Ghostly Clues

File 3:

The first thing Tony noticed when he walked into the alley was that it was dark and dirty, barely room enough for a compact car to scrape into. It cut off at the end with a tall privet fence that connected the two buildings preventing passage.

The cracked asphalt was littered with stray bits of garbage. An old popcorn bag here, a dirty shoelace there. Not an area you'd just wander into. He frowned wondering what would draw a kid into such a dark corner of the city. Blinking he shook his head denying the fact that he started to speculate on the ghost being able to do just that.

Turning his attention to the walls he looked up to find a camera. Startled by the strange placement he stared up at it for a beat before he went to get Gibbs attention. "Boss. I found a camera."

Gibbs was kneeling down near the privacy fence his attention on something he'd found on the ground. "Well, go find out if it's hot!" He ordered as he scraped up the strange glowing substance into a small vial. As he was putting the sample away his phone began to ring. "Gibbs."

"Jethro." Ducky's voice met him. "I have finished my autopsy on Merry McColan."

"And." Gibbs prompted.

"Well…" The doctor hesitated. "It seems she is missing her heart."

Gibbs stood slowly looking around the alley as he felt a noticeable temperature drop. "What do you mean missing?"

"Well… it's gone. If it weren't for the fact that there were no marks on her skin, I'd say someone ripped it out. How they would do such a thing without opening her up though is beyond me…" There was a slight quiver in the man's voice. "I've never seen anything like it. Without any other signs of trauma, I'd wager that its absence is the cause of her death. It seems it was almost instantaneous."

Gibbs didn't have anything to say. He doubted he would have had anything more to say to such news in any situation, but at the moment he was frozen all of his attention devoted to staring down a glowing girl. The girl stood at the corner of the alley. She was stock still in her grey hoody no signs of breathing as her hollow yellow eyes bore into his. Despite her pale blue skin and the change in her hair and eye color, Gibbs recognized her instantly. "Merry…" He whispered.

Suddenly the girl's face contorted into one of fear and pain and she let out an ear-splitting screech. Surprised and unsettled Gibbs dropped his phone in an attempt to block his ears. His eyes never left her as her form fogged away from view and the sound of her voice faded.

"Jethro? What was that? Jethro?! Jethro, answer me!" Ducky's panicked voice called.

Taking in a shuddering breath Gibbs picked up the phone. "Y-yeah." The man stuttered, more shaken than he'd been in years, he was finding it hard to control his voice. "I- I'm here Ducky."

"What was that Jethro?" Gibbs stared at the corner for a long time his jaw tight. "Jethro?"

Taking a breath, he shook his head. "I don't know what that was." He admitted.

"You're fine though?" Ducky pressed.

Gibbs did a mental check. Physically he was fine… "I'll live."

"Thank god." The MD breath a sigh of relief. "That scared me, what happened?"

"Dropped my phone. I'm going to have to call you back." With that Gibbs hung up.

"Boss." Tony walked into the alley his sudden appearance making Gibbs jump and spin his hand at the hilt of his gun. "Whoa." DiNozzo held up his hands. "It's just me. What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost." He chuckled thinking the jab at the city's shared paranoia funny.

Gibbs glanced back to the corner of the alley before he nodded relaxing his stance. "I just might have."

"Um…" Tony stood uncertainly at the mouth of the alleyway. "What?"

"I want McGee and Ziva to go talk to the Fenton's. Tell them I want to know everything they know about ghosts. Then I want you to get this sample to Abby ASAP." DiNozzo stood stock still holding the strange substance numbly in his hands as his boss barked orders. "We need to understand what we're up against! This isn't going to be our everyday case. Next, I want you to…" Gibbs trailed off staring blankly ahead.

"Boss?" Tony asked carefully as he turned to face Gibbs.

Gibbs started then shook his head spinning on his heel he stalked away. "Get on it DiNozzo! I'm going to get coffee."

"Coffee?"

"Yes..." Gibbs stopped a weariness in his voice. "Coffee." He looked Tony up and down. "Weren't you given an order?"

"Ub- ub…" Tony looked down to the vial in his hands trying to collect the orders he'd been given. "Right!" With that, he headed toward the post office while pulling out his phone. "McGeek! Boss has orders for you! First I need you to go to the bowling alley and pick up some footage from the nearby alleyway. Next, you and Ziva need to head out to Fenton Works."

"Alright. Are we making an arrest?" Tim asked.

"No. Boss wants you to ask the experts what they know about ghost."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. You and Ziva are going to go have a crash course on ghost."

There was silence on the other end until McGee let out a short laugh. "Right. Nice one. There is no way Gibbs would waste our time looking into ghost. Especially when they don't exist."

"Well, I'm just telling you what Gibbs told me. You can ignore the order and risk his wrath or you can hop to it and pull out your old handy dandy notebook and learn a thing or two about our old friend Casper."

McGee made a hesitant sound on the other end. "No. No. I'm not falling for one of your tricks again. If it's so important why don't you do it?"

"Because, McGee, Gibbs told me to tell you to do it. I'm on my own important mission."

"Oh, like what?"

"I have to deliver some mystery goop to our lovely Abby."

More silence fell from McGee's side of the line. "Fine. I'll do it, but I swear if this is a prank I'll spam your inbox with geek merchandise for months."

"It's not a prank McGeek."

"For months." Tim threatened once more before he hung up.

Tony couldn't help but laugh. "Good old McGee."

Danny paced his friend's room nervously as said friend finished off a Nasty Burger. "Dude." Tucker chided. "Calm down. Worrying won't help you. I'm sure that even if your luck was bad enough to get you suspected for murder it isn't bad enough to get you convicted."

Danny glared at his friend. Something Tucker noted he'd had a sudden upgrade in over the last hour since he'd seen him. It was a strange tidbit to top all the anxiety rolling off of his half ghost friend. "I'm not worried about being convicted of murder Tuck. Well… not much anyway." The boy paused before he shook his head. "It's what this all brings to light that's bugging me."

"And that would be…?" Tucker wasn't sure what was going through Danny's head. He just hoped it was within the realm of reason.

"There's something deeper going on. That ghost today she said she was woken up and she's not the only one. Haven't you noticed that there have been way more ghost than our regulars lately?" Danny asked.

Tucker shrugged. "So, it's just one of those things. Like an ark in the bell curve. It'll settle soon enough."

"That's the thing, Tucker. I don't know why… but I feel like it's more."

"You're trying to tie your ghost hunting problems in with Merry's disappearance." Tucker said with a heavy sigh. "It's your hero complex man. You're drawing connections where there aren't any connections."

"What if I'm not though?" Danny asked spreading his arms wide. "What if I'm just now starting to see the connections? Signs that have been popping up everywhere for more than a month now!?"

"Danny…" Tucker wasn't sure how to approach this. Sometimes telling Danny he was blowing things out of proportions was enough and he'd take a step back laugh it off and settle. Other times, if he was dead set on an idea, it would rile him up and drive him to extremes to prove he was right. Tucker had to decide here and now how serious Danny was about connecting Merry to ghosts.

No not that exactly. He needed to decide how serious Danny was about trying to help solve Merry's disappearance- her death.

Tucker groaned realizing that Danny was not going to just drop this. "Fine. So what if you're right? Where do we go with this… theory?"

Danny stood deathly still his hand at his chin as he stared intently at Tucker's wall. Taking a breath, the boy turned to Tucker his face serious. "We need to find the ghost that's been causing this chaos."

Tucker flopped back onto his bed his voice leaving his lungs with a sound of defeat. "I'll call Sam."

Authors Note:

Hey guys... Sorry for the delay... on everything. I'm still alive I promise and I plan on continuing my story's. Life's getting better. I'm happier than I have been in a long time.

It wasn't that long ago that I hated everything about myself. Today I can honestly say I'm not too horrible a person... just really bad at life.

Anyway, all of what's been happening to me is real personal and you know the same old song and dance of "whoa is me" the whole of humanity has to deal with but for some reason, I just complicate the simple things so... uh... sorry... I'm rambling.

This chapter is shorter than I wanted it to be... I will do my best to continue this story. I am pretty sure I've decided where I want it to go... I don't think I've ever written a murder mystery... so forgive me if it falls short or seems cliche...

I was also informed of some spelling mistakes in previous chapters... I'll fix them once I get the next chapter cleaned up.
Thank you all so much for reading!