A/N: This chapter is insanely long. You have been warned. Hopefully you find it worth your time. I was very excited to write this one.
As Jane ducked under the yellow tape with the boy, the medical examiner discreetly drew three calming breaths in and out. Her pulse rate was slow to decelerate from its frantic, adrenaline-charged pace. The blood still pounding to her extremities caused a ringing sound in her ears.
The surge of fear that had assailed her upon seeing all the officers present with their guns drawn, and Jane once again recklessly stepping in the midst of potential danger, brought a flush of heat like an electric charge to the surface of her skin. This was immediately followed an equally intense wave of cold - like being doused with ice water - which set her muscle groups quivering and her teeth on edge.
At one time, Maura would have vehemently reprimanded Jane for scaring her like that. The detective, in turn, would tease with a quip intended to diffuse Maura's anxiety with laughter. Maura could still clearly hear Jane's exact tone of voice and feel Jane's hand on her arm as the detective would have proceeded to gently and sincerely reassure Maura that everything was fine now.
At one time, Maura would have believed her.
But the pins-and-needles sensation now worming it's way to her fingertips left her thoroughly confused. She had just experienced a fight-or-flight response...to watching Jane step into a place of danger. Maura herself had not been the one in immediate physical peril. Yet she felt the fear, felt her body react, as though she had been the one approaching a potential threat. The confidence she had gained during the time she spent distancing herself from her best friend seemed to dissipate like an insubstantial cloud of gas. The thought of losing Jane still frightening her as much as ever.
And now she was fighting hyperventilation while Korsak looked at her like he might look at an incendiary device.
"Maura? You okay?" Korsak's unusually timorous voice penetrated her tunnel vision and opened the crime scene back up to her senses. She purposefully made eye contact and nodded. He watched while she straightened her shoulders and reassessed her surroundings.
"Good." He held out an iPad. "They were right quick about getting fingerprint ID results back to us. Gotta be because she's the mayor's daughter."
Maura's eyes came up from the iPad screen to meet Korsak's. He's joking. He must be joking. "I'm sorry...say that again?"
The sergeant shrugged in the direction of the dumpster. "That's Mayor Roman's daughter in there."
"What's your name?" Jane walked the kid a safe distance away from the crime scene.
"Dominic. Dominic Adams." In addition to his clothes, which had clearly seen better days, his face was drawn and shadows crouched beneath his eyes. His arms hung limply at his sides.
"Okay Dominic. Tell me about last night." Jane adjusted her stance, attempting to find the right balance of authoritative but non-threatening.
Dominic pivoted on the worn soles of his old high top sneakers and gestured to the length of the alley in which they stood. "I pass by here once in a while, and last night I was heading to a friend's to crash for the night. And I -"
An officer came up to Jane, interrupting the boy. "Detective, we have positive ID on the vic." He held out the iPad that Korsak had been holding.
Her brows flew up. "That was fast."
He nodded. "They found her fingerprints already on file."
She took the tablet. "Really? Who is she?" Then she looked at the profile. Inhaled sharply through her nose.
"She's Kendra Roman. The mayor's daughter," Dominic said matter-of-factly.
She spun to face Dominic, who had been standing meekly by with hands stuffed in the pockets of tattered jeans. "Alright, how do you know her?"
The kid shrugged. "We went to school together. Had a couple of the same classes...she was good at math, I remember."
"Where'd you go to school?"
"Charlestown."
Alarm bells went off in Jane's head. She looked back down at the iPad to confirm. "Get Korsak over here, please," Jane said to the officer. Then she looked back at Dominic, passing the iPad back to the officer. "How well did you know her?"
Another shrug. "Sometimes we'd pass each other in the hall. We'd talk."
"What about more recently?"
"I ain't even seen her since graduation...until last night."
"Jane." Korsak's voice.
Jane turned to look at him. He was holding his cell phone to his ear and pointing at it. In the same moment, she saw Martinez approaching.
"He's got the mayor on the phone," Martinez said. He looked grim as usual.
Jane sighed. Turned once again to Dominic. "Alright, finish telling me about last night."
He nodded. "I was walking down this way and saw her duck out that back door," he pointed to the nightclub's service door near the dumpster, "for a smoke. She saw me, and said hi. I said I didn't think I'd ever see her light up, bein' the mayor's perfect baby girl and all that. She just laughed. She started to say something else, but then this shady-lookin' car comes off the street and pulls up and she tells me to get lost, it's not safe. I'm all like, 'What the hell,?' right? But she seems like she means it, so I duck behind that dumpster. I couldn't hear everything over the engine and the music from the club, but I'm pretty sure the driver used to deal her some shit. Couldn't tell if he was sellin' smack, or E, or what. But she said she doesn't do that anymore and she told him where to go. They yelled back and forth and then the car just peeled out and drove off. Then, like maybe a couple minutes later, I start to come out of hiding, but then this guy comes up, I start to holler at her to get down, but then he's already grabbed her from behind, and I'm scared shitless now and she puts up a helluva a fight, man. And I remember his voice sounded like the guy from the car. But then all the sudden, she's down in his arms, like dead weight. He lifts her up, gets up on some boxes, and dumps her in there." He pointed to the dumpster. His hand shook.
Jane's brow furrowed. The cold of the morning caused her hands to twinge, and she folded her arms.
Dominic shook his head. "Then he climbs in with her. He was in there for a while. Couldn't tell what the fuck he was doing, and I didn't want to know. Then he stood up and climbed out, and just before he walked away, I saw him stop and turn. Got a pretty good look at his face. And saw him chuck something small in the dumpster, kind of as an afterthought, you know?"
Jane turned sharply to a nearby crime scene tech. "We find anything else in the dumpster besides the girl and the flower?"
The tech shook her head. "Not yet, Detective. Anything in particular we should be looking for?"
Jane turnyed back to Dominic, but he shrugged. "Dunno. I wanna say it was a needle, but I was so scared then that who knows what the fuck I saw. I found a friend's pad and got blind wasted, but still couldn't sleep. That's not something you forget easy, y'know?"
Jane nodded, and met Korsak's eyes. He was just getting off the phone. Martinez, next to him, was also on his cell, and Jane could only imagine it was the press. News vans were already starting to roll past the alley, searching for a place to park.
Jane rolled her eyes. "Looks like the media's got a whiff of this. Dominic, would you be willing to come with us back to the precinct for a few more questions? I think Sergeant Korsak will want to hear what you have to say."
The kid nodded, looking bewildered and unimaginably exhausted. She took his arm to gently lead him to the nearest squad car when she saw Martinez staring at her, a few yards away. He slowly lowered his phone from his ear.
Jane frowned. "What -?"
"RIZZOLI!" Martinez shouted.
Jane pivoted sharply towards the point over her shoulder where Martinez had been looking.
Charles Lopes Ruiz, looking decidedly more grey of hair than in his mugshot, but still as greasy and deranged, stood with a wide stance at the far end of the alley. He raised his arm stiffly, gun in hand, and fired.
The gunshot split the cold, still air of the morning like a thunderclap.
Maura spun on her heel from where she had been directing crime scene techs with moving the body. She watched Jane drop with the speed of reflex and take Dominic down with her, covering him with her body.
No. Not like this. Not now.
Jane rose with some effort to a semi-crouched position and looked straight at Ruiz, who was inexplicably still standing in the same spot.
Martinez came from behind her and brushed past, drawing his gun and bearing down on Ruiz.
Ruiz bolted.
"He's bleeding!" Jane screamed, looking down at Dominic. "Get an ambulance!"
Maura practically bounded to her side. Jane was already applying pressure to a wound in his side. There was a lot of blood, but from what the ME could see, it was only a shallow graze and not life-threatening.
"Son of a bitch," Jane murmured hoarsely. "Hang on Dominic, we're gonna get you some help. It's gonna be okay." She huffed sharply and looked up into the alley where Ruiz had been standing. Her dark eyes burned, and it scared Maura. But she knew what needed to happen next.
Maura stilled Jane's hands, already covered in blood. "Go," she said. Jane looked at her sharply. They could both hear the sounds of pursuit coming from the walkie-talkies around them.
Jane leaned her forehead against Maura's for the briefest of seconds, never breaking eye contact.
Take care of him. I trust you. Thank you.
I love you.
Maura could clearly read each of those messages in Jane's eyes.
Then she was on her feet, climbing in a squad car, and screeching off in hot pursuit.
Detective Jane Rizzoli was not about to lose yet another kid to some homicidal maniac.
The scanner on her dashboard was giving her garbled information, but it was just enough for her to know where she could go to possibly head him off.
She skidded to a halt near some food carts just in time to see Ruiz round a corner and go pelting down a side street. Cursing that she had just missed cutting him off, she slammed the car door shut and broke into a sprint, her path quickly converging with that of Martinez and a few other officers and detectives who had been following the perp.
Ahead of them, Ruiz slowed to turn yet another corner. One of the detectives fired off a shot and missed badly. But Ruiz stumbled, and that gave Jane enough time to gain a few steps on him.
He was surprisingly agile, but she'd be damned if she let him get away now.
Frost's face flashed in her mind, and she redoubled her pace.
Ruiz stumbled over some boxes as they went pounding through another narrow alley, but before Jane could grab him, he was up and sprinting into the street.
Morning traffic was in full swing, and a taxi just narrowly missed him as a light turned from red to green.
"Rizzoli! Wait!" Martinez shouted, but Jane ignored him. She was almost to the intersection.
"Jane!" Korsak's voice. The light turned yellow.
She leaped into the street. Ruiz had made a diagonal beeline across the intersection and it looked like he was about to disappear into another alley if she didn't catch him quickly.
Cars screeched, skidded and honked at her, but she kept running.
"JANE!" She heard Korsak's shout blend with the drawn out blaring of a horn just seconds before the grill and hood of a green sedan slammed into her side.
She rolled off the hood of the car and collapsed in an awkward heap on the asphalt.
Martinez hustled to her side to help her up, and Korsak began directing traffic around them.
Before Martinez could ask if she was alright, she stumbled to her feet and pressed on. Her side twinged a little, but adrenaline was coursing through her. She lengthened her stride, and sprinted into the alley she had seen Ruiz duck into.
The alley opened into a loading zone and delivery yard for a warehouse. Ruiz was clambering onto some crates to hop a fence at the far end of the delivery yard. Jane pounded after him, knowing that once he got over the fence, the chase was as good as over.
When she was close enough to hear him panting with effort, he turned, fired a crazy shot that ricocheted off the ground near her feet, and started to run toward the warehouse.
"C'mere, you son of a bitch!" She seized a fistful of his jacket and horsecollared him. As he lost his footing, she tackled him into a stack of crates. Asphalt bit into her knees through her torn slacks. Ruiz writhed beneath her while she fought to restrain him and reach her handcuffs. He smashed an elbow into her ribs on the same side that the car had hit, and she grunted. Shoved him further into the ground.
Behind her, sounds of Martinez, Korsak, and the other detectives could be heard behind her.
"Charles Lopes Ruiz, you are under arrest for the murders of Kendra Roman, Shawn and Drew Felton, and Detective Barry Frost," she growled in his ear. He tried to squirm away, but she pinned his shoulders and pressed her knee into his back.
Martinez held his hand out. "Rizzoli, I'll take it from here."
Jane dragged Ruiz to his feet, gripping his arms firmly behind his back. "He's all yours, Martinez," she rasped. "But I get first dibs in interrogation."
Martinez jerked his head in a nod, knowing better than to try to argue with her.
"You gotta learn to leash your perra, Martinez," Ruiz leered at the DCU detective. He spat in the Jane's direction.
Martinez grabbed him roughly and hauled him off to a squad car that had just pulled into the delivery yard, Mirandizing him as they went.
Korsak grabbed Jane's arm as she lunged after him. "Rizzoli," he warned. Much as they all wanted to cave the guy's face in, he couldn't stand by and let her destroy her sterling reputation as a good cop.
She stilled. Her tunnel vision faded, and she once again became aware of her surroundings. Then a plunging sensation roiled suddenly in her gut.
She turned to face Korsak fully and grabbed him by the shoulders. "Where's Dominic?"
"He's at the hospital getting stitched up. The bullet only grazed his side. He'll be okay."
She nodded. "Okay." Drew a deep breath. Released Korsak's shoulders. "Okay. We gotta get back. Is Maura still at the scene?" She started walking to the nearest squad car. As the adrenaline drained from her bloodstream, pain began to register in her side. Intense, burning pain. She started to clutch her ribs, but stopped herself. She'd deal with any injuries after she dealt with Ruiz.
Korsak steadied her with a hand on her elbow as she started to limp slightly, but said nothing. "I assume she's headed back to the precinct for autopsy if she hasn't already made it there."
As long as she's okay, Jane thought.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed. More to come. Please keep reviewing! I love you guys! P.S. I JUST FOUND OUT THIS FIC HAS BEEN NOMINATED FOR BEST ANGST IN THE RIZZLES FAN AWARDS SND I HAVE YOU GUYS TO THANK FOR THAT SO THANK YOU SO SO MUCH