Why you may ask is there a new story when the explosion story is unfinished? Well because I have been in the processes of a move and I have lost part of the story! I am hoping it is on the other laptop but I'm feeling creative at the moment and have to write something. So we'll see how writing two stories side by side goes! Let's hope they don't get intertwined.
Sadly, I still do not own Bones but if you see a nice looking set covered in sexy skin just let me know the digits! (That's a terrible disclaimer but it exists nonetheless).
The Chill in the Air
Season 8 or 9, anything post Daisy
"Good morning sports fans! It's a cold this morning at the nation's capital as the high today is going to be about 8 degrees. Bundle up and stay warm!" The morning announcer blared in Sweets ear as he inched forward in morning traffic.
The thin layer of ice that had settled over the night hours had left motorists struggling to remember how they did the exact same thing just last year. Sweets wondered why people tended forget every year that they could easily maneuver the ice but it was going to take them all a few more storms to bring their memory and their confidences up to speed, literally.
While Sweets was anxious to get out of his car that was apparently acting up in the heating department he was not in all that big of hurry to get to work for he knew what was waiting for him there.
"Hey, he's finally here!" Booth called as Sweets stepped by the conference room. The couple of other agents took the announcement as a subtle suggestion that they leave.
"Right, let me just get settled in, get a cup of coffee." Sweets said turning to leave.
"What?" Booth asked quickly setting down his steamy cup of java. "No, no, no, we've got to work, like now buddy."
Sweets sighed as he sat his coat and briefcase down in the chair. He knew he should have stopped at his office first but he also knew this case was a pressing matter. Booth began to talk but Sweets could only admire Booth's hot cup of coffee. He was still cold from the car and the hike from the parking lot to the building.
"Sweets are you listening?" Booth asked borderline irritated.
"Yeah, I was just uh, what was that again?"
"Pay attention Sweets. We don't have much time here. It's cold out you know."
"Yeah, the heat's apparently broke in my car. My toes are frozen." He added looking at his feet covered in dress shoes, not known for their heat conductive qualities.
"Well you can defrost while you take a look at what we've got so far." Booth said reaching for a stack of manila file folders. "Anna Harding, age 15 on the way home from private school two days ago. She lives with her parents, good relationship with them, good kid, affluent family up in Rochester Heights. She didn't make it home. Her body was found yesterday afternoon. Bones is going over the remains now."
"Dr. Brennan, why would she have skeletal remains so quickly?" Sweets asked confused. He hadn't been given many details when he was called at five this morning except to hurry in, that it was urgent.
"They body had been covered in lye."
"Wow, so they wanted to conceal the identity of the girl." Sweets suggested.
"I don't think so, they left her back pack with the body. Her school ID, her papers, etc. were with her." Booth explained.
"So we could surmise that they wanted to deeply disturb the parents with the condition of the remains." Sweets said, his voice lower this time as he looked over the grizzly crime scene photos from the folder. "What was the cause of death?"
"Not sure yet, Bones and the squints are looking it all over."
"I don't mean to sound callous but what is the hurry Booth?" Sweets asked preferring to close the folder on the photos. More folders were handed to him.
"Melissa Phillips, age 15, same school, same neighborhood, went missing two weeks ago. Her parents didn't report it, until Anna Harding's body was found. Melissa Phillips father apparently does business on both sides of the law and he thought his daughter was being held captive until a deal would be offered. He had a team of private detectives working on it. She hasn't been found but I suspect they are related."
Sweets was about to ask why they would be related but he knew to not question Booth on this, while "gut feelings" weren't a psychology standard he trusted them in the same way that Booth trusted Sweets' own deductions.
Booth continued. "Looking back thru the files I found about six months ago there was an attack on a girl, Molly Edwards, 14. She was alive after being returned by the man who assaulted her. She had filed a report but the report was redacted a few days later. The family then put their house up for much below the value and moved."
"Sounds like they were anxious to leave." Sweets said skimming the report.
"The detective made notes in the case. He got the impression that the family was pressured by someone in the community to not report the crime." Booth said with a tone that suggested a great deal of unhappiness about this.
"If that one was redacted then how many others were possibly never reported?" Sweets mused looking over the Edwards case. The girl had been enticed to help with directions and forced into a car. She was blindfolded and assaulted only to be let free in front of her family's home. A sketch was included of the woman who lured the girl into the car but she reported male voices during the attack.
"So the attacker, if these cases are related, is escalating from attacks to vicious murders." Sweets assumed.
"And he's in an intensifying rush. Another girl went missing on her way to school this morning. Laurie Andrews."
"This morning? That is a quick escalation." Sweets said looking at the thin folder handed over, though more pages were sure to be filled in soon.
"You see now why we are in a hurry." Booth said sitting back down.
Sweets nodded as he read the file, same as the rest though Laurie Andrews was 16. The rest was the affluent family, uptown neighborhood, same school.
"Were these girls friends?" Sweets asked.
"No, for a private school it's has big classes and the ages range from freshmen to juniors. There was no connection seen so far but we can go to the school and interview the girls. I need something to go on Sweets. If this girl is out there somewhere, it's cold out and time is growing short. I've got officers and agents all over the area but I don't think she's there. The body of Anna Harding was found in a playground downtown."
Sweets forgot about his cold toes and pulled out a note pad and pen from his briefcase. He quickly arranged the files in an order that he found to be helpful to him. Booth stood back for a moment to watch him work then left the room.
By the time Booth returned Sweets had two pages of notes. Sweets barely noticed when Booth sat down a steaming cup of hot coffee next to Sweets who automatically drank it not realized it had materialized.
Booth's phone rang and he quickly answered it.
"Hey Bones, got anything?"
"I do." She said over a speaker phone and Booth could hear the other squints were present. He considered turning the phone to speaker himself so Sweets could hear but he was scanning the files with a ferocious concentration he didn't want to break. He stepped out in the hall.
"Okay, what did you find?" Booth asked with his full concentration on her now.
Brennan remembered that Booth didn't like explanations in terms he didn't understand so she kept it simple. "The victim was strangled, though death was not immediate. It would appear that the killer began to strangle the victim then let go, only to repeat the process, shortening the breaths each time. It does appear she fight though she was restrained."
"That does give us something to go on Booth." Hodgins said coming on the line. "I did find a small trace amount not destroyed by the lye since it was protected. The fiber is from a rope but not just any rope, this is some old, old rope and thick too. I ran a search and found it would be used in commercial settings of old buildings like a theater or churches sometimes."
"Good, I think." Booth said not so sure. "Let me know if you find anything else." He said hanging up after saying goodbye. He really wanted to find the girl but he held deep fears that would not happen. He felt helpless that she was probably suffering at that very moment but he was powerless to stop it. He may have been all too upset over that thought as he reentered the conference room leaving Sweets to bear the brunt of his foul mood.
"I think I may have something here Booth." Sweets said glancing up to see him return.
"Yeah what?" Booth said in a sour tone. Sweets noticed it immediately and pushed away the urge to want to discuss it with him. The case was more pressing at the moment.
"Molly Edwards, she was returned to her parent's home right?" Sweets asked hoping he hadn't gotten the cases mixed up. Booth gave him an exasperated sigh. "Well Anna Harding was found in a downtown park, the park was in the courtyard below the office building her father worked in."
This caught Booth's attention. No one else had caught that. He knew that was why he had Sweets on his team.
"We need to find out where Laurie Andrews parents work or live." Booth said immediately opening the phone.
"It reads here that the mom is a housewife and the dad is a lawyer for some big law firm in midtown. Which is interesting because…." Sweets trailed off as he went back to reading.
Booth ordered agents to look around the area of the house or the father's law firm. If she had been killed already then he wanted to find the body before the parents did. Still he it wasn't quite nine, they might still have time. Booth told Sweets about the rope the squints had found.
Sweets nodded but Booth could tell he was concentrating on something else.
"What were you saying, something was interesting?" Booth asked.
"Oh yea, Laurie Andrews father is a lawyer, Anna Harding's father is a contractor."
"So?" Booth asked unamused.
"Both of whom were hired by Melissa Phillips shady father. I wonder if there is a connection with Molly Edwards." Sweets mused.
"Let's concentrate on how to find this girl, Molly Edwards is long gone. I can't even find her. Her father must have called in some big favors." Booth added.
"The fact that the girls were lured off the street tells me that they knew someone or trusted the person though Molly Edwards was giving directions." Sweets was looking over his papers and Booth was growing aggravated. Sweets wanted to roll his eyes that he wasn't a magician who could weed thru pages and instantly produce results. He knew Booth wanted to race out of the office and save the girl, carrying her alive back to her parents. Sweets said nothing and went back to his train of thought.
Sweets mind raced. Impressionable teenage girls, same neighborhood, same school, all rich, all privileged. Fathers know each other. Who would exploit that? What does the aggressor gain from taking them. He wants to get to the parents. He's displaying them for the parents to see, seems like the fathers. The fathers are in business together…
"I'm going to the school." Booth said breaking Sweets from his train of thought. "I want to see if I can find out if any of the other girls may have not reported something."
Sweets nodded as Booth left. He knew Booth had to be in motion. Sweets had to think, he sipped his cold coffee and rubbed his still cold toes together. The fathers are in business together….