Thanks to JoolsdS, dolphinsiren77 and horseninja for the reviews. All the other reviews had been replied privately.

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II

The following morning, precisely at 08.30, the door bell rang, making Ziva smile. Gibbs was right on time, as usual.

She opened the door and saw him standing on the steps with two cups of coffee. He silently handed one to her, tilting his head in greeting.

"Thank you," she took the offered cup and sipped her coffee. "Uhm, this is good, the best I had since leaving America. Where did you buy it?"

Gibbs' eyes twinkled and a smug expression appeared on his face as he sipped his coffee.

Her own eyes widened in realization. "You brought your special brand of coffee grind all the way from DC!"

"Yep…it takes less room than my boat," he said, clearly pleased with himself.

Ziva shook her head with fondness and sipped more of the hot coffee, taking the chance to study him in the morning light. He looked great, with the sunlight making his silver hair and blue eyes shine. He wore a grey jacket with matching trousers, a light blue polo shirt, and had a backpack slung over one shoulder.

"Let's go," he said after they finished their coffee and threw the empty cups in a nearby trash bin.

Ziva nodded and stepped to his side, carrying her own backpack.

"How is your ankle doing?" Gibbs asked as they walked along the street, which was full of people coming and going on bicycles.

"Much better, thank you."

Silence fell over them for the rest of the trip, but it was a comfortable one. Ziva thought this ability to be silent or not talk if it wasn't necessary, was a thing she and Gibbs had in common.

He, of course, being a trained sniper knew the importance of silence to strengthen one's inner focus, but she suspected he might have always been the silent type—just like her.

However, there were people that talked all the time because silence made them uneasy or insecure—or just because they knew their incessant rambling drove the others nuts. Ziva smiled as an image of Tony flashed into her mind and she wondered how he was coping on the ship he had been sent to. Had he found someone else to annoy with his endless movie references, his account of his amorous conquests and insatiable curiosity for the details of other people's private lives? Not that one could have much of a private life on board of a 5000 crewmen ship, she thought sadly. Poor Tony! His assignment as agent afloat had to be really hard for him.

Once they reached the Police HQ, Gibbs flashed his ID and his badge.

"I've an appointment with Chief Johnson," he said to the receptionist.

"Yes, sir. I'll take you to him now. Please follow me," the woman replied.

She led them to a small conference room furnished with just a table, a few chairs and a dashboard in the corner. There was no trace of monitors, computers or any other technical appliance. Gibbs wondered if it was just that room, or if the local police investigated crimes with the same techniques used in the 19th century. He hoped, for the sake of the women living on the island, it wasn't so.

"Please, make yourself comfortable," the receptionist said, "Chief Johnson will be here soon."

Gibbs sat at the head of the table, in a position that allowed him to keep an eye on both the door and the window. Ziva couldn't help but smile. Always the tactician. Her smile got bigger at the realization she would have chosen the same place if he hadn't been quicker than her. As it was, she sat at his right side and took her notepad and pen out of her backpack, just as he bent down to do the same.

The door opened and a man that seemed popped out from a movie about British Colonialists appeared. He had short, spiky iron-grey hair and moustache, and a military stance. He was wearing glasses, a short-sleeved light brown uniform and his shorts showed a pair of bony legs. All in all, he looked a bit ridiculous for a police chief, and Ziva had to bite her tongue not to smile.

"Chief Johnson?" Gibbs said, rising to his feet and offering his hand. "I'm Agent Gibbs, and this is Ziva David, my aide in this case—and a witness too."

"A witness?" Johnson asked, as he shook their hands.

"Yes, I was assaulted yesterday evening."

"By the Hair Collector?" The officer sounded sceptic as he took a seat and placed a folder on the table top.

"Yes. I was attacked around 22.45, on Seaway Street."

"How can you be sure it was him?"

"Because he did this…" Ziva raised the lock of hair that had been cut. "He cut it with a knife before he fled."

"Fled?"

"Agent Gibbs arrived to my rescue and caused him to flee."

"I see," the chief took off his glasses and cleaned them with his handkerchief. "Well, Miss David," he said when he was done. "You're lucky to still be alive. I'm happy you suffered no harm, but you shouldn't have been out, alone, so late in the evening. We've alerted women not to do that."

Ziva kept silent. What could she say? That she believed she would be safe? That she was a Mossad officer and nobody could surprise her? She had been proven wrong and she didn't need to have her own arrogance thrown back in her face. She had learned her lesson.

"So," Johnson said after the silence stretched for a full minute. "Can you tell us something about your assailant?"

"He was tall and robust, but not too bulky. His face was covered by a mask, so I could not see it, and he wore gloves."

"Did he talk to you?"

"No, he did not."

"And the knife? Did you see it?"

"Quite well. The blade was about two inches wide and had a serrated edge."

"A hunting knife?"

"Yes."

Johnson and Gibbs wrote something on their notepads, then the chief asked, "Anything else?"

Ziva closed her eyes to recall the events of the previous night. "I believe he was left handed."

Johnson nodded, shifted the sheets of paper in his folder and met Gibbs' eyes across the table.

"What Miss David says about her assailant fits with what we know about the Hair Collector. Our ME says the victims' throats were slashed by a knife with a serrated edge, that the women were attacked from behind and that the cuts were inflicted from right to left, indicating a left-handed killer. Unfortunately, this is all we have on this man-- as you probably know, Agent Gibbs, since I sent a copy of the crime reports to the NCIS Director."

"You don't have any other evidence?" Gibbs asked a bit sceptical, staring hard at the other man to see if he was hiding something.

"No, we haven't. There are no security video cameras in town, except for those in the governmental district. We interrogated the prostitutes near the harbour where the first two victims were killed, but nobody saw anything. No suspicious individuals were seen before the crimes." The chief checked his notes again, shaking his head. "There is no mention of a man matching the body type you described in any of the reports, Miss David."

"What about Captain Andrews' wife?" Gibbs brought up the topic of the murder he was there to investigate.

"Poor woman. She was a respected member of our community. She was killed as she returned home after caring for one of her patients—she was private nurse. The area where she was found is quite distant from the harbour—and from where your aide was attacked too. We scrupulously examined the crime scene but couldn't find a single clue about the killer. As in the other murders, he was careful not to step on the blood or leave traces on the victim's body. He is like a shadow that appears and disappears without leaving anything behind."

"Someone that knows Heavenly Shores City well then," Gibbs mused, not rising his eyes from his notepad. "What about the knife?"

Chief Johnson all but snorted, making Gibbs look at him and give him one of his patented glares.

"Agent Gibbs—this is a hunting and fishing paradise. About everyone on this island owns a serrated knife, me included."

"Is there any individual with a precedent for violent crimes against women on the island?"

"We're keeping an eye on two men – one arrested but not convicted for aggression and attempted rape, the other accused of stalking – but neither of them match the body type of Miss David's attacker."

Gibbs nodded, and Ziva could see by the way he pressed his lips together that he wasn't pleased—and rightly so. He then closed the notepad and stood up, putting an end to the meeting.

"Thank you for your time and help, Chief Johnson," he said, as he started putting away his stuff, imitated by Ziva.

"No need to thank me. I just hope you might help us with this matter. We don't have your experience with these kind of crimes on Nature's Heaven Island. Before this series started, there had been only 4 murders in the past 15 years, and all of them had been pretty straightforward affairs caused by jealousy or greed. We don't know how to deal with serial killers…do you have any advice to give me, Agent Gibbs?" Chief Johnson asked hopefully.

"Just one: put lamplights and security video cameras in the streets."

"I don't think it will be possible. The government is against them. They say it would ruin the atmosphere of the island."

"You could have men patrol the streets at night," Ziva suggested.

"I don't have enough men…As I said, the crime rate is very low here and-"

"Then hire some more men!" Gibbs growled as he marched to the door closely followed by Ziva.

Once out of the Police HQ and back in the sunshine, Gibbs took a deep breath before retrieving a piece of folded paper from his breast pocket. "Do you know where High Cliff Road is? Captain Andrews lives there."

"It's quite close, a ten or so blocks in that direction," Ziva answered. "You want to interrogate him, yes? Do you think he can know something more about his wife's murder?"

"You know how it is…Rule number eight."

"Never take anything for granted."

"Yep. Also, Andrews' brother is a friend of the SecNav, who is probably breathing on Leon's neck even now. I need to show up and talk with him, if only to avoid Vance giving me a speech for not showing 'appropriate respect' to the victim's husband."

"I never thought you would care about it," Ziva mused. Gibbs always followed his own rules and cared little about the toes he stepped on in order to do his job.

"I need to play according to Leon's rules if want to bring you and the boys back," he gave her a meaningful look.

She just nodded, moved by how far he was willing to go in order to all them back together.

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The talk with former Captain Andrews shed no further light on the case.

The retired officer had been living on the island for the past nine years and he and his wife had no enemies. Life on Nature's Heaven Island was cheaper than in the USA and the retirement check he got from the Navy allowed them to live comfortably, although they had both chosen to work. He had opened a bookstore while his wife – a local woman he had met during a vacation – had continued her job as a private nurse.

At the end of the interview, Gibbs was pretty sure Sarah Andrews had died just because she had been in the wrong place at the wrong moment.

"So, what do you think?" Ziva asked him as they slowly walked back toward her house.

"I'm perplexed. This dirtbag doesn't seem to have a favourite type of victim like the other serial killers I've met in the past. From the photos I have here in the file Vance gave me yesterday, the three dead women were all physically different from each other—or you. Also the murders don't seem to have happened during any special time. No full moon or other shit like that. More, the interval between each killing is different. There is no discernible pattern in this bastard's actions."

Ziva nodded. "I understand. What do you plan to do now?"

"I'll take you home, then I'll go to the communication centre and give a sitrep to Vance. I'll also talk with Ducky about this killer's strange modus operandi, and ask Langer – he's a member of my new team – to check all the people that arrived on this island the past three months. That's, if Chief Johnson's superiors allow NCIS access to their records." Gibbs smirked and shrugged. "There isn't really much I can do; after all I've no jurisdiction here and I'm sure Vance wouldn't be pleased if he received complaints from the authorities I'm interrogating their citizens without authorization."

"And keeping Vance pleased is your top priority at the moment," Ziva commented, as he nodded grimly.

They walked in silence until they reached her cottage. Once there, she opened the door but instead of going inside, she turned around and faced him.

"May I invite you to dinner this evening?" she asked, her heart speeding up as she waited for his answer.

"You cooking?" Gibbs inquired, arching his eyebrow.

"Yes."

"Then I'll be here. What time?"

"19.00"

"OK. See you later, Ziver."

Ziva watched his retreating back till he disappeared among the crowd, thrilled by both the nickname Gibbs had just given her and the fact he had accepted her offer.

She took a deep breath to calm down, despite the fact that her excitement was already mounting. She had taken the first step of what – she hoped – would turn to be the most important evening of her life. Now she needed to make sure everything would be perfect for the moment she would declare her love to Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

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OK, review please, and let me know how you hope the dinner will play out! Remember, reviews make me update faster!!! *wink*