A/N: The response to last chapter was phenominal! I try to respond to reviews, I really do, but I read them on my iPod and I despise typing on that thing. When I get the chance, though, I try to respond to those people that write detailed responses or ask me questions I have answers to. So, this is a big THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed, and to all those I didn't get the chance to respond to while I was busy typing out this chapter and scrambling to get done the next one for Always All For You as well. (I really put too much on my plate, but I don't regret it. It's a fun race against the clock, hehe) Also, some people I just can't respond to because they're too smart. It's a bit challenging to respond to reviews when the person has just told me their opinion about where the story is going... and they're completely correct. I'm far too tempted to tell them their right and then gush about the whole plotline. Which I've done to my unoffical beta on numerous occasions.
But seriously, some of you are too smart for you own good. And that's a compliment, don't worry.
Song for this one is Numbness For Sound by Howie Day.
Chapter 24: Numbness For Sound
A cold winter sun
My feet underground
A pale windless city
A numbness for sound
I'll wait, back here
All that you notice
A moment in time
A photograph lost here
Since you were mine
I'll wait back here
or should I start pushing my way back
Yeah...
Should I start pushing my way back
July 14th, 2018
It was three o'clock in the morning when the team was finally gathered in its entirety in the lab. It was weirdly quiet, and the stars shone down through the skylights, the clouds hovering in front of the moon creating patterns on the smooth, sterile surfaces. The lights were on, but dimmed. The whole effect made everything seem unrealistic.
Booth kept glancing at her dark office, sitting there like a living metaphor for their situation. Brennan was silent in their lives right now. Her light was out—they did not know where she was, or what was happening.
Quite literally... they were in the dark.
Max and Russ were the last arrivals to join the already stressed out and exhausted crew that was standing around in a small, unorganized circle. Hodgins was hunched in his chair on his section of the platform, his hand rested next to his over-sized microscope and his eyes shadowed and dark.
Angela paced in front of him, and her husband watched with muted interest, like someone who had been dragged to a tennis match and wanted to be in any other situation but this one. Every now and then she blew out a puffed sigh, and pursed her lips, her hands clenching and unclenching on each turn that she took, as though she was getting ready to scream.
The tension was almost unbearable.
Harper was looking indecisive, as was the norm, and he seemed to shrink in his corner of the platform, where he sat with his back stiff against the railing, watching everything and chewing violently on his lip.
Sweets was mumbling again, earning dark looks from a weary Cam, whose hair was now sticking out at angles from her ponytail, her eyes hooded but anxious. She was tapping her foot, which wasn't helping matters for the rest of them anymore than Sweets' inane talking was, but no one said anything to either of them.
Parker was in the shadows, having insisted on coming along, with his arms crossed and his stance stiff. His sneakers were white and they practically glowed in the darkness. For some reason, that was the only thing Booth could think of as his eyes swept over him.
The exhaustion was starting to get the better of him, and they were still no where.
As Max came in, though, closely followed by his son... the atmosphere altered. Finally, a change to tear them from their dark and helpless moods. When they'd all first gathered, summoned by Angela, there had been a lot of talking. Booth had filled everyone in on what he knew and what he suspected, and they had reviewed the evidence as a whole, each contributing and trying to puzzle out what this all meant.
Daisy had tried to help via webcam from Hodgins' mansion where she was now stationed to keep an eye on all the children, but eventually Sweets had convinced her that he would notify her the moment anything changed, and she had left them.
The monitor she had been on was black now, with the Jeffersonian logo flashing occasionally in different corners.
"Fill me in," Max said firmly, almost making it up the stairs before Angela had the chance to swipe her card through the system.
"None of us have seen or had any contact with Dr. Brennan since the day she left for New Hampshire," Cam began informatively albeit a bit monotone. Her eyes had sparked a bit with the new conversation, though, and she was sitting upright now, rather than hunched over. Her foot had stopped tapping, and Sweets had stopped mumbling. All eyes were on Max. "As far as we knew, she was taking a vacation to get away for a while, and would be returning on the thirteenth as planned, just in time for her weekend with her son."
"I filled them in on what happened with the cell phone," Booth told him, but he shook his head.
"Then fill me in. Because I'd love an explanation."
"We still have no clue why the call never reached me, or who the text came from... but clearly something is wrong with the situation."
"Damn right it is. Don't you have some sort of... tracking you can do? Half the reason I don't have one of those damn things for more than a week is because of those GPS chips they put in them. Government trying to track everything we do and all. You better be able to put that to good use."
"Already tried," Booth answered heavily the moment Max was finished. He glanced at Hodgins, who hadn't even batted an eyelash at the conspiracy theory. If that wasn't proof of the dark day they were having, then nothing was. "Her phone is off now, or destroyed."
Max glared at him as if this were his fault, and Booth could see he was internally struggling for words. Probably trying to find some way to pin this on someone, but failing when he saw there was really no one to put on the spot here. If anything, he was the most likely to blame, having seen her last. And clearly... he was realizing that.
He finally huffed out a sigh and dropped into the nearest chair, shaking his head.
"So, she's not in Spain, then?" he tried, a near-desperate tone in his voice.
Booth couldn't help but sympathize. "No, Max, she's not. That was one of the first things I did, after trying to track down her phone. The airport won't give us the security tapes from her arrival until we get a subpoena, which we have to wait until morning for, but they told me she never boarded that flight to Spain."
"Red herring," Max spat. "Someone's trying to throw us off, make us think she's somewhere she's not."
"Yeah. We figured that out, too," Booth said, and his voice would have been snappy or sarcastic if he wasn't so tired. They'd already exhausted all of these options. Max wasn't giving them anything new. And Russ was just plain silent, looking gaunt and near-panicked despite not saying a single word.
"Where's that son of a bitch James?" Max enquired, his eyes flashing.
Booth's other first thought after he finally gave in to the idea that she had been taken from them, as opposed to leaving of her own free will.
"At his house with Nick," Booth responded darkly. "Believe me... he's coming in for interrogation the moment the sun comes up."
"I'll go get him now," Max growled, turning as though he was actually going to leave.
"No," Angela said, speaking for the first time. All eyes turned to her in surprise. She had stopped pacing when Max had joined them, and had faded into the shadows beside her husband. "No," she repeated. "Brennan... Brennan wouldn't want you to drag her son into this. No matter where she is... she wouldn't want him involved."
"We'll get James as soon as he leaves for his office," Booth reassured, and then turned back to Max with a raised eyebrow.
"I'll kill him," Max muttered.
"No," Angela said again, louder than before.
None of them needed an explanation on that one. There were any number of reasons, and all of them made sense. Max didn't need to drag his daughter into another trial, and he didn't need to impede their investigation. If James was involved, and Booth was inclined to believe he was... then they needed him alive. For now. He could have the death penalty later, once Bones was back safe and sound.
He didn't dare consider the possibility that James wasn't involved. If that was the case... then there were too many options for him to chase. How many killers had they put behind bars? How many people might want to come after her for their cases or her work? How many people could go after her because of things he had done?
How many psychos out there were there, that didn't need any motive at all to snatch a beautiful woman from the sidewalk outside of an airport?
He shivered at the thought.
The lack of a ransom message only left him those two options, though. Either it was personal... or this was something far worse than he wanted to think about.
"What are we supposed to do, then, wait it out?" Max demanded incredulously.
None of them had a good answer for that one, but Booth was working on one.
They needed to be doing something. He needed to be doing something.
So he started to delegate.
"Ange, I want you to get into Bones' email account. See if there's anything in there from her stay at Max's anything that maybe our kidnapper could have found. He knows how to hack cell phone's in some way or other—he's probably got the skills to get into her computer."
Angela nodded and spun her chair around to face the nearest computer screen, her fingers landing eagerly on the keys as she started to tap away. Glad of something to do.
The rest of the team was looking at him expectantly.
"Hodgins, Harper, pull up the records for our most recent cases. Look for violent priors on family members of people we've put away, or any that have gotten out on early parole. I'll get you into the FBI database."
They nodded, and after they'd pulled up the site he typed in his password and turned back to the others. He honestly didn't know what to do with them, but after a moment another thought occurred to him and he turned to Cam.
"Look into her recent trips, her contacts in the anthropology world... see if she's upset anybody recently. Russ can help you."
Now he was left with an anxious Sweets and an expectant Max.
He chose to ignore the latter and focus on the shrink.
"Alright, Sweets. I need some sort of profile to go off of here."
Sweets opened his mouth and stammered for a moment. "Booth, I'm not sure what I can give you. I've got... very limited information, and..."
"Just give me the best you can."
"Alright," Sweets said skeptically. "This is obviously personal to some degree, and I'd say it wasn't planned out as thoroughly as we might think. Brennan's trip was spontaneous rather than thought out, so our kidnapper either reacted to an opportunity, or was waiting for the opportunity. Maybe there was even a different plan and this one suited his purposes better. He's confident, and he knows what he's doing. We got no calls about an abduction at Dulles, and that's saying something since... well, we all know Brennan. She wouldn't have gone without a fight. I'd say he restrained her in some way, perhaps drugging her or incapacitating her. She wouldn't be on high alert at the airport, so an attack would catch her completely off-guard. He could be physically strong, and most likely is in order to carry this out so efficiently. Either that, or he has help."
"Anything else?"
"The skills with technology suggest a college education, but that's not a definite."
Booth nodded.
"Max," he said firmly, turning back to Brennan's father. "I want you to stay here and keep an eye on things. Sweets, you and me are taking a trip to the airport. The second that order comes through I want to be looking at those security tapes."
"Is the official investigation underway?" Sweets asked, cutting off Max before he could even start to argue with this plan.
"Tanner's given me some leverage. That could change when he wakes up in the morning and actually thinks about it, though. So I want this as far along as possible by then. I'm in charge of the investigation into her disappearance for now." And for as long as it takes, he added silently. Tanner could put someone else in charge; it wouldn't matter. No order could make Booth drop this one, personal or not. He was getting Bones back, regardless of the consequences. If that meant losing his job... then that was a price he was willing to pay.
"Sounds like a plan," Sweets said, his eyes firm and sincere. He was in on this, no matter what, as well. Booth could see that.
They left Max there, looking somewhat peeved but without a reason to fight them on it, and headed straight for Booth's SUV.
It was weird, traveling with the psychologist. He wasn't used to working in the field with him—but then again, this didn't feel like a field assignment at all, to begin with. This felt like the end of the world. He drove like it, too, putting on the siren even though there was really no current emergency to get to. Sweets didn't comment, just cast him a look that held no argument in it before turning his face back towards the window.
He knew the route well, from all of his travels, and he took the shortcuts even though the traffic was nearly nonexistent at the early hour. Still, it was almost four o'clock when he finally pulled into the parking lot, and he was feeling more exhausted than he had before despite how refreshing it had been to get out and be doing something rather than standing around feeling helpless.
The road had been getting blurry in front of him, even if he hadn't been afraid of falling asleep. Nothing could have made him fall asleep. Not while this was going on.
He barely waited for Sweets as he jumped out and slammed the door shut behind him. The shrink was jogging to keep up, and Booth didn't have to look over his shoulder to know that. He could hear the younger man's shiny shoes slapping the pavement and his puffs of breath. Booth didn't even break a sweat, the adrenaline, fueled by fear, doing everything for him.
The airport, unlike the streets they'd taken, was crowded albeit subdued. People waited on delays or argued with the customer service representatives behind the counters, and a few families were struggling with cranky children as they tugged their luggage towards escalators.
Sweets caught up with him after they went through the revolving doors, and together they headed for the service counter. Booth flashed his badge and cut the line, earning a few angry huffs from those waiting. As he explained the situation to the woman, Sweets observed their surroundings. He hadn't been here as much as Booth or Brennan had, clearly.
"I'm sorry," the woman, who's name turned out to be Rosie, informed him crisply. "I can't release any video to you without either imminent threat to national security... or a subpoena."
He nodded, "Yeah, I know that. Which is why I'm going to stand right over there..." he pointed to a set of benches next to the fountain, "And wait for the call."
She pursed her lips. "You do that."
Seizing Sweets by the arm, he dragged him away with him, leaving Rosie to tend to the rest of her customers. The next one, a beefy man with a large mustache, immediately began waving his hands and demanding to know when his plane was going to take off.
Booth almost felt sorry for her as he watched her handle him similarly to how he'd just been dealt with. What a job. But he had bigger things to focus on.
The call he received first, though, was not to tell him he had the go-ahead.
"Booth, I got into her email," Angela informed him.
"What do you have?"
"Don't get mad, but there really isn't anything useful in her account. She was in contact with her publisher about returning to the Kathy and Andy books—which she didn't tell me about—and all the rest is related to her work. Nothing seems suspicious, and I had Cam look over and she said it was all on the up-and-up."
"Thanks for letting me know."
"Wait, that's not all," she said quickly, before he could hang up.
Hodgins' voice came through the phone, now.
"Harper and I found some possibilities; we're sending the files to your PDA now."
"Alright, good. Thanks." That would give him something to do, at least. "Angela?"
"Yeah, still here."
"Look into financials of everyone on that list, alright? See if there's anything out of place. Even the slightest odd transaction... I want to know about it."
"On it," she said swiftly.
Booth snapped the phone shut, not bothering with a farewell.
"What's happening?" Sweets asked from beside him. Booth had almost forgotten about his presence.
He pulled out his PDA and switched to his email, pulling up the newest one and downloading the information Hodgins had attached for him.
"Nothing in the email, but Hodgins found some suspects from her past."
Sweets nodded and leaned closer, prompting Booth to grudgingly turn the device so he could look as well.
The first one on the list was really no surprise. Horace Prichard was a hulking frame of a man with a temper to match. His sister had killed her abusive husband and tried to cover it up, meaning she'd gotten off on self-defense but had still had to serve time for lying to the FBI. Horace had not been pleased, sending a few threatening letters that Booth had been kind enough to prosecute him for. He hadn't exactly gotten the message, or taken the offer of peace. But until now, Booth had forgotten about him. It had been at least five months ago since the trial, after all.
The next was Oliver Laurier, who Booth hadn't even thought about in over a decade. Hodgins had had the forethought to look into him, though, and found he had turned into an alcoholic with a drug problem, and he had just gotten out of prison a month ago after serving two years for a DUI that lasted all of the thirty seconds it took him to back into a tree. He'd gotten a very unsympathetic judge. Recent activity showed he'd been busy on the web since his return, and he still held a great interest in Brennan's books and her life.
Booth shivered unpleasantly, and moved ahead before Sweets could start asking questions. He hadn't been around to meet Laurier, and he didn't feel like explaining at the moment.
Damien Kenton was the last promising one he found in the file, after scrolling through several others and writing them off as possibilities. Damien was a man Booth had met once himself, but he didn't know him well enough to judge him. He was the brother of Jamie Kenton, the agent-turned-mobster who had attempted to kill Brennan to cover up his involvement in the Cugeni killing. Booth hadn't forgotten him, and had felt a small ounce of satisfaction when he had been killed in prison before he even reached trial. He hadn't stood a chance really, even in solitary. That was one mystery the prison hadn't bothered looking into, and Booth couldn't blame them. Anyone in the place could have been paid off to perform the hit. Kenton hadn't stood a chance.
Apparently, Damien blamed him and Brennan for the death of his brother and the heart attack that the pair's mother had suffered shortly afterwards that had left her comatose. One bad thing after another had rained down on him after the arrest, even though he'd had nothing to do with his brother's mob-affiliation.
"What do you think?" he asked at last, turning to the shrink with a raised eyebrow.
"They've all got promise," Sweets agreed. "Laurier was stalking her? How come neither of you mentioned that?"
"Because it wasn't pertinent," Booth said firmly. "Not then, at least. He fell of our radar after the instance with the murders that matched up with her books."
Sweets opened his mouth, and Booth raised a hand.
"Don't ask, okay? Just... focus on what's happening now."
"Fine, then. I'll tell you what I know."
"Which is..?"
"I evaluated Kenton," he said simply, looking at Booth seriously. "After the incident."
"And you never thought to mention that to us?" Booth asked incredulously.
Sweets shook his head. "I never made the connection. It was two years before I met either of you, and I was only an intern at the time. I more... sat in on the evaluation than actually performed it myself," he added lamely. "But I asked a few questions, and I took notes. I remember it very well. I just... never could place where I had heard Dr. Brennan's name before, after I met the two of you for sessions. I knew it sounded familiar."
"How does this help us?"
"Kenton spoke highly of his brother, and his family in general. They didn't grow up with much, and Damien became very successful. He was proud of him, but internally resented him as well. He needed to re-assert his control and his abilities to support their parents financially, and his greed got the better of him. He got in too deep, and couldn't get out. He also expressed a lot of relief that he had been unsuccessful in killing her. He knew, after the fact, that it would have done no good because you were on your way and you knew it was him. Killing her would have been pointless."
Booth ground his teeth together. "That doesn't change it, Sweets."
"Oh, I know it doesn't. But... like his brother, it would seem that Damien wanted to shoulder the weight. He would have resented his brother, in all likelihood, if he hadn't been so remorseful. But because of that detail... he changed the focus of his blame to the people he deemed responsible. You and Dr. Brennan."
"Alright, then why hasn't he acted before? Do you know how long it's been, Sweets?"
"I'm well-aware, which is why I think he's the least likely of the three you've picked out here. And, in all honesty... none of them stand out to me."
"What angle are you coming from, then? Who do you think did this?"
"I would say her ex-husband, if there wasn't so much to contradict it. He has the most motive, her being the mother of his child and the only obstacle towards keeping Nick to himself. Despite being a complete asshole, he's a protective father."
Booth was pretty sure he'd never heard Sweets swear, and he was thrown for a moment by how matter-of-factly the psychologist had just done so. He was being completely honest, though, and Booth couldn't have agreed with his wording more.
They were both silent for a moment, and Booth thought over his next question, turning it over and over in his mind and trying to force himself to say the words.
"Do you think she's alive?" he whispered finally, staring straight ahead and watching the arrivals board blink and change every few seconds.
Sweets shifted in his seat, twisting his tie in his hands.
"The odds... aren't good," he said at last.
Booth bowed his head. Sweets was being honest, and he tried to appreciate it. But... reality was not working for him. Bones couldn't be gone.
"It all depends on who took her," Sweets added tentatively. "If this is... revenge, or James wanting her out of the way..." he let his words hang, and Booth knew what he meant.
If that was the case, then Brennan had been dead for days now.
"And the other option?" he voiced hoarsely. He knew all of this, himself. He was a well-trained agent. But... he needed to hear it from someone else. To make it real. Because if it came out of his own head... he didn't trust it. Still, though, he knew what Sweets was going to say before he said it. And he didn't like it anymore from the shrink than he did from his own thoughts.
"The other option... is that she's alive because they need her alive."
Booth bit into his lip and forced a nod.
He didn't like either of the options. And he didn't like thinking about what she might be going through right now, if she was still alive.
What was being done to her?
His cell phone rang, and he glanced down at it in surprise, having nearly forgotten what he was waiting for. The number was from the office, and he straightened up and gave Sweets a look before he answered, standing up as he did so. It was time to move forward on this.
He was going to find her, no matter what that meant.
~BxBxBxBxBxB~
Her eyes blinked open slowly, and she became aware of the darkness. And a steady dripping sound, nearby, close to her head. She closed her eyes again, taking a rattling breath that broke the silence and sent shivers down her spine.
The silence was safer.
Her body ached from lying in the same position, and she carefully leveraged herself with her elbows so that she could turn onto her side and get off of her back. She winced, squeezing her eyes shut tighter as pain seared through her lower half.
A knife traced up her leg, the tip pricking her kneecap. A soft laugh as she twitched in response, and then a slice. Her scream flew out before she could stop it, and eyes shone in the shadows, a smile dancing in them.
She bent her body to reach her shackled hands down to find the place on the back of her leg. A makeshift bandage was knotted around it, and she could smell the thick blood that coated it, and feel the edges where it was still wet especially where it had seeped into the fabric of her jeans.
Her head fell back onto the pillow as she readjusted her position and let her hands fall loosely behind her. The chains clinked, and she swallowed. Her throat was dry, her mouth was dry, her lips were dry. There had been water, at the start. She couldn't remember how long ago that was.
When she had first awoken, she hadn't known what had happened. The last thing she remembered, the last thing she still remembered, was touching down at the airport. She had stood to get her things from the above compartment, and had helped a woman across the aisle who was struggling with hers. The woman's little girl had grinned up at her curiously, licking a lollipop. She remembered thinking that it was green, and she had liked green lollipops as a child. She used to get them on trips to the bank with her mother.
She did not remember getting off the plane, but she suspected that was due to whatever drug she had been subdued with, and not because that was when she had been taken. It was illogical to think they had gotten her off the plane unconscious. In all likelihood, there were events after that which she could not remember carrying out. Maybe she'd gotten her luggage.
She did not remember finding Booth, and she was sure she hadn't. If she had come into contact with Booth, this wouldn't have happened. There was no way it would have happened.
So, sometime in between getting off that plane and finding Booth, she had been drugged and taken away.
She didn't know what day it was, but it felt like a week, maybe more. She knew from experience that the passage of time was difficult in conditions like this. Most likely, it had only been two or three days. Perhaps four. Last time, it had been three when she had thought it to be a week. She trusted her gut, on this at least, to be off by the same as it had been last time.
There was no one in the room with her, she noted as her eyes adjusted to the darkness with help from the small amount of light seeping in through the door at the top of the stairs.
A heavy grinding sound filled the air, and she jumped even though she had heard it more times than she could count. She still hadn't identified what it was, only that it sounded like a train, or a machine. Maybe she was near a subway tunnel.
Her captor was careful to keep his identity a secret. She had only been visited a few times, and each had left her blind with terror, but she still did not know his face. He shone a flashlight into her face as he came down the stairs on each visit, and the stairs would creak loudly as he came. The sound had echoed, creating the illusion that an army was approaching. The roaring, grinding sound didn't help.
Most of what she could see included the bed she was on, which was truly a thin mattress aligned with the wall—where the shackle chain was mounted—and the dirty surroundings filled with what appeared to be tools and junk. The entire right side was pitch black, blocked off because of the angle from which the light under the stairs reached her.
There was no way to know how big this place was, or what lay in those shadows.
A second mattress was propped against the wall beside the stairs.
It was covered in blood, and she tried not to focus on it, or how the mattress she lay on was starting to match it.
She was not the first. She doubted she would be the last.
Alone for the moment, she weighed her options. She had fought the shackles, hard, the first time she had awakened. There was nothing she could do about them, and they weren't like standard handcuffs. Breaking her thumbs would not allow her to slide them off; they were far too tight for that. They barely moved on her wrists at all, no matter what she did to them. Her skin ached where the cold metal cut into it.
Her ankles were bound with rope, which was scratchy but at least less restricting than the shackles. She remembered something Booth had said, long ago. The Maggie Schilling case, with the girl who had been bound in that couple's basement for days on end. Booth had told her that the defense's story didn't hold up, because if she had been bound consensually, her legs wouldn't have been tied like that.
It gave her a small amount of hope.
He had not yet raped her. And as long as her legs were bound... there was less chance he would. Clearly, though, he got off on hurting her. There was no telling how long that would last, or what extremes he might go to.
She trembled slightly, even as she tried to keep herself calm.
If she started panicking, she was never going to get out of here alive. She needed to focus. She needed to be prepared, and the moment there was a chance... she was going to escape.
Voices, muffled voices, sounded above her head. This, like the roaring sound, was normal. She had tried screaming to no avail, and had received a blow to the head as her reward when he came for her. After that, she had stopped screaming. The voices weren't a good sign. They either couldn't or wouldn't help her... and calling for them only made her captor angry.
At the reminder of that particular blow, the dripping sound came back to the front of her mind, and she realized numbly that her pillow was wet. In the darkness she could just make out the pool gathering on the edge of the mattress.
The dripping was from the blood. It was slipping over the edge and falling onto the cold cement.
One drop at a time.
Phew. That was harder to write than I had thought beforehand.
Thank you for reading, really. This story has gotten such a marvellous response, and I love seeing just how many people are reading. It brightens my day.
Share your thoughts! I'm always curious to see what people are thinking as I go forward with this.
IMPORTANT WARNING: As with most of my stories, this one has dark themes. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that before. If you're generally fine with my stories and angst and kidnapping stories in general, and you don't want spoilers, don't read onwards in this author's note.
For those of you worried about where I'm heading, this will get dark and emotional and painful. But there will be no sexual assault in this story, so you do not need to worry about that, if stories of that nature usually upset you. Thought I'd give a heads up.