Chapter 2: Groundwork
"Well Mr. and Mrs. Keagan, I really think you're going to like this house. It isn't technically for rent yet so you're the first people to check it out. There are 2 Bedrooms, 1 and a half baths, and a fenced in yard, perfect for a young couple." The realtor was practically salivating at the prospect of renting the property. "Oh we're hoping for a biiiig family, aren't we Pumpkin?" Tony informed the realtor as he looked at me. This was going to be a very long assignment. I fought to keep from rolling my eyes by grabbing Tony's hand and squeezing it as hard as I could. "Oh honey, I LOVE it! Would it be possible to move in right away?" I gushed. The realtor grinned and went out to her car for the paperwork. The second she left, Tony and I simultaneously dropped each other's hand as if it was on fire. "Laying it on a little thick there DiNozzo." "Just trying to be convincing Kate." Tony fired back at me. "Look, the more convincing we are, the more likely it is that we will be invited into these people's lives and the quicker we can figure out who the murderer is." He continued. "And the faster we can get back to our normal lives." I finished. "This reminds me of the film, State of Grace. . ." I groaned audibly yet he continued. "Sean Penn, Gary Oldman, Ed Harris. . . Sean Penn returns home to New York after ten years. He hooks up with childhood pal who is involved in the Irish mob run by his brother. What they don't know is that he's an undercover cop there to break up the gang. . ." Mercifully, the realtor returned and we went about signing the lease. We were informed that as soon as the check cleared, we would be able to move in. It could be as early as the weekend. I was so thankful that I would be able to have at least one night to myself before being shackled to Tony in false matrimony.
My peaceful DiNozzo-less life was short lived and we were moving in 2 days later. The suspects, er, neighbors, came over to introduce themselves to us while the moving crew (McGee and Palmer) moved everything in. They worked on installing the internal monitoring equipment while Tony and I installed the garden decorations fitted with bugs, cameras and motion detectors built in. By the evening, we were ready to try to endear ourselves to the neighbors by having a barbeque. There we got to know the Masons, Elliots, Jameses, Bishops, and Robertsons. We already knew that neither the Elliots nor the Robertsons were guilty since they had alibis. That left three sets of suspects. Tony took grill duty and I set about introducing myself to the wives and children of our new neighborhood. Gibbs and McGee were in our ears thanks to the surveillance equipment. The evening went very well. We were invited over to dinner by the Masons and Jameses for evenings that week. Not bad for our first night on the job.
A couple of weeks into our assignment, I had invitations to all sorts of social engagements, but NCIS was no closer to finding the murderer. Tony and I had settled into a somewhat peaceful coexistence. One night after an evening with one of the suspected couples, Tony was lying on my bed while I was brushing my teeth, "You know Kate, I don't think that the Jameses are the murders. I mean, they seem just like a normal everyday couple. No one here seems to have the Desperate Housewives mentality." I rinsed my mouth and left the bathroom, "Tony, you do realize that Desperate Housewives is a TV show right?" "Of course I do, Kate" he scoffed, "but you know that there has to be a ring of truth to make the show believable." I walked around to the side of my bed to grab my hairbrush. Tony rolled over towards me, "so honey should we have a little fun tonight?" he questioned playfully. I turned around to face him when he pulled me onto the bed. "Tony!" I yelled. It must have caught him off guard because in about 2 seconds I had him pinned on the bed, laughing. I had flashbacks to training with McGee, Tony and Gibbs. I never did get the chance to fight DiNozzo that day. The thought distracted me because the next thing I knew, Tony had rolled me off him and was in the process of trying to pin me down. Finally, the laughing diverted my attention enough that he was able to win. We were both out of breath staring at each other. I never realized how gorgeous his eyes were. The most intriguing grayish-green color I had ever seen. And his hair. . . The perfect chestnut brown and just slightly tousled by our impromptu wrestling match. I had to fight the urge to run my fingers through it. Instinctively I shook my head to clear it of these thoughts. This was Tony for crying out loud. He must have thought the same thing because he immediately let me get up and quietly went to brush his teeth as well.
Day 27 of "wedded bliss" and there was a break in the case. Thanks to one of the bugs planted during "burritos and blendeds" night at the Bishop's house, McGee and Gibbs had ascertained that they were our number one suspects but we still needed concrete evidence. Neighborhood movie night was at their house that week so even though I was tired of the inane conversations from Jennifer Bishop, we has to suffer through another night there. I had to find out the make of their carpet to see if it was a match to the one Abby had analyzed. Jennifer and I were finishing snacks in the kitchen with a couple of the other wives and chatting. I got the information on the carpet while we were casually talking and texted Gibbs the information. Everyone was convening in the living room and Michael Bishop was setting up the DVD on the flat screen when the lights flickered and went out. "I must have blown a fuse in the kitchen using too many of the appliances trying to get everything ready," Jennifer mused aloud. Tony walked over to the window and peeked out. "I don't think it was you, the whole street is black." Michael called the power company. Of course, they "were aware of the outage and were working to restore service as soon as possible." In the hopes that they were actually telling the truth, candles were lit and drinks were poured. After a couple of hours, it was apparent that the outage was not ending any time soon so we all headed back to our respective homes.
Tony and I stumbled around in the kitchen to find some candles. We put them all around in the living room and sat on the couch with a bottle of wine. Tony pulled out his iPod and speakers for some music and then lit a fire in the fireplace. It was a chilly October night and the fire warmed us up nicely, not to mention lit the room up. I don't know if it was the wine, the atmosphere or both, but the next thing I knew, Tony and I were all over each other. I woke up the next morning nestled in his strong arms on the couch wearing nothing but a blanket. I was slowly recalling the night before when my phone rang. I jumped up, grabbed the blanket and sprinted as best as I could to locate my phone. It was Gibbs and he was not happy. Apparently, the power outage knocked out the cell towers as well and we had been out of contact with MTAC for much of the night, not that we would have noticed. Since it was useless to be wearing the earwigs at that point, both Tony and I took them out when we got home. Little did we know that the power came back on some time after we had fallen asleep and NCIS had been trying to contact us for over an hour. Apparently, I had slept through five phone calls. They had enough evidence to convict the Bishops and they wanted us ready to apprehend them in 10 minutes when the rest of the team arrived.
I hung up with Gibbs and ran to wake up Tony. I shook him awake, "good morning gor . . . "he started to say before I frantically told him what was going on. He flew off the couch and up the stairs to get ready. I couldn't wrap my mind around what had transpired but I didn't have time to try because we needed to do our job. Everyone would be there in no time, especially if Gibbs was driving.