Chapter Ten

Once Booth's shift was over with Gorgonzola, he and Sweets headed for the island jail to get some answers from Paul Lindley. It was still snowing, – because apparently in February all it ever did was snow on Monhegan – and Booth was still feeling a little letdown over that rendezvous-that-wasn't with Bones. Not that it wouldn't have been kind of creepy, making love with that damned skeleton looking on, but somehow things like that didn't seem to matter when Bones was around. They'd been together as a couple for six months now, and he still couldn't get enough of her – especially now that they seemed to have worked through everything that had happened since December.

Booth set his mind on the business of catching killers and skeleton thieves, though, and made a point of putting his groin in neutral for a while. Which wasn't easy, when Bones was around.

A sketchy path had been shoveled through town, but Booth still wasn't sure Sweets should be making the trek on foot. The shrink was determined, though, so Booth let it go.

Sweets looked more rested than he had the day before, but Booth noticed that he did bring his cane along this time. Once they were in the open air, a light but steady snow falling, Sweets took a few deep breaths – like he hadn't been getting quite enough air 'til just then. Dosha trotted on ahead of them, diving in the snow and chasing snowflakes like a puppy.

"I realized something yesterday," Sweets said, after a minute or two of walking in silence.

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

Sweets kept right on walking, without looking at him. Booth had a feeling that wasn't an accident.

"I realized that I've been living in perpetual fear since the day I was shot."

Booth tried not to react, making a conscious effort not to dismiss the words. Apparently, Sweets needed to talk. Damn. It was so much easier just saving people's lives – throw a couple punches, take a couple punches, maybe shoot somebody, and you're done. Why the hell did Sweets always have to ruin it by talking a thing to death?

Sweets looked at him, like maybe he sensed what he was thinking.

"But you're not scared anymore?" Booth asked, once he realized it would be rude not to.

"No, I'm definitely still scared – I'm terrified, actually. Yesterday when that gun went off? Whoa. I was right there in the Hoover all over again – I mean, I've read about PTSD for years now, I've written papers on it, I've worked closely with I can't tell you how many guys dealing with it."

"It's always a little different once you're the one shaking in your boots," Booth said.

"Exactly! And, I mean… Dude, I was freaked out. I was up in that room just, like, paralyzed. But then I realized… This is a pretty crappy way to live. A grown man hiding behind a bed, praying that everything will be all right. I don't want to be that guy."

"I don't know – I thought you were doing a pretty good job keeping your head after everything that happened. I mean, jeez, Sweets, you almost died. The Hoover got blown to kingdom come. If anybody's earned the right to be a little nuts…"

"You're not, though," Sweets said. "And while I recognize that a lot of your ability to handle stressful situations comes from coping mechanisms you developed during a highly traumatic, abusive childhood – "

Booth shot him a glare. Sweets clammed up for a second.

"Okay, yeah – I know," he said, after a while. "You don't like talking about that stuff. All I'm saying is, I admire the way that you are able to handle these types of situations and apparently move on without the trauma manifesting in a way that prevents you from continuing to do your job."

"Is that why we're out here?" Booth asked. "So you can prove something?"

He laughed ruefully. "Honestly? We're here because I thought it might be, you know…"

"Fun?"

Sweets looked at him like he thought Booth might be making fun of him. When he realized he was serious, the younger man rolled his eyes.

"It sounds dumb now, but… Yeah. Of course, that was before I knew we'd be stuck here during the blizzard of the millennium while some sociopath stole the bones we were supposed to be retrieving. I figured we'd just all come out here and hang out, get a chance to relax a little."

Dosha found a tree branch about a foot longer than her entire body, nose to tail, and tried to drag it to Booth. He stopped, smiling a little, and broke off a piece of the branch to toss down the road for her. She raced after it, bounding through the snow like a seal in high seas.

Sweets went silent. Booth stopped walking and turned to him. He was flushed, the trek obviously already taking its toll, his gloved hand clenched tight around the handle of his cane.

"You okay, Sweets? I can run back, grab one of those four-wheelers Diggs was tooling around on yesterday. Give me five minutes."

"No, I can walk," he said. "I just need a second."

Booth nodded. They stood there for a little while, everything around them washed a brighter white than Booth thought he'd ever seen before. Off in the distance, the horizon was a pale gray, the ocean so dark he couldn't imagine it as something anybody in their right mind would ever try to make a living from.

"All right – I'm ready. Sorry."

"No skin off my back, Sweets. I figure we've got another twenty-four hours on this rock, minimum. Other than a bunch of squirrely suspects I need to interrogate and a little quality time with Bones, there's not a whole hell of a lot else I can do. Besides, it's kind of nice out here."

"It is." He looked at Booth for a second, with a kind of respect that Booth thought went beyond the old days of blind hero worship, then took another couple of deep breaths, shuffling along with his hand on his side like an old man. They walked the rest of the way in silence, trailing along behind Dosha while the snow kept falling and the day wore slowly on.


The Monhegan jail looked more like an old-time schoolhouse than a place to lock up the bad guys. Booth waited while Sweets struggled up the six steps to the front door, then hurried up himself. Dosha ran up beside him and stood expectantly with her tail swishing back and forth.

"Sorry, Dosh. Stay." He held out his hand, palm up, the way Bones had told him to. Dosha sat down in the snow, but she didn't look all that happy about it. Bones had pretty much taken the dog everywhere since they'd gotten her – Dosha wasn't real well-acquainted with the concept of No Dogs Allowed.

The problem was solved the second Constable Mills saw the dog on the front step, though. He sat at a scuffed old wooden desk doing a crossword, and barely looked up when Booth and Sweets came in the door. Dosha got him on his feet, though.

"You just gonna leave her out there? What the hell are you thinking – have you seen what it's like out there? We're in the middle of a damned blizzard, son."

He grabbed a dog treat from a jar on his desk and Dosha trotted past the threshold and straight to him. Maybe Booth was oversensitive, but he was pretty sure the dog gave him the cold shoulder when she passed.

Paul Lindley was in a jail cell straight out of the Andy Griffith Show: iron bars, cot, little toilet and sink for washing up, on the opposite side of the room from the constable's desk. He looked up when Booth and Sweets came in, but he didn't say a word. Booth grabbed a chair and pulled it up just outside the cell, turning it backward and straddling it, his arms resting on the chair back.

"So, Lindley, how's life behind bars? Used to it yet?" he asked.

Lindley was playing Solitaire on his bunk. He barely looked up.

"Three squares and a roof over my head for a couple days – I think I can handle it."

"A couple days?" Booth laughed. "Yeah, just keep tellin' yourself that, Paulie." He felt the muscles across the back of his shoulders tighten, that old rage welling up when he thought of Will and Sam, now without a mom.

Lindley looked up with a little smile, like he knew exactly what was going on in Booth's head.

"You think you're better than me – is that it, Fed? You think you got the upper hand here?" The smile got mean, beady black eyes getting a little blacker. "You go near my boys again and I'll show you who's got the upper hand."

"Listen, Lindley, I don't know just what you think's gonna happen here, but here are the facts: I've got you in the possession of a valuable relic that's tied to at least a dozen homicides – "

"You've got me with a silver fuckin' bone I found in a hallway, dipshit," Lindley said.

"And I've got you for murder 2, just as soon as my partner takes a look at your wife's autopsy."

He laughed outright at that. "Who the hell do you think is gonna pay for an autopsy when some low-rent bitch from the county goes belly up? Unless you can do your detecting from a bag of ashes scattered across Penobscot Bay, you're out of luck on that one, sport."

Booth started to get up, but Sweets touched him on the arm, gave him a look. He sat back down, with no intention of staying in his seat long.

"Mr. Lindley, you've obviously been through a great deal in the past several months," Sweets said. "You lost your wife, had to fight to get your children back… You've clearly been facing some financial difficulties."

"What's your point?" Lindley's forehead was creased, trying to figure out Sweets's angle.

"Yeah, Sweets, what's your point?" Booth echoed.

"My point is that with the stressors you've been facing, no one could blame you for picking up what was obviously an item of great worth, when you came across it in the hallway at the Monhegan House."

Lindley was obviously waiting for the trap. He nodded carefully. "It has been rough," he said. "I never said it weren't. Nobody knows how hard it is, trying to watch two shitheads like I got – my boys are good, but they don't understand what I'm up against."

"Sure," Sweets nodded. "Parenting can be very difficult – particularly on your own. All Agent Booth and I want to know is a little bit more about that piece of silver you picked up. Did you see anyone else around it? You've been in the hotel for several months now – have you heard anyone mention where it might have come from?"

Lindley looked at Sweets, then at Booth. For a second, Booth thought the shrink's way might actually work, but all of a sudden Lindley's eyes got hard again. He picked up the next card from his deck, restarted his game of Solitaire.

"I don't know what you're talking about. And I know my rights – you either got to charge me with something, or you got to let me go. Just 'cause we're on an island in the middle of nowhere doesn't mean you can just forget about the rules."

Booth said. "Y'know, cell phones may not work out here, but the landlines are just fine. I talked to my office this morning, got the goods on your little 'wife' there – Sophie Redding, right? Born October 18, 1995. I've never been all that good at math, though – how old's that make her, Sweets?"

Sweets made a show of adding it up in his head. "A little over sixteen years old, I believe."

"And what's the age of consent in Maine, Constable Mills?" Booth asked over his shoulder.

The constable looked up from playing tug of war with Dosha. "Eighteen, last I heard."

"And Sophie said she was gonna press charges?" Lindley said doubtfully. "You don't know nothing about what we been doing – we was just friends, I've been taking care of her. You bring her here, have her look me in the eye and say different."

"Yeah, right – that's really gonna happen," Booth said.

He eyed the lock on the door of the cell, the key hanging Old West-style on a keyring on the wall. He wasn't an idiot – he knew the reason Sweets was here didn't really have all that much to do with the case, and everything to do with who Lindley was, and who Booth was. Sweets was just here to protect Booth from doing something stupid. The fact was, there wasn't a chance in hell that Sweets could stop him once he'd made his mind up.

"Tell you what, Lindley – you just tell us about the Gormogon piece, and I'll see what I can do to make sure you go back to playing house with your boys and your little girlfriend there." Booth was lying through his teeth, but it still felt wrong saying the words.

Lindley gave him an oily smile, pushing his lank dark hair out of his eyes. "Yeah, sure you will. I buy that and I guess you can probably get me a nice price on the Brooklyn Bridge too, huh?"

Before the words were out Booth was up, had the key, and was through the cell door before Sweets could even get on his feet. Lindley's eyes got wider once there were no bars separating them. Booth slammed the door shut again and locked it behind him, then grabbed Lindley and pinned him against the wall, his hand around his throat and their faces maybe six inches apart.

"You listen to me, you sick son of a bitch," he whispered, just barely aware that Dosha was barking and Sweets was yelling at him, the constable scrambling for a spare set of keys.

"You think I give a shit whether you ever see your kids again? You think when I see a guy like you, I really care what condition you're in when you get your day in court? Now, I'm asking nicely – what do you know about Gormogon?"

There was a split second when he was positive Lindley would spill whatever he knew, his eyes wide and his rail-thin body shaking. Before he broke, though, the constable had the cell door open and a gun pointed at Booth's back.

"I don't know how you boys do it in D.C.," Constable Mills said, his voice a whole lot darker than Booth would have thought it might get, "but where I'm from, we don't beat confessions out of people. Now you'll kindly let him go and get out of this cell, before I have to clear out the one my sister's been using for a sewing room in the back, and put you in it."

Booth waited a couple of seconds, the rage riding so high now that it was all he could do to loosen his grip enough to let Lindley go. The bastard clutched at his throat and fell back onto his cot, cursing the whole time. The constable pushed Booth back through the cell door, grumbling the whole time, and was careful to pocket the key this time after he locked Lindley inside again.

"Wow," Sweets said, his eyes kind of wide. "That was totally not cool. Seriously, dude. We really need to work on those rage issues."

Booth just pushed past him. "Come on – we're not gonna get anything out of him like this."

He was already to the door when Lindley called after him, his voice still rough from having Booth's hand around his throat.

"I meant what I said – you think I didn't? You go near my boys again, you're gonna be sorry. Sammy's already got a couple scars with your name on them from the last time you tried to turn him against me – it'll be a hell of a lot worse the second time around. Either way, I'm coming for you. You can take that to the bank."

Booth's jaw tightened. It took every bit of self-control in his body not to go back to the cell and beat the living hell out of the man.

Instead, he just kept on walking.


When Booth got back, all five kids that had been playing video games together the day before were gathered in the dining room, playing board games with Diggs, Hodgins, and Angela. Lindley's girlfriend Sophie and a couple Booth hadn't met before were drinking coffee at the next table. He poured a cup for himself and took a seat next to Sophie, noting that she went to a hell of a lot of trouble not to look at him.

"So, you guys all live here year 'round?" he asked, directing the question at the couple. They were in their late twenties, he'd guess, both of them a little plump, obviously spooked by everything that was going on.

The woman nodded. "We moved back a few years ago – I grew up here." She held out her hand. "I'm Jenna – this is my husband, Mark. You're with the police?"

"Yeah – FBI. Agent Seeley Booth."

"The girls mentioned you last night," Mark said. He pointed to the little brunette girl Booth had carried down the stairs the day before, sitting beside another girl, maybe a couple years older. "Karen and Ashley. Thanks for looking out for them."

"I had a lot of help. They okay?"

"Bad dreams last night," Jenna said. "But other than that, they were fine. And now that they have a few new playmates, they're happy as clams. I'm grateful – you can only be cooped up with kids that age for so long before everybody starts to go a little stir crazy."

He smiled, thinking of how nuts Parker would be going about this time, after being snowbound in a hotel for two days.

"Did you see Paul?" Sophie asked, low. She looked like she'd been crying – and not tears of joy, either. It was something he'd never understand: she was a pretty girl, sixteen years old… How bad must her life have been, that a scumbag like Paul Lindley seemed like the best she could hope for?

"Yeah, I saw him. He wasn't real helpful, I've gotta tell you."

Jenna and Mark looked at each other, then at Booth. He nodded in answer to the question they hadn't asked.

"You can go, if you want. I just wanted to ask Sophie here a couple questions."

He waited until they were gone before he turned his attention back to the girl next to him.

"Sophie, we did a little checking. I know you're a minor. I know you're a runaway. I know you and Paul Lindley haven't been shacked up in this hotel room all winter tradin' recipes."

She barely blinked; he was surprised at how well she was holding up. Considering the drugs they'd found in the room with them, he'd kind of expected the both of them to be in deep withdrawal by now, but both Paul and Sophie seemed to be doing just fine. All he saw was a faint tremor when she lifted the coffee mug to her lips. She set the cup back down, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. When she looked at Booth, there was a strength in her eyes he hadn't seen before.

"You can't send me back home."

"Sometimes the things you run away from are a hell of a lot scarier than where you end up – I understand that," he said with a nod. "I know some people, we can help you get straightened out. You're almost seventeen; there are ways around putting you back with your parents, if you don't want to go."

"I don't want to be in the system, either. But my folks'll kill me," she said, her tone still dead even. By the look in her eye, he knew she wasn't just being dramatic.

"We'll figure it out, all right? You just gotta trust me. And you have to believe me when I say, Paul Lindley isn't your best option right now. He's about to go down for some big messes right now. Kidnapping his sons, theft, possession, statutory rape… You know what happened to his wife?"

She lowered her eyes. Booth's best guess was that she'd heard exactly what happened to Lindley's wife: it had been the way the fuckin' prick had kept Sophie in line whenever she started to get out of hand.

"He's not a good man, Sophie. Now, all I need from you is some idea of where that silver leg bone he had in his room came from. If you can help me with that…"

Sophie didn't say anything for a few seconds. Across the room, it looked like the game was breaking up, everybody headed back to their rooms. Booth looked up to find Sam watching them, his forehead furrowed with concern. Booth nodded his head toward the table, indicating the brothers should join him and Sophie. Sam came over first, Will dragging behind.

"Hey, fellas. I was just talking to Sophie here, asking a couple questions. You mind joining us?"

Sam sat down immediately; Will stayed where he was.

"Where's our dad?" the younger boy asked.

Booth paused for a second. He remembered, suddenly, sitting in a police station with Jared and his mom. Cops coming over, asking questions about their dad while Jared got more and more pissed and Seeley just tried to hold it together. His nose had been bleeding – he remembered that. The rest of the memory was kind of a blur, though.

He looked Will in the eye.

"Your dad's in jail, Will. You know why?"

The kid's eyes welled immediately, a fat tear rolling down his cheek. "Our dad takes care of us."

"I know he tries, buddy. But your dad's got some problems – you know that, right? Sam's been trying to hold things together since your mom died, but I think it's probably been pretty hard for you guys. So, we're gonna give your dad a break, and Sophie here is gonna get herself together, and you…" he leaned closer, eyebrows raised, "are gonna move back in with your Aunt Becky and your brother. You guys are gonna go back to school, you're gonna have your own rooms…"

"Dad won't like that," Sam said. His eyes had gotten hard, fixed on the tabletop. His fists were clenched so tight Booth thought his knuckles would come right through the skin. "You should just leave us alone. We weren't hurting anybody."

He thought about that for a few seconds, the silence weighing in around the table. Everyone else in the room had taken off – it was just the four of them, and that deep quiet that comes from old houses and snowy days.

"You remember that story I told you yesterday, Sam? About my Pops taking my brother and me, when my dad couldn't take care of us anymore?"

Sam nodded. Will and Sophie were both listening close, he could tell.

"Before he took us, things weren't so good at home. I have a little brother like you do – his name's Jared. And we both loved our folks, but they had some problems. Our dad had a lot of problems. And so does yours, guys. It's not fair, but sometimes that's just the way life goes. And now, the best thing you can do is take care of each other, and listen to your Aunt Becky, and trust me when I say that I'm not gonna let your dad hurt you again."

"You won't stop him," Sophie said, so soft he almost didn't hear her.

All three of them turned to look at her. Sam nodded.

"She's right," he said, just as soft. "You don't know my dad. They tried to take us before, and he wouldn't let them. He said nobody takes what's his. And it just makes it worse when people try."

Silence fell over the table again. Booth took a deep breath, then touched both boys hands.

"I want you guys to look at me. You too, Sophie. You see me? I look like a pretty tough guy, right? I mean – I'm no Captain America or anything, but I can hold my own." He didn't continue until everybody had nodded. "Your dad's in jail. You hear that, Sophie? Paul's in jail. He's not getting out. He's not coming near you again. That's a promise."

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up to find Bones standing behind him. "Booth never breaks a promise – he's very trustworthy."

He smiled. "See that? Bones here is a world-class forensic anthropologist and a bestselling writer. You think she's gonna steer you wrong?"

Sam shook his head, Will and Sophie following suit after a little while.

"All right – good. Now that that's settled, I want you guys to go on up to your room with Sophie, okay? I'm gonna come up there a little later with some hot cocoa, and we're gonna talk about what's been going on with your dad since you moved out to the island this fall. Deal?"

Sophie nodded. She stood up, all of a sudden seeming about twenty years older than he knew she was.

"Come on, buds. Star Wars and S'Mores in five."

The boys scampered up the stairs, Sophie trailing along behind. Once they were out of sight, Bones leaned down and kissed his cheek, then took the seat beside him.

"You're very good with them," she said.

He shrugged. "Well, y'know… I've been there, Bones. I mean, I look in Sam's eyes, and it's like I know exactly what he's thinking."

"It's not just Sam and Will, though." She took his hand, looked him in the eye. She had that deep, soulful look she got sometimes, once she'd managed to get past how scared she was of all this personal crap. He waited for her to say what was on her mind.

"I want us to set a date," she finally said. Since he didn't actually know what the hell she was talking about, he stayed silent, waiting for her to clarify. Of course, she didn't say a damned word more.

"A date for what, Bones?"

Her smile grew into a smartass grin. "A date." She moved in closer and kissed the line of his jaw, her smell sweet and familiar, her body soft against his. "… To get married," she whispered, not far from his ear.

He pulled back, knowing his eyes had to be about three times wider than normal, his smile even bigger than that. "Yeah?"

"Just a quiet wedding," she said quickly. "I don't want anything elaborate."

"Yeah, I think we've been over that one before."

"And I don't want to spend a great deal of money, or have a large guest list."

"It doesn't matter to me, Bones – I don't care if it's just the two of us saying our vows to an Elvis impersonator… Whatever you want."

He wrapped his arms around her, his mouth finding hers with more urgency than he'd intended. When they parted, she put her hand on his cheek. Looked in his eyes.

"I've never understood the concept of marriage before. But for some reason it makes more sense when I think of it in the context of you and I."

"That's 'cause we're meant to be, Bones." She did that head-tilt thing that always made him nuts, along with a little eyeroll of those baby blues. "Make fun if you want, babe, but I knew the day I first laid eyes on you that there was something there."

She leaned in to kiss him.

And Hodgins walked in.

Jesus. Booth was tempted to buy the man a bell.

"Oh – hey, sorry," Hodgins said. "I'd tell you guys to get a room, but… Well."

"Yeah, funny," Booth said shortly, pulling his chair back at the same time Bones did, so they ended up with about six feet between them. "What'd you find out about the bones?"

"Not much. They've all been preserved with a low-resin shellac, and I've found traces of basalt particles and a couple of other igneous rock – "

Booth looked at Bones for a translation.

"Granite – probably from being in the basement for so long."

Hodgins nodded a confirmation. Before he could continue, Zack and his psycho girlfriend came in. Instantly, Booth felt himself tense up – he didn't like Greta. He'd met girls like her before, usually at the winning end of a lost weekend in his gambling days; in his experience, they never led anywhere good.

"We came down for some lunch," Zack said.

Booth glanced at his watch; it was just after eleven o'clock. When you were snowbound and had been up since four a.m., though, time had a way of losing all meaning. It could have been two in the afternoon or midnight, the way he was feeling.

Zoe came out like she had some kind of sixth sense that kicked in when her guests were hungry, and before long the rest of the crew had filed in, with the exception of Tripp and Cam – it was Tripp's turn to guard the skeleton, so they'd be down later. They pushed a couple of tables together at the back of the dining room, and everybody settled in.


Within an hour, everybody but Tripp and Cam, Sweets, and Erin, had gathered in the dining room. Once they had stew and chicken salad sandwiches on some of the thickest, best-smelling homemade bread Booth had ever come across, it didn't take long before Angela started stirring up trouble. Since she was seven months' pregnant and trapped on a snowbound island, Booth figured she'd earned a little leeway, though.

"So, Booth, how was bunking with Ellie last night?" she asked with a little smartass grin.

"Who's Ellie?" Bones wanted to know, right off the bat.

"Ellie's the ghost of this little girl who was killed by her father, in the room Booth is staying in. Isn't that sad?" Angela asked.

"There's no such thing as ghosts," Bones and Zack said at the same time.

Booth thought of the way the lights had flickered, the fire in the fireplace… The ringing phone with nobody on the other end. He avoided Bones's eye and took another bite of his sandwich.

"I don't think Booth's with you on that one, sweetie," Angela said.

Bones gave him that look that usually meant she was about to reveal something he really didn't want revealed, to everybody in the room. Sure enough, she spoke up before he could say anything.

"Is that why you wanted to stay with me last night? Because you were afraid of a ghost?"

He felt himself go bright pink. "What? No – jeez, Bones. I thought it was pretty clear why I wanted to stay with you last night."

He couldn't deny some satisfaction when she went a little pink herself.

"I thought I saw something out the window last night," Hodgins volunteered.

Zoe didn't even give that a beat. "Out the west window, right? That's Jim Mendenhall – drowned out here about thirty years ago, trying to save his wife and their baby girl, after they got swept away with the surf. You can see him – hear him, too, some say – out there at night sometimes, still trying to save his family."

Angela shivered, and Booth felt a chill run straight up his spine. "Jeez – didn't anybody die happy out here?" he asked.

"I don't think so. These old islands are some of the creepiest places I've ever been," Angela agreed.

"Yeah, but the creepiest has got to be that story you told me last night," Hodgins said, looking at Angela. "The cult thing?"

Booth was starting to feel like he was ten years old again, back in summer camp. Angela glanced around the room like she was looking for someone, then glanced at Diggs, who was sitting on her left, while Hodgins was on her right. Booth watched with some interest when Diggs looked away, just the faintest hint of hardness to his jaw. Like he didn't approve of whatever it was she was about to say.

Angela lowered her voice. "That's over on an island a couple miles from here, though. It wasn't really a big deal."

Hodgins looked at her like she was nuts. "Not a big deal? Like fifty people kill themselves just across the bay, and that's not a big deal? C'mon, Angie… You've gotta tell the story."

Diggs had his eyes fixed on his coffee cup. Angela looked at him, a little guilty, before she nodded.

"Okay, fine… Just… Shh, okay?" Angela said. She glanced at the door again, though Booth couldn't figure out who the hell she thought would walk in.

"About twenty years ago, there was a cult called The Payson Church of Tomorrow. Nobody knew much about them, except it was run by this weird preacher guy named Isaac, who brought people over there from his church in Boston. And one day he takes them all out into the island chapel, they all drink some Kool Aid or something laced with some herbal drug, and he lights the place on fire. The whole congregation died," she finished, her words hurried now.

"Whoa," Hodgins interrupted. "That's not the way you told it last night."

Angela glanced at Diggs guiltily again. He looked at her this time, with a shrug. "Might as well tell the whole story, Ange." He took a long pull of coffee and set it down.

"Just one member of the church remained, actually," Diggs picked up where Angela had left off. "He'd been on the mainland when the fire happened, celebrating his daughter's birthday. When he saw what had happened, legend has it that he went mad. For ten years, he roamed the island, trying to find other survivors. And then, on the tenth anniversary of the fire, he – "

Booth noticed that Angela's face had gone pale, an unmistakable touch of desperation in her eyes. Once Diggs saw the look, he stopped talking. Booth followed Angela's gaze at the same time that Diggs did.

Erin stood in the doorway, her face pale and dark circles under her eyes. The room was so still Booth could swear he could hear the old inn creaking under all the tension.

"He what?" Zack broke the silence, totally clueless. Angela looked like she might beat him senseless.

Erin recovered after a second and came in smoothly, poured herself some coffee, and sat down beside Diggs.

"You want to finish or should I, Diggs?" she asked casually.

Diggs just looked at her, an apology clear in his eyes.

"No?" Erin asked. "Okay, then – I'll tell it. So, after ten years of roaming the island, the madman finally has enough," she said, reciting the words like she'd memorized them, "so he hangs himself from a beam in the old church greenhouse. But to this day, they say you can still hear his cries in the wind. You can still see him searching the island for the church that he lost."

No one said anything for a while, though Booth still wasn't clear on why, exactly, Erin was reacting to the story that way.

"You want me to grab you some food?" Diggs asked, low.

She shook her head. Sort of leaned into him for a second, like she was too tired to sit up straight, but she caught herself before she leaned too far.

"You should eat something," Diggs said, before Booth could get out exactly the same words. "Let me get you some soup."

She must have sensed that he wasn't gonna let up, because she finally shrugged. "Fine – but you don't need to wait on me. I'll get it."

Just before she left the room, she turned. The table was still kind of quiet, though Booth suspected no one really know why things had gotten so tense. Erin looked directly at Diggs when she spoke.

"Oh, yeah – I almost forgot. The upshot to that story… The madman who roamed the island, hanged himself, and still haunts the place? That was my dad. I was the reason he didn't die with the rest of his church." She looked away for a second, her eyes softer than Booth figured she probably liked. "He never forgave me for that."

She paused, wet her lips, her gaze wavering for just a second before she looked at Diggs again, dead on, a challenge in her eyes.

"So, now everybody's got the whole story – I'm sure it would have come out within the hour, anyway. I'll just be in the kitchen. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves."

Booth watched her try to keep up the cool façade. She did a pretty good job – all the same, he could practically see the anger coming off her. The room was dead silent after she left. A second later, Diggs got up and followed her into the kitchen.

"Well, that was awkward," Hodgins finally said, breaking the tension.

"Nice job, babe," Angela said to him.

"What? You couldn't have mentioned last night that your friend there played a pretty major role in the story?"

"She'll be fine," Zoe said. "Erin's spent most of her life with people whispering about her dad behind her back. It's better to have it out in the open. She'll make it – she's one tough customer, that girl."

Booth wasn't quite so sure.

They were just settling back down to continue eating when the phone at the front desk rang. Zoe hopped up and went to answer. Diggs and Erin were still in the kitchen, and Booth found himself wondering if she was okay. He was hoping she'd told Diggs what was going on with her, but, somehow, Booth would lay odds that she hadn't.

That whole line of thought derailed the second Zoe came back into the dining room, her usually ruddy face a shade or two paler.

"What happened?" Booth asked immediately.

"That was Jack Andrews – he owns the gallery out by the jail. He says he heard gunshots."

Booth's stomach twisted, and he was on his feet in an instant. "Lindley?"

Zoe shook her head. "The constable's hurt – Jack said he doesn't even know if he's gonna make it. And Lindley's gone."