It was barely dawn.
She had very cleverly parked the van around the block, on the other side of the wooded lot behind the house. She crept into the back door, after easily finding the key where it was always hidden, outside, under the garden gnome.
She held the dagger close, under the black cloak Black Eddie had instructed her to wear during this act of contrition.
Holding her breath, she closed the door behind her carefully, with the gloved fingers of her other hand.
Heart thudding softly in her chest, she took in the sight of the sunny yellow kitchen, and remnant scents of the Italian-style meals she once took part in preparing with her mother.
She prayed to the Great One, that things were still the same. That her parents slept in separate bedrooms at opposite ends of the house.
Her Master and lover had sent her on a mission to redeem herself.
She was to bring back the head of her father.
Or not come back at all.
Her stomach tightened, and her hands began to tremble as she stepped lightly on the bottom step of the ornately carved mahogany staircase that went up to the grand home's second story.
Seeing the old paintings on the wall on her way up, she thought nothing really looked different.
And her mother was likely still on the east side of the house.
Eddie had said she would also have to kill her mother, if she were to be discovered by the woman, and that her death would be on Mikki's head. Somehow after all that time had passed, Eddie knew she at least still cared about her mother in some way.
And if he knew she had maintained a sketchy connection to her mother, he likely would have insisted on both their deaths.
But it was her father who really deserved to die, didn't he?
She smelled the wood of the hallway as she passed by the several doors to her father's bedroom.
She stared momentarily at the photo, of the three of them, she and her parents, that had been taken right before she had gone to her senior prom. Terrible memories of the fights that had happened after she came home drunk that night oozed out like pus from a wound in her mind. Deep hatred she had not allowed herself to really feel for so long swelled from her, nearly choking her.
She pushed open the door, the sound of soft snoring entering her ears. She made out the figure of a single person in the bed, just barely. Her father had always liked the room very dark while he slept, and had installed heavy, dark green velvet curtains to ensure the tomb-like atmosphere.
She approached the bed, and the figure did not move at all or change any rhythm in breathing. Her father always could sleep through anything.
She raised the knife in both hands over the bed, and closed her eyes before a quick prayer.
Then she brought it down.
Outside, in the golden dawn just hitting the trees, a terrible, almost inhuman scream came from the Grassman estate, causing the crows to hasten their sunrise flight and burst from the branches.
Three teams had been dispatched in the town and surrounding areas of Barclay.
Gibbs and Ziva had just finished investigating a series of warehouses in an old industrial center that had been abandoned.
Dorneget and one of Fornell's men were investigating the old bus station, and another pair of FBI that had retrieved surveillance footage from the check-cashing facility, were also looking into possible locations for Black Eddie and his cohorts.
So far, nothing had turned up.
But Gibbs knew. He could feel it. His gut told him they were close…so close…
He sighed as Ziva buckled up and he started the car. "Next on the list?" he asked, pulling away from the curb.
She took her pen and crossed off the Albert Street Warehouses.
"Next is the Duncan School for the Deaf. It closed last year due to lack of funding. McGee said it is uphill, some distance from the other buildings on the street…"she took a look at the GPS console, and keyed in the longitude and latitude coordinates McGee had provided on all the addresses they found to investigate.
There had been almost two hundred possibilities, but Abby had narrowed them down to forty with cement as the controlled factor.
Gibbs wanted to pull the local LEOs to investigate part of the list, but they had refused without direct orders. Which Vance had promised would come through within the hour. Fornell was sending another team as well to continue looking.
Ziva had been very quiet other than necessary communication. It occurred strangely to Gibbs that when she was worried, she became a lot like him.
"We'll find him," Gibbs said quietly, coming to s stoplight and giving her a quick glance.
She was looking out the window, and just nodded.
His cell rang. It was McGee.
"Tell me, McGee," he said quickly.
"Boss! We got her! I mean- they got her, because of what she did but they didn't know at first because they just took her in-"
Gibbs frowned just for a moment, "WHO McGee?"
"Mikki-Michelle Grassman! She was arrested for killing her mother!"
Gibbs' heart rate kicked up. "McGee, get-"
"Fornell involved . Yes I did and he's having her brought to NCIS for interrogation. She's in route and should be here by 16:00 hours."
Gibbs could feel Ziva's dark eyes on him. McGee's excited tone had sounded clearly through the phone and she had hear every word.
"Let me interrogate her," Ziva said, too calmly.
With a crooked smile, Gibbs looked at her. "McGee, you find out what she knows. Get me something! Even with more teams-"
"It's taking too long," McGee said seriously. "I…I know Boss. I'll handle it." The last words were spoken with a kind of darkness that Gibbs had never heard from McGee.
"I know you will, Tim," he said and before he hung up, added "Keep Abby AWAY from her."
McGee sat across the interrogation room table, looking at an extremely pale Michelle Grassman.
Her eyes stared somewhere off to the side, not looking directly at him.
He began to speak, almost casually, as he sat back from the table and let his fingers glide off the folder he had in front of him.
"You're in an awful lot of trouble Mikki. Or should I call you Michelle?" he asked with subtle disdain. "We don't need anything other than the knife you used, and your father's statement, and you're going away for a long, long time."
She still did not look at McGee, or move, but he saw the subtle moisture collecting in her eyes.
"Why'd you do it? You hated your mom that much?" he asked softly.
"No!" she blurted out, finally looking at him with tragic eyes. "I didn't…I never hated her."
"You murdered her in cold blood!" McGee stood up, pulling a photo from the folder. It was a crime scene photo of her mother, neck bloody where Mikki had dealt the lethal strike.
She looked at the photo, and brought a shaking hand to her face, gasping as tears fell from her eyes.
"I find it hard to believe you feel remorse for this, Mikki."
"FUCK YOU!" she spat, shoving the photo at him and the folder along with it. They almost came off the table edge but he quickly stopped them.
He took a long moment, straightening the folder, and then walked around the table to whisper in her ear, "You're never gonna' see the light of day again, Michelle."
She was trembling but seemed to gather her composure back a little.
"But," McGee said casually, "you still could make a difference…could…do something right by telling us where Black Eddie has Agent DiNozzo."
Her expression shifted, and suddenly she threw back her head and laughed. "You're pathetic," she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt.
"You know," McGee said, once again almost nonchalant, "Some women's prisons are worse than others. Some have really bad food. Some have really, really small, overpopulated cells. And some have a higher mortality rate for inmates."
He gave her another moment.
"We could make recommendations...either way. Is he really worth it Michelle?"
"Stop calling me that name!" she almost screamed at him. Then she hissed the words,"You're just as pathetic as that girlfriend of yours. Miss-know-it-all Abby. Stupid bitch. The two of you are some couple. You think you know anything about Black Eddie…he's a million times the man you are!"
"Why don't you tell me then?" McGee asked softly, "About him?"
She opened her mouth, and then closed it, staring at him with bloodshot eyes.
Suddenly, the interrogation room door burst open, and Abby stormed in with a terrible look on her face.
Before McGee could stop her, she leaned over Mikki and slapped her. "How could you?" Abby said in a low, searing growl. "How could you hurt them like that? They were just babies! What the HELL is wrong with you?"
Mikki just stared at Abby and then started to laugh again, hysterically.
McGee grabbed Abby and dragged her out of the room by her arms before she could attack Mikki again. She fought against him but he managed to get her outside the door. "Abby!" he yelled as she still made to pull away and get back in the room.
"Did she tell you where Tony is?" Abby asked angrily.
"Not yet," McGee said. "I'm working on it Abs-"
"Let me ! I can get her to tell us in like two seconds, McGee. I have hydrochloric acid and so many other…efficient things in my lab-"
"Abby," he warned. "Go back to the lab, please, and let me handle this." His big pale eyes bore into hers.
She sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm herself. "Ohhhkay. But…" she gave him a look of deep sadness, as he gently let go of her arms.
"What?" he asked, as Vance came out of observation to check on them.
"The…the blood…the sacrifices…I think I made a connection." She swallowed back the bile tickling her esophagus.
"Well, spit it out Ms. Sciuto," Vance said calmly.
She glanced between them and took another deep breath. "I ran searches for missing persons reports in the cities where the other victims were found…and…there were at least four to five reports…of missing children…in a fifty mile radius where the mens' bodies were found."
Vance and McGee both paled.
"Jesus," Vance breathed.
After a somber moment, McGee asked, "No bodies recovered or any of the kids found alive?"
"No," Abby said hoarsely. "None. It's too much of a coincidence. And there are two so far in Barclay."
Vance let out a breath this time, "Ms. Sciuto, bring me a file with the information on all those missing children. McGee," he turned to better face the Agent, "You've been at this game for a while now with Michelle Grassman. Why don't we…bring her father in to speak to her and see if we can get anywhere."
"He just lost his wife," Abby said sadly.
"As much as I sympathize with that, Abby, we can't go with the hydrochloric acid to get the answers we need," Vance said with a slight smirk.
She looked away for a moment. "I'm ah…just going to go get those files…"
"You do that," Vance said. "McGee, you and Dorneget go get Mr. Grassman and bring him in."
"He was ah…very adamant he wanted to never see his daughter again," McGee replied. "He told the LEO's earlier today."
"Convince him, McGee. Agent DiNozzo's life might depend on it."
An hour and a half later, at exactly 22:00 hours, Michelle Grassman was now sitting across the table from her father and McGee.
Grassman held both hands clenched into fists atop the table, his jaw muscles twitching, and just about as pale as his daughter at this point.
Age lines in his face were even more exaggerated now than when the team had first met him, as evidence of the terrible grief and shock he'd suffered earlier. When Michelle had killed her mother, it was her scream that woke him and had him running to his wife's room.
Mikki was looking at her lap.
"Michelle," her father's exhausted voice was soft and held a numb quality to it that McGee knew was because the man was trying not to lose control. "These Agents…tell me you have information that could help save someone's life."
She didn't respond.
"LOOK AT ME !" her father suddenly barked.
Her eyes snapped up, rage and fear evident in them.
"You tell them, Michelle, tell them what they need to know."
"Oh, because you say so Daddy?" she asked with a sick, venomous tone.
"No. Not because I say so, my only daughter. Because your mother…"the man suddenly lost his composure for a moment, bringing a shaking hand to his face.
McGee had expected yelling, even bullying based on what they knew of the Grassman family dynamics. But now, confronted with this situation, the man seemed to fall apart.
Grassman continued, with tears flowing and a choked voice. "I'm sorry Michelle. Whatever I did to make you like this…to make you do what you did…"
Michelle Grassman had never seen her father cry before, much less apologize to her. And it was that unexpected flow of emotion from the man she considered a cold-hearted bastard, that began to unravel her defenses.
"Michelle…your mother...she loved you so much. She never turned her back on you. I did though, and now I'm paying for it. We're both paying for it…Your mother saw what was good in you, always…please don't prove her wrong…"her father swiped at his face for a moment.
"It's too late Daddy. I belong to Eddie now."
"NO!" her father said. "You don't belong to anyone. Don't you understand? You ran from me…because…I tried to control you…this man, is controlling you, baby. I know you never would have…" he trembled harder, and stifled a sob. "He put you up to it…"
She suddenly frowned, confused. "I wasn't supposed to…"she whispered. "Wasn't supposed to…" and something clicked in her head. If she hadn't been doing what she was told, her mother would still be alive.
"He…he loves me."
"No. No baby, he doesn't," Grassman countered.
"YOU DON'T KNOW! You don't know anything," she said angrily, crying.
"I know you loved your mother. You loved her, Michelle…you killed her. You KILLED HER!"
Suddenly, Mikki seemed to curl in on herself as she shrieked. "STOP SAYING THAT!"
"Where are they, Mikki?" McGee asked.
"No!" she put her hands over her eyes.
Her father leaned forward, reaching across the table, and took her hands gently away from her face.
"Michelle, for Mommy's sake, tell them. She didn't deserve it Michelle. This man deserves to pay for making you do this…"
It was likely a combination of the pressure from NCIS, the grief that she had killed her mother, and her father's desperate apology and plea.
She crumbled.
She cried out "Daddy…I'm sorry…I'm so sorry Daddy!..."she sobbed as her estranged father put his arms around her, and since he could not forgive her or himself, wept with her.
McGee gave them a moment, and then clearly said, "Where? Where are they?"
With her face buried in her father's chest, she moaned, "Old Pennington Sanitarium."