✔️Romancing The Bone--- Seeley Booth ✔️

CH. 4: Poison and Wine (Homicide at HoCo pt.4)

~3rd Person~

As Lizzie stood outside the interrogation room, she felt the familiar pit in her stomach that always accompanied questioning a  suspect. Taking a deep breath she steeled herself before going in the room. 

As she reached for the doorknob, her hand was stopped by a touch from the rough yet gentle hand of her partner. "Booth, I have to get in there and question this guy," she said looking up at a man that she would do anything for. In return, and to the obliviousness of her, he looked at her as if she were a diamond entrusted to his care. "I know you do Liz, but still, just... be careful okay?", he said as he released her. With a nod, she entered into the interrogation room as he went into the room that overlooks the interrogation room through a two-way mirror. 

Taking a seat she looked at the young man secured to the seat opposite hers, and her mind went to work.  

As Lizzie was questioning the subject, Booth was watching, an ever-present protector. He flipped a switch on the panel in front of him, allowing him to hear the conversation going on through the glass. 

"Hello, Jacob." Lizzie began trying to sound light and friendly but without sounding like she could be fooled. The young man sitting across from her looked like a frightened mouse. His eyes were darting about the room trying to find an exit, and his breathing was too shallow.

  'He's not a serial killer.'  Lizzie thought to herself. 'Just a scared kid.'  "Why did you do it, Jacob? What did Marsha ever do to you that was worth killing her for?" Lizzie used the tone that said she cared about him, she sounded like a mother to Booth's ears. 

Jacob opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. His eyes began to water and he began to break down. "Jacob, I need you to stay with me, okay? I can't help unless I know why it happened..." Lizzie said trying to reach him through his tears. "I... I d-didn't mean to do it..." Jacob stuttered out, "I loved her, I did." The look on his face convinced Lizzie that in his own twisted way he meant it. "But she didn't love you, did she?" Lizzie asked the question as gently as she could. 

At hearing her words, Jacob's head whipped up and there was a look of unfiltered anger behind the tears. "No. She left me for that idiotic quarterback, Dillion. That wasn't the kind of guy she went for, either. She was into guys like me. She belonged with me!!" His voice raised to a yell so quickly that Lizzie fully understood him and his motives, but she needed him to say it. 

"The night of Homecoming, you saw them together didn't you? Before the bonfire party." She said prodding him to answer her. 

"Yeah, I saw them." Jacob spat the words at her. "So I confronted her, before the party, and told her that she didn't really love him, she loved me. But she refused to see reason, so I took her. I took her back to our apartment, tried to make her remember the good times we'd had together, but nothing worked. I got so angry with her..." Jacob's words faded and the anger was gone as he thought about Marsha, about what he had done to her. Lizzie took this time to redirect the conversation.

 "But you couldn't make her love you, so you killed her and the man that took her from you." 

Jacob glared at Lizzie as he spoke. "That asshole deserved to die after he took her from me! He's the reason my Marsha is dead in the first place! If he had never taken her she would still be alive and we would still be together!!!" Jacob was yelling by the time he finished speaking, yelling so violently that Booth had burst through the door and pulled Lizzie away from the table. 

"Okay, asshole. Time's up!" Booth yelled as he reached around to cuff Jacob. But before Booth could refasten the handcuffs, Jacob had elbowed Booth in the nose and grabbed his gun. "No! Please! Don't!" Lizzie yelled as she saw Jacob aim it at Booth. Jacob turned his attention then to Lizzie. Grabbing her by the arm and putting the gun to her head, he said, "Okay pretty, you're my ticket out of here so no funny business." Lizzie tried to keep her cool as Jacob pushed the gun even harder into the back of her head. 

They moved through the door into the main holding area, but before Jacob could really make a break for it, Booth tackled him to the ground and started wrestling him for the gun.  The two rolled over and back again trying to gain a better hold on the gun, but during the struggle the weapon fired and the room went still. 

Booth checked himself for a wound and found none, then he checked Jacob for a wound a found none. Before Jacob could get away, Booth punched him in the face knocking him unconscious. 

After getting Jacob cuffed he looked up at Lizzie with a smile on his face only to find her looking at him like a deer in headlights. The front of her white shirt was slowly growing red with her blood. 

Lizzie was the one who had been shot. 

Just as Booth got up to be at her side she collapsed, unconscious and unresponsive.