Morning, all! Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad you're still enjoying the series. I'm working on the scenes from Max's trial now, which of course is at the end of this season. When I finish the writing, I may speed up my posting schedule to every other day like it was for the last two stories. Sound good?

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Chapter 10

Brennan lay in bed, floating in that comfortable limbo between slumber and cognizance. Something had pulled her from a very pleasant dream, and she was considering whether she would rather determine the source of the disruption or simply allow sleep to come back to her. Before she could make a decision either way, however, the disruption came again in the form of her husband's hand kneading her breast. He moaned softly from behind her, his breath tickling the sensitive skin of her neck.

She opened her eyes slightly, surprised to see that the room was not completely dark. It was lit by the cool, pre-dawn light peeking through their window blinds. Booth's arms were wound so tightly around her that she was unable to lift her head to see the clock on her nightstand, but she managed to turn far enough for a better look at his face.

He was asleep… and apparently having a particularly nice dream of his own. His hard length pressed into her backside, and his hips were twitching. Brennan watched his lips curve into a soft smile as his hold on her breast tightened. It wasn't painful or uncomfortable, but there was certainly no chance of her going back to sleep now. She lay quietly in his arms for several minutes, content to simply watch his eyes dancing behind his lids as she considered what to do. She wanted to wake him with her mouth, but he was clutching her so tightly that trying to move out of his arms would probably rouse him.

She settled for using her hand instead, reaching behind her to slip her left hand into his boxers. Brennan stifled a moan of appreciation as her fingertips found the satin-wrapped steel, already producing moisture from the tip. Booth grunted and pushed his hips forward instinctively. Uncertain as to whether or not the motion was completely involuntary, she turned her head toward him again. His eyes were open this time, and they were dark with lust. Booth smiled deviously at her, his face inches away from her own.

"Good morning," he whispered, his voice raspy from sleep.

"How good?" Brennan grinned.

"Very good." He buried his face into her neck, inhaling the sweet scent of her and leaving a trail of kisses from her pulse-point to the soft skin beneath her ear. He groaned as the movements of her hand became more deliberate, no longer merely exploring. Booth realized somewhat belatedly that he was squeezing her breast, and he immediately relaxed his hand. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"No," she chuckled. "But you did wake me up."

"You woke me up too."

"Well, you seemed to be having a nice dream, but I thought perhaps I could improve upon it. Maybe I'm overly ambitious," she shrugged, stroking him from head to base and back again.

"One way to find out."

Brennan felt the moisture pooling between her thighs, and she wiggled out of her panties as he pushed them over her hips. She started to help him out of his boxers, but he held her hand firmly in place, silently indicating that he much preferred her hand to stay exactly where it was. They were both lying on their right sides, and Booth's right bicep was supporting her head. His elbow was bent so that his hand rested upon her breasts, and his fingertips teased her nipples gently. He paused only to slip his hand into her shirt. They shifted slightly to align their bodies, and she guided him slowly into her.

"Oh God, Bones…" he moaned. The angle made the penetration somewhat shallow, but her closed thighs made everything tighter and more sensitive. He moved slowly within her, his right hand still caressing the soft flesh of her breasts while his left snaked over her hips and downward to the apex of her thighs.

Brennan matched the slow, erotic pace of his hips, gasping when his fingertips made contact with her clit. His lips and tongue were worshipping the smooth skin of her neck and shoulder, and she was reminded of the only thing she disliked about this position. She couldn't kiss him. He seemed to be doing his damnedest to leave a love bite in her shoulder, however, and she couldn't find the will to chastise him for it.

As his fingers brushed against the place where their bodies were joined, she felt the first tremors of release rock through her body, and she spoke his name in a soft cry as she broke. Booth wanted to lie there and make love to her all morning, but he was already overworked from his dream and her previous ministrations. Her walls spasmed and clenched him tightly, and he clung to her, trembling as he flooded her body.

They held each other for several long minutes, and when he finally slipped out of her warmth, their breathing had nearly returned to normal. Brennan turned in his arms and pressed her lips to his, kissing him with a passion that left him breathless once more. Their tongues teased one another, their teeth lightly nipping each other's lips. When at last they separated, Booth quirked an eyebrow in silent inquiry.

"I like kissing you while we make love," she explained. He smiled in understanding and kissed her again, stopping only when the alarm went off on her nightstand. Brennan reached over to silence it and returned to his arms immediately.

"Wish we didn't have to work today," he whined, his words muffled slightly as he buried his face in her hair.

"We don't have a case," she reminded him, implying that it would probably be an easy day.

"Yeah, which means the day will drag on and on…" Booth sighed in disappointment. They hadn't had a case since Halloween, so he'd caught up on his office work, and he hated being bored at work.

"Well… we can meet for lunch," she offered, knowing that he probably would've just shown up with food anyway. Booth pulled back slightly to meet her gaze and rewarded her with the kind of smile that made her momentarily consider calling in sick.

"Sounds good, baby. Maybe we could 'meet' in the supply closet," he said, waggling his brows comically. Brennan giggled at his antics but didn't argue with the idea.

Booth followed her into the shower, taking her against the tile wall before eventually getting around to helping her wash. By the time they had managed to get dressed, they had only minutes to spare before they needed to leave for work. They drove separately, as they usually did when they didn't have a case. Booth stopped her before she climbed into her car, pulling her into his arms for one more steamy kiss. Her eyes were hazy and unfocused when he released her, and he smirked in satisfaction.

"See you at lunch."

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Booth was pleasantly surprised to see Brennan's name on his caller ID after only a couple of hours, and he answered the phone with a smile on his face.

"Need to visit that supply closet already, Bones?"

"Uh… No, that's…" she faltered at his unexpected greeting, but another voice came over the speakerphone before she could collect herself.

"What supply closet might that be, Seeley?"

"Hi, Camille," Booth groaned. "Nevermind. What's going on? Something wrong?"

"Yes, we have a crime scene," Brennan replied, happy to change the subject.

"Where?"

"Here."

"At the lab?" he asked in alarm. He was instantly on his feet and shrugging into his suit jacket. "What happened?"

"At the Jeffersonian, but not in the lab," Cam corrected. "A body was found in the incinerator shaft."

Booth winced in disgust but was relieved that Brennan and her squints were alright. He assured them that he would be there soon and made his way to the Jeffersonian as quickly as possible. Booth stopped by the security office to pick up a copy of the visitor log, and a guard showed him down to the basement level. He'd only been in that area of the building a few times before, when they'd first moved the artifacts from the cannibal case to the Jeffersonian. Cam and Brennan were already there, and he overheard their conversation as he approached.

"At four hundred degrees, bone chars in six hours and turns to ash in eight," Brennan announced. The two women directed the beams of their flashlights into the incinerator chamber.

"Charring, but no ash," Cam replied. "Six to eight hours? Dumped into the incinerator between one and three a.m."

"Ugh," Booth groaned as he reached them and peeked over their shoulders. The body was mostly blackened from the fire, and the smell of burnt flesh was overpowering. "Alive or dead before he or she went into the incinerator?"

"Can't tell yet," Cam answered. Brennan glanced back at him and spotted the book in his hands.

"What's that?"

"Guest log," he replied, flipping to the most recent entries. "No visitors checked out after 9:36 last night, and no one checked in before 8:02 this morning."

"Meaning the victim probably works here," Cam surmised.

"Meaning the killer does too," Brennan emphasized, frowning. The three traded nervous looks, and Cam stepped away to call the forensic techs from the lab to transport the body to her autopsy room. They x-rayed the body, and Brennan studied the images while Cam began her analysis of the tissue.

"Pubic bone is female," Brennan observed aloud.

"There's no carbon in the trachea. She was dead before she was thrown down the chute," Cam revealed. They both breathed a sigh of thanks for that small favor.

"Extensive fissures, fractures, and breaks to the entire skeleton… I'll have Zack determine which were caused by heat and which by trauma."

"Heads up," Angela said as she entered the room. "They called Bancroft in from a hearing on the hill."

"Who's Bancroft again?" Brennan asked. She recalled their investigation into the murder of Terrance Bancroft earlier that year, but she could only recall meeting his widow.

"God," Cam answered dryly.

"The supreme honcho of the Jeffersonian," Angela clarified.

"I've probably met him then," Brennan said vaguely. After so many years of donor banquets and galas, the names and faces began to blur together.

"Okay, I'm ready to start the facial reconstruction." Angela sounded rather upbeat considering the fact that she was standing in a room with a set of charred remains, and Brennan glanced at her briefly before removing the skull from the body. She carried it to a nearby table and placed it on a stand.

"I haven't put on the tissue depth markers yet, and Cam will need to remove the carbonized brain matter. After she's finished, I'll have Zack clean the skull…" Brennan trailed off when she caught sight of Angela's face again. The artist's eyes were locked on the victim's skull, but her gaze was slightly unfocused. Her jaw was slack, and her expression indicated that she was disturbed by something. Brennan had to repeat her name several times to get her attention. When Angela finally snapped out of it, she muttered a quick reassurance that she was fine and asked them to let her know when the tissue markers were placed. She was gone from the office before either Cam or Brennan could say another word.

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While Zack worked to clean the skull, Brennan went to check on Angela in her office. She found her sitting at her computer with a devastated expression.

"You won't like it," Angela announced when she spotted Brennan in the doorway.

"Like what?"

"I've ID'ed the victim."

"That's impossible," Brennan argued, crossing the room to stand next to her chair.

"I told you you wouldn't like it."

"There are no tissue markers; you can't just look at a skull and see the person," Brennan insisted. Angela looked up at her, and her features softened a little.

"Sweetie, I've done hundreds of these reconstructions." She pointed at the image of the ruined skull on her computer screen. "The depressed labella, the narrow nasal aperture, the chipped lateral incisor…"

"You can see a face from that?"

"The chipped tooth was from a skiing accident when she was sixteen," Angela replied sadly. Brennan's expression shifted from incredulity to sympathy.

"Ange… You knew the victim personally?"

"Kristen Reardon," Angela sighed, clicking the mouse to display a Jeffersonian employee badge on the screen. "She's an intern. We had coffee a couple times." She rose from her chair and moved away to escape the image of Kristen's smiling face. "She didn't want to be a scientist. She wanted to go into design. She was just here to make her father happy. She was young and eager and keen and… She was just really, really young."

"Wait, Reardon… As in Dr. Ted Reardon?"

"Yeah, he used to work here."

"I took a course from him in ancient pharmacology," Brennan recalled, sinking into a chair across from her friend.

"Look, I know that we can't say anything until you do the tissue markers and we go through channels, but I'm telling you… This is Kristen."

"Poor Ted." Brennan shook her head sadly.

"You want to know something else? She was seeing somebody who worked here."

"Is that relevant?"

"Well, Booth will think so," she replied. Brennan nodded, knowing that she was right. "Especially since it was a married man."

"Well, did she tell you who it was?"

"No, just that they'd had their first kiss at the opening of that Egyptian exhibit and that it had been hot and heavy ever since."

Brennan nodded as she recalled taking Booth and Parker to see the artifacts and mummification specimens before the exhibit had opened. They'd had an active case at the time of the actual opening, however, and she hadn't been able to attend.

"Do you really think somebody we see every day could've thrown Kristen into the incinerator?"

Brennan frowned, hating the thought as much as Angela did. The Jeffersonian had always felt sacred to her in a way. She had considered it her home for many years, at least until she'd found her true home with Booth. The idea that such violence had happened in her own personal sanctuary was reprehensible.

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On the surface, Booth's conversation with Dr. Bancroft was polite and professional. Bancroft expressed his eagerness to cooperate with Booth's investigation and answered his questions with apparent honesty. Booth, however, couldn't quite shake the feeling that there was something off about him. Bancroft had described the scientists at the Jeffersonian as a group of people who were naturally predisposed to be difficult, combative, skeptical, and resistant. His tone was gracious and indulgent as he spoke the words, but his eyes were cold. Booth gritted his teeth slightly at the man's disparaging remarks, but he made no argument, hoping to coax some level of trust from the older man. Bancroft admitted that he had managed to force Ted Reardon out of his position at the Jeffersonian, but he claimed that it was due to Reardon's poor skill as an administrator.

After Bancroft left the lab, Booth made his way to Brennan's office but stopped short when he saw that she had a guest. He took in the man's aggrieved expression and realized that he must have been Ted Reardon. Brennan was informing him of his daughter's death. Booth hesitated, wondering if she might need his support for this conversation, but he decided instead to wait until she was finished. When Brennan eventually stepped out of her office, she spotted him and motioned for him to follow her to the Bone Room. The bones weren't clean yet, so the exam table stood empty, but she was more interested in privacy.

"You okay, Bones?" Booth asked softly.

"I've never had to tell someone his child is dead. I mean, I've been there when you did it, but to actually… It's extremely unpleasant," she replied, fighting the urge to pace around the room. Booth nodded sympathetically.

"I'm sure you did fine," he soothed. "It's good that he heard the news from someone he knows. Believe it or not, that helps." Brennan nodded but didn't reply, shifting her weight anxiously. "Did you get a chance to ask him about his daughter's love life?"

"Yes, he said that as far as he knew, she wasn't seeing anyone."

"Kristen was lying to her father," Booth concluded, shaking his head slightly. Before Brennan could reply, they were interrupted by a man who addressed Brennan from the doorway.

"Dr. Brennan, is it true? Kristen Reardon is dead?"

"Evan," Brennan greeted him, nodding a silent answer to his question and gesturing to her husband. "This is Special Agent Booth. He's in charge of the murder investigation. Booth, this is Dr. Klimkew, Kristen Reardon's supervisor."

"Murder? Kristen was murdered?" Klimkew asked, looking even more alarmed than when he walked into the room. Klimkew was somewhat short for a man, and Booth could tell by his wardrobe that he didn't work in the lab. He wore a tie and sweater set beneath a blazer rather than the blue labcoat to which Booth had become accustomed.

"What did Kristen do at the Jeffersonian?" Booth inquired politely.

"Authentications. Other museums and high end collectors use us to authenticate their acquisitions."

"Is that a big department?"

"Three to five interns, all doctoral candidates, my assistant, and myself," the man shrugged. "That's it."

"It's a competitive environment, right?"

"Of course. You put a bunch of neurotic, type-A overachievers together, and you dangle a prize over their heads."

"Dr. Klimkew is referring to the Bates fellowship," Brennan explained.

"The top intern receives seventy-five thousand dollars and a gold star on their resume. Kristen was the frontrunner."

"I'd heard that her heart wasn't in it," Brennan said, thinking back to her conversation with Angela.

"Didn't show in her work," Klimkew shrugged. "God, this is terrible. Does her father know?" Booth ignored his question and asked one of his own.

"Who was the main rival for the Bates money?"

"Uh, that would be Neil Tyler."

"Where can I find him?"

"We're authenticating the artifacts in your serial killer vault."

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Booth and Brennan found Neil Tyler precisely where Klimkew promised he would be, and they watched as he bent over some sort of medallion with a small magnifying glass. Brennan made introductions again, and Tyler greeted them politely before explaining what had intrigued him about the particular artifact he'd been studying.

"The spinner appears to be Masonic in origin. Bloodstone and gold. What's interesting is…" He paused to place the medallion under a medial cam so that its image was displayed for them on the computer screen. "In the center, instead of the traditional 'G' for 'God,' there's a skull."

"Gormogon iconography," Brennan murmured, equally fascinated.

"Strange, huh?" Tyler said, glancing back at her. "I've been seeing a lot of that in here."

"Gormogon?" Booth echoed, feeling lost. "Okay...what's that?"

"It's an eighteenth century-"

"It's an extinct group dedicated to eradicating the influence of the Freemasons and Illuminati in Europe in the eighteenth century," Tyler explained, interrupting her in his eagerness. "This could be the largest collection of Gormogon artifacts in the world."

"That's great," Booth replied passively before directing the conversation back to their more recent investigation. "You and Kristen Reardon were here last night?"

Tyler answered all of Booth's questions openly, explaining that he had signed out around midnight but that Kristen had stayed longer. That hadn't been unusual for her, and Tyler seemed to resent her position as frontrunner for the Bates fellowship. He felt that she had fallen back on nepotism, while he had worked his way through state college with multiple jobs. He felt that he needed the fellowship more than Kristen had. When Booth questioned him about their relationship, Tyler assured her that they had been friendly but nothing more, since he was gay. He excused himself from the room, and Brennan walked over to Kristen's work station to snoop around. She came across a black leather purse, which contained the woman's wallet and cell phone.

They took the purse back upstairs to the lab and sorted through its contents, finding nothing particularly helpful. Booth sent the information from her cell phone to Charlie so that they could get the complete phone records, and by the time he had finished his conversation, Brennan was no longer in the room.

"I'm up here," she called down from the catwalk. Booth frowned slightly but wasted no time in joining her. Once he had reached her, she continued, "The bag tells us that Kristen was leaving the museum when she met with her killer."

"Well, there are a lot of calls from the same number on her phone. Let's hope it's the cheating husband."

"Booth, Kristen was authenticating artifacts from the Gormogon vault," Brennan said in an almost conspiratorial tone.

"Let's not go there."

"If Gormogon killed her, then Gormogon is one of us. Somebody who works at the Jeffersonian."

"You went there," he sighed.

"What?"

"You went there, and you gave him a nickname-" His words were interrupted by the sight of a large object falling past the large window. It had looked to be roughly the size of a human being. Booth looked back at her with an odd expression. "That just happened, right? You saw that?"

Brennan nodded in dismay, and they quickly made their way out of the building. Directly opposite the window they'd been standing near was an alley of sorts, but it wasn't a dead body they discovered on the pavement.

"You've got to be kidding me," Booth muttered, rolling his eyes at the sight of the broken dummy as well as the men responsible for the mess. Zack and Hodgins were being apprehended by Jeffersonian security, but Booth waved them off. "What's with the dummy, dummies?" he asked the squints.

"It's not a dummy," Zack corrected him. "It's an ersatz skeleton made from glass and reinforced nylon, which breaks exactly like human bone."

"We threw it from the top floor," Hodgins beamed proudly.

"Explicate your process, please," Brennan instructed, her hands resting on her hips. She didn't know whether to be irritated or amused. Zack and Hodgins took turns explaining their experiment and their findings, and Brennan was pleased that they had at least gleaned some new information from their antics. The body had been put into the trash chute on the top floor of the building, which was the only level high enough from the bottom of the incinerator to create the skull fractures they'd found. As Booth and Brennan turned to walk back toward the lab, Booth heard Hodgins announce that he was 'King of the Lab.'

Cam discovered that the cause of death for Kristen Reardon had been extreme sharp force trauma to the chest. Her aorta had been severed and one of her lungs had collapsed immediately. The most frequently dialed number on Kristen's phone traced back to Dr. Kyle Aldrich, who worked in the Middle East department. His office was on the top floor of a neighboring building, but it was connected by skywalk to the top floor of the main building.

While Brennan and a handful of forensic techs swept Aldrich's office and workroom, Booth questioned him about his relationship with Kristen. Aldrich practically emitted an aura of arrogance, and Booth was certain he would've disliked him even if the man hadn't been a murder suspect. Before he could get much information out of him, however, they were interrupted by a forensic tech who asked Booth to join the team in Aldrich's office.

They had found evidence of copious amounts of blood at one of the work stations, on the floor, and inside of a rolling cart that was typically used to transport artifacts. It had clearly been used to transport Kristen's body to the trash chute. Booth arrested Aldrich and booked him on suspicion of homicide.

"Let's head home, Bones. It's late." Booth had returned to the lab to find her still working with the techs, and he was surprised that she acquiesced without dispute. He guided her from the room with a hand at the small of her back. "You hungry?" Brennan glanced at him and shrugged a little, her lips curving gently upward.

"I could eat."

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They carpooled to work the next morning, and Brennan spent the majority of the drive on speakerphone with the rest of her team as they got an early start on the evidence. She was somewhat surprised that the rest of them had come in so early, but she understood that they were all as troubled by the case as she was. No one liked to think of something like this happening at the Jeffersonian.

"The C7 vertebra and the fifth rib were both nicked at a sixty-seven degree angle, suggesting a single point of entry that is consistent with the trauma to the left lung and aorta," Zack announced, apparently addressing Cam, who followed with a question.

"Through the back?"

"Yes."

"The serial killer eats human flesh," Angela argued. "Kyle Aldrich is a vegetarian."

"So was Hitler," Hodgins countered.

"We're calling him Gormogon now," Zack corrected her. Hodgins quickly approved of the name for its historical accuracy.

"People!" Cam practically shouted. "You have to stop assuming that Gormogon was in any way involved in Kristen's death." Booth nodded approvingly and glanced at Brennan with a gloating expression.

"See?" he whispered. "Cam doesn't think it's the cannibal either." They hadn't really gotten back to their disagreement the previous evening, but like Cam, Booth was reluctant to combine the two investigations. His gut was telling him that the Gormogon connection was irrelevant, and he would trust his intuition until the evidence proved otherwise. Brennan nodded placatingly at him and turned her attention back to the discussion of the evidence.

"Zack provided me with these fragments retrieved from the fifth rib," Hodgins explained, no doubt showing them said fragments as he spoke. "I'm running them through the GC Mass Spec."

"What about the incinerator?" Cam asked.

"I analyzed the ashes in the incinerator and found carbonized traces of cedrus libani. It's a species of cedar fir from Lebanon."

"The Middle East is Aldrich's area of study," Angela reminded them.

"And the Mesopotamians used cedar as an odor neutralizer to mask the smell of burning flesh," Hodgins added, sounding pleased. They theorized about whether or not Kyle Aldrich was capable of murdering his girlfriend and using his knowledge to conceal the crime, but none of them knew Aldrich well enough to speculate either way. Booth and Brennan went to the Hoover together that morning to interrogate Aldrich, and he surprised her by suggesting that she go in alone.

"Why me?" she asked curiously.

"Because he thinks I'm stupid."

"You're not!" Brennan assured him quickly, angry on his behalf.

"Thanks, Bones. I know," he soothed. "Listen, during the interrogation, always refer to the victim by her first name." Now she was frowning at him in confusion.

"You're the one who told me that personalizing the victim doesn't work with sociopathic serial killers. They lack all empathy. You told me that."

"We are not looking for 'Gorgonzola' today," he argued, making air quotes around his mockery of the new nickname.

"Gormogon," she corrected. "Gor-mo-gon." He rolled his eyes, silently begging her to let it go.

"We're looking for someone who murdered one girl and tossed her down an incinerator shaft. Entirely different kind of guy, so… Inside," he instructed, shooing her into the interrogation room. She shushed him for bossing her around but entered the room anyway. When Booth walked into the observation room, he was mildly surprised to see Ted Reardon standing in front of the two-way glass. He moved to stand next to the older man, as Brennan seated herself across from Aldrich in the next room.

"Kyle Aldrich seduced my daughter?" Reardon asked quietly.

"That's what we hope to find out, doc." Booth flipped the switch that would allow them to listen to Brennan's conversation with Aldrich.

"It was definitely Kristen's blood on your work table," she said frankly.

"That proves only that she was killed in my work room," Aldrich replied, looking arrogant as ever. "Why am I talking to you?" Brennan ignored the question.

"What time did you leave the Jeffersonian that night?"

"Shortly after eleven," he replied, leaning forward in his seat. "Dr. Brennan, surely I merit someone higher up the food chain than an FBI consultant."

"Kyle…" She met his challenge with a sweet smile and leaned forward as well. "I know you get everything you want by flaunting your superior intellect, but that won't work with me," she said smoothly.

"Why is that?"

"Because I'm smarter than you are," she smirked. "So why don't you do the rational thing and cut to the chase." She sat back in her seat, but her eyes never left his. "Were you having an affair with Kristen?"

"I'm not willing to comment on that." Aldrich wore a smug expression of his own, but Booth could detect his underlying irritation.

"I know you were. You first kissed her at the opening of the Egyptian exhibit."

"Obviously Kristen was indiscreet," Aldrich replied blandly.

"If your wife knew about Kristen, she'd leave you, correct? And you'd no longer be rich," Brennan surmised, using the scant information Booth had gotten out of the man the previous evening. She leaned forward again and met his gaze with her clear, unwavering blue eyes. "See, the FBI, they call that a motive. They think you did this, Dr. Aldrich, and so far, the evidence is on their side. Can you tell me anything that would suggest otherwise?"

"Yes… But first I need to speak with a lawyer and make arrangements with a federal prosecutor," he replied, his smirk back in place.

"Sounds like you want to cut a deal."

"I've told you what I need. So either have me arrested or let me make those arrangements." Aldrich sat back in his chair and crossed his arms, clearly done with the conversation. Brennan rose from her seat and left the room to join Booth. Dr. Reardon thanked her for her help but excused himself quickly, fighting to keep his emotions under control.

"Was it okay?" she asked nervously, her previous confidence faltering slightly.

"You did great, Bones," he smiled. "Really. I'm proud of you." And he was. Booth remembered how awkward she used to be around suspects, and although she still had those moments occasionally, her confidence in the field had risen exponentially. He'd seen it before, but it had been particularly noticeable as he'd watched her interrogate Aldrich. She had handled the arrogant creep almost exactly as Booth would have, and he couldn't be prouder of her.

"Thanks," Brennan smiled back, feeling reassured. "So what happens now?"

"His lawyer will work something out with the prosecutor. Sounds like he's got something to share. Unless we get new evidence, we'll have to cut him loose anyway though." Brennan scowled but didn't argue. She'd helped with enough of these cases to understand the rules.

As Booth predicted, Aldrich was released only a few hours later, but Brennan saw him the next day, much sooner than she'd expected. He was on Cam's autopsy table.

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I know this one was a lot of case talk, but the next chapter will be much more AU. Nearly all of it, in fact. I just scanned through it to check. Review if you have a moment, and have a wonderful day!