There was no surreptitious way to enter a basement, so Tony kicked in Gibbs' door and ran down the stairs, praying Shelley wouldn't kill Ziva as soon as she heard him coming.
"You want to hear a joke, Special Agent Tommy?"
She was waiting for them, a gun propped casually against Ziva's temple. Ziva was sitting on a cardboard box, her hands and feet bound. Some part of Tony's brain recognized the box he had leaned on the last time he was in Gibbs' basement, sitting on the floor, waiting for Gibbs to yell at him for keeping secrets. It wasn't labeled. He wondered what was in it.
Ziva looked unharmed and homicidal, which Tony thought was a good sign.
"No," said Tony, keeping his gun level with Eight's eyes.
"Why?"
"You're liable to think anything is funny."
"Look who's talking," she said.
"No need to get nasty," said Tony, just talking to try to keep her talking.
"Shows what you know."
In his peripheral vision, he saw Gibbs and McGee move into position on either side of him.
"Why couldn't Helen Keller drive?"
"What?" asked McGee before Tony could say anything. Tony glared at him.
"It's a joke. Haven't you ever heard a joke before?" Shelley looked at McGee like there was something wrong with him.
When no one picked up their cue, she said, "Because she was a woman."
Shelley didn't seem to notice that she was the only one laughing.
"I think you need to work on your comic timing," said Ziva. Tony glared at her too, for good measure.
"Everyone's a critic," Shelley turned to face Tony. "You liked my joke, didn't you Tony? You always had a good sense of humor. Your partner didn't. Not Helen, here. Carolyn. She didn't like my jokes, but I gave her laugh lines anyway."
Tony didn't flinch, but his stillness was more conspicuous than movement would have been.
Shelley's eyes softened, even though Tony's gun was still aimed between them. "Oh, Tony. You always think you're losing."
No one said anything for a moment. Tony could hear Shelley, Ziva, Gibbs and McGee breathing in the stillness of the basement, but he couldn't separate the sounds. Shelley's eyes slipped halfway shut, as she used the gun to part Ziva's hair in an inversely intimate gesture.
Sirens echoed softly in the distance.
"What do you want, Shelley?" asked Tony, finally.
She shook her head. "If you have a secret, keep it to yourself."
"Your Gibbs impression sucks."
Shelley glared at him.
"Oh," said Tony. "That's better."
"They're going to go away anyway. What does the reason matter? Promotion, sickness, marriage, bullet. They'll still be gone. I'll never be gone."
"You'll be pretty gone if I shoot you."
Shelley smiled at him. Her finger moved off the trigger, and even though Tony had come a long way since he handcuffed her in a cornfield, he didn't need the training to know that she was going to surrender.
He waited for himself to take the shot, to take her out before it was too late.
Instead of a gunshot, a dull thud echoed in the crowded basement as Shelley's gun hit the concrete floor. Gibbs and McGee kept their weapons trained on Shelley as Tony slid the handcuffs around her wrists. Anticlimactically, he led her upstairs, past Gibbs pale sofa and out of the house.
As they waited for Fornell to climb out of his car, Shelley leaned towards Tony. Her hair brush against his cheek, which turned red and then blue in the flashing lights, and she whispered, "Best two out of three?"