Chapter 4: The Ambulance
The psychologist assigned to Maura Isles' case had told them to work with the information that the woman in their care provided and not to try to fit in puzzle pieces they had gathered somewhere else. She told them to move at Ms. Isles' pace and better not to rush the process.
The slip-up from Patty Johansson, William's mother, had proved the doctor right. They were only grazing the surface of what had been done to this woman, with no idea how unstable she was. They didn't want to jeopardize the progress they had already made, and in particular they didn't want to cause either one of the kidnapping victims any more hurt.
Jane had taken a seat next to the bed where they had laid down the unconscious woman. She was breathing evenly now, resting on her side as always. They had spent the first half of the previous night in almost the same positions, before Jane had left the room to spend the second half in the hallway.
Despite the fact that she still had to get a statement from the woman, she had plenty of reasons to go back to the station. Their suspect, Logan Milford, was still on the loose, which should have spurred her into action. Yet she felt obligated to stay. On one hand due to her usual sense of loyalty to the part of her job that didn't solely focus on the perps. On the other hand because of an unfamiliar notion, which she couldn't place for now.
Her young partner, Barry Frost, had found her in the early morning hours, gently shaking her shoulder to rouse her from the uncomfortable position she had slumped into after involuntarily giving in to sleep. He had pulled an all-nighter as well, gathering as many information as possible on the woman they had rescued. Aside from her full name Jane had learned that she was a doctor, an accomplished one too, who had majored in three subjects. Her passport said she was born in Boston, but currently working as a medical consultant at the department of pathology in a private international hospital in Brussels, Belgium.
On June 5th, four days prior to her abduction, she had flown back to the States for the first time in three years – for no apparent reason. How she encountered Logan Milford was still unclear. Frost had called her workplace in Brussels, but hadn't gotten very far, since the receptionist on call only spoke French and seemed to never have heard of a Dr. Maura Isles. He also hadn't succeeded in gleaning the woman's relatives, and had only come across her sealed birth record due to a closed adoption.
All in all, the information he had offered Jane this morning didn't hold anything that would help their investigation, but rather opened more questions. While there had been an amber alert on little William Johansson, nobody had reported Dr. Isles missing, even though she had disappeared off the earth more than four months ago. It created the impression that not only Jane and her team, but no-one else for that matter seemed to know this woman.
When Maura reopened her eyes, she met Jane's gaze right away, a calm and determined look on her face, as if she had collected herself while being unconscious and unleashed a hidden source of strength. Within seconds her eyes wandered down to Jane's hip. Apparently the woman was just as aware as the detective that the belt had brought on a flashback, which was why Jane had removed it shortly after they had helped Maura to lie down.
"William?" she asked hoarsely. Jane had bet on it being her first question.
"He agreed to go with his mother", she explained calmly. "They're at the family room down the hall. We told him you needed some rest." The woman in the bed showed no reaction to the information.
"You passed out again", Jane stated next, edging towards the things they needed to talk about.
Maura nodded, "I think it's a circulatory disturbance due to the malnutrition."
"I think you know it's more than that." Jane knew she was being pushy. She gestured towards her hip, taking note of the other woman's eyes still resting there. "It's a habit I hadn't spent much thought on", she explained, deciding to offer something. "I often rest my hands on my kit belt. I guess I don't like it when they're not occupied. Anyway, you sort of got nervous before you focused on my belt."
Maura nodded again, but didn't join the talk about her flashback, which made Jane sigh in frustration. She knew she was tired, having spent the previous night on alert in a hospital hallway, but more so she was starting to wonder whether she was out of her depth here. The psychologist had not even met Maura Isles, but had made her suggestions solely on the information the detective, the physician Dr. Odell, and the child psychologist, who had witnessed some interaction between William and Maura, had provided.
Jane had always been good at reading people. It wasn't a skill she developed at the police academy, it was something she had needed and made use of during her childhood and youth. She'd never had it particularly bad, at least that was what she told herself. Being a plumber's daughter and the sister of one very shy and one very rebellious little brother as well as not fitting into stereotypical behaviorism Catholic school asked for in girls had called for a certain finesse to get by.
She trusted that skill and she trusted her guts. Recent events had only reassured her that she was right to rely on them. So far she had been glad that the people who were handling this case had trusted her judgment, too. They had made a couple of mistakes, but otherwise stuck to an individualized approach, showing great respect for whatever William's and Maura's unique situation required – an approach Jane highly believed in.
However, there was only so much space and time they could give Maura. She probably possessed information that was crucial to catching Logan Milford as well as for making the charges against him stick, which at some point had to become their priority.
"There are two things I think would be good to get done as long as the kid is occupied", Jane continued.
"Question me and let Dr. Odell attend to my back, I suppose."
It was Jane's time to nod in response, trying to convey something that was encouraging. Good, she thought. The woman was with her on this.
When Dr. Odell entered the hospital room Maura had already sat herself up on the edge of the bed. She had an elegant posture, Jane noticed. The detective admired the way the woman was capable of composing herself time and time again, not only in front of William, but seemingly also for her own sake.
She had slipped her arms out of her shirt and let the doctor roll up the back of it without exposing her front.
"It seems none of the lacerations are infected", Dr. Odell remarked and her patient immediately agreed, "No, they're not."
Jane raised her eyebrows at that and Maura explained, "I examined them in the mirror earlier today."
"Right", Jane confirmed needlessly, wringing her hands. She had remained in front of Maura, trying to prepare herself for any scenario that the medical treatment might evoke. The sight of the woman's injuries was nothing she was eager to see once more, though.
"But they don't look too good either", Dr. Odell observed, already opening a tube of antibiotic ointment she had brought.
"Well", Maura sighed, flinching visibly when the doctor touched her back and obviously willing herself not to be overwhelmed by the action. "They don't require stitches. The severity of the injuries is only due to the high number of lacerations."
Jane couldn't help but snort at that. The other two women in the room chose to ignore her.
"I could give you something for the pain."
"No, thank you", Maura answered politely. "It's bearable."
"Alright", the physician responded. "There are two rather fresh ones, though, that I will attend to now. Please let me know as soon as you want me to stop."
Maura nodded and then closed her eyes. Jane knew the woman was bracing herself for a pain that couldn't be as bad as what it must have been like to being whipped with a leather belt. Yet any burn or twinge would stand as a reminder of this exact kind of physical abuse that had been inflicted upon her.
"How many times did he strike you?" She wasn't even sure she had the right to ask this question and certainly didn't expect an exact count.
"He-" Like every time before the battered woman failed at trying to use words for the man that had tortured her. However, she was able to find a way around it more quickly by now. "It didn't start until day 15, but happened every five days since then. Never more than three strokes."
"Never less either, I bet", Jane interjected, and watched as Maura let her head fall slightly.
"Is this really the best time to ask these questions?" Dr. Odell chimed in, but Maura whispered, "I'm fine." She looked flushed, obviously embarrassed by the caution with which everyone around her was acting. She continued her report before anyone could decide otherwise.
"I believe both digits, the three and the five, are somehow significant to..."
"Him", Jane offered, cringing as if the pronoun was beginning to haunt her too. Not even half a year ago she had actually been in a comparable situation. She knew about personal boogeymen. She knew about emerging from the horrors of a basement.
"It was your way of counting time", she realized.
"78 strokes. 146 days", Maura nodded. "The last ones on the day before yesterday."
"You saw him the night we came?"
"Yes", Maura hissed, as if the 's' gave her an excuse to express the pain she felt under Dr. Odell's gloved fingers. "About an hour before you came. Bringing us food, administering the eye drops and..." This time her voice broke.
"He was in the house an hour before we arrived?"
"That's what I calculated", Maura replied, slightly irritated. "Maybe a little more than an hour, but not more than 15 minutes." Jane frowned, trying to get used to the woman's precise answers. Her voice sometimes held a tone that could be taken as cocky. For someone coming out of a traumatic experience Maura was definitely unusually sure of her conclusions.
"Do you have any idea to where he could have gone during the night?" An explanation to why Milford hadn't been at the house and whether he could have been tipped off was still to be found. Had they really just missed him by a couple of minutes? Or had he even fled the house only seconds before their invasion?
Maura shook her head 'no', causing Jane to sigh.
"How did you meet him?" she asked, trying to be a little more sensitive again.
"I- we didn't meet", Maura stated, anger evident in her voice. "I was supposed to meet my real estate agent-"
"Logan Milford is working as a-"
"No", Maura interrupted Jane as well. "My agent is a woman and she didn't show up as agreed at the house in question. She had given me the code for the lock and I started to push in the numbers... next thing I knew, I was in that basement."
She closed her eyes again, her knuckles going white from where she was grabbing the edge of the bed. On instinct, the detective took one of the woman's fragile hands into her own, wishing she could ease some tension, or carry some of the baggage with which the woman from that basement had come into their care.
Maura's eyes flew open and she looked at Jane just as surprised as the detective was herself. For months Jane had been exceedingly conscious about her hands, and when recognition flashed over the other woman's face, she instantly remembered why and reflexively withdrew her hands to bury them in her pockets.
The woman on the bed looked regretful, but Jane figured there was nothing she could do about it.
Dr. Odell finished the rest of her task with the room in silence, dressing the wounds as carefully as possible. Only minutes after she let Maura's shirt fall back down, the door swung open and with it a joyful "Rawra!" resounded through the room, the small owner of the voice completely preoccupied and therefore as oblivious to the tension around him as only children can be in a pleasant way.
"Loot what I find!" He jumped on the bed, bumping into Maura's side and wildly waving a small fire truck in front of the woman's face.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't hold him back any longer", Patty Johansson excused her son, who was holding toys in his tiny hands for the first time in two months.
"And another one for Rawra!" William continued to shout, easily spreading his excitement. "Just lite we wished. Right, Rawra?" He gazed into Maura's eyes, very intense and full of hope.
"Exactly the way we wished", Maura answered him and took one of the trucks he offered. "How fortunate are we?" She smiled at him in a way that momentarily was reserved for the little boy, Jane realized.
"So forchoonate!" William exclaimed, raising his arms in the air. Maura was looking at him as if she saw the child for the very first time and as if she could never grow old of seeing him. She was checking him over, carefully tracing her fingers along his hairline. Barely notable, the boy lent into her touch. And the detective understood something else. She had been wrong about one thing: there was one person who did know Maura Isles after all.
It was 7:00 p.m. when Jane, Mrs. Johansson and the psychologist left the room to let Maura and William enjoy their dinner in peace.
William wasn't clingy with his mom. Jane could see that the lack of a reaction from him had hurt Mrs. Johansson when she had told her son she'd leave the hospital for the night. As they stepped out, the child psychologist explained to them that the boy was still living within a reality in which his mother wasn't available whenever he wanted, and that it would probably take a little more time for him to re-learn that this wasn't true anymore.
The psychologist suggested Mrs. Johansson should discuss leaving her phone number next to the land-line in her son's hospital room the next time they met up. That way she could start to change the things that hadn't been alterable for him in a very long time.
They said their good-byes and Jane was starting to think about finding something eatable, when someone whistled and then shouted, "Rizzoli, you need to watch this!"
She hated being whistled at, no matter for what reason. It was that idiot Crowe from Intelligence, who never ceased trying his luck with her. Her partner and her boss had and a couple of other detectives had gathered around the large TV screen at the end of the hall.
"Bad news", Frost mumbled and nodded towards the segment that was playing in front of them.
"Our source confirmed that the little boy, whose fate we've been following for months, as well as the formerly unknown woman he had been held with have been rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital last night. The woman's identity had remained a mystery until earlier today when we learned that she goes by the name of Maura Isles."
"What the fuck!?" Jane spat. "What kind of idiot is their fucking source!?"
"We're taking precautions as we speak", Cavanaugh interjected, holding up a hand to stop his detective.
"If Milford is stupid enough to watch the hospital and try anything", Frost explained, "we've got UC cops at all entrances.
"He won't get in without us busting his ass", Crowe added, feeling confident.
"You're willing to use them as bait?" Jane hadn't calmed at all listening to the information they gave her.
"As a matter of fact, we're transferring them tomorrow", Cavanaugh replied, not hiding his annoyance by her accusative tone. "Now everyone go home. Start fresh in the morning." With that he pulled Jane aside, hissing: "You too, Rizzoli."
Jane shrugged out of his grip, pretending she didn't get the insinuation.
"I mean it", Cavanaugh averred. "Ever since you came back on the force you tend to get a little too involved."
"What's that supposed to mean?" She finally met his gaze.
"What made you a good cop before, is putting you at risk now."
"I can handle myself", she grunted, still not willing to jump on the serious-talk he started.
"All I want is for you to follow my orders, detective. If you can't handle that, you'll be off the case in no time." With that he left her in the hall without looking back.
Jane insisted on riding in the ambulance with William and Maura. They had decided against a normal car, since the ambulance could be backed up all the way to the emergency entrance of the hospital without drawing any suspicion. They didn't know just how obsessed their suspect was with his first kidnapping victim. William probably wasn't as at risk as Maura, but they definitely weren't taking any chances. So far there hadn't been a single sign of Logan Milford, even though a lot of forces were involved in the search by now. Thus the annoying presence of detective Darren Crowe, who was assigned to follow the ambulance in an unmarked police car.
The psychologist had advised them not to tell the patients the real reason for their transfer in order to not upset them any further. And Jane hated that they were taking that kind of chance with the people in their care. She had tried to convince Cavanaugh to go about it differently, but he chose to follow the psychologist's advise. The cover story they made up was that the other hospital would be much closer to the Johansson's home, therefore easier for them to visit.
Jane remembered how Maura had promised the kid that Milford wouldn't find them at the hospital, and she didn't want to scare them either, especially since no-one knew whether he was still around. However, she had witnessed first hand how weary Maura got whenever someone was withholding information around her and was pretty sure that the woman would sense something as well as take it as sign of mistrust that wouldn't help their case.
So when Jane pulled the door of the ambulance close behind her and found Maura and William sitting at the far end of the gurney, the little boy eying her suspiciously and the woman avoiding her gaze altogether, she wasn't surprised. Nothing she said lightened the mood. The ride wasn't supposed to take more than 15 minutes, but that was barely consoling compared to the uncomfortable silence that blanketed the three people in the back. Yet Jane couldn't help but marvel at how William had learned to keep his mouth shut whenever Maura seemed to convey that it was time to do so.
Therefore she also wasn't too surprised when at some point during the ride Maura suddenly whispered "Now, William!" and the child followed right on cue, sliding down from the gurney and crawling under it and out of her sight. When she looked back up to ask the other woman what was going on, Maura was already lunging forward, smashing the detective into the back door, before pulling her back to throw her face first onto the gurney.
That did take her by surprise. Jane felt something sharp press against her cheek as soon as she turned her face to get her bearings. She had been right about this woman. However, she had underestimated her strength as well as the ferocity with which the lady was willing to protect the kid and herself when feeling threatened. Her reaction was blown out of proportion anyway, and Jane briefly wondered whether it had been Milford, who had made Maura doubt the people around her this profoundly, or if something even deeper might have been awakened by her abduction.
The ambulance came to an abrupt halt and Jane winced when the object on her cheek got pressed in deeper with the movement.
"PUT DOWN THE SCALPEL AND STEP AWAY FROM THE DETECTIVE!" The voice of the EMT sounded over the intercom. Maura flinched, but didn't move.
"He can see you on his monitor", Jane explained, trying to stay calm and telling herself that this woman wasn't the enemy. Her racing heart, however, told her otherwise and she felt dangerously lightheaded. Of course Maura would know where to find a scalpel in an ambulance, she was a friggin' doctor after all. Just like he had wanted to be. No, she told herself and let out a low growl. She was not going to go there.
"Look", she started, her voice shaking and not really helping to sound convincing, "you're still safe with us. With me", she emphasized. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, okay? You're being transferred 'cause your location has been disclosed in the news. That's all. I swear-"
She didn't get any further, because the next moment the door got ripped open and the woman, who had been pushing her down, got pulled away forcefully. Jane pushed herself up from the gurney, registering the sound of the scalpel hitting the metallic floor of the ambulance, the yelp from the woman when she got thrown onto the asphalt of the street, as well as William's frantic shrieks as he dashed past her and jumped after Maura.
Before he could launch himself at her, though, Crowe's partner got hold of him, quickly carrying him out of Jane's sight, while Crowe was pushing Maura further down onto the ground, one knee on the small of her back, ignoring her pained cries and getting out his handcuffs.
Jane was too stunned to talk. Within seconds she advanced on the other detective and shoved him off the small woman, who immediately drew up her hands to protect her head for whatever blows she had learned to expect. Jane came to kneel over her, a sob escaping her throat from all the exertion and conflicting emotions. She didn't want to fight. All she wanted was for this woman to feel safe. Even if it was partly due to a projected longing for safety of her own.
"WHAT THE FUCK, RIZZOLI!?" Crowe yelled at her when he got back up.
She tried to ignore him, carefully rolling the woman underneath her over to sit her up and make her feel less vulnerable. Maura's face had drained of all color again, and her eyes were wild and scared. When Crowe stepped closer, Jane instinctively pulled her closer, holding her trembling form in a one-armed hug.
"If you touch her again-", she snarled, but her threat got interrupted by the sound of urgent footsteps and the furious voice of her boss.
"Back away, detective!" he fumed, grabbing her collar when she only shook her head in response. "We're going back to Mass Gen!" he barked his orders, pulling Jane further away from Maura, who was still shielding her head.
"Frost you take Ms. Isles, Rizzoli you go in the ambulance!"
"No, thanks", she bristled. "I'm staying with Frost." She thought it would be clever not to mention she wanted to stay with Maura.
"Damn it, Rizzoli, shut the hell up and get your ass in that ambulance so someone can patch you up!"
At that she frowned and wiped at her face, her hand coming back red. The scalpel's blade must have cut her after all. She hadn't even felt it.
A/N: So, this chapter was a lot harder to write. This story has initially been meant as a one-shot for a reason... I'm still working on making up the plot, which is also why I asked you guys for input – thankfully a lot of you replied. I'm going on vacation next week, so hopefully I'll have enough time to figure things out. C u in August, dear followers.