A/N: Sorry if it's taken me a long time to update but if you would have seen my life lately, you would understand. Three exams in the same week, studying, parties to go to, reading, catching up for classes, working... everything was just hectic. I'm not really satisfied of the beginning of this chapter, the end is more to my liking though. Hope you enjoy it anyway and don't forget to review at the end!
Circle. It was exactly what they had been going around for two days straight. Booth hated when that happened. You had clues, you had some leads (as crazy as they could be sometimes) then you hit a dead end and didn't know what on Earth you were doing anymore. Nothing made sense. All of a sudden, strange girls appeared at the top of a staircase, old stuffed bunnies were being found on the floor and dreams was something you hadn't had in days because the second you closed your eyes you saw her.
He hadn't talked to Clara about it. Anyway, he was pretty sure she already knew. That woman was intuitive, even more so than his mother and his mother was good. How many times had she caught him sneaking something forbidden into the house or doing something he shouldn't have been doing? His mother had always seem to know exactly what he was doing at the exact moment he was doing it. Younger, he had thought his mother had superpowers. Mommy vision or something, at least. Now that he had met Clara, his mother simply seemed normal.
Somewhere outside his office, a phone rang and Booth heard one of the receptionnist answer. Judy was nice, he thought of her. A bit slow but she got the work done. He never had to ask twice to bring in a certain file or certain papers he needed to sign. They had hired her a year ago and was one of the few who could hold her own against Cullen.
A knock on the door made Booth look up from the papers he had been signing.
"Line 3 for you, Mr. Booth." Judy said, her smile stretching from ear-to-ear.
"Thank you." Booth replied, reaching over to his phone.
Judy nodded politely before walking away.
An arrow was blinking beside the "Line 3" button. Picking up the receiver, Booth pressed on the button.
"Agent Booth."
He heard a sharp intake of breath. Booth frowned.
"Hello?"
"Agent Booth?"
A small voice. Young.
"Yes."
"I was told I could contact the FBI if I had information on your investigation."
Booth frowned even more.
"Which case?"
Yes, which case? Booth was now finding himself juggling five different deaths, including the possible one of Emily Brown. The case had been closed years ago but with new girls dying in the exact same house, Booth was pretty sure it would soon be reopened.
"All of them. They all lived in that house."
"Who are you?"
"I know I'm just a teenager but you have to believe me when I say I can help."
You're just like the others, aren't you?
Booth took a deep breath.
"When do you want to meet?"
He wasn't sure what had made him agree to meet with her. After all, she was only a child. How could she be of any help?
Temperance seemed to think the same way. She had agreed to go down to his office but as she sat in a chair across from his desk, Booth could easily see she thought it would be a waste of time. Only Clara seemed to be happy to be present. It probably had something to do with the fact she never worked on an investigation before.
There was a knock at his door.
"Come in."
The door slowly opened to let in a young girl, probably fifteen years old, and an older woman behind her.
"Quinn?" Booth asked.
The teenager nodded, shyly.
"Please, sit down." Booth added, motionning to an empty chair between Temperance and Clara.
Judy closed the door and Quinn slowly made her way to the seat. Settling herself as comfortable as she could in an uncomfortable situation, she waited for Booth to ask her some questions. After all, isn't what an investigation was all about?
"How old are you, Quinn?"
"Fifteen." The girl replied, quietly. "Sixteen at the end of the summer."
Booth nodded.
"On the phone, you told me you had information on all five cases I'm working on. Can you tell me how you can help?"
Quinn exchanged unsure looks with both women on either side of her. She felt small and vulnerable sitting between them, looking at her like they had better things to do and should not be making them waste time with teenage stories. Her mother wasn't picking her up for another hour. Would it take that long? Were they going to throw her out the second she opened her mouth?
Their gaze felt heavy on her and she began feeling nervous.
"You don't have to be scared." Temperance said.
She knew the woman on her right simply wanted to reassure her but Quinn simply had trouble finding reassurance in the woman's slightly cold tone.
"She's right." Booth added. "You don't have to be scared. Just tell us what you know."
Quinn nodded.
"Cameron Brown murdered his daughter."
Silence fell upon the room.
"How do you know?" Booth asked.
"I talked to him. I mean... no, I didn't actually talk to him because he's dead but..."
"Cameron Brown is dead?" Temperance asked, confused.
The couple exchanged surprised looks.
"Yes." Quinn replied. "Me and my friends got together a couple of nights ago and Caroline suggested we use my friend's mother's Ouija board. Julia didn't want to at first but..."
"A Ouija board?"
Quinn turned to Temperance.
"Yes. A Ouija board."
Temperance raised her eyebrows, unimpressed.
"Go on, Dear." Clara said.
Quinn smiled kindly at her.
"Anyway, we took the board and we all sat on Ju's bed. The next thing you know, we're talking to this spirit. When we asked him his name, he told us it was Cameron Brown. Caroline asked him if he was a good spirit and he said no. Then I asked him if he had committed a crime. I don't know why I asked that question. It simply slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it. Next thing you know, we're asking him what kind of crime he committed. He admitted to murdering someone and when we asked who, he replied that it was his daughter."
Quinn stopped, out of breath.
"You're talking about Cameron Brown, a man who murdered his daughter over forty years ago. How's that got to do with me?"
"I did some research."
Temperance snorted. Booth glared at her.
"What kind of research?"
Quinn glanced briefly at Temperance before answering.
"I was curious. I wanted to know who Cameron Brown was. I googled his name and a webpage on his trial came up. I read everything. It said that Cameron Brown lived at 53 Maple Street, alone, with his daughter Emily. That Emily died when she was just nine years old from poisonning. It was later proved that her father had murdered her, even though he always claimed he was innocent. He got life, was sent to jail and died eight years after the death of his daughter."
"How did he die?" Booth asked, suddenly interested in what the girl was saying.
Sensing finally some kind of trust, Quinn felt her confidence rising.
"Apparently the man killed himself in his cell one night. Hung himself."
Booth nodded.
"Where do I come in in this?"
"When I saw 53 Maple Street, I remembered something I had heard in the news a few days earlier about bones being found in the basement of that house and later about a little girl dying there."
"Okay. But I still don't see where I come in. Seriously Quinn, I ask nothing better than to believe you. But if you can't give me a reason why you think your experience with a Ouija board is helpful to the investigation, I'm afraid you're wasting your time here."
Quinn turned to Temperance who nodded.
"Cameron Brown always claimed he was innocent. What if he was? What if now he is killing from beyond the dead, trying to get vengeance after being incarcerated for a crime he didn't commit?"
Temperance snorted. This time, Booth didn't glare at her.
"Quinn, you're not making any sense."
The teenage girl stared into his eyes.
"It does make sense, Agent Booth. What doesn't make sense if how those girls died and nobody heard or saw what happened to them. I know Laura Joyce disappeared during an earthquake. Raine Bennett disappeared from her own backyard in broad daylight. Hope Lawson was found drowned in her tub after her mother heard her cries from the living room. Mackenzie Robertson was pushed off her roof. The only person not fitting in this is Melanie Pharatt."
"She does fit."
The three others jumped, startled. Clara, who had been quiet for a while, had succeeded in making the others believe she wasn't even in the room.
"Melanie Pharatt was not pushed from the top of the stairs by her father, she was tripped. And since her father never went down to the basement, then it's impossible that he killed her."
"See, even she agrees with me." Quinn added, pointing to the psychic.
"This still needs to be determined." Booth corrected. "We are still waiting for the permission to excavate Melanie Pharatt's body to do an autopsy on her bones. Nothing has been proved yet as to how she really died."
"But you can't tell me, Agent Booth, that something about this case is right. Nothing makes sense."
"Yes, I know that, Quinn." Booth replied.
Then, standing up, he added:
"But it's our job to find out what happened."
Quinn rolled her eyes.
"I appreciate your help and you have given us new information on Cameron Brown and I appreciate it. But you've done all you could do to help us and now you need to go back home."
Quinn nodded, and without another word, stood up and walked out of the office.
"Quinn!"
The teenager turned around just as she was stepping out of the FBI office.
"Clara?" The girl asked, confused.
"You have the gift." Clara replied, out of breath.
Quinn frowned.
"What gift?"
"My gift. The feeling you got while playing the Ouija board wasn't a coincidence."
"It wasn't?" Quinn asked, even more confused.
Clara laid a hand on the young girl's shoulder.
"It wasn't. And if you let me, I can teach you how to use your gift."
Unsure, Quinn simply nodded. Clara let go of her shoulder and reached into her pocket, taking out a small card.
"Call me, if you ever change your mind." The psychic said as she handed the little card to the teenage girl.
"How did you…?"
"Guess?" Clara asked. "I'm a psychic."
Fighting the urge to shiver in the warm April weather, Quinn ran down the stairs, leaving the older woman behind her.
"A Ouija board." Temperance repeated, unimpressed.
"I know Bones, I was there." Booth replied as they stepped in the sliding doors.
The lab was silent. Technicians were slowly making their way in between the empty examination tables.
It had been a quiet week. No new bodies to examine. Temperance felt as though Washington had shut down. Crimes weren't being committed, fires weren't starting in houses. The country's capital was simply too quiet.
"I'll never get used to the silence of the lab." Temperance said as they made their way to her office.
"Don't change the subject."
Temperance stopped in her tracks and spun around.
"I'm sorry Seeley but I just don't see how a ghost could be murdering young girls."
"I never said I believed Quinn's theory."
"No but you want to."
Booth sighed.
"Bones, this case is just too complicated. Nothing makes sense. Have I told you that I saw Melanie Pharatt's ghost too?"
Temperance frowned.
"What? Where?"
"At Mickey's house last Sunday. She was just there, standing at the top of the stairs, staring at us."
"You're crazy."
Turning around, she resumed her way to her office.
"Why do you consider crazy everyone who don't believe in the same things you do?"
"I don't."
"Yes, you do." Booth replied, grabbing her arm to stop her.
Spinning around, Temperance glared at him.
"Let go of my arm."
"No." Booth replied, defiantly.
Temperance's eyes narrowed. Booth loosened his hold on her.
"It's not because you don't understand something that it doesn't make it real. It's not because something goes against your scientific beliefs that it's not true. There are still some things that science can't prove, even to this day. It's not because we are in 2016 that we were able to explain everything."
Letting go of her completely, Booth continued.
"I know what I saw. Riley knows what she saw too. Neither of us are crazy or imagining stuff. It wasn't a hallucination and I wasn't tired. I saw Melanie Pharatt just before we discovered the bunny on the floor. She was trying to tell me something just like she tried to say something to Riley."
"And what do you think Melanie Pharatt is trying to tell us?"
"The only person who knows what truly happened to that little girl is her. She was there. She knows who pushed or tripped her down her basement stairs. We need to find out what happened. I have a gut feeling that if we find out what happened to her, we find out what happened to the others."
"So you believe David Pharatt when he says that he didn't kill his daughter?"
Booth nodded, slowly.
"Okay."
"What?" Booth asked, surprised.
Temperance took a deep breath.
"I'm probably going to make a mistake by doing this but Ryan told me to open my mind for this case so I will."
She paused, leaving her husband time to make a comment about her partner. When he didn't, Temperance went on.
"Try speeding up the excavation request process and I'll try to see what I can find out from the victim's bones. If I find something that corroborates Clara's story, I'll consider believing Quinn's story. But if it turns out that I was right, then I want Clara off the investigation."
Booth nodded.
"Okay."
"So we have a deal?"
"We have a deal."
Smiling weakly, Temperance turned around. Taking out her keys, she began walking to her office. Her smile vanished as she realized the door was already opened. Frowning, she turned to Booth.
"I thought I had closed it before I left."
She pushed the door slowly and her heart nearly stopped.
"I'm sorry. I should have called." The visitor said.
Booth and Temperance remained silent.
"Do you know where she is?"
"At home." Temperance replied, her voice shaking slightly.
"I need to see her but I don't know how to reach her."
Nodding numbly, Temperance stepped inside her office and walked to her desk.
"I'll call her." Temperance replied, grabbing her phone.
"Thank you."
And as Temperance dialled her best friend's number, Jack settles himself more comfortably on his former colleague's couch.
Ooooh... Jack is back. Angst warning for the next few chapters! Make sure you stop by the store to buy a box of tissues.