None of the bodies in Jorgensen’s house was as old as the bones that had turned up at the FBI and the Biograph.
Where were the other bodies?
Plus she had a sense that she was missing something, something obvious, and this feeling nagged at her like an aching tooth.
These victims of Jorgensen’s may have wound up in shallow graves, but the answer to the mystery of the two reconstructed skeletons remained buried deep.
In the yard with Booth and Greene, Brennan watched the loading of the last of the bodies into the coroner’s van.
As the vehicle drew away, Dr. Wu approached. She had removed her coveralls and stood before them in faded jeans and a vintage Rolling Stones tee shirt, looking more groupie than scientist.
“I’m outa here, people,” Dr. Wu said. “It’s been… unique.”
Brennan gave the woman a brisk handshake. “Thank you for all your help.”
“Thanks for the opportunity to dig in next to you. An honor and a privilege.”
Brennan grinned. “Back at ya.”
Booth and Greene each shook hands with the doctor, and as she walked away, Greene gave them a wave and followed after her, both casting long shadows in the setting sun.
Soon Brennan and Booth were alone in the yard. The crime scene unit would be going back down into the crawlspace, but Brennan and Booth were done for the day.
She felt both tired and restless. As usual after a hard dig, she craved some alone time. Though she liked Booth, and if pressed would admit to enjoying the man’s company, the last thing she wanted to do now was spend an hour in a car with him commuting back to the hotel.
She looked up at him. “Booth, I need a favor.”
In the gathering darkness, Booth gazed at her. “Anything.”
“Call for a ride, and let me borrow your car.”
“Well… no.”
She glared at him. “Not ten seconds ago, you said, ‘anything.’ ”
“That’s why I didn’t say ‘hell no.’ ”
“Give me one good reason, why ‘hell no.’ ”
“For one thing,” he said casually, “you don’t know your way around this city.”
“How would you know whether I do or not?”
“Oh, well, for starters, in the car? Going from the airport to the Biograph? You didn’t know squat about Old Town.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll call a cab.” She turned to stomp off, but he moved and blocked her path.
“Bones! I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
“Look, Booth,” she said, her voice icy. “I’m an adult, I have an above-average IQ, and I’m literate enough to read signs and a map. By myself, I found my way to mass graves in Guatemala, Bosnia, and half a dozen other countries around the globe. I don’t need you to take me anywhere.”
Booth backed away. “Whoa… why so testy all of a sudden?”
She flushed. “Sorry. End of a long day.”
“Right. So I’ll drop you at your hotel.”
He started toward the car, and she moved with him.
Trying not to sound whiny, she said, “I don’t want to go anywhere. What I want is some time alone.”
He stopped and she stopped and he studied her for a long time without saying anything.
Finally, he reached into his pocket and got out his cell phone. He dialed a number, his eyes never leaving her face. He wasn’t just looking at her — he was looking… deeper than that.
In fact, his stare was so intense, it made her uncomfortable.
“Woolfolk,” he said, “I’m at the Jorgensen house — I need a ride. Come get me.”
A pause and squawk from the cell.
Booth frowned. “Just come and get me, all right? That’s what partners are for.”
Another pause, then Booth clicked off and dropped the cell phone into his pocket. From the other pocket, he withdrew the car keys and handed them to her. “The map’s in the glove box.”
The keys felt warm in her hand.
“Thank you,” she said. “I guess I owe you one.”
He nodded. “At least one…. Get out of here.”
She turned to leave, feeling a little guilty leaving him standing there alone, but knowing that she needed to be by herself right now.
Booth’s voice came from behind her. “Pick me up in the morning.”
Smiling, she turned and said, “Is that an order?”
He grinned. “Damn straight. I’ll be in the lobby at seven a.m. Don’t be late.”
“Don’t you be.”
The car started easily and she pulled away from the house, watching Booth watching her leave.
Had his words to Woolfolk — That’s what partners are for — really been meant for her?
Whatever the case, it felt good to be driving, to be in control, to be alone and to be free.
She drove aimlessly at first, sticking to the surface streets, avoiding the expressway. She rolled down the window, the cool autumn air blowing her hair as she cruised along the long stretches of road.
Out here in the far suburbs, city and country mixed and mingled. She could travel long stretches seeing nothing but shadowy woods, and an occasional set of oncoming headlights.
Other times, the world was mile after mile of big retail stores, restaurants, gas stations, convenience stores, and strip malls filled with coffee shops and other small businesses.
She turned off her brain, let the cool air rush over her, and just drove, forgetting about the bodies, the defacement of the corpses, all of it. Letting go of the sadness that had crept in when she thought of the families these bony reminders of humanity represented.
Then, slowly, her mind turned to other things.
She thought about her friends back in DC, and then various thoughts about Booth traveled through her mind, in particular the case he had been working on here in Chicago, before she arrived… searching for the missing informant Stewart Musetti….
And then she had an idea.
7
The map in the glove compartment led Temperance Brennan to Oak Brook, a suburb of high-end stores, businesses, and nine thousand or so citizens.
As she rolled along the road around a ritzy open-air mall, she saw what she was looking for.
Just beyond a Cheesecake Factory loomed a formidable freestanding one-story structure with white stucco walls and an orange tile roof, all meant to put the visitor in mind of the sunny shores of Sicily.
The sign on the front said SIRACUSA.
Famished suddenly — and for some strange reason, just dying for Italian — Brennan pulled into the lot and found a spot for Booth’s Crown Victoria.
Even for someone who worked out as regularly as Brennan, opening the restaurant’s darkwood door with the wrought-iron handle was like lifting the heavy weights. This conveyed an old-fashioned, the man-gets-the-door mentality that suited the Old World design of the exterior.
Within, that same theme — and vibe — pertained, dark wood and dark support beams and dark-cushioned booths and just plain darkness, with pools of light provided not so much from electricity but the de rigueur red-and-white-checker tablecloths with their red-glass candleholders. The dining room was mostly full, the dinner crowd brisk — a fairly even mix of couples and families.
A partitioned-off bar area to the left seemed largely illuminated by a pair of flat-screen plasmas high behind the counter with the same baseball game playing in silence. The changing lights of the TVs gave the bar an eerie, almost underwater glow.
Frank Sinatra was singing “The Best Is Yet to Come,” a little loud for background music, as if the Chairman of the Board (deceased or not) demanded attention.