I'm alive! Thank you for all of the prayers and happy thoughts in regards to my recovery. My surgery went great, and I'm slowly on the mend. So far the worst I've had to deal with is residual pain and ongoing nausea. The posting schedule will still be Wednesdays and Saturdays, and I'm hoping to start writing again next week.
Enjoy!
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Chapter 3
Booth called Caroline to the scene while Brennan called the rest of the team at the Jeffersonian. Everyone met in the bank vault to get a firsthand look at its contents. They convened a short time later in front of the silver skeleton.
"That's Gavin's violin," Caroline agreed. "What else have you got?" Hodgins spoke up first.
"This altar is made of the same pink syenite we found embedded in Gavin Nichols' skull."
"Where's the rest of him?"
"Probably tossed into dump trucks from overpasses," Booth guessed.
"All of the bones found here show teeth marks," Brennan added, gesturing to the human bones she had removed from the skeleton. Their silver counterparts were still mounted to the shield.
"Somebody kidnapped a fiddler and served him for dinner in an old bank vault stuffed with museum pieces?" Caroline asked, sounding as though she was expecting a punchline to come next. Angela was looking at the shield in disgust.
"I think this is high medieval. Spanish, possibly Calabrian in origin," she explained, indicating the way the skeleton was posed. Hodgins pounced on the information.
"Oh ho, whoa. Twelfth century Calabrian? You know what this means?" His question was met with a room full of blank stares. "The Order of Alcantara? You people have no idea of the reach of the Illuminati, do you? I'll tell you what else… This bank vault is an original vortex point on the triangular grid, designed by the infamous architect of DC, Pierre Charles L'Enfant. Not to mention, the way the skeleton is displayed absolutely suggests-"
"Okay, okay, we get it," Caroline interrupted, rolling her eyes along with the rest of them. "This is the lair of a cannibalistic secret society."
"Hey, you know what? If you don't want my answers, don't ask me questions."
"Someone is replacing the silver bones in the sculpture with human bones," Brennan told them, bringing the conversation into less controversial territory. "There's no way this manubrium and this sternum came from the same person."
"We've got a multiple murder?" Caroline asked, sounding more intrigued than horrified. Angela wondered aloud if she was pleased, and Caroline replied, "Hell, you could go your whole career without catching something this...juicy. Who had access to the building?"
The Building Conservancy," Booth answered.
"Run those people," Caroline instructed him. "Look for priors. Childhood cat-skinning, things like that."
"I'd like permission to move the contents of this room to the Jeffersonian," Brennan said, looking to Cam for approval. Booth's eyes narrowed.
"It's a bank vault," he reminded her, wondering if he had missed something. Surely it's secure enough, right?
"There's room in the basement," Cam shrugged. Caroline was on board as well.
"I think this may be one of those 'bring the mountain to Mohammed' situations."
Brennan smiled proudly across the room at him with a self-satisfied tilt of her head, and Booth responded with an indulgent grin. She'd gotten her way.
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"It was nice to be in the field with you today," Booth told her as they settled into bed that evening. She gave him a contrite little smile.
"I'm sorry I've been stubborn about it lately. I didn't realize I was doing it until you said something the other day."
"It's okay, baby." He opened his arms for her, and she snuggled into him. "Convincing me to take you out in the field may be the best thing you've ever done for yourself. It opened you up, Bones, and you need to get back out there."
"I know. I'll try, but it's hard for me to basically abandon my responsibilities at the lab. When Zack was there, I knew I could trust him to handle things while I was gone. It's going to take some time to trust someone new."
"Yeah, I can understand that," he admitted. "I just really think our partnership is more effective when we're together. Plus, like I said, I really miss you out there. Being a sexy genius…" kiss "Bossing me around…" kiss.
"Hmmm," she sighed happily. "As much as you like to complain about my authoritarian tendencies, you didn't seem to have an issue being bossed around in the shower a while back."
"Fair point," he grinned. "You've gotta admit though…" kiss "You don't mind being bossed around sometimes either." She met his gaze with a flirtatious smile, pointedly refusing the opportunity to object to his statement. Booth kissed her more deeply this time, slipping his tongue into her mouth and raising both of her arms above her head. "Keep your hands up," he instructed her, playing on the memory of her dominance when his hands had been injured.
Brennan obeyed, allowing him to remove her clothing smoothly and closing her eyes to relish the sensation of his fingers tracing lightly over her flushed skin. They drifted from her wrists and down the length of her arms until reaching her breasts, and she arched her back upward responsively. Booth licked his lips as the hardened peaks of her breasts pushed into his palms, and he leaned toward her to capture one in his mouth. Brennan moaned, fighting the urge to weave her fingers into his hair and hold him against her breast. Her arms twitched as if to move, and Booth admonished her with a slight nip of his teeth.
"Stay still, baby. Just feel."
She pouted adorably and wiggled beneath him a little, silently urging him to continue his progress downward. Booth was in no hurry, however, and he took even more time teasing her other nipple. By the time his lips moved to her stomach, she was panting with need.
"Please," she begged.
"What do you want, Bones?" He grinned against her sweet-smelling skin, knowing full well what she wanted, but he wanted to hear her say it. "Tell me."
"I want your mouth on me," she groaned, thrusting her hips toward him. She looked down to watch him, and their eyes locked as his tongue made contact with her slick flesh. Booth growled low in his chest, savoring the taste of her. He loved her slowly and thoroughly, and his eyes were still on her face when she came against his mouth.
"God, you're sexy," he sighed, shaking his head in disbelief at his own good fortune. This stunning creature was his, and his body was on fire for her. It seemed incredible that he'd been in love with her for nearly two years, and yet she could still affect him this way. His desire consumed him, and in the next heartbeat, he was sliding into her.
Brennan gasped as he filled her and struggled to keep her hands in place. Booth read her urgency and moved them himself, pulling her arms down to his neck. Her eyes fluttered open, and she framed his face with her hands, guiding his lips to her own. She felt him lengthen inside of her as he began to move faster, surging into her with each forward thrust. Brennan clasped her legs around his hips and kept pace with his rhythm, moaning hungrily as she chased her release once more. Booth lifted his mouth from hers, breathing heavily.
"Look at me, baby. Open your eyes."
Brennan met his heated gaze, and the intensity of the love she saw there sent her over the edge. She clenched around him, throwing her head back in surrender to the waves of pleasure that rocked through her. The sight, sound, and feeling of her climax proved to be more than Booth could withstand, and he erupted within her, shaking in her arms until he no longer had the strength to hold himself above her. He collapsed onto her, and Brennan smiled in satisfaction at the feel of his weight pressing her into the mattress. It was a sensation she'd been craving ever since he'd tackled her to the floor earlier that day.
"I love you, Bones," he told her, completely spent. They shared a long, sated kiss.
"I love you too."
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Booth found Brennan on the platform with the rest of the team the next day, and he was pleased to see Clark Edison among them. None of the other prospectives had lasted this long, and Booth hoped that it meant Brennan would be giving him the job soon.
"These are the bones we found on the altar," Brennan told Cam, gesturing to the handful of bones lying on the exam table.
"Can you confirm that any of these are Gavin Nichols'?" she asked. Clark spoke up instead.
"To be one hundred percent sure, we'd have to check DNA."
"Alright. Let's get that going."
"You guys got anything for me yet?" Booth asked.
"It's going to take longer than that, Seeley. They're still bringing stuff over from the vault."
"Yeah, and it was filled with priceless artifacts," Angela agreed.
"And probably materials stolen from other victims," Cam added. Hodgins backed them up.
"It's going to take months to sift through all that evidence."
"Seriously? Months?"
"Zack." Brennan said, looking toward the main doors. Booth failed to notice her distraction.
"Yeah, we all miss Zack, but-"
"No, Zack." Her eyes were wide with astonishment as she pointed at the young man who was standing near the glass doors. Everyone turned to look and cried out in excitement to see him.
Zack's hair was buzzed in the typical military fashion, and he carried a standard issue green duffle bag over his shoulder. Booth and Clark watched from the platform as the rest of the team gathered around him, exchanging hugs. Angela was the first to ask why he was there, and Zack asked Hodgins if he could move back into his garage apartment. Hodgins agreed immediately and hugged him tightly. Brennan followed next, welcoming him home in a voice that was tense with emotion.
Booth was glad to see Zack again too, but he surveyed him from a distance at first. There was a certain quality about him that was all too familiar to Booth. He looked mentally exhausted, haunted even. As though he were struggling with things he might've seen.
"Did you get wounded or something?" Booth asked cautiously.
"No, they just sent me home," Zack replied. Booth nodded, opting to withhold judgment for the time being. He knew full well that the military wouldn't have dismissed him early without a compelling reason, but as always, Zack kept his emotions guarded.
"When can you start work?" Brennan asked eagerly. Zack looked at Clark in confusion.
"Nice meeting ya, bub," Booth said quietly to Clark.
"If you didn't fill my job, who's that guy?" Zack pointed to Clark, who smiled in resignation.
"Nobody," Clark replied, stripping off his latex gloves before leaving the platform. Hodgins was still taking in Zack's rugged appearance.
"Man, you look like crap," he smirked.
"Well, Iraq's not a vacation," Cam reminded him. Angela smiled and adjusted Zack's jacket.
"I think you look very rakish. Are you starving?"
"Actually, what I'd like is to get into whatever you were discussing when I came in."
Brennan smiled brightly and led him to the Bone Room, the rest of the squints following in their wake. She gave him a quick rundown of their findings thus far, and Zack examined each of the bones with his usual intense focus. Cam, Hodgins, and Angela were still lurking near the door.
"It's hard to concentrate when you're all staring at me," he told them. They smiled but left quietly.
"They're happy to see you," Brennan said quietly, her eyes downcast as she fought the urge to hug him again. Zack didn't respond to her comment but directed the conversation to the remains instead.
He postulated that the victim's head had been cooked before his flesh had been consumed. He also pointed out a pattern on the skull that Brennan had missed. It had initially appeared to be the result of the skull's impact with the windshield, but upon inspection at the microscopic level, a completely different pattern emerged. It hadn't been caused by the teeth or the windshield, and whatever it was hadn't left any trace evidence on the bone. Brennan's agile mind came upon the answer quickly, and she hurried from the room to let Booth know what they'd found.
Brennan explained to her husband that the cannibal had a diamond in his incisor, which had left a distinctive mark on the bone. When she added that she would like to be in on the next interrogation, Booth gave her a smile that reminded her of Parker on Christmas morning.
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Jason Harkness was an average looking young man in his late teens. He'd been kicked out of several private schools for assaulting fellow students, and his subsequent community service assignment had been janitorial work at Capital Mutual Bank in collaboration with the historical society.
"How the hell did you get in the vault?" Booth asked him, recalling the heavy equipment the FBI had needed to breach its defenses.
"Nobody can get in the vault. It's what you call impregnable," Jason sneered.
"Not true," Brennan replied, pulling an evidence bag from her field satchel. "This is the transmitter we found in the vault." Jason's expression altered slightly, and Booth saw a flash of something in his eyes. Surprise...anxiety...fear?
"Normal guy...comes across treasure in a vault… Starts selling it off? You went a whole different way," Booth said placidly. He watched Jason's features carefully as Brennan unwrapped a wax cylinder from her kit.
"Could you please bite this?"
"No." His tone was neither angry nor frightened. Only the odd twist of his lips indicated his arrogance.
"Dr. Brennan was only being polite," Booth advised him. "We have a warrant for that too, Jason. So, either you bite...or I'll make you."
"What do you need it for?" Jason asked, feigning confusion. Brennan answered his question.
"The diamond in your incisor left a mark on the skull."
"In the skull that you gnawed on," Booth added for effect. Jason's expression shifted again, and his arrogance came through in full force. A strange sort of gleam warmed his eyes, and Booth was reminded forcibly of Howard Epps. When Jason spoke, his voice had the same controlled, confident quality.
"It's not like chicken or pork, you know. People always say that. It's more like beef. The face is a little sweeter, more tender. The younger the person, the better. Except for babies… Babies taste kind of like fish."
He picked up the wax cylinder and bit into it theatrically, his dark manic eyes locked on Brennan. Booth bit back a growl and waited impatiently for Brennan to rewrap the wax cylinder and place it in an evidence bag. He ushered her out of the room and instructed the agents waiting outside to take Jason Harkness to lockup for the night.
Brennan delivered the dental impression to the Zack at the lab, and she and Booth headed home for the evening. However, they'd barely finished their dinner before her phone was buzzing. Zack had already texted her earlier to inform her that the ten bones recovered from the vault had come from six different victims, but now he was insisting that she come in to look at something else.
"What's he wanting to show us?" Booth asked as they entered through the sliding glass doors.
"I don't know; he wouldn't say. That's why we're here." As they neared the platform, their eyes widened in shock at the sight of Zack lying on one of the silver exam tables. Booth rushed ahead of her and bounded up the steps.
"Zack! Zack… Zack?" He lowered his head to Zack's chest.
"Oy," Zack muttered, looking confused. "Why are you listening to my chest?"
"Because I thought you were dead," Booth snapped, rolling his eyes.
"Why?"
"Why? You're lying on a stainless steel table for dead people."
"I got tired," Zack replied simply. He certainly looked it. Booth took in his glazed eyes and dark circles, shaking his head in disapproval.
"New rules, okay? Sleeping is for couches and beds, stuff like that."
Zack shrugged slightly and glanced at Brennan, who had lost interest in the exchange quickly. Her attention was focused on a nearby computer monitor, and her expression registered her astonishment at what Zack had found.
"Oh. My. God," she said loudly.
"What?"
"I thought you'd want to know," Zack said, still sounding exhausted.
"What?" Booth asked again. Brennan turned her wide eyes back to Zack.
"You compared depth, apogee, and dimension?"
"Yes. Three times."
"And there's no way that it was a case of pre- and post-diamond inset?" she pressed.
"What?" Booth repeated, feeling frustrated.
"The newest bones, the phalanges and the skull, bear only the gnaw marks of Jason Harkness," Zack said calmly.
"One bone, the femur, was gnawed upon by Jason and a second person," Brennan continued, pulling up another image of the bone at a higher magnification. "See the distinct second pattern?" Booth was pretty sure he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference if she were showing him a close-up picture of the moon, but he forged ahead.
"So Jason invited a guest over for dinner?"
"No, Jason was the one invited," Brennan replied.
"How do you know?"
"Well the oldest bones were gnawed on by another person with no diamond in his incisor."
"Another person. Not Jason," he concluded, suddenly feeling as tired as Zack looked.
"There's someone else out there… Probably someone older who pulled Jason into this." She looked at Zack again and congratulated him on a job well done.
Since they were near the facility where Jason Harkness was being held, Booth and Brennan decided to pay him a quick visit. They were hoping that catching him off guard might help in getting the name of the second cannibal. As they waited for the guards to retrieve Jason from his cell, Booth's thoughts wandered back to Zack.
"Hey, Bones, um…" he paused hesitantly, wondering if he wasn't about to tread into sensitive territory. "Do you think Zack's coping with everything alright?"
"What do you mean?" Her brow furrowed, and Booth shrugged uncomfortably.
"Well, you know, I've been around guys who had a rough time over there, and I've seen a little bit of them in Zack. I get that he's probably jetlagged as hell, but he looks like he hasn't slept in a week."
"I don't know… I've noticed that he seems a little different, but I guess I've just been so happy to see him again that I passed it off as exhaustion."
"Cam said the army made him talk to a shrink. Zack told her that he 'failed to assimilate.'" His fingers sketched quotation marks around the last three words, and Brennan frowned.
"He talked to Cam about it?" She failed to keep the sensitivity out of her tone, and Booth gave her a compassionate smile. She would never admit it, but the fact that Zack had opened up to Cam rather than Brennan left her feeling a little hurt.
"I'm sure she just asked him about his reasons for coming home early. She commented on how tired he looks too."
"Are you implying he might be suffering from nightmares?
"Maybe," he sighed. "I don't know. Look, don't worry about it, Bones. We'll all keep an eye on him. Reacclimating is hard even for the toughest soldiers. Just give the kid some time, okay?"
Brennan opened her mouth to ask if he would consider talking to Zack about things, but she was interrupted by the warden. The man led them to Jason's cell.
"So we came in to wake him… This is what we found." He gestured to the bars of Jason's cell.
"Oh my God," Booth said under his breath, taking in the grotesque scene.
Jason Harkness was partially bound to the bars of his cell, completely stripped of his clothing, with a dagger protruding from the center of his chest. Though he seemed to have stabbed himself with his left hand, his legs and right arm were extended and bent to the left, and his face was turned upward. The odd pose was identical to that of the silver skeleton.
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"We've gotta get Hodgins in on this," Booth insisted as they drove back to the lab.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, the ritual cannibalism was one thing, but now we've got ritual suicide? Come on, this is obviously his territory."
"You actually want to hear his conspiracy theories?" If she were a superstitious person, Brennan might have wondered if it was a full moon.
"Just humor me, okay?"
"Can we at least get some coffee first?" she begged, whining a little.
"We'll get some afterward," he promised.
An enormous portion of the lower level at the Jeffersonian now housed a replicated version of the vault. It had been meticulously reconstructed with the actual items and metal gates they had recovered, and Brennan was only mildly surprised to find it buzzing with interns from the Authentications Department.
"Booth said you needed me?" Hodgins asked her, bouncing down the steps with more pep than was decent for the wee hours of the morning. His grin stretched wide across his face.
"I noticed that Jason Harkness arranged his suicide," Brennan explained.
"If it was a suicide, then someone provided him with the dagger," Cam surmised.
"His body is arranged in the same position as the silver skeleton."
"So, Hodgins, you think that's a coincidence?" Booth asked expectantly. Hodgins' eyes gleamed excitedly, and he laughed out loud.
"So suddenly you think my insane conspiracy ravings are legitimate?"
"No," Brennan said quickly, but Booth's affirmative reply was almost simultaneous. She resisted the compulsion to roll her eyes. "But obviously, there are other insane people out there who have the same ravings, and we need our insight."
"Alright, alright," Hodgins said eagerly. He looked as though he might actually rub his hands together in glee as he took the casefile from Brennan. "Both the body and the silver skeleton are in the attitude of what the ancient Greeks called pharmakos. It means 'scapegoat' or 'sacrifice.'"
"So, what...like he was being pulled into the sky against his will?" Booth asked.
"You mean...aliens?" Brennan added, forcing her expression to remain neutral.
"One definite possibility, yes," Hodgins replied, looking encouraged. "Also the 'Rapture.' Now, as I tried to tell you before, most secret societies have this figure deep in their origins. For Freemasons, it's known as the 'Widow's Son.'"
"Interesting," Cam said. "Gavin Nichols lost his father when he was twelve."
"A widow's son," Hodgins agreed.
"Right, so Jason Harkness killed himself to keep his secret society a secret," Booth mused.
"Or was sacrificed," Hodgins added. Brennan felt compelled to bring the conversation back to the evidence.
"Strictly speaking, the evidence so far indicates only one other murderer."
"This entire vault is filled with evidence," Cam pointed out. "Who knows where it will take us?"
"Deeper than you can imagine," Hodgins replied. "Probably get us all killed, just so you know…" He headed back toward the stairs, handing the file to Brennan.
"Thanks, man," Booth said, and Hodgins merely shrugged as he passed. "No, no, Hodgins. Really… Thanks, man." Hodgins turned back to see a more serious expression on Booth's face than he would've expected.
"Yeah, man. Be safe." He threw the last two words over his shoulder as he disappeared from the room.
"Come on, Bones. I owe you some coffee."
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The sun was rising over the Reflecting Pool as they paid for their drinks at their favorite coffee cart, and they settled themselves on a park bench nearby.
"The ancient Greek from the back of the vault door was translated to: 'Will no one help the Widow's Son?' Hodgins was right. This killer's part of something bigger." He handed her coffee over and listened as she continued, "Gavin Nichols' violin was in there. I bet there are belongings from other murder victims too. We have to catalogue every item in that vault."
"Hot coffee," he reminded her gently, but she was in her stride and completely distracted now.
"After we do the visual and microscopic examination of each human bone in the silver skeleton, we'll take samples and do an in-depth osteological breakdown. We really have a lot to do."
"Yeah, starting with coffee."
"An isotope profile will allow us to narrow down the possible geographic hits…" She lifted her coffee cup to her mouth, but Booth's hand covered the lid just before it reached her lips.
"Hey, it's hot!" She froze for a moment before lowering the cup. "You were gonna burn yourself, Bones."
"Thank you," she said, feeling slightly off-kilter.
"Listen, this whole serial killer thing… It's not gonna be our usual case."
"Why?"
"Because… It's big, and he's bad."
"I don't see what difference that makes."
"Cause you have to slow down, right? Take a breath. You have to realize that this is not a sprint; it's gonna be a marathon. Marathon, Bones. Coming from Greek, meaning really, really, really long run."
"That's not how the word 'marathon' originated," she argued. He sighed, feeling the full extent of his exhaustion.
"I just mean that… You sound like you're about to kick off a long round of sleeping in your office and using the decontamination shower. You can't do that stuff anymore, Bones. This case is gonna get under your skin, but we have to live our lives too, you know?"
"Oh." She sipped her coffee carefully, silently acknowledging the truth of his words. "I guess you're right. I'll try not to let it overwhelm me." He smiled in approval, and they drank their coffee in silence for a few moments before he spoke again.
"Look, there's something else I gotta know… Are we solid? I mean, not our marriage, obviously we're good there. But our partnership…?"
"Of course," she replied, slightly confused at his question. "I'm sorry if I made you worry that it wasn't, but… Why are you asking me this?"
"Because. You and me… We're the center," he said simply, looking intensely into her blue eyes.
"And the center must hold," she nodded. They shared an affectionate smile and scooted closer together on the bench. Booth wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and they sipped their coffee as they enjoyed the view.
The center would hold.
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By the time Booth and Brennan caught up on the sleep they'd lost with the Widow's Son case, the weekend was upon them. Parker was with them for the weekend, and they spent most of Saturday visiting Hank. They made it back to DC in time for Parker to attend a birthday sleepover at a friend's house, and they were able to enjoy a quiet evening at home together. Booth spent a few hours in their home office working on foster parent background checks while Brennan did a few chores and made dinner. Booth had expected his wife to insist on putting in a few hours at the lab that night, but she surprised him.
"No, you were right, Booth. I can't spend every spare minute in the lab on this one. There are other areas of my life that require my attention, and in the meantime, our Authentications Department is cataloguing the evidence from the vault. I'll be checking on their progress periodically, and Angela is going to devote some of her free time to the task as well."
"Wow," Booth grinned, his eyes twinkling. "I could get used to this feeling…"
"What feeling?"
"You… saying I was right. It's almost like being high," he teased. "Is this what you feel like all the time?" Brennan rolled her eyes but smiled in good humor.
"Enjoy it while it lasts," she advised with a smirk. He bent his head to kiss her gently, still looking rather pleased with himself. "I was coming to tell you that dinner's ready. You've been in here for a while. Have you found anything else?" Brennan asked, gesturing to the file Booth had forgotten he was holding. He sighed as he handed her the folder.
"Paul Carter died of cancer in 2001. His wife moved to Texas not long after. She's still there."
"Nothing to connect them to Max?" she asked, scanning the documents with a practiced eye.
"Nope. Nothing suspicious in either of their pasts. They were stripped of their foster care license not long after you ran away. You weren't the only who made allegations of neglect. They were prosecuted for one of the cases, and they both served a little time. Not enough, though… they were both out on good behavior within two years." Booth gritted his teeth at the injustice.
"That's not all that surprising. Complaints of neglect from a foster child are rarely taken seriously, even if there are medical records to support the claim. I'm actually surprised that they were punished at all." She handed the file back to him, and they made their way to the kitchen for dinner. "The Hammels were next, and we already know what happened to the husband. What about the wife?"
"I just started checking, but it looks like they divorced in the late nineties. He had no other family to speak of, and from the way their divorce case reads, I can understand why the wife wouldn't care enough to claim his remains. I'm still working on tracking her down, but she was contacted about Hammel's death. She refused to claim the remains, so we know she was alive at least at that point in time."
"His wife was never directly violent. Hammel was abusive to her too, and I think she used us as a sort of buffer. If he was hurting us, he left her alone."
Booth filed that information away and reached across the table for her hand. She squeezed his hand, silently reassuring him that she was alright. He smiled sadly before returning to his meal, wishing that he had her strength. As he spent more time working through her foster care file, he felt increasingly more satisfaction over the fact that at least two of her abusers had met with unpleasant ends.
If it turned out that Max did have anything to do with the deaths of anyone in that file, Booth knew that he wouldn't be the one to turn him in. It was difficult for him to reconcile his job with his desire for vengeance, but in this case his guilt was losing the fight. There had been a time in his life that Booth would never have dreamed of letting something like this go, but seeing and reading the horrors of his wife's teenage years had broken something within him. At this point, he was more inclined to thank his father-in-law than have him prosecuted.
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A few days later, they were called to a new crime scene involving a car bomb that had exploded at a local park. The fire department had extinguished the blaze, but the area was still buzzing with emergency responders when Booth and Brennan arrived. Much to Brennan's dismay, the FBI forensic team had beaten them to the scene, and she was eager to get to work. When Booth noticed the irritated expression on her face, he found himself wishing that he'd chosen a better time for the conversation he'd started in the car.
"What is it that you're suggesting, Booth?"
Tread carefully, he advised himself.
"Just that… Caroline went to a lot of trouble to get you private visitation with your father, and she mentioned that you hadn't made use of it."
"I didn't ask her to do that; you did."
"Which is why she was grilling me about it," he muttered.
"Why does Caroline care whether I see him or not?" They got out of the SUV, and she pulled a pair of gloves from her bag as they approached the charred remains of a mini-van. "The federal detention facility already has visiting areas."
"Yeah, behind two-inch glass. Now you'll be able to give your old man a hug," he pointed out, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and squeezing her as if to demonstrate. He forced a smile onto his face in spite of her obvious sour mood.
"I didn't ask for special treatment, Booth."
"You don't have to, Bones, because you are special." he said with exaggerated encouragement as they she pulled away from him to investigate the van. "And you're gonna tell me...whoa..." Booth caught sight of two charred forearms still attached to the steering wheel. There was no body attached to them. "...what happened to whoever is melted to that steering wheel and...everything else." He cringed and the still-smoking interior of the vehicle and was reminded of their second case as partners. That case had involved a car bomb as well, but fortunately, this one didn't seem to have killed anyone other than the occupant of the car.
"Female. Mid-forties to late fifties," Brennan announced. "Pelvis indicates she's given birth." Booth spotted a wedding ring on what was left of the woman's left hand and pointed it out to her. While she bagged the woman's ring and ring finger, she turned her attention to one of the FBI techs. "Hey, don't just focus on the ground," she advised, pointing to half of the woman's leg that had been thrown into a nearby tree. She rounded to the other side of the vehicle and said, "Do we know if it was a bomb that caused the explosion?"
"Well… The roof is peeled back and the doors-"
"I was asking Geier," she explained, pointing to another FBI tech. Marcus Geier had worked with them often enough to be considered a familiar face, but Booth couldn't help feeling a little proud that Brennan had known his name. She'd come a long way since they'd begun their partnership.
"We found explosive residue all over the van and metal fragments in the bushes," Geier replied.
"What is that?" Booth asked. "A pipe bomb?"
"I can't really be sure until the explosives unit gets the van back to the lab."
"No, they'd can't have the van," Brennan declared. "There are remains seared all over the inside of the vehicle, and they can't be compromised."
"I have to call-"
"This van will be brought to the Jeffersonian. Your bomb techs can look at it there." Her tone was firm, and Geier looked more than a little flustered. Booth felt sorry for the guy but opted to stay out of it. He had no desire to turn his wife's irritation upon himself.
"I'll...make the call?" Geier stammered. Booth encouraged him to run away and turned his attention back to Brennan.
"Look, Booth." She pulled a locket from the wreckage and opened it to reveal pictures of a young girl in a soccer uniform. Booth guessed that the girl was most likely the victim's daughter, and Brennan wondered aloud who would want to blow up a soccer mom.
She insisted that they stick around long enough to see that the vehicle was indeed taken to the Jeffersonian rather than the FBI forensic lab, and Booth made the necessary phone calls to get an agent from the bomb unit to meet them. The only person readily available was a woman named Agent Frost, and he introduced her to the squints when she arrived at the Jeffersonian. Hodgins would be working with her directly, and he looked especially pleased to be doing so. Agent Frost was a very attractive woman, and Hodgins was a bit starstruck in her presence.
Brennan observed the interaction with academic curiosity, paying particular attention to Angela's response. The artist sidled up to her fiancé and introduced herself to Frost as the person who does facial reconstructions...and Hodgins. Brennan smirked at her friend's forwardness and glanced at her husband. She was pleased to note that Booth didn't seem to have noticed Agent Frost's appearance at all; he was focused on the case.
"License plate was destroyed, but we traced the VIN number on the van. It was registered to a Jeremy Nash in Culpepper, Virginia." He showed Brennan the man's file, and she commented that the man looked somewhat familiar. Booth shrugged and looked at the evidence trays spread over a table near the vehicle. They were full of the blackened contents of the van. "Man, our victim was traveling with a lot of stuff. Clothes, personal items…"
"Photo album," Brennan added, pointing to the object. "Most of the pictures were burned, but the man in this photo could be Nash." Cam surmised that the victim might have been leaving her husband, and the idea elicited a groan from Booth.
"Ah, God. I hate domestic cases. Alright, so let's go talk to the husband."
"I can't. I'm seeing my father," Brennan replied.
"Now?" he asked, surprised that she seemed to be following his advice when she had seemed so opposed to it earlier that day.
"You and Caroline went to a lot of trouble setting this up… I would hate to appear ungrateful."
"Well, Caroline might think that, but I wouldn't. You know that, Bones. You don't have to do this if you don't want to."
"I know, but…maybe you were right. Maybe avoiding him is just making me feel worse," she shrugged, heading to her office to shed her crime scene jumpsuit. Booth watched her from the doorway.
"You know, when you said I was right last time, I thought it was just a fluke, but…" He trailed off, grinning incorrigibly. She shot him a glare that dared him to continue, but he wisely opted to let it go. "Alright, well, I'll go talk to the husband and talk to you later?"
"Okay," she nodded, kissing him goodbye before heading toward the sliding glass doors. "Love you," she called over her shoulder.
"Love you too."
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