Cat & Mouse | Rizzoli & Isles | Rizzles | Maura Isles | Jane Rizzoli

Chapter 1

SMASH

I was woken up by what sounded like smashing glass, and jolted awake. I could hear distant voices coming from the kitchen, and decided to go and find out why the others were awake. I opened my bedroom door and quietly crept down the hallway. I paused at the corner to the kitchen to listen to what they were talking about. I could just see in the reflection of the living room window that Jane was sat at the island drinking a beer, opposite Maura who was stood up leaning against the sink.

"SometimesI wonder if I did the right thing, you know – asking Angela to take her in. I can't help but wonder if a part of me did that just so I could keep her close. I look back and wonder who's best interests I really had in mind when I made that decision. I just can't help but feel selfish." Maura sighed.

"Paddy didn't give you much choice when he turned up with an 11 year old kid and pleaded with you to take her in." Jane replied, remembering back to the night 5 years ago, when her and Maura were watching a RedSox game together after a long day at work when Paddy Doyle – mine and Maura's biological father – had knocked on the door with a young girl child and asked Maura to take me in.

"I know – and I would never have sent her away with him. That's not what I am saying at all." Maura replied.

"I know you wouldn't and that's what I admire about you Maura, you want to help everyone" Jane responded softly.

"It's just - I could have found a long term adoptive family, away from all of this – away from us & our lifestyles, our work – and the danger that puts us and everyone around us in - I turned out alright and I was adopted? " Maura replied.

"I know you did, but you wanted a relationship with your sister – and that's okay, and that's also why my mother is her legal guardian, not you. She has a family, who love her, and that includes her big sister." Jane reassured her.

"But seriously, we both know my mother always wanted another girl, a proper girl - I was too much like one of the boys!" Jane added.

They both giggled. I also smiled stood out in the corridor. Everyone knew and loved how much of a tomboy Jane was, but also how much Angela enjoyed having a daughter to dress up and go shopping with –something she did with both me and Maura – the thing I love aboutAngela the most is she doesn't treat any of us differently because we are/aren't her biological children. We are all loved as much – and told off as much – as each other.

"If you'd told me 6 years ago that I'd find out my biological father was a criminal mastermind, find my real mother who'd spent her whole life believing I was dead, given a kidney to one of my half sisters and the other would end up living with my best friends family who would all then end up living in my house – I'd have told you you were living in one of my fiction novels." Maura laughed.

"They have been the best 6 years of your life in many ways and you know they have. We all know you wouldn't have it any other way" Jane retorted with a smile on her face.

"Yeah– I love coming home to a kitchen that looks like something out of a post apocalyptic movie because people leave things all over the place instead of putting things away, having to hide my favourite food so nobody else eats it – oh and having you all use the front room as a wardrobe. I just LOVE that" Maura laughed sarcastically, pointing to a top that someone had taken off and left on a chair in her front room.

"YeahI think that's mine." Jane replied.

"and you think you aren't annoying sometimes Maura? You can be worse than my mother sometimes" Jane laughed.

"Jane don't do this, Jane sit down, Jane take it easy" Jane joked, mimicking Maura. They both burst out laughing.

"and having two Isles minds in the house who like to talk about the workings of the human body in an abnormal level of detail over dinner, two of you who spend a ridiculous amount of time in the bathroom and have to look like a supermodel before coming down to breakfast, two of you who are equally inept with people that someone needs to make sure neither of you accidentally start the next world war." Jane continued to joke.