Thanks for the reviews everyone! Hope you like this chapter…the gold thing's called the Angelator right? I thought I read that somewhere…

And sorry it took so long to update, my internet broke.

Disclaimer: Don't own Bones. Wish I did.

CHAPTER 6:

Booth had to physically drag himself awake, swinging his legs out of bed before his eyes were even open. It took most of his strength to push himself to his feet, where he clutched the wall for support, forcing his eyelids apart.

The clock on his bedside cabinet read 12:15, and the sunlight streaming through the partly closed curtains showed it was day, not night, but it had to be wrong; nobody could be this tired after nine hours of sleep. It was almost as if he'd been...

Booth groaned out loud at his stupidity. He had been drugged. The coffee Rod had brought him...Rod was involved? Rod was a bad guy?

He was too tired to think straight. What he needed was a shower and a cup of real coffee.

The answer phone blinked at him as he stumbled into the hallway, and he automatically punched the 'play' button.

'You have four messages.' Squeaked the robotic voice at the other end. He hit the button again, leaning heavily on the wall, blinking to try and clear his head.

The first two messages were from Bones, one telling him something about knives and steel his exhausted mind couldn't comprehend, and the other wondering where he was. She sounded worried. The third was from Rebecca, his ex-girlfriend and mother of his son. He deleted that; he wasn't in the mood to talk to her. And the fourth was Bones again, asking if he was alright, demanding he call back.

He hit the 'delete all' button and staggered off to have a shower.

After he had showered, dressed and swallowed several cups of drug-free coffee, Booth felt almost human again. The after-effects of whatever he had been given were wearing off. As he crossed to the phone to finally ring Bones, reaching out to pick up the handset, it let out a trill. He smiled to himself.

How many times does she call when I'm a few hours late? He picked up the phone.

'Hey.'

'Agent Booth.' It wasn't a question. Booth felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up; despite the face the speaker was obviously disguising his voice electronically, he knew there was only one person it could be.

'Clapham.' He heard himself say, his mood dropping rapidly.

'Give the man a medal.' He had removed the voice modifier, and venom dripped from every easily recognised word.

'How did you escape? Rod...'

'The newbie was really quite useful. You'd be surprised how easy it was for Wallis to drug that coffee; Walton really was a fool, he never suspected a thing until it was too late. We couldn't have him squealing on us though...'

Thinking back, Booth vaguely remembered Clapham's attorney leaving the room for a bathroom break, a few minutes before the young agent had appeared with the drink.

'You killed him...' He felt his insides grow cold. The only reply he got was a mirthless laugh, but it was enough. 'You-' Booth gripped the phone so hard his knuckles went white. He headed for his jacket, hanging on a coat rack near the door. But before he could even reach his cell phone in the pocket, Clapham spoke again.

'Don't even think about calling for help. You're going to do exactly as I tell you and if you don't...'

'Why the hell would I do anything you say?' He snarled into the phone, wide awake now, and shaking with anger.

The killer's next sentence was spoken in almost a whisper, but the words froze Booth to the core. He didn't realise he'd let go of the phone; didn't hear it hit the floor. All he heard was that sentence thumping round and round his head, a single word falling from his lips.

'No...'

BBBBBBBBBB

Angela pressed a button on her handset, and an image flickered into life within the swirling gold of the Angelator. The three others in the room – Hodgins, Brennan and Zack - turned their attention to the jumbled maze of lines and symbols before them.

The virtual image showed a map of the area, a ten mile radius around where the two bodies had been found, littered with small red, blue and green marks, as well as a purple splodge that was meant to represent the Jeffersonian.

Brennan leaned forward to study it more closely, Angela's voice narrating in the background.

'The blue crosses show the positions of any buildings where the components that make steel could have been used in the past few years. The green crosses show the least recently used over that time. The murderer probably used one of the abandoned factories or mills to…' She trailed off and swallowed; out of the whole team, she was the most sensitive, the most affected by the horrors they had to face.

'Which seem the most likely choices for someone who didn't want to be discovered?' Hodgins found himself asking, to fill the uncomfortable silence. Angela pressed another button on the remote in her hand.

'These red circles are the most likely choices.' She said, trying to sound as if she was talking about buying a house, instead of finding the scene of a brutal murder. The three red rings on the rotating map were all of an equal distance from the two places they had discovered the bodies, which were only a couple of blocks apart anyway.

'Can we get a printout of this?' Brennan asked, and Angela tapped a few buttons on the remote, sending the file as a 2D image to her laptop. A few minutes later Tempe pocketed the printed map.

She headed for her office, closely followed by Angela, reaching into her lab coat pocket for her cell; Booth would want to know what they'd found out. Wherever he was. He hadn't contacted her, and she had left a couple of messages - even his boss had rung her to see if she'd seen him.

But she pushed the niggling worry to the back of her head, knowing there was no need to be afraid for him. Booth could take care of himself.

She had punched a couple of buttons for his home phone, when her cell went off in her hand, almost making her jump. She half smiled, hitting the green button, expecting to hear her partner's familiar voice.

'Brennan.' Tempe said into her cell phone, but nobody replied. She was about to hang up when there was a muffled sound on the other end, then a word, so quiet she almost thought she imagined it.

'Bones...' She heard again, and instantly recognised the voice, though the desperate fear was new.

'Booth?' The hopelessness in his voice scared her; she found that the hand holding her cell phone was shaking.

'You OK Bren?' Asked Angela from beside her, noticing how pale the usually unshakeable anthropologist had gone.

'Booth, what is it?' Brennan asked, ignoring her best friend's concern. 'Are you alright?'

'It's Clapham.' Her partner said at last. 'Another kid's gone missing.'

'…who?' Brennan heard herself say as if from a distance, with a horrible feeling she already knew. Booth's next sentence, choked with what she could only guess were tears, confirmed her fears.

'It's Parker, Bones. It's my son.'

It hit her like a physical blow. Brennan felt her cell slip from her hand as she took a step backwards, vaguely hoping something would stop her from falling.

Angela saw her crumple, and grabbed her elbow, but Tempe barely noticed, quickly pulling away from her friend, shaking her head.

'Bren!' Angela called out, but Brennan was striding away towards the glass doors, leaving her best friend scared and baffled. 'Be careful!' She yelled at her retreating back, but Tempe was already pushing her way through the doors.

I'll be careful. She thought grimly. I'll be careful - when Booth is safe.