Lying in his attic looking at his wall of glory he's feeling depressed. Shannon hadn't gone to plan and nor had Rosie. There have been no new clues in his plot since Maria. It makes him angry. Had everything gone to plan he'd be reaching his pinnacle within days. Rosie would be dead by tomorrow night and waiting for the bitch detective and doctor of death in the early hours of the following morning. The night after that he had planned to take Rizzoli. Instead his plan was crumbling.
He gets up and goes to his computer. He needs another target. He knows this is risky. He had stalked and plotted his attacks on Lilly, Maria, Shannon and Rosie. If he's to bring down Rizzoli and Isles as is his plan, he needs another distraction for them. He will have to move quickly to assess his next victim. He logs on to the dating site he'd used to source his other victims. He enters the search criteria. A criterion he based on the detective he despises. Three women appear in his search. One is living in Somerville. This pleases him.
He scans her profile and gathers as much information as he can on her. Pauline O'Brien is thirty-five years old. She is a fitness instructor at an exclusive Somerville Gym. It gets harder from here. She needs to live alone. He can't risk having someone report her missing before he's had the chance to poison her. He decides to take a run over to the gym. His plan is to make some casual enquiries about joining and see if he can gather information on Pauline whilst he's there.
Maura had left Jane at the hospital earlier this afternoon feeling a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Jane was definitely looking better and as it sank in that she hadn't let Korsack down her spirits had really risen. Jane is going to call Maura after her last test and if the doctor releases her tonight Maura is going to pick her up and they are going to have Pizza at Jane's place. Jane's planning a meat lovers; Maura of course will order vegetarian and make sure Jane has at least one slice of hers so she eats some vegetables. Over her microscope in her laboratory she finds she's really hoping that Jane's allowed home tonight.
Maura has studied the chemicals found in Lilly and Maria's stomachs. She is linking each to ibuprofen to see how they react or what compounds they create. It is a slow and tedious task. Frost has called to say he's been successful with the warrant for the hospital video and he's just waiting for the hospital security team to release it to him. Maura forces herself to concentrate. Ibuprofen is a mixture of Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen. The formula is C13H18O2. Maura finds Zinc Oxide (Zn0). She also finds Cadmium (Cd) and Thallium (Tl). The last three elements identified are each poisonous depending on the quantity consumed. In isolation none of these are the cause of death. Maura pulls back from her microscope frustrated.
Frost calls and Maura welcomes the interruption. He advises he has the videos from the hospital car park and he, Cooper and Frankie are in the BRIC. They'd like Maura to join them. When Maura arrives everyone notices her black eye. They are all very complimentary to Maura for what she did for the woman who was attacked. Maura is not comforted by the support, she really just wants the bruise to go away. Nonetheless she thanks them. Frost explains that the attack took place at 9:10pm. He has taken the footage back four hours. He is going to play the tape at a slightly increased speed. He needs Maura to stop him any time she needs to see something in real-time or in slow motion.
Maura grabs a seat and together they painstakingly review the footage. About an hour in Maura is struggling to concentrate. It's not like Maura, she prides herself on her ability to focus on even the driest topic. The truth is she's exhausted. She gets them to stop and she goes and makes herself a coffee. When she returns they start again. About two and half hours into the tape Maura gets them to stop. Something in the corner of the footage has caught her eye. Frost replays the tape a fraction to capture it again. He slows it down as Maura watches intently.
Maura has noticed a guy getting out of a car. You can only see half of him but what he's wearing has caught her attention. "Frost, can you fast forward to the attack. There is something about what the guy is wearing" Maura explains. Frost does as asked. As they make the comparison both Frankie and Cooper find themselves leaning forward in their chairs. Maura and Frost look at each other.
"Is it him" Frankie looks at Maura.
"I don't know he had a mask on. It's just what he's wearing. Frost can you get in close on both images to see if there is anything that says they are the same clothes" Maura asks.
"I can try" Frost zooms in on the two stilled images captured from the video feed.
"Frost the belt buckle" Riley points out. Frost overlays the full image of the belt buckle over the half image from earlier in the evening. "That's a match" Riley says with excitement.
"Yeah but we can't get a good look at him in either image" Frankie adds in a disappointed tone.
"No but you can see the licence plate on the car in the first image" Maura points. "Frost can you get a reading on that?"
"I think I can Dr. Isles" Frost sounds excited. As he pulls the image into focus he scans the number plate. "I'll get a check on this Dr. Isles, see who owns the car" Frost adds.
"Keep scanning Frost we might see him again" Frankie's encouraged.
By the time they get to the end of the tape and scan it a second time Maura's head is spinning. She excuses herself. She can't look at it again. On her way back to her office Jane calls. "Good news Maura I'm out of here. Do you want to come by and get me or I can take a taxi and meet you at my place." Jane sounds great and it lifts Maura's mood.
"I'm on my way Jane." Maura tidies up her office and escapes.
When he enters the Gym there is a picture of Pauline featured on the wall. She is one of the Gym's personal trainers. Inwardly he smiles; it's seemed like forever since something has gone his way. He approaches the counter and inquires about hiring a personal trainer. The receptionist takes him through a number of options and he pretends to listen carefully. When she has covered the entire list of trainers he goes back to Pauline O'Brien and asks more questions about her. "My; she is gorgeous, I bet she doesn't have a slot available" he asks.
"Pauline is one of our most popular trainers, let me just take a look at her schedule" the receptionist advises.
"Does she take appointments seven days a week; does she train people on weekends" he asks.
"Oh yes sir, Pauline trains on weekends, she doesn't take any appoints on Wednesdays of Thursdays."
"That works for me" he encourages. "Is she here today; perhaps I could meet her" he adds.
"Sir, she does have some free training times available but she is just with a client now. I could take your details and I could have Pauline call you if you would like?"
"I'm very difficult to reach, she wouldn't have a card you could give me and perhaps I could try to call her?"
"Of course, here is Pauline's card. She's training here tonight until 10:00pm and again early tomorrow but you will probably catch her on her cell after 9:30am tomorrow."
"Goodness me" he puts on his best face. "Her husband mustn't like her working those sort of hours?"
The receptionist smiles back. "Oh, no; she's not married!"
"What; a beautiful girl like that's not married, next you'll be telling me you're not married" he smiles at the receptionist.
The receptionist blushes. "I have a boyfriend but Pauline says she's too busy for men at the moment."
He laughs. "Well maybe there's hope for me yet. Good night and thank you for being so helpful. I'll call Pauline tomorrow."
"You're welcome sir and you will love Pauline" the receptionist adds.
As he walks away he thinks to himself; you have no idea sweet heart, no idea!
When Jane and Maura arrive at Jane's place, it's well after seven. They've ordered home delivery pizza from the car and are expecting their food any minute. Jane races in to have a shower and change out of the clothes her mother had brought to the hospital for her. Maura gets plates and napkins out and sets them on the coffee table. After hearing that the doctor had not put her on antibiotics because her fever had broken, Maura had relented and let Jane buy beer. Maura opens a bottle of red from which she was going to enjoy a glass of wine and lets it breathe.
Jane comes out rubbing her hands together. "Nice to see you've dressed down for the occasion" Maura smiles at Jane's casual attire. "Jane, I'm just going to use your bathroom to change if that's OK" Maura asks. "I've left some money on the bench."
Jane shakes her head at Maura and grabs her own wallet when there is a knock on her door. Jane pays the pizza guy and locks the door behind him. "Pizza's here Maura" Jane shouts. When Maura returns she's changed into her designer track suit that she keeps in her gym bag. She's removed her makeup, applied a moisturizer to her skin and has pulled her hair back. Jane laughs; that's about as casual as Maura gets. "How is it that even when you're in your version of sweats you still like you're attending a fashion show" Jane asks.
Maura just shrugs her shoulders and pours herself a glass of wine. Jane's already grabbed a beer and opened the pizza boxes. Maura joins Jane on the couch tucking one leg up and under as she sits. Maura gently pats the bruising around her eye, she never realised how much a 'shiner' as it seems most people call it, could hurt so much.
Jane notices. "They hurt don't they?"
"Yes they do and they are so ugly Jane" Maura takes a slice of pizza, picking up her plate and napkin as she leans back on the lounge.
"Take heart Maura, the bruising will go away, I on the other hand am likely to have a nice bullet mark on my forehead for everyone to ogle at" Jane smiles.
"Is that what Dr. Yeo said" Maura looks concerned. "I'm sure you would have cosmetic options if the scars that bad Jane."
Jane laughs; Maura would be horrified to have a permanent scar on her face. "He says it's too soon to tell. He'll have a better idea in a week or so when I go back for a checkup." Jane has a sip of her beer before moving on to her second piece of pizza. "How'd things go this afternoon Maura?"
"I've got toxic elements and their formulas coming out of my ears Jane but nothing conclusive yet."
"Yuk, sounds really exciting; what about the video surveillance of the car park" Jane asks.
"We might have something there. I think we have an earlier image of the guy that attacked Rosie but he's only just in the picture so we can't identify him. We matched him to Rosie's attacker by his belt buckle. However Frost was able to get the cars licence plate. He was running that when I left. He said he'd have it by morning."
"Great work Maura, by morning we could have our first real suspect" Jane's excited at the prospect.
"Perhaps" Maura looks at Jane. "You're looking a lot better Jane, how do you feel?"
"Aside from the cracking headache, I actually feel the best I have in ages."
"So no twinges in your hands" Jane's sudden recovery has Maura puzzled. It actually doesn't make sense to her. Jane notices the look that comes over Maura. "Hey I'm fine; I'm more concerned about you."
"Me," Maura sounds surprised. "Why me" she asks.
"You look exhausted that's why!"
Maura smiles and shakes her head as she has another sip of wine. Jane turns on the TV and flicks through the channels. She finds a game on. She settles in to watch for a while. Maura picks up the pizza boxes and plates and tidies them away. She tops up her wine and re joins Jane on the lounge. "Jane does what happened to you and Korsack make you wonder about doing what you do" Maura asks pensive.
Jane mutes the sound on the TV. "Honestly; I try not to think about it."
"You've been worried sick that your hands were going to force you out of your job; a job you love and yet everyday you could have a mentally unstable person shoot at you like Shepherd did. I'm not sure I understand how you could love a job like that" Maura questions Jane.
Jane looks at her right hand as she has sip of beer with the other. She turns it over examining the scars. Before she speaks Maura adds "I mean even after the horror of Hoyt and all he put you through, you still love your job. How do you do that?"
"Wow, you are in a dark place tonight" Jane looks at Maura. "Are you questioning why I love my job or are you actually questioning whether you love your own job" Jane stares at her friend. Her statement causes Maura to think. Gosh Jane's good at reading people.
"Maybe you're right Jane" Maura has another sip of wine.
"I mean look at the week you've had Maura. You've had three female victims roughly our age who have been raped and murdered. Two of them by the same guy, it seems. You have me and Korsack shot. You've had to process the guy that shot us. You saved a woman from an attacker and have one hell of a black eye for your trouble. To top it all off, to help catch the worst of these guys; our rape murder you've taken on leading the inexperienced team of Frost, Cooper and Frankie while Korsack and I are lying around in a hospital."
"Jane if the Lieutenant hands the case to another team; well a lot of the other teams like to keep me at arms length. They don't like to really involve me. I can't help thinking its going to take some special science to lock this guy away. I really want to catch him before… well before I see another woman on my table."
"Maura the homicide teams that keep you at arm's length are idiots. Our team gets the toughest cases because all of us, especially you, do whatever it takes to solve the crime. That my friend is why our success rate is so high." Jane gets up and gets the bottle of wine. She brings it back and tops up Maura's glass. "That's why despite all the bad stuff I really love my job Maura. We get to stop the bad guys, we help to keep them off the street and keep people like Rosie Darren safe." Jane tries to be positive for her friend who is clearly quite down.
Maura's phone starts to ring. "Oh please God, not another murder, not tonight" she pleads as she gets up to answer her phone; "Dr. Isles". She listens in shock as Detective Frosts explains the reason for his call.
"Dr. Isles I just got an email from the Boston Transportation Department. Someone's working late at BTD. The licence plates were decommissioned five years ago. The vehicle they belonged to is assumed to be on a smash heap somewhere. The plates were never handed in and have not appeared in any of the USA Transportation systems since. Dr. Isles the last person to have owned the licence plates was Charles Hoyt."
Maura is sick to the stomach "and how long ago was that Frost" she asks.
"Five years" he explains again.
Maura forces herself to think. It's tough, she's tired and she's had a couple of glasses of wine. "Well we know he's dead Frost so this could be just some freak coincidence. Having said that, when it comes to him, I don't think we shouldn't take any chances."
"Right; so where's Jane" Frost asks.
"She's here, I'm at Jane's place" Maura explains. "Frost, get uniforms assigned to this address. Ring the Lieutenant and let him know about this. I'll stay here tonight and bring Jane into the office with me in the morning. OK?"
"On it Dr. Isles" Frost responds, grateful for the leadership Maura is giving him.
"You're doing a wonderful job Detective Frost" Maura reassures him.
Jane has watched Maura on the phone and she knows something terrible is wrong. "What is it Maura" she demands.
Maura just shakes her head, "Jane do you mind if I stay here tonight" she asks. She takes a long sip on her wine and stretches out on Jane's lounge.