Blue
Chapter 11
Disclaimer: Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles do not belong to me. No infringement intended and no profit will be made from their use.
Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter after my shameless birthday request.
Jane went home after the party, crawled into bed and went to sleep. She was too cold and tired to think about what had happened with Maura. In the morning she lay in bed and replayed the evening over in her head. The thing that stuck out was that Maura didn't say she didn't want to, she said she couldn't. That held promise.
But Jane had to stop thinking about Maura and get out of bed because it was Christmas day and she had plans. Police headquarters would be fairly empty which suited Jane's needs. Jane had come up with the following on her eleven cases:
1. All 11 women were shot and killed with a single shot to the head or chest
2. A "H" was carved or branded on each body
3. Where ballistics evidence was found it was always a 38 special bullet and probably a Walther PPK pistol, both commonly used by law enforcement personnel
4. The bodies were left out of sight but in public enough places they would be found relatively quickly by a passerby. Each woman was left in a different part of the city
5. None of the women had prior criminal histories. Friends or family indicated that each woman had gone out the night before she was found murdered either with friends or for a date usually to a bar. But no suspects were ever identified from conversations with the last people the victims spent time with
Jane spot checked other solved and unsolved case files investigated by the Homicide detectives involved in her eleven cases and the casework in those look satisfactory. So the question Jane was left with was did the detectives deliberately do shitty work in these cases or was it random. And what did the H marking have to do with it? Was it some sort of message? Who was the message for?
Jane wanted to check the personnel files of the detectives involved in the investigations to see if anything jumped out at her there, but didn't want to ask anyone for access and tip anyone off that she was investigating other detectives. So Christmas day, when headquarters was relatively empty and administrative staff had the day off, Jane planned to break into the employee records archive.
Administrative offices were located on the second floor. After dropping her coat and bag in her office, Jane took the back stairway up to the deserted second floor and walked down the hall to the records archive. When Jane was younger Tommy had taught her how to pick locks and she had used the skill on more than one occasion since. He even had a lock picking kit that Jane had taken possession of when Tommy went to prison. Jane picked the lock to the records archive, went inside and closed the door. She used her phone to take pictures of relevant page of the personnel records for all of the detectives named in the case files.
When she was finished, Jane returned to her office to grab her coat before going home to download and print the pictures she had taken. She didn't want to do it on her work computer. Christ, she probably couldn't do it if she wanted to the computer was so old. But when Jane went into her office, in the center of her desk was a white envelope with Detective Rizzoli written on it.
Someone had been in her office while she was elsewhere in the building. Jane found a pair of latex gloves in her jacket and put them on before opening the envelope. She pulled out a single folded piece of paper with the following typed on it:
Detective Rizzoli: You are getting involved in things that don't concern you and you know nothing about. If you know what is best for you and the Doc you will stop looking at those cases.
Jane found a plastic evidence bag in her desk, put the letter inside, and put the whole thing in her coat pocket. She grabbed her various handwritten notes on the files and everything else she had collected aside from the original case files, but left the files in the office, hoping that Maura's copies were still safe. If someone wanted to mess with the files she wanted to find out.
Jane left the building, went to her car and drove home watching for anyone tailing her. She made a couple of unnecessary stops and took a few wrong turns. She didn't see anything suspicious so she went home and parked outside her building. Getting out the car, Jane saw Maura sitting on her front steps. "What are you doing out here? You could have gone inside."
Maura stood up. "I didn't want to presume that I was still welcome to use the key you gave me. Where were you?"
"Work. Come on, we gotta go inside right now," Jane said hustling up the stairs, unlocking the door, and ushering Maura inside.
"What's going on?" Maura asked but Jane was already hurrying up the stairs to her apartment.
Once inside the apartment Jane handed Maura the letter. "Put gloves on before you take it out." Jane left Maura in the living room while she went into her bedroom and packed a bag with her laptop, a few changes of clothes and the other bare necessities.
Once she was packed, Jane went back to the living room. "Where did you get this?" Maura asked.
"Someone put it on my desk while I was in another part of the building today. I will answer all of your questions and also talk about whatever you came here to talk about soon, but first we need to do a few things. We need to go to your house and make sure the copies of the files are secure. Do you have a copy machine at your house?"
"Yes, I have one of the printer, copier, scanner machines."
"Do you have a safe?"
"Yes."
"Okay, right now I need you to drive me to your house. We need to make copies of those files and put one set in your safe. Then we can talk." Jane put the letter back in her pocket.
"Wait!" Maura nearly yelled. "Do you think we could actually be in danger?"
"I don't know. That's why we need to take some precautions first and then we'll try to figure out what is actually going on. Okay?"
Maura nodded. They went out to Maura's car. She drove while Jane watched for anything suspicious after instructing Maura to take a circuitous route home. Once inside Maura's house Jane said, "I'm really sorry about springing all of this on you so suddenly. Point me in the direction of the files and copier and let me take care of that and then we'll talk. You should just relax or whatever."
Maura left Jane in her study and went to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine. The afternoon had gone quite a bit differently than she had expected and now she needed to refocus her thoughts. Maura took down a book from her bookshelves and sat down on the couch, folding her legs to her side, and waited for Jane.
Jane finally emerged two hours later after making copies of the files and downloading and printing two copies of the pictures she took earlier in the day. She brought one set of copies down to Maura and Maura went to her bedroom to put them in her safe. Jane got a glass of water and slumped down on a chair in the living room.
A few minutes later Maura returned to her spot on the couch and asked, "Do we need to be concerned?"
"I don't know yet. I think we should be cautious though."
"How would anyone know what you are working on?"
"I can only guess someone was taking a look around my office. I haven't talked to anyone about these cases but you."
"I was included in the note," Maura said.
Jane set her glass down and sat forward in her chair. "I think that was more for my benefit. Someone may expect that I wouldn't take threats against myself very seriously, but threats against you I'm going to pay attention to. But did you notice the letter didn't use your name but said 'the Doc'? Who calls you Doc?"
"All of the detectives do. Most police officers do."
"Exactly. It was almost definitely either current or former police who wrote the letter. Which reminds me, would you be able to get prints off of the letter?" Jane asked.
"That's not my job, I've never done that before."
"But can you try? I can't ask anyone else and it has to be off the record."
"I'll see what I can do. At your apartment you packed a bag. Where are you going?"
"If anyone is watching me I don't want to make it easy for them. I also have to take the threat against you seriously. With your permission I would like to stay here. I can stay in the guest house if you'd prefer. Or I can go to a hotel or maybe stay with Frankie."
Maura shook her head. "No, no, you can stay here."
After a few minutes of silence, Jane said, "I'm sorry about, you know, kissing you."
"I don't think I'm sorry that you did. I can't say I've never thought about it before."
Jane looked confused. "Then why-"
"Why did I push you away?" Maura cut her off. "It happened so suddenly and I'm scared. I finally convinced myself that I can handle friendship. That I'm strong enough to deal with the emotions of something happening to you as a friend. Then to consider a romantic relationship...it's terrifying. And now here we are again with you possibly in danger."
"Still, I'm sorry I kissed you out of the blue like that. It wasn't fair of me to do that. I'm just so tired of pretending."
"Tired of pretending what?" Maura asked softly.
"Shit," Jane sighed and rubbed her hands over her face. "I'm tired of pretending that I'm not in love with you. I thought it would be easier, that it would go away if I stayed away from you. I was wrong. And then last night was so nice and you looked so beautiful, even with the ridiculous sweater, and I just didn't want pretend anymore. But it was wrong to kiss you. I should have said something instead."
Maura's eyes were bright with tears. "How long?"
"What?"
"How long have you loved me?" Maura said angrily.
Jane shook her head and said, "Forever."
Maura got off of the couch and started pacing. "How could you have gone so long without telling me? How could you pretend like that? How could I have not seen it? A week ago I had no idea you were even interested in women and now you're telling me you're in love with me. It changes everything I thought I knew about our friendship, about everything."
"Maura don't think like that. It's not like that. This isn't lust. I love you but I've never expected anything more from you than your friendship. And I only recently began acting on my attraction to women, you wouldn't have known beforehand."
Maura sank back onto the couch. "The woman I saw you talking to at the bar, did you go out with her?"
"No."
"Have you gone out with any other women?"
Jane cleared her throat. "Um, going out is maybe a bit strong of a description, but yes."
"How many women have you slept with?"
"Two."
Maura narrowed her eyes at Jane, "Were you or are you interested in them?"
"No. I haven't exactly been in a good place the past few months and I did some things I'm not proud of."
Maura's expression softened. "I'm not judging you. I'm just trying to understand this new information about you. What's going to happen tomorrow?"
Jane shrugged. "I don't know. We'll figure it out tomorrow."
Maura stood up and said, "I think I'm going to go to bed now. The guest room is all set up and you know where everything is so make yourself at home." Maura turned back when she reached the stairs, "Goodnight, Jane."