Chapter 4

The rain kept pounding against the back of my NCIS jacket. I took my hat off my head to wipe the hair out of my eyes before replacing it. Footprints ran the length of the car and I made sure to capture a photo of them.

The victim was Petty Officer Nancy Roland. Apparently she had been on her way to her fiancé's house for the weekend when she was run off of the road and shot point blank three times.

"Looks like the murderer came down to see if the Petty Officer was really dead." I stated.

"Dust the door for prints. Maybe they left some behind." Gibbs called as he made his way down the hill.

Tony huffed, "Wouldn't the rain have washed them off by now?"

Gibbs gave him a "don't you start" look and Tony did as he said. I grabbed an umbrella and opened it over his head so the fingerprint powder wouldn't wash away. As Tony went to work on the door I examined the car's contents. Pop bottles and receipts littered the floor.

I handed Tony the umbrella and bent over the Petty Officer's body in order to get a better look. I leant in father and her hand fell off the steering wheel. A neatly folded, triangle shaped paper floated to her lap. I grabbed some tweezers and picked it up.

"Hey, boss. I think I've got something." I pulled out of the car and held up the tweezers.

Gibbs walked over, examining the small triangle in my grasp, "Open it up. See if it's significant."

I nodded my head and Tony took the umbrella from me. I made careful work of unfolding the piece of paper only to find small scribbling on it. "It says something: In order to understand your past you must figure out your present. The answers you are searching for lie within the DNA of her, Amaya." My heart began pounding against my ribcage and I struggled to find breath.

"Hart, you doing okay?" Gibbs's voice was like ice water and it had me jumping out of my own panic.

"The body was meant for me to find." I whispered. My eyes scanned the paper to make sure I had read correctly, "Not just the body. Someone wanted me to find this piece of paper."

Tony brushed up behind me and I knew he was searching the paper, "How can you be so sure?"

"Because I am Amaya."

Without missing a beat Gibbs spoke, "DiNozzo, I want you to take Lacey to Abby and have her run any sort of analysis on this paper. You stay with them until McGee and I finish up here. Don't let her out of your sight, understand me?"

He nodded his head, "Yes, boss! On it, boss! Lacey, let's go."

"No, but- but the paper said-" I turned back towards the wrecked car as Tony continued to pull me away.

"You're probably just in shock. Come on, Lacey, you heard Gibbs." Tony grumbled as he pushed me towards my car, "Where are your keys?"

I'm not sure when, but somehow the slim piece of paper was put securely into an evidence bag and now resided in my hands. "Keys? Oh, keys! Right!"

I went to make my way to the driver's side, but he stopped me, "I think it's best that I drive. Boss's orders and all."

I nodded my head and climbed into my car. The drive back to our NCIS base of operations was extremely quiet. My mind was solely focused on one thing and one thing only: the use of my Japanese nickname. While I was training with Nagasaki, he had given me the name and he was the only one who knew of it.

I thought of the last time I had even spoken to him; it was just before my mother had died. I couldn't get my heart to get back to a steady pace as I continued to think about the name in that note. Nothing registered in my brain until my car door opened.

"Come on, Hart. We need to get you inside." Tony said, slightly impatiently.

My instincts kicked in and it was almost like autopilot turned on within me. Everything Nagasaki had trained me to do was centered around one lesson: no matter what you face, you go into it with a level head and a critical eye. I gripped the evidence bag even harder as we continued to make our way to Abby's lab and it didn't take us very long to reach it.

"Whoa!" Abby spun around on her black, platform boots as we entered her lab. A box of what seemed to be old evidence bags flew into the air as she saw us.

Tony laughed before bending down to retrieve the fallen box, "Sorry, Abs. We didn't mean to scare you."

She grinned, "It's okay! I'm just not used to having visitors so early on in a case! What are you two doing back from the crime scene? It is a crime scene, right? It wasn't just a weird hunting accident or something? Did you catch the bad guy already? Although, in any case it could have been a woman who killed the victim. So I guess I should rephrase that question- did you catch the bad person?"

"No," I stepped forward a little, "we haven't caught the murderer yet, but we did find something slightly odd."

"And by slightly odd, she means extremely weird and important." Tony stated.

"Oh." Abby's eyes grew wide with excitement, "Let me see!" I handed her the evidence bag and she examined the note. "Interesting. Who's Amaya and why does she need to understand her past and or her present?"

"Wellllllll-" Tony began.

"I'm Amaya and I have no idea why I'm supposed to understand either of those. Don't even ask if I have a clue as to what is so intriguing about Petty Officer Roland's DNA."

"Very interesting..." She tapped her fingers against her chin and seemed to be in deep thought for a moment, "Let me run some tests on the DNA and see if I can dig up anything. Did you bring me a sample of her DNA by any chance?"

Before I could tell her that I completely forgot to get a swab, Tony handed her the testing kit. Abby turned towards her machines and he smiled at me, "That's why we're partners. I am an extremely experienced professional investigator."

I rolled my eyes, but let him know how sincerely relieved I was, "Thank you, Tony. My forgetfulness today will never happen again."

"Don't beat yourself up, kid. It happens to the best of us. Just let it go and move on."

"Kid?" I raised my eyebrows, "I'm not that much younger than you."

Tony laughed, "Whatever you say, Hart, whatever you say."


Five hours feels like an eternity when you are waiting for your only substantial piece of evidence to finish undergoing tests. I was currently banging my head against my desk and waiting for a call from Abby. I let out a frustrated sigh before hitting my head again.

"Hart, why don't you go down and see Abby." Gibbs said from his desk.

I lifted my head up off my desk and looked at him. He was flipping through files. "If she had anything, she would have called, right?"

His eyes met my own, "Go."

"Right, boss." I nodded my head and flew to the elevator. I tapped my foot as I made my descent into the lab for the second time that day. The doors opened and I walked into the lab.

"Oh, hey, Lacey!" Abby smiled as she turned towards her computers and typed away.

"Nothing?" I asked.

She shook her head, "Sorry, not yet and I've run every test I can think of!"

I closed my eyes and another sigh escaped my lips. I pushed myself up onto the table that held most of the evidence from the crime scene. "I don't understand! None of this makes sense to me. I don't need to understand my past, I understand it pretty well considering I lived it! What does Nancy Roland have to do with me?"

"Wait a minute!" Abby spun around quickly and breezed passed me, "What if we aren't supposed to just focus on her DNA? What if we are supposed to compare DNA?"

"Whose DNA would we comp-" I stopped, "You mean compare my DNA to her's? But, why?"

She grabbed another DNA test kit and came towards me, "Honestly? I have no clue, but it is worth a shot! Besides I have tried everything I can think of in terms of tests and I haven't come up with anything."

I nodded my head and took the swab from her. I swabbed the inside of my cheek and then handed it back.

"Okay, so maybe it's none of my business, but it kind of pertains to the case so technically it is my business..."

"What's up, Abby?" I questioned.

Abby put the swab into a machine and pressed a few buttons, "What's up with the whole Amaya nickname? Like obviously you have to know who would call you that."

"You're right, I do." I stated as I watched my feet swing.

"So, who calls you that?" She turned towards me.

"Yeah, actually, I was wondering the same thing." Tony's voice came from the door.

I twisted and noticed not just Tony, but Gibbs and McGee as well, "It's not important. I promise."

"Not important? I may have given you my approval to join my team, but I haven't given you my complete trust yet. You need to earn that, Hart, and you can start by telling us about the nickname." Gibbs demanded.

I dropped my head in my hands and contemplated my next move. I had come this far in my career and I worked so hard for this. "There is only one person who has ever used that nickname for me, Nagasaki."

"Perfect! He's our number one suspect now." Tony went to leave.

"He can't be." I jumped off the table and gripped the edges until my knuckles turned white.

Tony turned around and huffed, "And why can't he be?"

"Because, Tony, I buried him two years ago."

The room became void of any noise except for that of the machines running. Complete and utter silence enveloped all of us as they took in what I had said.

"Okay, but someone else must have known about your nickname." McGee suggested.

I shook my head, "Nagasaki gave it to me when I finished my training. It was to signify that I had completed the hardest challenge any human could endure. He used it once before he died. There is nothing in this world, to my knowledge, that has me tied to the nickname. I swear to you all."

Tony quirked an eyebrow, "Hardest challenge?"

"DiNozzo, that's not important." Gibbs said just as something chimed.

"It's done!" Abby clapped her hands together and bounced over to one of the computers, "Of course not."

"Abs?" Gibbs asked.

"I thought maybe Lacey and the Petty Officer could have been related, but they're DNA is completely different. No genetic markers whatsoever. That's pretty much the final test I can run. I have nothing, Gibbs, absolutely nothing. Forensics has failed me today." Abby's face fell and her shoulders slumped.

McGee came up beside her, "It wasn't forensics, Abs. This is just going to be a tough case."

A cell phone rang and we all watched as Gibbs answered it, "Gibbs." Once again the room was silent as we waited in anticipation as to what this phone call entailed. He hung up and headed for the door, "Let's go! Another body was found. Victim was run off the road and shot, point blank three times in the chest."

"Two murders in less than eight hours of each other? Interesting coincidence." I said as we followed Gibbs towards the elevators.

"Rule thirty-nine, Hart." Gibbs barked.

I paused, "Rule thirty-nine?"

"There is no such thing as a coincidence." Tony supplied.


Traffic was a nightmare as we made our way over to the second crime scene of the day. The storm had turned into a light drizzle since this morning and that would make for an easier examination of the scene.

"So, keeping rule thirty-nine in mind, it's no coincidence that both the murders took place on the same road only two miles apart?" I inquired.

Tony nodded as we showed our badges to the guarding police officers, "Trust me, you're going to want to remember these rules. Gibbs has this whole set and no one is quite sure how he came up with them all, but he lives by them and so do we."

"Got it." I affirmed.

The victims truck had been run off the road and into the woods just like Petty Officer Roland's. For some reason the truck seemed oddly familiar, but I couldn't place it.

"Hart, can you see if you can find another note?" Gibbs called from the van.

"On it, Boss!" I made my way towards the driver's side and captured some pictures of the footprints that trailed the length of the car. I took a picture of the driver's side window; it had been shattered from the bullets.

As I came closer to the truck I let out a gasp and the camera fell from my hands into the mud.

"Lacey, you really should be careful with our cameras." McGee said. His words only barely registered in my brain as I took in the victim. "Lacey, everything okay?"

My hands flew up and covered my mouth and I could hardly catch my breath.

"Boss!" Tony's voice shouted from somewhere. His warm hand laid on my shoulder and squeezed gently.

"Hart, talk to me. What did you find?" Gibbs stepped between the car and me, but I could still see the body as if I was staring right at it.

"It's- it's my brother, Gibbs. They killed my brother."


Well, I have finally uploaded a new chapter for you all! (I feel like I am always apologizing for being late in my uploads so I will refrain from doing so right now!) I had so many ideas for where I wanted to take this story and I found it difficult to narrow them down to one, but I have finally done it! I hope you all will like what I have in store! What did you think of this chapter? I would love to hear from you, faithful readers! Your reviews help me to want to continue these journeys I create! Thank you for your continued support!

More to come,

Theatrefreak10