Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS...just a few DVD box sets.

A/N: Sorry it's taken a little longer to get this latest chapter out. Life has been busy lately, and now that summer has finally set in, staying in the house on the computer sounds very unappealing compared to being outside gardening, swimming, and playing badminton :-) It should not take so long for me to post the next chapter.

Thank you to everybody who reviewed! If I didn't respond to your review individually, I apologize! I really appreciate every single review you guys have sent me for this story! I'm happy it's getting such good feedback by so many people and they keep me wanting to post!

Chapter 7

Hinky

For days there was nothing. He'd checked with the local PD in Beaumont, Virginia to check on the progress of Cecilia Andrews murder investigation, but no information had been found and the case was quickly going cold before it had even had a chance to really start. Gibbs had not enjoyed finding out that bit of information, and returned to his own work with a scowl. The only lead he'd gotten was dead, and there were no new prospects on the horizon. His gut told him that Cecilia Andrews had been truthful with him that morning she'd accosted him in front of the coffee shop, but she was of no use to him dead.

It was just after eight o'clock on Friday evening when his phone began to ring. Checking the caller ID, the name Tony DiNozzo Sr. flashed before his eyes. He groaned. While the man had never been a great father, he'd been trying to make amends with his only son. When Tony had disappeared, it was Gibbs who'd had the misfortune of having to inform his father. Part of him had hoped, during that first call, that Senior would tell him that Tony had been in contact with him and he was safe and sound taking some time off, but he'd received the opposite news. He hadn't heard from Tony in days, and was worried because they were supposed to meet for drinks when he returned from West Virginia.

That evening, Gibbs did not want to speak to the elder DiNozzo. He knew that the older man wanted a status update on the investigation, and Gibbs didn't want to admit that they had nothing. He'd been fielding the calls from Senior for weeks, pretending to be busy with cases and looking for Tony, but he knew he couldn't keep the information he'd learned from Cecelia Andrews to himself. Senior needed to know what Gibbs knew, even if they were as far from finding Tony as they had been before the lead had come in.

"Gibbs," he said into the small device when he'd raised it to his ear.

"Any news on Junior?" DiNozzo asked without saying hello- after so many calls, he knew how Gibbs worked.

"We haven't found him," Gibbs gave him the bad news first. "We got a lead earlier this week, but it didn't pan out."

"What was it?" DiNozzo's voice was clipped with anger and frustration, partly towards Gibbs, but mostly towards the entire fucked up situation they were in.

"A woman informed us that Tony was being held by a cult called The Entity," Gibbs said.

He drummed his fingers on the desktop, thankful that he was alone in the bullpen. McGee had gone downstairs to speak to Abby only five minutes earlier and wasn't expected back, and Ziva had gone home for the night. He didn't want to speak to DiNozzo Sr. in front of either of his agents. He didn't like the way they looked at him when he got to talking about Tony- looks that told him that he should stop trying to make this situation into something that it wasn't. Having worked together for so long, Gibbs couldn't quite understand how Tony's teammates could possibly think that he'd run off. It was not in Tony's character to do such a thing.

"Those whack jobs? What have they got to do with this?" DiNozzo fumed, catching Gibbs off guard.

"You know of them?" He pressed.

"Of course I know of them! They killed my wife!" DiNozzo cried indignantly.

Killed his wife?

"When?" Gibbs asked, reaching for a pen and a notepad so he could take notes.

"When Junior was just a boy. They lured her into their freak club, and when she tried to leave they chased her down and killed her. It traumatized Junior in the process. It was…covered up, made to look like an accident. I didn't want anybody to know that she'd had any part in that group," DiNozzo admitted.

"Why didn't you try to prosecute them for her murder?" Gibbs demanded, a new anger bubbling up inside of him.

"I needed proof that they'd done it first. They're good at erasing their tracks. I hired a private detective to get me what I needed, but he went off the deep end and joined them! The psycho. I'm glad I only paid him a deposit for his services, or I'd have been out a big lump of money," DiNozzo explained himself. "Idiots kept coming to the door after Junior was brought back to me. They kept wanting to see him. I sent them all away."

"Did they say why they wanted to see him?" Gibbs was reeling.

Why hadn't he called Tony's father after he'd gotten the information from Cecilia Andrews? Tony had been a child during his first round with The Entity. DiNozzo Senior would have known all of the details, or at least some of them. It was a grievous oversight on his part to have overlooked the man.

"He was instrumental to their belief system. They wanted to take him to their compound to perform some kind of ritual. They kept saying he wanted to do it, but I wasn't going to let them anywhere near my boy. His mother had gotten messed up in their bullshit and it got her killed. It wasn't going to get Junior killed too, so I sent him away to school, where they wouldn't be able to get to him," DiNozzo replied.

"Their compound in Charlotteville?"

"Charlotteville? No. They have some facility in Pennsylvania. Outside of Eddington. They wanted me to drive him out there," DiNozzo corrected.

Pennsylvania? Why had McGee taken them to North Carolina if the facility was in Pennsylvania? It couldn't have been too difficult to figure out where they were calling home. Sure, there was the chance that they had moved, but surely McGee would have been able to check which address was their current address.

"What's going on Gibbs? Have those idiots taken my boy? What are they doing with him?" DiNozzo demanded of him, but Gibbs had other things on his mind.

"I'll call you back when I have more information," he promised the older man.

He flipped the phone shut and was hurrying down to Abby's lab only milliseconds later. His intent was to question McGee on why exactly he'd led them to the wrong place, but the younger man was nowhere to be found.

"He's left," Abby told him when he asked for the junior agents location. "He said he was going home."

"Damn it!" Gibbs thundered.

He very quickly explained to Abby what he'd been talking with DiNozzo Senior about, and she agreed that it was hinky of McGee to lead him to North Carolina. She promised to look into the facility in Pennsylvania for him, and he accepted her help readily. This was for Tony, and time was quickly running out. The new moon was almost upon them. She promised to call him with all of the information she could dig up, and he kissed her cheek before taking off, hoping to find McGee in the parking lot.

He was too late, but only by a hair. He saw the taillights of his younger agents car stopping at the gate just as he entered the lot. Without thinking, Gibbs jumped behind the wheel of his own car, reversed out of the parking space, and followed. He'd follow McGee back to his apartment and confront him there. He was getting his answers no matter what.

McGee didn't stop at his apartment, however. Gibbs followed him onto the freeway, heading north. His gut told him where McGee was headed before Abby called and said she'd easily located the whereabouts of The Entities facility and that she would text it to him. He thanked her before hanging up, knowing he'd been duped. The facility had not moved from its location in the fifty years it had been running.

A/N: What is McGee up to? This can't be good...

Let me know what you think of this latest chapter!