, before Jane joined me, Agent Dean was here." Maura said calmly. "He said my father escaped custody."
Vince nodded. "Doyle's rivals, even his own people, could have been looking for something."
"Hell the feds could have been looking for something." Frost added.
"Whoever it was knew enough to kill the alarm, to act when no one was around, and to neutralize the pets." Vince said.
Frost gave him a look. "A rat dog and a turtle?"
"Hey!" Jane glared, needing to take her emotions out on someone and picking poor Frost as her target. "Jo's a Cairn/Silky mix, and she's a lot tougher then she looks. And Bass is am African Spurred tortoise not a damn turtle." Four sets of amused eyes were staring at her. "What? I listen when Maura talks!"
"My guess would be they're looking for Doyle." Vince continued.
"In Maura's house?" Jane asked. "No one knows about her connection to him expect for us and Dean."
"Dean has been poking around a lot lately." Frost said with a slight shrug. "I wouldn't put it past the feds to tear a place apart like this if they thought they'd find something. They're all a bunch of glory hounds."
Once the CSU team and her partners were gone Jane wrapped her arms around Maura and held her close. "Pack a fresh bag. We'll stay at my apartment for a few days. You can call in your cleaning people about getting this place cleaned up, I'll call my brothers to load up Bass so we can take him with us."
Maura simply nodded; to numb to really let this all upset her. She lingered in Jane's arms for a moment more before pulling away and heading for the bedroom.
Once they were alone Jane turned towards her mother. "How come you weren't at home last night?"
"Jane." Angela said with a soft sigh.
"What did Korsak pick you up for?" Jane continued.
"We had a late dinner together and then went to a movie." Angela answered honestly.
Jane narrowed her eyes at her mother. "That sounds a awful lot like a date."
Angela simply nodded. "Because it was a date."
The tall dark haired detective stood there staring at her mother in complete shock. It took several minutes before she could form words again. "You and Korsak?"
"He's a good man, Janie." Angela said firmly, a ghost of a smile on her face. "And I enjoy spending time with him."
The thought that her mother hadn't been home at all last night ran through Jane's mind and she shuddered. "I don't need this shit right now." She mumbled before storming off to join Maura in the bedroom. When she stepped into the trashed room Maura was sitting on the bed crying softly. Jane walked over and wrapped her arms around Maura, pulling her close, and holding her as if she could protect her from the world just by putting her arms around her.
The next morning as soon as Jane got into the squad room she wanted to know what Korsak and Frost had found out about the break in at Maura's, but when they arrived that morning she and Maura discovered that the squad was being looked at by IAD, then they were called in on a new case. On their way to the crime scene Korsak told her, "IAD thinks we're dirty cops."
"But we're not." Jane said looking confused.
"They think we're in with Doyle." Korsak said with a shrug.
"That's bullshit." Jane huffed.
The body was found in a heap of garbage in an alley, which was slick with blood and garbage slime. "Careful." Jane said to Maura as they made their way over to the victim. "I really wish you wouldn't wear shoes like that to crime scenes. One of these days you're going to slip and break an ankle."
"Though I appreciate your concern Jane." Maura said sweetly. "I can walk just fine in these shoes in any terrain."
While Maura crouched down to examine the body Jane asked, "Who called it in?"
"Kid working in the bakery." Frost said as he checked his notes. "Came out to throw out the morning trash and there he was."
"Three gun shot wounds." Maura said as she looked at the body and then at the area around her. "From the amount of blood I'd say he was killed right here."
Jane crouched down and looked the man over herself. "Prison tats, that should help id him. Did he have anything on him?"
"No." Frost answered. "Nothing."
"I'll run finger prints as soon as we get him back." Maura said as she stood up.
When they got back to the station Jane, Korsak, and Frost headed up to the homicide unit. Maura had brought her own car so she was driving back on her own. Because IAD was on their asses they had to be careful to do this and every case until they backed off by the book, so when they got upstairs they began the paperwork and started going over what they knew so far while waiting on Maura's preliminary reports. Since they didn't have much to go on yet Jane looked up from her paperwork and asked, "Did you find out anything on the break in?"
"We got a parcel finger print and a piece of a latex glove." Frost answered.
"So far no hit on the print and the lab's checking the piece of latex." Korsak added. "We'll figure this out Jane." He promised.
Jane nodded, but she couldn't force herself to relax. She hadn't heard from Maura since they'd gotten back and was about to get up to head downstairs when a man in a suit walked in wearing the stink of a rat. Korsak and Frost had already been questioned by IAD, so when the officer walked into the room they both glared at him as he walked up to Jane. "Detective Jane Rizzoli?"
"Yeah, that's me." Jane said. She fought the urge to ask if he was the rat looking into her unit but just barley. "Are you Collins?"
The man nodded. "Lets talk."
"Fine, but make it quick. I have open cases to work." Jane said as she got up and walked off to interrogation with the IAD officer. An hour later when Jane walked back to her desk she was in the worse mood imaginable. Matters only got worse when Agent Dean walked in. Jane groaned at the sight of him. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Where's Doctor Isles?" Dean asked, not beating around the bush.
"We're not attached at the hip." Jane said with a huff. "She's downstairs working an autopsy."
Dean shook his head. "There's a body still in the bag on the table but Doctor Isles isn't there."
Concern bubbled up in Jane's chest and without a word to anyone she jumped to her feet and dashed for the stairs. Sure enough when she got to the morgue their body from that morning was there but no Maura. After checking the computer to see if Maura had checked back in, a security upgrade made after Doyle kidnapped her right out of the morgue, Jane started calling her cell phone. "Fuck." She said when there was still no answer. "I saw her get into her car before we left the crime scene. I saw her pull away from the curb."
"Did she have something else to do?" Dean asked. "An appointment? Lunch? A shoe sale?"
Jane gave Dean a look that said she was trying to mentally make his head explode. "No." She growled. "No, she would have come right back here to get started on the case."
"Doyle?" Dean asked.
Jane shook her head. "She hasn't heard from him." Jane was quiet for a moment, thinking, and then she shook her head. "Something's wrong, something's seriously wrong."
Dean could see the fear in Jane's eyes and despite still feeling thrown over for Isles he couldn't deny what he saw. Reaching out her put his hand on Jane's shoulder. "We'll find her, Rizzoli."
The last thing Maura remembered was getting into her car and pulled away from the curb at the crime scene, and then stopping at an animal feed store a couple of blocks away. Everything after that until this moment was a blank. As she slowly came too she found herself unable to move. Slowly it sank in, she was tired to chair. Opening her eyes she peered into the dark, the only light in the room was around her; beyond that small circle of light was darkness. She moaned softly, her muscles ached, her head hurt. "Jane." She whispered softly.
"Hello Doctor Isles." A voice said from the dark.
Maura lifted her head and narrowed her eyes in the direction of the voice. "Hello? Who's there? What's going on?"
"Where is he Doctor Isles?" The voice asked.
"Where is who?" Maura asked.
"Don't play with me Doctor Isles." The voice snapped. "Where is your father?"
Maura groaned as she tested her bindings. They were tight and secure; no way she could get out of them. "Switzerland with my mother." Maura answered.
There was a sound like an angry growl followed by a fist hitting something metal. "No! You're real father Doctor Isles!"
"He is my real father!" Maura answered.
The voice felt closer but was still unseen. "Where is Patrick Doyle Doctor Isles?"
"I don't know!" Maura said angrily. She was really starting to wish she hadn't been curious about her birth parents. They, he, had caused her nothing but trouble since finding him.
There was a long pause and then a flash like from a camera. "You'd better hope that someone can find him to let him know his little girl is in danger, or someone else is going to have to take care of that ridiculous pet of yours."
"It was you!" Maura said to the voice. "You were in my home!"
There was no reply and the space around her suddenly seemed empty. Maura closed her eyes and took a deep breath to clam herself down. She tried to find something, a sound, a scent, anything that would help her figure out where she was. From what she could take in she was somewhere near the harbor. She wiggled against her bindings again and now that she was more aware she felt the soreness in her upper right arm. She must have been pricked with a hypodermic needle, shot up with something that knocked her out.
They'd gone back to the crime scene and then took every routine possible back to the precinct. Now they were reviewing traffic cam video, watching as Maura's blue Prius drove along until it entered a dead zone, a cluster of blocks were the traffic cams were down. "Lets see those blocks." Jane demanded and then watched the screen as Frost pulled up a map. Jane looked it over carefully looking for something, anything. "There." She pointed. "That street, there's a feed store she goes to, to get Jo and Bass special treats."
Jane checked with the people at feed store and got a positive id that Maura had been there. They knew her last known whereabouts that was something at least. Frost went back to looking at traffic cam video to see if he could find Maura's car again but nothing came up.
"Whoever took her has to know where there's no surveillance." Frost said.
"Who would know that?" Jane asked.
"Sector cops, MassDOT…" Frost began.
"FBI?" Korsak asked while glaring at Dean.
"If we needed too." Dean answered as if Korsak hadn't meant to be aggressive towards him.
Collins who came in to snoop a little more interrupted their conversation with more questions. Jane could tell he was dead set on tying them to Doyle. He even started in on Dean. None of them, not a single one, mentioned Maura's ties to Doyle, and yet when he heard that Maura was missing Collins made the comment that maybe she wasn't missing, maybe she'd run off with Daddy. That bothered Jane even after he left. How did he know about Maura and Doyle? It wasn't public knowledge and there was no evidence, Doyle had gotten rid of every thing that tied Maura to her brother, which would have tied her to Doyle.
"So how did he know about Maura's link to Doyle?" She asked out loud.
"I got something. You're not going to believe this." Frost said from behind his computer in the Brick. He pulled up the results he'd just gotten. "The parcel print belonged to Mark Collins." He explained as he typed, pulling up information on Collins.
"IAD trashed Maura's?" Jane asked with a frown.
Korsak read over the information Frost was posting on the screen, his eyes going wide, "His father was Mark Donahue?" Everyone turned to him for an explanation. "Donahue was a dirty cop working for the Sullivan's, rival's to the family Doyle was with, he was killed by Doyle a good thirty years ago."
"Damnit!" Jane said as she did that little shimmy that said she was stomping her foot. Then she took off at a run to catch up with Collins. She burst into the stairwell and made it two flights down when she suddenly stopped.
"Looking for me Jane?" Collins asked.
Before Jane could pull her own gun she was slammed into a wall, Collin's had his arm across her throat, and his gun at her temple. "I'm not going to hurt you." He told her. "I need you to deliver a message for me. Tell Patrick Doyle that if he wants to see his little girl alive again he'll come to me."
"If you've hurt her I swear to god I will kill you myself." Jane spat.
"Are you threatening an IAD officer Detective?" Collins teased.
Jane growled. "I'm threatening the twisted asshole who made the mistake of taking what's mine."
Collins laughed. "So the rumors about you two are true then? Interesting. I'll have to put that in my report." He pulled away from Jane but kept his gun trained on her head. Reaching into his pocket he tossed a picture at her. Then he slipped out of the stairwell.
Picking up the picture Jane's heart stopped. "Maura."
Maura could feel the skin on her wrists tear as she tried to free herself. She'd screamed for help but no one came, she'd tried over and over to get free but couldn't. The only thing she could do was have faith in Jane. She knew that Jane would find her, would come for her, she always did.
"You'd better hope your girlfriend calls dear old dad." The voice said.
"Jane doesn't know where he is either." Maura said honestly.
"Do you really expect me to believe that he's not still watching you Doctor Isles?" The voice asked. "I've been watching Doyle for years and do you know what I noticed? He's been watching you for years. I couldn't quite figure out why until his bastard son was found dead, but I guess that's when you figured it out too, wasn't it Doctor Isles? Must have come as quite the shock for someone like you, little miss high society, to find out you came from nothing but common Boston Irish trash, a thug, a murder, a cop killer."
Maura closed her eyes and bit her lip to keep quiet. Cop killer?
"Well, he'll find out sooner or later." The voice continued. "That I have his little girl. We just have to wait. Then I'll finish off what Detective Rizzoli started. It's a good thing your girlfriend wasn't trying to kill him, I would have been really upset if I'd been cheated out of what's mine by right."
"You're going to kill him?" Maura asked.
There was a long pause. "Now now Doctor Isles. Do you want me to tell you something that I'll have to kill you for knowing?"
They looked over everything about Collins they could find. He specialized in rooting out cops with ties to Boston's mob families. It also appeared that he'd been after Doyle for a long time. When Dean suggested they use this to draw Doyle out of hiding Jane nearly sent him through a window. Tensions and emotions were running high when Jane suddenly had a thought. "He wants to kill Doyle for killing his father, right? Where did Doyle kill Mark Donahue?"
Frost pulled up the information. "On the water front. It use to be a warehouse but now it's some high end condo townhouse complex."
"We start looking there." Jane said firmly and then mumbled. "I'm really starting to fucking hate warehouses."
They were able to narrow down their search to a cluster of townhouses where the old warehouse was. They'd just been built and weren't even on the market yet. The area was deserted because there was still some construction going on, a park, which meant that been the park and the waterfront the whole area was secluded. They had to get this right. If they went into the wrong house he could kill Maura. It was Korsak who thought of looking at the electric meters to see if one was moving faster then the rest, and there was. That's the house they went into first.
Just as they burst in Collins was coming up from the basement. "No! No! You're supposed to be Doyle! You were supposed to tell him not come yourself!" Collins pulled his gun, raised it.
Jane fired first. Collins fell. Maura screamed from the basement. Jane went running. There sat Maura in the darkened basement, tied to a chair. "Maura."
"Jane." Maura said softly, her heart thundering in her chest. She'd heard the sounds of people in the house and she was praying it was Jane. It was all she could do not to cry, especially at the sound of gunfire, but she couldn't be one hundred percent sure it was Jane, so she'd kept quiet just in case. When she finally saw that it was Jane a soft sob bubbled past Maura's lips. Jane untied her and then caught her when she tried to stand, her legs wobbly from being tied up so long. "I got you."
She shot a cop, a bad cop, a crazy cop, but still she shot a cop. So Jane was on paid leave until the investigation was over. She was sitting on the sofa in the living room of Maura's house, neat, clean, no signs of what had happen anywhere, when there was a knock on the door. It was a delivery for her. It was a bottle of Jameson whiskey, a reserve label, with a note.
"I knew my little girl was in good hands and for what it's worth you have my blessing."
Jane stared at the note from Paddy Doyle. The man had been nothing but trouble since coming into their lives, and she hoped he would keep his distance. But as she cracked open the bottle and poured the dark Irish whiskey into a tumbler she'd grabbed from the kitchen, something in his note added to the weight of her thoughts. She and Maura had been through so much in the last year and this latest incident was just more proof that anything could happen, that life was unpredictable, and that she didn't want to waste anymore time not having Maura in her life completely. For the first time in her adult life, hell truth be for the first time since she was five, Jane Rizzoli was actually thinking about…
"Where did that come from?" Maura asked as she joined Jane on the sofa and picked up the bottle.
"Ireland I would imagine." Jane said with a smirk, which made Maura roll her eyes.
"My father likes Jameson reserve." Maura said as she poured herself a glass. "Mother pretends not to like it but she'd found of it as well. I must have gotten this the last time she came to visit."
"Musta." Jane said as she put her arm around Maura. Her thoughts, for now, centering on the present and the feel of the beautiful blonde pressed so close to her own body.