Influence

Disclaimer: I don´t own any characters or anything

Summary: Kate is dating and starts to change. When she takes a drastic step, the rest of the team starts to wonder. A series of murder turns up and they find themselves in the middle of a nightmare…

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4- Recognition

Tony groaned as he checked his watch again. It was almost 5 pm and he was stuck. He was sure that he was missing something, but after reading through reports, interviews and files for hours, his brain seemed to shut down due to too much information at once. "Hey, probie, got anything on your side of this stuff?" He asked McGee, who was reading so fast that his eyes blurred. "McGee!" Tony called as the younger agent didn´t react for a few seconds.

"Hang on for a second..." McGee replied and read the last paragraph again. "Hey, Tony, did the families of your victims say that their daughters had changed in their behavior prior to their death?" He asked and Tony simply nodded. "So, we have 11 young women, counting PO Moore in on that, dead within the last year. It´s always a thing of drugs and a gash across the throat. What did you find on the victim´s profiles? Anything matching?"

Dinozzo shot up at that last inquiry. "Oh, how could I miss that?" He exclaimed and pulled out two files again. "You´re a genius, probie. You just saved our heads." He said and read the lab reports again.

"That should be left for me to decide. Now, gentlemen, what did you find?" Gibbs´ asked as he walked in with a cup of coffee in his hand. He sat down at his desk and waited for one of his agents to start. He had spent most of the day downstairs, either talking to Ducky or Abby, but those two hadn´t been able to help him much on this case.

Tony looked at McGee to begin. Normally, he would have started with McGee´s findings, mainly to impress Kate, but somehow he felt that his younger colleague had earned the right to go first. Tim nodded and for a second it looked like he was nervous. "We have 11 victims, including PO Moore. The previous 10 were not navy employees, but we got their files from the police. Except for the way they were killed and the area they were found in, there were no obvious parallels suggesting a serial killer. When we looked more closely at the autopsy reports, it literally jumped on us." He said and noted that Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

"What jumped on you?" He inquired, now looking at Tony, who had been listening to McGee´s report until that very second. "Dinozzo, I´d say McGee is after your job, so what you got to convince me that I should keep you as second in command?" Gibbs smirked as he noted the fire burning in Tony´s eyes at this. Sometimes he needed that little extra push to perform at the top of his abilities.

Pulling out his notes, Tony got up and leaned against his desk. "All victims were female, 24 to 26 years old, brown hair, all between 5´5" and 5´8" tall. And most obvious, all of them had been born in the second half of May." He said and saw that McGee nodded. It had been a bit of a wager to put it like this, but it seemed to be worth the risk.

"Plus, we know that they were killed between 11 pm and 1 am on a new moon night." McGee added and tried to put another file on top of the large pile that already sat on his desk. He failed miserably and had to launch himself across his desk to keep the whole paperwork of this afternoon from tumbling to the floor.

Tony chuckled, but got up to help him. "Gee, you sure need some work on your coordination, probie." He said and then caught the look in Gibbs´ eyes. "What you thinking, boss?" He inquired, but didn´t get an answer.

"I want you to go over the background of the victims again. There has to be a link between them. All those parallels are just a bit too odd to be a coincidence or a copy-cat. McGee, get the locationsof the bodies to Abby. I want her to put them on a map and see if there´s a system or something obvious about it. Dinozzo, call up the families and see if there´s anything else that wasn´t in those interviews." He ordered and watched both agents get to work. After taking a large sip from his coffee, he picked up his phone again, dialing Kate´s number for the fifth time today, but there was just her voice mail again. "Kate, this is Gibbs. Give me a call. I need to talk to you." He said and noticed that Dinozzo grinned a bit as he overheard this.

McGee shot a surprised look at Tony as he walked into the elevator, a file under his arm. It was going to be a very long day today. The lab was filled with music, like most times. "Abby!" He yelled to get her attention, but only when he turned the stereo off, she spun around. "Gibbs wants you to plot these locations and look for a system." He handed her the file.

"Tonight? Gee, it´s almost 6 pm already. I told Jess that I´ll meet her at 7 pm..." She said and pulled the first sheet out of the file.

He raised an eyebrow. "Who is Jess?" He inquired, sitting down at her desk as she continued to work. They had a lot in common and every time they worked together, one learned something new from the other. Tim had actually considered to ask for a transfer to the lab, but never dared to bring that up in front of Gibbs, who was known to reject each and every request for transfer within the unit once he had gotten his team set up.

Abby was feeding the computer with the data as she looked over at him for a moment. "Jess as in Jessica Thomas. You´ve met her when we were out for dinner two weeks ago. That freaky looking girl with the red hair." She replied and grinned. "When we met Kate and her new boyfriend. Anyway, it´s new moon tonight and we´re going out to some party at the..." She paused when she saw the look on his face. "Tim?"

McGee felt his heart skipping a beat as her words echoed in his mind. "Oh my...Abbs, do you have that file of Cuttling on your computer? I mean, did you look at it before sending it up to me?" He asked, noting that he was starting to ramble.

She turned around completely, ignoring the flashing sign on the computer screen that asked for further data input. "Actually, Ducky was here when I got the result, so I just sent it up to you without having a look. Why?" Abby gave him a startled look and wondered what had gotten into him all of the sudden. "Wanna see it again?" She asked and saw him nod.

When the picture of the man appeared on the plasma, McGee heard her gasp. "When I saw that guy, I wondered why he seemed familiar..." He said and bolted out of the lab without another word. He didn´t bother to wait for the elevator and was somewhat out of breath when he ran into the bullpen, causing both Gibbs and Dinozzo to stare at him.