3.
Booth was going to call Sweets on his way back with his news but he quickly found himself embroiled in a growing concern. Liz Sanders did not come back from her off campus lunch.
"Hey Sweets." Booth said looking at his phone as he walked in the office. "We've got a problem."
Sweets looked up from behind literally stacks of papers with an unamused face. Problem? I've got a problem, my toes are still cold, I haven't had breakfast or lunch, save for this cold cup of coffee, I've got a pounding headache from going thru thousands of pages of financials. Instead Sweets just looked up and gave half a fake smile, all he could muster.
"What's up?" He asked instead.
"We might have another missing girl."
Sweets fake smile faded.
"Liz Sanders, 16. Another one of the mean girls."
Sweets turned his head in confusion at that and Booth explained what he had learned.
"I've got agents all over looking for this girl." He added.
"And you think the killer might have her too?"
"She fits the profile. All except for Molly Edwards, she was on the receiving end of this treatment, not issuing it."
"It's interesting that you say that." Sweets said tossing aside some piles of papers and pulling out others.
"What is all this anyway Sweets?" Booth asked in a way that suggested Sweets had been playing around doing endless word puzzles instead of helping with the case. Sweets resented the tone but instead explained.
"I was looking at the financials of the three girl's fathers. They all seem to be in business together." Sweets explained and Booth realized that's what all the papers were.
"Doesn't surprise me, they have the school wrapped around their finger doing work for them. I also dropped off a sample of rope from the church's bells. It wouldn't stun me in the least to know that place is involved."
"Well the only thing with all these financials is that they all add up. When I wasn't finding much I started to work with Angela. She ran them thru some software since there are like, literally millions of transactions listed here but the thing is they look legit. Well, maybe not Melissa Phillips father's transactions because he's a bit shady but still, there are no big payoffs. They seem to just be really successful."
"That's not really a crime Sweets."
"I know that, it's just there, has to be some connection between them."
Booth's phone rang. The somber look on his face by the end of the call didn't sound like good news.
"They found Laurie Andrews body. At one of the sites under her father's construction company." Booth explained.
"Lye?" Sweets asked.
"Burned." Booth answer somber. "I'll head there now. Bones and them are on their way."
Sweets didn't say anything more. Despite learning of the girls unfriendly disposition they neither were pleased to hear such news.
"I'll keep looking." Sweets said knowing that now Liz Sanders was most likely missing and at this rate, maybe more.
"There's not a great deal I can probably tell you. At least not from here." Brennan said over the remains of Laurie Sanders.
"Did you find anything on that rope I gave you?" Booth asked to Hodgins.
"Yeah." Hodgins began. "It was a match to the sample from Anna Harding's body."
"I won't be able to tell if the cause of death was the same until we get the body back to the Jeffersonian. There is a great deal of damage here." Cam explained.
"Angela can administer some scans that may give us a closer look at the body." Brennan offered though she preferred working with the bones personally. Based on the number of bodies that had been heading their way, she would however accept help from almost anywhere.
"I don't know, Angela has been pretty busy helping Sweets." Hodgins said with a raised eyebrow.
"You sound jealous Hodgins." Booth said with a laugh.
"Is Dr. Sweets not able to do his job?" Brennan asked. Booth knew she didn't approve of Sweets field but he also knew how hard Sweets had been working this morning on this.
"We can all use a little help from Angela." Booth reminded her as she had just suggested the help of the computer herself. Brennan realized that and shrugged.
"How about lunch?" Brennan asked as she continued to examine the remains. It amazed Booth how she could talk about food in conditions like these.
Booth's phone rang and he answered again with a somber expression. "They found Liz Sanders phone. She tried to dial 911." Booth said adding that he wasn't really hungry and would have to take a rain check.
"So go back to the previous one, what is the deficit showing there?" Sweets was asking Angela via webcam as Booth walked in.
"Same as before, he was definitely losing money." Angela confirmed.
"What's going on?" Booth asked entering the room.
"I think we might be on to something." Sweets said nearly excited.
Booth hoped so, it was two in the afternoon, there was a second girl missing at and the rate they were disappearing he wasn't feeling at ease.
"Yeah I'm pretty sure there has to be a connection." Angela said as she continued to tap away.
Booth looked at the mass of spreadsheets now not only limited to the conference table but the computer screen as well. He didn't know what to make of any of it and was getting irritated.
"Pretty sure?" Booth asked irritated though he didn't intend to direct it towards Angela.
"Hey." Sweets said a bit angry for Booth snapping at Angela. "We're working on this." Sweets said and wanted to add that they had been working on it non-stop for the last nine hours but he kept that to himself.
"Fine, what did you find in all these numbers and figures?" Booth asked not feeling like this was going to lead anywhere useful.
"The only girl that doesn't fit into the equation, Molly Edwards. I don't think she was a victim, not of this killer." Sweets explained.
"Well Sweets, eliminating victims isn't really going to help us find the missing girls." Booth explained.
"It might." Angela said irritated with Booth now. "Let me explain what Sweets found." She tapped her screen and figured and charts appeared that were quickly losing Booth's limited interest.
"Harding, Andrews, Phillips, even Sanders all had fathers who are very successful. All but Molly Edwards. Her father was hemoragining money." Angela explained.
"I don't think they sold their house below market value just because of what happened to Molly." Sweets explained. "They sold it because they had to leave town."
"After what you found I did some digging and this community around this school is pretty tight knit. It's not just the girls that are pretty rough to their peers." Angela said.
Sweets continued. "It looks as though Molly Edwards father was also in business with the rest of them, they all network. The girls don't know each other, not closely but the parents, they all network, use each other's businesses to build their own up. Which would be an interesting success model except for the fact that for the Edwards family, they faltered and they got cut out of the whole social circle big time."
"So how does this have anything to do with the other girls?" Booth asked tired now.
"The Edwards left six months ago but since then there's been a great deal of cash advances on Mr. Edwards accounts." Angela explained.
"Yeah, he's got this cabin up in the mountain. I mean that just screams something crazy going on." Sweets said with a sense of amusement.
Booth stared at him like he was crazy, and bored. Booth's phone rang and he jumped to answer it. Sweets and Angela exchanged a shrug that suggested they were trying their best and they would have to try harder once Booth was off the phone.
"Okay, I gotta go." Booth said telling them and then walking to the door.
"Hey, what?" Sweets and Angela were surprised he wasn't going to hear them out.
"Look, they might have found Liz Sanders body, they're not sure. The squints and I are heading out there." Booth said as he left.
"Did he even listen to us?" Angela asked angry as she leaned against a table.
"I don't think so." Sweets said plopping down in a chair. He gazed at the stacks of papers around him, what now seemed like hours wasted if no one was going to listen.
"Yeah bye." Angela said and Sweets looked up to see she was saying goodbye to Hodgins leaving for their crime scene. She looked back to Sweets. "Looks like we're left behind again."
"Yeah." Sweets said tossing his pencil aside. "I guess we…" He wasn't sure what to say or do.
"Screw this, we're following our lead." Angela said standing up to take off her lab coat.
"What?" Sweets asked sitting up.
"I just know we're on to something here Sweets. We need to dig and I know where. Come pick me up." Angela instructed and Sweets shrugged. He was happy to get out of the room he'd been cooped up in.
He had forgotten until he trudged thru the now lightly falling snow that the heat in his car wasn't working.