"Here?"

"Detective."

Jane nodded in thanks at the officer and felt forward into the darkness of the brush behind the stone pillar of Gansevoort Park, there the night air thickened humidly and the smell of horror hugged Jane's nostrils and caused the hair on the back of her neck to stand up.

Korsak was squatted in front of a body, female, Jane could tell with what little she could see past her partner's stocky frame.

"Guy was walking his dog." Vince began as he stood. "Great Dane—Peaches dragged him here."

Jane could see just how tired he was of this by the look on his face when he turned to greet her and their met eyes. Years of death, years of unanswered questions, his service had well met it's end and she knew it. Jane nodded once and reached into her pocket for her blue crime scene gloves. "I was just leaving BPD when I got the call."

"She sure looks a lot younger than our other two." Vince nodded as he took a step backward in professional curtesy as Jane began a slow circle around the battered corpse. "Not a brunette either."

Jane stopped short of the body and watched it suspiciously as any animal might noting the newness of death might. Korsak was right, she was much younger than their other victims, blonde hair, had to be about Maura's height, blue eyes… Jane watched her face a moment, her eyes wide open and slightly bulging. Maura would want to run tests, but the now blueish purple marks along her neckline and the bit of blood that colored her irises lead Jane to believe that she had been strangled and hit in the head with something heavy. Jane looked down to her body and pressed her lips into a firm scowl when she noted that her tangled legs were also bruised. She turned to look at her partner. "She's hidden better too."

"Don't think our unsub was expecting us to find her tonight." He pulled out his detective's pad and began to jot down some notes about the crime scene with what little light the moon provided.

Jane looked back down at the body. "He was rushed…" She turned to Korsak again. "We're about four blocks or so from Pier 33 right?" Pier 33 was a boardwalk for pedestrians lined with lobster shacks and dive bars, it was extremely popular among college students looking for cheap eats and drinks with a view and just so happened to be adjacent the longshoreman's Union Local 237 operation headquarters.

The same Union that Jane has been taking turns sitting parked outside for the better part of the week.

Korsak nodded once. "I had Nina head back to BPD to check in with all of our likes." He motioned his notepad toward her. "Frankie is checking in with the first responders who canvased the area after the call."

"They interview the guy with the dog?" Jane looked back toward the woman on the ground before them.

"Yup."

Jane nodded to herself as she stared at her face. "She's gotta be twenty two…"

"No identification on her, no jewelry."

"How much you wanna bet she wasn't robbed?" Jane squatted down to get a better look at her and frowned when the pleasantness of whatever oriental perfume she had been wearing reached her. "She doesn't smell dead…"

Korsak nodded once. "No, but I'm guessing Doctor Isles is going to be the judge of that. She's on her way now."

Jane leaned forward some and reached for her hand. "Dirt under her nails, maybe we'll get some skin…" She put the hand back down where she found it and huffed before standing and taking her gloves off.

Korsak nodded at the look on her face. "You think we got a leak?"

Jane slapped the balled-up gloves into her palm. "I don't know."

"We haven't released any detail to the news."

"I want an alibi on all of those union assholes yesterday" She spat. "How come we're always playing catch up?"

Vince nodded in the way he always did whenever he tried to balance out Jane's frustration. "We'll get 'em."

Jane trudged forward out of the thickly shaded area and into the crispy nights air without agreeing or disagreeing. She took a slow breath and tried to close her eyes but found she couldn't. She was too wired on caffeine, she could smell it on herself. It was now Wednesday night and she were leaving for New York mid day Saturday and all she had to show for a case that started literally a month ago was another woman dead and more agitated fishermen than she cared to acknowledge. Not to mention her own personal agitation and moodiness due to lack of sleep. She had snapped at her mother today and was riddled with a new sort of guilt for not being able to see Maura at all this week.

Because now they were…. Seeing each other, or supposed to be. Jane hardly had the energy to know.

"Detective."

Jane opened her half-hooded eyes and nodded at the small line of crime scene techs barreling the small hill toward the stone pillar and filing into a little line to enter the shaded overgrowth where Korsak and the body still were. At the top of the hill the flashing lights of several police cruiser glared silently into the night eliminating every person, place, and thing with their harshness.

Jane rolled her shoulders softly and began to walk up the small hill some, something about their unsub had changed here and she wanted to get a better look at the greater area surrounding the brush. Was there a bar that looked onto the park? Was the killer sitting back with a cold one watching the scene of an investigation unfold? Or was he seated higher up?

Jane looked around her and then up toward the area where Pier 33 became industrial and cut off to the regular population.

"Jane."

She had been walking up the hill slowly with a look so distant from her familiar features that Maura in all honesty almost passed her by.

Jane snapped out of her thoughts and felt herself begin to smile at the mere sight of the other woman but when colored with the thoughts at what she had just seen the gesture came out slightly insincere. Maura nodded once in understanding. "You look nice." Jane observed motioning to the ME's very proper almost secretarially garb under her coat that had been hastily fashioned on the way here. "Where were you?"

Maura let up the smallest of smiles. "Out."

Jane quirked a brow in return before easing it back into place. "Really not in the mood to have to go kick someone's ass right now, Maura." She deadpanned and then chuckled a little at the laugh that erruoted from Maura's frame without her permission.

"I didn't know we were at that point quite yet, Jane." She teased secretly enjoying the truth behind the detective's words.

"I'm on two hours of sleep, I'm at a lot of places."

Maura motioned to the path she was just coming from. "I've noticed, are you alright?" It wasn't something she asked the woman often she realized. Jane was always supposed to be alright. "Perhaps—"

Jane nodded quickly and took another sharp breath of fresh air before stuffing her hands into her pockets. "Yeah, yeah." She lied before motioning to the flock of red and blue flashing lights with her chin. "I responded code two over here, I'm gonna go cut my lights."

Maura nodded slowly "Has anyone else arrived?"

"Korsak is with the body now, he's gonna be your primary, and Frankie is on his way back." She had already started on her path. "I'll be down there in a second."

Maura nodded and watched her go a moment before turning toward the lower end of the hill where her staff were now obediently awaiting her intake.

"Sargent Detective Korsak." She greeted and smiled in thanks at him swatting away a stray brush of tree for her to enter the enclosure.

"Good to see you, Doc."

Maura stood still a moment to take in the scene of the crime. A monstrosity of evidence lay before her unseen to the naked eye. It was on her and her team to be able to decipher it correctly to bring justice to this poor woman and her loved ones. She often paused before a scene to remember that.

"What do we have?" She asked professionally as she set her medical bag down and began to remove her wool gloves for her blue crime scene ones.

Korsak sighed. "We don't know what to make of her." He admitted tiredly. "Jane Doe, probably around twenty-one, twenty two, we think she may have been out tonight—"

Maura was already kneeling on a small mat she had brought with her and leaning over the body. "I doubt that given the wear of this dress." She pointed to the victim's armpit where the material was bunched up. "I'll have to run a forensic analysis to confirm but this may be deodorant stained into the material after great amounts of perspirations. She was possibly wearing this dress for quite some time.." Maura moved her arm slightly but then paused and kept her hand cupped at the victim's arm. She turned to look up at Korsak. "When did the first responders call dispatch?"

"Not too long ago, why?"

Maura shook her head at the series of theories flooding her train of thought. "I would… Need to run some tests." She put the victim's arm back in place and continued her search. At the sound of someone approaching with a heavy step Maura and Korsak looked up to the opening of the small enclosure to see Frankie pushing his way passed a thick branch slightly out of breath.

"Jeez." He shook his head at the body before turning to Korsak and taking on a hushed tone. "My sister here yet?"

Vince nodded once. "She went to get some air."

Frankie sighed heavily and motioned to the body. "We got a possible witness."

"That's great, who?"

"Eh, not really." Frankie looked down to his notepad and squinted. "Either he's an Alberto or an Albert."

Korsak stared at him incredulously. "He didn't say?"

"I don't think he even knows, some fraternity knuckle head, said he was… and I quote." Frankie cleared his throat. "Spwein' my nuts out when I heard some chick screaming." He glanced at Maura. "Oh… Sorry Doc."

Maura nodded once barely acknowledging their conversation as she worked. Something was off about the way the body was staged. None of the original markers from the other cases but odd similarities, as if handpicked…

"—So he won't really be of any help will he?"

Frankie shook his head no. "We're gonna sit him in the dunk tank till the morning, maybe Nina will be able to get something out of him."

"Nina?"

Frankie grinned a little, as much as one could in front of a dead woman's body. "Well we send her in there with pancakes and—"

"Ah." Korsak chuckled. "There won't be much he won't tell a pretty woman with food."

"That's my guess—Uh I asked first, Nina, I asked her first if she wanted to do it."

Korsak was tucking his notepad into his suit pocket. "Already off to a successful first marriage."

"Yeah…" Frankie stuck his hands in his suit pockets and tilted his head after a moment of examining the body. "She doesn't smell dead."

Korsak agreed. "That's what Jane said."

Maura looked over her shoulder at them. "That's because she hasn't been dead for long." She began to stand and smiled at both men who put their hands out for her to help her up. Maura took Korsak's before motioning to Frankie. "The gentleman who heard the screams, is it possible to take me to where his emesis was found." The two-detective looked at her. "His vomit."

"Uh yeah…but." Frankie motioned over his shoulder.

"You'll have to help us out here, Doc." Korsak nodded. "She's here, why are we looking for some drunk kid's vomit?"

Maura nodded. "We cannot smell her because she did not die here, she hasn't even spent an hour here." She motioned to the thick brush above them and the overgrown poorly maintained bristles. "The relative humidity here is too high and the conditions for decay and multiplication of bacteria are hospitable, increasing the pace of rigor mortis. However, if the victim died in a cold ambient environment like that of the actual park we'd be seeing what we are seeing now." She nodded. "Her skin is cool and lower extremities stiffened, but it's all backwards." Maura went on to discuss the rate at which one's body looses temperature after death (two degrees celsius within the first hour: one degree thereafter) as Frankie and Vince lead her up the hill toward the police cruisers. There on the sidewalk near the entrance of the park the team was surprised to find Jane standing beside the very bench where Alberto Albert had been standing bracing himself on the shoulders of the sturdy wood and throwing up all those chilly cheese pretzels he had eaten earlier at the bars.

Jane stared down the pile of vomit as if she were waiting for the right time to introduce herself when she heard the familiar voices of her team approaching. She looked up and put her hands on her hips. "She didn't die in there?" She asked only somewhat impressed with herself when Maura gave her an endearing nod. Three women were dead in her city, there was no time to be impressed. Jane looked back down at the vomit. "I knew she didn't smell dead."

"We're wondering if this guy maybe saw more than he remembered." Frankie nodded moving to stand beside his sister to see if he could see what Alberto Albert saw too.

Jane nodded and then looked at her watch. "Only one real way to find out."

Not liking the sound of this Korsak stepped forward. "And How exactly is that Rizzoli?"

"He's still drunk, by morning he's gonna forget everything—"

"No."

"—just let me ask him a few questions, Vince c'mon. Our only witness."

"Guy thinks we arrested him for throwing up in a public park and cheating on his girlfriend, he lawyered up."

Jane grunted. "Are you kidding me?"

Korsak shook his head. "Fraid not."

Jane nodded and then shook her head, and then nodded again. "Yeah, alright." She exhaled slowly. "What now?"

"Something happened at this crime scene that didn't happen at the others." Frankie nodded knowing first hand just how tired his sister was but trying to find some sort of energy within himself to rally her as well. This week hadn't been easy on any of them. "Maybe Alberto Albert yacking freaked our unsub out."

"We need to get an alibi from all of those longshoremen and contact the uniform that's sitting on that union rep D'Alisio's house. If any of them were in ten feet of this park tonight I want them at BPD handing over their belongings, call it circumstantial." Jane sneered.

"They work right down the block, Rizzoli. We're gonna catch a lot of fish with that net." Korsak advised. No one had noticed Maura wonder off yet.

"How much smaller of a net can we get before the news is all over this, we can't have Nina railroading their inquires forever."

"We need to think clearly, that's not going to happen without us all getting a real night sleep." Vince capped a hand on Frankie's shoulder. "Bring Alberto Albert in, make sure he's isolated. I want him to wake up and spend all the time in the world thinking about why he was locked up. Say it was for his own safety."

Frankie nodded. "Alright."

"Then go home." He turned to Jane. "I'll finish here." Jane frowned and was about to say something when Maura came back holding something clutched between her powdery blue crime scene gloves. Jane blinked before stepping forward to squint at the dangling fisher's lore key chain.

"What is that?"

Maura smiled. "A smaller net."

##

She had fallen asleep, it's the only thing that would help explain the feeling of waking to a soft tugging at her feet. "Mhmr." She tried as her heavy eyelids fought to remain closed and the warmth of her own body temperature pressed against the upholstery seduced her to listen.

Maura finished the last lace of Jane's boot to her left foot and allowed the heavy for size article to thud to the ground before moving to the other foot.

Sometimes on her way to make a nightly cup of tea or for a glass of water she would come downstairs and find Jane on her couch, gun sitting on the coffee table, safety pulled back and all. If she had remembered to take off her boots, which were usually muddied or tracking in some sort of element Maura let her sleep to wake the next day to find the couch clear and the detective already having left for work. It was her own way of communicating her concern for her and her mother without really having to say something had developed in her current case.

Sometimes though, in the anticipation of finally getting some rest Jane simply plopped herself down on the couch, shoes, badge, jacket, hat, whatever item of outwear necessary for the day didn't seem to really matter. It all left her peaceful face to be in deep contrast with the contortions necessary to sleep comfortable with a blazer or utility belt on.

The least she could do was take her boots off for her and cover her up.

Jane brows furrowed at the gentle yanking at her feet further pulling her into full consciences. "Hey… Sstop" She mumbled.

Maura looked up at her from crouching near the side of her couch in nothing but her night robe and smiled a little. "You'll stain the rug." She whispered knowing the message would only make it half way to Jane. Tonight, her boots were slicked with some sort of dark liquid she prayed wasn't blood.

That had taken three experts to remove the size nine and a half print last year.

Jane shifted against her second boot being taken off. "C'mon." She breathed, eyes still closed. Something deep within her recognizing Maura's voice and lowering the jingle of alarms panicking her system awake. She sighed again with her foot was introduced to a new coolness and freed.

Maura stood upright and frowned immensely at the image before her. Jane was too tall a woman to be confided to the elegantly petit structure of her sofa. There was no way this was going to be good for her latissimus dorsi muscle, which was currently contorted in an unnatural way. "Jane." Jane brought a hand to her face and groaned softly. "Jane."

The detective popped an eye open and fixed it on the figure before her. "Maura." Her voice rasped.

"Get up, you cannot sleep like this."

Frustration painted the detective's features as she was pulled completely awake by the request. "You're always nagging me." She mumbled, both eyes now closed again as she tried to search for that sweet spot of drowsiness that almost always promised sleep.

Maura shook her head. "I don't understand why you insist on sleeping like this." She came over and sat down on the couch in the small space before Jane's body curled and rested her hand on the taller woman's shoulder. "Jane." Jane growled lowly which actually made Maura chuckle, she could feel the vibration of it run all throughout her body from sitting so close. "What has happened, why are you here?"

Jane sighed heavily before opening both eyes and looking up at her sitting on the couch with her, the smell of lavender and some other soft night cream tickled her nose, and for the first time since so rudely being awakened she really remembered everything abut them, about their relationship, about, their newness. "Why do you insist on waking me up every time I fall asleep somewhere that isn't a bed?" She asked, a softness in her big brown eyes.

Maura kept her arm at her shoulder. "Because when you are an old woman I'd prefer not having to say I told you so."

"We both know you're going to take care of me anyway."

Maura let herself be amused by that thought. Yes, she did know that. "Why are you here?" She asked again and watched the softness in Jane's features harden some before the detective cleared her throat.

"Uniforms who were on the union rep's house lost him. He left money, his passport, clothes…"

"He left in a hurry."

"Thinkin' it's because we found the third body."

"Just hours ago though, and that crime scene was anything but original." Maura shook her head.

"Someone screwed up."

"Hm."

"He's gotta come back if he wants to get anywhere away from Boston. Nina is tracking his credit cards, his business accounts, some close friends." She adjusted herself to lean on her elbow as she spoke. "Frankie is on first shift watching his place, Korsak and I will tomorrow morning."

Maura shook her head. "This seems so… Unorganized."

"We're missing something," Jane agreed before laying back down completely. "Now leave me alone, woman."

Maura chuckled and looked down at her. "Come, sleep in a bed."

Jane shook her head. "Maura I'm already warm here." She whined. "You know how long it takes to warm up that guestroom? Those sheets are the worst." She closed her eyes again.

"You're cold in there? How come you've never mentioned it… Jane?" She had started to fake snore. "Jane."

Jane huffed. "Maura for the love of TJ, c'mon, just let me sleep here." She opened her eyes. "I'll be gone before you get up."

"Fine, yes." Maura didn't look pleased, but she seemed to make it so she understood, she'd allow Jane this she supposed. "Would you like a blanket?"

Jane nodded. "Thank you." And with that she watched as Maura stood and disappeared upstairs before bringing the very blanket from her own bed (because her ambient body temperature had already warmed it) and brought it down to drape over Jane's shoulders. The homicide detective let out a small chuckle as Maura worked meticulously to tuck all the loose areas of fabric in under her legs.

"I want to make it so you cannot move." Maura's joked quietly as she worked.

Jane peered at her above the thick blanket adoringly. "I can see that."

"It is the best way to trap the heat." She tucked the large end of the blanket under Jane's leg carefully. "Although if you consider thermodynamics it's only a substitute for the more reliable form of human transference…"

"What's that?" Jane yawned.

"Well, it is the idea that the rate of heat transferred from one body to another increases with the difference in temperature between them. Consequently, the rate of heat lost from a human to the surrounding very cold ambient environment is lower than the rate of heat lost from a human to another human." She tucked in the last part of the blanket and smiled at how her best friend now resembled a burrito.

"So two bodies are better than one?" Jane hesitated before maneuvering the edge of the blanket up exposing her torso to Maura. "Get in here before I die or something." She had missed her googling and with a week so far filled with small failures, another life lost, and the increasing statistics with each passing moment that they had lost their key suspect Jane just wanted to be close to the other woman where things made much better sense.

Maura blushed. "Jane you won't die."

Jane kept her arm up. "If I do you're going to feel really bad." She began to feel a little nervous, it was after all a bold request. "What are you going to sleep with if I have your blanket?" She scooted back flesh against the couch to show that there was room enough for her.

There were other blankets in the house… That's not what Maura said though, she also wasn't wearing underwear, she decided not to say that either. "Okay." Maura waited a moment to have her actions reflect her agreement before sitting back down on the edge of the sofa. "This wasn't built for sleeping on." Surely not two people. It lacked all logic really, but there was this boyish twinkle of a dare in Jane's eyes that Maura found herself blushing at in the dark. The Rizzoli's could be so damn charming when it suited them.

"What was it built for? Lounging?" Jane patted the space in front of her while still keeping the blanket raised in invitation.

"it isn't so much that warmth is being "given" from one to the other. In terms of thermodynamics." Maura nodded as she extended her legs out along the couch beside Jane's suit clad legs and then gingerly rested her back against Jane's chest as she laid down. She could feel Jane's heart racing at their closeness, but all that showed on the exterior was Jane sweetly covering her up with her and letting an arm naturally drape over her waist above the cover. "For example even if both people have been out in the cold for a long time, they will be better off huddling together to mitigate the deleterious heat loss rather than create it." Her face was hot with blush and she were grateful to be staring at her dark television set than Jane's face.

They had never done this before.

"That makes sense." Jane's voice was so close to her ear that the simple science of hearing caused her to shiver, there was a depth to it, a raspiness, that Maura had always loved that also apparently did things to her when lowered to an octave only meant for her ears to hear. It distracted her from whatever Jane was saying now.

Words she supposed, lovely warm, tickly, words. Words she could feel in her stomach, which made no physiological sense. Yet there they were, rumbling about, nestling in her gut, meeting her, knowing her.

Jane soon fell quiet when she got no response from the ME to her question.

They had never done this before.

A long moment passed with them awkwardly laying pressed together on Maura's sofa as if there were no other beds in the stately home. Jane thought then that maybe if she did in fact die because of hypothermia this would be by far the best way to go; her senses drowned in everything Maura. She let out a soft breath and held it when she realized Maura had shivered in response to the cool air. This close, everything the other did had a physical effect. It was a lesson she were glad to learn quickly. "Is this okay?" Jane whispered finally not wanting to push her best friend like the last time they were this close.

Maura's eyes had already closed, it was all so much and not nearly enough all at the same time. "Yes." She responded quietly. "It is… Comforting." She looked over her shoulder at Jane. "Intimate." She never really did this.

Jane nodded. "My hand can stay here?" She lifted her right hand that was draped over her waist.

Their eyes met in the dark. "I'd prefer it."

Jane grinned softly. "Okay.. Like this?" The taller of the two moved her arm for emphasis and blushed faintly when Maura took it and fashioned it over the covers closer to the area under her breasts.

"Like this." The blonde instructed liking the feel of Jane's strong arm closer to her upper torso, holding her in place against her. Maura blushed at their position. "Is that okay?" She asked quickly.

Jane nodded "Perfect."

Maura shyly looked away before looking back over her shoulder. How could she describe what she was feeling to her best friend? "Before…" She stared in front of her watching the blank tv now. "At your apartment?"

Jane nodded fully understanding. "Now?" Maura nodded. Jane tried to think of something to say to help Maura understand that the feeling was erasable. "I'm me, it's just me Maura." She whispered onto the back of her neck.

And funny enough with that realization all awkwardness evaporated leaving nothing but the memory of its presence in its dear wake. Jane could feel Maura relax fully against her and for the briefest moment they simply existed for each other.

This was that scary intimacy. That thing Maura wasn't sure she could do "properly" – Well it sure felt right to Jane, sure felt better than any friendly thing they had ever shared, no this was solid, being here with Maura so close, pressed into her like this… It made Jane feel there existed a sudden meaning in everything, and no true end to anything. They just clicked.

As she stared ahead Maura's hazel eyes grew softer and softer at the obvious thing of just how she felt for the other woman holding her. Jane would always belong to the people she served, but this, Maura wanted this part, the best, most beautiful part of Jane in her opinion, she wanted it all to herself, selfishly so, and if Jane would grant her that, she would give her anything her heart desired and then some.

It was a feeling so sudden her heart could barely contain it.

Once named it belonged to other feelings, associated itself with responsibility, became a thing that she needed to be honest about, and they had promised one another honesty among all else.

Maura turned to face Jane fully under the covers surprising the detective only briefly, their knees adjusted to the and their breasts slightly impressed with the others, the couch was not at all made for such a movement but Maura wanted to do this properly. "May I have this part?" She asked just below a whisper. She found Jane's warm eyes and held them before reaching forward and touching her collarbone. Jane would understand her question. She was certain of it in fact.

Jane watched her carefully for a moment before nodding once. "It's been yours, Maura." She whispered back, there was a seriousness in her features that softened emotionally when she spoke again. "It's always been… For you." Maura let her hand run up her collarbone to Jane's cheek and leaned forward enough to kiss her softly. When it was over Jane swallowed something and glanced at her. "All I could ever want, Maur is for you to be happy… To be safe." Her voice slightly hoarse.

Maura touched her face and leaned back in and pressed a longer kiss on Jane's lips, a kiss that Jane responded to almost immediately. It made the medical examiner weak in the knees and gratify to be lying down. It was the kind of kiss that stirred something between them.

It caused another kiss, and another, until it was hard to tell which had really been the last. Their breaths became labored as they tried to keep track, and it wasn't until Maura was made very aware about how naked she was under her robe by Jane's hands grazing the material between them and secretly wanting her to undo it that she knew they had to stop. Maura put a hand to Jane's face again and made a small noise. Jane made a small noise in return but when Maura opened her eyes to try and calm the frustration she could sense in both their bodies she was met with a small goofed smirk on her best friend's flushed face.

For the intense physical moment they just shared it was completely out of place and almost offending.

"What?"

"You're not wearing a bra are you?"

If she got any redder Maura couldn't tell, but she laughed and bunched up the covers between them. "Jane!"

"How am I not supposed to notice!"

"I'm going to my own bed—"

"No c'mon." Jane pulled her closer above the covers. All her problems and responsibilities momentarily forgotten. "Stay."

"We can't sleep like this." Maura motioned to their limbs as Jane pulled her into another small kiss. "We can't."

The next morning Jane woke to several stimuli all at once: the coldness in her toes as her socked feet dangled over the edge of the sofa's armrest, the faint and vaguely familiar buzzing sensation near her ribcage, the pinning and stinging loss of sensation in her left arm, but most distracting to the detective was the intoxicating aroma of lavender and mountain herbs, and the incredible warmth generated at her torso from tenderly spooning Maura from behind.

Maura

A woman who at this point had yet to wake even in spite of Jane's jostling to free her left arm from a self-imposed amputation from under her. Jane had already sat up as best as she could and took a moment to smile at her sleeping so deeply. She had never actually seen Maura in a deep sleep.

The buzzing continued.

Jane rubbed at her face and reached her hand into her wrinkled blazer pocket where her cell phone was. "Rizzoli." She rasped. Jane winced at the voice on the other line. "Shit no…I went to Maura's Korsak sorry I forgot to tell you….yeah I can be ready…okay, I'll see you soon." Jane hung up the phone and checked her watch. She wasn't technically late, but the plan had been for Vince to swing by her place so they only needed to swap out one car with Frankie for their turn to steak out Sal D'Alisio's house in case the sleaze ball showed up to get his run money.

With another clearing of the throat Jane wiggled herself out from between Maura and the couch, holstered her firearm and went into the kitchen for a glass of water as she tried to straighten the rather unprofessional wrinkles in her suit.

Before leaving she approached the couch again and leaned down to place a long kiss on Maura's cheek. Her heart swelled when pathologist sleepily put up a cool hand to touch her cheek mid-way through but let it drop soon after in favor of sleep again.

##

Jane sipped from her soft drink straw. "He's got a lot of shoe to fill."

Korsak nodded as he reached for the center console for a french fry. "I think he'll get it."

"We were all green once." Jane nodded before sitting back in the passenger seat of Vince's unmarked and sighing. She was tired of sitting on her hands, they had been out here on a chilly morning in Boston for several hours watching Sal D'Alisio's house, she could tell though that Korsak was gunning for this guy by just how annoyingly by the book he was being. "Anyway let's see if he can get anything out of Alberto Albert."

Korsak chuckled. "Heard they spent forty bucks buying him breakfast."

Jane shook her head and motioned her soft drink toward her partner. "Why are you laughing, that's coming out of your budget."

Korsak's face fell when he realized it. "Sometimes it pays to be inferior."

Jane phone began ringing then. She fished it out of her suit pocket and couldn't help her smile. "Hey Maura." She answered.

"Jane hello, Good Morning." It was professional, she must have already arrived to work.

Jane glanced at Korsak who was watching the house they were a few cars away from. "I'm on a steak-out with Korsak still, whatdya got?"

"I was unable to reach you when I got I because of a few things that came up however when I had a moment I realized our tests from my initial autopsy have come through."

"Let me put you on speaker." Jane nudged Korsak and motioned to her phone. "Aright."

"Hi Doc." Vince waved before realizing it was a cell phone.

"Sargent Detective, Good Morning."

"Is it still morning. Jane and I are already on lunch."

Maura could remember feeling Jane kiss her goodbye, that was at least four hours before she had to wake up to be ready and on time for work. "You both had an early start."

"Did you happen to get an ID on our Jane Doe?" He asked reaching for another french fry.

Maura stepped into her office clad in her medical examiner's lab coat and closed the door behind her. "Yes, her name is Carly Mason, aged twenty-three."

"Twenty-three." Jane shook her head at her partner. "Either he's escalading and is breaking victimology because of the dryness of the well of well-to-do rich ladies or this isn't our guy."

"I thought so as well Jane." Maura interrupted. "There was identical bruising postmortem and antemortem just as Hanover and Turner however toxicology indicates she was drugged with flunitrazepam. We are still awaiting the rape kit."

Jane shook her head. "She was roofied?"

Maura took a seat at her desk and opened a file that confirmed it. "I'm afraid so."

"This can't be our guy." Jane shook her head.

Korsak motioned to a red sedan turning onto the block. "Maybe a friend?" They had seen it passing the house an hour earlier.

"Why Mason though?"

"Different tastes?"

"Maybe…" Jane watched the car and then Korsak. She nodded and then took her phone off speaker and brought it to her ear as they both got out of the car. "I'll talk to you later Maura." She promised before hanging up and slowly approaching the now stopped vehicle in the middle of the street. Behind the wheel a woman, the same one they saw earlier, her features were worn, she was wearing a simple house dress in the middle of a winter revival and looked as if she had been slapped about one to many times to properly hide it, she also looked like she lost the shame to either.

Jane stepped around to the driver's side of the vehicle and waited for Korsak to stand directly in front the vehicle before knocking gently on te glass. The brunette hesitated but then let the window down some. "Y-yes?"

"Hi there Ma'am I'm Detective Jane Rizzoli, is everything okay?" She asked politely. When the woman only stared Jane motioned to Korsak. "See me and my partner were just having lunch and we noticed your car again, are you lost? You in need of some help?"

The woman looked shaken and continued to dart her eyes into the back seat. Which Jane had long since confirmed was unoccupied. The woman looked up at her finally, her eyes were bloodshot, and her lips crackled dry. Jane glanced at her fingernails and noticed the thin layer of dirt pitched underneath them.

"Maybe just looks like you're headed home, maybe got lost?" Jane asked for her attention again and when the other woman looked at her there was a flicker of panic in her eyes. "Maybe that's all right?" Jane nodded at her once as she reached her left hand slowly to her waist.

"Y-yes. That's it." The woman gripped the steering wheel firmly. "I-I'm just headed home."

She wanted to cry, Jane could hear it in her voice. "This your house right here?" She motioned to the union rep's house. Korask was already walking slowly toward the side entrance of the home to unlatch the side gate. His eyes never leaving Jane's figure, but he had to trust that her instincts were right on this one and she had given him their signal twice now.

The driver nodded quickly at Jane. "Alright ma'am, well I'm glad you were able to make it home." She glanced toward the back of the car for a long moment before lowering her voice considerably. "If you're in any trouble ma'am you gotta let me know...something, anything." She nodded, her firearm pulled from it's holster now. "You have a good one." She said loudly as tears started to well in the older woman's eyes.

That's all the confirmation Jane needed. She put up the two fingers in a universal show of asking for two minutes before as quickly and as quietly as she could darting toward the open side gate Korsak was holding open for her. He closed the gate gently and pulled out his firearm as well.

"He's in the trunk." Jane confirmed.

"Then we have two seconds to find a way into the house."

Jane held her gun with both hands as she searched the single wall in front of them littered with an overgrowth of forgotten plants and weeds before motioning to a window. The house looked perfectly prim and proper from the outside, Jane supposed having second lives only really left you enough time to maintain the front of your home, the part that everyone could see. "There." The two darted for it as they heard the car turning into the drive.

Jane bit her lip in frustration when the abnormal chill and rainy season had fashioned the usually flimsy latch to the window shut. "Fuck." She cursed.

Korsak pushed past her. "Go toward the front."

Jane motioned to the small bedroom window Vince was prying open. "You can't fit through that thing." Vince paused and looked at her over his shoulder. "The front, yes sir." She ran back the way they came and swallowed a lump of cold air when she realized the red sedan had been parked and long since vacated. Jane made quick and calculated strides to the front door watching the street at her six o'clock every half second. She pressed her ear to the thick wood of the front door and heard muffled voices, one male, one female. She took a breath now and sent a silent prayer to her partner before knocking innocently on the front door.

All movement inside the house stilled and Jane pressed her back to the door while evening out her breath and making her body ridged.

"Who's there?" The male voice barked.

She squeezed her vocal chords as hard as she could "It's uh—" Jane glanced about the neighboring yards until she noticed a decorative licenses plate across the street. "It's Carol."

"I'm a little busy Carol." He brought his tall frame toward the door and looked out the peep hole. "Come back some other time…" He paused and squinted, he could just make out Carols shoulder, and either she got approved for the gastric bypass surgery or someone was trying to trick him. "Come back some other time." He repeated, a panic rising. He reached for a crow bar sitting behind the door but dropped it with a clank when something heavy hit the middle of his back. He turned and growled at the now broken dining room chair. "You little bitch!"

Jane could hear a woman scream inside. "Son of a bitch. " She mumbled as she quickly backed up from the door and took a second to position herself. "Alright Frost, help me out man." She exhaled quickly and bolted toward the door pivoting her weight forward and kicking the wooden frame at its weakest point right under the lock.

If she were lucky they hadn't deadbolted the damn thing.