Chapter Six: Like a Dream

"What do you mean 'knows what they're doing'…? Are we talking local butcher or medical professional here?"

"I would say the latter. Both carotid arteries have been transected with one clean cut."

"From…?" Jane hung onto the last letter of the word with a raised brow, more than likely in the hopes to tease an educated guess out of the medical examiner.

Maura Isles did not guess.

"From an incredibly sharp bladed instrument."

"Like a scalpel?" Jane asked, sitting her hands upon her hips.

Maura smirked and shook her head. "I cannot say def—"

"Oh, alright then." Jane interrupted emphatically with a toss of her hair over a shoulder. "Frost?"

"Yeah, over here." Detective Frost answered near the front door. Maura could hear Sergeant Detective Korsak's voice from outside the house as he spoke with the two uniforms that had made the call that morning.

"Could you get the techs to photograph from here—" Jane pointed as she stood behind the man sitting on the couch with the large gash across his neck, "…and up that way?"

With a visible amount of hesitation, Frost slipped carefully back into the house with his eyes steadfastly pointed towards his crime scene slipper-covered shoes.

"Frost…"

"Yep?"

"Would'ya focus? I gotta look around for somethin'."

"Mhm." He said, lifting his gaze slowly towards the arterial spray that painted a bloody red line from one end of the ceiling to the other. His expression sank from one of strict apprehension to that of a harrowing nausea in the blink of an eye. Frost lurched forward suddenly, covering his mouth.

"Damn, okay- outside. Outside!"

Frost bolted toward the front door again and a moment or so later was heard retching from somewhere near the street.

"Jesus Christ…" Jane shook her head and then gave a wave towards a corner of the room, "You with the big flashy crime camera, c'mere." She directed one of the techs to stand where she stood and began to point at an upward angle, muttering about where exactly to shoot.

Maura hummed quietly to herself. While it was most certainly safe to say that Barry Frost was an incredible homicide detective, there was still —after several years of knowing the man— one aspect of the job that he hadn't quite managed to overcome.

"To be fair, the revolting stimuli from witnessing death at its varying stages can sometimes never be desensitized, no matter how often the exposure occurs." Maura recited matter-of-factly.

Jane gave a harrumph and then kneeled to look beneath the couch. "Oh really? I couldn't tell with the way he barfs every time someone loses a head."

Maura chuckled.

"Teacup."

"I beg your pardon?"

Jane stood and dangled a ceramic teacup from a pen in her hand. "Saucer's right next to it. I don't get it… They're clean."

Korsak's voice from outside grew louder as he stepped inside the house once again, tucking his cell phone into the inside pocket of his sport coat. "Alright, let's wrap it up. Jane?"

"Yeah, boss."

The older man scowled a bit, narrowing his eyes. Neither of them really seemed willing to step back from their sense of pride since their last spat.

"Cavanaugh wants both of us in his office as soon as we get back."

"Both of us?"

"Is there some other language I'm speaking that I'm not aware of? Yes, both of us."

Maura felt like a fly on the wall in between these two. No doubt Jane would be downstairs back at DPD soon after, venting relentlessly within the confines of her morgue. It would be taxing on her nerves, but Maura knew she could take it all in stride. Besides, she would much rather be privy to someone else's vexation rather than her own at the moment. The weekend was fast approaching, and she still hadn't looked through the papers her father's estate lawyer had left for her.

"And then he says- get this, this is the best part- it's because of national security!"

Jane was pacing back and forth beneath the bright autopsy lights while Maura inspected more closely the wound on the deceased man's neck. She could at least say now (and definitively so) that it was made with a scalpel… Much like one of her own.

"National security?" Maura lifted her gaze, squinting into the harsh light.

Jane threw her hands up exasperatedly, making unintelligible grumbles and grunts. Then she continued to pace, "That part they still couldn't tell me anything about because by the time they were about to, some fed boy walked in and made everyone shut up. Even Cavanaugh."

"Cavanaugh too? That's surprising. But if it's a matter of national security, then of course the Bureau would be involved."

"Yeah, funny how they were silent and uninterested during the part where the women were being brutalized in front of their husbands and then dumped around the metroplex." Jane growled and then stopped in front of Maura, "I still can't believe Korsak just kept me in the dark like that. I knew the cases were connected but he just shut me out anyway."

"Did he not explain that he was ordered to?"

"There's ways to tell me, Maura. He knows that."

By the time Maura was done with her initial investigation of the body, Jane was still meandering around the basement floor as if she'd rather wait for Maura's findings downstairs than at her desk. The dark-haired detective's ability to hold a grudge was unrivaled throughout the entire police department. Part of it, Maura supposed, was what gave Jane her determination and vigor to succeed. Though whether it was out of pure gumption or spite, she couldn't be sure. Times like this Jane would often seek the leather bag and treadmills of the gym upstairs, but today something kept her close. She lounged with her head hanging over the arm of Maura's small couch in her office and groaned theatrically.

"Ready?" Maura asked.

"No. Can I just sleep here?"

"You cannot sleep in my office. You have a bed at home for that."

"Yes, but that's also where my alarm clock is." Jane drawled pitiably.

Maura placed her purse down onto her desk for a moment to search for her badge and the faint -clink- of glass from the small liquor bottles inside meeting the hard wooden surface shot a jolt of realization through her. When was the last time she'd emptied this purse? How many bottles were in there? Maura opened and shut a few of the drawers on her desk loudly and rather unceremoniously to obscure the sound.

"Everything okay over there?" Jane asked, popping her head up from the couch.

"Just misplaced my badge. I'll admit, I'm a bit scatterbrained…"

"Well… Come and talk to me, then." Jane said as she sat up at the end of the couch. She swiped her unruly waves of dark hair over a shoulder and took a long sigh, batting her eyelashes over at Maura as if to say "please".

There hadn't been much downtime between either of them that week. Jane's backlog of cases had stacked up on her desk without her knowing, and although it was a small stack, she'd still been preoccupied with the serial murders at hand as well as her former partner's icy resistance to communicate. Maura usually took the fastest route home and dove straight into a glass of wine, but she knew that her pretending the document folders that sat on her kitchen counter simply didn't exist wouldn't work forever.

Maura walked over and sat on the arm of the couch beside Jane, crossing one knee over the other. Jane then leaned and wrapped an arm comfortably around her hips in her usual endearing manner.

"My father has horses." Maura said with a dull tone.

Jane's head snapped around to look up at her with wide eyes. "What?"

"Four of them, thoroughbreds with racing careers. I've been getting calls from their trainers… They want to know if they're to be on the circuit this year."

"I had no clue just from being at the house last weekend…" Jane said, "Your dad was a betting man?"

"Apparently."

Admittedly, there were more than just the horses she needed to take care of back in Odessa, and most of which begged her to do so sooner rather than later. She would need to assess Arthur's business ledgers and bank statements, ones that she could either find or gain access to, that is. Then came the decisions. What to sell, what to donate… What upset her the most was that none of it had just a singular effect, as there were, in fact, a great number of people, families, and accounts that would be affected from any one decision she made. The situation was so much more complex than she had initially thought, and all of its details rested in the papers that waited for her on her kitchen counter for the better part of a week.

Jane scooted over and gave a firm tug of Maura's waist, slipping her off the arm of the couch and down onto the seat beside her. A surprised "oop" fell in between them and then Maura smiled, fixing the hem of her tight pencil skirt. Jane returned her arm over the back of the couch and leaned forward again.

"Let me come with you this weekend."

Maura shook her head and let her eyes fall to her lap. "You have so much work to do… I can't take you away from any more of it."

Wait, why am I saying no?

"Well, the way I see it," Jane began, hooking her trigger finger at the end of Maura's chin to lift her head, "Everything here is all said and done. This is Homicide. People are already gone… But you're not. You're still here, and I think you could use my help. Let me come, even if just for moral support." Then her brow pulled together tightly with another thought. "Then again, I might just actually get in your way a lot, so really, it'd be like you never left." She grinned, "What do you say?"

"You just want to see the horses."

"So much. Please?"

Maura laughed, which she would have kept laughing if not for what Jane did next.

Jane pulled a length of Maura's hair behind one of her ears and let her fingers trail there softly down the side of her neck. Then she leaned all the way forward and kissed her not so much as on the middle of her cheek, but further toward her ear. It was quick, and before Maura could turn a shade of red to rival the bottoms of her Louboutins, Jane was up and walking toward the door of her office.

"I'm starving. Let's grab dinner." Jane said as if nothing had happened.

Maura huffed a laugh as she stood up, barely able to feel her legs. "Just for that, I'm going to make you eat something green tonight."

Jane scoffed playfully. "Okay, I'll get extra pickles on my burger."

The elevator ride up felt like a dream. The edges of Maura's vision were blurred, but not from her afternoon spiked tea… This was the closest they had ever ventured towards acknowledging the lustful tension between them, even if they hadn't done so much with actual words. Not exactly, anyway... Maura felt as if she had opened a door, and she only hoped that Jane would be willing to walk through it.

Standing there and hanging on its very hinges for another seven years would surely kill her.

Maura wasn't sure why she told Jane "no" a second time.

Probably because what the other woman had said would more than likely turn out to be true. Maura knew she wouldn't be able to focus with Jane there rummaging around and distracting her. Not that Jane was intentionally distracting, or anything. She left on her own the next morning, wary to muddle through the remnants of her late father's life once more.

It took her nearly an hour to find his ledger.

Apparently, Arthur Isles was more of a luddite than Maura had assumed him to be. Digital record keeping was seemingly nonexistent, as there was not a single computer to be found inside the house. In his office there were paper billing invoices, week old newspapers, and several years' old bank statements scattered about the floor where Maura sat. She'd spent most of her time sorting through what madness there was to her father's method until she came upon the large, hardbound book which smelled of whiskey and cigar smoke. Therein lied the funeral home's records and Maura quickly noticed a pattern of deficit, particularly in the way of the business's income over expenses. Normally when a venture was failing, one would see it the other way around. Expenses over income. But her father was well into the black as far as the ledger was concerned. So why was it that she had just sifted through such a tall stack of past due supply invoices? Florists, casket wholesalers, caterers and more were chomping at the bit to be paid, and it appeared that they had been for months.

Where had the money gone?

Just then a loud -crash- came from the other side of the house and Maura froze. It was a Saturday, and they had no appointments or services on the books... At least not to her knowledge. It sounded more like something heavy had fallen over. Was she not alone?

Maura stood and grabbed a silver candlestick on her way towards the noise, which continued on with more of a clumsy and shuffling manner somewhere beneath her feet. Beyond the parlor and at the end of the long hall was an open door. She'd not seen this particular door before during her first tour of the house. With her heart in her throat, Maura took one careful step at time so as to not creak any of the floorboards. She realized then that the floor did sound rather hollow for a slab foundation, which meant that there must be a basement below. The older homes in this area were built with storm cellars, after all. The door led to a set of narrow steps down into darkness, and Maura saw the yellowish glow of a swinging light and its pull chain just beyond.

"Hello?"

"Och- down here." Replied a distinctly Scottish accent.

Kent…

Maura sighed a breath of relief and made her way down. Kent Drake was righting a turned over shelf and sweeping a pile of old paperback books out of the way with a foot when she came into view.

"Apologies, I didnae mean to startle you—"

"Not startled, just curious."

Kent gave a bow of his head towards the candlestick in Maura's hands.

"Ah- Well, I suppose I hadn't expected anyone to be here today." She said with a slight embarrassment.

He nodded apologetically. "I was just lookin' for a book I'd loaned your father. I dinnae ken I could bear to leave without it."

"Leave?"

"I—" Kent stopped his rearranging of boxes upon the shelf and turned toward her. "I take it you'ven't already decided to sell the business then?"

"I haven't, no."

"I see. How much longer would you need me?"

Maura began to wring her hands together nervously. It was a thought which she'd put the utmost effort into not thinking about. "How about you keep me up to date on what services and maintenance there is left to do for the foreseeable future, and I will give you the courtesy of a long window to depart. Whenever I have come to a decision, that is."

"Aye. Sounds fair enough to me." He replied, dusting his hands and making his way past her to reach the stairs.

"What was the title?" Maura asked.

Kent stopped with a hand upon the old staircase rail and turned to look back at her again, some confusion apparent on his face. "Excuse me?"

"The book."

"Aw. Robinson Crusoe."

Maura's skin thrummed with a chill as if someone incorporeal had just walked right through her in a hurry. She recognized the book as the same one that donned the edge of her father's desk. He had been sure to keep it close, and now Maura knew why. For some reason she felt relieved to be rid of it. Something as small as knowing the very last story her father read was almost too painful. Having to look at it hurt, and she was glad that she wouldn't have to anymore.

"It's upstairs in the office. On the desk."

"Really…?"

"Yes. Is that strange for some reason? My father owned many books."

"Aye, he did. But I lent him that one nearabout a year ago."

"Hmm." Maura hummed politely. "I suppose he enjoyed it then."

"I suppose so." Kent said with a reverent bow of his head and then took himself up the stairs.

A chord of curiosity had been plucked somewhere deep inside of her. Why that book? There had to have been more adventure novels taking up residence in that house, some certainly more modern than that of Daniel Defoe's old English writing, to be sure. Something compelled Maura then to take a look at the filing boxes crammed full of paperbacks nearby. When she began to dig through them, the shelf tipped forward again and out slid another box which fell to the floor almost weightlessly. Filled to its brim were small, faded sheets of paper. Almost indiscernible was the writing upon them, but the texture and feel of them was peculiar, indeed. A dark thought occurred to her as she rooted around in the dim basement for another light source. She found a book of matches and struck one, and then held one of the papers closely toward the flame.

Barely touching its edge to the fire, the paper burst with a bright light and evaporated from her hand entirely.

Flash paper…

These are illegal betting slips?

Her heart began to pound as she fell to her knees and started swiping through the box, pulling out handful after handful of the slips. Beneath them she found track receipts, printed and numbered in a more legitimate fashion. They were bound together with rubber bands by the hundreds, each of them possessing an official track stamp.

Suddenly Maura understood.

Perhaps her father hadn't wished to remain the hermit.

Perhaps it was that he had no choice.

That guilt that burned deep like a needle through the very middle of her spread, further and further until she felt as if she could gag. Arthur Isles had suffered from a secret gambling addiction and was no doubt the reason why he could hardly pay any of his business invoices. Was the man who had crept out from the shadows the weekend before his bookie? Was Maura now at the mercy of all of her father's debt? She felt sick.

Maura threw herself to her feet again and raced back up the stairs. She was looking for Mr. Drake, hoping to ask him all of the questions that threatened to choke the life from her, but he was gone and there were no other vehicles parked outside but her own. Maura went to her knees again, and she began to cry. The house felt so empty and hollow, as if it were poised and ready to swallow her up. It felt hard to breathe. Maura was so lost in such a strange place and her heart panged desperately for something familiar.

Jane.

I want Jane…

She struggled to make it back to her father's office and to hold her phone steady in her hands. By the time Jane answered, she was bawling.

"Maur? What happened- are you alright?"

She couldn't speak. It was everything she could do to breathe in between each of her ripping sobs.

"Maura!"

"Jane…" She finally managed to choke out her name.

"Are you still at the house?" Jane asked, the sound of panic evident in her voice.

"Yes—"

"Don't go anywhere. I'm leaving right now."

"Jane…" Maura cried again, unable to say anything else.

"Just hold on for me, I'll be there by midnight."

For the first time in weeks, Maura felt rested as soon as she awoke and opened her eyes. Her pillow felt a bit different, though. She took a deep breath through her nose and moved to stretch her arms. Even her room smelled different, somehow. Then she realized… She wasn't in her room at all.

Something around her waist wrapped tighter whenever she went to sit up, and Maura recognized the familiar, muscled slope of a forearm. She pivoted carefully on her hip to turn around with her breath held and heart racing…

Jane Rizzoli had never looked more at peace.

Though, how was Maura really to know what a peaceful Jane looked like? She had certainly never gazed upon her while she slept before. Maura dropped to her elbow in astonishment. Instead of peeling herself away, she scooted herself back underneath Jane's arm and nestled closely to her, taking the opportunity to oblige herself with some of the other woman's warmth. Slow, hot breaths from Jane's nose fell upon the skin of Maura's cheekbone and a deep, contented hum rumbled upward inside of her chest. With a slight stir, Jane's arm squeezed around her again and sank lower, pulling at her hips. They were flush now with their stomachs pressed together, and it was wonderful. A moment later something on Jane's face pinched and then one of her knees slotted itself between Maura's.

Maura nearly gasped, but managed to keep herself still. Jane had to have still been asleep… or so she thought. It wasn't until the ticklish flutter of eyelashes against her cheek did Maura look back toward Jane's face, whose eyes were partly open now and staring at her like she was a welcome sight. She blinked slowly. Wait, was that a smile? What were her lips doing? Maura couldn't be sure, she was too busy finding herself pulled mind, body, and spirit into the dark, woody irises that looked back at her. Jane leaned half an inch or so forward and gently rubbed her nose beside Maura's, nearly bringing their lips together. Maura could feel her breath there, and heavens, did she ache for her. Her heart slammed against the backs of her ribs as Jane breathed her in and sighed heavily, nuzzling her face further down into the crook of Maura's neck.

Am I dreaming?

Maura placed her hand at the back of Jane's hip and felt her breathe slowly into the hollow space between her collarbones. She could have melted with it. Both of them were so lithe and gentle in their sleepy languor, as if they had been waking up next to each other in this very same manner for years. It felt so natural, and so, so missed. But Maura thought… How can you miss something if it's only the first time you've felt it?

Dark tangles tickled beneath her chin, and she went to brush them away. Maura bathed in the warm and fuzzy embrace that was a gently awoken Jane Rizzoli for another few moments before a pair of sleepy brown eyes remerged and looked around the room. Then they widened. Jane slid away from her with a start and then caught her gaze again with an apologetic flutter of her eyelids. Had she not meant to be so affectionate? It certainly felt like she had. Another more painful thought struck Maura just then… Had she mistaken her for Casey? God, Maura thought… anything but that.

Jane sat up and rubbed her eyes. "Sorry. I forgot we were here."

So, if we had been at home…?

"I did too."

"Waking up in your dad's bed a bit weird?"

"A little. I would like to get out of it, actually…"

"Agreed—" Jane hopped to her feet and strolled around to the other side of the bed, holding out a hand to help Maura up. Her usual grumpy demeanor was nowhere to be found. "Let's go find the coffee."

Maura smiled. Her initial apprehension that Jane hadn't meant to be so soft and affectionate with her quickly began to fade.

The stairs to the ground floor and funeral home part of the house creaked with each of their steps. Discombobulated memories of the previous afternoon assaulted Maura's thoughts as she moved around the kitchen and prepared a pot of coffee. In truth, she was still in shock. Discovering her father's dark secret had filled in a lot of questions she hadn't yet had the courage to ask, and the resulting guilt from which had very much put her in a great state of upset. Maura hardly remembered Jane bursting through the front door and the way she pulled her this way and that in search of an injury of some kind. There had been flashes of dark hair bouncing in and out of every room in the house as she looked for an intruder, but when all was said and done, Jane must have picked her up off the floor and deposited her into the nearest bed. Which, regrettably, was in her father's bedroom upstairs… where he had lived. Maura had never been so close to catatonic before. If Jane hadn't raced the five hours all the way from Dallas, she might still be a loose-limbed and sobbing mess upon the parlor floor.

"Do you wanna tell me what happened?" Jane asked softly where she stood near the soft curves of a decades old refrigerator.

Maura shook her head.

"Maura, I've never seen you cry like that before. I mean, I don't think so… I wasn't really awake much after what happened with Marino but even then I remember—"

"That was different, but no less earth-shattering. You're right, I was inconsolable. I learned some things about my father yesterday that hurt me very much." Maura felt her gaze lengthen into the distance beyond the kitchen. "I mean actually to say that I hurt myself…" She admitted, hanging her head with shame.

"Look, I'm not sure I understand," Jane continued, "…but I do know that you would have told me if he was a bad man or not."

Maura shook her head again, a bit more vigorously this time. "He wasn't."

"Alright." She shrugged then, apparently satisfied. "I mean, after all he did make you. How bad could he have been?"

"Not bad at all." Maura sighed as she slid an empty cup down the length of the counter toward Jane. "He was kind, and warm… and so very patient."

"How come you never talked about him then?" Jane asked, quirking her head to the side. She went to pour herself some coffee once it was ready and moved to sidle up beside Maura.

"We just… grew apart, I suppose. I adored him when I was young, but I didn't want to stay in one place for my entire life. I'm not sure yet if I blame him for instilling me with the passion to travel and to see what lies outside of Texas… He loved to tell me stories of myth and conquest, and it just made the world seem so big." Maura sniffled, fighting the burning sensation that drew along the lids of her eyes. She had cried so much already, there couldn't possibly be any tears left. Could there? "I did exactly what he wanted… I left. He stayed."

"I'm sorry, Maura."

"Why did I never come back?" Maura asked with a crack in her voice. The wetness in her eyes began to swell again.

Jane sat her coffee cup down and went to open her arms toward Maura, who moved inside of them with a quiet sob. She cried again for what felt like a long time, or at least until Jane's coffee had turned cold.

It was all so much to take in, but her first priority was her father's trophy horses. Maura did not have the wherewithal or the time to manage horses, so she was at least decided on selling them. But what to do with the money? That only meant that she would have to take more time to search through the stacks of unpaid invoices she'd sifted through the day before. Any future sale would have to be divided amongst the most delinquent of them. Settling the severity of it all would be her first step. Then she could at least formulate a plan… or try to. The burden was one hundred percent hers now that she had signed for ownership of her father's estate.

Maura huffed and rested her forehead upon Jane's chest. She felt that her shirt was damp there near her collarbones, no doubt from all of the tears.

"There needs to be two of me, Jane."

"Okay, sure. Just as long as one of you stays here. I don't think I could handle two of you. Think of all the weird and useless facts… Top of my head might blow right off—"

Maura smacked Jane on her arm, earning her a playful "ow".

"I can't stomach the thought of shutting this place down and putting these people out of jobs," Maura admitted, "There's a young woman who works here, a student—"

"Listen," Jane stopped Maura's anxious rambling and pulled her away slightly to get a good look at her reddened eyes. "Let's do one thing at a time. What do you need to do first?"

"Well, I need to meet someone at the stables where my father boards his horses- where he boarded his horses."

"Okay. Then screw everything else for today. Let's do that and be happy that it gets done. Simple." Jane said with a scrunch of her nose.

Maura took a deep breath. "Okay."

Jane stopped mid-twirl back towards her cold coffee and then pulled a face back at Maura as if she were about to beg. "Are you sure you can't keep just one…? I can take it home with me, it can live in my apartment."

And just like that, amidst all of her heart-wrenching sobs and guilt-laden boohooing, Jane had made Maura laugh just as easily as she had done any other day.