Chapter 1
Disclaimer: I only own Petty Officer Laura Stillman and her daughter Amanda, the rest is CBS's property.
(It is set in Season Five because Director Shepard is still in charge of the agency and Ziva is still a Mossad officer and not yet an NCIS agent)
Tim McGee was personally tired of getting coffee and being known as Probie but his co-workers were relentless in their use of him as their muse as Tony had once referred to him. He walked into the coffee shop and was barely halfway across the room when he heard a groan. A woman in her early forties sat across from a girl who couldn't have been more than seven had just collapsed. Being the person he was McGee ran over to her and checked her pulse. Dead. He smelt her coffee. It smelt of almonds. He remembered Abby telling him once that cyanide smelt of almonds.
"Is my mommy okay?" the girl asked. McGee was torn between lying to the girl and telling the truth as he had been raised to. H e found her I.D, it read Petty Officer Laura Stillman. Instinctively he reached for his phone and dialled the first on the speed dial list, Gibbs.
"McGee, what is it? Why are you late?" barked Gibbs.
"Well Tony and Ziva… they… they asked me to…" McGee stuttered.
"I'm not interested in excuses, you got a case?" he growled.
"Female Petty Officer with a young child keeled over of cyanide poisoning in the Starbucks we get coffee from," he said again, more confident this time.
"Well this looks familiar," Tony joked as they arrived at the scene.
"Tony shut up for one minute please, I have a raging headache and you're not helping!" Ziva said menacing.
"Can you kill someone with plastic cutlery?" joked Tony again.
"I have not tried, do you wish to be my hamster Tony?" she asked.
"Guinea Pig actually," replied Tony. He approached Ducky and Palmer who were examining the body. "McGeek where's my McCoffee?"
"Kind of distracted by the body DiNozzo," McGee said impatiently. "I've called Abby and she's on her way over to the Navy Yard."
"Where was she?" asked Ziva.
"Chinese New Year party apparently," McGee replied.
"Enough babble what can you tell me about her Duck?" asked Gibbs, breaking the conversation between his three agents.
"It seems she died of the causes that Timothy over here described," Ducky said. "She doesn't appear to have anything else except for this," the old Scotsman pulled back her sleeve to reveal a tattoo. It was a heart and in the centre it read LJ.
"Oh bother, now I remember her," Gibbs said. Silently cursing himself for not remembering her name sooner.
Next chapter we find out more about Laura Stillman and her connection to Gibbs and maybe a bit about the girl (who is called Amanda) as well.