Quick Author's Note: Thank you all SO MUCH for reviewing! I appreciate all reviews: constructive, critical, or just to say hi. Thank you again and KEEP at it so I can stay motivated! I threw up the last chapter and in my haste to publish it, I didn't even proofread it – sorry! Hopefully this chapter is cleaner, clearer, and better quality. Also, I dislike when fanfiction gets all introspective and lovey-dovey… But I realized, Booth talks like that on the show ALL THE time. I mean, his "making love" speech? TOTALLY not something that you would read on a script and think, 'huh, that's realistic.' But when Booth says it, it totally works! So keep that in mind… Enjoy!

Chapter 3

"So…. Someone catch me up?" Cams voice was the first to break the heavy silence that had fallen over the platform since Booth's sudden exit.

After a moment of silence, Angela spoke up. "We… We think…" She paused, taking a deep breath as Hodgins put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed in encouragement. "Brennan is missing," Angela stated, standing and moving very slowly towards the skeleton, taking Hodgins with her. "The last time anyone spoke to her was Friday evening, apparently."

Cam nodded slowly, "And the skeleton?" Angela, having gained some courage from Hodgins' presence, leaned forward to peer closer at the ring. "Jack and Vincent found this skeleton laying here on the table when they came in this morning."

Cam nodded again, "Right. And Booth saw that the skeleton is wearing Brennan's ring, Mr. Nigel Murray confirmed that very basic indicators on the skeleton suggest it could be Brennan, and Booth assumed the worst."

Angela, Hodgins, and Mr. Nigel Murray nodded together, each lost in their own thoughts.

After allowing a brief moment of silence, Cam straightened and clapped her hands together once. "OK, people! I hate to be the ice bitch here, but I'm afraid I'm really good at that and I'm going to have to be the one who remains as unemotional as possible if we are to get anything done and help Dr. Brennan. We must assume that this is in fact not Dr. Brennan and therefore she is still missing and this is evidence to finding her captor. Cooler heads must prevail. Mr. Nigel Murray!" She addressed the intern, who had been intently staring at the skeleton in front of him as thought it would reveal some secret to him.

He jumped at acknowledgement. "Yes! Yes ma'am." Cam leaned forward towards the young man, "Are you ok to continue working this case?" He nodded. "Good," Cam said. "Then I need you to examine this body with a fine tooth comb – I want to know every bone that's ever been broken, fractured, or even slightly worn down. Any diseases, deformations, or medical anomalies. Literally everything you can find. Once Dr. Addy gets here, you are to treat him as you would Dr. Brennan, is that clear?" The intern nodded, pulling on rubber gloves and very gingerly angling a magnifying glass over the bones of the wrist that had been broken.

"Hodgins!" Cam now addressed the bug guy, pulling his focus away from his former fiancé.

"Got it," he nodded resolutely before Cam could continue. "I'm just gonna… Do my job. See if I can find evidence of a murder weapon, residue of any type…" He trailed off, taking in Angela's shudder when he said 'murder weapon.' Hodgins put his arm reassuringly back around her shoulders, looking up at Cam with pleading eyes.

"Angela?" Cam asked slowly and gently, walking up towards the woman. "If you want Hodgins to take you home…"

"No." Angela said clearly, standing and wiping her eyes. "I am not going to go home while my best friend is missing. I am going to do everything I can to help find her." She shrugged Hodgins' arm away resolutely, squaring her shoulders. "And right now, that… skeleton… Which is totally not Brennan, by the way, is the only evidence we have. So I'm going to put together the best image I can of that body – height, gait length – without an actual face."

Cam nodded, "Thank you." Watching Angela walk to her office to retrieve her notepad, she called after the artist, "Just… Make sure to compare your findings to any pictures you have of Dr. Brennan." Angela froze for a moment, nodded slowly without turning, and continued walking towards her office.

"Uh… Dr. Soroyan?" Cam looked over at Hodgins. "I know you did a great job of calming us all down here, but I think the person who really needs to calm down is already on his way over to Dr. Brennan's house."

Cam nodded, her lips tightening into a thin line. "Unless we find some evidence that she's alive out there somewhere, and safe… I'm very concerned Agent Booth will wind up in jail for manslaughter by the end of this case."

Hodgins exchanged a knowing look with Cam, taking in the skeleton on the table one last time. "Oh, yeah… Whoever did this is already dead."

* * * * * *

Booth pulled into Brennan's driveway, narrowly missing the side of her car in his haste to park and jump out, gun drawn as he ran toward the front door.

"Bones! Open the door!" After a few seconds and no response, Booth didn't even bother knocking, nor did he even take the time to pull out his copy of Brennan's key to open the front door. "Bones! Answer me, dammit!" Booth kicked in Brennan's front door and nearly fell over his own feet as he stumbled into the house – he had put way too much force into kicking the door, which had just swung open with no resistance.

The agent registered that the door had been unlocked, but didn't stop to examine it as he collected himself and walked quickly from room to room, gun drawn. "Bones!" He bellowed again, willing himself to hear a response.

Booth ran from room to room, scanning the area for anything out of the ordinary. Living room, clear. Kitchen, clear. Bathroom, clear. Office, clear. As Booth's mental checklist grew longer, the agent started to panic. If Bones' car was here and she wasn't, and her front door was unlocked, there was no avoiding it any longer. Something was definitely wrong. Bones was missing.

Shrugging off the growing desire to start shooting things in anger, Booth flung open the door to the bedroom and quickly stepped in, gun drawn, scanning the room…. And froze.

"Oh, God, Bones…" Booth whispered as he dropped his arms, staring fixated on the massive dried pool of blood that covered his partner's bed.