Chapter Seven:
She dressed quickly grabbing her bag and then his elbow, she dragged him from the room, and dragged him until he stopped and she nearly fell to the ground.
"Slow down Bones" He said laughing and he walked at a normal pace down the stairs, but grabbed her hand as the reached the bottom of the stairs, to his surprise she didn't pull away, maybe she was to distracted to notice – he sure didn't mind.
Temperance wanted to cry. Yes, Brave, unfeeling Temperance just wanted to sit down right in the middle of this tiny lab in Wellington, New Zealand, and cry. People gave her sympathetic looks, and Booth looked as if he was going to hug her, but she didn't want him to. If he hugged her, she'd probably never be able to stop crying. She didn't want their sympathy.
"I need to call-" Temperance began to say softly to Booth, but he finished it for her.
"-The squints," He didn't touch her, but passed her his cell phone. She nodded her thanks and left the building.
On her way out she looked over her should and noticed Yvonne Barracks standing next to a police officer, she was shaking all over and very pale. That was strange; Yvonne didn't seem to care so much about the case before… She supposed this was Yvonne's lab they broke into. But why was she being so emotional? Booth was walking towards Yvonne, and Temperance turned quickly as Yvonne threw herself into Booth's arms, her stomach ached, though she didn't know why.
She had a coughing fit as she sucked in the cold night air, and she had to sit down on the steps and try and get her breath back.
xx
"Hey Ange," Temperance said; she decided it would be around lunch time for them, as Ange sounded too bright for it to be early morning.
"Hi sweetie, how's it going?" Ange said; Temperance knew she was hinting towards 'How's it going with Booth' but ignored it.
"The lab was broken into last night," Temperance said, and had to hold Booths cell phone to her chest while she coughed, she didn't hear him sneak up behind her, and she turned back to the phone. "Sorry Ange, what was that?"
"Was that you coughing Bren? Because if it is-"
"Ange, they ransacked the Lab, nearly every piece of the equipment in the room was broken, or damaged in some way. But none of the remains were touched, and I still have all my notes back at the Angus Inn. I don't know why someone would do this, but Booth says his gut tells him its something to do with this case…" Tempe said softly. "I feel like I've hit a dead end, I'm giving the detectives all my notes today, but Ange I have barely anything."
She felt defeated, and she tilted her head up to the black sky, a few stars twinkled, and the moon was full. It looked beautiful, but she shook her head to clear it, and concentrated on Angela's voice. She had to stop being so easily distracted from the case, first Booth, then her sickness, still her sickness, and now the moon?
Booth collapsed next to her on the steps, and she gave a small scream into the phone. And her hand was millimeters away from Booth's face, she'd nearly hit him. "You gave me a fright," she said to Booth, recovering quickly, and hiding her burning face from Booth. Part of the burning was because her temperature had risen again, and she was still very sick, but mostly it was because she was embarrassed to have been so easily scared. Booth stayed silent, looking at his hands, and Tempe felt there was something he wanted to tell her.
Ange sounded panicky.
"Tempe, Bren – Hello?"
"Sorry, it was Booth," Ange was silent for a minute.
"What'd he do to make you scream?" Her voice had a teasing quality which Tempe ignored.
"I'll call you back," Tempe said into the phone and shut it handing it back to Booth.
"Yvonne," He took Tempe's hand in his, and she stared at their entwined fingers. "She was told to bring us here, this guy, he's playing with us." Booth said. Even though he hadn't explained it fully, Tempe knew "this guy" was the murderer. And she suddenly remembered an unsolved case from home.
"Broken fingers…" Tempe said slowly, willing the memory to come back. "But it was so long ago…" She said, frightened. Had the guy changed countries? This would make the cases so hard to connect.
"One of our first cases," Booth said sadly. "The first we couldn't solve." Tempe pulled her hand from his, as if only just realising that they were holding hands. "Yvonne also knew about the note, the guys been contacting her by leaving notes at the lab. He told her to send it, that's why his fingerprints were not on it. I suppose if we re-tested it, and re-ran the fingerprints through one of the labs systems, Yvonne would be a match."
"Why is she suddenly telling us…? Why did she become involved?" Tempe asked tentatively. Booth took in a deep breath, and she heard him swallow.
"Yvonne thinks he has another victim, he threatened to hurt her, that's why she hasn't told anyone until now."
"And we're sitting her – why?" Tempe asked, eyes blazing with anger.
"Because we have absolutely no clues to where he is," Tempe suddenly thought of something else. "Jillian Davidson, she was the same age, she was-" she didn't finish her sentence. "Is he a psychopath?" Booth let out a heavy sigh.
xx
"Yvonne is being taken down to the station," He ignored her comment; he didn't want to get into this. They'd been speculating out on the steps for a while now, he was surprised she was even doing this; usually she needed facts – she didn't assume things, she knew things.
xx
"I just thought of something," Tempe said. "There are still the other finger bones; if we can somehow connect Jillian, to this case – then maybe… Maybe we do have one on our hands Booth. There's still another skeleton missing, we only have the fingers." She couldn't even say murderer, psychopath, any of those – it scared her right now, what if he really did have another victim? Did he intend to do the same to this victim? Why did he break all their fingers, did he want information, what information? There were too many 'maybes' in this case.
"We have to find a link," Booth said, and Tempe checked her watch, it was nearing 2.30am.
"Do you think we could go visit the girl's family?" Tempe asked.
"I think I can talk Officer Ivory into it," Booth said.
"Booth, you know the girls name, don't you?" Tempe asked, without looking at him.
"Yes, I found out the morning that you slept in, because you are sick." Booth said, touching her forehead, and she turned her head from his touch. "Jessica Ridges,"
"Thank you, Booth,"
"You can't do much until morning; I'll drive you back so you can sleep; and I'll get all the information we need."
"You need sleep too Booth,"
"I'll just contact Cullen through email; can I borrow your lap top?"
"Yeah, it's back at the Inn,"
"Thanks, Bones."
"Tempe,"
"Bones,"
"Tempe,"
"Bones," She glared at him as they made their way to the rental car.
The phone in her room rang as they arrived back; Booth snatched it up before she could answer it.
"Booth," "Uh huh, Hi Ange" He said for Tempe's benefit, so she knew who he was talking to. He paled. "Okay, thanks." "Cullen's going to ring me," He put the phone down on the hook, and sat in the nearest chair. Suddenly feeling as defeated as Tempe had looked earlier outside the lab.
xx
Tempe connected her lap top to the internet, and Booth knelt beside her, the lap top rested on a coffee table. Tempe heard a knock at the door, and the receptionist handed them Jillian's file which had just been faxed.
"Did you call when we were at the lab?" Tempe asked, though she knew he had.
"Yeah,"
"Thanks, Booth." He raised his eye brows, but didn't look up from the screen; she'd thanked him a helluva lot lately.
Tempe pored over the file, she lay on her stomach on her bed, and to her surprise Booth joined her, lying next to her, but not close enough so that they were touching. He read over the pages she had already read.
"Both their names start with J, both of them are around 16 years old, Jillian was murdered ten years ago, Jessica five." Tempe said, she felt frustrated now, they were the only connections.
"So he waits five years between victims?" Booth screwed up his face, as if thinking.
xx
At around four in the morning, anyone walking through Tempe's door would find a sleeping FBI agent, and a sleeping Forensic Anthropologist, faces resting on the papers they had been reading, the FBI agent's arm tightly around the Anthropologists waist.
xx
Booth woke with a jolt, when he heard a moan. Temperance was in his arms, he pulled his arms out from under her quickly, and she woke, wide awake as soon as her eyes opened.
"Oh – uh – sorry…" They both said at the same time and leapt from the bed, also at the same time, causing them to bump heads. It was quite comical for Detective Ivory to watch, from the doorway.
"Good morning Special Agent Seeley Booth, Dr. Brennan" Ivory said from the doorway, his eyes bright with humor. He received twin glares, as if daring him to say anything.
"New Zealand is a safe place Dr. Brennan, but I still don't think it's a good idea to leave your door unlocked," He said, kindly but firmly. She just nodded, attempting to smooth her hair. Booth rubbed his eyes.
"Yvonne is downstairs waiting to speak to you, both. I believe we have found a connection between Jillian Davidson and Jessica Ridges" Ivory said. "Thanks to you calling your boss," Ivory said to Booth, nodding in appreciation. "A..." he looked as if he was trying to remember something. "Angela Montenegro from the Jeffersonian told me, to tell you, that the wood splinter you sent her from Jessica's remains matches one on Jillian's." Ivory left and Tempe stared baffled at Booth.
"They were in different countries, how did they get matching splinters on their remains?" Booth just shook his head.
xx
"You have an email Booth," Tempe yelled over the sound of her shower running, Booth was borrowing her shower, she had no idea why but it was very distracting knowing he was – well naked in the room next to her.
"Read it out to me Bones," He yelled back.
"Cullen say's you have permission to speak to the Ridges family, and he apologizes he hasn't called you, but he's extremely busy with a case there, and helping out the one here."
"He did not say that,"
"Well close enough," He came out of the shower, towel wrapped around his waist.
"Bathrooms yours Tempe," He said, his voice a lot lower than usual, she picked her jaw up from the ground, and staggered to her feet, brushing past him as quick as possible, she did not need to see him half naked, the feelings she'd been burying resurfaced, and she wanted to yell for them to go away. I am not attracted to that gorgeous, oh god, FBI agent out there.
She tried not to think of his chest, how strong he looked – how sexy he looked after the shower. She shut the bathroom door probably with more force than needed. And locked it, leaning her forehead against the cold mirror; she tried to clear her thoughts. She had to focus on the case.
She decided taking her time in the shower would be okay, Yvonne could wait… She gave her reflection an evil grin. Yvonne could sit down their in the restaurant and sweat, and worry, and panic all she wanted. Since when had she ever been like this? She laughed aloud at her reflection.
A/N: Couldn't stop smiling after your reviews, you guys are so nice. I promise not to over-analyze my story, or my writing. I suppose it gets a little tiresome too ;-) I'll just let it be. Computer still isn't working properly! Can you believe my whole school holidays my computers been stuffed? Now what I really want to say is... PLEASE REVIEW. Because it's so damn encouraging, Lol!
