The reason

Disclaimer: NCIS as well as the NCIS characters do not belong to me. This is just for fun.

A/N: Rated PG-13 for violence and language.

I would like to thank my wonderful beta Rinne for correcting my mistakes and providing valuable comments that greatly improve the storyAll mistakes made are my own.

Chapterfour

Ziva couldn't blame Tony for not understanding why she was so determined to learn the reason why Michelle Benton tried to kill Ralph Anderson. To be honest, she wasn't quite clear on that herself. All she knew was that she believed Michelle when she told her that Ralph Anderson was going to hurt someone. She had no real evidence to back this up. Ziva was embarrassed to admit, even to herself, that all she had to go on was her gut feeling. Gibbs must really be rubbing off on her.

"I don't think they're home," said Tony.

They were standing in front of the apartment Ralph Anderson shared with his wife, meters from where Ziva had knocked Michelle Benton down and restrained her only the day before. From studying detective Johnson's case-file, Ziva had learned that Mr. Anderson was married, that he lived in apartment 7B of the building they were standing in front of, and that he was released from the hospital that morning.

"Where would he be, Tony?" asked Ziva, pressing the buzzer one more time. "He was just shot. Do you think he's out dancing?"

"Well, he's not answering," said an exasperated Tony. "What do you want to do, break in?"

Tony was being sarcastic, but he realized his mistake the moment he uttered those words. It didn't take Ziva more than a minute to remove her lock-picks from her coat pocket and open the main door to the apartment complex. "You coming?" she asked

Tony could see no real choice but to follow her.

Ziva was too impatient to wait for the elevator. Instead she took the stairs two at a time. By the time they reached the 7th floor, Tony regretted making Ziva stop on the way to buy him that large cheeseburger. His side was hurting and he was out of breath. Ziva didn't wait for either of them to catch their breath and pressed the buzzer to apartment 7B.

At first there was no response, but after a couple of minutes, in which Ziva didn't give the buzzer a rest, they could hear some thumping coming from inside the apartment.

"Who's there?" came a male voice from inside the apartment.

"Mr. Anderson, we're federal agents from NCIS," said Ziva through the door. "We'd like to talk to you."

After a few seconds the door opened to reveal Ralph Anderson. He looked rather pathetic to Tony. His leg was bandaged and he was using a crutch to prop himself up. He also hadn't shaved and seemed generally disheveled. As he looked at Ziva, it was clear that he recognized her.

"You're the one who stopped her from killing me," he said.

"Can we come in?" asked Ziva.

Mr. Anderson stepped aside and let them in.

"How are you feeling, Sir?" asked Ziva.

"Well, I've been shot and my leg hurts like hell," replied Mr. Anderson. "It could have been worse though, if you hadn't stepped in. That bitch wanted to kill me."

"About that," started Tony, "you didn't happen to know her?"

The man seemed, to Tony, to grow rather nervous at this simple question. He looked from Tony back to Ziva and finally gave an answer that Tony's gut told him was a lie. "I never saw her before in my life."

"Are you sure of that?" asked Ziva, stepping a little closer to the man. "Cause she seemed very interested in you and your wife."

Ziva had assumed that the pregnant woman that appeared in the pictures in Michelle's house was Mrs. Anderson. A picture hanging in the living room of the apartment confirmed her assumption.

Mr. Anderson's agitation was growing. He backed up in order to distance himself from Ziva and moved towards his coach. When he reached it, he sat down with a sigh. "It's like I said, I've never seen her before."

Tony decided to try another strategy. "Where's your wife, Sir?" he asked. "Can we speak to her?"

"She went to the doctor, with our baby," replied Mr. Anderson.

"So your wife gave birth?" asked Ziva.

"Yeah, two weeks ago," said Mr. Anderson. "Look, I really need to stay off this leg, and I'm really tired. I appreciate what you've done for me Ma'am, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave now."

"Fine," said Tony. "But could I please use the toilet first?"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tony and Ziva were standing outside the Anderson apartment building, waiting for Mrs. Anderson to come back from her doctor's appointment.

"Did you really need to go?" asked Ziva.

"Yes," said Tony, "but that's not why I asked."

He removed a piece of toilet paper from his pocket and unwrapped it. Inside was a man's comb.

"You want to run his DNA?" asked Ziva. "What are you planning to compare it to?"

"I don't know," replied Tony. "I just thought it might come in handy."

Ziva smiled. "I take it you don't think I'm completely crazy anymore?" she asked.

"I never thought you were crazy. I just thought that you might be barking up the wrong tree," said Tony, honestly.

"And now?" asked Ziva.

Tony scratched his head. "I don't know," he said, "but that guy was lying. He knew her, and he's afraid we'll find out about it."

"I think that's her," said Ziva.

A woman resembling the pictures of Mrs. Anderson they had seen was approaching them. She wasn't pregnant anymore. Instead she was pushing a stroller.

Ziva and Tony approached her and identified themselves.

"Ma'am," said Ziva, "my name is Ziva David and I work for NCIS."

"NCIS?" asked Mrs. Anderson.

Ziva didn't want to start explaining what NCIS was, in case the woman would point out that this really had nothing to do with the Navy. "I was here yesterday morning when your husband was attacked," she said instead.

"You're the one who saved Ralph?" asked Mrs. Anderson. She flung herself at Ziva and hugged her. "Oh, thank you, thank you."

Ziva was a bit embarrassed. "Look, we wanted to ask you some questions." She pointed towards the Starbucks down the block. "Can we buy you a cup of coffee?"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I don't know what I would have done if she killed my Ralph," said Mrs. Anderson, nursing her coffee cup. "Our Melissa is only two weeks old. I don't know how I could ever repay you Miss David."

Ziva, Tony and Mrs. Anderson were sitting around a small table. Melissa was asleep in her stroller.

"Mrs. Anderson," said Tony, "we're trying to understand why your husband was attacked. We wanted to ask you, did you know the woman that assaulted him?"

"I don't exactly know her," replied Mrs. Anderson and continued only after Ziva gave her a nod of approval. "She had an affair with my husband."

"How do you know?" asked Ziva, a little surprised at the straight forward way in which Mrs. Anderson provided this information.

"He told me," said Mrs. Anderson. "He had to, cause he wanted to warn me about her. She was blackmailing him, because he ended it with her. He warned me she would try and tell me lies about him."

"And did she?" asked Tony.

"She approached me in the supermarket when I was there with Melissa, three days ago. She tried to tell me that Ralph was going to hurt Melissa the same way he'd hurt her. I told her that I knew about the affair and that she was wasting her breath."

"And how did she react?" asked Ziva.

"She said that I don't understand and just repeated that if I didn't leave him, he was going to hurt Melissa, but I didn't believe her. She was clearly a very disturbed young woman. So she just started crying and left."

"Weren't you upset that your husband had an affair?" asked Ziva.

Mrs. Anderson turned towards the stroller and fixed the blankets around her daughter.

"I know what men are like," she said, turning back towards Ziva. She pointed towards Tony. "He's probably no different. Once you get pregnant and fat they go and find other women to satisfy them. Of course I was upset, but Ralph is Melissa's father. So that's that."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"That was depressing," said Ziva, seating herself in the passenger seat of Tony's car.

"It was also a load of malarkey," said Tony.

"Malarkey?" asked Ziva, who had never heard that word before.

"Nonsense, bullshit, baloney," clarified Tony.

"I agree with you on that," said Ziva. "I don't think she was lying though."

"No, but her husband sure lied to her," contemplated Tony. "If it was just an affair gone wrong he wouldn't have lied to us about it. Not when he already told his wife."

Ziva and Tony continued to think out loud.

"So if it wasn't an affair," said Ziva, "he only told his wife that it was, so that she wouldn't take Michelle seriously when she told her about the threat to their daughter."

"Which means," continued Tony, "that there was probably some validity to her claim and that he indeed did hurt Michelle in some way in the past."

"All the pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Anderson that Michelle had were from the time Mrs. Anderson was already pregnant," said Ziva. "It looks like the pregnancy set her off."

Tony and Ziva were both thinking the same thing. If Ralph Anderson abused Michelle when she was a child and she somehow found out that he was about to have a baby, she would have good reason to worry about that child.

"Do you think he's Michelle's father?" asked Ziva.

"Either that or he had access to her for some other reason, when she was a child," replied Tony.

"But if he abused her wouldn't there be a record of it?" asked Ziva.

"Only if she told someone about it, and even then it would probably be sealed," replied Tony. "We need to find out what connection Mr. Anderson had to Michelle when she was a child."

TBC