A/N: Hey kiddies! Here is my latest Bones fic. A few things before we start. This fic is a semi-sequel to "Remember Our Promise?" but can also stand alone so you don't really need to have read the other story to understand this one. Also, this fic will sort of be AU, meaning that even though season 2 will have started while I'll be writing this story, none of what will be happening in season 2 will be present in this story (was that clear enough or is everybody confused by this sentence? I know I am. Then again, it is 1:05 am at the moment!).

Disclaimer: I own nothing other than the OCs.

Summary: When Theresa Bingham is found dead at the bottom of her basement stairs, her husband, William Bingham, is immediately arrested under suspicion of manslaughter. But Bingham swears he is innocent. Booth takes on the case to find out what truly happened. Soon, more bodies are turning up dead. And while Bones and Booth are thrown into the case of their lives, our favorite pair take their first attempt at a relationship together.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sirens blasted through the streets of Washington on this quiet afternoon of October. Cars pulled aside to let the police cars speed by and several pedestrians stopped in their tracks to eye them with mild curiosity.

Inspector Eric Fromm had his eyes fixed on the road ahead of him, his senses alert and aware of every tiny detail around him. He saw the black car stop at the intersection to let him through and saw, in his rear-view mirror, that his partner almost hit another car coming from the opposite direction as he turned onto the avenue. Fromm shook his head. His partner had always been such a reckless driver.

The call had come in a few minutes earlier. The body of a woman had been found in the basement of her home. The husband had immediately called 911. Fromm had picked up the call, along with two other units. 4578 Rosbury Way. A vague sense of familiarity had swept through the agent as he had read the address the first time. He had been called to that same street a few weeks earlier, he was sure of it.

Fromm looked up to the street sign and quickly made a right. Rosbury Way was only two corners away. He slowed down. Residential areas were not a place to be speeding. Making a left, he turned onto Rosbury Way.

Another patrol car was already present, yellow duct-tape had already been unrolled and secured the area. Nosy neighbors had stepped out on their front porch and more were joining them as Fromm parked his vehicle behind his colleague's. His partner did the same behind him.

The two men got out of the respective car, Fromm nodding curtly at his partner. The two of them made their way to the entrance of the house, where they were met by their other colleague.

"What have we got here?" Fromm asked, shifting into investigating mode.

The officer flipped his notebook open.

"Theresa Bingham, 51 years old. Found dead at the bottom of the stairs in her basement. We're just waiting for the coroner to get here to have a complete examination of the body but, from the looks of it, the woman was strangled."

"How do you know?" Fromm's colleague asked.

"The strangulation marks are pretty obvious."

"Who made the call?"

The officer checked his notes.

"The husband. William Bingham. He's sitting in the living room if you wish to talk to him."

The second officer was about to walk in when Fromm stopped him.

"Let me handle it." He told his colleague before stepping inside the house.

He found Bingham exactly where the other officer had told him: sitting on his couch, his face livid, shaking lightly. Fromm introduced himself to the older man. Bingham nodded.

"Can I sit down?" Fromm asked.

Bingham pointed to a loveseat in response. Fromm sat down.

"I just need to ask you a few routine questions. It shouldn't take long."

"I already did that." Bingham answered, slightly annoyed.

"I'm well aware of that, Mr. Bingham. My colleague has asked you a few questions. Now I'd like to hear it for myself. Do you mind?"

Bingham shrugged.

"When had been the last time you had seen your wife, Mr. Bingham?"

"This morning." The man answered with a loud sigh. "We had breakfast together. I told her I had to go buy garbage bags at the store since we wanted to rake the leaves in our backyard. She told me she would go out and do some errands before lunch. She left before me."

"And what time was that?" Fromm asked, jotting down the man's story.

"Slightly after nine."

"And what time did you leave?"

"I don't know. Nine-thirty. Ten o'clock. I didn't really check the time. I just left."

Fromm nodded before motioning to continue.

"When I came back, I found the door to the house unlocked. My wife's car was in the driveway so I knew that she was home. But I also knew something was wrong because Theresa always locked the doors when she was home alone."

"What did you do after you noticed that your door was unlocked?"

"I called out her name." Bingham answered, as if stating the obvious. "I called her name a couple of times but she doesn't answer me. I went to look upstairs and when I didn't find her, I decided to check the basement. That's when I found her. She was laying unsconscious at the bottom of the stairs. There was a puddle of water beside her and she looked like she had been strangled."

"Did you move the body at all, Mr. Bingham?"

"No! Of course not!" The man replied, offended. "I know better than to do that."

"And what time was it when you came back?"

"Eleven."

Fromm frowned.

"Your call came in at 12:05. Why wait so long before calling the police?"

Bingham shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"I didn't know what to do. I panicked." He admitted after a few seconds of silence. "Then I decided to check the entire house to see if someone else had been in here and if they had stole anything. Then I went out in the backyard to smoke a cigarette. I needed to calm down. After that, I went back downstairs, like to make sure that my wife was really dead."

"And it's only after doing all of that that you called the police?"

The man gulped and nodded. Fromm jotted down a few notes in his notebook before standing up.

"Could you please show me the way to your basement?"

Binghman nodded before getting up himself. He led the man down the hallway to the staircase leading to the basement. From the top of the stairs, Fromm could hear voices coming from the room below. The inspector figured the coroner had arrived during his interview with Bingham.

As he walked down the stairs, several heads looked up. Fromm immediately recognized the coroner's, Michelle Loughlin, and the ones from her colleagues. A photograph stood behind the coroner. Fromm introduced himself. The photograph did the same.

"Mind if I look around, Mitch?" Fromm asked the woman as he circled the area where the body laid.

"Not at all."

The photograph took pictures as Fromm examined his surroundings.

The body of Theresa Bingham had been found in a medium-sized room serving as a small living room. In front of him stood a door, leading to what Fromm believed to be a laundry room. A basket of clothes laid on its side a few feet away from the stairs. Clothes were scattered around it.

So Mrs Bingham had been on her way to do some laundry. Fromm thought to himself.

An empty bucket stood beside the overturned basket. Fromm frowned. Bingham had said that water had surrounded his wife. The inspector looked down. The cement was in fact grayer where the victim laid.

"Something isn't right here."

The voice of Loughlin brought the inspector back to reality.

"What's not right?" Fromm asked the coroner.

Loughlin was kneeling over the body, her eyes focused on the victim's face.

"Mr. Bingham, how did you say you found your wife?" Loughlin asked, as she stood up.

Fromm looked up to find Bingham standing at the bottom of the stairs. He hadn't even noticed that the older man had followed him down.

"I found her laying on her stomach right where you see her."

His voice was calm. It was Fromm's turn to frown.

"Are you sure, Mr. Bingham?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

Loughlin crossed her arms in front of her chest. A smile tugged at Froom's lips. He had worked so many times with this woman. He knew what was coming.

"So you mean to tell me that you found her dead, face down on the cement floor? Yet, the skin on her face is wrinkled, kind of like when a person spends too much time in the water."

"My wife was an old woman."

"How old?"

"51."

"Too young to have wrinkles." Loughlin replied.

Then, turning to Fromm, she said:

"It's a bit too early to make it official but by the looks of it, the victim was strangled then drowned in the bucket that you see over here. The face shows signs of drowning."

Fromm nodded. He casted one more glance around the room before turning back to Bingham. Now that Loughlin had pointed out an anomaly, Fromm could see that something else also didn't fit. The room showed no signs of struggle.

"Did you clean up around here?" He asked the man.

Fromm was pretty sure he had seen Bingham shift nervously.

"Because by the looks of it, your wife was a pretty strong woman. I'm pretty sure that if she had been attacked, she would have fought back. But right now, I'm seeing a pretty clean room."

Bingham glanced nervously at the other officers, then to the coroner and back to the inspector. He cleared his throat.

"The room was a mess. I cleaned up a bit. I mopped up the floor. There was a small trace of blood."

He pointed to a dark grey patch on the floor.

Fromm looked over at his partners and nodded. The two other officers seemed to read his mind. Fromm grabbed his handcuffs.

"Mr. Bingham, I'm putting you under arrest under suspicion of manslaughter."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cullen jogged down the corridor he knew too well. How many times had he had to come down here, in younger days at the FBI, to interrogate a suspect? But today, he wasn't here to interrogate anybody. He had been requested here.

Anger boiled in his veins. What had his friend done now that had sent him to the Washington Police Department? Had he lost his temper and hit his wife? Cullen knew that the police had been over a few times to the Bingham residence for domestic disturbance. Had the disturbance gone out of hand?

He stopped at the secretary's desk and asked for Inspector Fromm. The woman told him to take a seat. He did.

He waited only a few seconds before a salt-and-pepper haired man walked out of a room. The older man walked up to Cullen. Cullen extended his hand.

"Inspector Fromm?" Cullen asked. "Deputy Director Cullen."

"Follow me." Fromm said after shaking the deputy's hand.

Cullen followed the inspector to the small room he had seen him come out of. The inspector shut the door behind him and Cullen took a seat, his eyes never leaving his friend.

"What have you done this time?" Cullen asked.

"Nothing. I swear."

"Well can you tell me why you're here then?"

"They think I killed Theresa."

Cullen chuckled.

"Unbelievable, Will. Unbelievable." Cullen said as he shook his head.

"Come on, you have to believe me." Bingham said, gripping the edge of the table and leaning forward. "I didn't do it."

"Okay, okay, calm down. Start form the top."

Bingham did. He told his story for what he felt was the hundredth time that day. Cullen simply listened. He didn't interrupt his friend by asking questions. He just listened. When Bingham was done, Cullen sunk back in his chair and shook his head once more in disbelief.

"You've really done it this time." Cullen said.

"But you believe me, right?" Bingham asked, hopeful to have someone on his side.

"I don't know what to believe, Will. Your history, it just won't help you. The cops will only think that you finally lost it and killed your wife in a moment of anger."

"But I didn't." Bingham repeated, desperately. "I wasn't even home when all of that occured. I was out."

"Can your alibi check out?"

Bingham shook his head. Cullen chuckled.

"Tell you what I'm going to do. I'll get my best agent on the case. His name is Seeley Booth. There's no better agent than him. He'll get to the bottom of this. If you're really innocent, you'll walk out of here a free man. But if you're not, don't expect any sympathy from him or me. You got it?"

Bingham nodded. Cullen got up and walked out the room.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh come on, Bones. You had fun." Booth said as they walked out of the coffee shop.

Temperance rolled her eyes.

"Fine, Booth. I had fun."

She turned around to face him and felt a pair of arms wrap themselves around her waist. She sighed as Booth pulled her closer.

"I thought we said we were going to take this slow." Temperance said as she was pulled closer to her partner.

"I know." Booth replied, softly. "But this is like our third date. I'm entitled to a bit more than just hand holding."

Temperance brought her arms around her neck.

"Third date already?"

"Yeah. Time flies by when you're having fun, doesn't it?"

"It sure does."

Booth smiled briefly at her before leaning in closer. Temperance's eyes fluttered close and her lips parted in anticipation. She felt her partner's warm breath and she knew he was close. Their lips had been about to meet when a humming sound interrupted them.

Groaning softly, Booth shot his partner an apologetic look before snatching his cellphone from his belt.

"Booth." He stated, a little annoyed.

"Booth, it's Cullen. I have a favor to ask you."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, what do you think? Should I continue?