Tony and Ziva were led into an office at the police station in Warrington by an officer. Behind the desk was a balding, middle-aged man in a suit.
"Lieutenant, these are the agents from NCIS," the officer said.
"Thank you," he said and watched as the officer left. Then he turned to the two agents. "Hi, I'm Lieutenant Forbes."
"Agent DiNozzo. This is Agent David," Tony introduced as he shook the man's hand.
Ziva shook hands with him as well. "I trust my supervisor has explained why we are here."
"Yes, you're interested in the murder of Cole Robin. That was a long time ago, but I remember it. Please, sit down," Forbes said as he motioned to the two chairs in front of his desk.
Tony and Ziva both sat down. "The DNA we found at the scene of our latest victim was a match for your guy."
"Yes, I heard this guy's responsible for a string of murders. I must say, we never considered a possible serial killer," Forbes said.
"Well, we are not ready to call him a serial killer, as he does not fit the MO, but he is extremely dangerous. He has at least five other bodies, going back eleven years," Ziva said.
Lieutenant Forbes pulled a folder out of one of the drawers of his desk and handed it over. "Here's the file. We got lucky and it didn't get lost, like many of the other files over the years."
Tony took and opened the file. He was immediately hit with the bloody image of the crime scene. "Well, this looks about right. It fits our MO. A messy and gruesome murder."
"It was definitely that. We didn't think it was anything like what you're dealing with though. We were thinking it was domestic," Forbes said.
"He was married?" Ziva asked.
"No, he had a girlfriend. She didn't have an alibi and she was the only one in town who even knew who he was. It was either her or a break in. It seemed too messy to be something like that, plus nothing was missing," Forbes explained.
Tony continued to read the file. "He was killed a hotel room. He wasn't from around here."
"Right. According to the girlfriend, they were just passing through and stopped for the night," he said.
"Can you tell us anything about the victim? Did you learn anything about his history?" Ziva asked.
"Not much. He was nineteen. He had no record. He had no family. His mother died of cancer when he was a child and his father was killed by a drunk driver two years before his death."
"Who was his girlfriend?" Ziva asked.
Tony looked up in shock after finding the answer himself in the file. "Christina Mackey."
Xxxxxxxxxxx
"I screwed up," Tony said as he and Ziva walked back to the car.
"How do you mean?" Ziva asked.
"We never even considered Christina Mackey. She was thousands of miles away at college, at least I thought so. I didn't double check that. I spoke to her personally. I should've noticed how quick she was to get off the phone. I should've looked into her," Tony said.
"Her quickness to get off the phone could very well have been because of her grief. You had no reason to think otherwise," Ziva said. She was not going to let him blame himself. Despite how angry she was at Tony, she knew he had done everything he could to solve that case eleven years ago.
"Even if you're right, it doesn't excuse me for not at least double checking her whereabouts. I should've checked. I also should've looked into her past. I would've found out she was a suspect in the Robin case. It might have stopped two more murders from taking place," Tony said guiltily. He couldn't believe how stupid he'd been. He wasn't a rookie. Yes, he'd been fairly new to NCIS at the time, but he'd been a cop for years before that. He should've known better. anyway.
"I am not certain she is responsible. It took a lot to kill those men. One of them was military. Even if she could've killed them all, there would be evidence of a struggle," Ziva said.
"She knew them all. And maybe they weren't all killed at once. We were speculating that they might not have been killed together. Maybe she called them each, one by one, and surprised them," Tony said as they stopped in front ot the car.
"For what purpose? What reason did she have to kill them?" Ziva asked.
"I don't know."
"I do not believe it. Ralph said she appeared to be hiding something," Ziva said.
"Yeah, she seemed guilty about something," Tony said.
"I cannot believe this killer feels guilt. His murders have been way too vicious. He or she feels nothing for his victims," Ziva said.
"She's involved somehow. Gibbs might be gone from NCIS, but I still believe in many of his rules. I don't believe in coincidences," Tony said.
"Me either," Ziva stated.
"We should go back. I'll call McGee on the way," Tony said before getting in the car.
Xxxxxxxxxxx
Gibbs walked down to Abby's lab. He felt he had to try to talk to her again. He couldn't stand the way things were between them. It was even worse than it was with the others. He and Abby had a special bond. He couldn't just let that go.
When Gibbs got down there, he found Abby in a hug with Palmer, who appeared to be comforting her. "It won't be much longer, I'm sure. The team will shut this case soon," Palmer was saying.
"Thanks, Jimmy. I appreciate you coming to check on me," Abby said.
Gibbs felt awkward because he knew they were talking about him, but he refused to duck out. He'd come here for a reason. He wasn't leaving until he fixed this. So he cleared his throat to make his presence known.
The two broke apart and stiffened considerably. Abby looked away as soon as she realized who had interrupted and Palmer glared at Gibbs.
Gibbs stared at Palmer, silently telling him to leave, just as he always did in the past, but this time the ME assistant stood his ground and refused to take the hint. "Give us the room."
"I'll leave when and if Abby asks me too," Palmer said shortly.
Gibbs sent him a murderous look, but once more it was ignored. All it did was cause Palmer to glare more.
"Go, Jimmy. I'll be fine," Abby promised.
"Okay. Let me know if you need anything," Palmer said before squeezing her shoulder and walking away.
"Anybody here stay the same?" Gibbs asked.
"You'd know if you cared enough to keep in contact," Abby said sharply.
"Abby, I want to talk. I..."
"That would be a first. You haven't had anything to say to me in five years. What makes you think I have anything to say to you now?" Abby asked. She wasn't going to make this easy. Why should she. She'd been devastated by Gibbs' loss. It took her forever to come back from that. No, actually, it had taken McGee forever to bring her back from that. He'd really had a hard job, even before taking Gibbs' spot on the team.
Gibbs sighed. "Why is it that you all think you can condemn me for retiring? Everyone retires Abby. I gave this agency all I had for many years!" he said righteously. Yes, he remembered what Ducky said. That it wasn't him leaving, but the way he left. But he did it the way anyone would do it. He didn't see the problem.
Abby looked him like he'd lost his mind. "My God, you really think this is about you retiring? We don't care that you retired. Well, okay, we did care. It hurt to lose you in the workplace, but if that's really what you wanted, no one deserved it more than you, but we didn't deserve the way you treated us when you did."
"The way I treated you? I told McGee he was a good agent. I let tony know that I trusted him to take over. I didn't...
"Yeah, I was there. I remember every word you uttered and every word you didn't! I remember how you kissed me on the cheek and left without saying a single word to me!" Abby yelled while trying an failing to keep the emotion from her voice.
"You knew how I felt about you," Gibbs argued.
"I thought I did, but I must have been wrong. I thought you considered all of us your family, but you don't treat your family the way you treated us. You don't know what it was like, Gibbs. You broke us! Tony did too, but you delivered the first blow. Do you know how painful it was? I would wait by the phone hoping you'd call just once. You never did. It took months for that to stop. One day, Tim showed up at my door. He had to basically force the painful truth down my throat. The truth being that you and Tony were gone and you weren't going to call and you weren't going to come back," Abby cried as tears streamed down her cheeks. She'd given up trying to remain stoic. It was a miserable failure.
All of Gibbs' stubbornness went away as he saw the pain in Abby's face. He was sure before that he was right and everyone else was being unreasonable, but after hearing it from Abby, he couldn't hang onto that anymore. Why the hell didn't he call? He could've. It wouldn't have been so difficult to just pick up the phone, maybe help them deal with his absence.
"And you didn't come back, not until this case came about. Your obsession with finishing a case could bring you back, but not us. So do you get it now? Why we don't want you around? We don't wanna go through that again. So just go! Get this case closed and then leave us alone!" Abby cried before storming towards her office.
Gibbs sighed as he stood there alone. He was so sure of himself when he walked in, not understanding how any of this was his fault. He supposed he just didn't want to see it. He didn't want to see the damage he did to these people when he left the way he did. But he had no choice when Abby forced it down his throat. He was at fault here. So rule forty-five needed to be followed. He needed to clean up his mess, only this time he knew he couldn't do it alone. He needed him, and ironically, the only person who could help him was the man who'd cleaned up after him when he left. Tim McGee.