”May I?” he’d gestured towards the booth.

”Please.”

Jack Lloyd was on the verge of a breakdown, of losing everything. He’d bought his new home out of sheer desperation. His wife had begged, pleaded and finally threatened to leave if they didn’t move. He didn’t expand as to why and she hadn’t pressed for an explanation. Within weeks of moving he’d lost his job and the house payments alone were bleeding him dry.

”Look.” He got right to the point. ”How about this?” He paused as the waitress set a bottle of beer on the table in front of him. Jane’s beer, Maura thought. ”I take the house off the market, we go down and get the deeds changed, I knock 10k off the price and you move in this week?”

Maura had sipped her wine, regarding the man carefully. She hadn’t been looking forward to the escrow time, nor having to find somewhere to rent while she waited but had been willing to do so to get away from Boston. It was clear there was nothing left there for her now.

”But…” Jack drained half his beer. ”I want it in cash.” He’d watched her, studied her carefully, waiting for her reply.

That was five short weeks ago and now here she was, sitting in her new Spanish influenced house in San Francisco staring at the large crates that contained her art. They had arrived an hour ago and completed her move.
Bass had made the trip the previous week with a specialist reptile courier and was settling into his new surroundings better than Maura had anticipated. In the warmer temperatures of California, he was more active than she’d ever seen him in Boston. He seemed to enjoy his time outside in the garden, and had declared war on a large stone tortoise that the previous owners had left.

Looking around her new home, Maura smiled sadly. She missed the comings and goings of others, the life that filled the house but she would learn to live in the silence again. It was what she knew best; the silence and emptiness of her life had been enough before. Before Boston, before the Rizzoli’s, before Jane. She would learn to appreciate it again. She had no other choice. It was all she had left. Getting to her feet, she headed back upstairs to finish unpacking the boxes for her office.