Act One
By: AndiKaneUnderwood
It was a dark, cool, October night, around the hour of 1327 in the morning.
A young lady was walking down the street, looking perfectly comfortable in jeans and a button down sweater.
Her. Take her. She won't be much trouble. Take her.
A phone rang and the lady stopped to answer it, her face lighting up in the glow of the screen. "Hi, Tony." She greeted into the phone.
There was a pause and the lady smiled. "Yes, I'm on my way home now."
Take her.
The lady laughed into the phone's speaker. "No. I was very busy." A fair blush spread over her cheeks and across the bridge of her nose. "No!" She yelped.
Take. Her.
"Tony," a frown passed over her pale face. "Alright. I'll be right there."
Take her. Take her now!
The lady yelped again as she was pulled back by her waist, the phone dropped from her hands as she struggled against her attacker.
"Sunshine?" Asked the voice at the other end.
"Hey! Let me go! No, no! Put me down! Help! Tony!" The lady screamed and suddenly went silent.
"Joy? Joy, are you there? Joyce? Palmer!" Shouted the voice on the other end.
A foot came bearing down on the phone and the device was cracked in two.
Don't worry. We'll take care of you tonight. You'll never get away again.
NSCI~CM~NCIS~CM~NCIS~CM
"Boss, where's Tony?" Asked Abby the following Sunday as Gibbs came in and looked around.
"That's what I want to know. He hasn't been to see you?" Gibbs replied.
Abby shook her head. "No. And he's usually in to say hi about ten minutes after seven. At most." She pouted and crossed her arms.
"Well we'll find him. Then we can both give him an earful. Any idea where he might be?" Gibbs asked.
"He might be down in Autopsy with Ducky and Joy." Abby replied. "He's been down there a lot more, especially recently."
"Thanks, Abby." Gibbs began the trek down to Autopsy.
Ducky looked up as Gibbs came in. "Ah, Jethro. Hello. What can I do for you today?" He asked, looking back down at the information for a Nita Carlisle on his pad.
"Have you seen Tony today, Ducky?" Gibbs inquired, looking around as if expecting his SFA to come from the walls.
"No, he hasn't been down here at all. And neither has Miss Palmer. Which is most upset setting, she hasn't missed a day of work since she began with NCIS." Ducky replied, looking worried.
"That's troubling." Gibbs sighed.
"I've tried to call Miss Palmer, but there's been no answer. Not even voicemail."
"I'll run by Tony's house. See if he's there." Gibbs replied, and then he sighed. "If he slept through his alarm clock, I'm gonna kill him."
NCIS~CM~NCIS~CM~NCIS~CM
"You think your girlfriend is missing?" Asked one of the officers at the door.
Tony ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "No, I don't think she is missing. I know she's missing." He snapped in reply.
"We'll take it from here, Officers." Said a new voice from behind the police men.
A man with raven hair, dark eyes, and a sharp suit stood in the door way behind the officers. Next to him, was a blonde girl with blue eyes and a sweet look about her, despite the hard edge to her eyes.
The officers nodded and backed away.
"Please tell me you're here to find Joyce. She's been gone since Friday night and I can't find her anywhere."
The blonde lady smiled at him and nodded. "I'm Agent Jennifer Jareu, this is Agent Hotchner. We're from the FBI." She explained.
The man, Agent Hotchner, gave him the news. "We believe she was taken by a serial killer." He said, not sugar coating anything, but still being sympathetic.
Tony gasped. "No. No, not Joy." He pleaded, tears filling his eyes. "Please, please, not Joy."
JJ put a hand on his shoulder. "May we come in?" He asked.
"Yeah, yeah. Sure. Come on in. I'm Tony." The emerald eyes man pulled back and gestured into his apartment. "Make yourselves at home."
JJ seated herself on the couch and folded her arms over her crossed knees. Hotch stayed standing, preferring to look at the pictures over the mantel piece, as JJ surveyed the one on the coffee table.
This was one of their missing girls, Joyce Palmer, and Tony at the park. For once in a picture, Joyce looked happy. Not afraid or upset like in the ones the BAU had been sent. JJ smiled and nodded to Tony. "Can you tell us what Joyce was doing when she was taken?"
Tony sniffed and nodded, hands folding and unfolding in his lap. "She was just getting out of class. It had run long and the entire class project had exploded, so she volunteered to clean up. I called her at one fifteen, to make sure she was okay and on her way home. She picked up and I was upset that she was taking it as a joke. She'd never had a problem with getting home before 11 before." Tony wiped his eyes.
"Why does she need to be home before 11?" Hotch asked, curiosity making an eyebrow quirk.
"I work in the government too, Agent Hotchner. For NCIS, and I know what kinds of horrors lurk in the night. She and I agreed that if we couldn't be home before 11, then we would call and have the other pick us up. If we couldn't then we'd take a taxi home." Tony explained.
"What happened after the call?" Hotch asked.
"Well, I heard her screaming. So I called for her, but the line cut out. I tried to call back, but there wasn't any answer. I tried to call the police, but they said I had to wait 48 hours to file a missing person's report." Tony sniffed again, and then looked back up at the Agents.
"Do you really think she's been kidnapped?" He asked.
JJ sighed. "Rest assured we're doing everything we can to find her." She replied.
"They'll be two Agents here in case they try to contact you or this is a ploy to get money from you." Hotch assured him. "In case of either, you can't leave your apartment."
Tony nodded. "I know." He replied.
"DiNozzo!" Shouted a voice from outside, followed by three quick bangs on the door.
Tony leapt to his feet, as did the Agents; hands going for their guns, and Tony peered through the peephole. "It's just Gibbs. My boss." He told the FBI agents, opening the door as the Agents pulled away their hands.
"Why aren't you at work?" Gibbs asked angrily, ignoring the other two people in the room for now. They weren't a threat until he saw reason for them to be.
"Joyce went missing Friday. I called in a personal day, didn't you get the call?"
"Joyce has been missing?" Gibbs asked.
"And the FBI thinks it has something to do with the serial killer we were called about."
NCIS~CM~NCIS~CM~NCIS~CM
Hour Two
The young lady from before, Joyce Palmer shivered in the damp room she was in.
She was huddled in the corner, singing softly to herself, a song Tony would sing for her whenever she woke up with nightmares.
You are my Sunshine, my only Sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are gray. You'll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my Sunshine away.
She dissolved into tears again, covering her face with her hands as everything slid even more out of focus. She'd lost her glasses in the alley way, but she still had her bracelet (Tony had given it to her for her birthday last year and she hadn't taken it off since) and for that she was grateful.
Hearing footsteps, she called out. "Hey! Let me out! Please, you have to let me go! I have someone waiting for me! He'll be worried!" Joyce yelled.
"I told you to shut up." The disembodied voice replied.
"Please." Joyce returned. "Please let me go." She pleaded.
"I warned you." The voice said again.
Joyce was grabbed by her hair and drug across the floor. She screamed and begged and kicked and pleaded, but no amount of protest would make this man change his mind.
"Please! No! Please, don't put me back in there!" She begged.
There was the sound of metal on metal and Joyce was thrown into a small cramped space only big enough to barely hold one person.
She looked up at the light, but a grate was slammed shut and she was left in total darkness.
There was no one to hear her scream.
NCIS~CM~NCIS~CM~NCIS~CM
"Miss Palmer is missing?" Ducky asked, looking shocked and upset.
"Joyce?" Abby asked.
Kate was considerably upset, she'd spent a lot of nights at Palmer's listening to the poor girl rant about the people she went to school with who didn't even know what triceps are.
Abby was also upset because Joyce was a sweet and kind person. Who in their right mind would want to take her? She wasn't an agent; she was supposed to be safe.
Ducky looked ready to kill. Joyce was his assistant and his responsibility. He was supposed to look out for her and under no circumstances was he passing that job to someone else.
Gibbs was the only one who looked remotely calm. That was partially because he was good at hiding his emotions, and partially because if he focused on anything but the case, he'd break down. He'd bring her home. Even if it killed him.
"How?" Timothy asked.
He didn't know Joyce very well, because of his reluctance to be anywhere near dead bodies. He knew that Joyce was a gifted medical student, she had a knack for handling Ducky, and she was dating Tony, but that was just about it.
He silently vowed he'd get to know her better when they found her.
Gibbs motioned Hotchner forward. "This is SSA Aaron Hotchner. He's with the FBI and they're investigating our case with the dead sailor." The silver haired man said.
"What down that have to do with finding Joyce?" Abby asked.
"He thinks that Joyce's disappearing and the case are linked. So, we're gonna let him take the lead on finding the serial killer while we focus on the dead sailor and finding Joyce." Gibbs continued.
Abby threw her hand in the air.
"Yes, Abby?" Gibbs asked.
"Is Tony okay?" She asked.
"Tony's fine, he's keeping it together rather well considering, and two of Hotchner's agents are with him now. Kate, go join them." Kate nodded, springing to her feet and grabbing her gear.
"McGee, find me everything you can on our sailor." Timothy booted up his computer and started pulling records.
"Abby, you're gonna work with Hotchner's tech girl to find A) Joyce's cell phone, and B) the GPS coordinates for our sailor's last night alive." Abby rushed to her, meeting the peppy blonde tech girl by the elevator and they hit it off immediately.
Hotchner set a hand on Gibbs' shoulder. "We'll find her." He said.
"I know." Gibbs replied. "But in what state?"
NCIS~CM~NCIS~CM~NCIS~CM
Hour Six
She came out shivering and covered in sweat and tears.
She was too weak to protest against him pulling against her hair again, too weak and too tired.
She wasn't sure she could keep this up much longer.
She hoped Tony found her soon.
God, she really hoped so.
