ASC: I hope you are enjoying the stories. I've actually just gotten an idea for an all new story but should probably finish this one huh? Yeah….


2.

"Marlene Parks?" Booth asked as the frail elderly woman came to the door.

"Yes?" She asked as her shaky hand went to open the screen door.

"I'm Agent Seeley Booth with the F.B.I." He said showing his badge. It felt a bit strange not introducing anyone with him. "I'd like to talk to you about your daughter, Mary Parks."

The woman shook her head. "Son, she ran away from home years ago."

"Actually we found her body mam."

The woman looked like she was about to faint so Booth helped her over to the nearby porch swing.

"What..what…" She began.

"She was driving with a girl named Susan Kingsley." He began.

"Yes, they were best friends in high school. She went missing that same night."

"Yes, well we found their car in a pond, the drought brought the water level down and exposed it. They were both in the front seat. It appears they went off the road."

"She drowned?"

"Most likely, the car didn't have seat belts installed. We are still investigating. Mam, may I ask, why did you think she ran away?"

The elderly woman sighed. "Her father, he died ten years ago now, he wasn't a nice man. She wanted to go to college, he didn't want her to, I couldn't stand up to him. That was fifty years ago, things were a little harder back then. I wanted to see her go, I guess in my mind, some years ago I just had hoped she had. I guess it doesn't make much sense now, but I had just…hoped…"

Booth wished Sweets was there at that moment. He would know what to say. He had hoped to bring this woman closure but instead he had brought her a greater sadness.

"I'm very sorry Mrs. Parks."

"No, I guess it's good to know." The woman was trying to show a brave face but Booth could see he had left her with a greater sadness. It made the job difficult as usual.

"I'm sorry to bring this on you mam. I wanted to inquire if you recall if anything was going on with your daughter at the time."

"Why do you ask?" She saw something in Booth that suggested there was more.

"We found a man, the skeletal remains anyway, in the trunk of the car."

The woman blinked in rapidly and he didn't need Sweets there to know this was a surprise to her.

"Who was he?"

"We're working on that now, but you don't know if your daughter was involved in anything, uh, suspicious?"

"No, I, she just, was a high school student, wanting to go to college." Now her eyes welled up in tears and Booth was pretty sure he had ruined this woman's day with a false hope her daughter was living a great life some place and that she now may have been a murder. He decided it was time to go. And for some reason he decided to blame all of this on Sweets since he should have been here with him.

"Mrs. Parks, I'll go now, but if you think of anything please let me know." He handed her his card. "And we will let you know how the investigation concludes. Thank you for your time."

Booth walked to his car. "Dammit Sweets." He added under his breath.


"Sweets!" Booth said a little more excitedly than he had planned when Sweets answered the phone.

"Yeah, sorry Booth, I just got in." Sweets said over the scratchy line.

"You're at the office?" Booth wondered why there was so much interference on the line.

"Um, yeah. I was at uh, an interrogation."

"With who?" Booth asked. He could tell the boy genius was lying.

Sweets cleared his throat, he had watched Booth interrogate enough people that he knew he was on the receiving end at the moment. He would have been more guarded had he not been so tired.

"With a new agent."

"What's his name?"

"Is there a problem Agent Booth?"

"How was the testimony?"

Sweets knew Booth had caught on to his lie. "Oh, no, I didn't mean testimony, I meant an interrogation." Sweets was feeling nauseous again, he wasn't going to be able to hold off Booth much longer. He kept talking before Booth could jump in. "Booth, I've got another call coming in that I have to take, I'll call you later okay?"

"I'm on my way to your office." Booth said and hung up.

"Oh shit." Sweets said from his car.


"Agent Booth…" a voice began but Booth waved it off.

"Not now." Booth said heading straight to Sweets office and flung open the doctor.

Sweets was at his computer, though the closer Booth came the more suspicious he became. He had talked to Sweets an hour before but yet the man didn't look like he had been in his office for more than a few minutes.

Sweets tried to not appear to be breathing heavily or sweating. He kept the lights in the office low and tried to appear casual.

"Here I am Agent Booth, what did you need?" Sweets said pouring every bit of energy he had left into sounding casual.

"We've got a case, I could use some help you know." Booth was still erring on the side of annoyance. He didn't like people hiding things from him.

"Oh, what's the case?" Sweets asked trying to stay focused.

Booth's phone rang and he turned to answer. Sweets let out a deep breath of relief but the exhalation pushed against his chest causing pain. He tried to hide it with a smile as Booth turned back to look at him.

"Booth." He said answering.

"Booth, it's Angela, look we've got an ID on the other uh, victim in the car, Carlos Medinez."

"What's the story on him?" Booth asked while still watching the psychologist slowly adjust in his seat. He was trying to move like something wasn't bothering him.

"I'm not sure where to begin." Angela said. Booth now wanted to get Sweets in front of other people, maybe see if his worry was becoming well placed.

"You know what, hang on Angela, Sweets and I will be there shortly." He said hanging up. Sweets looked up with surprise.

"What? Where?"

Booth sighed an exasperated sigh of irritation. "The case? Come on, we need your help, I'll bring you up to speed on the way."

"Is it necessary?" Sweets asked not having moved. "I have a lot of paper work here I need to get thru."

"Would I be asking if it weren't?" Booth asked.

"Fine." Sweets said standing up but had to set his hand on the desk because the movement made his head spin.

"Sweets?" Booth asked.

"Just getting some files to take." He said trying to pass the momentary pause off.

Sweets stiffened as they walked down the halls to the parking lot. If he was a betting man he had his odds of passing out on the way at about sixty percent. When they hit the door and the afternoon sun hit him he would have bumped that up to about ninety percent. He pushed himself hard to stay on his feet.

"It's sure hot out." Sweets said immediately feeling the sweating fits come on.

"It's like sixty degrees." Booth said and Sweets shrugged, he would have sworn it was positively balmy out.

"Come on let's go." Booth said impatient to wait and Sweets tried to pick up his pace.

Booth and Sweets walked to the car and Booth noticed Sweets suit looked funny, baggy. After they got in the car Sweets could feel Booth's eyes trying to catch some glances at him. Booth wasn't comfortable with discussing things like this so he tried to focus on the issue. He didn't intend for it to come out as rough as it did.

"Where were you earlier, you weren't in your office."

Sweets closed the file folder, he should have known this was coming but he had been able to dodge Booth last week, he hoped to make it another week. He just wasn't sure why the ill feeling wouldn't go away.

"I was following up on a case." Sweets said though his head was starting to swim.

"With who?" Booth asked still questioning the response though this time it did sound more truthful.

"No one." Sweets was hesitating. "I went by myself."

"What do you mean, I thought you were working with another agent."

"I was, then it got assigned to just me. I've been working on it a couple of weeks now."

"What, like a patient?" Booth asked and felt like that had better be the answer.

"No, it was a case, another agent had asked me come along on the interviews. Then it was reclassified that I do the follow up." Sweets could tell by the tension radiating off Booth that was not the answer he wanted.

"You're doing field work, for another agent?" Booth asked in a clipped tone.

"I was just interviewing some suspects, I mean, people." Crap, that was the wrong slip.

Booth felt like he was about to slam on the breaks. "You went and interviewed suspects, in the field, by yourself? Tell me where and what and why you didn't call an agent in any agent."

Sweets was pissed now. "I'm not a toddler Booth, I have a gun, I can handle myself."

"Where did you go that you needed to take a gun?"

Sweets was now pissed at himself. "It went fine. I got what I needed, there wasn't a problem." He could see Booth was not satisfied. "By the water front, it's not a great neighborhood…"

"Not a great neighborhood? Are you insane Sweets? You take an agent with you when…."

"Everyone was busy." Sweets said simply. Booth stopped. He realized he meant that Booth was busy.

"Next time, just make sure someone goes okay?"

"Yeah sure." Sweets said hard-hearted and flipped open the file again.

"Hey Sweetie, what's wrong?" Angela asked when they came in.

"Nothing's wrong." Sweets said but he saw Angela wasn't convinced.

"What's new Angela?" Booth asked though keeping one eye on the young doctor who was swaying just a little bit.

"Okay so Carlos Medinez was practically a ghost except for the fact he was picked up by the local police department for trying to pass stolen travelers checks. Other than that he has no record." Angela explained.

"Okay so how does that help us?"

"The stolen travelers checks were reported missing by a Steven Lenahan. He was the father of John Lenahan, who was dating Susan Kingley." Angela explained.

"So Lenahan, father or son, kills Medinez and throws him in the trunk of his girlfriend's car?" Sweets asked but knew that just didn't sound right.

"I don't know, so far I just know this." Angela said as Brennan walked in the room.

"We also know that Mr. Medinez's hands were tied behind his back at the time of his death. I found these." She clicked to bring up marks on the bone on the screen. "These lacerations went thru the skin and nicked the bone. He was obviously struggling a great deal just before his death.

"He was trying to get away from something." Booth surmised. "Is this John Lenahan still around?"

"Yeah, but here's the only problem I see with suggesting that John or Steven Lenahan had a play in this murder." Angela pulled up two photos of the men at that time from a social engagement. She then put a figure with their body types on the other screen. "Both of these men were around 5'6" and at best 150 pounds. Carlos Medinez weighed in at around 200 pounds and towered over six feet. If Medinez was struggling at the time of his death, they needed help."

Booth looked over at Sweets whose eyes were about to close shut. "Sweets!" Booth said shocking the man back to awake. The sudden motion rocked Sweets stomach.

"Excuse me." He said and walked quickly from the room to the bathroom.

Well so much for that banana and toast. Sweets thought upon flushing the toilet. He washed his hands and peered out the door. He knew Booth was going to be waiting on him. He didn't want to have to answer any more of his questions. He pulled out his cell phone and called a cab.


"What was that about?" Hodgins asked coming into Angela's office as Sweets ran past.

"I don't know." Booth said. He still didn't know how to approach Sweets about it.

"He looks awful." Angela said and they turned to her. "What? I'm not trying to be mean, he just looks really sick, I think he's lost ten pounds."

"Has Dr. Sweets sought medical attention?" Brennan asked and Booth had a feeling in his gut that was a "no."

"Well should we say something?" Hodgins asked hoping he didn't have to be the one. They all seemed to be waiting for Booth to volunteer.

"Fine. I'll talk to him on the way back. He's just sort of hard to talk to when he's like this." Booth whined, he didn't want to talk about it at all. "So back to the case, do we have anything else to go on?"

"All I see is that Steven Lenahan filed the checks as missing, the police picked up Medinez when he ran a red light. They went thru his glove box and there they were." Angela said filling them in on everything she had.

"Do you have an address on John Lenahan?" Booth asked. "Sweets and I can head over there."

"Uh, Sweets just left in a cab." Cam said walking in.


Booth went back to his car after three consecutive unsuccessful calls to Sweets cell. On the seat of the passenger seat he saw the files Sweets had brought with him. He hesitated but he wanted to know what Sweets had been working on. He saw Sweets as his own investigation and now he was going to find out what was going on.

He opened the first file to see the profile of a Hispanic gang member in his fifties. Sweets had very neatly handwritten notes on the suspect in the folder. The next folder was the same, and another set of notes, not quite as nicely written. The third folder was another Hispanic male, this one younger, but the accompanying notes to this one nearly illegible. One line he could read was a follow up written by Sweets, "visit with suspect did not go well, do not recommend revisiting unless take Agent Booth."

Booth was not pleased, mostly with himself.