Chapter Text
Jefferson
The conference room in the History Department's building at George Washington University was frigid and far too sterile as if someone had thought anxiety could be disinfected. A long mahogany table stretched between me and the five-person panel, each surrounded by neat stacks of paper, tablets, and ceramic mugs filled with steaming tea or bitter black coffee. I stood at the head of the room, feeling like a suspect more than a scholar, palms slightly damp, mind rehearsing every line of my research. This was it—the final step of my master's program. My dissertation defense. Years of study, sleepless nights, and second guessing—all balanced on what happened in this room.
Dr. William Grayson, head of the panel, leaned forward, his expression stern and bored. "Mr. Hatter. Your dissertation is entitled 'Analysis of Bone Trauma.' "
I straightened, keeping my voice as even as I could manage. "When viewed in cross-section, the pressure force exerted by the weapon can be assessed."
Dr. Regina Mills—sitting at the far end, her posture crisp and eyes sharp—watched me intently. No warmth, not here. Just that carefully curated detachment. She never played favorites, even with me, especially with me. Still, I could feel her attention like a hand at the center of my spine, keeping me steady.
Dr. Constance Wright—cold, precise, and always subtly condescending—raised one penciled brow. "Obtaining the cross-section will compromise the original bone."
I'd expected that. I was ready. "My technique preserves bone surface morphology through polyvinyl replication," I said. "A transparent positive is made by covering the impression with an aqueous synthetic polymer solution."
Suddenly, the door slammed open.
Emma Swan strode in like she owned the building—leather jacket, boots clacking confidently across the tile. Her presence shattered the formality like a rock through a stained glass window. "Hey, Bones," she called, disregarding the room's tension. "Come on. We've got a body that went up like a Roman candle." Then she glanced at me. "Hey, Jefferson! How's it going?"
I blinked, stunned. "So far, they don't like me."
Emma smirked. "Shocker. Come on. Let's go."
She moved to Regina without waiting, tugging her out of her chair.
Regina's tone was clipped, contrasting Emma's casual swagger. "What? I'm in the middle of something—"
Emma rolled her eyes. "Well, you know—real-life murder and mutilation versus academic meeting? No contest." She glanced at Dr. Wright with an apologetic half-smile. "Sorry, no offense."
Dr. Wright didn't blink. "This committee can carry on without you, Dr. Mills."
Regina hesitated, then turned to me. Her voice softened just slightly. "Jefferson, just answer the questions."
"Yeah," Emma added, already steering her out the door and down the hall.
And just like that, it was me and the panel again. The door clicked shut behind them, and the silence thickened.
I adjusted the cuffs of my coat—blue velvet, a little dramatic, sure, but it was me—and faced them. "Next question?"
Dr. Wright leaned forward, her tone as clinical as a scalpel. "How do you expect anyone to take you seriously as a working forensic anthropologist when you look—the way you do?"
I blinked. "What?" For a moment, I thought I'd misheard. I looked down at myself. The same outfit I'd worn to the lab. Fitted vest. Velvet coat. Silver pocket watch. So what? It wasn't like I'd shown up in a top hat—today.
She stared at me with that same tight-lipped skepticism. Suddenly, the years of effort, brilliance, and staying up late tweaking methodology and analysis felt like it was being crushed under the weight of a single judgmental glance.
But I straightened, spine stiff, and met her gaze head-on. I'd come this far, looking exactly like me . I wasn't going to apologize for that now.
Regina
The rooftop of the Mayflower Hotel still held the hush of morning. Dew clung to the rusted HVAC units and cracked terra-cotta tiles like the building was sweating out a secret. Police tape cut across the rooftop access like cautionary streamers at a macabre party. The victim was staged—brutally, purposefully—pinned against the rooftop sign like a warning nailed to history.
I stepped over a fallen shingle, heels echoing against the concrete. The body was male, mid-forties, maybe older. Arms stretched out, torso opened with crude, deliberate precision. I crouched beside him, letting my eyes sweep over the remains. The rain had made everything slick—blood pooled beneath him in diluted streams, organs swollen and glistening in the pale morning light.
"Male. Middle-aged," I muttered, mostly to myself.
"Yeah, I got that part," Emma said behind me, her voice cutting through the early silence like always. "What was with Jefferson back there?"
Her words tugged my attention away from the corpse. Just barely. The image of Jefferson standing before his committee—nervous but composed, voice steady despite the pushback—flashed through my mind.
"Defending his dissertation," I said, reaching into the open cavity. "It is the last step before he gets his doctorate." My gloved fingers closed around a collapsed section of the intestine. I lifted it slightly. "I think these are what's left of his intestines."
Emma didn't laugh, but her eyes flickered. "Is he gonna make it?"
I allowed a smirk. "No. He's very dead." The joke came out dry. I chuckled at it anyway, shaking my head.
"I meant Jefferson."
"Oh." I stood slowly, brushing moisture from my gloves. "Fifty-fifty."
Emma clicked her tongue. "He's a stoolie."
I blinked. "Jefferson?"
She gave me a look. "Our vic. He's a rat. Snitch."
I studied the body again, this time seeing what she saw. "What makes you say that?"
"His guts got spilled," she said with a smug little shrug.
I gave her a sideways glance. "Very literal."
"Yeah," she said, stepping closer beside me, her shoulder brushing mine. "Hung up here like a scarecrow atop a hotel that used to house witnesses in the '70s? It's a message."
I inhaled slowly, taking in as much of Emma's scent as possible. She wasn't wrong. The Mayflower had a long memory. Political scandals, covert meetings, and federal deals made behind locked doors. This place had seen everything and said nothing until now.
I leaned closer to the body again, scanning the airway. "Oh look," I said, voice quiet. "There's something jammed down his trachea."
The wind picked up a little, tugging at my coat at the edge of Emma's collar. I didn't move away from her. Lately, I hadn't. There was a tension that lingered between us—different from before. Not avoidance, not grief. Something is brewing. Like whatever fire we'd been walking through had finally burned the walls down, we were standing in the clearing, unsure what to build next.
But for now, there was a body. There was truth to uncover. And as always, Emma and I would find it together—one layer at a time.
"Forceps?" I asked.
Emma passed them to me without a word, our fingers brushing—just enough to feel it.
And then we got to work.
Jasmine
The hum of fluorescent lights overhead buzzed faintly, mixing with the low whirr of equipment in the Medico-Legal Lab. The air was cool and sterile, with the faint scent of antiseptic—comforting in its own clinical way. I stood next to the stainless steel autopsy table, glancing over at the monitor as Jefferson spoke, his posture upright and arms loosely crossed over his chest. His lab coat was buttoned correctly, but I could still make out the faint glint of a velvet waistcoat beneath it—deep burgundy, if I wasn't mistaken. Of course, he couldn't resist sneaking in a little theatrical flair, even under official uniform. I sighed inwardly.
"I rectified their erroneous assumptions concerning polyvinyl replication," he said, clipped. However, I could hear the faint thread of pride beneath the formality.
Graham leaned casually against a nearby work table, brow lifted. "You corrected them?" he asked, smirking.
Jefferson shrugged slightly, his face mostly composed, though a faint grin pulled at the corner of his mouth when Graham chuckled. "Only when they were wrong," he said dryly.
They had their rhythm, I noticed. Their banter, even when quiet, moved like a dance they'd done a hundred times. It was effortless—easy. That effortless part still evaded me.
I returned to the remains on the table, brushing a stray lock of hair from my cheek as I slid the X-ray tray into place. "The remains are ready. Maybe we'll get lucky and ID the poor bastard that way," I muttered, my eyes tracing the skull. The jaw had slightly unhinged with time and damage, but the teeth looked intact enough to get a dental record.
Regina and I had bumped heads when I first joined the team—two women used to being in charge, each with our own scars and sharp edges. But lately, something had started to shift. The friction between us had softened into something more functional, if not friendly. We still moved carefully around each other like soldiers on uneven ground. Still, at least we were heading in the same direction.
Just as I turned to activate the imaging system, Graham's voice broke through, full of barely contained excitement. "Oh, we just got lucky."
He held up a crumpled paper, carefully protected in a clear evidence sleeve. I stepped closer, peering over Jefferson's shoulder as he read aloud: "My name is Nathanial Voss."
I moved back to the head of the body, tugging gently at the corners of the mouth with gloved fingers. Something metallic gleamed between the molars. "There's something here," I said, reaching in carefully. I extracted a small, round object, damp and slightly corroded, and dropped it into a metal dish beside me with a soft clink. "This is going to be some freaky, weird, ritualistic thing, isn't it?"
Graham's grin widened, eyes practically gleaming with excitement. "Oh man, I hope so."
Jefferson leaned over, examining the coin with a quiet intensity. "Christopher Columbus," he said, his voice steady as he studied the etching as though it might hold the key to some ancient mystery.
I stepped back, peeled off my gloves, and glanced toward the lab doors, a small crease forming between my brows. "Where's Dr. Mills?"
Jefferson didn't look up from the coin. "Her brother came for a visit."
That explained the absence, but not the tension hanging around Regina like a second shadow. Something was stirring beneath the surface, not just in the bones but in the people who handled them. I sighed, rolled my shoulders, and reached for the next tool. Whatever was going on—ritualistic weirdness, family drama, or the emotional hangover Regina and Emma were trying to ignore—we still had a murder to solve. And I had work to do.
Regina
The faint scent of paper and old books lingered in the air, wrapping my office in its usual sense of quiet focus. But that calm shattered the moment Daniel walked in. One look at his face—drawn tight, jaw clenched—told me this wasn’t a social call. I straightened in my chair, tension coiling through my shoulders as I watched him pace, like whatever he was holding in couldn’t stay buried much longer.
“Mom called you?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even, though I could feel a familiar tightness clawing at my chest. “Are you sure it was her?”
“She said, ‘You and your sister are in danger,’ and then she hung up.”
I leaned back, crossing my arms, my tone just a little wry. “Daniel, I spend half my time with a sniper-trained FBI agent. I feel safe.”
He didn’t smile. “Gina. I know someone is watching me.”
I studied his face—more lines than the last time I saw him, but the same stormy eyes. “What’s your evidence?” I asked, gently.
He looked away, shaking his head. “It’s not something you can quantify. I can feel it. On the back of my neck. You spend time in jail… you develop a sixth sense.”
I softened. “Maybe you should stay with me for a few days.”
Daniel waved it off, a hand slicing through the air. “No. I have work. I have Emily and the girls.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What about your sixth sense?”
He shot me a look. “Hey!”
I laughed—genuinely. “What?”
“You can’t not believe in something one second and then throw it back at me the next.”
“Well…” I pulled my keys from my bag and held them out, jangling them a bit. “It’s a long drive. You can start fresh tomorrow. And I’ve got cold beer in the fridge.”
Just then, Emma burst in. She moved like a whirlwind, confident and loud in a way I’d grown used to… and, lately, maybe even comforted by. “Don’t drink the Moroccan beer. It tastes like earwax,” she warned, brushing past me. Emma offers a hand for Daniel to shake.“Hey Daniel, how ya been?”
“Okay, Emma,” Daniel said, standing to shake her hand. “You?”
“I’m good,” she said, and they shared a nod of polite familiarity.
I tossed Daniel the keys, and he caught them with a quiet thank you before stepping out. The moment he was gone, Emma leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed with a lopsided grin. “I still make him nervous, don’t I?” I rolled my eyes. She grinned wider, tugging gently on my arm. “Let’s go.”
I playfully smack her hands away.“Why do I always feel like you’re abducting me?”
“Because you like it,” she said, tugging me toward the door with that insufferable confidence. I rolled my eyes, but followed her anyway.
In the car, she turned on the radio—some indie folk station that softened the silence without demanding attention. Neither of us talked much, but it wasn’t awkward. Just a shared space, the kind that comes after surviving enough together. When we pulled up to Nathanial Ross’s apartment I raised an eyebrow. Hardwood floors, pristine crown molding, actual art that wasn’t from a mall kiosk. The guy had taste. Shame he was dead.
“His place is much better than yours,” I commented as I stepped in, scanning the spotless living room. “Ten times better.”
Emma scoffed. “He left public service. Makes a hell of a lot more money than I do.” She paused. “So, that’s all your mom said, huh? ‘You’re in danger’?”
“Yes,” I replied distractedly, examining the locked door at the end of the hall. I pulled a credit card from my wallet, wedging it between the latch and the frame. “And Daniel’s sixth sense agrees.”
Emma came up behind me, watching. “What are you doing?”
“Practicing some of the black ops stuff you taught me.”
She laughed—soft, amused, and maybe a little proud. “Let me show you.” She stepped forward, her body brushing mine as she took the card from my hand.
There was a closeness to her lately—after everything with Emmett, everything unspoken between us, it hovered like heat in the air. Maybe we hadn’t said the words, not all of them, but they were there.
“Every FBI agent in the country is looking for my mother,” I muttered, taking a step back. “Maybe she’s just trying to scare us off.”
Emma gave me a quick glance. “Six months without a break in the case? I doubt it.” She lifted her leg and kicked the door open like it was nothing. Inside, the light filtered in, slanted through the blinds, catching the edges of photographs taped across the walls. My stomach dropped. Emma’s silence was instant, grave. “Oh,” she murmured. “He might’ve gotten it right this time.”
I moved closer, eyes locking on the images. Photo after photo of Daniel. Leaving work. Picking up his girlfriend's daughters. Laughing in front of a food truck. Completely unaware.
“Daniel,” I whispered. “These are all pictures of Daniel.” The chill that crept up my spine wasn’t just fear. It was fury. And the awful knowing that someone was playing a long game. A dangerous one.