Gateway

Two large slabs of plywood stood where her front door had once been, secured to the frame of the house with a substantial padlock. She read the legal notice over the shoulder of the U.S. Marshall who was opening the lock, the notice that warned against trespass and promised a hefty fine and jail sentence for anyone foolish enough to get caught breaking the seal.

Inside, the air had a stale, stagnant quality. Whitish powder covered much of everything in the entranceway. She hadn't examined much of the damage as she had waited with Booth for an ambulance that night and now with only a little light streaming in from undamaged windows, she couldn't see much, but the destruction seemed far less complete than it had that night.

"You said the office was down this hall?"

The marshal maintained his back to the living room angling his body in such a way as to funnel her down the hall. The hallway, usually lit during the day by the glass door at the rear, was shuttered and darkened by another plywood slab marking its place.

She led the way, stepping over the remnants of the front door and splinters of the banister. Even in the dim light, she could see the gaping hole in the wall leading upstairs.

"Is it locked?"

She shook her head, a wave of anger causing her to remain mute, and opened the door. The room had been untouched by the firefight, but her desk drawers were left slightly ajar and she thought she saw a white smudge near the lock on the desk. One by one she opened each drawer and took out the papers she needed: notes for her latest book, insurance numbers, notes for a paper she was writing. The final drawer wasn't really a drawer, but a panel that revealed the very solid door of a safe.

She ran through the combination quickly, turned the handle and felt a tap on her shoulder.

"I need to open that, Doctor."

For a moment she hesitated, then shook her head and stood slowly.

"It's because there could be a weapon," he offered. "Just a precaution."

She waited as he opened the door and peered inside, a small flashlight zigzagging along the contents.

"You need it all?"

Some of her more important papers were in a safety deposit box at her bank, but these would see them through the next several weeks if not months and she didn't want to leave them behind for the FBI to peruse.

"It's better if I take it all."

He grunted and she took that as approval and bent to the task. These papers she stuffed into her messenger bag along with other items: Booth's childhood photos, her winning medal from a science fair, the house title, their marriage certificate. She stood when the safe was empty, slinging the bag over her shoulder.

"I need to go upstairs and get some things from my daughter's room."

That had been the sticking point with the Marshals and even though she had received permission to retrieve items from her own house, she hadn't been given full access. The marshal played his flashlight along the stairs.

"I don't know," he murmured. "The railing's shot to hell and there's no telling how damaged those stairs are."

She wanted to tell him she could see the damage, she had been in worse conditions, had evaded an army by clinging to a rock face for over an hour, but she took a deep breath and a different tack.

"My daughter is having difficulty sleeping with everything that's gone on."

That part was true even if it wasn't the only reason she wanted to go up the stairs. While she didn't have time for a full reconstruction of what had happened there, the stairs obviously had been used by one of the Delta Force soldiers and Booth had blown out the wall to slow him.

"I don't know, Dr. Brennan. It looks a bit dicey to me."

"I take full responsibility." She took another breath and tried the words the lawyer had suggested. "Christine cries because she doesn't have her favorite toy and she's been crying herself to sleep since this all happened."

The words proved a gateway to the marshal's sympathies and she gingerly began the climb up the stairs, her flashlight washing the stairs in a blue light. The marshal was only a few steps behind.

Only the landing appeared to have seen any damage as she made the turn toward Christine's room. White dust on the floor betrayed an intrusion up here as well and she worked quickly to enter the room and find Christine's daycare knapsack.

"I can't handle it when my kid cries," the marshal offered as she tried to corral a few of Christine's toys with a book or two and into the knapsack.

"You got a another bag or suitcase or something?"

She gave directions to the attic ladder at the end of the hall and listened as the footfalls faded away. Then she checked the hallway before taking the half-dozen steps to the linen closet and the recorder that had been connected to the security cameras downstairs.

She was back in Christine's room before the marshal returned.

He led with the suitcase as she negotiated the stairs, her blue light still playing across the steps when she saw the tiniest fragment of hope. A misplaced foot, a hand to steady herself, and she captured the sliver of wood before slipping it into the kangaroo pocket of Christine's bag.

"You all right there?" The marshal helped her find her feet, helped her negotiate the last few steps.

"I'm fine," she huffed. "I was clumsy as a child."

He gave her a look. "Those stairs are in bad shape, Doctor. I hope you got what you needed."

She fought an urge to brush off the dust clinging to her pants. "So do I," she said and thanked him.