Paradise Lost

oOo

He pulled the plush dog back and made his growly noises, "Grrr-rowh grr-rowh-whirrr."

Christine laughed the open-mouth laugh that was as contagious as one of her smiles.

"Oooo's widdle Chrissy's daddy? Oooo's widdle Chrissy's daddy? Ooooo?"

These days he saw only glimpses of his daughter—mornings getting her ready for daycare, evenings reading a story until she drifted off to sleep. But this morning he slipped into her room while Bones was showering and found his daughter wide awake and ready for play.

"What does the widdle doggy say?"

Christine woofed, or "oof'd" the sound several times before she held onto the doggy with one hand while holding out her other and making a decidedly un-dog-like sound, "Mama!"

He didn't need to look up from the crib to know that Bones was standing in the doorway, her arms folded, her face mirroring her disapproval of his baby talk. He never quite approved of her adult talk with the baby so they were decidedly at an impasse on that one, but he counted it as one of the many oddities that they usually made work.

But this morning when he looked up, he saw, not the disapproving look, but something else.

It made him pause.

"Everything okay, Bones?" He pulled Christine up from the crib and began a small dance, Christine perched on his feet, her hands stretched to meet his as he shuffled toward the door.

Bones said nothing, only gave him a slight nod.

Accompanied by Christine's giggles, the shuffle dance took them closer to Bones who stood there at the doorway, her face betraying something he hadn't seen in a while.

Tenderness. It wasn't that Bones was a stranger to tenderness or he to seeing it in her. She could be a woman of unexpected tenderness, of great tenderness, in fact. Sometimes the emotion came out odd and misshapen somehow, but it always came from a good heart, a strong heart.

But they were so out of sync these days, he had to ask again.

"Yeah, it's fine," she said in that husky way she had when sometimes emotions caught and held her. "I'm fine." She straightened and he didn't see her try to transition back to her no-nonsense-emotions-are-not-rational mode. The look remained, deepened somehow. "My father won't be able to sit for Christine, so I asked Michelle to sit."

"You sure you're okay?"

She nodded. "You told me that you and your mother used to dance that way."

He picked up their daughter and swung her up into his arms. "Oooo's going for a ride? Oooo's going to see Michelle tomorrow night? Oooo's going to have a sleepover with her best buddy?"

"It's not a sleepover, Booth. Michelle is babysitting."

That was the rational woman he knew.

"It's a widdle sleepover. A girls' night for pj's and bottles and fuzzy toys." Christine giggled. "Mommy and me are goin' to get all dressed up and go dancing and we're having our own sleepover."

He glanced up, waiting for her correction to his correction, but there was nothing, just that look of tenderness and something more.

"Bones?"

Framed in the doorway, her hair still damp, she no longer wore the wary look he'd earned from her. Instead, something had changed every so slightly and he dared to capture the moment.

Leaning in, he brushed her lips with his and finding no resistance, deepened the kiss. Somehow the uncertainty melted away and he sensed something shifting until Christine really did shift and leaned in as well to place a loud wet kiss on his cheek. He pulled back from Brennan, then had to juggle a squirming Christine who leaned toward her mother to mark her with an open mouth kiss on her face.

"Morning kisses," he said, trying to keep things light, trying to keep alive that small spark of tenderness. "Can't be anything but a great day."

oOo

Were it that simple. The same Fates which had given him Christopher Pelant to challenge his life seemed to rain down more annoyances with a morning visit from AD Hacker.

"Great work on rounding up those cops in the 7th," Hacker was saying as he strode into his office. "There should be some commendation in there for your team."

Booth looked up from the reports he'd been reading, the tenor of Hacker's remarks making him wary.

"We're still looking for Mull's killer," he reminded him.

"Yes," Hacker said as he stepped closer to the desk, "you still need to find the killer of that young man. Just wondering if you have too much on your plate."

That made him really look at Hacker. The public persona had given way to another tinged with concern.

"Is there pressure from somewhere?"

Hacker gave him an oily smile and pressed a finger to the London bobby's head on his desk as if to let the head-on-a-spring answer the question.

"There's some concern that you're over-extended. Your team's over-extended." Hacker toyed with the lid of the candy jar on his desk. "Temperance has mostly been relegated to the lab on this one. Is that something the two of you worked out?"

Booth straightened and tried to read the man. Mostly Hacker breezed in and out of his office on those rare occasions when he was getting heat on one of his cases. But the latest headlines announcing the bust of bad cops should have been a public relations boon for the bureau.

"I'm still looking for Pelant," he admitted. "Pelant is laying low right now."

Hacker waved a hand dismissively. "He keeps a finger on the pulse of his next victims. Meanwhile we bury two fine agents and put another in an office for the rest of his career. He'll turn up when he's ready to spread murder and mayhem."

He had been looking for the bastard, hadn't really quit looking for him anymore than he'd stopped looking for Darius Mull's killer just because he had speared bigger fish. But he understood all too well the disconnect between words and actions.

"It's personal, boss."

Hacker only narrowed his eyes at him and gave him a look he couldn't quite read. Then one side of his mouth curved upward and he gave the bobby another flick of his finger.

"Glad to hear that you haven't given up on that maniac." He turned to go and then swiveled his head back toward him.

"I'll see you this afternoon when we get the full report from your team on Stefani's serial case."

He left, but some part of him remained in the room like an oil slick on water.

oOo

Today's second little exercise in torture took them back to the youth center. Sweets looked like a baby next to the hardened expressions on the faces of some of the boys there, barely 15 or 16. One boy, with a gruesome scar that seemed to cut across his face in a diagonal swoosh, sat across from them his hands as impatient as his legs which pumped up and down nervously.

"We're simply looking for anyone who wanted Darius Mull dead."

"He go for the low dudes," Kareem tapped his finger against the photo on the table. "Don't nobody care 'bout dem."

"So Mull would actively try to help the gang members, the newbies as it were, to leave the life?"

Sweets had leaned back in his chair and was this close to taking it to the back legs like he'd seen so many of the boys do at the center.

"That's what I say, man."

"He have any enemies?"

"Naw, man. E'body his friend." Scarface looked disgustedly at Sweets.

"We get it," Booth said. "Gang leaders didn't care as long as he didn't go after their earners. Low level soldiers, no big deal. Dime a dozen."

"You serve?"

"He was a Ranger and a former sniper." Sweets was a bit too enthusiastic. "Holds marksmanship records with the Bureau and the Army."

Scarface gave him the once over again, but Booth felt the thread leading to Mull's killer slipping through his fingers.

"You see anyone with Mull? Someone out of the ordinary?"

Kareem looked hesitant then glanced back at Mull's picture. "He talkin' to a chick, you know what I mean? Oooooh, she one fine, you know what I mean?"

"Why didn't you say something before?" Sweets asked.

"Didn't think it important." The kid looked wary.

"Can you describe her?"

To Sweets' question, the young man added a description that could have been any woman who happened to be blonde. Even Stefani.

"If I brought you to see an artist at the FBI, could you describe her well enough for a sketch?"

He'd preached it over the years, anyone who had contact with the victim in his last few days could be important. Scarface dropped his cool demeanor. "I ain't going down there. You can't take me down as a maternal witness. . . ."

"Material," Booth corrected.

"W'ever, man. I ain't goin'."

Scarface looked as if he were seconds from bolting when Booth offered a compromise.

He dialed Angela's number and was grateful she picked up on the second ring. After explaining the situation, he set his phone on the table. "Tell her what you saw and she'll draw it."

Kareem hesitated only slightly, especially after seeing Angela. Within fifteen, twenty minutes, they had a sketch of a young woman sporting several earrings in her right ear and a small scar just above her left eye.

"Definitely not Stefani," Sweets said as the drawing passed Kareem's inspection.

"She hang around here? Booth asked.

Kareem gave him a long, slow shake of his head.

"Man, if she did, don' ya think I'd be here more?"

oOo

Only the mummy peeking over the panels rolled into Brennan's office suggested the space was anything but a crime solver's war room. Stefani had engineered some kind of coup taking over Brennan's space and turning it into a murderer's horror show. Each of the panels told a story of a life lived much-too-briefly. Each person pictured practically screamed to be put to rest.

"Hacker rescheduled," Stefani announced as she breezed into the office. "Something about indictments for local police officers. Way to steal my thunder, Booth."

She smiled slightly and he felt a need to almost step back from her. Luckily she was closely trailed by Cam and Bones.

"Seeley," Cam said, "I thought Assistant Director Hacker had called you."

"Andrew said that he was standing in for you in court." Brennan pointed out, her expression suggesting she wanted to say more.

"I can still take you through our findings," Stefani said, eager for an audience. "I an't say enough about the insights your team has provided."

He'd read the reports, knew the math of the investigation wasn't quite adding up to everything Stefani wanted, but he gave a curt nod.

"Just as I expected," Stefani was diving full into her explanation, "the eighth victim should be connected with other murders. . . ."

Her phone chirped and she excused herself. Booth took the opportunity to draw Brennan to the side.

"I need to track down a woman seen talking to Darius Mull a day or two before he died," he said.

"Let me get my bag," Brennan offered.

He held up his hand, rolling the poker chip between his fingers. "No. It might be a late night," he explained. "We'd need a sitter and you dad's in the wind." He shook his head. "There's no reason why both of us should miss time with Christine."

Parenthood meant juggling responsibilities for Christine, and she acquiesced easily. "You should call her before her bedtime. That way she can talk. . . ."

"I'm sorry," Stefani interrupted, stepping so close he could smell her perfume, "but I just have to talk to a witness on the Lass case and the marshalls have finally brought him in."

Without waiting for a response, Agent Maci Stefani left the office with a kind of whoosh that left them all a bit speechless.

"What do I need to know?" Booth asked finally, nodding toward the panels.

It was Cam who supplied an answer. "She wants your job."

oOo

To hell with his job, he thought as he ended the call and shut down his phone, Christine's words still echoing in his head, Bones' voice calling him home. They were still unsteady together, but she was trying, working at their relationship. Working in the dark, he thought ruefully.

So was he, despite the summer light. He sat in the SUV, tapping out his impatience on the steering wheel. The summer night stretched out before him and he tried to focus on one problem at a time: the blonde.

Angela's sketch hadn't turned up anything initially in the databases so he'd resorted to canvassing the area until a shop owner offered up a street name and another pointed him in the direction of an old pet store that had become a squatter's paradise for the street kids. A call to Nelsan D gave him a more complete map of other places to look, but with the high number of foreclosed homes in the area adding to the mix and with the mild weather, he had far too many possibilities of places to look.

Another call into Angela had earned him a wider search through The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children database and another name, a very different look and another life: Jennifer Reade.

Tucking the phone in his pocket, he climbed from the vehicle. He could have turned her description over to the local police, but he didn't quite trust the 7th had a clean house. Shutting his car door, he pocketed his keys and headed up the street.

It'd be faster with more eyes on the street, but Nelsan D had promised his help by recruiting a few of the regulars at the youth center. Just like with Pelant, this search needed patience.

And a bit of luck.

One by one he hit the lowlights of the 7th district—abandoned shops and viaducts, back alleys and vacant lots. He avoided the street corners kept under surveillance by cameras and monitored by the police because Jennifer would bypass those places. He jumped fences and broke into a cardboard village, showed Jennifer's photo to two dozen or more street kids, passed out half as many cards, but came up empty.

And tired.

A bar with a pool table beckoned, practically calling his name, but he fished out the poker chip in his pocket and remembered he had other, harder gambles to make.

Standing under a street light that was just beginning to be effective against the growing gloom, he checked his watch and tried not to think of home. Bones was probably tucked into a book, Christine was certainly long into dreamland and he was miles from them. And sometimes in the same room these days he felt disconnected from them. That morning had been a pleasant surprise as had been Brennan's offer to come with him that afternoon. But both of them didn't have to be combing the streets for a blonde who might or might not have anything to do with Darius Mull's death.

"Hey man, you got a light?"

A trio of young men eyed him. The middle one, barely older than Justin Bieber and holding out a Swisher, held steady, but the one to his left was twitchy and looking over his shoulder. He recognized them from the youth center.

"Sure." Booth reached into his pocket and pulled out his ID and Angela's sketch.

One look at the drawing produced a "Shit" and the one on the left got real still. Booth flicked open the lighter and held it out. "Just need to ask about this girl." He shook the picture of Reade. "Have you seen her around here? I need to talk to her."

Lefty looked harder at the photo than the others. "She 'round."

"Can you tell me where?"

The other two tried to pull him away, but Lefty stood staring at the photo. "C'mon, man, you don' know nuttin'."

"Darius Mull."

The name earned him a momentary pause as Swisher pulled at his ear.

"You heard about the cops going down?" Booth asked, playing his ace. "If she's on the street and she knows something, how safe do you think it is for her?"

He kept his eyes on Lefty, but could see Swisher and the other one trying to separate and go around him. "She doesn't deserve what happened to Darius. Drugged. Tortured. Beaten. Shot." He emphasized each word, stepping closer to Lefty. "She knows something and the only way she's going to be safe is if I can bring her in."

Lefty looked like he might dissolve into his own fear, but Booth refused to back down. "She talked to Mull a couple of days before he was killed. I need to talk to her. I need to bring her in."

Swisher was trying to pull him free, but Booth put his body between them. "If you can't tell me where she is, can you get a message to her?"

Lefty was looking nervously at his buddies and eyeing the top of his shoes. He mumbled something.

"What?" Booth leaned in.

This time he heard what the kid mumbled.

oOo

It had taken switching on his phone and Googling the name twice before he found the spot. Anchoring a row of tired-looking shops, this was one of a hundred neighborhood spots with neon in its window to announce a place to escape the heat on the streets.

At least it was appropriately named, he thought.

The door groaned behind him. Inside, a shock of cool air met him. The room itself was long and narrow, with a worn wooden bar leading the eye to the back where a group of men were sitting at the tables, necks angled, watching the latest baseball debacle to a muted TV.

The vent above him doused him with the scent of stale beer and spent hopes.

A roar came up in the back and he heard someone curse as he rounded a barstool. Someone had struck lights along the walls, trying to add some color to the murky tones within. Liquors signs and old photos made up the rest of the décor.

Booth leaned on the bar and spoke to the back of the man behind the bar. "You the owner?"

The man turned and Booth recognized the man immediately.

"Master Sergeant."

"Father Aldo."