Vigilante Justice

Chapter 5: The Past Revealed

Author's Note: A bit of backstory, some according to the show and some fiction, and more importantly, how our characters react to it. And thank you guys for all the encouragement. You help me write faster!

"Explain what is happening, Max, so we can understand why this guy wants to rub out your whole family," Booth requested.

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and watched Max attentively. Russ adjusted one of the sofa pillows under his head and sank back down into the couch, watching his Dad with an empty stare. Booth glanced at Bones. Her attention was fixed on her father and her expression was equally stony. He was reminded how much both of Max's offspring had suffered because of his criminal past.

"Tempe, Russ: I never meant for any of this to hurt you," Max started, but Booth waved his hand in dismissal.

"Just start at the beginning. Help all of us understand how this situation came to be."

Max nodded, considering how to begin. He looked up at the ceiling and stared, swallowing hard; remembering.

"When Ruth and I got married I had just started my second year teaching and Ruth was working for a bank. She had a co-worker at the bank who you know as Vince McVicar."

Brennan shuddered. Booth also had a visceral reaction to the name; he still wanted to bash the guy's head in.

"He and Ruthie hit it off and soon he started spending time with us outside of work. We became friends. He was friendly, well-liked—I never thought of him as hiding a sinister side, not in those days. One night when he was over for drinks after dinner he told us he had a business venture for us to consider. Well, Kyle—I mean Russ—was small and you were on the way, Tempe, and we were having a hard time paying the bills, so we listened to his proposal."

Max shifted and swallowed. His eyes were misty.

"And… I had debts from gambling," he said quickly.

Booth looked over at him sharply; a whole new understanding of why Max got involved in robbing banks was dawning on him. Apparently this wasn't a complete surprise to his children; they remained silent and impassive. He glanced at Bones, wishing she didn't have to listen to any more, wishing they didn't have to open up old wounds to get the story of Andrew Carson.

"At first, it was just a matter of Ruthie fudging bank records and siphoning funds off some of the bigger accounts. Then we began robbing banks in the next county. This wasn't as hard as you might think. Ruthie was the smart one. She'd managed to make copies of keys to several branches of the bank, figured out how to disable the security systems and we simply got inside after hours. She always was amazing with anything electronic. She could take apart and reassemble just about anything."

Booth stole another curious glance at Bones. She inherited more than just her mother's good looks, apparently.

"During this period of time, Vince introduced us to Andrew Brand, a security officer for a corporation in the city. He was involved in a scheme selling unregistered firearms to people who hadn't been able to get a legitimate gun permit. Ex-cons and stuff. He was impressed with how successful we were knocking off banks. He wanted Ruthie and me to break into the security company he worked for and steal money and documents out of his boss's safe. We did it, but the police launched a huge investigation into the matter, even suggesting a link to the recent rash of bank robberies, and Ruthie got scared. She wanted out. I agreed to tell Brand we were through.

But Brand said he'd kill us if we didn't keep working for him, because he had too much at stake to let us go. Well, that got me thinking. I snooped around on Brand and found out that his little arms dealing business wasn't so little. In fact, it was huge, and he had contacts in powerful places."

"Let me guess. An FBI agent named Kirby was one of them."

"You got it. And it was big money. Well, I knew then they wouldn't let us just walk away; they really would kill us. So we decided to hide. We changed our names and ran. We lived peacefully as the Brennans for a lot of years before Ruthie ran into McVicar again, but you know that part of the story."

Max stopped and looked at Bones. She was staring at the floor, her face ashen. She remembered that part of the story all too well: the foster homes, losing her parents, watching Russ drive out of her life. It was all his fault, and Max knew it. His lower lip trembled a little before he went on.

"When I saw Brand sitting in that restaurant a few days ago, and he saw me and recognized me, I was in shock, Booth. I thought my family and I were finally safe, and now we're back in the fire. I guess it's never over."

"Andrew Brand is now Andrew Carson of the FBI," Booth confirmed.

Max nodded. "And I'm assuming I'm one of the few people left alive that know that," he added.

"Do you think he's still involved in selling illegal firearms?" Russ asked.

"What difference does it make? He wants us dead so I can't hold what I know about his past over his head."

"But if he is, we may be able to find enough evidence to arrest him after all."

Bones stood up, crossed her arms defensively across her chest and walked to the window, her back to the others.

"So you and Mom just accidentally became safe crackers and bank robbers," she said in a deadly calm tone, staring out the window. She didn't turn around. Only her fingers, white from gripping her own arms, betrayed her anger.

"Did this all start because of a gambling problem?" Russ chimed in next from his prone position on the couch. "You decided that it was better to rob banks than stop gambling? We lost our parents and our home because you…" He trailed off, unable to finish.

"I had… I had stopped," Max whispered weakly.

"Tempe?" Russ said, painfully pulling his bruised body off the sofa and walking toward her, recognizing and seeing through her emotionless wall. "Are you okay?"

She turned away from her vigil at the window and faced him. Russ was drawn like a magnet to her pain, for it was his pain too. Reaching out, he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her shoulder. After a moment, she raised her arms stiffly, awkwardly returning the hug.

Max, his head lowered in shame, slipped out through the front door as brother and sister clung to one another.

"I wish I'd stayed to take care of you, Tempe," Russ told her tearfully.

"You were just as hurt as me, Russ. Besides… it's behind us now." She pulled back and gazed at his face. This was her adored brother who she'd once admired so much. Why couldn't it have been different? Instead she'd lived most of her life without the support of a loving family. She'd missed a huge chunk of her brother's life; she'd missed out on having her big brother there when she needed male advice or brotherly support.

"Uh, I'll be back and let you two work this through," Booth said uncertainly, looking at Russ and Bones, feeling like he was intruding on something private. Bones spared him a nod and he gave her a tiny smile in answer.

He followed Max outside and found the older man sitting on the hood of his faded old Chevy. The wind was relentless and he was huddled against the chill. Pulling up his collar and jamming his hands in his jeans pockets for warmth, Booth wandered over to stand by his side.

"You're not him, Max," Booth said. "You're not the same person that you were back then. They know this; I'm sure of it."

"It doesn't matter," Max said sadly. "I will never be able to change what happened, nor can I make it better."

"No, you can't change the past," Booth agreed, his eyes far away.

How well he knew that lesson. He sat down next to Max. "None of us can. But you can live in the now. Russ and Temperance love you, Max. Bones told me she would rather die than lose you again. That's not something that's going to change because of anything you just said in there."

"They're upset, and they have every right to be. Go on inside, Booth. They both rely on you; you can talk to them. They don't want to see me right now."

"What are you going to do?"

Max was silent, but Booth had a pretty good guess as to where he was planning to go, and do, alone.

"You're thinking of going to Carson's villa alone and putting a bullet in him. Max. So not a good idea."

"Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of a knife or an axe," Max said. Booth grinned and shook his head at the older man's lame attempt at gallows humor.

"Hey. How about let's all go back inside and talk like adults. We'll come up with a plan and follow through with it. Russ and Tempe will be able to get past…the past. Just watch and see."

Booth got up and started walking back to the cabin.

"Are you coming?"

"In a minute."

Booth spun around and took a few steps back.

"Oh no, Max. I'm not leaving you out here to go running off to be the hero. We're doing this together."

At an impasse, the two men stared at each other. Max slid off the hood of the car and stood beside it, but didn't move any further.

The moment was redeemed by the appearance of Bones coming out onto the rickety front porch. She brushed against Booth's arm on her way down the wooden step and he gripped the railing in order to resist the urge to snatch her up and shield her from further injury. He was in full-blown overprotective mode. Unaware of his strong response to her appearance, she continued out into the yard and stood between him and Max.

"I wanted to make sure you're not planning on doing anything rash. Russ and I have a few questions we'd like to ask you. Come back inside, Dad; please?"

Max nodded and took a few steps toward her. "Are you sure?" He asked wearily.

"We're not mad at you, Dad. What's done is done. It all happened a long time ago. All Russ and I want is to resolve this current crisis and get on with our regular lives. Together as a family."

Booth gave Max a triumphant glance, silently communicating "I told you she'd come around." He knew his partner, and if she was anything, she was fiercely rational. And, in recent years, Booth had watched her slowly develop the ability to forgive.

"We've got to figure out what to do about Carson," Max said cautiously. He looked from Booth to Bones and together they walked back into the cabin.

The sun was high in the sky by the time the four had finished a late breakfast of cereal and fruit and were finishing up their coffee. Very little was said between them as they sat uneasily in the front room. The mood between the three Brennans was still decidedly cool. Russ and Bones had asked Max a few questions, but they had to do with how dangerous Carson could be expected to be and other aspects of the plan to corner Carson for a talk; the painful issues of the past remained unaddressed. Booth could see he was going to have to step in and move the plan forward.

"Bones, there's four bullet-proof vests out in my trunk, along with a set of two-way radios. Can you go get them? I'm not planning an assault, don't worry; these are just precautionary measures. Meanwhile, I'm going to see what Caroline can find out about Andrew Brand. He must have a criminal record from before he switched identities. Maybe we can find some concrete evidence to connect Andrew Brand to Andrew Carson."

"Approaching him will be where we take the biggest risk," Max said. "If we simply contact him, I believe he'll either run or come after one of us again. We need to get inside his villa and catch him by surprise. We need to go case the place so we know if he's alone or not."

"Don't you think breaking into his house and holding him hostage will decrease the chances of a successful negotiation?" Brennan asked.

Booth agreed. "Max, I say you and Russ simply go up to the front door of the house and knock. Bones and I will cover you from the yard until we're all sure it's safe to sit down together and have a talk. Bones is right; as much as possible, we need to take care not to threaten him. We want him to feel like he has some control so he'll strike a deal with you."

"When he sees Russ and I, he will feel threatened," Max predicted. "He'll know we went to a lot of trouble to find his location, and he will be paranoid that we're there to kill him."

"It can't hurt to try to approach him civilly. If he tries to run or turns violent, Bones and I will be watching your backs."

Booth looked at each of them in turn. Seeing no objections, he slapped a hand on his knee.

"Are we ready to go?" He asked with forced enthusiasm. Russ nodded reluctantly, his expression hard. Booth had to wonder what he was really thinking. Brennan shrugged her tacit approval.

"Let's do it," Max said.

To be continued in Chapter 6: Hostage Negotiations