A/N: After a year's stretch of writer's block and poor time management, I am back and dedicated to this story/series. I have completely redrafted this particular story and am confident it is now ready for you all to read. Thanks for your patience. Here is (finally) chapter 4!
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"Special Agent DiNozzo," Captain Beck greeted Tony as he and Ziva arrived on the base. "I trust you have made some progress?"
"We're doing all we can," Tony replied. He, his wife, and the captain were standing several yards away from the crime scene as the other agents were processing it. Ziva looked onward, seeing Belle Rogers' body lying in a pool of blood from what appeared to be a fatal head wound.
"This makes no sense to me," Beck said, shaking his head. "An officer is killed right after a bomb goes off, killing sixteen? It has to be the same killer."
"There is no proof yet that there is a connection," Tony said, although he knew no one would buy that.
"Please just solve this," Beck requested. "This can't keep happening. I need my men and women to feel safe on their own base."
"I understand, Captain, and I can assure you were are doing everything we can to figure out who is behind this," Tony replied reassuringly. He then excused himself and Ziva, and the two of them went to join their teams near Belle's body.
"Okay, what so we have so far?" Tony asked.
"I estimate she's been dead for about two hours," Palmer answered from next to the body.
"It's 8:30 now," Tony said, looking at his watch. "So she'd have been killed right as it was starting to get dark out."
"Cause of death?" Ziva asked. Palmer sighed and turned the deceased's head slightly to the right to indicate a large gash.
"Blunt force trauma to the head," he replied. "It looks like one single, fatal blow."
"Any signs of a struggle?" Tony inquired to which Palmer sighed and shook his head.
"Right now, I see no signs of defensive wounds, indicating she didn't put up a fight," he answered. "She was probably taken off-guard from behind."
"Never saw it coming," Tony muttered.
"I'm finished here," Palmer said, standing up. "Hopefully the autopsy can be more helpful than I've been."
"One can hope," Tony sighed. He stepped past Palmer and stood next to his senior field agent, Victor Larson.
"We've searched nearly every inch of this base," Larson offered, noting Tony's curiosity. "Steph's on photograph duty, and Ziva's team has been questioning everyone."
"And you've been…?" Tony wondered. Larson cracked half of a smile, and Tony recognized a familiar cockiness in this agent's expression.
"Supervising," Larson replied. "Until you got here, of course." Tony chuckled slightly.
"I think everything's about wrapped up," Steph said, approaching her boss that had recently arrived. She maintained eye contact with Tony, ignoring Larson's eyes that quickly glanced her up and down. Tony, however, did not miss his senior field agent's gaze and shot him a stern warning look. Over the years that Larson had worked for Tony, Tony had developed a strong sense of connection with the younger man. With Larson's self-absorbed cocky attitude mixed with his undeniable skill in the field, he reminded Tony a lot of himself, and Tony hadn't decided yet if that was a good or bad thing.
"Whatcha got for me?" Tony asked.
"We were able to find a wooden crate with a decent chunk of wood missing," Steph replied.
"Possible murder weapon," Tony stated.
"White and Buchanan are getting the evidence back to the lab, including video surveillance," she continued. "Daniels and Tuttle are finishing up with interviewing."
"Good work," Tony said, nodding. "Let's head on back and see what we can come up with." The two teams began the drive back to headquarters, and Tony and Ziva followed in their own vehicle.
"What are you thinking?" Ziva asked as her husband drove. Tony took a deep breath, sighed, and rubbed his temples.
"Rogers was the only person who told us anything productive," he said. "She gave us the lead on Wycuff and his dispute with Laurie McDonnell."
"Right, so it can hardly be a coincidence that Rogers is the one who turns up murdered," Ziva concluded.
"I wouldn't think so," Tony agreed.
"And we are still holding Wycuff, which means he could not have killed her," Ziva added. Tony nodded.
"Which means someone didn't like Rogers giving Wycuff up to us," he said. "Someone knows Rogers turned him in, and they decided she had to pay."
"Maybe whoever it is was worried that Rogers might help us even more," Ziva suggested.
"Maybe," Tony agreed. "If Wycuff really even has anything to do with it."
"It is all right there. Laurie McDonnell was killed in the explosion after rejecting Wycuff. It is all so convenient," Ziva pointed out.
"That part could have been coincidental," Tony countered.
"You do not believe in coincidences," Ziva said sharply. Tony was silent for a moment, thinking over everything they had learned.
"Look, I'm just playing devil's advocate here," he said. "It's very possible that Wycuff was involved, but it's also possible that he wasn't. The truth of the matter is, though, that he couldn't have killed Belle Rogers tonight."
"So," Ziva began, "either Wycuff has an accomplice…" She trailed off the let her husband complete the thought.
"Or we have the wrong guy."
Back at the DiNozzo house, Aaliyah was walking down the hallway toward her room to start getting ready for bed. It was nearing 10:30pm, and her parents were not home, which was something that she and Aiden had grown accustomed to. She was about to open her bedroom door when she heard a female voice coming from Aiden's room. She stopped for a moment, but then assumed it was his television.
"Well what do you want me to do?" came Aiden's voice.
"I don't know, Aiden, but we have to figure something out," said the girl. Aaliyah, confused, leaned against the hallway wall and rested her ear against her brother's bedroom door.
"Look, I love my girlfriend," Aiden insisted. Aaliyah noticed the stress in her brother's voice and wondered who this girl in his room was.
"Who are you trying to convince, Aiden?" the girl asked.
"This was just supposed to be for fun, Whitney. That's all," Aiden said. Aaliyah couldn't see inside, but she could hear how desperate her brother was. She kept listening, determined to find out what was going on with her brother.
"That's all?" the girl, Whitney, repeated.
"Yeah," Aiden replied. "It was never supposed to blow up like this or turn out this way."
"Well, it did," Whitney said. Aaliyah could hear the girl's voice shaking as if she were crying, or at least about to.
"Listen, nothing like this was ever supposed to happen," Aiden said softly. "I'm sorry, but I love my girlfriend. I don't want to hurt her."
"You wait until now to say you don't want to hurt her?" Whitney exclaimed. If she hadn't been crying before, there was no doubt in Aaliyah's mind that this girl was crying now.
"What do you mean?" Aiden asked. "I never wanted to hurt her."
"You mean to tell me that for the past month, you've been texting me non-stop. You've been making out with me in the locker room at school. You've been stopping by to see me on your way to or from Hayley's house. You've even snuck out to spend a couple nights with me. But now you're saying you don't want to hurt your girlfriend?" Whitney all but screamed. "Now you want to say you care about her?" There was a long, tense silence, and Aaliyah longed to know what was going on inside that room. She remained as quiet as she could outside her brother's room, her ear pressed against his door. Her body was frozen still, and she noticed she was even holding her breath, waiting for Aiden's reply. Finally, the silence was broken by her brother's voice.
"I know I've lied to both of you," he said quietly. Aaliyah could hear the pain in his voice. "Yes, I did all of that behind Hayley's back. I never wanted her to find out. This was supposed to be for fun. Just a fling. It wasn't supposed to go as far as it did."
"Well it did," Whitney said firmly.
"I know," Aiden relented.
"And now I need you to make a choice," Whitney demanded, her voice growing louder.
"I don't know, Whitney, okay? I don't know," Aiden exclaimed back at her. "Oh my God, I can't do this right now."
"You can't do this right now?" Whitney repeated.
"No, I can't," Aiden said. "I'm already in enough shit with my parents. My dad is always on my back about something. I already have to tell my girlfriend I can't take her to homecoming, and now you're dumping all of this on me. Shit, Whitney, we're only fifteen years old!"
"So that's it?" Whitney asked quietly.
"What?" Aiden asked.
"You're not gonna talk to me about this because you're already stressed out?" she asked. Aiden sighed so loudly that Aaliyah heard it in the hall.
"I can't talk to you about this right now because I need some time to think," he said definitively. "I need to figure out how I'm ever going to be able to fix things with my girlfriend."
"So that's what's important to you in all of this?" Whitney demanded. "Your girlfriend?"
"Hayley is the most important thing in my life," Aiden replied.
"Well you sure as hell don't act like it," Whitney spat.
"Enough!" Aiden yelled. "Whitney, I just need time."
"Time for what?" Whitney asked. "Time to run off, get high, pretend the problems in your life don't exist? Damn it, Aiden, you can't run away from this!" Aaliyah held her breath again as the room went silent.
"I need you to leave," Aiden said just above a whisper.
"What?" Whitney asked.
"I said I need you to leave," Aiden repeated quietly. Aaliyah heard Whitney cross the room and open the window.
"Go roll a blunt. Apparently that's all you care about," Whitney said, venom obvious in her words. Aaliyah heard the window close, and she knew Whitney was gone. She quietly walked into her own room and laid on her bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking about everything she had just heard.
What was going on with her brother? Aaliyah thought about everything that had happened. Aiden was skipping school, failing classes, smoking weed, being completely disrespectful to their parents, and now apparently cheating on his girlfriend. This couldn't be the same boy that she grew up with, spent every day of their childhood playing with, and loved more than anyone in the world. Her brother wouldn't act like this. This had to be some sort of cry for help.
'I don't know what to do,' Aaliyah thought. Her brother's life was spiraling out of control, and their parents weren't around to even notice. Aaliyah was the only person who saw anything. She knew she had to do something. 'But what?'
The next morning, Aaliyah was surprised when she walked downstairs to see Aiden sitting in the breakfast nook, already eating breakfast. He was dressed for school, but when Aaliyah looked at him, she could see how exhausted he was, and not just from lack of sleep the night before. Aiden had bags under his eyes and a look on his faced that resembled a zombie. Aaliyah was concerned, but decided to put on her biggest smile and act as if she had no idea that he was in trouble.
"Good morning," she smiled, walking into the kitchen. Aiden didn't look up, but raised his eyebrows as acknowledgment. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," Aiden grunted, stirring his spoon aimlessly in his cereal bowl. Aaliyah studied her brother. He was not fine. He was not anything. He just seemed empty. He seemed as though all the life had been drained from him, and that scared Aaliyah.
"Are you sure?" Aaliyah pressed. "You know you can talk to me about anything." Aiden shook his head.
"Not about this," he whispered. He dropped the spoon in his bowl, stood up, and walked past his sister and out of the kitchen.
"Not about what, Aiden?" Aaliyah asked.
"Just drop it," Aiden muttered. Aaliyah took a deep breath and decided to get her brother to talk.
"About Whitney?" she called after him. Aiden, who had made his way to the foot of the stairs, stopped cold and turned to face his sister.
"Wha-…How did you…?" he asked distantly.
"I…I, uh," she swallowed hard. "I heard you two fighting last night." Aaliyah watched her brother's face as fear flashed in his eyes that slowly turned to pure anger.
"What did you hear?" he demanded. His eyes were dark with anger, his nostrils flared, and his cheeks starting to turn red. The zombie-like expression was gone from his face, and Aaliyah knew that she would have to stand her ground.
"I just heard you fighting," she replied. "I know you've been cheating on Hayley with her. And I know that you're stressed out. But if you would just let me-"
"No, Aaliyah," Aiden said firmly.
"No, what?" Aaliyah asked.
"You can't help me with this," he yelled.
"I bet I could if you let me," Aaliyah offered. She looked her brother deep in the eyes and saw nothing. On the outside, he was angry, but on the inside, he was just as empty and drained as he had been at breakfast. It worried her, and Aaliyah felt the twinge in her chest as she wanted so badly to reach out to her brother, for him to just trust her with whatever was going on.
"You wouldn't understand," Aiden argued.
"You don't know that," Aaliyah countered. "Just give me a chance. I want to help you. You're scaring me."
"I'm scaring you?" Aiden repeated.
"Yeah," Aaliyah replied. She thought back to her phone call with Abby and remembered how she had promised Abby that she would talk to Aiden about her concerns. She never imagined the time for that talk would come so soon. Aiden was silent. He was breathing heavily and rapidly, his heart was pounding, adrenaline racing, and the fury was still flaming in his eyes. He took a deep breath and ran his right hand through his hair.
"Don't worry about me, Aaliyah, I'll be fine," he said shortly.
"No, Aiden, that's not good enough," Aaliyah stated. Aiden looked taken aback by his sister's comeback, and Aaliyah herself was a bit surprised by her insistence. She took a deep breath and continued. "You're skipping so much school, and it's to go and get high. You're throwing away your education, you have no freedoms because you're always grounded, and I'm worried that sooner or later you'll lose basketball, which seems to be your only passion in life. I just don't want you to keep making this type of decision that could harm you later in life. I want you to graduate and get into college and have a job and a family. I care about you, and it scares me that the road you're going down might land you in jail rather than college."
Aaliyah finished and waited for her brother to speak. She was so surprised that she had said all of that. She meant every word of it, but it was never anything she thought she would say to her brother. Aiden sighed, and Aaliyah saw his shoulders relax as he let a lot of tension out of his body. She looked in his eyes and saw the anger subsiding and being replaced by fear and pure sadness. Aiden looked down at the ground, almost shamefully.
"It's okay," Aaliyah said softly. "It's just me."
"Can we sit down?" Aiden finally spoke. They moved into the living room and sat on the couch.
"I can listen whenever you're ready to talk," Aaliyah said. Aiden nodded.
"Have you ever felt invisible?" he began. "I don't mean, like, people interrupt you mid-sentence and overlook you once in a while. I mean, have you ever felt one hundred percent that you are just so insignificant and unimportant, that no one cares about your thoughts or your feelings or even you at all? That you're just such a waste of space that not even your own parents care about what's going on with you?" Aiden's voice caught in his throat, and Aaliyah's eyes began to well up with tears.
"Aiden, I-"
"I don't expect you to know what it's like," Aiden said. "You're the good kid. Good grades, extracurriculars, the whole nine yards. You've always been Dad's princess."
"Aiden, I'm so sorry," Aaliyah said. "I had no idea…"
"It's not your fault," Aiden said. "You shouldn't feel bad for being a great person."
"You know Mom and Dad love you-"
"Aaliyah, Mom and Dad are never home," Aiden said. "The only time Dad ever speaks to me is when he's yelling at me. How shitty is it that I have to be a screw-up to get a little bit of attention from my own father? I'm not his prized, golden child. I'm an inconvenience. I'm always messing things up and stressing them out. Sometimes I really feel like Mom and Dad would be happier if they only had you as a daughter. That's what I mean by invisible."
"Oh, Aiden, I can't believe I never noticed you felt like this," Aaliyah said. She rested a comforting hand on her brother's shoulder and wiped the tears that had finally fallen on her cheek.
"Yeah, well, it sucks when you feel like such a burden to your own parents that you have to get high every day to feel good about yourself," Aiden continued. "I'm just so stressed out. I have so much shit going on, and…I don't even know who I am anymore."
"What do you mean?" Aaliyah asked.
"I mean, I act out, and I know it's wrong, but I don't care. It's like, I do this shit and find entertainment in pissing Dad off, but then I turn around and feel miserable and want him to pay attention to me and love me," Aiden explained. "I just don't know what I'm doing."
"Why don't you tell Mom and Dad how you feel?" Aaliyah suggested.
"Because I'm not a thirteen year old girl," Aiden replied quickly. "You really think I want them to see me as a boy who acted out because he felt like it was the only way he could get his parents to acknowledge him?"
"That's not who you are at all," Aaliyah said. "But Mom and Dad think you do all this stuff just because you don't care. But I know that you do care. You just have to show them that you do."
"Yeah, well, it's too late for that," Aiden said. "I could waste my time trying to build a relationship with them, but I'd just lose it again anyway."
"Why do you say that?" Aaliyah asked, her concern growing.
"Because," Aiden sighed. "I did something pretty unforgivable."
"What do you mean?" Aaliyah asked.
"I mean, I cheated on Hayley," Aiden replied. "When I started hanging with Whitney, it was just supposed to be for fun on the side. He'd hang out, hook up or whatever, no strings attached. Hayley respects herself, and Whitney put out, and I know, I know that sounds absolutely horrible…"
"Yeah, you're right, it does," Aaliyah agreed. "But everyone makes mistakes."
"Yeah, well, I started to feel like I was really falling in love with Hayley," Aiden continued. "So, I went to end things with Whitney, and she didn't take it well. Thus, the fight last night."
"Did she think you were gonna leave Hayley for her?" Aaliyah asked. Aiden shrugged.
"I told her I never meant for it to get this far," he said.
"Well, honestly, yeah you cheated on your girlfriend, and that's a horrible situation. But, you can get through this. Why do you think this would ruin your relationship with Mom and Dad?" Aaliyah asked. Aiden sighed and ran his hand through his hair again.
"Because I didn't just cheat on my girlfriend," Aiden replied. "Whitney thinks she might be pregnant."
"What?" Aaliyah exclaimed.
"See, I knew telling you was a mistake," Aiden said and started to get up. Aaliyah grabbed his arm and pulled him back onto the couch.
"Okay, I'm sorry," she said. "Aiden, you're only fifteen years old."
"You think I don't know that?" Aiden replied. "I didn't want any of this to happen."
"Well, she doesn't know yet?" Aaliyah asked, to which Aiden shook his head.
"She's going to the doctor to find out for sure tomorrow," he replied. "But now I have to tell my girlfriend what I did. Right when I have something really good in my life, I screw it up. I don't know how I'm going to do it."
"I really think you should talk to Mom and Dad," Aaliyah said.
"No, Aaliyah," Aiden said firmly. "They can't know anything that I told you."
"But what if she is? They'll find out," Aaliyah said.
"If she is, that's something I'll deal with later," Aiden replied. "But you have to promise me that you won't say anything to them about anything I told you." Aaliyah narrowed her lips disapprovingly.
"So you just want to go on acting like an ungrateful, spoiled rebel who doesn't care about school or anything in life other than basketball and weed?" she asked, disgusted. Aiden looked hurt for about a millisecond before replacing it with his tough-boy front.
"It's been working for this long," he replied. "As far as Mom and Dad are concerned, nothing has changed."
"I don't like this," Aaliyah said, shaking her head.
"Oh well," Aiden said. "You have to act like nothing has changed until I figure all this out. Promise me." Aaliyah stared at her brother for a long time. She knew it would just be easier to give in.
"Fine," she said. "I promise I won't say anything to Mom and Dad."
"Thank you," Aiden said. He stood and left the room. Aaliyah sighed, leaned against the back of the couch, and buried her face in her hands. Now she knew what was wrong with her brother, but she was obligated to do absolutely nothing about it. She felt even more lost than before.
That same morning, Tony and Ziva were hard at work going over the case evidence from the night before. Palmer had been at work down in autopsy, and Abby was working her magic in her lab. Both teams were assisting in the case as much as possible, but it was nearing 8:00am by this point, and everyone was tired. Tony looked up from his desk to see Larson nodding off across from him. Tony frowned, crumpled up a piece of paper, and threw it at his senior field agent. Larson jolted awake.
"Take a coffee break if you need one," Tony instructed. Larson nodded and left to go do just that.
"Tony," Ziva's tired voice rang as she appeared next to her husband.
"What's up," he replied, leaning back in his chair and looking up at his wife. Ziva was holding her own cup of coffee, looking extremely tired.
"Abby wants to see us," she replied. Tony nodded and walked with Ziva to the elevator. Once inside the elevator, Tony stopped it, to Ziva's surprise.
"Tony, what are you-" Tony interrupted her by grabbing the back of her head and pressing his lips firmly against hers. Ziva was surprised at first, but she placed her hand on the back of his neck and kissed him passionately in return. After a long moment, Tony pulled back and stared deeply into his wife's dark eyes.
"I don't know how long I've been waiting to do that," he said.
"What was that for?" Ziva asked, not that she objected. Tony shrugged.
"We've been working a lot lately. I know how tired you are, and I know we don't get a lot of alone time anymore. Kinda makes me appreciate every minute I do get to spend alone with you," he replied. Ziva smiled and shook her head. She should not be surprised of this coming from her husband, as he always was spontaneous.
"Well thank you," she smiled. "Now let's get down to Abby's lab." They rode the elevator the rest of the way down and arrived to greet their beloved forensic scientist.
"Find anything for us?" Tony asked upon entering the lab.
"You bet!" Abby replied happily. She led Tony and Ziva over to a table and picked up a vile. "Palmer found this little fella in Rogers' head wound."
"It looks like a small, chipped-off piece of wood," Ziva observed.
"That's because it is," Abby replied. "That led me to believe our victim was struck with a larger sample of wood, for example, a board from the crate that was found at the crime scene to not be intact. I tested this smaller sample against the portion of the crate that was broken, and I'm positive that it is one in the same."
"So we have our murder weapon," Ziva said.
"But that's not all," Aby continued. She signaled for the two agents to follow her as she led them across the lab, her pigtails bouncing happily. "I was studying the surveillance tapes from last night."
"Tell me you caught the killer on tape," Tony sighed. "That would be all too perfect."
"I don't have the murder on tape," Abby began. "Whoever did this knows the base pretty well and knows which locations are and aren't seen by camera. But, I have footage of a man walking with Rogers right before she was killed."
"Show us," Tony said. Abby started the tape.
"And right here," she paused it and pointed at the screen. For a brief moment, the man had looked up and the camera was able to capture his face.
"Can you enhance that for us?" Tony asked.
"Way ahead of you," Abby smiled. She handed each Tony and Ziva a copy of the suspect's picture. "It's not the greatest quality, but I think it'll get the job done."
"Thanks, Abbs," Tony said. He and Ziva quickly headed back to the elevator.
"So now we have the face of the man who possibly killed Belle Rogers," Ziva said.
"We take this down there, show it around, someone will I.D. him," Tony continued. They reached the squadroom and directed their teams to gear up. They had a lead and were possibly another step closer to solving their mystery.
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A/N: There's chapter 4. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll post chapter 5 tomorrow so you can all see more of what is going on with the case, and in Aiden and Aaliyah's lives!
