Bones Season 7.5x04: When the Wind Blows ~ Written by Rynogeny
Cass Thomas had been a social worker for twenty-three years - a healthy run for someone in a profession that regularly chewed up and spit out the eager and innocent. She attributed her longevity to having spent the last twelve of those years working with prospective adoptive parents. She loved children, loved families, and loved doing her part to take care of the former and create the latter.
She was also good at detecting bullshit, and had a low tolerance for it.
She hadn't yet made up her mind about the couple currently settled in the comfortable chairs on the other side of her desk. This was her second meeting with Jack Hodgins and Angela Montenegro and while their filled-in questionnaire was in front of her, there was no substitute for forming her own opinions based on direct contact.
She tapped on it and looked at them thoughtfully. "I've read through your answers to the questionnaire. You were quite thorough in your responses. But I'd like for you to elaborate on some things for me." She sat back, studying them. "Tell me why you want to adopt."
They glanced at one another and Jack gave his wife a slight smile. Angela turned back to Cass. "We both grew up largely alone. Happy and loved, but …there's something about a big noisy family, having their fights and differences but sticking together that we want."
Her husband was slower in his answer, his response measured. "We see the worst of people in our work. People who've been thrown away. We do what we can for them, but it's never enough, not by the time we get to them. If we can provide love and a home for a kid, help them while they're still breathing…we want to do that." He glanced at Angela, who smiled at him.
Cass liked the dynamic between them. Their answers to the question had diverged in different directions, but they seemed very much in sync. She glanced at her notes. "There's nothing in your file that indicates an inability to have biological children. Are you planning to do so?"
"Yes," Angela said without hesitation. "But we have time for that and there are kids who need a home right now."
"Opening your home – and lives – to a child can be a stressful experience. That's true even with biological children but adopted children often have special needs, emotional if not physical, that can stress a marriage, stress lives in ways often difficult to imagine beforehand. A solid extended family support structure can help with that, but neither of you have family in the area, at least not that you're close to. Your jobs also appear to be quite stressful at times – I follow the news – so what kind of support, if any, will you have and be able to offer a child?"
Jack looked thoughtful, but the question plainly pissed off Angela, and for a moment, temper sparked in her eyes.
When she answered, her tone was calm, though she was clearly still annoyed. "The fact that my dad doesn't live in DC doesn't mean we're not close. I probably see him more often than many people who live down the road from their parents. And if I needed him, he'd do his best to support me, given his schedule. But to say we don't have local family is to ignore the point of adoption because we have family here – they're just not blood relations."
Jack cleared his throat. "Ang and I met through our work. We're very close to several of our co-workers."
Cass picked up a sheaf of papers. "Your references are an FBI psychologist, a federal prosecutor and Dr. Temperance Brennan, who noted that an FBI agent assisted her in filling out the form. Those are the co-workers to which you refer?"
"Along with our boss, Camille Saroyan," Hodgins affirmed. "It's complicated."
"I see that."
"Several of them have been in foster care and Dr. Saroyan is raising an orphaned teenager. They understand unusual families," Angela said.
"So, your colleagues play an important role in your lives. I'd still be interested in knowing how you handle stress, separately and together?"
Slightly annoyed, Angela pursed her lips and looked at Hodgins. "I paint. Jack plays baseball, or racquetball. We unwind with our friends over a meal or a drink – friends who would do anything for us," she noted, her tone once again sharp.
Cass felt her lips twitch. The younger woman was something of a firebrand, clearly loyal to those she loved. She nodded, and then turned to Hodgins. "No hobbies other than baseball?" She looked down, shuffling the papers in their file until she found what she was looking for, and noted the information. "In past years you were quite active amongst conspiracy theorists."
He very nearly winced. She was sure of it. But his answer was thoughtful and confident. "I still believe that all too often, decisions are made by small groups of people that affect all of us, and those decisions go unreported and unacknowledged," he said firmly. "But recently, I've realized that there can be other ways to expose the truth."
"I see." She wondered what, exactly, had changed his mind on that matter, but some things really weren't relevant.
She turned back to a topic that was. "When you have an active case, you can frequently work long hours and there's some risk in your jobs, is there not?" She looked at Jack. "As I said, I follow the news. I remember when you were kidnapped."
"A lot of jobs carry some risk," he noted. "Even someone in a boring job could be hit by a bus." He motioned toward Angela. "And we mostly stay in the lab. It's well protected."
"As to the long hours…" Angela shrugged. "A lot of jobs have that, too, don't they? We can afford good childcare and even when we're working a difficult case, we have down times, where Jack's waiting for a test to run, or I'm waiting for a process to complete or data to compile. We can take turns being with our child and probably benefit from the break ourselves."
It was a good answer.
Cass sat back and looked at them thoughtfully. "Pretend for a moment that you're a child growing up in your home. What's it like?"
"It would be awesome," Jack said immediately with a laugh. "Seriously. I'm into science, Ange's got the art, her dad's got music covered. What a way to grow up."
"And love," Angela said. "Lots of love."
"Love to spare, baby," Jack added as he gazed at the wife that never failed to amaze him.
B&B
Cam braced herself as the boom of thunder followed the strobe effect of the lightning; automatically listening for an indication that the storm had awakened Macon. At seven months, he mostly slept through the night.
"I'll check on him," Paul said. "I need to go to the bathroom, anyway." With a quick kiss, he crossed the room, and started up the stairs.
Cam glanced at the baby monitor on the table next to her. He wasn't awake – if so, they'd have heard him. But if that crack of thunder had disturbed him, it might be possible to sooth him back to sleep before he was completely awake.
She put her head back against the couch with a sigh. She treasured these quiet evenings with Paul, more so because between their two schedules, they were rare. But more often than not, these nights ended with one or both of them asleep by 9PM.
She yawned and looked at her phone, considering whether or not to check on Michelle. Before she could do so, however, another crash of thunder hit, accompanied by wind that rattled windows.
Okay, she might as well go upstairs. That last one would definitely wake the baby.
She was nearly to the top of the stairs when another crash startled her, the sound of something large hitting metal outside. Since it was followed by the shrieking of the car alarm, it wasn't hard to guess what the metal was.
The bathroom door – at the top of the stairs – was closed. "Paul? I think a tree just came down. I'm going to check on it."
"Okay. I'll be out in a moment," was Paul's muffled response. "Macon was fine, by the way."
Some nights, a hiccup from the other end of the house would wake him; tonight he was going to sleep through the house coming down around him.
Not that she was complaining.
She stopped and got a flashlight and jacket before opening the door and slipping outside in the wind. "Damn it," she said, surveying the large tree limb positioned across the front of her SUV. She'd known it was going to storm. Why the hell hadn't she put it in the garage?
Her mind on cataloging the damage, she started toward the driveway, flicking the flashlight back and forth. She didn't notice the van parked two houses down, nor the figures standing still and quiet in the shadow of the house.
B&B
Half surprised that she hadn't returned before he finished his business in the bathroom, Paul grabbed a light and followed Cam out into the wind and rain. He saw the tree limb immediately, and the damage it had caused. The car alarm was still going off, and he wished he'd brought out the key fob. He didn't see his partner.
Thinking she must be on the other side of the vehicle, he circled it. But there was no sign of her."Cam?" he shouted. "Cam, damn it, where are you?"
He flashed the light around the yard and out into the street. Knowing she wouldn't have gone back into the house without saying something about the tree, he nevertheless sprinted back inside, where he shouted for her again, unconcerned that it might wake their son.
There was no response. In what seemed like just a few short moments, she'd simply vanished into thin air.
Finally hearing the unmistakable sound of her partner arriving home, Brennan turned from where she'd been preparing a plate for herself to greet him. "You're later than you indicated you would be – I was about to eat without you. Did the storm slow you down?"
Booth stopped pulling at his tie to kiss her. "Yeah – some of the traffic lights are out between here and the Hoover. But I'm late because as I was heading out, I saw Sweets, Turner, and three other agents in a conference room. So I stopped to see what was up." Brennan cocked her head and he continued. "They're sifting through immigration records from around 1990, looking for Sweets' 'Paisley' as we've been calling her. Or two Brits and their daughter, rather."
"I thought we'd already determined that the lack of organized records would make that fruitless?"
"Yeah. Turner kept bugging people at Homeland Security until they gave her access to what they have. It's not much. An old data file from an early computer system that's never been converted – which may or may include all the records from that time period – and thousands of boxes of microfiche. A lot of the paper records from around then were destroyed in a flood in 1998."
"Angela should be able to convert the data, shouldn't she?"
Booth gave her a wry look. "I hope so. That's how Turner convinced them to hand it over to us. It wasn't converted initially because the budget committee wouldn't approve it and since 2001, old records haven't exactly been a priority. If you know someone's name, you can find them in the microfiche – well, in theory – but you can't just say, 'give me a list of everyone who emigrated in one specific year who meets these qualifications."
"If our best chance for success is Angela, what are Turner and the others doing?"
"There's an index of names on the fiche. No other additional information, so no ages or relationships, but they're looking through that index for three people with the same last name. A male name with two female."
"Booth, that's a ridiculous waste of time. Sweets told me that over sixty thousand people emigrated from the United Kingdom every year during the five year period we postulated Paisley and her family arrived."
"Yeah, it's pretty hopeless. But it's all we've got. And having the other agents giving up their time to look is boosting Sweets."
"Their time?"
"Yeah. Since she didn't actually permanently hurt him, tracking down a lone lunatic isn't a priority for the bureau. No OT for it."
A crash of thunder interrupted whatever she was going to say and Brennan frowned as the lights flickered. "This storm is really quite severe."
His phone rang before he could respond. "That's Cam's ring tone," he said, grimacing. "Booth."
Knowing it was late for it any kind of social call, Brennan watched him listen and then saw as a look passed over his face that was more than reaction to a late case. "We're on our way, Paul."
Brennan was moving to get her jacket before he pressed the end call button. "What is it?"
"Cam's missing. The storm knocked a tree down, and she went out to check it. When Paul followed her minutes later, she'd vanished. No sign of her."
"You think it might be the woman who took Sweets."
"I'm trying not to jump to that conclusion, but she didn't drive anywhere and it's not exactly a night to go for a walk around the neighborhood, even assuming she'd do so without telling Paul."
They didn't speak again until they were in the SUV, heading toward Cam's home, sirens and lights blaring. When Booth finished calling the rest of the team, asking them to meet him and Brennan at Cam's house, Brennan offered, "If it is Paisley…she didn't hurt Sweets."
"Drugging him, taking him God knows where, scaring the shit out of him, then drugging him again and dumping him at the monument isn't hurting him?"
"I meant that if it is her and if she's consistent, Cam will more likely be returned physically unharmed."
"Bones, being 'consistent' isn't exactly what psychopaths are known for."
As they pulled up in front of Cam and Paul's house, Booth said, "Looks like Hodgins and Angela are here and Michelle, but I don't see Turner or Sweets' cars yet."
"It's good that Paul called Michelle," Brennan noted, climbing out.
"It's still her home – she's here most weekends and baby sits Macon a lot for them. She just moved out into that shared apartment with some classmates to give Cam and Paul a little privacy."
As they started up the drive, they saw Hodgins crouched, studying the driveway with a high-powered flashlight.
"Anything?" Booth asked the other man.
Hodgins stood, his face grim. "Nothing. Anything that might have been here's been washed out or blown away. There's a footprint over by the house but the rain has made it all but useless."
Booth turned, surveyed the yard, and then shook his head before walking the rest of the way to the door.
In the living room, they found Paul sitting, head bowed, hands loosely draped between his knees. Michelle, her eyes red, was on one side of him, holding a sleeping Macon, while Angela was on the other side, her expression worried.
Paul looked up, rubbed his eyes. "But why? Why would she take Cam if it is this Paisley person? She's not a psychologist."
Booth looked at Angela. "Sweets and Turner?"
"On their way."
He turned back to Paul. "We'll let Sweets address that when he gets here. For now, walk me through what happened. How long was she outside before you realized she was missing?"
Paul's expression was bewildered. "I don't know. Three or four minutes? Five? How long does it take to take a dump? I'd just gone into the bathroom when we heard the tree limb come down. It shook the whole house, set off the car alarm. She went to check it out, I followed her as soon as I finished."
"Did you notice any vehicles in the street?"
He shook his head. "No, but I wasn't thinking about that when I first went out and by the time I checked the road, they'd have been long gone."
Noises behind them announced the arrival of Sweets and Turner. Hodgins followed them in.
"Paisley took her," Sweets said flatly, his eyes hard in a way Booth had never seen before.
"We can't say that for certain," Brennan cautioned.
"She doesn't have her cell phone, correct?" Sweets asked. Paul held it up. "Then there are three options," the younger man said, his voice still flat. "One, she had a sudden urge to go for a walk, without taking her phone, in the worst storm in months without telling Paul where she was going; two, the woman who kidnapped me and has an unhealthy interest in our entire team took her; three, someone else grabbed her in the middle of the storm for reasons unknown. Which of those is most likely?"
"The entire team? I thought she took you to force you to do a psych diagnosis on her?" Paul might not be in law enforcement but he wasn't stupid.
"That was most likely why I was of the highest interest," Sweets agreed. "But it was the documentary on all of us that caught her attention and she accused all of us of being insulated the night of the charity ball. I'd hoped that I was her primary target, but maybe not."
"We still can't rule out something else," Booth said firmly. "We'll investigate all the options." He held up a hand to silence Sweets' protest. "We'll give weight to the Paisley theory but we're not going to skip investigating other angles and miss something." He turned to Hodgins. "Let's do a grid search of the immediate area."
"Cars, or on foot?"
"Cars, for now. Tomorrow morning, we'll canvas the neighborhood; see if anyone remembers seeing anything odd. We'll do that on foot."
"The storm is supposed to have moved out by then," Angela noted.
"If it was Paisley, she must have been parked somewhere, looking for an opportunity to grab her," Turner said quietly. "She didn't have any way of knowing the tree would fall and Cam would be the one to come out and check it."
Paul looked up at that, misery evident. "It could just as easily have been me. If I'd not been in the bathroom-"
"But if it is Paisley, or anyone who wanted Cam specifically, they wouldn't have bothered with you, Paul. They'd have simply taken her some other time," Booth interrupted. "And if it was someone wanting Cam, not a random snatch, they would have had to have parked somewhere to wait. And maybe someone will have noticed that in a way they didn't when Sweets was taken."
Hodgins looked from Angela back to Booth. "We'll go start a search of the neighborhood."
Angela shook her head. "I'd be of better use in the lab, starting the conversion of that data file of immigration records." She nodded toward Turner. "Turner told me about it when they called us."
"We'll help with the search here," Turner said.
"You take our car to the lab," Hodgins said to Angela. "And be careful."
"Sweets." Booth called the other man back as he started to follow his girlfriend. "Think about what happened when Paisley had you, what it might mean for her to have taken Cam."
"I don't often think of anything else these days," Sweets acknowledged ruefully. "But yeah, I'll review it."
Booth turned back to Paul. "Let's go over the sequence of events again. You came home…"
B&B
Booth took another sip of coffee, and closed his eyes for a moment, wishing the jolt of caffeine would hit and wake up his tired brain when a sound at the door alerted him he was no longer alone. Sweets stood there, obviously exhausted and clearly running on even less sleep than Booth.
"Any word from Angela, or the canvassing?"
Booth shook his head. "Angela says the conversion is proceeding but beyond repeating the warning that given its size she doesn't see how the file can be complete, she doesn't know how long it will take. Immigration records from before 2001 are regional and how often those files got sent to DC in the first place is sketchy."
"And we can't even guess the region."
"We don't know how long you were unconscious. Cam said that if it was Xyrem, as Paisley indicated, you were probably out two to four hours, both times. And based on your report, there's every indication of wealth – enough to have flown you somewhere while you were unconscious. She could have Cam any damn where." Booth blew out a breath. "The canvassing of Cam's neighborhood so far been a bust, too. None of the neighbors remember seeing a suspicious vehicle parked anywhere."
"How does that happen? How can anyone be that good or that lucky?" Sweets prowled around the office in a move that was uncharacteristically agitated.
"It's not your fault - you know that, right?"
Sweets stopped pacing and stared at him. "Yeah, I know. Not my first trip around the block with a psychopath, even if she's the first one to have kidnapped me. But still, I'm a trained observer. No one's that perfect at hiding details, hiding clues. So how come I can't come up with something that will ID her?"
"She's not the first nut job we've gone after who started out lucky. We'll catch her."
"It's just frustrating." Sweets dropped into one of the chairs across the desk. "How are Paul and Michelle holding up?"
"Okay. They're in a safe house." Sweets frowned and Booth shrugged. "If it's Paisley, no, there's no evidence to indicate she'd go after a family member, but I think it makes them feel safer. Cam being grabbed outside her own front door spooked them. And if it's not Paisley, they're probably right to be spooked."
Sweets shook his head. "You know it's Paisley. Cam would never have voluntarily left Macon and if it was someone else, there'd have been a ransom demand by now. Or something."
"Yeah, it's looking that way."
Booth's phone rang. He answered it, listened a moment, then said, 'We'll be right there.' Disconnecting, he said, "That was Turner. The committee chair of the Samson Ball is here with another list of the guests."
"And hopefully an explanation for why the first two lists we've seen didn't match and neither one included someone who could be Paisley," Sweets muttered.
Booth and Sweets entered the conference room followed by Turner. Trying somewhat gamely to find what Bones called his charm smile for the woman at the table, Booth said, "Ms. Dowson, thank you for coming in."
Elizabeth Dowson was convinced that being middle-aged was a secret she was successfully keeping from the world. She was wrong but apart from that, Sweets had indicated she wasn't a bad sort and seemed sincerely dedicated to raising money to support foster programs.
"Of course I'd help the Bureau! You do such important work. I'm not sure what our guest list can tell you, though."
She pushed a printout across the table and Booth picked it up as he sat down, barely noting Sweets and Turner exchanging greetings with her. "Ms. Dowson," he interrupted, "Can you explain why this list doesn't match the other two guest lists we've been given?"
She gave him a sunny smile. "I called Sue and Taran after Lance asked me that and we had a little consult. We think that one's complete."
"You think?"
She spread her hands. "So many people attend, you know? We start out with a main list and add to it as we go along. But the committee members will often add people at the last minute." She looked around and beamed at them. "It's so exciting being here like this. Helping you all."
Booth thought of Cam and indulged in a quick fantasy of shoving the list down the woman's throat. "We appreciate your willingness to assist us. So all of you are adding people at the last minute? How does that work from a security point of view? If I remember correctly, there were several members of Congress at the ball?"
She looked at him blankly. "Well, yes. But security's not a concern if the person is someone known to us personally, you understand." Her enthusiasm finally seemed to be waning, to Booth's relief.
"There's no complete list of everyone who was added at the last moment?"
"No. We all added all the names we could remember, but it was months ago. I can't say for certain that everyone who was there is on the list."
"Is it possible she wasn't invited at all?" Sweets asked. "That if someone gave a name of someone on the committee, she'd be allowed in?"
"I'm sure our security is better than that," she responded but the doubt in her voice told Booth it wasn't something she'd thought about overmuch.
Booth exchanged glances with Sweets and Turner. "Thank you for coming in, Ms. Dowson. Agent Turner will escort you out."
After the two women left the room, Sweets said, "It's not really difficult to imagine it working just that way. Psychopaths study people, are good liars."
"You're saying she conned her way into a ball that was attended by senators without actually being on a guest list."
"It's possible. You saw the crowd that night. There were a lot of people there. She could have met up with someone in the parking lot, made nice with them and came in as part of their party. It shouldn't happen but you know it does, or could. And she's a beautiful woman people naturally like. It's not like she has 'psychopath' stamped across her forehead."
"Very good and very lucky," Booth muttered angrily under his breath, thinking about what Sweets had said earlier.
It was dark and she kept grabbing at half formed thoughts that would flee before she could get a grip on them. Macon. Storm. Paul. Tree.
"Dr. Camille Saroyan. It's time to wake up now." A woman's voice, brisk and matter of fact, tugged Cam further towards consciousness. A light tap on her cheek followed and Cam instinctively turned her face away from it. "There you are. Come now, all the way back."
A click sounded, and the room was flooded with light. Cam winced and blinked, the brightness causing the pounding in her head to triple in intensity. It wasn't difficult to think of a time she'd felt worse – having nearly died by Epps' poison, she could always think of a time she'd felt worse – but this was close. Her stomach moved queasily and she shifted, only to have every thought in her head eclipsed by the realization that she was restrained, her arms firmly taped down to the arms of a chair, her ankles similarly bound to the legs.
Training, an ingrained need to be in control of herself if not the situation, kept her from struggling too much once she realized how tight the tape was. "Untie me."
"I'm sorry," said the voice, not sounding particularly apologetic. "I can't do that yet."
Her face seemed to swim into view, alerting Cam to the fact that she wasn't completely clear headed yet. And she needed to be. She blinked, forced herself to concentrate, to put aside the stabbing in her head caused by whatever they'd drugged her with – Xyrem, if they were being consistent.
The woman in front of her was what might be termed classically beautiful. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a chignon, emphasizing the bone structure of her face, which was dominated by large blue eyes. Her suit matched those eyes exactly, enhancing the effect of her coloring.
She looked every inch the professional, successful businesswoman but Cam had to always remember, this woman was mad as a hatter.
Paisley.
"You took Dr. Sweets."
"That was me," she said happily. "How is Lance? Or Dr. Sweets, rather. I did enjoy our time together."
"He's fine. Busy."
Something that might have been annoyance glinted in the other woman's eyes for a moment but she just shrugged and smiled. "His role in my game is done. Now it's your turn!"
Desperately trying to get her bearings, Cam looked around, noting the setting for the first time. No windows, a drain in the floor, cinder block walls – a row large of large drawers in one of those walls – a sink, and tools on a side counter. If the drawers, the drain and the tools hadn't been a giveaway, the body on the table over the drain would have done so.
It was an autopsy room, though a very old fashioned one.
Her captor moved back into her line of sight, apparently determined to be the focus of Cam's attention and cocked her head. "What would you prefer for me to call you? Dr. Saroyan? Or Camille?"
She was so polite about it, the slight British accent Sweets had noted coming through. She tapped her foot, reminding Cam that polite or not, the crazy lady was waiting for an answer. "Not Camille."
"Very well, Dr. Saroyan. You keep blinking. Are you still feeling the effects of the drug?" Her tone was more curious than concerned.
"Some." Deciding it was better not to appear weak, she changed the subject. "Where am I?"
Paisley waved her hand. "That's not important. You have the tools to fulfill your task." She motioned proudly toward the tools – scalpel, bone saw, rib cutters, a scale.
"Which is?"
"To tell me what our friend over there died from, of course. That's your area, after all, isn't it? Autopsies?"
"And if I refuse?"
Blue eyes fixed on her. "You really don't want to refuse. Macon is such a sweetie – it would be a shame if something happened to him."
Her mouth went dry and Cam swallowed against the terror. "You will not hurt my son."
"Not if you fulfill your task."
She hadn't said anything about letting Cam go. But the threat to Macon was very real. What Paisley was either unaware of or discounting is that Macon not only had his father guarding him, but Booth and the rest of her team. Cam herself might not make it home, but Paisley would never get near her son. She knew that with absolute certainty. She let a breath out, and motioned to the body on the table with a cock of her head. "Who is it?"
Paisley pretended to look puzzled for a moment. "Your team is known for identifying the unknown, are they not? What kind of challenge would it be if I told you who he was?"
"Did you kill him?"
"You're cheating, Dr. Saroyan. You're supposed to figure out all these things on your own. You can do that, can't you? Maybe you're not as good as people think."
"If I find out the answer one way or the other, why does it matter how I do it?" Cam strove to make her tone as reasonable as possible.
Paisley narrowed her eyes, stared for a moment. "That's very clever of you. But it's still cheating according to the game."
"So what are the rules?"
The other woman smiled in response, clearly pleased that Cam appeared to be playing along. She then looked over toward the door, and motioned with her hand. The door was metal, with a square window cut in it and opened it in response to Paisley's motion. A large man who could only be her partner entered and Cam struggled to remember what Sweets had said his name was.
"This is …Adam," Paisley said, in a way that told Cam it wasn't his real name. "And the rules are quite simple," she added, smiling. "I free you from the chair, you do the autopsy – I'll give you say, four hours. You correctly identify how he died. If you fail, or refuse…" she shrugged. "You and your family pay the price. And if you try to escape, or think to use that saw as a weapon? Adam will kill you."
She said the last with such absolute confidence that Cam scrapped the half-formed idea of trying to talk the man into helping her escape. Better to just play the psychopath's game.
She looked at the body and wondered again who he was and how he came to be dead. Then she looked at Paisley. "Fine. I agree to your 'rules.' But I want more time to do it. Given these circumstances, a minimum of six hours." At the other woman's frown, she added, "There is no standard length of time for an autopsy. Sometimes they take even longer than that, depending on what I find and what might require closer study. Most autopsies involve more than one person, particularly the ones we do. If you want me to do this, you have to give me the time to do it right."
Responding to her captor as if she was sane and could be negotiated with was a calculated risk. But if her life was tied to correctly figuring out cause of death – without all her tools – she wanted as much time as she could get.
Paisley stared at her for a long moment. "Fine. I'll give you six hours. If you don't have it by then, I'll assume you've failed." She didn't expand on the implied threat, but she didn't need to.
Cam looked over at the body on the table and felt a moment of despair. How the hell was she supposed to identify the cause of death without access to a tox screen, just for starters?
Her thoughts were interrupted by Paisley, who'd walked over to pick up the scalpel. She returned to Cam, and then simply stared at her. "I'm going to free you now. I'll remind you not to try to escape. It would be a pity if you died so early in the game." With that, she sliced the tape, and then ripped it off before turning to Adam. "Be a gentleman, Adam, and help her off with her jacket while I fetch the tea tray."
Rubbing her wrists, Cam watched the two of them warily. She'd just as soon keep the jacket, but since she couldn't tell whether it was a bizarre courtesy or something more sinister, she allowed him to take the coat. It was probably best not to argue needlessly with the madwoman.
Paisley returned pushing a cart that must have been right outside the door. "It's early for breakfast, but I thought you might be in need of some refreshment before beginning your task. I don't know your tastes, since the documentary didn't cover that and you ignored me during the one previous time we had an opportunity to get to know one another."
Her face darkened during her last line but she shook her head and the light returned to her open features. "I have tea, scones and real clotted cream, which can be difficult to find over here. Oh, and berries. Milk in your tea?"
When Cam looked at her in confusion, Paisley smiled, "A kidnapping is no reason for me to forget my manners, a lady always offers her guest something to eat and drink."
B&B
There was no reason for Booth to be in the lab. But there was no reason for him to be at the Hoover, either, since they were effectively at a dead end.
But he wanted to see Brennan. He needed to see her, if he was being honest and he wanted to touch base with Angela, the only person on the entire team who actually had something to do, as unlikely as it was to produce anything useful.
It was unnaturally quiet for a place normally humming with activity and his own pace slowed as he reached Brennan's office. She was staring blankly at her monitor, her expression one he identified with not paying attention. Her mind wasn't on whatever was in front of her.
That, too, was unnatural.
"Hey, Bones," he said softly as he approached her.
She blinked. "Booth ...did something happen? Was there a break in the case?"
He leaned over, dropped a kiss on the top of her and then settled on the edge of her desk. "No. You?"
"Not yet. Angela's file conversion is program is still running." She frowned at the monitor again, stabbed at a key. "I do not want Cam's job. People are expecting me to take over, especially if she doesn't return. I know I'm the logical one to do so. But I do not wish to do it."
Her voice was matter of fact, might have sounded callous to many, Booth reflected. But when she looked up at him, he saw a wealth of emotions in her eyes, dominated by fear and sorrow.
"Hey." He took her hand, pulled her up to him, unsurprised when her head dropped onto his shoulder. "Don't tell me, the bureaucrats?"
"Cam had a meeting scheduled with the director this morning. When she didn't show, he came to find out why and I had to tell him she was missing."
"And he's just assuming you'll step up because you were in charge during Cam's maternity leave."
"That was different."
He tilted her face up. "I know but just roll with it for now, Bones. She's not been missing even twenty-four hours yet. Do what needs to be done and we'll play what comes next by ear."
"You're the one who's good at that. I prefer sheet music with detailed notation."
It was impossible not to smile at that, and he was about to kiss her when Angela interrupted them.
"Guys? You're going to want to see this. Sweets just sent me a file - they've got a hit on a possible match. He's on his way over."
"What kind of hit? From looking through those lists?" He knew he sounded incredulous, but couldn't help it.
The three of them started toward Angela's office. "Yeah. A Gillian Eve Gregory is on the list with a John Henry Gregory and a Helen Carol Gregory. The name 'Eve' caught Sweets' eye. He'd assumed that it was a fake name but maybe not."
"Seems like that could just as easily be a reason to rule her out," Brennan commented.
"Yeah, that's what I thought. But turns out she's got the basic coloring and she did a stint at a boarding school."
They reached the office and she went to check something on one of her PCs. "I ran a search on her and she's based in New York. No driver's license and her passport is nine years old, so Sweets asked if I could clean up that photo and maybe age it some."
Sweets spoke from the door as he and Turner walked in. "Were you able to do so?"
"Please. It's not that difficult." Angela had picked up her tablet, made some adjustments and pointed. "Gillian Eve Gregory, aged to thirty-six, the last ten or so years compliments of me."
Booth barely glanced at the image on the screen, focusing instead on Sweets' expression. And knew the moment Sweets admitted defeat.
"It's not her." Shoulders slumped; he nevertheless continued staring at the image. "The shape of her face is wrong and she has a widow's peak that Paisley doesn't have."
For a moment, the four continued studying the screen, avoiding each other's eyes and the defeat they knew they would all see within them.
Cam, having finished the tea, watched Paisley leave the room. If the autopsy was that important, why not stay and watch it? Mentally shrugging, she glanced at the grim faced man standing next to the door. His hand was in his jacket pocket – very deliberately so. Either he had a weapon or wanted her to think so.
'Do the autopsy, Cam, and go from there.' She muttered under her breath.
Her captor had provided an apron, masks and medical grade gloves. Because the man had died of something communicable? Or simply because she was trying to give Cam the tools she believed she would need? A glance at the guard made the former unlikely, since he wasn't wearing a mask. She pulled on the protective gear and then removed the sheet draped over the body.
No body bag, which would have been expected if the body had been transported. And it must have been transported from somewhere.
Unless he'd been killed wherever it is they were now.
Upon closer inspection, the room they were in wasn't just old fashioned. It was bare. The shelves which would normally have held supplies were empty, giving it an abandoned feeling. So, a kill site wasn't out of the realm of possibility. Or maybe there had been a body bag and they'd removed it.
She was going to drive herself crazy over thinking the questions.
Turning to look at the tools, she saw a miniature digital voice recorder and a small medical grade microscope sitting off to the side. Unless she was mistaken, it was the same model Hodgins had found at the mall science store months before while they were quarantined there. A popular model, preferred by medical students, researchers without labs, and apparently now psychopaths.
Cam gave herself a mental shake – now was not the time to get punchy - and pressed record on the machine to begin taking notes. "Deceased looks to be in his mid-30's. No visible signs of trauma to the head or torso." Frowning, she studied his legs more closely. "Lower limbs show evidence of significantly reduced muscle mass." Following a hunch, she shifted the body, rolled it enough to see the back. "Pressure sore on the coccyx, partially healed, another forming on the back of the left heel." Easing the body back down, she continued the initial visual exam.
B&B
Not only was her prison bare, there were no clocks. Cam stood, stretched muscles stiff from bending over the microscope. She had no idea of the time – it could be the middle of the night or three in the afternoon – and no idea of how long Paisley had been gone. She'd decided earlier that her only choice was to do the best autopsy she could, without worrying about how much time she was taking.
Paisley either would kill her or she wouldn't.
She glanced over at Adam. He hadn't spoken to her, but nor had he relaxed his stance. Was he a psychopath as well or just easily led and not very bright? It had been too many years since her undergrad psych classes. She'd have to ask Sweets. If she ever saw him again.
She'd turned back to the body and was surveying it, wondering if she'd missed something, when the door opened and Paisley came in. "Your time is up." She looked..satisfied and that made Cam uneasy. "In your opinion, Dr. Saroyan, what caused this man's death?" She sounded so much like one of Cam's pathology professors, it was eerie.
Cam met her gaze squarely. "With the tools provided, it appears to me that he died of a health-care-acquired bacterial pneumonia, possibly Methicillian-Resistant-Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA for short."
"No complicating factors?"
"Based on the decreased muscle mass in his legs, he was a paraplegic. There's evidence of healing bedsores, indicating he was in a nursing home or other long-term care facility. There's a significant amount of infection in his lungs, which, when examined under the microscope and without reference resources, resemble, to the best of my memory, MRSA bacteria."
"No evidence of foul play, then?" Paisley walked over to stand, staring down at the body as if how he died was a great mystery to her.
"It is always possible to use naturally occurring death to mask murder," Cam said, and worked to keep irritation out of her voice. "Without a tox screen to analyze what's in his blood, no, I can't rule out other contributing or complicating factors."
"No, you really can't, can you?"
Despite her resolution simply to do the best she could, fear crowded out everything else, the conviction growing that it didn't matter how the man had died, not if a lunatic wanted her to fail. She turned, trying to figure out how to approach the other woman, and, too late to react, felt the sting of the needle in her arm.
B&B
After several hours of brainstorming, fruitlessly trying to come up with another angle to investigate, Booth had insisted a break was order. He insisted that Brennan and the baby needed a change of environment and a good meal.
"It's been nearly twenty four hours," she said quietly as they walked toward the diner.
"I know."
"The lack of leads to investigate is frustrating in the extreme."
"I know," he said again. "But we'll keep trying. Sooner or later, Bones, she'll slip up."
His phone rang and Brennan stopped walking and watched him press the button to answer it. They were all so tense, so focused on Cam, the possibility that it could be something unrelated barely registered.
"Booth." Various expressions chased across his face as he listened and never had her inability to read people frustrated her more.
He ended the call, and Brennan said, "What is it? Who was it?"
"A DC cop found Cam bound and drugged at the Jefferson Memorial. He says she's woozy, but okay."
She unexpectedly found it difficult to swallow, as relief made her dizzy.
"We're not far from there." Booth stated as he put his phone away and zipped up his jacket. "I'll go the rest of the way on foot. You head back to the lab and get the others – and call Paul."
All she could do was nod, and watch as he turned and dodged across the street.
A small crowd had gathered at the memorial by the time Booth got there, consisting of a few other cops and some curious gawkers. He ignored them, his focus on the woman sitting with her head in her hands.
Pushing sentiment aside, he knelt next to her and went for what had been working for them for many years. "Camille. You do know how to shake things up, don't you?"
"Seeley." She managed a smirk, although it was a wobbly one. "Don't call me Camille."
"Deal. Are you okay?"
"I've been better." She met his gaze. "But I've been worse, too." He nodded, understanding, and she said, "Macon? Paul?"
"They're all fine. Bones is calling Paul." Several car doors slammed and he looked around. "Here's the cavalry. We'll have him and Michelle meet us at the hospital."
She nodded and then grabbed his arm to stand. "I'm fine. Tired but fine." She rubbed her lower back. "And sore. I've either been standing or unconscious for hours."
B&B
It was several hours later that they all sat in Cam and Paul's living room, listening as she wrapped the recounting of her experience. Booth thought Paul would have preferred to delay the debriefing until the next morning, but Cam, ever the cop, had understood that the sooner she did it, the more she'd remember.
"So you did the autopsy, but can't say conclusively whether it was murder," Brennan summarized.
"No. It looked pretty straightforward to me but she's obviously quite willing to administer drugs, so it may not have been."
"Still, it's another angle to follow up on. Someone, somewhere, is missing a paraplegic who had pneumonia," Turner said.
"There's something else, as well," Cam said. "I've been thinking a great deal about where she held me. I only saw the one room but it looked like a standard autopsy room. I've been thinking about what else it could have been and nothing's coming to mind. With the drain and refrigerator units, it might have been an industrial kitchen, but there was no obvious place for a stove or a large cooler or freezer."
"So we're looking for an abandoned hospital?" Booth asked.
"Or funeral home. Embalming rooms have many of the same features."
"That's good. We can work with that."
Sweets had asked a few clarifying questions, but had been quiet the last few minutes, so Booth turned to him. "What are you thinking about, Sweets? What's going on in that shrinky brain of yours?"
"Just thinking about the differences between my experience and Dr. Saroyan's." He looked at Cam. "You said she was dressed in a suit, with her hair pulled back?"
"Yes. If I had seen her on the street, I would have thought her a successful businesswoman."
Brennan frowned. "Is that important?"
"Only in that she's exhibiting consistent behavior. Psychopathic personalities can be chameleons, changing in appearance and manner to fit what they perceive the social environment to require."
Cam's sighed and dropped her head back against the sofa. Paul looked from her to Booth, a concerned frown on his face.
Booth nodded, understanding, and stood. "We need to let Cam get some rest. We've got the gist of what we need for now. Tomorrow, we'll start looking at empty hospitals and mortuaries, and for news reports of missing paraplegics."
"And we've still got the immigration file," Angela noted. "The conversion finished just as Brennan came in to tell us where Cam was. As I was afraid of, the file itself is not complete – the number of records don't come anywhere near matching the actual official figures for those years. But now that it's converted, I can run queries on what's there. Maybe we'll get lucky and she'll be there."
They had all stood, and having said goodnight to Cam and Paul, were moving toward the door. "At some point, her luck has to run out," Sweets said. "It's our turn."
They all walked out together, but as they separated to go to their different vehicles, Booth called out, "Guys?" The team turned to look at him, "Be careful. We don't know what she's capable of so, until we catch her, I want you guys locking doors, paying attention and being aware of your surroundings. Call me or Turner if anything seems off to you, got it?"
The group nodded in agreement and began moving again. Booth and Sweets walked behind the group but before they got to the cars, the agent stopped the shrink. Keeping an eye on Brennan as she talked with Angela, he asked, "What's really on your mind?"
"You're not going to like it."
Booth sighed, "Just let me have it."
"She took me to do a psych eval. She took Cam to do an autopsy. She's open about it being a game…"
"None of us are off limits," Booth said in quick understanding.
"I don't think so. I might have been a fluke, particularly since my task was so obviously focused on her, but taking Cam for an autopsy…it changes things."
Booth looked at his somber friend, "We'll find her."
Sweets nodded, "I know we will…but when?"
As Angela closed the door of the Mini Cooper, she exhaled deeply, "I am so relieved to know Cam's in there, where she belongs."
"I hear a 'but' there."
"But I'm still not hearing much that's going to help us find Paisley. I don't know that tracking down a missing paraplegic is going to be any easier than looking through three hundred thousand immigration records. Jack, I don't want to live my life wondering which of my friends is going to be the next one to vanish!"
"We'll get her Ang. We will."
"You guys keep saying that but…What if we don't? What if this is the one that stumps us?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "But I do know that the team who took down Epps, Taffet, and Fitz isn't going to be defeated by a nut job like Paisley. We're good, Ange. Really, really good."
"I know. It's just …we told the social worker that our jobs aren't really dangerous. That we're in the lab, not out in the field but Cam wasn't snatched in the lab. Any one of us could have been taken and many of our cases could turn out to be dangerous. Should we really take responsibility for a kid?"
"Did you see how Paul was holding Macon when they got to the hospital?" he answered. "Do you think that he was regretting having him? That he would have, even if Paisley hadn't freed Cam?"
"No," she said. "In fact, he looked like the baby had been keeping him sane."
"And what of the baby? Do you think he'd regret being loved by Cam, even if something happened to her before he was old enough to remember? I don't. Love always matters, babe, no matter how long we have it for. From here on out we'll redouble our efforts to find the psychopath and take extra security precautions."
After a moment, she said, "You're right."
"Exactly. We'll stop her. And we'll continue getting our home ready for the child who needs us, our child."
Hodgins placed a kiss on her lips and pulled back with a huge grin on his face.
"What?"
"It is such a rare occasion that you tell me I'm right, I'm just savoring the feeling."
B&B
Turner studied Sweets as he drove them home. His topic of study might be people in general but he was hers and right now, based on the tension in his hands as he gripped the steering wheel, the man she loved was not in a good space.
"Lance?" she said quietly. "What are you thinking about?"
"Dr. Saroyan will sleep tonight."
She frowned, baffled. Whatever she'd been expecting him to say, it wasn't that. "That's a good thing, right?"
"Yeah but I'm still having more nights where I can't sleep, or where I wake up thinking I'm taped down, than not."
"You're upset because you think she'll handle having been kidnapped better than you?"
"It sounds foolish when you put it that way."
"It is," she said gently. "She's a cop. She's older than us, has dealt with all kinds of things we haven't."
"I know. But I'm a psychologist, Claude."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He ran his hand across his face and sighed, "I should have better coping skills."
Claudia wasn't sure how to address that so she pointed out, "Your experience was also different from Dr. Saroyan's in a key way."
"What do you mean?"
"You spent the entire time expecting to be killed but because you'd already been kidnapped and then released, she had hope that she'd be freed as well. Wouldn't that make a difference? Hours of being certain you were going to die versus having at least some hope that you might not?"
He was silent as he made a turn, pulled into their parking space. "Yeah. Frame of mind during an event can affect how we view it later." He looked over at her. "You're good, you know that?"
She leaned over and kissed him. "I learned from the best."
B&B
Booth pulled into the drive of the home they were renovating. He stared at the yard, silent, for a moment before getting out and standing next to the SUV. Curious, Brennan exited and walked around to him, trying to determine what he was doing.
He studied a large tree that stood off to the side of the yard for a moment, and then looked up at the roof of the house – the new roof that he and Wendell had laid down several weeks earlier.
Brennan let him stand there a moment, hands on hips, eyes roaming the house as he mentally assessed. It was clear he was considering something important. Finally, she interrupted. "It's very late, Booth, and I'm tired. Now is not a good time for a discussion on how the work is progressing."
"Yeah, ok, Bones." She was at his side and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders pulling her close as they walked inside their new home.
It was too late and they were too exhausted for a normal evening at home and they simply made their way to the bedroom ignoring the regular tasks they typically shared to keep the household running. They spoke little as they readied for bed. It was obvious Booth continued to stew over his earlier thoughts and Brennan had learned that allowing him some time to put his thoughts in order usually resulted in a more constructive discussion when he finally shared his concerns.
But, she had also learned that he should not attempt to go to bed with trouble on his mind. He slept poorly when he did that and tonight he needed rest after their grueling ordeal. Climbing into bed she scooted to his side of the bed and snuggled against him. Booth cradled her in one arm and his other hand began to caress her belly. She pressed a soft kiss to the warm skin of his bare chest and spoke. "Are you going to tell me what you are thinking about?"
"I'm thinking I love you."
She returned the brief hug he was giving her and pressed again. "I love you too, but that is not what I was referring to. What were you thinking about when we got home?"
"I know what you meant." He dropped his head and watched as his hand continued to stroke her rounded belly. "I was thinking about security. Hodgins gave me the name of a guy. Someone who can help with the kind of issues we have. I was looking at the house trying to pick the best spot for one of those security cameras. There's a spot on the corner of the roof, above your office, that will get most of the yard. And if I put another over the garage it will get the street. And I'll do two in the back yard." He looked at her, his expression grim. "I've been concentrating on internal security – good alarms on the doors and windows."
"But Cam was taken outside."
He rolled into her and dropped his head against hers. "I know it seems excessive, Bones, but either or both of us could be targets, and so could our kids. Your money and fame, people we've locked up, or their buddies…"
Her hand slid against his neck and she cupped the nape of his neck letting her fingers comb through his hair. "You're right. We discussed whether or not we should continue working together a few weeks ago and agreed that we should. It's too important to both of us, and what we do matters so much. But there's more we can do to protect ourselves and our family."
"I'll call about the cameras tomorrow." He kissed her. "We'll catch Paisley, but there will always be another psycho out there. You know that, don't you?"
"Statistically, it's unlikely there would be someone else exactly like her," she said primly. "But yes, there will probably always be people seeking to harm us. Fortunately, we have one another, and the rest of our team."
"Damn straight, we do. And we're the best."
"You know what we are best at?" she asked still lightly caressing his nape.
"Catching bad guys?"
"We are excellent at that," she agreed. "But we are better at this." And the way she kissed him made Booth wholeheartedly agree.
Join us next week as Booth and Brennan are called in to help catch a cold-hearted killer who puts his victims on display in blocks of ice in Pretty Maids All in a Row by Stayuff.