"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see." ~ Edgar Degas

The sun shined brightly through the curtains as Jones took a breath and continued to stir the pancake mix. She kept squinting her eyes as she tried to remove images of her co-worker Marie Collins from her mind. She shook her head many times as well, causing her children's curiosity of their mother to unravel as they waited for breakfast to be made.

"mom," her ten year old son said. Jones unfroze from her day dreams and looked upon her son.

"Yes, Micheal?"

"You've been stirring that pancake mix for twenty minutes now."

"Oh! Right… sorry," Jones exclaimed as she put the bowl down. Michael got up from the table and walked towards her.

"Do you want me to make the pancakes? Dad taught me how!" he asked. Jones nodded silently as she looked into the eyes of her worried son.

After her 3 boys ate their breakfast and Jones walked them to their bus stop she quickly ran home. She could not get Marie off her mind. She was her best friend. What she must have gone through seemed absolutely dreadful. it pained her to think about it.

She felt a stack of paper under feet as she stepped onto her front porch. She looked down to see a large bulky letter that wasn't there when she left the house two minutes ago. She looked around her and only saw the quiet neighborhood with nothing but the usual sounds of lawn mowers and birds chirping. She took a deep breath and picked it up and headed inside the house. She looked down at the cover of the letter. No words but her name: Lily Jones. She quickly opened it, and as she ripped it open she cut her finger slightly.

"Ow." She pressed her paper cut to her lips as she could feel the sting linger upon her finger. She then finally opened the letter with her left hand and as it opened twenty square shaped small papers fell out and landed onto the floor. She slowly knelt down picking them up and noticed they all had letters written on them. She started to scramble it together, noticing that each word had every letter on each individual square paper had the same colour, giving her a better idea for what the message would read. She gasped loudly as the words were formed and as the sentence was formed. She then began to cry.

-x-

"Gibbs!" Fornell exclaimed in happiness as he saw Gibbs and Tony walk through his office door. "I am very glad to see you!"

"What can we do?" Gibbs asked.

"Well… we took down the display but we took lots of pictures. Marie is in our autopsy and the rest of the evidence as you know were sent to Abby. So, we need your help with figuring out who this killer is and what he wants, what is his motive and all that jazz."

"What have you got on him so far?" Tony asked.

"That's the thing. All we have are the messages that he sends and each of them wiped clean! We are hoping that Abby could maybe tell us where he got the paper but so far that's all we got."

"That's all you got? How long have you been on this guy?" Gibbs asked in a rather frustrated tone.

"two months."

"Two months?! You've got to be kidding me! After two months this is all you have!"

"Which is why we called you! He is playing us Gibbs and you know me I don't like to be played!"

Tony shook his head and wanted to break the tension between the two angry men but was afraid that he himself would get hit within this heated battle.

"Okay!" Tony finally said. "How many victims has he had?"

"He has had three. One was a retired homeland agent name John Gold and the other a retired CIA agent named Sandra Henderson, both agencies were tied up in other cases so they gave this one to us and then there's Marie."

"Was she about to retire?" Tony asked.

"No, she's thirty; she wasn't planning on retiring any time soon."

"So he's targeting agents and retired agents," Gibbs stated the obvious. Fornell nodded in agreement and Tony sighed as he leaned against the closest wall he could find.

"Do the victims have any connection with each other, personally?" Gibbs asked.

"Nope. They didn't know each other at all. Not even Gold and Henderson."

"You sure?" tony asked.

"Yes, I am sure Dinozzo! Look I didn't invite you here to ask me questions! I had you come here to answer them!" Fornell's fists gripped tightly as he starred at both of the NCIS agents in front of him. Fornell then lowered his shoulders after a few minutes of silence. He nudged his head to indicate the men to follow him. He led them down the hall and into a monitor room that was very similar to NCIS' MTAC. There too was a large screen that showed pictures of each of the victims. Agent Lawrence was waiting for them.

"Good morning Gibbs and Dinozzo," Lawrence greeted. "Fornell has been on this case for 2 months as you both know, and I have only joined in after Marie was killed. I'd suggest you sit down."

Gibbs and Tony nodded and sat down in the chairs that stood in front of the screen, Fornell later joined them. Lawrence pressed his clicker and showed a picture of the first victim. John Gold.

"The killer made a replica of the famous painting called the scream. John's face was squished and molded to make it look exactly like the painting. He was pinned against the wall while the rest of the painting was physically painted on the wall. He was found at an old abandoned house and the large back wall was used as this killer's canvas. The paint was examined and it contained no DNA except of animals. The paint was made from the blood of animals from a local farm that was next door. Dyes were used to add colour to the blood. The farmer reported that he had ten cattle missing. Their blood was found in the paint but the rest of them was never found."

Tony felt uneasy in his seat as Lawrence explained.

"John was also given messages from this killer. The messages were delivered differently than how they were delivered to the other victims. Again no DNA or anything was found on them. Next, we have retired CIA agent Sandra Henderson. She just retired two days before her death. She apparently thought that the messages were a prank from her coworkers since she was retiring. Her body was less gruesome than john's in fact she was displayed as the famous Mona Lisa by Da Vinci. Her corpse was painted with make-up to make her look younger. Her smile, however, was carved out with a knife such as how Marie's mouth was also carved to a frown. We are looking for a serial killer who clearly has thing for famous art."

"No one is perfect, Lawrence. He has to have made a mistake somewhere, somewhere he has to have left some DNA," Gibbs commented.

"That is why we are still looking," Fornell added.

"Check the first victims. If that was his first 'kill' then he clearly made mistakes then. He could have gotten better at what he is doing, so there will be less of a chance that we will find something with Sandra and Marie," Tony suggested. Lawrence smiled at that suggestion. He pointed to Tony to show his liking for his idea.

"Bring John's body back in autopsy and have the doctors look at him once more. Bring back the paint from the evidence locker and have it re-tested," Fornell ordered. Lawrence patted Fornell on the back as they were heading out the door. A light ring from Fornell's pocket began to tingle. "Just a second guys, … Agent Fornell….Jones? slow down, slow down!"

Gibbs and Tony stopped and listened as they could hear Jones' voice through the speakers of Fornell's cell phone. "He's coming for me!"