(The Ghost in the Killer)

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I don't own Bones.

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It had been a while since Pete had 'talked' to Angela, but he had been busy doing research and he'd had to do it quietly and with great caution. He hadn't forgot about the unusual interest by some unknown person in Seeley Booth and his wife, Temperance Brennan and how that someone had been connected to the traitor Wayne Kitchen. It worried him that Wayne Kitchen was in prison for treason and murder and yet the person who had blackmailed him to do those things was still free. He was afraid for Temperance and as a friend of her father, he felt it was his duty to keep digging into this mess.

He had originally gone after anyone connected to Wayne Kitchen and William King. He'd hacked into various accounts and had found that there were people in a panic about King's death. That had intrigued him and he had looked into those accounts and whoever they had contact with. It had been a slow and meticulous process and he'd invaded government databases and big corporations knowing that at any time he could be caught.

Eventually he followed his path of bread crumbs until he found Giles McNamara the owner and CEO of McNamara Corporation. Giles had his hands in a lot of shell companies including Kestech Transpo Corporation, a company that seemed to exist to pay people large sums of money for mysterious services. Fascinated, he'd combed the records he could access and found that money had been paid into the hands of doctors, coroners, a couple of DAs, three congressmen and a detective agency. There was also a connection with William King. Kestech Transpo had deposited two million dollars into William King's account at around the same time that Gale Storm had been murdered. That murder had been solved by Booth and Brennan. The case had been closed when King died in a plane crash and Kitchen had been convicted. So very convenient as far as Pete was concerned.

Feeling uneasy about what he knew, Pete decided to pass that information along to Angela. He knew he was looking at an enormous puzzle and he was only just starting to see the outline of the puzzle. The main pieces weren't there to see, but he knew that if he kept looking, he'd find them. He just had to make sure no one knew he was searching for the puzzle pieces. He knew that if he made a big mistake it would be as fatal as William King's mistake.

Careful not to announce himself to Angela with music this time, he used flashing screens instead. For his purpose he used several works by the painter, Jackson Pollock. He wasn't a fan of the abstract expressionist movement, but he knew that Pollock's style seemed to fascinate Angela. Overriding the security on Angela's system, Pete started his program. He didn't know if she was in her office, but sooner or later she would see the paintings, know that she wasn't responsible and interrupt the display. His program was set up to let him know when she interrupted it.

Oooooooooooooooooo

Angela had enjoyed her lunch with Brennan and she wasn't in a hurry to return to work. After stopping at an ice cream shop, she carried a melting butter pecan sundae into her office and saw the display on her computer. It was a series of Pollock paintings and she knew that someone had hacked her computer.

Both worried and furious, she placed her sundae on her desk and interrupted the gallery of pictures. "This had better be you Pete."

The alarm on his computer told him that Angela had finally shown up. "Took you long enough." Rapidly typing away, Pete sent a message to his friend. Close your office door, lock it and close the blinds. This is serious, Angela.

That didn't sound good to Angela, not good at all. Quickly moving across the room, she secured her office and returned to her computer and typed. "Okay, I've done it. What's going on?"

I'm going to download some information to you. I've been doing some research on Wayne Kitchen and William King and their contacts. I've found some stuff that you need to know about. I don't want to be the only one that knows about it. I don't have enough of anything right now to point to someone and say that this is Wayne Kitchen's blackmailer, but I have a list of people that we need to keep watch over. It's starting to look like Kitchen and King were involved in a massive conspiracy. I don't know what the conspiracy is about. I'm just getting started, but you need to know about it. It might connect to something you're working on down the road. Even if it doesn't then you have something to work on if our mysterious Mr. X decides to come after Booth or anyone at the Lab. Be careful. Back this information up and hide it well.

After a few minutes, Angela had pages of information about people that appeared to be on the take. They'd all had large cash infusions into their bank accounts or into hidden accounts overseas and it looked like payments for services. Pete had tracked down some of the services and Angela could see the potential for danger. "Okay Pete, got it. Maybe you should stop for now. This is starting to look very dangerous."

It was dangerous the minute Gale Storm was murdered to cover up the fact that Wayne Kitchen was a traitor and a murderer. We're past that point, Angela. I'm still going to follow the yellow brick road and see where it leads me. I want to know who the man behind the curtain is. He's dangerous and he might come after you and everyone you know. I'll pass on what I find at least every two weeks. Keep it off of any computers with internet access. Hide the data. It might be a matter of life and death, yours and mine.

A shiver ran down her spine. She had been worried about the mysterious blackmailer for a long time and Pete was making him or her very real.

Oooooooooooooooo

The fact that someone had delivered a body to Booth and Brennan's home was enough to make Booth want to put security cameras at the front and back doors of their house. It was bad enough that he had to deal with bodies at work, he didn't need them delivered in the mail.

The body turned out to be Lana Brewster who died in 1995 in a boating accident. Her body was found a few days after she was reported missing and someone had gone through the trouble of digging her body up from her grave and sending it to Brennan along with a note: Please find out what really happened to me.

Eventually, it was determined that Lana had been murdered. The original coroner lied about the cause of her death. Someone had paid Leslie Dollinger $9 million to cover up the murder. Curious and much to Angela's surprise, she traced the money to Kestech Transpo Corporation and therefore the McNamara Corporation.

Going back and looking at the information that Pete had sent her, Angela felt a cold chill run through her body. William King had been paid by Kestech Transpo for services rendered, presumably for having Gale Storm killed and now here was proof that this shell company had paid to cover up the murder of Lana Brewster. She didn't like the connection, so she would make sure to tell Pete the next time he contacted her.

Sooner or later she was going to have to talk to Booth and Brennan about what she knew, but for now, she felt that she needed more information.

In the meantime, she talked to Hodgins about Lana Brewster and if he knew why McNamara Corporation would be interested in covering up a murder. Because he had known both the McNamara and Brewster families when he was growing up, Hodgins had replied without hesitation. "Trent McNamara." He thought about it for a few seconds before he continued. "I think he was Lana's boyfriend. Trent was a nasty piece of work." He talked about Trent being kicked out of numerous schools for violent tendencies and from what Angela could see, Trent had been borderline psycho. "One more thing, Trent was shipped off to a boarding school in Switzerland a few days after Lana's body had been found. Coincidence? Probably not."

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Hodgins had paid a visit to his old 'friend' Trent and the man admitted that he had been Lana's boyfriend, but he swore that he had not killed Lana or anyone else. His father had paid off the coroner because he had thought his son had killed Lana, but Trent was adamant that he hadn't and his sister Stephanie had told them they were going to get a lawyer. That was the end of the interview, but not the end of anyone's interest in Trent.

Hodgins couldn't let it go and he realized that Trent probably wasn't the murderer. He thought that Lana had probably been the first person Trent had ever met that loved him and he would never kill anyone that had given him something he wanted and needed. He went back to the McNamara estate to talk to Trent and he'd told him about his theory. Trent had seemed both surprised and sad at the same time. Hodgins had been the only one to ever understand that Trent had loved Lana and would never hurt her. Everyone Trent had known assumed that he had killed Lana and he hadn't been able to prove otherwise.

Within a few hours, Trent was dead. It looked like he had committed suicide but Brennan had her doubts. His fine motor skills were damaged in his right hand and she felt it was unlikely the man had shot himself.

There was no suicide note and that made Hodgins suspicious, but Cam thought Trent's injured hand could still pull the trigger of the gun he had used. The lack of a note didn't impress her since many suicides didn't leave a note. Until and when something came up to refute Cam's conclusion, Trent's death would be listed as a suicide. Both Brennan and Hodgins weren't happy about it, but they couldn't prove that his death was murder.

Ooooooooooooooooo

Worried that there was more going on with their case than met the eye, Angela asked Booth and Brennan to meet her in her office. Once the door was closed and locked, Angela told them about Pete's conversation and she showed them some of the downloaded data. "Giles McNamara was connected with Gale Storm's death and Lana Brewster's death. It looks like he paid William King to kill Gale Storm and he paid the coroner that examined Lana's body to say it was an accidental death. I don't know what's going on, but this guy, Giles McNamara wasn't a good guy and he had his hand in some nasty stuff."

After Booth and Brennan studied the data that Pete had sent Angela, Brennan nodded her head and turned to face Booth. "I've been working on a cold case in Bones Storage. The victim was Chloe Campbell and at first it appeared that she was killed by blunt force trauma to the sternum. The wound I found upon closer examination was obfuscated by the blunt force trauma that had fractured the sternum. It appears that the fatal wound was caused by a fencing foil . . . Trent McNamara studied fencing as a young man, but I don't claim that he killed Chloe. I am merely pointing out that she was killed the same way that Lana was killed."

"Wait, Lana Brewster and Chloe Campbell were killed with a fencing foil? Did they know each other? Did Trent know Chloe?" He had a lot of questions and not a lot of answers.

Since Brennan was still looking into Chloe Campbell's background, she didn't have an answer. "I don't know the answers to those questions, but I will find out . . . It is possible that we're dealing with a serial killer. If their deaths are connected, we need to find out what that connection is."

Booth agreed. "I don't want to jump the gun, but yeah, Angela I need you to look at the background of Chloe Campbell and Lana Brewster and see if there's a connection. If Trent is the link to those women then we need to know about it . . . I know you don't believe that Trent killed himself, Bones, but maybe he was a serial killer and he knew that we were on to him and he killed himself to escape justice. His father is dead, so he's not here to save his sorry ass from prison."

"Maybe." Brennan wasn't sure about Booth's theory. It was possible that Trent had been murdered and if he had been then they needed to find his killer. "I should mention that Lana Brewster and Trent McNamara both had one of their fingernails ripped off. That is too coincidental."

Angela agreed. "That seems like a weird coincidence."

"I don't believe in coincidences during a murder investigation." Booth stared at the data on the monitor and rubbed his chin. "We may be dealing with a serial killer. I don't know about the connection to William King and Giles McNamara, but I do see some connections with Trent McNamara to the two ladies who were killed. My gut tells me that we're on to something, I just don't know what that is."

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Let me know what you think of my story. Thank you.

A/N: the Ghost Killer arc always seemed strange to me. I'm hoping to add something to it to fill it out and make it more understandable.