Rating (Please read): M. I sort of graze the subject of torture. So, you're warned. However, what I mention, you've seen on the show.
Spoilers: Since Bones moves at lightning-speed, you need to know I started writing this before The Girl in the Suite 2103 or else you'll think I'm in denial.
Author's Notes: I don't know if you folks read my A/N but I'm gonna keep making them somewhat lengthy.
I'm so-so-so-soooooorry (gives her Worst Updater Golden Bucket a friendly pat) I'm truly sorry. You know I would quit my job and write fanfic fulltime if I didn't have the need to eat.
I'm not going to flat out lie and tell you I'm not having a blast writing this fic, but this chapter—because it's where the plot takes a leap—this chapter made me want to crawl in bed and suck on my thumb for a while.
A huge thanks to my beta Mint Expresso. She's speedy, she's knows more about punctuation that I do and she gives me superb feedback.
About this chapter: You're going to hate Camille by the end. If you don't then I'm doing a bad job. If there's something I love, is writing Booth as an Alpha-pooch. Rusky15: you know is not wrong to find Booth sexy when he's roughing criminals up. It's natural. I'll go as far as to say it's in our genetic code.
This chapter digs a bit deeper into Bones and Booth pasts and I honestly hope those parts don't bore you. But if they do, let me know. I don't want to get info-dump-y.
Many thanks to/Apologies for the wait:
Audrey302, (I loved every word of your review and especially your comment about Cam—that one made me squeal. The review was even longer? Wow, rats and I couldn't read it. Dang Hope you like this chapter), Rusky15 (how is that criminal-Bones fic doing? If you're a dork, then I'm one too since I've don't that same thing you mentioned. I must say, I love the way you and others dissect my chapters), avaleighfitzgerald (I'm a sucker for long and rambly reviews and it did make sense. Ramble, rant, babble away, ava :) ), smellybely ("Psychobooth-because-someone-hurt-or-threatened-bones is my favorite" Mine, too.) , howdylynn (thanks!), carrotsix (hope they stay that way throughout this chapter), Alphie13 (I wish I could write novels), omg (weeeee, great!), statler (that's a good kind of drooling, thanks), tefla (miss no more, here it is. Flame me later for the wait, methinks me deserves it), jameni (nope, she won't ;) ), PurplePicklesUnite (yes, I look forward to that in every movie/book), BB-Jate-MiSA (thanks!), rocks and glass (hope you like the end of this one, too), Angel Blue (wow, thanks), lazy (thank you and you keep reading this to your roommate, you might make her/him a Bones fan) and fialka ("Good matter-of-fact, non-fluffybunny UST, accurate characterisation, and a casefile to boot." I absolutely went nuts over your description. Loved it!)
If you reviewed the last chapter and aren't mentioned here, you are mentioned at the end.
OMG! Section (March 11): I really like it when people take the time to help me iron out technical wrinkles. Thanks to lazy for pointing my "gronks" (hehe). In my beta's defense, the second mistake was due to my own ineptitude: she corrected it and then I forgot to use the correct version. And also thanks to agtmacgyver, he/she noticed my story summary had been incorrect all this time. I almost had a coronary when I saw he/she was right. And I want to thank you all again for letting me know you're still out there.
Summary (UPDATED):
"Max did all the talking while Ruth paced. Back and forth, back and forth. To the counter to the window. Counter, window. Drove me nuts," Flaxstone said.
Hodgins swooped in and pushed Zack out of the way. "I cracked the case."
They fell silent for a moment. Temperance could feel his gaze on her. "Bones?"
"Can I ask you something?" she said into her lap.
"Sure," he said. He sounded almost relieved, as if he'd been waiting all day for a question from her.
Camille looked at Booth. "I need to talk to you in my office."
"Sweet Jesus," Booth said. "Zoom in, Bones. Here," he said, pointing at the screen.
Before:
"I asked Angela if she could come up with a way of scanning pictures for masses and colors congruent with the necklace."
"From what pictures?"
"Social magazines, Chicago newspapers. It's a…shot in the dark."
Booth's jaw tightened. He cut the oxygen again. "You came looking for a necklace you bought fifteen years ago, you hold a grudge that long and you don't remember who sold it to you? Do I look like I want to be lied to right now?"
Bleeding and about to have his air supply cut out for good by Booth's forearm, the guy gave in.
"The Keenans. Ok? We'd worked together for years before they went berserk, when they were supposed to drop that necklace."
Chapter Five
The Socialite with the Weapon
Temperance didn't say a word while Booth did what seemed to come naturally to him: take charge, do things. He asked her if she was okay. Temperance nodded, not trusting her voice because her entire body felt like it wanted to lay flat on its back and catch up with the past 12 hours and especially with the last five minutes and particularly with the last sentence.
In stony silence Booth swung the man around, slammed his face against the wall and handcuffed him. Then he hustled him towards her kitchen.
Booth stopped by her dinning table, scooted out a chair and set it a foot or two away from the table. Temperance had no idea what he was going to do but she wasn't nervous. She trusted him. Plus, her headache was returning and bringing light-headedness with it. At the moment, watching was all she could do without fainting.
"Hey—hey, man," the guy said.
Booth backed the man against the chair, lifted his cuffed wrists and looped his arms around the back of the chair. The movement automatically knocked the man's balance so he slumped on the chair.
Temperance walked up to the table and took out another chair. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and sat Zen-still, waiting for blood to pump back up to her head and for her pulse to settle.
Booth took off his jacket and draped it around the edge of her chair. He loosened his tie then took out his cell phone. He speed-dialed and then squeezed the cell phone between his shoulder and ear.
"Right now, you should be thinking of ways of making me happy," he said, looking at the man as he carefully rolled up his shirt's sleeves.
Blood still trickled down the guy's left nostril and down to his chin. His gaze was fixed on her fridge. He glanced at Booth when he spoke, considered his words, then went back to the fridge. Temperance didn't like it.
Whoever Booth had called picked up. "Yeah, Lou, it's Booth. I need you to pick up a scumbag, escort him to a cell. And I need a replacement for the idiot somebody put in charge of Dr. Brennan's surveillance." He ended the call and slipped his cell phone in his pant's pocket.
"Listen," Booth started. "We don't have much time so I want you to make things easier for me and my partner over there"—he tipped his head towards Temperance—"Because we've had a bad day and it's 11:34 pm and you've already pissed the hell out of me."
Booth towered over the man now. His arms crossed over his chest, giving a clear view of his well-toned biceps. Booth aimed to intimidate. She'd seen this before, with McVicar.
"Name," Booth said.
"Mike Smith," he said, blithe.
Booth took a step closer, the man's unconscious body language betrayed him—he leaned back in a textbook response for fear.
"Alex Flaxstone," he said, still trying to sound unaffected.
"You and the Keenans," Booth said, again using that low, deep voice that seemed to be a vocal equivalent of his brooding black eyes. "You were business 'associates'?"
"Yeah," Flaxstone said. He tentatively scrunched back his broken nose, as if to test the damage by degree of pain—the movement ended up in a grimace. "For around twenty years. We worked Ohio, Illinois. My father and I were their prime fencers."
Temperance frowned. Without moving her head she looked at Booth for clarification. Sometimes he could tell when she needed one without her asking. This was the case.
Without looking at her, Booth said, "They took stolen jewelry to you and you gave them cash. Outstanding. Until they went. . ." There was a brief pause that Temperance felt wouldn't have been there if she hadn't. Booth was measuring his words for her sake. "…'berserk'?"
Flaxstone narrowed her eyes, as if suddenly aware of a lurking threat. "That's right. They got in touch with me and we'd been doing business for a month. That is, 'til Max comes by unannounced one day, told me they wanted to rush a deal. Then he went psycho."
He curled up his upper lip and pointed at his left canine and an incisor with the tip of his tongue. "See these?" he said to Booth, as he leaned forward. "Porcelain. Son of a bitch knocked them right out. Broke my nose too." He gave Temperance a flinty glance.
Temperance didn't know what to make of the fact she and her father had broken the same man's nose. "Why did m—" my father—"why did he hit you?"
"Why? Why lady, I'm still wondering. The FBI gets his sorry-ass maybe you could ask him—hell" –he leaned back in the chair, thrust his torso out and gave them a lopsided smile—"call me, I'll ask him myself. We can catch up on old times."
Temperance had survived deranged soldiers and homicidal suspects over the years so she knew that she had resources that allowed her to navigate through prickly situations and come out the other end unharmed, or at least alive. But the degree of adaptability criminals possessed sometimes amazed and disgusted her. Flaxstone had gone from fear to coolness in a heartbeat. If it was an act or not, she didn't know. She wondered if her father had the same skill.
She decided he probably did.
Booth winced and shook his head. "Don't buy it. You're looking at breaking-and-entering and assault. I'm gonna write down obstruction of justice, too. Since you're shitting me around pretty good."
Flaxstone glared at Booth. "Assault? You've got to be joking me. Look at her, hardly touched her."
"Yeah, be thankful for that." Booth pierced Flaxstone with a dark stare. "Now, again: Why did Max Keenan hit you? You didn't give them the money? What? I'm not happy here, Alex," Booth said, stepping closer to Flaxstone. "I'm starting to feel disappointed."
"No, I had the money, I was—" Flaxstone huffed and looked away, frustrated or nervous— Temperance couldn't tell. "Okay, when they came in Ruth was strange. Max too. I figured it was because they hadn't been in the game for a while and they were just stretching their legs, you know? Maybe they were wondering if they still had it."
Temperance frowned. "Had what?"
"The skill. I never knew why they'd dropped out of the radar and honestly, I thought they were both in the bottom of some lake. Those two got pretty hot back in the 80s. In their business you get that hot that quick you either burn up, get caught...or get killed."
Booth uncrossed his arms. His hands went to his hips, index fingers above his belt. He was impatient. "So they were nervous. So what? What else?"
"Max did all the talking while Ruth paced. Back and forth, back and forth. To the counter to the window. Counter, window. Drove me nuts. Usually she was a pro but that day she acted like she was twenty again. Anyway, Max told me they had the necklace with them, they needed the money now."
An uneasy knot developed in Temperance stomach.
"And?" Booth asked.
"And I went out back to get the money. That's when they started arguing. Ruth exploded."
Temperance eyes were locked on Flaxstone, seeing him but not really. She had the transfixed expression of someone witnessing a pile-up, suspended in a horrified trance for the next car that hit a gas tank and set everything on fire. She felt that car was about to streak into the pile.
"What where they arguing about?" Booth again.
"Damned if I know. Something about babies. I didn't even know they had kids."
Temperance straightened in her chair.
It even took Booth a second to integrate the information. "What about babies?"
"Something about leaving them somewhere, I don't know." Flaxstone shrugged, uninterested. "Ruth didn't want to do something and was having a fit. Max lost it, yelled at her; he told her they couldn't, that they had to do something or other, I don't know.
Next thing I knew Max vaulted over the counter. He was crazy, asked me why it was talking so long. I told him to hold on a second, that it was new safe and I was having problems with the combination. I wasn't about to tell him, 'Hey, you and wifey are acting all cuckoo and I was kinda eavesdropping'. So he snapped, punched me out, took the money and then ran. End of story."
Temperance looked away from Flaxstone. She tried to process the words, to identify the facts and to arrange them so she could understand. If she did that, she wouldn't have to think about the fact that her mother hadn't wanted to leave her and Russ. Obviously, her father had convinced her after they left Flaxstone.
There was a knock on her door. Agent Booth, the voice said.
"When was this exactly?" Booth said, ignoring the FBI Agent that pushed the door open.
"Round Christmas, 1990? No, '91, yes. My father had a triple bypass that year, was still in recovery. Christmas 1991."
Temperance nodded at the floor and stood up. She walked away from the table without looking back.
Booth stood quietly by her couch, watching her. She was standing by her bookcase, looking at a mess for the second time in a week. She picked up two books from the floor and stared at one, then at the other. She slid the heaviest one in the shelf but didn't repeat the motion with the other. She was overwhelmed.
Booth walked over to her. "Bones," he said, putting one hand on her back.
Booth could feel a million things going on inside her head. Her parents. The second break-in. The threats. She didn't look at him but even in profile, he could see her eyelashes were wet. Tears had come fast and hard while he he'd been in the kitchen, giving Lou instructions about Flaxstone. She'd wiped them away before he'd gotten back.
He rubbed two circles on her back, which made her turn to him. "Hey, are you okay?"
She put the other book on the shelf. "Your theory, this fits," she said.
Booth searched her eyes and while he did see exhaustion, he also saw determination and a powerful mind at work. Booth reached for her right hand and brought it up to inspect the damage. She'd peeled off the skin from one knuckle, it was bleeding a bit.
"C'mon, Bones, let's patch you up," he said, tipping his head in direction of her couch. "Sit down." She sat on the couch and stared at nothing with a pensive frown on her face.
Booth went to get the first aid kit she kept in her bathroom. He flopped down beside her.
Bones looked at him. "You were right. Christmas 1991, that's when my parents left. They must have gone to Flaxstone after seeing McVicar. That's why my mother was upset."
He took out a bottle of alcohol from the kit and unscrewed the cap slowly. The theory he had positioned when McVicar was factored in her parents disappearance did seem to track now. Her parents went out, saw McVicar. They figured they couldn't get back to Bones and Russ and ran the risk of being followed so they vanished. Now Booth knew they'd made a pit stop at Flaxstone's.
But there were still holes. Bones saw them, too.
"Only my parents didn't have the necklace with them that day," she said, frowning. "In the message he left, my father said they should have gone back to get it. It means they didn't have it when they left so they…My father lied about the necklace, beat Flaxstone up to take his money?" She snorted. "Not even an 'honest thief'."
Booth tipped the bottle over the cotton ball and took her right hand in his. "You don't know that."
She scoffed. "What else could explain it, Booth? They didn't have the necklace but they said they did."
This is where Bones thought she was being rational because that meant she was on top of things, where she could be 'objective'. She couldn't see she wasn't on top, she was right down in the middle of everything. She carried baggage concerning her father and no matter how much she tried to see only the criminal in him—to limit her feelings towards him to rejection of his lifestyle and of his actions—other feelings seeped through.
He dabbed the cotton on her index finger knuckle. She didn't gasp but Booth knew it had to sting a little.
He blew air over her hand. "Lots of things, Bones, lots of things could explain it and right now neither you or me are in a position to see them. Not at one in the morning, not after today."
She looked away from him which meant she saw his point but wasn't happy about it. "You think my father thought Flaxstone would come after me? That that's why he left the message?"
Booth tossed the cotton ball inside the kit and looked for a Band-Aid. "No. What with you beating the crap out of him," he said. His eyes traveled down to the red cut over her jugular.
Backed up by his gut, Booth was willing to believe the bastard who had held a knife to her throat was the guy Max was afraid of. He was a professional, there was a disturbing coherence to his behavior. He had been in a real position to kill her, if he'd pressed harder and cut wider Bones would be dead. He hadn't wanted her dead then, but he could change his mind. Booth intended to take care of him before that happened.
"I think, somehow that guy who broke into your apartment is the one we should watch out." Booth placed the Band-Aid on her hand then gave it a You're done pat.
Bones looked at her hand and flexed her fingers to test if the Band-Aid interfered with movement. It did not.
"But how did he found out so quickly?" She touched her lower lip with her finger, then checked the tip. No blood. She looked at him. "You think Fisk told him I had the necklace? When your friend call him, you think Fisk somehow knew the necklace was stolen and called this man? If it's the necklace he wants why doesn't he say it?"
"Bones, you're making my head spin. Take a moment to breathe, okay?"
Booth had done a lot of spinning that afternoon, and he doubted he could handle more with only three hours of sleep.
After the SUV, and old feeling had revisited him. The last time he'd felt that way, he'd been buried deep down in some Colombian jungle, overlooking a FARC's campsite and waiting for the perfect shot to take out a perfectly nasty drug lord.
Piece of cake, Seeley. In and out. Or so his C.O. had said. From day one, Booth had had the feeling of being in deep crap—the persistent certainly of hearing the creaking of bad things closing in on him. But all his eyes could see was jungle, chirping bugs and sunlight.
Two days later he was in a hut, getting a concussion from being smacked in the head with his own rifle—by the target he'd been scoping the past two days.
Booth heard creaking now, and he could not explain it, but that guy in the SUV was linked to the necklace and to Bones' father. That SOB had been hiding under some rock for years and now he'd scurried out because he was convinced Bones knew something. What was worse—he was waiting for Bones to make a move. And the guy was anything but patient, it seemed.
Bones' eyes were half-open, doing a sluggish scan of her thrashed living room. Then they closed. He nudged her. She opened them again with a start and sighed. She hoisted herself up the couch.
"I'll get you a blanket," she mumbled and shuffled towards her bedroom.
Temperance was still half asleep when she swung her legs off her bed. She looked around her. Clothes and jewelry on the floor again. She rose her fist—with its Band-Aided knuckle— turned it and smiled. At least this time she'd gotten even. Retaliation was empowering.
She grabbed her robe from a chair and slipped it over her worn collage tank top that said I Hate Mornings in faded letters and a pair of old satin pajamas. She stepped into her living room and it took her fuzzy brain a couple of seconds to explain Booth stretched out on her couch, sleeping.
She padded towards him but stopped when she realized her books weren't on the floor, they were on the shelves. Booth. He'd cleaned everything up last night. It must've taken him hours.
She smiled. She walked to the couch, skirted his right outstretched arm and stood over him.
At first glance Temperance thought that if Zack saw Booth in a pair of old sweatpants, no socks and a faded army T-shirt, it would help demystify him. Booth without the sarcasm and confidence was just a guy that slept with his mouth partly open.
His other arm was up, resting on his forehead and covering his eyes. The T-shirt had ridden up at some point, leaving his stomach exposed.
The blanket she'd given him laid in a crumpled heap on the floor, under his feet. She went to pick it up and that's when she realized even an unconscious Booth wasn't so straightforwardly normal as he'd appeared. Zack's awe of Booth would likely increase.
The scar tissue around his ankles suggested he'd been tied up a considerable amount of time. She remembered studying Booth's X-Rays the night after he took a bomb meant for her. The fractures on his feet, consistent with a common torture technique in the Middle East. Beating the soles of the feet with pipes or something that caused damage.
It made sense that they would bind the feet.
She picked up the blanket and stood up. Booth didn't stir.
She leaned forward, supporting her weight on her knees, and observed Booth's midsection. There was that long scar he'd showed Shawn in the interrogation room, when he was trying to bond and get the name of the man who'd murdered Shawn's foster brother. Playing soldiers with his brother Jared, Booth had said.
But then there were more. Right between his ninth and tenth left intercostal ribs. Scar tissue, round. Bullet wound. Old. Maybe from his time in the Gulf. There was another bullet scar an inch above the waistband of his pants. And this is what she could see. There was what she couldn't, like the shielding wounds that appeared only in X-Rays.
A buddy of mine he…he lost his weapon. And I tried. He didn't make it.
Temperance started to think it was a miracle—statistical, not religious—that Booth had survived his army career. Especially considering his tendency to put himself in danger to save other people.
When they'd gotten back to the hospital from the warehouse where Kenton had taken her, a nurse had spent ten minutes muttering and shooting him withering looks at him while she set back his IV. The words 'death wish' and 'damned fool' cropped up.
"Aw, Tina, you missed me. No tears, I'm—ouch, "he'd said when Tine muttered something and inserted the IV. "I'm your man now. No more running." He had beamed Tina his charm smile. "What about a pudding? Huh?" Temperance had smiled, Tina had laughed. But that didn't change the fact Temperance saw he could barely move. Booth was very successful at dismissing his own injuries.
Temperance noted a fresh bruise, on his right side. It had to be from taking the fall when he pushed her away from the SUV. And he'd put a silly Band-Aid on her knuckle.
He stirred, lifted his arm and squinted at her through one eye. "Were you ogling me, Bones?"
His voice was surprisingly clear. She wondered how long he'd been awake.
"I was observing, not ogling." It was the truth; there hadn't been a single sexual component to her observations.
Booth tucked both arms behind his head. "That's how it starts, Bones." He looked smug and kind of goofy with strands of hair stinking out at odd angles.
She remembered the living room. She wanted to return the favor. "One time offer. Coffee and blueberry pancakes?"
"Sounds great," he said. He swung his legs off her couch. A grimace flashed through his face.
"Let me examine you," she said.
"I think you've seen enough of this body for today." He winked and then grinned at her.
Temperance rolled her eyes.
"I found this under the couch last night," Booth said, reaching over the coffee table. He handed her a book. "You had dirty fingers, Bones."
The book was a 10th grade, now superbly outdated, Chemistry textbook. It had an atom at the front, blue electrons, red protons and white neutrons. She'd pointed it out in a flea market when she was two, her mother had told her. Her father had bought it.
Booth scratched his head. "I need to use your bathroom." He looked at her.
"Yeah, sure," she said.
As soon as he left she browsed through the pages. Right under a colorful rendition of the subatomic composition of lead she still remembered as fascinating, mainly because of the colors—she'd thought it was the biggest, sweetest chewing gum in the world—she saw it. A tiny, dark blue impression of her three-year-old index fingerprint.
She snapped the book shut just as the memory was resurfacing. She slipped it back under the couch as if it had insulted her and deserved a punishment.
Temperance and Angela were taking a break, sitting on a table high above the quiet whirring of the lab's high-tech machines. Temperance nibbled on the chocolate covering a doughnut while Angela nursed a steaming cup of coffee and her own fear.
"You know, as your friend, Brennan, I need to be honest with you," she said, leaning forward and resting her elbows on the table. "I'm freaking out. It sort of looks like you're collecting injuries here."
"Ange," she started, giving her friend an appeasing smile. But Angela cut her off.
"It's that necklace, sweetie." Temperance's smile disappeared. Angela looked at her coffee for a moment, then she extended her hand over the table and placed it on Temperance's wrist. She gave it a squeeze. "I'm not suggesting you quit looking for your dad, but can't you hold off for a while? I don't want to come to work next week and see you with a broken arm or. . . ."
Dead. The word hung between them.
Angela had always been ambiguous about her venturing away from the lab. Sometimes she was excited Temperance was out there, meeting men. And sometimes, when she perceived danger was near, Angela forgot about men and focused on plane tickets back home.
"Dr. Brennan! Dr. Brennan!" Temperance looked around to see Zack striding towards them.
Angela leaned back in her chair. The conversation was over for now. Temperance made a note to talk later and also apologize for 'bossing her around' after the first break-in.
"Neither one of the trenching shovels match Bryant George's head wound," Zack said. "Hodgins is still working on the soil samples."
"Okay, Zack," Temperance said. She was disappointed. The case was grinding to a halt.
"Bones! Yo, Bones!" They turned to look at Booth, strutting the same distance Zack had walked seconds before.
Zack's back went stiff. "Agent Booth."
"Oh goodie," Booth said, speaking about the doughnuts. He walked past Zack without acknowledging his presence—or acknowledging it, in honor of their bizarre agreement. Zack nodded, content.
Booth sat on the chair next to Temperance. He looked at Angela and her, "Can I?"
Both women nodded. Booth grabbed a glazed doughnut and ate half of it in one huge bite.
"Uh-huh, nice," Angela said, watching Booth chew the doughnut without effort. She turned to Temperance. "So, does Chomper here snore?"
Temperance recoiled her head, puzzled. "Why are you asking me?"
"I got the PD looking for Bling boy. The sleazebag lied." He took another big bite and finished off the doughnut.
Temperance thought about the six pancakes he ate that morning. Booth had always had an appetite. "Lied about what?"
He finished chewing. "I swung by Bryant's sister today"—licked the glaze off his fingers—"She told me her brother had been doing great for the past two months. No family feuds. Even went to some annual Georges barbeque. Now, Bling boy told us different."
"Maybe Bryant lied," Angela put in. "Maybe his sister lied. Who wants to drag family secrets out into the light?"
Booth shook his head and took another doughnut. "Hmm, I don't think so."
"Dr. Brennan! Dr. Brennan!" Hodgins this time, trotting the same route Zack and Booth had. Temperance found it strange, as if suddenly all men she worked with had been programmed to move along the same paths.
Angela said, "My, you're in high demand."
Hodgins swooped in and pushed Zack out of the way. "Move over, Snowslut."
Booth choked on his doughnut. Angela chuckled. Zack fumed. Temperance gathered Hodgins had found out about Zack's experience with pornography.
"I cracked the case." Hodgins slapped a sheet of paper with the back of his hand before handing it to Temperance. "Well, not cracked, but I have a theory, want to hear it?" He was looking at Booth.
Booth wiped his mouth with a napkin then said, "No."
Temperance skimmed over the results. "It's a match. The soil in the wound, the soil in the trenching shovels and the probe matched."
"But the trenching shovels don't match," Zack said.
Booth stuck his neck out and eyes looked up, as if expecting something to fall from the sky. "So," he said. He squinted one eye and looked confused. "So…" He looked at Temperance.
"So Bryant's tools and the murder weapon worked on the same soil," she said.
"Wait, the last job Bryant did was the Roth garden. So that dirt on the tools has to come from there. Right?"
Hodgins blue eyes were wide and exited. He clapped. "Ha! Somebody inside that mansion trenched the landscapist's skull. My money is on the swan-napkin nazi." He wrung his hands. "Who's in? Ten bucks minimum."
Angela shook her head. "Dear God, you need electric shock therapy."
"Bryant hired a lot of people to work for him. One of them, somebody we haven't talked to yet, could have been involved. Facts, Hodgins. Not quantum leaps."
Camille appeared besides Hodgins. Her hands on her pockets and a curious smile on her face. Booth's chair creaked as he straightened.
"So, this is where everybody went," Camille said. She scanned all the faces but her eyes finally rested on Booth. "When did you get here?"
Booth cleared his throat and said, "Just now."
Angela had always been was an excellent translator of the emotional subtext in social encounters for Temperance; Angela saw it all and it all appeared on her face. Temperance saw Angela mouthing an 'uh-oh' and glancing from Camille to Booth. Temperance stole a sidelong glance at Booth. His eyes were lowered, he was playing with the flap of the doughnut box. He glanced at her then and their eyes met for a split-second before he stood up and said he needed to make a phone call.
It was 9 pm and Temperance sat in Angela's office, staring at a blur of passing photographs on the computer screen. The mass recognition program hadn't produced a result yet. Maybe it never would and Angela and her father would get what they wanted: no more poking around from Temperance.
Booth was talking to Parker and pacing in a circle around Angela's coffee table. Apparently Parker had the flu. From what little Temperance overheard, Rebecca blamed Booth for it.
Despite what he'd said, that she didn't have anything to do with Rebecca being mad, Temperance couldn't help feeling guilty. She'd offered to explain to Rebecca the unusual circumstances that led to Parker being with Tessa but Booth had said he'd rather have Temperance saw off his skull. He could be so melodramatic sometimes.
"No, no, bud," Booth said. "Do it like you mean it, let it rip." Booth waited.
Temperance looked away from the screen just in time to hear the faint sounds of Parker blowing his nose. She smiled.
"There you go. Don't ya feel much better now? Yeah. Now, what's this mommy said about you not wanting to take your medicine?" Booth collapsed on Angela's couch. He propped one ankle over one knee and stretched one arm over the couch's headrest. "Wha—you kidding? That stuff is great and it gets rid of the sniffles. I have a glassful of it right now. Yeah, no I don't but I'd love to. Oh, it's the pink syrupy thingy? Ow, I'm not gonna lie, that one's not so great. But you have to take it. . ."
Temperance swiveled around in the chair, giving her back to Booth. On an impulse she pulled the Chemistry book from her briefcase. Before leaving her apartment she'd taken it out from under her couch. She opened it on her lap.
She hadn't touched the book in years and she stiffened when her eyes landed on the top right corner of the first page. Her father had always bragged about how he'd taught her how to write her name at two. And there it was.
Temperance Brennan. Then, for historical accuracy: 1979. All in big, clumsy squiggles. She'd been pushing the pencil really hard. She ran her finger over the trace and frowned. She lifted the book to the light and traced her index finger slowly over the T again. She tilted the book so it caught light at an oblique angle and saw it.
An underlying J. An eraser had taken care of the graphite but the indentation remained. J for Joy.
She leaned back in the chair and stared ahead. She'd seen that book a thousand times and she'd never noticed it. But it made sense, maybe they'd just left Ohio. Her father had taught her how to write her name at two, but he'd had to teach her again after moving.
It both unnerved and relieved that she didn't remember the transition from one name to the other. Russ had to remember. It couldn't have been easy for a 9-year-old to lose his name—his identity—in a day. And for nothing. New names hadn't been blank slates or new beginnings—their parents hadn't stopped being criminals.
Temperance closed the book and stuffed it back in her briefcase. Her eyes retuned to the computer screen.
She went over Flaxstone's words. Her mother had wanted to go back. Her father hadn't.
Since she'd never contemplated having children, the question Would I abandon my son and daughter? was pointless. But as a daughter, the same scenario yielded a resounding No. You don't leave your children alone.
The feeling surged with such force it caught her off guard—she was angry. They hadn't been dead when Russ left and she'd become, according to the Foster Care system, a hard-to-place teenager: unsmiling, withdrawn and—by some irrational transmutation of one event early in the system— "difficult".
Her parents could've gone back to get her. But they hadn't.
"Bones?" Booth was leaning on the wall, staring at her.
"Um." She looked around, startled. "Did Parker take it? The pink stuff."
Booth smiled, proud. "Yeah, he's a trooper." She gave him a wan smile.
They fell silent for a moment. Temperance could feel his gaze on her. "Bones?"
"Can I ask you something?" she said into her lap.
"Sure," he said. He sounded almost relieved, as if he'd been waiting all day for a question from her.
"You love Parker," she said, now looking at him.
Booth didn't even nodded because obviously it wasn't a question. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Temperance wasn't sure she wanted to ask the question and she was less sure she was prepared for Booth's answer.
"What would—?"
Camille entered the office. Temperance looked at her.
"Oh." Camille looked artificially surprised. "I'm interrupting?"
Temperance's question and the intent to ask it vanished. The momentum was lost. She said, "No."
Booth didn't say anything and his eyes lingered on hers a moment before glancing at Camille.
"I need to talk to you in my office," Camille said to Booth. Her voice had a tone of formality Temperance had never heard before. Not directed at him anyway.
A long second passed before he pushed himself off the wall. "You stay put," he said as he left.
Temperance nodded. As soon as Booth walked through Angela's doorway, the blur of pictures stopped. "Booth!"
He came rushing back, eyes scanning the room for danger. "What? What?"
"A match," Temperance said. Booth walked towards the desk. He put one hand on the back of her chair and another on the desk so he could look at the screen over her shoulder.
A blond woman and a gray-haired man in their fifties smiled for the camera. He wore a suit and she a black night dress. On her neck was the emerald necklace, partly hidden by the structural outline Angela had made in order for the mass recognition program to work. There were clusters of people behind the couple, all similarly dressed.
"Who is that?" Camille said. She was standing to Temperance's left.
"'Adry loved emeralds'," Booth said.
Temperance read the caption out loud. "Kenneth and Adrienne Belmont, Chicago Theatre, March 1987." The computer found one match and then another and another. Temperance groped for the mouse and clicked on the next picture. Chicago Times, March 1991.
"Dammit," Booth said.
"A Triple Tragedy," Temperance started by reading the headline. "Adrienne Belmont, sterling member of the Chicago high society, shot her husband and then committed suicide the past Monday."
"Wow, wow, look at this." Booth pointed further down the article. "Travis Belmont, their 19-year-old son went missing at the same time. Only child. Cops looked for him. No sign."
"Cheerful bunch," Camille said.
"Pull up another picture," Booth said.
Temperance clicked on the next one. It was a family portrait, taken from the waist up and professionally lit. The father was smiling, the mother too but no so intensely. The son wasn't smiling but didn't look unhappy, just...quiet. Adrienne Belmont had her dainty arm draped over her son, his hand clasped her own.
"Sweet Jesus," Booth said. "Zoom in, Bones," he said, pointing at the son's hand. "Here." Temperance zoomed in until the hand occupied the entire screen.
Temperance and Camille asked, "What?"
"Holy Mary and Joseph—that ring." He tapped at the screen.
Temperance looked at it. "It's a domino chip, with the initials TB on it. Travis Belmont. What?"
"I've seen it before," he said, turning to look at her, "in Bling boy's hand."
To Be Continued. . .
…and thanks to: a2zmom: Since you pointed out part of my plot, I couldn't say 'Bryant is related!' at the top. Maybe everybody was thinking the same thing and only you were the only one who said it but I wanted to be sure. Now I'm afraid you're gonna figure it all out shivers.
So. I have no idea if there's still "readership" for this story, with me being a crappy updater and all. If any of the wonderful folks from before are still around, tell me whatever is on your mind, I can always use your input. You've earned the right to flame me so, let me feel the heat.
Be "rambly", be succinct imagine heroic soundtrack here, be a reviewer.
Eeek, that was SO cheesy.