This plot bunny's bouncing in my head. I couldn't resist!
*New* The story now has a Tumblr. Check my profile for deets!
Chapter 1: Running
8:00 PM
Anacostia Park
Washington, D.C.
"Look, dude, do you want the phone or not?" the seller groused, impatiently pressing his fists to his lips and blowing warmth over his knuckles. "I don't got all day!"
"Is it still under Apple Care?" the buyer continued to scrutinize, ignoring the seller's petulance and chattering teeth.
"Yeah. I had it for like, eight months. You've got lots of time to extend it or whatever."
"Eight months, huh? That's a pretty short turn around."
The seller narrowed his eyes menacingly. "Like I said in the ad," he bit out. "I'm saving up for football camp."
"Football camp? What position do you play, water boy? You look like you're a hundred pounds wet!"
The seller groaned inwardly. The yuppie types were always good for a game twenty questions. "I know you're like, being thorough and stuff, but it's million degrees below zero so if you could like, make a decision, my balls would appreciate it."
The buyer smirked. "Cut the crap, Kid. You and I both know this bad boy's as hot as—what the hell?"
Two sets of eyes jerked toward a cluster of bushes and trees. From their vantage point, the buyer and the seller could make out a dark figure skulking deeper into the greenery. A naked—and very dead—woman was slung over its shoulder like a burlap sack.
Her pale hands flapped listlessly in the night air. A blonde curtain of curls draped around her face. Two long legs trailed behind the figure like a cape of limp noodles.
"Holy shit," and with that, the buyer catapulted off in a bumbling dash for his car, ditching the seller and iPhone in the process.
The world seemed to stop as the phone somersaulted toward the sky and plowed onto the concrete, its glass screen exploding in a sloppy spider web. Normally the seller would've freaked about losing five hundred desperately needed dollars. But in that moment, under the illuminating scrutiny of the full moonlight, all he could think about was the frigid, malevolent glare seeping from the expanse a few terrifying feet away.
A sharp jolt of adrenaline scrambled the seller into a desperate run for his life. With his heavy backpack weighing him down, he propelled forward as he forced himself to ignore the swift, methodological footsteps matching his pace for pace.
Left foot.
Right foot.
Left.
Rig—
A brawny arm snatched his throat from behind, a cold palm slammed against his lips. The seller felt the bulge of a gun against his back. "Easy now," a surprisingly gentle voice whispered next to his ear. "I won't hurt you."
Suddenly, one his foster brothers' voices flashed across the seller's mind. "If some asshole ever gets ya in a headlock: go limp on his ass. Make 'em think ya surrenderin'. Right when he's good an' comfortable: you flip the bastard on his ass. Kick 'em as hard as ya can an' cut outta there."
"Don't struggle. Yeah that's it," the killer encouraged when he felt the seller sag under his grasp. "Good boy."
With all his might, the seller grabbed the killer's wrist and flipped him over his shoulder onto the concrete. He dealt a swift kick to the sicko's jaw before bolting into the inky haze of the night.
6:35 AM
Anthony DiNozzo's Apartment
Falls Church, VA
Pillow Lust: The sensation special agents experience where they're so exhausted that the feeling of their face plowing into their pillow is so utterly fantastic, it's almost sexual.*
After three sleepless nights, Tony's pillow lust was generating enough heat to microwave the entire Washington Metro area. Team Gibbs was two weeks into the hunt for a serial killer targeting Marine wives and after four victims and no witnesses or DNA, the investigation was as cold as the Nor'easter freezing the East Coast. When Gibbs had finally banished his bleary-eyed team home, Tony had rushed straight into the arms of his memory foam mattress.
Tony was two hours into his orgasmic vacation in the Realm of Nod when the unwelcome patter of fists against his front door yanked him back to consciousness. He rolled over and checked his phone: 6:35? AM? Really?
It couldn't be Gibbs or McPunctual. Hell, even Bishop, in all her awkward glory, respected the sanctity of an agent's power nap. Whoever it was could enjoy the fine facilities of Tony's hallway because he was going back to sleep! He yanked his duvet over his head and hoped the thick down feathers would muffle infuriating racket.
Alas, the wretched knocking continued.
With an incensed growl, he begrudgingly threw on his robe and stamped toward the door in an agitated fog. The pest seemed to be as tenacious as they were annoying. Maybe their loved ones could inscribe that on their tombstone.
One glance through the peephole and his blood ran cold.
The bastard actually had the audacity to show up. At Tony's house. At six in the morning!
"What the hell's the matter with you?" Tony shouted at the closed door. "I thought I made myself perfectly clear when you called, Tippy!"
Turns out, Tony had been right.
James "Tippy" Sherbrook IV—golden scion of his old east coast family and New York Times investigative reporter extraordinaire—was as tenacious as he was annoying. For the past six months, Tippy had blown up all avenues of Tony's communication with hopes enticing him to participate in an exposé about their old boarding school. Tony had hoped his lack of response would've given the nosey newshound a clue.
Apparently not.
"You ignored my calls, e-mails, facebook messages—hell, I even snail mailed you and you shined that on. What's up with that, DiNo?"
Tony sneered at the childhood nickname. He could hear the haughty indifference tinting Tippy's tone and he hated it. "You're an investigative reporter, did you ever investigate that my lack of a response was—ding, ding, ding!—my response?"
"I thought about it," Tippy admitted with air of disinterested honesty. "But then I thought about the greater good. You should try it sometime. So, gonna let me in?"
Tony scrubbed his face with his palms and desperately tried to ebb his urge to free his sidearm from his nightstand. "Tippy, I've had two hours of sleep over the course of three days," he spoke with rehearsed composure. "I'm only going to say this once: I won't help you. Now you and your ghosts from middle school hell can get back on I-95 and out of my life."
"That's exactly what it was, DiNozzo: Hell."
Tony was taken aback by the haunted earnestness rattling Tippy's voice.
Hell.
That was the understatement of the millennium.
No. No he wouldn't think about that. He wouldn't think about a bespectacled boy too unsure of himself to be sure of anyone else. He wouldn't let his mind wander to a boy craving attention, so desperate for even the tiniest kernels of affection that he'd...
No!
No, he wouldn't go back there.
"We can end it, DiNo" Tippy pressed on. "We can stand up and—"
"I can't!" Tony shouted, ashamed of his desperation. Swallowing his jagged memories, he pressed his head against the door. The wood's frosty temperature prickled his skin and cooled the hot shame roaring inside him. "I can't help you, Tippy."
"Can't or won't?"
The ringing of Tony's cell phone severed the answer on its owner's tongue.
Gibbs.
"Yeah, Boss. Be there in twenty."
"Saved by the serial killer, huh?" Tippy's characteristic smirk was back in his voice. "You know, DiNozzo, Katherine Porter said 'the past is never where you think you left it.' I'll be in touch."
Tony didn't even stick around to hear Tippy's footsteps trickle away from his door. He showered and dressed, fed Kate and Ziva. He drove to café on autopilot, trying to avoid the forlorn eyes of the boy in the rearview mirror.
7:42AM
Anacostia Park
Washington, D.C.
"We sure it's him?" Tony asked, thrusting a coffee cup in a grateful Tim's McGee's hand.
Tim took a much-needed sip of caffeine as the two agents fell into a synchronized stride toward the latest, and hopefully the last, victim. "Blonde military wife raped and strangled with a phone cord then buried in a shallow grave in a public place. It's him, Tony."
Tony sighed and rubbed his jaw, attempting to scourge away the weariness that tightened it. "Does victim number five have a name?"
"Trina Phillips-Villalobos. Twenty-five. No kids like the others. Husband is Corporal Emilio Villalobos. He's a field wireman at Quantico. He's going to meet us at the Navy Yard."
DiNozzo surveyed the scene with a stoic eye that dwindled rapidly into disgust the deeper he walked into the bush. Ducky and Palmer were crouched over the naked corpse, engrossed in their work. Gibbs was a few feet away, barking orders at a flustered Bishop.
"Liver temperature places her death between twelve and fourteen hours ago," Ducky spoke as he examined the body. "The ligature marks indicate strangulation as the cause of death. These parallel lines are consistent with the pattern left by the phone cord used on his previous victims. As with the others, he didn't kill her here. He buried her with her ID in a shallow and unobstructed grace. He wanted us to find and identify her…"
While Ducky talked, Tony couldn't help but stare into the bright, hollow pits of Trina's unseeing blue eyes. Her manicured brows were frozen in horrified confusion, as if she couldn't fathom how someone could be capable such brutality.
As his eyes gingerly trailed down to the mosaic of bruises and blood darkening her thighs, Tony realized he couldn't understand either.
"DiNozzo!"
His head jerked upward and toward the familiar gruffness of Gibbs' voice. Gibbs beckoned Tony over with an urgent wave to where he and Bishop were hovering above an iPad. Tony immediately jogged over, grateful for the distraction.
"It looks our guy finally left a witness," Bishop barreled ahead before Gibbs could shape his lips to speak. "The joggers who found the body stumbled on this," she pointed to the cracked iPhone in the evidence bag dangling in Gibbs' hand. "The witness probably saw our psycho in action and dropped his phone when he fled."
From Gibbs' narrowed eyes and his tight grip on his cup, Tony sensed his boss' exasperation at Bishop taking the lead. For her part, Ellie Bishop was oblivious to the blue death glare Gibbs had aimed at her forehead. She fired off her findings in a frenetic frenzy, blissfully unaware of her colleagues' waning patience.
"Gibbs usually runs point," Tony interrupted with feigned gentleness.
"Huh?" Bishop's features scrambled into a befuddled frown.
"Gibbs: leader. You: probie."
At least she had decency to blush. "Sorr—"
Gibbs shot Tony a chastising glare over the rim of his cup. " 'Never apologize. It's a sign of weakness,' " he rattled off with a needled sigh. "Go on, Bishop."
"Right," she snuck a glance at Tony and cleared her throat. "Well, uh…maybe Abby can lift some fingerprints off the screen and home button but it might be a long shot. Even if he had a criminal record, the DC Metro only fingerprints juveniles arrested for felonies."
"Our witness is a kid?"
Bishop turned the iPad toward Tony. "Looks about twelve or thirteen."
The footage was grainy and stuttering, as if shot in the 1930s. The black-and-white palette gave Tony an eerie, James Whale horror flick vibe. Suddenly, like a flash of light, a lanky figure darted across the screen like a photon. Almost out of the camera's watchful eye, the runner jerked to a halt. He dropped his hands to his knees, obviously panting. After a moment he stood, clutching his side, and looked straight into the lens of the camera.
A disturbing familiarity washed over Tony.
Those eyes: almond shaped and slightly slanted like a cat's. Framed by delicately arched brows and prominent cheekbones.
Those eyes: Anthony DiNozzo had seen them before.
Thank you for reading!
This is my first time trying to balance a case fic and a subplot, so any and all feedback is eagerly appreciated.
Some notes:
*The term "Pillow lust" isn't mine. Complements of Urban Dictionary, folks. I just edited the definition to fit the story.
*The plot is inspired by one of my favorite shows. I won't spill which one, as I don't want to spoil everything, but as the plot progresses and the parallels become more obvious, I'll name the show.
And with that, I'll shut up now.