A/N: Yes, already a new update! This chapter has been written for a while but I had lacked the time to work on it some more. Hope you enjoy! Don't forgot to leave your feedback at the door, especially if you liked the chapter! ;)

The sun gently filtered through the pulled curtains and casted a thin line of light on the bedroom carpet. The room, along with the house it belonged in, was silent. The only sound came from the low humming of the refrigerator somewhere inside the small house.

Lying on top of his sheets, covered in sweat, Pelant slowly opened his eyes. The night had been hot and humid and even with the electric fan sending him colder air, he had spent most of the night tossing and turning in his bed. Now the sun was bright and high in the sky, which told him he had slept well passed his usual wake up time. Getting to his feet, Pelant made his way out through the small house and sat down in front of his computer.

As he waited for the machine to boot up, he looked around the tiny room he called his 'office'. The blinds were also shut in this part of his house, but Pelant didn't mind. He didn't need sunshine to be happy. Technology sufficed. In fact, he had never understood the pleasure of some people to sit in the sun, dripping with sweat, in hopes of a change of skin color. With summer just around the corner, he knew he would be spending much of his inside. Especially with that new project of his which would take many weeks of work. He'd already started and was fascinated by the amount of work he had done already. He had really outdone himself this time.

There was one little problem: he would need to share the glory. But that didn't matter.

Try to solve this one! he thought to himself, beaming with pride.

Clicking on an icon, he began typing rapidly on his keyboard, excitement rising. He imagined what he would be seeing once the program would be launched: a big house with toys scattered everywhere, yet devoid of child laughter, with a man moping around, stripped of everything he had loved most. He'd neglected the FBI agent in the past couple of days, focusing on his new project. But now, it was time to put the third part of the plan in motion. To do so would require careful planning and relentless spying of the man's life.

He had expected to find the beautifully furnished house popping up on his screen. All he saw was darkness. Confused but thinking the program had simply malfunctioned, he closed it down and started it up once more. Again, the same darkness greeted him. His pulse quickened in anxiety. What was going on? Where were the monitors and why couldn't he access them? It had worked the previous week.

Growling in frustration, Pelant got his feet and began pacing the small room. His new obsession had caused him to slack off on his other duties and it had cost him. Agent Booth had probably taken them down after realizing his family wasn't coming back any time soon. How could he have been so foolish to think he would keep them on the wall? He'd been too arrogant, too confident in himself. He had made his first and only mistake. He had no way of knowing if Booth was inside the house. Even though he had been looking forward to blowing up that ridiculously beautiful white house with its sole occupant sleeping in his bed, oblivious of the things happening in the night, he could at least prevent the agent from coming home to it that night.

Cursing to himself for having been so negligent, he went back to his computer. His anxiety had morphed into pure hatred and sadistic satisfaction. He didn't see it to detonate it. He'd find another way to get rid of the federal agent if he wasn't inside his house.

On that thought, he opened another program and began typing. Soon, miles away, an explosion shook an entire neighborhood.

Burning flesh could be smelled from miles away. As he drove down the streets leading coincidently to his neighborhood, Booth rolled up his windows and turned off the air conditioning which was blowing outside air into his car. He would never get used to the smell of burning flesh and wondered if it was even possible the pathologists. Then the questions returned: why would a garbage truck explode, killing its driver instantly along with his colleague hanging from the back of the truck and three innocent bystanders? Something didn't quite add up, Then Cam had told him where to meet her and he'd had his second shock of the day.

He parked behind the police cards aligned behind the fire trucks. The firefighters were slowly putting their hoses back into their trucks when Booth turned off the ignition and climbed out of his SUV. He could see Wendell and Finn ahead of him, accompanied by Cam. Their dark blue jumpsuits stood out in a sea of yellow.

He followed them at a distance to the smoky wreckage of the garbage truck. Its frame still stood, a carbonized metallic skeleton standing weak in the middle of a classy neighborhood. His heart caught in his throat as the smell of burned bodies heightened and flooded his nostrils, leaving a disgusting taste on his tongue.

"This is going to be pretty bad," Cam informed him. "Approximately five people were killed and a few others were injured, according to the police. Bones are scattered across a 50-feet radius. The techs will be here all-day collecting all the missing bones."

Beside his feet laid what seemed to be phalanges.

"What happened?" he asked, coughing out the disturbing smell.

Further up the street, an engine revved and siren pierced through the commotion.

"The few witnesses who didn't get hurt only managed to tell us the garbage truck stopped at the stop sign and simply exploded. Recovery is here; they'll try to sift through the debris."

Booth looked around. Several houses had now broken windows and small metallic objects were scattered on several lawns. It would take the technicians a couple of hours to collect every piece of evidence.

"Fortunately, no one inside the homes was seriously injured A few of things have cuts and bruises from the broken windows but it's nothing a couple of stitches won't fix."

Then, shifting to another foot, Cam added, rather uncomfortably:

"Isn't this street close to your house?"

Booth nodded.

"Yeah, we're about two blocks away."

"Isn't it a little strange?"

Booth shrugged.

"It could just be a coincidence," he replied, turning his gaze from Cam to the still smoking metallic skeleton.

Even as he said it, he had a hard time believing it.

"Thanks Cam," Booth said before flipping his cellphone shut.

Leaning back against his chair, Booth closed his eyes and sighed. More than seven hours had passed since the explosion and the Jeffersonian team had just left the crime scene. According to Cam, all the bones had been recovered, bagged, and shipped to the lab where Finn and Wendell would do the body recompositions. Booth knew by experience that it would be days or even weeks before the skeletons would be put back together.

Talking with the victims at the hospital and the neighborhood population, Booth had been able to identify the three bystanders killed: Andrew and Elizabeth Shaw, 28 and 35; they had been taking their morning walk with Andrew's mother, Rachel Shaw, 76. It had been fairly easy to discover the garbage men from the employing company: James Marvin, 35, father of two, and Justin Kennedy, 26.

The fire inspectors were still trying to figure out what had caused the truck to explode. The garbage company had assured them that each truck was checked daily for mechanical malfunctions, yet big trucks didn't just explode out of the blue. Had there been a bomb in the truck? If so, who had put it there and detonated it? And most importantly, why?

His initial thought process had leaded him to Pelant. His gut feeling, or maybe it had been paranoia, had brought him to wonder if his house hadn't been the meant target. He had immediately washed those thoughts away. The truck had exploded two blocks away from his home. Evidently, if someone had wanted to blow up his house, they'd had plan it more carefully.

"Pelant doesn't make that kind of mistake," Sweets had told him earlier that afternoon. "If it was him and he had wanted to burn your house down, he would have implanted the bomb inside your house. He wouldn't have used a garbage truck, especially not one who wasn't even near your home."

Booth had stopped himself from saying the truck had been at his house earlier to pick up the garbage. Sweets had been right on one thing: Pelant was intelligent and a perfectionist. Everything he did was carefully planned. This explosion sounded random to him. He was probably just trying to pin today's event on Pelant to have something to arrest him for.

A soft knock at the door made him look up. His heart skipped a beat as his gaze fell on the beautiful blonde standing outside his door, staring at him.

"Hannah?" he asked, surprised. "What are you doing here?"

The journalist stepped inside his office.

"Seeley, we need to talk."