Kate surged up out of her chair, staring at the picture on the screen. "That's not his brother," she accused, her voice shaking. "That's him!"
"No, really, it's his brother," Abby insisted. "James Lee Davenport, age fifty, born and raised in the Indianapolis suburb of Noblesville, flunked out of Ivy Tech, blah de blah… but check it out – he and his brother are identical twins."
Kate sat down hard in her chair. "Oh, my God," she whispered. "There were two of them?"
"Looks like it," Abby said sympathetically. "It would definitely explain why he was in possession of your clothes, and why he would, you know, know things about what happened with you."
"He said I tasted like cotton candy." Kate's voice was a bare whisper, and her face went slightly green just before her eyes rolled up into the back of her head. Tony jumped for her and was able to catch her just before she slumped to the floor.
She came to a second or so later, embarrassed but fine, and waved off Tony's help, though she accepted his bottle of water with gratitude.
"Where is he now, Abby?" Gibbs asked once he was sure Kate was fine.
Abby shrugged. "I'm not sure. He was working at a KFC in Plainfield until a few weeks ago, but Tim called and the manager there said he just up and quit suddenly – he hasn't even come in to collect his final paycheck."
"When did he quit?" Kate asked, her voice calm.
"The day after you were shot," Abby reported, confirming Kate's suspicion. "The same day the story broke nationally."
"So he saw me on the news, quit his job and came to D.C.," Kate said. "Probably spent the first few days finding me, and then he started with the sending stuff."
"No," McGee contradicted her. "First he sent an email."
"Hey, that's right," Tony agreed, snapping his fingers. "The first thing he did was send an email. Now, how'd he get your email address?"
Kate considered, then reached over and picked up the phone. She dialed a long distance number, waited, and then smiled reflexively as she began to speak. "Hey, Mom, it's me."
"Caitlin!" her mother's voice replied. "How are you, dear?"
"I've been better," Kate confessed. "Mom, I need to know something. How many people did you give my work email address out to?"
"Not many," her mother said. "Wait; I kept a list. Here we are: Leslie Jenkins, who lived down the block from us; April Pederson, who went to your elementary school; Richie Cohen, that nice Jewish boy you dated in the tenth grade; and James Lee, who you dated in college."
Kate nodded. April Pedersen explained the influx of emails from girls she'd known in school; April had been the senior class president. But the last name was chilling. "Mom," she said softly, "I didn't date anyone named James Lee in college."
"You didn't? Then where did he know you from?"
Kate closed her eyes, briefly and spoke. "He's Neil Davenport's brother."
There was a very long silence over the phone line before Mrs. Todd spoke again. "Oh, Katie," she said softly. "What are you going to do?"
She smiled grimly. "What I do best, Mom. I'm gonna deal."
"Are you going to come home?"
Kate's eyes opened again, incredulity flooding her face. "Are you kidding? Come home and wait around for him to come get me? Not a chance. He's in D.C. and I work with the best case team NCIS has. We're gonna find him."
"Katie… be careful."
"I will, Mom. Don't worry. I'm harder to get rid of than you'd think." She smiled slightly. "I gotta go; I'll be in touch, but it may not be for a few days."
"I'll be praying."
"So will I." Kate hung up, then turned to her team. "Well, that's one question answered. The son of a bitch called my mother and told her he dated me in college. She gave him the address."
"You really gotta talk to your mom about that," Abby commented.
"Later," Gibbs interjected. "Right now, here's what we're gonna do."
Forty-five minutes later, three unremarkable blue sedans left the NCIS evidence garage at the same time. All three of them followed the same path through the Navy Yard and out the main gate. At that point, one turned right, one turned left, and one drove straight forward.
The one that went forward headed straight up Fourth Street, caught Florida heading northwest, and then turned right on North Capitol, keeping up a northerly progression for about forty-five minutes, at which point the driver pulled over in a diner parking lot, went inside and had second breakfast while flirting outrageously with the waitresses.
The one that turned left turned again on South Capitol, crossed the river, and headed southeast on Suitland Parkway into Maryland, where it drove around aimlessly for about an hour before the driver went through a fast-food drive thru and took his food to a very nice park. He sat on a picnic table, the sun shining off his silver hair, for quite some time, tossing French fries to the birds and generally looking very relaxed.
The one that had gone right caught the Anacostia Freeway and headed south, merging onto the Washington Beltway and moving smoothly eastward through the traffic. As the Beltway rounded the city, the direction of travel grew gradually northward, a direction which was maintained when the driver merged onto I-95 and headed toward Baltimore.
Once in the city of Baltimore, the driver exited the freeway and drove in a seemingly aimless manner around the city for about an hour, before finally being certain that he was not being followed. He announced that status to his seemingly empty car, and the back seat raised up, permitting a very sweaty, very cranky Kate Todd and a very disgruntled Tony the Dog to exit the tiny hiding space. "Finally!" Kate griped.
Tim smiled slightly at her in the rearview mirror. "Want to stop for something to eat?"
"Are you absolutely a hundred percent sure we haven't been followed?"
"Yes," Tim said firmly.
Kate chewed her lip. "How much farther do we have to go?"
"Four more hours, maybe five," Tim replied. "Depending on traffic."
Kate sighed, reached back under the seat and back into the trunk, pulling her bag after her. "Yes. I'm starving and I'll never make it five hours."
"Okay. Any preference?"
"Someplace where I can get a killer dessert," Kate replied, pulling her hairbrush and compact mirror out of her bag. "I need chocolate."
It was nearing dusk before Tim finally turned on a side road in Nantucket, drove to the end of a street, and turned again into a sparsely-developed cul-de-sac. He drove straight to the end of the cul-de-sac and pulled into the driveway of a gorgeous two-story white Cape Cod-style house with black shutters and black trim. Shutting the engine off, he climbed out and dug through his pockets for his other keys. Kate climbed out as well, carrying the bag of take-out Chinese in one hand and trying to manage Tony's leash with the other.
Tim grabbed both their bags and took the dog's leash away from Kate, shutting and locking the car before heading for the front door of the house. Kate continued to stare. "This is your parents' summer place?" she asked incredulously.
Tim blushed slightly. "Yeah."
"My God. What's your regular house look like?"
Tim laughed softly. "It's not nearly as nice as this place; Dad inherited this from his dad a few years ago, and Mom won't let him sell it because she's always loved Nantucket. She's trying to talk him into moving here when he retires."
"I can see why," Kate admitted, following Tim up the front stairs and into the house.
The house was as lovely inside as outside, and Kate was almost afraid to let Tony loose in the house, but Tim waved her concerns off. "If she makes a mess, we'll clean it up. Don't worry about it." He let the dog off her leash. "We can put her outside by herself tomorrow, after I check the fence." Then he moved into the living room. "Let's crack some windows; it's a little stuffy in here."
Once the sea breeze was blowing comfortably through the house and the bags of groceries and belongings had been brought in, Tim and Kate sat down at the kitchen table and dug into their dinner while Tony munched comfortably on her kibble in the mud room. Kate found herself relaxing for the first time since she'd opened that horrible email, and she was even able to laugh at some of Tim's stories about DiNozzo's antics while she'd been on medical leave.
After eating, they ventured upstairs to see if any of the bedrooms were livable. None of the beds had sheets on them, though the comforters were all neatly folded at the ends of the bare mattresses, so Tim fetched clean sheets from a linen closet and began making up the king-sized bed in the master suite. "You can sleep in here," he told her. "There's a Jacuzzi tub if you want to soak."
She studied him for a long moment. "You know something, Tim? You might be the perfect man."
Tim snorted. "You obviously don't know me as well as you think you do." With that, he turned and left the room, shutting the door behind him.
Kate cracked the windows in the bedroom before heading into the bathroom, Tony darting at her heels, and starting to fill the tub. She stripped down and climbed in, careful not to get her injured shoulder under the water, settling in for a nice, long soak. When she woke, it was after midnight, the water was cold, and she'd forgotten to put out a towel, so she had to dart across the bathroom to get one out of the linen cupboard and then shiver until her temperature regained equilibrium.
Once she was dry, she climbed into the huge bed, pulling the comforter up over her head. Tony jumped up with her and burrowed under the sheets, curling up against the small of her back. Smiling, she settled back into dreamless sleep.
After leaving Kate alone in her room, Tim made his way down the hall to the next bedroom and made up the bed there, then crossing the hall to get a shower before returning to his bedroom and booting up his laptop. After a day like today, the most calming activity he could think of was killing zombies, so he started up Resident Evil and started working out his frustrations.
Around nine, his cell phone rang, and he paused his game to answer. "McGee."
"You make it okay?"
"Yeah, Boss," McGee replied, setting his computer aside. "No problems."
"Good. How's she holding up?"
"She's doing okay. We called it an early night."
"Keep an ear out," Gibbs advised him. "She had nightmares the whole time she stayed with me."
"Will do, Boss." McGee sat back against the headboard. "Did either of you have any trouble?"
"DiNozzo's pretty sure the guy followed him. I know he wasn't on me, not unless he's better than I am." Left unspoken was the obvious assumption that no one was better than Gibbs, and McGee found himself smiling.
"Good; I'll tell Kate in the morning. I'm sure it will help her relax even more."
"Still, make sure she stays in as much as possible."
"Of course." Tim nodded once. "Anything else?"
"Not so far. We've got a team on her apartment just in case. Hopefully he'll show up there. Did you ever get anything on that email?"
"Oh, I forgot to check. One second." Tim switched windows and pulled up his search bot. "There it is; it came from an internet café in College Park." He paused. "This guy's good; he must have gone through a hundred switches to make it look like it came from Indiana. What's he doing working at a KFC?"
"He's a psycho baby-rapist, McGee. You were expecting logic and a full-time job?"
McGee shrugged. "You can never tell."
"Think next time." Gibbs made a sound of impatience. "I'll be in touch." The line went dead, and Tim closed his phone and went back to his zombies.
The following morning dawned stormy, so there was no need to worry about keeping Kate indoors; neither she nor Tim, nor even the dog, had any desire to go outside. Kate was even more relaxed after Tim reported that Tony thought her stalker had followed him; relieved that their shell game seemed to have worked, she hugged Tim tightly and all but inhaled the strawberry waffles he'd made for breakfast. Then, to stave off boredom, Tim climbed up into the attic and lugged down a trunk full of board games. They spent the day in the living room playing Monopoly, Scrabble, dominoes and even Connect Four.
Gibbs called around midafternoon, interrupting a very rousing game of Risk, just in time to hear Kate curse vividly in French when Tim's little plastic army captured Iceland. "What the hell are you two doing up there?" Gibbs asked irritably.
Tim chuckled. "Keeping ourselves occupied," he said simply. "It's storming like crazy and we don't have cable."
"You're keeping yourself occupied by teaching Kate to swear like she's in the French Foreign Legion?"
Tim laughed. "Actually, it's the other way around. I'm not really sure what some of those words even meant."
"Well at least two of them involved sexually transmitted diseases that your mother may or may not have had while she was pregnant with you," Kate advised him, snagging the phone neatly and giving him her most charming smile. "Hey, Gibbs."
"How you holding up?"
"Oh, I'm fine. It's really nice out here. Very peaceful. And Tim's teaching me how to lose gracefully."
Gibbs laughed softly. "So I heard. Checked your email today?"
"Not yet. Tim, can you grab your computer so I can check my email?"
"Sure." Tim headed upstairs, and Kate returned to her conversation.
"I did check my voice mail," she said. "I had a couple of hang-ups at home, and my cell phone hasn't rung."
"I'll have Abby check the numbers that called you today."
"Okay." Kate paused as Tim returned with the computer, and logged into her work email. "Hmm. Another sexual harassment seminar? Didn't we just have one?" She sighed. "Interdepartmental newsletter, something from the Philly P.D. following up on that drug trafficking stuff… aha. What are you?"
"What do you have, Kate?"
Kate took a deep breath. "Something from Davenport."
"What's it say?"
"I don't know. I haven't opened it yet." Kate took another deep breath and clicked.
The email was timestamped slightly before she had left NCIS secreted under the back seat of a car, and the subject line read "I hope you liked your present."
I've been saving it for you all these years, the body of the message read. I know you won't fit into them any more – you've gotten a lot taller, after all – but that's okay because we won't need clothes for the games we're going to play. eorI'm coming for you, Katie. We're going to have so much fun together, you and I. Remember the basement? It's okay if you don't, because you'll be familiar with it again very soon. And the next time you go down there, you won't leave. I promise you that. You'll stay with me and play with me forever.
Doesn't that sound like fun?
Kate shuddered as she read the email in a mechanical voice, Tim's hands on her shoulders for comfort. After she finished, Gibbs spoke. "Have McGee trace that email," he said. "And just stay calm. He has no idea where you are, and it'll stay that way until we catch the son of a bitch. Okay?"
"Okay," Kate replied softly, smiling slightly at his protective tone. "I'm calm. I promise."
"Good." The line went dead.
Kate paused, studied the phone, and sighed as she flipped it closed. "Someday I swear he'll learn how to say goodbye at the end of a conversation."
Tim laughed. "Keep wishing."
They returned to their game. As the evening grew later, they progressed to Uno, then discovered that Pictionary just wasn't as fun without a whole group of people. With that lesson learned, they also set aside Taboo. Staring down into the bottom of the trunk, McGee began to laugh. "Look what we have!"
He pulled out a bright yellow and red box, and Kate nearly squealed with delight. "Oh, God, that was my favorite game when I was a kid!"
"Let me go see if I can find some batteries."
While he was digging through the kitchen cabinets, a crack of thunder boomed right overhead, and the lights sputtered and went out. "Bringing candles!" he shouted.
"Standing still in the dark!" Kate shouted back.
Tim returned to the living room with his arms full of candles and two AA batteries. They lit the candles first, setting them around the room to cast a nice glow, and Tim installed the batteries into the game, then magnanimously offered the tool to Kate. "Ladies first."
She grinned, taking it in hand, and studied the board before her. "Here we go," she said. "Charley horse."
"A bold choice," Tim approved, and then laughed when she buzzed the side of the slot.
Chuckling, she handed over the tweezers, and Tim successfully removed their patient's funny bone. "Oh, sure," Kate complained. "Go for the easy one."
Chuckling, he went for 'water on the knee' next, knowing full well that he wouldn't be able to pull it off. He handed Kate the tweezers again, then stood. "Be right back."
"I'm gonna pull all of these while you're gone," she threatened.
"I'll be able to hear the buzzing from the kitchen," he pointed out as he left the room. When he returned, he was carrying a bottle of red wine and two glasses. "Drink?"
"Oh, that would be wonderful."
From Operation they moved to Battleship and then, having exhausted all the games in the trunk, went back to the dominoes. "We used to do this during storms at home," Kate admitted.
"Light candles, get drunk and play board games?"
Kate laughed. "Light candles and play dominoes," she clarified, taking a sip of her wine. "We were never big drinkers, being between the ages of nine and twenty, so we usually passed on the liquor part of the evening."
"Makes sense," Tim replied, grinning.
Tim couldn't help but notice the way she relaxed even more after her second glass of wine, and how the candlelight seemed to turn her golden eyes into deep black pools that he could drown in. Kate couldn't help but notice how the flickering shadows made him look mysterious and a little bit scary, and how he seemed to delight in every chance he got to touch her, even in the most innocent of ways.
Somewhere around the middle of the bottle, they made eye contact over the ivory pieces, and she smiled in a way that she'd never smiled at him before. It was a smile that everything male in him responded to immediately, a smile that made his inner Neanderthal cry out in defiance and want. He smiled back, and suddenly there was an electricity in the air between them that had never been there before. Suddenly they weren't NCIS Special Agents any more; they weren't even Kate and Tim any more. They were a woman and a man alone in a house, sharing a bottle of wine and some candlelight.
When he leaned across the table to pour the last of the wine into her glass, she was looking down at her dominoes; she happened to glance up when he leaned, and suddenly their faces were mere inches apart, and he was staring into her eyes, searching for a sign that she was feeling the same things he was feeling.
It was there; he could see it in those inky depths. He leaned forward just a little bit more and touched her lips softly with his own.
Her eyes fluttered closed at the contact and she made the softest sound of surrender he had ever heard a woman make before – the tiniest of sighs, nothing more – but her lips parted just a fraction and he pressed his advantage, parting them farther with his own and teasing them with the tip of his tongue.
He set the wine bottle down blindly on the floor and reached for her, burying his fingers in her hair and cupping her head with his palm as he deepened the contact, flicking his tongue now across the edges of her teeth and then sliding it inside her mouth to taste her.
She gave a soft whimper when her tongue met his, her own hand coming up to thread through his hair, and she met his advances with equal desire, drawing his lower lip into her mouth to suck gently on it, rubbing it with the flat of her tongue to make him moan. His fingers flexed against her skull, burying deeper into her hair while the scents of her shampoo and her light perfume wrapped around his brain and drove themselves into his soul.
He released her lips, giving them both a chance to catch their breaths, and moved around the table so that he was kneeling in front of her, studying her face. When her eyes finally opened again, they were heavy-lidded and full of desire, and he pulled her out of her chair to kneel with him on the floor, her knee between his. His right hand was still under her hair; his left trailed down her body to rest on her hip as he leaned forward to claim her lips again.
This kiss was not gentle; it was a fierce plundering of her mouth with all the force and passion behind it that Tim McGee had in his body. Kate whimpered again, louder this time, and returned the favor, her arms wrapping around his neck as she moved to straddle his lap, pressing her body against his. She felt like a living flame in his arms, all hot, fragrant skin and sweet, delicious mouth, and he was lost in her.
When he broke the kiss this time, he did not release the contact; instead, he drew his lips and tongue down her jawline toward her ear. Just before he got there, he headed down her neck, nipping and licking and finding out just what sorts of sounds he could coax from her if he kissed her pulse point or sucked at the column of her throat. Her head fell back, granting him access, and she moaned, writhed, whimpered and gasped as he worked his will on her tender flesh.
She had never felt anything like this before; she'd been with men who were skilled lovers, but even then it was nothing, absolutely nothing like this. The things he was doing to her, the fires he was kindling in her body, were burning her from the inside out. She needed him to stop before she exploded, but she wanted him to never, ever stop.
His hands slid under the hem of her shirt and pushed it upward, and she winced when it tugged at her sore shoulder. "Careful!"
He leaned forward and placed several soft kisses around the area. "Sorry." Then he went back to removing her shirt, more gently this time. A moment later it was in the floor, and was followed quickly by her bra while his mouth and hands took over the task of cupping her breasts. Her hands came back up to cup his head, encouraging him to continue with his very pleasurable activities. When her hips began to rub determinedly against his own, he wrapped his arms around her torso and gently laid her on her back on the rug, supporting himself over her on his palms, staring into her lust-glazed eyes. "Kate," he whispered, nuzzling behind her ear, "are you sure you want this?"
She reached up and unbuttoned the neck of his polo shirt, then reached down to tug the hem of it out of his pants. "I'm sure," she said softly. "Please, Tim. I want you."
He shrugged out of his shirt, leaning down to kiss her breathless again while her hands explored his torso and his back, learning his skin and the places that made him moan into her mouth. Her fingers made quick work of his belt buckle, opening the button of his jeans and drawing the zipper down carefully before reaching in.
He groaned, thrusting into her grip automatically, and then reached down to grasp her wrist and pull it out of his pants. "You don't know how much I like that," he murmured against her ear, "but I don't want this to end before it begins." Then he began to slowly make his way down her body, licking and kissing his way across soft, fragrant flesh. He paid special attention to her nipples before moving down to her belly, pushing his tongue into her navel to give her a small preview of coming attractions. She cried out when he did that, her fingers gripping at the rug beneath her.
When he got to the waistband of her pants, he gave her one last chance to back out. "Are you absolutely sure?" he asked her, his hands on the button of her jeans.
"I'm sure," she promised, then lifted her hips in blatant lascivious invitation.
He didn't need it.
When it was over, he kissed her gently and stood, gathering their clothes and helping her to her feet. They blew out all but one remaining candle and, hands joined, they used it to light their way upstairs, where they climbed together into her bed before blowing that candle out. Then, wrapped in each other's arms, they surrendered to a sated sleep.
