Maura Doyle

The motel room has been thoroughly overturned. The body on the floor has been shot in the leg, accounting for the copious amounts of blood soaked into the carpet and the sheets on the bed as he was bleeding out. But he's clearly been tortured too; fingernails are missing, fingers are broken, one ear hangs loose from his bruised and broken face. The shot to the head is what finally finished him off, god only knows how many hours later. Perhaps the interim medical examiner will be able to give a more accurate timeline...

Clothes are strewn about the room, tables overturned, drawers pulled out and tossed aside. A bloodstained jacket lies crumpled on the floor; it's bright yellow, a woman's blazer.

Maura's jacket.

Maura was here.

But why was she here? Where is she now? Whose blood is that?

Jane snaps awake, immediately squinting against the bright glare of hospital lights. She moves to sit up and pain shoots through her arm, causing her to let out a gasp.

"Jane!" a voice wails and her mother is at her side, fussing and clucking as Jane tries to shake the fog from her head and figure out what's going on.

"Where's Maura?" she finally manages, taking Angela's hand reassuringly and trying to move her out of the way so she can see the rest of the room.

"There's no sign of her Jane," Korsk steps into view. "We put out an APB on the vehicle you saw, but without plates there's not much to go on."

"Do you remember what happened Janie?" her mother's concerned voice comes again.

"Yea, Ma, I was shot," Jane frowns as she tries to piece together the events from earlier that day- Today? Yesterday? How long has it been? "How long have I been out?"

"You went into surgery yesterday afternoon. You've been in and out of consciousness all day," Frost appeared next to Korsak.

"Yesterday?" asked Jane incredulously. "Wait what time is it? It's the evening the day after Maura disappeared? Again?"

She moved as if to get up and out of her bed, but firm hands pushed her back down.

"Jane Clementine Rizzoli, did you not just hear what Detective Frost just said?" Angela's voice was carried a warning tone. "You've been in surgery, and you've had a lot of morphine. You were very lucky, the bullet didn't hit the joint and went straight through, but there's a lot of muscle damage. Ligaments and nerves and such. You need time to heal."

"Ma, we just found her" Jane struggled in vain against her mother. "Maura was at Paddy's office- she's alive! We've gotta found out what happened to her. Who's making her do this-"

"There's no indication that anyone's making her to anything," Agent Dean's voice cut in and Jane looked up sharply to see him loitering in the doorway.

The tension in the room kicked up a notch at this unwelcome addition.

Jane glowered at him. "You have some nerve."

"Look, I know I'm not exactly your favourite person right now, but you want answers, right? And I can give them to you."

"Oh a bullet to the shoulder makes me need-to-know does it?" Jane asked, not bothering to mask her disdain.

"We'll uh- we'll give you a minute," Korsak put out an arm to chaperone Angela from the room, Frost quickly following.

Agent Dean watched them go, still hanging back sheepishly,and refusing to meet Jane's eyes.

"So you figured out where Doyle's office was. You knew he'd have information there. Why didn't you tell me where you were going?"

"Because I didn't trust you," Jane snapped back.

"Ok, that's fair" he replied quietly. "Did you know Dr. Isles would be there?"

"No!" Jane said quickly. "I haven't heard anything from her for weeks."

"So you haven't been communicating with her?" he pressed her.

She set her jaw and stared him down. "I haven't seen her since you convinced her leave everyone she knew, everyone who cared about her, and put her trust in the FBI."

He looked away, unable to defend himself against the accusation. His intentions may have been good, but the FBI hadn't been able to protect Maura. The very fact that she was still alive- something he'd seriously doubted until yesterday- was down to Maura herself.

Jane sensed his hesitation and began her questioning immediately. "Who was that guy? In the parking garage. Did you get an ID?"

"Sean Peters. A known associate of Colin Ferguson," Agent Dean slunk further into the room. "He was a hitman- most likely the one who's been going after Dr. Isles. We matched his DNA to that found at a few other crime scenes- at Maura's home after the first- uh- attack, and at the safehouse where Agent Forbes was killed."

Jane's dream suddenly came back in full force as she pictured the sight of Agent Forbes' broken body on the motel floor, and she fought back the wave of nausea that accompanied it.

She took a deep breath to regain her composure. "So that's good right? If this Peters guy is out of the picture now?"

"Not exactly..." Agent Dean replied carefully. "The situation has changed."

"Changed how?"

"We think that Ferguson put the hit out on Dr Isles to stir up trouble between Paddy Doyle and the other Boston crime families. Make it look like someone was targeting her to get Doyle to react- get him to send out a warning to the other players, which to them would read like an act of aggression. Doyle's focus on Dr Isles and her mother has proved to be... unpopular to some of his crew. The perception is that he's risking lives to protect two women who have nothing to do with the business. Who are none of anyone else's concern."

"Right," Jane continued, "So Paddy appears to go after the other families unprovoked, and Ferguson swoops in and takes the reins, restores order and works things out with the other families. Ousting Paddy Doyle removes the 'problem' and everything goes back to normal."

"Except it didn't quite work out that way," Agent Dean explained. "There are folks who go way back with Doyle; people who are very loyal. And the other families don't trust Ferguson; they see through what he's doing and they don't like it."

"So Ferguson isn't in charge?"

"Not fully," Agent Dean continued. "Some of Doyle's crew switched sides, but there's a lot of in-fighting within the Doyle clan. And the other families can sense the weakness and have started to move. There's a turf war brewing between the Boston crime families."

"Their turf has been established for years- there's never been a reason or opportunity to challenge things," Jane nodded. "Til now. This could be a real shit-storm. But what does this have to do with Maura?"

Agent Dean appeared to be choosing his words carefully as he rubbed his neck. Jane noticed his discomfort and frowned, bracing herself for what was coming.

"We think... that Dr Isles is now posing quite a different challenge to Ferguson. After he put out the hit on her, I asked her to go into protective custody."

"I remember," Jane growled. She wasn't sure she would ever forgive Agent Dean for putting her friend in that position; telling her the only option she had was to disappear without warning, not telling anyone where she was going, cutting all ties. And after all it hadn't done any good- her minder had been tortured and killed, and Maura had gone missing. The FBI hadn't been able to protect her. She would have been better off staying with Jane.

"Well, after the safehouse was compromised and Agent Forbes was killed, we think she turned to Paddy Doyle for help. Like I said, there are still people who are loyal to him, and the family is split on whether to back Doyle or switch to Ferguson. With Doyle in prison, Ferguson was betting that he wouldn't be able to mobilize much support. But he didn't bank on Maura."

Jane's eye widened as she pieced together the implications of what Agent Dean was suggesting.

"You think she's working with Paddy? You think she's going to take over the family business?" Jane was incredulous. "No! That's ridiculous! That's the biggest load of crap I've ever heard! Maura Isles the Mob Boss?" she snorted with laughter. "No way."

Agent Dean just looked at the floor.

"No way," Jane said again, no longer laughing, her voice full of conviction. "If Maura turned to Doyle it's because you made her feel like she had no other option. You should never have told her to go into protective custody."

"That was her choice-"

"That's bullshit!" Jane shouted furiously. A nurse looked up warily from across the hall, but didn't intervene.

"It's the truth, Jane," Agent Doyle raised his voice enough to be heard, but he didn't shout. "After Peters went after her at home- she came to me. She asked to be taken in. She was scared- and not for herself."

He gave Jane a long hard look. "Your mother practically lives with her. Your nephew is there all the time. You are always with her. She knew it was only a matter of time before someone became collateral damage. So she took herself out of the equation."

Jane slumped back against the pillow. She knew it made sense. After the so-called 'gas leak' in Maura house that had taken out most of her kitchen, the woman had been distraught. Angela had arranged to look after TJ, and she'd gone to pick him up from Lydia's house so they weren't around when the explosion occurred. But just the thought of it- the possibility- had left Maura a wreck and there was nothing Jane had been able to do to reassure her, except promise that they would find this guy.

Well they had- he was now lying on a slab in the morgue at Boston PD. So why was Maura still in hiding? Would she stay away until Colin Ferguson was brought down too? Was she going to wait for BPD and the Feds to do that, or was she taking matters into her own hands?

"We need to find her, Jane," Agent Dean was speaking again. "The good news is, it doesn't look like Ferguson's guys know where she is either. We think they followed you to that building. We think they've been tailing you since Maura disappeared, hoping you'd lead them to her."

Jane closed her eyes and groaned inwardly. Maura had gone into hiding to protect her, and Jane had done the opposite for Maura. She should have known- why wasn't she more careful?

"Look, Jane," Agent Dean's voice softened as he saw her tortured expression. "We have to work together on this. No more secrets, no more need-to-know. I'll give you access to everything I have. But you have to be straight with me too."

She nodded dumbly, her mind already whirring with thoughts of Maura in the care of mob criminals. Pain was starting to pulse dully in her arm again, making it hard to think clearly.

"Maura could be in some real trouble," Agent Dean was saying. "If she's working with Paddy Doyle then she's with guys who are of questionable loyalty- seasoned criminals, men who have killed. And if she plays this wrong she'll have not only Colin Ferguson but every man with a grudge against Doyle gunning for her."

The way Agent Dean was talking, he didn't sound like he expected Maura to make it to the end of the week. But there was something else worrying Jane, something he didn't know. When backup had arrived at the parking garage, they'd found Sean Peters with Jane's bullets in his body, and she hadn't yet corrected their assumption that Jane had been the one who shot him.

But Jane's mind played over and over again the image of Maura Isles, standing over his body, watching him almost curiously, like he was an object of study. And then without hesitation, shooting him in the head execution-style. Jane's mouth went dry just thinking about it. She had no doubt that she would find her friend, that she would get Maura out, that she would bring her home. What she wasn't sure of, was what sort of person Maura would be.