Hey guys! Sorry about the shortness of the last chapter! This one is going to be quite a bit longer, but know that the story isn't over yet! Here's chapter 7!
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Brennan ran over to the limp form splayed across the desk. While she searched for a pulse, Booth observed his partner. Her elegant dress had lost its luster in their escapades across the mansion and her hair had come undone, loose curls wilting out of the graceful updo from the party. Her head dropped in momentary defeat after finding no signs of life. Booth watched as she controlled herself, compartmentalizing like only she knew how, before starting a thorough examination on the newest of victim. The tension rolled off of her in waves. The agent knew he wasn't doing much better, the ugly fire of vengeance whispering to him from the darker recesses of his mind. He shook himself out of his thoughts and walked over to where his partner stood, examining David's hands.
He refrained from speaking, reading her mixture of emotions with practiced ease. Instead he silently took stock of the area but found nothing out of the ordinary. There was no sign, fan or star pointing the way to their next grisly scene, simply a body lying across the desk, head facing his lover. Brennan continued her inspection, sighing deeply.
"How'd he do it?" Booth asked gently after her sign of resignation.
"Gunshot wound to the back," she supplied in her detached tone. She reached for David's shoulders, carefully tilting him back in the chair. There was no hole from the bullet's exit, instead just a small sheet of paper pinned to his tuxedo front, an "A" written in black ink. Booth reached for the paper carefully and flipped it over, expecting the next step in their deadly goose chase. He was instead greeted with the paper's blank back, dots of ink bleeding through.
"Any chance this isn't related to the psycho we're after?" Booth asked rhetorically, watching as his partner's simple movements became more strained.
"What about the bullet, we can pull ballistics, right?" he asked, switching topics.
"No chance," she replied quietly as she turned the body back to its original position, "You can see from the enlargement of the hole here, the killer dug his fingers into wound track to extract the bullet. I can't even get you a size because he compromised the tissue."
"Look Bones, I know this is harder for you than the others," Booth started as he stepped towards her.
"It's just another victim, another step closer to stopping this," she replied without looking at him.
"It's not Bones, you knew this victim personally. You feel like it's your fault, like if he hadn't invited you, this wouldn't have happened, and you're mad as hell that someone is doing this and we aren't fast enough to catch them." She paused over the body as he pinpointed the roiling emotions within her.
"But we are, and we will," he continued, stepping close enough to lay a gentle hand on her back. She finally stood up and turned into the hug he offered. After a few calming breaths (she really shouldn't enjoy his cologne so much she thought to herself) they broke apart with a "Let's get 'em Bones!" and a somewhat watery laugh from the anthropologist.
Going faster than they had been, the pair worked diligently to try to decode the next location from the lack of clue presented to them.
"Booth, let me see that star," she said, a sudden idea striking her. He handed over the foil for her to examine, cocking his head in question.
"Two for the price of one," she read out, "What if that doesn't just pertain to the victims in the observatory?"
"But it's 'two people for the price of one', doesn't that just mean, you know, the people?" he pointed out.
"Well, I guess it could, but we had two possible locations. We picked this one by chance, ending up with a dead body," her eyes flicked to David then back to Booth's brown one which were getting a glimmer of understanding in them.
"We could have also gone to the ballroom," he finished, mind furiously following this new trail, "But there wouldn't have been a victim,"
"Because we needed to find David first," she supplied, a grin of anticipation taking over.
"But how do we know?" Booth asked, not entirely sure they could expect to find something in the ballroom when the dozens of flighty guests had not sounded the alarm. Bones looked back over the clue in her hands.
"Juliet. It's a clue, not just a proper noun," she said, looking at Booth in excitement at figuring out this next step. He let out an inarticulate "huh?" as his brow furrowed in question. She sighed and rolled her eyes slightly, though the smile stayed in place.
"In Act one, Scene five of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo Juliet and meet at the Capulet's party. Their masquerade party." A smile of realization lit up Booth's face as he jumped up, grabbing his partner's hand.
"What are we waiting for?" he asked, and she could only laugh in reply.
They sped through the hallways, back to the ballroom, ready for whatever they would find. They weren't prepared however, to see the guests quietly sitting about in the center of the ballroom, no disturbances apparent.
"You there," Booth commanded, motioning over the security guard they had left in charge, "Has anything happened here since we left?"
"Not a thing," his gravelly voice confirmed, "Though you'd think the FBI would let us know what was goin' on in our own place."
Booth stepped closer, his eyes narrowing in challenge, "Give me one reason I shouldn't arrest you right here for all these murders."
"Because I would've gotten you guys out of the way first, 'stead of puttin' you on the trail," he replied, meeting Booth's challenging stance.
Brennan smirked slightly, a lecture about alpha-males running through her mind before she jumped in to calm the situation.
"Obviously your team has done an excellent job," she stepped towards the glowering men, "and we are very grateful, but we have been lead back to this location. We need to examine the room as there is another potential crime in the making." The men took a final glance at each other before stepping back to a more comfortable distance.
"What can we do to help ma'am?" the security guard asked.
"Continue to seal off the perimeter while we get to work," Booth jumped in. The guard's tight lips turned south, but he set off after a nod from Brennan. Booth was about to remark to his partner about the incident but a blur of red coming towards him stopped all teasing comments. Marilynn Johnson came to a sudden, albeit giggly, stop in front of the agent, wobbling as he tried to steady her.
"I'm so glad I found you two," she drunkenly gushed.
"Uh, we are too Marilynn, but we have work to do," Booth tried while attempting to get out of her rather strong grasp.
"But I haven't played with you all night," she pouted, sending Booth's eyebrows to his gelled hairline. She suddenly brightened, "I have the info you wanted too!"
Brennan smirk had turned into a full Cheshire grin as the publicist pulled Booth closer still, whispering rather loudly, "The info on the guests, the who's who and doing who, ya know?"
"And, uh, what did you find out," he asked, shooting Bones a slightly panicked look.
"Well, I talked to people all night, I mean all night. And I found out stuff, lossa stuff!" her dialogue was punctuated with giggles and hiccups making her speech funnier than it should have been.
"Well, ya know that girl who was poisoned, Sophia, she had lots of fun, if ya know what I mean," she continued with a sloppy wink, "David for one, though he felt so guilty about it. He loved that little frenchie like nothin' else and she was just after him for money. But who isn't, right? Oh! And weird coincidence, that French girl, Marg-something, she was engaged to this other guy, this Marcus guy who was such a sweet soul but he went to prison. He told me the whole story and about how this mean old judge, Sandy, Sanderson, something like that, had no mercy and threw his ass in jail and that's when Marg-something broke it off and broke his heart."
The prickling of realization hit Booth and he caught his partner's eye knowing she felt it too.
"Marilynn, when did you talk to this Marcus guy?" He asked, feeling like they were on the verge of a breakthrough.
Marilynn waved her hand with indifference, "Like an hour ago while you two were missing." She suddenly grinned broadly, "Say, what were you doing all that time?"
"Look Marilynn, someone is calling you over," Bones jumped in, trying to derail that train of thought from Marilynn's drunken mind. She gave a hiccup of delight and scampered off, faster than Booth thought a woman that inebriated should be able to. Once she was gone, the partners turned towards each other, identical thoughts taking over.
"That's why Sophia was poisoned, to make a point," Booth started out, grin growing on his face as they put the pieces together.
"And Sanders had put Marcus in jail, which caused his breakup with Marguerite, which is why she was killed," Bones continued, her own expression mirroring her partner.
"But what about the others? And how do we stop him?" Booth asked.
"We'll find out," Bones replied, thinking about his second question. Her face abruptly lit up, blue eyes dancing with an answer.
"It's Sanders, how he killed him," she started quickly as the thoughts raced through her head.
"What," Booth asked, knowing it all made sense to her genius IQ.
"Sanders was decapitated, and no one saw it coming. I found some sort of clay in his neck earlier and it didn't make sense, now it does. They used wire," she revealed to a still confused Booth, "the same kind that artists use to cut blocks of clay. It would keep his head in place but still be quiet and efficient."
"How does that help us find Marcus?" Booth asked, knowing that the answer was in there somewhere.
"He would have needed to get in and out of the room swiftly and silently to avoid detection and he couldn't take normal routes."
"So he used a hidden door," Booth finished.
"Yes, and if we find that door, we find him," she concluded, satisfaction clear on her face. They darted to Sanders' body, watching the paneling behind the row of chairs for any anomalies. Finding none, Booth was struck with an idea. Jogging to the grand staircase, he ascended part way and addressed the weary guests below him.
"Everyone, I need your attention please. I'm sorry that your evening has been ruined, but if you bear with us, this will all be over shortly. Dr. Brennan and I do need your help though. Is anyone here in the mechanical or repair businesses?" He was met with blank stares. "We need a medium range Black light. Odd request I know," he said to the mystified audience, "but it could make or break this case. Do any of you have anything like that?"
Murmurs of confusion and grumbles of irritation floated up to him. Finally one person stood up, signaling Booth over.
"My name is Samuel Jones," he said once the Agent had jogged over, "I am on the Anti-Counterfeiting task force at the treasury. I came from work straight here and was lucky enough to have stashed one of our smaller black light pens we use for detection in my pocket by mistake. It should work for you." Booth breathed out his thanks as he took the pen and returned to his partner.
"What was that about?" she questioned when he was close enough.
"Blood," he said, clicking the pen at her playfully before shining it on the paneling.
"You know, we really should have yellow glasses," she pointed out after a minute of tracing the panel edges with the light, "It prevents macular degeneration."
"In this instance Bones, I think I'll take the risk," he replied, following the seams in the wood. A few minutes later, Booth stopped the light on a fluorescent streak on a panel three down from Judge Sanders.
Bones' eyes danced along with her smile as they met those of her partner. They shared their silly grins of victory for a moment longer before standing up from their identical crouched positions. Booth started to move the chairs back for easier access and told the crowd to stand back.
Brennan in the mean time found the skillfully hidden handle to open the concealed door and gripped it, giving a hard tug while Booth shouted instructions to the people behind them. She turned to alert her partner when she felt a hard yank on her left arm and she was pulled into the dark room behind the ballroom. She heard the door slam shut and the first wave of panic hit her when she also heard a deadbolt slide into place from her position on the floor.
Booth's head snapped from the crowd when, for the second time that night, he heard his partner's surprised gasp followed by a locking door. Slamming his shoulder into the panel repeatedly, he found it was of no use after its first meeting with the door.
"What is it with you people and locking doors," he demanded furiously.
From the inside, Brennan stilled on the floor, trying to find her bearings in the pitch black of the room. Light slowly rose from the sconces on the wall, filling the lush room with a warm glow.
"This was his other music room," a smooth voice detailed from behind her.
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Sorry about another cliff hanger! The next chapter will be up later today or tomorrow and we'll finally meet that infamous Marcus (and find out just what is up with felons locking Bones in dark rooms with them!) so stay tuned!
