"Hey". Maura answered her phone quickly as she walked out into the fresh September air.
"Hi. I… Is now a good time? I just wanted to check in." Jane's voice cracked, a tell-tale sign that it was still early.
"I'm fine. Just… taking a tour around a museum for a bit of book inspiration. Have you just got into work?" Maura felt her pulse quicken at the slight mis-truth in her words.
Jane sighed. "Yeah. I've got stacks of paperwork staring at me so I called you instead."
Maura laughed. "A Jane Rizzoli never changes her spots."
"Exactly, my friend." Jane leaned back in her chair, relaxed. "So which museum have you gone to?"
"I… Well. I've taken a little field trip to England. Just for a few days."
"I thought the novel was set in France?" Jane sensed Maura's hesitation as soon as the question left her lips.
"It is… I just…"
"Needed a fresh start?"
"Something like that."
Jane ran a hand through her dark curls, brushing them away from her face. Looking up, phone pressed to her ear, she watched as Agent Cameron Davies stepped into her office.
"Sounds good. I… I have to go now. But call me when you can."
"I will."
"I miss you" Jane said honestly.
"I miss you too." Maura closed her eyes, picturing the comforting smile and warm eyes of her best friend, who suddenly felt much further away.
"Maura?" Jane questioned, her tone firm. "Be safe."
Hanging up the call, Jane turned to the tall, handsome man now leaning against her door frame.
"How can I help you, agent?" She asked with a sultry smile.
Agent Davies sauntered into the room, eyes directly on hers. "I was wondering if you might be free for a morning coffee before classes start? I missed you this morning- what time did you leave mine?"
Jane smiled softly. "I… I needed to catch up on paperwork. But I haven't done much. So I'm going to pass on the coffee. Sorry… babe."
Cameron shrugged. "No worries. I just… well, I hope Maura is okay. It was Maura on the phone, right?"
"She's fine" Jane nodded. "Anyway," she gestured to the stack of paper before her, "paperwork".
"I'll see you later." Cameron called to her as he walked out of the office and back into the busy corridor of Quantico's FBI Academy.
As soon as she was sure he was gone, Jane hung a 'do not disturb' sign on her door and closed it behind her. Walking back to her desk, she rubbed her hands together. Maura always told her off for fidgeting, but the rough scars on her palms always seemed to twinge when she knew something was off.
Like now.
An email was open on her desktop. At first, the email's subject had scared her. Seeing just the name 'Maura' and a link to a newspaper had reminded her of so many of their worst cases. She had seen her best friend abducted, abused, beaten, arrested and on the brink of death more times than she cared to remember. Their lives had been laced with danger for so long: Jane knew from experience that it was never far away.
Her mission in life was to keep her friends and family safe. The fact that Maura had hidden the truth from her hurt her deeply. It was a sign, she supposed, of the changes they had been through but it pained her more than any of the goodbyes she had said over the last few months. They were a team; they worked best together.
But Maura was dealing with this alone, and she clearly didn't need Jane's help.
Sighing to herself, she opened the link on Nina's email.
'Suspicious Death at the Milton Hotel' was the headline. Nina had explained in a brief note underneath that Maura had asked her to search for a name. The name had been linked to one open case- this one.
"Shit, Maura."
Jane's anxiety peaked as she read through the article. It was brief, just the bare facts. Jane knew from her own experience how the information was passed to the press. No names, no details, just enough information to satiate the public's need to know.
To Jane, who knew the protocol of murder better than anyone else, it turned her stomach. Maura was not safe. Maura was involved. Maura was miles away.
Pushing her now-forgotten paperwork to the side of her desk, Jane pulled a clean notebook and a pencil from her draw and began to write. It was second nature after her years in the homicide unit and, after a dreary beginning to her new teaching job at the FBI, it felt exciting.
It was the same excitement she remembered feeling when she first earned her detective's badge. The hunger, the drive to unravel strings and find justice, reignited within her- filling a space she hadn't realised had grown since walking out the doors of Boston Police Department for the final time over a month ago.
Quickly, she began to search through the key terms of the article. Milton Hotel. Bedford. Suspicious death.
From her new teacher's laptop, there wasn't a lot she could do. Most of the search facilities were disabled, since it wasn't her job to be part of open investigations. The lack of freedom saddened her, but Jane Rizzoli was not about to let 'the system' get in her way.
Walking down the corridor, she approached a closed door. Checking through the frosted glass, she knocked lightly as she pushed her way into the room.
"I'm very sorry to disturb you, gentlemen." Jane turned on the charm as she spoke. "But I was wondering if I could speak with Agent Davies?"
Cameron lifted his head away from the case file in his hand. "Jane?"
"Hi. Sorry to burst in. I… there's a technician working in my office, but I've got class in just over an hour and I need to finish grading these tests. I just need a desk and somewhere quiet to work. If you're in here, could I use your office? Sorry. I wouldn't ask if I wasn't desperate."
Cameron nodded and gestured to the room next door.
"Go ahead. Just turn the light off before you leave. I'll see you later. I… " Cameron hesitated, checking the company he had around the long conference table. "I'll text you."
Jane quickly exited the conference room and walked into Cameron's office. Smiling to herself, she closed the door quickly and pulled down the blind. Being sneaky had always been one of her special skills- especially growing up with her overbearing Italian mother breathing down her neck- but blagging her way into her kind-of-boss-sort-of-boyfriend's office was a trick Maura would have seen through straight away.
In fact, standing in front of Cameron, she expected him to immediately question the glint in her eye, to see through her ridiculous plan and talk her down. But it had worked. And she was in his office. At his desk. With his computer.
"Password… Password" Jane mumbled out loud as she looked around the room. Cameron's office was relatively personal, but nothing particularly stuck out. The photographs of his niece and nephew on his desk didn't display names, and she didn't think they'd be his first choice of password.
Leaning back in his chair, she took a deep breath. There was no way an FBI agent's password would be 'password'. His hometown didn't have a baseball or football team that she knew of. His first pet had been a fish called Fish- the man wasn't massively imaginative and she doubted four letters would meet the requirements for his bureau login.
Behind his door, Jane spotted a framed photograph on the wall. The fifteen men were seated, smiling, a large panther-headed mascot in the centre of the back row. The gilded caption underneath read: University of Pittsburgh Basketball Team, Spring 2001. Jane scoffed slightly as she reached her deduction. There was no way the man she knew had ever been a basketball player. No way. Agent Cameron Davies had been the mascot.
Back at his desk, Jane suppressed a girlish giggle as she typed 'Panthers2001' into the password bar and watched the screen come to life.
"Look at me now, Frost" Jane said with a smile, looking up.
Checking quickly for any sign of movement outside the office, she opened a database search and set her parameters. The system would file through millions, if not billions, of transcripts, arrest notes, parking fines and court summons before it found what she was looking for if she wasn't specific. She didn't have time for a fishing expedition.
The British police would have had to notify the American Embassy in London if one of their citizens had been killed. The Embassy would then have filed a notification of death, which would have been logged in the database for state- and federal- detectives to find.
Rachel Maloney.
The name wasn't included in the newspaper article Nina had sent her. It hadn't been in the email. But everything fit- Bedford. Hotel. Oxford. Identified officially by Harriet Morgan.
Noting that time had run away from her, Jane closed the search and quickly logged out of Cameron's computer, turning it off completely for good measure. Picking up her notebook and bag, she walked out of the office and closed the door behind her.
There was not enough time for her to dig any further. Not now. But the fear she had for Maura's safety weighed heavily on her mind. With her phone in her hand, she quickly tapped out a message as she walked through the building's dull corridors, pressing send just before opening the door to the classroom for her morning lecture.