{Okay, people, I am SO sorry for the delay in getting this one up!! The holiday weekend was pretty busy for me and it kind of threw off my momentum with this story. Anyway I'm back in it and hopefully I'll get the next chapter up tonight! In the meantime, here's this one. Mind you, if you're following this story for the cute/fluffy moments this may not be your favorite chapter, but trust me, you're going to LOVE the next one. This is some more wind-up for our more dramatic scenes coming up later.}
"Hey, Bones, come on, let's go." Booth strode into her office, snapping down the screen of her laptop on which she was typing.
"Booth!" she started to protest, but stopped when she saw him. Her nose wrinkled. "Why are you dressed like a homeless man?"
And he was. He had on a very grungy pair of worn out jeans, stained and soiled and smelly. Likewise on top he had a tattered shirt covered by an oversized jacket that looked as if it needed to be washed three months ago. He wore a hole-riddled baseball cap and hadn't shaved this morning so a dark layer of stubble shadowed his jaw. He smelled ripe, and she rolled her chair away from him to escape the assault to her senses.
"Don't you even remember our conversation this morning?" he said impatiently. "I went under cover to find Patrick Ellman."
She remembered. She had tried to insist on coming with him – going under cover was irresistibly interesting. For reasons she did not comprehend, he had absolutely refused. Now, seeing him dressed like that, surrounded with stink, she was glad she hadn't gone. "Did it work?" she asked skeptically.
"Yeah. That's why we need to go. We found Patrick, I'm going in to question him now."
"Looking like that? Booth, he's not going to tell you anything if he can't even breathe through his nose." She wasn't too eager to ride next to him in his car either, if she were being honest.
He didn't miss a beat. "I've got a suit to change into at the Hoover. Do you want to be there when I question him or not?"
"Yes, of course I do, but-,"
He cut her off by grabbing her hand and pulling her out from behind her desk. "Then let's go," he urged.
She pulled her hand away almost immediately, her skin crawling at the thought of touching anything that smelled so awful. "Can we ride with the windows down?"
He laughed mirthlessly. "You can stand the smell of rotting bodies, but not of clothes that haven't seen the inside of a washing machine for several months?"
"I hope it's just the clothes." She shot him a look. "I don't know where you got those but it's pretty disgusting that you're wearing them. A small percentage of human perspiration is urine, you know."
"Okay, that's great, Bones," he sighed sarcastically, leading her out into the lab. "Aren't there pheromones in sweat too? Does that mean you're secretly attracted to the smell?"
She awarded his boyish grin with a look that plainly said she thought he was out of his mind. "How would you know that?"
"Come on, I know things. You always seem so surprised…"
"Well, perhaps in small, tolerable doses those pheromones might result in attraction, but your clothes seem to have passed that point long ago. Besides, it's not your smell, it's the smell of whoever those really belong to."
He wondered idly if she could distinguish between his scent and the scent of other men. It was a nice thought, but he had his doubts.
"Who are you, and why are you kidnapping my best friend?" Angela joked when she saw them from her office.
"Very funny," Booth replied, but neither of them stopped to talk. He was in a hurry. They'd bought a little time for him to come get Brennan when they found Patrick. He was wired on multiple substances, so they had him on a saline drip to try sobering him up. Still, they didn't have all the time in the world before he got too tired to function. Apparently he'd been up for three weeks.
Their victory this morning had been due largely to Hodgins. He'd gone to the lab extremely early, frustrated as everyone else by the lack of progress made the day before. In his determination to find something, he discovered particulates on Lloyd Ellman specific to one specific drug-riddled neighborhood. He called Booth, whose bad mood at being woken so early was quickly turned to appreciation.
"Where did you find him?" Brennan asked when they pulled out of the underground lot.
"In a broken down car with a hooker. He's pretty wasted." Booth couldn't forget the haunted, manic look in the kid's eye. It was such a dark, tormented expression.
She glanced at him. "Does he know about his brother?"
"I think so. Look, Bones, when we get in there let me lead, okay?"
"Wh-? Don't I always?" She thought back to what Dr. Wyatt had said long ago, that the lab was her domain, and he deferred to her there, while the interrogation room was his, and she deferred to him. Why did he think today would be any different?
"Yeah, but I mean just be careful. This guy, he's really unstable. Heavy drug use like the Ellman boys have known really messes up your mind. We have to proceed with caution, you got it?" He looked over at her to make sure she understood.
She met his gaze with those honest, truthful eyes. "Yes."
He looked away again quickly, focusing on the road. She, however, didn't look away. Instead, a small frown tipped her mouth and her brow furrowed a little. "Can I ask you a question?"
"What is it, Bones?"
"Why wouldn't you let me come with you this morning?"
He laughed, surprised by the question. After all her complaints about the smell of his clothes and the talk of urine-filled sweat, she still wished she could have come? "Why does it matter?"
"Well because I want to know!" She said rather defensively. "Is it because you didn't want me there? Or maybe you thought it would be dangerous? If that's it I resent your reasoning – I'm perfectly capable of protecting myself, you know."
"Says the woman who got herself buried alive," he muttered.
"You were too," she fired back. "Perhaps not buried in the ground, but almost buried at sea."
"Look," he sighed, trying to access the reservoir of patience he had stored especially for her. "I didn't want you coming along this morning because let's face it, you're terrible at acting."
"I am not!" she cried.
"And," he continued. "Because you're too pretty to pass off as a street hawker. Okay? Face it, you couldn't have pulled off pretending to be an addict."
She thought about this for a moment, trying to decide if she was flattered he called her pretty, or annoyed he didn't think she could act. "I could have pretended to be a prostitute."
He choked, everything inside him rejecting the thought. "No, no way, not ever."
"Why?" she demanded.
Booth grit his teeth, fighting back the image of her dressed in skank heels and an all-too-revealing dress, one that plunged down her creamy skin to remind him of that sweet glimpse of her. He pictured her wandering around the neighborhood he would spend the rest of the day trying to forget. "Because the people in that place are creeps, okay? I don't want them looking at you like you're a piece of property for sale."
"Well, I kind of am property," she noted in a deceptively reasonable tone. "Or at least that's how I get treated sometimes."
"What are you talking about now?" His patience was wearing thin.
"Well the FBI and the Jeffersonian treat me like I'm a valuable piece of equipment to be rented out and shipped around wherever there are skeletal remains. After I perform, I get paid for my services. The comparison is not so farfetched."
"Alright, you know what? This conversation is over." He slid on his sunglasses, pushing the accelerator a little faster. "You're not property, you're not a hooker, and nobody owns you. Let's just focus on the case. We good?"
"Fine," she sighed. "I don't know why topics like this always make you uncomfortable."
"Focus," he reminded her with a slight edge to his voice. If she were going to insist on topics like this, he was going to have to learn to drive a little faster.
__
Sober, they quickly realized, did not necessarily mean better. The moment they got into the room, Booth knew he would have to keep a wary eye on their suspect.
Patrick sat at the table, hands clenched together, his jaw tight, his eyes burning with rage. He looked like a man ready to rend the world in two. Booth suddenly wished he'd made his partner stay behind the mirrored glass.
"Oh good, here comes the inquisition squad," hissed Patrick with particular venom. "What torture can they inflict for my drug usage?"
"We're not here about that, Patrick," said Booth, sitting in one of the seats across from him. Brennan sat silently beside him.
Patrick glared at the metallic surface of the table. "Then why are you here?"
"Where's your brother at?"
He flinched as if he'd been physically struck. "I don't know." It was mumbled, almost incoherent.
Brennan glanced at Booth before speaking. "You don't know, or you don't want to say?"
"I don't know," snarled the addict. "You tell me. You found him or something?"
"Mr. Ellman, when was the last time you saw your brother?" asked Booth.
His knuckles were white with the force exerted to hold his hands together. He didn't look up at them. When he spoke, however, his voice was soft and pained. "Thirty four days, sixteen hours ago."
Brennan's brow lifted in mild surprise. "That is very specific."
"Yeah well, my brother and I were close. Never a day apart." His quiet voice grew even softer. There was a kind of deep, unspeakable pain in his eyes. Even to Brennan, who was not good at reading people, it was clear he would probably never recover losing his lifetime friend.
"What happened that day, Patrick?" Booth folded his hands together, his face solemn. "Why did Lloyd go missing?"
The suspect's grieved expression became resigned. "We went to talk to some guy, a trustee for my grandfather's money. The guy wouldn't give us a dime so we went back to the streets kind of mad. Got baked, nothing hard core. Mellow day for us. We called Jaynie and had some words until she hung up on us. The chick was super pissed. Lloyd said he was going to go talk to her face to face. He didn't come back. I called Jaynie that night, wanting to know where he went. She said she hadn't seen him." He made a sound of disgust. "I didn't buy it but by then I was in no condition to go confront her."
"There is a significant amount of that story missing," said Brennan, frowning with disapproval.
Booth agreed. "Yeah, okay, start at the beginning. Why'd you go see your grandfather's trustee?"
"To get our inheritance, idiots. Isn't it supposed to be your job to know that kind of stuff? Or do you just have this job for the sexy partners?" The look he gave Brennan was not a complimentary one, but rather a hateful, withering kind of look.
"Hey," growled Booth, leaning forward to draw attention away from his partner. "Focus. Who is Jaynie?"
"My lying, thieving cousin." Now the rage really began to show. His hands popped apart with a crack and he grabbed the edge of the table for support, the muscles in his jaw flexing.
"You should probably calm down," Brennan advised darkly. "Getting angry wont help your situation."
He stood up quickly and began to pace back and forth. He looked like a caged predator, restless, dangerous. Booth stood too, monitoring every movement. His senses were on high alert, and as he rested his hands on the table in front of him he coiled his muscles like a spring. At the slightest movement towards his partner, he'd take this agitated addict down.
"I'm angry," he said loudly, "because you guys have got me in here when that… that whore runs around like a princess when she probably killed my brother!"
"We never said anything about your brother being dead," said Brennan, watching him with a kind of strange fascination.
He snorted, throwing her another condescending glare. "If he were alive, you wouldn't be involved, would you?"
"Alright, Patrick, just simmer down there." Booth didn't take his own advice. He didn't allow himself to relax for a single second. "We found record of your brother owning a small handgun, but it wasn't on him by the time we got there. Do you know where it is?"
"No," he replied immediately. "Lloyd was stupid to carry that thing around. Gives people the wrong idea, gets us in trouble with cops and gangs. It obviously didn't do much for protection either, did it? I never touched the thing. I saw what it did to him. When he had it in hand, he got reckless."
Brennan was momentarily drawn away from the interrogation when she began to notice Booth's behavior. It was oddly responsive to Patrick's every movement. He shifted imperceptibly when the suspect changed his direction, his eyes tracked him like a hunter. His shoulders were rolled forward, his back tight; his very well toned body was made to look even larger and more powerful by his positioning.
Patrick, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. His shoulders were hunched too, but not in a threatening way. Rather, they were hunched as would someone who is expecting a blow, a defensive kind of stance of someone clearly the inferior. He avoided eye contact with Booth, obviously resentful of his presence but cowed nonetheless. He raged vocally, but he was probably very intimidated by the agent.
It was a very literal display of an alpha male asserting himself. The show was so primitive, so obvious, it made her smile just a little to herself. Booth was clearly the alpha here, and Patrick was the wary, yet reluctantly submissive omega. But that didn't mean the danger was gone. Sometimes, if pressed to desperation, she knew that an omega could lash out wildly in a last-ditch effort to overthrow the alpha. This omega did not like being the underling here.
Sometimes she found anthropology still alive and well in her day to day, and it made her feel comforted. Besides, she would secretly admit to herself that she liked feeling the safety of having a dominant, strong male as her partner.
"What is your cousin's name, Patrick?" Booth continued.
The addict calmed down a degree. He'd stopped pacing but he still trembled with anger and agitation. Maybe it was because he was actually sober for once. "Jaynie Lichter. She owns a coffee shop, The Corner Coffee. You'll always find her there. The slut's a workaholic."
"Great, okay. Well, Patrick, luckily for us you aren't going anywhere. We're going to have to detain you for twenty four hours."
"What?" cried the suspect, his eyes bulging. "Why? I didn't do anything!"
"Yeah, well we can't have you running away once you hit the streets again, can we?"
"You can't keep me here!" he roared, lunging forward recklessly.
Booth had him down pinned to the table in one swift movement. "You can't assault a federal agent, Patrick. That's going to cost you."
Brennan sat calmly in her seat, apparently only slightly surprised to find Patrick Ellman suddenly smashed into the table only inches away from her. "Did you know he was going to attack you?" she asked curiously as Booth snapped on a set of cuffs.
He glanced at her, keeping the man's face pressed against the cold table. "He's coming off some crazy stuff, so he's a little cranky right now. I figured it was only a matter of time until something set him off."
"Very interesting," she admitted. Then, leaning down so her face was nearer to the suspect's, she said, "Mr. Ellman, we're going to find your cousin and question her, but you should know that we already caught your brother's murderer. Now we're just trying to figure out who murdered him. You shouldn't try to attack us. It makes you look more guilty."
Patrick groaned into the metallic surface. It sounded like a half-sob. "I didn't kill anyone."
"Maybe you didn't, maybe you did." Booth stood him up again and led him out of the room into the arms of the agents waiting to take him in to custody.
The moment Patrick was gone, Brennan turned to him sharply, excitement in her eyes. "Booth! Did you pay attention to the coffee shop he named?"
"It was the shop where the bodies were at. Come on Bones, we've got to go talk to Miss Lichter."
___
"Angela says the photograph is almost done," Brennan announced, clicking her phone shut as they rounded the corner toward the coffee shop. "We're one step closer to finding out Victim Two's identity."
"That's good," replied her partner. "What about the others?"
"Hodgins analyzed the contents of the dirt beneath the victims and compared it to the particulates ground into the back of Lloyd Ellman's skull. While Lloyd and the second victim most certainly lay behind that dumpster the entire time they decomposed, that is not necessarily where they died. Lloyd, at least, was killed somewhere else and dragged behind the dumpster. It's possible that the scenario is the same with the second victim."
"Dragged?" He regretted the question the moment it was out. A sort of wariness immediately followed, knowing full well he didn't particularly care about how she knew got to that conclusion.
"Yes. There were stress fractures in his right elbow and shoulder, and micro-fractures along some of his ribs. The damage to the back of his clothing was consistent with dragging, as was the bruising on the back of his skull."
"But the second guy…?"
Brennan unbuckled as they pulled up. "Wendell is still examining him, but judging from my initial findings I doubt he will discover very many similar injuries. I do not think he was dragged."
"So what, the mystery person carried the second victim and dragged Lloyd to the spot behind the dumpster?" Booth's voice betrayed his skepticism. They'd seen a lot of murders, and he seriously doubted anyone would be stupid enough to be seen lugging around two dead men, trying to stuff them behind a dumpster – especially if that person were Jaynie Lichter, who Patrick seemed to think it was.
"I don't know that," she said, shooting him a glance that clearly indicated he ought to know better.
The Corner Coffee looked quite different from the day before. It still wasn't open for business, but the garrison of police cruisers and crime scene investigators were utterly gone. The back would still be taped off, but out in front it looked normal, albeit very quiet.
They found the door unlocked, despite the 'Closed' sign hanging on it. A tiny bell tinkled overhead when they walked in. The place was comfortably lit, mostly from the windows outside. There was the soothing smell of quality coffee brewing, indicating that there was indeed someone here.
"We're closed!" called a lilting voice from a room behind the counter.
"Ms. Lichter?" Booth replied, glancing around at the lounge-like décor.
The woman emerged from the back, carrying a heavy burlap sack. She was a small thing, with short blond hair that stuck out in a cute, pixie-like way. There was a pink bow fastened to one side, and she had a youthful, adorable kind of face that inspired friendship on the first meeting.
"Just a moment," she chirped, heaving her considerable load over to some shelves. It looked as it the bag might tip her backwards, but she managed to throw the momentum forward and successfully set it down.
Then, dusting her hands off, she turned around to face them. Her blue eyes were bright with interest. "Sorry about that," she said a little breathlessly.
"That looked very heavy for a woman of your size," replied Brennan.
Jaynie Lichter grinned. "It was heavy, even probably for a woman of your size."
It was true. Though Brennan was probably a good head taller than the petite woman, she didn't have much upper body strength to suggest her height would give her any more of an advantage. Brennan tipped her head in silent acknowledgement.
"Are you Ms. Lichter?" Booth asked, approaching the counter.
She glanced at him, then paused for a longer look, as if seizing him up. "Yes," she concluded after a moment. "That's me. May I ask who you two are?"
"I'm FBI Special Agent Seely Booth, this is my partner Dr. Temperence Brennan," he replied quickly, flashing his badge. "Mind if we ask you a few questions?"
"Is this about those bodies found behind the dumpsters? Not at all. I was wondering if I was going to get questioned about this. It is my shop, after all. Please, have a seat. Can I get you anything to drink?"
"Not for me, thank you." Brennan chose a stool at the counter next to Booth.
Booth accepted a hot cup from her. He glanced again at the burlap sack. "Don't you have anyone to help you with those bags?"
She flashed an amused look. "Is this part of your investigation?"
Brennan spoke for Booth before he had a chance. "No, he's just trying to make conversation before we question you."
This honest reply caught the girl off guard and she laughed. It was a pretty, musical sound. "Alright. Well then yes, usually I do have someone. My business partner, Landon White, helps me carry heavy supplies like that up from the storage room. He's been gone visiting his sister's new baby in Colorado for a while though. It's helping me build muscle, I guess."
"How long have you had this shop?" asked Booth, sipping at his coffee.
She pulled her own stool up to her side of the counter, sitting down on it in one fluid motion. "Landon and I started it about three years ago. It started out as something I could do to supplement my income, so I could have more time to write."
"I'm a writer too," said Brennan with interest. "Have you ever published anything?"
"Heavens no," laughed Jaynie. "This shop became my love and eventually writing fell to the wayside."
Booth looked up from his coffee, his gaze trained on her carefully. Now it was time for the real questions. "Miss Lichter-."
"Jaynie, please," she insisted.
"Can you tell us about the situation going on right now regarding your grandfather's trust?"
She was startled. "What? I thought this was about the bodies…"
"The trust fund," Booth insisted quietly.
She blinked a few times, her brilliant blue eyes dropping to her hands. "My grandfather was an extremely wealthy man. He knew how to play the stocks, had a lot of investments. He also knew the value of hard work, and he admired traits like honor and integrity in others. He was so proud of me the day I opened this shop. He told me I was going places. You know, my grandfather was a very honest man – sometimes too honest, and unashamed about it. He told me I was his favorite grandchild, because I had a good work ethic."
"I bet that made your cousins, Patrick and Lloyd, pretty mad," remarked Brennan, her brow lifting.
"Yes," she sighed. "Very mad. When Grandpa passed away three months ago, he left me ninety-percent of his funds, as well as all his assets. My cousins, meanwhile, were always a disappointment to him. He hated their drug habits and felt disrespected every time they spoke to him. He left them each one percent. The rest was left to our parents. "
"How much money are we talking here?" pressed Booth.
She flushed a little, the warm color spreading over her cheeks rapidly. "Please, Agent Booth, what does this have to do with anything?"
Booth knew, by this point, that there was no way this woman could have killed their second victim. The instincts he relied on so heavily, the ones that drove Brennan crazy, told him this girl was not capable of killing anyone. So he didn't feel any hesitation in relenting and giving her the reason for their line of questioning. "We've identified one of the bodies found behind the dumpster. It's your cousin, Lloyd Ellman."
Jaynie sucked in air sharply, gripping the counter top to steady herself. Pain flashed over her expressive face. "Lloyd?" she asked in a tiny voice.
Brennan, of course, had not picked up on Booth's impression of the girl. While she too was affected by Jaynie's natural charm, she didn't necessarily rule her out as a suspect. "On the day that Lloyd was murdered, he was supposed to come talk to you."
"Murdered?" she gasped further, a certain kind of horror transfixing her. "Murdered behind my shop? But why?"
"We were hoping you could tell us," said Booth. "Did you ever speak to Lloyd that day?"
Her little hands shook as she poured herself a cup of coffee. She didn't add anything to it. "The last time I spoke to Lloyd was on the phone, a little over a month ago. He and Patrick had just gone to the trustee. In his will, my grandfather stipulated that the boys couldn't have their money until they both had steady jobs and could pass multiple drug tests proving they were clean. I guess Pat and Lloyd didn't know this, because when they called me that day they were livid. They said a lot of terrible things. I got angry with them. I said some things I shouldn't have – I was just so sick of it, you know? When we were kids they would torment me because I was Grandpa's favorite. They've harassed me my whole life. I don't necessarily agree with Grandpa's favoritism, but it's not my fault they screwed up so bad he didn't want to leave them a penny!" Her voice had begun to shake by the end. "I said some awful things that day on the phone, and they got even angrier. Eventually I just hung up on them."
"Lloyd said he was coming over here to talk to you after that phone call." Booth spoke quietly. "You never saw him that day?"
"No," she said truthfully. "He never came over."
Brennan watched her closely, though she didn't know what sort of facial cues she was supposed to be looking for. "When you came in the next morning, did you notice anything unusual? We believe Lloyd was killed sometime after you had closed for the day."
"No," she said. "When I came in, everything was normal. The back door was even locked."
"Did anyone else know about your argument with Lloyd and Patrick?" asked Booth.
She swallowed, nodding quickly. "I called my dad. I knew there wasn't anything he could do, I just needed to talk to someone, and I'm very close to my dad. My partner Landon also knew. He was here with me when the call came through."
Booth and Brennan glanced at one another. Jaynie caught it and said quickly, desperately, "Wait, don't jump to conclusions. Landon didn't kill Lloyd. He couldn't kill anyone. Besides, you said it happened at night. He left on a flight for Colorado that afternoon. He would have been gone by then."
"Are you and he in a relationship?" Brennan asked carefully.
"Are you?" she fired back at them quickly. Her expression was instantly contrite, avoiding the sudden hardness that had come into the anthropologist's gaze. "I'm sorry. It's just… everyone always assumed that we were. We were just business partners. Friends too, but partners first."
Booth pushed his empty cup away, standing and straightening out his jacket. "Was he going to benefit in any way from the money left to you by your grandfather?"
Jaynie shook her head. "No. I haven't touched any of it, and I'm not going to. The shop provides well enough for me. His assets will supply enough extra income I wont ever need to touch the rest. The only way Landon might have benefited is if I used any of it to improve the shop."
Brennan stood too. They had what they needed. Booth thanked her and paid her for the coffee. They were just about to leave when she stopped them.
"Agent Booth, Dr. Brennan. There were two bodies found back there… but you only talked about Lloyd. Was the second one… was… was it Patrick?"
The partners exchanged another glance. Finally Brennan spoke. "No. We have spoken to Patrick. He's alive and very upset about his brother. We have not yet identified the second man, but we do know that he killed Lloyd."
"Thank you," she whispered, her eyes closing to the pain of it.
"We'll contact you again," Booth promised, leading his partner out of the shop.
___
Hodgins was the first to see the partners coming into the lab. A thrill shot through him at the look on his boss's face. Wendell was next to him, and when he looked up to see Brennan and Booth striding across the lab with specific purpose in their step, he was confused.
"What's going on?"
"I know that look," said Hodgins eagerly, jumping up from his computer. "They've made a discovery. I think she knows who the second victim is."
He and Wendell hurried after them, not wanting to miss a second of this. Brennan's face was hard, but her clear eyes had the light of knowledge in them. These were the moments they all savored the most. Booth was hard on her heels, his face set in calm determination. He knew her answer, and he agreed with it.
Cam saw the group trooping through the lab, and like Hodgins she recognized that a significant advancement in the case had been made. She hurried out of her office to join them.
When Angela turned around, she was startled to see Brennan and Booth, flanked by the rest of the team, flooding into her office. "Is this an intervention?" she laughed.
"Ange, can we see the picture?" Brennan asked, a small, excited smile breaking through her carefully set face.
"Yeah, it just finished rendering." She turned back to her computer, fingering her tablet in deft, swift movements.
Cam came around the other side of Hodgins, who was standing next to Brennan. "What's this about?"
"We know who the second victim is," Booth explained evenly.
The picture popped up on the screen. It was still slightly blurred, but the image was very visible. Everyone stared at it, expecting some kind of revelation. To Brennan and Booth, however, it was plain as day.
"Jaynie Lichter," breathed Booth.
"And that will definitely turn out to be her business partner, Landon," concluded Brennan.
It was a photograph of the tiny, sprite-like girl, laughing in front of a newly opened Corner Coffee. Around her waist was the arm of a tall, very strong, very handsome man with dark hair and a heart-melting smile. He was looking at her and grinning vaguely, as if he'd turned to watch her laugh just as the camera snapped.
"Angela…" said Hodgins, his eyes wide. "Your sketch…"
"I know," she sighed. She went to grab her sketchbook and flipped to the drawing she'd done the day before. It was a dead ringer for Landon, right down to the captivating eyes. "It's him."
"That is our second victim?" said Cam. "He doesn't look much like a cold-hearted killer who would beat a senseless addict to death."
"The senseless addict was threatening his partner," explained Booth in a low voice.
Angela glanced at Hodgins, her eyes growing wide. A chill raced down her spine and a kind of pain wrenched in her heart. "This is sadder than I thought," she whispered.
Hodgins remembered what she'd said about Avalon. This case would change their lives? He still didn't see how. Sure, it was sad, but nothing crazy out of the ordinary yet. "He died protecting her?"
"But who shot him?" asked Wendell.
"And why did Jaynie think he was in Colorado?" Booth wondered aloud, his brow clouding with puzzlement. "Wouldn't his sister have called when Landon never showed up?"
Brennan turned to face him. "I think you need to contact his sister."
"Man, they look so happy," said Angela sadly.
Wendell slipped to her side, gently intertwining his fingers with hers and giving them a squeeze.
"Are you going to notify Jaynie Lichter?" Cam asked Booth and Brennan.
They looked at her, and then at each other, and then at the photograph. It was difficult to think of seeing that lovely girl again, just to give her the further bad news that her business partner was dead and had killed her cousin.
"Maybe we should wait until we have something more substantial to tell her," suggested Brennan.
Booth saw the dread in her face. She didn't relish the idea of delivering that news at all, and neither did he. There was something deeply resonating about the way this story was shaping up. He wanted to flee. The impulse here was to run, to escape far and away from this case before the investigation led them to anymore truths. Obviously, he couldn't do that. Instead, he could simply agree with her and avoid the hard parts temporarily.
"Well then you go stare at the bones until they tell you the story while I contact Landon's sister," he sighed. "We're going to have to tell her sooner or later."
"I'd prefer later," she admitted. Then, turning abruptly, she said, "Mr. Bray. We should return to the remains."
Wendell jumped, yanking his hand away from Angela, startled. "Yes, Dr. Brennan. I found some anomalies I'd like your opinion on." He cleared his throat and hurried out of the office. Brennan gave Booth a parting glance and followed him.
Cam took Booth by the arm and led him away from Angela and Hodgins. She lowered her voice and he had to lean in to hear her. "Are you okay with this case?" she asked knowingly.
"What are you talking about, Cam?" His voice was flat.
She glanced back at the other two, making sure they were still out of ear shot. "You know what I mean, Seely. I mean your little secret. It doesn't take a genius like Dr. Brennan to realize where this case is headed. Different kind of partners, maybe, but partners nonetheless. He died protecting her…? Is this case going to be a problem for you? I can request Agent Perota if you're uncomfortable."
"Come on," Booth said with disgust. "Perota? No. I'm not some young teenage who can't handle his own emotions, Camille. I'm fine. It's just a case."
But she didn't seem very convinced. Before she could say anything else, he reminded her about the call he needed to make a stalked away rather impatiently.
Meanwhile Angela was still staring at the picture, her face shadowed with sorrow. "I think they loved each other."
Hodgins glanced briefly at the screen, then back to her. "Come on, Angela, you can't tell that from a photo. They were business partners."
"Yes, I can." She turned to him, grinning a little. "Don't you remember any of our pictures? People could tell."
"Yeah, but, come on Angie, that was us," he chuckled, inching closer to her. "We weren't ashamed to admit it. These two…if they are in love, as you say, then they'd be trying to hide it from each other. Maybe even themselves."
"Yeah but look," she replied, indicating at the screen. "He slipped. He clearly loves her in that picture. And she's probably laughing at something he said."
Hodgins didn't look at the screen. His gaze was locked with hers. "Pure conjecture."
"I'm all about conjecture, baby," she laughed.
They were very close now, only inches apart. If either of them had dared, they need only lean in a tiny bit to kiss the other. Instead, they realized their proximity and immediately separated. Hodgins cleared his throat, trying not to grin too widely.
"I'm going to go through both victims' clothing," he said with a small chuckle.
She nodded, turning back to the screen. "You do that." Her heart was beating a little faster than normal and her cheeks felt flushed. When his footsteps faded she swallowed hard, peeking over her shoulder to the place where he stood.
Maybe Avalon was right. When Wendell had taken her hand… she appreciated the gesture and it felt nice to have someone comfort her, but she didn't feel that thrill of excitement anymore. Her relationship with him was safe, comfortable, but something was off about it. Was that first card right? Was she ready to make a new beginning?
Her eyes flicked back to the screen. Were these two people, so happy and alive in this picture, the agents of that tremendous change?
{R&R, my lovelies? :D You make my muse soar with your nourishing thoughts. Thank you! Next chapter will be up either tonight or tomorrow. I hope.}