I think I deserve an award - I actually updated twice in the same month! It's amazing what free time during your vacation can do for your writing.

A/N: Of course, I don't own them, although I would love to. If anyone wants to give them to me for a gift, I would gladly accept. :)

They started by going to talk to Mr. and Mrs. McPherson, Barry's last foster family – Brennan's last foster family as well.

The family lived in the same house, and old Victorian style home that sat on the edge of town. Temperance looked at the steps as Booth pulled up, remembering the night she had contemplated running away, only to be stopped by Jimmy. Whatever happened to you? She thought, wishing not for the first time that she had all the answers.

The pair climbed the steps to the house, walking on the same porch Temperance had son on with Jimmy. Booth rang the doorbell, and waited for someone to answer. After they waited for a few seconds, a little girl opened the door. She looked at Booth and Brennan, suspicion rooted deep in her dark eyes.

"Hi Sweetie," Brennan said as she kneeled down, placing her hands on the knees "What's your name?"

The girl took the braid she had been chewing out of her mouth, and then answered. "Madeline."

"That's a very pretty name, Madeline. Can you tell me where Ms. McPherson is?"

The little girl nodded slowly. "Who are you taking this time?"

Brennan smiled kindly at the girl, all the while feeling her heart break a little. She remembered those days, always wondering which of her friends was going to leave when the social workers came around. "We're not social workers, Madeline. My name is Temperance Brennan, and this is my friend. His name is Seeley Booth. We work for the FBI – have you ever heard of it?"

Madeline shook her head, looking a little more trusting after finding out who they were. "No."

"Well, it's a place where people try to solve mysteries and crimes. And a long time ago, when I lived here, a crime was committed."

"Like someone stole something?"

"Kind of, " Brennan replied, still using a very gentle tone. "And to figure out who the bad guy is, we have to talk to Ms. McPherson, because she can help us. Do you understand?"

Madeline nodded, and opened the door wider, thus allowing the partners to come inside. "Mary!" Madeline – who Brennan deduced could be no more than five years old – yelled loudly. The shout echoed through the large house, followed closely by a matching shout of "Coming!"

The voice sounded exactly the same as she remembered, quite specifically when it was used to yell at her. Mary McPherson was very strict, but still a good guardian. She never really showed her affection plainly, but Brennan always knew that she cared about the kids she took in, and didn't just do it for the money; even if sometimes her way of showing it was through her yelling.

Then suddenly, she was running down the stairs, obviously thinking there was some new emergency to take care of. Much like her voice, Mary's appearance had not changed much, except for the grey hair. "What's going…" She trailed off, as she noticed Brennan and Booth for the first time.

Booth flashed his badge. "FBI, ma'am. My name is Special Agent Seeley Booth, and this is my partner –"

"Temperance Brennan." Mary finished for him. "Yes I know. You haven't changed a bit, Tempe." She remarked, unconsciously reverting back to the Temperance's old nickname.

"Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you, Mary." Brennan offered a small grin. "How are you? I see you're still housing kids."

Mary looked behind her, to the backyard, where three children were playing. "It's all that keeps me going sometimes."

Booth cleared his throat, breaking up the reunion, and Temperance nodded for Booth to start. "Mary, we have some questions for you and your husband…"

"Phil. But he's my ex-husband. We divorced fourteen years ago, and he doesn't live here anymore." Mary looked around, and saw that Madeline was still in the room, hiding in a corner; but still listening quite intently. "Please, let's take this elsewhere." She led them into the living room, away from little ears, and got to the point. "What is this about, Agent Booth?"

"We recently discovered the remains of a child in Arlington a few weeks ago. The remains were identified to be Barry Finkel. He was one of your foster children."

It wasn't a question, more of a statement. "Yes," Mary replied, her voice sounding distant, as if she was trying to place exactly who Barry was. She looked back up and the agent and the anthropologist as she finally remembered him. "He stayed her for almost a year, if I recall correctly. Yes, I remember him. He was quite petite, with red hair – and he was here with you, Temperance."

Brennan nodded in agreement, as Booth asked his next question. "Did Barry have any particular problems with any of the other children?"

At this, Mary laughed. "Of course! As you can tell from his file – which I'm sure you've read – Barry wasn't well liked by any of his peers, and a few of his previous foster parents. He was a bit of a tattle-tale, which never endeared him to the other kids, because they felt they couldn't trust him. I think he mostly did it for attention; goodness knows foster child are starved for attention, even at the best homes. But he didn't really have large problems with any of the children – with the exception of James Tiller."

"Jimmy?" Brennan sat forward, her eyes bright with curiosity. "I don't remember Barry and Jimmy fighting much."

"It started before you got here," Mary said. "They would have all-out brawls, not necessarily always started by Barry. Things settled down when Steven James came here. He was a cute little boy, and was a buffer between Barry and James – mostly because there was finally another boy their age around. That's probably why you don't remember them fighting much – Steven was here with you also, and like I said, they didn't fight as much then. But Steven was adopted after a few months, and then things got bad again. Come to think of it," Mary furrowed her brow, obviously trying to remember something important, "they boys had a very big fight the day before Barry left."

"Barry made a notation on his pad. "Barry left? Just like that? He didn't get placed in a new home?"

Mary shook her head. "Barry ran away. A note was found in his room, saying that he had decided to leave and start living his own life. I figured he couldn't get very far, seeing as he was only ten, but he was never found in town."

"I take it you called the cops?" Booth asked.

"Of course!" Mary replied, her anger flaring just a little at the insinuation that she didn't take proper care of her foster kids. "I run a good home, and make sure that all my kids are safe. I was worried sick about Barry, so after I searched around the house for him, I called the police. They searched for over a week, but eventually gave up. They wrote it off as a foster child simply running away. It does happen quite often, you know."

"Thank you, Ms. McPherson. Do you know of any way that we could get in contact with your ex-husband?"

Mary shook her head. "I haven't talked to Phil since the divorce. I think he moved out west, but I'm not sure."

"Can I ask why you divorced?" Brennan asked, knowing that it was probably too personal of question, but wanting answers anyway. And besides, they'd always seemed like such a loving couple.

But Mary didn't seem to mind answering the question, personal or not. She gave a sad smile and was about to respond, when Booth's phone rang. He excused himself, and then Mary answered. "We had been growing apart for a long time, and had simply held it together for the children. After Barry left, things just deteriorated further. He accused me of not keeping a good enough eye on the children, especially Barry; whom we both knew had problems. And he wasn't exactly a joy to live with. We fought constantly – not in front of the children, of course – and things just fell apart at the seams. I think he was mostly afraid of losing the children, and took that fear out on me; losing Barry just made that fear more of a reality. Eventually, things reached a breaking point, and Phil asked for a divorce."

"Oh." She didn't know exactly what to say; so settled for, "I'm very sorry." A slightly awkward silence descended until one of Mary's foster children came into the room crying.

"I fell and hurt my head!" The young boy sobbed, and Mary immediately went to comfort him.

"I have to take care of him," Mary said to Temperance over her shoulder. "You can see yourself out?" Brennan nodded, gave the woman a smile, and went to find Booth.

Temperance's partner was leaning against their rented car, just finishing his call. "Okay, thanks." He flipped his phone shut, and then opened the door for his Bones. "That was my tech, O'Leary, at the bureau. He said that they finally tracked down the previous owner of the house – or rather, the son of him. The guy that owned it was Martin Davis, and he owned the house from 1973 to 2000, but died in 1991. The house sat empty for those nine years, because it wasn't a real great neighborhood and the kids couldn't sell it. Finally, the son renovated it, and the family we met at the crime scene bought it in 2001."

"But Hodgins established the body had most likely been reburied in 1993."

"Well, then somebody probably squatted in it, and brought the body with them so it wouldn't be found. O'Leary said when he called the son, the kid said he didn't stop by the house hardly at all during the time it was empty; so he had no idea if someone was living in it. He did say that the son mentioned finding some food rappers there one time, but didn't think anything of it."

Brennan sighed. "It's a dead end."

Booth agreed, but instead of saying so, just took her hand and squeezed it. "Don't worry Bones, we'll catch the guy. Let's go talk to Barry's social worker to see if they know anything else about the kid."

It turned out that Barry's social worker had retired six years ago, and all his cases – past and present – had been given over to another social worker, who had quit eighteen months ago. Those cases were than given to someone else, but the secretary at CPS seemed either loathe or unable to figure out whom it was.

"Let's see," the woman helping Booth and Brennan mused. "Julien Kramer was the orginal social worker for Barry Finkel. When he retired all his case files went to Shirley Douglas. When Ms. Douglas quit, the cases went to…" She typed something slowly into the computer, indicating that she really was unable to find the information. Finally she found what she was looking for. "Ah, here we go. It looks like the cases finally ended up being given to Joshua Avery."

Booth smiled kindly at the woman, trying to hide his impatience. "Any chance Mr. Avery is working today?"

"I can call up to his office to see if he's in." The assistant grabbed her phone, dialed a few numbers, and had a quick conversation. "He said he'd be down in a few minutes. Is there anything else I can do for you, Special Agent Booth?" She asked, her tone flirtatious; obviously unaware that her inability to do anything quickly was driving Booth insane.

But annoyed or not, Booth had one more thing to ask her. "Yes there is," Booth opened his notepad. "Can you tell me what happened to Steven James? He was at the same home with Barry. I know that I technically need a warrant to see someone's information, but I thought maybe you could just help me." He knew it was a long shot, but he figured he would play on her obvious attraction to him.

"Well, just this once." The woman typed the name into the computer. "Steven James also had Mr. Kramer for a social worker." Her eyes scanned the computer screen. "He was adopted in 1992 by the Anderson family." She then frowned. "But a few months after the adoption, the whole family was killed in a car accident. Very tragic." She turned her attention back to Booth and Brennan, but her eyes stayed glued to Booth. "Is that all?"

Brennan answered this time. "No, we'll wait for Mr. Avery over there." She indicated some chairs across the lobby.

The pair had just said down, when a man walked into the lobby. He spotted Seeley and Temperance, and made his way toward them. "Hi, I'm Joshua Avery. Carly," Avery nodded toward the receptionist, "said that you needed to…" He stopped as he finally recognized Temperance, apparently stunned to see a celebrity.

But he wasn't quite as stunned as Brennan. For although he was older, Brennan recognized him right away – name change and all.

"Jimmy?"

Ah, cliffhangers! Don't you love them? Anyway, I hope that the chapter was good; and PLEASE don't forget to review because they make me so happy. :)

Oh, and I have the next chapter written out, so I'll have it up in the next few days (or when I can next get internet connection).

Charlotte