Booth and Tempe pulled up to a two-story white house with pink roses growing in the garden out front. Climbing out of the car, both watched as a little girl and boy playing in the front ran inside the house scared. Tempe shrugged and continued to walk towards the door with Booth at her side.
"FBI!" Booth said while ringing the doorbell. The little girl who had been playing outside opened the door.
"Can I help you?" she asked in a voice so low Tempe had to listen closely to hear what she said.
"Is your mom home?" Booth asked looking at the young blonde child.
"MOMMY!" she turned and yelled up the stairs.
"Yes Monica?" a Caucasian woman with blonde hair and blue eyes in her mid to late 20's asked coming down the stairs. She froze when she got a look at Booth and her bright smile faded when she made eye contact with both people standing at her door.
"Hi I'm Lisa Pulaski." She said extending her hand out for Booth to shake it.
"I'm agent Booth with the FBI, and this is Dr. Brennan." Booth said causally as they were welcomed into the house.
"MOMMY! Jordan pulled my hair!" another little girl came crying down the stairs, her tears froze when she saw there was company.
"Sara could you please go upstairs with your sister while mommy sits here and talks to the nice people?" Lisa asked looking from Monica to Sara giving them a motherly look then looked to Tempe and Booth, smiling. Monica grabbed Sara's hand and ran up the stairs towards the cries of another child.
"Sorry, but four kids is rather hard to deal with." Lisa said joking.
"Four?" Tempe asked.
"Yes, my son Jordan and my three daughters, the two you've met, Sara and Monica and my other daughter Nicole." She said her smile fell at the mention of Nicole's name.
"Where is Nicole?" Tempe asked, knowing full well were the young child was, in her lab, being examined by her friends.
"I'm not sure, her father took her for a drive on day and neither of them ever came back." She said crying.
"Did you notify the police?" Booth asked curiously.
"No, he said they'd be back tomorrow, I just can't wait to see her again.
"If you don't mind me asking what happened?" Booth asked.
"My husband, Marcus and I got in a fight the other day, he wasn't the best at controlling his temper and would sometimes lead to hurting my kids, well the other day he took off with Nicole and said he'd be back soon. I know that he just needed time to cool off and he wouldn't hurt Nicole too much, I was scared to call the police because it might provoke him to hurt her. So I would talk to her to make sure she was ok." Lisa said getting up from her spot on the couch and walked around the living room to hide her tears and signs of fear.
"When was the last time you talked to her?" Booth asked ignoring the woman's stupidity for not calling the police in the first place.
"Three days ago, she said she was on her way to the doctors for her weekly check up and that was all."
"Do you have a recent picture of Nicole?" Booth asked as Tempe sat there next to him looking at the kids who were now sitting quietly on the steps behind her; a small smile crossed her lips as she realized just how sneaky children could be.
"Yes, I do." Lisa said looking around and came across a picture of a Caucasian male holding a little girl of six. Nicole's hair was blonde like both her parents and blue eyes that looked like the ocean, her bright smile resembled that of her mothers.
"How long ago was this taken?" Tempe asked looking at the photo.
"Last month at the zoo, it was a birthday surprise for her." Lisa said. "Is something wrong?" she asked just now realizing an FBI agent was in her house asking questions about her daughter.
"Mrs. Pulaski, two days ago a body was brought into FBI headquarters, DNA tests were run and we have very good reason to believe the body is your daughters." Booth said as casual as possible.
Lisa's face fell completely and tears streamed down her face. "No" Tempe heard the word escape the eldest child, Monica's mouth as she turned around and ran up to her room.
"What happened? What happened?" little voices cried after Monica. Tempe never realized it, but spending all her time with Booth had worked on her emotional side. At that moment she felt like going after the children and telling them it was going to be ok, but she forced the voices out of her head and kept her face the same, she didn't want Booth to think she was turning soft on him.
"if you have any contact with your husband please call me at this number." Booth said handing Lisa a card.
"is Marcus going to jail?" Lisa asked.
"if he killed your daughter…yes." Booth said, then walked to the door with Tempe at his side.
"I hope you do the right thing, Mrs. Pulaski." Booth said then walked out of the house.
"Sorry for your loss." Tempe said then followed Booth closely to the car.
