"We've got a possible ID on the rower from missing persons," Ryan said, loud enough for the whole team to hear over the noise of the bullpen.

Booth was the first to join the detective at his desk, Brennan was the last. They all adjusted until each was in a sight line of some kind with the computer screen.

"I had to look outside of the area and a while back to find it, but it was a pretty damn good match," Ryan continued.

"Max Avery," Beckett read. "Age 20, sophomore at Yale."

"On the heavyweight crew team," Brennan continued, reading further down the page.

"What was a Yale student doing in Manhattan?" Castle asked. Silence followed the question.

"Let's find out more about this kid," Booth said. "I want a positive identification before we talk to the parents if we can get it."

"I'll have it for you in a couple of hours if I can," Brennan replied. "Can you please print that for me and then e-mail it to me as well, Detective Ryan?"

"Sure."

Brennan was already on her way back to the conference room when she heard his reply. She dialed the lab on the way. "Hodgins, how close are you on time of death?" She shut the door behind her and sat in front of her laptop. "You should have that soon, yes. Can you please have Angela make this facial reconstruction a top priority? Thank you. Has she already started estimates with the x-rays and photographs? Good. She can finalize as soon as she receives the skull. Yes, in a few hours I suppose. I had the medical examiner prepare and ship what each of you needed this morning. I'm also forwarding you a missing persons report that I believe will be a match for the victim. We'll be doing that as soon as I get better confirmation. Okay, please call me as soon as you have anything for us." She paused and shifted her phone to the other ear. "Yes, I'll talk to Angela."

Another pause. "Hello, Ange. Booth is fine. No, we have not. Well the parts of New York that we have been in so far have not been very romantic—the airport, a morgue, the 12th precinct here. He's upset anyway and not being very sociable. Something Rick told him. I'll tell you some other time. Have you started the facial reconstruction yet? Good." She sighed and slouched into her stiff-backed chair. "Ange, we're fine. I'm going to talk to him later, but we are kind of busy right now with the case. Okay, I'll think about doing it over dinner. No, we will not be making out up against my hotel room door after dinner. Ange, I'm hanging up now. Yes, goodbye." She ended the call and set her phone down gently on the table. She took a slow, deep breath in preparation of getting back to work.

"How's Angela?" Booth asked from the doorway, which was just out of sight due to her slouched position and open laptop. He leaned up against the door jamb with his arms crossed.

Brennan jumped. Realizing she didn't want him to know he startled her, she tried to cover it up by pretending to sit up from her slouched position quickly. She could tell he saw right through her. "Booth. How long have you been standing there?" she asked.

"Somewhere between 'we're kind of busy right now with the case' and 'doing it over dinner.'"

"Oh. Well you know how Angela pries."

"Sure," he said. He pushed himself off the door jamb and crossed the room toward her. "Listen, we need that ID on Max Avery. Does Hodgins have anything yet?"

"No, Booth. He hasn't really had much time or material to work with. Please, give them some time. The packages I had sent to the Jeffersonian should be there soon. You know they will let us know as soon as they figure anything out. We only just got the possible victim."

"I like to close my cases as quickly as possible, Bones."

She could hear the tension in his voice. It was tight, as though he was a rubber band stretched to its tensile limit. "Five minutes is an unreasonably short amount of time to expect to solve a case. Especially one of our cases."

"Let's just get this one solved so we can go home. At least let's get this ID settled so you can get to your dinner." He exited the room without looking back.

Brennan could tell this was the wrong time to ask him to dinner as she had planned, so she let him go. She would surprise him later with Thai at the hotel. She needed to explain some things to him—and she needed to do it tonight.

Castle and Beckett leaned against her desk and looked at the murder board simultaneously. They were quiet as they reviewed what was there and tried to come up with theories for what wasn't.

"Why does he still look like he's going to murder someone, Castle?" Beckett asked in a hushed tone as she watched Booth return to his workspace.

"Look, I told her what I did. She said she would talk to him. She just didn't say when," Castle whispered back. "There's nothing else I can do."

"You can talk to him directly."

"Tempe asked me not to. My work here is done."

Beckett snorted.

"Can we get back to the case, please?" Castle asked. At her eye roll and nod, he continued. "If Max Avery is the victim, we'd need to find out if he did, in fact, have Tietze Syndrome."

"Esposito is already digging up any medical records we can get on him. But why was he in Manhattan?"

"You mean why was half of him found in Manhattan? We don't know where he was killed. We found half of one of the other victims in New Jersey."

"For argument's sake, let's assume he was killed here. Come on, Castle, write the story. Why would he have been here?"

"It depends on the time of year, I suppose. Vacation, crew competition, training. School trip? We don't have enough to go on yet. When did he go missing?"

Beckett got closer to the murder board to read from the missing persons report. "Spring of 2006."

"They row crew in the spring. Maybe he was here for a competition."

"Here," Beckett said, pointing to a paragraph on the page. "Several teammates saw him as they were getting on the bus from a competition with Columbia University. Thought they saw him when they got back too, but he never got back to his apartment at Yale." She turned to Castle. "They think he went missing when he got back to Connecticut," she began.

"But he never got on that bus," Castle said, finishing the sentence for her.

Booth answered his cell on the first ring without even looking at the name of the caller. "Please tell me you have something for me, Cam." He looked up to see three detectives and a writer with their eyes trained on him. "But from your end, these remains are those of Max Avery? Good, Angela confirmed facial recognition. What is Hodgins saying about time of death? Alright, I'll ask her." Booth looked over his shoulder at Beckett and nodded to let her know they were right on identification.

At Cam's next comment, Booth hunched over his desk and lowered his voice. "Don't start this, Camille. Don't call me Seeley. She said no, then I said no and now it's just too late for both of us. She's practically shacked up with the writer. Just leave it alone. I mean it, Cam." He snapped the phone shut and stood to join the detectives.

"So we're sure it's Max Avery?" Beckett asked.

"The squints are good. If they say it's him, then it's him. I'm going to go check with Bones about time of death lining up with the missing persons report. If so, we start interviewing as soon as we can." Booth stepped away from what they called the murder board and went to the conference room. Brennan was holding her phone up to her ear, so for the second time that day, he leaned against the door frame and waited. This time all he heard was science-speak. Some of the tension he was holding was soothed just watching her work.

Brennan ended her call and looked up at him. "Angela and Cam are certain that it is Max Avery."

"Cam told me. What is the consensus with Hodgins about time of death?"

"Hodgins and I agree time of death and the date of the missing persons report are in concert. The bones are old, so it's hard to tell, but it looks like they were right around the same time. I believe he was killed in New York and then his friends and family listed him as missing a day or two later when they realized he wasn't in Connecticut." She paused. "Will you need my help with interrogation?"

"No, Bones. Beckett and I are going to split up the family and teammates with Ryan and Esposito. We probably won't get anything lined up until tomorrow though. If you can keep doing what you do with the bones, we'll handle the living." He looked at his watch and then back at Brennan, figuring she hadn't eaten much since breakfast. "You know, why don't you call it a day? It's past six and you must be hungry."

"I'd rather keep working, Booth."

He was used to getting that response, and his rebuttal was automatic. "So take some of it back with you and work where it's more comfortable."

"What about you?"

He sighed. "I'm going to finish up some things with the detectives and head back myself."

"I can wait for you if you want," she said.

"No, I'll get Esposito to drop me off. Don't worry about it. Night, Bones."

"Goodnight, Booth. If you think of anything, just drop by my room."

He exited the room and glanced back to see her watching him walk through the bullpen. The more he talked to her, the more his anger ebbed away. He always wondered how she could enrage him at certain times and sooth him at others. He at least recognized that she been nothing but pleasant to him even though he had practically been giving her the cold shoulder all day. Maybe solving this case and getting out of New York, and Castle's home turf, could give them a chance together.

A/N: Here's a little incentive for you all, since I can tell you that this next chapter is going to be tough for me to write and it may take a little longer than I like to have in between posts:

Chapter 22 is going to be titled "Reconciliation"

Thanks for the reviews and the continuing interest by way of story alerts! I really love getting those e-mails on my phone and I really appreciate each and every one of you who is still reading (and hopefully will continue to read).