That following morning, Jethro and Shannon woke up and then went about their usual routine. With it being a Friday, he was hoping that they'd catch a break in their case sooner rather than later. He wasn't looking forward to the prospect of working straight through the weekend.
In any case, Jethro got out of bed and threw on a white crew-neck t-shirt, a dark blue polo shirt, a pair of dark grey slacks, and a matching blazer. Jethro then made his way downstairs to join Shannon for breakfast.
His better half was dawning a pair of dark blue jeans with a white black-striped t-shirt with a light grey cardigan. The redhead was currently finishing up some eggs, the rest of breakfast more or less done already.
Jethro walked across the kitchen and poured himself a large cup of coffee, taking a sip of it and savouring the taste of the hot, black, liquid on his tongue.
Shannon smiled affectionately over at Jethro. "You and coffee."
He smiled cheekily back at her. "Abby's worse. That girl mainlines Caf-Pows."
She rolled her eyes. "You both mainline caffeine." Eggs now cooked, his wife started to dish them both out breakfast, carrying their plates over to the kitchen table after. "So, your dad… you gonna try and talk to him again?"
"Yeah," he confirmed. Jethro just needed to think about how he was going to bring the topic back up with his father without him completely shutting down yet again. "The old man's stubborn, I'll give him that."
His wife shot him an amused and yet affectionate smile. "Like father, like son."
"Yeah," he said with a soft chuckle. "Yeah, I come by it honestly." Jethro tilted his head slightly. "Might ask McGee to track down LJ's address. Pay him a visit."
Shannon nodded her head, swallowing a large bite of food. "Well, it's certainly worth a shot." She smiled more warmly. "So, I was talking to Mom and…"
The ensuing half-an-hour seemingly flew by and Jethro had to hop into his old pickup and head to the range to complete his firearm qualifications alongside his field agents, stopping by Elaine's Diner for a cup of coffee on the way. Jethro knew from what he'd seen at the range that they'd all passed with swimming colours, and well, Jethro did it more out of entertainment than anything else. You didn't get to be a Marine sniper by being a lousy shot. He got a perfect score, as always.
Back at NCIS, he got straight down to business and met with the director regarding a couple of threat assessments that had just gone out.
After the short meeting, Jethro headed down to the squad room. "Update."
McGee instantly jumped in to update him. "Kris Taylor, the brother, has not been seen since yesterday. He hasn't used his debit/credit card or turned on his cell phone in the last twenty-four hours. Agent Dorneget's staking out his dorm."
The veteran agent nodded. "Can we connect him to Petty Officer Boxer?"
McGee shook his head in the negative. "Not yet."
"Could be road rage," DiNozzo suggested. "You know, Boxer took the Ferrari out for a joyride. Maybe he cut the kid off."
"Check Metro and Homeland Security surveillance video," he ordered after a moment. There had to be something connected to the incident that was caught on camera. The damn things were all over the city. There was no way their perp had gotten that lucky. "The route from The Adams House to the crime scene."
"Already put in the request," McGee replied.
The briefing continued for a couple of more minutes, not having anything of use until a phone call came in on DiNozzo's desk line. Hanging up the phone, his SFA eyed him. "That was Dorneget. Kris Taylor just returned to his dorm."
He glanced between Ziva and DiNozzo who'd done a decent job of keeping professional at work despite their developing relationship. "Two of you, go on."
His Senior Field Agent immediately started to grab his gear bag. "Let's go."
Ziva swiftly rose to her feet and grabbed her jacket, badge, and weapon before quickly following DiNozzo over to the main elevator.
Once they were in the elevator, Jethro turned to McGee, paying no mind to the agents that were running around. The room was filled with agents from the REACT team along with all the usual faces at the Europe-Africa, Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Far East desks. "Hey, check with the V.A. Get me an address for LJ Moore."
McGee seemed a bit taken aback by the request but nodded. "On it."
He went to grab a cup of coffee from the stand right outside and then grabbed Abby her favourite drink and headed down to the motor pole with it to see if the bubbly forensic scientist had found anything for him.
She was talking with someone on the phone when he walked in, clearly irritated. "Yes. I will. Bye." Hanging up her phone, the exasperated forensic scientist started throwing her hands around. "This guy bugs me!"
He tilted his head slightly as he made his way over to her. "Who?"
Jethro really shouldn't have been surprised by the response that he got from her. "Mr. Vijay I'm-a-billionaire-and-I-want-my-car-back-right-now Chaya."
"Did you find anything?" he asked, handing her the large Caf-Pow.
Abby shook her head as she shoved her cell into her pocket and took the drink that he had brought for her. "Nothing related to this shooting." Placing the Caf-Pow down, she switched to ASL. "But you can tell a lot about someone from their car."
Jethro made the switch to her first language as well. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," she signed back. "We can bust this guy if we want to."
He really wasn't sure where this conversation was going. "Yeah?"
"Based on the contents of his ashtray," she signed, "he smokes Cuban cigars."
He smiled and eyed her in slight amusement as he signed and voiced his reply. "Abby, it's not our problem."
She shot him a look. "He wears $3,000 Italian sunglasses and has Justin Bieber on his hard drive," Abby replied in English. "Can't we arrest him for that?"
"Do you have anything positive to say about this guy?" he asked. Abby wasn't usually one to take an immediate disliking to people. She saw the good in others even when there wasn't much there. He thought briefly of Mikel Mauher.
"Okay," she conceded grudgingly, "he practices safe sex." Jethro fought hard not to roll his eyes at the goth. "There's condoms in the glove box."
He had a look of fond exasperation on his face as he turned around and pointed to the red sports car. "If that's all you got, Abbs... release the car."
Walking into the elevator a minute later, he headed upstairs to see if the team's official results from the earlier firearms quals had come through and to see if McGee managed to find anything on the surveillance footage he'd been sifting through.
Thankfully, the official results had come through. Jethro's field agents had passed their re-qualifications and were all cleared for duty; not that he had been concerned. McGee was still sifting through a ton of surveillance footage and hadn't found anything yet.
Grabbing a snack from the vending machine, he decided to pull out his phone and call his father. The Gibbs patriarch might be hardheaded and stubborn but the apple didn't fall far from the tree.
He wasn't all that surprised when he got his father's answering machine. "It's Jackson. You know what to do."
"Hey, Dad. You remember when I called you from boot camp and we got into a fight and I hung up on you?" Jethro asked rhetorically. "And then when I came home, just before I shipped out, you read me the riot act. You told me that a man does not do that." That was incidentally the same week that he'd met Shannon and was just one of several fights father and son had while Jethro was home on leave before shipping out to Camp LeJeune. "Well, you should take your own advice. We need to talk."
With any luck, that rather brazen message would rile his old man up enough to talk.
