A/N I do not own Fringe or Bones, this is the only appearance of any of the Bones characters for this story. This chapter contains no gore but alot of science stuff at the end, I'm an engineering student and I couldn't just throw figures out without doing research so if it gets dull I apologize. There is no gore or anything as graphic as last chapter, I will start leaving warnings for chapters that do. Hope you enjoy =]

Chapter 3

For Broyles the numbing had started behind his eyes spreading down his spine until it cloaked him like a shield. He knew the feeling, it wasn't the first time he'd felt it trickle down his back, so he let it run its course so he could continue to do his work. Each time he'd let the cloak wrap itself in and around him a little pull in the back of his mind would scream for him to fight it, the numbness would fill him and keep him safe but at a cost. It would eventually recede, leaving a piece of itself to congeal and harden each time, like a cold as stone cancer collecting in his chest that ate away at his humanity.

For Olivia it started in her chest under her sternum slowing her heart and returning her breathing to normal. It spread through her torso calming her stomach, flowing down to her toes returning strength to her knees and out to her fingertips returning her steady hands. It could do nothing for her voice though, it still being a deep soft speech that escaped her lips.

When Peter faced the room, all human feelings were packed in a box and shoved into a dark corner. Everything becoming facts and calculations, his eyes darkened and became hard as everything was efficiently processed, categorized, filed and stored.

Walter walked in blissfully ignorant, the horror of the scene unable to penetrate the cluttered maze that was his mind.

Broyles kept Astrid from the scene deeming that she would be of more use in the lab, it was a paper-thin excuse to keep her from the gruesome scene. The blow could be lessened if she were told about the night's events along with the photographs from evidence put together like a twisted children's picture book from hell. She was to young to be exposed to this so it was the least he could do.

After a few minutes of them watching Walter assess the murder's handiwork Olivia moved to Broyles

"Sir, what exactly are we doing here? Shouldn't this be up homicide's alley?"

"It was, we flew a team up from DC early this morning. Agent Booth and his partner Dr. Brennan, but then Dr. Brennan came across these," he pointed to a brass door knob with indentations on it," we let her determine that the marks were made by a human hand and provide us with an idea of the suspects size then sent them home. Very few people, even within the FBI know what our department deals with and the less the better."

Olivia, Peter and Walter approached the door knob to find blackened indentations in the brass, one of the indentations had the black substance removed to reveal a full fingerprint impressed on thebrass.

"Impressive." coming from Walter, "I'll need the body and the door knob, oh and any others that may have the marks plus another for comparison!"

A few hours later Olivia entered the lab, she had left the scene after CSU swept the house for hair and fibers coming up with a few things that would take time to process including the fingerprints off the door. Interviews came up with a dead end. Her sister who found her that morning, after getting though the shock and hysterics, said that she hadn't talked to Jessica Cornwallace in about two weeks as she was always busy with her family and Jessica was always busy with her interior design firm. Neighbors couldn't provide much on her either as they rarely saw her around. They had someone tracking down her co-workers, once they were all found more interviews would begin in hopes of finding something relevant.

"Olivia," Peter called her out of her thoughts, "I looked over the anthropologist's report, and after a little deciphering and some help from an anatomical dictionary I was able to figure out what the good doctor was able to give us."

"Anything useful? Broyles said she was able to give us a description of the killer."

"Well, sort of, according to her report we're looking for a male, between 5'11" and 6'2" most likely of either Caucasian or of African decent, what's really useful though," he flipped forward a few pages

and began to read,"Subject's fingerprints are unique, they appear to have double whorl pattern reducing subject pool to about five percent of the population."

"She got all of that off of a door knob?"

"She is the best in her field, and the go to authority on forensic anthropology."

"Does that make her attractive to you?"

"Huh?" Peter stammered out obviously blindsided by the question to the delight of his partner.

"It's a simple question Bishop, does that make her attractive to you?"

Olivia would never admit it but she loved to see her normally unphaseable partner squirm and apparently this was one button that did just that.

"Well uh, intelligence is always good I guess. In a woman." he managed to get out,

"but if her personality is anything like her report, she's more logical than most supercomputers and probably has just about as many emotions as one too."

"You got all that out of a report?"

"No actually, I called her to do some medical terminology translation for me. She's great to argue with but she's no you."

Now it was Olivia's turn to squirm, not that he would know," How so?"

"She's completely unable to trust her gut, something you can do and that has saved my life more than once. Everything she believes has to have some scientific backing to it and has to fit within the laws of science. We deal with the realm of the impossible, much more fun." he said with a note of sarcasm

"So what's making our case impossible enough to fall on Fringe division's desk?" she inquired

"Well it seems that those indentations couldn't be made by any normal human being. The doorknob was made of red brass which has a yield strength of 395 mega Pascal's which according to Dr. Brennan if replicated by the human body it would rip tendons off bone. Also the black stuff in the indentations was mostly carbon."

"What does that tell us?"

"That the brass may have been heated to a temperature high enough to make it soft, allowing someone to leave indentations like in a ball of clay." Walter interjected.

"But Walter isn't the melting point of brass over 1000 degrees?" Astrid asked

"Yes, but it would take less to soften it and it takes about 2000 degrees to cremate a human body" Peter supplied.

"Ok, so where does that get us?"Olivia asked

"Apparently we have a black or white six foot male who can raise his body temperature to 1000 degrees and has a thing for torture." Peter said sarcastically.

"Which isn't exactly impossible." Walter

Everyone turned to stare at Walter.

"Walter what do you mean?"Astrid asked.

"Well, Belly and I worked on something for the army. Fire rats, they were supposed to infiltrate enemy lines and essentially combust setting fire to whatever happened to be close by."

"That would wreak havoc on a base, especially in an armory." Olivia realized.

"Stop them from using weapons on us by setting them off and destroying a base all at once." Peter concluded.

"Well yes, but it didn't work out that way, the rats couldn't be controlled or trained long enough to get them to actually make it to their target so while it was a success it was abandoned." Walter informed them.

"But Walter, why the skin? Why would he take this girls skin and nothing else?" Olivia pressed

"Well I imagine that the heat is generated through the muscles, but the constant heat being applied to skin both inside and out would cause it to dry out and shrink, eventually tearing much like a snake skin but there would be nothing under it as humans do not shed like snakes and would not be able to regenerate new skin at that temperature." Walter answered

"Ok, but wouldn't a male need a male skin to fit into?" Olivia asked

"Not necessarily, if the skin is being used as a patchwork quilt it wouldn't really matter. Also women have an extra layer of fatty tissue under their skin to help them sustain pregnancy in times of famine but it would also make the skin easier to remove in large sections without damaging it. " this coming from Peter

"Which is exactly what the killer did." Astrid added

"Okay, so we are looking for a black or white 6 foot male who can raise his temperature to over 1000 degrees and has a thing for torture." Olivia finalized, "I'll get the prints back to the FBI see if we find a match."

A/N Again sorry if the science stuff gets boring or confusing, if it is let me know I will refrain from putting to much in. Chapter 4 is in the works but I've got 3 exams next week then spring break so I can't promise anything until *checks calendar* the 17th-18th =/. I mostly write on weekends when work gets slow and I've been sitting on these chapters for a little while so if updates slow down I apologize, I will try to work as fast as possible. Thank you for reading and let me know what you think =]