Sorry it took so long, I had a hard time with this particular chapter. Also, trigger warning, this chapter deals with some is some dark material, you'll find it mentioning child abduction, pedophilia, murder and rape but nothing too in depth but it is mentioned in general terms.
Louie Dominguez looked relaxed in interrogation room one and McGee almost felt sorry for him—almost. Having the full force of Gibbs' anger bearing down on you during an interrogation in a case involving children was terrifying, it almost seemed cruel to let Gibbs interrogate Dominguez when he was in as black of mood as he was but if Dominguez really did all those things then McGee thought it was only fair.
--
The break that they had all been waiting for finally came and that is how they ended up searching the house of Louie Dominguez in Woodbridge, Virginia.
"Gibbs, she is not here," Ziva calls out tersely.
Gibbs stopped searching through the cabinet in front of him long enough to showcase just how many swear words he learned while in the Corps. "Ziva—"
"—Go talk to the neighbors; ask if they have seen a girl recently."
"McGee, find me—"
"—Dominguez's whereabouts, on it, Boss," he replied before starting a preliminary search of the contents on Dominguez's laptop.
"Boss, you need to come see this!" Tony's voice rang out from someplace on the first floor and Gibbs quickly abandoned the cabinet in the kitchen and went in search of his senior field agent with Ziva and McGee not far behind him. They found him in the bedroom, a box that he had pulled out from somewhere, the bed or closet probably, on the bed.
"What've you got, DiNozzo?" demanded Gibbs as soon as he stepped foot into the room. Wordlessly Tony motioned for Gibbs to look in the box and when he did he saw a myriad of items that a young girl or a teenage girl would own. Dominguez had no children, wasn't currently involved with anyone with children or without, didn't have any young nieces or cousins that lived close by and he wasn't the sort of man that people called to babysit their children. Decidedly more interested in the contents of the box than the numerous dried goods Dominguez had in his kitchen Gibbs started to examine the contents of the box more closely. "McGee, photos," he ordered as he reached a gloved hand into the box.
"Ready, Boss," the younger man said as he positioned the camera.
He pulled out the first item, a pair of candy colored barrettes, the kind Kelly used to have in her hair when she was younger; McGee dutifully took a picture before Gibbs placed it into an evidence bag. He then pulled out the next item, and then another, soon the only audible sounds were the clicking of the camera shutter, the rustling of the articles in the box and the sealing of said items into evidence bags. Soon ten items had been assembled haphazardly on the bed: a pair of barrettes, a compact, a My Little Pony, a high school student ID, a small purse, a brush for a Barbie doll, a bottle of bright pink nail polish, a pen emblazoned with an E and a fuzzy purple top, a folder containing religious sheet music yellowed by age and a much loved teddy bear. As Gibbs placed his hand into the box he couldn't help the grimace that passed over his face, there were two more items in the box. Glancing at his second in command he could clearly the same grimace on his face, he knew just as well as Gibbs what this collection was shaping up to be. Pulling out the second to last item he saw that it was a cream cardigan, Catherine Larsen had been wearing one when she was last seen. He pulled out the last item from the box, a small gold, heart-shaped locket on a delicate gold chain, opening up he saw the picture of a beautiful young family, all with golden hair.
"Boss?" asked Tony. He wordlessly handed the delicate locket to Tony who looked at it just briefly before all the color quickly drained from his face.
--
The door to interrogation banged open and a livid Gibbs was followed by an extremely silent and serious Tony. Without a word Gibbs sat down, flipped open a file before shoving it in Dominguez's direction.
"Cute kid," he said glancing at Catherine Larsen's photo, "what does this have to do with me?"
"We found her prints all over your place, Louie," Tony said leaning into his personal space. "The gig's up, just thought that you should know that it'll only be a matter of time before we find her, game over"
"Oh but the game's only just begun, Agent DiNozzo, you haven't found her yet" Louie drawled out. Gibbs saw Tony's jaw tighten but before he could warn him to keep his cool Tony abruptly stood up and left interrogation, slamming the door with more force than necessary on his way out. Turning his attention to Gibbs he smiled. "Tick tock, tick tock, the clock's ticking."
--
They found her nearly four hours later hidden away under some brush in the Mason Neck National Park, clothes torn and barely alive. The initial ER examination showed evidence of rape. The next time Gibbs and Tony went to interrogate Dominguez McGee didn't feel sorry for him at all.
--
McGee and Ziva watched as Tony and Gibbs entered the room and silently laid out the files of twelve young girls ranging from ages six to sixteen as well as a box containing the collection they found in his house on the table in front Dominguez.
"Do you really think it is wise?" asked Ziva breaking the heavy silence in the observation room.
"What is?"
"Letting Tony interrogate Dominguez," she replied. "He is obviously too close to this one; it has to do with the locket found in the box at Dominguez's house, yes?"
"Gibbs is with him, he'll make sure that Tony doesn't do anything stupid and yes, it does have to do with the locket."
"This is connected to that cold case file from Philadelphia Tony is still working on, yes?"
"It is."
"And you still think it is wise for him to interrogate Dominguez?" she asked giving McGee a pointed look. When he had no answer she smiled thinly before turning her attention back to the interrogation.
--
"I guess congratulations are in order," Dominguez began, leaning back as far as the chair allowed, "you found her faster than I thought you would, such a shame, I can't count her then."
Gibbs felt rather than saw DiNozzo tense up behind him but Tony wasn't his main concern right now. Turning his attention to the files spread out on the table he pointed six-year-old Megan O'Neil's file, the owner of the candy colored barrettes. "Tell me about her," he ordered.
"Oh she was the sweetest thing, believed the entire time that she was really helping look for my lost dog, didn't realize what was going on until it was too late. She had small candy colored hairclips in her hair; she told me that they were her favorite, now they're my favorite."
"What about her?" asked Gibbs pointing to the picture of Elizabeth Warden, age twelve, the owner of the pen with the fuzzy purple top, which he had taken out of the box.
"Not a lot of spunk in that one, she stopped fighting ten minutes in and just kept crying. It was almost a disappointment to kill her," he replied almost wistfully. "She had been holding that pen when I found her and never let go it, even as she took her last breath. She was still warm when I took it."
Gibbs had to restrain himself from hitting Dominguez; he had to let Dominguez to tell him everything about his victims and that certainly couldn't happen if Dominguez was unconscious. Hazarding a quick glance out of the corner of his eye at his senior field agent Gibbs quickly weighed his options and decided that he'd rather deal with DiNozzo's reaction now rather than after having to sit through Dominguez recount the ten other times he had lured or kidnapped young, unsuspecting girls or teenage girls, molested them and then killed them. Steeling himself against what he was about to do he turned his attention to Michelle Nead's file; according to her file the gold locket had been a gift from her parents her last Christmas. Reaching he grasped the evidence bag containing the gold locket and pushed it towards Dominguez. "Tell me about the owner of this locket," he ordered.
"She must have just come back from a dance because she was such a pretty dress and gently swayed to music that only she could hear. I stopped my car right in front of her house and asked for directions to the train station, she went along quietly once she saw the gun I had," he said before leaning back and taking in the two men in front of him. "You know what part I like the best, Agent Gibbs?" asked Louie leaning forward and dropping his voice half an octave as if he was imparting an important secret.
"And what part is that, Dominguez?" demanded Gibbs.
"The look in their eyes when it finally dawns on them that there's no getting out of it. It's this primal look, the look of abject fear. The rush that you get once that look appears is even better than sex."
Before Gibbs could react Tony had forced Dominguez up against the wall with an arm pressed against his throat.
"You son of a bitch," he hissed. "She was only fifteen years old; she had her whole life ahead of her!"
With some effort Gibbs was able to pry Tony off Dominguez and dragged him to the other side of the interrogation room, putting as much distance between the two men as possible.
"Tony!" he said sharply in an effort to get the other man to stop fighting him. "Stand down, do you hear me? Stand. Down," he barked in a tone reminiscent to the one he used when he was still a gunnery sergeant. The response from Tony was immediate and Gibbs could see echoes of the years Tony spent at Rhode Island Military Academy. Once Tony had completely stopped struggling against Gibbs he quickly pushed his senior field agent out of the interrogation room and were met in the hallway by McGee and Ziva. Ziva looked at her partner with an unreadable expression on her face while McGee looked taken aback by Tony's actions just seconds before. Before Gibbs could say anything Tony escaped his grip and stalked off in the direction of the gym.
"Gibbs…" began Ziva uncertainly.
"Ziva, I want you to get everything about his victims, including where he dumped them, from Dominguez," Gibbs barked.
McGee watched as a dangerous, predatory looked crossed Ziva's face and he's reminded of just how dangerous his co-worker really was.
"Ziva, keep it clean, I don't want him to get off on a technicality or accusations of excessive force, got it?"
McGee saw the slight disappointment in her face before it's gone and replaced with a predatory determination and he thinks that Gibbs' order to keep it legal just made Ziva even more dangerous.
"Where is Agent DiNozzo?" asked Louie Dominguez when Ziva entered the room. "We've only just started playing."
"Agent DiNozzo is busy at the moment," Ziva answered before leaning close to Dominguez so that only he could hear what she says next." But do not worry, I will play," she says in a deadly tone.
--
There were some days when McGee really hated his job. Today was one of those days. After standing with Gibbs in the observation room for nearly three hours listening to Dominguez tell Ziva how he lured or kidnapped all his victims, how he tortured and molested each of them and then how he killed them, down to every last disturbing detail, he now understood why Tony really hated serial killers. Ziva met them in the hallway after Dominguez was escorted back to his cell McGee was only slightly surprised to find the Israeli shaken by what she had just heard; even being a trained assassin couldn't prepare her for the depravity that was Louie Dominguez. Without saying a word she headed in the direction of the gym, with McGee and Gibbs right behind her. McGee suspected that Gibbs was following Ziva because he wanted to see if Tony was still in the gym. McGee was following Gibbs because while he might not admit it out loud he was worried about Tony and worried about the emotional toll this case was taking on his friend.
In the gym they found Tony beating the daylights out of the punching bag, to the side he noticed one of the newer junior agents standing off to the side also watching Tony.
"How long has he been at it?" McGee asked the agent, he thinks the agent's name is Barrow.
"For the past hour and a half, sir," the agent replied. "When he first came down I offered to spar with him, that was a mistake," the agent said wincing slightly and for the first time McGee noticed the beginnings of a black eye on the agent.
"Did Tony give you that?" he asked, indicating the black eye.
"Along with a few other bruises," the agent said, "he's a damn good fighter."
McGee just nods; he forgets sometimes that Tony could be just as dangerous as Ziva or Gibbs. He turns his attention back to Tony just in time to see the other man deliver a particularly vicious punch to the bag before Gibbs stops it and Tony collapses from exhaustion.
"Did the bag do something to offend you, DiNozzo?" asks Gibbs quirking an eyebrow at the man currently on the ground. If Tony said anything McGee didn't hear it, he was too far away, but he does hear Gibbs sigh before helping Tony up. "Shower now," he orders. With the help of McGee they manage to get Tony into the locker room and Gibbs bodily drags the senior field agent into the showers. "You've got fifteen minutes, DiNozzo!" Gibbs yells as he re-enters the locker room. "McGee," he says, finally turning his attention to his one agent that won't be spending any time trying to forget by sparring, beating up a punching bag or trying to break the world record when it comes to miles run on a treadmill. "I need you to start running down the list of locations that Dominguez gave us."
"On it, Boss," he says before leaving Gibbs in the locker room, he knows the team leader will be waiting for Tony, probably so that he can talk to him.
Upstairs McGee is busy doing what Gibbs asked when the man himself returns fifteen minutes later, Tony is not with him. An hour later neither Tony nor Ziva have returned and McGee is all too happy to escape the stifling silence of the squad room for Abby's lab. Abby's lab is suspiciously silent and devoid of Abby but before McGee can call out Abby hurries out of her office, finger on her lips.
"McGee, what are you doing here?" she asks in a hushed voice.
"Um, well, Gibbs wanted to know if you've gotten anything from the items we got from Dominguez's place," he answered in just as quiet of a voice.
"No, not yet but my babies are working on it," she whispered.
"Hey, Abby?"
"Yes, Timmy?"
"Why are we whispering?"
She grabs his hand and leads him to just outside her office and McGee can just make out Tony's lanky frame hidden by a blanket, fast asleep on Abby's futon.
"He's been like that for the past hour," she whispers. "Just tell me one thing, McGee, did Dominguez do it?" she asks turning her full attention to him and he knows that she's just not talking about the Catherine Larsen case, she also asking about Tony's case.
He sighs. "Yeah, Abby, he did."
"Oh, poor Tony," she says sadly. McGee doesn't say anything, just opens his arms and Abby willing goes into them and the two of them stare silently at their friend.