A/N: Final chapter here folks. I'm sad it's over already. You can let me know your thoughts afterwards and thank you again for following along.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Do you want the good news or the bad news?

The brunette's eyes flicked to Frost and then back to the Sergeant, surprised, "There's good news?"

"Look's like Frost might have cracked it. A quick call to each of the local hospitals confirmed a total of thirty-one cases of suspected acetone poisoning. The victims are all young, fit and healthy and expected to make a full recovery without any complications once they're released from the emergency room. Nothing whatsoever in common except for that grocery store."

Jesus. Forty poisonings. "Oh, god, if that's the good news…" Jane trailed off at the sensation of her heart free-falling into her stomach. This wasn't going to end well. She rubbed at her temples as her partner took over.

"We had a call spike right after the news stations got hold of it; claims of possible food tampering, reports of suspicious illnesses, accusations against different stores, restaurants and suppliers…" He rolled his eyes at the public's ridiculous compulsion for panic, "… even a few people who believed a family member was trying to kill them."

Reading from some notes Korsak added, "There could be even more cases now that it's gone public. Dr. Isles said paranoia can produce convincing psychosomatic symptoms that might give sufferers cause for concern. It'll take time to rule those out."

Jane was aghast that they'd have to spend even a minute of their precious time wading through attention-seekers and time-wasters, "This whole case is cause for concern!"

"We have to take every call seriously," Korsak soothed. "But the Lieutenant's put some extra people on it so we shouldn't get bogged down with following them up. He knows we're already stretched too thin."

Jane was frustrated, and she growled quietly after checking for eavesdroppers, gesturing wildly to get her point across, "Yet another case where we can't come up with a definite motive; could be corporate sabotage, could be random malicious mischief, could be domestic terrorism. We need to catch a fucking break soon."

Trying to placate and calm her once more, Korsak offered, "If we're lucky, someone will make a report, say they're being threatened with extortion or whatever, and we can deal with it like a ransom demand."

Frost raised his eyebrows, soaking up the wisdom of his peers, "And if we're not so lucky?"

Jane sighed at Korsak's pointed look, stating the obvious was painful, but not facing reality was worse, "If we're not, and it's just a random act by someone who's bored, with no previous record and no motive other than to harm as many people as possible, then we're screwed. Those kinds of cases rarely get solved."

The sergeant almost chuckled, but this was the least humorous situation they'd found themselves in for a long time, "Not to mention the copycats we'll have to contend with."

The look on Frost's face had Jane pre-empting his next question, "Food tampering cases inevitably always produce at least one copycat." The brunette shrugged, "They think they can blend in and get away with it."

Frost whispered to himself, "Oh, god."

Nodding and gulping her lukewarm coffee, Jane murmured, "Mmm." Oh, god indeed.

oOo

Lunch was supposed to be a quietly muted affair in the café but Angela had other ideas and made a fuss of the three detectives. She brought their meals and drinks to the table, asked questions about the case and tried, unwaveringly, to keep their spirits up.

Vince lapped up the attention, a frequent occurrence over the past few weeks that seemed to coincide with Angela making additional efforts, with Maura's help, to glamorize her appearance.

Jane wasn't sure how she felt about that part. She couldn't argue with Maura that her mother was a wonderful and attractive woman, of course, but the entire premise of her mother potentially dating her friend and mentor raised the hairs on Jane's arms. Still, she said nothing. They had an understanding now after months of building bridges; if she was happy then her mother was happy, and vice versa.

Despite his track record of three divorces, Vince wasn't a sleazy ladies man, unlike a couple of other BPD employees who had tried it on with her recently-divorced mother and the brunette was content to let nature take its course. The other guys, however, had been purposely terrorized, threatened and intimidated, a tactic that Jane enjoyed a little more than she'd expected, and ultimately they had cowered and crawled away with their tails between their legs, leaving Jane satisfied that they were mice instead of men and unworthy of her mother in the first place.

Jane had waited patiently for Maura to join them for lunch, but as the men's plates were cleared and she stabbed her fork forlornly once more at her cold food, her cellphone indicated a message from the blonde saying she was still too busy to make it.

The brunette shoved her cellphone back into its holster in a huff, interrupting the small talk at the table. Noticing Angela's hand on Korsak's forearm, she cleared her throat, still feeling a little awkward, "Can I get another coffee please, ma?"

Angela gathered up Jane's plate and some empty cups and smiled, "Sure thing, sweetie. Be right back."

Breaking the ensuing silence, Frost turned to Jane and asked, "So, what day is the moving van coming?"

Trying to remember what day it was in all the chaos of this case was bad enough, and Jane hadn't even started packing, much to Maura's chagrin, so she hedged, "Oh, er, two weeks on Saturday, I think."

Frost chuckled at her uncertainty, knowing Maura would have taken care of all the arrangements to have Jane's belongings relocated from her humble apartment to the doctor's beautiful house.

"Angela is very excited," commented Korsak, his eyes lingering on the woman as she worked the coffee machine behind the counter.

Jane snorted, "Of course she is, we're sharing the van, so she'll get an entire day of mother-daughter time, and she's moving into Maura's guesthouse. You'd think someone had offered her a free penthouse suite at the Beverley Hills the way she reacted."

"Oh please," butted Frost, "don't try to tell me you're not happy, too? You've slept at your apartment how many nights since you and the doc got together?!"

Pursing her lips and raising both eyebrows, Jane tried and failed to keep a lid on her sarcasm, "Not the point. Yes, I'm very happy to be moving in with my gorgeous, genius girlfriend, and I'm humbled by her selfless generosity. Having my mother right next door will be super fun!"

oOo

Sometime later that afternoon, a very exhausted-looking Maura Isles entered the bullpen, case file in hand, instantly silencing and drawing the attention of the three detectives who were huddled around the whiteboard still trying to figure things out.

"Your ninth victim, John Fields, also died of acute acetone poisoning."

Jane's eyebrows were scrunched together; it was unheard of to get results that fast, "But I thought -"

Waving off Jane's questions, the medical examiner explained, "I know, I only completed his autopsy this morning. But, because of the volume of bodies and the backlog in the morgue, I had blood and urine samples taken and sent off to toxicology when he was first brought in. The results already came back."

"You had reason to suspect he was poisoned anyway…"

"Well, um, yes," Maura stuttered, uncomfortable with the assertion that she had, for once, followed her gut and deviated from the usual process. "All of the autopsies were complicated by the victims' pre-existing conditions that we had to rule out, but once a pattern became apparent it was only logical." Back on familiar ground, she breathed and continued confidently, "Acetone is a substance that occurs naturally in the body so testing for excess levels can be difficult. Acetone poisoning usually only causes mild sickness until it's broken down by the liver -"

"All those people in the ER…" muttered Frost.

Maura nodded in his direction, acknowledging the comment before continuing, pointing an index finger at the file, "But with certain pre-existing conditions, the body can't cope with excess ketones in the blood and the strain on the liver. These people died because they were already sick."

Dark eyes narrowed as the brunette took a step toward the doctor. Maura wouldn't have come all the way up here, free of scrubs and re-dressed immaculately in her designer dress, just to tell the three detectives what they already knew. With her hands on her hips, Jane leaned forward, convinced that there was more to be shared, "We know all that, Maura. What else can you tell us?"

The M.E. spoke slowly, dread leeching from every pore, "Once we confirmed poisoning as cause of death in the first few cases, CSRU went back and collected the trash and leftover groceries from every crime scene. The crime lab has swabbed and tested hundreds of individual items." Breathing tremulously, she continued, enunciating every word precisely, "After close examination, they've confirmed the presence at each scene of at least one plastic bottle with a puncture mark under the cap. The contents of every bottle tested positive for high levels of acetone."

One word from Korsak was enough to make Jane and Frost instantly wide-eyed, "Aquabomber." They glared at him before turning to Maura for confirmation.

Maura nodded sadly, "I'm afraid so." She closed the report and stepped forward, holding the manila file at arm's length, offering it to her dark-haired detective, "Jane." She breathed in deeply and let out her words with a sigh, sorrow lacing every syllable, "It's in the water."

...

The End

A/N: So that's it. I hope you enjoyed the read. Thank you for your support and comments. I had such fun writing this!

p.s. The Aquabomber is a genuine unsolved case from 2003; more than 30 people across 20 different cities were hospitalized after drinking water that was tampered with by an unknown perpetrator.