DISCLAIMER: No profit made; after all, this is fanfic. Dark Angel and NCIS belong to others (I should be so lucky.)
MY THANKS to those of you reading, special thanks to those kind enough to leave reviews–and extra special thanks with sprinkles on top to those of you who know who you are–I wouldn't be here if you weren't there.
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON: February 6, 2020 7:46 P.M.Sector 9; Fogle Towers: Cale Penthouse
"Did you find it?"
Logan's voice called to him from the kitchen as Tony dropped the keys back on the table, and he moved toward the sound, casting an amused eye at Max and grinning yet again when she followed him inside. As Tony came into the kitchen's entry, he spoke. "That's not all I found."
Logan turned to look up at his cousin's words, the tone a new one, and saw with Tony the dancing brown eyes that always made his breath catch when he first saw them, no matter what else might be going on. "...Max" he blinked. "I thought..."
Tony saw the surprised, self-conscious look on Logan's face when Max appeared, the stammered words irrelevant, his expression speaking far more candidly. Unbidden, Tony's conversation with Bennett resurfaced in his thoughts, the one he'd had not that long ago, when he'd called their mutual cousin to find out exactly what was going on with Logan. As the photo that prompted the call showed Logan as Bennett's best man, the conversation naturally turned not only to Logan's current state of affairs, but to the wedding itself. And Bennett had mentioned Logan's date, the woman with whom, Logan claimed, his relationship was "not like that," but who made his eyes light and sparkle in a way Bennett had rarely seen. Bennett was quick to add that this woman had her own, desirous looks at their cousin, including a smoldering, ill-concealed jealousy when she first saw a laughing Logan deep in conversation with Daphne...and a posture trying to assert 'I don't care' quickly following her first reaction...
And this...well, it just added to the intrigue...
"So...you two have met..." Logan tried to rally, far too self-conscious not to be enamored of this woman. It was a reaction, after all, Tony had seen from Logan once before, when he visited at Yale. He wondered if Logan had a clue then...or would even think of it now.
"Yep. She was ready to lay me out, for breaking into your car." Tony watched each of them, enjoying the show almost as much as the thought that his cousin and this surprising young woman were this close to being an item. She wasn't the usual Cale males' type, but then, he grinned inwardly, that was a very good thing... "I think for that, you at least owe her dinner..." Not waiting for his host, and suddenly feeling the need to nudge his cousin toward the obvious, he turned to the newcomer. "What do you say, Max? Is a Logan Cale dinner worth sticking around for?"
"Oh, he's a great cook..." She grinned–and with DiNozzo's high beam in response, Max realized she'd just told him more about their relationship than if he'd asked her directly. He knew she was a regular... She glanced toward Logan, his face a mix of reactions making his thoughts undecipherable to her at the moment, and she backpedaled, "...but you boys are in the middle of something, and there's probably not enough, if you didn't plan for me..."
"...hey, Max..."
As Bling innocently returned to the kitchen he saw Max there and, knowing she was in the loop on the murders, assumed she'd been invited after all. Maybe Logan had been less anxious about this evening than I thought, he mused as he spoke–but then wasn't sure what to make of the expressions that turned to him at his simple hello. Still–since the moment he'd signed on with Eyes Only, he knew to expect discomfort from his employer when it came to Max–and, even in these circumstances that brought Tony to Seattle, found it a challenge to keep his amusement to himself...
At Bling's perfect timing, and his easy, familiar greeting to Max, Tony smirked at the confirmation that she was a frequent part of Logan's life, no matter what he tried to tell Bennett. He shrugged, "Plenty for everybody, it appears to me. And there is no work in the world that should run off a beautiful woman who needs to be fed..."
At that, Max's eyes rolled over to seek Logan's, who, finally recognizing that his situation was hopeless, simply reddened a bit and squirmed, seeing in her face what was coming. "Oh, you two are so not related," Max drawled, looking back to Tony. Bling's poorly hidden grin in reaction verified another matter for Tony: Logan still needed to learn how to relax...
"Max..." Logan sighed, beaten, hoping his surrender appeared to them all to be to his guest's wishes, and not just his own. "Stay. There's plenty." His eyes lingered on hers just a little too long, and when the gaze broke, they each colored, just a little. Looking back at Tony with a mental shake, he caught the bemused look in the familiar green eyes and glanced away before he could stop his retreat, but then managed to look back without too much of a delay. "Max actually knows about it all, Tony–maybe she could help, too, if we throw some ideas around."
"Sure," Tony nodded. He smiled back at Max, the charming, playboy twinkle hiding his thoughts. So along with whatever attraction is going on, she's a part of whatever all this is, too? he wondered. He'd noted that, even though petite, Max had moved with a strength and confidence he was used to seeing in those occasional women he'd met in his time with NCIS, well trained, and as skilled and adept as any bruiser to engage an enemy and survive. Beauty, apparently brains... is there brawn, too? Oh, Logan, Tony thought, you've got so much to learn...
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON: February 6, 2020 8:04 P.M.Sector 9; Fogle Towers: Cale kitchen
Those wouldn't be the only clues Tony witnessed. As Logan finished the final preparations for their dinner, all four of them catching up in the kitchen, Tony caught moment after moment of the pair's ease and discomfort, all mixed in a hormonal soup: easy phrases between them, almost code, as Logan directed Max for small assistance–setting the table, pulling out the right wine... shared smiles and support between them, as Max delivered a requested item or anticipated his next move...the looks each had for the other when they thought no one saw–or thought the other wasn't looking...the shy retreat each had when the other had too close an effect...
...I'm going to have to call in for a few more days after we solve this case, Tony groaned to himself. These two need a primer on 'how to know it's WAY past time to get to first base...'
But more than the obvious get-it-going-already relationship he sensed between Max and Logan was his sense that his cousin wasn't just a home-bound, free-lance writer, looking to sell some stories here and there. Beyond the surface connections he'd been shown–the patient-therapist/ client-trainer relationship Logan maintained with Bling, or the 'we're not like that' non- relationship he shared with Max, far more was happening: these two strong, bright, able people seemed to defer to Logan, to naturally seek his approval or acquiescence in any substantive, important matter, just as they were puttering around him, even fussing a little at his frequent stubbornness, seeming to mother him and cajole him along–but only in the tangential matters, the window dressing. This dynamic–combined with the technical display he'd seen in the Logan's computer room–simply made the agent more curious about his cousin.
Logan might have others fooled into thinking he was a trust-fund dilettante, might have Bennett worried that he didn't get out enough and his aunt and uncle embarrassed that he went out at all... but Tony immediately decided that neither Max nor Bling would have the time or the patience to suffer such a fool. And the care, deference and respect each of them gave, wholeheartedly and unabashedly, to Logan, coupled with what Tony knew of his cousin during his early adulthood, made him wonder if he should start worrying about just what Logan was up to...
Damn, cuz...I sure hope you know what you're doing...whatever it is...
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON: February 6, 2020 8:11 P.M.Sector 9; Fogle Towers: Dinner
As serving dishes full of succulent chicken, seasoned pasta and vegetables scented with a Cale mystery sauce made their way around the table, the wafting aroma curled around them, eliciting a moan from Tony. He lifted the first mouthful to savor it, eyes closed, and groan again, managing "Logan, I gotta hand it to ya–you do make a mean chicken." He opened his eyes and demanded, "Where did you learn to cook this well–when? And please" he actually winked at Max, "humor your long- suffering cousin and tell me you learned all this to impress the ladies..."
A small snort preceded Logan's words. "I had to do something. I could never bring myself to... use your methods." His own green eyes sparkled their challenge.
"What? Telling a woman she's beautiful, when she is?" Tony didn't back down.
"Oh–" Max chimed in sweetly, lifting her eyes languidly from her plate to Tony, then slowly to Logan's, where they lingered, teasing, "you mean, 'over the top flattery?' Logan would never stoop so low..."
Tony feigned hurt. "It's not low-stooping if you mean it." He'd not missed the look Max had given Logan, Logan's eyes in response, and guessed–quite rightly–that this was a bit of private history between them. He watched as Max's eyes came back to his, as he spoke. "Although I admit feeding someone is probably more honest a 'line' than any off-hand flattery might be..."
...the silence was rippled only slightly, with Bling's soft, plate-directed chortle...
And then by the snap of Logan's brakes. Slightly flushed, a wry grin of embarrassed concession starting to curl his lips, he backed from the table. "Since we're going to be discussing the case..." he pivoted grandly, "let me get my laptop so we can add whatever notes to the data I have so far..." He couldn't help the grin that finally spread across his features, his back to the others, no longer able to maintain the facade and needing an escape, if only for a minute.
At the table, Bling looked up to watch Logan's retreat, still amused; Tony looked at him and with barely a glance to Max and a thumb poked toward Logan, asked, "he knows I'm an investigator, right?"
Bling chuckled. "I think he does now..."
In only a moment Logan returned with his laptop, opening it and laying beside his plate as the others continued eating and began to wind down a little, the more serious discussion ahead not so amusing. After several minutes of more neutral discussion, Max turned to Tony. "Logan said that the only connections you've found so far between the murders are that both men were in Bling's unit, and the manner of death, a bullet between the eyes?"
DiNozzo nodded. "And the other factors are so different, they seem planned: one in a crowd, the other in the victim's home; one made to look like a suicide, the other in broad daylight, damn the witnesses... one contacted by Denny–one not..."
Bling roused to that. "But do we know for sure Jack didn't get the same call?"
"No..." Tony conceded. "But his family never said anything about his getting an odd call from an old teammate–they were asked that, specifically, when no one mentioned it during their interviews."
Bling wasn't convinced. "I don't know that Jack would have mentioned it–he wasn't the type to tell loved ones that a dead guy was calling him."
Max had been musing. "How did 'Denny' or whomever find these two guys?" Logan looked up briefly and saw her eyes meet his–it was a consideration with which she was painfully familiar. As she turned to Bling, Logan looked back to his laptop screen, again adding notes to the data he already had. "Have you all been in touch with each other over the years?"
"Yeah, but only on occasion, maybe once a year, any more. We did have a big reunion of sorts, five years ago, when Mike was ill–kind of a good bye, for him." Bling's eyes were distant, as he remembered. In only a moment he realized he'd been years away, without explanation. "Mike Mulzecek–he was a diabetic, and after the Pulse it just got out of control, there wasn't a reliable source of safe insulin for him..." Bling still hated the thought of what the early years of the Pulse did to guys like Mike... "his organs were shutting down and they knew he didn't have long...so we had a get together, before he was too sick to know we were there."
Logan looked back up, and asked, after a silent moment, "Did everyone make it?"
"All seven of us left, yeah. In fact," Bling smiled faintly, allowing an aside for Logan. "It was the first time Pete ever talked to me about moving to Seattle."
And even though Tony filed away Logan's expression for later consideration, he focused on the more important matter at hand. "So then, if anyone there was involved in the murders and thought you were still living elsewhere, they'd know the second place to look for you was here, in Seattle..."
Bling frowned and shook his head immediately. "This was all team and some of their families. No one there would be involved..."
DiNozzo didn't budge. "The killings are related to the unit, Bling, they've got to be. We can't rule out a connection with the killer, too." He tempered his response by adding, "we can't rule out anything, yet."
Bling sat silent for several moments, finally nodding. "Understood" he said simply...without emotion.
Max glanced from Bling to Logan, seeing the concerned look from Logan she'd expected to see. Looking back to the therapist, Max tried again, "How easily could the killer find your teammates, Bling?" she offered, to get them back on track. "Did they have publically listed phone numbers or addresses?"
"Cal, yes, I think so. Jack..." he considered. "I think he was unlisted; he was a cop, too–and they don't usually advertise where they can be found off duty."
"Yeah, but anyone with a computer and even modest hacking skills..." Tony looked to his cousin with his words, who looked up to meet his eyes, almost guiltily.
"Or they could hire a private investigator with the computer and hacking skills–and local contacts." Max interrupted, drawing Tony's attention back to her. "And if he had some money to hire a good one, they could probably find anyone not actively working to remain unfound."
"Or hire–or bribe or befriend–someone in an agency that accesses government records–old Navy records...?" Logan asked. "Tony, does the Navy keep current contact information on their retirees?"
"It's not a priority, but they try to update, as they get the information from returned mail, or happenstance. Occasionally they go through a phase of making an active effort, but it isn't consistent." He looked to Bling. "They still have your permanent address in Arizona–that was family anyway, wasn't it?" At Bling's nod, Tony half-muttered, "That's why I asked about the others knowing you'd moved here. I know you're unlisted."
Dinner continued, with Tony, Bling and Max toying with the ideas and thoughts Logan had been wrestling since he'd learned of the second homicide. For the most part Logan sat back, listening to their take on the known facts, surreptitiously running a couple searches as new ideas were thrown out, adding the results to his files.
While this was all well and good, this finding a killer, Logan selfishly focused on his own concerns– protecting a man who had literally brought him back to life, after he'd been shot. Bling was one of the best men he'd ever met, and no matter what else, Logan could not stand by while he was hunted down. It struck Logan as oddly fitting that in this room were the three people in his life, still living, who meant more to him than his own life did–and he'd never wished for anything more than he did now, that their combined talents and skills could protect Bling...
It was over coffee that Logan finally broached the subject he knew would be rejected out of hand–but that he had to try: "Look, Bling...stay here, tonight. Stay a few nights. Until this lunatic is found..."
"No, Logan, that's crazy..."
"No it's not, Bling–" Max turned to him immediately, joining in. "One of us can stay up and the others get some rest..."
"I mis-spoke. Not crazy. Unnecessary." Bling said, deliberately.
"A sleep-over" Tony suggested brightly. Logan noted, in Tony's deference, maybe, to the circumstances surrounding the reason for this discussion, his tone was not the least bit leering or suggestive. Maybe a bit of comic relief, then, for them all–this had to be familiar territory for his cousin, given his work...
Bling shook his head again. "Look, Tony's here, you're running out of room..."
"We have plenty." Logan dug in.
As Bling stood as firm as Logan, Max insisted, "If you don't stay here I'll come stay with you, at your place."
Tony's eyebrows raised in question, and he turned to watch Bling's response. The therapist just rolled his eyes, muttering "That's all I need...Sandra sees you there and she takes me out faster than this whack job will..."Suddenly noticing Tony's expression and realizing how little sense it would make to him, Max explained awkwardly, "I don't need much sleep and...I can keep an ear out while Bling sleeps."
As he nodded, his eyebrows quirking even higher, Tony turned finally to Logan, who again looked at his cousin a bit guiltily. "She's got some moves..." he confessed to DiNozzo.
"I have no doubt." Tony murmured.
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON: February 6, 2020 9:10 P.M.Sector 9; Fogle Towers: Cale Penthouse
Having grudgingly agreed to the 'sleep-over', Bling called for his messages in preparation for planning the next day's schedule and what he'd need to bring back to the penthouse. From the dining room, Logan glanced through at his cousin, poking around in his kitchen, having volunteered to make another pot of coffee for the evening. Tony had earned Bling's trust; he'd seemed to charm Max, raising more than once her rare, touchingly feminine blush at his teasing...
And for himself? Logan was still awed that Tony had walked in to see him, and not a wheelchair. If it fazed him, Tony never let it show...
Anthony DiNozzo was bright and facile and knew how to touch a person at their core, to get the information or trust or cooperation he needed. A charmer and manipulator, that was certain. But there was a nobility of purpose in him that Logan could feel, a concern for Bling and his living teammates...a concern for the dead, and for avenging their killer. Logan found himself longing for the luxury of time and the capture of this killer, so that he could focus his attention on getting to know this man, adult to adult, to gain a fuller picture with the hero-worship and lingering awe he still felt...
"You've been kind of quiet tonight." Max came up to him as he watched Tony fussing over the coffee, looking remarkably like Logan in his culinary efforts. "You okay?"
"Just listening to all of you." Logan shook it off. "I've been through this stuff backward and forward, so if there's a different cant on things from any of you I just wanted to hear."
With an odd look to him, she seemed to be weighing some important matter. She suddenly spoke, griping amiably, "You really could have told a girl how much you two look alike..."
"We don't. I never understood why everyone made such a big deal about it."
"What? You're kidding!" Max had fallen for a DiNozzo line, clearly. "He told me that no one had ever said that before..."
Logan chuckled. "Ah, so you're getting to see the real Tony DiNozzo, in all his..."
"Logan..." Max suddenly stiffened, a hand on his shoulder, interrupting him, and she let her eyes lead his to Bling, at the far side of the living room, looking stricken, listening silently...she wasn't sure how long it had gone on, but, returning from the kitchen, Tony had caught the look and moved a bit closer. Logan lunged toward the computer to enter Bling's cell number, in the hope that he could trace the call, fingers racing over the keys.
"..is it...?" Tony pressed...and Bling looked up, then away, not acknowledging...
"Max..." Logan's eyes broke from the computer screen to plead for her assistance, but Max was already on it, moving closer to the trainer, listening for all she was worth to the other end of the line...
"...it's your call, Bling. You know I can do this...so far I haven't had to take out anyone else but NCIS isn't going to stop me and your friends won't either." There was a snort. "One agent, a prom queen and a guy in a wheelchair. It's just up to you if you want them in the line of fire..."
The line went dead...
...To be continued...