Just like we used to, the three of us piled into the SUV, Booth driving and Brennan in the passenger's seat. I was usually sat in the middle of the back, but today I was to the right of the car and behind Brennan so that I could lean my shoulder against the car door and feel the coolness of the glass window against my forehead to contrast the heat from outside. Very little was like it used to be, so I took great pleasure in remembering the days before things went bad and changed to a state that I haven't yet adapted to. Booth and I are getting along rather smoothly, but only when we're working. In a personal capacity, I'm not quite at ease.
The joy in the reminiscence was tempered by the circumstances. How was I supposed to be happy for myself when I was so worried about Angela – and, by extension, Dhani? Angela's always been a strong woman, so I know she'll be fine, albeit devastated, but Dhani's been in the desert for the majority of a week. If she didn't have enough water, she'd have been dead long since. The desert stretches for miles and miles. A few hundred miles south of the spacey community consisting of a few bungalows, trailers, and the sheriff's station was the Mexican border. No way Dhani made it that far without reserves, but how were we supposed to know how much water she had when Angela hadn't known before they took off?
The only good thing about the events is that now, with definitive proof of murder and the dangerous implications of the context, Ben Dawes was no longer arguing with Booth about jurisdiction, nor was he being a hassle about having an FBI presence among his people. Considering that Booth could have overridden a jurisdictional dispute, it wasn't even all that much of an upside.
Brennan and I were both quiet, watching out our respective windows at the drab lack of impressive scenery. I know I was frightened for Dhani and sad for Angela, and dreading getting back to her bungalow, because that would involve explaining to her about the DNA results and the peyote traces. Brennan was probably having the same emotional issue. As sort of socially inept, sometimes things that should be simple are a bit out of proportion for her, and she's probably trying to figure out the best way to tell Angela that the skull was definitely Kirk, despite the artist's convictions otherwise.
I guess Booth felt the need to say something that would potentially help. "I will call the FBI office in Albuquerque and I will officially take over the investigation," he promised to break the wordless quiet in the rented vehicle.
"I wouldn't do that," Brennan cautioned calmly, not moving to look away from her window.
"Seconded," I agreed dully. Even to me, my voice sounded detached and mechanical, distanced from the situation to an almost worrying degree, considering my friend was involved with the victims.
"Why?" Booth asked, just a slight hint of irritation in his voice. I can't tell whether it's because his plan was objected to or because his companions were sort of sulking.
"Desert dwellers are very insular." Brennan was wearing sunglasses, but even I could tell that when her attention was drawn from the window, she looked straight at him while he drove. "Mongolians, Bedouins of the Sahara, the Himloa of Kanana…" she offered as examples. "They're good hosts, but extremely distrustful of outsiders."
Booth opened his mouth to object to her reasoning and it took him a minute to try to argue, "Bones, this is the United States of America, not outer Mongolia." He sounded a little stressed by how abstract the conversation seemed in relation to the actual topic.
I rolled my eyes. Unlike Brennan, I kept my attention divided; part of me paid attention to the road and dust thrown up by the tires, another part kept thinking poor Angela and dreading her reaction and wishing I was comfortable enough to just give her a big hug because I know she'll want one, and another part was sticking with the other adults so they didn't worry about me.
"Look, you wouldn't like it if strangers came into your home and started changing out your things or moving your furniture, would you?" I posed hypothetically. Before he answered, because that really wasn't the point, I continued with the more literal side of the point I was trying to make. "This is a small community. The cultural differences between the Navajo and the Americans are vast, but the gaps are tentatively sealed by treaties and unofficial boundaries. If we traipse in on their territory waving a great big American flag and showing everyone your badge, then they're not going to be welcoming or cooperative towards us. It would be like we were invading them."
I would know. It was how I used to live. I had thin agreements, thin boundaries for my relationships with other people. When they violated those boundaries, I was angry and affronted. If I couldn't hurt them, I'd avoid them. If I couldn't avoid them, I'd make their lives as difficult as possible without going out of my way investing energy to do so until they backed off.
"The only reason Sheriff Dawes talks to us at all is because we know Angela." Brennan reminded, giving a very good example of the tightly-knit society's little tolerance for foreigners. Ben hadn't gone to too much trouble checking our IDs, instead trusting Angela – but the moment we had wanted to involve the Jeffersonian, he had gotten crabby and told us we should probably leave. "Alex Joseph held a gun on us."
Booth reached up to push his tinted sunglasses higher up his nose. "I admit I've met friendlier people," he muttered.
"If a bunch of outsiders come in from Albuquerque, led by an outsider from D.C., I promise you, the people here will close ranks and shut up until we go away. Then they'll take care of it in their own way." Brennan swore solemnly before turning and shifting subtly in her seat to resume her position looking out the window.
Booth did that thing where he looked repeatedly between the road in front of him and the anthropologist in the neighboring seat. "Okay, who are you, Dr. Phil?" He asked with exasperation.
"Who's Dr. Phil?" Brennan didn't understand the reference, but she did notice the title. "Some sort of expert?"
Booth scoffed and said, "He likes to think so," in a way that clearly implied he didn't share the same opinion.
"He's a TV personality," I explained shortly for the scientist's benefit.
Booth lifted his right hand up from the steering wheel long enough to wave in dismissal of the concerns. "Okay, look. I'll take what you say under advisement." I relaxed marginally. When Booth said that, he usually ended up weighing the words heavily. "In the meantime, we need to find out who supplied Kirk with his peyote."
Peyote is native to this region of North America – it grows centrally in New Mexico and in Mexico and the native cultures tend to use the drug for ritualistic or religious purposes, which the country has legalized out of respect for the culture. However, peyote is a highly hallucinogenic plant when ingested, and so a lot of Americans abuse the availability by using it for no reason other than for recreational drug use. For both of these reasons, anyone who deals peyote probably wouldn't be too inclined to stand up and take responsibility for it.
Brennan frowned. "How are we gonna do that?" She wondered.
"Stressfully," I grumbled from the back seat, raising my left arm and gently rubbing my forehead with my fingers. On another note, it felt nice to be able to do something with the arm Kenton had intimately introduced to the concrete.
Whether or not he heard what it was I'd said, Booth ended up answering Brennan with a phrase that seemed pretty synonymous to me. "Talk to his girlfriend," he said slowly, rather than say talk to Angela. Despite how he chose to word it, all three of us knew that we had to treat Angela like we treated the families and friends of other victims.
It would be hard to ask the same questions with less regard to her emotions. Angela is one of the closest people to me. It didn't start out that way – I used to be closest to Booth and Brennan, because I could relate to them both on different levels and my relationships with them balanced. Now I'm still close to them – not necessarily by free will, on Booth's part, because I have a feeling that he'd refuse any attempt to drop off his radar, for his sense of responsibility if nothing else – but I've also spent a lot of time with Angela and actually spoken to her about what's on my mind. Given my recent history and how badly it shook me up, Angela's truly great to have.
Knowing that now she needs a friend more than she needs the Spanish Inquisition doesn't very much help me when I try to think of the case objectively, like I'm supposed to.
"I hope it's not a gang," I said without warning, blurting out the first thing I thought of that had the potential to lighten the atmosphere of the SUV. It felt too tense, and the last time I'd let the mood grow too tense, I'd ended up going into a state of panic. "Last time there was organized crime I was kidnapped. And the time before that, I was hit off of a fence." I wrinkled my nose unhappily, still ticked off at Jose for that particular blow to both my body and my ego. "With a shoe."
Psychology does not provide concrete results the way that anthropology or entomology do. In that respect, it's a lot like archaeology. Still, I believe that it has its uses; it's more often right than wrong, and it is based a lot on statistics, after all. I know better than to expect Brennan to take any conclusions based off of psychology at face value, but that doesn't stop me from using what I know of it when I can.
Especially since I do it without thinking. A lot of people use subtle behavioral analysis without even realizing it – by taking note of how someone's posture changes or where their focus is, they're profiling behavior on a small scale drawn from clues present that weren't spoken out loud and can't necessarily be proved.
I'm drawing on those little signs to tell me how Angela's holding up. Brennan and I sat on either side of her on the couch in the living room, Angela looking to her knees. I was surprised she wasn't crying – she was heartbroken, that much was obvious, but she seemed as though she didn't have the energy or the element of surprise necessary for her to convince her body that crying would help. I didn't know what I could really do other than try to be a comforting presence, but Brennan was offering Angela comforting touches on her shoulder and arm, watching her in concern. In contrast to the two of us, Booth stayed across the room, distancing himself, probably so that he couldn't see Angela as clearly and wouldn't be affected as deeply by her emotions.
"I'm so sorry, Angela," Brennan said softly, holding onto Angela's hand with both of hers.
"We both are," I amended, looking at the artist closely. It felt weird to have so much empathy for another person after looking after myself for so long. Now I was willing to hurt others and be hurt for the sake of other people for reasons that went beyond my sense of justice.
"I knew it was Kirk," Angela mourned lowly, her voice shaking in tone and threatening to break. "That's why I called you." With the hand Brennan wasn't holding onto, Angela wiped her eyes before she could really start to cry and she forced herself to drag her eyes up to Booth. "We have to find out what happened to Dhani."
"Angela, I'm going to have to ask you a couple of difficult questions, okay?" Booth gave her fair warning out of courtesy, and when I heard his voice I wasn't even a little bit surprised that he had a tone of concern and care that he didn't usually when questioning people involved. Angela knew the routine, though, and knew that this had to have happened eventually, and nodded without words. "What can you tell me about Kirk's drug use?"
Predictably, Angela shook her head in disagreement. "Kirk didn't do drugs."
"Well, Hodgins found peyote in his hair," Brennan contradicted slowly, mindful of Angela's feelings while at the same time finding her claims hard to believe.
The artist sighed and dropped her head. "I thought – I thought you meant drug drugs." What other kinds of drugs are there? I thought, glancing at Booth skeptically. He just raised his shoulders. "The peyote wasn't recreational. Kirk took part in some Native Indian rites."
"While high on drugs?" Booth added as confirmation. Angela sighed, but the lack of defense was clearly her way of saying that, yes, Kirk got high for the rites in question. "Did you do peyote with Kirk?"
Angela clutched Brennan's hand tighter and Brennan shifted on the couch, pushing herself closer to Angela. "The peyote has nothing to do with anything," Angela told Booth stubbornly rather than answer.
Slowly, I reached for Angela's free hand and set my palm over her fist lightly, offering the comfort I felt I should really give. She turned her hand over and threaded her fingers through mine without thinking about it, squeezing my hand in silent thanks.
"Angela, you may have come into contact with Kirk's killer without even realizing it," Booth told her softly, trying to reason with her without hurting her. I wish I hadn't already known that it was nearly impossible to do both. Angela squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to hear it. "What was his connection?"
Angela just sort of shrugged, her hand tightening around mine. I bit down on my lip to keep myself from reacting with anything other than a reciprocating grip. "He's Kirk's friend," she said, like it was a free pass from interrogation.
Booth leaned down so that he was at about eye-level with Angela, despite the room in between them. They made eye contact even though Angela really didn't want to be in this situation any more than we wanted her to be. "I need the name," Booth urged softly.
Angela squeezed my hand again and, almost without thinking, I mimicked the gesture. "Wayne," she said, looking away and breaking the spell like she thought she was betraying the guy in question. "Wayne Kellogg. He's an important local artist." The forensic artist leaned over to the side, resting her head on Brennan's shoulder.
Like Alex Joseph, Wayne Kellogg lived in a trailer, except his was much nicer and more decorated. There were terraces along the outsides where he was cultivating leafy vegetation despite the climate, and he seemed to enjoy having what I think are red and green Hostas in the ceramic plant pots on the ground.
In the front of his trailer, he had a big white canopy pitched over like an awning, shielding artwork and supplies on long plastic tables from the sun. It looked to me like he did a little bit of a lot of different arts – engraving plates were set out carefully, further from other projects. There were pieces of rough and smooth canvas painted with soft colors in various natural designs. There was even pottery that looked to be half-done; fired in a kiln but not yet painted. Kellogg definitely knew what he was doing, but it looked like, instead of the type of art Angela did, he based his works off of the Navajo tribes that lived on the reservation.
I wonder how much the tribes appreciate it.
Kellogg himself was a short man in comparison to Booth, Brennan, and I – in all fairness, we are on the tall end of the height spectrum. (I may have gotten the genes determining my height from Booth, but I'm deliberately not thinking about that.) I'd place him somewhere in his late thirties or early forties. He was unshaven and sported a short beard and moustache. Close to his neck was a pale orange necklace above the neckline of his button-down beige shirt, which was covered by a light brown sleeveless vest. Tucked under the collar of his shirt was another necklace, this one a longer, blue-beaded one.
"I don't deny having participated in the peyote ritual on several occasions. Utterly spiritual experience."
"You're not Indian," Brennan pointed out to the local, the three of us following behind him as he walked up towards the side door on his trailer. Brennan was looking with interest over the canvases, while Booth seemed more entertained by the drying engraving plates. Though I appreciate art, it's not something I'm all that passionate about.
Kellogg glanced at her from the side before he opened his door, careful not to let it open wide enough to hit the outside wall. "Not by birth, no," he allowed. "But, as you can see from my artwork, I have a deep spiritual connection to the Navajo."
"I see you've studied Navajo art, and that you're an experienced artist, but not that you have an innate metaphysical relationship with them," I corrected. Yes, he was a great artist, and yes, they could have passed as authentic, but not being a big believer in "spiritual connections" or their authenticity or credibility, saying such as though it's an excuse irks me. "How well does your work sell regularly?
"I sell very well overseas," Kellogg answered, but he wasn't entirely happy about the way I'd corrected him, if the darkening of his tone was anything to go by. "Enough to keep this place and a beach house in Los Angeles." Well, that felt pointed. "Why?"
"Why not buy Navajo art created by actual Navajos?" Brennan wondered curiously, narrowing her eyes at a painting with two colors – white and blue, in a neat, very deliberate pattern.
I just shrugged to her, meeting her eyes when she lifted her gaze from the art. I couldn't actually answer her question – my best guess would be that the Navajos wouldn't sell to foreigners, or that Kellogg purposefully sold at comparatively low prices.
I grabbed onto the doorframe to pull myself up into the trailer. Kellogg had a small metal platform with a couple of stairs leading halfway up so that it wasn't as difficult to get in, but the stairs didn't seem as sturdy as I'd have liked.
The trailer was bigger on the inside – no pun intended – than it had looked. I suppose most of that comes from that it's well organized and there isn't all that much in it to begin with, aside from dried paintings and new, untouched engraving plates. His supplies, some lying on a plastic table like the ones outside and some in toolboxes, were what took the most room. The back fourth or third of the mobile home was blocked by a door that was closed completely, probably his bedroom where he kept his more personal belongings. In the front of the trailer, he kept the blinds up but the windows shut so the coolness from the standing fans didn't escape, and there was a desk situated so he could look down the room.
"Peyote is still a recreational drug," I pointed out to Kellogg, because the peyote was the reason we were here – not his art. "It's only legal to possess if you're a member of a Native American Church that condones its use in religious rituals. I have no issue with you enjoying Navajo culture, but you're not actually a member of the church, which means you and Kirk Persinger both had access to it illegally."
"Buying illegal drugs involves drug dealers," Booth continued when I had paused, catching onto the same idea. "I mean, you can follow our train of thought here, can't you?"
Kellogg shuffled around the side of his desk and sat down in his pushed-out chair. With the same nonchalant attitude – unaffected by the implications against him – he set his forearms on the arm rests and drummed the fingers of his right hand on the desk. "Look," he started, sounding like he was going for diplomacy. "I realize Kirk's missing-"
Booth interrupted him coolly to grab his attention. "Kirk's not missing."
Brennan was much more blunt. "He's dead."
Kellogg blinked and his fingers ceased in their tapping, but he showed no other signs of surprise. He sat up a little straighter. "What about Dhani?"
"Dhani Webber remains unaccounted for," Booth answered, glancing at Brennan and keeping most of the information regarding the case secretive. There was no need to give Kellogg any unnecessary details, innocent or not.
I looked out the window through the slits in the blinds to the back of the trailer. Kellogg had a dusty yellow Humvee parked on the other side of the mobile home that we hadn't been able to see driving up.
"God, this is terrible…"
"I need the name of your drug connection."
"No. I'm sorry." I looked back from the Humvee for two reasons; one, because I really couldn't see the license plates from here, and two, because it wasn't a very smart move on Kellogg's part to withhold evidence, especially from people who are personally involved in the case – not that he knows that, but still. "These people trust me. I understand the difficulty in finding the peyote plants miles out in the desert, the secret places passed on from generation to generation."
I bit down lightly on my tongue to keep from saying anything. It didn't seem like a very good reason to me, especially since someone could be dead because of those drugs. Instead I contented myself with possibly busting him another way, pointing to the blinds of the window. "The Humvee outside. Is it yours?"
Brennan's interest caught, she stepped across the room to the window and pushed the blinds apart to see.
"Yes," Kellogg answered wearily, rubbing his temple with his left hand. "Why?"
"Alex Joseph used that Humvee to go out into the desert," I said slowly, trying to figure out exactly how likely it was that he really had been looking for his girlfriend. It wasn't looking too good for Alex, especially since Alex would be one of the few people who knew where to find peyote.
"Wait…" I looked back to Booth. Judging by how he was glaring at Kellogg suspiciously, he was probably making the same mental connections between the European and the Indian. "Alex Joseph didn't go out to the desert to look for Dhani Webber. He went out to look for peyote."
Kellogg's eyes widened marginally and he visibly swallowed. "I never said that," he defended weakly. He must have known it wasn't a very good argument, but I suppose it wouldn't be very smart to sit back and allow himself to be incriminated, either.
"Alex!" I yelled upon getting out of Booth's rented SUV. "It's your friends from the FBI again. We come offering free hugs and sentimental conversation if you have evidence you're not a murderer!" Yeah, so maybe that wasn't likely to get him to come out of his trailer, but hey, I had to be sarcastic at some point.
Booth sighed at me. I just offered a shrug to make sure he knew that I didn't particularly care what he thought of my attitude. If I want to make rude or pointless comments, then I will, and he should know by now that I don't bend over backwards trying to be what other people want.
Booth knocked loudly on the trailer door, and maybe a bit harder than was strictly necessary. "Mr. Joseph?" He called, knocking again when he received no answer. "It's the FBI again. We'd like to ask you a few more questions."
I rolled my eyes. Clearly being polite would work, despite how aggressive Alex Joseph had seemed earlier in the day. Have we already forgotten about the obvious problems with law enforcement? I dropped my gaze down to the ground when I saw a darker color that didn't belong to the sandy and vegetation-sparse landscape – the muzzle of a gun was lying on the dirt behind one of the back wheels.
Well, that's weird… Alex may have seemed quite trigger-happy, but he didn't strike me as the type to leave his weapons lying around. Either he forgot it out here (unlikely), he had felt threatened (entirely possible) or he had been taking precautions against particularly hungry coyotes. In which case, he probably should have stayed in his trailer, not come outside.
"I'm going this way," I announced, pointing to the end of the trailer, turning on my heel, and setting off to walk around to the other side.
"Why?" Brennan asked, walking quickly to follow behind me curiously.
"It just struck me that we haven't seen the other side of the trailer before. For all we know it could be quite the scenic experience, but we wouldn't know because we're too fixated on the other side."
I know she would have said something if we hadn't seen Alex Joseph before she had the chance. It's not very often that I get away completely scot-free from saying something like that, but at this point it's just too much of a habit to make myself stop.
"Booth!" Brennan called while I dropped down to Alex's side. He was sprawled spread-eagled on the ground, one of his ankles twisted at an odd angle, his face marred by bruises that looked relatively fresh. At least he wasn't killed, I thought privately, pressing two fingers to his throat. His pulse was there, but it was weak. I lifted my hand from his neck and hovered over his mouth until I felt his breath.
"What-" Booth had run around the trailer when he heard Brennan shout for him, but he stopped next to her when he saw Alex lying prone. "Oh."
"He's alive," I said dutifully, somewhat relieved despite the grim spectacle. Alex's clothes were stained in blood and dirt. Someone had really had a bone to pick with this guy, and they had been too pissed off to go about it diplomatically or pacifistically. I mean, sure, I hadn't liked him all that much either, but I wasn't actually tempted to drag him around back and beat him half to death.
I leaned over him and dragged my hands down his chest, pressing lightly over his ribs. His body jerked, even while unconscious, and I pulled back quickly before I accidentally did any damage. "Possible broken ankle, definitely broken ribs on the right side. Depending on how they're broken, there could be internal trauma. There's lots of bruising on his face, and he might be concussed. He needs a hospital."
Maybe it was just me, but I was sort of getting the feeling that we were being dismissed – the backpack being loaded up while we were talking to him was a pretty clear indication of Ben's dismissal, in my opinion. Couldn't he at least wait until we're done subtly accusing him of murder? Okay, so maybe we're not doing that at the moment, but I'm sure we'll end up at that point eventually.
"Come on, sheriff," Booth tried to persuade Ben Dawes into cooperating and giving us leads. Alex Joseph was far from fine, but had been taken to the nearest hospital and was receiving medical care. He'd live, but he wasn't going to be a very happy camper for a while. "Even out here, you know how the drug world works. Kirk is found dead. Joseph is beaten to a pulp. It's all connected."
"My first priority," Ben maintained sternly, sending Booth a very sharp glare for a second before he shoved another canteen of water into his backpack. "Is to find Dhani."
Brennan crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at the sheriff, trying to read into him and deduce why he was being so difficult. "We find Kirk's murderer, then we'll probably find Dhani," she said rationally.
"Or maybe Dhani is the murderer," Booth suggested. Even as he said it, he winced back – for good reason, too, as Ben looked up enough to glare at him dangerously. Brennan shot Booth a scathing look in retaliation and I shook my head at him. Not cool, man. "What?" He asked, lifting his shoulders defensively. "I've got to ask."
He had a point, though I didn't want to admit it.
Dawes glared at Booth, angry for his little sister's sake. "Dhani never hurt anybody in her life," he growled protectively, offended himself by the slight against her. "Except for maybe herself."
I gave a long sigh. I know I might regret this, but… "While we're being objective for once on this case," I began, already having a pretty good idea that this wasn't going to gain me any favor in the sheriff's eyes. "I should point out that maybe Dhani came to you – her overprotective big brother – and accused Alex Joseph and/or Kirk Persinger of assaulting her physically, emotionally, or sexually, and you took it onto yourself to take them out of the picture."
I was one hundred percent correct. This certainly did not earn me any favor. Dawes pointed at me quickly, obviously upset by what I'd said, but he was managing to reign it in. "What you're proving right now is that you don't know anything about the people that live around here."
"You're right," I allowed quickly before continuing. "I don't know anything about individuals I haven't met before. How could I?" I put my hands on the front edge of his desk and leaned forward. "What I do understand is how you've all got your own backs, and maybe you look out for the people you're closest to if you're in the right mood, because I'm like that too." I hadn't planned on adding the next sentence, but it came out quickly before I really processed it. "I also understand that if someone was a threat to my younger sibling, I'd protect them whether the law condoned it or not."
Parker isn't in any danger, but the blonde-haired, brown-eyed little boy was clearly precious to me, even if I'd only met him a handful of times. I couldn't decide whether to be surprised that I was already willing to shield him or mentally think, huh, figures. I'm protective of children, but wanting to keep Parker safe goes a bit beyond a sense of right and wrong; it appeals more to my care for him in particular.
"You're not one of us, miss." Ben stared me down but I didn't break off his gaze. I'm confrontational; it's in my nature. I can't bring myself to back down from a challenge without a very good reason. "All due respect, but just because we're similar, doesn't mean we're the same, or that you can accuse me of nearly killing that man for my sister."
"Mm-hmm," Booth hummed, coming to defend my argument from the local sheriff. "Yet Joseph met us with a rifle… maybe because he was afraid it was you coming around the corner of that house."
Terse, Ben zipped up the largest pocket of his backpack quickly and then lifted it up by one of the straps. "Alex Joseph is unconscious," he reiterated earlier words with a sense of finality. He shifted the backpack around until it was actually on his back, his dominant arm through the corresponding strap. "You maybe can talk to him when he wakes up. Me, I'm going to help the search parties find my sister."
I stepped out of the bathroom and hit the light switch as I passed. My hair was still wet and dripping, but that was remedied by a dark blue towel around my neck to absorb the water until my hair dried. I hate having wet hair; it's really hard to brush until it's dried out.
The only light was artificially produced from inside the cabin. Through the window, I could see the very pointed darkness from the nighttime. The sun took longer to set here, but it still goes down eventually. Brennan and Angela were sitting close together on the couch. Both of them had showered before me and Angela had the patience to use a hair drier. Now the artist wore pajama shorts and a tank top and Brennan, like me, wore a camisole and sweatpants. There's something to be said for cool weather – if it weren't so hot, there's no way I'd be okay with leaving my arms uncovered.
I was about to ask if I was about to walk into a sensitive conversation, but I could hear them talking already. Angela nursed a hot black ceramic mug of coffee. I could still see the steam rising.
"Kirk's photographs show the world as a more beautiful place than it is," the artist murmured quietly like she was sharing a treasured secret. So. That's what this is. Angela was mourning for Kirk, really feeling the loss hitting her without the distractions of the ongoing investigation. With us back here, there was less concern for us, and not as much to take her attention away from her missing, possibly dying friend and her murdered boyfriend.
Good. I don't want her to be stuck in a tormented in-between state where she understands and accepts, but hasn't really come to terms with the fact that her boyfriend is dead.
Quietly, I snuck up behind them. I wasn't trying to be stealthy, I just didn't want to interrupt the artist. I sat myself down on the end of the couch, leaning against the arm of the sofa and pulling my legs up. I sat my hands in my lap and leaned forwards, pressing my palms against my calves, giving Angela an audience if she needed to talk.
"He made me feel like it was my real home. That I belonged there with him." Angela's voice was rising – not in volume, but in note, and she was beginning to sound strained, hard-pressed to keep from crying. "He's… the guy I compare all other guys to. Now he's gone, and I feel like I can't even breathe. I can't even take a breath…"
Angela contradicted herself by taking a long, deep breath that caught in her throat and she stared down into the swirling vortex of her coffee. I knew how she felt, though – not that she physically couldn't breathe, but that her emotions, her heart, were crushed down. To be so devastated and heartbroken that it manifests itself into a psychosomatic pain… I tried so hard to not let myself care, but I know that if I lost these people – Booth, and Brennan, and Angela and Hodgins and Zach – then the heartache I'd feel would probably be far worse than being stabbed had been.
Brennan leaned closer to Angela and she set an open palm on her best friend's upper back, letting Angela breathe to keep herself grounded. Brennan seemed at a loss for words where this topic was concerned, but that doesn't mean she was going to shy away and let her friend deal with something so painful on her own.
Angela sniffed and shut her eyes. It took her a moment to open them again, heavily and reluctant to come back to reason instead of letting herself cry and hurt. "You think it's possible that… Dhani's still out there?" She asked, letting her hands grasp at her mug tightly. It had to be hurting her hands from the temperature, but if a little temporary pain was going to keep her in one piece, then it'd be hypocritical of me to take that away. "Could she still be alive?"
I scraped my teeth over my bottom lip. Dhani's odds weren't very good. She could be anywhere in the God-forsaken desert, and the human body can only go for so long without any water, especially in such a climate. "I don't know," I answered carefully, because Angela wouldn't want a meaningless reassurance. Those sorts of reassurances don't do anything. It's the honest ones that actually help in the long run.
Brennan lifted her shoulders a bit helplessly, keeping her eyes stuck on Angela in serious concern. "There's no crime scene, and we're… not even sure where the rest of Kirk's remains are," she said quietly. I leaned forward and scooted closer to the two other women.
Angela nodded grimly. She seemed to be holding herself together, however temporarily. There were no tears, but her eyes were red anyway. "Well, I wanna help you look for her tomorrow," she decided, her voice already taking on the stubborn attitude of a woman hell-bent on it.
"Are you sure?" Brennan asked uncertainly.
The sentiment was caring, but it was really a pointless question to ask. I'm sure if either of us were in Angela's place, we would do everything in our power to find Dhani. Angela started to nod vigorously, but I suppose the motion must have put her off because she stopped almost immediately. "Yeah. Dhani was our friend. I have to help find her."
The sheriff got two Jeeps of people from the Albuquerque area and another Jeep of native Navajo people to drive out with us and search. Markings on Kirk's skull had been matched to a rogue coyote by Zach, Hodgins, Goodman, and an animal expert in D.C.. Apparently this particular coyote had its jaw crooked from some fight or defect, and had been chipped by the government to keep tabs on the population. They placed the coyote and his pack near here, so this was the part of the desert that we were searching.
"We've been looking for going on five hours now." I looked at the strapped watch on Angela's wrist, pale in comparison to the silver. I lowered myself down onto a big rock for a break about halfway up a natural outcropping that came up to a small cliff, like a hill with half of it jaggedly cut away. "I am literally going to have a fever of a hundred and three if we double that time."
"More water?" Angela offered helpfully, sitting down on the rock next to me in shorts and a tank top. A black strap around her neck hooked to either side of a plastic canteen of water to stay hydrated.
I sort of shrugged in denial, lifting a hand from my knee to wave to the side like I was shooing off a bug. I couldn't summon the energy to be more invested in the gesture. I was only wearing a camisole, but at the rate I was sweating I might as well have been wearing a black long-sleeved wool shirt. I had long since accepted that it was either leave my arms bare or die of heat stroke. It felt weird to have breezes hit my arms.
We couldn't afford very long for a break, but it wouldn't hurt anything to sit for a few minutes. I looked out from our vantage point. About five feet lower, Booth was resting on a small boulder, holding onto a crinkling plastic water bottle that was almost empty. The parked Jeeps were all carrying bundles of water bottles for refilling our supplies. The heat itself wasn't too dangerous, but the effect it could have if we weren't hydrated could be fatal.
We were high enough on the outcropping that I could see miles of desert stretching ahead and to both sides. It was like looking in an ocean of sand and dust. If I had been a real nature person, this would no doubt be one of the most serene places I'd ever been, but unfortunately I'm one of those teenagers that prefer air conditioning and music to sweating and slowly dying of raised internal temperatures.
"I love the desert," Angela said softly, following the direction I was looking and realizing I was just sightseeing. "Or…" she sighed deeply. "I used to."
I leaned forward, placing more pressure on my calves and setting my elbows on my knees. Gingerly, I pulled at the edge of the cast on my arm. It was a light blue and covered half of my palm. There was a hole for my thumb like a glove or mitten, and it went halfway up my forearm. My skin felt sticky underneath, but I was already pushing my luck by using my left arm as much as my right. Taking off the cast was probably considered pushing it a little too far.
"I don't," I said honestly. I could have lied, but Angela likes talking about feelings. Sentiments shared is how she bonds, and sharing sentiments means nothing if the sentiments aren't real. "I've always relied on my senses to protect me. Out here, I know I can't always trust what I see." I squinted and raised my right arm, leaning a bit towards Angela and adjusting to point at a far-off cactus, one of a few in sight. "To me, now, that looks pretty far away. It could only be twenty yards."
"Yeah, well, you can't trust your eyes out here," Angela agreed with a little bit of a wince. "Not your eyes alone," she amended. "You know, Kirk said that if you stood still long enough, that the desert would actually speak to you… show you some kind of truth."
"Kirk sounds like a romanticist and a poet." I felt the smirk playing at my lips and I glanced at Angela to make sure she hadn't taken it as a slight. She was nodding, trying to fight back her own little smile. "Has the desert ever shared its thoughts with you?"
Angela shook her head and pushed her hair back behind her shoulders. She hadn't tied it up, for a reason which eluded me. "No," she answered, melancholy. "But… he really believed that."
Sheriff Dawes left the front seat of one of the Jeeps and he pressed a button on the radio fastened to the front of his beige shirt. I watched him with halfhearted interest as he moved up to Booth and turned to lean against the rock the agent was sitting on. Booth watched him wearily for information regarding the proximity.
"Alex Joseph woke up." Dawes stated calmly. I was kind of pleased to hear he didn't seem sad or alarmed – it was a good sign that he wasn't the person responsible for the fact that the local man now looks like a Halloween costume just by the bruises.
"Good." Booth said calmly in turn, not prompting for any more information. Maybe it was just one of those "guy" things.
"You think that whoever beat him up has something to do with Kirk Persinger's murder," Dawes theorized back at Booth, still refraining from looking directly at him.
Booth nodded slowly in confirmation. "Yep."
"Nope." The sheriff popped the "p" in the word, squinting against the sun as it blazed almost directly overhead. If Angela didn't have a hat on her head, I wouldn't have been surprised if it was hot enough to light her hair on fire or something. Mine was certainly warm enough to the touch.
Booth changed his focus to look directly at Ben. "How can you be so sure?" He challenged coolly. Dawes lowered his eyes and looked the opposite direction, not entirely willing to say. Booth interpreted that. "You were the one that beat him up?"
The sheriff shook his head firmly at the accusation. "No," he stressed.
"Okay." Booth allowed. He paused a moment, waited for more information to come, and then realized that Ben wasn't feeling particularly forthcoming. "Well, uh, do you know who did?"
Ben nodded and gestured with one hand towards a couple of the Navajo men by the Jeep who were opening more water. One had a red bandana in his hair, his skin a light pink in what may very well be the beginning of a sunburn. The other had short blonde hair and was taller. "These guys," he answered to Booth, watching the two for a second before they no longer warranted the attention. "Or, guys just like them."
Booth frowned at the two people before the one with the bandana looked up and raised a bottle to his lips to chug the water. The FBI agent averted his eyes before he accidentally affronted either of them. "Why?"
"Peyote ritual," the sheriff answered with a long sigh. "These people take it seriously. It's their religion. A guy like Alex Joseph starts selling it to white guys like Kellogg and Kirk, and they don't like it." The way he said it, it sounded entirely rational. I should have expected it, even, but everything may have been a bit simpler if the murder and the assault were connected. At least Alex was more than just a skull, and probably could have identified the murderer if it hadn't been a coincidence in timing.
Booth pursed his lips. I'd studied his tells well enough to know that he was disapproving of the sheriff's seeming lack of care for the actions of the Navajo tribesmen. "Aren't you gonna arrest any of them?"
"I'm guessing no," I called down, unable to refrain myself from joining the conversation for any longer. I had held out for a surprising length of time, but with the motives of murders and cover-ups out of the way, there was really nothing complicated about what happened to Alex Joseph.
The sheriff nodded quickly, shortly, the only sign that he had heard me. "No," he reiterated. "But I might deputize a couple."
Booth's brow furrowed and he opened his mouth, paused, and then continued, but I think he changed part of what he had initially intended to say. "You know, sheriff, I get how you people handle things out here." He said respectfully. Walking all over the locals, intentionally or not, was a bad idea, and he got that. "But, I mean – I gotta ask. If they beat up an Indian for selling peyote, what the hell are they gonna do to Kirk for taking it?"
"Nothing," I called down in answer. This time both men turned slightly to look up at me over their shoulders. I leaned forward, rocks dislodging and sliding under my heels. I stayed on my seat next to Angela, undeterred. "Am I right?" The sheriff studied me and then nodded. I relinquished my attention from him and focused on explaining to Booth. "Kirk is a white American adult. That makes him Sheriff Dawes's responsibility. They only beat Alex Joseph for betraying their community for profit." I just had to lift my shoulders haphazardly. "A teacher takes away the cigarettes before they can do damage to the school, but the smoking kids get in more trouble with the parents."
"Hey!" A masculine voice yelled from the other side of the outcropping. I twisted, throwing one leg up higher on the incline to rotate around and look. Whatever it was, I would have to get up to find out. "We got something over here! Sheriff Dawes!"
"I've gotta say," Ben said to Booth quietly. He underestimated my hearing; I saw no problem with eavesdropping on them when they were talking about me, after all. "Your girl's got a pretty good sense for people. I'm just sorry about whatever happened to mark her up."
That brought mixed feelings. I stood up, still listening intently for Booth's reply as I hiked up the sharp slope to the top of the sort-of cliff. Obviously the sheriff was talking about the scars on my arms, and the ones visible on my back from the somewhat lower cut in back of my camisole. I'd been pretty anxious about when someone would acknowledge it; Angela, Brennan, and Booth don't want to know unless I want to talk, but I was pleasantly surprised that the sheriff was sensitive enough not to ask.
On the other hand, I'm not sure how I feel about being called the agent's daughter by someone else, even if there is a compliment thrown in there with it.
I threw up my right arm to block some of the sun from my eyes and I looked down at the gathering of people down on the other side. There was something on the other side of a bush that an Albuquerque guest and Brennan were fishing out to investigate. From here it looked like a bone. A bit to the left of me, there was a sharp drop directly down into a shallow pit of rocks. Something caught a sun ray's reflection and glared, trying its best to blind me, until I blinked and realized that there was actually something down there.
Something made of metal.
"Angela," I called out for someone else in what was beginning to be a reflex that I did without thought. Was it because I now recognized I needed assistance defending myself, or was it because I want to have people with me to defend?
I lowered myself until I was nearly sitting on the edge of the cliff and then carefully braced both hands against the edge before letting myself drop down onto the smooth topside of one of the rocks creating the pit. Holding my arms up for balance, I kept my footing and didn't fall. With my body blocking the sunlight from the metal down underneath, I could see without getting retinal damage. It was a camera – not a small, sleek one, but an expensive, somewhat larger one that a landscape photographer would use, and the bent metal poles underneath seemed like a disassembled tripod.
"She's definitely not the typical daughter," I heard Booth say from the other side of the cliff slowly. "But, hey, she's Holly. I like her the way she is."
And God, why did that make me catch my breath? If I wasn't sure how I felt about being acknowledged as Booth's daughter by the sheriff, then Booth calling me his daughter so… so normally sent me spiraling in a loop. If there was anything to ensure I didn't blame Booth for this paternity disaster (I'm starting to question whether "disaster" is the right word for it, though I'd sooner starve out here than admit it), then saying he liked me the way I am was it. I'm a hell of a lot to handle, and I know that, but being appreciated for my personality is… not something I'm used to, but it feels great.
Brennan and Angela both came closer to me, but from different directions, and the situation snapped me out of the dazed reverie before I had the chance to really go into one. Brennan was coming up from the side, and Angela was still on the outcropping, except I had hopped off so now she was above me and more of a silhouette than a clear sight.
Brennan shielded her eyes with one hand and pointed behind her with the other. She tipped her head back to call to her friend at the higher point. "Ange, they found some bones over here," she reported. "It might be Kirk."
"It is Kirk," Angela answered, her shoulders slumping. Just like I had done, Angela moved until she was almost sitting on the edge of the small cliff and let herself slide off, finding her balance between Brennan and I on the rocks. "This is his camera."
I looked to the artist, now much closer to her in terms of height. "Are you sure?" I asked. Angela looked as if she was going to be a little dizzy or nauseous, so I bent down to try to pick up the camera, pulling back at the last minute when I saw the damage done to the casing. "Oh. Dr. Brennan, can we use your jacket?" I asked the anthropologist, holding my hands out over the thin cracks to try to block out additional light. "The case is cracked. If light gets in, potential evidence is wrecked."
"It'll damage the film," Angela specified, looking to her friend. Brennan had already nodded and started taking off her light, three quarter-sleeve jacket. It was weird for her to wear a jacket – of the three of us, I'm the most likely to cover up unnecessarily – but she was drinking a lot more water, anyway.
"Maybe Kirk was right," I suggested to Angela, taking another shot at being supportive. Angela covered the camera with the jacket, tucking the fabric around the device to block out all the light before she tried to pick it up. "I'd say a photograph of his killer is one hell of a speech from the desert."