Chapter 3: Part 3

Booth and Bones were now standing in Hodgins' lab area and were staring at two things...a small fish and what looked like a tiny gold necklace.

Hodgins cleared his throat and looked up at Booth and Bones, letting his gaze slip momentarily to Zach who was watching from the corner of the room.

Hodgins was pleased with himself, yes, very pleased indeed.

"This," he began, "Is Sciaenops ocellatus..." Booth raised his eyebrows at Hodgins, "but," Hodgins continued with a small smile in Booth's direction, "they are more commonly known as the Red Drum. The Red Drum is only found along the Gulf coast in Texas. This was the only red drum I found in the whole batch of fish, and more interestingly, it seems to have been dead upon getting caught because it has already started to decompose. Morever, I found this inside," Hodgins picked up the gold necklace and dangled it in Booth's face.

"Hey that's a Saint's medal...what was it doing inside a fish?"

Bones looked at him, "Oh I don't know Booth, don't you believe in those illogical things called miracles where things like this just happen?"

"Hey Bones! Haven't we already discussed..."

Hodgins cleared his throat and interrupted the would be argument gracefully, "A crew member on the boat had to have planted this treasure filled fish with the catch, which either means that he was the murder and wanted the bodies to be found and the case to be solved...which is highly unlikely because we now have two missing bodies, or he knew something about the case, something he couldn't necessarily tell you."

Booth looked at him, "If he wanted the case solved....?"

Hodgins flashed him a smile, "This medal has an address on the back. It looks like you two are going to have a nice little road trip to Teeeejjjaaas."

Booth and Bones exchanged looks.

"Oh and another thing," Hodgins said almost gleedfully, "All the fish who had consumed any carrion had Rohypnol in their systems."

Brennan's eyebrows nearly shot off her face.

"The date rape drug?"

"Bingo!", Hodgins replied.

Booth smiled and looked at Bones, "I guess it's time to pack our bags for Tejas, pardner." He grabbed the evidence bag containing the Saint's medal that Hodgins had just been holding and slipped it in his pocket. He then hooked his hands through his belt loops on either side of his buckle and stood looking at Bones.

She raised an eyebrow at him, "First of all drop the whole cowboy act...and secondly," she cleared her throat, "I really don't appreciate you calling attention to your so called conversation piece."

"Oh..yeah.." Booth said, a bit embarrassed as he shot a look down at his belt buckle.

She turned on her heel and started to walk out of the lab, Booth followed.

"Can I drive?"

"No."

"You don't let me carry a gun and now you don't let me drive! You sir, are sexist."

"You know that's not true."

"Then let me drive."

Back in the lab Hodgins looked at Zach and gave him a smile that would put a kid in a candy shop to shame.

"King of the lab!" he crooned.

Zach looked at him. "Only because I didn't have any evidence to analyze, remember? Therefore how could I have possibly earned the title of King of the Lab today? So, actually, your win is only by default since there was no competition to begin with."

Hodgins obviously didn't care, "King of the Lab, Zach. The title never loses it's glory no matter how it's procured."

"Hmmph."