He edged carefully past her, setting his lunch on his desk and frowning. ”Maura Isles, why, should I have looked for something different?”

Jane grinned at him, the Cheshire cat expression filling the room.

”Search Maura Doyle.” She told him.

Four hours later, Frost had still come up empty.

”I was so sure.” Jane told no one in particular.

Cavanaugh had popped in, curious as to why his A team were burning the midnight oil. Jane had bitten the bullet so to speak and told him outright. He had tried to argue, tried to send them all home but they pointedly refused. Each one was there on their own time, having clocked out at the end of their shift. So they were using resources. Cavanaugh knew he needed to reprimand them somehow, to insist they stop but in truth, he wanted Maura back as much as they did. He missed the quirky medical examiner and her immaculate presentation, both professionally and personally.

”We got nothing.” Korsak said finally.

”You guys should head home, this isn’t your crusade.” Jane sighed.

”What about you?” Korsak asked. Jane looked tired. No, Jane looked like last week’s trash. ”You need to sleep.”

Jane only nodded as she gathered her things silently. There was so much left undone, unsaid and unrealised. In the last few hours she’d been hit with more information than she ever thought it possible to get in such a short space of time and it had wiped her out.

”I’m going home too.” She told him.

Getting to her feet, she offered a half-hearted wave to the men and wandered slowly out to her car.

When he was sure Jane was long gone, Frost scooted across the floor in his chair. ”So, what did the phone message say?” He’d been so silent at his desk that Jane had forgotten he’d been there but now, the anticipation was on the verge of ripping him apart.

-/-

Maura sat on her deck with a glass of white wine and watched the sky as it went through a kaleidoscope of colours before the sun dipped under the horizon. After her call to Jane, she had been left with a strange sense of closure but rather than pleasing her, as she had thought it would, she just felt empty.