Heading inside the NCIS building with Diane and Tobias, Jethro quickly sent a text to Shannon to let her know she was liable to have another awkward meeting with Diane. He left out all specifics, of course, but he wouldn't put it past Diane to barge into the house if the investigation didn't go the way Diane wanted and, well, the woman liked to twist the knife in. Although, to be fair, Diane had been more respectful to Shannon than he would've credited her with when they'd run into each other shopping.

It also gave him a good excuse to not have to chat with Diane, so there was that.

It didn't take long for him to get a reply. 'Appreciate the heads up.'

Jethro gave a little snort at the response and his wife back a reply. 'Figured you would. Have a good day at work.'

Shannon quickly texted back. 'Thanks. Good luck.'

He rolled his eyes, texting her back. 'I'll be the one playing referee all day.'

Walking into the conference room after filling Jethro's team, the trio got right down to business. As best as they could, anyway.

"The last time I spoke to Victor was 10:00 P.M. last night," the redhead informed both federal agents. "He was working late."

"Homeland Security, right?" Tobias clarified. "Paper pusher?"

"Data Storage Coordinator," Diane replied as she took her jacket off and hung it over the back of one of the chairs.

Tobias apparently couldn't resist a dig. "Sounds important."

"It's not," Diane immediately countered, "and he likes it that way. He's not married to his work. He's married to his wife. It's a novel concept for the two of you, I'm sure."

Jethro sighed and decided to redirect the group. He was a little tempted to get a dig in regarding his nearly twelve years of marriage to Shannon but held his tongue. Jethro really didn't want to escalate the situation further and have to spend more time than was strictly necessarily dealing with this. "Was he at the office when you spoke?"

"No," Diane informed them. "He had stopped at some fast-food joint." She gave a little chuckle. "He thinks I don't know, but I can smell it on him."

He eyed her incredulously. "I'll bet." And you wonder why we think he walked out?

Diane eyed him. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Tobias chimed in. "It means… I wouldn't go home if I was covered in bacon grease and there was a bloodhound waiting." The man sighed. "Look, Diane, we're trying to help."

"We have no evidence of a crime," he added.

Diane didn't like that. "You haven't even looked yet!"

"My team is checking hospitals," he assured her. They had their share of issues but he had zero intention of letting it affect his work. If Victor did need help, he was going to get it. "They're running Victor's credit card."

"You have to accept the chance that Victor might be taking a little break," Tobias said. "The three of us know it wouldn't be the first time."

"It's not like... this was." Diane gestured vaguely between them. "Victor and I have a good relationship." Jethro wanted to crack up but wisely restrained himself. "He knows how to treat a woman." The redhead started to walk around the large conference table and over to them. "He's not afraid to show his emotions like some people."

Tobias glanced at him. "She talking about us?"

Jethro shot Tobias a look. This wasn't helping matters.

The redhead continued talking, completely unperturbed by Tobias' comment. "He's not some immature child that relates better to guns than to people."

He put his hands up in surrender. "Okay. Okay. We get it."

"Look," Diane said, calming down, "I know there's no love lost between us…"

"Well," Tobias interrupted, "that's not…"

Diane swiftly glared at Tobias. "Zip it, you." The redhead's gaze then flickered between them. "But I know you both, and if your guts weren't telling you there was something to this, I wouldn't be here right now."

The three of them heard some noise coming from right outside the conference room. Taking a good guess at what he was going to find, Jethro, with an annoyed look on his face, yanked the door open to find his three agents, all bent down, heads to the door, eavesdropping like little girls.

DiNozzo breathlessly said, "Hey boss." His Senior Field Agent tried to compose himself somewhat. "Agent Fornell. Ma'am."

He glared at DiNozzo. "What?"

"Red hair," DiNozzo said in a stage whisper to the two junior agents. "We got a hit on Victor's credit card."

Ziva chimed in. "Beltway Burgers in D.C. 10:00 P.M. last night."

"That's federal jurisdiction," Tobias pointed out. That made things a lot easier for them all. Victor wasn't Navy or Marine Corps so that was the only way they had jurisdiction and didn't need to deal with Metro P.D.

"Anything else?" he inquired.

"There was a 911 call made from the same place about a half-hour ago," McGee told them. "Morning crew found a bloodbath."

Diane's jaw dropped and Jethro admittedly felt kind of bad for her.

At the scene, DiNozzo identified the two employees as locals. Both men had been shot in the head and there was nothing missing from the register.

The car that was sitting in the drive-thru was quickly confirmed to be registered to Victor Sterling. No sign of Victor's whereabouts or anything that would explain the motive but McGee did find Victor's wallet and a gun near the car. That was something.

Ducky finally arrived on scene and headed into the walk-in fridge to examine the two bodies, Tobias having decided to co-point with Jethro and use his people.

Ducky was clearly exhausted. "Sorry I'm late, Jethro." The medical examiner put up his right hand up to block DiNozzo's camera from view and heaved a sigh. "Would you mind pointing that somewhere else?"

"Late night, Duck?" he inquired. He knew It hadn't been an easy week for Ducky and he was admittedly a bit concerned about how much sleep his friend was losing over everything that happened with his ex-girlfriend Mary.

"I haven't been sleeping well this past week," Ducky replied. "Enough said." The older man glanced at their victims. "My bodies are on ice. How considerate."

Ziva walked up. "Gibbs, security footage was erased."

Jethro gave a curt and, once his team resumed processing the scene, he turned his attention to Tobias. The FBI agent was currently appraising the situation for a motive. "Violent take-over, two dead guys, missing Homeland Security official." The man gave Jethro a look. "You know what I'm thinking?"

"Victor was so desperate to get away from Diane he had himself kidnapped?" he said in jest. Admittedly, a pretty bad joke.

Tobias' lips turned upwards into a smirk.

A man in an all-black suit walked up, immediately getting both men's attention. "That would make more sense than the alternative."

"Hi," the man said as he offered Jethro his business card. "Thomas Pearce, Homeland Security. I came as soon as I got your call." The man glanced down at his cellphone to check something. "However, I only budgeted twenty minutes for the meeting, so..."

"What's the alternative?" Jethro questioned, hoping that the younger man could shed some light on the situation.

"That someone wanted to kidnap Victor," Pearce stated.

"He works for Homeland Security," Tobias said. "Someone might find that interesting, you know, like terrorists."

"The only thing he ever had access to at Homeland," Pearce proceeded to inform the two older men, "were pencil inventories, mileage logs, that kinda thing. Nothing that was particularly sensitive or that would put him at risk."

"And you're sure about that?" Tobias pressed.

"Yes," Pearce assured them. "He was a paper pusher, not a protective agent." The man checked his cellphone yet again. "Pretty pedestrian in terms of job duties."

So, this might not be work-related after all then. "We still need to see whatever he was working on," he told the DHS agent.

"Of course," Pearce readily agreed.

"One of your employees has gone missing," Tobias commented as the man pulled his phone out yet again. "You don't seem too concerned."

"Oh, I am!" the man replied, reading something on the cell, "At least I will be after this conference call." Apparently, the man had decided to take a phone call right then and there. "I have to inform our entire Data Services department we're officially switching over to a dual-layer DVD back-up medium."

"Ooh," Tobias said as the DHS agent walked away.

"We got our own problems," he commented. Diane wasn't going to like what they had to tell her. "We still need to tell Diane about her husband."

"Not much to tell yet," Tobias said.

"Yeah," he agreed, "that's the problem." They couldn't reassure Diane, at all, and she was already high-strung and worried about Victor as it was. She wasn't going to take the lack of good news well.

"Yeah. Well, good luck with that." Tobias put a hand on Jethro's shoulder and chuckled, looking much like the cat who just ate the canary. "I'm gonna go over to the bureau, run background on our two victims."

Not impressed with his being left to take the Diane disclosure bullet, Jethro heard both Ziva and DiNozzo laughing. "I'm the bald version of you," his Senior Field Agent said in what Jethro supposed was a mock Tobias Fornell voice.

He glared at the pair who immediately took the hint and went back to work. Why do I feel like a high school principal?

This was going to be a very, very long day.