Jane held her head in her hands. How could this be, Hoyt had escaped again? It was absurd. She could hear Korsak and Frost squabbling about what to do next but they sounded so far away. Staring at the scars on her hands, she shook her head. “I should have shot him.” She whispered to the marked flesh on her palms.
Frankie appeared in front of her, crouching down so he could look her in the eye.

“I’m taking you home.” He told her simply. She didn’t have the energy to fight with him but got to her feet and followed him blindly from the room. She knew Korsak and Frost would set up a guard outside her apartment.

“I don’t want to go home.” She told him, her voice weak. It made her angry that Hoyt held so much power over her. Frost, who was already organising officers to stake out Jane’s apartment added new orders to cover Maura’s home too.

Frankie looked at her. “You want to go to Maura’s?” he asked. His cheeks flushed as he remembered the birthday party their mother had thrown week or so before. He looked at his sister closely, she’d never given him any reason to suspect anything was going on between herself and the doctor, but at the same time, she did spend an awful lot of time there, often overnight. Although, his first thought had been to offer to take her to Maura’s; not to his own apartment, or their parents’ home, but to Maura’s. ‘When did I become so well trained?’ he wondered.

“Come on Frankie.” She pulled him by the sleeve, the contact as comforting as it was necessary to get her brother moving from the room. He’d zoned out on her. Placing his arm around her shoulder, he led her towards the garage.

Maura sat on a stool by the sink wiping coffee from her leather pumps with a small cloth. She loved her shoes dearly, the way they accentuated her calf muscles and slenderised her ankles. They just weren’t particularly practical when you dropped ground coffee on your feet. Satisfied she’d cleaned the shoe thoroughly; she hopped into the bathroom and, hitching her dress up, swung her foot into the sink and rinsed it quickly.