A/N: I just want to put this out here first - today I got a flame review, and I know I can't stop people from doing that, but I just want to say that I'm really agitated by whoever did it. They left it anonymously. I'm always open to constructive criticism, but having my writing just insulted for no actual reason is beyond words. I put a lot of time and effort into my stories. If you don't like what I write, then don't read it. It's as simple as that. Don't waste my time or your energy putting down my work.

This really bothered me, so I felt the need to just say that and get it over with. Anyway, onto the next chapter!

Brennan and I occupied two chairs in front of Booth's desk while Kenton sat in a third that had been pulled up and was slightly to the side. Booth sat upright in the chair behind his desk, unrelaxed and wary.

"I worked undercover with the Romanos for two years. I never got very high in the organization." Kenton sighed, a bit disappointed as he recalled the lack of success. "I left when I thought my cover was being blown."

"And you think that someone in the Romanos shot at us?" I leaned back in the chair, one leg crossed over the other, trying to appear as relaxed as possible in contrast to Booth. While inside I felt like my muscles were pulled taut and riddled with knots, I didn't want to seem frightened, but really, leaving the Jeffersonian had only made me on edge.

"It had to be - hard to tell who, though," he admitted, although he did so with a strong air of finality. He clearly knew what he was talking about, or at least, wanted to seem like he did. "They use a lot of different guys for a job like this." I tilted my head to the side and back so I looked at him. Bad day or not, hearing about the inside workings of a mafia family was interesting and probably only happened so often. Kenton passed a picture from face-down on top of a file to Brennan, and then she held it to one side so we could both look at it. "That's Frank Lombardi," Kenton explained. "He's been seen in the area. Suspected of killing more than twenty-five people - shooting, mostly." Kenton grimaced as he recalled something. "Although he likes the occasional garroting."

"Sounds like a real family man," I drawled sarcastically. "Maybe we can find him at the local church next Sunday with a woman and a kid."

"Yeah, about as soon as hell freezes over," Kenton snorted.

"And so you think they tried to do away with the good women here?" Booth prompted Kenton, raising his eyebrows in expectation of the answer.

"Well, they are trying to look more legit. They don't want any ancient history resurfacing - bad for business." Kenton allowed, shrugging slightly with an apologetic glance in my general direction. I suppose Booth thinking a mob family after my blood isn't any worse than him thinking a gangbanger is.

"You can't possibly know it's them for sure," I pointed out, unwilling to give up so easily anyway.

"I still have my sources," Kenton countered steadily like he had expected the argument. "They tell me the Romanos know you're working this case, and they know Dr. Brennan's the best. Holly, you're a minor celebrity for what you've been doing with the Jeffersonian. The Romanos only have to go to a newsstand lately to find out what you're up to. I recommend you both just walk away." He raised his arms in a gesture of peace even as he finished speaking.

Brennan narrowed her eyes and the hand holding the picture of the hitman tightened so the paper crumpled slightly and her knuckles paled as she whipped her head to Booth. "Is that why you brought me here?" She demanded angrily. "To scare me into giving up?"

Booth didn't exactly fess up, but he didn't deny it, which was answer enough. "I want you to get real, alright? These people you're dealing with-"

"We don't know who we're dealing with!" I argued, distressed further. I'd thought Booth would know me at least well enough to know that if someone wants to threaten me, fine, have at it, but when someone threatens someone I care about, then they're going down and he can't make me back down from it.

"It could be them!" Brennan admitted, but she continued by arguing, "It could be Hollings!"

I winced slightly and shook my head a bit, although I didn't want to eliminate a suspect who wasn't the Romanos when the FBI agents in charge of my safety were trying to spook me right off of the case. "Well, serial killers have an M.O.. Hollings bound and tortured young adult women, he wouldn't just start sniping heads."

Brennan locked eyes with Booth fiercely, desperate to win this fight. Given the intensity, if I weren't so closely connected I would have been happy to watch from the sidelines instead of being right in the middle of it. "You said Hollings promised no one would ever find enough to get him. Maybe he knows that I can!"

Kenton raised his eyebrows slightly and looked over to Booth as he reasoned, "Either way, too dangerous." It was like he was making sure he was still siding with the right person.

"You almost caught a bullet in the skull," Booth reminded Brennan softly, interlacing his fingers together and leaning forward to her over his desk.

"And so did I," I threw in, almost offended. "We know we're in danger but someone wants us dead and maybe it's the same person, maybe it's not. I, for one, think that someone should focus on the Romanos' hitmen-" I nodded towards Kenton briefly. "-While the rest of us try to figure out what happened to the two homicide victims in the lab. The bodies are where this started and they're probably where it ends."

"Holly-" Booth started, using the serious, grave tone he reserved for special cases when he was about to pull a trump card.

"Don't Holly me, Booth!" I snapped, sitting upright in the chair and nearly standing up. I dug my nails into the sides of my thighs to keep myself from getting up and storming out. "It's my life, okay?! When someone threatens it, I am involved. You were legally responsible for me for two weeks, and since then you keep bringing me on these cases. You flew me out to the other side of the country for a case, Booth! You let me storm in on a raid with mercenaries and a kidnapped child because I'm a stubborn bitch and I surprised you by speaking Russian!" He was taken aback and even Brennan was leaning away from me slightly. Then I realized how loud my voice was getting. "And now, when I have the most right to a case as I have ever had, you're trying to scare me off? And don't you dare tell me it's more dangerous than the raid on the mercenaries because I swear to God, I handled that, I can handle anything!

"If we stay on this case then we take down Hollings before he kills again. You get an old score settled and we get these freaking neon signs off of our backs! It's a win-win situation here if you'd just listen!"

Kenton whistled lowly from a high pitch down to a lower one after several long seconds of silence, during which I stared at Booth, challenging him to meet my eyes and explain to me exactly how his crazy logic made sense. "Sorry, man, I tried," the newer agent said apologetically.

I huffed but I didn't go off on him. I come to you once and ask for you to do your job and now you're acting like you have a right to tell me what's dangerous and what's safe. But that goes into Oliver Laurier and the restraining order and my frustrations with Jesse Kane come back into the light, and having gotten past that, I want those to stay behind. Chances I'll ever see him again are slim to nil, anyway.

When Brennan talked again it was in a controlled, calm voice. "Any word back from ballistics on the bullets that were meant for me?"

I guess I did the fighting for both of us, I thought to myself dryly, already discontent with my outburst. I don't want to fight with Booth, I really, really don't. But I have valid points. I don't know why he trusts me. I've practically told him to let a man die and yet he still trusts me to do the right thing, but now he starts thinking I can't handle myself? Right when it's paramount that I know the information he's striving to keep me from finding!

Kenton seemed relieved to take the distraction and the change of the topic. "Yeah…" he twisted the file in his hold so it lay front-down on his legs. "It was a military issue Colt A-R fifteen."

"Big gun." I noted, tipping my head to one side and raising my eyebrows as I thought about the implications. "So either big money, big bosses, or someone with connections to military weaponry."

Just then, Brennan's phone interrupted the downwards-spiralling conversation with the pitched ringing. She turned slightly in her chair to get it from her pocket and then to answer, covering one ear with her hand while she held the phone up to the other. "Brennan," she answered expectantly.

I could barely make out Hodgins' voice buzzing on the other end of the line, but I couldn't tell what he was saying.

I looked away from Brennan at the same time as Booth looked to me and I didn't like that he looked a bit guilty, chastened, and worried. I just gave him a slight shrug and mouthed the word sorry. Booth must have understood what I meant (sorry for yelling, I didn't mean it, please don't be mad, et cetera) because he just nodded and gave me a slight, tense smile as proof that we were okay.

"So, if we find any traces of liver parasite, we can tie them to the dogs," Brennan clarified out loud, probably for Booth's and my benefit. She glanced up from the arm of her chair to look at me next. "And the pocketknife theory is conclusive?" I smirked over at Booth, satisfied at being correct yet again. It felt natural to be back in that not-caring attitude where I didn't have to worry about hits or children or quite so many secrets being on the precipice of falling out. "Okay, thanks." Brennan hung up the phone rather quickly and I wondered if she was as eager to walk freely again as I was. "Hodgins says there were parasites in the dogs and Zach says the pocketknife used has a knick in the blade."

Brennan, Booth, and I all decided that it was time to go confront the number one suspect. Booth knocked on the door loudly while Brennan and I stood just behind him, making an odd triangle in the hallway.

Kevin Hollings' door swung open and the man on the other side, dressed smartly in slacks and a tucked-in button up with short hair and hazel eyes, tipped his head to Booth in one fluid yet unemotional nod. "Agent Booth…" The recognition was clear and while his tone was far away and almost bored, his eyes were gleaming almost in joy. "Long time, no see."

Hollings lived in an apartment complex only a few blocks away from my bar, living on the third floor. He was just a bit taller than Booth and that gave him extra inches over me. Looking up at him and listening to the way he spoke with a very subtle quality of contempt, he reminded me of Howard Epps, the psychopath who I had unwittingly helped off of death row.

"Hollings," Booth returned evenly, although he swallowed tensely. "I was wondering if we could take a look around your place."

Hollings' reply was smooth and immediate; though he showed no alarm, he seemed to have been anticipating a visit sooner or later. Was it because he'd known firsthand how the college girl had been killed? Or because he noticed the FBI agents keeping him monitored? "Do you have a warrant?"

"No," Booth admitted, but quickly followed it up with a mocking smile. "But you enjoy being cooperative, if I remember."

Hollings opened his mouth for a moment but no sound came out; without any favorable options, he opened the door wider and stepped to the side. "Come in, please." Booth brushed past without any hesitation once he had the legal ability, and he walked past Hollings without any consideration, their shoulders nearly knocking together. I walked in next, half wary that Hollings would dive and attack - proof or not, if Booth is convinced that Hollings did it, then that put Hollings in the number-one-suspect rank for me.

I looked over Hollings' shoulder as I stepped through the foyer, but there was only a wall behind him. To the left extended the majority of the apartment - a living room with a couch, an oval rug, a coffee table, and a television stand was separated from the tiled kitchen with a two-person table by the long counter extending from the sink countertop. Past that was what looked like a working office space, a large desk with bookshelves set up around and behind it, except instead of books there were large jars full of keys. Two doors going to the right probably led to the bathroom and the bedroom.

Hollings' soft voice marked the end of my internal mapping and I tuned in again. "You must be, uh, Miss Holly Kirkland." I glanced over my shoulder to see him watching me with an odd look on his face. It was like he was trying to be empathetic, but he wasn't getting it right. And the only way to get an emotion wrong is if you can't remember feeling it. "I heard about the shooting by your bar the other night. Are you well?" I nearly shivered at the question. Like he cares. Like I want him to care. "You must have had quite a fright."

"Don't play with her, Hollings," Booth warned, his voice lower and quieter than usual in a very serious, almost threatening warning. As I stepped past Booth and towards the desk space and unorthodox, unexpected key collection of jars after jars of miscellaneous keys, Booth moved himself very pointedly between myself and the suspected serial killer, rolling his shoulders in a point that in a fight, he was stronger. The protective motions made me have to hide a little, pleased smile for a moment.

"Oh, I hope you don't think I was being insensitive," Hollings assured, raising one eyebrow at Booth. I sent him a slight glare for a minute - don't play mind games with him, either - and then looked into a ceramic bowl on his desk, holding the keys. I narrowed my eyes, trying to squint and read the labels on the flat sides. One of them made me stop - it wasn't the label, but the fact that the label had been etched over and scratched out, made unreadable, and I looked to another. It was the same. The only one that I could even vaguely read started with a "d" and ended in "te" and was two lines long. Do not duplicate? I couldn't think of many other messages that fit the criteria that would be on a key.

"May I touch these?" I asked, holding one hand over the bowl. As much as it grated on my nerves to have to ask, he had the constitutional right to say yes or no to thorough search and seizure without a warrant.

"You may," he nodded, a little smirk playing at his lips. I shot him a scathing look before sliding the bowl further from the edge of the desk and lifted a handful of keys, setting them out onto the plain light brown desktop and laying them out so I could see them, the crenellations all facing my left.

I leaned over the desk and stared at the keys closely, doing a once-over of the room again. The shelves full of tall jars were almost on display - key collector, fine, but if it was just a collection, then it would feed his self satisfaction and pride. But if that's the case, then why were the brands unreadable, and why couldn't he see the majority of his collection from his desk chair? It was like how someone would display trophies in plain view of anyone who came into the room.

Television dramatizes a lot of aspects about psychopathological killers, but often there's something to it. Not every tiny detail actually means something, but when someone displays something like a trophy or prize, and you suspect them of serial murder, then you might not be too far off. A lot of psychopaths or sociopaths take "souvenirs" from people they kill - hair or clothes, or personal items that the victims happened to have on them.

I looked up briefly when Brennan bent over the coffee table and lifted up something. She held a closed pocket knife that, I noted with a bit of unease, was the exact same brand and style as my own, matching down to the auburn paint and golden-circled star design.

"Can I open this?" She asked, barely glancing to Hollings.

"Of course."

Brennan switched out the blade and held it awkwardly, holding the edge towards the overhead light to look for a nick or damage to the blade to match the gouges in Penny Hamilton's skull.

I stared back down at one of the keys. It seemed familiar, but I couldn't remember from where. If the only keys I see enough to memorize are my own, then why would I recognize someone else's?

I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my keys, for the apartment, bar, and the bar's storage locker. "Hey," I called, getting Hollings' attention as I rattled my keys. "These are mine. They came in with me. Don't confuse them for yours, I won't take them off the keyring."

I grabbed my key to my apartment first and I held it down next to Hollings', just out of pure paranoia at the even remote possibility that he might have a key to where I live. Thankfully, it didn't match, so I moved on to the one for the bar for comparison.

"Is this about the girl they found the other night?" Hollings asked. I scoffed quietly. Like you don't know. "Terrible thing," he commented with an almost insulting lack of empathy. "I hope you don't think I'm involved in this one, too, do you, Agent Booth?"

I looked up just for a moment in order to flash a sweet, sarcastic smile at Hollings and snarkily say, "I'm sure you'll understand that you are not privy to the information unreleased to the public."

"The blades are clean," Brennan reported to Booth and I, closing the pocket knife and putting it back where she'd found it, sounding disappointed.

"I guarantee that whatever you are looking for, you're not going to find here," Hollings said with an unworried shake of his head.

Brennan surveyed the jars upon jars of keys with a frown. "What we need might be locked up someplace." And while we can, with permission, touch what's in the open, we would need a warrant or an invitation to go through the locked up keys.

"There are thousands of keys here," Booth agreed with a sigh.

"Tens of thousands," Hollings corrected, a note of pride and arrogance tainting the innocent remark.

I narrowed my eyes at my bar key and the key from Hollings' bowl like it had done me a personal wrong. The crenellations seemed to match up. I picked up Hollings' key and pressed it flat against mine, seeing it slide into position like a puzzle piece as they fit together identically. That's why it looked familiar. It was a perfect match.

Why would he have a key to my bar? I thought about everything I'd heard relating to the bar since I was employed and then realized that this fit what Andy had been trying to tell me before Booth swooped in and "kidnapped" me to fly out to Los Angeles. Although I'd been trying to tune out, I remembered him talking about a break in with no sign of forced entry and how he was thinking that Jeff was responsible and would I please keep an eye on him?

I guess Jeff is off the hook.

Booth whistled in response to Hollings, not seeming to realize that I was smirking. Having this proof that he illegally possessed at least one of these tens of thousands of keys gave us a temporary seizure clause, and though I'd probably have to let Zach take my keys to confirm the match legally, I was certain that his key, with the brand and label scratched out, would work to unlock the front doors of the bar I worked at. "Maybe we'll just take them down to the bureau and look through them."

"That's a private collection," Hollings corrected lightly, tone soft but patronizing at the same time. "I'm afraid without cause or a warrant-"

I interrupted him by holding up his key. "I do have a cause," I talked over him until he stopped. He clearly didn't like being interrupted, by the discontented frown he gave me. Booth and Brennan both looked surprised but I didn't stop to explain, figuring they'd hear in a second, either way. "See here, the labels are etched out, but I'm pretty sure one's from a federal building because it used to say do not duplicate, and this one is an exact match to my key to an establishment only a couple blocks from here that only issues keys to its employees, and since we had a break in only weeks ago, I'm pretty damn sure you obtained it illegally." I let my glare melt into another smirk as Hollings finally seemed unable to come up with a defense by the time I had finished speaking. "And since you have been so amiable and cooperative…"

"This is very rude, Miss Kirkland," Hollings finally said, his tone still that annoyingly soft and faint sound. "I opened my home to you, and this is how-"

Just to annoy him, I interrupted him again, slamming his key back down on his desk and putting mine back in my pocket. With my other hand, I motioned to the jars on the shelves. "Before moving anything, we should photograph the layout."

"How he arranged the items in the room could be very important," Brennan recognized and agreed, nodding at Booth in my support.

Booth gave me a nod of assent and started to reach for his phone, probably to call in a forensic analysis team from the FBI.

Hollings sighed, no longer enjoying it quite so much. "If you would excuse me, I would like to call my attorney."

Booth raised his eyebrows mockingly. "Game's not so fun now, is it, Hollings?"

I watched Booth interrogate Hollings through the one-way mirror in the room off of the interrogation room, arms crossed. Hollings' attorney was dressed smartly but he was tired, with dark circles under his eyes and his glasses slipping down his nose. He seemed too frustrated to bother with pushing them back up.

"I have a court date tomorrow morning at ten." The attorney stated irately. "You had no right to confiscate his collection."

I don't see the relevance. I would have muttered, but I had the speaker turned on so that I could talk to Booth through the earpiece if I needed and he didn't need to be distracted. We shouldn't have arrested him because you have to be up in the morning? Get your arrogance out of here, man.

"I hate the bossy, self-important ones," I sighed, regardless of how I'd been trying not to speak when it wasn't necessary.

"Well, there were burglaries in the area," Booth shrugged in response, not offering many sympathies. "Those keys, the could give us some answers. My consultant can prove that he has a key to a bar that has been broken into less than a month ago."

"My client can't be tied to any of those burglaries," the attorney maintained stubbornly.

"You're probably right." I had to wonder how much of that was sincere and how much was just because he wanted the guy to stop whining. "But you see, I have a job to do, and Mr. Hollings here has always been so understanding of that in the past."

"Oh, I do understand," Hollings assured Booth, although he had a bit more motivation now than he had had in his apartment. "I've given you a statement, explained where I got the keys…"

"And since you haven't charged him with anything…"

"Show him the pictures," I suggested to Booth, referring to the file of crime scene photographs that Zach had taken that he held on his legs under the table. "Look for any sign that he recognizes them."

Booth showed no sign that he had heard me, but he pulled the folder up and languidly opened it, sliding pictures one after the other out towards Hollings on the table. "Yet, but I'm really looking forward to charging him with this." He whistled as both other men took in the gory polaroids. While the attorney grimaced and seemed to pale, Hollings' eyes widened a fraction before he reigned it in. Recognition, and… I stared for a long moment. Hollings looked back up.

"I imagine it must be very frustrating when you can't solve a crime." I really wanted to storm in their and smack the condescension off of his face and out of his voice, but he snuck another look at one of the photos lied out on the table and I saw from the angle that his pupils were dilated. I scowled in disgust.

Recognition and arousal.

I wanted to tell Booth to put the photos out of sight. It was repulsive that Hollings was getting off to the sight of a girl's mangled corpse, and extremely disrespectful to the girl in question.

The attorney plowed on, not noting any hostility between Booth and Hollings, or Hollings' unusual reaction to the pictures, even as the homicidal psychotic looked to the polaroids again. "My client is a respected researcher with Whitney Chemical. He hasn't missed a day of work in the past two weeks, so unless you have evidence to hold him…"

"Booth, look at Hollings," I ordered, hearing the door behind me creak open. I looked into the glass separating me from Booth and saw Kenton's reflection, relaxing slightly. I continued as if Kenton hadn't come in. "He can't keep his eyes off the crime scene photos. His pupils are dilated. He's not speaking as much."

Booth listened to me rather than the attorney and he leaned over the table. "You can't stop looking at it, can you, Hollings?" Booth pressed. "Hm? What does it do to you? Does it turn you on?"

"Impressive." Kenton commented from behind me. I cast another glance at his reflection and turned off the link between the microphone and the earpiece before turning around to face him. He held a big cardboard box of manila reports and files against his stomach. The FBI agent gave me a warm smile. "That you picked up on that, I mean."

I shrugged. It didn't mean much to me anymore. I'd been proud of myself for learning at first, but it had worn off long since. "It's just behavior analysis. It's as simple as noting that someone's happy by their smile, or sad by their tears. It's just a bit more subtle."

Kenton nodded in agreement, but he still seemed to mean the praise. "Is that the psycho?" He nodded towards the mirror.

I nodded, arms still crossed, and looked at Hollings through the glass. "I don't like him, but he's good," I admitted. "He knew that we would be looking for a pocket knife, so he left one on the coffee table in plain sight. Of course, it was clean."

"And if you don't find anything concrete, he walks again. Right?"

I shook my head to myself. I'm not willing to let that happen. This is hands-down the most horrific kill I've seen yet, and I am not okay with the murderer walking after committing something like that. Aside from that it would be a serious blow to Booth's psyche, it went against all of my beliefs. "The keys were not a mere collection. Letting me compare my keys to his was his mistake. The keys in the jars are the only things he wasn't willing to let us touch. They have to lead somewhere."

Kenton cleared his throat to change the subject and he nodded down at the box in his hands. "I have all the files we have on all the suspects - people we knew who worked for the Romanos six years ago. You've got physical descriptions, blood types, everything we had. It might come in handy if you find any more evidence on the body."

"Thanks," I allowed, reaching out to take the box from him. He gave it to me after following the motions worriedly like he thought I would drop it. "Dude, I'm not made of china." He pulled back before he got too close for too long and I set the box down against the counter in front of the mirror. "After we recreate the bullet, we plan to track the angle of entry. Angela can use her computer to estimate the damage done to Cugini's bones and match it to a possible fight scenario and if we can make a match, we can determine a rough height of his killer." I motioned with one hand back to the box now on the floor. "Those can help narrow it down."

"I don't get it," Kenton stated, crossing his arms and staring at me in confusion. "You don't have the physical round that was shot."

"Dr. Brennan theorizes that we can reverse engineer the fired round based on the gunshot markers on the skull," I shared. "And we can match the finished product to the bureau's catalogue to determine the gun that fired it."

I blinked when I next looked at Kenton. He had his eyes narrowed at me and I moved slightly back at the near anger I thought I saw. But when I opened my eyes again, he seemed alright, just a bit confused at the mechanics of the process. "Sweet," he allowed.

"If it works," I corrected, a bit uneasy. I don't have a reason to be on edge around him… but did I really just imagine the look he gave me, like I was slighting him? Was it me being tired and paranoid from not sleeping in over a day?

It must be, I reasoned. What reason would Kenton have to hurt me, anyway?

Kenton nodded, out of information. "Well, let me know if there's anything else I can do for you." His eyes flickered to the mirror before looking back to me.

I nodded. "Sure." I wasn't sure I'd stick by it, too unsettled to blindly trust. Kenton slipped out the door quietly and I looked back to the interrogation.

"I can and I will," Booth was saying determinedly.

"You're fishing," the attorney declared with an indignant sniff. "No judge is going to let you keep that collection, Agent Booth. You have to know that. We'll have it back by tomorrow."

Hollings sent Booth a particularly nasty sneer. "Nice try."

Would it really be so wrong to deck him and claim it was self-defense?

I knew I was probably pushing my luck, but that didn't stop me from knocking on the door to Goodman's office upon seeing the light coming from underneath the door, holding a small collection of laminated photographs in one hand close to my stomach.

"Come in," the archaeologist called.

Since it didn't sound like he was too inclined to commit murder, I twisted the handle to open the door and stepped inside. "Hey." Goodman sat in his desk chair facing his computer. As an administrator and director of the Jeffersonian, I don't see him nearly as much as I see everyone else, having met him after a couple of cases when the dispute between the Jeffersonian, local authority, and Hanover Preparatory reached a climax he needed to settle. After that I saw him briefly when he summoned me to attend a mandatory banquet and a few times after before being forced to basically live with him, as well as Booth and the squints, when we were quarantined on Easter. I had made a sort of tenuous working relationship with him by the time we traded theories over the analysis of a murder victim's comics, but on the most recent case, I had disagreed with his prioritizing and blatantly disobeyed his instruction, focusing on a murder over the identification of a woman in a plane crash of Chinese diplomats.

Needless to say, our relationship was strained - or at least, I expected it to be.

"Miss Kirkland," Goodman greeted courteously, turning away from his computer to show that I had his attention. "Is there something I can do for you?"

I waited a second, half expecting it to be a trick - in my experience, when people get as angry as Goodman was with me, they tend to stay that way. Then again, I'm used to drunken and abusive men rather than moral, mentally-stable ones - before stepping further into the office. "We have the keys, but the judge is going to release them in less than eighteen hours unless we find concrete evidence." I paused. "I thought maybe you could help."

I was unsure how he would react towards helping me, but I was pleasantly surprised by his mild reaction of only confusion. "I don't see how. I'm an archaeologist."

I took that as an okay to continue, so I held out the handful of pictures towards him. "Yes, but with archaeology comes analysis of behavior, placement, and the works. There's a bit of psychology that comes with your field. I thought you'd probably be more qualified than me."

"I suppose that's a reasonable assumption," Goodman allowed, although he still sounded slightly surprised. He took the pictures and moved the top two over so he saw three of them at once, setting them neatly in a line on the table. "A person's environment is a reflection of who he is." He glanced up at me for a minute before adding, "Or she."

I nodded slightly before continuing. "Hollings was aroused by the crime scene photos, so he clearly takes pride in his work. He probably wants to relive his crimes but knows that taking souvenirs directly from his victims would be too suspicious, which is one of the reasons why I think that the keys have a lead in them. He's highly intelligent and thinks of evading police conviction as a game. He feels invincible, even when in custody."

Goodman hummed softly to himself in thought before leaning back slightly and pointing to the chair in one of the pictures. "The room is centered around this chair." I nodded, showing that I followed. "You can see how he surrounds the back and sides by the bulk of keys. If this were an innocent collection, he would be facing it. But with this configuration, he's… displaying it."

I couldn't resist smiling proudly. "That's what I thought. He treats them like trophies - and with people like him, his kills are prizes." I sighed softly then. "But even though the bureau has an entire team going through the keys to try to match them, there's too many."

"Mayan rulers kept souvenirs of their kills," Goodman recalled. I had by now gotten used to the way he explained things, so I just patiently waited for the actual point after making mental note of the history lesson. "They called the display a tzompantli." It took me a minute to mentally figure out how to spell that. "It was believed to show their strength and power, and would strike fear into anyone who saw it."

"He's a loner. Who does he want to strike fear into?" I asked, raising my eyebrows slightly. I wasn't being cynical, just prompting him into answering the right questions first.

"Yes, but this gave him enough power and security that he let you into his home," Goodman elaborated. "The bulk of the keys are on his right side…"

"He wrote with his right hand when giving his statement," I recalled helpfully.

Goodman nodded like I had cleared something up. "Those of the greatest value to him would be in reach. They hold his power." He slid the pictures back across the desk towards me. "I would look at any of the keys in the containers on his right side, over here."

"I thought it could be a saw blade of some kind. I compared the damage with these." Zach motioned across the long table to the knives and bladed instruments with serrated nicks laid out on a long cloth. "But the crenellations form a regular pattern. They don't match what we see in the orbital cavities."

"What if she were fighting?" I asked with a frown, leaning over the end of the table and yet watching so that a blade didn't bury itself in me. If she were throwing herself around, then there was no way the crenellations would make a consistent pattern.

Zach cringed back slightly at the thought of being alive while your eyes were sawed out. "Lack of hemorrhage in the surrounding eye tissue suggests she was already dead before the eyes were removed," he told me.

I sighed in relief. I was a bit disappointed that we didn't have our explanation, but it was good that she had been dead before her eyes were gouged out of her skull. "So none of these. It was probably smaller, then… Maybe more angular, like a surgical tool?" It came out like more of a question than I had meant it to.

Zach didn't get a chance to reply to me before Hodgins walked through the foyer into Zach's section of the lab, holding his nearly trademark clipboard and an excited smile. "The concrete used to sink Cugini is composed of class-F fly ash instead of Portland cement, which is…" he grinned and exhaled to calm down. "...Very exciting."

I blinked. It took a moment for me to figure that in with the rest of the information I knew. We'd done a case with two victims before, but I was going back and forth on two cases, with two victims and two suspects - James Cugini, Penny Hamilton, the Romanos, Kevin Hollings, gunshot wound, miscellaneous trauma, concrete, dogs.

I looked back to Zach to see if fly ash had rung any bells for him. He just looked back at me, just as clueless, and we both looked to Hodgins again. "Not yet," I was surprised to hear him say at the same time as me.

Hodgins just frowned slightly at us when we talked in synchrony, but he continued on his train of thought. "Each concrete company has its own unique mixture. Certain building codes have to be met, but after that it's up to each company." I nodded; made sense. "These people were cutting corners by using fly ash, which is much cheapter. Tapford Construction." The genuine, excited smile was slowly replaced by his more characteristic smirk. "Six years ago, it was owned by Carlo Romano."

"Romano doesn't seem very worried," Brennan noted out loud, eyeing Carlo Romano through the one-way mirror as he sat calmly staring at the wall of the interrogation room. Despite it being most people's bedtime, he was still dressed smartly and pristinely, like a businessman just out of a conference, hair gelled back with product and his briefcase at his side.

"That's hubris." Booth stated.

"Good word," Brennan praised.

"Thank you." I rolled my eyes at the exchange. "He won't seem so smug after we've talked to him."

Kenton leaned against the wall by the mirror, sending the occasional glance through the glass to make sure that Romano was still there and still behaving. "I'm running the names of every one of his employees from his construction company six years ago, pulling sales invoices." Kenton shrugged. "It's going to be a lot of stuff to go through."

"Hodgins is going to try to see if there's any skin or fingernail in the concrete to pull DNA from," Brennan added, before admitting, "It's… another remote possibility."

"Remote" was right.

The room's lapse into quiet was interrupted by Booth's phone giving its loud, pitched ring. I jumped slightly but tried to cover it up, moving closer to Brennan in the process and looking over at Kenton. I was glad that Brennan and Booth were with us, too.

What the hell is wrong with you, Holly?! I demanded silently of myself while Booth raised the phone up to his ear. "Booth." You think you see someone look angry and suddenly you freak out around them? Pull yourself together! Booth sighed angrily. "Yeah." He snapped his phone shut again.

"News?" I asked sullenly, already able to tell by his countenance that it wouldn't make me happy.

"Yeah, the judge ordered a release of Hollings' possessions." Booth sighed and knocked his fist against the wall in agitation. He didn't hit it nearly as hard as he could have. "There's no grounds to hold him."

"How many keys have they made it through?" Brennan asked, stepping forwards with a worried frown.

Booth turned and trudged back towards the center of the far wall. "Well, the lab had to match key types, serial number, you know, cross reference those to the locks, compare the crenellations…" he listed everything off that he could think of, trying to emphasize the amount of work that needed to be done.

"The crenellations," Brennan repeated in a quiet murmur.

"We haven't even been through the first five hundred, Bones, so I don't think…" Booth trailed off slightly in frustration as he threw himself down onto the low couch against the wall, hands falling limply against his legs.

"There is no lock!" Brennan exclaimed as the realization came to her. "Those keys don't open anything!"

I looked at her in confusion, raising my eyebrows, silently beseeching an elaboration - because that's kind of what keys are for. Booth seemed to share my sentiments, because he asked, "What are you talking about?"

"The crenellations!" Brennan repeated again, more insistently. "The grooves carved into the bone around the victim's eyes." She reached into her pocket with a frown of concentration, biting at her lower lip as she pulled out her rattling keychain with at least a dozen keys crammed onto it. "They were irregular, like… like the grooves of a key." She held up one key in particular, the ring and the rest of the keys falling to face the ground.

Of course, Booth didn't take the message as it was - The eyes were gouged out with a key! "Bones, how many keys do you need?" He asked instead with an incredulous look at her keyring.

Brennan's proud and slightly stunned expression turned defensive. "What? Car, house, lab, morgue…" she held up each key as she said the name of what it unlocked before shrugging. "I need a lot of keys!"

Kenton cleared his throat pointedly. "Grooves?"

"Son of a bitch," I swore, bringing the attention back to what was clearly more important. Kenton looked mildly surprised at my language, but Booth and Brennan were either used to it or distracted by the severity of the situation. "He used a key to gouge out the girl's eyes and then stuck it in his collection. That's his souvenir." I reached out to vent my frustrations on the wall and when my fist connected with it, a shock raced up my arm. I grit my teeth to deal with it and if Carlo Romano happened to look towards the door at the sudden slamming noise, then, well, that's his problem.

It was awful. The sick bastard carved out someone's eyes with a key.

"How much longer can you keep the keys you confiscated?" Brennan asked Booth, eyeing him earnestly and urgently.

"He's on his way to reclaim them right now!" Booth stood up again from the couch.

"So, you have at least a half an hour, maybe more?" Brennan questioned to make sure, fumbling to get her keys back into her pocket.

"At least," Booth nodded quickly in agreement.

"Okay, so tell forensics to forget about matching them to any locks," she ordered, swiping her hand through the air in emphasis, like she was brushing something away. "Have them image each key and send those to Zach so he can find a key that matches the grooves on the bone. It shouldn't take long," she added as an assurance.

"Image keys, send to Zach." Booth nodded to show that he'd heard and when Brennan didn't correct him, he ducked towards the door. "Right." His steps were fast now that he had purpose, and time was important and of the essence.

Kenton nodded proudly, smirking in approval over Brennan's shoulder. "They're good, huh?"

Booth sent Kenton a smug look before slamming the door behind him. "Told you."

I followed just behind Booth and Brennan into the anthropologist's apartment with a bag over my shoulder that Angela had given me, along with a smile and an order to stay safe. According to the artist, it had some clothes near the size of the ones I'd borrowed during the Easter quarantine, so they would fit well enough, if not exactly, along with a collection of necessary toiletries. Apparently while we'd brought in Romano, Angela had taken a trip to the drug store and put together an overnight bag for me, knowing that I wouldn't be allowed to go back to my house. I had stammered a bit and honestly been overwhelmed with her efforts, but I was grateful all the same.

I'd been to her building before going to a club with Brennan and Angela, but I hadn't actually gone inside. Now I saw that it was comfortable and inviting. Maybe a lot of people wouldn't like it, but to me it seemed welcoming and safe. The front door opened into a wide kitchen with sleek black marble counters and a fairly large fridge, freezer on top of it. Aside from the overhead lights, an additional set of lights was set up just under the kitchen cabinets to illuminate the counter. A soft brown rug was in front of the door, and walking through the kitchen, there was another door to the right of the counter that I assumed led to either the bedroom or bathroom.

The kitchen took up less than half of the main room of the apartment, and against every wall save for the one with a door on it, bookshelves were lined up and pressed against the white walls. Two shelves were only half height, the miniature kind, and they were right in front of the windows overlooking the city from the fifth-story apartment. On each shelf sat a big rack of CD cases and in between the racks was an old-school CD player with speakers on either side. The rest of the bookshelves were covered in books with the occasional photograph of people I didn't recognize. I assumed they were Brennan's family, seeing as in one of them there was a teenager who resembled the anthropologist. I felt like I was invading even more than I already was so I made a conscious effort not to look at the pictures.

The living room had a grey carpet, but Brennan had covered it with lots of orange, red, and browns of throw rugs in ovals and rectangles, and to the right side of the room there was a couch and an armchair facing the window. There was a fire blanket in a dark blue, almost black color draped across the back of the couch. A coffee table was in front of the sofa, and on one side of the couch and the opposite side of the armchair was a small round table with a white-shaded, lime green ceramic the right of the furniture was a door that led towards what I assumed was either the bedroom or bathroom - whichever one the other door didn't lead to.

The colors were muted and earthy, but it was easy to look at and the colors looked pretty together, soft and complimentary. I liked it.

"Romano didn't give us anything, so I should probably be back at the lab." Although Brennan and I had both used our arguments before even getting in the car to drive here, Brennan admirably tried another time. I swear, Booth had nerves of steel to get us both here. Brennan wanted to work and I didn't want to invade anyone's home. It wasn't so much my privacy as Brennan's here. And though Brennan actually invited me to stay with her instead of sleeping at the lab (Booth vetoed that, obviously), I still felt like a stranger.

"No, your squints can handle it," Booth answered. Although he wasn't facing me, I could practically hear him roll his eyes. "Neither of you have slept in over a day, alright? You need to get some rest. Does the couch pull out?"

Brennan stopped and looked at him in surprise. "You think you're staying here with me?"

"Yeah!" Booth smiled at her. "Nice place, by the way."

"Very nice," I added softly, still looking around and trying to note where all the windows were, even the ones covered by paintings or woven curtains that used soft pinks, purples, and oranges and seemed African in origin.

"No, I'm locked in here, Booth," Brennan argued, but I could tell she wasn't actually angry with him. "We'll be fine."

Booth moved past her, walking into the living room. He completely ignored her argument. "Okay, look, I want you two to stay away from your windows, too, okay?" He spun around, pointing to every window along the wall. "A sniper has a clear shot from any of these surrounding buildings."

"We could have just stayed at the lab," Brennan tried again. "The security is tight there."

Booth rolled his eyes, pulling briefly at the collar of his black denim jacket. "Last time either of you stayed at the lab overnight you ended up working. You would have gotten tired and you would have been more vulnerable when you did go out." He steepled his hands together and looked between the both of us. "Trust me, this is the best, alright?"

Brennan and I exchanged a look, reluctantly concluding that we were both stuck here until Booth was satisfied we had slept (or at least lied still) long enough, barring either of us getting nearly killed.

"So…" Booth snapped before clapping his hands together again, smiling slightly in that friendly way he had when he wasn't busy telling us how to stay alive. "Where's the TV?"

Typical.

Brennan seemed almost embarrassed, shrugging her shoulders. "I had one, but it broke. I'm…" I think she meant to say that she was going to have it replaced, because Booth was nodding along attentively, but then she admitted, "I mostly just read and listen to music."

Booth wasn't deterred, instead smiling some more. "So, let's listen to some music, huh?" At the admission that she listened to music, he seemed to have taken it as a "please, go through my things at your leisure" because Booth promptly turned around and went over to the racks of CDs by her stereo.

Well, this ought to be interesting, I thought to myself sarcastically. Knowing Booth, he was probably looking for something mainstream, but of his generation - Journey, Daughtry, et cetera. Myself, I listen to a lot of pop music, but I also like instrumental and older bands. Daughtry is one of my favorites, but I also really like other music from the twentieth century.

"Music…" Booth snapped his fingers. "What do we got, Bones? Wow!" He perused the labels of the CD cases. "World music. Oh, there's a shock." He slid one CD out from between the others and turned it over to read the front. "Tibetan throat singers." He slid it back in place. "Rock on, Bones." The sarcasm was meant as a tease and it was thinly veiled.

Brennan started walking over to him and I took that as an invitation that it was okay, so I gently set Angela's bag by the arm of the couch and joined them by the stereo, looking through the CDs that Booth had already gone through. "That's… mostly for work, so…" Brennan trailed off awkwardly, a bit embarrassed at Booth's reactions.

Booth thumbed through the albums on the other racks, reading some of them out loud if they caught his attention. "Kanye West, Cat Power… oh, oh. Look at this!" He grinned. "Lots of jazz. Wow! I thought all that free-form stuff would be a little bit too unpredictable for you."

"No, I love it!" Brennan corrected with a big smile, turning to face Booth, looking at the albums herself as she stood by the stereo, her hands in her pockets. "The artist has to live within a set tonal structure and trust his own instincts to find his way out of an infinite maze of musical possibilities, and the great ones do." Although she wasn't looking at me, I could tell she was still smiling sincerely.

Booth stopped, leaning against the counter, giving Brennan that long, genuine smile of his that he often made when someone pleasantly surprised him, or when he realized something about someone that made him happy. It was the same look he'd given me on a couple of occasions. It was sweet, happy. And he gave it to Brennan for a long moment before she lifted her shoulders defensively. "What?"

"Oh, nothing." Booth quickly looked away once he realized how long he'd been staring. "I just never expected that you would… you know."

"That I would love music?" Brennan guessed, shrugging slightly. "Well, I don't usually get to talk about it, but since you brought it up, I thought…"

"No, hey," Booth started quickly, realizing Brennan was unsure of herself now. "I didn't mean to make you feel self-conscious or…" I looked back to the CDs, sensing that there was going to be a very chick-flickish moment, and picked up the first CD I saw. I looked at the back cover, reading the songs.

Feels Like the First Time

Cold as Ice

Long, Long Way From Home

Headknocker

Hot Blooded

Double Vision

I turned it over before I finished reading the songs and saw the title of the band up on the top of the CD cover. Foreigner. I smiled.

"Whoa, what's this!" Booth reached over Brennan's arm and took the CD from me, popping it open with his thumb and not letting Brennan see which album he had. "Ha!"

"What is it?" Brennan asked, slightly alarmed, trying to look and see. Booth slid the CD onto the shelf but out of her view.

"Nice," Booth laughed happily, setting the disk into the player.

"Track five," I advised, crossing my arms and grinning at Brennan.

"Holly," Brennan complained almost desperate.

The speakers started without warning, opening into the beginning guitar riffs of one of my favorite Foreigner songs, Hot Blooded. The volume was turned up so loud that when Brennan spun around to the stereo, she had to yell to be heard over it. "Oh, how did that get there?!"

"Everybody loves Foreigner!" I called over the music as a second electric guitar joined in, following the chords to the chorus' vocals.

"Talk about a guilty pleasure!" Booth chuckled, delightedly bobbing his head to the lead guitar chords.

Well, I'm hot blooded! Check it and see!

As the music started to play the lyrics, Booth sang along, belting out the lyrics as loud as he could without regard to that it was only an apartment and it was past nighttime. He held up one hand and hit the air repeatedly with the other, playing air guitar.

Brennan was smiling but trying not to and so I took that as the okay to join in, because she didn't have any objections. Booth and Brennan have only heard me singing once before - during the first car ride to Hanover Preparatory not long after I'd met them and I'd driven Booth to turn on the radio. It's not because I'm embarrassed - because I know I'm at least decent, having spent a lot of my free time with music - but it's because most people in my households didn't appreciate me singing, so I fell out of the habit and only started getting into it again when Aaron would turn on his music so loud there wasn't a quiet corner in the house.

"I've got a fever of a hundred and three!" I called, pumping the air with the side of my fist to the bass line. If anything, Booth's reaction to another singer was glee because he started doing the air guitar with more vigor.

"Come on baby, do you do more than dance?!" We must have sounded crazy but Brennan decided she wanted in on it, so she joined in on the next line, kicking the air and starting her own air guitar. "I'm hot blooded! Hot blooded!"

During the miniature guitar solo between the first chorus and the first verse, the two adults started dancing like lunatics, but they were having fun so I just laughed, still leaning with one hand on the shelves by the stereo, enjoying the temporary fun. Because it wouldn't last. The only reason it was happening now was because someone decided I would make a good bullseye during target practice.

I nodded my head to the strains, my ponytail falling over my shoulder and repeatedly swishing against my cheek and neck. I didn't honestly care, with the sounds of classic Foreigner rock and my friends' exhilarated singing literally the only things I could hear.

"You don't have to read my mind to know what I have in mind! Honey, you ought to know! Now you move so fine, let me lay it on the line!"

Shrill ringing of Brennan's landline cut through the guitars and Brennan stopped, rushing to get the phone in case it was the Jeffersonian. She lifted her hand to push her hair out of her face and picked it up, looking at it for a moment to hit the 'accept call' button. She held it up to her ear, still smiling at Booth, who hadn't made any move to turn the music down, instead still spinning around and rocking out.

"Brennan. David, hi! I'm fine, thanks." Brennan lifted one hand to cover her other ear so she could hear her boyfriend (?) over the line.

I wanna know what you're doin' after the show!

"Booth, yeah, and Holly." There was a pause and Booth danced over to Brennan, making her grin while he made a fool of himself before spinning around dramatically, taking staggering steps back towards the center of the room. "I'm still under lockdown until we solve these crimes." She smiled abashedly. "Yes, Foreigner. Okay, I'll - okay, sure. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

Now it's up to you! We can make a secret rendezvous! If I kept singing this loudly, I'd probably get a sore throat later. I couldn't actually bring myself to care too much.

She smiled again. "Okay, thanks for calling. Bye." She ended the call and set the phone back on the counter.

Brennan happened to catch Booth's attention because he stopped, hands falling to his sides from the air. "Wait - I hope he didn't think-"

"No," Brennan interrupted, assuring him quickly.

I stopped singing out loud while they talked, not willing to be quite that rude. David was one thing, the two of them was another. Just me and you, I'll show you lovin' like you never knew.

"No, because I… I wouldn't want to, uh, you know, ruin things for you, or ruin… anything…"

"Not a problem."

That's why I'm hot blooded! Check it and see!

The two of them fell into an awkward silence while I mouthed the lyrics, unsure what to do now. Booth finally solved the problem by clapping his hands together. "Hey, you got a soda, or juice?"

Brennan smiled, her hair falling in front of her face. "Yeah, in my fridge. I'll get it."

I've got a fever of a hundred and three!

Booth held out a hand to stop her, already walking backwards towards the adjoining kitchen. "No, no. You know what? I'm not your guest," he told her, pointing at her in emphasis. "You don't have to wait on me. I'll get it. Do you want anything? Either of you?"

I shook my head, waving slightly in dismissal, while Brennan said, "That's okay."

Come on baby, do you do more than dance?

Booth turned to walk facing forwards and as he reached out to the handle of the fridge door, Brennan turned back to him. "Oh, there are glasses in the cupboard to the right of the fridge!"

I watched Booth nod to himself, reaching up with one hand to push open the door of the cabinet as directed, and at the same time he pulled on the refrigerator door. The resulting flash of light made my eyes widen as I was suddenly unable to look away.

I'm hot blooded, hot blooded!

A split second later, the explosion manifested itself. Fire blew out from the fridge and the resulting heat wave rushed over me in a matter of seconds. The bright light changed the color of everything in the apartment and the noise of the actual explosion made me feel deaf for a moment, drowning out even the volume of the speakers. I heard a slight ringing in my ears and I shut my eyes as the fire burnt outwards, catching light on the lining seal of the fridge. The force of the bomb threw Booth backwards along with the fridge's door. While I heard the sound of several glasses shattering - whether from heat or from impact, I couldn't tell - the FBI agent was thrown onto his back on the floor, the door crookedly covering his legs.

It took me a second to realize that the high-pitched wail of terror was coming from me before I shut my mouth. "Call 9-1-1!" I yelled at Brennan, already running past the couch and grabbing the fire blanket across the back of the furniture.

I fell to my knees beside Booth. He was unconscious. I was near panicking, but I was also thanking a God I didn't believe in for having spent so much time poring over first aid when I was younger. It had been purely out of paranoia, but if there was any time it was paying off, it was now. There were bruises and a couple of burns on his face, even a couple of bleeding cuts, probably from glass, but they weren't what I was worried about. His shirt was on fire, the blue turning to a charred black. I threw the fire blanket over him and hit it over his chest, seeing the smoke rising up towards the ceiling.

I pressed on the blanket harder, leaning forwards and shoving the heavy fridge door off of his legs with one arm before going back up and pulling the blanket away, making sure all of the flames were out. Although they were, I threw it back over him anyway, patting down his chest and stomach to absorb any heat that could do lasting damage to his skin - because not touching does not extend to bombs and panic.

I leaned over him, keeping the blanket down, and pressed my fingers to his neck. I found a pulse despite how shaky I was. It was highly elevated - which, while not only understandable, was a relief, given that the opposite would be much, much worse - even if it was slightly uneven. I looked up and saw Brennan on the phone and yelling her address into the receiver, having turned off the music without my notice.

"Booth!" I yelled, grabbing the collar of his jacket and shaking him slightly. "Booth, wake up! Come on!" I couldn't think of any reason for him not to wake up, aside from hitting his head.

Of course, that thought was not very nice, so I immediately felt my blood pressure skyrocket again and I slid my hand under his head and through his hair, sighing in relief when there was no blood.

Still, head wounds were dangerous and difficult to read. On the bright side, he'd landed flat on the floor as opposed to hitting an edge, so I'd have to hope that there wasn't severe damage and that the incapacitation was only temporary.

I looked around Brennan's smoky apartment while on my knees, wondering how it had managed to go so wrong so fast. Literally only two minutes ago I'd been happier than I had been in a very long time, despite having a target on my back. I'd felt safe, happy, and welcomed and had been enjoying myself with some of my favorite people.

And now Brennan's apartment was a danger zone with who-freaking-knew how many traps and Booth was unconscious after taking the brunt force of a hidden bomb.

I should have known better than to relax. Things never work out okay for me, after all.