Iniquity 2

Disclaimer: Bones doesn't belong to me.

A/N: Thanks to everyone for reading and "alerting" this story. It means a lot! I noticed yesterday that I never thanked the reviewers on my last story, "Praying Hands," and I wanted to correct that, so THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH!!!! Especially Pax, your encouragement was invaluable!! You guys are awesome!!

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Special Agent Seeley Booth and Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan arrived at the scene approximately one hour after Tom made the call. Booth had been getting ready for church, and Brennan had been enjoying a lazy morning reading from a new book she had purchased, but like Booth had said when he called to inform her of their new case, "I guess murders aren't interested in keeping the Sabbath."

They were greeted at the residence by a handsome man, in his early to mid-thirties with curly light brown hair. He was wearing a badge in a similar fashion to the way Booth wore his, from the belt, displaying the insignia. This badge, of course, indicated his affiliation with the United States Marshals. The man walked down the front steps of the porch to meet Dr. Brennan.

"You must be Dr. Brennan," he said extending his hand in greeting.

Brennan stared at it for a moment and responded, "Yes I am; where is the body?"

The man looked down at Brennan, he was definitely a tall man, he stood a good two inches taller than Booth, who wasn't short by any stretch of the imagination, "We'll head back to the scene in just a minute," then turning to Booth, "Agent Booth, thank you so much for bringing her here so quickly. We will have someone drive her home when we are finished. Enjoy the rest of your day."

As the man turned to show Brennan through the house Booth interrupted, "That's ok; I'm just going to hang around until she is finished."

"Agent Booth, FBI presence isn't required."

Booth smiled at the man in an effort to remain civil, "I understand, but if you want her, you get me too."

"I assure you that is completely unnecessary."

Brennan spoke up at that point, feeling slightly perturbed at being summoned to a crime scene and then not shown directly to the body (it was certainly never something that would have happened if FBI were running the show), "No, I assure you it is necessary. You'll find we," as she spoke she waved her hands indicating herself and the marshal," will get along much better if you talk to Booth and not me." With that she walked up the stairs and into the house, determined to find the crime scene and get to work.

The marshal stood staring after her, and Booth stood beside him grinning with pleasure. Booth decided to follow Brennan into the house, and after a few steps turned to the marshal again, "Well marshal, are you going to show us the crime scene, or do we have to find it ourselves?"

Danny shook himself out of the shocked stupor he was in, and hurried to catch up to the anthropologist and FBI agent, already traipsing through the house.

He caught up with the two as they entered the kitchen, in the back of the house.

"We found the body in the shed at the back of the property."

Brennan was in "squint mode" now, "Context of the find?"

Danny looked at Booth for a translation, "What?"

"She wants to know how the body was discovered and in what condition."

"Ah," he said nodding, "Ruth Geismann went to the shed to get her dog. She was suspicious of what the dog was barking at, went in to investigate, found the body upstairs in her husband's office. By the way Dr. Brennan, my name is Daniel Lowndes."

Brennan didn't even turn as she entered the shed and spoke, "I can't imagine how that pertains to the case."

Booth saw Danny's offended expression and felt sorry for the young man, "You'll have to excuse Dr. Brennan, she can be very task oriented and it can come off as brash."

"You ain't kidding man."

"She's just used to how the FBI runs a crime scene."

Danny smiled, "Yes, I can see where their inadequacy could take some getting used to."

"Watch it."

Meanwhile, Brennan had made it upstairs and into the crime scene. This one was tame compared to the many she had already investigated in her career. There were several forensics techs standing around talking. Brennan weaved her way through the room and to where the body was, kneeling beside the body she pulled out a pair of gloves, snapped them on, then pulled out her digital recorder.

Before turning the machine on, she took a cursory look at the body. The din in the room was wrecking her concentration and after trying several discreet coughs to gain their attention, she resorted to a method that worked quite well in the lab and whistled loudly. The noise was followed to absolute silence in the room, "I need everyone to clear the room."

The group stood staring at Brennan as though she had grown a second head and made no move to do her bidding. The continued silence was broken by the sounds of footsteps thundering up the stairs and was followed by Booth appearing the door frame. He quickly scanned the room and seeing no trouble moved to where Brennan was squatted down next to the remains, "Bones, what was that?"

"I can't work with all these people in here, I need to room cleared."

Booth turned to the room at large a spoke, "Ok you heard her people, clear out. FBI clear out!"

Now Danny was filling the door frame, "Agent Booth, do I need to remind you that you have no jurisdiction on this case?"

"Well you're about to have no forensic anthropologist on this case there Buddy."

Danny looked confused by that statement, "What do you mean?"

Booth moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with the man, "You see how she's got that tic in her right eye and her knuckles are turning kind of white?"

"No."

Sometimes Booth forgot that not everyone noticed the minutia of Dr. Brennan the same way he did, "Well I'm telling you it's there, and those are clear signs she is not happy my friend. And when Dr. Brennan is not happy, no one is happy."

Danny scoffed slightly, "I think you're putting too much stock in one scientist. She can't be the only forensic anthropologist in town."

Brennan's head perked up from her perusal of the body upon hearing that little tidbit of the conversation. Booth simply shook his head in disgust, "Oh here we go!"

"Mr. Lowndes, do you realize that I am the only forensic anthropologist in the area. The next nearest is in Montreal. Parlez-vous Français? And for your information…"

"Hey, hey, hey Bones slow down. Look we got the room cleared, so just finish looking at the bones so we can get out of here." Booth pleaded, not wanting some sort of inter-departmental war getting started.

"Fine, but I need you to leave too; I've had too many distractions already."

Booth and Danny left the upper office to allow Brennan some 'quality' time with the remains.

Once alone Brennan got to work measuring and cataloging all of her findings. The tissue was completely desiccated and was missing in several places, hair and available flesh indicated that the victim was Caucasoid female, age was hard to determine, the bones were obscured by flesh, and she would need x-rays to make a definitive estimation. Brennan took note of long bone lengths and then turned to study the face. She would have been an attractive woman by American standards, delicate features.

Brennan took note of the blunt force trauma to the back of the head, there was a portion of the skull that was bowed inward, and was the most likely cause of death. As Brennan looked closer she saw scarring on the bone consistent with the neck muscles being pulled away from the bone, like the force of the blows were so great the neck muscles tore. This was further supported by the fact that the front of her face, showed little damage, the victim was not on the floor when she was attacked. She also noted as she studied the head, that all the teeth had been pulled from her mouth. Because of the lack of hemorrhagic tissue in the bones, she determined that atrocity had occurred after death.

Brennan turned on her recorder and read off her measurements and then a short diatribe on her suspicions. Feeling confident that she was finished with the body for the moment Brennan pulled off her gloves and called to Booth and Danny outside the room.

Once the men had joined her she explained her findings, "Caucasoid female, dead at least a year. Blunt force trauma to the occipital and parietal bones. Her muscles were ripped along C1 through C3."

"Age," Danny asked.

"I can't give a definitive age yet. Femur dimensions indicate mid-teens."

"You can't get any more specific than that?"

"No, generally I use epiphyseal fusion as an indicator, as you can see the epiphyseal plates are still covered in epidermis, I will need x-rays for a more definitive result."

Danny turned to Booth looking exasperated, "What did she say?"

"She wants to take x-rays and look at certain parts of the bone to determine how old the girl was."

Brennan was shaking her head and mumbling to herself, "I just said that," as she put all of her instruments back in her bag.

Standing up and dusting off her pants she told Booth, "Booth, have the marshals send the body to the Jeffersonian. Hodgins will pull particulates and we can get Angela to run a schematic of the attack."

"Will do Bones" Booth said as he followed her out of the room and down the stairs.

Danny was following closely behind, "So are we done here for today?"

Booth spoke then, "Yep, just have the remains shipped to the Jeffersonian, the team there will get you all the information they can. I'll send the findings to your office when they're finished."

"Sounds good, and thank you again Dr. Brennan, for lending us your expertise."

"You're welcome Deputy Marshal Lowndes. Booth will be in touch."

With that she turned and began walking back through the house, Booth following close behind, with his hand on her back.

As they got closer to the SUV Booth turned to Brennan, "Bones, was I like that when we first started working together?"

"You were," she said, then patted his arm comfortingly, "But you've gotten a lot better."

Booth smiled, "Yeah, it was kind of nice translating for you today."

Brennan smiled back, "Yes it was."

The dark figure watched the two from his vantage point behind the curtains, his cat sitting on his lap looking out too. He had not anticipated the marshals brining in Dr. Temperance Brennan, he had read about her in the local paper, and had read many of her books, and knew how capable she was at solving cases. He felt a quick stab of nervousness grip his chest, for the first time since starting his campaign, he was uncertain of its success. The cat stirred on his lap, seeming to sense his altered mood.

Crooning softly he spoke to the cat, "Oh don't worry my love, if she gets in the way, we'll simply get her too." He smiled contentedly, feeling assured that she wouldn't alter his plans; that they would pay for their crimes despite Dr. Temperance Brennan's involvement.

He pulled the blinds closed as the pair drove off in their SUV, leaving the rest of the scene behind them. The man pulled out yet another cigarette lit up and murmured, "We'll get her too."

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Sorry it took so long to get this chapter out. I hope you enjoyed it, let me know what you think and what I can improve on! :)