Jane, Frost and Korsak divided up tasks and set to work. While Korsak remained at the scene collecting security footage, Jane and Frost accompanied Caitlyn and Charles back to their house. Cars lined the street as Jane pulled up. She wondered fleetingly if this was all moving too fast – if the kidnapper did call for ransom, the likelihood of he or she being pleased with an influx of officers already searching for them would probably not go over as well as anyone would hope. She pulled the car up to the curb, a few houses down from where she needed to be, and stepped out of the car with Frost.

The ride had been fairly quiet. Jane knew she wasn't the only one whose thoughts were clouded with the image of Caidence's face; nobody liked a kid case.

"What'd the little girl say?" asked Jane as they stepped up from the curb and began walking towards the house.

"Nothin' really. Said that her and Caidence were looking at the stuffed animals and the next thing she knew, the dad was freaking out. She's pretty shook up."

"Poor kid."

They let themselves inside and looked around. A few officers were huddled together looking as though they were setting something up. Jane bypassed them and went straight to Caitlyn, who was sitting on the couch looking much less fierce and a lot more sad than she was at the zoo.

"Could we go someplace more private and talk?" Jane notices for the first time that in Caitlyn's hands, she was clutching several photos of Caidence.

"Of course. I..." she holds up the photos. "I thought, maybe, a few more photos would help."

"Everything helps." Jane said as they made their way into another room, Charles following them close behind. They all settled in the kitchen. "Have there been any problems at home recently?" she asked. "Or anybody hanging around when they don't usually? Anything new in the daily routine?"

Charles shook his head. "Caitlyn went back to work, but other than that, no."

"What do you do?"

Caitlyn pulled a tissue away from her face. Her voice sounded so broken as she spoke, hoarse and strained. "I'm an elementary school teacher. 3rd grade. I took time off after we had our daughter, Kennedy."

"We didn't need two incomes, but Caitlyn missed work." said Charles. "You went to work about, what, three months ago, honey? Kennedy is one and a half now. But I don't see how that could have anything to do with Caidence."

"New people, new situations. Even the little things help, Mr. Ford. I know my questions may not seem to be important, but we have no idea who could have taken Caidence at this point. It could have been random, it could have been planned. Knowing the people in your life is going to help us determine if this is a case where she was taken by someone she knows." Caitlyn let out a little sob, but bit down on the kleenex to stop herself from crying.

"I'm sorry if I'm being rude." said Charles.

"Don't apologize, really." insisted Jane. "I just want you both to know that I will do everything in my power to bring your little girl home. Now, how long have you two been married?"

"Two years. We, uh," Charles looked down at his wife and smiled. "It happened so fast. We married six months after meeting."

Jane's mouth dropped. She wasn't sure if that was suspicious or just insane. "Wow." she finally said. "That's very quick."

Caitlyn laughed a little and nudged her husband's gut with her elbow. "He's leaving out the part where we knew each other in grade school. He just likes pretending it was love at first sight." she teased.

"And it was. You looked awfully cute on the playground with that bright blonde hair tied into two pigtails, Cindy Brady." Charles looked down at the photos of Caidence sitting on the counter between them and Jane. "I knew she was your daughter before I even saw you that day we met again." he muttered, reaching down to pick up a photo of Caidence on her bicycle. "She's you, 100%."

"She's beautiful." said Jane, taking a look at the photograph herself. Caidence had thin curls that fell past her shoulders. Like her mother, her skin was smooth and lightly tanned. And those eyes – the very eyes that had struck Jane in such an odd way before, when she looked at Caitlyn – were staring back at her through Caidence as well. "She has your eyes." mumbled Jane, pulling herself away from the photo. "So, you've been married for two years. How often does she see her father Aiden?"

"He lives in Michigan. He comes every few weekends."

"And you never married?"

"No, I..." Caitlyn took a breath. "We had Caidence when we were twenty. I had barely just graduated school. Aiden and I moved to Michigan, to be closer to his family. He proposed – you know, I mean, I was the mother of his child. He wanted to marry me, but I just didn't want to marry him."

"And you have full custody of Caidence?"

"Yes. I brought her back here to Boston with me. Aiden really didn't have the money to be a father. Emotionally he was wonderful, but I was better off in taking care of Caidence. We both agreed. I met Charlie a few years later and here we are, a family of five now."

"I thought you said you only had a little girl together?"

"We – "

The kitchen door swung open and a little boy entered. He couldn't have been more than eight or nine, Jane reasoned, but his face was hardened in irritation and he immediately sought out Charles. Shaggy brown hair fell in front of his chocolate brown eyes and beige freckles dotted his still chubby cheeks.

"I want to go to the park." he demanded, staring directly up at Charles.

"Detectives, this is our son, Brayden."

"Your son." corrected Brayden.

"Brayden, now is not the time to – "

Brayden cut him off. "I want to go to the park."

"Your sister is missing, Brayden! I'm not taking you to the park!"

"She's not my sister. She's her daughter." Jane couldn't ignore the scathing tone to his voice. He didn't even look at Caitlyn as he spoke, preferring only to look up into his father's increasingly angry eyes. "I want to go to the park. She's not your kid, I'm your kid."

"Brayden, honey, we can – " began Caitlyn, but Brayden cut her off.

"I wasn't talking to you."

"Don't you dare talk to your – "

"Step-mother." finished Brayden. "I want to go to the park."

"God dammit, Brayden. Go to your room!" yelled Charles. Brayden stayed rooted to the spot. He looked around the room coldly, eyes lingering briefly on Jane. "Brayden, I am giving you until the count of three. If you are not in your room, you will be grounded for a month. 1. 2." On the count of two, Brayden swung around and stomped out, his mumblings muffled by the swing of the kitchen door. Charles turned around to face Jane again. In just a few moments, he looked older than he did before. "I'm so sorry, detective Rizzoli."

"Tell me about your son."

A handful of bags sat at Angela and Maura's feet as they indulged themselves in their dinner. Around them the evening crowd of shoppers was thinning, but their fellow diners on the outdoor patio seemed to be consistently filing in. It was nearing six thirty and, after Jane and Frost had left for their meeting with Cavanaugh, Angela and Maura packed up the completed dinner and grabbed their purses, opting to go downtown for some shopping and dinner like Jane had suggested.

The oddity of the situation never ceased to make Maura's head spin. She felt completely at ease with Angela and she always had. Her people phobia had faded as she grew older (though not without a little work), but Maura couldn't help but admit to herself that she had always struggled when it came to connecting with older women, particularly those who were friends of her mother's, or Maura's acquaintances mothers (as she never really had friends). The topic of mothers in general gave Maura's stomach a twist, but Angela was a different story entirely. She had taken Maura on as a daughter and Maura had willingly slipped into the role, even without trying.

"Thank you for joining me tonight, Angela." said Maura as she twirled a string of pasta on her fork.

"I'm just sorry that you didn't get the family dinner."

"Oh that's quite alright. Work has to come first."

"Why didn't Jane need you?"

Maura sighed. Jane had called her briefly to give her a heads up about the situation – a missing child, no body, thank God. And even though she and Jane had only been on the phone, Maura heard it; the twist in Jane's voice, the twinge of grief, of fear – fear that the little girl wouldn't be found alive, that Jane wouldn't be able to do her job. "There wasn't a body. It's a missing persons investigation that Cavanaugh wanted his team on." replied Maura. "A little girl."

"Oh, that's so horrible. There are just awful people in this world. Who'd take a lil' girl like that? What kinda sick person..."

"I can only hope that I won't be performing an autopsy on this case."

Angela paused to chew and then set her fork down beside her plate. "How d'ya do it, Maura?"

"Pardon?"

"Your job. I mean, he... she... whoever's on your table. They were real. They had a family. How do you separate yourself from that?"

After setting her own fork down, Maura wrung the napkin in lap with nervous fingers. She had gotten this question plenty of times before. From strangers, from dates, from acquaintances. It was never a particularly fun question to answer, because it did indeed remind Maura of something that she tried very hard to separate herself from – that the world was very cruel, dark and brutal, and that she, Maura, had a hand in combatting that evil, but that the battle would never be won.

Angela had never asked before, though. Maura thought she saw the question struggling to come out on several occasions, but maybe the will to hold back had been stronger when it wasn't about a child. Now the question seemed even harder to answer than ever before. Not even Constance had ever asked Maura about her job, how she did it, how she continued breathing every day knowing that a body, likely brutally murdered, was waiting for her at work.

Seeming to sense Maura's hesitation, Angela changed the subject. "You know, I lost Jane in a store once."

"You did?"

"Well, more like Jane lost me." she laughed lightly, taking a sip of her drink before continuing on with her story. "She ran off from me and her brothers. Store was packed, I panicked. Turned out she was just hidin' in a coat rack, ready to pounce and scare Frankie and Tommy. Don't tell Tommy I told you this, but he wet his pants." Maura, in an attempt to control her laughter, snapped her mouth shut firmly, and only a tiny squeak escaped. "'Course he was only six or seven at the time, but I think he's still traumatized."

"That sounds exactly like Jane."

"Could'a killed 'er. Never been so scared in my life, Maura, and she was only gone a couple of minutes. I can't imagine what that family is going through." Angela's attention was caught by whoever was siting behind Maura. She tilted her head a little bit and nudged Maura's hand, dropping her voice down low to a whisper. "Isn't that Casey? Turn around, look."

And sure enough, as soon as Maura turned around, she spotted him: Casey, Jane's on again, off again – well, Maura wasn't sure what it was – who was supposed to be in Afghanistan. He seemed to notice Maura at the same time that she noticed him, but his body language didn't tell Maura that he was all too pleased at being spotted. His shoulders tensed and his fist balled up the napkin that he had been reaching for when he and Maura locked eyes. The man across from him seemed to notice the change as well and turned to see what had disrupted his dinner partner, only to come eye to eye with Maura and Angela as well.

"Hello," the man said to Maura with a friendly smile. He twisted his body so that he could give her his hand. "Judging by the staring contest you two are having, I take it you know my brother?"

"Brother?"

"Kevin, Casey's much more attractive little brother."

Not wanting to be rude, Maura smiled and shook his hand, but she couldn't help but continue to glance over at Casey. He seemed to be more uncomfortable by the second. "Maura Isles."

"Very nice to meet you, Maura. And how do you know my big brother over here?"

Maura bit her lip, unsure of how to answer. "Friend of a friend. Jane Rizzoli."

"Janie! Wait, Mrs. Rizzoli?" he craned his head to get a better look at the women sitting behind Maura, who had remained uncharacteristically quiet throughout the awkward exchange. "Ah, ha!" he stood and walked over. "Y'know, you probably don't remember me, but I remember you had the best lemon cookies. Casey used to bring them home from bake sales and tell me you made them. I used to tag along with Casey sometimes when he'd go to the park with Jane. I was in middle school then."

"Of course I remember you. Scrawny little kid with the mouth."

"That's me." chuckled Kevin.

Unable to resist acknowledging Casey any longer, Maura turned and looked him directly in the eye. 'So how have you been, Casey?" But his eyes were drawn away from hers and to his right, where for the first time Maura noticed a pair of lofstrand crutches leaning up against the table. Whatever his response was, Maura didn't catch it, whether it be from his gruff, muffled words stringing themselves together or her attempt at composing her surprise. When she found his eyes again, there was no hiding his own shame.

"Ignore my brother's rudeness," Kevin said with a twinge of humor in his voice. "He's just bitter because I chose the restaurant tonight."

"How long have you been back?" asked Maura, speaking directly to Casey and ignoring Kevin.

He shrugged. "Few months." His voice was cold, vacant of any kind of emotion that Maura could pinpoint. Just as she went to respond, her phone rang and pulled her away from the conversation. Which, she thought, might have been a good thing, as any other questions she might have wanted to ask Casey could have been taken the wrong way. She eyed him warily as she answered Jane's call, praying silently to herself that Jane didn't ask her how the evening with Angela was going.

Lucky enough Jane was too preoccupied with the case to likely even remember where Maura was or who Maura was with, and the call ended without any mishap. Maura turned back to Angela and smiled apologetically.

"Jane wants me to meet her at the prescient. She wants another pair of eyes."

"There haven't found – "

"No," assured Maura. "All Jane wants is someone to begin assisting Korsak while she and Frost help set up a base at the child's home." She stood and smooth out her dress, taking a moment to throw a few bills down on the table for the tip. Kevin and Angela spoke back and forth to one another while they waited for take out boxes, but Maura and Casey remained silent, preferring only to stare at each other when the other wasn't looking. Finally Angela and Maura had packed their food and began making their way to the front to pay.

They had gotten half way there when Maura heard her name behind her. She turned and saw Casey struggling to catch up with her, clearly not having gotten used to his crutches completely yet. Maura hesitated. She didn't necessarily want to talk to Casey with Angela standing right there.

"I'll go pay," whispered Angela into Maura's ear. Maura breathed a sigh of relief.

"Maura, don't tell Jane." said Casey as he reached her, his voice low to avoid being overheard by Angela.

Maura narrowed her eyebrows. "You've been back for months, and you couldn't even call her? Casey, what happ – "

"Shrapnel hit me in a sweet spot."

"It clearly hasn't inhibited your vocal abilities. You seem like you would be able to pick up a phone."

"You think I haven't wanted to call her?"

"Then why haven't you?"

"It's not as if we were in a relationship, Maura."

"Whether you were in a committed romantic relationship or not, you were at the very least friends. Long time friends. You left for Afghanistan only days after reconciling with her and from what I heard, it was a good time for both of you. So why on earth wouldn't you want to share the fact that you've returned safe?"

"Safe, maybe." snorted Casey. "I returned, sure. What's left of me."

"Oh, Casey – "

"From what I heard, Jane had no problem keeping warm while I was gone anyway," he sneered. "We were never anything, Maura. We can kid ourselves and say that there was something there, a spark from what we had in high school, but God dammit that was nineteen years ago. And maybe we could have worked if I hadn't gone back, but I did. What can I offer her now? A life of taking care of a handicap? Is that what she deserves?"

"You must think very little of Jane if you believe that this would, in any way, change her opinion of you."

"She's better off not knowing I'm back."

"You can't hide forever, Casey. Boston is only so big. You will run in to Jane. And what will you say then? Oh, sorry, I forgot to call? You're friends."

"We're strangers."

"If you don't tell her, I will."

"Maura – "

"No, Casey. Jane is my best friend and I know this would kill her. Whatever you were, whatever it was, it doesn't matter. You were something. You have a connection regardless of it being romantic or platonic. You can't just assume that she would, would... judge you, or whatever it is that is going through your head. That assumption will hurt her more than anything else."

"Please."

Maura folded her arms across her chest. "I won't tell her right now, but I will tell her if you don't. When this case is over, if you haven't called her, I'm telling her."

"Why is this so important to you?" demanded Casey.

"Because Jane is important to me." Maura said angrily. "And I thought she was important to you too." She turned on her heels and left Casey standing there. Angela was waiting for her by the door. Whether she heard their conversation, Maura couldn't be sure, but Angela didn't seem to want to talk about it and Maura was certainly not going to offer up any information. They made it to Maura's car but Maura stopped in her tracks. "The question you asked me in there, about how I do my job."

"I'm sorry, that was – "

"No, no. It's quite alright. I do this job, I can do this job... because I know what I'm doing makes a difference, no matter how small. There will always be hate and murder. There will always be crime. There will always be bad people. But at the other end of that, there's me and Jane and all the other detectives, not only here in Boston but all over the world. And we're fighting for something, and maybe it's not necessarily something that we're fighting to win, but we're fighting to make a change. We're doing something to change the lives of others. Save lives. And maybe it seems morbid to work with the dead, but I truly believe that what I do is beautiful. We uncover the very complexities of human nature that most of society runs in fear from." she paused to unlock her car. When she and Angela were inside, Maura continued. "The dead lose their ability to lie and that is a gift to the living. That's what helps me do my job every day. The idea that, even in the tragedy of a lost life, there is one more gift waiting to be shared. One last gift to the world. In death, there is no good or bad left in the body. There is only knowledge."

Maura pulled away from the curb. Angela hadn't felt it necessary to comment on Maura's answer, finding that it was too difficult to even find the words to respond. And Maura didn't mind that – she wasn't even entirely sure her answer made sense, not only to Angela, but to herself. All she knew was that it felt satisfying. As they drove, Maura's mind drifted to Casey. She wasn't sure if he was lying about why he didn't want Jane to know about his injury. She wasn't even sure if what she had done or how she acted was appropriate. But Maura knew that whatever pain Casey was feeling could not stand to hold against the pain Maura knew Jane would feel if something like that was kept from her.

And, Maura conceded, it was probably selfish on her part to care more about Jane's pain than Casey's. She knew he was probably struggling in a far greater capacity than either she or Jane could ever imagine. But if Maura was being completely honest with herself, she really didn't care, not because she hated Casey or even disliked Casey in the slightest, but because... well,

Jane was important to Maura.

Charles took a seat on one of the empty bar stools and bowed his head into his heads.

"Brayden's mom died when he was five, car accident. It was rough for him. He didn't really take to Caitlyn. She was the first woman that I had really dated since his mom, and..." he sighed. "Maybe we shouldn't have moved as fast as we did. A lot changed for him. He hasn't handled it very well, even now."

"And Caidence? Was she alright with all the changes?"

"Caidence was great." replied Caitlyn, looking at Charles for support. "She loved Charlie and Charlie loved her. Aiden and Charlie got along great and Caidence saw that. She really didn't have a problem. She never has. She's always been very quick to adapt to change. We travel a lot with my mother, and she's always the first to want to get up and go."

Charles grinned. "She takes after your mother."

"And Leah."

"Leah?"

"My sister. She's spending a summer in Paris. She just finished at Oxford. Her and Caidence are very close. I haven't had a chance to..." Caitlyn pressed her eyes shut tight. "She doesn't know yet."

"What about Brayden? How has he taken to Caidence? It seemed to me like he harbored a bit of resentment towards her."

"He... well, they mostly ignore each other." Charles admitted. "In the beginning, Caidence tried playing with him, being his friend, but he just wasn't interested. Then with the baby being born... you know, he was so used to being an only child, then suddenly he had a little sister only two years younger than him. It was rough on him. Then Kennedy was born. It's not always rainbows and butterflies, but we make it work."

Jane bit her lip. She knew they had covered the topic, but the new information seemed too pertinent to pass up – maybe there hadn't been a drastic behavioral change in Caidence, but there sure as hell was in her step-brother, and possibly enough for Caidence to not be able to take it anymore.

"Could Caidence have chosen to walk away from her father because she didn't want to come home to Brayden?"

A flash of emotions played across both parents' faces: a little bit of surprise, a little bit of anger, a little bit of worry. But in the end them both turned to Jane with looks of absolute certainty and shook their heads.

"If our daughter is missing, it isn't of her own accord." Caitlyn said surely. "She and Brayden may not have been getting along, but Caidence didn't care either way. She was a very happy little girl."

The door to the kitchen swung open but this time a man stepped through. He looked very much like Caitlyn – a strong, defined jaw line and sandy blonde hair that fell down in shaggy layers to his ears. His arms stretched out for her and she fell into them, her head only reaching just to his shoulder, as they were a considerable difference in height. Her arms stayed wrapped around his waist and he nodded to Charles, a hello of sorts, before his eyes latched onto detectives. Caitlyn pulled away and introduced them.

"This is my brother, Ryan."

"Ryan Morse." Jane and he shook hands. His grip was strong, but she could feel him shaking just slightly. He turned back to his sister. "What happened? Where's Cady?"

"She – Charlie, could you?"

Charles nodded and told Ryan to follow him, and the two men left the room.

"Listen, Caitlyn." Jane leaned over the counter. "You clearly have a very supportive family here. I'm going to do my job to the best of my ability, and then some. We have the tapes from the zoo on their way to our station right now and I'm going to personally comb through every video with my partners. The best thing that you can do for Caidence is stay here in case she calls. We're going to have detectives here with you all night. There are still officers out there with dogs searching for your daughter. We've got an Amber Alert out. It's only been a few hours. These hours are critical, but we're doing our best."

"I just don't understand who would do something like this."

"I ask myself that question every day."

A few questions later, Jane and Frost gathered their notes and headed out of the house, Jane's head swimming with more questions than answers.

Was Caidence really taken, or did she run away, sick of dealing with her problematic older step-brother?

Thanks for reading chapter two :)

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Hey that rhymed.