Hey, guys! Sorry this has taken so long, but I have the next chapter ready for you!
Read on, and enjoy!
When Jessie was next found, it was by Ziva, who had come looking for Tony or Gibbs to relay the information she had received from Ducky, considering neither of them were answering their phones. She was very confused when she found the bullpen was empty… and then she heard the quiet sobbing.
The Israeli approached Gibbs' desk slowly, and was surprised to find the little girl curled up on his swivel chair, seemingly sobbing. She knelt down beside her. "Hello?"
The sobbing noise stopped as the little girl jumped, startled by the sudden voice, and she peeked over her shoulder to see Ziva kneeling there, watching her. "H-hi…" she replied, her voice almost silent.
Ziva gave her a comforting smile. "Do you happen to know where the other two agents are supposed to be? DiNozzo and Gibbs?"
Jessica took a while to answer, hesitating for a good minute or so before she opened her mouth to speak. "Interrogation," she mumbled softly. So softly that Ziva didn't hear.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart? Could you please speak up?"
"They're in interrogation." Jessica's voice was still quiet, but this time Ziva heard her, and she nodded, smiling a little at the little girl, and stood fully. She glanced around for a few moments, before looking into the bullpen next door.
"Hello? I have a witness in here – would you mind keeping an eye on her until I return?" After receiving a murmur of agreement she headed over to interrogation to see what was happening with the males.
Andrew just sat quietly at the interrogation table, alternating between looking around the room and staring at the one-way mirror. He had an idea of who was behind it – after all, he knew who had brought him in here – but he wasn't too fond of the fact that he couldn't see exactly who was there. That, and he wasn't really all that sure what he had been brought in for.
Eventually, after what felt like hours, the door to the interrogation room opened, and Andrew looked up to see Gibbs walk into the room, a folder in his hand as he moved to sit down on the other side of the table. He watched as Gibbs set the folder on the table, slightly curious as to what was in there, but then looked up when the older man spoke.
"So, Andrew?"
Andrew's eyes darted to the side nervously before he looked over at Gibbs again. "Uh… yeah?"
Gibbs smiled slightly as he looked down at the folder in front of him. "Andrew Parkson…"
"Is that my file?" the teen blurted out suddenly, looking down at the thin file that Gibbs had placed on the table.
Gibbs made a face, shrugging slightly. "It could be," he admitted. "It might not be, though."
"You're not sure?" At the look Gibbs gave him, the teen corrected himself. "Oh, you just don't want to tell me?"
"Not yet."
Andrew took a deep breath. "Okay, okay, what do you… what do you need to know?"
"What happened last night?" Gibbs asked, being rather blunt (though his tone of voice didn't mirror that) as he pulled out a notebook and a pen.
The boy took a moment to think before starting to explain. "Well, I got home at around seventeen-hundred hours," he paused at the raised eyebrow that Gibbs gave him, before going on with his explanation, "…after bringing Jessie home from her karate class, because I did some track at school. I remember telling my little sister, Jessica, to get changed out of her Karate Gi before getting some leftovers from the fridge and heating them up for our dinner. As soon as she was change, she came down, and we ate. At about eighteen hundred hours, our… our mom came home and told us to go upstairs and get our homework done because it was a school night. About fifteen minutes after that, we heard the front door open pretty loudly – both of us actually came out of our room when we heard it – and there was a load of crashing downstairs: plates crashing, furniture breaking, and etcetera. Jessica and I, we ran downstairs to see what was going on, and we saw our mom fighting some masked person. She told us to run, and we headed straight upstairs. We didn't see what happened after that… but I remember hearing my mom scream."
Gibbs nodded, scribbling it down in note form before looking back up at Andrew. "Do you have any idea what the intruder was doing there?"
Andrew shook his head. "N-no… but I think they were looking for something. After… after…" He gulped, taking a deep breath. "I heard footsteps, someone coming upstairs. My sister and I headed straight for our parents' room, which is furthest from the staircase, and we hid. Whoever it was didn't get far in their search, because we heard the front door open and our dad calling at around nineteen-hundred hours… I think."
Gibbs nodded again. "Alright then. And you two didn't see anything?"
"We were upstairs the whole time."
"Okay. One last question: the gun, where did you get it?"
This was where the teen tensed. "It was dad's. He always keeps a spare in his room in case of emergencies." His eyes widened. "You don't honestly think…"
"We just need to know – you were holding a weapon at the crime scene, and we need to cover all the bases."
The manner in which Gibbs was speaking hinted to Andrew that he should calm down, but it had the exact opposite effect. He began to get angry, his face reddening slightly.
"Do you really think that I would kill my own father?!"
"Did I not just say that we were covering bases?"
"I would never even think about killing him!"
"And I respect that. But you were holding a weapon at a crime scene, and we need to clear you as a suspect. That's all."
Andrew grit his teeth. "That's all."
"That's all."
"Fine."
Gibbs couldn't help but roll his eyes a little at the teen as he got to his feet, picking up the folder and making his way towards the interrogation room door. Just as he reached the door, he heard Andrew call out,
"So what's in that folder anyway?"
Gibbs paused as he opened the door, contemplating his answer for a few moments before replying with a simple, "Classified."
It was moments after Gibbs started the interrogation that Ziva entered the observation room, joining Tony, who had been watching Andrew's behaviour from the moment he'd been sat in there. She stood by him for a few moments before speaking.
"Has he been in there a while?" she asked Tony, who in response shook his head.
"Gibbs has barely been in there five minutes."
"The boy looks nervous."
"He should be. He's in interrogation with Gibbs."
"But what is there to be nervous about?" At the look Tony gave her, Ziva rolled her eyes. "Yes, he is Gibbs, but he would not be that nervous unless he was hiding something."
Tony scoffed at that. "Like what?"
"Like that gun. The one he was holding."
"If you think there's something with the gun, then maybe you should speak to Abby about it."
"She is still analysing the evidence."
"Why don't you wait with her until she's done?"
Ziva sent a small smirk Tony's way. No – you are not getting rid of me that easily, Tony."
Tony returned the smirk. "Who said I was trying to get rid of you?"
"Oh, so you do not want to get rid of me?" She took a teasing step towards him, tilting her head slightly as she smiled innocently at him.
Before Tony could answer, the door to the observation room opened, and McGee walked in, causing the other two to jump apart quickly. McGee caught this, though, and merely raised an eyebrow at them before continuing with what he had arrived for. "Abby has some lab results, guys. She's wondering why Gibbs isn't answering his phone."
Tony gestured towards interrogation. "He's talking to a suspect," he pointed out, as if it was obvious.
McGee looked into the interrogation room and frowned. "He's not a suspect. He's a witness."
"We only saw him with the gun in the wardrobe," Ziva pointed out. "He is a suspect."
"Not from Abby's lab results, he's not."
The other two agents shared a look, before quickly gesturing to McGee to continue, at which he shook his head.
"Not until Gibbs comes out."
As soon as Gibbs emerged from the room, all three of his agents were standing there – McGee looked as if he had a genuine reason to be there, whereas the other two just looked curious; something that caused Gibbs to raise an eyebrow before he turned to McGee, the only person who seemed to need to be there. "Yes, McGee?"
"Uh, Abby sent me up here, Boss," he explained. "She said she couldn't reach you."
"I was in interrogation."
"Right, I can see that." He cleared his throat a little. "She's got the lab results for the gun that the kid was holding."
Gibbs nodded, handing the folder he was holding to the agent before heading off down the corridor. "Thanks, McGee."
McGee stared after him, bewildered for a moment, before calling out, "What about the kid?" At Gibbs' lack of an answer, he turned to Tony and Ziva, both of whom shrugged before walking past him, patting him on the shoulder.
"He's all yours, Probie!" Tony called out as the two headed in the direction that Gibbs had gone, leaving McGee to groan in frustration before walking into the interrogation room, where Andrew was still sat at the table, watching the door.
He gave the teen a small smile. "If you'd like to come with me, please."
Andrew frowned, but stood anyway, heading over to the door where McGee stood. "Where are you taking me?" he asked hesitantly, not sure what was meant to happen next.
"I'm going to take you back to the bullpen, where I can keep an eye on you," McGee answered, turning back to face forward at the teen's nod. It was as they were reaching the bullpen that the agent heard a stomach rumbling, and he turned to the teen, whose face had flushed red.
"Sorry…" Andrew mumbled.
"Hungry?" McGee asked, as if it were obvious.
"I didn't exactly get breakfast this morning…"
The agent nodded as he led Andrew over to Gibbs' desk, where Jessie was curled up, fast asleep. The teen smiled, and moved to shift his sister more comfortably on the seat.
"Does pizza sound good to you?" McGee asked as he moved over to his desk, picking up his phone as if he was getting ready to make a call. When he received a nod, he dialled a number that was all too familiar to him – if only because Tony had made him memorise it.
"What've you got, Abs?"
"You are late!" The dark-haired forensic analyst spun to face Gibbs, her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed with her hands on her hips. "I tried calling you ages ago, Gibbs! Where were you? I had all of this evidence waiting for you and—"
Gibbs merely placed the Caf-Pow! on Abby's desk, silencing her almost immediately, and smirked at the look she gave him.
"One?"
He placed a second on the desk, and mere seconds after that Abby was babbling away.
"So I analysed the gun that you said the kid was holding, and it was, in fact, registered to the Lieutenant, hence the two sets of fingerprints I found on it – the kid's, and his father's. But, I found one crucial fact." She turned to Gibbs with a small smile on her face.
"It hasn't been fired recently?" he asked, earning a grin from Abby.
"Bingo!" She pressed a button on her computer keyboard. "It hasn't been fired for months, by the looks of it, and every single round was in that gun and accounted for. The bullets do match the ones that killed the Lieutenant and the Petty Officer, but they weren't from this gun. They came from…" Another gun, almost identical to the Lieutenant's, came up on the big screen. "…This one! This gun has been fired recently, and was found downstairs – right near the Lieutenant's body."
"Got a registration for the gun, Abby?" Gibbs asked.
"Way ahead of you, Gibbs – the gun belongs to a Petty Officer Mary-Anne Miller. Sending you the address now."
"Thanks, Abs." He placed a quick peck on her cheek before walking briskly out of the lab, leaving behind a grinning Abigail Sciuto.
So... I hope you liked this chapter! Please review!