-Venus Pov-
We are at the FBI department listening from the other room as Booth interrogates Holling who has his lawyer with him. His lawyer starts talking, "I have a court date tomorrow morning at 10:00 am. You have no right to confiscate his collection." "Oh, there were burglaries in the area. Those keys, they could give us some answers. My client can't be tied to any of those burglaries." "You're probably right. You see, but I have a job to do. And Mr. Hollings here has always been so understanding of that in the past." "Oh, I, I do understand. I've given you a statement, explained where I got the keys." The lawyer continues, "And since you haven't charged him with anything..." "Yet. But I'm really looking forward to charging him with this. Look at that..." We watch as Hollings stares at the pictures intensely. "I imagine it must be very frustrating when you can't solve a crime."
"My client is respected researcher with Whitley Chemical. He hasn't missed a day of work in the past two weeks. Unless you have evidence to hold him..." "Can't stop looking at it, can you, Hollings? What does it do to you? Does it make you hot?" I sigh and look to the side to see Agent Kenton walk in with a box. "That the psycho?" I nod as Temp speaks, "He's brilliant. He knew we were looking for a pocketknife, so he left one in plain sight. The wrong one." "And if you don't find anything concrete, he walks again, right?" I nod, "I don't think if Ranger could live with that. Those keys have a big significance to this case. I am for sure about that." "Here are the files we had on all the suspects; people we knew worked for the Romanos six years ago."
He gives it to Temp as I looked over her shoulder a bit not wanting to move my injured arm as he continues talking, "Any of you got physical descriptions, blood type, everything we had. Might come in handy, you find any more evidence on the body." Temp nods and I look at him, "Thanks. After we recreate the bullet, we can track the angle of entry based on height and..." "I don't get it. You don't have the physical round that was shot, how..." "Oh, you also had me confused there for a second. But we are trying to make one based on the wounds. It could give us the murder weapon." "Sweet." Temp then adds, "If it works." "Well, you let me know if there's anything else I can do for you." I nod as Temp says "Sure." We pay back attention to the interrogation as we hear the lawyer speak, "You're fishing. No judge is going to let you keep that collection, Agent Booth. You have to know that. We'll have it back by tomorrow.
I am walking with Boss as Booth is behind us talking to him mainly, "I got the keys on pretty shaky grounds. The judge is going to release them in less than 18 hours unless we can find something tangible. Blueberry thought that you would like to see them and see if there was anything that she may have missed." "I don't see how. I'm an archeologist." I pipe in, "Boss just view it as an artifact that we would examine when they're shipped here to us." "I suppose that's a reasonable assumption." I nod, "Plus, it's always nice to have a fresh pair of eyes to confirm or discover something new in somebodies' findings." He nods, "A person's environment is a reflection of who he is." Booth adds, "He's a predator, very smart, enjoys the game, feels like he's untouchable." I nod as I point at a chair in the picture with my good hand, "What I saw was that the room is centered around this chair. You can see how he's surrounded, back and sides, by the bulk of the keys." Boss nods, "You are right, if this were an innocent collection, he'd be facing it. But in this configuration, he's displaying it." Booth then speaks, "Well, a guy like this, his kills are prizes. Bureau's searching through these keys now, see if they can match one to a storage locker or another apartment. But it's just, there's too many of them." Boss then looks at Booth, "Mayan rulers kept souvenirs of their kills. They called the display a Tzompantli. It was believed that it showed their strength and power and would strike fear into anyone who saw it." "He's a loner."
I pipe in, "That's true. But this gave him enough power and security that he let us into his home." Boss then adds, "He's right-handed, correct?" Booth nods, "Yeah, right." "Well, the bulk of the keys are on his right side. Those of the greatest value to him. would be in reach. They hold his power. I would look at any of the keys in the containers on his right side over here." I nod, "Thanks a lot Boss. I knew we just needed a fresh pair of eyes." "It's my pleasure to be of assistance." "Alright I must go and check in with Temp now. Bye." He waves me off as Booth walks behind me from a good amount of distance. I walked in as Booth stayed outside to make a call and I looked over Temps and Zacks shoulder as Zack speaks. "I thought it could be a saw blade of some kind. I compared the damage with these. But the crenellations from a regular pattern. They don't match what we see in the orbital cavities." Temp then asks, "And what if she were struggling?" "Lack of hemorrhage in the surrounding eye tissue suggest she was already dead before the eyes were removed." I then pipe in, "We need to look for something smaller, maybe a surgical instrument."
Hodgins then walks up to us. "The concrete used to sink Cugini is composed of Class-F fly ash instead of Portland cement, which is very exciting." I perk up, "Oooh, do tell me more." "Each concrete company has its own unique mixture. Certain building codes have to be met, but after that, it's up to each company. These people were cutting corners by using fly ash, which is much cheaper. Tapford Construction. Six years ago, it was owned by Carlo Romano." I then speak, "You were so right, this is very exciting. Nice job!" I raise up my non-injured hand and gave Hodgins a high five as the other two just looked at us.
We were back at the other side of the interrogation room looking at Mr. Romano as Temp speaks, "Romano doesn't seem very worried." Booth speaks, "That's hubris." I pipe in "That was a good word." "Thank you." "He won't seem so smug after we talk to him." Kenton then speaks, "We're running the names of every one of his employees from his construction company six years ago. We're pulling sales invoices. Gonna be a lot of stuff to sort through." I nod, "Well, Hodgins is going to try and see if there's any skin or fingernail in the concrete to pull DNA from." Temp nods adding, "That's another remote possibility." We watch as Booth had to make a phone call and sighs when he hangs up. He turns around looking at us, "Judge ordered a release of Holling's possessions. There's no grounds to hold them." Temp then asks, "How many keys have they made it through?" "The lab had to match key types, serial numbers, you-know, cross-reference those to the locks, compare the crenellations..." I look at Temp realizing something, "The crenellations?" Booth kept on talking, "They haven't even been through the first 500, Bones, so I don't think..." I then cut him off still looking at Temp, "There is no lock. Those keys don't open anything." Booth then stands up from his seat, "What are you talking about?" Temp then takes over, "The crenellations, the grooves, carved into the bone around the victim's eyes, they were irregular, like..." I helped out taking out Temp and my apartment key. "Like the grooves of a key." "Blueberry, how many keys do you need?" "Let's just put it simply, is that I need a lot of keys to get into different places."
Kenton then coughs a bit getting our attention, "Grooves?" I nod, "He must've used a key to gouge out the eyes. And he kept it near him in his apartment. That was his souvenir. How much longer can you keep the keys you confiscated?" "He's on his way to reclaim them right now." Temp speaks, "So, you have at least a half an hour maybe more?" "At least." "Okay. So, tell forensics to forget about matching them to any locks. Have them image each key and send those to Zack, so he can find a key that matches the grooves on the bone. That shouldn't take long." "Image key, send to Zack. Right." Kenton then adds, "They're good, huh?" Booth looks at him as I give him a thumb up, "Told you."
We went back to Temps and my apartment for the night as Temp speaks, "Romano didn't give us anything, so we should probably be back at the lab." Booth then speaks, "No your squints can handle it. You both haven't sleep in over a day, all right? You need to get some rest. I'll sleep on the couch." Temp and I both stop walking as Temp asks, "You think you're staying here with us?" "Yeah. Nice place by the way, Bones, Blueberry." I smile, "Thanks but it's more of Temps place then mine." Temp then adds, "No, we're locked in here, Booth. We'll be fine." "Okay, look, I want you both to stay away from your windows, too. A sniper has a clear shot from any of the surrounding buildings." I nod making sure all the guns I placed in the hidden spots of the house are still there as Temp speaks. "We could've just stayed at the lab. The security's tight there." I nod adding in, "I am still trying to improve it a bit. Ya know, make it more secure then it already is." Booth then cuts in, "Then you would've worked, you would've gotten tired, and you would've been more vulnerable when you did go out. Trust me, this is the best, all right? So. Where's the TV?" I pipe in, "We had one, but it broke. But Temp mostly just reads and listens to music as I am always working on something new to build."
Booth nods looking at Temp, "So let's listen to some music, huh? Music." We both chuckle a bit as we watch Booth go through Temps CD's as I add, "Remember Ranger, all the music's are Temps music... Mine are in my room." He nods, "What do we got, Bones? Wow, world music. Uh... There's a shock. 'Tibetan Throat Singers.' Rock on, Bones." "That's... mostly for work." "Kanye West, Cat Power... Oh, oh, all right. Look at this. Man, that's a lot of jazz. Wow, I'd think all that free-form stuff would be a little bit too unpredictable for you." "No, I love it. The artist has to live within a set tonal structure and trust his own instincts to find his way out of an infinite maze of musical possibilities. And the great ones do." I look between the two as Booth looks at Temp as she asks, "What?" "No, nothing. I just, I just never expected that you would, you know... " "That I would love music? Well, I don't usually get to talk about it, but since you brought it up, I thought..." "No, hey, I didn't mean to make you self-conscious. Who, what's this? ha!" We watch as Booth takes out a disc and starts setting it up as Temp asks, "What is it?" "Nice." "Booth..."
We then start hearing a rock song as I start to jam out a little bit in the back of the room as Temp asks, "How did that..." "Ah, please! Everybody loves Foreigner, huh?" I was still rocking out a bit nodding my head, "That's true sis." Booth continues, "See. Even Blueberry likes them. 'Hot Blooded?' Talk about a guilt pleasure!" Temp sees that Booth and I are doing some dances with the song, and she starts joining in. Booth and Temp starts to sing together as I took a break from the dancing as my arm slinged arm was feeling a bit sore and I laughed a bit at the two and how they sang and danced. together. Then there was a phone call and Temp went to answer it. It was David and then when she hanged up, Booth then brought up, "Yeah, I hope he didn't think... No, because I wouldn't ... want to, you know, ruin things for you. Ruin anything." "Not a problem."
I decided to cut the tension off with a bit if a cough, "Do any of you want something to drink? I am feeling a bit thirsty...." Booth nods, "Yeah, that would be great." I nod heading towards the fridge as Booth speaks, "Here let me help you with that Blueberry." "Thank you." Booth comes over to me as he was behind me looking around, "Oh Ranger, the glasses, are in the cupboard right next to the fridge." He nods as he leans a bit over me and starts to open the cupboard as I opened the fridge sideways as it explodes. It sends Booth and I backwards onto the ground as glass shatters and the door of the fridge lands on top of us as we were a bit on fire. Temp turns around hearing the explosion and rushes to us with a blanket putting out the fire on us will we were knocked out.
-No Ones POV-
They are at the hospital as Venus and Booth were put in the same room as requested or more like demanded from Brennan and Booth. Venus was still knocked out as Booth was now awake talking to Brennan. "Kenton is on his way over. You have to promise me that you're going to stay with him." "I will." "Did they gather all the evidence from the explosion?" "Yes." "You're sure?" "Yes, Booth... I was there. They were very thorough. And I was very annoying." Booth sighs, "I am sorry, Booth. It should be me lying in that bed with Venus." "I'm fine, you know, I... I don't even know if I have to stay here. I understand Venus, but me..." "You got blown up with Ven." "I've been worse." "You both have burns, lacerations, two broken ribs, a greenstick fracture of the clavicle..." "Okay, we got blown up."
Booth then reaches for his pudding seeing that he finished it and looks at Brennan, "Can you... Can you hand me one of the puddings?" Brennan helps Booth as he watches excitedly, "Oh, man. Thanks Bones. Look at that. Oh..." Brennan than turns and looks at Venus who was still knocked out and grabbed her hand in comfort as Booth looks at the two. "I am sorry I couldn't protector her either." "No, it's okay... She would've felt even worse if you were the only one to get injured. She would probably have an episode and I wouldn't want that for her." He nods, "But still, I promised I would protect you both from this happening." Brennan sighs a bit, "I have seen her x-rays, it shows that she has a lot of fractures experience in these types of situations, and... and it also shows older fractures... that looks around the time after her and I were separated from each other." Booth just nods as Brennan collects herself and continued, "You know, on your X rays... there's a history of multiple fractures on your feet consistent with beating. It's a common method of torture in the Middle East, beating the soles of the feet with pipes or hoses." "Yeah, I know." "And there are indications of injuries sustained while you were shielding someone." "How the hell can you tell something like that?" "The scarring shows that the rib cage spread in such a way that..." "Yeah. Okay. A buddy of mine... he lost his weapon. I, uh... I tried. He didn't make it. You know, you shouldn't be looking at my X rays." "Sorry... Venus has some similar injuries like you, but it seemed that someone was protecting her instead..." "Yeah... She is a tough one... Being able to still keep a smile on her face and make others smile... It must be tough on her." Brennan nods, "But she has you... you're able to relate to her." "Yeah, but she also has you. She is always making sure you are happy; your happiness and safety makes her happy as well."
Brennan smiles a bit as someone knocks on the door. They look and see that it was Kenton walking in, "Hey. You look like crap, Booth. And I am sorry about your sister Dr. Brennan." Booth then speaks as Brennan gives him a small thank you, "Yeah, well, a little bit more of this pudding, I'll be just fine, you know? You stick with her." "Yeah. If you want me too. Do you know when Dr. Venus will wake up." Brennan sighs, "No, they are not sure when they will wake up. She is more injured than Booth as she took most of the blast since she was standing in front of him..." She then turns to Booth, "Don't you think I should be consulted? "No. Keep her close. I will be watching Blueberry here, so I will make sure to call you if she wakes up." Kenton nods, "Don't worry." Brennan nods.
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DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN "BONES". IT IS OWNED BY JOSEPHSON ENTERTAINMENT, BY HART HANSON. I ONLY CLAIM MY CHARACTER VENUS BRENNAN. I ALSO DON'T OWN ANY OF THE IMAGES. THANK YOU.