A/N: Glad you all enjoyed the last chapter. It's tough picking on the kids like that.


Disclaimer: I own nothing Bones related except my imagination. (12/3/15)


"The drupe is key."

Booth looked up from his cup of coffee to find an excited Hodgins standing next to the diner table he was sharing with Brennan for breakfast the next morning, completely lost as to what Hodgins was saying. "The drupe? What the hell is that, a new-age rock band or something?"

Hodgins pulled out a chair and plopped down next to Brennan, the enthusiasm in his voice making him talk even quicker than normal. "No. Think of . . . of a peach. A piece of fruit where there is a fleshy outer layer that surrounds a shell with an inner seed. That's what we call a drupe. At one of the crime scenes from one of the victims, the FBI field techs collected a small drupe, about the size of a pea, because the body was indoors and the drupe didn't seem to belong with the scene, but they never did anything but bag it."

"Okay. What's that got to do with anything?"

"The drupe they collected comes from a linden tree. The bag that was placed in Brennan's car with the snakes also has linden tree pollen on it. One of the snakes recently ate a mouse that hadn't been digested yet and the mouse had been snacking on a linden tree bark too. I pulled out the original drupe that they collected at the scene and what's left of the fleshy part has decayed by now, but I was able to pull some trace off the fruit and found some rubber particulates that are chemically consistent with a rubber product that has a durometer of close to 75."

"Just like shoe rubber," stated Brennan.

"Exactly. So I figured our bad guy, whoever he is, must live somewhere near where linden trees grow and near where there's a natural body of water for him to collect those snakes. He must've stepped on the drupe near his home and carried it into the victim's house lodged into his shoe where it worked its way free while he was there."

Booth felt like he was missing the point here. "So, are these linden trees pretty rare? Is this some sort of a major breakthrough?"

Hodgins looked at Booth like he'd just kicked his dog, shoulders falling forward in a slump. "No. They're not rare at all. We don't see many of them right in the downtown area, but they're pretty common trees all up and down the eastern seaboard. Angela's going through and trying to map any known locations of linden tree groves near bodies of water that are within about a 50-mile radius of downtown, but it'll end up being too many locations for us to pinpoint the right spot until we get something more to help refine our search."

Brennan nodded her head. "Very good though, Dr. Hodgins. It's a start and it gives us a connection to tie one of the victims together with what happened to me yesterday."

"No. No, no. Not very good." Booth complained, his worried eyes turning to Brennan. "If bug boy here is correct and this linden tree stuff connects your snakes in the car incident with the killings from over a year ago, that means we have a professional killer on the loose out there who has identified you as a target, Bones. It means somehow he's learned about our investigation and he thinks you're the one he needs to be worried about. After yesterday's stunt, I'm not sure he wouldn't hurt our kids to get to you too. This is not good. This is bad, Bones. Very bad."


It was only about a 5-1/2 hour drive from Washington DC to Athens, Ohio. Maybe a little more if you hit some traffic or a little less if you drove with a leaden foot. Max left his apartment after a leisurely late-morning breakfast and arrived in Athens in the early afternoon. He spent a little time just driving around town and getting the lay of the land before he finally parked his car on a side street and started to wander around on foot. Most of the town was dominated by the presence of Ohio University, but he managed to find a quaint little coffee shop that afforded him a clear view of the florist shop across the street. He parked himself in front of the window there with a newspaper, content to sit and wait while he drank some coffee and ate a beignet.

When it was just a few minutes before 6:00, he folded his newspaper, tossed his empty coffee cup in the trash, and wandered across the street. He hadn't seen anyone enter or leave the florists shop in the last quarter of an hour and assumed that by now, only the shop manager was left inside. That made his self-appointed task easier. Slipping on his gloves before entering the building, Max flipped the sign on the door to "Closed" and turned the lock.

"I'll be with you in just a moment." The soft, sweet sounding voice came filtering through the open door to the back room and Max headed that way. When the elderly woman who owned that voice walked back into the main part of the store, looking around for the customer she thought she'd heard, she'd felt Max's hand slip around from behind to cover her mouth at the same time she felt a quick pinprick to her neck. She didn't feel anything else for a while after that.

Max studied the unconscious woman in his arms as he laid her down on the floor. He was getting too damn old for these types of games, but he'd do what he had to if Tempe and her family were being threatened. He still remembered the day Ruth gave birth to Temperance, although they'd called her Joy back then, and seeing that little bundle of scrawny arms and legs that represented his daughter had filled him with such a sense of pride and wonder and a fierce protectiveness which had never diminished, even as she grew older. One look and he realized daughters were different than sons when it came to how fathers would protect them. Even so, that feeling that his heart knew no bounds and could be no fuller had only been eclipsed by each of the grandbabies she'd given him and Max knew there was nothing . . . nothing at all he wouldn't do to protect Christine and Hank.

Once he heard about the snake incident yesterday, he knew coming here today was a necessity. He couldn't put it off anymore.

Leaving the woman on the floor for a moment, Max found a simple four-legged chair and moved it into the walk-in cooler where some of the floral arrangements were stored. He had to rearrange some of the planting materials in order to provide enough clear space for the chair, but it didn't take long. Then he dragged the woman into the cooler as well and hoisted her into the chair, securing her in place with some packing tape he found amongst her supplies. The cooler would add another layer of sound proofing to what was to come and any noises she made were that much less likely to be heard outside the store.

He had about another ten minutes until the quick shot he gave her wore off, so he wandered around the store, dimming the lights so it would appear the store was empty from outside. When he saw a spool of 2" wide, dark blue ribbon he took that with him back into the cooler and wrapped it around the woman's eyes, so she was effectively blindfolded.

Max stepped back to look at her.

Elizabeth. He heard she went by Betsy these days, but when he'd known her in her youth, she'd been called Lizzy. She'd be in her early sixties now. She was a handsome woman still, her figure not too thin or frail looking and not too overweight. The short style she wore her silver hair accentuated her strong cheek bones and flattered her facial features. She was probably the type of woman who took a walk around the neighborhood every morning, greeting the children as they got on the school bus and patting the heads of the dogs that walked by. Undoubtedly, she even baked cookies for the local church bake sales.

Tempe would kill him if she learned he'd resorted to terrorizing 'innocent' little old ladies now. He could hardly believe it himself.

Her respiration changed slightly and Max could tell she was on the verge of waking up so he grabbed a misting spray bottle filled with water and started spraying the droplets onto her face. When she jerked violently, trying to escape the misting water, he knew she was finally fully awake.

"Hello, Lizzy."

She sat very still at the sound of his voice, but he heard the catch in her breath and could see the rapid pulse beat of her heart in the side of her neck, just above her collarbone. "Who are you? What do you want?"

Max smiled. Atta girl, don't let them see your fear. He was glad he elected to blindfold her as she probably would've seen right through his bluff if she'd been able to watch him.

"I'm an old friend of your brothers, Lizzy." Yep. He saw her chin come up at that. She knew that meant he wasn't there to sell her girl scout cookies. Her brothers were bad news and had always had friends that were bad news too. "Now, I know exactly what happened to your older brother. I know he's dead. I know when he died. And, I even know where he's buried. Today, I'd like to talk to you about your younger brother, Lizzy. What can you tell me about how Jason's doing these days?"

"He's not here. He doesn't live locally."

"I believe you, Lizzy, but that's not much of an answer." Max tried to keep his voice calm, but still unforgiving. He sprayed her face with water again and watched her flinch. It might frighten her, but wouldn't do much more damage than causing her makeup to run.

"I . . . I don't know where he is. We don't keep in touch."

"Lizzy, Lizzy, Lizzy," his voice sounded disappointed and he squirted her once more, watching her jerk away. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Jason may not call you every day, but little brothers almost always keep in touch with their bigger sisters and I don't believe you don't know more about him than you're telling me. We can save a lot of time and a lot of . . . discomfort if you'll just tell me what you know."

Max started playing around some with the flower arrangement tools she had on a little table top in the room. With her eyes covered, she'd hear the noises and put the worst possible connotation on every sound she heard, which would only work well to Max's benefit. He didn't plan to actually hurt her, not if he could avoid it, but she couldn't know that. She had a file for sharpening her shears and he ran one of her blades across the file, knowing how threatening that sound could be.

Betsy swallowed. "He lives in Virginia now. Near Washington DC."

That's the answer Max had both expected and dreaded to hear. It confirmed his worst suspicions. "How long has he been there?"

"I'm, uh, I'm not sure. Maybe six or seven years. I don't recall exactly when he made the move."

"What's he doing there these days?"

Betsy was silent, her lips pressed together in a tight line.

"Is he still in the old family line of business? Or does he have a new job? Do you think he went straight like you?"

Still she kept silent.

Max heaved a sigh and looked around the room. He picked up a dull plastic card with some floral information printed on it off the work table. It didn't look much different than the size or shape of a credit card. He also found a small eye-dropper for giving the plants some supplemental vitamins and filled it with a little liquid plant food. Max grabbed hold of where Betsy's arm was restrained to the chair and ran the corner of the plastic card like a knife across her forearm, a section about an inch or two long, pressing just enough to sting, but not actually breaking any skin. Then, he waited a couple seconds and used the eyedropper to trickle a little of the liquid over the line he'd drawn. Without her eyesight, she'd think she'd been cut and if her imagination got the best of her, the dripping of the plant food on her arm would feel like blood flowing out. Even though there was no damage, Max was counting on her mind playing tricks on her based on what she expected to have happen with someone who knew her brothers.

"Do I need to ask again, Lizzy?"

Betsy sighed and her shoulders that she'd been keeping back so proudly finally drooped. "No. I believe he has some sort of a job making furniture or customized woodworking or something like that. We really don't talk that much, you know. An occasional brief call around the holidays sometimes. I don't know where he lives other than just outside of DC. He doesn't tell me if he's kept up the business like he used to do with my older brother because he knows I would condemn him for that. That aspect of his life is not something I need to know about. It's actually better I know as little as possible. As far as I am aware, he's not married, doesn't have any children, and doesn't even like pets. I don't know what else I can tell you."

"Thank you, Lizzy. You've been very helpful." A moment later, she felt another little pinprick in her neck, just like earlier.

When she woke up again a little while later, Betsy was sitting at her desk in her office, all traces of her early evening visitor and his restraints having disappeared and her body was unharmed other than a slight tenderness in her neck where she'd been poked with a needle, twice. Less than two hours had passed since she looked at a clock before he appeared and she could almost convince herself the whole thing had just been a bad dream, but she knew better.

The stranger probably knew she wouldn't call the police. Not for anything that involved her brothers in some fashion. However, he hadn't asked about a phone number for her little brother and she debated whether or not to call him and warn him someone was looking for him or whether to let him deal with his own messes. She was inclined to the latter. She'd given up trying to clean up after his messes a long time ago and inserting herself now into his affairs could only result in bad things coming back to haunt her.


A/N: Can you picture Max like this? Other comments?