In the Blink of An Eye
By LizD
Winter 2011
Chapter 14
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Brennan was instructed not to call Booth to discuss the anything by Agent Perotta and Agent Langostino, so she had to wait until they were gone to call him. He should have been her first call, but he was spending time with Parker and she thought that was more important than having him worry about something he couldn't control. The bomb squad was done sometime around nine PM and the agents left shortly after that. Another agent, Agent Kerry, was sent to protect her, but he was giving her space while she was in the lab. Sometime after ten was the first opportunity she had to contact Booth. To say that he was put out that she hadn't called him, that she was threatened, that there could be a bomb, would be understating. Booth was livid routed in fear, but absolutely livid.
"What did the note say?" Booth demanded again. "Exactly ... what did it say?"
"Back Off," she repeated for the third time.
"I won't 'back off'," he stated. "You should've called me first. I don't give a flying fuck what the director, Agent Perotta or whoever the hell the other guy is said. YOU CALL ME FIRST - ALWAYS! If someone is warning you or God forbid trying to kill you, I need to know about it, OK? You're my partner! I protect you. OK? So, what did the note say?"
"Back Off," she stated again.
"BONES, I won't -."
"Booth that's what the note said ... back off ... two words ... that's it."
It made him angrier when he realized what she was saying. "That's what he said to Rebecca."
"When?"
"Sherry told me that Rebecca had gotten a call from someone a day or two before ... before she died from a man telling her to 'back off'. It was probably the night she called me and I didn't answer." He muttered some expletives under his breath. His frustration was palpable. "I should be there for you. I should've been here for Rebecca. I should've answered that damned call."
There was no point in addressing the things that could not be changed. "Booth, I'm fine. The bomb squad did not find anything in my car. They said they would sweep my apartment and post a guard there. And Agent Kerry is with me."
"Who is Agent Kerry?"
"A new agent ... transfer from Seattle," she said. "He seems very well muscled and quite menacing. I'm sure I will be very safe with him."
"I don't like it."
"You don't have a choice. If the director finds out that I am talking to you, you will be suspended."
"I don't care. Nothing can happen to you," he stated emphatically and then checked himself. "I just don't like that I'm not there."
"Booth you can't be everywhere to protect everyone. I can take care of myself," she stated. "Parker is your concern now." She kept nervous talking. "And I'm thinking about your career. If you truly want to leave the FBI it should be your choice not because you couldn't follow orders."
"I know ... I know ... But ... I know you can take care of yourself ... but ... but ... look what happened to Rebecca when she fought back."
Cam and Brennan had discovered something that they hadn't told anyone yet. "Booth, Rebecca didn't die from an Epidural Hematoma."
"What do you mean?"
"Yes, she had suffered a head injury but it was not that sever. She was given an overdose of morphine."
"So, what? This bastard assaulted her and when she didn't die he followed her to the hospital and pumped her full of morphine when no one was looking?"
"I'm sorry, but yes it appears to have happened that way; however I can't tell you if the person who assaulted her and the person who gave her the morphine are one and the same. Nor can I be sure that she was given the morphine at the hospital. We are still running some tests. We should know by morning."
Booth ranted on about pulling the security footage from the hospital, getting her chart etc, etc, etc; all things that he couldn't order and she could only suggest. She told him that she would tell Perotta about the real cause of death and make those suggestions to her.
Brennan as exhausted as she was, finally got him to focus long enough to go through the events as they knew them.
Sunday Rebecca called Booth. He didn't take that call.
Monday night Rebecca reportedly fell at work and the paramedics were called. That was at about five thirty. Booth had spoken to a colleague who claimed to find Rebecca when she was on her way to her car. Rebecca refused to go to the hospital, the colleague drove her home and she went straight to bed. Maria stated that she was there to see Rebecca come home and was asked to go pick up Parker at basketball practice. Parker did not speak to Rebecca that night as she was asleep. Maria stayed overnight.
Tuesday AM, Maria got Parker off to school. Parker called Booth to ask for a ride home from practice since Rebecca was sick. Maria came back from dropping Parker off to find Rebecca 'non-responsive' in bed. The paramedics were called. She was taken to the hospital. X-rays and other tests were done to determine that she was suffering from an epidural hematoma and would need a craniotomy. There was a sudden loss of blood pressure, and she stopped breathing. Rebecca never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead less than an hour after she got to the hospital.
"We don't have evidence to prove this yet, but she might have been given the morphine the night before or in the morning when Maria and Parker were out of the house."
"Security footage won't help me then."
"No."
"And my crime scene has been contaminated with Sherry's cleaning."
"Yes."
"So we have nothing."
Brennan did her best to assure him that they would find the person or persons responsible. There was a long pause where neither had anything to say; actually they both had a lot to say, but it was not the right time or place to say any of it. Brennan stated that she was going home to shower and get a short nap before coming back to help Cam with the autopsy on Ephraim Cohen. Booth challenged her again to be careful. She assured him of her safety. Hanging up was difficult for each - more so for Booth. But he made her promise to call when they had any new information, and when she got home, when she was on her way back to the lab and again when she got the lab. She didn't say she would.
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Brennan took her own car home forcing Agent Kerry to follow in his own vehicle. It was not FBI issue Brennan could tell) but it was a dark sedan. Maybe it was new. She forced him to "guard" her from the hall outside her apartment. He asked her not to put the chain on, she agreed, but the chain was slid into place as soon as the door closed behind her. The drive home convinced her that she needed more than a power nap. She needed some real sleep. The shower would wait.
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Booth had called Perotta as soon as he got off the phone with Brennan. She did not answer and it took her at least an hour and two more calls before he spoke with her. He questioned where she was on the investigation. She of course told him that she was not at liberty to discuss the case with him under orders from the director. Booth eventually got her to give up what she knew and what she was doing. Brennan had not called about the information about the actual cause of death for Rebecca so she hadn't started working on that yet.
"So who is this Kerry person?" Booth asked.
"Transfer from the Seattle office. Good agent. We were at the academy together."
Booth still didn't like it.
"You've got to relax Booth. You are not the only one who can solve a case around here or protect a witness."
"Have you checked on Lacey Carroll?"
"Not in the last fifteen minutes," she was annoyed.
"When? When did you check on her?"
"Dinner time."
"Are you joking? Do you know how serious this thing is? Do you know this leads right to a senator's door. Billions of dollars in government money is on the line here. Killing a few witnesses, a lawyer, a couple of FBI Techs and a forensic anthropologist wouldn't cause them to lose an hour's sleep."
Perotta was trying to be reassuring. She knew that Booth had reason to be upset. The mother of his son was dead. "Booth, I'm sorry about Ms Stinton. Lacey Carroll is locked away safely and Dr. Brennan will be fine with Kerry. As I said she and I were at the academy together. She was the best marksman in the class."
"SHE?" Booth's eyes flew open. He was standing in a heartbeat. "Get to Brennan's right now," he shouted.
"Booth!"
"NOW PEROTTA ... lights and sirens all the way." He ended the call and tried Brennan. No answer. He looked around there was no one there: just him and Parker.
"Dad?" Parker called from the hallway. "You woke me up."
"Get your shoes, Buddy. We have to go!" Booth grabbed his weapon from on top of the bookcase and Parker and flew out of the house; phone in hand, ringing Brennan.
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Joe was making his sweep of the garage. On the lowest parking level he found an SUV that wasn't there earlier. There was an odd banging from the back. As he approached he could hear muffled yelling. He smashed the driver's side window with the butt of his weapon, and hit the button to unlock the doors. Holding his weapon at the ready, he popped the back latch. A woman in a black suit was hogtied and gagged in the back. He reached for the gag and pulled it off her mouth.
"THANK GOD! I have been in there for hours."
Still holding his weapon on her he asked, "Who are you?"
"I'm Agent Amanda Kerry ... untie me ... my ID is in my pocket ... I'm supposed to be guarding Dr. Temperance Brennan. I was hit from behind and stuffed in the back."
Joe's eyes went wide. He pulled his radio and made a call to the security office.
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Brennan wasn't sleeping but her eyes were closed and she wasn't moving. There was too much spinning around in her head: Rebecca's murder, Hannah's goodbye visit and Booth's treatment of her. He was being nice, too nice, over solicitously nice, saying things he should not say, touching her in ways he should not - if he had moved on. She was just finally getting to the point where she had accepted that Booth was really in love, that he could no longer be her surrogate mate in any way and that she really could be happy for him. She had hope for herself in finding a mate. She even went so far as to fantasize about Ian O'Dwyer. Up until Rebecca's death, Booth had been strained with her but she had faith that they would work through it. She didn't want to lose him in her life, but if he continued to treat her so intimately that might have to change. Just because Hannah was gone, didn't mean that Booth would turn his attention back to Brennan. She wouldn't want that. She didn't want to be second choice. Not to mention it would be hard to trust a declaration of love from Booth. He had never actually said it to her. It was only implied but the implication was emphatic. He was THAT GUY, WHO KNEW. But then he moved on and fell in love with someone else. So what guy was he exactly, and what did he know? She couldn't think about it; at least not rationally. It was something she had to feel her way through - at least that was what Angela had told her. She was too tired anyway to really think about anything much less Booth.
She was down for less than ten minutes when her phone beeped in her jeans on the floor indicating that the battery needed to be charged. She really didn't care, but she knew it would be as relentless as the Hippolytus de Marsiliis Torture (aka Chinese Water Torture). She dragged herself from bed, plugged it in, and changed the ring to silent. A loud noise came from the living room. She slipped from the bedroom into the bathroom and turned on the shower. She pulled her weapon from behind the vanity in the bathroom and waited. She heard the noise again only louder. It sounded like someone was trying to break through the chain lock on her door. One more time and she heard the door slam against the wall. Whoever it was; was in.
She positioned herself behind the door using the mirror to see into the hall. That wouldn't last long as the steam from the shower was fogging up the glass. Of course if she could see him, he could see her. She had to be fast. "Kerry" entered the bathroom gun first and fired two rounds into the shower. She slammed into the door forcing him to drop his weapon. She kicked again and the door slammed into his head. He stumbled but kicked the door back into Brennan forcing her to fall back into the shower and drop her weapon. There was dusting powder on the sink (a gift from her father) she pried open the lid and when the door opened she threw all of it in his face. She kicked him back into the wall and once more in the face causing him to go down. She grabbed the handcuffs on his belt and put one cuff on his wrist. He was struggling and had grabbed her foot. She slammed down on his back with her other foot while pulling the cuffed arm up behind his back. She heard his shoulder dislocate. He let out a yelp and released the hold on her foot. She hit him again and was able to pull his other hand up behind his back and attach the other cuff. She checked him for other weapons and sat down in the hall away from his flailing feet.
Just then Booth burst into her apartment, gun drawn calling her name.
"BOOTH!" she called to him. "I'm here. I'm fine. I'm fine."
Booth lowered his weapon. The sight before him made him smile. Bones sitting on the floor with some big guy covered in powder handcuffed on the floor. Bones can take care of herself.
Perotta and Langostino were right behind Booth as was the REAL Agent Kerry.
"He tried to kill me," she said panting. "The bastard shot up my shower."
Booth helped her up. "Come on, Bones. You could use a drink."
"What I need is sleep."
"OK ... sleep. But you're coming with me."
She was too tired to argue. "Where?"
"Back to the house. Parker's in the car. Come on ... nice big bed waiting for you with no killers or FBI in the hall."
She pulled away from him slightly leaning against the wall. She wanted to protest. She wanted to stay home in her nice warm bed, but the FBI would be processing the scene for at least an hour if not two. She wouldn't make it that long. "OK ... but I better put some pants on."
Booth hadn't noticed that she was half dressed, he was just grateful that she was alive.
"Who's going to question him?" she asked pulling her jeans back on really wishing she would have showered first. "I have some questions for him. What's his name? Why did he want to kill me? Who's working for?" She was babbling. "And you need to take him to the hospital, his shoulder is dislocated. He's lucky that's all I did to him."
Perotta nodded for Booth to take her out of there. They would get her statement later.
"I need my bag ... my phone ... and ... and ... and ... something, I need something else."
"Sleep, Bones. You need sleep."
"Yeah, that." She nodded and allowed him to escort her out. She didn't care anymore that he had his arm wrapped around her tightly and it felt good. She didn't care that he was taking her home and was going to watch over her as she slept. He felt so good. It was so nice to be held in his big strong ...
She was out. She didn't make it out of the elevator. Booth woke her up enough to get her to the car but as soon as her head hit the back of the seat she was asleep again. Booth looked at Parker and they smiled. She was safe with them.
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