"Victim one is Julie Richeson, thirty-one, from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Last seen while on a school field trip with her son's second grade class to D.C. Her husband received a call from the kidnapper asking for a hundred thousand dollars in ransom." Angela spoke briskly, obviously fighting her natural desire to weep in empathy to the family. "The kidnapper gave him proof of life, put Julie on the phone for a moment, and one week to get the money. The husband, David, mortgaged his business to raise the money. He made the drop and never heard anything more. That was eight weeks ago and there are no leads."

"Hodgins put the time of death at least nine weeks ago." Brennan frowned and glanced at Cam, who stood beside her.

"Blowflies never lie." Hodgins intoned piously from the doorway, leaning against the doorframe.

"So the kidnapper must've killed her immediately after making the ransom demand." Angela's mouth turned down and her eyes welled. "He had no intention of returning her to her family. Bastard."

"What about victim number two?" Cam asked. Angela pressed buttons on her handheld device, bringing up new images on her 3D screen.

"Michaela Black, twenty-eight, a D.C. native. She was a real estate agent. Last seen leaving her office the night of the 12th. Her husband, Christopher, was traveling on business in Sacramento at the time and didn't know she was gone until he returned home on the 14th. There were over thirty hang-ups on the home answering machine. He got the ransom call later on the 14th. Same story, this time a quarter of a million dollars." Angela concluded. "They were both redheads – natural too."

"Time of death was around the 14th." Hodgins added. "So she was killed the same day the ransom demand was made, even though the kidnapper gave the husband a week to get the money together. I'm still working on the soil samples. Maybe I can give you an idea of where they were held and killed…and who killed them."

"Tox screen showed both were drugged before they were strangled. Also, no defense wounds I can find." Cam chimed in.

Brennan frowned at the images of the two women then turned toward the door. "I'll tell Booth." She said, brushing past Hodgins and walking out the door.

Booth was bouncing a tennis ball off the back wall of his office when she walked through the door. She started talking without preamble, as usual, and startled him into dropping the ball. "We've ID'd both sets of remains. They were both kidnap victims, killed the same day the ransom demands were made, both strangled as I initially thought." Brennan handed the forensics file across the desk, Booth took it and opened it, hunching over it. Brennan braced her hands on the desk and leaned over his dark head pointing at various items in the file, telling herself she wasn't inhaling a little deeper because he smelled so good.

"As you can see, the bruising patterns in the remaining flesh indicate large hands, most likely male. Hodgins is still working to see if there is any evidence contained in the surrounding soil." She continued with her head bent over his.

Booth abruptly sat up and Brennan jumped back to avoid having her chin connect with the crown of his head. "Thanks, Bones."

"You're welcome." She replied. "We should have more for you this afternoon." She turned to leave Booth's office.

"Hey, Bones hold up." Booth got up and rounded his desk to close his office door. Brennan gave him her attention. "What do you think about this whole…uh, physical relationship thing?"

"Much as I hate to admit it, Sweets does have a point, we are physically quite comfortable with one another. But, I don't perceive it as a problem."

"Neither do I, you know? So why are we acting sort of squirrely around each other?" Booth cocked his head to the side.

"We're acting like rodents….?" Brennan's eyebrows drew together in consternation.

"You know, squirrely. Antsy. Self-conscious."

Brennan nodded. "Well, I suppose I hadn't realized how comfortable I had become with physical contact with you and now I am very aware of it. I'm sure it's temporary. Our level of physical intimacy is quite comfortable to me."

Booth flexed his shoulders uncomfortably. "It just sounds icky when you say it like that."

"Well, I find our physical relationship, to use Sweets' term, quite adequate and satisfactory."

"You do?" Booth's face fell slightly.

"Yes, given our professional relationship I think it isn't inappropriate."

"Hm." Booth grunted. He moved to open the office door for her. "Well, let me know when you've got more info on the dirt from Hodgins. I'm going to check our databases to see if I can find any similar cases."

Brennan moved out the door, pausing to place a light hand on Booth's forearm and smile gently at him. He glanced down at his slim fingers, briefly patting them with his own hand and smiling back. After the exited, he muttered. "Adequate. Satisfactory."

"Doctor Brennan!" Hodgins came bounding up as she swiped her security card for the lab platform. "Check it out!" He thrust a glass petri dish of soil at her.

"What am I looking at?" Brennan asked, studying the dish.

"Soil sample." Hodgins said with annoyed twist of his lips. "Guess what? It's non-native to the campground. This soil came from somewhere else and guess what else?"

"Tell me."

"It's covered the bodies of our two victims and it is incredibly nickel and magnesium rich." Hodgins looked at Brennan eagerly.

"What does that mean?" Brennan asked, still not catching Hodgins' enthusiasm. Disappointment crossed his face again.

"It means there are only two places in the area it could've come from. One is a working mining facility but, get this, the other is an abandoned quarry about fourteen miles from where we found our victims. I pulled up the satellite photos and there are empty buildings on the site." Hodgins eyebrows rose and wiggled. "King of the Lab?"

Brennan sighed. "King of the Lab." She confirmed, rolling her eyes.

Hodgins grinned and swaggered back to his station.

"Email the GPS location of both locations to me. I'll update Booth." Brennan called after him. She walked quickly to her office to grab her field gear.

"Hodgins found the location the women might've been held." Brennan said, walking briskly back into Booth's office. He held up a finger.

"Okay." He said into the telephone. "Yes, thank you. Thank you. Look, I may have something right now. Let me call you back." He pressed the button on his cell phone and looked up. "Please tell me something came up. We just got news of another missing female thirty-two, natural redhead, married…"

"Hodgins maybe have found the location the victims were held." Brennan held out her iPhone and Booth glanced over the information. He jumped to his feet, grabbing his jacket.

"Let's go. If this is another kidnap by the same guy maybe we can get there before the ransom call comes in." Keeping his arm at her waist, they jogged to the elevators. Booth was already making calls.

In the car, a sense of tense urgency consumed the partners as both were making and answering phone calls, dreading that the next would tell them a ransom demand had been made.

"Turn on the siren, Booth!" Brennan said urgently as they bounced down a disused gravel road, following the GPS coordinates provided by Hodgins to the abandoned site. "We're not going to make it there in time…and he'll…he'll…" She turned wide eyes toward her partner.

The muscles in Booth's jaw clenched. "I know! I'm driving as fast as I can to still keep us in one piece. The siren can't make us go faster – there's no traffic right now." He said somewhat sharply. He sighed, his expression softened and he briefly glanced at Brennan's tense and pale face. He reached up and flipped on the siren. "We'll get there, Bones. Maybe it's not even the same guy." He murmured gently. He was trying to sound reassuring and confident, but it came out more like a prayer. Ten minutes passed, seeming like an eternity, until they reached the first of three dilapidated buildings surrounded by rusted equipment and piles of rubble.

They exited the car and Booth drew his weapon. "Stay behind me." He ordered. Brennan nodded. They approached the building, the smallest of the three and Booth paused briefly before quickly and silently opening the door. There were only four rooms, containing mostly tools, all empty of evidence of recent human presence. "Next." Booth murmured to Brennan, earning another nod.

"I should have a gun." She whispered to him. Booth gave an exasperated sigh and paused before giving in and removing the pistol from his ankle and handing it to her.

"Self-defense only, got it?" He said fiercely. Brennan smiled.

The second building was larger and as they approached Booth hissed. "There's a new padlock on the outside of the door." They met each others' eyes briefly and Booth's cell vibrated in his pocket. With a sense of dread, he checked the screen.

"Ransom demand just made." Read the text message. Booth showed it to Brennan, stowed the phone in his pocket, turned to the padlock, and matter-of-factly shot it off. He burst into the building at a run, Brennan following close behind.

The gunshot caused chaos in the building and the partners followed the sounds to a small back room where a short, barrel-chested man had his hands around the throat of a red haired woman. She was fighting him tooth and nail and had made bloody scratches on his face.

"Let go of her and step back with your hands up!" Booth barked, sighting his gun on the man. The man laughed and shoved the redhead into Booth. Booth caught the woman and tucked her behind his body just as the man, who had picked up a shovel, swung for Booth's head. Booth caught the blow on his forearm and managed to slam his fist into the man's nose, breaking it and causing a gush of blood. The man staggered and swung the shovel again, his aim was off but he managed to clip Booth's head and momentarily stunned him. The man made a run for the door but failed to see Brennan just outside the room.

Brennan slammed the butt of the pistol she was carrying into the side of the man's face and brought her knee up savagely into his crotch. He dropped to the ground, gagging. Booth landed on top of him like a brick wall, cuffing his wrist behind his back just as sirens sounded outside heralding the arrival of backup.

FBI jackets swarmed into the room, helping the victim out of the building and half-dragging, half-carrying the groaning perp behind her. Booth was still kneeling on the floor, trying to get his balance after the blow to his head. Brennan reached down to offer a hand to Booth, who took it and rose to his feet.

Their eyes met, locked, and Brennan weakly tugged her hand. Booth tightened his grip and held fast, still staring intensely into her eyes. "Screw Sweets." He said succinctly, lacing their fingers together and led her out of the room. They walked out of the building hand in hand, shoulders brushing, and Booth gave Brennan's hand one last squeeze before a paramedic dragged him away to get his head injury checked.

Brennan stood alone in the chaotic scene. She looked down at the hand Booth had squeezed, it was tingling. She rubbed her hands together, looked a Booth's retreating back, and gave a deep inhale and exhale. Something had just changed in a moment and she was disconcerted to find that, somehow, she didn't know that she had been waiting for this all along.