The Girls In The Ground
Bones / Beauty And The Beast
by Thomas Mc

Chapter 4

Booth and Brennan were up early the next morning. They dressed as casual tourists and staked out a spot in Central Park where they could sit in the car and keep an eye on Catherine Chandler's brownstone. Brennan was wearing a blond wig that she had purchased yesterday evening. Booth was in a Hawaiian shirt and yellow golf hat that he had bought at the same place.

"So what did you tell Cam?" Booth asked Brennan.

"I told her that I was taking a couple of days to get more background on the site where the bodies were found. And I told her not to tell anyone that I was still in New York." She responded in her normal straight forward manner. "What did you tell your boss at the FBI?"

"I told him that I was on my way back to DC but that I needed a couple of days off for personal reasons." Booth responded then frowned. "I think he suspects that I'm still dealing with some of the aftermath from my surgery." He shrugged. "I think he is still unsure of my fitness for duty."

"There is nothing wrong with you." She insisted. "You are still an excellent agent."

Booth didn't respond to her reassurances. He preferred not to express his own doubts. His mind went back to his talk with Doctor Sweets about the strong love he felt for Brennan being just a side effect of his brain surgery. And then there was the incident with the clown just a few days ago. All these things added up to him not being the same person he had been. He forced those thoughts back into the deepest recesses of his mind and gave Brennan an encouraging smile

~ o ~

As she got ready to leave for work, Catherine hugged her huge lion-man just a bit tighter than usual this morning. "I love you Vincent. I'll see you when I get home tonight." She turned to the three young girls. "You three have a good day in school." Finally she turned to the two young lion-boys that looked so much like miniature versions of Vincent. "And you two behave yourselves down in the tunnels today." She gave her unusual family another smile, realized that she was running a bit late, and hurried out of the brownstone.

As she drove in to the DA's office she failed to notice the late model sports car that stayed two cars behind her. When she reached the government building she hurried inside. She had a lot of work she needed to catch up on now that the construction site case was over.

Joe called out to her as she passed his office. She stopped in her tracks, reversed course, and entered his office.

"What's up Joe?" She inquired.

"I just heard that the case is closed and those two from DC have gone back home."

Catherine nodded as she responded. "Yea, Elliot and James both informed me about their departure, yesterday."

Joe took a deep breath and continued. "How are Jennifer and Vincent taking the news?"

Catherine thought a moment before replying. "Jennifer was mostly relieved that the whole thing is over and she didn't end up getting dragged into the investigation. She had always believed that there were other victims of Julian's madness besides herself. Although, she was sad to hear how high the victim count ended up being."

She paused a moment then continued. "Vincent is taking it a bit harder. It saddens him that so many young women and unborn babies died in this mad man's insane quest to create whatever it was that he was trying to create." She sighed. "It still bothers him that he lives only because all those others died."

Joe shook his head. "He is not responsible for what happened. That monster Julian is the only one responsible for those deaths. Regardless of what happened forty five years ago, Vincent is here now and, personally I'm glad that he is alive and my friend. You need to keep telling him that."

Catherine nodded. "I know. Jennifer and I have been telling him that exact same thing ever since this mess began."

"Well you tell him what I said as well." He made shooing motions. "Now get to work. You have a ton of briefs to get through today and an important deposition this afternoon."

"I, I, Captain Bligh." She gave him a quick salute and exited the office.

"None of your sass, Radcliff." He called after her retreating form. He smiled to himself. Like Catherine, he was glad that the case was now closed. He too had been worried that the investigation could lead to Jennifer McCormick and her most unique son, Vincent. It made him shudder to think of what could happen to Catherine and Vincent's children if Vincent's existence were to ever come to light.

~ o ~

While they watched the city government building from the bistro on the corner, Brennan and Booth were talking to Angela over Brennan's laptop. Angela was reporting on her computer search efforts. "I've tried every search algorithm that I know but there just isn't much out there to find. The information I've already sent you is all there is. I can't even find a last name for the guy. This Julian must have had his tentacles pretty deep into the city and state government to have been able to hide his tracks so well. His son Gabriel was even worse. There weren't any records at all of his existence until he died in that fire and his corrupt organization was exposed."

Hodgins spoke up at this point. "Catherine Chandler, Joseph Maxwell, James McClendon and a special investigator named Diana Bennett of something called 'Special Crimes Unit 210' were all deeply involved in that case. The corruption went all the way up to the state level." His eyes gleamed with excitement. "Information on this Special Crimes Unit 210 is very limited. I can't even find how many people are in it. The only reason I know that she is in it is because it appears in one of the reports from that incident. It smells like the tip of a large government conspiracy to me."

An image of Diana Bennett from an old newspaper report appeared on the screen.

Booth nodded. He had seen mention of Diana Bennett in several of the cases that Catherine had been involved with but there was very little information available about Unit 210. On the official records she appeared to be just a normal police detective except that she only worked on one case at a time and she was able to choose which cases she would work on. She also had a very high success rate on some very difficult cases.

Booth finally responded. "OK, let us know if you find out anything else." He disconnected then looked over at Brennan shaking his head. "Nothing but smoke and dead ends everywhere I turn on this case."

~ o ~

It was around noon and Catherine was rushing to finish the brief she was currently working on before lunch.

Catherine raised her head as she perceived movement from across her desk. She recognized the elderly woman and her middle aged companion and her frown of curiosity morphed into a happy smile. "Jennifer, Diana!" She exclaimed. "What brings you to my part of town?"

Jennifer, the elderly woman, responded. "Diana and I were free and doing some shopping. We were both getting hungry when we realized how close we were to your office." She shrugged. "So we decided to stop by and see if you could have lunch with us."

Catherine looked at the clock then at the paper on her desk. "Just give me ten minutes to finish this up and I'll come with you."

Twelve minutes later Catherine handed the finished brief to Joe and informed him that she was going to lunch. Then the three women headed out of the building.

~ o ~

Brennan looked up in surprise and Booth followed her gaze to see Catherine and two other women heading toward the bistro. Both lowered their heads trying to be as inconspicuous as possible as the three women walked past them and took seats at the table behind them. Booth and Brennan both recognized Diana Bennett but the older woman was unknown to them. They looked at each other with a 'now-what' look then Brennan shrugged.

Booth and Brennan tried to remain inconspicuous while Brennan initiated a connection with the Jeffersonin. She set her laptop to mute and typed instead. She swiveled the computer so that its camera picked up the three women at the table behind her. Booth then typed in a request that they try to come up with an identification of the older woman. After Angela acknowledged the request Brennan shut off her laptop. The two of them resumed their attempt to inconspicuously eavesdrop on the table behind them.

Soon the three women were deep into typical small talk peppered with occasional gossip which died down a bit when their food arrived

About halfway through lunch a minor commotion arose when a young street urchin sprinted into the bistro deftly avoiding the waiter that tried to grab him. The raggedly dressed kid handed Catherine a folded scrap of paper, flashed her a very cheeky grin, then grabbed a hand full of French fries from Catherine's plate and ran back out, again avoiding the waiter's grasp.

Catherine opened the piece of paper and frowned as she read it.

"What is it Cathy?" Inquired Diana.

Catherine responded. "We may finally have a clue to the identity of the eighth body." She handed the paper to Diana. "It turns out that the computer drawing of the unidentified girl looks a lot like a young girl that was only around for a couple of weeks. She was called rose because of the rose tattoo on the back of her right shoulder. The person who recognized her reported that Rose often could be heard singing one particular song when she was occupied by some manual task. The message includes a couple of short phases remembered from the song."

"Will that be enough information to identify her?" Inquired Jennifer.

Diana replied. "It's too soon to tell but with this information there is a much better chance that I can find out who she was." She studied the words on the paper for a few moments. "Mmmmm . . . this seems vaguely familiar but I don't really recognize the song."

Booth and Brennan looked at each other curiously. "Now how in the world did Chandler find the source for that information?" Booth asked quietly. "I thought that I had exhausted every possible avenue for information."

The topic of the three women's conversation soon drifted on to the subject of a Renaissance Faire that they had all attended about a month ago.

The rest of the lunch was uneventful and when the three women left the restaurant, Booth and Brennan were left with more questions and no new answers, except for the few tidbits they had overheard about the eighth dead girl.

~ o ~

As soon as Catherine arrived home that evening she stepped into Vincent's waiting arms. "How was your day?" He inquired.

"Verrrrry busy." Catherine replied. "We got a possible break in the identification of that eighth girl."

Vincent nodded. "I heard. Mother told me all about it after she and Diana got back from their shopping trip." He cocked his head. "Are you two still planning to hold that little ceremony at the construction site tonight?"

Catherine nodded. "Someone needs to remember those girls. Who beter that someone who went through the same things that they did?"

Vincent tightened his embrace. "I understand how you feel." He held her out at arm's length. "Just please be careful."

"I will." Catherine responded.

"I will meet you there after I drop some things for the tunnel children with Father tonight." Vincent remarked as he released Catherine and they turned toward their children; who had been impatiently awaiting their chance to greet their mother.

~ o ~

It was very late at night and there was only one single spotlight on at the empty construction site. It illuminated the area where the nine skeletons had been found and the yellow police tape that surrounded the area. Catherine's lone figure stood quietly in that pool of light at the edge of the pit and gazed quietly down into it.

From their hidden vantage point about a hundred feet away Booth and Brennan watched Catherine. They had been preparing to end their surveillance of Catherine Chandler for the night when they saw her leave the brownstone. They had followed her here to the deserted construction site. Booth was using the binoculars to get a better look at Catherine's pensive expression.

"What is she doing just standing there?" Booth wondered, barely above a whisper.

"I don't know." Brennan replied just as quietly. "There's nothing left for her at that site."

"I'm positive that she is somehow deeply involved with this case but I just don't see how. Whatever happened here, happened before she was born." Booth shrugged.

Brennan looked over at Booth as a new idea occurred to her. "Could her mother be one of the two escapees?"

Booth looked back at her and shook his head. "No. I considered that when it became obvious to me how important this case was to her so I did some checking. Her mother had never gone missing and she was much older than those other girls when Miss Chandler was born . . . in Saint Vincent's Hospital. I checked the hospital records to verify that."

Brennan nodded as she turned her attention back to the construction site. "I . . ." She grabbed his shoulder. "Something is happening."

Booth turned his attention back to the construction site. He saw three barely visible dark figures crossing the ground toward the light. He trained the binoculars on the three newcomers as they entered the pool of light. He recognized the two women that Catherine had been to lunch with. The third person was a male that appeared to be about the same age as Catherine and the redheaded detective. "What are they doing here?" He inquired mostly to himself. He quickly picked up the long-range listening device that Hodgins had thoughtfully left in the car for them along with several other interesting spy devices. Booth and Brennan each took one of the earpieces so that they could both listen in.

~ o ~

"Diana, Dennis, I didn't know that you would be here." Catherine exclaimed.

Dennis put his arm around Jennifer's shoulder and responded. "This is a very emotional thing for Mother. There's no way Diana and I could not be here to support her." He gave her shoulder one gentle squeeze then set the briefcase he was carrying on the ground and opened it. Inside were several tea candles in white glass holders and a lighter.

Catherine liked at Dennis curiously. "Candles?"

Dennis smiled. "Mother is Catholic and we are all part of the tunnels to some extent. You know how much ceremony and candles means to those from the tunnels." He shrugged. "It just seemed appropriate."

~ o ~

Booth glanced over at Brennan and whispered. "What is 'The Tunnels'?"

Brennan looked back at him and shrugged, shaking her head. "It makes no sense."

They both turned their attention back to the edge of the excavation, their curiosity peaked even more.

~ o ~

Vincent quietly slipped over the fence into the darkened construction site. His dark hooded cloak effectively hid him within the deep shadows. Booth and Brennan hadn't even noticed him until seconds later when he stepped into the pool of light beside the others. In his hands were eight fiesta roses that he had had purchased from one of the helpers that owned a local flower shop. They were red in the center shifting through orange to yellow on the petal tips. These particular colors had always symbolized a happy life to Vincent. He also carried two pure white roses.

After a moment of quiet contemplation of the dark pit, he nodded to the others. Catherine reached into the messenger bag she was carrying and pulled out copies of the computer renderings of the eight murdered girls.

Catherine handed the first sheet to Jennifer. Dennis picked up two of the candles and lit them. Jennifer glanced at the printing at the bottom of the page then spoke softly but clearly. "For Cindy Wilson and her child, whose name is unknown except to her and God." Using the walking cane he had brought to stabilize her, She had twisted her knee two days ago and it was still bothering her, Jennifer knelt to set the page on the ground near the edge of the pit Dennis set the two lit candles onto the picture to hold it down. Vincent then kneeled and placed one of the fiesta roses across the page. Once they were again standing they all bowed their heads. Jennifer crossed herself and said a short prayer for the two departed souls.

After a moment of silence Catherine handed Jennifer another page while Dennis picked up two more candles and they began the short procedure for another of the girls that had been buried here.

From their vantage point Booth and Brennan could both feel a lump in their throats as the little ceremony continued.

Finally the unusual group came to the eighth girl. Jennifer altered the words slightly for this one. "For Rose', real name unknown, and her child, name also unknown except to her and God."

After another moment of silence Vincent began to speak. "For the two that managed to escape." He set one of the white roses down beside the others. "I know not who you are but I hope that life has been kind to you and that you are happy." He then he turned to Jennifer and handed her the other white rose. "I want to say how glad I am that you also escaped and survived. I want to thank you for giving me life and for caring about me despite the terrible circumstances surrounding how I came to be." He then leaned in and gave Jennifer a quick kiss on the cheek.

Continued in part 5

'Bones' and its characters are owned by Twentieth Century Fox.

'Beauty and the Beast' and its characters are owned by Witt-Thomas Productions and Republic Pictures.

No infringement on copyrights is intended. This story is presented merely for the enjoyment of fans. Original concepts and story elements may be used by other authors as long as appropriate credit is given.