After a hair raising ride back to NCIS headquarters, Gibbs led Jim and Karen to the bullpen. The scene that greeted Karen's eyes was a surprisingly normal one for the Gibbslets. Tony was playing on his gameboy, Ziva was writing something up by hand and McGee was typing so fast that his lips were still moving.

The team stopped working as they noticed Gibbs walk in with Karen leading Jim behind him.

"These are the two detectives from New York, Detectives Bettencourt and Dunbar".

Tony slid easily out of his seat and walked up to the detectives. "Hi, I'm Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo, Tony." he said to Karen. Karen rolled her eyes, but shook his hand. Jim stuck out his hand and Tony shook it. He was about to start flirting with Karen again when Ziva butted in.

"Officer Ziva David." She shook hands with Karen and Jim.

"If you don't mind me asking, where's your accent from?" asked Jim.

"I'm a Liaison Officer from Mossad". Jim noticed that it was a prickly subject by the tone of her voice. People probably assumed she was a terrorist.

"Israel is a beautiful country. My wife and I went there on holidays a few years ago." smiled Jim.

"Thank-you".

Gibbs pointedly cleared his throat and McGee got to his feet blushing furiously.

"Special Agent Timothy McGee" stuttered McGee. He shook hands with Karen and escaped back to his desk as fast as he could.

Before anyone could say anything about his ignoring Jim, Gibbs told Ziva to take Jim and Karen down to autopsy and forensics.

Ziva led the way to the lift. "We will go down to autopsy first" she said. "Our ME is called Dr Mallard and his assistant is Jimmy Palmer". The trio stepped off the lift and into the cool gleam of autopsy. Palmer was standing there scrubbing down one of the tables. He turned around when he heard the door open and did a double take when he saw Ziva, a very pretty woman and a blind man.

"Umm hi. I'm going to go find Dr Mallard" and with that he backed slowly out of the room. Once again Karen rolled her eyes.

"What?" asked Ziva. "That was not because of you. He is terrified of me."

"Why?"

"I am an expert in many martial arts, was trained to spy and kill by Mossad and speak 14 different languages."

"Well I suppose that explains it" laughed Jim. Just then, Ducky walked into autopsy.

"Ducky, this is Detective Karen Bettencourt and her partner Detective Jim Dunbar, and this is our ME Dr Mallard."

"Call me Ducky, I would shake hands but I'm a bit covered in intestinal juices at the moment, so maybe another time". They all laughed and Ziva led them back over to the lift and they went down to meet Abby. "You'll like Abby. She's a vampire."

There was no time for explanations as the lift dinged to a stop and they walked into the forensics lab where they were greeted by ear splitting music. "You two wait here and I will go find her" called Ziva over her shoulder. "And she can be very protective of her equipment, so I would not touch anything if I were you!"

She returned a few minutes later with Abby bouncing excitedly behind her. "Oh my God! Hi you guys! My name is Abby." She pulled them both into a tight embrace.

Ziva smiled at the look of absolute horror on their faces, remembering the first time she had met the Goth, before butting in "Abby, I don't think they can breathe".

"Oh, right. Sorry" she said sheepishly letting them go. Then she proceeded to literally push them out of the room telling them that she couldn't concentrate with so many people in the room.

Back in the bullpen, Tony, Ziva and McGee proceeded to fill Jim and Karen in on what had happened in the case so far.

"Our first victim is Petty Officer Rebecca Mason, 26 years old. She had her son when she was 17. He is currently staying with his grandparents. Victim number two is Corporal Sarah Carter, 24 years old. She had a daughter when she was 15, who is staying with her aunt, the victim's sister. Our third victim, Petty Officer Grainne Wilson, 25 years old. Had a daughter when she was 16 who is currently missing." said Tony

"Well why aren't we out looking for her?" demanded Jim.

"There are police out looking for her all over the city, but so far, no luck." Tony pointed out. Just then Gibbs strode into the bullpen and started dishing out orders to various members of the team.

"Ziva, you and DiNozzo start re-running everything we know about the victims and their kids. See if you can find a common link. McGee, you go and help Abby with whatever she's doing. You two, go and check out Petty Officer Wilson's apartment. See if there is anything that may have been overlooked."

Gibbs threw Karen the keys and they left to go to Petty Officer Wilson's apartment. Tony, Ziva and McGee exchanged looks as Jim and Karen left the bullpen. It was unlike Gibbs to send people he didn't know without one of them. He also never admitted that he could have missed something.

"Hey Abby" said McGee, walking into her lab. He paused for a moment before asking , "What do you think of the two detectives?"

Abby paused before answering. "Detective Bettencourt seems really nice. I don't think she would take anything from anybody though. She can definitely stand up for herself. It's think that it's really great that Detective Dunbar got back to work. I read up on what happened to him earlier. He was at a bank robbery. Managed to kill the bad guy, but not before sustaining a bullet wound to the temple. He saved at least four lives."

"Well yeah, but he's blind. I mean, how does he manage to investigate crimes?"

"McGee, there is a lot of adaptive technology out there now. Besides, Detective Bettencourt probably acts as his sighted guide when they're out. You saw that she automatically gives him a second to take her arm before going anywhere."

"I know, but can you imagine if it was one of us?"

"No, but just because you are blind, doesn't mean that you can't do anything you set your mind to. Or just because you are deaf, like my family. My brother has a great job."

"But..."

"Just drop it McGee.

Karen was seated in the driver's seat of the very nice black car, trying to navigate her way through the unfamiliar streets.

"So what do you think of the NCIS team? she asked.

"I'm not entirely sure what to make of them. They seem like nice people but they also seem a little off. What do they look like?"

"Gibbs is about your height, blue eyes, grey hair. You can tell that they all look up to him. Tony is a flirt. The kind of man who has a new girl friend every night of the week. Brown hair, green eyes. He was wearing a really expensive suit. Ziva is actually quite small, really long dark brown hair and brown eyes. McGee looks like a Boy Scout, brown hair and eyes. Abby was the strangest one of the lot though. She was like a little girl playing dress-up in Goth clothes. Frankly, they're all a little bizarre!"

Karen pulled up outside the house, not noticing that Gibbs and his team were sitting in various locations outside of it, concealed by plants, a child's play house and a wheelie bin. She got out of the car and waited for Jim to come up beside her. She tapped his hand, signalling him to take her arm and then led him into the house.

The NCIS team observed them walking up the front path. Karen was describing the outside to Jim and when they got to the front steps.

The team crept back to the car where McGee had cameras and mikes set up, to see what the two Detectives were doing.

As the two detectives walked through the apartment, Karen described what was going on. They walked down a short hall and into the daughter's bedroom. Nine year old Lucy's room was very simple. The walls were painted a creamy yellow, with pretty pink curtains and duvet and a dolls house in one corner.

On the way out of her room, Jim suddenly stopped. "What is it?" asked Karen.

"Can you hear that?"

"No.

"It sounds like a sort of snuffling." He let go of her arm and cautiously made his way across the room until he bumped into the bed. Feeling down the leg he knelt down and lifted the duvet. Karen joined him and, crouching down beside him, she gasped when she saw a little girl hiding there.

"What's your name?"

"Lucy."

"Hi Lucy, my name is Karen and this is my friend Jim. We're police officers so it's okay for you to come out now." Lucy nodded, crawled out and immediately attached herself to Karen. She had a long, thick plait down her back and was wearing a pair of jeans and a grubby, green blouse.

Karen picked her up and the three of them made their way out of the house. The first thing she saw was Gibbs, McGee, Tony and Ziva leaning up against their car. She quietly told Jim that they were there before leading the trio down the steps.

They looked amazed to see Karen there with their so-called missing child.

Karen looked overloaded with the child balanced on her hip and Jim holding onto her arm, as she made her way angrily towards them. "Why did you need to follow us here? You knew there was no evidence. You clearly didn't trust us to do our jobs! But maybe we shouldn't trust you seeing as you missed Petty Officer Wilson's daughter hiding under the bed!"

"I just wanted to see how you worked as a team. Finding the daughter was just a bonus." Gibbs opened the car door and got in. "See you back at headquarters".

Karen sighed impatiently and walked back to the car. She strapped Lucy tightly into the back seat. Jim could imagine steam coming out of her ears.

Back at NCIS headquarters Gibbs took Lucy off the missing persons list. When Jim and Karen arrived back, Gibbs took them to the conference room to talk to Lucy.

Back in the bullpen, Tony and Ziva were discussing where on earth Lucy had magically appeared from. While her mother was on holiday in New York Lucy was supposed to be staying with a friend of the family. When news of the death had reached her she had supposedly climbed out of the bedroom window and ran away. What was most puzzling though was the fact that she had not been there when they had searched her house yesterday.

"Lucy, do you remember what happened to your mummy?" asked Karen gently.

"There was a man."

"Do you know him?"

"No. He was weird. And he looked funny. He pretended to be nice to mummy but I heard him talking on his phone. He called her a rudey word."

"Do you think you could describe him?"

She nodded. They would take her down to the lab as soon as possible to get her to do a computer sketch.

She looked at Jim and suddenly started to cry. Karen looked at her, completely unsure of what to do.

"What's the matter honey?"

"Why does he keep staring at me?" Karen looked at Jim. As usual, his blue eyes were looking down and to the left, yet completely unfocused. He put his sunglasses back on while Karen tried to work out how to stop a child crying. It was normally Jim who dealt with the children, but she was terrified of him and seemed to have become attached to her.

"Sweetie, he's not staring at you."

"He is, he is".

"Sweetie, I promise that he's not looking at you."

Jim wanted to laugh. She really was dreadful with children. He got up and trailed his fingers along the table until he came to the seat Lucy was sitting in. Crouching down beside her he whispered something in her ear. She nodded uncertainly and Jim handed her a tissue before sitting back down.

Just then Gibbs arrived back in the room to take Lucy down to Abby to see if she could do a computer sketch.

When she saw him Lucy got up from her seat and ran to sit beside Karen. Clearly she didn't like Gibbs either. Or maybe it was men in general.

Karen took her hand and together they went to Abby's lab to do the sketch.

Meanwhile Jim and Gibbs went back to the bullpen. Everyone was there and for once, hard at work. McGee looked uneasily at Jim as he walked past him sweeping his long cane in front of him. Gibbs pointed out an empty desk where sat down and took out his laptop.

"I found a link between our victims" exclaimed Ziva.

"Do tell."

"Well, our women are all about the same age and had children around the same time. Other than all being single teenage mothers, I couldn't find any similarities. Until now. All three of our women went to a special support group for teenage mothers! They would have all been pregnant at around the same time and it is possible that they knew each other. The founder of the group, Mrs Mattis, is still there. I think we should go and talk to her."

When she was finished she looked up at Gibbs who nodded, signalling for her and Tony to go and talk to the woman.

The two of them grabbed their bag, in sync, and headed out towards the car park where they had their usual argument of who was going to drive. Thankfully, Tony won.

Twenty minutes later they pulled up outside a non-descript building with a small plaque outside it. They entered a welcoming hall and could hear the far off cry of a baby. A motherly looking woman appeared from a door on their left and once she heard who they were, she ushered them into a small but pleasant office.

Sitting them down, she offered them tea and biscuits which they politely refused. When Ziva told them about what had happened, she seemed genuinely sorry. She did not remember all the girls personally but pulling up records she saw that they had all taken a dance class for pregnant women while at the centre together. At Tony's request she printed off a list of anybody else who had been in the class with them. They said their good-byes and left.