I do not own Bones, or make any money off of this, or anything like that.
This is my first Bones fanfic so be nice. Please read it and review it and all that wonderful stuff.
The Girl in the Tomb
Special Agent Seeley Booth walked through the doors of the Jeffersonian at five thirty in the evening. He mentally cursed himself for not stopping to call Rebecca and tell her he would be late for their dinner with Parker. Normally he would have dropped everything to spend time with his son, but this case couldn't wait. In 13 hours and 25 minutes a trial would begin, and a murderer would walk free if they couldn't prove he was guilty. Booth knew in his gut that Steven Glenn was a killer, and his gut had never failed him yet. However, his gut would have a hard time convincing a jury, so solid proof was needed.
He walked into the lab to see Dr. Temperance Brennan and her grad student, Zach Addy, bending studiously over the skeleton that would win the case. That is, if they could convince it to talk to them before it was too late. Nobody was better at getting dead things to talk than Dr. Brennan, and Booth had complete faith in her abilities.
"Bones!" Booth called out jovially. Dr. Brennan scowled slightly at this affectionate nickname. Without looking up from the skeleton, she said, "You're late. You said you would have the case file by five." Her tone was brisk and expressionless, but Booth knew Bones well enough to recognize a hint of annoyance in her voice. Before he could answer, Dr. Jack Hodgins rushed in. "This soil is contaminated! I can't work with this, we have to go back and get another sample from the crime scene. Hey Booth!" said the curly haired scientist. Booth raised an eyebrow questioningly. "What do you mean the soil's contaminated? Hodgins, we don't have time to get another sample! The trial is tomorrow morning!" He raised his hands in an exasperated gesture and sighed. This was going to be a long night.
Still staring at the skeleton, as though if she looked at it long enough she could stare right through it, Bones replied, "Yes we do. Booth, you and I can go get a sample. Zach can take over here. Hodgins, you go see how Angela is doing with the reconstruction. Take her a donut, she'll like that. Zach, look at this pattern on the cranium." Hodgins grabbed the box of donuts that Booth had brought them that afternoon and sped off to find Angela. Zach picked up the skull and held up to the light to get a better look. "It looks like…" he started, but Booth cut him off. "What do you mean you and I can get a sample?" the frustrated FBI agent yelled. "The graveyard where they found the body is 2 hours from here. By the time we get there it'll already be 8 o' clock, and who knows how long it'll take to get the sample? I sure as hell don't want to go wandering around a spooky cemetery at midnight looking for a bunch of dirt!"
Hodgins, who had just returned from his donut mission, spoke up. "Dirt… I hate that word. It's so common. You can't possibly describe the dust and the decomposing plant and animal life and the silt and the stones and the bacteria with such a common word as dirt." Booth wasn't quite sure what to say to that. Hodgins continued, "Anyway, with an attitude like that there's no way you're going to be able to find the samples we need, especially not in the dark. I guess that means I'll have to go with you. I call shotgun." Booth was about to reply when Bones interrupted, "It's true. Without Dr. Hodgins actually being there, we have no way of finding what we need. We don't have enough time to waste on getting the wrong samples." Booth knew he was outvoted, so he said "Fine. We'll go get the samples and yes, Hodgins, you're coming too. Now can we get going? We're wasting time."
Bones turned to Zach. "If you need any help, call my cell phone. Right now you need to work on finding the murder weapon and identifying the victim. All we know is that it's a female, mid twenties, found buried in the woods on the edge of a cemetery in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Center your search on the surrounding area. Concentrate on this mark on the skull to find the murder weapon, see if you and Angela can figure out what the surface looked like and work from there." Zach nodded and stood up a bit taller. Booth bit back a laugh at this obvious pride at being given so much responsibility.
"Come on Bones, Hodgins, we're going to Lancaster," Booth said, impatient to be gone and come back. He knew he wasn't going to make it to dinner, but maybe they still had a chance to win this trial.
"Lancaster!" said Hodgins gleefully, rubbing his hands together. "I love the Amish!" Booth rolled his eyes, and Bones said "Their culture is truly fascinating…" Before she could start on the anthropological intricacies of the Amish social structure, Booth and Hodgins were dragging her out to the car.
Thirty minutes later they were well on their way to Lancaster. Hodgins was sitting in the back, moping. "Why do you always let Dr. Brennan ride shotgun? Don't we have some sort of 'guy thing' that requires you to let me sit up front?" Booth sighed. Just another hour and a half of this until they would get to the cemetery. "Ok, you know what? Next time why don't you two settle this the old fashioned way? You know, duke it out, and the winner gets to sit up here with me."
"I'd win," said Bones, matter-of-factly. Hodgins made a face, but he and Booth both knew that Bones was neither lying nor bragging. They had both seen her knock men twice her size cold with a single blow. The rest of the journey was more or less peaceful after that.
Booth stopped the car near the entrance of the cemetery. He vaguely remembered how to get to the crime scene, but it had been lighter then, and there were flashing police lights and people. Now that the graveyard was more or less deserted, of living people anyway, quiet and dark, things were starting to look a lot less familiar. He motioned for Bones and Hodgins to follow behind him as he pulled out his gun and made his way forward. Graveyards made him uneasy, especially in the middle of the night. He wasn't taking any chances.
"Why are you holding your gun?" asked Bones, weaving her way through the gravestones. "Are you afraid some ghost is going to come get you?" she added, teasingly. "No!" Booth said, irritably. He hated it when Bones was braver than he felt. On the other hand, Bones was more likely to rush into a dangerous situation, he thought, trying to console himself. "You never know what kind of sick weirdoes might be lurking around out here. I just don't want to be taken by surprise, that's all," he explained. He turned around to make sure his partner had heard him, but she was nowhere to be found. "Bones?" he called. He turned to Hodgins. "Hodgins, have you seen—"
"BOO!" Booth spun around to face his attacker, gun raised. There in front of him was Bones, laughing. "Jeez Bones! What the hell do you think you're doing?! I could have shot you!" He heard Hodgins laughing hysterically behind him. He turned around. "Guys, it's not funny. You squints don't understand how dangerous it is out here in the real world, you know, away from the safety of the lab. You don't ever scare someone who's holding a gun. Do you understand me?" Bones had stopped laughing. "Alright I hear you. I knew you wouldn't shoot me. Anyway, you need to lighten up Booth. You don't have to be scared; there are no such things as ghosts." Hodgins was still rolling on the ground with uncontrollable fits of laughter by the roots of a large tree.
Suddenly there was a shout from Hodgins and both Booth and Bones spun around to see what the matter was. Hodgins had disappeared completely, and where he had been there was a hole in the ground. "Bones!" Booth yelled, but it was too late. The forensic anthropologist had run forward and slid down into the same hole her friend had disappeared into. Booth shook his head and wondered why he was the only one who ever had any common sense. He walked toward the edge of the hole, and crouched at the entrance. "Hodgins? Bones?? Are you guys ok?" he called into the blackness. He shone his FBI issue flashlight into the dark, but he still couldn't see anything. At first there was no response, but just when Booth had begun to consider going down himself he heard "Booth, we're ok!" Booth felt like crying with relief. "Can you get out?" he asked, instead. "I don't think so, it's really steep. Maybe you could go and get help," came the reply. Booth started to stand up, but just as he did, more of the earth gave way and he found himself tumbling into blackness.
He landed on a soft mound of earth, probably from when the hole opened up in the first place. Hodgins and Bones were looking worriedly down at him. "You ok?" Hodgins asked. Booth nodded and stood up, brushing himself off. "Damn, this was my favorite suit!" he complained bitterly.
"Where are we? And Bones, what the hell were you thinking, just jumping down a mysterious hole like that. That's the second time tonight you might have gotten killed!" he practically yelled. Hodgins shrugged and Bones shook her head. "We're not sure where we are yet, but it looks like some sort of room. The walls are much too symmetrical to be a natural formation," Bones said. Booth looked back and forth between her and Hodgins before stating what he thought was obvious. "This isn't a room… it's a tomb!"
Bones began examining the walls and the floor again. "I think you're right…" she trailed off, feeling along the walls for openings or footholds or anything. Suddenly Hodgins yelled "Over here! There's a… dead person!"
Booth and Bones ran over to where Hodgins was standing. Bones signaled for Booth to shine his flashlight on the body. "It's small, probably a child. I'll call Zach and see if he can get us out of here and help us get the remains back to the lab. There's a possibility that this is connected with the murder case we're working on." Bones pulled out her cell phone but Booth stopped her. "It's a three hour trip. We need Zach analyzing bone imprints and all that stuff that you squints do. We don't have time for him to come down here and pick us up. We'll have to call the local police or something."
Bones shook her head. "It will take at least as long for them to get us out and then to get through all the paperwork and explaining why we want to take a dead body back to Washington with us as it would for Zach to get down here and pick us up. There's got to be another way."
Hodgins kicked the wall in frustration. To everyone's surprise, his foot went right through. "It's… rotted wood," Bones said in disbelief. She walked over to examine the hole he had created. "I think it's a… door," she said, before kicking it in a different spot. When she had kicked away enough of the old door to get through, they walked into the next room. It was a mausoleum, and there were steps that led up to the cemetery. "Woo hoo!" yelled Hodgins joyfully. "Now we can finally get out of here," added Booth. Bones was busy examining some marks on the floor. "Someone's been through here, recently."
"That's nice and all Bones, but what about getting out of here so we can get those soil samples Hodgins wants. Hell, we can even take the dead body back with us, if it'll make you happy. Now can we go?" Booth tried to drag her toward the steps. Bones sighed and they made their way to the entrance.
"Locked," groaned Booth. Bones just pushed past him and kicked the door open. Both men exchanged glances but neither of them spoke. The three of them went out and breathed in the fresh air. They were finally free.
While Agent Booth, Dr. Brennan, and Dr. Hodgins were collecting the soil samples, Zach and Angela were hard at work identifying the victim and the murder weapon. Suddenly, "I got it!" they both exclaimed at the same time. Zach stopped and looked at Angela, grinning. "You first," he said. "Ok," Angela began, "the victim's name was Tara Winters. She was an elementary school teacher in Lancaster. She had no living members of her immediate family."
"Did she inherit anything?" Zach interrupted. That would make an excellent motive for murder. "Only her mother's eyes," said Angela. "It says her family disowned her in 1986, just a couple of months before her father died of cancer. The poor thing, she was all alone."
"Ok, well here's what I got. The victim was hit over the head with a trowel, hard enough to make an indentation. If we can trace the trowel back to Steven Glenn, we can prove he was the murderer. We just have to wait for Dr. Hodgins and Dr. Brennan to get back so we have solid evidence. We still have five hours before the trial starts." Zach could barely conceal his excitement at having done this well without Dr. Brennan's supervision.
As Zach was finding the exact measurements and make of the trowel used to kill Tara Winters, Booth was pulling into the Jeffersonian parking lot with Bones, Hodgins, and a corpse. Zach and Angela came running out to meet them. "Did you ID the victim?" Bones asked hurriedly. Zach and Angela recounted their success as Hodgins and Booth took the rotting corpse up to the lab.
"We need to know who this is. Zach and Bones can work on that while Hodgins does his bug and slime thing on the dirt samples we collected and I try to figure out if the trowel belonged to Steven," Booth ordered. Everyone looked at Bones, and she nodded for them to do what he said. Booth sighed. Nobody respected the FBI anymore.
Two hours later the second corpse had been identified as Sammy Davis, one of the students at the school where Tara had worked. She had been reported missing at the same time as Tara had, so it hadn't been hard to connect the two cases. Hodgins had discovered bits of gravel in the samples that was foreign to the area where Tara had been buried. A quick trip to Steven's driveway confirmed the match, and the trowel that had been used to kill both victims was sitting in the basement. They now had enough evidence to take to court. There was no way they could lose this case, and everybody knew it.
At noon the next day the trial was finally over. Booth was practically asleep on his feet, and he barely had enough energy left to drive himself home and fall into bed. He slept like a log for the next nine hours.
Booth was awakened by a knock on the door. "Whoosit?" he mumbled sleepily. He pulled himself out of bed and went to answer the door. About halfway across the room, he remembered to grab some pants, and he was still buckling the belt when he opened the door.
"Bones! What're you doing here? What time is it? Is that food?" Bones was standing in the door with her arms full of Chinese food. "Hey Booth. I brought you Wong Foo's," she said. He gave her a puzzled look and she added, "You know how after a case you always seem to show up at my place with food? This time I figured you could use some, especially since I know you didn't have a chance to eat with Rebecca and Parker." Booth smiled and Bones walked inside and set the carton of food on the table. They spent the rest of the night talking and laughing and eating well-deserved Chinese food.