A/N: Thanks as always to pax mundi, whose talent and encouragement are perpetually inspiring. And who comes from way, way beyond Planet Bad Ass.

Disclaimer: The only thing I own is my soul, and I even lend that out on occasion, but only if you ask nice. Anything that even looks familiar in this story probably belongs to someone else (except the actual story - that's all mine, Mine, MINE [*maniacal laughter*]!)

Chapter Ten: They keep time by …

"Sweetie – finally!" Angela's voice was strident, her anxiety adding an edge to her voice that was amplified by the echoing phone line. "Are you two okay?"

"We're fine, really Angela." Brennan felt like she'd said 'fine' at least a hundred times so far this morning. She was in reality tired and irritable, but there was little to no chance that she'd admit that to Angela just now. Booth's concern she could tolerate – just – but Angela was capable of frog marching Hodgins to his fastest car and getting him to drive both of them to downtown Weston to make sure she was okay. "We were very fortunate, although the SUV is no longer roadworthy." Booth was wandering around the rooms, opening doors and looking in cupboards. When he heard Brennan's comment, he couldn't contain a disgusted grunt.

"What happened to you? Why haven't you been in touch?"

"Angela, if it wasn't for you, Booth and I would be stranded on a back road up in the hills somewhere. Booth crashed the truck and we had to spend the night in the SUV."

"Hey – tell her about the brakes, Bones!" Booth called out from the pocket sized kitchenette, his ego bruised at her words. She went on, ignoring the interruption, "If you hadn't called the local sheriff, we'd probably still be there."

"Wait a minute." Angela's voice suddenly dropped an octave. "You and Booth were stranded in the truck overnight and my phone call got you rescued and broke up your private party?"

"Er - yes. Thank you."

"Uh-huh. You and Booth, stranded in the SUV, all night?"

"Yes." Booth poked his head out of the kitchenette and Brennan swung around to him, whispering as an aside to him "I think there's a problem with the line, but I can hear her fine." She turned back to the phone. "I can hear you fine, Ange, can you hear me okay?"

"I'm hearing you loud and clear, sweetie." Angela assured her dryly. "And you're both okay?"

Booth butted in, saying emphatically, "I did not crash the car, there was a problem with the brakes – tell her, Bones!"

"Yes, I told you we're fine." Brennan's face was screwed up in confusion.

"Alone. Overnight. Unharmed but stranded." Disbelief edged Angela's voice. "And my phone call got you rescued. I don't believe it." You could hear the eye roll in the last sentence.

Brennan frowned. Why was Angela repeating everything she said? "Ange, I think there's a problem with this line." Missing Angela's point entirely, she raised her voice and carefully enunciated her words to try and assist her friend's comprehension of the situation, as if Angela had just got off the boat from Abu Dhabi and had a serious hearing problem. "We had an accident but we're fine. Booth and I are going to be here for while longer. I think we should organise a video conference later with everyone and run through the evidence we have so far."

Angela was silent for a few moments and when she came back on the line her voice was teasing. "Sweetie, you and I have got to have a talk about taking advantage of opportunities offered to you on a plate, and soon." She became more serious, "I'm glad you're both okay, Bren. I'll make sure everyone's here around one o'clock and we can do the video link then. I've got one sequence of the injuries ready to view; I'll relay that to you during the conference. Give me a call back when you're ready to rock and roll." She hung up before Brennan could say anything more, leaving her friend scowling at the phone.

"Which room do you want, Bones?" Booth called out. He was trying out the third bed having already bounced experimentally on the other two.

"I don't mind, you choose." She was distracted, partly by the strange conversation with Angela, and partly by the emails which were coming in thick and fast now that she'd set up her notebook. She scanned the subject lines, deciding all but two could wait; one from Jack Hodgins with some test results and one from Cam. A knock on the exterior door drew Booth out from the bedroom, and he opened it to find Deputy Hancock and another officer on the step with the gear from the SUV. While they stacked it just inside the door, Brennan started to read through Jack's email.

She was yawning widely when Booth came back with the rest of the gear. He watched her for a moment before dumping the bags with the others.

"Okay Bones, nap time." He shut the computer and grabbed her wrist, pulling her reluctantly to her feet.

"Hey, I was reading that." She protested through another yawn. "Dr Hodgins sent me those details of the animal species he found evidence of in the cave."

"Year, well it'll still be there in a couple of hours." He looked at his watch. "Why don't you grab some bunk time now while I go out and get us a rental. It'll be a chance for me to look over the SUV while it's at the county depot at the same time. And … I want to nose around the town." He gave her a little push towards one of the bedrooms and grabbed his coat. She looked at him rebelliously for a couple of seconds before another yawn stretched any dispute away. Lifting one side of her mouth in a resigned smile, she gave in to his suggestion.

~o0o~

"There's no doubt about it, Agent Booth. The brake line was cut, and by somebody who knew what they were doing." The mechanic wiped his hands on an oily rag, nodding towards the SUV. "This is essentially an off road vehicle; the brake lines are protected by a polycarbonate casing, along with a lot of the electricals and so forth, so that if you're driving over rough country the risk of undercarriage damage is limited. Whoever did this pried the casing off and nicked the fluid line. That's why you didn't get any alarms going off, and why it took a few miles before you lost hydraulic pressure." Booth thanked him for his help, unsurprised by his conclusions. Charlie had organised a flat bed to pick the truck up later in the day and take it back to DC so that the FBI forensic techs could go over it. If luck was with him they'd lift a print and he'd be able to lean heavily on whoever it was that had played with their lives.

He stood on the sidewalk outside the depot for a moment, his jaw flexing in anger at the reminder of just how close they had come to being seriously injured, or worse. The morning traffic rumbled by in front of him but he watched it with unseeing eyes.

~o0o~

Booth let himself back into the unit silently. Soft snuffling noises emanating from the direction of the bedrooms told him that Bones was still asleep. He checked his watch; he'd been gone just under two hours. He busied himself with transferring the evidence kit and other worked related gear into the rental, put on a pot of coffee that Arlene had thoughtfully set up earlier, and settled down on the sofa with a plate load of 'nanner puddin', deciding that now was the time to find out exactly what it was.

"You're going to gain weight." Brennan stood in the doorway, sniffing the air appreciatively.

"Aw, Bones, this stuff is amazing. It's got bananas and biscuits and – I dunno – other stuff. Parker would go crazy for it." He whipped his eyes over her crumpled appearance. "Nice bed hair, by the way."

She looked at the food dispassionately, wanting to retaliate for the dig at her hair. "I'm sure any child would enjoy such a confection."

This only made Booth laugh as he dug into the sweet again. "It's pudding, Bones. You know how I feel about pudding." Brennan ignored him and went into the kitchenette, returning a few moments later with two steaming mugs of coffee. Booth took the one she offered him with a smile of thanks, and she sat down at the other end of the sofa.

"What do we do now?"

"Well," he scraped the last vestiges of the pudding from his plate and set it aside, "Hillyard hasn't tracked down Sally Beaumont or her son yet, so that will have to wait for now. While I was out I got talking to a couple of old geezers outside the library. They were friendly enough, and knew who Ethan Williams was. Neither of them seemed surprised when I asked about Gareth Burbridge at the same time either. One of them even went so far as to lump them both together when he complained about the amount of vandalism the town had seen over the past ten years or so. I think we'll head back and have another talk to Burbridge." He stood up, pacing, while he flipped his phone open and organised the interview in a few short sentences. "We've got a little while before we need to leave – he's on an outside work detail so they have to transport him back. I'm going to change back into my own clothes; Hillyard's carrying a few extra pounds around the waist and these pants are starting to annoy me." He stood up, patting his washboard stomach, and gave Brennan a smirk. His conceited pleasure at scoring one over the sheriff went straight over her head.

"Good idea. Where are my clothes?"

"Ah …" Suddenly Booth's smirk froze on his face. Acute embarrassment hit him and a flush rose up his neck and stained his cheeks.

"What?" Brennan turned to look at him when he didn't reply.

"Ah … nothing." Their clothes were tumbled together in the washing basket that Arlene had left sitting on the tiny dining table. He couldn't have been less inclined to plunge his hands in if it had been a basketful of snakes. Jeez, did they have to be black? He was suddenly overwhelmed by the intimacy of the circumstances.

Brennan appeared at his elbow and pragmatically sorted through the basket, pulling her things into her arms. "I'll just be a minute." She flashed him a quick smile and disappeared into her room to change.

Booth shut his eyes and let his head drop back, cursing himself for a fool. What was it about this woman that had the capacity to turn him into a gibbering idiot in these situations?

~o0o~

"Cam's email confirmed that she had the results back from the tox screen – there were no drugs in the victim's system at the time of death, nothing suspicious at all. Also, I had another look at Dr Hodgins' email; he completed the analysis of the rest of the soil and hair samples from the cave. On top of his initial findings from the blood in the soil, he got confirmation from the hair samples - the medullary index and scale pattern of the cuticle indicated a range of animals and he's identified several specific species." They were in the rental sedan, but hadn't set off yet.

"Uh-huh." Booth was still a little on edge, wondering whether she'd comment on his odd behaviour. If she started in on him with some anthropological hooey on his reasons for his embarrassment he didn't think he could stand it.

"I thought it might be worthwhile to cross check the information against the cruelty cases that Sheriff Hillyard mentioned. What do you think – should we call in on our way to the prison?"

"Great idea, Bones." Relief flooded through him when she stuck to work topics and he gunned the engine, abruptly spinning the car into a u-turn to head to the Sheriff's office. "If they match up, it probably won't prove anything, but it's one more piece of the puzzle, and we can use all the pieces we can get."

~o0o~

"Dr Brennan, Agent Booth – it does my heart good to see you both looking so rested up!" Arlene greeted them with a wide smile. "Matt's out at the moment. Is there something I can help you with?"

"The Sheriff mentioned he had some statistics relating to animal cruelty cases in the area." Brennan was all business as usual. "Do you have access to that information?"

Arlene bustled over to the computer screen behind the counter, indicating that Brennan should take a seat. With a few deft keystrokes she got the information on the screen, moving aside so that Brennan could access the spreadsheet.

"May I send a copy of that to my office?" Booth asked. Arlene nodded and rapidly sent a copy to the email address he gave her. She turned back to him, a troubled frown pleating her forehead. "You know, Agent Booth, I'm right glad you called in. I got to thinking on what you asked about Ethan Williams and Gareth Burbridge and I just got off the phone with old Helen Montgomery over at Mount Zion retirement village. She was the teacher at the high school for about a hundred years. She's got some stories to tell, that's for sure, about all the kids, but about those two in particular. She remembered the incident that got Gareth's parents so hot under the collar like it was yesterday, and apparently Ethan Williams was up to his neck in it as well. The whole thing got hushed up like I said, but Helen was there. She wouldn't give me details, said she was bound by confidentiality or some such nonsense, but it had something to do with them taking a youngun from the elementary school." Her button eyes shone with anger, "Now if that don't sound like something you should know, I don't know what does. You can probably get the whole story from the School Board – the records are closed, but you won't have any trouble getting around that."

"I can get whatever I need, as long as I know where to look." Booth's look was grim, but he smiled when he looked back down at her. "Arlene, you've been amazing. I don't know how to thank you."

Arlene blushed at his compliment, her cheeks rosier than usual, but her eyes remained sad. "Go on with you. If Ethan Williams had anything to do with that little girl's death, I hope he burns in hell. And if I can do anything to send him there any quicker, I'll do it."

~o0o~

The scene at Gilmer Federal Prison was almost identical to their last visit; the scattering of orange-suited inmates listlessly tidying the parking lot, the taunts and coarse proposals directed at his partner, despite his efforts to shield her bodily from their view. Even the sun had decided to make another appearance and lend the morning its heat, however briefly.

Burbridge, if anything, was even more nervous at this second meeting; he seemed almost paralysed by fear when Booth and Brennan entered the interview room, his eyes bulging at them rabbit-like, his Adam's apple bobbing wildly.

The partners took their seat without a word, the only sound breaking the silence the chink of the handcuffs that held Burbridge to his seat. He watched the guard leave the room with wild eyes, the light going out of them when the door closed, leaving him behind in the room. Without that fetter Booth had no doubt that Burbridge would have made a dash for the door.

"You seem a bit on edge, Burbridge. What's the matter? Something you forgot to tell us last time we saw you?" Booth softly baited the prisoner, playing on his patent fear. "We've just heard how you and Ethan Williams have been friends since school. Had the same sort of hobbies, maybe?" Booth leaned back in his chair, radiating self-assurance. Burbridge tried to keep his eyes fixed on a point in the corner of the room and his mouth firmly shut, but he continued to sneak tiny side glances at his interrogators every few seconds. Booth glanced at Brennan and she raised her brows, not sure how he wanted to proceed. Arlene's revelation about this man's connection with Ethan burned at both of them. Brennan watched the emotions flicker over Burbridge's face; fear, disgust, desperation and finally resignation. He knew he was cornered and he was scared.

"You don't know what he's like, what he's always been like. If I tell you what I know, I may as well be dead. I've got at least three more years in here, and he's got a lot of friends." Burbridge's voice had taken on a whining edge. "He's just a kid, but he's evil." His shoulders slumped, and suddenly the fight went out of him. "I'm not like him. I'm really not. It all started again when they put us in the same cell." This was news, and Booth leaned forward eagerly.

With some prompting the story came tumbling out: Williams and Burbridge had been cellmates for a short period during Williams' incarceration. He had taken their brief association as youths and manipulated Burbridge into acting as his gopher in the prison. As a result Burbridge was implicated in the racketeering that Williams quickly gained control of within the cell block. Williams had him under his thumb again.

Booth raised the incident with the young boy from several years ago and Burbridge responded forcefully, hysteria edging into his voice.

"I had nothing to do with what happened to that little boy in school. Hank was a lot younger than me, but already he was big, physically larger, and he has this – I don't know - power, presence … call it charisma if you have to call it something. He had a group of kids that followed him everywhere, and I was on the edge of that. I was trying to take the little boy back home when the police found us. No-one believed me then, and you probably won't believe me now, but I was trying to help. Because I was the oldest, everyone just assumed that it was my idea. My parents used their influence to make sure I wasn't charged, and then packed me off to boarding school. I didn't see Hank again until I was sent here.

"He's sick. He fantasises about hurting people all the time. He gets off on pain. It's like a game to him. Night after night I had to listen to his sick plans. I swear, when I escaped, I headed to that cave on sheer instinct. If Hank had been there, it was nothing to do with me or anything I knew or didn't know. It's a complete coincidence. You've got to believe me." His eyes pleaded with them. His entire body pressed forward to lend weight to his plea, dragging against his restraints.

Booth eyed him dispassionately, unmoved by his entreaties. "Where is Ethan Williams?"

"I don't know. If I knew I would tell you, I swear. I don't know. I don't know anything. I don't … " At that Burbridge broke down, sobbing uncontrollably. He had nothing more to give them.

~o0o~

They were in the car heading back to town, "What do you think, Bones?"

"Well, I think that Gareth Burbridge is very afraid of Williams." Brennan recalled the look of abject terror in his eyes when he spoke of the other man. She was the first to admit that she didn't read people as well as Booth, but even she could see his palpable fear. "His physiological reactions –the effects of the production of excess adrenalin and dopamine such as profuse sweating – were marked."

"Yeah, that came across pretty strong. Do you think he was telling the truth? He seemed to come clean pretty fast. Maybe too fast?" Booth's eyes were narrowed and ran through the interview in his mind.

"That's your area of expertise, but if I was pushed I'd have to say, yes – I believe he was telling the truth."

"Mmmm. That's what I think. I don't believe he had anything to do with this child's murder. I think he is weak man who is easily led. I'm looking forward to finally meeting this Williams character – he sounds like someone I'm really going to enjoy putting away." Brennan glanced over at her partner and was unsurprised to see the determined set to his jaw, his eyes widened slightly in anticipation at the thrill of the hunt.

~o0o~

"Hey Brennan, looks like you've got a sweet crib there." Angela's face loomed large on the screen as if leaning closer would give her a better view.

"Huh?" Brennan was spreading the file over the coffee table, organising stacks of papers. Booth was sprawled at the other end of the couch, his ankle resting on one knee, thumbing through the text messages on his phone.

"Where are you staying? It looks nice." Angela's tone invited full disclosure, but Brennan's reply was unsatisfying.

"Yes, Arlene Mitchell works for the sheriff's office here and she's been good enough to put us up at her home."

"Looks cosy." For once Angela limited herself to that simple comment, practicing restraint even though she was dying to ask for more details. Hodgins and Zach came to stand behind her and a moment later Lance Sweets and Dr Saroyan joined them. The whole team was finally together for the first time in several days.

Brennan got straight down to business. "Dr Saroyan, I note that nothing was revealed by the tox screen. Do you have any other findings that might be germane to the investigation?"

"Dr Brennan." Cam had a lovely smile, even when it was frozen in place. "Nice to see you too, I'm glad everything's okay."

Booth leant forward so that he was in the range of the web camera. "Thanks, Cam. We're fine. We had some trouble, but it's all worked out okay." He winked into the lens, ignoring Brennan's efforts to get him to move out of the way. "Bones hasn't been very well, so go easy on her."

"Stop it, Booth." She regained her position, only to find the members of her team regarding her with varying expressions of concern. Zack in particular was anxious; he had never known his boss to be sick in all the time he'd worked with her; she seemed able to deflect everything except bullets.

"I'm fine." Fine, fine, fine. "Just a mild transitory viral infection. Can we move on?" Impatience tinged her voice before she calmed down. "I'm sorry, Dr Saroyan, you were saying?"

"Nothing on the tox screen and nothing to change my mind from my original findings. I still believe that the victim died from a myocardial infarction as a result of a clot. The other evidence we've compiled leads me to believe that the clot was as a result of trauma prior to her death, but no other possible cause of death has been revealed from our investigations."

Brennan nodded, for the moment frustrated that she wasn't back at the lab. Even though she had herself examined the skeletal remains extensively, and she trusted her assistant's meticulous methods implicitly, she firmly believed that the bones would always reveal the answers.

"Zack?"

"Yes Dr Brennan?" Zack's disembodied voice answered immediately.

"What else have you found?"

Zack elbowed Hodgins out of the way and placed himself squarely in front of the web cam. "I've identified the patterning on the clothing." His boyish face disappeared and instead there was a picture of the original singeing. As they watched the patterns separated into two distinct images. Booth edged over to study the screen, squashing up against his partner, who objected loudly. Zach waited until they'd settled their squabble before continuing, "I believe one is a bed base, the other is some sort of coiled tubing. Hodgins identified the metal as copper."

Booth leant forward to study the image more closely. "Hang on a minute, I know what that is. Coiled tubing is used often in distilling alcohol." He turned to Brennan eagerly. "Bones, where do you think we might find a still around here?"

"I know you want me to say the Williams place, but I've been led to believe that illegal backyard distilling is a fairly common past-time here?" Her response was matter-of-fact.

"Maybe, but it just might be enough to get a warrant, depending on what else your squints have come up with? Hodgins, would you be able to confirm a match if I can get you a sample of the tubing?" Booth's excitement was mounting.

"Sure thing, man. You get me a sample and I'll tell you definitively." Zach's graphics had given way to a view of the room and its occupants.

"Anything come up on the missing persons' database, Ange?" Booth still held out hope that someone somewhere cared enough the have raised the alarm.

"Zip, zilch, zero, nada. Sorry, Booth." Angela's face reflected her regret and her eyes instinctively sought out Hodgins'.

"Damn." His hands formed into tight fists, and Brennan reflexively covered his hand with one of her own in a show of sympathy and comfort. The brief touch went unnoticed by everyone except Dr Sweets, who stored it away for future contemplative investigation.

Brennan had already refocused. "Angela, can we see what you put together on the computer?"

"Yeah sure, sweetie. I'll get it up now. I had hoped to have more to show you, but I've had a lot of trouble trying to work out how it all fits together. This is what I've got."

She set the holographic image going once more, still deeply affected by the image it projected. Brennan and Booth were silent while the loop played over several times on screen.

Cam's voice came over the image, "Zack thinks she's using a scythe." Doubt was heavy in her tone. "I don't know whether that's possible, but nothing else seems to fit that particular pattern."

Brennan studied the image for a few seconds more. "I think Zack could be right. The extension on the left scapula gives the movement a particular force at the lower end of the reflexive arc that would support that. Watching it on the video link like this flattens the image, but this is still an effective rendering of the sequence of injuries." She turned to her partner, "Booth, what do you think, is it possible the victim could have used a scythe?"

"I guess so." Booth's brow was heavily furrowed, his mouth pulled back in consideration of the possibility. "Although lots of people around here work for the big mining companies, this is still essentially a rural community. Farming, whether it's on a large or small scale, is still something that most people have a hand in. One thing I've noticed when we've been driving around is that if there's a patch of ground available, there'll be something planted in it that can be harvested."

"How about we add in the moonshine factor?" Jack Hodgins came forward as he spoke. "Do you think it's possible that the grain for that would be harvested by hand?"

"I'd have thought that most people would use some sort of mechanical means, like a tractor-pulled thresher or something. Although nothing about this case has been typical so far." Booth scratched his chin, deep in thought.

Angela cut in, "Have a look at what I've got so far for the other recent injuries. I think you've established that the greenstick fracture on her left thumb was caused by someone bending it back until it broke." The image flashed across the screen. "This injury had to have been inflicted on purpose."

Brennan was nodding. "It's a characteristic injury in domestic abuse."

"Don't forget there was some bruising that would fit in with that picture." Cam added.

Angela continued, "Bren, you said that the older breaks could have been from falls?"

"The amount of torsion on the break on the ulna indicates a fall rather than a crush injury or impact with a heavy object." Brennan paused to find her original notes in the copy file they had. "The other old break that exhibited malformed remodelling was of the right humerus. Zack, were you able to find any overlaying injuries on either of these breaks?"

"No, Dr Brennan. I established that the break to the humerus was the older injury, also caused by a fall as you originally identified, but there was no evidence of more recent injuries at those sites.

"Did she fall or was she pushed?" Booth muttered.

"There's no way of knowing from the evidence we have." Brennan replied abruptly, not realising that the question was rhetorical. "Dr Hodgins, did you get anything else from the samples or the clothing and other items I sent you?" Brennan asked. She shot a quick look at Booth, surprised to find his face so close to hers. He returned her look blandly, but sat back a little at her slight frown, letting his arm rest along the back of the couch behind her shoulders.

"Mostly confirmation of what we already knew; DNA from our victim, Ethan Williams and Gareth Burbridge, plus the hair sample that matches the unidentified sample from the Front Royal site. I've established that it's from a Caucasian female, and I'm running DNA on the one root bulb that I could get. It might not be enough for a definitive result. As for the clothes, there were strong traces of ethyl alcohol on them, identical to that which was on the clothing we found on the victim. I can absolutely confirm that both samples came from the same source. The blanket had a mix of other fibres, nothing that stands out as anything significant, but did contain a mass of canine hairs, all from the same animal."

"Puddin." Booth and Brennan said together.

"Who or what is Puddin?" It was Jack who voiced the question. "Something we should know about, Booth?" He taunted laughingly.

"Yeah, yuck it up man who plays with bugs." Booth turned up his lip derisively at Hodgins. "We've got a line on a possible identity for our victim, although the details are sketchy. She had a puppy, and if it's the same dog, we're finally on the right track. We'll make sure you get a sample." Booth explained, before changing tack. "Is Sweets there?"

The dark haired psychologist came forward, "How can I help, Agent Booth?"

"Sweets, can you confirm whether the information we have on Ethan Williams fits with someone who could have tortured and murdered our victim?"

"Certainly it is in line with an escalation in violence, someone who needs to inflict more and more pain or suffering to gain the same amount of gratification. It's pretty standard stuff, in some respects. But I'd need more specific information to say whether this Williams could be your perpetrator."

"Get hold of Charlie at my office. He should have all the information you need, including the closed School Board file by now." Sweets nodded rapidly, keen to commence his analysis straight away. Booth stood up, moving away to use his cell phone to check in with his own office.

Brennan bought the meeting to a close, and the scientists filed out of the office leaving Angela alone on the screen. Her face was a picture of contrition.

"Sweetie, are you really okay? I didn't know you were actually sick. What I said before about being sorry my call got you rescued, you know I was only joking, don't you?" Brennan hadn't realised this, of course, but she could see that her friend was concerned. She smiled back at her, eager to set her mind at rest.

"Ange, we were never in any real danger," A tiny white lie that hurt no-one, to reassure her friend, "and everything worked out fine." She glanced surreptitiously at her partner, who was still deeply involved in his call. "Booth made it kind of fun, actually. He can be surprisingly good company, but don't tell him that."

"Don't tell who what?" Booth's voice in her ear as he leant over the back of the couch made her jump awkwardly, which in turn made Angela giggle with delight. Before she could put her thoughts into words, Booth's cell phone rang again and he straightened, backing away to talk without interrupting them.

"Seriously, Bren, that man's the real deal. Tiny word of advice? Remember, what happens in Weston stays in Weston." Angela was looking at her intently, apparently waiting for a reply.

"Ye-es." Brennan replied, agreeing with the statement but not sure how to respond to such a non sequitur.

"Hey, Bones, come on." Booth held his cell phone up and waved it at her, excitement revving his stance. "Hillyard's found the kid. He's at the soft interview room at the sheriff's office now."

"Angela, I've got to go. This could be the break we've been looking for." Ange watched her friend's face light up as Booth flung his arm around her shoulders, chivvying her out of the scope of the web cam before she could finalise the call. The last thing Angela heard before she broke the connection was Brennan's voice scolding Booth, and Booth's laughing response.

Well, there you go … hope you're enjoying the story – thanks for reading! Some interesting developments coming up, but then, you knew there would be, didn't ya?

Thanks to everyone who's reviewed and alerted – warms the cockles of my heart. As a very wise person told me recently, reviews feed the writer's soul. They were soooooo right! And I'm soooooo hungry! I'd really appreciate hearing what you thought about this chap. Cheers!