Abby smiled and focused her microscope on the bullet that was now lying underneath it. She already suspected that it would turn out to be a bullet from either NCIS or a similar government agency's gun. Whether or not the bullet could be traced to a specific gun and owner or not would depend upon the agency. Although she was a bit biased, she believed NCIS was definitely one of the best when it came to keeping up with which guns were registered to which agents, but bigger agencies such as the CIA and, as much as she hated to admit it, the FBI had better things to worry about and more pressing matters to attend to.
She concentrated on the bullet and wondered where it had been shot from. Did whoever shot Carol sneak up behind her and just shoot her in the back of the head? Did Carol have any idea that she was going to die soon? A new thought occurred to Abby. What if Carol wasn't even the intended target? What if the person was really after someone else on the floor and Carol happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? She gasped; what if the intended target had been her? She found herself looking cautiously around the lab, as though a hidden killer was waiting for her.
She flipped the bullet over carefully and zoomed in on the serial number. At least the entire thing was there... There wasn't much in her career that was more irksome than having the most generic part of a serial number. It was also quite galling when the serial number was all you had to work with in the first place. She smiled as she remembered having to solve a case where the two situations had been combined. It had taken awhile, but she had solved the case and Gibbs had bragged about her abilities for months afterwards. She sighed. Thinking about previous cases wasn't going to get this one solved.
"Come on Abby, concentrate! You're being an idiot and Gibbs expects you to get this done. And even if Gibbs doesn't- Kate, Tony and Ducky are all depending on you..." she told herself. She nodded in agreement and took several magnified pictures of the serial number. Once that was done, she began to run the number through the database.
She didn't know how much time passed as she sat staring at the computer screen as it whizzed through its cycle; it could've been several weeks, for all she was aware of. She found herself wishing, yet again, that her brain could work as quickly as her computer could. Of course, she would never again tell someone else that. The only other person who knew was Kate, who had insisted that half of the time she thought that Abby's brain worked faster than the FBI's or the U.S. Secret Service's computers did. Strong arms enveloped her as she contemplated if it was even possible for the human brain to process information that quickly.
