The next morning Brennan walked up to Booth at their crime scene, trying to think how to best approach the subject. Without even looking at her, he said "What's up Bones?"

"Booth," she paused "you know you and Agent Ellis did you two ever…?"

"Yes, we did." he interrupted. "But you don't know what I was going to say," she protested. "I think it was pretty obvious."

"I might've been saying did you two ever…go line dancing," she struggled. Booth raised an eyebrow. "I don't know about line dancing," he replied "but we did date."

"That's not like you." she said. "I know, but something about Elle gets to me."

"Got."

"What?"

"Something about her got to you. Past tense." she corrected him. "Yeah, yeah, that's what I said." he told her casually. Brennan was not convinced. Booth walked over to a young man, who was up to his waist in water. "What are you doing?" he asked. "My job."

"We've got our own entomologist. So, bon voyage." he said, waving his arms while trying not to fall forwards. "Don't be so harsh Seeley." Trinity's voice crept up behind him. He sulked and turned to face her. A few metres away Brennan was bossing someone around. "You're calling me harsh!" he exclaimed, pointing towards his partner. "I was joking Seeley," she giggled "there's something about you that seems different." He shuffled past her, carefully avoiding looking at her. "Same old me"

"No. I think she's changed you."

"Who?" he laughed, but Trinity's response was interrupted by Brennan, as she tried to tug Booth away. Trinity raised her eyebrows and smiled. "I'll leave you two alone." Booth was about to protest, but the scientist was too busy spouting out facts about the crime scene. "You're not listening are you?"

"What?"

"I said it appears that our second victim was here a few months previous to the other victims' dates of death," she explained. "Right," he said, slightly confused. "Are you okay?"

"Course I am, Bones."

"But you didn't notice anything strange about what I just said?"

"Not really," he replied. She frowned at his absent-mindedness. "If this is a serial killer, then it is highly likely that they would all have the same cause of death and a pattern in the dates of death."

"You're getting good at this," he smiled, crouching beside her. "Booth, I can't believe you've only just realised I'm good at my job!"

"Not your job, mine."

"But, I don't do your job, you do."

"Not what I meant, Bones," he laughed. "So I'm going to check out the boat to see if there's any clue to where our victims were killed and you can go do your FBI thing," she instructed, stepping through the hole in the side of the wreck. "My FBI thing?" he whispered to himself.

Brennan pulled on a pair of gloves as she approached the area where the last few bodies had been found. She jumped across a large puddle and over to a wall filled completely with paintings. One by one she bagged the paintings, to reveal a plain white wall. She traced some marks with her fingers and concluded that the patterns were from finger nails scraping the wall. "How could somebody do that?" she asked herself. "Do what?" a voice interrupted her thoughts. Brennan spun round on her heels to face Trinity and suddenly she felt embarrassed for talking to herself. "Uh, I removed the pictures of the wall and there are scratches. I'm not sure, but to me it looks like they were made by finger nails."

"Ouch," the agent cringed, looking down at her own nails. Brennan smiled and reached her hand out to help Trinity across the water. "If the marks were made by finger nails, I'm presuming that the victim was dragged back by her attacker."

"Or that she was a cat."

"Cats have claws; therefore the marks would be thinner and deeper."

"Please tell me you're joking?" Trinity laughed, but the scientist felt like she had missed something. "I'll take these paintings back to the lab and see what Ange thinks," Brennan sighed, returning outside with her arms full of artwork.

"So what do you think?" Brennan asked peering over her best friend's shoulder as she inspected the paintings. "I think we've got enough bad art here to last us a lifetime as toilet paper."

"The whole wall was covered; this is only half of it."

"Why if you could afford a boat like that would you fill it with this junk?"

"Maybe they wanted to cover up the scratches," Brennan suggested. Angela slowly turned and gave her an annoyed look. "And you never thought to mention that?"

"Well, I just did, didn't I?" she protested