10.
So I have pink eye! Isn't that fantastic? Yeah I'm not excited about it either. But what it does mean is that I can't go anywhere nor can I practically touch anything that anyone else does. However that excludes my laptop which only I use! So I may be getting a few chapters in here…..
Also, from a previous review I got a proposal for a story which led to a series of ideas. What would you think of a story where Daisy died in childbirth and left Sweets to raise the child? Would this be interesting to read? I could see some sad and some comedy involved. I have an idea how to lead into it but wanted to see if there was interest, it's sort outside my usual but that could be a good thing! ;)
Recap 9:
Booth & Brennan get an address from the real estate lady that Joe has shot with a tranquilizer gun. Sweets knowledge is that all the people Joe threatened are dead. Joe & Sweets chat about scars but their conversation is cut short when noises come from downstairs.
Booth knew the area well as he went thru it each morning. Brennan took in the architecture of the buildings as they went by, wanting to comment but her thoughts were elsewhere.
"A penny for your thoughts?" Booth asked her.
Brennan pulled out her purse confused on why there was an exchange of funds involved. Booth stopped her.
"It's an expression Bones, it's a way of asking what you are thinking."
"Then why don't you just ask me what I'm thinking?" She asked confused.
"How do you go thru life missing out on very expression? You know what, nevermind. What's on your mind?" Booth asked. While married to and deeply in love with this woman sometimes he wasn't sure if she was calculating gas mileage, looking at architecture, grading his driving, reviewing the case.
"Sweets." She said.
Or that. Booth said to himself. He thought she might be thinking of it but then again he thought maybe not. Maybe he hoped not because he didn't have any answers for her, at least none that he liked.
"He's been gone for four days Booth. What else has Chamberlain done to him?" She mused.
Booth hadn't wanted to think of it. He knew that Chamberlain had done a lot of damage in the first two days, he was sure there was more. He wanted to find Sweets, he was following the clues, he was doing what he knew, but this was going to slow, he wanted results now! He wanted Sweets back now.
"I don't know Bones. But we need to find him."
They pulled up outside the address the real estate agent gave them. The approached the door and went inside. A familiar smell penetrated their senses and following it on the first floor of the abandoned gothic style building they located a corpse, burned down to the skeleton.
Brennan had never jumped at the sight of a skeleton until now and Booth wondered why. Then he guessed her assumption and his stomach turned.
"It, it can't be him." Sweets said staring at the remains frozen in what looked like a screaming position."
Brennan was stuck between wanting to look closer and not wanting to. She pushed forward and looked to the skull.
"Victim is male, Caucasian." She said her voice wavering. She started at the bottom ridgeline of the teeth and her head sank. Booth's stomach turned until she looked up at him with a smile. "He's in his mid-fifties."
"Jesus Bones don't scare me like that." Booth said looking around.
"Could this be one of the men who were with the real estate agent?" Brennan proposed.
"Could be, so where's the other one?"
Sweets hadn't seen Joe since he left the room with his perfected creepy smile. He listened carefully as he heard a door open and voices. The voices sounded familiar. They can't be…. Sweets said to himself and shook his head. No, it's more of his tricks and recordings downstairs…. Make me think there are people here…But wait last time there were….no, it's just a trick, forget it…but what if? Hope never dies, you have to keep trying…Sweets told himself. He steadied his breathing to prepare himself to shout. His multi-injury chest was going to make shouting painful but it just might be worth the try he figured.
Just as he was about to let out his first shout for help Joe appeared at the door, a man in front of him, wrists bound behind his back and a gag in his mouth, his eyes covered. Joe had a gun in his back and motioned him to the chair to sit down. The man was nervous and fearful. Sweets eyes shot back to Joe who stood smiling still.
The voices downstairs continued and with the lack of insulation in the floors Sweets could now easily identify them as Booth and Brennen.
"Booth what's this?" Brennan said taking a card from the corpse's hand. It had been placed there after the body had finished smoldering.
"It's a business card, Chamberlain again." Booth said angry. He flipped it over. "Getting warmer."
"That is not funny." Brennan said looking at the burned corpse.
"Unless it means something else." Booth said looking around. Sweets felt his heart race increase as he heard Booth say that. Booth was thinking of the game 'getting warmer, getting colder.' Sweets wanted Booth to look around and find him but he didn't want Joe to shoot him either.
Sweets bit his lip thinking of what he could do. Joe held the gun to the man's head as he watched Sweets closely. Sweets understood the game now, he had to listen to his friends search, so close while he was powerless to call out to them.
"I'm getting a team to search this place, maybe Chamberlain left behind a clue, maybe Sweets left behind a clue." Booth said. Sweets saw Chamberlain still looking at him as the two below spoke. Sweets wondered how Joe was so confident they would not be discovered. Sweets could shout out for help but the man before him would be shot, and he would most likely be killed as well. He weighed the pain of possible additional torture from Chamberlain but he couldn't risk this man's life.
"I'm getting a Cam and Hodgins over here to collect the remains." Brennan said making a call.
"Yeah, I'm going to get a team here to tear every inch of this place apart." Booth said placing a call. Sweets looked to Chamberlain who didn't appear concerned in any way about that.
The man in the chair began to whimper. Chamberlain nudged him with the gun but he only began to weep more. Growing irritated Chamberlain pulled a silencer addition from his pocket. Sweets felt a panic and reached his hand out to pause him.
"Sir, can you hear me?" Sweets said in a voice low enough that Joe accepted it as not being detected.
"Y….y….yes…." The man said.
"Okay, if we just be very quiet, I promise you the man who brought you here will let you go. You might hear some noise, but if you are quiet, he will let you go." Sweets eyed Joe who nodded in agreement. While a monster he began to gather that Joe was a man of his word.
Soon Cam and Hodgins arrived. Sweets could hear them collecting evidence and speaking in their usual scientific tones. In a way it offered a solace to him, a familiarity that brought him comfort as the two coworkers exchanged comments.
"Do you think we will find him?" Hodgins said, the conversation turning.
"Joe?" Cam asked.
"Sweets." Hodgins corrected.
"I hope so." Cam said not wanting to say more.
"What if…"
"We don't do what if's Dr. Hodgins, we get results." Cam said in a stern voice. "We will not let Dr. Sweets die, that is not who we are."
Sweets felt a tear roll down is cheek, the side away from Joe that he may not have even caught. The statement seemed to irritate Joe but it revived Sweets. His attention was brought away from the conversation when a noise rattled nearby. The man in the chair made a whimper and Sweets gave him a low hush.
"This wall seems weird." One of the agents said.
"What do you mean?" Booth asked coming close. "Looks like brick like the rest."
Booth's voice was near, Sweets could tell he was on the wall the other side of the dinette area he had seen yesterday.
"Yes, but the square footage doesn't line up." The agent said looking at the blue prints.
"No, you're looking at it wrong." Another agent said. "This is a mechanical room. Wait, that doesn't make sense either."
Booth studied the wall which looked like the rest.
"Agent Booth, Dr. Brennan needs you." Another agent called to him.
"Keep searching." Booth said. "Figure out what's with this area."
Booth walked away and Sweets listened carefully.
"What the hell does he mean keep looking? Figure this out? It's a wall!" The agent said. "Come on, let's walk around more."
The group moved away from the other side of the door and began to search the floor above.
"What you got Bones?" Sweets heard Booth say. He was interested in the conversation though his hope deflated that they might come busting in thru the door.
"I think we have an ID on this victim." She said pulling out a partially burned wallet.
"Walter Long III." Booth said reading.
"We confirmed, it was one of the men who was with the real estate agent." Cam informed him.
"What about the other man?" Brennan asked.
"No sign of anyone else so far." Booth said.
Sweets looked across to the blindfolded and gagged man. I know where he is his thoughts filled with anger said.
"Okay well let's get this all back to the lab." Brennan said.
"Agent Booth, we have some information on your victim." An agent said approaching.
"What's that?" Booth asked.
"Dr. Brennan ran a scan and sent it to Mrs. Montenagro at the Jeffersonian before we found the identity. The image matched a wanted poster we had. This man has multiple identities but the image all matches to a Christopher Romero who has been eluding us. He's wanted for multiple charges, he's a wanted sex offender."
Sweets eyes looked to Joe while smiled a told you so grin.
"Okay, well looks like we've got everything we can get from here." Booth said and everyone began to pick up their stuff.
"Nothing upstairs?" Booth asked the agents returning.
"No, nothing sir." They said and went out the door.
Booth & Brennan stood in the room alone, the first to arrive the last to leave.
"What is it Booth?" Brennan asked.
"I don't know what it is, I just don't want to leave here."
"Still have hope?" Joe asked Sweets as the front door shut.
"Always." Sweets answered.
"We'll see what we can do about that." Joe said as he pulled the trigger.