Blue
Chapter 15
Disclaimer: Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles do not belong to me. No infringement intended and no profit will be made from their use.
Jane reluctantly left Maura's embrace and drove to headquarters. Maura tried to come with her, but Jane told her to stay home. She went up to the bullpen. Korsak wasn't there but Cavanaugh seemed to be waiting for her. "Rizzoli, come with me right now." She followed him to one of the interview rooms and they each took a seat at the table.
"What the hell is going on?" Jane asked.
"We're hoping you can tell us. Michael Brosnan was found dead in his house tonight. A neighbor reported hearing a gunshot and the reporting officers found him dead in his kitchen. It looks like suicide and I expect gunshot residue on his hands will confirm that. He left a note. Korsak took a picture and sent it to me."
Cavanaugh held up his phone and Jane read the note in the picture: "Detective Jane Rizzoli has all the answers."
"Would you care to explain what the hell that means?" Cavanaugh asked.
"No," Jane answered.
"Excuse me? I am ordering you to tell me what you know."
"No. I'm waiting for the lab to process some evidence and then I'll be able to explain everything. But until then, I can't tell you."
"I can't help you if you don't tell me what's going on."
"I'll take my chances."
"Dammit, Rizzoli. You're going to be lucky if you still have a job when this is over. Stay here, I'll be back later."
Cavanaugh left. A few minutes later a man Jane didn't know came into the room and sat down across from her.
"Hello, Detective Rizzoli. I'm Captain John Hobbs from Internal Affairs. We need to discuss a few things."
"I will not be discussing anything with you, Captain," Jane answered curtly.
"You can start by listening then. There some of us still on the force that are well aware of what Petrozelli was up to, myself included. A decision was made to keep it a secret. BPD may not be able to withstand a scandal of this magnitude. The damage to our reputation would be devastating, not to mention the inevitable lawsuits, etc. But we were fairly confident that even if those cases were reopened, there was so little information or evidence, no one would ever figure it out. We simply had to make sure everyone who knew about the murders kept quiet, and that was relatively easy to accomplish. Until you. I have no idea how you figured it out, but the important thing now is that you understand that you need to remain silent."
"You were the one watching what I was doing weren't you? Snooping in my office? You left me that note?" Jane asked.
Hobbs nodded. "After you returned to work, IAD was instructed to keep a close watch on you, given your past history, and I took that job on myself. It was coincidence that you stumbled upon the cases that you did. When I discovered what you were working on, I alerted Petrozelli and we came up with a plan to dissuade you from continuing your work on the cases."
"It was a piss poor plan."
"I admit we made some mistakes at first, but not anymore."
Something clicked in Jane's brain. "John Hobbs? You were a Sergeant in Homicide under Petrozelli weren't you?"
"Yes," he answered.
"And now you're in Internal Affairs? What a joke. Which woman did you kill? Or maybe it was one I missed because there must have been more than the eleven I found. Did you help him pick out the women? You are so full of shit. This isn't about protecting the BPD. This is only about protecting your own ass."
Hobbs smirked. "You are a good detective, Rizzoli."
Jane reacted to Hobbs' movement as it happened. He had dropped his hand below the desk and stood up quickly, pulling up his arm and pointing his gun at Jane. Jane had mirrored his movements exactly. "What are you going to do Hobbs, shoot me right in police headquarters? How are you going to explain that?"
"You pulled a gun on me. Blah, blah, blah."
"How can you live with yourself knowing that the families of all of those women have been waiting over 20 years to find out why they were killed and to have someone punished for it?" Jane said angrily.
"Ah, yes, Jane Rizzoli, Queen of self-righteousness. How do you think Bobby Marino's family feels?"
Jane clenched her jaw. "He killed another cop. He was going to kill me."
"So you got to decide that he should die for his actions?"
"I wasn't trying to kill him. What the fuck are we doing here? If you were going to kill me you would have done it already."
Hobbs smirked again. "Why haven't you taken a shot at me? Afraid you'll accidentally kill me?"
At that moment the door to the interview room opened. Jane expected it to be Korsak or Cavanaugh. But it was Petrozelli. Jane swiveled and aimed her gun at him. She heard him say, "The coast is clear, let's do it," and then heard a gunshot. She dropped to the ground as the bullet tore through her left shoulder and she was consumed by pain. She heard movement and then everything went black.
Jane came to when a searing pain engulfed the lower right side of her back. She cried out and tried to move away but she couldn't move. She opened her eyes and she was in a room she didn't recognize and tied to a chair. Her head was pounding and her shoulder was haphazardly covered with large bandages and tape and Jane could see blood seeping through. Petrozelli stepped out from behind her carrying what appeared to be a branding iron and Jane realized what the pain she was feeling was from just having been burned.
"Now you'll really be able to empathize with all those women Jane, because you're going to die just like them," Petrozelli said.
"Then what the fuck are you waiting for?" Jane growled.
"There's a few more loose ends to tie up."
As details started coming back to Jane she asked, "How did you get me out of police headquarters?"
"I created a little diversion with a bomb scare. That idiot Hobbs wasn't supposed to shoot you, but fortunately no one was around to hear the shot."
Hobbs burst into the room pushing Maura ahead of him and roughly pushed her down on the floor. "She wasn't too difficult. In fact she came quite easily when she heard we had Rizzoli. How do you think you're going to help her now, you stupid bitch?"
Maura's eyes widened when she took in Jane's appearance and said, "I'm sorry Jane," but Jane saw a look of steely resolve in her eyes.
"Now Jane, we can kill you both. As far as I can tell from our rather extensive surveillance, Dr. Isles is the only person you talked to about your cold cases. Except for poor Brosnan of course. But he did kill himself, I can't take credit for that. When Hobbs was asked to keep an eye on you, Jane, he took the liberty of wiretapping your phone as well as undertaking a number of other measures."
"It was quite boring for awhile, Rizzoli," Hobbs chimed in. "You hardly communicated with anyone for awhile except those bitches you were fucking. But then I found the files in your office and shortly after confirmed Dr. Isles had copies as well."
"You were in my house?" Maura blurted out.
"Yes, several times," Hobbs answered.
"Why do criminals always have to brag about their exploits before killing someone? Are you waiting for someone to stop you or something?" Jane said.
"Good point," Petrozelli said. "You are the only two people who know what we did, so now we're going to kill you."
"No you aren't," Maura said calmly. "Just before Captain Hobbs came to my house I received an email from the forensics lab with the results of ballistics tests Jane submitted earlier this afternoon that matched bullets recovered from the women you ordered killed to several guns already in the database, including a gun that belonged to you Mr. Petrozelli. Because of the nature of the results, and because the lab was unable to get in touch with Detective Rizzoli, the information was sent to myself, Lt. Cavanaugh, the Chief of Police, and probably a dozen other people. In fact Captain Hobbs, if you check your phone, you probably received the email as well."
Hobbs and Petrozelli looked at each other. Hobbs pulled out his phone and found the email and verified that what Maura said was true. Then Hobbs and Petrozelli began arguing with each other.
Jane ignored them and focused on Maura, locking eyes with her. She tapped her left foot and nodded. Before Jane left Maura's house they had talked about safety precautions for the evening. Brosnan's death and Jane being called in was extremely suspicious. Jane agreed to stop at her apartment before going to headquarters and picking up the small Smith & Wesson revolver she kept as a personal weapon just in case anything weird happened. Fortunately, Hobbs and Brosnan had taken her Glock, but hadn't searched her further.
Maura moved quickly. She pulled out the revolver from the holster on Jane's left leg, stood up, and raised the gun.
"Two to the torso," Jane said.
Maura quickly fired off four rounds and both men fell to the ground.
"Grab their guns, quickly," Jane said and Maura complied. "Take the guns outside and call for help." When Maura hesitated, Jane yelled, "Now."
Jane passed out and when she woke up again she was in the hospital. Her back still burned but her shoulder felt considerably better and appeared to be professionally bandaged, although moving it seemed impossible. Maura came in the room and Jane immediately said, "When do I get to leave?"
"As long as you tell the doctor you feel okay, you get to leave today."
"How long was I out?"
Maura sat down on the bed next to Jane. "You went into surgery as soon as they got you to the hospital and they knocked you out for awhile. It's been about 10 hours."
"How are you?"
"Fine. We're going to have a lot of questions to answer but it will be fine. Hobbs and Petrozelli are both in the hospital, but they are alive and under arrest."
"You were quite impressive with the gun," Jane smiled.
"I had a good teacher."
"How are you really?" Jane asked.
"Really, I'm okay. This isn't my first time being held hostage remember?" Maura leaned in and kissed Jane softly on the lips. "I'm okay, don't worry. I'm going to go find the doctor so we can go home."
A/N: I think just one more chapter to go. Thanks to everyone who is reading. If you haven't chimed in yet I'd love to hear your thoughts before I wrap this up.