A/N: Yeah, another chapter up and ready for reading! Sorry for the long wait. I've been in a big stand still with how to get the details from Eric onto the page the right way without sounding confusing. But guess what; I'm almost finished with both of my stories! How awesome is that? Well, I guess it would be kind of sad that these are coming to an end but at least it was a good ride, right? After I finish with both this story and my other one, however, I'm planning on taking a well deserved break. I'll continue coming onto this site and reading your stories and stuff, but I won't be writing for a few weeks. Give my brain some breathing time. Besides, final exams are coming up soon. So in the mean time, here's chapter eleven. Enjoy! (oh, and for the record: I have no idea how to describe a six year old child's drawings)

For old time's sake, I will disclaim instead of telling you lazy bums to go to the first chapter. DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NCIS OR ITS CHARACTERS OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT IS OBVIOUSLY NOT OWNED BY ME! Happy?

Chapter Eleven: Questions, Pictures, and a Call

Ziva sat at the edge of a long rectangular table with Eric Sanders sitting across from her. Fornell stood leaning against the wall behind her, facing Eric, with his arms crossed over his chest. Ziva placed her note pad on the table in front of her and looked at Eric expectantly. "Well?" she asked.

"Where should I start?" Eric asked mournfully.

"How about at the beginning?" Fornell suggested.

Eric nodded. He looked down at the table and took a deep breath before starting. "I met Richie years ago, back when we were in our junior year in high school. I was the new kid and he befriended me. He was a cool guy back then. We hung out all the time, picking up girls at the mall, ditching class to play games in his garage while his parents were away, sneaking out after curfew to go to parties. We got into so much trouble in high school. We were always getting detentions for the stupidest things. We didn't care about getting caught; that was part of the fun. We were practically inseparable.

"After our freshman year in college, everything changed. He met some guys after school. I wasn't there, I had to stay after school to talk to my professor. I told him to go on home and that I'd meet him there. He met some guys on his way to our dorm who introduced him to Aaron. Aaron was just as crazy then as he is now. He talked to Richie, brainwashed him into thinking cops were the bad guys, that they were the enemies that were trying to rule the world or something. At first Richie didn't believe him. After I got to our dorm, he told me about them and what they said. He said that Aaron and his friends sounded like some kind of cult trying to recruit him or something. But the next day, Aaron and his friends were standing outside our dorm, waiting for us. They tried to convince us that they were telling the truth and that cops of all kinds were evil and that the whole world of cops was just some kind of conspiracy or something. We didn't listen and told them to leave us alone or else we'd call the cops they love so much. They weren't students, so the campus police wouldn't really do much.

Sophomore year went by without incident after that. They left us alone. During our junior year in college, Aaron showed up again. He tried to convince us again that cops were bad. He told us stories of the things cops do behind our backs and stuff. I guess I was always the voice of reason between the two of us. I didn't listen to a thing Aaron said but Richie seemed like he was giving in. I tried to convince him that Aaron was full of it. I could see that he was struggling with who to believe. When we were in our dorm, I would keep trying to convince him not to listen to Aaron and at first he was okay. But then Aaron had some of his friends corner us individually. Richie was slipping in class and so our professor asked him to stay after to talk. He told me he would catch up with me later so I headed out."

Eric took a deep breath and glanced back at Ziva, then at Fornell, and then back at the table. "Aaron was waiting for me behind our dorm. He and his friends cornered me and, at first, they tried to convince me again of their beliefs of cops but I refused and Aaron got mad. He said that I may not accept the truth but I shouldn't be trying to force my friend to be blinded from it, too. He said that if I was really Richie's friend, I would leave him alone and let him believe what he wants. I told Aaron to go fuck himself and leave us alone. He got mad and he and his friends jumped me. I fought back as best I could with five to one but they got the best of me. Afterwards, I went back to my dorm room to wait for Richie. He didn't show. I ended up falling asleep waiting for him. When I woke up, he still hadn't shown up. I told myself that if he didn't show by our first class, then I would call the cops on Aaron just in case. But he showed up. Except he wouldn't talk to me. He ignored me all through class and as soon as class got out, he took off. I didn't blame him. I had a feeling Aaron had something to do with it.

After all of my classes ended, with Richie still ignoring me, I went searching for them. I found Richie heading towards our dorm and so I ran up to him and asked him what was up. He told me that he couldn't hang with me anymore because I was messing with his mind. Was he serious? If anyone was messing with his mind, it was Aaron. And I told him so but he said that Aaron told him I would say something like that and that I was getting in the way of him seeing the truth. I didn't want us to stop being friends, so I told him that I didn't care about what he believed in; he could believe in whatever he wanted, I didn't care. I just wanted us to stay friends. We were close growing up and did he really want to throw that away just because of some different views? So we stayed friends. Sort of. We hung out like normal, neither one of us mentioning Aaron or anything that had to do with him or his crew. When he wasn't hanging with me, Richie was with Aaron, doing who knew what."

Eric shook his head sadly. "Then things turned for the worse. We stopped hanging out almost completely. He started changing; he started getting a major attitude problem, first with me and then with his parents. He would act like he knew everything and he was so superior. He started acting more like Aaron everyday. I hardly saw him except when he was asking for money or needed some place to lay low. He said that since he 'saved me' from being friendless in high school, I owed him. He was such a dick. I knew he was doing things that were illegal. I didn't know what, but I knew. But I kept telling myself that it wasn't his fault, that Aaron was the one responsible for it all. But I knew I was kidding myself. Richie wasn't a kid anymore, which means he has to take responsibility for his own actions. I tried to convince him to break off from Aaron; tried to tell him that he was going to end up in trouble or worse because of him. He wouldn't listen.

"So I made the decision to break off ties with him instead. It was the hardest decision I ever had to make. Like I said, Richie and I were like brothers. It was hard to think of breaking ties. But I couldn't deal with Aaron and his crap anymore. I knew I was already in trouble for helping Richie and not going to the police when I first suspected Richie of doing something illegal. I just didn't want to see him getting sent to prison or something." Suddenly Eric looked up at them with horror filled eyes. "Oh man. Do you think this is my fault? Do you think if I had tried harder, he wouldn't have gone this far? This is all my fault; I should have said something sooner." Eric put his face in his hands. "Richie, I'm so sorry."

"This is not your fault." Ziva said, reaching across the table to put her hand on his. "You did everything you could. You stood by your friend, even though you disagreed with his actions."

"There was nothing more you could have done for him." Fornell agreed. "He obviously didn't want to listen to you when you tried to convince him that Aaron was bad news. If you tried to tell him that he was going to die when he tried to kill an NCIS agent, I doubt he would have listened then either. I agree, you should have said something sooner, but you were protecting a friend. To be honest, I probably would have done the same."

Eric looked up at him. "You would have?"

Fornell nodded. "Now, is there anything else you can think of that would help us find Aaron? Do you know where he lives or where Richie went when he met with him? Who he hung out with? Anything at all?"

Eric thought about this. Finally he shook his head. "No, I can't. I know Richie hung out with Aaron wherever Aaron decided to go but he never mentioned anything to me. I guess he didn't want me following or something. And I've never seen him with anyone else, so I have no idea who they hang out with. I've never seen the faces of the others."

Ziva looked down at her notes she had taken during his story. "Did he ever come home with something? Like fast food, souvenirs of the victims, anything that would give a clue to where he had been?"

Eric shook his head. "No, he was very careful on not giving himself away." Then Eric paused and looked up, startled. "Actually, there was one thing. I saw him once while he was walking home from somewhere. I was kind of irritated with him at the time, so I didn't go up to him but I did notice that he had something on his shoes that looked a lot like moss. The only places with moss are the woods and some of the parks. They could be hiding there somewhere."

Ziva wrote that information down in her notes and glanced up again. "Was there anything that looked out of place on him that day? Any dirt on his clothes, rips, mud, anything that would indicate which park he went to or which part of these woods he was in?"

Eric shook his head. "No, I didn't. But I did see a couple leaves on one of his jackets when I was searching through his room. I don't think he does his laundry as often as he should, so you can try there."

"We will." Fornell assured. "You said he owed you money and that's why you were searching through his room when we found you. Does he usually owe you money?"

"Sometimes." Eric said. "He always has money but he has a bad control over his spending habits. Even in high school he would hit the stores as soon as money landed in his hands. He would spend it on stuff, I don't know what, and then he sees something else he wants that he doesn't have enough for and so he comes to me asking for more. I've been keeping track on how much he borrows and now I want to collect it all before it gets to large to get back. He owes me a hundred and twelve dollars right now. Or he did anyway."

"And why did you choose now to collect it?" Ziva asked.

"Because I just recently decided to break ties with him." Eric answered. "I almost forgot about it until I thought about changing the locks on the house and then I thought about how much it would cost and then I remembered about the money Richie owed me. And like I said, I went to his house to go get it and he wasn't home. Usually when I try to get it back from him, he says he either doesn't have it or not right now because he has something else to use it for. So I figured I would have a better chance of getting it back if I got it on my own."

"Did he have a job?" Fornell asked. "Or did he go to school or something?"

"No." Eric said. "After he met Aaron, he stopped going to school. He finished the semester he was in with me but after that he stopped. And he said he didn't need to work because Aaron would take care of all of them."

Ziva looked back down at her notes. "In the beginning, when we first found you in Richard's house, you said that he raped and killed your girlfriend's uncle. Who is her uncle? And who's your girlfriend?"

"Her name is Mariah. Please, are you going to tell her? She needs to know but I don't know if I should be the one to say it." Eric sighed desperately. "Please, can one of you tell her?"

"I will speak to her and her parents as soon as you tell me who her uncle is." Ziva said.

"Her uncle's full name is Naval Lieutenant Heath Leme. He had been in the Navy for ten years and had gotten promoted to Lieutenant pretty early. He was a really decent guy outside of the Navy as well and he loved his niece. I met him a few times when I first started dating Mariah. After the thousands of questions he asked me, he finally gave me the okay to date her, even though her parents had already said okay. She valued his opinion and wanted to make sure she got his approval." Eric said.

"Then this will be difficult on her." Ziva said. "You should be there when I give her and her family the news."

"If you say Aaron, she's going to know that Richie was involved. She's known about him being mixed up with Aaron and his craziness. She was the one who helped me convince myself to break ties with him." Eric said.

"Alright." Ziva said, jotting down the rest of her notes. "I think that's enough for now. I don't think I have to advise you not to leave the state or country until this case is solved."

Eric shook his head. "No, I won't go anywhere. But what are you going to say to his parents?"

Ziva and Fornell gave him a hard look."The truth." They said in unison.

Gibbs sat in his desk chair, typing away at his computer while Josh sat in a second chair positioned between his and Ziva's desks, eating a sandwich from a café down the street. Occasionally he would look over to Gibbs, then over to Tony, who was glaring at his computer screen, and finally back at his sandwich. When he finished, he reached down and pulled up his little back pack and pulled out a thick book with blank grey paper and a box of 64 crayons. Then he began to draw.

After about fifteen minutes of typing, Gibbs glanced up and around the office again. He glanced at Tim's still empty desk, then at Ziva's empty desk, and then over to Tony, who looked about ready to murder his computer, and finally his gaze drifted over to Josh. His gaze drifted briefly over the sketchbook and Gibbs was about to turn back to his own computer when the drawing caught his eye.

Standing up, Gibbs walked over and stood next to Josh. Kneeling down, Gibbs casually asked. "What are you drawing?"

Josh shrugged. "A picture." He answered, not looking up from his drawing. Gibbs glanced down at the picture. Eight black blobs representing bodies and eight pairs of blue blobs for legs stood in the middle of the page, surrounded by long thick brown blobs with green blobs on top. One of the black bodied blobs was a lot larger than the others and stood over a long, purple horizontal blob with a peach colored head, peach colored legs and light brown hair.

"Can you explain to me what this picture is about?" Gibbs asked as he watched Josh color red splotches along the peach colored arms and legs and face of the purple blob.

Josh stopped his coloring to point at each of the black blobs. "This one is Jason, and this one is Victor, this one is Blake, this one is Gary, this is Cory, this one is Peter, this one is Richard, and this big one is Aaron. They're all in the woods behind that one park where all the big kids go."

"Were you supposed to be there?" Gibbs asked.

Josh shook his head. "No, but Peter wouldn't play with me because he said he had more important things to do. I wanted to see what was more important because he never plays with me."

"And what about this one?" Gibbs asked, pointing to the purple blob. Tony had glanced up when he heard Josh naming the blobs and had rolled his chair up beside Gibbs to peer at the picture.

Josh shrugged. "I don't know her name but she was with them. She was crying. She was trying to scream but Aaron had his hand over her mouth and then Peter hit her in the face and she fell down. And then they started kicking her and punching her. Daddy says boys are not supposed to hit girls, even when they are asking for it. And then she stopped moving. They stopped hitting her and then Aaron started taking off her clothes. You're not supposed to do that either."

"No, you're not." Gibbs agreed. "Josh, do you know the last names of these guys? And where they live?"

Josh nodded his head. "Uh huh. I know where they all live except Aaron. Aaron doesn't live anywhere. He goes wherever he wants."

Tony pointed to the purple blob. "How come she's purple? Was she wearing purple?"

Josh shook his head. "No, she was wearing clothes that had grey and black and green spots all over. And she had a hat with the same colors but they threw it away. But they had a purple sheet on her over her clothes."

Gibbs put his hand over the picture and waited for Josh to look up at him. "I need you to do something very important for me."

"Okay." Josh said.

"I need you to write down the names of everyone in this picture and where they live, okay?" Gibbs instructed.

"But I don't know how." Josh said. "I haven't learned that yet in school."

"Then tell Tony the names and addresses of the guys and he'll write them down for you." Gibbs said. He stood up and headed in the direction of the elevator.

"Where are you going?" Josh asked.

"I'll be right back. I need to go get my friend, Agent Fornell. Talk to Tony until I get back."

"Kay."

Gibbs headed down the hall to the conference room that Ziva and Fornell had gone to with Eric. As he approached the door, the two agents emerged with a distressed Eric. "I will take him home." Ziva offered.

"Not yet." Gibbs said. He faced Eric. "Do you know the names of everyone in their group?"

Eric shrugged. "I don't know. I've never seen their faces because they always wear hoods, so I don't know who is in it in the first place."

"Do you know anyone by the names of Jason, Blake, Cory, Gary, Peter, Richard, and Victor?" Gibbs asked.

Eric thought about this and then nodded. "I already know Richard and I know someone named Peter. And I've only ever known one person named Victor and someone else named Jason. But I don't know the others. Why? Are they the others that were involved?"

"Apparently." Gibbs alleged. "What do you know about Victor and Jason?"

Eric shrugged. "I don't know. The only Victor and Jason I know are from college a few years ago. I haven't seen either of them since."

"What were their names? Their full names?" Gibbs asked.

"Victor Hendricks and Jason Peing. They were in a few of mine and Richie's classes in college." Eric answered. "I don't know much about them except what everyone else in school knew. Victor was more of an outcast; he stayed to himself most of the time. Everyone thought he was a loner and kind of weird. He always seemed to be speaking to himself. He was pretty good in school though, so he was never chewed out by the professors or asked to stay after.

Jason was a bit different. He comes from a really uptight Chinese family. His father is an officer in the navy, Officer Lao Peing. We've seen him before at school. He chewed out Jason in front of the majority of school one morning because he was failing in one of his classes. Jason looked extremely pissed but he didn't say anything. He didn't talk to anyone either at school; he mostly stuck to himself as well."

"I was going to take him to his girlfriend's house." Ziva said. "His girlfriend is the niece of Officer Leme. I was going to tell the family that we know who is killing officers and that we are getting close to finding them." She gave Gibbs a look at her last few words.

Gibbs nodded meaningfully and stepped back to let them pass. "Don't go anywhere where we can't find you if we need to." Gibbs said as they passed. "And don't go anywhere alone. Aaron and his crew might decide to turn to you if they think that you might sell them out."

"I won't." Eric said. "I'll ask to stay a few nights with my girlfriend to keep her company and give her some support. This is going to be harder for her than anyone else."

Gibbs nodded and waited for them to round the corner before turning back to Fornell. "So, how did you find out the names of the other guys?" Fornell asked.

"The kid; he drew a picture of what he had seen in the woods a few days ago." Gibbs answered as he and Fornell headed back towards the elevator. "Apparently Peter met Aaron and his friends there and Josh followed. He saw them attacking a woman in an army uniform and drew what he saw today in the bull pen. He told us the first names of all eight guys and right now he's telling them to Tony to search."

They entered the elevator and Gibbs pushed the button he wanted. Fornell turned to Gibbs. "It appears that we're missing a body. We have a regular police officer, an ex-marine, a naval lieutenant, and now an army officer. the only ones missing are FBI and NCIS."

Gibbs and Fornell exited the elevator into the bull pen and approached Tony's desk. Josh was sitting in the chair he sat in earlier, except now it was positioned next to Tony's desk. "What have you got for me, Dinozzo?" Gibbs asked.

Tony handed Gibbs a few pages of printed paper. "I was able to find and print four of them, boss. I've been printing them as soon as I find them so that you can get started while I search for the others."

Gibbs glanced briefly at the pages before handing them to Fornell and nodding to Tony. "Good work, Tony. Let's go, Tobias." Gibbs started to head to the elevator when the phone on his desk rang. Gibbs paused, debating on whether or not to answer. Finally he turns and heads back to his desk and grabs the receiver. "Agent Gibbs."

"Agent Gibbs." Said a serious voice on the other end. "I'm afraid I have grave news concerning your agent, Timothy McGee." Gibbs felt his insides go cold, felling as though the blood running through his veins had turned to ice. "We tried everything we could to save him but there was nothing more we could do. I'm sorry but… I'm afraid he's gone."

A/N: Wait, what? Gone? No way! Yeah, I know. Just review.