Chapter 10

Click. Click. Click. She thought about the sound. What could it mean? It was familiar. It was something she knew she should recognize, but her head was pounding. She pushed aside the pain and tried to make sense of the sound. Always analytical, she ran through scenarios in her head. What could make that sound? Finally, she knew exactly what it was. Someone was taking her picture.

Thursday

4:36 PM

It had been 24 hours. 24 hours since Booth had seen here. 24 hours since she had been missing and they had nothing to go on. There was no hard evidence officially connecting Collin Brown to the crime even though Booth felt it in his gut more than ever that he was who they were looking for. There was no sign of where Collin Brown might be and no sign of the champagne colored 2004 Ford Explorer. Booth was running out of ideas and he knew Brennan was running out of time.

Booth felt the tension in his neck and back. He felt the throbbing headache that had been tormenting him for hours. He felt the pull of his tie around his neck like a noose. He felt everything, but he felt nothing. He was numb to everything going on around him. All he could feel was the pain in his heart. Collin Brown had Brennan somewhere and was doing unspeakable things to her and Booth was stuck in his office, unable to do anything. He couldn't find her and he couldn't live with that.

"Agent Booth?" An agent said, appearing in his doorway.

"What?" Booth replied more angrily than necessary.

"This just came for you."

The man walked into Booth's office with a large, manila envelope in his hand. He handed it over to Booth who took it and dropped it down carelessly on his desk. The man, whom Booth recognized from morning run-ins at the coffee pot, lingered in the middle of his office.

"Look, I just want to say...I'm sorry about your partner. I know you two were close. And I gotta say, it was pretty nice having her around here. I mean, she was pretty hot and …"

"Get out!" Booth shouted, his anger boiling over. He was out for blood and, at that moment, he didn't care whose blood it was.

"Sorry, man, that was out of line. I hope..."

"Get out," Booth snarled.

Finally taking the hint, the man scurried out of Booth's office. Booth immediately got up and shut his door. He didn't want any more interruptions.

Sitting back down at his desk, Booth grabbed a poker chip from his top drawer. He began running it through his fingers. The only time he felt he could concentrate was when he had something to do with his hands. He glanced over at Collin Brown's file that was resting on his desk. He had gone over it countless times. He knew he wouldn't find anything, but he had to try. He had to do something to get Bones back.

As he reached over to open the file, Booth remembered the reason the agent had come into his office in the first place. He picked up the manila envelope. It was blank except for his name, Special Agent Seeley Booth, which was handwritten on the front. Curious, Booth undid the metal clasp that held the envelope closed and opened it. He reached his hand inside and, feeling paper, he tipped the envelope so the contents spilled out on his desk. Three four by six pieces fell onto his desk. They all fell out upside-down, but Booth knew instantly that they were photographs. With his brow furrowed, Booth turned over one of the photographs. What he saw nearly made him yelp.

The picture was of a woman with a black bag of some kind over her head, making her unidentifiable. She wore nothing, but a dress that looked more like a potato sack than anything else that came only to her upper thigh. Her hands were bound above her head with wire. Her feet were dangling inches off the dirty, cement floor, meaning she was literally hanging from her hands. Even covered with the bag, Booth could tell that her head was rolled to one side as if she couldn't hold it up any longer. Her bare arms and legs were caked with dirt and, from what he could tell, badly bruised and cut.

Booth quickly flipped over the other three pictures. One was almost identical to the first he had looked at except it was taken from a different angle. Another was a close-up of the woman's head, although Booth could tell nothing because of the bag. The last picture was of the woman from behind. The bag was still over her head, but she had been stripped of the dress. All Booth could see was her naked back and the bruises that were on it.

Booth's hands clenched into fists. There was no way he could know for sure that it was her. He couldn't see her face and she didn't have any identifiable marks that he knew of. But he could feel it in his heart.

"Bones," he whispered.

He looked at each image again, going over every detail. He didn't want to look at them. He wanted to run them through his shredder so no one would ever have to see them again, but that wasn't a possibility. He knew that the photographs could lead him to her. He needed to be able to look past the bruises and the scars and the way her head hung to the side and see what the pictures were. They were evidence and he knew just what he had to do.

Booth quickly opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a latex glove and an evidence bag. He never knew why Bones insisted on keeping extra pairs of gloves in his desk, but he was glad she did. Booth pulled the glove onto his hand, not caring that his pinky finger didn't exactly make it into the finger of the glove. He had already touched the pictures and the envelope they had come in with his bare hands, possibly contaminating evidence. He wasn't going to make that mistake again. Booth picked up the pictures with his gloved hand and put them into the envelope. Carefully he put the envelope into the evidence bag and sprang to his feet. He walked out of his office, letting the door slam behind him, and headed straight for the coffee room. He found the agent who had delivered to him pouring cream into his stale cup of coffee.

"Where did this come from?" Booth barked, holding the bag up.

The agent practically dropped the mug of coffee he was holding.

"It just showed up in the mail," the agent replied.

"It has no post markings. It couldn't have just showed up in the mail!"

"I don't know where it came from. It was on top of the pile of mail that needed to be delivered. I delivered it to you."

Booth stepped closer to the agent, sizing him up.

"Who put it there?" Booth practically shouted.

The agent backed up, obviously afraid if Booth. "I don't know. Does this have anything to do with Dr. Brennan's disappearance?"

"What's your name again?" Booth asked, ignoring the man's question.

"Woods. Trevor Woods."

"Well, Agent Woods. You better start going over every second of video tape we have in the mail room. I want to know how this package got in the building. I want to know who delivered it and how it ended up on top of the mail pile. This isn't something you do when you find the time. This is something you do now. I want a call as soon as you know something. Is that clear?"

"Yes."

Booth stormed out of the room and down the hall towards the elevators. He slammed his fist against the 'down' arrow button and waited impatiently. He felt like the world was crumbling in on him. She was hurt and he was stuck waiting for a damn elevator.

"Agent Booth," a voice said from behind him.

Booth turned around and saw Sweets standing just a few feet away.

"Not now, Sweets."

Booth hit the down button again. He was in no mood to talk about his feeling with Sweets.

"You seem to be in quite a hurry," Sweets commented.

"And unless you want me to shoot you, I suggest you stay out of my way," Booth replied.

"You know, your hostility is stemming from a deep seeded emotional..."

"You have as much time as it takes for the elevator to get here to tell me what you want."

"I want to sit down and talk to you," Sweets answered.

"Talk to me about what?"

"How you're feeling."

"How I'm feeling?"

"Obviously you're under a lot of emotional distress right now and I just thought it would be healthy for you to talk about your problems instead of keeping them bottled up inside as you tend to do. So, when can I pencil you in?"

The elevator dinged. "My partner is missing," he said as if that were enough of an answer to Sweet's question. The elevator doors opened and Booth stepped inside.

"Is that evidence in Dr. Brennan's case?" Sweets asked as Booth hit the button for the first floor and subsequently hit the 'door close' button.

Booth looked down at the envelope he had in his hand and then he looked up at Sweets. As the elevator doors began to close, Booth reached out and grabbed Sweets' jacket, pulling him into the elevator.

"Hey!" Sweets yelled as the elevator doors closed and the elevator began its descent.

"You're coming with me."

"To talk?"

"To look at the evidence."

"Agent Booth, I really think it would be in your best interest to talk about..." Booth glared at him and Sweets immediately stopped talking. Sweets knew Booth well enough to know that continuing to talk would not be in his best interest. "What kind of evidence?"

"They're pictures," Booth answered.

"Pictures of what?"

Sweets reached for the bag, but Booth pulled it away.

"First we're taking these to the Jeffersonian to see if we can get anything off the envelope."

"Booth, what are the pictures of?" Sweets asked again, noticing that every time the word pictures was brought up, Booth winced.

"A woman."

"Dr. Brennan?" Sweets asked.

"I don't know for sure, but I think it's her."

Booth felt like the elevator ride was taking forever. He didn't want to waste any time.

"And in the pictures is she...alive?"

Booth looked down at the floor. There was no way he was going to show his emotions to a twelve year old psychologist.

"I don't know," he said quietly. "There's a bag covering her head."

The elevator doors opened to the parking garage. Booth practically sprinted towards his car. Sweets followed close behind.

"So you don't know for sure if it's Dr. Brennan?"

Booth stopped at his car and turned around to face Sweets.

"Do you want to help or not?"

"Of course I want to help Dr. Brennan. I just think maybe you're jumping to conclusions and that's really not healthy considering..."

"Say another word, Sweets, and I will shoot you."

Sweets threw his hands up in the air in surrender. "Fine. What do you want me to do?"

"Get in the car."

Sweets obeyed and got in the car while Booth went around and got in on the drivers side. As he turned the ignition to start the car, he also turned on the siren and red and blue flashing lights. He wasn't wasting any more time getting to the Jeffersonian. He threw the car into drive and screeched out of the parking garage.

"Are the siren and lights absolutely necessary?" Again, Booth glared at him as he accelerated. "Fine, I won't ask any more questions."

"Thank goodness," Booth replied.

"Except one." Booth rolled his eyes. "Why am I here?"

"You looked at Collin Brown's file, right?"

"Yes, I took a look at it."

"So you know about his MO?"

"I know that he used to kidnap women at random and tor..." he was going to say 'torture them,' but seeing the look on Booth's face, he didn't continue. "He always would send video tapes of...of what he had done to the FBI after the fact."

Booth was pushing away his emotions. He was focusing on the facts. He needed to focus on the facts or he would go crazy.

"Right. He would send video tapes after the woman was already dead. We never got pictures before and never this soon. I need you to look back at his file. Look at the transcripts from his trial. I need you to do a profile on him. I need to get inside this guy's head."

"That sounds like a scary place to be," Sweets replied.

"Creepy. It's a creepy place to be," Booth corrected.

"I'll see what I can do. You know, it's not unusual for killers to change their MO over long periods of time. I mean, this man has been in prison for years. I spent time studying prisoners and what happens when they get out. Even for the worst killers who know that they're going to spend the rest of their life in jail, they still fantasize what it would be like on the outside. Some just want to go back to having a normal life. Others...those who have no remorse for what they've done, spend their time thinking about how they'd kill again. How they could do it better. How they could do it with more showmanship. From what I've seen from Collin Brown, he was not a reformed man. He's probably been calculating what he would do and how he would kill again from the moment he was thrown in jail. All those years in prison have given him plenty of time to come up with a new MO. Plus, there's something else he's working on now."

"What's that?" Booth asked just as he pulled up at the Jeffersonian.

"You."

"What do you mean?

"He's working on getting back at you. You put him in jail. Now he wants revenge. He's willing to do whatever it takes. My guess is those pictures are a tease. He wants you to know he has Dr. Brennan without you actually being able to be positive that it's Dr. Brennan. He's torturing both of you."

Booth parked the car and turned off the engine. Sweets reached for the door handle to get out when Booth spoke.

"When he sent the video it was always too late the save the woman. Do you think we're...do you think I'm too late?"

Sweets chose his words carefully before he said them out loud. "I think Collin Brown has become an unpredictable man, which makes him even more dangerous. But I also think that if I'm right, and I usually am, he's going to continue this torture on both of you as long as possible. So no, I don't think we're too late."

Booth nodded, blinking away tears, and got out of the car.

Author's Note: As always, I'd like to thank you for reading. I really wanted to get Sweets involved in the story and I've found that I thoroughly enjoy writing his character so expect him to show up a lot more! I hope you enjoyed it and please review!