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Chapter 7
It was Monday, the slowest and most painful day of the week. With the events of the weekend far behind, everyone returned to normalcy. Booth was with Theo as they went to the Hoover building in order to learn about some of the things. Lily stayed with Brennan in hopes of gleaning something from the bones.
Lily was working on her first skull reconstruction under the supervision of Brennan. In front of her were all the tiny pieces of the skull and then a picture of what it should look like. Lily didn't want to do it at first because she feared making a mess. Brennan encouraged her to try and respectfully assisted her in putting the pieces in the right place.
"Dr. Brennan, this looks different," said Lily as she handed the piece of skull fragment to Brennan.
"It looks like it's from the occipital lobe." She rolled the chair to the magnifier and looked at it. "It's definitely from the occipital lobe. It looks like it is pitted."
"What could do that?" asked a now intrigued Lily.
"I'm not sure. It could be something chemical or even from someone trying gouge out the eye. But there was no other signs of any other attempt at disfigurement."
"Didn't Agent Booth say that the victim and his brother were in the drug business?"
Brennan grabbed the file from the table beside her. "Yes, nice memory. He was the eldest and the one involved in the peddling of the drug. What are you thinking about?"
"Well I remember learning in high school that meth labs create many hazardous chemicals like phosphine and hydroiodic acid."
"I suppose those types of injuries, if left on the bone it could cause those kind of markings, though there isn't much research on this type of injury."
"Oh."
"Well no, don't sound too dejected yet. The beauty in science is that we can come up with our own experiment and test the results." She walked to the end of the platform and motioned for Hodgins to come up.
"Yes Dr. Brennan?" he said once swiping his card.
"Lily proposed that some pitting marks on the skull fragments might be from the chemicals found in a common meth lab explosion."
Hodgins smiled as he listened. "I'll get Zach."
Hodgins nearly skipped off the platform as he went to collect Zach. Lily looked at him questioningly. Brennan just smiled. "They like to um, test the boundaries of science."
…
"Bones!" shouted Booth as he stepped up on the platform with Theo trailing not that far behind. "Where are…you?" he asked to thin air as he looked around confusedly for Brennan.
"Booth, we're over here!" she called from one of the rooms to the side. Lily, Brennan, Hodgins, and Zach were sitting in the room wearing goggles. Their focus was on a chemistry set up in front of them. Hodgins passed two pairs of goggles to Booth and Theo.
"You guys may want to put these on," he warned.
"Um, care to explain what's going on?" asked Booth as he donned the glasses.
"Lily noticed some marks on the skull that looked to random to be from an instrument of some sort. She hypothesized that perhaps a meth lab explosion could have caused the injuries."
Booth looked over to Lily. "Well very good. You might as well be a true Squint." Lily smiled in response.
"Okay, I'm ready," announced Hodgins. They left the room so they could watch from a safe location. "Okay, commonly in make your own meth labs you take pseudoephedrine or ephedrine as one of the starting materials. It's combined with other chemicals and besides meth you get a couple of kilograms of very nasty chemicals that could kill. What Zach and I did was try to rig it so that it simulated the release of ethanol vapors which would trigger an explosion with the heat source."
"Sounds complicated," stated Theo.
"It's pretty easy, actually," stated Zach.
"Okay, let's get the show on the highway."
"Road, Bones. Let's get the show on the road."
"Excuse me, what show?" asked Cam as she walked onto the platform.
"We're running an experiment to see what effects a chemical explosion would have on the skeletal system," explained Zach.
"I see." She looked around at the group. "Well then, I suppose you may carry on." As the words left her mouth, there came a boom as a splatter of chemicals amongst the plastic containment. "Well definitely carry on. Oh by the way, there is going to be a social gathering next Friday with the Jeffersonian and some of our donors where we will be honoring some of the accomplishments the institution has had over the past fifty years. I know these things are boring, but I expect all of you to attend." She looked at the young ones. "You two also."
The group watched as Cam retreated and then returned to watch the experiment. The material started to drip down the glass creating a streak.
Zach carefully chipped a piece of the bone and the handed it to Brennan who placed it under a microscope for comparison with the other piece. She took a peek before leaning back and looking at Lily.
"Well Lily, what do you think?"
She squinted to get a better look and nodded her head. "It looks like a match to me."
"Alright, good enough for me." Booth gestured for Theo to follow him. "Come on, we're going to try to get a search warrant."
Hodgins looked back at the mess that was back in the room. "I'm not going to have to clean this up, am I?"
Brennan, Lily and Zach all nodded and quickly dispersed into other areas. "Damn," muttered Hodgins to himself.
…
Brennan and Lily were sitting in the office when Booth appeared with Theo a few hours later.
"The house was clean," said Booth as he plopped on the couch with Theo following in suit. "We searched every nook and cranny and came up empty. No chemical waste, no makeshift lab, nada."
"What about the credit card purchases?"
"It's going to take some time to get that." Booth looked at his watch. "Shit, we're going to be late for Sweets."
"Who's Sweets?" asked Theo.
"Our therapist," replied Booth and Brennan at the same time. Lily and Theo just snickered at the adults.