I yawned, looking discreetly sideways at Brennan's watch. It was going on two thirty in the morning. Well, that's what I get for taking a case when most people are in bed. But… it was a case. My wonderful fairytale had been extended, and how could I bring myself to say no to that?

The usually lively atmosphere was subdued greatly. While it could be excused as it being time to sleep and everyone was just tired, I had a suspicion that maybe it was more because the body on the raised platform table was one of a child. Angela was sitting in Hodgins' normal task chair, Hodgins off running some crime scene particulates through a mass spectrometer. Brennan and I stood on one side of the exam table, and Zach was standing opposite us. Brennan and I had our long-ish hair tied back in high ponytails, and I parted my overgrown fringe to either side of my face. The end result? It looks like I'd not gotten a haircut in a long time (I'm sure Angela's noticed the split ends by now), but it looked like it had been on purpose and just been a decision made in typical teenage stupidity.

Brennan inhaled and nodded very slightly, steeling herself before formally beginning the initial examination. "Before proceeding with maceration, any general observations?"

I sucked on the inside of my cheek while Zach seemed incredibly saddened by the mostly-skeletal corpse. "Epiphyseal fusion puts the age at approximately six to eight years, although the stature suggests younger."

"Good," Brennan praised, her voice heavy. I could tell that she wasn't as into it as she had been the other cases I'd assisted her with. "I concur. Cause of death?"

Zach motioned vaguely to the partially-collapsed chest cavity. "Blunt trauma to the chest."

Brennan shook her head to reorient herself, then scowled darkly down at the bones and walked around the table to her friend. "Are you alright?"

"He's so small," Angela answered in a shaky, tiny voice. "That's all." She swallowed, picking up her pencil and resuming her sketch. Angela had been working for a long time at drawing, and she had a knack for facial reconstruction. Brennan had set the tissue markers in advance so that Angela could recreate the face while we did the cursory exam. "Go on with your work. I'm okay." Angela sounded unconvincing, but Brennan didn't push, instead joining us back in the land of the morbid and depressing.

Hodgins came back, scanning his keycard quickly and taking the machine-caused action in stride. He held a clipboard at his side with results from the spectrometer, but his eyes seemed haunted. "The remains were significantly degraded by insect and animal activity, mostly dog and rodent. Despite the condition of the body, he's been dead between only thirty-six to forty-eight hours."

I pointed at the foot of the table, where the child's clothes had been neatly folded by a crime scene investigator. "Those were found a few yards away from him. Think you can try for particulates?"

"I can try," Hodgins said, sounding kind of skeptical. I understood why.

"Notice that they are in perfect condition," Brennan said, turning her focus away from the bones willingly. "What does that tell you?"

"The victim wasn't wearing them when he was killed," Zach said rationally, but there was a thin sigh behind the words.

"Which suggests he was sexually assaulted," Brennan finished the implication.

I pursed my lips. Did we really have to delve right into the worst case scenario? I scanned my mind quickly, trying to mull over any information I had from lectures, seminars, and online texts that might be filed away somewhere. I wished now that I had access to a computer; there's a website of official publications from a University, and all of the published works of their psychology students had been uploaded. They were really helpful; I could spend hours reading them, and once I spend almost an entire day at the library computer reading through the dissertation of another graduate. I didn't remember his name, but I only remembered that much about him because he'd graduated with his first doctorate when he'd been my age, which was a pretty impressive feat. I remember his name first made me think of candy, and then I was sulking for the rest of the day because I had none. Yeah… I read that dissertation a few years ago, when I wasn't as mature.

"Or," I added slowly, trying to scrounge up a little bit of hope that the worst kinds of psychological torture hadn't been inflicted on an innocent child. "It could mean that the murderer felt guilty and bought new clothes for him. But," I frowned, sighing, realizing that part of that didn't fit. "If it was remorse, then the body likely wouldn't have been facing upwards." God damn. So much for that.

Brennan was looking at me thoughtfully. "I wasn't aware you also had hobbies extending into soft sciences," she said. Although the words could have been taken the wrong way, I knew she was genuinely surprised and hadn't meant to insult.

I shrugged. Maybe I should keep in mind she doesn't like psychology that much.

Angela stood up from the chair slowly and smoothed her hand over her paper, turning it around so Brennan was looking at it right-side up. I leaned over slightly so I could see, too, then looked back to the monitor by the table. The bright light gave off the image of a little six year old boy, the picture pasted onto a "missing" poster. The sketch and the picture were almost identical. "I think we have a match," Brennan announced regretfully. "It's Charles Gregory Sanders."

The squints and I had all taken the liberty of sleeping before Booth came to pick me up on his way to see Charles Sanders' family. The squints all took five hours to lay on their couches with throw blankets over them, while I lounged on the sofa of the secondary platform to relax and ended up dozing off.

All in all, what mattered was that I'd gotten some sleep, and I bet Booth would appreciate that I wasn't as temperamental now as I might have been otherwise.

"On behalf of the FBI, we're extremely sorry for the loss of your son," Booth said somberly and lowly, mindful of the other children in the back room.

Booth and I were sitting on a couch across from two adult women. Booth was trying to seem uncomfortable, but it was obvious he liked the couch. I kept myself on edge in case I needed to run. I'm not sure why, but I'm so used to being cautious it's hard to stop. Charles' mother, Margaret, had her head down and she was sobbing helplessly while her friend, Ellie Nelson, rubbed her back and stayed for moral support.

"I have a few questions, I mean, only if you're up to it," Booth said calmly. Margaret wiped some tears away from her eyes and rubbed her cheek, nodding. "You have two other sons?" Booth started.

"Foster sons," Margaret corrected. "Though, I try not to make the distinction."

"You're failing," I said shortly. I never wanted any case involving murder to really get to me, but if this one involved children in the foster system, then I may not exactly be able to decide that for myself. "You just made the distinction to us and we didn't even question your maternity, so obviously you make the same lines to yourself, and that means that it's always obvious even to your other children that you can't forget they aren't your own. Do you have any idea how bad that must make them feel?"

Margaret's wide eyes looked down at the floor, shuddering. Ellie massaged her shoulders and glared at me. "You just told her her son has possibly been murdered, and now you're telling her about how she treats her other children? You have no clue what you're talking about!"

"Actually, yes, I do!" I retorted, getting angry. People just don't get in fights with me about foster children or the system, because I get so angry or because they know they'll lose against me. "I've been in it almost as long as I can remember, and to live with people who treat you differently just because they didn't give birth to you can be like being in a living hell, because you're essentially being told you're not good enough! You have no clue how much strain that can put on a child's mental state!" Of course, maybe it wasn't as bad if you weren't also being abused by the family…

"Margaret loves those kids like her own," Ellie argued.

"Yeah, well I'm not questioning whether or not she loves and takes care of them, am I?" I replied heatedly. "I'm saying that she's making it obvious to them that they're not her biological children, and do they really deserve to be reminded of their dead or otherwise incapacitated biological parents every day?"

"Please stop," Margaret pleaded, her shoulders shaking violently. Ellie dropped the topic in favor of giving her friend a tissue and looking back to Booth, pointedly ignoring me. "Shawn and David Cook. They're brothers. I live right next door."

"And Charles' father?" I asked, pretending that Ellie wasn't there anymore.

"We divorced shortly before Charlie was even born," Margaret said, dabbing the tissue at her reddened eyes. "He works overseas."

"He doesn't even send child support," Ellie said with a disdainful sneer at the man's mention.

I raised my eyebrow. No child support, a single mother, three children? And they ended up maintaining a house in this part of the city? Booth practically read my thoughts. "You mind if I ask how you afford this nice neighborhood?"

Margaret was pulling herself together. "Child services wouldn't allow a single mother to foster if she worked," she sniffed. "I live off the proceeds of a generous trust fund my parents set up long ago."

"And the day that Charlie disappeared, all three boys went to the park?" Booth confirmed.

"It's two blocks away. It's a very safe neighborhood," Ellie said. She was giving us information, but she wasn't happy about it. "They walk farther to school."

Margaret nodded, rubbing her eyes with the tissue again. "We all keep an eye out for each other around here. People are good neighbors and take an interest."

The door in the other room opened with a squeak. I looked away from Ellie and Margaret, sharp eyes picking up the faint movement of shadows in the kitchen. "Mom?" A boy called.

Margaret shuddered, taking in another breath and wrapping her arms around herself. "In here, Skyler," she called.

Skyler was a tall kid. He had scruffy blonde hair and couldn't have been older than sixteen. He had greenish eyes and wore a button-up and jeans. He came into the room with two kids around his ankles. I had to assume that they were Shawn and David Cook. Shawn was an adorable little thing, maybe six years old at most. His platinum hair fell slightly into his eyes and his shirt was a little too big. I narrowed my eyes. Margaret really had no idea how to treat her foster children. David was taller, and older than Shawn. His hair was a darker shade, but still blonde, and he had a rougher demeanor than the smaller brother.

Ellie looked fondly at the tallest boy. "This is my son, Skyler."

"Dad told me to bring the boys back. We've gotta go on a job," Skyler said, bored, and the boys moved out from behind him.

"There's nothing to do here," David complained.

"Our video game's broke," Shawn said sadly, looking down at the floor and rubbing the toe of his sneaker against his other foot. My eyes softened slightly. How could I be cold to the sweet, shy child?

Margaret forced herself to sit up straighter and gave the blonde brothers a watery smile. "Shawn, David, this is Agent Booth and Miss Kirkland. They're going to find out what happened to Charlie."

"How're you gonna figure it out?" David asked skeptically, crossing his arms.

"Agent Booth's in the FBI, and I'm assisting the Jeffersonian Institution's scientist. They're quite brilliant," I explained with a kind smile at Shawn. He sort of reminded me of me before I'd learned to push back, not just stumble along. "Hey, if it's alright with your mother, maybe I could help you out with your video game." I looked back to Margaret, replacing my neutral mask. She nodded thankfully and I stood up.

Ten minutes later, I was closing up the side of the Wii system with a miniature Phillips head screwdriver. "There we go," I said to myself, pleased, as the TV lit up with the "press A to continue" beginning screen as the Wii started up. I pushed the Super Mario Smash Brothers disc into the slot, watching as it lit up blue and the system started to read the CD.

David was watching me nervously. "And you're sure you know what you're doing?"

I smiled. The cynicism was usually considered irritating, but I knew why they felt this way and I understood so well. "Yeah. I've been fending on my own for a while. I'm pretty tech savvy."

"Cool," David said with a nod, appeased.

I sat on the opposite end of the couch than the brothers. Forcing myself on them would make me more threatening than friendly. "So," I said conversationally, making an effort to channel the gossip urges. I mean, I'm a girl, so I should have them somewhere, right? "Do you guys have girlfriends?" I asked, holding a Wii controller while the Mario game loaded.

"I do," David said, reaching up to scratch behind his ear and blushing slightly.

"Her name's Leila," Shawn sang, sticking his tongue out at his brother.

"Leila?" I raised my eyebrows and smiled at Shawn and David. "Leila's a nice name. Leila sounds pretty."

David shifted uncomfortably, a hand inching onto Shawn's leg protectively. "I thought you were going to ask us questions about Charlie," he deflected, trying to change the subject.

"Yeah," I agreed as the game flashed the Smash Bros logo. I tapped the second remote against my leg before holding it out in offering. "Which one of you puny mortals wants to challenge your legendary goddess first?"

Shawn reached out for the remote and I let him have it. "Me!" He cried, clicking the 'A' button to turn it on.

I didn't have a game system, so I had to improvise and learn as I went. The first of six Mario rounds, Shawn won against me with the blue edition of Kirby while I tried and failed to play as Captain Olimar and his Pikmin. I used to like watching my foster brother play that game when I had been in my sixth foster home. The second round, against David, had been better for me, because I'd picked up the controls pretty quickly. While David played as green-winged Link, I lost again, this time failing as Sheik. I played as a blue-winged Link in the third round against Shawn, and I beat his three ice warrior things. Against David, his Zelda won over my still blue-winged Link. The fifth round was with Shawn again and I lost to Bowser, while playing as this fox character and beating David in the sixth and final round.

While I was playing, I could literally feel the boys' eyes on me. They were suspicious and nervous to be around me. They didn't know me; I said I'd do one thing, but I did the other; I was bright and enthusiastic around them but cool to their mother; all they knew what that I was somehow involved in helping find out what happened to their brother. They had a right not to trust me, though, so I tried to act like I didn't notice. I remembered being just like them all too well. To be honest, I still feel like them when I'm around Booth, Brennan, Zach, Hodgins, and Angela.

I guess I did something right. Thirty minutes later, Super Mario was all but forgotten and Margaret, Ellie, and Booth were outside supervising us minors when David and Shawn had eagerly dragged me outside to show them their toys (and David wanted me to fix his bike). While Booth continued asking minor questions that could give insight, I had David's bicycle upside down, resting on the hot pavement on its handlebars and seat. Turned out, the gear shift hadn't been working because the chain had come off of a gear due to some thick mud. I took the entire chain off and took a sharp rock and pressed the chain against the sidewalk, showing the boys how to fix the bikes when something like this happened.

It was a simple fix, actually. The process of putting the chain back on was more complicated than actually fixing it. I stretched the chain out and found a rock with a flat bottom and showed them how to hit the rock against the chain in a way that would dislodge mud and not disfigure the metal. After that, I restrung the chain back into the gears and, so that David wouldn't be hurt if I'd overlooked something, rode down the sidewalk for a couple of wheel cycles in case anything got stuck or lurched.

After that, Margaret offered lemonade. It's never really been my favorite drink, but I had to admit, I was thirsty, and while they attended to adult business, I was practically babysitting. Forget giving me money, I'd like a drink, although I wouldn't protest to a couple dollars for being a personal fix-it woman. Then I tied up my hair with the rubber band again and joined David and Shawn back outside in the heat.

David got out Shawn's tricycle and found an extra skateboard for me while they used their bikes. Although I hadn't ever used one before, it couldn't be that hard – right? I mean, you just have to watch your balance and not actively try to face plant the ground.

I had one foot up on the sanded wood when Booth got my attention. "Are you entirely sure that's a good idea?"

I stopped, raising my hands up and giving him a 'look.' It wasn't even ten yet, and he was trying to ruin my relaxation and cute child therapy. "Booth, what do you mean this isn't a good idea?" I repeated his words back to him. "Lots of kids skateboard. I've never heard of anyone dying of skateboarding accidents."

"And you know the cause of every death, ever?" Booth said, smirking slightly.

I sighed. "Well, no, it doesn't mean it's never happened, but it means it's not common…" Booth started to open his mouth, but I stopped him. "And yes, I know, you seem to believe I attract bad luck like a moth to a flame."

Booth shrugged and gave me a helpless look. I had my foot on the back of the skateboard and pressed down so the front wheels came up, and then swung my other foot up onto the toy. I went back down to an even level suddenly and startlingly, lurching forwards, but reeled backwards, stabilizing myself before rocking my weight back and forth. Finally, I re-centered my feet and dropped one to the ground, pushing off and coasting down the slight decline of the driveway.

I really should have figured out how to stop before I started.

When I got to the sidewalk, I started to realize I had no clue how to break, and then the skateboard went over the curb. The front wheels caught and I was sent tumbling down into the street, catching myself on my elbows. "Ow!" I shouted, mostly just for complaining's sake. I had to censor myself, and remembered just in time. "What the he – heck! That hurt!"

"Can't say I didn't warn you," Booth called as I got up, retrieved the skateboard, and brushed myself off.

"Yes, I know you told me so!"

"Alright, I give," I said, shaking my head and sighing at the littler kids. "You beat me. To the street. Literally, if you want to count the skateboard thing."

David scoffed. For being younger than me, he sure was audacious. Not that I really had room to speak. "No wonder you don't have a boyfriend."

"David!" Margaret gasped, her face coloring in embarrassment.

I frowned, saving face. "It's okay, Mrs. Sanders. No, David, actually I do have a boyfriend," I lied through my teeth, but maybe David would feel more inclined to trust me and answer truthfully if he thought I could relate to him.

"Is he pretty?" Shawn asked timidly.

I snickered, thinking of every guy I'd ever met. "I don't think he'd like to be called that." I looked to David, making sure my expression was clear. The guarded expression worked with adults, but not with children who had experience being lied to, mistreated, and double-crossed. "So, speaking of romances, was Leila with you the day that Charlie disappeared?"

"Uh, yeah, actually," David said, rubbing his neck as he recalled the day. "We stopped and played some video games at the arcade."

"Oh," I said. "Cool. I love arcades." Lying. I've never been to one. "That must have been before you and Charlie went to the park."

Margaret's expression suddenly broke. "You didn't go to the mall that day, David," she stated, her voice gaining a tremor. She looked at David, but her son looked away, unwilling to look at her in the eyes. "Shawn?"

"Don't ask Shawn, mom," David immediately stopped her. He's protecting the only biological family he has. He knows Margaret can't help but make a distinction, so the need to fend people away from his brother is even stronger.

"You met Leila at the mall, didn't you?" I pushed lightly, but tried to sound understanding. "You left Charlie with Shawn at the park."

"Well, just for a few minutes," David confessed. "But then they came right back to the mall."

"David!" Margaret sobbed dryly.

"Shawn let go of his hand for a second, and Charlie was gone, like that!" David, distressed at being found out, snapped his fingers for emphasis. Across the street, a car engine started as Skyler and Ellie's husband began loading up some supplies to go on what I think is an extermination mission to eliminate pests from peoples' houses. "And then we came straight home."

"That's why our lead didn't go anywhere," I told Booth, feeling relieved. I mean, it would have been one thing if the whole case went cold. I mean, now things would be older, but at least we had more methods, more strings, more opportunities and means of catching a child's murderer. "He wasn't taken from the park, he was taken from the mall. We've been searching the wrong location."

Brennan's office was filled with the squints and myself, along with Dr. Goodman, who was handing around slips of cardstock paper. "These are invitations to a banquet," he explained, handing one to Brennan.

Brennan looked at it for a moment before looking up. "You called a special meeting to invite us to a party?"

"Don't think of this as an invitation," Dr. Goodman warned lightly. "Consider it a summons. It's for donors."

"Oh, yay," I said as I ended up getting one, too. "Meet, greet, be annoyed, have anger management training from an official, bureau-appointed psychologist after breaking someone. Sounds like heaven," I finished wryly.

"I don't like it any more than you do," Dr. Goodman ceded. "But these people fund our research, and all they want in return is to rub elbows with a scientist every once in a while."

I rolled my eyes. "Firstly, I'm not a scientist, so why do I have to go? And secondly, if anyone tries to touch me, donors be damned, I'll flip them over my shoulder and onto the floor."

"Of course you will, Xena," Hodgins said, smirking slightly.

"My name is not Xena."

"Then why do you fight all the time?"

"Why do you like picking arguments with government figures? Do you want me to call you a nickname derived from a government-hating criminal?"

"Xena wasn't a criminal."

"You're right. You're not calling me a criminal, you're calling me a princess. That's even worse. I'm going easy on you."

Dr. Goodman pretended not to hear us, probably because he didn't want to rebuke a seventeen year old for acting like an adolescent. Instead, he held a 'summons' out to Angela, who waved one hand at him in an apologetic way. "I have a date that night."

Dr. Goodman gave her a look. "You don't even know when it is." Angela sighed.

Hodgins didn't even look down at the paper before saying, "I can't make it."

"Yeah, me neither," Brennan agreed.

Zach raised his hand timidly, flipping the card over to see if there was any information on the back. "Yes, Mr. Addy?" Dr. Goodman asked.

"What kind of food will there be?"

Dr. Goodman looked down at the floor, praying for patience and clasped his hands, looking back up with a peacekeeping expression on. "When I said you should think of this invitation as a summons, I understated. It's a subpoena. A grand jury subpoena. Ignore it at your own peril," he rephrased.

Brennan scoffed unsurely. "You're not going to fire us if we don't go."

Dr. Goodman smiled and I resisted the urge to start laughing. That expression so totally screamed blackmail and manipulation. "No, not fire you, but I can move your parking spot to Lot M. Enjoy the shuttle ride."

Zach looked at Dr. Goodman with wide puppy dog eyes. "The shuttle smells like feet."

Brennan sighed and tossed the card to her desk, where it landed over some paperwork on a limbo case. "I know when I'm beat. I'm in."

"What the hell, it's a party," Angela tried to be optimistic.

"Do I have to wear a tie?" Zach asked, a little cloud of depression forming above him.

"Formal wear. I've arranged for a limo to pick us up here."

I jumped, drawing my hands in across each other and then reversing, saying 'no.' "Hey, hey, hey! You never said why I had to attend!"

Dr. Goodman gave a small (almost apologetic?) smile to me. "Haven't you heard? You've been in the news sporadically for two weeks. You're famous."

"More like notorious," I grumbled. "I'm not wearing a freakin' dress." I couldn't argue with it. I mean… I just, this guy could stop letting Brennan take me on as a consultant, and this hobby beat all of my others by miles.

"Not me," Hodgins said, defiantly and smugly. "I'm not afraid of parking or feet."

"Wait, you drive me to work," Zach said slowly, pointing. "You can't just think of yourself."

"Repercussions and consequences, Dr. Hodgins," Dr. Goodman said gravely. "I'm your boss, and you will go to this banquet."

Hodgins glared fireballs at the archaeologist's back, reaching to his wrist, pulling back a band, and letting the rubber snap back to sting his wrist.

"Are you about to clean the bones?" I asked, holding the door slightly ajar and peeking into Zach's work space.

"Yes," he said distantly. "I'm warming up the boiler now."

I tilted my head and opened the door further, stepping through and pushing it closed behind me. "Is something wrong?" I asked, taking in Zach's upset countenance. He seemed visibly deflated.

Zach looked down at the bones of Charles Sanders, his expression grim. "These are the smallest remains I've ever worked on."

"That's a valid reason to be upset," I said softly, remembering the tug of anger and sorrow that had been plaguing me since discovering the body in the field. "It's good to compartmentalize, but it's also good to feel. There's no point to being an anthropologist if you don't have compassion for it and the victims."

"So you think I'll get used to it?" Zach looked up at me questioningly. I couldn't tell whether he seemed hopeful or worried.

I blinked several times before settling on something. "No. I hope you never do. How could anyone look at a child who was murdered and not even be a little bit sad? They'd have to be a psychopath." How could anyone have looked at a child and decided that everything that they didn't like was directly their fault? That it was okay to strangle and hit and beat and burn the child, and that chaining them to furniture or locking them up was a good substitute for a five-minute time out? "As a primate-evolved species, humans are very social creatures. It's an instinctual habit to protect the youth of society, even from each other, if need be."

"So I'm always going to feel terrible?" God damn it, Zach, why won't you take the offered optimism before I get depressed enough to entertain thoughts of shooting myself?!

I took a very deep breath. "Zach, I'm really trying here," I said, the emotional power that had been in my voice draining slightly. "I'm really, really trying, because feelings are not my strong suit, but you've got to take something and focus on that so that you don't dwell on what happened to the kid."

"Details," Zach nodded to himself. "Yeah, I can do that." He walked over to where the skeleton was laid out on a white, sterilized table. "No trauma to the skull, no compound fractures. Charlie was not beaten to death or dismembered." Good, maybe it was quick. "Greenstick fractures on ribs four, five, six, and seven, and the sternum is snapped transversally from the tip to the xiphoid."

"Okay, so, bludgeoned to death?" I surmised. Okay, maybe not so quick. "Blunt-force trauma."

"I've been over everything at least three times. There's nothing more we can learn from the body at this stage of decomposition," Zach said raptly.

I frowned down at the remains of a little boy. Okay… is something missing? He went to the mall with his brothers and met up with his brother's girlfriend in the arcade. Shawn let go of his hand for a moment, and he left immediately. It was a premeditated decision to leave. So either he saw someone he knew, or he wanted to leave the arcade. A little boy of six years old might be overwhelmed by lights and noise and crowds. If he was going to see someone he knew well, like Margaret or Ellie, then he'd likely have tried to tell David and Shawn in hopes that they could tell the other boys to go to the park. So if he left of his own will, then he would have been alone. Someone got close to him, someone who maybe did something that made him suspicious. He tried to run. So they stopped him… how do you stop a child from crying and screaming and making a scene?

I looked up and down the body, scrutinizing the details. You bribe them. Chances are, if it was a sex-motivated crime, then the damn pedophile drugged Charles. It's sickening how many nut cases get off on sex when it's not completely consensual. Besides, a little bribery wouldn't stop a scared child from wanting his family for two entire weeks.

"Zach, before you clean the bones, please take samples from the mouth, jaw, sinuses, and… whatever's left of the esophagus." My voice became quieter at the end. "Sanders might have been drugged in order to keep him incapable of fighting back or drawing attention."

"There are twenty surveillance cameras taking stills every two seconds throughout the mall, including access corridors and parking lots. I concentrated on the ones aimed at the public concourse," Angela explained, setting a video to play on mute.

Booth had his hand slightly covering his mouth as he watched Angela's computer run through codes. "Okay, ten thousand people a day go through that mall. How are we going to find one small kid?"

"Angela designed a mass recognition program to apply body types to skeletal remains," Brennan answered promptly with a proud glance at her friend.

Angela smiled slightly to herself as she started the scan. Up in the top corner, little red letters flashed as near-translucent, thin, intersecting red lines moved across the screen, sizing up anything that resembled the recognition Angela had inputted. "Endomorph, ectomorph, mesomorph – that sort of thing. I modified it to scan two-dimensional images. In this case, we're looking for body masses roughly congruent with Charlie, Shawn, and David."

The little red box fixated on a figure and the computer beeped. A minute later, the tape froze and then started again, but this time a picture of the camera monitor with the figure isolated was up in the top right corner. I pointed, recognizing it. "There's David." He was wearing the same rosary that he'd worn when I'd seen him this morning.

"You're actually one of them," Booth said, leaning back away from Angela and yet watching her in fascinated horror – sort of like you'd watch a plane crash or a train wreck, if you were too stupid to get yourself together and call 9-1-1.

"One of who?" Angela asked, laughing in bemusement at the FBI agent's expression.

"A squint!" He cried like it was obvious. "I mean, you look normal, and you act normal, but you're actually one of them!" I rolled my eyes. He's just so considerate.

Angela shook her head, denying it. "The whole mass recognition program was Brennan's idea. I'm completely normal, really. I swear."

"Yeah, maybe before you got this job. But now-"

Booth was interrupted by Brennan. "I see Charlie!" She quickly zoomed in and set the computer to follow him.

"Oh. That's him, alright." Booth shoved his fists in his pockets, his jacket forced back to his sides.

"Oh, God." Angela was deathly pale.

"Ange?" Brennan started, reaching out to touch her friend's arm. "Are you okay?"

Angela looked depressed and her eyes glistened like she was fighting back tears. She changed how she held her touch pad and pressed it against herself, her arms hugging it to her. "It's just… these are probably the last pictures of this little guy alive. Why is he alone? Why isn't anybody with him?" She demanded, emotional overload making her lash out. She realized this when Brennan cringed away slightly at the sudden raise of her voice. "Sorry…" she forced herself to calm down. "Maximum resolution is X-40 by 480 pixels per square inch."

On the screen, the boy was looking up at something. As he shoved his way through the crowd as quickly as possible, his eyes never left it. I looked to the other side of the screen. Maybe if he was doing his own window-shopping, we could find which store he'd last gone too. Maybe the culprit was an employee of – I don't know, The Gap or Toys R Us. But no… he was looking at and going to one place that wasn't a store. It was by the front of a hallway that led towards an exit where security cameras no longer covered the area. At first I just saw the display board, propped up on a set of wheels. Then I saw the sneakers, just barely visible. "He's not alone!"

"Someone's calling him over," Booth agreed. "Can't you just zoom in?"

"The fewer pixels that make up an image, the more the picture degrades once we zoom in on it." Angela explained, only increasing the zoom by ten percent. The paused screen was still interpretable, but outlines were now a little fuzzy. "Did that sound too squinty?"

"Is there any way to enhance it?" Brennan asked.

Angela looked between her touch panel and the monitor, her eyes going briefly to her laptop on the coffee table. "Well, I wouldn't bet a date with Colin Farrell on it."

"I know him!" Brennan exclaimed, pleased with herself. "He's funny!"

Angela's lips quirked. "Funny is Will Ferrell, sweetie. Hot is Colin Farrell."

Booth looked at me, trying to convey exasperation, but I shrugged. Just because I was getting along with him now didn't mean that I was going to take his side when, in some ways, I was as socially inept as Brennan. Booth sighed and looked back to the screen. "This kid was definitely moving toward someone. He wasn't struggling. He wasn't trying to get away."

"I think we should add Ellie Nelson and her son Skyler to suspect lists," I said slowly. "It had to have been someone Charles had seen often before." While everyone else was calling the child by his nickname, I adamantly refused. I knew that if I got any more emotionally connected than I already was, then I wouldn't be completely objective.

"I have one other angle, but our bad guy is still obstructed in it," Angela deemed, bringing another camera's freeze-frame up beside the first.

I growled back in my throat. "Who the hell are you, you twisted son of a bitch?"

A/N: Note to ElysiumPhoenix: Firstly, I just have to say, I love your penname. Secondly, more about Holly's history comes out through the chapters, and as things get more complicated for her, eventually things will start coming out to the others.