Chapter 4: Tension

“I want to know everything and anything about what happened last night. I want the fire fighters reports, I want a complete run down of his credit cards, cell phone, home phone, emails and I want to talk to everyone he had contact with yesterday. Except the squints, they obviously didn’t do it.” Booth had been shouting orders at people all day. From Hodgins to Denny and anyone else who fell in his path. The only person who had been spared his wrath was Brennen, and that was only because he was only repeating the orders she’d been shouting at him all morning.

“That shouldn’t take too long,” said Hodgins, looking down his microscope.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” snapped Booth. Usually he didn’t pay too much attention to the youngest doctor, but today Zach was not just a scientist, but a lost colleague, maybe even a friend. Hodgins looked up at Booth.

“Well, Zach doesn’t have a credit card, he doesn’t drive and he doesn’t exactly know a lot of people outside the lab. I have access to his home phone, since it’s on my property, and I can in fact hack into his email from work.”

“Then why aren’t you doing any of that?”

“Hey, don’t act like we don’t care. He was more then just a ‘squint’ to us, he was a friend. We’re trying to figure out what happened, so give us a chance to do our jobs!”

“Are you saying I don’t care about Zach?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“You’re wrong, Hodgins.”

“Really, because I’m certain you’ve never said more then a dozen words to Zach at any given time since you met him. Tell me, oh great FBI agent, did you really care about him or he just a scientist who meant something to Brennen?”

“Hey, maybe we weren’t best friends like you two, but that does not mean that he meant any less to me then he did to you!”

“Guys!” shouted Brennen, walking up to Booth and Hodgins. “We’re all rattled, and we’re all in shock. We just need to do our jobs and find who did this. Can we do that without killing each other?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Hodgins.

“Sure,” added Booth.

“Good. Booth, we should go down to Garcia’s and ask if they saw anything.”

“I’ll meet you in the car. Hodgins, I’m sorry I snapped. Can you start looking through his stuff?”

“Sure thing, Booth.” Brennen and Booth left, and Hodgins wiped away a tear that threatened to fall.

“I’ve never seen them like this,” said Zach, sitting in the chair beside Hodgins. Claire sat on the table beside the computer.

“People get weird when they loose someone close.”

“I never thought I was close to any of them. I mean, I’ve lived with Hodgins for a long time, and Brennen is my role model, but I never really knew Booth. I got the feeling he never really liked me.”

“You’d be surprised what you can learn about people just by listening to them when they think no one’s there. No one’s there.” Zach looked at her quickly, trying to figure out why she’d repeated the last part.

“What?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing. I just…why’d you repeat the last part, the ‘no one’s there’?”

“I didn’t.”

“Okay, I must’ve been mistaken.”

“It’s alright. What do you remember?”

“Not a lot. I was on a date with Grace, we went to a little Spanish restaurant downtown. I can’t remember the name, which really bothers me because I don’t forget details easily. After that it’s blank until this morning. When I woke up I felt like I was on fire, every muscle ached and I didn’t want to get up.”

“That’s pretty good, most people don’t remember the last twenty-four hours leading up to the…I’m sorry, this isn’t helping is it?”

“Not really. Hey! Stop, look at…he can’t hear me.”

“No, he can’t. What’d you see?”

“An email from Garcia’s, confirmation for the dinner reservation yesterday.”

“Hey, you still got you’re cell phone on you?”

“Yeah.”

“Go put it on a table somewhere in the lab, where they’ll hear it if it rings.”

“Okay, why?”

“Just go.” Zach walked over to the rack of lab coats and slipped his cell phone into the pocket of his coveralls. Claire walked over to one of the lab phones and picked it up.

“Come over here and phone your cell.”

“Why?”

“So it’ll ring and get his attention,” she said, indicating to Hodgins, who had moved on to Zach’s online date book.

“So he’ll go check that out, and we can print off the email and add my dinner reservations to the date book.”

“Then they’ll have a direction. You’re catching on, now come over here and dial. By the way, your cell phone didn’t register you checking your voice mail this morning.”

“How’s that…you know what, I don’t want to know.”

“Sure you do, but I’m not sure how it works, so I can’t be of any help there.” Zach picked up the phone and dialled, a moment later his ring tone played lightly through the lab, causing Hodgins to look up from the computer. He walked over to the coats towards the music. Zach hung up the phone and dashed over to the computer, adding his reservation and pulling up his email. He printed the reservation off and smiled at Claire.

Beep…beep…beep

“Did you hear that?” he asked.

“Hear what?”

“A buzzing sound, like an alarm clock or something?”

“Probably the computer.”

“Probably.” Hodgins turned around at the sound of the printer and walked over to the computer, dropping into his chair seconds after Zach moved out of the way.

“You know he can’t sit on you.”

“That doesn’t make it any less weird. Like when Booth walked through me. I felt something, the strange cold feeling you’re supposed to feel when you walk through a ghost, but he seemed unaffected.”

“It happens.”

“What, me feeling cold and tingly and him being completely unaffected?”

“Yeah. Not all ghost lore is true, Zach. Most of it is made up by fanatics in their basement.”

“Angela!” shouted Hodgins, standing up and bolting towards her office.

“I think he got the message,” said Zach.

“Or you totally freaked him out.”