AN: Back to the Squints we go, where they're about to crack open a disturbing nut... Stay tuned to the end notes!

Music: The Revolution Is Never Coming - The Red Paintings; Sabotage - Beastie Boys

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or plot elements of Bones used for context and grounding of story. Original elements are mine, are not for profit and are done out of love. Typos are due to tendencies of writing past midnight.

7308000 Seconds

Columbia Forest, MD

"This house went for peanuts!"

Marty Walker nodded in agreement as he gathered his equipment from the van. "Yeah, well that's what happens when you die without any heirs. The place is a mess, though."

His business partner, Ray Goode, shifted the weight of his tool bag. "Is it?"

"Yeah, the guy was a hoarder. With cats."

"Ugh! Goddamn, I hate hoarder cases. The smell…"

Marty sighed. "The new owners have money, so we can always outsource the clean-up. C'mon, let's get this assessment over with."

Marty enjoyed his work on most days. The construction and restoration business was always booming, particularly as the older homes in Maryland creaked and demanded new pipes, flooring or shingles. His favourite projects were the total overhauls – usually rich yuppies who wanted an old home converted to some ridiculous image of perfection from a magazine. Marty could make that magic happen, but it came with a price. A very nice, mortgage-paid-off price. This home, tucked at the end of a cul-de-sac, was one of those creative, well-paying assignments.

The smell hit them the moment they approached the front doors, Ray recoiling instinctively. "Outsource the clean, Marty. This is worse than usual."

"No arguments here, buddy. Come on: we just need to take a quick walk-through today."

He unlocked the front door and stepped inside, struggling not to breathe through his nose. There were dead cats here, perhaps dozens. He knew the smell from the house last fall, the one repossessed by a bank after the owner passed on. Twenty-seven dead animals and human waste collected in jars. Marty shuddered. How do people get that messed in the head? Examining the living room, he scribbled a few notes on the condition and moved on towards the kitchen. Ray gestured upstairs and he nodded in understanding. Best to spread out and get this over with.

Food debris littered the floors, the linoleum completely ruined. That's all going, he noted on his page. They'd have to examine the surface beneath and possibly treat it as well. It was likely a good thing that this couple had a large inheritance at their disposal: they were going to need it. Perhaps the only thing in a decent state was the backyard, which remained strangely untouched, except for a pile of wood and metal debris.

"Bathroom's a nightmare," Ray announced, joining him in the kitchen. "Everything's gotta go. Everything."

"Sink here looks alright, but I'm betting the pipes will be another story," Marty replied.

"Aw hell, there's more dead animals out there!" Ray groaned.

"More? What?"

"Ten dead cats I could see upstairs. But look," Ray said, pointing at the debris heap. "Goddamn coyote just ran out of there into the woods."

Marty grimaced. So much for the backyard being okay. Probably a whole heap of dead cats nested under the junk pile. With a wave, he stepped out the back door, Ray close behind him.

"How did the neighbours not notice this shit?" Ray grumbled.

"People don't care. You and I know that. The huge plots of land between houses allow them to claim ignorance." Marty noticed a large stick on the ground and picked it up carefully. "I'll just take a quick look and we'll get out of here. Send a crew to handle the rest."

The stick proved unnecessary. As the two of them rounded the heap, Marty gagged.

"Those aren't cats," Ray mumbled.

"No… Definitely not."

From the nearby trees, a hungry coyote glared, furious that he'd been deterred from his snack.

7315299 Seconds

The look on Agent Shaw's face told Cam everything she needed to know: this was very, very bad.

Leading her team around back, she took in the four Sequoias, several local PD units, coroner vans and the personal Mercedes of A.D. Hacker. She'd wanted to believe she'd heard incorrectly when she'd gotten the call, but it had been foolish to do so. Hell, even Ethan Sawyer had predicted this bloody end.

"Agent Shaw," she said quietly.

The Agent's face was ashen, her body trembling as she took down notes. "Dr. Saroyan… They're over there." She gestured behind a large heap of metal and organic debris. "Contractors found the bodies just over two hours ago. First assessment of the work to be done."

"When was someone last here?"

"At least four weeks ago," Shaw replied. "That's according to Lindsay Amos, one of the owners. They bought the home via estate liquidation."

"And we're sure that it's them?"

"There's been decomposition and scavenger activity… But… But one of them is definitely Agent Flynn." Her voice cracked and she shook her head. "I'm sorry, excuse me."

Hodgins and Clark waited quietly, exchanging looks of frustration. This case grew worse at every turn. For each step forward, they were driven three backwards. Cam glanced back at them and they nodded, following her around the heap cautiously, mindful of their path.

"I see what Agent Shaw means," Cam said quietly.

The two bodies lay approximately seven feet apart, clothes spattered in a mix of blood and dirt. The body closest to them was undeniably Hayes Flynn: his face was still… intact enough to determine identity. Beside his right hand lay his service weapon, released as he fell into a crumpled heap. Studying the body, Cam suspected that Flynn had kneeled before firing the single shot into his temple. Angela would have to run a simulation to confirm it.

The other body was in a bad state. Facial features were difficult to make out. Three shots had been fired to the chest, one directly through the victim's heart. His stature and frame suggested an identity that none of them could avoid jumping to.

"Flynn shot Pelant, then himself?" Hodgins asked in disbelief.

"Conjecture, Dr. Hodgins. But yes, it certainly appears that might be the case." Cam kneeled beside Agent Flynn's body, studying the insect activity and state of decomposition. "We'll need an estimated time since death. I want to say seven to ten days."

Hodgins began collecting maggots, nodding. "I'll have to confirm at the lab, but these guys agree with you."

"Something's off," Clark announced, stepping back a foot.

"How so, Dr. Edison?"

The young anthropologist frowned. "The placement of the bodies and the way they've fallen… I can't quite articulate it, but there's something wrong. They're out of place."

Cam stood up and joined him, examining the scene from his perspective. "You're right. The impressions and position of Flynn's body suggest that he was kneeling as he fired, but the way he's fallen…"

"He also seems to have taken several steps to the side after firing on the unidentified male," Clark added. "I suppose scavenger activity could have shifted the position of the bodies. That body took the brunt of it for some reason."

"Scavenger activity's out," Hodgins said. "The way the insects have made themselves at home with respect to the blood in the soil… These bodies have been relatively untouched, aside from the mystery guy's face."

"Wouldn't the torso have more appeal initially?" Cam asked. "Why the face?"

"This stinks, and I'm not talking about the aroma of cat urine from the house," Clark stated.

"I concur." Gesturing to local police, Cam called out. "I need everyone to stay as clear of the remains as possible. Hodgins, get as many photos as you can for Angela to assemble. The rain two nights ago likely disturbed a lot of our trace evidence, but let's do what we can."

"Someone's cleaning house," Hodgins muttered.

Cam sighed. "I think so."

She watched as her team began to work their magic, waving Agent Shaw over to give her the grim news. It seemed that every suspect who wasn't Dr. Brennan was meeting a violent and abrupt end. The system and its hoops were keeping them from even extracting information from these people. These days, Booth was edgy, tired of constant badgering from his superiors and the powerlessness of the situation. Cam knew him well enough to know that if she didn't give him answers soon, he'd go rogue and potentially ruin all that they'd worked for in the last few months. Are we ever going to get a break? she thought angrily.

A crack of thunder overhead was her reply.

8020808 Seconds

"There has to be something more, people!"

"Cam, there's nothing," Angela replied, hobbling back to her desk. "Hodgins came up with absolutely nothing to indicate anything besides a murder-suicide. Clark and Daisy found no needle punctures or other marks to the remains. The tox screen came up blank, right? Besides the simulation, we've got nothing."

Hodgins nodded sadly. "Other than an innocent Pelant look-alike biting the bullet, this was perfectly constructed."

"Almost perfectly," Angela reminded them. "Although I'm guessing whoever did this intended for scavengers to disrupt the remains to the point of masking any inconsistencies."

"Run it again, Angela?" Sweets asked.

"Sure." She tapped a few commands on her tablet, half-sitting on her desk as the reconstruction played out. "Pseudo-Pelant is shot here," she said, freezing the image. "He was facing his attacker, which suggests either he knew the person—"

"Or trusted them," Cam said.

"Or feared them," Sweets chimed in. "A cop draws a gun. We freeze, hands up in the air."

"Exactly," Angela agreed, allowing the simulation to move forward. "One shot, two, then he starts to fall, taking the third in the clavicle. But look: he should have fallen like this, but we found him 75 degrees rotated."

"And Flynn?"

Angela sighed. "His position's off even if he had taken his own life. If he fired the shots, he would have had to have taken several steps to the right and backwards. That aside, look at this." Angela zoomed in closer on the fatal shot to the temple. "Given the trajectory of the bullet, he would have been holding the gun with his arm kinda tucked against him."

"Very atypical," Cam noted.

"Now, what if…."

The group watched as Angela inserted a third figure into the simulation. Agent Flynn fell to his knees, only this time, the third figure fired the kill shot.

"Son of a bitch!" Hodgins exclaimed. "That's a far better fit for the angle."

"Someone cleaned house, alright," Sweets said.

"Wild conjecture time," Angela said. "Pelant and Flynn are working together. I don't care if he's blackmailed Flynn or they're both bastards. They agree to meet. Maybe Pelant says he wants to leave town and needs to buy time. They meet with Pelant's twin here and take him down. But then Pelant surprises Flynn and also removes him from the picture."

"We need more than conjecture," Cam said.

"Well, we have the fact he's violated his parole conditions, disappeared for ten days, and in that time, another person associated with the CI Files is dead, along with a ringer for Pelant," Sweets said. "It's enough to get a warrant on Pelant's house at the very least."

"I agree. I'll ask Shaw to get one," Cam replied. "That still leaves us with an unidentified male victim and no concrete suspect."

"I'm looking through the CI files again and running records for Sophia Berman, her father and Daniel Casuto." Sweets flipped open a file folder. "There were some unusual financial transactions made immediately after Mr. Berman's passing."

"How so?" Angela asked.

"Bounced checks, attempted wire transfers."

Angela hobbled over to her computer. "I should be able to pull everything up here, Sweets. We can keep working on it."

"I'll go recheck the particulates, see if I missed anything," Hodgins said.

"And I will go have a wonderful conversation with Cullen about his dead agent and how little I know about who did it." Cam rubbed her temples. "But first, I need more coffee."

"Caffeine creates headaches," Sweets said.

"And this headache is withdrawal, so I'm going to go get another fix. Addiction is a fun cycle, Dr. Sweets. Call me if anyone finds anything of use. Anything."

Cam felt her cell phone vibrate in her lab coat pocket and groaned, checking the call display. Shaw. Damn it. She'd have to deal with her sooner or later. Besides, Cam reasoned as she headed for the lounge, she's a lot nicer than Cullen.

"Dr. Saroyan."

"Hello, Dr. Saroyan. I know you're very busy, but Cullen's kind of on my case about Flynn. Do we have anything good to tell him?"

Cam felt awful for the young agent. She'd walked into this temporary role at the lowest point of the Medico-Legal Lab's history. She remembered something Booth had said after they'd found Hodgins and Brennan buried alive, a comment to the effect of the team not working without any one part. While they'd all found a way to go on without Zack, the loss of Brennan and Booth himself had left them a shell of their former selves. Even the silly cases Flynn had tossed their way for distraction had moved slower than usual.

"We're taking another look at things. It's looking possible that Agent Flynn was murdered."

"I was afraid of that," Shaw said.

"Dr. Sweets is helping us comb over the CI files again. He says that there's unusual financial activity after Mr. Berman's death that might tie things together. Wire transfers, I believe he said."

"Oh! Well, that sounds promising. Maybe it will link Krane and Berman together more clearly."

"That's the hope. I wish I had more to offer, Agent Shaw."

"It's okay. I'll go tough it out with Cullen and check in with you later today. Thanks for the update, Dr. Saroyan."

"You're welcome. Take care, Agent Shaw."

Pouring a large cup of coffee, Cam sank into a chair and closed her eyes. Time to focus, she told herself, taking a large gulp. We're close. I can feel it. Another gulp, another sigh of exhaustion. She really needed to get more rest before these late nights killed her, never mind the alone time she was inadvertently affording Michelle and Finn. Maybe she should call and check in on her daughter. Coffee in tow, she decided to grab a late lunch and be the nagging mom.

Cam made it two steps out of the lounge before the screaming began.

"ANGIE!"

Hodgins bolted from his office below Cam, her mug shattering on the ground as it fell from her hand. Cam immediately oriented to Angela's office, the sound of Sweets shouting for help scarcely audible over the din.

"Oh God, not again!" Cam exclaimed, rushing in behind Hodgins.

The scene in the office was frightening: Angela was on the ground, half-curled in the fetal position and screaming. Sweets was beside her, gently shaking her in an attempt to jar her from her inner hell. At Cam's arrival, he looked relieved.

"What the hell happened?"

"I don't know. We were looking over Berman's records and she just went blank. I'm not sure what triggered it, but she tried to walk and hit the floor."

"Call the medical team," Cam ordered. "Don't restrain her, Hodgins. You might trigger more anxiety."

Sweets jumped on the emergency intercom as Hodgins stroked his wife's hair, speaking constantly to her. Cam watched as he called her name, begged her to see him, to know she was safe. Something in her gut suggested this was hardly a new experience for him. She's in so much pain.

"They're coming," Sweets stated. "PTSD?"

"Yeah," Cam said quietly. "But this is only the second time at work. Last time, her cell phone triggered it. Tell me exactly what you were doing before she slipped into this."

Sweets led her to Angela's monitor, where a birth certificate was on screen. "We pulled up an email from my account remotely. Apparently those transfers were going to a woman named Kimberly Crossley. The payments began a year after the birth of Crossley's daughter, Madeline."

"He was paying off a mistress?" Cam asked.

"Looks like it." Sweets paused as Hodgins managed to pull Angela into an embrace, the woman still sobbing. "I said something, like 'I should call Booth, he'd know what to do' and she just… left."

"Angie? Come on, talk to me. You're safe now, I promise," Hodgins whispered, rocking her gently. "Your leg can't be comfortable like that. Can you hear me? Can you help me get you back up?"

Cam winced as she glanced at the brace around Angela's knee. Although the fracture had technically healed, she still required crutches for stairs or long walks and was in the midst of extensive physiotherapy. A fall like this could possibly set her back weeks.

The Jeffersonian emergency team arrived and was quickly greeted by a fierce warning from Hodgins. Cam talked him gently into allowing her knee to be examined, her mind racing with the information from Sweets. Why would Booth set her off? She lives with him right now. There had to be something else, something bigger, but what?

Angela had managed to settle down, her pupils dilated as she glanced over at Sweets, then back to Cam. "It was happening again," she whispered. "The blast. The heat…"

"I'm so sorry, babe," Hodgins murmured. "Can you let the medics check your knee?"

"Huh?" Shaking her head slightly, she stared at the men attempting to straighten her left leg. "Sorry. It feels fine..."

"Nothing feels out of the ordinary," one medic said. "Recent sprain?"

"Patella fracture," Cam answered. "Still in physio."

"It might be more painful than usual for a couple days," the medic announced. "Did she hit her head?"

"No," Sweets said quickly. "I caught her on the way down."

"The phone rang…" Angela's brow furrowed. "I picked it up…"

"I think we'll be okay," Cam said firmly. "Thank you for coming."

"No trouble," the medic said. The two of them gathered their belongings and departed, leaving Angela surrounded by three very concerned friends.

"It rang… I can hear it ring…"

"Don't stress yourself out," Sweets said. "Maybe you should lie down for a few minutes?"

"No, no, no… I need to… I had it…" Angela pressed against Jack's chest, struggling to stand. "Get me up. I need to get up."

Cam moved swiftly to help him, the two of them lifting Angela to her feet. With a slight wobble, she limped back to her computer, staring at the screen. She was visibly frustrated as she read the document.

"Something… It's right there!" She struck the desk violently, shaking out her hand.

"Should we tell her what was being said?' Cam asked.

Sweets frowned. "I'm… I'm not sure. I would hate to send her back into that state."

Angela ignored them all, her eyes closing. "I walked across the living room to the kitchen… The phone was in my purse… I can see it in my hand. The display was a number… Random number…" She spun around and stared at Sweets. "You said something and I recognized it."

"What? Like, Sweets had said it to you before?" Hodgins was tense now, his hands still protectively on Angela's hips.

"No! Someone else said it… It made sense, like it was almost an attempt to be optimistic. Like a smile…" Her palm pressed to her mouth as she gasped. "Oh my God…"

"What is it, Ange?"

"I know who called me," she whispered. "I remember it all."

Her gaze fixed on Cam and immediately, she felt her heart begin to skip. Because she knew who had called, too. It was written on Angela's face.

"It was Shaw," Angela said. "Agent Shaw tried to kill me."

I am very, very curious to read your reviews for this one! Also, my residual Dollhouse rage has been satisfied and Flynn is dead. Good riddance!

To say that things are going to continue to be chaotic from here is an understatement. I finished the entire fic last night, and I know exactly where the last six chapters are going to take you and well... Be ready. I'm going to let you mull this one over and offer up theories on what's going on.