Like it hate it? Let me know! No flames though. I am a review whore. I don't own Bones or the Lovely Bones. Actually I own a copy of The Lovely Bones and the season 5 sneak peak of Bones but that's it.
Oh and Susie's narrations will be italicized.
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It's funny really, the names of the boys that found my safe, Joey Palmar and Jimmy Popliteal, both have last names that are body parts. Joey's older brother Jared had dared the boys to approach the sink hole in the old industrial park late one night…
"Jimmy wait up!" Joey Popliteal whined as he lost sight of his best friend. "We need to stick together so that we don't fall into the sink hole and die!"
Jimmy whipped his head around and sighed. Joey was his best friend in the whole world, but boy could he whine. "Fine. But if we get caught sneaking around out here it's gonna be your fault. Got it?"
Joey nodded sniffling. "Stupid allergies" the younger boy muttered fishing around in the pockets of his windbreaker for the wad of ever present tissues.
"I thought your mom got you some new medicine for them." Jimmy said concerned. Everyone at their middle school knew that Joey's allergies were the worst in the county and if they started acting up now, well they were as good as caught.
"She did." Joey answered between blowing his nose. "But it doesn't work like the old stuff did."
"Well come on." Jimmy said satisfied that they weren't going to get caught. "We're almost there and I want to prove to your brother that we aren't a bunch of yellow bellied babies. He's the yellow bellied baby cuz he didn't come with us."
"Jared couldn't have come anyways." Joey said as the boys ran across the abandoned parking lots to the roped off sink hole. "He's watching Mrs. Sanders' new baby so she and Mr. Sanders could go out tonight."
"Babysitting is a girl's job." Jimmy said laughing.
"I know, but Jared loves little kids that aren't me." Joey explained. "Why did you stop?"
Jimmy pointed to the sink hole. Construction crews had left the portable lights and generators running around it to warn people pulling in the lot to stay away. Slowly emerging from the sink hole was an ancient looking safe. It was covered in rust and the olive green paint was chipping off of it. "Joe do you have your phone with you?" Jimmy asked.
"Yeah. I never go anywhere without it." The thirteen year old answered his friend.
"Good. Can you take a picture of the safe and send it to Jared so we can get out of here? I'm getting the heebie jeebies just looking at that safe." Jimmy said.
Joey shrugged. "Come on. Let's get closer to it. I can barely make it out zoomed in all the way on my phone."
The two boys approached the area carefully and slid under the saw horse perimeter and inched closer to the safe that was sitting precariously on the edge of the sink hole.
"Hey Joe! Check it out! The door to the safe is kinda open." Jimmy said as they got closer.
"Let's open it up! We could get really rich and my dad won't have to look for a new job anymore." Joe gushed.
The two boys pulled on the handle for almost ten minutes before the rusted hinges protested the movement but opened.
Jimmy offered to look first, not wanting Joey's allergies to be set off by the contents of the safe. "OH MY GOD! Joey call 9-1-1! There's a skeleton in there!"
The two boys screamed again attracting the attention of a security guard doing her nightly rounds…
It took a few hours before it was decided that Agent Booth and Dr. Brennan should be contacted to work on the discovery of my body. Poor Jimmy and Joey were going to be traumatized for months after this experience. The good thing out of this was that Joey would follow his Cousin Jimmy's footsteps and become a medical examiner for the Navy.
In Washington D.C. Special Agent Seeley Joseph Booth was rudely awakened by the ringing of his cell phone.
"Booth." He mumbled as he turned on the lamp on is bedside table. "Slow down Charlie. Where is the body?"
"Mmhmm. Pennsylvania?" Booth scribbled it down on the pad of paper on the table. "What time does the flight leave?"
Booth's jaw dropped as he looked at his alarm clock, it was 3:34 in the morning; almost five hours since my body was found. "At four am? Charlie who the hell booked that flight?!" Booth ignored the junior agent's answer. "Has anyone called Dr. Brennan? You know what forget it. I'll go get her personally." Booth hung up as scrabbled to find a clean shirt and throw two suits, six shirts, seven pairs of boxers, seven pairs of crazy socks, eight ties, one pair of jeans, four tee shirts and a pair of sweat pants into his suitcase. He pulled on an old pair of jeans from the floor, a Foreigner concert tee shirt and his shoes and a jacket as he rushed out the door while calling Bones as he ran down the stairs in his apartment building.
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Dr. Temperance Brennan had just gotten comfortable in her bed when her cell began to ring. She debated ignoring it, but recognized the ring tone as the one she had set for Booth.
"What is it Booth? I was just about to fall asleep." Brennan said answering her phone.
"Sorry Bones." Booth said sheepishly. "The new novel giving you trouble?"
"Unfortunately. But that isn't why you called me at 3:40 in the morning. Why did you?"
"We have case Bones. Why else would I cal this early in the morning?" Booth explained. "Our plane leaves in twenty minutes apparently so I'd get ready if I was you."
"Where are we going Booth?" Brennan demanded as she began packing some essentials for the trip.
"Norristown, Pennsylvania." Booth said and there was a lingering silence. "I'm almost to your building. I'll meet you in the lobby."
Brennan hung and saw the flashing lights that signaled her partners approach to her building. Brennan hoped onto the elevator and met Booth in the lobby before heading out to the SUV.
"Just so you know the Norristown PD is convinced that the remains belong to a girl name Susie Salmon that went missing in December of '73." Booth explained as Brennan turned on a dome light to go through the case notes that Booth had picked up before her. "Two thirteen year old kids found the safe by accident on a dare from an older brother to approach the sink hole."
"If the police think they know who the body is then why are we going?" Brennan asked.
"Because the senior officers in Norristown aren't completely convinced. But Susie is the only victim of George Harvey to never be recovered. Her family has waited thirty-six years to find out what happened to her." Booth explained. "And because I remember meeting Mr. Salmon when I was a kid. Mr. Salmon used to come into my old man's shop two or three times a year when business brought him to Philly before his daughter disappeared. We're doing this as a favor okay Bones?"
Brennan nodded. "I don't think I have much say in this anymore. We are on the way to the airport now."
Booth smiled. "That's my girl." They rode in a comfortable silence as they approached the terminal. "That poor family" Booth said.
Brennan cocked her head to the side as if asking him what he was talking about.
"They had to wait thirty six years before something bigger than an elbow was found."
Brennan nodded. She knew the pain the Salmon family was feeling, after all she had gone through the same thing when both of her parents had disappeared when she was fifteen. "Well I hope we can give them the closure they have been searching for." Brennan said as they ran for their terminal. The plane was scheduled to leave in five minutes.
"Me too Bones. Me too." Booth said as they settled down into their seats on the plane just as the flight attendants closed the doors to the plane.
With that the two partners tried to get some sleep as the plane took off for Philadelphia and their newest case.