Chapter Eleven
In Hell

When Gibbs returns to the Squad Room, McGee calls him before he can reach his desk. He turns, no less annoyed with the man. "What?" If this isn't significant, he's going to regret attracting attention.

"I interviewed the Handyman, Mark Jordan, and while he was sorry Dumas is dead, there was something about his manner that made me dig deeper. I can see why he's sorry; according to some others on the staff he's asked her out on dates, but she always turned him down."

"Why?"

"Seems she won't date a married man, particularly one whose wife is on the Vestry."

"Smart woman," DiNozzo observes. Married women are and have always been his line in the sand. Actually, more in the concrete.

"Dumb man," Ziva chips in.

Gibbs can hardly disagree. "What else?"

"I did a search of Dumas' laptop: his name appears in only one file - a diary. It wasn't even password protected. Apparently she assumed no one else was going to read it in her apartment without her knowing. I counted eleven times he asked her out before she logs that she'd stopped him. She doesn't say how."

"Check into it."

"I also checked into his background. He's clean, but his Amex card shows some interesting transactions, such as purchases at strip clubs, adult boutiques, etc. He bought ten DVDs last month with names like 'Whipping Post', 'Whipped Sluts', 'Porche's Ordeal', 'Pain in Hell', 'Punished Slaves', 'Dresden Diary' 1 through 5. They're all S&M titles."

"Ya think?"

"Shall we bring him in?" DiNozzo asks.

Gibbs wants to say 'yes', but "No. Dig deeper. How did he react to Dumas turning him down? Who knows about his interest in her - and in smut? DiNozzo, you've got first shift. Watch him like a hawk."

"On it, boss." He's away from his desk immediately. He might still be on the clock - but he's out of the office.

xxx

Siobhan O'Mallory lies upon her queen size bed in the dismal blackness, hoping that if she stays still then this time she can sleep. Her heavy 'blackout' drapes, normally used in the daytime when she's required to be up nights, are closed, turning the room into a tomb. She has lain here for hours, neither knowing nor caring how many, unable to rest, her mind tortured by her friend and her misery. The blackness presses upon her eyes, smothers her, and it only makes her think of Tina lying naked and torn in that Morgue drawer.

When she's not seeing her friend dead, she's seeing her alive and vital as she knew her. Dozens, scores, seemingly hundreds of prayers do not ease the stabbing in her heart. She doesn't want to cry, not even in the utter solitude of her bedroom, but she can't endure it any longer.

Sitting up, thrusting the thin sheet off her bare body, the air conditioner fighting heat as her body fights sleep, she reaches out and turns on her lamp. She winces at the bright blur that stabs her eyes. Nothing in the room exists yet save a vague fog of colors and shapes that flow into one another like an Expressionist's painting - itself out of focus. Reaching to her night table, she picks up her glasses, always in the same spot, and pulls them on. The room appears out of the thick distorted haze before her watering eyes. She looks at the small card set upright against the base of her lamp and picks it up. Even with her glasses, it takes a moment to focus beyond unshed tears and she considers the words printed upon it.

She shouldn't. It's not right. She's the one who people turn to. She shouldn't impose her pain on others. But the more she thinks on this, seeking reasons not to do it, the more she focuses upon the name printed on the card's center. After a long time she decides - that she will not think any longer.

She picks up the phone and listens to the steady tone. She shouldn't do this. But the pain that stabs her heart moves her fingers. Ten tones, then the ringing. It sounds again, again, again, again, again... She's about to put the phone down, to consign herself to her solitary misery, when:

/Hello?/ The voice is groggy with sleep and guilt tears at her heart.

"T–" Her voice catches. She shouldn't do this. She's supposed to be strong, not to burden others with her misery. "Timmy?" She can barely force herself above a whisper.

There's a rustle on the line and his voice is no longer sleep shrouded. /What's wrong?/

"Timmy, I –." She can't do it. "I - I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you." She's about to hang up.

/Nonsense. What's wrong?/

"I–" She can't say it, but neither can she leave him hanging. She's the one who disturbed him. "I - can I - talk to you?"

/Where are you?/

She hesitates, realizing he intends to come to her. It's vastly more than she expected. She's about to force herself to answer when, dimly heard in the background, a woman's voice inquires; /Who is it?/

'Oh dear God!' she yells in her mind, clutching the receiver in both hands, covering the mouthpiece. She forces herself to uncover it, to bring it back up. "I'm sorry! I–"

/Nonsense,/ he tells her again, this time more forcefully, more awake. /Where are you?/ She hears movement in the background and his voice is much more alert as the rustling sounds cease. He's gotten off the bed.

Before she can reconsider - again - "My apartment."

/I'll be right there./ The line goes dead.

When she puts the phone down on the night table, she catches sight of the clock - 1:22 - and feels a deeper stab of guilt.

xx

"I have to go." Tim says from beside his dresser, putting down the phone and opening his drawer, reaching in and pulling out a pair of boxers. Ziva looks up at him, her black hair artfully disarrayed, the thin sheet falling from her as she sits up.

"Where?"

"I have to meet someone; a friend's in trouble. Go back to sleep." He crosses the room, opens the closet and pulls out a pair of pants, but when he turns she's in front of him.

"What is wrong?" she asks, determinedly blocking his path, unwilling to move until she gets an answer.

Seeing more than her nude body, he sighs. "Reverend O'Mallory. I don't know what's wrong, but she wants to talk."

x

Ziva turns back to the bed, reaches for her discarded panties beside it. Unlike him, she has no wardrobe to change, but she does not consider it unfair; he has the same drawback at her apartment. They do not share apartment space, that was the agreement. "I can be ready in a–"

"Not this time." His words halt her in mid-bend and she turns back to him.

"You are going to interview the principle witness in our case. Of course I am going with you. I am your partner."

"No, this isn't the case - at least I don't think it is."

"Ah," she watches him dress, his pants half way up. If this is not NCIS business "Then a woman calls you up at one-thirty in the morning and you jump out of bed to go to her."

"Ziva…" he crosses the room, takes her shoulders in his warm hands. "She's an old friend who's in trouble. I'm asking you to trust me on this. If its case related, I'll call you."

"Of course it is 'case related'."

"Ziva, she's an old friend and she's in trouble," he repeats, stressing this with as much patience as he can manage. "I have to help her. It's not like it is with us, this isn't personal, it's not professional, it's just ... personal."

"You are aware of how that sounds?"

"Trust me." She considers. "Trust me?"

"I would sooner trust the Pope."

He kisses her. "That's my girl."

xxx

The drive from Silver Spring takes a half hour on reasonably empty roads, and when Tim pulls his car to a stop in front of O'Mallory's six story corner apartment house, he's surprised to find her waiting for him on the sidewalk rather than up on the top floor. She's wearing a pair of jeans, white sneakers and a 'Nationals' sweatshirt against the cooling air, about as far from the appearance he has grown used to as she could be. He gets out of the car, allowing his eyes to ask his question.

"I have a lot of neighbors," she says, "one of whom would love to see a single man come up to my apartment after two in the morning."

"I understand." He knows she must be extremely careful of her reputation and of anything that might have the appearance of impropriety, regardless of its innocence. Standing nearly under the corner streetlight, he knows they can be clearly seen against the city's darkness.

"Timmy, thank you for coming. I'm so embarrassed that I bothered you, but I just couldn't - I couldn't take it anymore."

"Don't worry about it. I'm glad you called me. I'm your secular lifeline, after all." He's happy to see the smile, tinged with sadness though it is, and waits for her to explain but she's still lost.

x

"It's been a long time since I've seen you like this," he tells her to get the conversation started, to get her to reach what's bothering her. He looks over her ultra-casual attire, more in keeping with the years they'd spent dating, so long ago. All that's missing is her baseball cap.

"I'll bet when you think of me most of the time it's in that blue and yellow handkerchief they called a 'cheerleader uniform'," she says with an embarrassed chuckle.

"I liked you in nothing better," he offers with just enough lecherous flavor to his tone to keep the promise alive that he'd never treat her formally when they're alone. That is her most consistent problem, therefore the earliest promise she'd asked for following their reunion. But the banter is short-lived, nothing seems able to ease her mood.

"I'm sorry."

He leans against his car. "Tell me."

She gestures helplessly. "I feel like an idiot for disturbing–"

"Tell me."

x

She'd been trying for all the time she'd waited to think of what to say and she's still trying. She steps up to him, leans on the warm car beside him and is lost. "I don't know what to say," she finally admits, "I shouldn't have called you. I shouldn't have distur–" He holds up his hand, silencing her.

"You can tell me anything. You always could."

"Not everything."

He sighs and decides it's time to cut through the denials and embarrassment. "Shav, do you remember the time in our Junior Year you got suspended from the Cheerleading Squad and then from school? You told everyone else it was for cheating on your Mid-terms - but you admitted to me that you stole those answers?"

She stares at him, stricken, stabbed through the heart. How could he possibly bring that up again?

"If you could trust me enough to tell me that, knowing I'd never tell another soul, then you can tell me this."

x

She looks away, back to her apartment house. Embarrassment at the memory she'd nearly buried in a mental grave, seeking to keep it from wounding her conscience even after so many years, is even greater than this. But it makes her realize she can tell him. If there's anything they've always been with one another, it's honest.

She tries to speak, to tell him of her pain and the misery stabs at her. The pain in her heart grows more intense with every breath. She reaches up, her fingers pushing her glasses up as she rubs her moist eyes, the tears she can barely fight stinging her.

"I miss her." She can barely whisper it, her tight voice quivering as she feels herself losing her battle with her tears. She releases the glasses, they fall to her nose and the world turns back on. "I miss her so much!"

"I know," he tells her, his voice soft with memories of so many he'd cared for who'd lost their lives so suddenly, so senselessly. He tries to bury his own feelings, his outrage at what his innocent friend is being forced to suffer, but seeing her like this, it's impossible to be dispassionate.

She tries to speak but can only manage to force a whisper. Her brogue, normally strong, becomes so hard he has to work to understand her.

x

Siobhan's voice threatens to break and the harder she fights for control the more she feels it slip away. "I see her everywhere. In the nave, the sacristy, upstairs..." She yanks off the glasses, rubs her eyes, tries to hold back the tears. She doesn't cry in public, won't ever cry in front of anyone, not even Timmy. She won't!

But her voice shakes, broken, gasping breaths tear at her. Fine trembling overwhelms her as she struggles to fight grief that can't be contained. "I don't know who did it, I swear I don't know."

"I believe you."

"Your boss doesn't. But I don't know!"

"I know." He's never doubted her - ever.

"But he - he told me things I can't speak of. And I see Tina -" she can't restrain a sob, "and all I can - can think is - is how - I've - betrayed her!" Clenching her eyes shut, she tries to hold back the tears that squeeze out to slip down her cheeks. She clutches her glasses, unable to put them back on, unable to see her friend.

"I can't - tell - tell you - George - your boss - anyone. I want - want to - but I can't! I don't - know - who did it! But even if - if I - knew - I can't - can't…." The harder she tries to contain her misery, the more she loses. "Tina–"

Her voice breaks and she stops, fights for control, her whispered words forced through the tightness in her throat. She won't cry. Not even in front of Timmy. She won't cry.

"Tina's dead! I had to - go down - give her the Last - Last Rites. I had - had to look - into her - her face - and I - can't - help - catch - the bastard - responsible for–"

Through the teary mist of her unfocused eyes she can't see Timmy, doesn't see him close on her - but she feels his arms encircle her body and pull her close... and she loses her battle. His gentle touch undoes her and she presses her eyes to his shoulder, tries to muffle her sobs against his chest.

x

Tim holds his old friend close as she clings to him, her body wracked by terrible sobs. He knows her to be a strong, confident and dedicated woman, the tears that overwhelm her come at a terrible price. His heart breaks for her though he dares not show it.

He does his best to keep his arms, his body, relaxed and placid. Even though she can't see him, he doesn't want her to feel the towering rage building in him. He focuses on keeping his arms gentle about her, the muscles in his chest relaxed so she won't know how angry he is.

But he also prays - prays that whoever has done this doesn't cross his path while he feels like this.

For now he must concentrate on containing the rage, on being here for her, wishing he were able to do more than just hold her out here on the sidewalk late in the still night as she cries and cries and cries.

xxx

Michelle Lee cries a keening scream of ecstasy. On her knees, head thrown back, leaning her arched back against the raised knees of the man under her, her breasts held in his hot hands, she screams joyous climax that seems to last forever. Breathless, her scream ends with a ragged gasp and she collapses forward. Jimmy Palmer eases her down by her heaving breasts. She lies upon his scorching body, their panting loud in the dim room. That doesn't stop them from kissing passionately, breath sacrificed to love as they cling to one another. She doesn't move from him, clenching her muscles about him over and again, unwilling to surrender the instrument of her joy. She draws a groan from the man under her as her body rises and falls with his stentorian breaths.

x

In the dim city light coming in through the curtained window beside his bed, he can see her well enough. He holds her close, caressing her as he tries to regain his breath, enjoying her hot body covering him like a panting, heart thumping blanket. They'd gotten here after a secluded midnight dinner and made love ever since. It's been over an hour, so he knows the insatiable woman is nowhere near her end. At this pace, she might grow tired, or contented, by around three. As usual, his most frequent and fervent prayer is just to keep up - in every sense.

Her endurance he knows comes from one reason. She cheats.

Actually, is tapping the energy from some mystical cosmic power battery really cheating since she shares, keeps him hard and potent when he should be passed out?

"I was thinking..." he begins in self defense. If he can engage her in conversation, he can usually buy a few additional minutes to regain his strength, or at least his breath. He's never outlasted her, normally he's exhausted long before she's done, though he is improving. Even Doctor Mallard has noticed and commented upon his new physique - fortunately attributing the wrong reason to it.

He recalls his apprehension at that unnerving conversation and his relief that the Doctor had drawn the conclusion that his improvement was due to working out in a gym. When Mallard had mentioned 'pumping' his heart had almost turned over. But maybe that's not such a bad idea. "I was thinking..."

"Hmmm, you said that already," she says softly, nuzzling his ear.

"You make it hard to think." Her warm, luscious body lying upon his is very distracting.

She grins. "That's not the only thing I make hard." She wiggles her hips and clenches her muscles again in a passionate erotic hug, making him groan and almost forget what he was going to say. He's not sure what talent of hers, sensuality or witchcraft, is keeping him hard in her this time but he'll neither mention it nor complain.

"I'm thinking," he stresses when he can think again, "that you should go down to that Marine Recruiting Station and see what you can sense."

x

She sighs and her smile disintegrates. How can he think of work? She decides she'll have to distract him harder when she catches her breath. She's already ready for more, arching her hips delightedly, feeling him still pressing deep within her.

"It doesn't work that way," she tries, not wanting to break the mood. "I'm psychic, but I - I just have these sensitivities. It's an acquired skill, comes from being a –."

"Witch," he finishes with her, "But can't you... well, cast a spell or something to..." He breaks off at her heavy sigh.

"I told you it's not like that," she says again. "Wicca helps me control it, I've learned how to focus, to protect myself from things that'd drive me crazy if I felt them 24/7, but this isn't television. If you'd only think of it more as a Religion and less like Samantha Stevens–"

"Who?"

She smiles. They had rented the new 'Bewitched' movie video during her Rest Leave, and he's already proven by his atrocious 'Doctor Bombay' joke at the hospital that he's familiar enough with the original.

She's sorry to feel him slip away. She can't help it, neither can he, but if she can get him off this topic, she'll get him back on her - and better than ever.

"Okay. The point is I can't walk into a room and tell you who did it and how. My powers aren't that ... powerful. Maybe Kendra Little could, I certainly can't. And I am not on this case, I workfor Legal. Special Agent Gibbs just borrowed me for those few days."

"You could get back on full time."

She looks down into his eyes just three inches from hers, wishing they were kissing now instead but passion's draining away by the second. "I know you want me to, but I'm not really sure I want to," she admits.

That last case had been uncomfortable, not that there are any other kind, but she prefers to keep her professional and personal lives separate. Except, of course, in how they apply to Jimmy.

That case, her time with Megan Wood, her revelation to Jimmy of Wicca and her powers, have definitely blurred some lines.

"But it could help your career if you can do this," he insists. "After all, you broke that case."

"Broke it?" she scoffs. "I walked in, got kicked in the belly, got beaten up and wound up in a hospital, only to have a chair broken across my boobs, get batted into a wall and I dropped my gun." She won't mention that she'd also spent a week on Disability Leave, which she'd hated even more, since he knows that so very well. "You're the one who shot him."

The words fall out of her mouth before she can stop them but it's too late. She can't pull them back - she can only watch his expression die. She'd meant to say he'd acted heroically in saving Megan Wood's life.

It hadn't come out that way.

x

"Oh, Jimmy, I–"

He takes her shoulders, moves her to her right off him onto the bed and gets up, steps away and her heart is ripped with every step.

She feels like an idiot. All the hard times he's been having, all her efforts to help him through his torment, to get him to talk - when he will talk - are destroyed now because she's an idiot.

She follows him. "I'm so sorry," she says to his bare back. "I didn't mean–."

"I know what you mean. Can we just not talk about it?"

Not a day goes by since that fateful morning that he doesn't see George Franklin's bloody body in his clenched fists. He'd demanded reason from the dying man, the reason he'd destroyed three lives, his own included. The reason never did satisfy him nor did it justify the tragedy. "I just thought that, with your ... talents ... you'd be able to sense something the others missed. It would certainly help your career."

"I know." She also knows he's thinking of far more now than just her career. "But Jim, I'm sorry - that wasn't what I meant." He doesn't answer, doesn't turn, doesn't do anything.

x

She wants to stay, to try to help him, but she can feel, literally feel, that he's shut her out. "I'll go." She goes back to her bed and bends down, picks up her discarded panties. "I'm sorry."

He turns. "No. God I'm sorry, sorry for the way I've been, but I can't help it. I - I've never killed anyone before."

She steps into her panties, then returns to him, embraces him. "And never will again. But we both know it was him or Megan. And yes, I know that doesn't make it feel better. It just is."

He holds her for a long moment, just holds her. There's no room for words.

x

It's a long time before he can say anything. "Every time I close my eyes I see him. I was in the way. If I hadn't been so - so..." He'd been furious, seeing Michelle, already beaten and wounded, brutalized as she had been. He'd been so enraged at what Franklin had done, at the lives he'd destroyed, that he'd been blocking the Doctor's efforts to save him.

"You know that's not true," she reminds him, hugging him. "You did the autopsy - no one could have saved him. That second bullet–."

"Yes, I know. But that doesn't ..." He's silent as she tightens her hug, clutches him as though to show her love and strangle his words at the same time.

"Honey, I wish I could think of something to say, could find the words to help you."

"I wish I'd never–"

"I'll do it."

It takes him a moment to catch up. "What?"

"Go to the Recruiting Center, use my ..."

They both know she's agreeing to change the subject.

"Come on," he tells her. "Finish dressing; I'll drive you."

She just nods, not wanting to say anything more.

xxx

They use her car and both know the reason, though neither will say. After they're done she'll have to either drive him back to his apartment or to hers. Either way, they're not separating.

She's glad. Maybe she can get him to talk.

They're too quiet through most of the drive. A shroud of silence smothers her. She wishes he would say something and does her best to keep silence, hoping he'll fill it. But the shroud lasts right up to the moment when they turn off the side street beside the Recruiting Station and onto the main avenue. "'Chelle, I know that–"

"What's that?" She cuts him off, wishing too late that she'd kept quiet but she'd been so surprised. Now she must return her attention to what had attracted it as she pulls to a stop at the curb.

In front of the Recruiting Station is a very tall object covered with a white cloth that reaches to the cement and flutters in the breeze. It leans propped upright against the metal grill of the security gate.

"I don't know," Jimmy admits as they get out of the car. The Avenue is silent, no passing cars disturb the quiet at 2:30 in the morning.

Approaching the white sheeted object, they find it to be over seven feet tall. It comes down from a point to, at a height of over six feet, reach a width of nearly five feet before the cloth hangs straight down, the ends swaying in the mild warm breeze. It's not flat, but wide with an odd bulge.

It's wedged into the grill of the security gate hard enough to bend upward the horizontal bar it presses against. Looking at the base, they see marks in the sidewalk where the single base had been forced - possibly with a hammer? - to force the object into place so it would bend the bar.

Scanning in all directions, the pair sees no one on the street but themselves.

Jimmy doesn't like this at all. Reaching down, he lifts the bottom of the sheet high enough to find blue/purple bare feet dangling below it. "Oh Hell."

He drops the material, which upsets the delicate balance of the sheet. It had been held in place by only a few fibers in the still air, not trapped at the top but only rested on the edge, so the entire covering falls away to the sidewalk.

x

The black haired young woman hangs nailed by long spikes through her bloody wrists to the cross beam, head bowed forward in death. Lines of dried blood streak down her face and neck to varying lengths on her bare chest and stomach. Her feet hang an inch above the cement. Her forehead, and under her hair, are cut with vertical slices and blood, now dried and maroon brown, ran down her face in horrific lines. Black spikes are driven through the young woman's wrists into the wood, blood ran down her arms and sides, her weight born upon these perversions.

There's a deep wound in the right side of her torso, but though it had bled copiously there's no vast wash of blood, though a thick gory trail runs past her hip and down her right leg. Her body is striped with the same deep, crisscrossing scourging which Christina Dumas had suffered.

The scourge tore the skin from her flesh in agonizing red furrows. There are other wounds, gory testimony to the savagery of her torture, so sickening not even Palmer, with his long experience, can bear to look at for very long. It's worse than he'd seen on Dumas. The bites are deeper, bloodier, her left nipple...

It's been a very long time since he's seen a person so brutalized, and prays it will be longer before he sees such horror again.

x

Michelle turns away, flips out her BlackBerry, hits a speed dial combination. She waits, her back to the girl, repulsed, hearing the buzzing in her ear. Then; "Sir, it's Michelle Lee. I'm outside the Recruiting Station where Lt. Christina Dumas used to work. Yes, I know, sir. Yes, I know, sir. Sir, there's a body here, a young woman. Naked ... gashes in her head ... wound in her side. Yes, sir." She glances back and wishes she hadn't. "Sir, she's been crucified."

x

A few moments later she stabs the End button. "Get out of here," she commands.

Jimmy turns to her, unable to believe her command or her tone. "Huh?"

"Please, darling, just start walking and don't turn around until you get Doctor Mallard's call - and then wait a while and take a bus or something. I have to secure the scene. They're on their way. I don't know when they'll get here, but I can explain my being here. I can't explain you."

He can't argue with her. Much as it galls him, he can't keep the secret of their relationship if NCIS rolls up and finds him here. "I'll see you later," he promises. Galling as it is to turn his back upon a Crime Scene, no matter how temporarily, he walks away.

But he'll be back.