AN: By the way, I have no idea where anything is in relation to anything else in D.C. I'm evoking dramatic license.

Thanatopsis

Chapter Eleven

"Well, that can't be good."

McGee gaped at the screen. This could not be happening. "She was being stalked," he said blatantly.

"So why would Waters tell you to check the back yard?"

They both looked at each other and said at the same time, "Serial killer."

The elevator dinged, emitting Ziva and Gibbs. The latter appeared to be in quite a state of frustration. Obviously, nothing had been gained at the lab.

Tony stood up straight. "Boss."

Gibbs threw his jacket down on his chair. "Apparently nobody was capable of telling us anything.

Ziva sat down in her chair, but not before implanting her knife into her desk, making Tony jump.

McGee stood up next to him. "Boss."

Ziva said, "They did not appear to be lying, though. We just wasted an entire day on a pointless lead. I am going to murder Palmer."

"Nah, Palmer got it right," Gibbs said as he sat down. "We just went straight to the wrong assumption."

McGee rolled his eyes. Both Gibbs and Ziva had a laser focus that neither he nor Tony could ever match. He looked at Tony as they went on. "Are they ever gonna stop?"

Tony grinned. "Only if we stop them."

They turned back to the angry pair. "Hey."

"What?"

"We've got something."

Gibbs glared at them. "Well, why the hell didn't you say something?"

Tony snickered. "Yeah like I'd like to get between an angry Ziva and her knife." Gibbs growled, snapping Tony out of his joke. He turned to the plasma. "Click the button McHunch."

McGee grabbed the remote from the tabletop beneath the big screen. "Credit card statements, gym memberships, and a matching vacation." He looked behind him at Gibbs. "These belong to Chief Petty Officer Waters and one Rick Turner."

Gibbs looked perplexed. "And this means?"

Tony spoke up. "She was being stalked. We think he's a – oomph – "

McGee hit him in the stomach and glared. The problem with their theory was that they had no actual proof that Rick Turner did anything other than stalk one woman. They couldn't even prove that he drugged her. He looked back at Gibbs, who was staring at him bewilderedly. "Something just feels off Boss. Can't really place it."

Tony was still rubbing his stomach. "I think we need to check it out."

Gibbs stood for a moment in silence, scratching his head. "Alright. You two go. Bring me back something solid."

They both nodded. Tim said, "Will do, Boss."

When they reached the elevator, Tony asked, "Think he bought it?"

"Can't really tell. I mean, he is letting us go, but that could just mean that he has nothing else to lose."

The drive only took about thirty minutes, and by the time they reached Turner's house, McGee had gotten a hold of Turner's GPS tracking system. As Tony said, you'd think a good serial killer would know to turn off the system. Also, as it had turned out, the car Megan Waters was found in was stolen the night before. Maybe she had taken it as she got away. McGee had tracked Turner's and Waters' actual car and found a disturbing pattern. The lines overlapped, but mainly in the morning and at night; killers have jobs too. He closed the laptop and looked at Tony. "This is just getting scary."

Tony threw the car into park and got out, looking at the house. "Yeah. It's not looking good. Come on."

The lights were off on the inside and there was no car in the driveway. So all they could do was knock on the door and pray that the guy was just really misleading, as all serial killers are. No luck, however, was had. They looked for anything that they could, but Turner was meticulous. All the curtains were drawn, the back gate was closed, and nothing suspicious was in their view. The yard was perfect. A well-tended was the main focal point. There were no flowers, just ferns and other green leafy plants. The house was painted white. It was clearly well-kept, normal. They were about to give it up when an old woman caught sight of them, from the porch of the house next door.

"Hello?" she said. "Why are you looking into Rick's yard?"

They both spun around. She was small and fragile looking: her hair was caught up in a tight, gray bun, and her dress was ill-fitting. She looked at them with curious eyes, the left one was clouded over. It wasn't that hard to imagine what Tony was thinking right at that moment.

"Yes, Mrs.…."

"Ms. Raylord."

McGee shook her hand over the short fence separating the two properties. "Good morning. I'm Tim McGee and this is my partner, Tony DiNozzo."

Her eyes widened and then she gave them a knowing look. "Oh, I've always loved the gays. Something about two men together just gets me all ruffled up."

Tim could see out of the corner of his eye Tony turning red in the face as he desperately tried to hold in the laughter. "No we're – " he tried to say.

"Yes, me too. Right sweetie?" He took McGee's hand. McGee tried to get loose, but Tony just gripped tighter.

Grinding his teeth, McGee gave a strangled yes. He had to admit, it was a rather effective ruse. Sometimes, witnesses responded better when they were unaware that they were talking to cops. He smiled. "We've heard some things. About Mr. Turner. Have you seen or heard anything strange going on here, maybe late at night?"

She gave them both a conspicuous look. "Well, he likes to come in really late. He's almost never home in the evenings and sometimes he stays out all night. I've seen him coming home in the morning." She looked around, making sure nobody could hear her gossip. "I think he's cheating on his wife. But you didn't hear it from me."

"When was the last time you saw either of them?"

"Well, Mrs. Turner left for work this morning, but I have yet to see Mr. Turner since last night when he left around six."

McGee looked at Tony to see him widening his eyes at the old woman's revelation. So McGee stepped in, "Ma'am thank you so much." He shook her hand again. "You've been a lot of help."

As soon as they were out of eyesight of Ms. Raylord, McGee jerked his hand out of Tony's and gave him an appalled look. A look to which Tony waggled his eyebrows and said, "So what do you think?"

McGee narrowed his eyebrows once more before answering. "I think she's got something, but we still have no proof that anything happened until we can look in the back yard."

"So… let's look in the back yard," Tony said, stalking off toward the gate.

McGee chased after him. "Tony, we don't have a warrant. Or probably cause. Tony!" he wasn't stopping. He casually jumped over the fence. "Tony! What in the hell do you think you're doing?"

"What the hell does it look like I'm doing? I'm finding proof."

McGee sighed and followed him. "We can't use anything we find back here."

"Yeah, but if we come back with nothing, Gibbs isn't gonna let us investigate Turner anymore."

Compared to the manicured front yard, the back was extremely unimpressive. The grass was growing in patches, and it was mostly dirt and rocks. McGee didn't really know where to start. Because of what the spirit had told him, he and Tony both thought that the guy was a serial killer, which practically screamed start digging, but he knew that if they found anything illegally that the guy would get off in a heartbeat. This had to be done the right way. He and Tony searched around. The entire place gave off an eerie feeling that they just couldn't get away from. Unfortunately, warrants were not gained by just feelings, and all they had to go on was completely intangible.

Tony gestured for Tim to come over to a tool shed that was standing open. They stood at the entrance; it was a typical shed, toolboxes, saws, screwdrivers, shovels, other various gardening tools, and potting soil. Everything you'd need to maintain a home and garden. "I don't see anything too suspicious," McGee said.

Tony shined a flashlight into the interior and took a step inside. He began searching around.

McGee stepped away to walk around the perimeter of the yard. He still couldn't shake the feeling that he was getting being here, and he could tell that Tony could feel it too. It was the burden of the knowledge that they couldn't corroborate. He didn't really know what he was looking for. In situations like this it was difficult to figure out exactly what would be useful. He knelt down beside a scratch on the wooden fence: nothing too obvious.

All of a sudden, it felt like something pinched Tim's left shoulder, and he slapped at it. It took him a minute to realize that his shoulder was covered in three layers. Only one thing could have done that. Shit.

Tony was still looking around in the shed. While a lot of the stuff in there could easily be used to bury/kill a person, he needed something more apparent. He was searching for blood – or something – on the tools when he heard a terse, "Tony!" come from outside.

He stepped outside to see McGee standing by the fence. Maybe he found something. "Hey, what'd you get?" He didn't receive an answer. Tim merely stood there, staring off into the distance in the other direction. "Hey, McGee." still no response. Tony elongated his steps. Something didn't seem right.

He stopped in front of McGee's line of sight. He was staring blankly past him, a far off look in his eyes. Tony waved his hand in front of his face. "Earth to McGee." He was white as a sheet, exactly like he had found him that morning. Could it be…. Tony touched McGee on the arm. He didn't move. Tony had come in after the fact at the crime scene today. Could he really be having a vision? Tony looked around swiftly. Whatever was happening, this was not the time or the place for it to happen. He grabbed McGee's arm and began to lead him to the front yard, opening the gate that they hadn't used before. McGee was dragging his feet, but he was walking. They made it back to the car, where Tony sat Tim down, jumped in the driver's seat, and drove off.

McGee was now sweating profusely and panting, but still scarcely making a sound. He was clenching his fists, and seemed to be in relatively a distressing state. Tony was getting worried. Did they usually last this long? He really had no idea. He didn't even know if it had happened before today. McGee wasn't as freaked out this morning as he was the first time he saw a ghost, and, clearly, this was different than that.

It seemed like McGee hadn't regained actual consciousness in about fifteen minutes, although it was probably closer to five. He suddenly took a deep gasping breath. Tony slammed on the brakes and parked on the side of the street, grabbing at McGee's hands as they flew in front of him, as if grasping for something.

"Tim, hey. Calm down." McGee looked at him with wild eyes. "Tell me what happened."

He spoke, out of breath. "We're at the wrong house." He looked around quickly. "Or… were. Where are we?"

"I had to get you out of there, Tim. Didn't need you freaking out on me if Turner came back. What did you see?" he said in a commanding tone.

McGee looked back at him, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. "There were a lot of trees, a forest, I think. They didn't say anything – "

"They?"

"There was more than one spirit. They were all in – pain. They showed me images of… well, stuff someone should never have to experience." He paused for a moment. "It was weird, though. I've never seen images before. Just feelings, and words." He looked at Tony. "These spirits may have been more powerful than the others and that's why they could do more. Or maybe it was because there were more of them." He took another calming breath. "The images were just flashes. An old house, a basement," McGee swallowed. "Knives, I could feel them screaming. They were tortured brutally, but they couldn't do anything about it. Like they were… drugged. We've gotta find this guy."

"Trees and an old house? Maybe this guy has another property somewhere?"

McGee's eyebrows creased. "You think?" he said, twisting around to grab his laptop from the backseat. It only took him about thirty seconds before he gave a "Yes!" with a renewed energy. He turned the computer to face Tony. It showed an aerial Google Maps screenshot of a run-down house in the middle of the woods on the outskirts of D.C. near Shenandoah State Park. "That's the house. The one I saw."

"It's pretty far up. Are you sure?"

"Positive."

Tony hit the speed dial on his phone in an instant, while at the same time propelling the car back into the road. "Gibbs. We've got something."

AN: I love the reviews. Keep them coming.