Discovery

Chapter 7

Unsurprisingly, Sweets was in his office, even though it was the weekend. Like Booth, he was bogged down in paperwork regarding the case, as well as some paperwork from sessions he'd had during the week with several Agents While having sessions with agents was a difficult job, the most difficult by far was Booth and Dr. Brennan. It made Sweets flinch just thinking about it. They were so in love with each other, and yet they were so blind to it, it was ridiculous.
A knocking on the door made Sweets jump. Who the heck would come and see him on a Saturday morning? When Booth came in, Sweets' question was answered.
"Agent Booth, what can I do for you today?" Sweets pleasantly asked, picking up a pen and drumming it lightly on his desk. There was a look in Booth's eyes though that made Sweets stop. Something was bothering the agent.
"You're good at analyzing letters and emails and that, aren't you Sweets?"
"Well, I'm not an expert, but I do know a bit about that. Why, did you get something in the mail, Booth? Something threatening?"
"No, not threatening, I just want you to have a look at it." "Is it linked to the case?"
"No, just look at it, Sweets." Booth handed over the paper. It was a printed email. Sweets read the message, and then read it again.
"Are they lying?" Booth asked.
"I can't really tell, Booth. It's not like when you're watching them in the interrogation room."
"Sweets, you aren't helping" Booth groaned, flopping onto the couch. Sweets got up from his desk and sat opposite Booth on his seat.
"Booth, is this real?" The younger man seriously asked.
"Possibly. I was with Carmen Stuart at the right time; we were together in high school. The last time I saw her was when I left to go to war, in May, 1991."
"Where is she now, do you know?"
"She died in some point of 1992. Suicide. I was the one who had to ID her body when they found it in some cave about ten years ago."
"How old were you, Booth?"
"I would have been 19 when she was born, but I was only eighteen when I left to go to the war."
"Was Carmen the same age as you?"
"Yeah, she was about a month younger than me. When I came back, Jared and Cam told me that she went missing about a month or so after I left."
"Cam? Dr. Saroyen was involved in this?"
"She was Carmen's best friend. Apparently, Cam was the one who filed the missing persons report. Carmen's parents weren't concerned, apparently. They said that they'd had a fight with Carmen, and the next day she packed her bags and ran off. "
Both men fell silent as they came to the same conclusion simultaneously. Booth could imagine Carmen, scared out of her mind, telling her staunchly catholic parents that she was pregnant with his child. They would have disowned her on the spot. She would have been too scared to turn to anyone else she knew, even though he was sure Pops or Cam would have taken her in, so she'd dropped out of college, packed her bags, and got out of town, never to return. Five months later, she would give birth to a baby girl, and give the tiny infant up for adoption, and would end her life alone within the next year. Booth felt guilt well up within his chest.
Sweets watched the emotions that rolled within Booth as he struggled with the bombshell. "Booth, It isn't your fault, you never knew. Nobody told you."
"When I found out she went missing, I should have asked around. It's so obvious." Sweets let Booth brood to himself, reading the email a few more times to himself.
"Booth, do you want to know some things about Willow? I can't get much, but I can get a little bit about what she's like from her writing."
Booth looked straight at Sweets, and nodded.
"Alright, from her writing style, which is quite formal for a sixteen year old, I would say that she's good at English, and probably school in General. "
"Just like her mom. She was the valedictorian when we graduated from high school. She was majoring in literature when we were at college. She wanted to be a journalist. What else can you tell me?"
"Not much. From the way she apologizes, I think she is not very certain and sure of herself at the moment. Her confidence and self esteem have probably taken a battering since she found out she was adopted."
Booth nodded in understanding. He'd seen lots of kids with insecurities over the years, and knew how much little things sent them off kilter. He didn't want to imagine what a major thing like discovering you were adopted did to the psych of a teenager.
BtVS/XO BtVS/XO BtVS/XO BtVS/XO BtVS/XO
Later that same Saturday morning, Booth was back in his office. He had started on his paperwork, but his mind was a million miles away, in a town called Sunnydale in California. He quickly gave up, setting the files aside. He opened up the email, and read it again, a slight smile on his face. Although their was no concrete evidence, other than his name being on Willow's birth certificate, and on the adoption papers, and the time of her birth matching up with when he and Carmen were together, his gut was telling him that it was real, that Willow Rosenberg was his daughter.
Hesitating for a second, Booth clicked out of the email, and got into the FBI database, to see if he could find anything out about his daughter. Criminal or medical records, school results, anything.
It was surprisingly easy to find her.
Out of habit, Booth looked at her criminal history first. It came up blank, except for being witness to a couple of incidents involving gangs on PCP, a gas explosion or two, and finding the bodies of two of her classmates in a classroom at her school. His eyebrows shot open. What the hell kind of place was Sunnydale.
Opening up a new search on the FBI database and typed in Sunnydale, CA. Facts, figures, and Stats came up on the screen. The first thing that Booth saw was the mortality figures. How the heck did one town have more deaths in one year than any of the major cities in America? His eyes flickered over to the population. Yes, just your average, medium sized town. Not small, but certainly not a city. Why were there so many homicides? Booth got onto the Sunnydale Police Departments website, using his FBI clearance password to get into their files. He looked through their reports, his mouth dropping open. If he even dared to hand in a report for a homicide that was of a better quality than the ones done by the Sunnydale police, he would be kicked out of the FBI. He looked through them all, Noticing, but not really caring about the number of cases of 'Barbecue fork injury to neck' attributed to cause of death, as well as a unusually high number of wild animal attacks, and incidents caused by Gangs on PCP.
Something was very not right in the town. He went back to the FBI database site, and scanned through the rest of the information. Eleven churches and fifteen different cemeteries. Low house prices, lots of parkland, and a playground, a kindergarten, a elementary school, a junior high school, a high school, and a campus of the University of California where listed as local facilities, as well as shopping strips, a club, a couple of bars and a mall, as well as so called perfect weather, and a bright, happy, chirpy and very green small town feeling.
Seeley shook his head. All was not as it seemed in Sunnydale, CA.
The next thing he got onto was Willow's medical records, unconsciously checking for any signs of abuse the girl may have received. Her record was reasonably clear, a trip to hospital when she was five to have her appendix taken out, another trip to the hospital with a bad case of the flu when she was seven. She broke her arm when she was nine in an accident at school. In her early childhood, that was it. She attended annual check ups at her local GP, and nothing had ever come up as being wrong. Then, Booth got to the last year. Willow had been in hospital four times in the past year. Twice with concussions, once with cracked ribs, and another time with deep cuts and abrasions that had resulted in the need for a unit of blood being administered through an IV. Booth frowned. He'd seen similar types of wounds in people that fought regularly on the streets, and Booth had a horrid vision of a young girl, who was the spitting image of Carmen when she was sixteen, lying in a deserted alleyway, drenched in blood, while several large figures stood over her, watching and laughing as she slowly and painfully bled to death on the cold concrete, begging them to get help.