A/N- ...Hi. So it's been, uh... what? Three months or so? Heh. Yeah. I know, I'm a horrible updater. I could go on about my life getting in the way but that would be a bunch of lies because I have done nothing all summer besides lounge in the air conditioning watching How I Met Your Mother, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Pretty Little Liars. Namely my non-updating came from a place called oh-my-god-I-have-to-bring-everything-together-to-a-cohesive-end-with-this-story-and-I-don't-know-how-ahhhhhh.
And then I realized I have one short little week left before I return to college and I told myself that stuff needed to get done. So stuff got done, and this chapter appeared. I hope you all don't hate me, and that you enjoy this one. It's almost over, and I will update again shortly.
Chapter 22
October 30th, 2011
"What on Earth…" Cam stammered, eyes widening as they stepped into her office, Brennan leading the way. "What happened?" she demanded, immediately stepping forward. Brennan offered a pained smile.
"I think she might have a concussion," Sweets fretted, grimacing.
"Oh, Booth is going to have a stroke," the boss murmured, shaking her head. "Here… sit down and let me take a look at this. And for God's sake, Sweets, what are you doing back here? She should have been taken to the hospital."
"I… I thought…"
"Never mind. Just… tell me what happened."
Brennan winced as Cam probed at the sore spot on her head.
"We were searching the apartment," Sweets began, "And a woman dressed in black came up behind Brennan and caught her by surprise."
"She had a knife," Brennan added. "I was down on my knees collecting leaves from the fire escape outside the window, and she pinned me there and handcuffed me after hitting me over the head."
"And where were you?" Cam asked, turning on Sweets. "Weren't you there on the off-chance that something exactly like this were to happen?"
He rubbed a hand up and down on the back of his neck ruefully. "We split up to search faster?" He said, the statement coming out as a worried question.
"And this woman, she didn't come after you?" Cam continued.
"No."
"Hm," Cam murmured. "Alright. That's certainly an interesting turn in things… did you find anything while you were there?"
"I found a list of names tucked into a Bible, but the woman took both of those. She searched me, but I hadn't found anything else. By that time Sweets was trying to break down the door, so she jumped out the window and climbed down the fire escape."
"Do you still have the leaves?"
"Yes…" she reached to pull the bag out of her pocket. "I dropped them when she came up behind me, and she didn't seem very interested in taking them from me. If she had, it wouldn't have mattered. There were more on the fire escape and she didn't have the kind of time available to her to clean up those as well."
"Alright, we'll have Hodgins take a look at them… what are they, exactly?"
"Possibly the same type of foliage that was embedded in the sole of Ortiz's boot."
"Okay, then. That could give us… something, I'm sure. Anything else?"
Sweets produced the list he had found, passing it over to her in the sealed plastic baggie Brennan had provided him with.
"I don't recognize any of these… except for Taylor. Are the others also workers at the nightclub?"
"Exactly," Sweets responded with a bob of his head.
"So… Kaminski was focusing on them for some reason. That's definitely something we can look into. Maybe there's a reason he focused on them specifically."
"That's what I was thinking."
Cam frowned, nodding slowly and turning her attention back to Brennan. "You need to go to an actual hospital and make sure this isn't a concussion."
"I'm fine," Brennan insisted. "I'm not dizzy, I'm not nauseous or tired, and I obviously haven't passed out. I don't even have a headache, although if you keep touching it," she said, pulling her head away from Cam, "It does hurt, for clear reasons."
"Booth will kill me if I don't make sure. So, we are going to the hospital."
"Who's going to the hospital?" Angela had appeared in the doorway, a confused smile on her face that quickly faded into a look of alarm. "Bren, what happened?"
"I got hit on the head," Brennan said, before Cam or Sweets could start in with the long explanation.
Angela's gaze was locked on the thin red line on Brennan's neck, though.
"Bren, what the hell? I thought that apartment was supposed to be safe. And where were you?" she added, turning on Sweets and poking a finger sharply towards his face. He immediately backed up a few paces.
"He was there, but we were… separated."
Angela blinked, and after a pause she marched forward and pulled Brennan to her feet. "I'm driving," she said firmly, leaving no room for argument. "And you are telling me exactly what happened on the way. You two," she snapped, turning to Cam and Sweets, "Stay here and inform the team. Figure out our next move on this damn case. I want to be done with it. First Shaw, then Booth, and now this…"
She dragged Brennan through the door.
"I'm fine," Brennan insisted, but Angela was hearing none of it.
"You could have died," she said at last, her voice low and deadly, once they were seated quietly in Angela's car.
"I know that," Brennan said with a sigh. "I'm not… used to being pregnant. Even now, after months. I don't have the reflexes or the physical capability to fight the way I normally would. And she used that to her benefit when she attacked."
Angela was silent as they pulled out of the Jeffersonian's garage.
"I just want this case to be over," she said at last, and Brennan glanced over and noticed, with alarm, that Angela's eyes were rimmed with unshed tears.
"Ange… I'm fine. Look, I'm right here. I just got hit on the head. That's it."
"And what about next time? Can you promise me that it's all going to be okay next time, Bren? I mean… you, and Booth, and this case…"
"Our jobs are dangerous," Brennan conceded. "But this case isn't like other cases. Angela, you know that on most murder investigations people don't shoot at us or… hold us hostage or hit us over the head."
"But it could happen at any time. Honestly, I question our choice of work. A lot. We're parents, now: almost all of us at the lab. Hodgins and I with Michael, Cam with Michelle, and you and Booth with your as-of-yet unnamed little bundle of joy."
"…Are you not happy at the Jeffersonian, Ange?" Brennan asked seriously, alarm flaring up inside of her. She hadn't heard Angela talk about leaving the Jeffersonian since the first year they had worked together, when they had just begun to work alongside Booth and the FBI. Every now and then she would get the feeling that Angela was worried and thinking about the flaws with what they did for a living, but nothing had ever come of it.
"I am," Angela hedged, sighing. "I just… I don't know, Bren. I feel like we should be working someplace safe. And then I think about how well we work together, this whole team… how we're essentially a family and how we need each other. I can't leave. But I can't help wishing that all of us somehow worked in a different field, together, doing something that made us equally happy. Just without all the shooting and the dead bodies."
"Technically, we could all retire. Well… maybe not Cam or Wendell. But I am very wealthy, as is Hodgins, and that wealth translates to you and Booth."
"Would you be happy in retirement, though?"
"I honestly don't know. I still have my writing, and in all likelihood I would end up teaching anthropology after retiring from field duty, rather than leaving work entirely. Booth could take a desk job, get a promotion, or find a job teaching new recruits."
"I could go back to painting," Angela reasoned. "And Jack…" she frowned. "He'd probably start some sort of bug sanctuary. That's… a lovely thought."
Brennan laughed. "You'll have to talk to him about that one."
"Yes. No bugs anywhere near my house."
"There's still a lot of traveling you could do. Paris was your first actual trip together, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, it was. We've been talking about getting away again when Michael is a little older. My dad volunteered to babysit, but… I just can't see us going away without our son."
Brennan nodded slowly, hand drifting to her abdomen. She wondered when her and Booth would be able to get away for a vacation. Would she feel the way Angela did, and not wish to go anyplace without her child? It only made sense. She thought back to the summer house Booth had talked about getting. Maybe they could simply get a place on the beach or by a lake and escape to it when they felt the need for a vacation.
They pulled into the hospital parking lot.
"I wish these things would stop happening to you," Angela murmured before Brennan could open her door.
"You aren't the only one. But, realistically, these things could be happening to anyone. I just happen to have a higher risk because of my career choice."
Angela said nothing, just shook her head slightly and snapped off her seat belt. Brennan got the uncomfortable but distinct feeling that there was more that hadn't been said when it came to this conversation. And she couldn't help but wonder if Angela was legitimately angry with her.
Inside, they claimed two uncomfortably stiff seats in the corner of the waiting room and filled out paperwork until a doctor stopped on her way by and called her name, staring. "Temperance Brennan?"
"That's me," she said, blinking. She looked vaguely familiar.
The doctor pulled off her glasses and stepped over. "What are you doing back here?"
"Dr. Keller," she remembered suddenly. Booth's doctor from his shooting. "I… was hit on the head."
Dr. Keller's eyebrows went up. "By what, exactly?"
"An unknown assailant," Angela supplied, leaning forward into their conversation. "Can you please just make sure she doesn't have a concussion?"
Sighing and taking a glance at her watch, Keller hesitated a moment and then motioned for them to follow her.
~BxBxBxBxBxB~
"No more field assignments," Booth stated firmly, eyes dark and serious as they met hers over the table.
"Agreed," she said with a nod. For once, they were both on the same side of the debate over her safety.
"We're just lucky that whoever that was didn't do any more damage today," Booth continued. "And that you don't have a concussion."
"I know." She pushed a grape tomato across her plate. "Sweets is really good in the field. Did you know that?"
Booth was quiet for a moment, and then he nodded, smiling just slightly. "Yeah, I did. He's come a long way."
"He was quite brave today. You know he broke open the door with his shoulder?"
"I might have skimmed your reports," Booth said, his smile now genuine.
"Of course you did."
"Hacker sent them to me. I think he's feeling some pity what with me trapped at home."
"Not too much, I hope. Neither of us are getting back in the field anytime soon. Not with the way things have been going."
"Relax, Bones. I'm on bed rest for now… and after that I'll stick to my desk. For a while, at least. Although once this case is closed…"
She nodded. "I know."
Everything lately seemed to be hinging on those seemingly simple words. Once this case is closed. How long had they been saying that for? What had once looked like a simple assignment had turned into the most dangerous case either of them had ever been involved with. Snipers and serial killers were starting to look tame, and that almost scared her more than anything else.
"We should go over everything again. There has to be a connection we're missing… something that can tell us what we're up against. Who we're up against," Booth said, reaching for the thick file and flipping it open.
Brennan scooted her chair around to his side, and together they sorted through the evidence, scanning crime scene photos and images from the autopsy, looking through reports from the FBI; the only things left from the original investigation were in these papers. The rest had been taken from the lab during the raid and ensuing hostage situation.
"Maybe we should work with the others," Brennan said finally, rubbing the sore spot on her head with a wince. "While the two of us are a proficient team, they possess skills that we don't. And maybe Hodgins has some information from that foliage I collected by now. Have you talked to Cam?"
"Only when she called to check in; she didn't say anything about the case."
Brennan nodded. "Alright, we'll call again. They can join us here; no need to go to the lab."
An hour later the kitchen was crowded with Cam, Wendell, Sweets, Shaw, Hodgins, and Angela, smelling strongly of the Chinese food the latter two had picked up on the way.
Cam set down the container of mu shu pork. "Alright, we should do an overview." She flipped through the pages in front of her. "I've got the FBI copies of my autopsy report ."
"I have my psychological analysis of the killer, and a map of the club locations," Sweets supplied.
Wendell held up a notebook. "I've got my personal notes from the Kaminski investigation, and the information about the possible murder weapon."
"All of my notes about the undercover operation are in here," Shaw said, tapping her laptop.
"And I have surveillance footage from that and from the earlier parts of the case on here," Angela said from behind her own laptop. "Along with the renderings of the possible murder weapon."
"Foliage and dirt analysis," provided Hodgins, barely looking up as he sorted through a stack of documents.
"Alright, and Booth and I have the new evidence from Kaminski's apartment. Let's start at the beginning."
"We were all assigned to the Kaminski investigation on May twenty-ninth," Shaw supplied. "I was there first. The body was on the floor of the apartment, mostly undressed, with indicators that he had likely had female company."
Brennan was still surprised the young agent had come at all; it had sounded like she was ready to take as much time off as she could from the FBI after her ordeal. But when they had called Sweets, she had immediately volunteered to tag along. Solving this case meant something more to her than it did to the others.
"Which is further backed up by the cause of death being from a stabbing," Sweets continued. "A female killer is more likely to use a knife or poison to achieve her goal than a gun, which is favored by male killers."
"The only wounds I found initially were fractures consistent with being punched in the face and falling on his wrist. These likely premeditated the actual stabbing, although there is no way to be sure. Surprise or an inability to fight back meant there were very little signs of defensive wounds outside of slight, new fractures to the knuckles," Brennan said, reciting more from memory than the FBI's copies of her reports.
"My analysis showed that there had also been a blow to the back of the head," Wendell continued, "Which most likely caused the victim to fall to the floor and fracture his wrist. He was facing upward when the assailant stabbed him three times; the third blow severed an artery and causing exsanguination."
"And then he was eaten by his neighbor's cats," Booth remembered with a grimace.
"Stomach contents showed alcohol, snack mix, and nachos—consistent with what Kaminski would have been eating if he were at the club," Cam said, nodding to herself as she read from her own report, the memories coming back.
"There was no sign of anything else in his system, so he wasn't drugged or poisoned. The alcohol was his only impairment," Hodgins continued, reading over her shoulder.
"You found that note in his pocket," Angela remembered.
"But we didn't get it figured out for a while," Booth reminded. "First, there were interviews." He reached for a napkin and a pen and started to write out a list of names. "People we know Kaminski slept with…" he muttered. Brennan watched over his shoulder.
Anna Pollack
Selena Sabella
Liz Parish
Tania Henson
Taylor Madison
Margo Harish (cat lady)
"There was the video of Kaminski's hallway," Angela was saying, pulling it up on her screen. The others grouped around behind her, re-watching the now-familiar footage. Booth came around as well, writing out the times and the names of the visitors to Kaminski's apartment.
Liz Parish (12:06-5:12)
Tania Henson (7:01-7:13)
Taylor Madison (8:57-9:34)
? (9:55-9:56)
"Isn't this already written down somewhere?" Sweets observed, tilting his head as he watched Booth writing.
The agent shrugged. "We weren't getting anywhere with the other format… the sooner we put this all side-by-side and simplify it, we might see something new."
"Makes sense," Wendell agreed. He reached across the table to pick up the list that Sweets had obtained from their latest search, along with the one that Brennan had written out from memory. He set them next to Booth's new lists.
"Aren't we sure that our mystery figure was Shadwick?" Angela pointed out, tapping the list with a slender finger. "My program matched their faces with ninety-eight percent accuracy."
"Right." Booth made a note.
"You and I went to the clubs to show some of the pictures," Brennan pointed out to him. "The night after Angela sorted through the surveillance footage." Neither of them mentioned the tense atmosphere between them, or the one-sided fight they had had after returning to Booth's apartment. It felt like forever ago that they had been trapped in that state of confusion.
"Dominion, Club Glow, and Blue Fish," Shaw listed the names quietly, drawing Brennan's attention back to their task.
"Yes. And after that I contacted Agent Culver."
"Who was not invited to this little party," Sweets noted with a raised eyebrow.
Booth and Brennan shared a glance. It hadn't been intentional. They had just… forgotten.
"We put surveillance on Blue Fish," Booth said finally, getting back on track. "And Taylor agreed to speak with us about what she knew."
"I've got that in here…" Sweets said, sifting through a file and extracting a packet of information. "Here; this is a transcript of the conversation she had with Agent Culver."
Brennan leaned forward to read along with the others.
RC: When did you start working for the Blue Fish club?
TM: About two years ago. I needed a job and my sister was working there.
RC: Does your sister still work there?
TM: No, she died a little over a year ago. Suicide.
RC: I'm very sorry. When did you first suspect that there was illegal activity in Blue Fish?
TM: From the very beginning. My sister knew about it, too, but neither of us could do anything about it. We just needed the money.
RC: Who controls the operation?
TM: I don't know; none of us know.
RC: Who controls the shipments when they come into your club?
TM: Shadwick. But he's always on the phone. And he's no genius.
RC: Can you provide me with names of others who are directly involved with the operation?
TM: I don't know if I should.
RC: As Agent Booth promised, we will keep you safe. No one knows you are here. The more you tell us, the more likely we will be able to help you.
TM: Alright. I'll tell you as much as I know.
Attached was a list of names written in female handwriting with shaky lettering.
Dale Richards
Eduardo Jimenez
Juan Ortiz
Reggie Morton
"I know some of those names," Brennan said, eyes widening.
"What?" Booth and Sweets asked together.
"Those names… they were on the list I found. The one that was taken from me."
"All of them?"
"I think so," Brennan said slowly, nodding as she scanned through the names again. "They're all familiar."
"What does that mean?" Angela asked, glancing from face-to-face, searching for answers.
"Well, it means something," Booth muttered, shaking his head slowly.
"Alright, well after you spoke to Taylor… the next thing that happened was the lab raid, right?" Wendell put in.
"July second," Brennan supplied, remembering far too well. The day would be engrained in her memory forever. Every second of it.
Booth was frowning, staring pointedly at the lists in front of him.
"What is it?" she asked curiously.
"Kaminski was killed on May twenty-ninth. That same night, Shadwick went to the scene to steal the laptop… something the killer didn't do. And then it takes four days before they sweep in to take away all our evidence? Something doesn't add up."
Sweets was frowning, too. "Maybe they needed the time for tactical planning?"
"Or maybe they were waiting to see how far we'd get," Booth muttered, digging through the pages again and pulling out a sheet. Brennan recognized it as the one she had filed with the FBI directly after the raid. It was a list of the things the criminals had stolen.
"What if we had something that we didn't know we had?" Angela hypothesized.
"That's a theory," Booth acknowledged. "Or maybe they suspected that someone had talked to us…"
"You think they were on to Taylor that far back?"
He shook his head. "No… but they could have suspected that somebody had talked."
"They wanted to see if we had anything that would tell them who," Shaw suggested, drawing everyone's attention.
"We didn't have anything at the lab that would give Taylor away. So she was safe for a while longer, until Shaw uncovered the information on Shadwick's phone and revealed that they were planning to do something about her," Sweets pointed out.
"And then we put her in the safe house," Booth finished. "Where they couldn't get to her."
"So then someone in their organization kept tabs on us and came after Brennan when her and Sweets started searching the apartment," Wendell added. "And they took that list."
"The list that was an awful lot like the one Taylor gave to the FBI," Angela said slowly, raising an eyebrow.
Booth picked it up, reading the names off again. Nothing seemed odd and nothing jumped out at any of them.
"Do you remember any of the other names?" he asked, turning to Brennan.
She grimaced apologetically. "Taylor was on it, and another woman… but no, I can't name them from memory alone. I might recognize them if they were put in front of me like the others, though."
"Alright, so if most of the names coincide with this list… maybe Kaminski was listing the people he suspected were involved in the smuggling operation."
"But Taylor was on the list, and she gave up those other names," Sweets argued.
"Then he must have suspected her," Angela reasoned.
There was a pause, and then both Booth and Sweets dug for the second list, coming up with it and reading the names aloud. "Katie Meyers, Celia Richards, Maya Rivera, Julia Turner, Nina Hearst, Taylor Madison, Rosalinda Harris."
"That was the other woman's name on the list," Brennan said. "I'm sure of it. Rosalinda Harris."
"It's not crossed off," Sweets noted, tilting his head.
"So… if this list is of waitresses at the club… it's not a list of conquests," Angela said.
"No," Sweets said with a shake of his head. "It's not. This… is a list of women that Kaminski was clearing of suspicion. The club workers… the ones who were there but not necessarily involved."
"He was looking for a possible informant," Shaw breathed with sudden realization.
"Taylor didn't tell him anything, though."
"But somebody else on that list, somebody whose name is crossed off… might have spoken to their bosses. Told them what Kaminski was up to, if he said the wrong thing to them and gave away his intentions," Booth pointed out grimly.
"That could be what got him killed," Cam agreed.
"Bones?" Booth questioned her, noting that she had gone quiet. She was looking over the transcript of Taylor and Culver's conversation again, her brows creased together.
"I want to look into something," she told him. "Keep… keep going on this. I'll be in my study."
"Alright," he said slowly, curiosity in his expression.
She turned and left them to their theories, the paper clutched in her hand and a theory of her own spinning itself to life in her head.
~BxBxBxBxBxB~
Booth watched her disappear from the kitchen, heading for the stairs, and wondered what it was that she had seen to make her go off on her own investigation. She would tell him when she was ready, though, and he focused back on the group effort. For the first time, it felt like they were making genuine progress. Maybe this was what they had needed all along; a cohesive session of teamwork, with no distractions, away from the lab.
"So we're looking at Maya Rivera, Katie Meyers, and Julia Turner specifically," Wendell was saying, holding up the list.
"I'm looking them up now…" Angela murmured, tapping furiously on her laptop.
"I'll check my notes," Shaw supplied, her own laptop open in front of her. "I don't remember anything suspicious about them, but my notes have more than my memory could possibly keep up with."
"Katie and Maya are young," Angela murmured, shaking her head. "They can't be older than twenty, either of them…"
Shaw was nodding. "I remember that. Katie… here it is… Katie is trying to pay her way through college after her parents died in a car crash overseas. Maya is fresh out of foster care."
Booth pushed himself to not focus too hard on that last part. "What about Julia?"
"She's older… in her mid-to-late twenties. I didn't talk to her much; she kept mostly to herself."
"Alright, so she's a better bet than the younger ones."
"Yes. I doubt Katie or Maya even knew what was going on in the club. And if they did, then they were keeping as quiet as possible. I can't see them talking to Kaminski for any reason."
Angela was nodding, typing again.
"So if this Julia really did turn Kaminski in to the higher ups… then who committed the murder?" Cam asked. "We know it wasn't Shadwick or on his orders, because of the laptop. And can I eat the rest of this Lo Mein, or is Brennan coming back for it?"
"I don't think she'll mind," Booth said distractedly, frowning to himself. Who did commit the murder? They knew it was a woman; probably the same woman that had come after Brennan in the apartment. Could it be this Julia? Or was it someone else, that they hadn't even looked at yet? It still didn't make any sense.
"Why wouldn't she take the laptop?" he muttered under his breath, staring blankly at the evidence piled up in front of him. Why leave something like that behind, when the whole point of killing Kaminski was to prevent him from interrupting their drug trafficking operation?
The only reason he could come up with, the only thing that made any sense at all… was that the killer hadn't been involved in the operation at all.
But then why take that list from Brennan?
He dug it out and looked at it again, searching for the missing piece, the one thing that he wasn't seeing.
~BxBxBxBxBxB~
Brennan settled into her desk, turning on her laptop and signing into her account. She pulled up a search database from the FBI and put in her credentials and security clearance, watching as it scanned briefly and then let her through.
Taylor's sister had committed suicide. But she had also worked for the club that was running this high-scale drug operation. And unless Dr. Brennan was confident it was a suicide… it might not necessarily be a suicide.
She pulled up the file, and scanned through the photo documentation of the body, reading the coroner's report thoroughly and focusing on the enlarged images of the wounds to the victim's wrists.
Found in a bathtub. Dead on arrival.
There was nothing, and Brennan slumped back in her seat, defeated. She had hoped to find some signs of a struggle, but there was nothing to suggest that Cara Madison had fought back… there were no marks on her body at all, outside of the fatal slices to her wrists. No bruising to the knuckles or marking on the neck or shoulders to suggest she was held down. Every sign seemed to agree with the coroner's decision.
Suicide, plain and simple. Open and shut case.
Maybe that was how this case was doomed to go; maybe they were never going to find the answers they were looking for. Maybe this was going to be that one case, like Booth talked about. The case that they couldn't solve; the one that haunted them for the rest of their lives after it went cold.
She closed her eyes. She had never wanted to find that case. She had wanted them all to be solvable, for each and every one to come to a clean ending with answers for the family and justice for the lost.
It had been over four months, though.
Perhaps it was time to admit defeat.
She clicked backwards in the file, and landed on a screen with a reference photo of the victim. The image was cropped to show just her face, and for a moment Brennan just looked at it. And then she sat straight upright, clarity shooting through her.
She knew who the killer was.
Well? Do YOU know who the killer is? And look at that! In the time that I've been away they've updated some stuff. I do believe that is a review box right there. Why don't you go ahead and give it a click and say something like 'wow, you're alive!' or 'you better update again before Christmas, you jerk!' (Honestly, I'll love anything you have to say. Just tell me you're out there and you still want to know how this all ends, and you will make my day.)
