"I did not kill April Wright. There are good people out there… you know, people who believe me. People who know I did not kill the girl, because they saw the evidence." Angela paused the clip of Howard Epps' interview, shaking her head uncertainly.

"I honestly think he's innocent," Amy stated, her eyes conveying her sincerity. "Don't you?"

I whistled lowly and inhaled, giving Amy a doubtful look. "I'm not saying for certain either way, but if being creepy was a crime, then he'd have been executed a long time ago."

Brennan blinked at the TV. "I don't like to form any conclusions before all the evidence is in," she told Amy after a second.

Angela looked down to the platform and then looked back quickly. "April Wright's body just arrived," she told us.

I waved my hand around Angela's office, blocking Amy from the doorway for a moment. "Hey, uh, you might be more comfortable up here. Sorry, it's just, you know. Dead girl's body…"

Amy seemed surprised, but she nodded at me in acceptance of what I was saying and tentatively took a seat on Angela's couch, looking around to examine the many different artworks that Angela had in her office. This being taken care of, I turned to the balcony and walked out and down the stairs to the main floor. Brennan was already to the platform, and luckily for me, I was close enough to the platform to break into a sprint and get up the stairs before the security system reset itself from Brennan's clearance. April Wright's ashen body lay motionless on the examination table, with a thin white sheet lain over her.

"Oh, God!"

I looked up, surprised. Up in the lounge loft, Angela's new boyfriend – Troy – was leaning over the railing and had a look of horror on his face as he looked at the teenager's corpse.

Angela flinched. "Don't look, sweetie," she told him, looking up at him nervously.

"You're not an artist," he yelled down from the loft. "You're a freak. You people are all freaks!" He shook his head in disgust and pushed off from the rail, storming off.

Brennan and I looked to Angela, both of us concerned about her feelings. Angela just smiled tensely, but it was so obviously fake it wasn't even worth it. Angela swallowed, shaking her head very slightly to us, like she was trying to tell us not to worry. "Uh… This job is so hard to describe online," she said, lifting her shoulders for a moment. She sounded like she was trying to sound casual, but she just sounded hurt.

My hands balled into fists. "I'm going to go get a drink," I lied, keeping my voice carefully even. Angela would likely try to stop me if she got the idea of what I was going to do. "I'll be back in a minute." Luckily for me, the vending machines with sodas and water were up in the loft, where Troy had just disappeared back to. Without waiting for a response, I turned on my heel and calmly walked down the platform steps and up to the stairs leading to the balcony. Up there, the balcony circled around the dome shape of the Jeffersonian Medico-Legal lab, and across from the stairs was the loft, the comfy little place for relaxation with couches and a shaggy carpet and sometimes little doughnuts up for grabs on the coffee table, along with a little kitchenette to the side.

Troy was getting his things together. It looked like he'd been on the computer. I poked him roughly in the shoulder and he turned around, glaring at me. "What do you want?"

"I want you to apologize to Angela," I said simply.

He scoffed, then grinned stupidly like it was a joke. "Yeah. That's not happening, chick."

I struck him across the face with the back of my hand. I was already being protective of the employees of the Jeffersonian; might as well not just go halfway. "Don't yell, don't be loud. This doesn't have to be violent, because really, all I'm telling you to do is act like a halfway decent human being." Troy cupped his cheek and stared at me.

Then it dawned on him and something clicked in his head. "You're that girl in the media!"

"Bravo," I said, sarcastically clapping my hands together. That took him a while. "So you know that I'm not afraid of violence and you also probably know that I can overpower you very, very easily." Troy watched me apprehensively. "They are not freaks. They are incredibly intelligent individuals who happen to work in a field that is taboo in this society. Right now, they are working to possibly save an innocent man from execution. You will apologize to Angela."

Troy opened his mouth to complain. "You haven't got any authority over me."

I looked back at him, completely serious. "I am not opposed to holding you over the railing by your ankles. Actually, it sounds like a really good idea to me. So here's what you're going to do; either you're going to go down there right now and apologize to her. You can still go out with her tonight if you think you can manage to act halfway respectable. If not, then go home. Don't say anything to her. Take the rest of the day to get your act together, and then call her in the morning and apologize. This is not up for debate. And remember; I will hang you over the railing by your ankles."

With that threat in place, I smiled sweetly at him, content with my own actions. That said, I turned and got a dollar bill from my wallet, and bought a plastic bottle of water from a vending machine. When I picked it up from the tray, I passed Troy and smirked at him on my way back around the balcony to the stairs down.

"Alright," I said without giving away what I'd done. I climbed up the stairs to the platform as Booth swiped his ID card for me. He must have just gotten here when I'd been in the loft. I stood away from the remains, since I had the bottle of water. "What did I miss?"

"We've got several pieces of foreign material lodged in the bone," Brennan updated me.

Hodgins jerked his head over to the microscope. "It's the same stuff we found in the shard."

"Which is consistent with the arm being dragged through gravel after the attack," Angela added. She still seemed kind of sad, but she was also trying to hide it, like she wasn't willing to have everyone else feel bad for her. I can really relate to that, so I didn't bring it up.

Booth held a plastic evidence bag in his hand down at his side. "And I got a warrant to search the house of the guy April Wright had sex with the night she was murdered."

"So what did you find?" Brennan asked, motioning at the sealed evidence bag.

"Underwear," Booth said with a cringe of distaste. "Can you people run a comparison on the hair?"

Hodgins sighed loudly and he and Zach both turned to each other at the same time. After a brief best out of three game of rock paper scissors, Zach groaned and took the bag from Booth, going over to the microscope and Petri dishes. I grinned. Who needs professionalism?

Booth made the mistake of looking to the exam table. Blinking once, he averted his eyes to his shoes and cleared his throat. "Is that April Wright?" He asked slowly.

Brennan didn't catch his response to the girl's corpse. "Yes, and it looks like she wasn't killed where she was found."

Booth looked up, but his gaze was forced away from the table whenever it wandered too close for his comfort. "Then where was she murdered?" He asked.

Brennan frowned slightly, her lips pulling down as she looked to the entomologist for an answer. "We've got microscopic particles beaten into the skull. Were those ever identified?"

Hodgins picked up a file from an evidence box and sifted through the papers. After a few seconds, he found the report that he was looking for. He shook his head slowly as he came to the conclusion from the file. "According to the autopsy report, no."

Zach looked up from the microscope. "It's a visual match," he called over to Brennan.

Brennan looked over to Angela. "Will you backstop him on that?" Angela gave a long, quiet sigh and moved over to Zach's side. The graduate pushed off with his feet and the wheeled chair moved to the side, giving the artist room to look through the microscope.

"Where's Amy?" Booth asked, trying to keep his thoughts organized and all of his information together.

"She's in Angela's office," I answered with a small smile. "I told her she'd probably be more comfortable up there."

"I concur with Zach," Angela agreed, standing up straight again. "We have a visual match on the pubic hair." She crossed her arms and took a step away from the microscope.

"Great. Visual match. But we'd need a DNA match to stay the execution," I reminded everyone. I don't really want to rain on the parade, but I also feel like, all things considered, we need to stay focused and remember that we need solid, indisputable facts in order for Howard Epps' execution to be stopped.

Brennan let her hands fall to her sides, shaking her head in disappointment and frustration. "I don't know what else we can do," she stressed.

I looked to Booth nervously. "Well, if you tell the judge that you don't still think Howard Epps is guilty… since you're the arresting officer, it has to mean something. That might buy time," I suggested after a moment of hesitation.

Brennan turned sharply to look at Booth, seeming startled. "Have you changed your mind?"

"No!" Booth exclaimed. He pushed a hand through his hair and started again. "Look, I have doubts that the guy should be executed, but…" he sighed loudly again. "Bones, Holly, let's get Amy and go see the judge." He extended a hand to me out of habit, but then recalled that I don't really do the touch thing and instead offered the hand-holding option to Brennan, who didn't even notice. Ouch.

Judge Cohen had another man with him when Booth, Amy, Brennan, and I arrived at his house. I'm not entirely sure who he is, but the judge is calling him Mr. Carlyle, and I think he's the judge's consultant on Amy's pleads. A legal advisor of some sort would be my guess.

For the second evening in a row, the judge had been woken up. Aside from being irritated, he didn't seem to care much – apparently he doesn't care enough about the case to put on something besides a bath robe. Then again, to be fair, we are sort of in his house at night on short notice. But really, it's only around ten at night. Not too late.

Judge Cohen poured himself a drink before screwing the top of the wine bottle back on. He left it on the counter (who needs a refrigerator anymore?) and lifted the champagne glass, propping himself up against the kitchen island. "At my age, a man needs a good night's sleep," he said. His words were sharp in annoyance. "Lack of sleep clouds judgment."

"You know what else clouds judgment?" I asked with a raised eyebrow, before nodding at the champagne glass in his hand. "Alcohol." The judge scowled at me. "Truth is truth, man."

Amy pushed herself forward, her hands clasped in front of her. Her curly ginger hair bounced as her heels clicked on the tile floor. "If you stay the execution, Judge, I promise you'll sleep like a baby," she swore.

Cohen took a long drink of his wine before asking dryly, "Mr. Carlyle, what does the prosecution think?"

"This is a waste of the state's time, your Honor," Carlyle promptly responded, giving Amy a look of contempt. He seemed to have practiced saying this in his head several times. "Miss Morton is recycling old evidence, just presenting it in a different way in a last-ditch attempt to keep Howard Epps from being executed. She's an ideologue."

"That's true," Amy willingly conceded. "But it doesn't mean I'm not right. This case doesn't add up."

Cohen coughed. "You-" He motioned to Brennan carelessly. "Brilliant scientist lady. Talk to me about this bone shard."

"It indicates the body was dragged to the location where it was later discovered," Brennan said. I could tell she had originally wanted to say something else, but had narrowed it to a simpler explanation. "That, plus the gravel-"

"Common gravel. I'm not convinced," Cohen waved it away. "What about the hair?"

"It's a visual match," Brennan reported. "That narrows the statistical probability to-"

"DNA?" The judge interrupted. What is it with him and interrupting her?

"Ten days," Amy answered this time. "We'll have it in ten days."

"And what about this man that the FBI's taken into custody?" Cohen strained to remember correctly and Booth and I shared a look. Why was he drinking alcohol while debating a stay in an execution? Oh, God. I'm fearing for my legality now. I hope not all judges are this reckless. "David Ross? Has he confessed to sleeping with her?"

"No," Amy answered, her expression falling as she realized that her case wasn't as solid as she had thought.

Carlyle interfered again. I sent him a short glare; he is acting very unlikeable. Then again, I'm obviously biased on Amy and Brennan's side. "Even if the DNA says David Ross slept with the girl, it doesn't prove he killed her."

Cohen listened to Carlyle. I guess that's to be expected, since Carlyle is an advisor, but still, it's annoying. "Let's stick with new facts, Miss Morton."

"Your Honor, at least give us enough time to find David Ross' car," Amy requested, her voice bordering on pleading. "There could be evidence of murder-"

"Could be?" Cohen repeated. "I can't stop an execution because there could be evidence."

"Judge Cohen, I have the arresting officer right here!" I have to give Amy points for determination. If I were in need of a defense lawyer, I'd request her. "The primary investigator!"

"Agent Booth." Cohen nodded at the FBI agent in the first direct acknowledgment he'd given him since we arrived. "Have you suddenly decided that Howard Epps is not guilty?"

"No."

"Booth!" Amy hissed.

"I think there are doubts," Booth added seriously. "And when it comes to an execution, there shouldn't be any doubts."

Carlyle sneered at Booth. "He doesn't have doubts, he has cold feet."

Booth seemed like he was going to retaliate. Sensing that that probably wouldn't help his case, I did it for him. It's one thing for a federal agent to threaten someone, especially when he's trying to get a judge to stay an execution sentence; it's completely different for a rebellious teenager to threaten someone when he's harassing people that she holds allegiances with, however temporary. "You'd better not think that I won't knock you around just because we're in a judge's kitchen," I snarled, balling my hands into fists.

"You see?" Cohen tilted his head at me. "You lose sleep, you get cranky, and judgment suffers. It's not enough."

"Oh, believe me, your Honor, my mind is perfectly clear on this one."

"Your Honor, you can't dismiss this so easily!" Amy protested.

"Easily?" Cohen repeated. "I allowed you to exhume that girl's remains. Do you think I did that easily? We all feel the weight of a capital case, Miss Morton, but the law is clear. Unless there is proof of grievous incompetence by counsel, or a denial of legitimate and definitive factual certainties, my hands are tied." The judge shrugged, almost apologetic.

Walking out of the judge's home a few minutes later was a tired affair. Laden with disappointment and exhaustion from barely sleeping in the past two and a half days, I nearly stumbled over the porch steps, but caught myself on the handrail. Amy followed, her steps admittedly slower than they had been. Her polished dress shoes ground against the sidewalk a little, and she didn't have as much bounce to her walk.

"I'll go out to the prison and tell Epps," Amy sighed, running her hand through her ginger hair.

Brennan held her hand over her mouth as she tried to stifle a large yawn. "I'll take another look at the skull, to see if we didn't miss anything."

"Bones…" Booth started, but trailed off, like the thought had gotten away from him.

"The particulates in the skull still haven't been analyzed yet," Brennan added, the vigor of her steps renewing slightly.

Amy slammed the passenger door of the SUV as she got in, hurrying to buckle up the seat belt while Booth reached for the gear shift. "This is so barbaric," she cried out angrily, bringing her fist down on her knee while Brennan and I fastened our seat belts in the back seat. "When are they going to put a stop to the damn death penalty?"

"I believe in the death penalty," Brennan contradicted, looking forwards to Amy.

The lawyer swiveled in her seat, her eyes widening in both surprise and disgust. "What?" She asked, like she couldn't believe what she'd just heard.

"I do, too," I agreed, backing up the anthropologist. "There are some people that shouldn't be allowed to live their lives, even if it is in a bleak prison cell. War lords who forced children to become killing machines or watch their family be murdered. Some serial killers actually force their victims to watch as they mutilate and kill them, because fear and pain is what gets them off. How is it not fair that they receive death, as well? We're already being overly nice by letting the lethal injection have a numbing property, and by making an electrical execution quick."

"There are certain people that shouldn't be in this world. The people who hacked hundreds of innocent children to death in Rwanda, beheaded them in their desks at school." Brennan's expression was hard to describe; she was obviously abhorred by the killers that we were bringing up, but she didn't seem to have any malevolence towards Amy. I think she was just having trouble understanding Amy's point of view. "The people who did that? They should be executed."

Amy shook her head but didn't make it an outright argument. She turned herself back around in the seat and let her head fall harshly back against the headrest. "So why do you care about Epps?" She demanded.

"Because the facts have to add up," Brennan answered with no uncertainty. "Drop me at the lab, please."

Total creeper in a dimly-lit death row cell or a group of relatively-friendly scientists in a brightly-lit lab? That's hardly even a choice! "Me, too."

Hodgins held a small metal tray with a few Petri samples while he brought Brennan up to speed. I was updated, too, but that's probably more because I'm standing there. Angela was on the scientist's right, her arms crossed, yet a small, satisfied smile played across her face. Zach was at Hodgins' other side, his head drooping slightly. This lack of sleep is getting to everyone on this case. Angela's pretty brown eyes had dark circles beginning to make an appearance. "These are slivers of metal found on the skull," Hodgins said, pointing at one of the sample jars.

"Probably from the tire iron," Zach edified, blinking several times as he stood up straight once again.

I looked into the jars curiously. Without a magnifying glass, I wouldn't have really been able to distinguish any of them, and even then, my knowledge on entomology is spotty. "Is that blood?" I blurted the first thing that came to mind when I saw the red sample.

"Silt," Hodgins corrected, not unkindly. "I'm breaking it down. It contains traces of two chemicals-"

"Anthracene and fluoranthene," Zach promptly recited.

"I've scanned in all the x-rays and built a 3-D model," Angela reported smugly. "Troy would have liked that. Stupid suck-up."

I raised my eyebrows, hoping that no one would correctly interpret the sly smile visiting my face. "Oh? What did he do to suck up?"

"He called on the phone and said he was sorry," Angela scoffed. "After that tantrum, a sorry and another invitation to a date. Please, as if that would work." I grinned to myself. I'm glad to see that Angela isn't letting Troy's idiocy bring her down; she really doesn't deserve to have to deal with that.

Brennan nodded in approval of Angela's words. "I also found more material in the fractures along the sagittal suture," she told Hodgins, unsure whether or not he'd already categorized it yet.

"It's pollen," Hodgins said with a tight smile. This is good; in this case, pollen could be absolutely no help at all, or it could be the key to figuring out what happened to April Wright. Hopefully, it's the latter.

Amy and Booth had perfect timing. They got back from visiting Epps just as Angela's scenario equipment finished warming up and preparing for use. When Hodgins had the results and shared them with Angela to make a presentation for the less scientifically-gifted (no offense, Booth, no one can be perfect), I beckoned the two up into Angela's office again for the entomologist's big reveal.

"The pollen is from spartina alterniflora," Hodgins announced, a satisfied little smirk on his face. His eyes were bright, like he was internally thinking, we did it! His merriment wasn't shared, though, because Booth and Amy just sort of looked at him like they were waiting for him to continue. "It's more commonly known as smooth cord grass," he added, deflating slightly.

Amy closed her eyes, aggrieved, and shook her head slightly like she was dispelling a bad thought. "I'm sorry. What does pollen tell us about April Wright's murder?"

"Angela?" Brennan prompted simply. The holographic imager's projection changed to a simple black tire iron. The tool rotated around slowly and the projection zoomed in to the topmost metal cuff, which angled slightly down. A pale, rounded surface materialized in front of it and a light green grass covering surrounded the two. Little pale yellow pollen spores collected on the tire iron as it struck the digitalized cranium. "The murder weapon collected pollen from the surrounding flora. When she was struck, pollen from the murder weapon was deposited in April's skull."

"In this case," I added, "The spores it picked up were from a plant known as spartina alterniflora." I lifted up the map of the area surrounding Chesapeake Bay and unrolled it so that the others could see Hodgins's red circling.

"Which is only found along Chesapeake Bay," Hodgins grinned triumphantly, holding his fist out to Zach for a fist-bump. Zach didn't notice.

Instead, Zach continued to narrow down the locations. "The pollen and silt both showed traces of complex chemicals."

"What does that mean?" Booth asked.

"April Wright was killed, in a marsh, near a chemical plant." Brennan answered, pointing at the map. "And there's only one of those with the same floral array around the bay."

Amy's phone gave a generic little beep and the light flashed orange for a minute. She looked down at the screen, the lighting illuminating her face, and sighed, her eyes darkening. "They've moved Howard Epps to the imminent room."

"What's that?" Angela inquired, looking nervously between Booth and Amy, like she wasn't entirely sure that she was going to like the answer. I'm pretty sure she won't, either.

Booth shoved his hands in his pockets, looking straight into the slowly rotating hologram. "It's where he has his last meal and says goodbye to his family," he explained, his voice quiet. He cleared his throat suddenly and his voice rose. "We need to find the location of that marsh!"

Brennan and I stood outside the interrogation room, just inside the observation room, watching as David Ross and his own lawyer prepared for the interrogation. Booth was dealing with Cullen and struggling to get the director to grant him the access to metal detectors and a search team. If we find the tire iron, then the likelihood of incriminating or exonerating evidence stays the execution long enough for it to be fully investigated.

I fixed the earpiece into place and combed my blonde hair out over it with my fingers. No matter how many times I think or see it, the blonde surprises me. "I'll make this fast," I promised. "If Booth comes back and I'm not near finished, then I'll leave and we can always get Booth to assign someone else to it, or finish later."

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure we'll figure something out. Our priority right now needs to be finding that tire iron, not interrogating this man," Brennan said, watching Ross curiously through the one-way mirror.

I nodded in acceptance of her words and stepped through the doors, cutting straight to business and taking a seat across from the lawyer and his lawyer. "The hair we found proves that you had sex with April Wright," I stated bluntly. Ross and his lawyer didn't seem at all surprised, although Ross's front seemed to falter for a few seconds. "You're going to be charged with statutory rape."

"But not by you," Ross's lawyer smoothly cut in. "Statutory rape is not a federal crime. Therefore, I am left to assume that you're here to get my client to confess to murder."

"That would be nice," I agreed. "Or you could, too. I mean, as long as someone does, it's all the same to me. There's paper and pencils just outside, I'd be glad to go get some for your written confession," I offered.

"I didn't kill April!" Ross exclaimed, stressing the "did not" part, while his lawyer just gave me an unamused look.

"But you met her in the park," I said, shooting Ross a look that told him to "calm down and listen to story time, sweetheart." "You two got it on… I mean, I can see it now; you're her role model, as her parents said, she wanted to be a lawyer, too… oh, and you're an older man, so that might add some allure… but then she was killed somewhere else, near a chemical plant by the Chesapeake."

"I don't know anything about that," Ross denied. His eyes, although alarmed, also flashed with curiosity and guilt. I couldn't decide what he felt guilty about, but why would he be curious if he'd already known?

"I've been told that you are a minor, however well-versed you are in law," the lawyer said calmly. "So why are you concerned with a murder that occurred when you were ten at the oldest?"

I sent him a careless look. I don't care about the lawyer. As long as I get the answers, I don't need to concern myself with him. Unlike with Shawn's advocate, and the Hanover teenagers' lawyers, something told me that this lawyer was more experienced, and he was probably used to being intimidated. Don't care about the lawyer. Don't care about the lawyer. Focus on the pedophile. Yeah, that'll work. "Because shut up, that's why," I told the lawyer evenly before I refocused my attention on Ross. "So you had sex with her. And maybe not for the first time. Let's see... so many ways she could hold that over you. Police, friends, family, clientele. Oh! But I've got it! She threatened to tell her family. A seventeen year old who thinks for herself, having sex with an adult. Now that's illegal, so the police are ruled out. And why would she tell her friends? I mean, they'd never understand completely, and they couldn't do anything. And she wouldn't get direct access to your clients and if she did, well, it's a tragic story about how she's a victim of a domestic case you're working.

"But if she tells her family, then they can tell the police. They can pose it as statutory rape and the police have to lead it up. Of course, nothing like that stays quiet in D.C., so you can't let that happen. It would ruin your life."

"No." Ross shook his head firmly.

"You'd lose your business, professional standing, and you might need to lawyer up, 'specially if she checks into the doctor's to have a rape kit done for evidence-"

"No!" Ross's voice was rising and I knew that I'd gotten to him.

The lawyer's voice was controlled, but irritation was beginning to spill through his dam. "Do not engage with her, David."

"You had motive, which I just spent the past two minutes explaining; you had the means, I mean, you were alone, in the dark, and with a car and a tire iron nearby; and you had the opportunity. Like I said, alone in the dark, where no one would hear her fighting back."

"I didn't kill her!"

I slammed the palms of my hands on the table and leaned forward to him, glaring at him icily. "Then why aren't you helping us find out who did?"

Ross shrank back, surprised. "What?"

"We know you were there!" I said again, repeating my initial sentences. "But by not admitting that you were there that night, not confessing you were with her sexually, you're clouding the issue!"

"So what?" Ross asked, although now he was uncertain, trying to have bravado to shield it. "Epps will still be in jail for the rest of his life."

"We are not discussing the events of that night, Miss Kirkland," the lawyer said, a vein in his temple standing out slightly.

"Actually, dude, I think we are. So since he's obviously not listening to you by talking to me, why don't you shut up and be a good little doll?" I turned myself back to Ross and stared at him, not trying to glare. "You are the only person who can tell us what happened that night. She was seventeen, Ross," I said, trying to appeal to his emotions. Appealing to logic and then anger hadn't worked, so maybe guilt would. "She was a seventeen year old young woman, with career aspirations, and a college plan, and she was the daughter of your friends. She looked up to you and you were possibly the last person besides her murderer to see her before her skull was bashed in with a tire iron from her own car."

Ross swallowed. A thin sheen of sweat was on his forehead; probably not just because of the bright lighting. "Okay, look… I just went there that night to talk, okay? That's all," he added, softer.

"This interview is over," the lawyer declared insistently.

"No," Ross disagreed with him. The lawyer puffed, annoyed. You don't get told "no" often, do you? "I… it was just to talk. I'm not proud of what happened, alright?" He didn't need to say that part; I could already tell by how he pushed his chair away from me, and crossed his arms and averted his eyes. "I could tell you exactly why it happened, but I'm not proud of it. I shouldn't have let myself get pulled in. I didn't know it was her first time, I didn't know she'd get so upset."

This was working! Hooray for me! Even if he didn't kill April, another man in prison - a pedophile rather than a murderer in this case, but that's details - was another man who wasn't allowed to continue without repercussion. I tried my best to soften my voice. "Aside from it being with the teenage daughter of your friends, it was just sex to you. It was a convenient way to relieve tension."

I was nearly gagging from sympathizing with his actions. He hadn't known her too well, and there was no way that he was willing to commit himself to a serious relationship with her without sex being the main thing. He pretty much used her body for his own recreation.

"On the other hand, she gave her virginity to her parent's friend, who she knew couldn't be in the serious relationship she would have wanted. What would her parents think? What if she'd ended up pregnant? So she ran off, yeah? And you left her there in the park. Alone. At night."

"I looked for her," Ross tried to say. "I waited for her for over two hours." He shrugged, closing his eyes tightly. "Finally I figured that she called somebody to come and get her."

"Was her car still there when you left?" I asked.

"Yes, it was."

"And what time was that?"

Ross shrugged helplessly. "I guess after two a.m.."

"Did you see anyone else?"

Ross nodded slightly, but he still seemed shaken. "Yeah. There was maybe some traffic – all teenagers. After one a.m., there was nothing." He paused. "Look, maybe it is my fault that he got to her," he concluded quietly. "You know, maybe I should go to jail for that."

"Well, don't worry. You can hate yourself about it while you're in jail for statutory rape instead," I assured him with a mockingly cheerful smile.

When I stepped out of the interrogation room, Booth had joined Brennan. I looked up at the FBI agent questioningly and he nodded grimly. "We're all set, kid."

The sky was pitch black, dotted with tiny white stars as Booth's SUV sped a few miles over the limit to the site. Chesapeake Bay wasn't normally too far away; in daylight, with normal traffic and going the actual speed limit (which was eighty on the highway there), it would only take somewhere around forty minutes from the D.C. area. Outside, it was peaceful; dark, quiet, seemingly unaware that a man was scheduled to die in less than an hour. Inside the vehicle, it most certainly was not. Booth was driving rapidly down the long stretch of road to the exit leading to the search site, where forensics were already supposed to be setting up. Brennan was on the phone with the Jeffersonian, and it was on speaker, while I had a map laid across my lap. The overhead light of the car was on so that I could see and I was sectioning off the area Hodgins had specified into squares, making it into a grid search. More ground would be covered in a more timely manner, and right now, time is of the essence. I'd hand my product off to the search team when we got there.

At the scene, lights flashed. I could barely remember arriving; it was sort of a blur. Lack of sleep and running on pure adrenaline had my mind slightly impaired, but I could work well in the moment. I know that my grid search idea was utilized, and we had ground resonators and four metal detectors. We had shovels in case we needed to dig. I was in long grass that stretched up to my thighs, going between wading through oceans of stalks and dried patches of dirt and soil.

"We got it!" A recovery officer shouted across the terrain from some few meters away. "We got it! We got the tire iron!"

"Bag it for evidence!" I shouted, knowing that it was probably unnecessary. "Collect samples for particulates for the Jeffersonian Institution!"

"Here!" Booth cried from a short distance ahead and to my left. I ran, pushing my way unceremoniously through the reaching grass. I don't feel like swimming in pollen tonight, thanks. "I've got something. It's more than a tire iron."

"I need a shovel!" I heard Brennan start to say. As I pushed my way into their dirt patch, I saw Brennan; she was kneeling down on the ground, and so I hadn't seen her over the ridiculously tall grass stems. Her dark silhouette was emphasized by the moonlight.

"Bones," Booth shushed. "I need a shovel!" He yelled, louder. His voice, deeper than Brennan's, traveled to the other search officers easier. "She's digging here!"

"What's going on?" I asked, unsure whether this was bad or good. "What did you find?" I dropped to my knees beside Brennan, little dust clouds rising up over my jeans before settling. What were they digging up? I hope it's just some trash that happens to be here, but I'm getting an uneasy feeling about this. Call me intuitive; if something bad is about to happen, sometimes I can predict it.

Booth passed Brennan and I each shovels after they were handed to him. "I'm not sure," Brennan said, taking a deep breath as she went straight into digging. I bit down on the handle of my flashlight so that it was still directed at the earth we were digging at, and then ran my hands over the surface. Oh. I could just barely feel it; something was buried underneath, packed down under the dirt, and it was big. Like, very big. Human-size big. It was a miracle Brennan had noticed it; either she's more perceptive than I give her credit for or they were using a resonance imager.

I grasped the shovel by the lower half of the handle with both hands and jammed it at a slight angle against the soil, stripping it up by layers and copying Brennan's motions. If something's buried, we don't want to damage it by giving it acupuncture via shovel tip. I blinked back exhaustion, growling to myself and increasing my vigor. Howard Epps. Murdered girl. Accused lawyer. Stay the execution.

When we made it down about two inches in the soil in a space about two feet wide, it suddenly occurred to me that, with three people working on it, we should have more of this done – especially because the other had gotten coffee at the FBI building and so he should be more awake than Brennan and I. I stopped working and started glaring up at Booth, who was just watching us work with his thumbs hooked through his belt loops. "Are you going to help?" I asked testily.

Booth shrugged slightly, looking down at the dirt we were working through and wincing. "Well, I would, but this is a twelve hundred dollar suit."

"Are you kidding me?!" Brennan nearly shouted.

"We have barely slept in the past two days, and you're worried about your suit?!" I did scream at him, stress and tiredness exploding at once. "What the hell, man?!"

"Get over here!" Brennan ordered indignantly.

Booth tossed his head slightly in dismay, but he clearly didn't want to argue with two angered and tired women. "Fine," he gave in, taking off his jacket. "Can I get a shovel?" Another agent handed him a small, short-handled shovel and he handed the agent his neatly-folded coat. He joined us on the floor, taking care to keep from accidentally scraping dirt into flying up onto his shirt. I cursed at him under my breath.

"Dig gently," Brennan instructed as Booth started shoveling the normal way. "Small layers at a time."

We worked that way for what must have been at least ten minutes. "What would you usually be doing?" I asked. "Either of you." The silence was grating on my nerves and I needed something to focus on to stay awake.

"What?" Booth looked up for a minute.

"If it were a normal weekend and we weren't digging in a marsh for evidence incriminating or exonerating a convicted murderer. I'm guessing this isn't your normal type of party," I clarified, before frowning down at the ground. There was something that wasn't soil… the shovel was encountering resistance. I set the shovel to the side and started using my hands to scratch and bring up dirt. After a supposed seven years, it was packed well in the earth.

"You want to discuss this now?" Booth hissed.

"What was it you said on the Eller case – "You have to offer up something of yourself first," right?" I continued. "Well, normally right now I'd either be on night shift at the bar or asleep."

Brennan tilted her head slightly towards Booth in consideration. "Considering his multiple sex partners…"

"You know, that's none of your business, okay?" Booth growled, bristling. "I'm not having sex with Amy, and I have never, ever cheated on any woman that I've ever been with. Never!"

"Wow. I only asked what you'd normally be doing. Let's get this back on topic before someone besides Howard Epps ends up dead."

Booth sighed, and Brennan's shovel clinked as she found something, too. My hands brushed dirt and soil away from something smooth and light colored. I worked diligently while Booth answered. "I'd… be at a movie, or be dancing… I'd be being with somebody that I care about."

I froze in place for only a moment as the object I was trying to unearth came free of a large sum of sediment. The rounded top and the hollowing depressions further down… "Oh!" I cried, pulling back immediately. "Oh God!" I picked up my flashlight from the ground and shone it at where I'd been working. Confirming my anxiety, a half-buried human skull was sticking out of the ground.

I flashed the light over to Brennan and Booth's patch of work. They withdrew themselves when it landed on a nearly completely unearthed cranium, the mandible a few inches away. Booth shivered and looked up, meeting my eyes. "Okay. What the hell is going on here?"

Five minutes later, the three of us had gotten the attention of the entire recovery team, and now that we'd had the help of a dozen other trained agents, we had unearthed two full skeletons. My guess is that they had been killed and buried in this dump site, and their bodies decomposed in the earth. The dirt had thankfully masked the stench of decay. I'm not made easily nauseous, but I think that would have done it for me tonight.

Brennan seemed disconcerted by their presence, but she was coping with it. She was on her knees by them, observing them for any clues as to identity or the reason that they were there to begin with. "Female… approximately seventeen to twenty-five years old, blunt trauma to the skull." She leaned over the first to contemplate the second from a closer view. "Also female, same approximate age, same type of injury."

"No," I said to myself, my voice breaking slightly. I gave up on professionalism; I don't care how many federal forensics agents are watching me. I let myself fall to my knees. I need sleep, I need to eat something – I can't believe I lasted so long without a real meal – vending machines in the Jeffersonian lab's lounge can only offer so many snacks – and I need to know what is going on here! "This wasn't Ross! If he killed April Wright, then it was a crime of passion, inspired from his fear that she would report him. He doesn't seem at all like a serial offender!"

Brennan's lips tightened and she looked up to Booth, a frown coming to her face. "Both these victims have been dead for at least five years."

"Maybe more than seven?" Booth asked, his voice carrying a note of dread.

Brennan shook her head, looking as helpless as I felt. "Yes."

"Epps," I snarled. "It was Epps!" My nails scratched at the dirt under me and my now bottle-blonde hair was darker from all of the dust in the marsh and from the digging. My muscles were stretched and tensed so tightly that my arms were beginning to ache. "He snatched April from the park after she ran away from Ross and he brought her here – these are his killing grounds!" I don't believe it! I got played! …By a psychopath! Well, to be fair to myself, psychopaths are incapable of feeling empathy and therefore feel no guilt, so there were no clear indicators, and they are great liars. But still! The world would be better off if he was dead! And now we have to call in the new bodies and the execution would have to be stopped!

"Why did he take her back to the park?" Brennan asked, her eyebrows furrowing as she tried to keep up and piece things together.

"He watched them have sex; he saw them argue. Epps knew suspicions would fall on Ross, so he took her back," Booth explained, looking disgusted, horrified, disturbed, and crestfallen.

"And stole her car," Brennan reminded him.

"We got played!" I shouted, throwing vicious glares at the skeletons before stopping. It wasn't their fault that they were murdered by a sick bastard who I only want to see once again – and that would be to taunt him and maybe go a little insane, like I did with Charlie Sanders's murderer. There was no "if" anymore. Epps wasn't going to be executed. He played us, like we were pawns in his chess game of life, and he won…

"What?" Brennan asked, her voice nearly breaking. "How?"

"Because either way, Epps wins." I imagine Booth is plenty angry; but he wasn't expressing it the way I was. I was showing it as rage, but he was keeping his cool. He was expressing his in distaste, and the anger at himself was directing itself into guilt at being conned, while with me, it was just adding fuel to the fire of fury. "If we find Ross, then the execution is stopped. If we find these bodies…"

Brennan's face fell as she understood. "The execution is stayed until these murders are investigated," she finished, disappointed.

Booth held his phone up, his fingers hovering over the screen contemplatively. He held it out slightly and looked down at Brennan and I. "If I don't make this call, he's going to be dead in less than half an hour."

I can live with that. He deserves to be dead for what he's done! We've been used; he cheated, so why shouldn't we? He gets out of death by us discovering more of the crime that put him up for death in the first place! How is that fair? I stared up at Booth, not saying anything, but he held my gaze, understanding what I was thinking even without communicating. Do it, I urged in a silent dare. Go on. Put it away. Don't call it in.

"But these women, they deserve to be heard," Brennan said regretfully. I looked away from Booth. She looked like she wanted just as bad to agree with me, but her morality wouldn't allow her to overlook the possible truth; what she's dedicated her life to. I had to, however grudgingly, admire her for that. I know in my head that what I'd been voting for was wrong, wrong on so many levels, but on an emotional level, God, it was so unbelievably tempting.

I also know that I'm not in a great state of mind, though. I'm not going to fight her on something like this. I know better than anyone how much mental damage I have from abuse and horror. A survivor of severe child abuse and the attacks on the twin towers... I know I need a psychologist, but at this point, it was probably beyond help. So much for foster families taking care of me.

But I get through anyway, because that's what I am. A survivor.

"It's what we do, Booth," Brennan continued. "The rest…"

"Lawyers," Booth nodded reluctantly, surprising me. I hadn't realized he'd been as okay with the idea as I had been. Maybe we're more similar than I really realized.

Brennan nodded once. "Lawyers."

Booth gave a dark sigh and lifted his phone to his ear. After a moment, when his call was answered, he spoke. "Amy, it's Booth. I think we got you your stay of execution, but… you're not going to like it much."

"Thank you," Epps said. His voice was light and relaxed. I feel like I'm being taunted… probably because I am. "All I can say is thank you," he repeated, leaning over the table in a pretend show of emotion. He looked up, pretending to seem innocent.

"What's that, Howie?" Booth asked snidely. "Practicing to get jury sympathy?"

"I did not kill anyone," Epps said firmly, his eyes wide. He leaned back as much as his chains would let him, looking at Brennan and I, who sat across from him. The only reason I was sitting with him in the room was because otherwise I would either be pacing or attacking him. Booth was standing beside Brennan while Amy was to my other side. He made his dark, mocking eyes connect with Brennan's. "Thank you. I mean it."

"We found the tire iron," Brennan told him coldly. Her voice betrayed no emotion, but I daresay I'd seen enough of her behavior to recognize that Howard Epps unsettled her. Can't blame her; he should get a national award for being so damn creepy. "You'll be found guilty of these murders."

Epps took on a sneaky, conniving smirk and looked to Amy directly. Whatever façade he'd been presenting to the duped lawyer was gone, and now he was letting her see his true colors. "Well, I need a good lawyer," he said, giving her an evil look. "These murder investigations take a long time." He nodded slowly, knowingly. "Then there's the appeals. And, since I should have been dead half an hour ago, it's all gravy from now on."

Amy closed her eyes against a threat of tears. She pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead, dismayed. If she was anything like me, then she probably felt self-loathing. The anger at Epps for conning me had turned into me feeling dirty for letting him play me so easily. I'd not even considered that he'd be a psychopath because he was good at mimicking emotion and he was supposedly a one-time murderer.. "We gave him everything he wanted," she whispered, horrified at herself.

"It's not your fault, Amy," I said deliberately, my eyes not leaving Epps's hunched form. I didn't want to look away; he's a freaking psychopath, what am I supposed to do, turn my back to him? He bludgeons young blonde women to death, and I don't mean to brag or anything, but I'm young, and in case no one noticed, I'm blonde now. Fuck me, I really chose a bad time to dye my hair. "You tried to help free an innocent man. Epps is at fault for playing you. He's a psychopath. By nature, he can't feel guilt, but he can anticipate every emotion you feel. He played on our compassion to trick us into finding his kill grounds."

"Oh, aren't you a smart one?" Epps asked slowly, turning his dark eyes back to me for a moment, during which I felt extremely insulted, before going back to torment the defense lawyer some more. "Who knows if there will even be a death penalty then? I mean, that's your dream, isn't it?" He lowered his voice very slightly. "We want the same things from life."

Amy brought her head into her hands, her shoulders starting to shake, and waved at the door of the death row cell. The guard on the other side opened it for her and she bolted off down the corridor. That poor woman. I can't help but sympathize with her; I was tricked by him into helping him, and I feel filthy, and I wasn't even instrumental in it.

Epps's dark, languid smile turned on Brennan. That creep! He makes me sick! Literally, my stomach is queasy from being in the same room with him. "And I owe you, too. I read your book. When I read you were working with Booth here, I knew you were just what I needed."

Brennan's look of dismay contorted into one of anger. She jerked suddenly, like she was kicking out under the table, and Epps's face was suddenly connected with the table surface. The chains on his hands… Brennan had kicked out to get them and then pulled her leg back, the chains coming with it. His face had been forced into a collision, and there was a soft crunch. That has to hurt. Well, you know what, so does beating people to death in the head, so, uh, he really kind of had it coming.

I leaned forward to crow over him as he was down. "Hey, Howie?" I started venomously, adopting Booth's condescending nickname for him. "I'm doing a research project on the chemicals involved in lethal injection. While you're being given the shot, will you please write down everything you experience? I think I'll get an A-plus."

Epps sat up slowly and I fought a grimace. His nose was most certainly broken. That's my forensic anthropologist! I cheered in my head. A small rivulet of blood was draining from Epps's broken nose and staining his skin, yet he still had an eerie smile as he fixed his eyes on me. Total psychopath. "To help such a pretty dumb blonde attempt to seem beyond her intelligence in a social circle that she doesn't even belong in…" he trailed off, looking me up and down. His hand slowly reached out for mine.

I met his gaze, unblinking, staring back dangerously. I didn't even reply to the comment. I know I don't belong with Booth and the Jeffersonian scientists. I don't need a psychopath to point that out for me. Besides, getting mad about being called a dumb blonde would be playing into his hands – which I refuse to do again. Instead, I challenged him with my eyes to touch me. Go on. Try.

The moment his fingertips grazed the back of my hand, I snapped. I flipped my hand over and caught his hand in a vice grip, then stood, my chair flying behind me with the abruptness of my rise. In a fluid motion, I pulled up on his wrist and then twisted my hand back around so his hand was underneath mine, and brought his wrist down sharply on the edge of the table, as hard as I could. A sickening crunch echoed very softly in the cell and Epps groaned lowly, pulling his hand back to cradle to his chest. He didn't look up again.

I turned to Booth, panting with adrenaline. Sure, he could arrest me for assaulting an unarmed man, but it was so worth it. "You going to arrest me for assault?" I asked boldly.

Booth raised his hands up to his shoulders, shaking his head. "From what I saw, it was purely self-defense."

I hummed and moved to the door, waiting for Brennan and Booth to follow my lead. I'm not spending any more time in this room with this psycho than I have to. "Maybe I shouldn't carry a gun, after all," I said thoughtfully. If I'd had a gun, would I have shot at Epps? Would I have shot to kill? Almost definitely to the first, but I couldn't be sure about the second, and if I'm being honest, then not knowing my own limits frightened me a little.

Booth scoffed. "Hell, if you're going to shoot him, you can have mine!"

I opened the mailbox on my current foster guardians' house, just as the dawning of light announced the beginning of Monday. I yawned to myself, glad that Booth had directed the FBI to fax another excuse to the bar, giving me today to sleep off my exhaustion from the past forty-eight hours. While right about now, Booth and Brennan would be getting to Wong Foos, I was looking to see if the government had arranged my testimony against Martin Davis's murder. They had invited me to go with them, but since money is getting sparser for me, I'd declined. I really hadn't thought that my moonlighting would go on this long, but, as I'm looking at the crisp white court summons in my hands, I'm beginning to think that maybe it was about to come to an end.