And so back to work on the case :-)
I always enjoy reading your reviews, and they always spur me on. But this is the first time reviews have actually influenced the content of a chapter. I bore in mind the comments from people who felt they'd had it just a touch too easy in the last couple of chapters.
Brennan arrived back in the lab just after nine am, and immediately headed for the pile of papers that had amassed on her desk in her absence. She was in no mood to talk to anyone. As she had travelled further and further from Booth physically, so she had felt herself separate from him emotionally as well. She couldn't help going back over the events of the past couple of days in her mind, and was starting to have the terrible suspicion she had read the whole situation wrong. It all felt like one big dream. She had entered this new stage of her relationship with Booth imagining that he cared as deeply for her as she did for him, but what if she was wrong? At no point had they discussed their relationship. Maybe it was just a physical attraction for him, the need of the alpha male to assert his dominance over the alpha female. She was begging to feel that maybe she'd royally screwed things up between them.
She felt strongly that the only way to find out where they really stood was to solve this case and be back together in the same city. Only then would she be able to talk to Booth and find out where they stood.
The last thing she wanted to do right now was to talk to Booth. She was too afraid of what she might hear.
She thought of talking to Angela, but they had agreed to keep this quiet for now. Who had originally suggested that? Was it her, trying to give them a chance to get used to the change in their relationship before making it public, or Booth, seeing this as an opportunity to pretend nothing had happened between them?
No, she couldn't talk to Angela either, not now. She didn't feel ready. The only thing she could do was bury herself in her work. That usually helped when she wanted space to think things out on her own.
She checked through the file for the first boy. Angela had done a good job on the facial reconstruction, as usual; apart from the hair, which was mostly guesswork, she had captured a good likeness. That had helped confirm identification in the missing children database.
Decomposition tests confirmed her first estimate, that the child had been dead around two years. This placed his disappearance firmly close to the time he had been abducted by his father. Brennan found herself distracted by the thought of Booth, and the agent's relationship with his own son. How could she imagine he would take on a serious relationship with someone who had said publicly she didn't want children?
Irritably, she shook the thought off and got back to the file, looking at Hodgin's summary of his findings on both bodies.
Soil and particulates all confirmed the area in which the bodies had been found; nothing had been discovered to change their original theory, which was that the boys had been killed in the area near where they had been buried. The bodies had both been naked when found, which suggested some sort of assault had taken place, but there was nothing to confirm that on the bodies themselves, apart from wrist and ankle injuries which indicated the boys had been bound tightly before death and had both struggled to free themselves. Brennan thought of these poor boys, frightened and alone, and again she thought of Booth, working hard to find their killer.
The boys both had traces of cotton fibers in their lungs and around their mouths, dyed pinkish-red. This was consistent with a cloth or cushion or similar article being held over their faces to suffocate them. There were also two types of dark blue fibers: the lighter ones appeared to be carpet, the other of a heavy denim-type material.
She turned her attention to the second file. Angela had produced a sketch of a boy with curly hair and a lively expression on his face. Parker's face floated in front of her eyes, and she resolutely pushed it away. The second file was almost identical to the first, apart from the presence of identification details, and it was becoming unarguable that the two deaths were the work of the same killer, but without an identification on the second boy any link would be hard to find.
An extra sheet in the second file, Zack's report on the second body, attracted Brennan's attention, and she read with interest. The second boy showed signs of old injuries, specifically a spiral fracture to the right ulna and a greenstick fracture to the right femur. She headed out to the bone room to check Zack's findings, and found more evidence to back up her theory. She was still absorbed in what she found half an hour later.
"Goodman is looking for you," Angela said, standing beside her.
"I know. The meeting's not due to start for another fifteen minutes," Brennan answered absently, studying a metatarsal under a microscope.
"So, when do I hear about Booth?" Angela went on.
Brennan looked up sharply. "Hear what? I told you, Angela, there's nothing to tell."
"So why were you two looking so guilty on the video link yesterday?"
"For the last time, Angela, we were not looking guilty. Now please, drop the subject."
"All right, I'm sorry, Sweetie, I didn't realize you were so twitchy about it. I'll wait."
Brennan could tell Angela was even more curious by this point, but she could not bear to even think about the FBI agent. Opening that door promised to open a whole world of hurt, and she refused to go there. "We need to identify this second body," she said, tapping the file in front of her.
"We've been trying all we can think of, but there's no match on the missing children database for any kid like this, either from six months ago or for four years before that. Zack is looking further back now, but the further back we go, the harder it is to feel sure about the match," said Angela apologetically.
"I've had an idea." Brennan glanced down at the notes she had made. "This child has suffered fractures that would have needed medical attention. Get Zack to check the hospitals in the New York area for a child brought in with these injuries. We might be able to track him that way."
"Wow, why didn't we think of that?" said Angela admiringly.
Brennan shook her head. "It's only a remote chance, Angela," she warned. "That arm injury was caused by someone twisting his arm, and it didn't set right. It's entirely possible he never received medical treatment for it." She sighed. "It looks like not only was this boy murdered, but he was treated badly for most of his life." She handed Angela a list of injuries and the approximate age at which each would have occurred.
She turned to leave the room. "I have to go to this meeting with Goodman. Let me know what you find out."
As ever, I love to hear what you think. Do they deserve to get their act together? Should they just concentrate on the case and leave the relationship to later? You know where the review button is :-)