THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER

A/N: I finished writing the story:-D In the early stages of planning for the sequel. Anyhoo, I'm posting the chapter tonight 'cause I'll be out all AM tomorrow, maybe PM too so...

CHAPTER TWO - The Tyrant & the Knight

"What's going on?" Brennan asked Hodgins.

"I haven't been completely honest with you over the years. I'm sorry about that, but it was the only way I could preserve what I wanted from life. Now I need to tip my hand a bit to keep the rest together." He looked to Booth - he knew what he was about to say.

"Okay?" Brennan blinked, clueless.

"Right, well it goes like this... My family is kind of... big money, big big money."

"You know the Cantilever Group?" Booth asked Brennan.

"Yeah?" she nodded, then it started to click. "O-oh... yeah?" she turned to Hodgins. He nodded.

"The recording?" Booth circled back on topic.

"Yeah..." Hodgins nodded. "I knew Ellie Montrose, lived next door to her family. That film, I shot some of it... they asked. Point is, it's been cut, re-arranged."

"What was the rest of it?" Brennan asked.

"They ran around a while... goofind around..." The memories made him smile. Reality melted it down before long. Brennan and Booth shared a look.

"We might be able to learn something from the original recording," Booth suggested.

"How do we do that?" Brennan asked.

"Meg Montrose. There were two copies. Meg has the other."

xxx

THREE MONTHS AGO

"So Jim is coming in soon. I'm going in to talk to him. I'll go in alone first then you can come in?" Booth stood in the doorway to Brennan's office.

"Okay," she nodded, still looking over a file before her, eyes locked with focus and emotion. Booth walked up a point, concerned by the look she had.

"Bones?" he asked.

"The fire department, what did they have to say about the house?" she asked, still in concentration.

"Still waiting on a full report, but suspicions as to whether it was deliberately set are definitely confirmed."

"Is it safe to visit?" she finally looked up.

"Some places are less stable than others, but it can be arranged," Booth nodded.

"No it can't." They turned to find Zach had joined them. "It was just on the news. The house exploded. They're saying something about a time delayed bomb." Booth closed his eyes. Brennan stood.

"We'll work around it," she insisted.

xxx

TODAY

"So... what did you do?" Brennan asked as they sat in Booth's office.

"What..." he started, unsure what she was refering to. After a moment, it came to him. "Oh..."

"Did you go out of town, or..."

"Uh, no," he shrugged, scratching at the back of his neck. "Mostly stuck home. You know, I thought I would have been more... stir crazy? But no, before long it became kind of easy to just take it slow."

"Yeah?" she resettled into her seat. He nodded. "That's good then. I mean... you needed it." He observed her looking suddenly very much the uncomfortable one.

"Something on your mind Bones?" he asked, tilting his head. She looked up at him. She was about to speak when there was a knock at Booth's door. Both of them turned to look, letting go of their conversation as they spotted Meg Montrose behind the agent who had knocked. "Miss Montrose, please come in," Booth stood to go greet her.

"Yeah," she spoke evenly, though her face told a shakier story. "You... you can call me Meg."

"Okay, have a seat. I'm Agent Booth. This is Dr. Brennan," he made the introductions.

"You were at the house," Meg spoke to Brennan as she and Booth sat.

"That's right."

"So..." she looked to be gathering up the courage to ask what she wanted to ask. "It's Ellie?"

"Yeah..." Booth answered after a moment. Meg sat there, taking it in. They could see she'd been preparing for such a revelation for quite some time. "I'm terribly sorry... You two were very close." Meg nodded, eyes welling. Brennan took the box of tissues from Booth's desk, offering it to the girl. She took one, bringing it to her eyes.

"I never told this to anyone, not my parents or..."

"What is it?" Booth asked lightly. Meg reached in her pocket, pulling out a cell phone and tapping at it.

"It was in the middle of the night, it was off so I..." Her hands shook for a second. "It's been my secret... almost two years..." She pushed one final button and sounds began to be heard, ambient... Then there came panicked breaths, and a voice...

"Meg? M-Meg, it's me... Why aren't you picking up? Is it night?" There was a pause, then it continued. "You've got to help me, h-he'll be back soon and..." A door opened, and there was a thud like the phone hit the ground. After that, Ellie's voice was further. "I didn't tell anyone, I swear... Please, why are you doing this?" she cried. "No, no, no, please... You don't have to do this... No!" The next sound was hard to identify, but what it meant was clear, especially as the sound of a body's fall accompanied it. After that, ambient sounds took over again. Footsteps approached... and the line went dead, message ended.

The room stood quietly for a minute. "When did you get that message?" Booth finally asked Meg.

"Four months after she disappeared."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" Brennan asked.

"I don't know... I didn't want my father to ignore that too. Besides, he was out of town that night." Booth and Brennan shared a look. "Point is... I've known she's been gone for a long time. But this..." They knew she spoke of what she'd found that morning.

"Meg... We spoke about that recording?" Booth asked. She nodded, reaching in her bag again. She pulled out a tape.

"It's the original. Ellie's copy was gone with her... Now I guess I know where it went..." She handed the tape to Booth. "You'll give it back, right?"

"Of course," he assured her. "Did your sister have a boyfriend?" he asked.

"Dylan," she nodded. "Dylan McNeal." A second later, they heard people speaking loudly outside Booth's office. Meg's head snapped around. "Oh... that's my dad... Please don't tell him?" Brennan took Meg's phone, hid it just as Booth hid the tape. A moment later, Stanley Montrose burst into the office.

"Margaret, get down there and wait in the car." Meg scurried out, looking back at Booth and Brennan after she'd passed her father.

"Mr. Montrose..." Booth started but was cut off.

"You stay away from my daughter," Montrose pointed a finger at Booth and Brennan.

"Sir, we are investigating your other daughter's murder. If you have a problem with us trying to find out what happened to her, who did this to her, then maybe we should move this to an interrogation room." Brennan looked from Booth to Montrose and back. Neither man dared to move.

"You'll be hearing from my lawyer if I ever find out you pulled something like that again. Then he left. Booth sat back down.

"Well... this should be interesting."

xxx

THREE MONTHS AGO

"Jim Hanley, Dr. Temperance Brennan," Booth introduced them. Almost as though led simply by the habit of manners, Jim stood and shook Brennan's hand. His face was crushed with the weight of his sadness.

"I'm… so sorry for your loss," she shook back. He nodded and sat back down. She'd watched from behind the glass as he and Booth spoke. Jim looked like there were too many thoughts and images in his head for him to keep himself grounded.

"Jim… Have there been any threats? Anyone who…"

"For who? Claire teaches piano, the kids…" he started then stopped, painfully reminded they were gone.

"Maybe you've seen someone hanging around…" Brennan asked after a moment. Jim rubbed at his face.

"Maybe… I don't know."

"It's okay. Take your time," Booth instructed him. Jim took a moment, quietly picking away at his memories. Finally he looked up.

"Before I left, Sasha told me there was… a man who spoke to her and her friend Millie at the park. He… scared her. I told her I'd take care of it when I got back." Booth looked to Brennan. She nodded and left to get Angela while Booth asked Jim about Millie.

xxx

TODAY

"Let me know how the meeting with the boyfriend goes? Okay... bye," Brennan hung up, staring at the phone for a minute.

"Are you trying to make it explode or something?" She looked up to find Angela standing at the door to her office.

"Booth's meeting with Ellie's boyfriend," she explained, moving past Angela to head toward the main area of the lab.

"So Hodgins told you?" Angela followed her.

"You knew?"

"Yeah, let's not go there. I just wanted to ask you... this won't change anything, will it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Jack loves his job, what he's got here... He doesn't want to be treated any different because of his family's money..."

"He told you that?"

"Basically, yeah..."

Their conversation halted as they scanned their cards and climbed the stairs, Hodgins and Zach working not far ahead.

"What do you have so far?" Brennan asked them.

"The bones are freakishly clean, doesn't exactly give me much to do, does it?" Hodgins shook his head, his ever-present frustration on display.

"Doesn't mean you can't help," Brennan assured him. He nodded. "Zach?" she turned to him.

"Still trying to pin down the cause of death. There's a lot of damage." He looked to Hodgins for a second. "She went through hell... before and after she was killed."

"What's the most likely to you right now?" Brennan approached the bones on the table. Zach pointed over the neck.

"She was struck here, hard. Catch the artery, she bleeds out..."

"Damn it..." Hodgins muttered under his breath. Brennan remembered Meg's phone, felt it in her pocket.

"This might settle it..." she pulled it out. "You might want to step out for this," she spoke to Hodgins. He shook his head. Brennan nodded as Angela went to stand by Hodgins. Brennan retrieved the message and made it play.

"Meg? M-Meg, it's me..."

"What?" Hodgins stood straighter.

"She made the call four months after she disappeared."

"I didn't tell anyone, I swear..." Angela placed a hand on Hodgins' arm as she felt him tense up. "You don't have to do this... No!" The striking sound came, followed by the body fall. There was a long moment of silence.

"If... we can isolate that moment, I could try to identify the weapon," Zach spoke up.

"Good, that's good," Brennan nodded.

xxx

THREE MONTHS AGO

When Brennan looked up and saw Booth standing at the platform looking down on the lab below, she made her way up to come stand by him.

"Millie came in with her parents. Angela's working on getting a face for that man."

"Okay," he spoke looking down to his hands. Brennan saw he was holding one of the pictures of the Hanley family.

"You were close to them too, weren't you?"

"Andrea was friends with Parker. I still haven't figured out how I'm supposed to explain it to him." Brennan looked at him. She found herself searching for words too. She didn't want to go about it the wrong way.

"At his age, he might have trouble adjusting to the idea. But you'll be there to see him through. He'll be okay." He nodded to himself.

"Thanks."

"Sure." She stood back. "You should eat." He looked at her.

"Give pizza a second shot?"

"Sure," she smiled.

xxx

TODAY

"And here I thought you'd be hard to find, off at college or something. But here you are, in prison. You know what that makes you? My new best friend," Booth sat across from Dylan McNeal.

"What do you want?" he sat back, reluctant.

"Guess you haven't heard. We recovered the remains of Ellie Montrose." He looked up so fast Booth startled a bit.

"You did?" He brought a hand to his face, standing still a moment. "What happened to her?"

"I don't know, why don't you tell me?"

"What? You think... You think I'd hurt her? I'd never do that, not ever. I love Ellie, always..."

"Okay well let's see. Where were you on February 21st 2005?" Dylan looked confused.

"Ellie disappeared November 2nd 2004. What..."

"Yeah, she went missing in November, except she didn't die until February. Now... February 21st 2005, 3:32am..."

"Do you think I keep a log of everything I do down to the day?"

"Okay, see this is how it works. You give me proof you were somewhere that's not the crime scene at the time Ellie Montrose was killed, and I don't have to get... persistent." Dylan sat back, searching his head for a memory. Then he sat up.

"What day of the week was it?"

"It was a Monday."

"Yeah, I think I got it." Booth waited, but Dylan didn't speak. He made an 'and then' gesture. "I can't tell you."

"Why not?" He thought about it, then chuckled. "You were pulling a job, is that it?" Dylan remained silent, but Booth got his answer. "Tell you what... I won't tell anyone I know about it provided it didn't go beyond property. I hear people got hurt, then we might have a problem."

"Well it's not like it worked anyway. We left empty handed."

"Wow... I can't imagine why Stanley Montrose didn't like you." Dylan looked puzzled once again. "Yeah, see I didn't know he was refering to you at the time, let's just say his vocabulary was just..." he made a gesture to punctuate. "So what was the job?"

"Pawn shop on fifth."

"Okay..." Booth stood. "I'll look into that." As he turned to leave, Dylan spoke again.

"I don't like him either." Booth turned back.

"Why's that?"

"You should ask him why they were sending her to Carver's. Actually, ask Mrs. Montrose. At least she won't lie."

"Anything else?" Booth asked.

"Yeah... How's Meg?"

"How do you think?"

"Look, I know you don't trust me right now, but this is the absolute truth. I loved Ellie more than anyone in this world. I'd have given my life for her. You know what that's like?"

TBC