A/N: Zack is not a killer. If you agree, please read.

I set this story before he got put in the loony-bin, because he was my favorite character and I hated how they did that to him.


I was twenty-four, a best-selling crime novelist, and part of the Jeffersonian Institute. I still found it a little hard to believe that, for the last two weeks, I had been welcomed into the group of people that Agent Booth called "squints". Even though I had no experience and next to no schooling in forensics, I'd managed to prove myself during that first week's case, earning myself a permanent spot at the Jeffersonian.

A girl's body had been found in the country. They had suspects, but no clear evidence. Then I'd shown up…


Two Weeks Prior


"Hi, my name's Lily Whitaker." I smiled at Dr. Camille Saroyan, sweeping my blond bangs out of my eyes.

"Novelist Lily Whitaker?" Dr. Saroyan's eyebrows raised. "Tale of Bones Lily Whitaker?"

I laughed a little. "Yes."

"What can I do for you?" She certainly seemed busy, walking quickly around her office, straightening papers, glancing at her computer screen, checking her watch.

I fidgeted, feeling uncharacteristically nervous. What if she shot me down? I should've dressed nicer. I pulled down on the black shorts, trying to subtly lengthen them, and picked at an invisible piece of lint on my butter yellow tank top.

"As you're obviously aware, I write crime novels," I began with a deep breath. "Usually, I'm allowed to read the case files of solved murders, which is how my stories are so accurate. I was wondering—"

"You didn't have to come here in person if you wanted case files, Miss Whitaker," she said.

"Call me Lily, please. And I didn't come for case files. Well, I did, but not for my novels."

She frowned, pausing in her movement. "What for?"

I grinned, confidence slowly returning, and said, "I would like any information you have on the body found in Wyoming recently, Taylor Michaels. I believe I can help you solve the murder."


And that was how it had begun. Dr. Saroyan allowed me to accompany Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth to the crime scene.

"Stay here," said Booth, pointing at me as he parked the car.

"But if I'm stuck in your car, how am I going to look at the crime scene?" I protested.

"You aren't," he said simply. He opened his car door, stepped out. "Cam said you could go with us. Doesn't mean we have to let you actually be there."

"But—"

"And I don't want any chance of evidence contamination," Brennan added.

"There, you see." Booth smiled at her.

They walked across the road to the field where the body had been found. Booth surveyed the scene, his back to me, and Brennan bent down to get a closer look. Both of them completely missed the pickup truck that was parked not far down, a pudgy man in the driver's seat, watching them. Staring out the window in the back seat of Agent Booth's car, I was the only one who noticed the decal on the side of the pickup that read, "Ledger's Petting Zoo".

Booth and Brennan slipped back into the car about ten minutes later. I leaned forward, between the seats.

"Did you find anything?" I asked.

"Nothing that concerns you, kid," said Booth, putting the car in drive.


Back at the lab, I paced at the bottom of the stairs.

"I can help, you know," I said.

"I fail to see how," Brennan replied, examining the girl's bones closely. "There's small stones imbedded in her skull…" she murmured. "I also found a piece of hay on the bottom of her shoe, could you analyze it for me, Hodge?"

"Just let me up there. This is a little ridiculous."

Dr. Hodgins glanced up from his computer screen. "There was a bug in her clothing that I can't identify," he told Brennan. "It's squashed, maybe some kind of beetle."

"The stones are gravel," said a voice behind me. I turned around and came face to face with a cute brown-haired guy. He paused, blinking at me. "Um, hi."

"Hi." I smiled.

"You have very dark blue eyes," he said in a monotone voice. "Rare, considering most people with blond hair tend to have lighter pigmentation in their eyes."

I was trying to figure out how to respond when Brennan looked up from the bones and said, "Zack, what was that you said about gravel?"

"Ah, yes." He swiped a card and bounded up the steps.

"Come on, can't I just look?" I said, exasperated.

They ignored me. "The stones are gravel," said Zack, "imbedded into her skull pre-mortem. She was probably pushed onto the ground before she was killed. Her head hit the ground with enough force to embed the gravel into bone."

"Hodgins, can you identify the makeup of this gravel? See if there's anything we can use to—"

"She wasn't killed in that field," I called suddenly.

The three scientists turned their heads to stare at me.

"There wasn't any gravel in the field, no small stones. It was all grass, right?" I looked at Brennan. "Meaning she was killed somewhere else and then her body was dumped there."

Brennan bit her lip. "She's right."

I smiled, and Hodgins swiveled his chair in my direction. "How did you know that?" he asked.

"I told you I could help."

I turned away from them, heading out the door. I heard Zack's voice say, "Who is she?"


"Agent Booth?" I entered his office slowly, closing the door behind me.

"What do you want, kid?" He sifted through a stack of papers on his desk, rubbing his jaw in concentration.

"Don't call me kid," I said. "I'm twenty-four."

He barked out a laugh. "To me, that's a kid. What did you come here for?"

"I think you and Dr. Brennan should check out a business in Wyoming called Ledger's Petting Zoo."


Apparently, making the connection with the gravel had earned me brownie points with Dr. Brennan, as she ignored Agent Booth's whining and let me go with them to the petting zoo.

"Hold on," I said. "Stop the car."

Booth ignored me, staring out the windshield.

"Stop the damn car."

He pulled over, turning in his seat to glare at me. "What, kid?"

"I have a plan."


"This is a dumb plan," said Booth's voice through the receiver.

I rolled my eyes. "No, it's not."

"Was this in one of your books? It's never going to work."

"Yes, of course it was in my book," I snapped sarcastically. "Teenage girls being killed in petting zoos is a very popular subject."

"Just so we're clear, I was always against this."

"Yeah, yeah." I hung up, tucking the cell into my pocket.

I approached the man, a pudgy guy in bad need of a shave who I recognized from the pickup truck. The pickup truck which, I saw, was parked in a dirt driveway not far away. There was a barn and a few pens, one with a big stack of hay.

"Hello," I said cheerfully to the man. There was hardly anyone around. Business must be slow.

He grunted in response. "If you wanna pet the animals, it's ten bucks."

"Okay." I smiled, trying to remain friendly. I handed him the money. "I love animals."

Another grunt. I decided to just give up on that one, stepping into the pen and immediately noticing a small part where the dirt was blood red.

"What happened here?" I asked.

The guy's eyes narrowed. "One of the goats got injured."

I had a feeling he was lying. When Agent Booth pulled up, I scooped a bit of the bloody dirt into a bag while the guy was distracted. I also noticed that the goats were avoiding the hay pile. When the guy turned back to look at me, I made a show of using the brush on one of the posts to stroke a black goat nearest to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Booth question the man, and then walk over to me.

"Miss, can I ask you a few questions?" he said loudly, making sure the man could hear, and then whispered to me, "This is one half-assed plan."

"I found blood," I said. "Here."

I shoved the bag into Booth's hands, followed by a second, smaller bag in which a few pieces of bloody straw sat.

"Who is he?" I asked.

"Grant Ledger, he owns the petting zoo." Booth shifted standing positions.

"Put the bags in your pocket, quickly, before he looks over and sees."

Booth gave me a look that said he didn't enjoy taking orders from me. And really, there was no reason why he should. I was younger than him, and I should have had no idea what I was talking about.

I held up the brush I'd used to pet the goat, showing a small white speck. "Call Dr. Hodgins, tell him to cross reference the bug he found with lice or ticks."

"Why?"

"Because," I said impatiently. "If I'm right, this is where Taylor was killed. That guy, Grant whatever, said the blood was from a goat that got hurt. Do you see any hurt goats here?"

He glanced at the animals in the pen. There were two different pens; one held ponies, the other contained chickens.

"How do you know it was this pen?" he said.

"This is the only one with gravel and hay," I said.

"The chicken coop has gravel."

"Yes, but do you think it's logical that Taylor was killed in the chicken coop and then drug into a pile of hay, where a piece just magically stuck to her shoe?"

He stared me down for a minute. "We can't take him in," said Booth finally. "We've got no grounds. But I'll have Bones test the things you found, and if Zack can figure out the murder weapon, we'll come back."


"She was right," said Hodgins, looking at Brennan. "The bug we found? It's linognathus stenopis. Sucking goat lice."

"Good job, kid," grumbled Booth

Zack sighed in frustration. "I can't figure out the murder weapon. I know she was struck in the head by a slim object, possibly serrated, but it doesn't fit any knife I know of."

"Wait, let me see something."

"No," said Booth and Brennan at the same time.

"Come on! I've been doing a good job, you said so yourself, Booth."

"Don't touch anything," warned Brennan. She swiped her card and I went up the stairs, unable to control my grin.

"I don't know how you could help," said Booth. "These people are all qualified, they went to school for this."

I ignored him. "How slim?" I asked Zack, staring at the small rectangular shape.

"From the mark it made in the skull, I'd say three inches." He stood behind me, and I was suddenly well aware of him. The heat from his body radiated into me. He reached around me and pointed at the bone. "See how there's a bit of a jagged edge?"

I peered closely, ignoring the blush that crept up on my cheeks. Hodgins, however, noticed and raised his eyebrows at me. "Yeah?"

"That indicates that the blade was serrated," said Zack.

I thought for a minute, my lips pulling back in a slow smile. "Could it also be consistent with, oh, I don't know, a file?"

"A file?" He looked puzzled.

"Of course!" said Brennan excitedly. "If a file had been jammed into her skull, the rough edge would swipe against the bone, creating the jaggedness. How did you figure that out?"

"The petting zoo," I said. "Grant Ledger keeps goats and ponies. He needs to maintain their hooves, right? A hoof file! That's the murder weapon!"

"I'd have to check it to make sure, but that's definitely a possibility." Brennan smiled at me. "Good work, Lily. Have you ever considered a career in this?"

Booth grunted. "Okay, fine, you helped."


"We still need motive," said Brennan, watching Booth in the interrogation room.

"Does he have a son?" I asked suddenly, arms crossed over my chest.

Dr. Sweets and Dr. Brennan stared at me. Sweets was the first to recover, grabbing a manila folder.

"Uh, yes. Seventeen-year-old son Jacob. Why?" He looked at me curiously.

"He killed Taylor because Taylor broke his son's heart," I stated calmly. As both continued to stare, I added, "At least, that's my theory."

"But that's illogical," said Brennan. "Why would he kill Taylor? It would make much more sense for the son to have done it."

"Does a seventeen-year-old have enough strength to not only wrestle a teenage girl to the ground hard enough to imprint gravel into her skull, but to shove a file into her head with enough force to kill her?"

Brennan opened her mouth and then closed it.

"Are you some kind of prodigy or something?" asked Sweets.

"Not really," I said, looking at the man opposite Booth. "I just know my criminals."


While Booth and Brennan went to arrest Grant Ledger for murder, I paced on the balcony of the Jeffersonian.

"Can't believe they're making me wait here," I grumbled. "I'm the one who figured out three fourths of this case, damn it—"

"I was wondering if you could explain that to me."

I jumped. "Zack, you scared me."

"Sorry. I have a tendency to sneak up on people." He smiled apologetically.

"I noticed," I said, laughing. "Explain what?"

"How you knew so much about the case." He took a step toward me, a bit of his hair falling in his chocolate brown eyes.

"I read the case file," I said, a bit flustered.

"No, I mean, you knew to go to that petting zoo."

"He was lurking around the crime scene and his truck had a decal on it—"

"You knew to look in the goat pen."

"It was the only one with gravel and hay."

"You knew the murder weapon was a hoof file."

"Lucky guess based on the fact that he had goats."

"Luck is illogical."

"Okay, fine, logical guess based on the fact that he had goats."

"But the motive," he protested. "Dr. Brennan told me that you guessed his motive and ended up being one hundred percent correct."

"I just got lucky," I said. "It wasn't a particularly hard case. You guys would have figured it out without me here."

"You solved it so fast—"

"I don't know myself, Zack. I'm usually not that good. I just went where my gut and common sense dragged me."

"That must be some common sense," he said. "You connected dots that normal people wouldn't even think of."

"Um, thank you?" I wasn't sure how to respond. To be perfectly honest, I didn't really know how I'd been able to figure that out. I must be more desperate to stay here than I thought.

"Why are you here?" he asked. "Why the Jeffersonian Institute? Why go from writing books to investigating murders?"

"My brother was killed last year." I bit my lip, surprised that I'd said it.

"My condolences," said Zack.

"He was killed…by someone who was using tactics he'd read in one of my books." I swallowed. "So, I guess you could say I want to make it up to my brother. Maybe solving some murders will make up for the fact that I gave my brother's killer ideas on how exactly to do it."

"It's still quite impossible for you to have figured it out. You have no schooling. What's your I.Q.?"

I laughed shakily. "I have no idea."

"This is too unrealistic." Another step toward me. "You can't be anything short of a genius." He stated it like it was fact.

"I'm not too worried about that right now." I smiled weakly, trying to ignore the way my heart was stuttering as I realized how close Zack was to me. Oh please don't tell me I'm crushing on him. I've only known him for, what, three days max?

He was frowning, a puzzled look on his face. He tilted his head and my breath suddenly caught. Stupid, I chastised myself.

"Your eyes have little flecks of black in them," he murmured. "That's unusual."


Later, I would find out that Angela, Hodgins, and Cam were all in the lab below us, staring up.

"When do you think he'll kiss her?" asked Angela excitedly.

Hodgins shook his head. "He won't. Zack's super shy with girls."

Cam pointed at the balcony. "Evidently not. Look at that. The tension's just…" She gestured with her hands, apparently unable to describe it with words.

"I say he'll kiss her in the next month." Angela grinned.

"No way," said Hodgins. "I give it two months, minimum."


"Yay, I have unusual eyes." My feeble attempt to lighten the mood fell flat. His eyes searched mine, and his gaze flickered momentarily down to my mouth and back.

Is he…Is he going to kiss me?

He was certainly leaning down, his lips were definitely parted. I felt mine separate and I whispered his name questioningly. Slowly, torturously, his mouth descended until barely an inch was between us. I was stunned, almost scared to close my eyes. His eyes locked onto mine. My heart pounded in my chest, and suddenly my eyes fluttered closed and—

He stepped back. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "I overstepped my boundaries."

And with that he was gone, and I was alone on the balcony.


A/N: okay, i posted this first chapter as a test to see if people like this and read it. so i won't continue it unless you tell me what you think.

if you liked this, please please tell me.

if you didn't, tell me how i can make it better.

please review. i can't stress this enough.