They pulled into their victim's driveway at 8pm. An agent met them there with a warrant but Booth hoped he wouldn't need it. The victim's husband had been extremely cooperative thus far. Of course, he could be the killer, so he couldn't let his guard down. Booth didn't think he was though. The guy loved his wife.
"Mr. Santori, I'm sorry for interrupting your evening. May we come in?" The hollow shell of a man that opened the door did not look like a murderer. His eyes were bloodshot, his skin had a distinctly greenish tinge to it and his cheeks were hollow.
"Certainly. Do you have any leads on my wife's case?" He asked hopefully.
"We have evidence that suggests she was killed in your home." His eyebrows shot up in alarm.
"Here! That can't be. I was home all night, so was my son. She never came home. We would've heard something."
"Do you have any of this type of flooring in your house?" Booth asked. The widower held it up to the light and his face lit up in recognition.
"Not anymore. We used to have it in the basement but we pulled it out last summer. It's in the shed now. The boys use the shed to practice so we just gave them that old carpet instead of throwing it out. It keeps it a little warmer out there."
"May we search the shed?" He waited for the moment's hesitation that indicated guilt and didn't see it.
"Absolutely. Take whatever you need." He walked them out across the back yard into a garage sized white shed set back from the house. Booth asked his forensics team to sweep the place before he and Bones sat down to question the husband and son again.
"We were practicing out there so we wouldn't have heard anything, even if she did come home." Brian said defensively.
"We know she was killed in the shed Brian. We know she was dropped off here at 9pm and we know you were practicing from 8pm till midnight." He pointed out.
"It must've happened after I went to bed." He said stubbornly. "I swear. I didn't see my mom get killed." He certainly didn't seem like the kind of kid who would kill his mom, but he didn't seem totally normal either. His eyes were bloodshot, he smelled bad and he was a little twitchy. Classic signs of drug use. He'd dismissed it as grief during his first interview, but this wasn't grief. It was a stimulant, probably meth. Brian had just moved up the list of suspects to numero uno.
"I'm gonna need the names of all the guys who were with you that night."
They found blood on the carpet and numerous metal folding chairs, two of which had traces of blood on them. Bones had insisted the entire carpet and all the folding chairs be brought back to the Jeffersonian. They didn't get back to her car until well after midnight.
He drove her back to the restaurant and stopped in the middle of the road to drop her at her car. She had one foot out of the SUV when she changed her mind and got back in. "I was jealous." She said, staring at the dashboard. A car came up behind them and honked so he had to keep driving. What the hell was this woman trying to do to him? He was only human. He could only bare his soul so many times before he fell apart. He was hanging by a thread as it was.
"I know Bones." He said simply, hoping that would be the end of the conversation.
"But not for the reason you said." He knew her better than she knew herself. He'd been right on. He understood her motivations, even if she didn't.
"Okay, why were you jealous?" He humored her.
"I didn't give you up because I don't want you. I gave you up because you don't want me. Not really." Weird how she kept saying "give you up." Sweets would definitely have something to say about her word choice. "I do want you. I love you actually…I'm in love with you I mean…" She was in love with him? Where was this coming from? If she loved him, surely she would've said it when it mattered. "At least I think I am, as much as a person like me can be in love with another person…"
"You love me?"
"I believe so yes. I have no other explanation for the choices I made and the things I am feeling. " She said, still not looking at him. "I will do as you suggested and I will be much more careful about how I speak to you… in regards to the women you choose to date. But I just didn't want you to labor under the impression that my desire to keep our relationship professional was because I didn't want you…." The words poured awkwardly out of her beautiful mouth, without so much as a breath or a pause in between. "I want you." His gut twisted, his heart was pounding, and an extremely unwelcome feeling overwhelmed him. Hope. There was still hope. She loved him. He knew he shouldn't be hopeful but he was. "And that is why I'm jealous. Not because I want what someone else has. Because I want something better for you than me. And I'm jealous of the people who are good enough to…. have you." She finally looked up into his eyes, and he saw real pain there. Real emotion. She really did love him. She just didn't know what to do with it yet. He had no idea what to say, but he knew he couldn't stand to be rejected again. He couldn't put himself out there again like he had. If she wanted him. She'd have to make the first move.
He pulled up next to her car again and stopped. "Thanks Bones." She nodded and got out.