Jane spent the next hour and a half talking to invisible people.

She was drinking coffee and eating huge salted pretzels while talking to street vendors, sweepers and delivery people, bribing them with coffee, pretzels or hotdogs. They were all people that the general public never noticed even when actually doing business with them. In contrast, these people usually noticed everything since situational awareness was a survival trait in the city.

Unfortunately none of them had seen anything go down. A few had arrived at roughly the same time as the early uniforms, but most of the vendors had set up their carts after eight o'clock when the cop circus was in full swing already, and they were just happy to take advantage of the sudden influx of police. On one hand half the parking lot was closed off, removing valuable parking space from customers. On the other, all passers-by wanted to know why cops were all over the area and a polite conversation and bit of gossip about the killing could easily turn pedestrians into customers.

Jane dropped hints about the state of the investigation and traded fluff for information. Word on the street was that the victim was a local dealer called Floyd who had a reputation for being rough on his customers and willing to sell to those normally considered unsafe, such as youngish kids and other people who had family members that still cared. Nobody thought the loss of Floyd would harm the local user ecology, and it seemed he had few fans in life and none in death. Jane worked her way through a dozen local hawkers and realized five minutes before eleven that eating two large pretzels and drinking six cups of coffee right before an expensive lunch might have been a mistake. She called Frost and told him to start looking up the delivery men who had been there earlier in the morning, and walked back to the parking lot and rejoined the Queen and her subjects.

Maura addressed her crew with the short information snippet "time for walkies" and abandoned the stunned group of forensic assistants with Jane in her wake, heading for the car. As soon as they stepped into Maura's prius the subjects pulled out phones and started messaging anyone not on scene and filling them in on what was going on. The natives at the morgue and crime lab were growing restless since all the action was out in the field today. There was an intense demand for details and photos, but nobody was willing to risk taking pictures of Isles and Rizzoli in mid-courtship. There is a fine line between brave and reckless and the whole thing was unnerving. Before today everything had been crazy but safe. Now it was just crazy.

- R&I -

They stepped into Marseille, with Maura leading the way to the maitre d's pulpit.

"Dr Maura Isles and friend." The maitre nodded and made a mark in his ledger, then looked up and took in the full extent of 'friend'. His jaw dropped.

"Madame! Perhaps your friend..." he could not think of a polite way to convey the enormity of Dr Isles friend's appearance.

"Perhaps my friend what?" Maura regarded him coolly.

"Madame, our establishment has a dress code."

"Trousers, jacket, shoes. Exactly which is contrary to your dress code? I see several guests dining right now that match the description."

"Madame, you are always exquisitely dressed but your companion is..."

"I take full responsibility for her state of dress. After all, she belongs to me." Maura nodded to the collar while Jane watched the scene, stone-faced but internally bubbling with laughter (and some internal squirming over the phrase 'belongs to me') as the maitre did a double take. "Must I take my patronage elsewhere?".

The maitre froze at the thought of losing the very esteemed Dr Maura Isles and above all the whole local branch of the Isles Foundation as customers.

"Certainly NOT! Your usual table?"

"Of course. Let's be seated." She walked into the dining room with total confidence and head held high, followed by her avenging angel in black and the maitre trailing behind completely bereft of his usual arrogance. They headed for Maura's table, where Jane pulled her chair out and helped Maura get seated before sitting down herself. The maitre handed them menus and made himself scarce and Maura barely suppressed a giggle.

"I've wanted to deflate that man for so long. He is a bit pompous and overbearing. I hope I didn't offend you?" she looked at Jane who looked back through narrowed eyes.

"You are getting a lot of mileage out of this collar and I'm having doubts about that "it's not a slave thing". You keep referring to me as something halfway between furniture and pet." She frowned.

Maura's face fell and she became dead serious. "No, please. I never meant to offend you. If you feel I overstepped the bounds by all means take it off and change the clothes too. I'm just enjoying the situation and I find I like giving people the wrong impression about our situation today."

"So you're saying you wouldn't mind people believing you have a live-in sex slave?" Jane raised an eyebrow.

"I think I need to consider my answer for a moment."

"More specific: you wouldn't mind having ME as a live-in sex slave?" Jane kept the eyebrow up and tilted her head slightly while fireworks went off in her guts and her internal voice of reason screamed what are you doing?! at top volume.

"Never." That answer came without hesitation. "Not you."

"I'm not desirable, despite these clothes and your collar?" Jane sounded dismayed by the rejection.

"Very desirable, but not as a slave. I would never want to reduce you to some compliant warm body." Maura sounded so earnest and spoke with such heat that Jane lost her sarcastic distance and just stared at her. Their odd banter while among the PD personnel had come to a halt when they got some alone time. This was weird in a different way.

"You actually mean that, don't you? You had to think twice about whether you'd like having some submissive toy around, but the idea of making me submit made you recoil immediately."

"You understood that wrong, but that's not the important part. One of the things I enjoy with you is your independence and free will. Reducing you to a yes-sayer or meek housewife would be... I think 'sacrilege' is the word I'm looking for. And that was not what the collar was about when I bought it. Not at all. I would never give you a demeaning gift like that."

"Wow." Jane fell silent for a moment. "I think I want to ask you many many questions about this, but not right here and not when you're enjoying this so much. I'll play along as your toy for today, but we'll get back to this later." She smiled, taking the edge off the words. Maura smiled back weakly. The maitre reappeared and took their orders, and they settled in for lunch while the other patrons glanced at them out of the corners of their eyes.

It took almost half their lunch hour, but Maura eventually regained her good spirits and mischievous enjoyment of the scandal they were creating. By the time they had made it to dessert, Jane had also gotten back into the spirit of things and spent ten minutes spoon-feeding Maura chocolate crème while other guests tried in vain to ignore the scene, the R-rated sounds Maura was making while eating the chocolate and the fact that this leather clad vision of depravity did not eat any dessert herself. Considering how famous the Marseille's chocolate crème was, that meant either that she was a diabetic, on a very short leash or downright masochistic. The fourth alternative – that Jane had accidentally stuffed herself before arriving at Marseille and barely had room for the main course – was of course unknown to the public.

When Maura and Jane finally left more than one customer was idly considering the keeping of large pets, though not out loud. Maura checked the tally before paying and noted that the maitre had waived the cost of the dessert with the comment "wonderful show". She winked at him as they left, and was delighted to see him turn beet red.

Chapter notes:

Maura-eating-chocolate is pilfered from RileysHell's "How To Pretend You're Maura Isles' Girlfriend". Sorry, RH. I'll make it up to you somehow. :-)