"Tony!" Abby Sciuto exclaimed as she caught sight of Special Agent DiNozzo through the glass walls of her lab. She rushed out to give him a large hug, then hugged Ziva as well.
"Um, hi, Abby," DiNozzo replied. "What's up?"
"What, you mean I can't just be excited to see you?" she asked with a slight pout. Her pout turned into a frown when she noticed the young man in an Army Combat Uniform standing back by the truck. "Who's that, and what he doing in my lab?"
"That's Second Lieutenant Daniel Singer," DiNozzo informed her. "He's baby-sitting the bullet we brought you."
"Oh," Abby said, suddenly understanding. "Colonel Mann doesn't trust Team Gibbs anymore, does she?"
"Apparently, she thinks Ensign Gibbs is a suspect," Ziva informed her. Abby's eyes went wide.
"Mini Gibbs? Never!" she declared. She focused a glare in Lt. Singer's direction, who just looked baffled. She turned on one of her high heels and stalked back into the lab. DiNozzo and David followed close behind, with Lt. Singer bringing up the rear.
"Interesting carving job," Abby commented, studying the block of wood she was handed. "This must be Ziva's work."
"It was," Ziva confirmed.
"Very precise," Abby said with a nod. "Very cool." She studied the block for another minute before turning to Ziva, an apologetic expression on her face. "I'm going to have to destroy it to get the bullet, though."
"That is acceptable," David replied, struggling to keep from smiling at the serious expression on the forensic scientist's face.
"I was hoping you'd say that, because, well, if you didn't, I don't know how I'd get the bullet out. Actually, I still don't know exactly how I'm going to get the bullet out. It's very delicate work, you know. I can't just reach in there and grab for it, because if I scratch the sides, it might damage the rifling, which is very important in matching the bullet to the gun that fired it. I think if I start with—,"
"Abby," DiNozzo interrupted. "I don't care how you do it, just get the bullet, okay?"
"Geez, Tony," Abby said with a pout. "There is a major black cloud hanging over you right now. Chill."
DiNozzo rolled his eyes before turning to Ziva. "I'll meet you upstairs," he said. Getting the hint, she nodded, heading for the elevator. Tony turned back to Abby.
"Is there any way to tell if the rifle used was right or left handed?" he asked, his voice low to keep Lt. Singer from hearing. Abby's eyes went wide with disbelief.
"Tony!" she hissed. "You don't seriously think Kelly had anything to do with this!"
"No!" he replied emphatically. "I want to know if the evidence can rule her out."
She thought about this for a moment before nodding her understanding. "I'm sorry, Tony," she said, genuinely apologetic. "I can tell you if the gun used has been used in a crime before, and if it isn't, I can tell you what kind of gun it is, but I can't tell you if it's right or left-handed. The barrels are identical. If I had the brass—"
"We don't," he replied. Abby shrugged.
"Sorry."
He nodded. "Thanks, Abs," he said, giving her a thin smile before heading toward the elevator. If Abby couldn't do it, he'd have to find another way.
Lt. Colonel Hollis Mann paused at the door, unsure of how to proceed. If it were just a couple of months ago… She pushed that thought aside and put her hand on the doorknob, turning to find it unlocked, like always.
The house was darkened, giving Mann just enough light to see the shapes of the framed photographs on the walls, photographs she knew from memory chronicled the life of a talented young woman. She smiled bitterly, remembering the first time she had noticed them. She had always seen them, but never paid attention until that night about six months ago, the night that she now realizes was the beginning of the end of her relationship with Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs.
Six months ago
Lt. Colonel Hollis Mann froze in mid-laugh. "What?" Gibbs asked, still grinning as he leaned over her.
"Did you just hear the door opening?" she asked. He frowned. "Jethro, I think someone is breaking in! If you didn't leave your door unlocked…"
He finally rolled off the bed and reached for the nightstand, where he kept his Sig. He began inching toward the bedroom door when the distinctive sound of a door slamming shut was heard. He exhaled deeply, lowering his weapon. "No one is breaking in," he said, tucking the Sig into the waistband of his shorts.
"It sure sounded like someone came in," Mann snapped back, still tense.
"She didn't break in. She has a key," he answered as he stepped out into the hall.
"Who?" Mann demanded. "One of your ex-wives?" Before he got a chance to answer, a shout from downstairs answered for him.
"Dad?" Mann's eyes flew open at the address. "Dad!"
"I'm coming!" Gibbs called back, now sounding annoyed. He didn't even glance back at Holly before heading down the hall. Mann followed him as far as the threshold of the bedroom before she froze, not sure what she was doing or why. She couldn't miss the exchange that took place just down the hall.
"I needed a break." The voice sounded young and frantic. "I can't take it anymore! I am locked in that apartment, or that coffee shop, or one of those damn classrooms in that damn school twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, doing nothing but staring at books and PowerPoint presentations, and I can't take it!"
"What do you want me to do about it?" Gibbs asked, sounding exhausted. Mann wondered if this was the first time he had heard this tirade, right before she wondered how she didn't even know that Gibbs had a daughter.
"I don't know!" She sounded close to tears. "I yelled at my roommates and they're not talking to me, and then Caiden called, and we started fighting, and he said that dating me is too much work and it's not worth it, and—" Mann didn't hear the rest, the voice replaced by what sounded like muffled sobbing. She stepped out into the hallway to see Gibbs standing in the living room, his arms around a young woman, her face buried in his chest, an overstuffed black backpack at her feet. Mann had seen Gibbs comforting women before—Abby after a bad day, Ziva when she had gotten overwhelmed by something she had seen—but she had no idea his experience came from times comforting his own daughter.
A minute later, she pulled away from her father, allowing Mann to see delicate tear-streaked features and bright blue eyes puffy from crying. "I just needed to get away, maybe spend some time working on the boat," she said, her voice small as she wiped at her cheeks with the heels of her hands.
"Sure," Gibbs replied, a wry smile on his face as he pulled her head close to kiss her forehead. Mann almost melted at the caring look on his face; she had never seen that expression on his face before.
The younger Gibbs bent down to pick up her backpack and caught sight of the woman in the hallway, wearing what looked like one of her father's Corps tee-shirts and a pair of boxer shorts. Her eyes widened slightly. "Oh, my God," she muttered. She swung back to her father, her light brown ponytail flying. "You didn't tell me you had someone over! Oh, God, I'm so embarrassed." She turned back toward Mann. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—I should go."
"Downstairs, Kelly," Gibbs said, his voice practically an order. Her face flushed slightly, but she did as he said.
"Maybe I should go," Mann said after she heard the basement door closing behind Kelly. Gibbs rolled his eyes.
"She just needs some time to cool down," he told her, already heading back toward the bedroom.
"You never told me you had a daughter," Mann said as she followed. He turned back to face her.
"It's not exactly a secret," he said, gesturing around them. As if for the first time, she noticed the photographs on the wall. She turned to the one closest to her, finding herself face-to-face with a smiling young woman with bright blue eyes in the uniform of a Naval Academy plebe, Gibbs' arm around her shoulders with a similarly wide smile on his face. He sighed. "Her name is Kelly," he said. "She's a second-year medical student at USUHS, a Navy ensign. She's been studying for her board exams for the last few weeks and I guess the stress is starting to get to her. She says working on the boat calms her down."
"Like father, like daughter," Mann muttered.
"Your door was unlocked," Colonel Mann announced, blinking away the memory, standing at the top of the basement stairs.
"Does that surprise you?" Agent Gibbs replied, clearly not surprised to see her standing there. He returned his attention to his boat, seemingly oblivious to her as she descended the stairs.
She ran her hand along one of the wooden planks, musing about how much further along the boat was than the last time she had seen it, only about a month before. "Does it have a name yet?" she asked.
"Not yet," Gibbs replied. "Kelly said she's thinking about it." Mann nodded slightly; she should have figured that Kelly would be the one with the honor of naming the boats. She cleared her throat and reminded herself why she had come in the first place. "Jethro, I—"
"The rifles are over there," he interrupted, gesturing toward the far wall. She turned to see two hard rifle cases, one tan, the other black and covered with stickers from rifle competitions. "I got the ballistics report from Abby, so I figured you'd want these. The A1 is mine, the A3 is Kelly's," he said. "Those four boxes of ammo are all we keep around the house. We buy two boxes of ammo each, each time we shoot and bring it back here to moly coat it."
She nodded as she picked up a box of ammo and frowned slightly. "Match ammo?" she asked.
"That's all we fire, Holly," Gibbs said, sounding slightly exasperated. "It's all that's allowed at competitions, and Kelly never had any need to fire her weapon any other time."
She replaced the box, standing there for a moment without speaking. "I don't need your weapon," she finally said, turning to face him. "The bullet we found has six lands and grooves, consistent with an A3. The A1 has five. They don't match."
"You know your sniper rifles," Gibbs commented, rising to walk toward the weapons. Standing so close to him, Mann caught of a whiff of that familiar Jethro Gibbs scent: sawdust, sweat, and coffee. She closed her eyes for a second and sighed internally, wondering, not for the first time, what had gone wrong.
"I'm a quick study," she finally said, opening her eyes to meet his. He quirked a slight smile before moving to replace his rifle in its drawer, locking it when done. It wasn't until he was back on the other side of the boat that he spoke again.
"Kelly didn't do this, Holly," he said.
She ignored the comment, her eyes still on the remaining rifle case. She had gone with Gibbs to one of Kelly's rifle competitions only seven weeks before, right before Kelly left for Hawaii, only a few weeks before Holly decided to cut her losses. She had known about Gibbs' tendency to ignore everything around him when he was focused on a case, but that was the first time she had seen him so completely focused on another person that he seemed oblivious to everything else. "Does she have any other weapons?" she asked, even though she already knew the answer.
"An MA-1 rifle that she uses for some competitions and her service M9," he replied. "The MA-1 is here, the M9 is at her apartment. Don't worry, she has a concealed carry permit for it," he added dryly. "She also has a ceremonial officer's sword at her apartment, but I didn't know if you considered that a weapon or not." He waited for her to respond to his sarcasm, but she remained silent. "I hope you're looking into other possibilities," he finally said.
That got her attention. "I don't need you to tell me how to do my job, Agent Gibbs," she said, her voice cold.
He rose from his chair again and walked toward her, stopping just in front of her. "Then start doing it, Colonel Mann."