“Did you try a female agent?”
Booth’s brow knit. “No — you really think that’d make a difference? That’s a little sexist, coming from you, Bones.”
“Not sexist, or reverse sexist, either. Realist.” She sat back in her chair. “Some women are just more comfortable talking to other women.”
He waved that off. “Maybe, but I don’t think Ms. Vitto knows anything, anyway. She didn’t know where Musetti’s safe house was, so she couldn’t have set him up, unintentionally or otherwise.”
“Are you sure Musetti didn’t tell her?”
“Nothing’s certain in this world, but the guy was under our thumb, 24/7.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Well, he was till they snatched him.”
“That was cold, Bones — but accurate. Still, it would’ve been tough for Musetti to set this up himself to disappear… and, if he did, Ms. Vitto hasn’t gone to meet him yet…. Nah, there’s no way she could know anything. We’re just fishing.”
“I have a suggestion.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“If we concentrate on the case at hand, we can get you back on that mob inquiry, sooner than later.”
Booth didn’t want to hear this, but he knew Brennan was right.
One thing at a time.
Finish the Skel case, then back to Musetti. Other agents were taking up his slack on that investigation, anyway — and he’d been getting daily written reports.
Amounting to zip.
They eventually exited the Starbucks and meandered back to the car, then drove to the nearest twenty-four-hour Kinko’s/FedEx, and sent the first skeleton’s worth of bones to the Jeffersonian.
At night, the hallways of the Jeffersonian Museum could seem spooky to Angela Montenegro.
Tall, with curly dark hair falling to her shoulders, Angela — a scientist with the Jeffersonian’s anthropology department — had the heart of an artist.
The work here with Dr. Temperance Brennan and the rest creeped her out at times, and more than once she’d considered tendering her resignation.
But in the end, her loyalty to Brennan won out.
Tonight, Angela — in dark slacks and a short-sleeved black blouse beneath her blue lab coat — walked the corridor toward the lab with soft drink in one hand, package of Twinkies in the other, not noticing anything even remotely spooky.
The rest of the team was in the lab — except for their fearless leader, of course, who was in Chicago with Booth and doing God only knew what. That thought caused a sneaky smile to cross her lips and she dismissed it just as quickly.
Actually, with the workload getting heavier by the day, Angela was wishing her best friend was at her side and not in the Windy City.
She opened the door into the lab and stood for a second, taking in the familiar but impressive surroundings. Unlike the staid, academic quality of the rest of the museum, the lab had an otherworldly air.
The Medico-Legal Laboratory — which had the ability to seal itself in airtight Plexiglas in case of a biohazard emergency — gave off a science-fiction vibe with its stainless-steel framing, Plexiglas backlit worktables, and translucent storage units consuming several walls.
On the other hand, the higher you looked, the more the place seemed like an old-time European railroad station; she’d seen a number of these on trips to the continent with her musician father.
The open-beamed ceiling consisted of translucent panels letting in light by day and giving the sensation of the beams melting into the dark sky at night. Somehow, that made the chamber appear even brighter under its harsh fluorescent lighting.
Brennan’s assistant, the oh-so-young Zach Addy, leaned over a table to her left, bones laid out in their basic anatomic position, the chalky array maintaining a hypnotic hold on his bespectacled eyes. To her right, gaze glued to a microscope, curly-haired Jack Hodgins studied some bug or other.
They were a disparate bunch, thrown together in this lab by their gathered talents and fate, each with his or her own set of foibles, habits, and annoyances (both given and taken).
Brennan, their queen bee, hovered over the hive and, despite her occasional lack of social graces, the anthropologist had somehow overseen their growth from hodgepodge of “squints,” as Booth called them, to the family they now were.
On her belt, her cell phone chirped. She jammed the Twinkies into the pocket of her lab coat, hiding the evidence.
The cell rang again and both Zach and Hodgins’s heads popped up, frowning at the interruption, each looking around like a prairie dog sensing imminent danger.
Snatching the phone off her belt, Angela answered on the third ring.
“It’s me,” Brennan said, sounding tired.
“What’s up, sweetie?” Angela asked right away. “You and Booth up to no good?”
“No, this is something else.”
Angela grinned. “Should I ask? Is it dirty?”
“…When I get back, you and I need to talk.”
“What?” Angela asked, almost offended. “I can’t be concerned about your social life? What kind of friend would I be if I ignored—”
“A great friend,” Brennan said cheerfully, then pushed on: “I’ve sent you a package at the museum. I need you, Zach, and Jack to run all the tests you can, and tell me everything there is to know about what’s inside.”
“What is inside?”
“An entire skeleton… only it’s not just one body.”
“I know it’s your line, honey, but — I don’t know what that means.”
“It means there’s enough bones to make a skeleton, but multiple bodies provided them. Somebody assembled a sort of… fake skeleton, real though the individual parts may be.”
“Parts is parts, huh?”
“I don’t know what that means, Angela.”
“Are you making fun of me, sweetie?”
“Possibly — but for sure I need you to identify how many people comprise this one skeleton; and, if possible, ID them.”
“Oh, is that all?”
“And I need it an hour ago.”
Angela glanced toward Zach and Hodgins.
They must have realized she was talking to Brennan and now were moving slowly toward her, friendly stalkers.
Into the phone she said, “You are making fun of me… and the sick part is, you’re even starting to sound like Booth. Y’know, I’m not sure you two should be spending so much time together.”
“Well, you can think about that till my package arrives; then get right on it.”
“You know we will, sweetie.” Angela closed her phone.
“We will… what?” Hodgins asked, suspicious.
Hodgins thought everything from the government to television to his breakfast cereal was part of some conspiracy or other to keep the regular people from finding out the truth — whatever that might be.
Generally, Angela considered her colleague just a little off center; but when his conspiracy theories sounded especially plausible, as they sometimes did, he scared her a little.
“We’re going to test the skeleton that Temperance is FedExing to us.”
“Hmm,” Hodgins said, skepticism in his voice but the hint of a smile at a corner of his mouth. He did love his work. “That’s it?” he asked.
“We do that all the time,” Zach piped in, in a no biggie manner.
“This one’s a little different,” she said, popping the top on her soda.
“Different?” they asked together. “How?”
“One skeleton,” she said. “Multiple donors….”
Booth parked the Crown Vic under the hotel’s portico. He got the door for Brennan, then helped her get her bag out of the trunk.
“Are you coming to the museum with me tomorrow?” Brennan asked him.