Ziva yawned, trying to take another sip from her empty coffee cup before reaching across Tony's body to grab his. His lack of protest indicated that the guest speaker had put him to sleep, which was soon confirmed with a loud snore. Thankful they had grabbed their usual seats in the back of the room, she finished his coffee and dropped her head on his shoulder, the wool of his sweater soft but scratchy on her cheek. The comforting scent of his cologne was well on its way to putting her to sleep as well when someone tapped her on the arm. Slightly annoyed, she turned to McGee. "Yes?"

"Come on. We've got a case."

She checked her joy and hesitated before waking Tony. "Are you joking?"

"Gibbs is already out the door."

"Fantastic." McGee made his way out of the room as she leaned close to Tony and breathed into his ear, "Rise and shine, my little hairy butt."

"Ugh…huh?" He blinked at her a few times. "Lunch?"

"Case."

He grinned and stretched his arms over his head. "And miss this…what is that guy talking about?"

"No idea."

They were at the door when he tried to turn back. "Hold on, I forgot my coffee."

"You finished it."

"I did?"

"Yes." She took his hand and pulled him toward the bullpen. "I'll get you another coffee later."

"Wait a sec…why are you offering to…did you steal my coffee while I was sleeping?"

"You weren't drinking it."

"So that makes it fair game?" She knew him well enough to be able to feel his gaze instinctively. "Well, you aren't using your ass right now. Does that mean I can…"

"No, it doesn't." Gibbs' interruption was enough to make Ziva realize she was still holding Tony's hand. She took off toward her desk to retrieve her gear.

Tony was more casual, following her rather than getting his own things. "She took my coffee! Of all people, I'd think you…"

Gibbs was unmoved, interrupting, "Is there something you didn't understand about us having a case?"

"Something good, boss?"

"Double murder and a missing kid." Ziva flinched in sympathy as Gibbs delivered a harder smack than usual. "Good enough for you, DiNozzo?"

"It didn't mean it like that, I just meant…"

"David!" She held up her hand to catch the keys violently flung in her direction. "Gas the truck!"

"Where are we going?"

As Gibbs had disappeared into the elevator, McGee filled in, "Silver Spring. I've got the address and details. Lt. Gregory Nelson and his wife Joanne were murdered in their home less than an hour ago. She managed to call 911 before the gunman killed her."

"One shooter?" Ziva pressed the call button as she and McGee waited for the elevator; Tony was still at his desk, taking his time getting his gear together.

"She specifically says a man with a gun on the 911 tape. Local LEOs arrived about five minutes after the operator lost the signal, but they didn't find anyone but the lieutenant and his wife, both shot in the head."

"And the child?"

"No one knows. His name is Henry Nelson, age seven. We just found out that he…hey!" McGee's head snapped forward from a sudden blow. "Tony, what the hell?"

"That was for not mentioning the kid being involved earlier. You know Gibbs has a short fuse on these things." He slapped McGee again, but on the back this time, as they stepped into the elevator. "But points for saying hell instead of heck."

"Uh, thanks. I think."

Ziva pinched Tony in an uncomfortable place, drawing a satisfied smirk from McGee, and said, "What else do we know about the boy?"

"Oh, well, like I said, he's seven and…" he paused to look at his notes, "and he wasn't in school today. The school gave us the number for the grandparents. Talking to them was what put Gibbs in such a good mood. I think they're going to get to the house around the time that we do, so…"

"So let's hope they don't have heart problems?"

Ziva was about to reprimand Tony for the joke when she glanced at his serious expression. "Perhaps it would be best for us to drive slowly."

McGee aimed his camera and took several shots of Joanne Nelson's body, swallowing hard as he focused on the deceptively neat hole in her forehead. He took a step to the side and found and angle that would accommodate both the body and blood spatter in the frame.

"Did you photograph the telephone?"

He checked the small screen to make sure he'd gotten the entire pattern in his shot before answering Ziva's question, "I was just getting to that." The cordless phone lay on the floor a few feet from the body and he was grateful to move on to a new subject. "All set."

Ziva picked up the receiver and dropped it into a plastic evidence bag, leaning close to the carpet to make sure she had collected all pieces of the broken telephone. "Perhaps the killer stepped on this. I doubt simply dropping it would have caused this damage. Did the…"

Tuning her out, McGee knelt beside the body. He decided the bullet hole was a little too far to the left. No reason to think every brunette with a hole through her forehead was…

"Tim, are you all right?"

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. "I was just thinking. Sorry." He looked at Ziva. "Were you saying something?"

"Did the 911 operator get a recording of the killer's voice before the telephone was destroyed?"

"Oh…I don't know. We don't have the tape yet. Or, we do, but it was sent straight to Abby because we had to come to the scene." He took a deep breath. "Did you find the shell casing?"

"No. It appears that the killer was smart enough to take it with him. A professional, perhaps."

"Yeah." McGee stood, allowing his camera to bump against his chest as he turned away from the body. He allowed Ziva to go on for a moment before saying, "Was the closet open when the police got here?"

She was at his side more quickly then he anticipated. "They cleared the entire house before we arrived, so we'd have to ask them. Why?"

"Nothing. It just looks…off." He couldn't quite describe the gap between otherwise evenly spaced articles of clothing, so he asked, "Do you leave your closet open?"

She raised an eyebrow and regarded him skeptically. "I live with Tony. I consider myself lucky when I don't have to wade through a sea of dirty laundry on the way to the bathroom. We have a basket in the bedroom, and we even have our own washer and dryer now, but he still refuses to…"

"Maybe we should check on what he and Gibbs are up to," McGee interrupted, not wanting to hear a story about Tony, Ziva, and clothes on the floor.

"All right. I think all there is to finish in here is…Ducky. Are you done with the lieutenant?"

The medical examiner tapped a gloved finger against his hat. "Yes. I'm afraid he looks much the same as his unfortunate wife." He sighed and set his bag on the floor, dropping into a crouch. "Jethro is out front; Mrs. Nelson's parents have just arrived, poor folks. I believe Tony is still poking around the rest of the house."

"They were later than we thought they would be. Thanks, Ducky." Ziva walked confidently from the room. McGee could hear her chatting with Palmer in the hallway.

He hung back for a moment, slightly bothered that, now that he looked carefully, the woman's eyes appeared to be staring into the open closet.

"Something wrong, Timothy?"

"Just something I need to ask the first officers on scene about." He took one last long look at the body before asking, "Are you okay in here, Doctor?"

Ducky patted his arm. "Never fear. We'll take good care of her. And the boy will turn up."

"I'm sure he will. I've just got this weird feeling." McGee left him to talk to Mrs. Nelson.

Palmer stopped him in the hallway. "Have you seen the kid's room yet? I was just telling Ziva that I peeked in, and it's pretty cool."

"The kid is missing," McGee spat.

"Yeah, but they're going to find him. Anyway, check out the room. Harry Potter theme. I'm jealous." Palmer pointed toward a door enthusiastically before pushing his glasses up his nose and suddenly standing a little straighter. "Or I would be, if I were a little kid."

"Sure." In spite of the situation, McGee had to admit that he was impressed when he looked inside the room. The moment passed when he blinked and imagined he saw the woman's eyes staring blankly into the closet.

Tony was gratified to find that the Nelson family hadn't taken down the screens and put up the storm windows yet. If he leaned just close enough to make his ear uncomfortably cold, he could…hear every third word Gibbs was saying to the hysterical old lady just beyond the police tape.

A nudge at his calf startled him, but when he looked down he saw covered shoes instead of some furry creature. "Did you just kick me?"

"I'm still wearing my gloves, so I didn't want to poke you." Ziva leaned in front of him to get a look out the window. "What's going on?"

"Gibbs is explaining to the wife's parents why they can't come in the house or see the bodies. She's a basket case and he's your typical stoic World War II vet. I thought he was going to salute when Palmer wheeled the first stretcher out. Oh, there she goes again!"

The woman made a halting dash for the door, only to be stymied by the crime scene tape and Gibbs hand on her shoulder. "Every few minutes she tries to get up here."

"I'm sure she's worried about her grandson."

Tony turned away from the window, the entertainment suddenly evaporating. "Local cops are coordinating with our Probie Patrol. Well, the NCIS Probie Patrol, since we've got our one and only Probie occupied. No one's found him yet."

"What about in this room?"

"I think we'd have noticed if he was in here."

She rolled her eyes. "I meant what did you find in terms of evidence. Was there a casing?"

"Nope, just the lamp knocked off the table. Gibbs got to say the killer 'policed his brass.'" He crossed his arms over his chest, staring at the bloody splotch on the carpet. "I doubt we're looking at a random home invasion…"

"Were we ever?"

He trailed her toward the kitchen and dining room at the back of the house. "I'm just being thorough. Maybe if you'd let me finish?" He waited until she'd gotten the sarcastic looks out of her system before going on, "Thank you. I was trying to say that I doubt we're looking at a random home invasion because the husband let the killer in and had an argument with him. Now, the wife didn't give a name on the tape…"

"When did you hear the tape?"

"Gibbs told me. He seemed to have it memorized. Anyway, if she knew who he was, she would have said something to the operator, right? So I'm thinking we've got a dead guy…"

"And a dead woman and their missing child," she added, inspecting the yard through the kitchen window.

"Did you interrupt me this much when we were just partners?"

"There is a panda in the back yard."

Her non sequitur threw him off the snappy comeback he'd been preparing. "A…panda?"

"Yes." She turned to look at him for a moment before moving toward the sliding glass doors as if a suburban panda were the most natural thing in the world.

"So you're gonna go wrangle it?"

"What?"

"Well, with your experience, aren't you our unofficial zoological expert?"

"A stuffed toy panda," she clarified, moving closer to the open sliding glass doors. He followed her out, still not seeing the panda and brushing past a policeman stationed at the rear of the house. Ziva was already on the edge of the patio by the time she asked, "Why is there a toy on the lawn?"

"There's lot of toys out here."

She pointed to a black and white object at the base of a tree. "A stuffed toy is not normally found outside."

"Oh, yeah. Well, kids leave stuff outside all the time. Or we figured the kid dropped it on his way out the back gate there. Didn't pick it up because we were afraid of disturbing the crime scene, you guys being so touchy and all."

Tony grinned as the officer got the second-degree evil eye from Ziva. "Did anyone check the tree fort?"

The officer hitched up his belt and said, "There's no ladder, and it's about, uh…" He shielded his eyes unnecessarily as he looked much further into the cloudy sky than the top of the tallest tree in the yard. "Well, it's high. No way the kid could've gotten up there."

"Perhaps he climbed the tree."

"He's a seven year old kid, not a monkey, lady."

Tony judged that he could probably make it up the tree with a minimal effort. "But why would a kid with a cool tree fort be afraid to go up to it? Anyway, kids don't land when they fall at that age; they bounce."

"Look, I've been standing here and no one's been moving around up there. We shouted and no one answered. If you were a little kid and the police came, wouldn't you answer?"

"Not if you saw your parents murdered," McGee said softly, prompting the three on the patio to turn.

Tony was surprised by the somber look on McGee's face. "What makes you think that?"

"The grandmother keeps saying that she's sure he was home. That means he might have seen what happened. Maybe we're looking at this all wrong and it's really a kidnapping."

"Tim, you're looking a little off." Tony moved to steady his colleague with a hand on his arm. "Everything all right?"

"Yeah, I just…did you see the wife's body?" When Tony shook his head, he continued in a whisper, "She looks…the bullet hole in the forehead…she just looks a little like Kate, that's all. Or she did when I first looked at her and then I started thinking about the little boy hiding in the closet and seeing it happen."

"It's okay, Probie. Relax. You're over that." He was even more confused by McGee's uncharacteristic response to the scene than he had been by Ziva's panda announcement. "What's with the sudden trip down memory lane?"

McGee pouted, his top lip disappearing completely, and muttered, "I've been trying to include her in my novel."

"I thought you put her in Deep Six?"

He suddenly became more animated, "As someone who was gone before it started. She deserves better than that. I think she'll be a team leader from another region who Tibbs has a conversation with in MTAC – something that subtly makes her memorable. I haven't quite worked it out."

Tony smiled as McGee went on and turned to the spot where Ziva had been beside him. "Do I know how to distract him or…" An empty set of blue booties was the only thing next to him now. "Ziva?"

"Up here!" She was hanging in the open door of the tree house, working her legs against the trunk to propel her body through. A moment after she was in, her head popped out. "The boy is here."

In spite of his urge to make up for whatever had earned him the headslaps from earlier – whatever it had been, because he honestly couldn't remember – Tony curbed his urge to start a footrace to the front lawn. "Go alert the proper authorities, Probie."

"Really?"

"I can't look at you when you make the sad bulldog face. Accept the hugs and kisses and handshakes of the old people with my blessing."

Tony watched McGee leave with a bounce in his step before approaching the tree where the uniformed officer was scratching his head. "How d'ya think she got up there?"

He confidently grabbed a branch. "I suspect it went something like this." He swung himself up, but overestimated the necessary force, flipping himself over and off the branch back to the ground. "She probably did it more gracefully," he grunted, "plus I forgot this." He grabbed the stuffed panda off the ground before rapidly ascending to escape the insolent laughter of the man below. He didn't appreciate his timing until a scream, presumably of joy, echoed through the yard. "Grannies love the Probie," he joked to himself before turning his focus to the task of actually getting into the tree house. "Panda coming in!" he called, tossing the toy through before swinging himself over.