Chapter 10

Booth started his Friday morning having coffee with the social worker, Cassidy, who agreed to move forward that day with getting Oscar and Liam out of their current home situation. She and Booth had worked together before on other cases, and as much as she trusted his instincts and sense of urgency of a situation, he trusted her to follow through with acting upon it. He texted Bones afterward to assure her that the boys were in capable hands with Cassidy.

Next on his list was to visit another social worker, the one in charge of Marcus Martin's case. He wasn't sure, exactly, what she'd be able to contribute, except for maybe helping with confirming suspicions regarding the source of Marcus' abuse. He also wanted to stop by the bakery where Karen worked to see if there was something the Metro detectives weren't able to pry out of them.

The interview with the social worker proved productive in at least confirming that it was indeed Kenneth Martin who was probably abusing Marcus and likely even Karen. Karen had been extremely tense and nervous when Sheila, the caseworker, had been interviewing them. Everything had been vehemently denied and with little other physical evidence, there had been no cause to remove Marcus from the home. Booth mentioned the observations made by Sweets and Angela regarding the structured environment.

"Their home was very clean and neat, but mostly I was struck by how little either Mrs. Martin or Marcus spoke or even moved while they all sat together. Even when I had Marcus on his own, he moved very little and certainly wasn't forthcoming about anything. He told me he'd simply gotten in a fight with a classmate and that there wasn't anything more to it." She crossed her arms in front of her and chewed her lip. "Is it horrible of me to wish I had seen greater evidence of injury from Marcus? I mean, then I would have removed him from that home and he might be alive, today."

"We can't spend all of our time second guessing ourselves though, can we?" Booth told her. "You did what you could do with the information you had. You couldn't know that this would happen."

Sheila merely nodded as Booth thanked her and left his card in case she thought of any other information that might help – especially with anything that might help them find Karen.

Thinking of Karen Martin, he headed over to the bakery where she worked. It was a small shop that seemed to specialize in variety. Booth's mouth watered at the countless doughnuts, pastries, cakes, and cookies before him. How had he not known about this place, before? He and Parker were definitely going to have to come back.

An older woman with greying hair greeted him. When he showed her his badge and introduced himself, she brought a hand to her mouth and asked if he had found "our Karen".

"No, I'm sorry, we haven't. Can you tell me when you last saw her?"

"A couple of weeks ago on Tuesday. She was working her normal shift. She usually works Tuesday-Saturday, but then she didn't show up on Wednesday and didn't call or anything, which isn't like her. She is always so prompt and hardly ever misses a day of work, especially since that sweet little boy of hers passed away." They had taken turns calling her home number and her cell phone number and finally made contact with Kenneth, who mentioned that Marcus never showed up for school, either. "It's all so horrible," the woman grew teary-eyed. "Such tragedy for that family. Poor, poor Mr. Martin."

Another bakery employee who had been helping a customer appeared and snorted. "Poor Mr. Martin? By the sounds of it, Karen should be happy she got away."

Booth raised his eyebrows at her. "And you are…?"

"Sandy. That man was a real piece of work. Karen never missed a day and was always on time because this place was a safe escape. I hope you never find her, because that means she and that one guy—" she turned to Rose, the older woman, "Ron, right? It means Ron found a safe place away from that freak."

"Ron? Can you tell me more about this guy?"

Rose pursed her lips together and glared at Sandy, who ignored her and let the story spill out to the agent. "Rose doesn't want to say anything because we promised Karen that we wouldn't. But with Marcus dead, I don't think that's the way to go anymore. Karen would want to know about that, right? I mean, I thought Marcus was supposed to be with them. What if this guy, Ron, isn't who she thought he was?"

"So you didn't tell the police any of this back when they questioned you when Karen and Marcus were reported missing?" They shook their heads. "Alright. I need you to tell me everything you know right now."

Several weeks ago, Ron had started coming into the bakery at around eight in the morning for a doughnut and coffee. Karen usually waited on him and he started coming in on a daily basis except for Saturdays. Karen started taking her break at the same time and they would talk for her whole break.

"She started to seem really happy and hopeful, you know?" Sandy told him. "I mean, it's kind of not right, I suppose, with Karen being married and all, but she deserved a little happiness."

"What can you tell me about him? A last name? Does he live or work around here? When was the last time you saw him?"

"I don't know a last name and I'm not sure if he lives nearby, but I think he might work nearby. I think Karen mentioned he was an architect?"

Booth stopped writing suddenly as he made an unwelcome connection that he desperately hoped was a coincidence. Without saying a word, he motioned to Sandy and Rose to wait for a moment as he took out his phone and sent in a DMV request. As he waited for the response, he asked Sandy to continue with her story.

Karen had started opening up more about how things were getting worse at home for both she and Marcus with Kenneth. They felt like they could barely breathe correctly for Kenneth to take it the wrong way.

"She was scared," Sandy continued, "but she felt like Ron could help them. He said he would look into finding someplace they could all go together and be safe. It was like a lifeline for Karen. Sandy and Rose had always offered to have Karen and Marcus stay with either of them, but Karen insisted they needed to be out of town, out of touch, entirely. When she didn't show up for work on that Wednesday and neither did Ron, we assumed that they left together."

"Wait, so you haven't seen Ron, either, since Karen's disappearance?" They shook their heads and Booth's phone chirped a return message from his ID request. He showed them the photo on his phone. "Is this the guy?"

"Yeah, that's him. How did you know?"

Booth didn't answer that question, but thanked them and left his card and the shop feeling tense.

Ron Gorman, Kelly Gorman's husband, had just become a suspect.