Chapter 4 - Embedded

Booth took two quick steps and pulled the door open. He spotted the still clearly annoyed Sweets three quarters of the way across the lab and hollered, "Sweets! Get your ass back in here, Cam found something!"

Sweets stopped dead in his tracks, turning slowly back toward Booth. A huge grin lit his face, and he started to jog across the lab. He slipped past Booth into the autopsy room, his grin widening when he saw the startled looks on Cam and Brennan's faces. "What is it?" he asked breathlessly. "What did you find and where was it located?"

Cam gestured to the draped tray next to the autopsy table. "That's it. It was embedded in the heart." She shook her head. "I've got to say, that's a new one for me."

Sweets leaned over the tray, reaching out a hand.

"Don't touch it," Brennan snapped. "Hodgins will have to swab it first, there may be particulates we can use."

Sweets withdrew his hand sharply, but leaned closer to the object. "It looks like..." He paused, lifting his gaze to the others in the room. "It's a heart."

No further discussion was needed for the moment. Brennan left to tell the interns examining the previous bodies to look for other objects in or near the bodies, possibly heart-shaped. Cam snatched up the tray, whisking the item away to Hodgins for analysis and cleaning. Booth pulled out his phone as he left the room to check with the forensics teams to see if they'd found anything unusual in their analysis.

Sweets was left alone to stare in their wake, shaking his head in frustrated amusement.

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Several hours later, the team gathered back on the platform to hear the results of the varied investigative avenues. Cam gestured to Hodgins to begin.

"I wasn't able to retrieve anything useful in the way of particulates, I'm afraid. It had been cleaned pretty well before it was inserted into the body," Hodgins said. "But I did find something interesting." He turned to the computer and punched a few buttons. An enlarged picture of the object appeared on the various video screens surrounding them. "As you can see, it is heart-shaped, as Sweets thought. However, notice the marks around the edges?" He further enlarged the picture, focusing on the edges of the shape. "Those are tool marks. This thing was hand-crafted."

"Hand-crafted? Hand-crafted from what?" Booth asked, a frown creasing his face as he leaned closer to the computer screen.

Hodgins grinned and bounced on the balls of his feet, clearly excited about this portion of his findings. "Excellent question, Booth, thank you for asking."

Booth rolled his eyes and gestured for Hodgins to get on with his explanation. Cam also flashed the scientist her patented glare.

Grin still in place, Hodgins switched views on the monitors to a chemical analysis. "Ladies and gentlemen, meet Rhamnus zeyheri, otherwise known as Pink Ivory. It's an exotic species, found primarily in South Africa and Zimbabwe. It was long known as the royal wood of the Zulu tribe and in the 1900's, it was said that non-royal owners would be subject to death if found in possession of the wood. Nowadays, it's favored by wood carvers to make smaller items, like our heart here, because of its color."

Booth cleared his throat, interrupting Hodgins' dissertation. "Yeah, right, got it, it's lovely. What can you tell us about the tools and can you tell us where someone would lay hands on this stuff here in the States."

Hodgins switched the view yet again, and this time it was a series of pictures of woodworker's tools. "This type of wood is quite dense, so it requires sharp tools. I'm still working on exact models, but I should have something shortly. As far as suppliers go, there are only a few places you can get this stuff. No one local, but there are several internet sites selling it."

"Alright, get me the list of those websites and I'll get a warrant for their client lists," Booth replied, already opening his phone to call Charlie and get him started on the warrants.

Brennan stepped forward next, taking the computer input from Hodgins. "Once the team had something more concrete to look for, they were able to locate what remained of the wooden hearts in all but two of the remains." She tapped a few keys and images of 18 wooden hearts, in varying stages of completeness, appeared on the screen. "Hodgins has been able to determine that all the objects bear the same tool marks and appear to have been carved by the same person."

Booth sighed, rolling his head from side to side, trying to loosen the tension in his shoulders. "Ok, great, we know the guy killed all these girls, and we know he carved these heart things. Maybe we'll get something from those suppliers." He turned his attention back to Brennan. "Do we have a murder weapon yet?"

"Yes," Brennan replied, as she pulled up yet another image on the screens. "It's a standard issue Marine KA-BAR knife."

Booth waved a hand, shaking his head. "You can get those things at any militay surplus store. Common as dirt."

Hodgins snorted and rolled his eyes. "While I hate the term "dirt," he said, making quotation marks in the air as he said it, "this one has something a little un-common about it."

Rolling his eyes, Booth said, "Fine, common as...something common. Whatever. So what's special about this completely common sort of knife?"

Hodgins pulled up the pictures of the wound reconstrutions and zoomed in on the edges. "As you can see, the wound track is smooth most of the way around, as it should be for this type of knife. However, if you look at the base of the wound, there's a very small change in the kerf marks."

Booth stared at Hodgins with his best glazed too-much-squint-talk face.

"There's a knick in the blade at the base of the knife," Hodgins said simply.

Booth clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Ok, a knick in the blade! We can work with that. If we find a knife, we should be able to match it back up to the marks. Why didn't you say that in the first place?"

Brennan and Hodgins exchanged looks. "But he did say that, Booth, twice now," Brennan said, looking at him curiously.

Booth snickered, and turned to step down off the platform. "Uh, yeah, whatever, Bones. I'm going back to the Hoover to see how Charlie's doing with those warrants and see where Sweets is on the updated profile. Call me if you find anything else, ok?"

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Gentle snicking was the only sound filling the air, and that was how he liked it. It was important to him to be able to spend time here in his workshop. The smell of the wood, the feel of it beneath his fingers, the soft sounds of the tools as he chipped away at it, forming it into the exact shape he wanted. It was heaven. There were never any disappointments here. The wood would do exactly as he desired, it could be molded to his will. It was perfect.

He had always seen the shapes in the wood. Could tell they wanted to come out, wanted to be released from their confines. Needed to be released. And he could help them. In his hands, he could free the shapes, make them come to life.

He sighed softly, carefully running his hands over the wood, feeling for defects, making sure he was pulling the shape out exactly as it should be. He had seen someone today, someone new. He smiled to himself, whistling tunelessly as he smoothed the rough edges of his latest piece. It was a larger composition than he normally worked on, but this one was important. He'd finally found the one, the one he'd been searching for for so long.

And this piece had to be just right for her.

A/N: I know, I know, it's been forever and a day since I worked on this, but I'm afraid my muse has completely left the building lately! This chapter is only existence thanks to the persistent persistence (read: harassment) of MaliBearsBuddy, jsq & Misery Maker. They are a lovely, if pushy bunch, and this is dedicated for them! If you're not reading their excellent work on this site, you should be! I'm really going to try to get this finished, so if anyone's still out there reading this, I appreciate your patience.