6.5 x 04 The Low Point in the Line-Up by rynogeny

Bill Tobin, general manager of Emerald Hills Country Club, forced back a scowl and smiled at the man – one of their wealthiest, most prominent members – standing in front of him. "I'm sorry, Mark. The batting cage should have been unlocked by now." He grabbed his keys and started toward the door. "But on top of re-opening after the storm, Matt didn't show today."

"Matt skipped work?"

"Looks that way." The two men left the main building and started down the path towards the batting cage. On either side of them were tree limbs knocked to the ground by the storm that had hit four days earlier. "He's never been so much as five minutes late, and now, on a day when I really need him, he's a no-show, no-call. So much for reliable teenagers, huh?" He paused to shift a large branch off the path.

Mark whistled and grabbed the other end. "You all really got hammered, didn't you?"

"Yeah. It's been difficult to get a start on cleaning it up without power. I've never been so grateful for electricity in my life."

They resumed their walk, and Mark smiled, "I'm sorry to ask you to walk all the way out here, then. But my son's coming for a visit this weekend, and I like to practice my hitting before our pickup games." He chuckled. "No one's as vain as a decrepit former college baseball star."

Bill gave what felt like the first real laugh in days. "Hardly decrepit. But it's good for me to get out this way and take a closer look at the damage. We've been concentrating our clean-up on the golf course in the other direction." His smile faded. "I hope the cage itself is still standing." He broke into a jog and sighed with relief when they came out of the trees and he saw the structure in front of him. Because it was a ways from the main building and yet contained some pricey equipment, it was made of iron bars placed close enough to prevent someone from getting inside merely by using wire cutters to snip through the fencing that made up the walls. Apparently, the iron had been heavy enough, and grounded well enough, to prevent the cage from blowing over in a storm that had done some significant damage.

His relief was short lived as he realized the door was ajar, and then even that concern was wiped from his mind when the smell hit him. Grimly, he ignored Mark's gagging, and covered the last few feet to the batting cage at a run. A former marine who'd served in Desert Storm, he knew that smell. Hoping it was an animal, he stepped around the door and immediately backed away, retching.

A bloody, gory mess was pinned in some fashion at the other end of the cage and it was most definitely human.

B&B

Brennan slowed to pick her away around another large limb on the path from the service road to the batting cage. "I don't understand this facility, Booth. Is it an amusement area for the privileged or a federal park?"

"Both, Bones." He shoved another branch out of the way, glad to see it looked like the path was clear from this point. "The country club donated some land to the adjoining historical park a few years ago, with the understanding that they could continue to use it."

"Is that why this hitting practice room is back here?"

"Batting cage. And yes, something like that. The country club is laid out in sections, with green space between the pool, the tennis courts, and the batting cage."

They stepped out of the trees and paused for a moment, taking in the cage and its setting before continuing over to the structure. Techs were beginning to process the area around the cage, but the interior was vacant. Stepping carefully to avoid tripping over the baseballs that littered the floor, Brennan went immediately to the body, while Booth stopped to examine the machine immediately in front of the door.

He whistled. "This is a top of the line pitching machine, the kind used by the pro teams."

"I assume that means it's capable of launching a great many projectiles at a high rate of speed."

Booth looked at the baseballs. "We'll have to verify with the manufacturer, but there look to be close to a hundred balls in here, and a hopper this size could have held them all. And these pitchers can shoot at up to 90 mph."

"There is a great deal of soft tissue here that Cam needs to examine, but the damage I'm seeing would be consistent with being struck repeatedly by balls being fired at that velocity."

"There's a reason why catchers wear protective gear," he muttered. "What have you got on the victim?"

"Male, between the ages of 16-19."

Booth looked at the victim, tried to see something identifiable as a teenager, and couldn't. Although most of the balls had struck his chest area, either stray balls, general decomp, or animals had obliterated personal features.

Shaking his head, he moved carefully around to where he could see how the victim had been restrained. "He's secured to the back of the cage by cloth cargo restraints around his arms, legs, and chest."

Curious, Brennan shifted to look at what he was seeing. "It looks quite effective."

"It certainly did the job." He looked around again. "Being a few feet further back from where the player normally stands doesn't appear to have made much difference to him. I'm going to go check with the techs and see what they've found outside."

"We need to get back to the lab. I won't be able to do a full examination until Cam has done the autopsy and the flesh has been removed."

He knelt and studied one of the balls. "It's possible some of these balls were on the floor before the attack but this one is smeared with blood. Hodgins is going to be busy, too."

He walked out, and Brennan turned to watch him go. They'd worked several cases since reuniting, but the sense of …rightness about being back, working with him, was still strong. She frowned, uncertain of the right term to express the emotion, even privately. What they did was important, but what she did on digs was important, too, if in a different way. If the year apart had proven anything, it was that she could work without him, and do so successfully. But the contentment she felt in partnering with him had shown her that she found more satisfaction in what they did together than in any other use of her skills.

Booth stepped out of the cage and watched one of the FBI techs come toward him. "Anything?"

"Not much on the ground so far. Damage from the storm is complicating our canvas. But there is this." He motioned Booth over the trees and pointed up, to a security camera pointed at the cage.

"What the hell is that? It's pink."

"Yes sir. The lens is covered by some sort of pink substance. I can't tell what it is or how it got up there, but I'm assuming it did a superb job of blinding the camera."

Booth looked from the camera to the cage and back up. "Whoever strapped the kid to the wall did some advance planning, in other words." He looked around again. "Continue to process the scene. I'm going to go talk to the general manager."

The tech pointed to a small group of people standing outside the area marked off by crime scene tape. "Bill Tobin. He's the guy with the cap."

"Thanks." He studied the man as he walked over to him, noted the grim expression on his face. "Mr. Tobin? I'm Special Agent Seeley Booth of the FBI. Can I have a few minutes of your time?"

"Agent Booth." Tobin acknowledged the greeting. "Any idea who that is?" He shook his head, grimaced. "I saw enough to know I didn't want to see anymore, and that was already too much."

"We're working on that. Can you tell me who was the last person out this way before this morning?"

"As far as I know, it would have been Matt Foster. He's a senior at the local high school, and does general maintenance work for me on the evenings and weekends. We locked up an hour or so early on Friday night when the forecasters started saying how bad the storm was going to be. None of our members were here – the place was a ghost town. So I secured the other buildings while Matt came out here – the batting cage was sort of his pet project."

"Did you see him leave?"

"No. When I finished the main building, his car was no longer in the lot, so I assumed he had already left."

Booth jotted some notes on the blank index cards he'd pulled out of his pocket. "What do you mean the batting cage was his pet project?"

"Kid's got a lot of talent – he's one of the stars of the local high school team, and a lot of people around here think he might have what it takes to go pro. One of the perks is he can use the facilities for free, and Matt's almost always in the cage when he's not working and no one else is using it."

"Have you talked to Matt since the storm hit?"

"No. School's canceled today because of storm cleanup, so I left him a voice mail telling him I could really use him, and was expecting to see him when I arrived this morning. He's always here, looking for extra hours. But he's not called, and I've not seen him."

Booth was starting to wonder if the reason Matt hadn't come to work was because what was left of him was tied to the back of the batting cage, but he didn't say so. "I saw your security camera up there. How many more do you have?"

"About two dozen around the different buildings, but that's the only one pointed toward the cage."

Booth nodded, unsurprised. "We'll need the footage for all of them."

B&B

As a rule, Camille Saroyan didn't eat much red meat. Although she wasn't a vegetarian, she limited her indulgence, generally seeking protein from healthier alternatives. But she'd been craving hamburgers while pregnant. Big, thick, juicy ones.

She was pretty sure the body in front of her, a young man whose chest area was pulverized to the point of resembling ground beef in places, was going to correct that for her.

"Even one baseball can do significant damage," she noted to Booth and Brennan. "This is just …" She lifted out what had been the victim's heart, placed it in a tray. "The heart's nearly unrecognizable, his ribs are shattered, the lungs perforated."

"So, no cause of death, then?" Booth asked. At Cam's look, he said, "Specifically. I get that any of that could have killed him."

"If the first ball actually struck the area over his heart, that could have disrupted the rhythm sufficiently to kill him, even without the rest of it. Determining exactly which ball ended his life is probably going to be impossible."

Booth nodded and addressed both women. "Is what you're seeing consistent with the build and condition of a high school baseball star?"

"Although I'll know more once I've examined the bones, I see nothing that rules that out," Brennan said.

Cam nodded. "I would agree. Why?"

"Matt Foster, who worked for the country club and was last seen heading toward the cage shortly before the storm struck, is unaccounted for."

Cam looked at the body again. "Nothing else to go on at this point. I'll order his dental records."

"Do we have an estimate of time of death yet?" Booth asked.

"Given the damage from the balls, and allowing for the effects of animals and being out in the open during heat, wind, and rain, I'd estimate a window between a few hours prior to the beginning of the storm on Friday evening and sometime early Saturday. No later than that."

"And it's hard to picture someone committing that particular murder in the middle of that storm, so more than likely it happened shortly before."

"Hey, guys." Angela swiped her card and entered the platform, but then stopped, staying a few feet back from the body. "I've got the specs back on the pitching machine. You were right," she said to Booth. "That model is commonly used by pro teams, a definite upgrade over what most high schools and clubs can afford. It's programmable, can alternate both in types of pitches and speed."

"How many balls does it hold?" Booth asked.

"Up to eighty."

"Do we know what kind of program it was running this time?"

"Mixed and random" Angela said. "It would alternate between fastballs at 90 mph, and curve balls at 75 mph as well as several other types of pitches in a random pattern."

"That's why some of the damage is spread out," Cam said, glancing back down at the body.

"Hell of a way to kill someone." Booth said. Then he frowned as he remembered the storm. "It also requires electricity to run." He glanced at Cam. "We need to know exactly when the power to the country club failed, but much of that area was without electricity from late Friday evening through this morning. He was killed either shortly before the storm struck, or at least before it ramped up enough to take down the power lines."

"So you don't have an ID yet?" Sweets asked from the door of Booth's office.

"No. The general body type matches the kid last known to be there, but there's no car, no wallet. I'm waiting for Cam to get back to me on the dentals."

"I looked at the initial report. This was deliberate and rather cold."

"Yeah, nothing impulsive about it."

"I think it's more than that. There are easier ways of killing someone, but to use a machine that's connected to a specific activity may mean that baseball was significant to both of them."

"Or it could just mean that the killer liked the remote location." His phone rang. "Booth." He listened for a moment and then said, "Thanks, Cam." Hanging up, he stood, looked at Sweets. "Dental records confirm it's Matt Foster. You're with me."

"Okay, but why?"

"Might as well have a shrink along when I break the news to his parents."

B&B

It never took as long as it seemed it ought to wreck someone's life, Booth reflected as they left the Fosters' home.

"It seems like there should be more we can do for them." Sweets asked, looking back at the couple standing in the door.

"Trust me. Their kid is dead. Nothing we say is going to make that better. They've got family on the way over, and their priest is coming. What we can do now is find out who did it, and we're going to do that by following the rabbit trail they laid out for us."

"They did?"

They had reached the SUV, and Booth turned, gave him an impatient look. "Were you listening? They were out of town, thought Matt was staying with his friend Adam. In fact, they even got a text message from Matt reassuring them after the storm hit."

"Ah. Right." Sweets nodded, "I guess I was paying more attention to how they were doing than to exactly what they were saying. So we're going to go talk to Adam?"

"Since no cell phone was found at the scene, yes, talking to Adam is next on the list."

Sweets was silent as they got in the truck and Booth programmed Adam's address into his phone for directions. But as soon as Booth pulled out into the street, he said, "So you seem to be adjusting well to being back from Afghanistan."

Booth snorted. "Of course I am. It wasn't exactly my first rodeo, you know?"

"It's not about how many times you're there," Sweets said earnestly. "It's how you process the experiences. And sometimes bad reactions come in waves."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Dr. Brennan expressed concerns about you when you came home and noted that you were 'jumpy'. Although I realize it was her way of getting me to come back to work with you guys it doesn't mean there's not-"

Booth couldn't wait to ask Brennan about this, "Oh, for the love of God…I am fine." But he knew Sweets and he knew the kid wouldn't let it go. He glanced over at the younger man, "But I'll make you a deal."

"What?"

"You shut up right now, and if I ever start wigging out over cars backfiring, I promise I'll call you."

"Deal," Sweets said immediately, and settled back against the seat, a smug look on his face. "But there are other symptoms of PTSD…"

"Sweets!"

Sweets raised a hand, "Shutting up."

Booth ground his teeth and glanced at the map on his phone, grateful to see they were nearly to Adam Ridge's house.

Booth knew when they stepped onto the porch that Matt's parents had called Adam. Leaned back against the door, the teen was looking down at the cell in his hand as if he'd never seen it before.

Booth showed his badge. "Adam Ridge? I'm FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth, and this is Dr. Lance Sweets. May we come in for a minute? We'd like to ask you some questions."

"He's not dead. He texted me." Adam looked up, a bewildered expression on his face, and then held out the phone.

Booth read the readout out loud. "Hey man, 'rents aren't going out of town b/c of storm. Want me home. Catch you next week." He handed the phone to Sweets to examine, noting, "It was sent at the same time as the one to Matt's parents, at 9:30 PM on Friday." He turned back to Adam. "When was the last time you saw Matt?"

"In school on Friday. He was heading to work, was going to come here when he got off that night."

Sweets studied the message, then glanced up at Adam. "Anything about the text strike you as odd?"

Adam started to shake his head, then frowned. "He's never called his folks 'rents' before. He'd usually just say 'Mom' or sometimes 'M&D'." He glanced over at the phone Sweets was holding. "It's seriously creepy if a killer sent the text."

"Was Matt having problems with anyone?" Booth asked.

"Nah. Most everyone liked him. He could be an ass when it came to playing but he really was the best and everyone knew it. Coach said two years ago if Matt kept improving, scouts would come around, and they did, even recently, when it's off-season." He frowned again. "Actually…"

"What?"

"It's probably stupid, you know? Just something people say. But Logan Chamberlin said the other day that he'd have to find a way to get rid of Matt."

"Any idea why?"

"Logan and Matt have been going head to head for years. I didn't think anything of it, because Matt could just easily have said the same thing about getting rid of Logan. But Logan would really like to catch the eye of the scouts."

"Who wouldn't?" Booth asked. "Thanks, Adam. You've been a big help."

"He's really dead?" His voice shook a little.

"I'm afraid so."

Adam took a deep breath. "We'd been buds since pre-school, man. This sucks."

B&B

"Dr. Brennan?"

She looked up from the autopsy report she was studying. "Yes, Mr. Vaziri?"

"I've finished cleaning the bones, and there are several things I believe you should see."

"There are no doubt many things I should see," she agreed before standing, following the intern back to the bone room. "What did you find?"

"Much of the damage is as we expected – most of his ribs were shattered, as was his manubrium, sternum, and clavicle." He moved the camera into position, focused it, then pointed to the monitor. "But there is also this." He picked up the skull and turned it so she could see the damaged area on its back.

"That wasn't caused by any of the baseballs," she said, taking the skull from him and moving the camera so the focus was on the injury.

Turned to the monitor and intent on the spider web of cracks emanating from the depression in the parietal, she barely registered another person entering the room, turning only when Cam called her name. The response she was about to make faltered when she saw the man standing next to the pathologist, and for a moment, she could only stare. She hadn't expected to see him again, and certainly not in her lab. " Richard. What are you doing here?"

Apparently unfazed by her blunt greeting, the tall, lanky man smiled, his green eyes glinting with amusement. "I'm due in New York tomorrow for a meeting, and arranged a stopover in DC so I could see you."

He started toward her, and Brennan glanced down at the skeletal remains of Matt Foster. Knowing his attention would shift to the bones, she pulled off her gloves and stuffed them in her pocket before glancing at her intern. "Please get photos of the skull injury to Angela so she can begin seeking a match to a weapon." She turned, walked toward Richard. "Let's go to my office." He glanced at the remains, then followed her.

He whistled as they walked past the platform. "This is some place. Is there anything you don't have here, equipment wise?"

"Nothing important. We're well funded."

"So those remains…murder victim?"

"I'm not going to discuss that with you." She made a point of not repeating mistakes.

Richard held up his hands. "Sorry. Incurable curiosity – you'd do the same thing."

Uncomfortable because he was right and feeling guilty because Richard was nothing like Michael Stires, she led him into her office. "You're correct. I'm sorry if I sounded unnecessarily harsh. There are controls over who is allowed near remains."

"Of course. No worries." He reached out and touched her cheek. "I didn't come to see your work. I came to see you."

"Why?"

"God, I miss that get-to-the-point nature."

"I see little point in prevaricating."

"I know. It's one reason I'm crazy about you." He looked thoughtfully around her office.

"I came to see you because I miss you," he said simply. "And I'm hoping you'll give me a chance to prove we can have a relationship, even with you here and me at Stanford or wherever." He waved a hand as if to indicate the distances were negligible.

He moved to embrace her, and Brennan returned the hug before gently extricating herself. "There's more to it than just distance." So much more, including things she was still struggling to understand herself. But she would do her best to explain it. She owed him that, and more. She glanced at her watch. "I'll meet you for dinner this evening, if you wish."

He smiled at her offer. "I'd like that very much." Taking out a business card, he jotted something on the back of it.

"Here's where I'm staying."

"It may be late," she warned.

"I understand."

Brennan doubted that very much, but before she could say so, Booth walked into her office. "Hey, Bones. Think we might have a lead." He stopped when he saw Richard and an eyebrow went up.

"Booth, this is Dr. Richard Edgely, a colleague of mine. Richard, this is my partner, Special Agent Seeley Booth."

Richard reached out a hand in greeting. "Agent Booth, I've heard a lot about you."

Booth returned the handshake. "Dr. Edgely." Dismissing the other man, he turned to Brennan. "Cam gave me the short version of the autopsy, but told me you might have something more."

"Yes. Mr. Vaziri found an unexplained injury. I'll tell you in the car." She turned back to Richard. "I'll call you later."

"I'll look forward to it." He acknowledged Booth with smile. "Agent Booth. Good luck with your case."

"There is no such thing as luck," Brennan noted.

B&B

"So he was hit in the head before being tied to the batting cage?" Booth asked as Brennan finished her summary in the SUV.

"Yes. It would have been impossible to do that much damage to that location after he was secured to the structure."

"Did that blow kill him?"

"I have not yet determined that. It is not impossible. Equally possible is damage to the heart caused by one of the broken ribs."

"The head injury makes sense. I'd wondered how easy it was to strap him in like that if he were awake and struggling," Booth admitted. "Of course, a dead weight wouldn't be exactly easy to maneuver, either."

"So we maybe looking for two suspects?"

"Maybe."

They fell silent, and Brennan's thoughts turned back to Richard. She wasn't unhappy at seeing him. She appreciated his intelligence, his curiosity about all things archaeological and anthropological. But the mild affection she'd felt when she'd seen him standing next to Cam was very different from the pleasure she'd experienced when Booth had walked into her office.

"So who's Richard?" Booth asked nonchalantly.

"What?"

"You put me a bit at a disadvantage there, Bones. He knew more about me than I did him."

Wondering if she'd violated another rule of social etiquette, she shrugged. "It was not my intention to create an imbalance between you. We met in Indonesia. He teaches at Stanford and spent several months assisting us on the dig."

"Ah."

Brennan was uncertain enough of her own emotions not to ask for an explanation of his 'ah,' instead she turned back to the murder. "You said we're going to question a possible suspect?"

Booth let the conversation go. "A kid who made a threat against the victim. Turns out Foster was getting some pretty significant attention from college scouts, but he wasn't the only player on the team."

"I don't understand."

"What? The scouts, or competition?"

"What do Boy Scouts have to do with college and baseball?"

His lips twitched into a smile. "Sport scouts, Bones. They travel around looking for likely players to be tapped for sports programs offering scholarships and the like. Being scouted by the right school with the right program will make it easier for them to get noticed by one of pro teams."

She frowned. "Shouldn't they select a university based on their area of academic interest?"

"Let's just say that for someone like Matt Foster, baseball was his area of interest, academic or not."

"What if he's not scouted? It's foolish to put all his apples in one basket."

"Foolish or not, it's what kids do."

"And someone else is doing the same thing?"

"That's what the victim's friend Adam says, and the coach verified it when I went by to see him after dropping Sweets off. Says Matt and this kid Logan Chamberlin were big rivals, but Matt usually edged out Chamberlin when it came down to it."Booth checked the address, then came to a stop in front of a small, well-kept house.

"This isn't far from where the victim lives," he noted.

"Is it okay for us to interrogate him if his parents aren't home?"

"It's just an interview, Bones. And he's eighteen, so, yeah."

A young woman opened the door at their knock, and frowned when Booth introduced them and showed his badge. "Logan," she shouted. "Cops are here. What did you do?"

"What? Nothing!" A voice shouted back. There was the sound of a chair scraping the floor and then a young man appeared in the door to what was clearly the kitchen. He was frowning.

"You're Logan Chamberlin?" At his nod, Booth repeated his introduction. "We'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Yeah, sure. Come on in the kitchen."

When they entered the kitchen they found that beside the young woman, another young man was also at the table. Booth judged the other boy and the girl to be a year or two older than Logan.

Booth took out a note card. "Who are you two?"

The girl had moved to the counter and picked up a knife and began chopping carrots. Based on the pile on a platter, she was resuming what she'd been doing before Booth had knocked. "I'm Amy Chamberlin," she said. "I'm Logan's sister. That," she motioned toward the third teen with her knife, "is my boyfriend, Tyler Ridge."

"What's going on?" Logan asked.

Booth turned back to him."Where were you on Friday evening?"

He frowned. "That was the night the storm hit. They canceled the football game, so I came home. Nothing else going on with everyone freaked about the storm."

"Was anyone here?"

"Yeah, Mom was. Dad worked late."

"When was the last time you saw Matt Foster?"

Logan's eyes narrowed. "Why? What is he accusing me of?"

Booth studied him for a moment. "Nothing. Have you done something?"

"Hell, no. I try to leave wonderboy alone, except when I whip his ass on the field."

"When did you last see him?" Brennan asked.

Logan glanced at her, and his anger seemed to be fading to puzzlement. "At school on Friday. We're in a class together. But I didn't talk to him or hassle him. Not much point in the off-season. Why? What's he saying I did?"

"He's not saying anything. He's dead," Booth said.

Logan simply stared, the blood visibly draining from his face. "He's what?"

"Dead," Amy snapped. "And they wouldn't be here if he'd dropped dead of a heart attack." She brought the knife down sharply on a carrot, and Booth looked at her thoughtfully, then glanced at Tyler, who had yet to say a word. He was pretty sure the kid was stoned. Either that or he was a few IQ points short. "Just to cover all the bases, where were you two on Friday?"

Amy glared at Booth, snapped the knife through another carrot. "I'm a student at Georgetown, but I come home most weekends." She motioned to Tyler. "We were together."

"Doing what? Where?" Booth directed his question to Tyler, wondering if the kid even had a voice.

"My house. I live at home, take a few classes." He seemed to struggle to get the words out.

Yeah, definitely high. "Were your parents there?"

Tyler blinked, then shook his head. "Mom was working."

"He's really dead?" Logan asked, and Booth shifted his attention back to him, and saw both shock and grief in his eyes.

"Yeah, he's dead. And someone said you might have a reason to want him that way."

"Oh, great," Amy said bitterly. "Even dead, he's going to ruin your life."

Logan shoved up, tipping his chair over with a clatter. "Shut up! Just shut up," he shouted. "He wasn't trying to ruin my life. He was just doing what we do. He was playing ball."

"Yeah, well, the scouts won't come to see you playing in penal league, will they?"

Ignoring her, Booth looked at Logan. "You were competing for the attention of the same scouts. From what I hear, you were pretty evenly matched."

Logan shook his head. "Matt was the better player. I always hit what I aim for, but he had the better arm."

"So with him out of the way, you might score a pretty good deal."

He turned, righted the chair. "What the hell difference will it make? We learned to play on the same tee ball team. Beating him would have been sweet. Beating a dead guy? Not so much."

Booth's glance took in Brennan, who was studying Logan the way she might an oddly shaped bone, to Tyler and then to Amy, who was now staring blankly down at the carrots.

She looked up. "I know I'm sounding like an uber-bitch. I'm sorry he's dead. I'm not sorry for what it will mean for Logan."

Brennan glanced at her. "You probably shouldn't chop vegetables when you're upset. It appears as if you've already sustained an injury on your hand."

Amy touched the bandage on her left thumb. "Yeah, I tend to get worked up."

Booth looked back at Logan. He'd picked up the chair and was leaning on its back, staring down at the table. "We'll be going. Thank you for your time."

They walked out in silence and didn't speak until they were back in the SUV. As Booth pulled away, Brennan turned, studied him. "You don't think he did it."

Booth shook his head. "No. His shock and grief were real. It sounds to me like they were

friends as kids, and let their rivalry drive them apart. But he was telling the truth when he said that winning the scouts' attention wouldn't mean as much if he won simply because Matt was no longer there."

"Some kind of jock honor code?" Brennan asked with a slight smile.

"Something like that." He didn't elaborate, his mind on the teens they'd just left. "No, Logan didn't do it. But his sister's on the possibles list."

"You think she did it to help her brother?"

He grimaced, unable to help himself. "People do all kinds of things for family, Bones."

They both had reason to know that.

From her expression, Brennan was thinking the same thing, but she let the comment pass.

"Amy does not look strong enough to have secured Matt to the cage herself."

"Probably not but she might have had help."

"The boyfriend?"

"Yeah. I'd be interested in knowing whether he's just one of those kids who's always high or if it's just how he's coping with having committed murder."

"He appears to be quite weak-minded. He might crack in the interrogation room."

Booth smiled at her terminology, but shook his head. "He may crack, but I'd rather have more to go on than weak motive and a hunch."

"Then we'll find it. Perhaps Angela has matched a weapon for the injury to the skull."

"And meanwhile, I'll do some digging on Amy and Tyler."

They drove in silence for a while, then Booth's curiosity got the better of him. "So, you're having dinner with Richard?"

She hesitated in a way he'd never seen her do before when discussing a date, and Booth forced back a smile of satisfaction at that." Yes," she said. "There are several things I must discuss with him."

B&B

"Stanford, huh?" Booth asked as he and Brennan walked back into the lab a short while later.

"Yes, Richard teaches part time at Stanford. It's actually a very nice arrangement. He has time to take part in digs and do research, as well as to teach. He's quite popular with students."

Booth could care less how appealing the other man was to students, only about how popular he was with Brennan. Since returning, things had been different between them – he'd caught her watching him a few times with a look he'd never seen from her before, for starters. And then there was what he'd seen in her eyes when Padme had tried to set him up. They were in a good space, moving toward a better place and at their own pace.

Still, he wished he knew more about what Richard wanted with Brennan. He couldn't ask, though. Wherever they were, it wasn't there – not yet.

"…he's writing a book about the Maluku find, and what it meant." Brennan said, and he realized she'd been talking about the man the entire time he'd been thinking about him.

Booth grunted, glad to have a reason to change the subject as they walked into Angela's office. "Hey, Angela. You get anything on the weapon?"

She shook her head and motioned to a screen that where an endless assortment of items that could be used as a weapon was flickering by. "My eye says it might be a baseball bat, but I'm waiting for confirmation because that might just be my seeing something that doesn't exist."

"We didn't find a bat at the scene," Brennan said, then looked at Booth. "Should we have?"

"What do you mean?"

"Should they stock them, like they do the balls?"

"No, people generally bring their own. But whether it's a bat or not, it's one more thing missing from the crime scene, along with Matt's wallet and cell phone. There was nothing there that could have been used to hit someone in the head."

"But just because I've not yet found the weapon doesn't mean I've not found other answers," Angela said pointedly. When they turned back to her, she touched something on her control pad and said, "I've ran the footage from the security cameras. This is the one from the batting cage."

On the screen, Booth and Brennan watched her fast-forward through people going in and out of the cage.

"So far, I've gone back a week and haven't seen anything that looks odd. Matt was there almost every evening, sometimes to lock the cage, sometimes to practice. No one was ever with him, and there's no sign of anyone poking around or appearing to study the cage. Eighteen country club members or their guests used the cage in that week, and none of them acted out of the ordinary. I'm working on their names. But this," she slowed the recording, "is what happened last Friday evening."

They watched as there was a quick flicker of movement to the left, and then the picture went dark. Angela replayed it, slower, and Booth again caught a flash off to the far left of the frame before the picture was again obliterated.

"What is that?" Brennan asked.

"I've got it!" Hodgins interrupted from the door. "I know what it is. The pink stuff on the camera."

They all turned toward him, but Booth noted that Angela took a subtle step back.

"Are you going to share the information or just stand there grinning?" Booth asked.

"It's paint ball paint. Someone – a good shot with a good gun – stood off to the side of the camera and fired a paint ball pellet at the camera lens."

"Paint ball paint?" Booth repeated, then looked back at the monitor where Angela had frozen the image with the glint visible in the left part of the frame. "Can you enlarge that enough to see if it's part of the gun?"

Angela did her magic – not a term Brennan would appreciate, but he rather thought the artist would – and a moment later, a blurry image that might have been the barrel of a gun was revealed.

"That, plus the range and capability of the gun might be enough to get me a model number" she said. "I'll look into it."

Entering the restaurant, Brennan saw Richard before he saw her, and paused to study him. His brown hair was sun-streaked nearly blond. but it suited his tanned skin. He was dressed casually in jeans, an open-necked shirt and sports jacket, and appeared relaxed as he checked something on his phone. Apparently nothing too engrossing though, because he seemed to sense her presence. He lifted his head, looked directly at her, and smiled.

By the time she crossed the restaurant, he'd stood and dropped his phone in a pocket. He was tall and lean, though she had reason to know he was well-muscled. He moved to kiss her, and she turned her head so he brushed her cheek instead of her lips.

"Hello, Richard."

"Brennan." The smile had faded when she avoided his kiss, but welcome was still in those green eyes when he said her name. "How are you?"

"I'm well. Busy." She hesitated, chose her words more carefully than was usual for her as she took the seat across from him. "What are you doing here?" There hadn't been any uncertainty to their parting, at least not for her .

The waiter appeared before he could answer, and he waited until the man had taken their order before doing so.

"I missed you," he said simply. Before she could speak, he reached out, touched her hand. "I know what you said when I left the islands, and I respect that. But when I realized I was needed in New York, I had to take the opportunity. People change, and I was hoping you'd change your mind. We were good together."

"Richard—"

He interrupted her. "We fit in a way I've never known before. Most of my relationships end when I leave for another dig," he admitted. "But even if we weren't working the same project, we would understand those separations. We don't have truly permanent lives, you and I. We don't need them. Oh, I've got Stanford and you've got the Jeffersonian, but we come and go as we need to – you were gone for a year this time. So why not try to find a way to merge those lives, at least part of the time?"

Because I think I want a permanent life, she almost said, and couldn't quite do so. "All organisms evolve," she said instead, and thought of something Cam had once said to her.

"But I'm not evolving in the direction you apparently thought and hoped."

He leaned back, studied her. "You were happy in Maluku."

"I was …satisfied much of the time," she corrected. "Including when we were together.

I'm proud of the work I did there. We didn't discover what we hoped to, but we accomplished what we set out to do."

He smiled at her, acknowledging the pleasure of knowledge gained, and she gave him a brief smile back before sobering again. "But I find I derive a greater sense of satisfaction from apprehending murderers than anything else. I'll still go on digs, will still consult. But what being away for a year taught me was that what once completely satisfied me no longer does."

Richard nodded slowly. "And if I sought a teaching position here?"

Brennan shook her head. "It's not the distance or time apart. It never was."

"I thought so. I had to ask, though. I just wanted another chance with you. With us."

She thought of Booth. "I understand."

B&B

Brennan walked into Angela's office the next morning. "You have something to show me?"

Angela nodded, and reached for her control pad. "After you left with Booth yesterday, I worked with Cam and Arastoo on reconstructing the scene. She flicked the pad, and a stylized image of Matt Foster appeared. Another human image appeared behind him.

"We know he was knocked out prior to being tied to the cage."

The second image struck Matt in the back of the head with a baseball bat.

"You've confirmed it was a bat?"

"Yeah. Right size, right shape, and Arastoo found particulates in the bone that Hodgins says is consistent with the finish used on bats."

On the screen, Matt's body slumped to the floor. Angela touched the controls again, and

the scene reformed to show him secured to the cage.

"The pitching machine was set on a random pattern but doesn't keep a record of what kind of pitches it threw in what order. A fastball to start would have struck here on his chest," she said as an image appeared of a ball hitting the victim. "But a curveball would more likely have struck here, a hair off where the fastball hit." A second ball hit the torso. If the storm was starting, wind might have been a factor as well on where the balls struck. But either way, within moments, ribs three through five would have been broken here, here, and here." The image changed to a depiction of the skeleton, showing the breaks as Angela referenced them. "Additional strikes would have driven either ribs four or five into the heart."

Cam stepped into the room. "There is evidence of the pericardial sac being lacerated."

One of Angela's other computers beeped, and she stepped over to look at it.

Brennan glanced at Cam, then turned back to the monitor, now frozen on the image of a ball striking a fractured rib poised to drive it into the heart. "We know cause of death if it was the pitching machine. The question is whether the skull fracture was significant enough to have already killed him."

"That's the way I see it," Cam said. "There was some swelling and evidence of a subdural hematoma, but it wasn't particularly large yet. While it might have killed him eventually, there's no ambivalence about the injury to the heart. There's also something else. Hodgins examined the restraints. While most of the blood is the victim's type A, there's a small amount of type O. I ran the DNA and there aren't any matches in the database…but it's female."

"I'll call Booth and let him know." She looked back at the image frozen on the monitor.

"I suspect his gut will not be surprised by the female DNA, but we need something that ties her to the scene in order to get a DNA sample. Wanting the victim out of the way isn't a crime."

"Ask Booth if this will do." Angela said. She walked back to them as she made some adjustments on her control pad, and the reconstruction fell away, was replaced by security camera footage. "Booth asked me to search the footage from the country club camera for the past month for any evidence that Amy Chamberlin or Tyler Ridge were ever there. It just found Amy. This was time stamped three weeks ago." She made another adjustment, and they saw Amy walking with Matt to the batting cage. He was speaking to her, but she seemed more interested in her surroundings, and paid particularly close attention to the security camera pointed toward the cage.

B&B

Booth and Brennan stood in the observation room watching Amy. "I couldn't get a court order for DNA, not on what we have," Booth said. "Looking at a security camera isn't illegal. But I've got a few questions for her." His phone rang, and he answered it as they started toward the interrogation room. "Yeah, Charlie. What do you have for me?" He listened for a moment, and then said, "That will do. Go ahead and bring him in, will you? Thanks." He pocketed his phone and looked at Brennan, a satisfied look on his face. "Got another piece of the puzzle, Bones."

"What? What did Charlie say?"

"He's been looking into Tyler for me. You'll never guess where he works." He wiped the smirk from his face as he led the way into the interrogation room.

"Amy, thank you for coming in." he said, dropping the folder he carried on the table. "There are a few things we need for you to clear up."

She nodded. "I know how I sounded when you stopped by the house, but we all grew up together. Logan and Matt were friends when they were little. I'll help however I can."

"What about you?" Brennan asked. "Were you and Matt friends?"

Amy shrugged. "Not really. He's the same age as Logan – two years younger than me. That makes a difference."

"Huh," Booth said. "Not as much as I might have thought, apparently." He opened the folder, slid out the photo of her looking up at the security camera. "You're not a member of the country club, and Matt didn't sign you in as a guest."

Amy stared down at the photo for a long moment. "Oh, that," she finally said. Reading people wasn't Brennan's strength but even she identified the uncertainty in her voice.

"Matt was always hitting on me."

"So you decided to let him catch you?" Booth asked.

"I wanted to see the pitching machine. See how much of an advantage it was giving him."

"And instead, you started thinking about how easy it would be to kill someone with it?"

"No." She shook her head. "Don't be ridiculous. He just wasn't paying attention or something and was hit by accident."

Booth leaned back in his chair and studied her for a moment before shifting again, all sign of relaxed cooperation suddenly gone. "No, someone, or someones, rather, was very deliberate about this. Let me tell you what we have, Amy. We have proof that the person who strapped Matt to the cage was female, because she cut herself on sharp piece of the cage while doing so." He looked down at her bandaged thumb. "We're assuming a lone female would have a difficult time getting him positioned the way he was and thus probably had help. Probably this other person hit Matt in the back of the head with a baseball bat to knock him out."

Amy had paled as he spoke, but valiantly touched the bandage. "I cut my thumb while cooking." She looked at Brennan. "You saw that."

Brennan cocked her head. "Your memory is faulty. I saw you chopping carrots and observed that you shouldn't do so while angry. The thumb was already bandaged."

"Shall I continue?" Booth asked. "Someone at the scene fired a paintball gun at the camera – you know, the one you were so interested in." He tapped the photo on the table.

"And guess what? In an amazing coincidence, Tyler works at a paintball arena. They tell us he's a very good shot."

Amy scowled. "You said it yourself. It's a coincidence. Lots of people play paintball, and some are better shots than Tyler."

"I guess we'll find out, won't we? He's being brought in right now," Booth said. "And I have to tell you, Amy, he didn't strike me as being the kind who's going to hold the line in an interrogation. How loyal is he?"

"I want a lawyer."

"Imagine that," Booth said. He stood up, and Brennan did as well. "Of course, by the time we get a lawyer for you, we'll have talked to Tyler. And he'll want to tell us the truth."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm guessing he's going to fall all over himself explaining how it was all your idea, that he only helped you position Matt, after he took out the security camera."

"I didn't kill Matt. The pitching machine did," Amy blurted. "And Tyler was the one who hit him in the head with the bat."

"You really believe that, don't you?" Brennan asked, genuinely curious. "That the machine did it?"

"I didn't hit him." She grabbed the photo of her looking up at the camera and shoved it at them. "Damn it. I just wanted to give my brother a chance at his dream. Playing ball is all he's talked about his whole life. He's my baby brother," she said, and started to cry.

Booth sipped his beer and reminded himself that they'd closed the case. But some of their post-case celebratory drinks felt more, well, celebratory than others. While he was glad to have the confessions, it was hard not to feel a bit melancholy at the thought of a promising young life wasted.

"So we found the car, bat, and cell phone?" Brennan asked.

"Right where Amy said they'd be. For a bright girl, she's not terribly smart."

"And you were right about Tyler being eager to talk."

"Amy was leading him around by the nose." Booth grimaced. "Or another body part entirely is probably more accurate. Either way, he was in over his head and all too eager to swim for the surface, especially with his prints on the bat. Amy's prints aren't on the pitching machine, by the way. She must have wiped them off. But it's her blood on the restraints, and her prints were on the cell phone."

They fell silent, and after a moment, Booth turned his head slightly, so he could watch his partner out of the corner of his eye. Brennan was now tapping the side of her wine glass, a thoughtful look on her face. He was pretty sure her mood wasn't case related, though.

"How did your date with Richard go?"

The thoughtful look turned into a frown. "It wasn't a date, precisely."

A breath he'd not known he was holding eased out. "Oh?"

She looked at him, then back at her wine. "We had a relationship in Indonesia," she said.

"It was different than it's ever been before for me. He and I …fit together very well. It was simpler than I expected it to be, and satisfying." She looked up at him again, her expression for once unreadable to him. "Being in that sort of relationship was easier than I anticipated, and all indications are that I was more successful in the endeavor than I would have expected to be."

"I hear a 'but,' Bones," he said.

She turned back to her wine, and didn't speak for a long while. When she finally did look at him again, her expression was now anxious, and vulnerable. "But I woke up one morning, a few days before Richard was to fly out, and realized that everything I was doing with him, not just sexually, but the relationship…" She swallowed and took a sip of her wine before continuing. "I wanted to be doing with…someone else."

A number of emotions, many he couldn't begin to name, rushed through him all at once. Easily recognizable at first was amusement at the fact that the two of them could be so much alike in the strangest and most comforting ways. The most prevalent, however, was that innate protectiveness, the desire to reassure her above anything else. "I uh," he cleared his throat, "I had a relationship in Afghanistan."

Brennan looked up, and he saw the uncertainty in her eyes. "With an embedded journalist… She and I, we fit the same way you and Richard did." He rubbed his beer bottle between his palms and took another sip before continuing. "Her name was Hannah. She was fun, and dedicated, in her own way, to justice… She was adventurous." Remembering, he gave a small laugh. "For a few months, it was enough." He looked at Brennan, and sobered. "And then one morning, I woke up and realized that I still wanted more, and not with her."

For a beat, they simply stared at one another, smiles gradually creeping onto their faces.

"It seems as if we both met other people we were happy with, if only for a time," Brennan finally said.

Booth nodded, then shifted to face her more fully. "But it wasn't enough, at least for me."

Brennan shook her head. "Nor for me."

"I mean, it would have been easy to stay with Hannah," he said, wondering if she'd understand, hoping she did. "Simpler. I think we could have had a good life."

"Less complicated," Brennan supplied. "That was what I kept thinking about Richard." She sipped her wine, then met his gaze again. "And it is possible I won't be as successful in a relationship that's more …complicated…One that requires more effort but I'm inclined to think that I'll regret not putting forth the effort to find out. " She paused, hoping he understood her implication.

He smiled, and touched the back of her hand with his finger, letting her know he understood her subtext. "That is an excellent inclination, Bones. You know, the things we work the hardest for are usually the ones we appreciate the most." He saw her begin to speak and quickly continued, "And sometimes it takes longer than we think it should, a million things get in the way. But that work? That work we put in, is always worth it."

Brennan smiled and surprised him when she said, "I agree, it takes time."

He laughed lightly, marveling at the fact that she could still surprise him, "Sounds like we both want a complicated life."

She leaned toward him a bit. "It does."

He clinked his bottle against her wine glass. "To a complicated life."

Brennan returned his toast, and smiled in a way that lit up her eyes and caused his grin to deepen. "To a complicated life."

Join us next week when Booth and Brennan investigate a woman's tragic murder and find that nothing is what it seems in a love triangle gone wrong in The Hazard in the Safe Haven by TravelingSue.