Author's Note:

I'm sorry this chapter took a little longer to get put up. I'm currently in the process of moving to a new apartment, so when I'm not doing that I'm completely exhausted. Anyway, here it is!

Chapter Twelve

"Dead Ends"

While Abby and Tony slept, wrapped tight in their memories of her, Ziva stared at the decrepit ceiling above her head and waited for the door to open. It was going on five in the morning, and it still hadn't. She didn't know whether to be worried or grateful; Kenny had yet to make an appearance since he left her down there two nights ago. The remainder of the time she had spent with Leslie or by herself. She had to wonder if they left her alone at all, but she wasn't willing to risk finding out. A possible escape plan was hatching itself in her mind, but it wouldn't do her any good at the moment. She had to be sure that Tony was safe first.

She checked her stolen cell phone every so often, hoping to find a signal. She never did, though, and so she was left locked alone in a cold basement. Sleep wouldn't come, and she guessed she didn't want it to. It wouldn't make sense to let her guard down long enough to sleep, though she doubted she had too much to worry about in regard to her captors. She didn't take Kenny for a liar, and took his word at face value. She was alive for the moment, until he no longer needed her. When the time came that he didn't, though, she'd be ready.

They had given her three meals that day, though apparently neither of them could cook very well. Her stomach had been upset by the meager rations and hadn't stopped cramping since she got there. They had also given her the luxury of a shower that she couldn't exactly take advantage of because Leslie had been standing in the bathroom with her. Ziva gritted her teeth and bore it while Leslie told her all about how her cop friends were hanging around the bar asking a lot of questions.

"They're investigating you, you know," she said smugly, leaning against the closed door. "They think you're the one who killed all those men." Leslie laughed. "Imagine that. You might have a use after all. Gunshot wound and one suicide note later and we're in the clear."

Ziva smirked. "You cannot honestly believe that they are accusing me of the murders," she said. "They are trying to find me, and they are looking there. They will close in soon, I hope you know."

Leslie scoffed. "I doubt it. That young one—not Tony, the other one—he didn't look like he had half a clue about what he was doing. He must be new."

"A lot of people think that about him," she replied, thinking of McGee's sweet smile but incredibly quick mind. "They are always proven wrong."

"Whatever," Leslie said. "Just hurry up."

But that was the night before, and the door still hadn't burst open. The lock remained firmly secured, and the house didn't stir. She kept waiting to see Tony stampede down the stairs, there to save her. She was convinced beyond herself that they were looking for her, trying to rescue her, but as the night passed her doubts grew. Where were they? She couldn't believe that Kenny's plan to make them believe she'd left had worked. They all knew she wouldn't leave them without a goodbye.

She hoped they did, anyway. Above and beyond everything else, she hated that Kenny had made her doubt the people she loved most in the world.

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Abby woke in an unfamiliar place to a very familiar smell. Despite the fact that she had no idea where she was, she smelled Ziva's perfume. Where was she? Before her brain had time to wake itself up without the help of caffeine, she called out into the presumably empty room.

"Ziva?"

Something stirred on the floor below her. It made a horrible sound that reminded her of a car crash and she sat up, prepared to go down swinging it if came to that. The thing moved again and she sat back on the couch, hardly noticing when the blanket fell from her shoulders. She stared, fixated, when the thing sat up and reared its massive hair at her.

She yelped and swung her pillow at it, laughing as it landed with a thud. It grunted again, this time its noises resembling English. Its tricks wouldn't fool her; she swung again, and this time it had the good sense to hit the floor.

"Abby!"

She blinked. That voice sounded incredibly familiar.

"Abby!"

"Tony?"

"What are you doing?" he asked, sitting up again. He watched her pillow in case she decided to swing again.

"I thought you were a monster," she blurted out before she had the sense to think of something that didn't make her sound like a five-year-old. She blushed when he looked at her with wide eyes. "Sorry."

"Jeez," he said, letting his head fall back down to the pillow. He sighed, internally cursing her, before instantly sitting straight up. "What time is it?"

Abby looked at her watch. "A little after six."

"Let's get going," he said. "Gibbs is probably already at the office waiting on us."

Abby nodded and stood up. She noticed the blanket falling off her and she turned to Tony with an adoring smile on her face.

"Aww, Tony," she said. "You gave me a blanket."

Tony gave her a strange look. "I didn't want you to get cold."

She wrapped her arms around his neck. "No wonder Ziva's crazy about you."

Tony pulled away. "What?"

"Of course she is," she said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. She studied his face; he'd paled and he had a thousand-yard stare. "Why do you look like you just drank bleach?"

"Hmm?" he asked, his eyes gradually focusing on her again. "What was that?"

"You're a strange one," she said, patting him on the shoulder and heading for the front door. Tony had to laugh at the idea, despite the fact that his head had been sent spiraling by Abby's casual observation.

"Me? Strange?" he laughed. "Yeah, so says the mistress of the dark covered in tattoos."

"Millions of people have tattoos, Tony," she pointed out. "That's not really all that strange, statistically."

"Whatever you say," Tony said as he spared himself one more glance at Ziva's apartment. He closed the door behind them, ushering Abby down the hall. "Do you need to go home?"

"Yeah, I need to change clothes," she said, walking down the hall. "As do you. Gibbs will know neither of us went home if we decide to show up in the same clothes we left in."

Tony laughed at the memory of Ziva's horror going into work in the same clothes she left in the night before.

"Yeah, good point," he allowed. "Then we split up, and meet back at headquarters in twenty."

"Sir, yes, sir!"

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Tony walked out of the elevator two minutes after seven o'clock, and wasn't incredibly surprised to see that a warm coffee cup was sitting on Gibbs' desk. A smile turned up the corner of his mouth to find McGee asleep face-first on his desk, a small web connecting the edge of his mouth to the desk. The poor schmuck hadn't even loosened his tie, Tony noticed. He looked down at the hot coffee in his hand and set it on McGee's desk, thinking that the younger agent would probably need it a hell of a lot more than he did.

"Morning, Probie!" he shouted obnoxiously, not bothering to stifle the laughter that bubbled up at the sight of McGee starting awkwardly awake.

"Got it, boss," McGee mumbled almost incoherently. "Got it right here." He looked around and saw Tony laughing and scowled before letting his head fall back on his desk. "Oh. It's you."

"What do you got, McGee?" he asked, moving behind him to peer over his shoulder at the computer screen. He read over the words at the top of the page. "Ziva's bank statements? You're dead meat when she finds out, Probie."

"I can live with it," McGee answered. "Right now, that's the least of my worries."

"What's the most of them?"

"A week ago, Ziva received a very large donation to her checking account," he said. "It's probably a fluke, but it doesn't make her case any easier for us."

Tony looked at the numbers in question and almost choked, thinking she must have had several more donations at some time or another.

"Are those real?"

"I know," McGee said, completely aware of what Tony was losing his mind over. "I thought I had money."

It was a hell of a lot of zeroes, Tony thought as he scanned his eyes over McGee's computer screen. "So the crazy ninja chick is loaded?"

"Not surprising," McGee said. "Look at who her father is. He was the one that sent the gift, by the way. I was up all night chasing the money trail."

"So, what?" Tony asked. "He sends Ziva an early birthday present? That's not suspicious."

"Possible," McGee said. "She hasn't touched it, though, for whatever reason. None of the activity in her account is out of the ordinary. Groceries, gas. Dinner occasionally, but not much else."

"We're so dead if she finds out we did this."

"You'll be dead sooner, DiNozzo, if you don't have something for me," Gibbs said, walking around the corner of the bullpen. Tony stood up straight and received a casual blow to the back of the head for his trouble.

"Right, boss," he said. "McGee says Daddy David sent Ziva a ton of money a week ago."

"Quarter of a million," McGee added. "But it's been completely untouched. Her expenses are otherwise normal."

"If she was planning on going AWOL, wouldn't she have cleaned out her bank account?" Tony asked, thinking that the detail proved her innocence.

"Not if she knew it would help us build a case," McGee said quietly and instantly regretted his objectivity when Tony whirled around to face him.

"Whose side are you on, McTraitor?" he asked. "We're not building a case against her. We're trying to find her."

"I know that, Tony," McGee said remorsefully. "But shouldn't we be able to see both viewpoints and anticipate what everyone else is going to say?"

He eyed the younger agent. "Yeah. Whatever you say, Brutus."

"Cut it out, DiNozzo," Gibbs said, sitting behind his desk. "McGee is doing his job, like you should be doing. Go have a talk with Abby."

"What about, boss?" he asked and was answered only by an incredibly menacing glare. "Right. Going now."

His talk with Abby was much more eventful.

"The smudged print on Ziva's cell phone is the same smudged print from your DVD," Abby said, lining up the prints on the computer screen in front of them. "There's a five-point match. It's not incredible, but it could hold up in court if we get a full print to match it to."

"Can we run it through the databases?" he asked.

"We could," Abby said. "It would take forever, and it would send back a few hundred hits. I'm still going to run it, but it won't do much good for the purposes of identification."

"What else do we have?"

"Major Mass Spec's report tells us that the chemical strain of cyanide that was found in Adam Cunningham's bar glass was the same found in the other four sets of drugs," Abby continued. "So we know that the one who poisoned Cunningham is the same who poisoned the other four, which confuses me."

"What's confusing about it?" Tony asked.

"Why give up the whole drug bit?" Abby said. "I thought serial killers were consistent about that kind of thing."

Tony shrugged. "The guy probably thought it wasn't a safe bet anymore," he said. "Everyone would know that people were dying from bad drugs, so he wouldn't have had any takers. Someone he approached might go to the police."

"Too risky?"

"Pretty much," he said. "He would have gotten caught a lot faster if he'd stuck with it."

Abby nodded. "Okay."

Tony's phone vibrated in his pocket and he opened to find a text message from McGee.

"Gotta run, Abs," Tony said, moving towards the elevator. "McGee says he found something."

When he came back to the bullpen, McGee was at his computer and Gibbs was standing in front of the plasma.

"I didn't catch it the first time because the records were sealed," McGee said, pulling his computer screen up on the larger screen. "But Drew Connor has a little brother with a record."

"How did you unseal them, Probie?"

"You're not the only one with connections, DiNozzo," Gibbs grumbled and nodded his head for McGee to continue.

"Alex Connor served six months in a juvenile facility for possession with intent to sell," McGee said. "Cocaine."

"Where is he now?"

"San Diego, California," McGee read. "He owns a surf shop."

"Of course he does," Tony said. "I don't suppose he's been visiting his brother, has he?"

"Not that I can tell," McGee said. "Doesn't own a car, and there have been no flights on any of the family's credit cards to or from San Diego. No rental car receipts."

"Phone calls?"

"One every two weeks or so to Drew Connor," he said, presenting phone records on the plasma for them to view. "Once a week to their parents."

"You think Connor's been getting tips on the drug trade, boss?" Tony asked.

"Only one way to find out," Gibbs replied, turning away from them. "DiNozzo, you're with me. McGee, see what else you can dig up on Drew Connor."

"On it, boss," McGee replied and watched them march towards the elevator.

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The firm where Drew Connor worked was on the corner of Second and Colonial, and was modeled after what Tony assumed was modern architecture. It stuck awkwardly into the blue sky with three separate jagged edges, ruthlessly piercing the otherwise tranquil district of the nation's capitol. The interior was sleek gold and black, giving the impression of cool professionalism and plenty of coin. Gibbs didn't seem to notice, though, as he walked through the revolving glass doors, approached the reception desk and pulled out the badge to show the mousy woman behind the desk.

"NCIS," he rattled off reflexively. "We need to speak to Drew Connor."

"Just one moment," she said, eyeing both men. She picked up the phone and hit a button, waiting for the line to connect. Tony heard a woman's voice first, followed by elevator music, and then finally a man's.

"Mr. Connor, two men are here to see you," she said into the mouthpiece. "They're from some kind of agency." A pause. "No, not them. Navy something or other. Yes, sir."

She hung the phone up and faced them again. "Mr. Connor will see you. Go up to the seventh floor, and his office will be at the far left end of the hallway."

They walked off without another word and boarded the elevator. Tony thought it was a little surreal to be in an elevator that Gibbs didn't feel like he could stop at whim. Rather than doing so, Gibbs turned to him in the otherwise empty elevator.

"Does he know you?" he asked.

"He's seen me," Tony said, remembering their brief run-in at the bar and his own idiocy. "He knows I know Ziva, but I don't think he knows I'm a Fed."

"Hang back," Gibbs ordered as the elevator rested on the seventh floor.

"What? Why?"

"If he doesn't know Ziva is NCIS, it could spook him into killing her."

This shut Tony up completely, belying the fact that the inside of his head was screaming for a chance to put his hands on the man.

"Give me your wallet," Gibbs said, holding his hand out.

"What?" Tony asked and Gibbs said nothing. "Yeah, okay."

Gibbs bypassed the cards and bills in the leather Armani contraption, looking instead through the random other pockets and didn't normally hold anything important. He found what he was looking for behind Tony's old movie ticket stubs. He pulled the picture of Ziva out—it was a snapshot most likely taken from a camera phone; she was laughing at something—and handed the wallet back to Tony, who looked at him with wide eyes. He could only be grateful that he'd chosen to keep the pictures of Ziva and her bikini elsewhere.

"How did you…" he started to sputter. "It's-"

"Save it, DiNozzo," he said, turning to hide the small smile creeping onto his face. He used to keep his picture of Jenny in the same place, and Ducky had a valid point when Gibbs used to be exactly like Anthony DiNozzo.

Gibbs let himself into the office, not bothering to knock. He found Drew Connor sitting in a wing-backed chair behind a sensible wooden desk. The man regarded Gibbs with uneasy eyes, recognizing him instantly as the unfathomably intimidating man who had been asking him questions a few nights before. Sensing that the visit wasn't entirely social, Drew sat up straight to at least give the appearance of security. Gibbs wasn't buying it.

"Uh, good morning, sir," he stammered.

"Gibbs," the man replied.

"Gibbs," Drew repeated, wondering how his mouth got so dry so fast. "What can I help you with this morning?"

"You know this woman, don't you, Mr. Connor?" Gibbs said, handing him a picture he recognized immediately.

"Anna," he said, taking the picture from him. She was breathtaking. "She's a bartender at Low Tide."

"When's the last time you saw her?"

"The other night… Sunday, I guess it was."

"You haven't been back to the bar since then?" Gibbs asked, taking the picture back from him.

Drew shook his head. "No. I was still pretty freaked from the last time I was there. Why?" he asked. "What's happened?"

Gibbs ignored the question. "Why do you go to a bar that's mostly sailors, Mr. Connor?"

"A couple of my friends used to take me," he explained. "I really liked the place, so I go while they're shipped off elsewhere."

"Your friends have names?"

"What's this about?" Drew asked, unsure of what would happen to his friends if he gave their names to a federal investigator. "You didn't answer my question earlier."

"What question would that be?"

"Has something happened to Anna?" he asked. "Why did you have her picture?"

"She's a person of interest in an ongoing investigation," Gibbs said robotically.

"Person of interest?" Drew reiterated. "What, you want to interrogate her or something?"

"Or something," Gibbs said cryptically. "Does that mean you haven't heard from her recently?"

"I already said I haven't," Drew replied, gradually finding his voice. He remembered the sly smile and warm brown eyes of the woman in question. "I don't think Anna would do anything to hurt anyone."

"How well do you know her, Mr. Connor?" he asked. "She'd only been working at the bar a few days."

"I don't. Not really," he amended. "We talked over drinks a few nights and that's it."

"Then let me decide what she is and isn't capable of," he said, leaving very little room for argument of any kind. When he walked away, Gibbs was convinced—this man wasn't who they were looking for. If he'd had Ziva, he would have tried to lay blame rather than defend her. As much as he didn't like admitting it, Drew Connor was innocent. Gibbs could feel it.

Tony was practically climbing the walls when Gibbs came back out of the office, looking annoyed but satisfied. He immediately stood up and followed when Gibbs made his way to the elevator again.

"What did he say?" he asked as the elevator doors closed in front of them.

"Nothing," Gibbs said. "He doesn't have Ziva."

"He told you that?" Tony asked and was answered by a pointed look. "You don't think he has Ziva."

Before he could interrogate him further, Gibbs' phone rang.

"Yeah, Gibbs," he said and heard McGee's voice on the other end of the line.

"The warrant for Low Tide just came in," McGee said. "I'm having a court officer bring to me and I'll meet you with it there." Gibbs closed the phone and walked out of the elevator as it landed on the ground floor.

"Where are we going?" Tony asked, following.

"To get a beer."