Chapter 9 – Spirited Away


April 2nd, 2023, 07:15 - Senior Agent's Office, FBI Field Office, Denver Colorado

McGee woke up with a start, realizing with a jolt that he'd fallen asleep at his desk over the course of the night.

He checked the clock on his computer. Much to his horror, he'd been out for the past hour "Damn it," he whispered, leaning his forehead on his fist.

After he had found the pawn the night before, he had immediately called in a kidnapping to the FBI. Before going home, he had done extra research on the Pink Ribbon Strangler, and particularly his modus operandi: mainly his affinity for chess pieces. He was connected to Ziva, and he could only assume that somehow, the killer had figured that out.

So now, Scottie was gone. His team, all wanting to be there for him and wanting to help find her, had come into the office late that night. Since the kidnapping was connected to a serial murder, it was in the FBI's jurisdiction. They passed off their arson investigation to the arson division of the Denver PD so they could focus on finding Scottie.

The thing that made the least sense was the fact that the Pink Ribbon Strangler was based out of Annapolis. Why was he in Denver, now, only a few days after his last kill in Maryland? Then again, he could have been reading too much into the chess angle, but he had been taught many years ago not to believe in coincidences.

Ziva is targeted by the Pink Ribbon Strangler. She meets up with Tony at Gibbs's house, they call me for help. Scottie goes missing.

It was all connected. They were all connected. However, he was going to have to call his former teammates and tell them that he wouldn't be able to come to DC and head the investigation there. He wasn't leaving Denver until he found his fiancée. A small voice in the back of his head asked what he would do if he didn't find her, but he quickly crushed that thought. He would find her.

He sighed heavily, deciding that he would call Tony and Ziva before doing anything else. His team would have notified him if anything pertinent had been found since he dozed off. He suspected that they had purposely allowed him to sleep, knowing how worn down he was.

He dialed Tony's cell, having saved the number the night before. He picked up after only two rings. "McGee?"

"Tony," he greeted, his voice hoarser than he thought it would be. "We need to talk."

"Yeah, yeah we do," he said, his voice sounding strained. He thought he heard an engine in the background. "Is there any word yet on whether you can get down here, because it looks like this off-the-books NCIS-FBI thing is going on the books."

"What do you mean?"

"The Strangler left Ziva and I a present this morning," he explained. "Somehow, he must know about her past, her NCIS connections. He must have either followed her to Gibbs's house, or known that she would go there."

"Present?" McGee echoed worriedly. "Not a body?"

"No, a finger," Tony responded. "A ring finger paired with a black pawn. We're heading to NCIS now so my forensics girl can try to get an ID off of it."

A ring finger. No, it can't be... His stomach did an involuntary flip, and he felt as though the world was spinning. I don't believe in coincidences.

"Is it... a female finger?" he asked, his question barely audible. He closed his eyes. Please, God, say no...

"I think so, it's slender, no hair, long fingernail," he replied.

"Definitely female," he heard Ziva say from nearby.

"Tony," he said quietly. "I need you to call me as soon as you get an ID on that finger."

"We'll keep you updated. You talk to Fornell and the wife-to-be yet?" Tony asked.

"No..." he trailed off. "When I went home last night, Scottie was gone. There was a black pawn sitting on our bed."

Silence from the other end. If it hadn't been for the thrum of the car engine in the background, McGee would have thought that he had been hung up on.

"Tim... Jesus..."

"Just call me when you get the ID." He hit the end button a little harder than necessary. He dropped his cell with a loud thump on the surface of his desk, his hands shaking violently. He balled them into fists, trying to steady his breathing, trying to calm his wildly beating heart.

Nine years ago, his father died of brain cancer. Two months later, Ducky passed away. Roughly a year after that, Gibbs died, Ziva left, and Tony might as well have gone with her. Two years after that, his grandmother passed. By the time he made the decision to leave DC, all he had left was his sister and Abby, and he left them behind when he headed to Denver.

When he had taken the position as senior field agent here, he had essentially been alone. Alone, and if he was being honest with himself, kind of lost. It seemed like he was just wandering around, trying to find the same kind of meaning he had with his first team back at NCIS.

His new team had helped him gain some of that meaning back, but Scottie had been the light at the end of his tunnel, the person that finally made him feel right, made him feel complete. He had always considered himself to an optimistic, glass-half-full type of person. He couldn't really think of a part of his life where he had been depressed. However, he also couldn't think of a time in his life where he'd been particularly happy, either.

Now, he was happy, happier than he'd ever thought possible. Then, in the blink of an eye, his other half had been taken away from him. Now, with the new development in DC, his panic grew exponentially. If that finger came back as belonging to Scottie... he shuddered.

He could be out there right now, hurting her, doing unimaginable things to her... you should have been protecting her!

He closed his eyes, trying to erase the burning sensation in the corners of his eyes. He had to get it together. He had to find her. He slowly organized his thoughts, trying to bring some kind of order to the chaos that his mind had become.

Get it together, McGee, a voice said in the back of his head, and he'd be lying to himself if he said that it didn't sound like Gibbs.

He stood up, blinking at the head rush that hit him. He needed to talk to his team, see if they had found anything. Before he had fallen asleep the night before, Josh, Kara, and Dom had been trying to reconstruct Scottie's day from the last time anyone spoke to her, which had been when he had called her during his lunch break.

He walked slowly out into the squad room, half-dreading what his team might have discovered. He stopped just as he reached the divider that separated his team from the rest of the office, leaning on it as he observed his team members, who were so absorbed in their work that they didn't even notice his presence behind him.

Josh was in front of the large flat screen they had in the office, watching what appeared to be traffic cam footage with a critical eye, pausing every several seconds as he searched the license plates of the scores of passing cars. Kara was pouring over something on her desk, thin brows furrowed in concentration, the end of a pencil firmly fixed between her two teeth. Dom was on the phone with someone, demanding rather roughly for the flight manifests from Denver to Washington for the past twenty-four hours.

He cleared his throat, catching the attention of his team. "Boss!" Josh said, turning away from the screen. "You're awake."

"Any particular reason one of you didn't wake me?" McGee asked, not unkindly, but still somewhat upset that his team had decided to continue the investigation without him.

"Well, we went in to check on you about a half an hour ago, and we tried to get you up, but, well..." Kara motioned at him somewhat helplessly. "You just kept sleeping. We thought of dumping a bucket of cold water on you, but we figured you could use a little rest after the night you've had."

"We also decided that you would barely be able to function today if you were to go completely without sleep. We were only looking out for your best interest," Dominic said after promptly hanging up his phone and adjusting his thick glasses as he looked up at him. He noted with some pride that his team was consistently using 'we', so as not to throw any particular person under the bus.

Just like he taught them.

"It's alright, guys. Just keep me updated in the future," he said, giving them the best smile he could manage under the current circumstances. "So, what do we have?"

"We've been trying to reconstruct Scottie's day from the point where you last talked to her, to try and find the specific moment where she was kidnapped," Josh said, returning to the flat screen, remote control in hand. "Judging by the traffic cam outside of the home you two share, Scottie left the apartment roughly an hour and a half after you got off the phone with her. However, judging by her phone records, she received another call from you one hour after the call you made during your lunch break," he explained.

"No," McGee argued. "I didn't call her again, you all know that. We left to head to one of the arson sites as soon as I was back from lunch."

"We know, boss," Kara said. "So we looked deeper."

"Upon further examination, I managed to uncover that the call that was supposedly from your cell was actually from an encrypted number disguised to appear as your cell phone number on a caller ID," Dom shared, calculating eyes roaming over the data on his computer screen. "I managed to trace the area of the call, but the encryption level was too advanced for me to pinpoint it any further."

"What's the general area?" McGee asked, clutching onto the hope that they had very least found this lead, that Scottie hadn't disappeared without a trace.

"Washington DC," Kara told him quietly. All of them knew the significance the city held for him, having grown up in Bethesda and worked for most of his adult life in DC. McGee sucked in a breath. It was seeming more and more likely by the second that the finger Tony and Ziva had discovered was his fiancée's.

"Keep going," was all he managed to mutter, trying to maintain his composure in front of his team. He looked to Josh next. "Any sign of coercion on the traffic cam? Was she being followed?"

"No, it doesn't seem like it," his senior field agent replied. "We lost track of her vehicle, but the only thing of relevance in the direction she was heading was the airport, so we checked the flight manifests for her name. She booked a one way from Denver to DC, no layovers. According to the booking clerk there, she paid all in cash and upfront. Cost almost a grand up front."

"And after the flight?" he asked.

"The trail unfortunately goes cold from there, though an interview with employees at nearby car rental facilities or taxi drivers who picked up fares from the airport would likely prove useful," Dominic said in his usual, eloquent way. The young agent spoke like a scientist, or more specifically, a little bit like Ducky without the Scottish accent.

"That's a good idea, Dom," McGee said, tapping his fingers on the divider, mind struggling with what to do next. "Did you try to triangulate her cell again?" That had been the first thing they had tried to do last night, but if Scottie had been on a flight at the time, her phone would have turned off.

"I'll do so right now," he replied, making a few quick key strokes on his computer. There was a pause, and Kara and Josh inched closer, anxious as well to know the result. McGee peered over Dom's shoulder, both surprised and unsurprised by the results.

"Meridian Hill Park, Washington DC," McGee read. "Why would she be there?" he asked, more to himself than anyone. He quickly withdrew his cell phone and hit Scottie's speed dial number. She would never do something like this, just abandon him and leave nothing but a black pawn behind. It all came back to the mysterious call she had received from someone masquerading as him.

The phone continued ringing until it went to voice mail. No answer. He hung up, resisting the urge to turn his phone to dust in his hand. Taking a calming breath, he attempted to center himself. "Isles, call the park rangers at Meridian, have them search the entire premises for her. I want updates every fifteen minutes until they've scoured every inch of that place," he growled, and his team shrank back somewhat, unused to seeing him like this.

His phone rang in his hand, and when he looked down and saw 'Tony DiNozzo' pop up on his screen, he was filled with dread.

He answered, a tremor in his voice. "Is it hers?"


Tony and Ziva stepped out of his vehicle, their feet landing on the pavement of the Naval Yard parking garage. Ziva looked around, taking in the site of the place that used to be a home for her. "It's been a long time," she said softly, as if she was talking to an old friend.

"Not that the nostalgia isn't priceless or anything, but," Tony held up the plastic bag that held the finger and pawn. "Pressing matters at hand... pardon the pun."

"Right, of course," she said, making her way determinedly to the front gates of NCIS. Tony didn't need to flash his ID, as he was instantly recognized as the director. They both nodded reverently to him, while eyeing Ziva with some curiosity, as they let them through the gates.

Once they were inside the building, Tony placed his SIG on the conveyer belt as he stepped through the security checkpoint. Ziva rolled her eyes. "This, I didn't miss," she complained as she removed her own weapon from its holster concealed within her jacket. She then stooped down and lifted up her pant leg, revealing another holster holding a small .32 revolver. Ziva tossed it onto the conveyer belt. Finally, she withdrew her knife, adding it to the small armory. The security guard merely lifted an eyebrow.

"The Mossad never completely goes away, huh?" Tony asked as she followed him through the metal detector, retrieving her weapons on the other side and putting them back in their proper places.

"Not completely, no," she answered as she strode ahead of him to the elevator. He entered in after her and pressed the button for the lab, knowing that Tammy was the first person to see about the disembodied finger. She'd have them an ID in no time flat, and they could give McGee a definitive answer about whether it was his fiancée's or not.

The two of them, standing there in the elevator, it felt so natural. So familiar. It was a blast back to the past, back to happier days. He shook his head, trying to keep his mind on the present. Ziva was being chased by a dangerous psychopath. It was growing more and more likely that McGee's wife-to-be had been kidnapped and injured. Not to mention the fact that this son of a bitch somehow knew about Ziva's past. That was the only way he could've thought to put the 'present' on Gibbs's doorstep.

"Does Abby still work in the lab?" Ziva asked, a slight hint of hopefulness in her voice.

"No. After I became director, she retired from NCIS and took up a gig teaching criminology at Georgetown. Her assistant, Tamera Shields, is our new lab rat," he explained.

"Assistant? Abby hates assistants. Understandably, after Chip..."

"It took a lot of convincing, but she was running herself into the ground. The agency's expanded a lot over the years, and it just didn't make any sense to only have one forensic scientist. So, after a hiring process that took a hell of a lot longer than it should have, she hired Tammy in 2020." He glanced at Ziva, a smirk threatening to form on his lips. "We triple checked. She doesn't have any intentions of framing me for murder."

"You like her?" Ziva asked curiously. The elevator doors binged open. Tony genuinely smiled now, as they headed into the brightly lit forensics lab.

"Well... it's hard not to like Tammy."