(The Family in the Feud)
Thank you for reviewing my story. I appreciate it.
I don't own Bones.
Oooooooooooooooo
Worried that no one would find him and he'd die of thirst in an abandoned building, Hodgins struggled to free his hands and feet from the chair he was tied to. His hands were throbbing from all of the pulling but Pelant had done a good job securing the knots in the ropes and they wouldn't give way. Making a decision, Hodgins swallowed hard and started to sway his body trying to tip his chair over. He hoped he could somehow wriggle his body over near the entrance to the building and yell for help. He didn't know where the entrance was, but he assumed it was in the general direction the sadist had taken when he'd left the circle of light.
Swaying his body side to side, he finally tipped the chair over and it crashed on his left side. Though his head had not made contact with the cement floor, he still felt dizzy and light headed and now his left shoulder was hurting. "Maybe it's a side-affect from whatever drug he gave me." After a few moments, he tried to move his body and the chair. Exerting as much effort as he could, he realized that he really couldn't do what he'd wanted to do. "Damn it." Screaming at the top of his lungs, he decided to try to attract attention that way.
His throat raw from screaming, he stopped and leaned his head on the cement floor. "If I ever get my hands on that bastard I'm going to kill him with my bare hands."
A voice in the distance caught his attention. "Help . . . Help me! I'm over here!"
The sound of running footsteps were getting closer and soon a young man was standing over him. "I told Harry I needed to check." While he untied Hodgins from the chair, the stranger explained why he was there. "Harry and I run a granite counter top business across the street. My name is Ben. We got a call a few minutes ago saying that there was someone trapped in here . . . Harry wanted to call the cops, but I thought I'd check it first. No need to call the cops if it was a prank call." The ropes undone, he helped Hodgins stand. "I heard you yelling when I opened the door . . . What the hell happened?"
Grateful for the help, Hodgins leaned on the younger man while he tried to steady himself. "I was kidnapped and left here . . . I don't know who called you, but thanks for checking. I owe you one."
Concerned, Ben frowned at the sight of Hodgins' wrists. "You've torn the skin on your wrists. Let's go across the street. I have a first aid kit and I'll take care of that. We can call the police and you can talk to them."
With Ben's help, Hodgins walked slowly out of the warehouse into the bright sunshine and squinted. "Across the street?"
"Yeah, over there." Ben pointed at an open doorway to the small warehouse across the road. "It's not far, I promise."
Holding onto Ben's shoulders, Hodgins slowly walked across the street and once he was there, Ben ran inside the building and brought back a chair to the doorway. "Sit, let's call the police . . . Harry, get off your lazy ass and bring me a couple of bottles of water." While Harry walked over to the small fridge in the back of the shop and retrieved the water, Ben made a call. "Hey, I just found someone tied up in a warehouse. I freed him and he's at my shop . . . Yeah, Granite for Your Kitchen." His hand over the speaker of his phone, Ben looked at Hodgins." Hey what's your name?"
"Dr. Jack Hodgins." Hodgins grabbed the bottle water from Harry, cracked open the top and drank greedily until the bottle was empty.
"Dr. Jack Hodgins . . . Sure, he's not going anywhere, he's sitting in front of my shop, he needs some help, his wrists are bleeding . . . I have a first aid kit . . . okay." The call ending, Ben took the empty bottle from Hodgins, grabbed the second bottle water from Harry and handed it to Hodgins. "The cops are on the way . . . want to call anyone?"
The second bottle open, Hodgins drank more of the water. "Yeah, my wife."
Oooooooooooooo
Hodgins was at the hospital with Angela and the barbecue had been help up for a couple of hours while Booth had arranged to have Hodgins' car driven to the hospital and FBI techs were sent to the warehouse where Hodgins had been kept hostage. With a promise to keep Michael Vincent safe for the evening, Booth returned home and told his remaining guests what he knew.
Furious, Cam sat in the living room, fuming. "Pelant is going to get away with this. That monitor on his ankle says he's at home and because he's found a way to get around it, he can do what the hell he wants to do."
"I have an FBI agent outside Hodgins' hospital room. He's being kept overnight because he's having some reactions to the drugs he was given when he was kidnapped." Booth was sitting on the couch, holding Michael Vincent in his arms while Brennan sat next to him holding Christine. "I called the Director to let him know what's going on. I got a call on the way back and the police say that Pelant is in his house and the monitor is working. We can't prove that Pelant was the kidnapper and with the drugs in Hodgins' system, any lawyer could say he's delusional and he doesn't really know who kidnapped him."
"What horse shit." Max was pacing behind the couch while Jared, Padme and Hank sat on the various chairs and love seat in the room. Caroline was on the phone in the kitchen and she was in a foul mood while Parker and Sweets were in the man cave watching a movie and eating barbecue from plates Brennan had given them. "This guy has killed two people that we know of and now he's kidnapped Hodgins. What's to keep him from kidnapping Tempe or one of the kids? Or you Booth?"
Holding up his hand, Booth tried to stop Max's rant. "Max, I've got a guy watching Pelant's house right now . . . he's not going anywhere." He didn't know how long he could keep an agent there, but he would try for as long as possible. "Right now, Pelant is winning . . . yes, we have to admit it even though we don't want to. So far, Pelant has been ahead of us, but eventually he's going to make a mistake . . . we know he can leave his house, so we need to be vigilant. Don't park next to vans or trucks when you go anywhere. Don't park in parking garages unless you've arranged for someone to escort you to your apartment or to the Lab." Booth was looking at Cam. "I mean it Cam, don't take any risks. Park near store or restaurant entrances, don't park away from other cars like you normally do to keep people from chipping the paint on your car. Pelant is mad at all of us and God knows what he's going to do next."
"I have a friend, Ethan Sawyer I may contact him about this situation." Brennan looked down at her daughter in her arms. "Ethan is brilliant, more brilliant than I am and he may be able to help me prove that Pelant is evading his monitor."
"We can use the help." Booth noticed that Michael Vincent was starting to get cranky. "You're hungry aren't you?" Standing, he started to move to the kitchen. "Come on, let's eat. There isn't anything we can do about Pelant tonight. Tomorrow, I'm going to look into the monitoring company and see if they've had any failures in the past. I've got a team at the warehouse looking for forensic evidence that Pelant was there, but I'm not going to hold my breath. So far, he's been careful not to leave any clues at crime scenes . . . I'm going to have agents check to see if there are any cameras on the road that contains the warehouse where he took Hodgins. Maybe we can prove Pelant was there with them."
Hungry, Jared stood up and followed Booth into the kitchen with Padme and the rest of the guests following. Brennan remained seated in the living room, cuddling her child. She knew that Pelant was capable of anything including murder and she needed to find a way to prove that he was involved in two murders and one kidnapping. Her friend, Ethan had the gift of pattern recognition. He could perceive connections and meaningfulness in unrelated phenomena. He had been diagnosed with schizophrenia a few years ago and he was currently institutionalized, but she knew that he still had his lucid moments. His doctor had diagnosed that part of his schizophrenia was his obsession with patterns, what he called apophenia, but Brennan had known Ethan before he became mentally ill and she knew his ability to see patterns on subjects wasn't just a symptom of his illness. It was real and she hoped to use that ability to go after Pelant before he killed anyone else.
Standing, she moved into the kitchen and sat down at the table watching the activity around her. While Booth helped fill plates with barbecue, salads and side dishes, Brennan watched her friends and her lover and she knew that she would do everything she could to protect them. Pelant had gone too far kidnapping Hodgins. She took it as a warning from the murderer that he was going to go after them because he wasn't getting what he wanted. Determined to stop him, she was going to use every resource she had access to and stop Pelant. The man thought he was smarter than everyone around him. He was wrong and she was going to prove it.
Oooooooooooooo
Let me know what you think of my story. Thank you.
