Tony strolled back into the bullpen. "Found the gun, Boss," he said, holding up an evidence bag in which lay a .40 caliber pistol.

"Good work, DiNozzo," Gibbs grunted. "Bring it up to Abby."

"Gun's clean, Boss," Tony explained. "We won't get prints off it."

Gibbs swore. "So go put it in the evidence locker."

On the way there, he ran into Ziva in the elevator. "You are coming back up with me," Ziva said, grabbing his wrist. "I just talked to Petty Officer Hadlund's wife. And there is a lot more going on than we had originally thought."

Tony raised his eyebrows. "Come with me to put this in the evidence garage and then I'll join you in your little case-breaking rampage. What'd you find?"

"Petty Officer James was pregnant," Ziva explained as the elevator descended to the evidence garage. "And the wife made contact with Hadlund first because she wanted to file for an official divorce."

"But surely she was sleeping with other men too, it's not like it's his fault for-"

"Tony, I am explaining to you what I know!" Ziva protested, but both she and Tony noticed that her usual irritated air was gone. "In the letter-"

"Abby let you read the letter? She didn't let me read the letter!"

"Tony! Will you please stop interrupting?" Ziva sighed exasperatedly. "In the letter, Lucy James told Lauren Hadlund that she was pregnant, and the baby was Petty Officer Hadlund's. She had told him that the baby was his, and he had asked her to abort it. He was not ready to become a father, and he left her.

"Lucy James explained that she did some background research on Hadlund and found that he was married. She tracked down Lauren Hadlund's mailing address and explained to her what had happened. Then, as I found out, Lauren read the letter and asked Petty Officer Hadlund for a divorce, but he was interested in getting her back. "

Tony interrupted her again. "That's not really that unusual, Zee-vah," he said. "Husband gets another girl pregnant, doesn't want the wife to find out and refuses to father the child, and to get out of it, goes back to his wife?"

"There is a grasp," Ziva said.

"Catch," Tony corrected. "What's the catch?"

"The wife was infertile. Hadlund asked her permission to go and sleep with other women. If they got pregnant, he would ask to keep the children. He and his wife would raise the children and the other women would be out of his life."

Tony's eyebrows raised. "So… when he asked Petty Officer James to abort it…"

"Lauren Hadlund got upset. She had thought it was going to be the same, that he would come back to her and they would raise that child too. But he lied to Petty Officer James about not being ready to be a father, and Lauren didn't like that he had lied," Ziva finished.

There was a long pause.

"I'm confused, Zee-vah," Tony said. "Are we trying to get the wife off the hook, or incriminate her?"

"We are trying to find out the truth, Tony," Ziva said softly. She became acutely aware that while they'd been talking, the elevator had already stopped at the evidence locker, and they were standing far closer than Gibbs would ever allow. Tony's face was less than a centimeter from hers. Ziva gave him a challenging look and pressed the 'door open' button on the elevator. She plucked the evidence bag from Tony's hand, turned on her heel, and went to deposit it in the evidence box.

Tony watched her go, running a hand through his hair. He didn't know how, but that conversation had just sparked a world of sexual tension, and it was making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He shook his head slightly and blinked a few times.

This was going to get interesting.

Ze plot thickens!