I stepped out of the SUV into the little Spanish neighborhood and frowned, pulling my blue sunglasses from Los Angeles down over my eyes.

"It really didn't take long to get this case," I commented. Really. Warren Granger's funeral had been yesterday, and at about five in the morning Booth had come to the bar, where I was half-asleep from boredom, exclaiming about going on a road trip to Little Salvador for another case. Helena had snuck off back behind the 'employees only' door while I waved to Andy, pointed at Booth, and took off.

"We got the call at four," Booth explained shortly.

"Why'd they call the FBI to Little Salvador?" Brennan pressed, closing the door on her side of the car.

Little Salvador is actually just a neighborhood in D.C., but if you're not Spanish, then it's not a very nice one. I mean, parts of it are nice to look at, but that doesn't show what it really means. Half of the people standing behind the yellow police tape looked curious but half of them were terrified. I bet over a third of them were illegal immigrants into America. If you don't know how things work here, don't come here. Other than that, it's sort of like a Chinatown in the respect that the more populated parts of it are very attractive to look at and culture-rich. Most of the signs I saw were in Spanish, which made me thankful for the Spanish courses I'd taken in seventh grade. Brennan and I had spent the last five minutes driving to the crime scene translating the random signs to Booth.

"Well, the car's got Virginia plates across the state line," Booth explained. The car in question was a little red Mustang, cordoned off by more yellow crime scene tape. Several scratches and spots of rust marred the paint job. Two of the local police held the suspect against the side of the car with his head turned and his cheek pressed to the window. His hair was short and his skin was tattooed with the type of inks used in the 'backstreet' parlors. He wore ripped, torn jeans splattered with paint, stains, and maybe even a bit of dried blood and a black tank. "Then there's a suspected gang member, and there's RICO to deal with. Bones, do you really want to know?" He finished, sounding a little suspicious about her motives.

"No," she blurted honestly. "I was just using it as an excuse to make conversation and reestablish our connection."

"What?" Booth looked over at her in surprise while I looked around, seeing the children shy away behind their parents if they had my attention. It made me sad to see that they were so afraid of figures of authority. I understand that they don't want to be sent out of America, but still, the police are supposed to be able to be trusted to keep the communities safe.

"I read a book about improving work relationships," Brennan explained. She wasn't smiling but she wasn't unhappy so I assume she's contemplating the same things I am. "It's not fair to expect you to tell me everything."

Booth smiled, pleased. "I appreciate the effort, Bones."

While we moved towards the Mustang, the civilians shrank back as we passed by, trying to keep their distance. "They practically recreated their country here," I murmured, aware that half of the reason they were scared probably came from having no clue what we were saying. "They've got the restaurants, the clothes, the shops, and they're even terrified of law enforcement."

"A lot of these people are undocumented. They don't want to get found out and sent out of the country," Booth said with a small shake of his head, getting his badge out and showing it to the officer holding the suspect against the car. "Special Agent Seeley Booth and my partners Dr. Brennan and Miss Kirkland. What do we have?"

"He ran the stop sign," the first policeman said, disgruntled, and held the man's wrist with more force. "I pulled him over and he tried to run."

I eyed the tattoos suspiciously before taking another step closer, not afraid of getting hit. On the bright side, the bandages on my cheek and temple won't let anyone question that I'm tough, although the bruise on my jaw wasn't completely hidden no matter how much concealer I used. I pulled the tank down from the man's neck to show a tattoo that I recognized as graffiti, but hadn't ever seen in person before. "Mara Muerte," I said to Booth grimly, mildly surprised.

Mara Muerte was a Salvadoran gang that had a fairly under-the-radar group here in America. Mara translated to a group of Salvadoran delinquents and criminals, while Muerte was Spanish for the word 'death.' The Mara Muerte caused some trouble for people closely associated to Salvador and Mexico but if anyone in the American D.C. area heard of it, it was just in the air.

"Mara Muerte is one of the most feared gangs in the area," I explained out loud, to Booth, Brennan, and the policemen. I wasn't sure that they would know and either way, it was important that they understood how this man was potentially dangerous. "There was a body in the trunk?"

"Mostly decomposed," the second officer said with a nod.

I raised my chin slightly and stepped back while Booth snapped at the gang member. "You couldn't just join the Boy's Club, could you, pal?" He complained.

"Search him for weapons," I ordered the policemen. I liked the way that being introduced as Booth and Brennan's partner gave me a sort of authority. "Check his boots and under his shirt."

While the first officer did that, Brennan crossed her arms. "I'm here because…" she trailed off.

The second policeman nodded to her and started leading us back to the trunk of the car, propped open. "In a routine inspection of the vehicle, I found this."

In the back was a body. It was mostly just a skeleton now, with the stronger tissues and ligaments still clinging on along with some blackened skin patches. The white of the bones was stained with soil that littered the trunk of the car. "Oh. Lovely."

Brennan pushed the trunk lid up higher and tilted her head to gain a more on-center perspective. "Vertical brow ridge suggests female."

"Recently dug up," I added, because of the dirt. "And there's a shovel." It was shoved behind the body.
Brennan pointed at the Mara Muerte man. "Could you hold his hands up, please?" While his hands were in the air, Brennan looked over to Booth. "We should analyze the dirt on his hands."

"Evidence bag?" I asked hopefully. "Hodgins can compare it to the dirt on the shovel and the bones."

Booth nodded in a yes to the both of us but then returned his attention to the suspect. "Where was she buried?" He asked roughly.

The suspect made no indication of having heard him, although maybe that was just because he didn't speak English? I moved around Brennan and stepped in front of Booth, cocking my head at the gang member. "¿Dónde fue enterrado?" I asked slowly and carefully, making sure I was pronouncing it right. I was repeating Booth, just in Spanish. I tried again from another angle, trying not to seem like I was getting frustrated. "¿Por qué tienes el cuerpo?" Why do you have the body?

At least now I know that he's deliberately ignoring us.

"Great, now he's ignoring us in two languages," Booth complained, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the asphalt ground.

"Where's the nearest cemetery?" Brennan asked the policemen.

The second one shrugged. "The closest one I know about is Holy Road, but that's a good ten miles from here."

The people around us were softly muttering, having heard me speak in their language, and it had roused their curiosity. They wanted to know what was going on but they didn't want to attract attention.

I looked out to them. If they want to be there then they might as well help. "Disculpe," I called loudly. "¿Nos puede ayudar?" They quieted, listening, but that didn't mean they were going to help. Excuse me, can you help us? "Queremos saber si hay un cementerio cercano." We want to know if there's a cemetery nearby.

Several of them shook their heads and looked down and most of the crowd quickly began to disperse, not wanting to involve themselves.

Booth subtly coughed into his arm. "Maybe your Spanish is a little rusty? Or maybe you're speaking Russian again?" I know he's a little miffed whenever I do something he didn't know I could do. It startled him when I was able to translate Russian to English and vice versa for Maria Semov.

I glared at him. "Don't be ridiculous. My Spanish is perfect." Slights to my languages are practically personal offenses.

Brennan sent a dark look at Booth, too. "They come from a place where getting involved gets you killed!" She spat vehemently.

BLAM! BLAM!

"Down!" I screamed, recognizing the sound of the gunshots. Booth and the other policemen threw themselves down to the ground by the Mustang's tires and I tossed my arm around Brennan's shoulders, pulling her around to the other side of the car and ducking with her while we dropped to the ground. A black car with the window rolled down was driving quickly but continued firing, nearly deafening me. It had no plates.

The suspect, however, starting making a dash for it. I growled in my throat, hearing the gunshots become less frequent, and crawled forward with my elbows and knees until I reached the hood of the car and stood up, taking off like a jet after the Mara Muerte man.

I was barely ten feet behind him because I'd moved fast, but he moved quickly, too. My biggest advantage came from when he turned left up at the next alley. While he was muscular and strong, I was built with a smaller frame and I had long legs, so agility was on my side. I turned the corner with ease, the long strides I was taking catching up to his shorter ones.

"Hey!" I heard Booth yell from somewhere behind me.

I chased the man down several alleys, making crazy right and left turns and delving deeper into the Little Salvador neighborhood. As the sights turned more slummish, he moved to turn a sharp corner down another alley. He charged full speed ahead at the fence at the end of the alley and I rolled my eyes. "Don't make me hurt you!" I threatened as he started climbing the fence.

I slid my fingers through the looping wires and kicked my boots against the gaps, finding a foothold and propelling myself up from the ground. At the same time, his hands reached the top and he hauled himself up and started moving to go over.

I felt insanely like a spider, clawing my way up the fence, and I felt it rattle as Booth tried to shake the man from the top of the eight-foot-high monstrosity. I just clung tighter and my hands reached the top as the suspect dropped to the ground.

I kicked up and threw one leg over the fence, hissing as the points in the wires dug into my leg, and got halfway over before something collided with my other leg, knocking me away from the fence.

I fell down on the correct side but didn't land right. I landed unpleasantly with a lurching stomach and falling four or five feet down to land on the hood of an abandoned car that was too far to the left of where I'd been planning to land.

I groaned, hearing the footsteps fade, and tensed, rolling over painfully, anguish shooting up my back as I slid off the car onto the ground. I glared at the offensive sneaker that had fallen onto the ground innocently. "A shoe?!" I shouted indignantly. "Really?!"

"I heard Xena got knocked off a fence," Hodgins remarked, provoking me into sending him a short glare before I snapped the latex gloves maybe a little harder than necessary and made a point of picking up a clipboard Zach had prepared of the basic analysis.

"Decomp, insect activity, volatile fatty acid levels in the soil due to putrefaction all suggest she was buried for approximately six months," Zach read over my shoulder. Unwilling to risk another awkward contact moment, I handed him the clipboard and moved over towards the skull with Brennan.

"Typically, gravediggers are necrophiliacs looking for a little action," Hodgins commented while looking at his own reports from the soil analysis.

Angela held her sketch pad against her stomach. "Um, ew."

"The dentals show shoveled incisors and striated enamel," I said, gently running my fingers over the teeth of the mandible before backing away so that Brennan could confirm.

"Indicating?" The anthropologist prompted in a very teacherly manner.

"Malnutrition."

"Which is consistent with anthropometrics suggesting the victim is from Central America," Zach chipped in.

"The body was found in a Salvadoran neighborhood," Brennan told him helpfully.

"In Pikeville, Tennessee, a guy dug up the graves of all these people because he wanted to make sure their bodies were still there." Hodgins smirked over his papers at Angela. "They weren't."

Brennan tapped Angela's shoulder for her attention, distracting Angela. Angela seemed grateful. "Make a sketch of the face. I'm not sure we'll find a match, because she might have been undocumented," she forewarned.

"You didn't say. What exactly did McGruder do to you, princess?" Hodgins asked. It seemed like he was deliberately trying to get someone to react.

"Oh." I pushed the mandible back under the maxilla. "Tied me to a chair, smacked me around, pulled my hair." I smirked devilishly. If he wanted a reaction, he'd be sure to get one. "It was non-consensual S-and-M."

The reaction I got was good enough for me. Hodgins spluttered and dropped his clipboard while Angela's fingers tightened on her drawing pad, her cheeks coloring while she laughed at Hodgins and I. Brennan looked up in alarm, not getting the joke, and Zach looked between the three of us, not understanding what was funny.

"That was good," Angela told me with a grin, her tongue between her teeth.

"I know," I replied smugly.

Brennan picked up a tray holding a wooden rosary and passed it to Angela. "Goodman is an expert in religious iconography. Maybe he'll be able to determine where this rosary was made," she suggested. Angela shifted her sketchbook under her arm and took the tray.

"There's a depression fracture on her occipital bone straddling the left lambdoidal suture. It looks like one hard hit congruent with, say, a baseball bat," Zach tried to hypothesize.

Brennan's hands balled into fists at her sides and she looked over the remains with frustration and determination. "She was religious; she should've had a casket, a proper burial with her name on a headstone. We are going to find out who she is, and we are going to give her that!"

"Are you sure you want to go in there?" Booth asked me for the second time.

I looked through the one-way mirror again. A man wearing low-riding trousers and a baggy white tank top was sitting cool and collectedly inside, his muscled arms over the table, tattoos etched over his torso and face. His short, buzzcut hair and very angular features, with fight scars over his face made him almost seem like a soldier, but the tattoos and outfit told me that he really wasn't, especially because he had gang signs inked into his skin.

"Miguel Villeda, the warlord of the Vanganza Rojas gang," I said confidently. I looked back to Booth. "Come on. We're in the middle of the FBI. If he attacks me you can shoot him." The Vanganza Rojas are the more well-known street gang that haunts American neighborhoods as well as the Salvadoran ones.

I pushed the door open and Booth flanked me inside. Miguel looked over us both like he was sizing us up and his eyes lingered on me and the band-aids on my face.

Booth held up the file and pretended to be reading through it for the first time. "Miguel Villeda… according to this, you are one fierce, fierce guy." He whistled.

Miguel shrugged haphazardly. "Well, it didn't stop your guys from picking me up." He spoke English well although he had a crisp accent.

"Did they tell you why?" I questioned, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms, playing it cool. Warlord or not, he's still just a guy, and guys are all the same - if you really want to hurt them, kick them in the family jewels. When I remember that I'm usually all set to deal with any man in an intimidating position.

Miguel eyed us, just as at ease as if he was watching television. "Someone took a shot at some Mara Muerte espuma."

"Espuma." I repeated before scoffing derisively. I was seriously a little disappointed. "¿Es que el mejor insulto que podía llegar a?" Is that the best insult you could come up with? Calling someone 'foam' is really not the best insult in the book. "And by the way, it was not just a shot. It was a couple dozen of them, a drive-by. Barely anyone is stupid enough to shoot at those guys anymore, but your name did come up."

"Ah. Usted habla el idioma." Miguel smiled, pleased, although on him it seemed sinister.

"Damn straight." Obviously I speak Spanish, dummy.

"It wasn't my people," he denied. I wanted to punch him just to get him to break the calm exterior. He was still smiling like a fool. "So, are you gonna charge me with something or let me go?"

Booth clicked his tongue and looked at the file, not actually reading it. "Extortion, drugs, assault, attempted murder… hmm?" He threw the file onto the table where it flopped down. "I could hold you for a while if you want to play that game."

"What's your problem, man?" The gang leader asked, the smile beginning to slip away into a smug, almost dangerous smirk.

"What's my problem?" Booth repeated, aggravated. "My problem is that somebody shot at me, shot at me and my partners! Plus, a bad guy got away and one of my partners was hit off of a fence. So I'm a little cranky about the whole thing." Booth leaned in over the table darkly.

Miguel leaned in to meet him until their faces were less than a foot apart. The gangster chuckled darkly. "Mmm. Mira carvacho. I don't really scare that way. You know, the whole, in-your-face staring thing."

I pulled Booth back by the collar of his shirt and took his place coolly, raising my eyebrows as I leant in closer until I could feel his breath on my skin. "Mira carvacho," I mocked. "I don't really scare that way, either."

"¿Qué te pasó en la cara, hermosa dama?" He asked, too quietly for Booth to have been able to make it out, even if the FBI agent did speak Spanish. What happened to your face, pretty lady?

I decided that I probably shouldn't be flattered that a gangbanger thinks I look pretty. Actually, I should probably be afraid for my safety. "Me golpearon. ¿Qué aspecto tiene?" I replied coolly, still proud of keeping Lucy out of harm's way. I had to do something to make up for all of those mercenaries' deaths. I was beaten. What's it look like?

"Oh, eso es todo?" Excuse me, that's it?! That's important, not a 'that's it!' He almost seemed a little disappointed.

"Sólo estoy empezando." I promised, as a sort of daring challenge. I'm just getting started.

"Mmm." He leaned back and I did, too, easing back into my seat in a much more comfortable position. Booth's shoulders visibly untensed. "So somebody took a shot at you, yeah?"

"That's right," Booth nodded.

"Think about it." Miguel nodded up slyly. "When was the last time you heard of a drive-by where no one got hit?"

"Innocent bystanders, mostly," I sneered. No matter how civil (or a semblance of it, anyway) I acted, I still hated what Miguel Villeda stood for. "It's not like your people take care to hit what you're aiming at."

Miguel pointed to his head with one finger knowingly. He had his answer but he wasn't telling us directly. Was this some kind of test, or game he was playing? "Think, just for a couple of seconds, about why the guy never got hit."

So many shots were fired, everyone ducked. There didn't seem to be a clear target… but the suspect ran away as soon as he heard them.

The suspicion must have shown on my face, because Miguel pointed at me with a satisfied, cocky grin. "Ah, yes. You see? You got it now, doll?"

"Mara Muerte did a drive-by on their own guy," I stated, before narrowing my eyes. "Call me 'doll' again. I dare you."

Miguel nodded his head, pleased at the reactions he'd managed to invoke. "A drive-by happens, yeah, and you all hit the deck." With his index and middle fingers, he made a demonstration of running. "And the gangbanger makes a run for it."

Booth swiped his card and the two of us jumped up the steps to the platform two at a time in quick succession. Then we walked normally towards Brennan, who saw us, straightened from over the bones, and started walking towards us.

"Okay," I said, balling one hand into a fist and punching the palm of my opposite hand. "We've got it on good authority that the guys who shot at our corpse-chauffeur was doing it so that he could escape." My eyes fixed on the milky white bone still held in Brennan's hand. "Anomaly?"

Brennan held it up so that I could see more clearly and my mouth formed an 'O.' "She was pregnant," I sighed, saddened. I'd recognized the same fetal bone during the Cleo Eller case, the first one I'd worked.

Brennan nodded, wincing. "The victim was pregnant when she was hit over the head."

"Pregnant?" Booth repeated with a frown.

"Yes." Brennan nodded, frowning. "Five weeks along."

From the workstation on the platform, Hodgins jumped up, scooping up his pen and setting it on the table when it rolled off. "I ran samples from the body, shovels, and burlap through the gas chromatograph, and it all came back full of organic compounds," he started to explain, rather hurriedly, like he thought Booth would try to tune him out. "Plant detritus, root remnants, fertilizer."

"That sounds like stuff you'd find in a cemetery," Booth stated, but he looked over at me wearily like he wanted clarification.

Hodgins beamed, glad that someone had bitten the bait. He held up a Petri dish with a small little plant piece. "Well, I also found this. Fernaldia pandurata, otherwise known as loroco buds."

"Loroco is an edible flowering plant, it's native to El Salvador," Brennan immediately recited.

I smiled. "And I'm guessing that it's grown in gardens, not cemeteries, yes?"

"She was buried in a vegetable garden?" Sometimes I feel bad for Booth, because we jump from line to line without waiting, but it's so much fun to watch him struggle to keep up sometimes. "Could you recognize this loco plant?"

"Loroco," I corrected automatically.

Brennan frowned apologetically and shook her head slowly. "I've eaten it, but I wouldn't recognize the plant."

"It's quite distinctive," the entomologist assured us. I spared a glance at Booth, who was already sighing in resignation. "I'm also analyzing the dirt and particulates on the shoe Xena was hit with. At first glance, it matches the vegetation we've already found, but with a couple extras I'm still checking out."

Booth pinched the bridge of his nose before clapping with false enthusiasm. "Okay, Hodgins, suit up, you're coming with us! We're going to the barrio!"

"Field work." Hodgins grinned in excitement and hopped from foot to foot, eager to run off and get his equipment. "Cool! Do I get a gun?"

Brennan's jaw dropped and she looked to Booth accusingly. "You can't arm Hodgins and not me!"

"You can't arm either of them and not me," I protested vehemently. "I've actually been armed before!"

Booth groaned and turned away, not dignifying any of us with answers. "What is it with you people and the guns?!"

The SUV inched relatively slowly along due to all of the pedestrians who either seemed to not see it or not care. It was like trying to drive through a mob. People were at stands and huddling in torn jackets, working in booths and moving to find something to do to support themselves.

Hodgins, my back-seat-buddy, looked out the window and snorted in disgust. "Look at this. The government bankrupts itself giving tax breaks to the rich so that there's no money left to help these people with job training, educational resources, health care." I knew that it truly bothered him because he was one of the rich people who got those tax breaks.

I heard Booth sigh quietly from in front of me. "Just look for a garden with the plant," he instructed tensely.

Hodgins rolled his eyes and turned so that he was facing me as much as possible with a seatbelt on. "Those who do manage to land a job are working for minimum wage that hasn't seen a hike in eight years!"

"That's for those who are here legally," Brennan pointed out, her arms crossed as the surveyed the mob of people in disapproval. "The undocumented do a lot worse."

"What is this, NPR radio?" Booth complained in irritation. "Huh? What, are you two running for office?"

"I'd vote for you!" I told Hodgins before smiling at Brennan via the rearview mirror.

"Thanks, Xena." Hodgins cocked his head at Booth pointedly before something caught his attention in the corner of his eye. "Look, over there."

"San Cristobel Community Garden," I read off the sign before shrugging and stepping inside just after the other three. "And we're not far from the first crime scene."

"You say first like there's going to be multiple," Hodgins told me, slowing down a bit so that I fell into step beside him as we walked on the cobblestone path that wound through the floral arrangements.

"Well, body dumping and gangbangers. Would you really be that surprised?" I reasoned.

Hodgins sent me a winning grin. "I'm liking you more and more." He happened to look away from me at just the right time. "Loroco plant!" He exclaimed, and delicately stepped over some flowers that lay between himself and the treasure. He bent down and lifted one of the stems up for his scrutiny while Brennan, Booth, and I paused on the stone path. "That's the same approximate maturity that would have yielded the buds we found."

Brennan stepped around the other flowers and to a patch of grass only a few inches from Hodgins' lorocos. She set her bag down on the grass and brushed aside a top layer of dark, nutrient-rich soil. "Adipocere," she deduced, scooping up a handful and watching it fall through the cracks between her fingers. "It forms on the body in response to moisture on the ground."

Hodgins' next point was preluded by an exclamation of delight. "Trogidae beetles!" Boys and their bugs. "They've got a thing for decomposing flesh. I found a couple on the burlap."

I took another step down the walkway and found another patch of healthily growing grass. Sighing, I picked my feet up over the floras and walked over to it. Bending over, I nudged around the soil with my fingers. "More adipocere!" I called, standing up straight again.

Booth, now the only person still on the walkway, looked from Brennan and Hodgins to I. "Not from the same body?"

"Another body was buried here," I nodded, looking around the patch of garden I stood in and shivering slightly, despite the warm temperature. "But it's gone now."

Booth turned away for a minute before looking back, frustrated and dismayed. "Double homicide."