A/N...

I should just make a note here and let you know that if you haven't read my other story, 'Continuation...', this chapter may seem very pointless, even lame...but it tells a different version of two major events, and how they may not have come to pass... I think it may hold it's own though, but I'm very biased.

Thanks. (and possibly sorry!)

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What could have been.

Booth sat in his SUV watching the house across the street from where he was parked. He was on a stakeout. The squints had identified one of the victims of the Chess Killer, appropriately named by his method of striking victims in the head with a chess piece, presumably held tight in his fist, and had traced him back to being the owner of the drug den that Booth now watched.

He was waiting for anyone with whom he could speak who might have information... anyone who might know the last movements of the dead man. He had been watching the house for hours, and no one had come or gone in all that time. He still watched. His mind briefly lingered on the thought of how it would be if Temperance were there with him. They would have argued by now, but the hours would have passed quickly.

Many, slow, hours later, a shaggy looking young man exited through the front door and looked both ways down the sidewalk before he started walking. Booth got out of the vehicle and followed him a few blocks, but lost sight of him when he turned into a small park.

Booth was stopped when he turned into the park. In the first fifty feet or so, there were a number of Chess boards set up on pedestals. This was something, or so he thought. The people who played the matches were an interesting mix of homeless and well-off. They all just seemed to be enjoying a day in the park. Nothing looked suspicious, and he saw no sign whatsoever of the man that he had been following.

He walked up and down the chess boards, eyeing the players carefully, and subtly. No one caught his well-trained eye. On his second pass, he stopped at a table where one of the men sitting there was a priest. He thought that this man could be someone who might know something or someone who knew the dead man. Someone he could trust.

"Good Afternoon Father."

The Priest smiled at him strangely, but Booth didn't notice. He pulled a picture of the dead man out of his pocket and handed it to the priest.

"I was wondering if you had seen this guy around."

The priest scanned the picture, but Booth could read nothing strange on the expression on his face. Like so many other members of the Clergy that Booth had dealt with over the years, the man seemed stoic and sincere. The priest handed the picture back to the man standing.

"I've seen him around, but I don't know who he is. Did he do something wrong?"

Booth tucked the picture back in his pocket.

"It's of no concern Father. Thanks for your time." Booth walked away. He looked around the park one more time for the man who he had originally followed in, but saw no sign of him. He started back to his SUV. He could watch the house for a few more hours, hoping someone else would come or go so he could get some answers to his questions.

As Booth walked away, the priest wiped beads of sweat off of his brow, and sighed in relief.

At about five o'clock he pulled his phone out of his pocket, and called the lead on the Serial Killer case, Agent Smith.

"Yeah, Smitty, nothing to report on the crack house. I have to go pick up my boy. I'll see you tomorrow."

The other Agent thanked Booth for his time today. Smitty knew that Booth had sacrificed a day off to work. His time seemed wasted.

*

Booth carried his son down the hall towards his office; he just needed to pick up a few things before they headed home. He tapped the 'bobble-head' bobby on his desk because he knew it would make his son laugh. Jax giggled, and Booth smiled.

"One minute Buddy, and we're on our way."

He pressed the play button on his answering machine. The first couple of messages were of no real importance. Work stuff. The third message stopped his heart cold.

"I'M COMING FOR YOU AGENT BOOTH, TOO BAD THERE'S NO PRINCE IN THE GAME OF CHESS!"

The voice had been digitally altered, and Booth had heard that voice once before. The Gravedigger. Booth shook his head. They had caught Heather Taffet and she sat in her prison cell even now, as silent as she had ever been. A copycat?

Booth called Smitty and told him about the strange message. The other Agent met him in his office almost immediately, and had a team run a trace on the phone call.

It had apparently come from a nearby church.

Smitty noticed Jax still sitting on his Father's lap, waiting patiently to be fed his dinner.

"Booth...Go home. We'll keep you posted, and send a car to look out for you a couple times tonight." Smitty clapped Booth on the shoulder. Booth agreed, though he was disappointed that he couldn't take part in the investigation of the phone call.

He went home and spent a delightful evening with his son even though the baby seemed to be coming down with a slight cold. Booth didn't sleep well, constantly on alert for any strange sounds. The night passed with no follow-ups to the eerie phone message.

Upon returning to the Hoover building the next morning, Booth was shocked to learn that Agent Smith and another Agent, who he didn't know all that well had been found dead at the church that morning. Apparently they had been electrocuted. No one knew for sure, the investigation continued...

Booth ran out of his office, a conference was being held in a meeting room down the hall about the events and who could help with the investigation, and how. As he approached the doorway leading to the room, already half full of Agents waiting for an update, he saw a woman wearing an older suit come out of the room carrying a small blonde boy. He watched the boy as the two approached him.

He thought to himself, cute kid, wonder what's going on with him.

The woman looked frustrated as she walked past Booth, but the little boy smiled at him. He smiled back. Definitely a cute kid.

The meeting informed all the Agents who were present, what had been discovered in the church. Every one of the priests living there were found dead, all murdered. The only exception was one priest who seemed to have been felled by a heart attack. The body was being sent to the Jeffersonian for autopsy. There was no sign at all of any suspect, but the young boy had been found in the church, unharmed. They were looking for the boy's family, and Booth hoped they would find them. His heart went out to the little boy's family, wherever they were. He remembered when his own son had been missing once.

She had still been alive then, but barely.

His focus went back to the man at the front of the room who was letting each willing Agent know where he, or she, was best suited to help.

Smitty had been loved by all. The other Agent had been well respected. They all owed it to the men to find their killer.

Booth was sent to the Jeffersonian to find out all he could about the autopsies and any particulate evidence that had been analyzed by the squints.

He decided to take his son with him and head directly home afterwards. The squints hadn't seen him in a while. He grabbed Jax from the daycare and made his way to the Jeffersonian.

Cam, Hodgins and Wendell were examining the remains of the priest who had been confirmed to have died of a heart attack.

They had identified him as being Father William Mackenzie and them were all speculating that perhaps the man had fallen victim to his heart condition before the serial killer had gotten to him.

Cam was ready to wrap up, her evidence supported their theory and as she wrapped up the body the FBI medical examiners wheeled another body in.

It was a woman that some homeless people had found in a shallow grave in a park. Cam sighed and leaned back against the railing.

"Is this ever going to stop? I don't know how much more of this I can handle!" She looked at Seeley and he nodded in agreement.

It turned out that it did stop. Very suddenly. The woman was the last body ever found that was related to the Chess Killer serial killer. The entire FBI pursued the search for months, but eventually the case went cold.

No suspect was ever brought to trial.

Over the years that followed, the case always weighed heavily on Booth's mind. Was there something he had missed? Something he could have done differently?

It was one of the few cases he ever worked where the bad guy got away.