A/N (For anyone who actually reads these): Ok, after a really long absence I'm trying this again. Just a couple of notes: this chapter is really short, I know. Its meant to be more of an introduction, not really a chapter. Just something to see if any of you are intrigued. Also, the storyline assumes that B&B have worked on this case in the past but he does not appear in the television show. Its mainly about the crime but I will find times to throw some angst/romance in, like all good Bones stories! Finally, this story falls at the end of the Bones timeline but essentially ignores the amnesia bit because I'm waiting to see exactly how the show plays that storyline out.

Chpt. 1 Riddle me this, Riddle me that…

Riddlemybones: Dr. Temperance Brennan?

Doc206: Yes. Who is this?

Riddlemybones: "I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true. When they wrote that I killed the President, I knew my acting days were through. And now I stand in magnificent splendor where the trees of Tokyo once grew."

You have 20 minutes to arrive at the designated location. Alone, Dr. Brennan, or he dies.

Riddles riddle the mind like bullets were designed.

**Riddlemybones has signed off**

For the first time in her life, Brennan's brain was failing her. It had simply shut off. She couldn't hear that persistent voice that would normally tell her that brains don't just shut off. She couldn't see herself calculating, even as she seamlessly deciphered the clues. She couldn't feel the instinct that should remind her to act rationally. And all she could taste was a metallic tinge of pooling saliva she didn't recognize as panic.

Perhaps some part of her brain shouted for reason: she should tell someone where she was going; she should wait for some kind of proof; she should call Booth. There were a hundred things she could do that were more responsible, more safe, than moving at the command of a murderer. But she knew that line: 'Riddles riddle the mind like bullets were designed.' It was the same line he spoke, with a somehow boyish smile, when she and her partner had found him standing over the body of a young girl that was, well, riddled with bullets. And she knew there could be no hesitation. His life hung on her ability to get to him in twenty minutes. Leaving her laptop open on her desk, she grabbed her keys and cell phone and began racing through the lab.

"Bren, whoa, why the hurry?"

"I can't Ange. I…" but Angela couldn't hear the rest of her friend's explanation because Brennan was already out the door.

Swiping her card, Angela stepped onto the controlled platform. "What was that all about?"

"What was what all about?" Jack Hodgins swung towards her in his chair.

"Brennan. Didn't you see, she just ran out of her office like someone was tainting evidence in the parking lot."

"Its called the 6:00 stampede. I'm surprised you've never heard of it." Camille Saroyan smirked over the unidentified remains of two firefighters killed in a Christmas tree blaze.

"Yeah and its Brennan," Angela rebuked. "She wouldn't know what that phrase meant, much less be a participant. I only saw her for instant but she looked… scared," Angela realized. "She looked scared."

"Dr. Brennan doesn't do scared, Angela, any more than she does the stampede. I'm sure she was just called for a case."

"According to the Royal Society of Health, half of all women and ten percent of men have a fear, to varying degrees, of spiders." At Dr. Saroyan's hard glare, Mr. Nigel-Murray shrugged, "perhaps Dr. Brennan was running from her office to escape a spider."

While the women stared at him with a mixture of annoyance and incredulity, Hodgins shook his head. "No, he's right. You said Dr. B was running from her office, right Ange? So the answer is there. We'll look around and see--its probably nothing but you'll feel better if we look around."

When they stepped into her office, the 'Squint Squad' could see nothing immediately out of place: no suspiciously unmarked packages, no different-than-usual body parts or weapons, no scattered papers or displays overturned in haste. Even her open lap top seemed innocuous. Smiling at the screensaver that flashed waving fingers and the phrase 'dancing phalanges, dancing phalanges' in rapid succession, Cam cocked her head.

"Hey, Angela, this screensaver? When did that happen?"

Distracted, and frustrated that the others didn't feel the same dread slithering up their spines, Angela didn't turn around. "Its something Booth put there as a joke. Brennan was impressed he figured out how to design a screensaver so she kept it."

Intrigued, Hodgins leaned over to see the new graphics but he bumped the desk when he moved and the screensaver flashed off. "Oh my God…"

Without a word Cam reached for the phone. "Booth, damnit, answer your phone. You need to get to the Jeffersonian. Now. The Riddler's back."