Chapter 12.

The Meeting In The Office.

As Brennan made her way down the hall to her office to see Mr Jenkins, Booth followed behind her and struggled to talk her out of it.

"Bones I really think I should talk to Mr Jenkins. Alone." He pressed, as he hurried to keep up with her.

"Don't call me Bones..." Brennan told him testily.

"Look Brennan-"

Brennan stopped walking abruptly and cut him off.

"Look Booth. Mr Jenkins asked to see me. Not you."

Booth shook his head.

"I really think Mr Jenkins meant to talk to me-"

"He's in my office." She declared pointedly. "I want to hear what he has to say."

She started walking again.

"I'll come and find you in the lab afterwards and tell you." Booth offered.

"But I won't be in the lab." Brennan replied curtly.

"But you should be working on the bones-"

"I told you cause of death." Brennan retorted. "When I've finished talking to Mr Jenkins I'll go back and reassemble Sarah's fourth rib but Mr Jenkins is in my office right now and I won't keep him waiting."

"Listen Brennan I'm sure Mr Jenkins would rather talk to me. I am, after all, in charge of the case... I'm the one with the cop's badge."

"And I'm the one with the doctorate." Brennan said bluntly.

She turned to Booth, a slight smile on her face. "Perhaps Mr Jenkins forgot your name."

She couldn't resist. "People do tend to remember Doctors."

"They remember FBI agents!" Booth spluttered. "I gave him my card!"

"Then he would have called you." Brennan said bluntly.

She looked at Booth. "But he didn't call you and since Mr Jenkins is sitting in my office and it is my office..." She trailed off, smiling, and started walking again.

Booth opened his mouth to say something, got the point she was making and closed it again, thoroughly annoyed.

He followed Brennan into her office.

Mr Jenkins was sitting at Brennan's desk. He rose when he saw Brennan and Booth enter.

"Mr Jenkins," Brennan accepted his hand. "What can I do for you?"

Brennan sat down in her chair opposite Mr Jenkins and Booth was forced to stand.

"I hope you don't mind me coming here." Mr Jenkins said. "I couldn't talk freely in front of Maggie earlier but I thought you should know this as soon as possible. Maggie asked where I was going and I had to tell her I wasn't going to the police station."

Booth and Brennan looked puzzled and seeing their faces Mr Jenkins quickly explained.

"I'm a Catholic. I couldn't lie to my wife. I thought if I came here and saw you Dr Brennan it wouldn't be a lie would it?" He sighed.

Booth understood.

"Your not at the police station." He agreed, in an attempt to placate Mr Jenkins. "It's not a lie."

Mr Jenkins nodded at him gratefully.

"So you wanted to talk to me though?" Booth said loudly, he looked pointedly at Brennan, who sent him a scathing look back.

"Well yes..." Mr Jenkins nodded. "At least I hoped you would be here. Maggie took your card and it's not something I could tell you over the phone. I wanted to talk to you in private."

"We're listening Mr Jenkins." Booth said. "What is it?"

There was a long moment's silence where Mr Jenkins struggled to know where to begin.

"Maggie and I... we've been married for 20 years now. From that day to this I have tried never to lie to my wife... but Sarah made that promise... difficult..." He sighed loudly. "Where to start... where to start?"

He leaned forward in his seat, addressing Booth, rather than Brennan.

"You should understand... a year ago I had everything I could ever want... my business was doing well. I had a loving wife and a perfect daughter who had just been accepted to one of the best colleges in the country. Life was great for us."

"It all changed after I brought Sarah that dam car." He scowled. "We've never been extravagant before... but Sarah wanted a car for her birthday. It was her 18th. She'd always worked so hard. She always got the best grades. So I thought why not? She was such a good girl and she deserved it. So I splashed out. Just this one time. I paid $40,000 for that car and four days after I brought it Maggie..."

He trailed off, his eyes meeting Booth's.

"Got sick?" Booth guessed gently.

"Yes..."

He looked relieved that he didn't have to say it aloud.

"She'd been having these dizzy spells for a little while but we thought it was middle age. PMT or something... but the doctor confirmed she had..."

"M.E." Brennan said for him.

He looked at her and nodded sadly.

"I promised her in sickness and in health. I'd promised to look after her. I didn't have a choice really. My friend had been offering to buy my company for years. I finally gave in. He brought me out."

His shoulders slumped.

"Sarah was really upset about it. Even more than I was. She knew how long it had taken me to build up my company from nothing. She told me she wanted to defer college for a year so she could get a job and pay her own fees..."

He looked Booth in the eye.

"I know she felt guilty. About the car, about her mother's illness, about college costs."

He shook his head.

"I told her it was okay but she said she wanted to pay her own way. She said it would be good for her to have some work experience too. Sarah wanted to be a editor. She said working at Jennington Publishers would give her experience. She asked me if I could put in a good word for her with Steve."

"Steve?"

"Steven Jennington. My best friend." He laughed bitterly. "He gave her a job... and it was a huge mistake..."

Booth and Brennan didn't interrupt, waiting for him to continue.

"She did all these things –" He waved his hand in frustration. "To her hair. To her teeth. To her clothes. For him. "

He sighed again and said quietly, sounding embarrassed. "She developed a crush on him... Steve."

He spoke harshly, his anger suddenly flaring. "He's forty years old for heaven's sake! He's married! I only found out after she brought that boy round. The decoy."

"Robert Jones?" Booth said.

"Yes. He was nice enough. I was pleased she'd found a nice guy. But then little things started happening with Steve. If I called him he would say that he couldn't talk. He stopped meeting up with me. He made excuses for not coming fishing. Or golf. Or whatever." He waved his hand.

"Then Sarah came home one day and she had this pen with her name on it."

Brennan remembered the pen on the desk in Sarah's bedroom earlier.

Mr Jenkins sighed. "She said it was a gift from Rob but I knew she was lying. Steve brought one for his wife Helen when they started dating. I started wondering..."

"Did you go to Sarah?" Brennan asked.

Mr Jenkins shook his head vehemently. "God no. I went to Steve. I spoke with him. I asked him straight out if he was seeing Sarah."

"What did he say?" Booth asked.

Mr Jenkins sounded bitter again. "He denied there was anything going on...at first. He said the pen was just a gift. It was all innocent."

He looked at Booth. "I knew he was lying. I told him so and he admitted they'd been seeing each other. He said he'd gotten carried away because she looked so different and he didn't know what he'd been thinking of and he was sorry."

"Did you believe him?" This was Brennan.

"I wanted too." Mr Jenkins told her. "I told him to end it. I didn't want her working with him any more either."

"So that's why she left the company?" Brennan asked.

"Yes. He told me he'd been gentle about it. He'd told her he was sorry and he'd realised he was too old for her and they had to end it. He asked her to get another job."

"How did Sarah take it?" Booth asked, seriously.

"She came home and told her mother and I she had quit. I was worried about her of course. I wanted to talk to her about it. I even thought about telling her I knew about Steve but then she told me herself she was fine. She said she was going to take a break for a while. Go travelling. She said she'd go to college after. She said she had a plan. She was okay about the job. I believed her."

"So she didn't seem that upset about losing Steve?"

Mr Jenkins looked like he was about to say something when he paused. He took a breathe.

"A few days before Sarah went missing I went into her bedroom. She kept taking my gardening magazines and I wanted one back. I went to her magazine pile and I... I found a note amongst all the magazines... I read it."

He sighed and looked up at Booth & Brennan. "You read the note earlier."

Realisation dawned on them both and they said together.

"Sarah's runaway note?"

Mr Jenkins nodded, looking sheepish. "I'm the one who put it in the bin. I spoke to Sarah about it when she came home and she said she was sorry. She told me she wrote it months ago and mislaid it. She said it was about Rob. She said she'd found out he was gay and was so humiliated she had thought about running away..."

Mr Jenkins looked very uncomfortable.

"I knew she was lying of course... I already knew Rob was a decoy... but I didn't say anything. I put the note in the bin. Then I called Steve and asked him if he was still seeing Sarah. He denied it. He promised me he'd come to his senses. So I thought Sarah must have written the note months ago when she and Steve were, you know, still seeing each other. She'd mislaid it just like she said. I wanted to believe her I guess."

He sighed, a tear spilling down my cheek.

"I really hate how Sarah lied to me. As her father it pained me greatly. I think she was ashamed about the affair though. When she went missing I thought she really had run away because of Steve. I thought she'd come back when she'd had time to lick her wounds."

The pain on his face was clear to see.

"When it said on the News... Maggie was sure... but I... I just didn't want to believe it. Right until you came to my door."

He shook his head as if to clear it and said firmly.

"I've known Steve for 20 years. We met at a book convention. Maggie and I have gone to dinner with him and his wife. We've even holidayed together. I totally trusted him. Then I find he's been - encouraging my daughter. Now my daughter is dead. I don't know what I'm saying. It's probably nothing... but I need to know. I need to know for sure if Steve... if he... if Steve knows anything about – what happened to Sarah."

He took a deep breathe and looked Booth in the eye, looking fearful.

"I need to know for sure whether I made another mistake by trusting him."