Chapter 1-Dead Men Tell No Tales

She was tired of looking behind her. She couldn't change the past-but it still tried to control and ruin her future.

She looked at herself in the hotel bathroom mirror and said aloud, "My name is Lily-Lily Cooper."

Every morning she repeated her name, just to remind herself to forget her past. Those few moments between waking and sleep were her most perilous and terrifying, where she had to relive what was taken from her and why she had to disappear. She was on her way to her new life in D.C. and she was proud. Her new background she had created was flawless, (it had to be to qualify for applying at the Jeffersonian Institute, much less be accepted by both them and the FBI.) With the current state of the world, Homeland Security had to give a cursory glance at her record as well before she could be approved for work. Her computer skills and her new degree in Forensic Anthropology made her invaluable. The ten years wasted trying to prove her brother's innocence gave her time to change her appearance after she disappeared and gone underground to search for the actual killer, the same person who had killed her parents and little sister.

Her background started as a Witness Protection special, but her own computer skills had taken care of the paper trail and the obvious gaps that come with quick government created ID's. She had always been good with computers, so much so that when those Terminator movies came out, her brother used to call her John and joked that she would be the savior of the human race. Now all she wanted was to have the best investigative team in the nation prove her brother's innocence and find her family's true murderer. She had gone through all the proper channels, but was just a chubby computer nerd grad student, receiving only a form letter from Dr. Goodman in reply.

"At this time out backlog is extensive and out expert resources limited. Thank you for your inquiry, but we are forced to decline."

Since that letter arrived, she decided to become one of those limited expert resources, not only to help herself, but all those others who were "backlogged". So that's how she came to be on her way to the nation's capital for a grad student opening working for the master herself-Dr. Temperance Brennan.

Now instead of a chubby brunette nerd, she was a blond hottie who had charmed herself into a few computer labs she should not have been allowed within fifty feet. That's why she had passed the background check and had all the documentation and knowledge to back it up. She just wanted to help her family, not hurt anyone. Her mom used to say she would be the first person to learn how to fly-just so she wouldn't step on any ants by mistake.

She wiped the tears off her cheeks and tried not to think about them much, but when she looked in the mirror, she couldn't help it. Growing up she had always looked just like her dad, with his stocky build and mouse brown hair, but since she dropped the extra weight and dyed her hair blond, she was the spitting image of her mom…