Hope everyone's having a great weekend! Thanks, as always for the great feedback. I love reading your thoughts! Oh, and to the guest who commented that she wanted hot Booth morning sex... well, really, who doesn't? ;)
As promised, this chapter is quite a bit more off-script than the last couple. Enjoy!
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Chapter 11
The metal fragments Hodgins had found in the wound in Kristen Reardon's chest cavity turned out to be copper that was over eight hundred years old. He and Angela searched the Jeffersonian's artifact database for copper weapons and discovered that a copper spear tip had been checked out from the Gormogon vault to Dr. Aldrich two weeks prior. A quick test proved that the artifact was not the murder weapon, but when he volunteered to return the object to its place within the vault, he discovered Dr. Aldrich's body.
"Booth saw Aldrich's widow," Brennan told Cam as she entered the autopsy room. Cam had just finished the autopsy. "He sent her a suicide note by email, apologizing for the affair with Kristen and confessing to the killing."
"Aldridge didn't kill himself," Cam replied with certainty. "The ligature, which was a silk cord from the vault, didn't break they hyoid."
"Then what was the cause of death?"
"I'm stumped," Cam admitted. "There's no significant trauma, no cardiac arrest, aneurysm, or hematoma. Plus, I did a full tox screen. Organics, inorganics, heavy metals, even cardiac glycosides… all negative." Before Brennan could reply, they were interrupted by Hodgins, who was carrying an evidence tray.
"This cord is actually a hanging rope from England, circa 1650. In those days, when sentenced to death, nobles often chose a silk cord rather than rough hemp and rope." He held the cord in his gloved hands and looked at it speculatively. "It would be cool to know who else might've died on this cord… Anyway, the killer left DNA. In order to hoist Aldridge, the killer wrapped the cord around his forearm and pulled."
"Ouch," Cam winced. "He left some skin behind?"
"Yeah, and hair."
"Nice job, Hodgins. When we find the guy, we can do a DNA match."
"King of the Lab," he announced with a proud smile as he backed out of the room.
"The skeletal muscles are pulling away from the bone. What was his potassium level?" Brennan asked, studying the autopsy x-rays. Cam turned to pick up the autopsy report file and skimmed the numbers quickly.
"Blood serum contains ten milligrams per one-hundred milliliters. Elevated, but non-fatal. It's odd though, because his kidneys were healthy; no signs of Addison's or any medication."
"Succinylcholine," Brennan surmised.
"A muscle relaxant?"
"In high doses, it stops the heart and lungs, and the body turns it into potassium. Your tox screen wouldn't have detected it. Succinylcholine is one of the earliest anesthetics known to man." Brennan smiled with the satisfaction that came from being right, and Cam nodded in agreement.
"I read Dr. Reardon's book too," Cam replied.
"I know this will influence Booth to put Ted Reardon at the top of his suspect list, but I really don't think he could have done this."
"Even after what happened to his daughter?"
Brennan was of course hesitant to jump to any conclusion, but she didn't want to believe that her former teacher was capable of murder. She sighed, chewing her bottom lip slightly as she left the room without answering Cam's question. She called Booth and gave him a quick summary of the latest findings, and he promised to let her know the outcome of his interrogation of Dr. Reardon. Brennan offered to question the man herself, but Booth felt that she might be a little too close to the situation.
Treating grieving loved ones like suspects was easily one of the worst parts of Booth's job. As a father, he was predisposed to empathize with a parent who had just lost their child, so he was relieved that his interrogation effectively cleared Reardon as a suspect. The killer might have used a method familiar to the man, but Reardon willingly rolled up his sleeves at Booth's request. The hanging cord would have left abrasions on the killer's forearm, and Reardon's arms were unmarked.
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After speaking to Reardon, Booth picked up some lunch and headed to the lab. He found Brennan in her office, and her welcoming smile grew even more appreciative when she saw the bag in his hand.
"Lunchtime," he grinned.
"Thanks." Brennan signed her name to the form she'd been reading and followed him to the sofa.
"You guys turn up anything else?"
"Yes, actually. Hodgins thinks that the murder weapon was most likely bronze rather than copper. Copper is an ingredient in bronze, and he postulated that the copper fragment might have been an unalloyed chip from a larger piece of bronze."
"Okay, so where does that leave us?"
"Well, there are a lot of bronze weapons in the Jeffersonian, but none of them are in the vault. It would take too long to check every single one of them, so Angela ran a simulation. The bone trauma indicates a sixty-seven degree angle, and for that to have been caused by stabbing, Kristen's assailant would have to have been at least six-foot-eight and three hundred pounds. Obviously, no one at the Jeffersonian looks like that, so we're now going with the theory that Kristen was impaled. She must have fallen onto an artifact that was at a fixed sixty-seven degree angle."
"Well, that should narrow the search," Booth replied, swallowing mouthful of his turkey club.
"Yes. There's something else…" Brennan frowned in concern, and Booth sat forward, listening attentively. "Dr. Bancroft showed up in Angela's office while she was explaining her simulation to Cam and the others. He made it sound like Kristen's death must've been an accident and that Aldridge had panicked and disposed of the body before ultimately killing himself. Cam told him that the evidence actually indicates that Aldridge was murdered as well, but Bancroft seemed more interested in coming up with a story that would satisfy a jury."
"That doesn't surprise me. The guy's a sleaze, only cares about his bottom line. He's worried about the potential damage to the Jeffersonian's reputation if there ends up being a long, drawn out trial."
"Yes, but he actually made Angela feel threatened. He told her that if he were the killer, she would be his next target, since she made the ID and managed to recreate Kristen's death," Brennan said nervously. Booth scowled, mentally moving Dr. Bancroft to the top of his suspect list.
"I would think that he wouldn't be stupid enough to implicate himself if he actually were the killer, but it certainly sounds like he's determined to cover things up, for one reason or another. He's not wrong about possible targets, though. None of you should be going anywhere alone until we solve this thing."
They finished their lunch quickly and left Brennan's office to check in with the rest of the team. Hodgins had arranged a number of bronze weapons upon several tables, but his analyses hadn't turned up any evidence of recent bloodstaining.
"I've checked every bronze weapon in the Jeffersonian that matches Angela's criteria, but none are consistent with the copper fragments," he announced.
"Well, then obviously we're looking for something that was smuggled in," Booth shrugged. Brennan chuckled derisively, and Hodgins was shaking his head. "What?"
"There is no way to smuggle an eight-hundred-year-old weapon into the Jeffersonian," Brennan declared.
"No, no. We have x-rays, guards, metal detectors…" Hodgins agreed, smiling confidently.
"If you come in with anything bigger than a watch, they search you," she added.
"Well… You two are geniuses. How would you do it?" Booth asked.
"It's absolutely impossible," Hodgins insisted. Brennan tilted her head thoughtfully.
"Unless you mail it," she suggested.
"Oh," Hodgins said, surprised. "Yeah, right, there's that."
"Mail it?" Booth asked.
"If you mail something to the Jeffersonian, it doesn't need to be cleared by customs or security," Brennan explained.
"Okay, you're saying that if I want to get a stolen artifact into the United States, all I have to do is mail it to the Jeffersonian?" he asked dubiously. It seemed far too easy.
"Technically, yes, but we check and report all items to the government."
"Okay, who's 'we?'"
"The authentications department," Hodgins groaned, closing his eyes in dismay.
"Oh, you mean a bunch of starving interns who work here during the summer," Booth replied sarcastically. Brennan looked thoughtful again.
"Interns keep detailed records of every item they authenticate. Access Kristen Reardon's log," she suggested. Hodgins moved to the nearest computer terminal and entered his password. He frowned when the computer beeped at him in refusal.
"I don't have the necessary clearance," he complained.
"Let me try," Booth insisted, nudging Hodgins out of the way with a gloating expression. Both scientists looked on in shock as he entered a password into the appropriate field and was granted access.
"Since when do you have a password?" Brennan asked.
"I don't. It's yours," he smirked.
"How do you know mine? I've never told you."
"Well, I've got eyes. You're not exactly CIA material, Bones. Plus, it's your favorite flower." Booth's smug expression left her speechless, and Hodgins chuckled under his breath as he searched through Kristen Reardon's artifact log.
"It looks like Kristen might have worked on some Luristan bronzes. Some from the thirteenth century too. Tools, utensils, sculptures…"
"What's Luristan?" Booth asked.
"Persia," Brennan explained.
"You mean Iran or Iraq," he corrected. "Since the war, Iraqi museums have been looted, and their pieces are being sold on the black market. This murder has nothing to do with the vault or with a serial killer."
"Kristen Reardon was a smuggler?" Hodgins wondered aloud.
"More than likely killed by a smuggler," Booth replied. "Maybe she went to report something, and the smuggler killed her."
"I'll have Zack check the artifacts in her log as possible murder weapons," Brennan promised. As Booth started to walk away, she added, "And I'm changing my password."
"Daisy?" he guessed, looking pleased with himself.
"How did you know?" she gaped.
"It's your second favorite flower. I know you, Bones. Try a planet," he suggested. Brennan turned back to the computer, and Booth continued to walk. "Jupiter!" he shouted over his shoulder. Brennan pursed her lips as Hodgins laughed at her disgruntled expression. After several moments of deliberation, she settled on a password she doubted he would ever be able to guess. Instead of choosing something she liked, she opted for something she hated.
ApplePie.
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Zack called Brennan into his office later that afternoon and showed her a digital image of a bronze antelope statue. The horns on its head were long, sharp points, and the angle of each was precisely sixty-seven degrees. Zack theorized that the statue had been on Aldridge's work table, and Kristen had either fallen upon it or had been pushed. According to the Jeffersonian's records, the artifact had been mailed to a post office box in Arlington.
Cam met with Bancroft to inform him of the smuggling operation and told him that Booth and Brennan were trying to set up a stake out for the following day. Unbeknownst to Bancroft, however, the partners were already parked across the street from the post office by the time Cam had spoken to him, and she had immediately called Booth to let them know that the trap had been set. To their surprise, however, the familiar figure they spotted entering the post office was not Bancroft. It was Dr. Klimkew.
Once he was seated across from Booth and Brennan in the interrogation room, Klimkew admitted to the smuggling operation immediately. He insisted, however, that Kristen had fallen upon the statue during a quarrel with Aldridge. Klimkew stated that he'd been in the room at the time and that Aldridge had blackmailed him into getting rid of the body, threatening the exposure of his smuggling operation. Klimkew tried to argue with the fact that Aldridge had been murdered, but a quick inspection of the man's forearms revealed the tell-tale marks of the hanging cord.
After Klimkew was remanded into custody, Booth insisted that Brennan follow him to his office. It was clear that something was bothering her, and Booth was relatively sure he knew what it was. He guided her to a chair and removed his hidden bottle of scotch from inside his desk.
"Don't take it so hard, Bones," he said gently, pouring the dark liquid into two small paper cups.
"I'm not taking anything hard," she replied dismissively. They threw back the shots before simultaneously crushing the small cups on the table between them.
"You're taking this hard because it happened in your house."
"It's not our house," she frowned, literal as ever.
"Not where you sleep. Your favorite place, your house of reason. The Jeffersonian." He set up two more paper cups and poured another round.
"It's not my favorite place."
"Sure it is."
"No," she insisted. "Not anymore. My favorite place is our home." Booth smiled affectionately at her and shrugged a little.
"Fair enough. But the Jeffersonian is still important to you, and you didn't want to think that someone there could be a murderer." He paused as they each downed another shot and crushed the cups. "You're offended that the killer was one of you. You were all hoping that it was Gorgonzola."
"Gormogon," she corrected, smashing her cup with a pound of her fist.
"Ah! So you admit it!" he grinned. She rolled her eyes playfully, considering his words as he poured more scotch.
"You know what? I am offended."
"I just said that."
"I'm offended because…"
"Because you were betrayed by one of your own," Booth supplied, his previous humor gone. They shared a long look between them, and she felt comforted by his presence.
"At least I know you'll never betray me," she said, touching her paper cup to his in salute.
"Never." His expression was solemn and honest, and their eyes held for several long moments before they drank. The crushed the cups again, and Brennan squinted a little at the growing pile of debris.
"I'm going to have a headache tomorrow, aren't I?"
"We'll see," he chuckled. "We'll probably need to take a cab home. At least we'll be able to take your car to work in the morning." They cleaned up their mess, called for a cab, and tried not to stumble too obviously as they made their way from his office to the sidewalk. Once they were cuddled together in the back seat of the taxi, Booth's hands began their typical drunken wandering. By the time they reached their street, the cab driver had gotten an eyeful of their make-out session more than once. Booth paid the fare and followed Brennan into the house and upstairs to their room.
"You know… I haven't forgotten what you said the last time I was drunk," he said conspiratorially. She raised her brow in question. "About exercise preventing hangovers…"
"Right," she nodded, recalling that particular conversation. "It did work last time," Brennan smiled coyly. He gave her his best drunken charm smile and pulled her close.
"Well maybe we should do it again. You know, just in case."
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Booth's thirty-sixth birthday went quite a bit differently from the previous year. Last year, Brennan had surprised him with a slightly belated gift of a hot tub after they'd returned from their case in Las Vegas, and they'd done some celebrating in their hotel room as well. This year, however, they were scheduled to have Parker on Booth's birthday weekend, and they'd planned a fun Sunday afternoon of laser tag, arcade games, and go-kart racing.
"I won!" Parker exclaimed, bouncing on his toes excitedly. After a quick laser tag lesson from Booth, Parker had managed to beat both adults.
"You sure did," Booth congratulated him. "Do you want to play again or move on to the go-karts?"
"Play again! This time don't let me win," Parker giggled.
"What?" his father said, adopting an offended expression. "I didn't let you win; you beat me fair and square." Brennan and Parker both rolled their eyes in comical synchronization. "Alright, you two, let's go again."
After two more rounds of laser tag, they headed to the outdoor go-kart track. Since Parker was too young to drive his own kart, he rode alongside Booth. Brennan was predictably competitive, and to Booth's surprise, she won two out of three races.
"I told you I'm an excellent driver, Booth."
"Yeah, yeah," he winked, giving her a quick kiss on the lips. "Doesn't change anything."
They spent the rest of the afternoon in the arcade, and Booth enjoyed the opportunity to show Parker some of his favorite games from his childhood. Brennan was impressed with the boy's hand-eye coordination, particularly since she wasn't having nearly as much luck.
"Did you play these when you were little too, Bones?" Parker asked, watching as Blinky eliminated Brennan's Pacman for the second time.
"Not really," she replied. "I mostly liked to read. Uncle Russ liked them though."
"I like Uncle Russ. Are we going to see him soon? It's been a long time."
"Um…" Brennan faltered, mentally kicking herself for bringing up the topic of her chronically absent brother. She hadn't seen or heard from him since last Christmas, and Max refused to give any clue as to his whereabouts. He promised her that Russ was safe but wouldn't answer any of her questions about him.
"We might, buddy." Booth spoke up, saving Brennan from having to come up with an answer. "Maybe we'll be able to see your cousins over the holidays this year, okay?"
"Okay," Parker replied neutrally. Even at six years old, he had clearly inherited his father's knack for reading people. He could tell that the subject had made Brennan uncomfortable, so he didn't push for more information.
They dropped Parker off at Rebecca's on their way home, and Brennan surprised Booth yet again when she revealed the menu for his birthday dinner.
"You're making steak?" he asked incredulously.
"Well, I'm making a steak for you. I'm also making mac-n-cheese, which will be enough for me."
"Wow, Bones," he replied, a dreamy smile stretching across his face. Her mac-n-cheese was one of his favorite meals, and he was always happy when she made it. But the steak portion of their meal really surprised him. She'd been a vegetarian for nearly a year and a half, and while she did occasionally cook meat for him and Parker, he was fairly certain she hadn't made steak since before her lifestyle change. Brennan's broiled filet mignon paired wonderfully with the gourmet mac-n-cheese, and Booth spent a good portion of the meal moaning in appreciation.
"You should save room for dessert," Brennan advised with a secretive smile.
"If you tell me you made pie, I'm going to have Hodgins check you for signs of body snatching."
"I don't know what that means."
"Don't worry about it," he grinned. "I was just kidding. What's for dessert?"
"You'll see." Their gazes held, and he looked as though he were trying to pry the answer out of her telepathically. "Finish eating," she encouraged, rising from her seat to start clearing the mess in the kitchen. Once the counters were clean and the dishwasher was running, she told Booth to wait for her in the bedroom.
"Am I having you for dessert, baby?" he asked, sounding rather hopeful.
"You'll see," she said again, stifling a giggle. "I'll be up in a minute." Booth practically skipped up the stairs and stripped down to his boxers.
"Music?" he called down the stairs.
"Sure."
Booth turned on the mix CD they'd made several months ago for the bedroom and set it to repeat. It was made up of the songs that had become important to them as a couple, including selections from multiple genres. They had danced or made love to every song at one point or another. Brennan appeared in the doorway just as he was turning the lights down, and he swallowed convulsively at the sight of her.
She was wearing a deliciously thin set of black mesh lingerie. It was utterly feminine but much less frilly and lacy than most of the things she'd worn for him in the past. There were no embellishments to speak of; the designer had clearly intended for the focus to be upon the female body rather than satin and lace. The material was soft to the touch and concealed absolutely nothing.
"Wow," he breathed, his happy expression not far off what it had been at the prospect of his steak dinner. "This one might be my favorite. So I am having you for dessert, huh?" He wrapped his arms around her and belatedly realized that she was holding something behind her back.
"Sort of," she chuckled. Brennan handed him the cold object in her hand and smiled as his eyes widened with fresh excitement.
Ice cream, Booth moaned inwardly, taking the small container and placing it on the nightstand.
"I didn't bring a bowl, but you'll probably need this," she added, holding up a spoon. He took it from her, and she moved to the bed.
"What's a birthday without ice cream?" he grinned. "And this is my favorite way to eat it." Booth set the spoon on top of the ice cream carton and moved to hover over her, his eyes tracing every curve and contour of her body. "You're so beautiful, baby. So gorgeous. I could spend the rest of my life just looking at you."
He leaned down to kiss her, and she met his lips with passion and gratitude for his praise. His mouth moved slowly from her lips, across the strong line of her jaw to her ear, and down to her collarbone. He took his time, kissing, tasting, and nipping lightly until her back was arching upward to encourage him. Booth slipped the thin straps of her négligée over her shoulders, his warm breath dancing across her bare skin. Her fingers threaded through his hair, tugging reflexively when his lips closed around the hard peak of her breast.
Brennan moaned and arched toward him again, urging him to continue. He slowly removed the nearly transparent garment, following its downward trail with his lips. He kissed every inch of skin as it was revealed until only the see-through mesh panties remained. Brennan was breathing heavily with anticipation, but he didn't immediately remove her underwear. Instead, he parted her thighs gently and pressed his mouth into her wetness with the thin barrier still in place. It was sweet torture.
"Booth," she groaned, pleading.
"Patience," he replied with a soft smile.
"The ice cream is melting."
"It's about to melt a lot more." He teased her through the panties once more, inhaling deeply and thrilling at the scent of her arousal.
"Booth."
He chuckled under his breath and slipped the underwear off of her body. He shed his boxers quickly before reaching for the ice cream. It had softened just enough that digging into it wouldn't be a chore.
"Close your eyes," he told her softly. "And lie still." He smiled when she obeyed immediately, watching the rising and falling of her chest as she began to breathe even faster. He'd blindfolded her the last time they'd brought food to bed, mostly because she'd been too stubborn to follow instruction. She had ended up enjoying the sensory deprivation, however, agreeing that it had indeed enhanced her other senses. This time, he knew the blindfold wouldn't be necessary.
He allowed his fingertips to brush lightly over her skin from clavicle to pelvis, and she shuddered at the unexpected touch. Booth dipped the spoon into the ice cream and removed a small amount. He dropped it onto the middle of her chest, directly over her heart. Brennan gasped at the sudden cold sensation, and Booth watched goosebumps rise over her flushed skin before using his tongue to lick the sweet substance from her chest.
He continued the pattern over and over, teasing all of his favorite places on her body. The tiny dip between her collarbones, each of her rosy nipples, the soft expanse of her stomach, each sensitive hip bone, the smooth skin of her inner thigh… By the time he reached her core his mouth was residually cold, but she was on fire. The contrast between the temperatures was stimulating, and she knew that she was a hair's breadth from her release. When his cool tongue made contact with the bundle of nerves at her center, she catapulted over the edge, gripping the bed sheets as she screamed his name. Booth tasted her almost lazily as she trembled beneath him, waiting until her body stilled before returning the spoon to the nightstand.
"Open your eyes, baby," he whispered, aligning their bodies. Her eyes were his favorite shade of blue, and they darkened a little more as he entered her. He set a slow but forceful pace, and she clung to his shoulders as her hips matched his movements perfectly. Brennan's eyes drifted shut again when he captured her lips with his own, and she moaned softly when his tongue slid softly against hers. She felt her body nearing the threshold of ecstasy once again, and she pulled back slightly to look into his eyes.
"Come with me," she begged. Booth groaned in surrender as they each reached their climax, shuddering against one another with each tremor that rocked through their bodies. He rested his forehead against hers as they gasped for breath.
"I love you, Bones. So much."
"I love you too, Booth," she replied, gracing him with a sated smile. "Happy Birthday."
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A few days after his birthday, Booth unearthed some new information about the next foster parent on Brennan's list. Having read the reports from her social services file, he had begun to anticipate that this particular person, Aaron Roberts, might also be deceased. While confirming that fact might offer validation of his intuition, he knew that it wasn't something Brennan would want to hear.
She had been removed from the Roberts' home following a confirmation of physical abuse. Her foster father had either thrown or pushed her down a flight of stairs, resulting in a grade three concussion, a sprained wrist, and a fractured rib. With a hollow sensation in his stomach, Booth read over the details of Aaron Roberts' death. He'd been found at the bottom of a concrete flight of stairs outside of a Chicago bar. The coroner had determined that he had most likely been intoxicated and had fallen to his death by accident. Booth might have accepted that conclusion had it not been for the man's injuries. He'd suffered a broken wrist, several broken ribs, and a head wound, which had been the ultimate cause of death. Roberts' blood alcohol content had been significantly over the legal limit, which was most likely the reason the coroner had attributed his death to a drunken accident.
"It doesn't necessarily mean anything, Bones," he said quietly. She was next to him on the couch, leaning into him as she read through the information he'd found.
"What happened to the body?" she asked, her voice neutral and detached.
"Cremated. No one claimed him."
"And this was in '96? Like Campbell?"
"Yeah. Six months later."
"I'm not surprised no one claimed his body. He beat his wife too, and they didn't have any biological children. I can't say I blame her," Brennan said solemnly. She sat forward with her elbows resting on her knees and rubbed her temples to soothe the headache that was slowly growing in intensity. "Similar injuries, no body, and the timing fits. Again."
"What do you mean 'the timing fits?' Because he died not long after Campbell?"
"Yes, but also because of where I was at the time. I was at Northwestern at the times of both of their deaths...and Max admitted that he checked on me multiple times while I was in college."
"You think he took out Campbell and Roberts while he was in the area," Booth replied, his words more of a statement than a question.
"It fits the timeframe. The details of what they'd both done to me were in my social services file, along with their names, addresses, phone numbers… Still, I don't know how he would've gotten the file-"
"Max was on the run from the FBI for thirty years, Bones. I don't think stealing your foster care file would've been a challenge for him. Campbell and Roberts were the only two placements where the abuse was confirmed, right?" Though Booth had read her file cover to cover, he had also spent a lot of time doing his best not to dwell on the details.
"Yes, but I made allegations against Taylor. I reported the sexual assault, but no one believed me. If Max had that file, then he would've seen that too. I'm sure he'd have known that I wasn't lying about it, regardless of what the caseworkers or the psychiatrists or anyone else might've said about me. So if any of these men were actually murdered by Max, or even if all of them were, why did he wait eleven years to go after Taylor?"
"I don't know," Booth frowned, momentarily imagining himself in Max's place. "Maybe tracking them down wasn't easy. You didn't go to your caseworker about Hammel?"
"I did, but he never left a mark, so there was no proof. The other kids in the house had tried to make accusations before too. None of them ever went anywhere, and eventually I just ran away." Brennan glanced over the additions Booth had made to the list she'd given him in Chicago. Of nine foster placements, seven had been abusive in some way. Four of those had been physically abusive, and all four of the fathers from those homes were now dead.
They sat in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. Booth had started this process by going through her list in chronological order, but now he wondered if perhaps he should make an adjustment. There were three more names on the list, not including Taylor, who had been foster father number eight. Two of the three remaining placements had involved emotional and verbal abuse, and the other couple had merely backed out of their obligation when the wife had gotten pregnant. He mentally moved the non-abusive couple to the end of his priority list and decided to focus instead on the other two: the Lewis and Edwards families.
"I'm sorry that I haven't found the proof you need, Bones. I know I promised-"
"No, Booth. There's no need to apologize. They're all cold cases involving unavailable or cremated remains and police and coroner's reports with too few details. Plus, all of the deaths took place in a county where the police force is somewhat prejudiced against the FBI. I know getting the information has been a slow process, and even when you've been able to get it, it hasn't provided the answers we're looking for. None of that is your fault."
"I know that, I just… I don't want to let you down," he admitted, lowering his eyes. She shook her head insistently and reached up to frame his face with her hands, forcing him to look at her again.
"You could never let me down." Booth allowed himself to get lost in her beautiful eyes for a few moments before he spoke again.
"Bones, even if… Even if we figure out that Max did this, or even if we only ever get as far as suspecting that he did it… Either way, you have to make your peace with it. I'm not saying you have to forgive him, because that's your choice, but I don't want this to be a dark shadow over you. I'll do whatever I can to help you; you know that. So please don't think that you have to cope with this emotional mess on your own. Alright?" His tone was gentle but anxious. He knew that she had a natural tendency to turn inward when dealing with emotional issues, and he wanted to be there for her.
"I know, Booth. I won't shut you out. I promise."
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What's a birthday without ice cream? ;)
What are your thoughts on Max? Did he kill them all? Think they'll ever really know for sure?