Page 36 of Oracle Returns: Time will Stop

That was true.

Tori didn’t ask about the case. She had questions about the woman sitting amid them.

To help out, Nate explained.

“It was called in to the local FBI office forty years ago. Since then, it closed. They consolidated the files to Boston for storage, and then when they went electronic, the files there went to DC. Callie went case file spelunking in the dusty rooms to find anything she could that might have been too ‘weird’ to upload, but not too ‘weird’ to hold onto just in case. There was one file, and it only had one thing in it. A name.”

Elizabeth knew why.

“J. Edgar Hoover likely had them purged. He left the FBI in seventy-two. That was half a century ago, plus some. Feds are hoarders. There’s no way they’d discard a file with any information in it.”

Avalon shared.

“This has been an ongoing thing. It likely had incidents prior to forty years ago. This place has always been a battleground. Good just tends to win.”

Tori shook her head.

“I can’t wait for this to all go back to normal. I miss normal cases like dead people seeing their murders.”

Booth actually laughed.

“If my wife was here, she’d lose her goddamn mind hearing you say that.”

Oh, they were aware.

Those kinds of cases were the good, old days, and they really wanted them back.

“Thank God she’s handling all the paperwork,” Bishop said. “Because this would make her twitchy.”

Elizabeth was a busy bird, and while she loved to help her friends, she could feel the shit on the horizon. It was making her twitchy, and that meant she had to focus on that.

These people would be on their own.

Why?

Well, simple.

“So, you have a name. You also have a room full of investigators, some who were cops, and Feds. Maybe deal with that. I don’t have time to play games right now, so maybe don’t let anyone else die or have your homicide captain call the FBI so I get a call.”

Avalon was to the point.

“You’re about to have a hellish case. You won’t have time to help us. Be safe.”

Oh, she didn’t like that.

Then again…

“Nope. I don’t want to know,” Elizabeth stated. “All of my cases are hellish. Call me if you need me. Tori, you can trust Avalon and Maura. I would trust those two Marines with my kids. I swear on my baby birds’ lives that they are good people and would never do you dirty.”

Well, that said it all. Everyone knew how much Elizabeth loved her children.

Tori nodded.

“Thank you,” she said.

Elizabeth nodded.

“Call if you really can’t handle it. I’ll see if I can send you some help.”