DISCLAIMER: I do not own Rizzoli & Isles nor any of the characters from the show. I am writing this purely for entertainment, not profit. Rizzoli and Isles are property of Tess Gerritsen and TNT.

Please find the full disclaimers in the beginning of Chapter 1.

Chapter 2

"Is there anyone else you need to take food for?" Jane tried, gently. If the girl was not alone, they could at least try to feed other kids or even adults that were with her. Jane saw nobody, but it didn't mean they were not somewhere else in the park or in the city.

Jane watched the girl close her small hands in fists, her knuckles white with effort, and closed her huge blue eyes when the tears began to well on them.

Maura eyed Jane, furrowing her brows, concerned. The emotional pain was too obvious in the girl's demeanor.

"Hey… It is okay…" Maura added, extending a hand, and placing it on top of a closed fist, as gently as she could. "What should we call you?"

The girl opened her eyes, looking between Jane and Maura.

Distrust. This girl was afraid, and she was not sure who she could or not trust.

"Liz." Was all she said.

Maura smiled gently, stroking the girl's fist until it relaxed, before finally removing her hand. "It is nice to meet you, Liz. And I am really glad you accepted to join us in our picnic…"

"Are you two… girlfriends?" the girl asked, tentatively. Jane and Maura guessed she might have observed them from the bushes since they had arrived a few hours earlier.

"We are actually married." Jane replied.

"Oh, I see…" Liz continued pondering, alternating her eyes between their hands, and seeing the matching wedding bands.

Jane inhaled. They needed to find out more about the girl. There was no way they could leave her there alone in the park.

"Does your family live in the park too?" Jane tried.

The girl took a sharp intake of breath, squeezing her eyes shut, and shaking her head no.

"Are you all by yourself?"

The girl opened her eyes, distrusting. "Why does it matter to you?" she squinted her eyes at Jane and Maura, her voice almost a hiss, but pain and hurt all too obvious in her eyes and her tone.

Jane had to admire that the girl was not all gullible, that was likely what had made her survive apparently unharmed being alone in the park.

"Listen, Liz. We both work for the FBI. We can protect you if you are in danger, we can help you find your family if you are lost or if you ran away. But you need to talk to us…" Jane tried to keep her tone as smooth and calm as she could.

"FBI?" the girl alternated her eyes between the two of them.

Jane picked her wallet, opened it, and showed the badge to the girl.

"Yes, FBI."

The girl inspected the id, and finally exhaled. She seemed much smaller than before.

"Liz?"

She raised her beautiful blue eyes to Maura.

"What happened to you?" Maura inquired gently.

"They… They killed my parents…" Liz said, barely a whisper, closing her eyes, and finally two fat tears rolled through her dirty cheeks.

Maura's eyes opened wide, Jane immediately checking around them.

"Who killed your parents, Liz? Do you know who they were?"

"No… I didn't see them… We…" she sighed. "We lived in a house in the suburbs. Nobody was supposed to know us, to meet us. My mom and my dad, they homeschooled me. Then someone ringed the bell without us expecting… There was something mom and dad taught me since I was very little: they just told me to hide, and I did. I went to the attic while they went for the door. I heard a loud discussion, altered voices, and muffled shots." She sobbed, her voice was barely above a whisper, her eyes closed shut, and the tears continued to stream through her face, leaving a clean path on her dirty cheeks.

She finally opened her eyes, seeing Jane and Maura were paying attention to her.

"I… I heard people movement through the house, noise of drawers being opened, doors and windows banging, glass crashing… It didn't last long, I think, soon it was all in silence. I… I waited a bit longer – mom or dad always would come for me to say when it was safe to leave the hiding place, and never before it took them that long…" A fresh wave of tears washed her face, and she sobbed again. "But they didn't this time. After all was silent for a long time, I decided to carefully come out from hiding… That was how I found they had shot my mom and my dad. They were dead. Their eyes were open… There was so much blood…" the girl deviated her haunted eyes and shook her head, as if trying to erase the image from her retina.

"I am so sorry, Liz…" Jane offered, compassionately. "What did you do?"

"I ran… It was the middle of the night. I went to the train station – where I've gone before with mom or dad the few times we had to go to the city. I hid behind a column, and when the first people took the first train to go to work – the sun was still not up yet – I just jumped in an empty wagon when the doors were about to close. I hid below the seats. When the train stopped in town, I used the confusion to get out. Hiding from column to column, wall to wall, and using the crowd, I got to the park…"

"When all of this happened, Liz?"

The girl stopped to think. "Four… No… Five days ago…"

"And you have been sleeping in the park all these nights?"

"Someone always throws some food out when they walk through the park… I… I thought it was as good place as any to hide… But it gets really cold at night…" The girl shivered, involuntarily. Spring was on them, but nights were still cool.

"Liz… Do you know why you had to be hidden and nobody was supposed to know where you lived?"

The girl exhaled. "My parents… they saw something. A long, long time ago, they told me. They never said what they saw, though. I just knew we were in danger, and that is why I couldn't go to regular school or have other friends, and that was why I didn't have any other family."

Jane looked at Maura. The kid and her parents apparently had been in WitSec.

"How old are you, Liz?"

"I am twelve. I mean. Eleven, but will turn twelve in less than a month."

"What are your parents' names? Do you know it?"

"I do. I know the names they used with other people – Lou Gringer and Claire Gringer. I know the names they used to call themselves at home – Fred and Molly. I don't know their real last names."

"Do you also have two names?"

"No… I think I was born when they were already hiding… I am Elizabeth Gringer. Elizabeth, like the queen, as mom used to say. Shortened to Liz."

"It is a very beautiful name… Were you always home schooled?"

"Yes… My mom was really, really smart. I think she might have been a scientist or something before. But she could not work, because of the hiding. So she stayed at home and homeschooled me. It was really fun, I was very advanced for my age because mom taught me all the cool stuff, although mom would only allow me to submit some of my progress to avoid drawing attention to me. My dad would go out to work. I think he used to be a scientist too, before, but now he worked for some insurance company. I think he hated the job, I overheard him saying to mom a few times it was so beneath his capacity, in days when he was very sad…"

"Do you know the address where you used to live?"

"Yes…" and Liz recited it for Jane. It was a suburb of DC, about a half an hour train ride.