Two exams down, three to go. Next update will probably be on the 18th June, when my next exams, are so I'll be updating after them.
Another call for artists, just in case you managed to miss that last few calls. Pleeease.
A car sped down a street, weaving across a road in the suburbs, showing no sign of slowing down. Max sat behind the wheel panicking, stomping hard on the brakes having tried the hand brake. It was just after school so kids were on the roads, she had noticed some kids watching her car on its out of control journey.
She couldn't help but be slightly disappointed that their first reaction was to get out a phone and start recording it. It would probably be on the internet by the time she stopped.
She swerved left down a cul-de-sac only just realising there was no way out when it was to late. She pulled the wheel to the side sending the car into a spin robbing it of its momentum and leading it to an eventual stop.
Max got out of the car panting, her head was bleeding slightly from where she had hit it sending the car into it spin. The bonnet of the car was steaming slightly and black tire marks littered the road from her stunt, the smell of burnt rubber was very distinct. She took a few shaky steps before collapsing, the adrenaline rush gone, the leather jacket she wore padded her skin from the cold, rough asphalt. She didn't have to wait long before she heard a door open and footsteps rushing towards her.
The person was calling at her trying to get a response. Max feebly waved a sleeved arm before letting it drop back onto the hard ground. A blond woman came into her field of vision and she could feel her pulse being taken.
"Can you tell me your name?"
"Anna, Anna DiNozzo"
Back at NCIS the team were waiting for the call. They had all been sceptical of Max's plan but it was all they had. It had been twenty minutes since Max had left, the GPS tracker in her car showed that she had arrived. It was now down to how well she could sell her act, considering she had sold the plan to the director they were sure she could pull this off.
The cellphone sitting on DiNozzo's desk rung and he pounced on it answering in his usual suave way. He listened to the caller, the smirk on his face telling the rest of the team it was the call they had been expecting.
"Is my sister ok?" Pause. "Where?" Another pause. "I'll be on my way." The phone clicked as he flipped it shut and grabbed his gear. "Looks like this show's on the road."
Max was sat in the blond woman's living room sipping hot chocolate, three stitches in the cut on her head. The woman had introduced herself as Natalie Kepp. Max had internally smirked, this was the mother of her suspect. Max had refused to say much more than her name and her version of the events until her 'brother' turned up. Both women's heads turned at the sound of a door opening.
"Mom, I'm home." Max got her first real look of her suspect as he walked in, slinging his bag under the table by the door. "Some idiot's left their car in the middle of the street." The kid stopped mid step when he noticed Max. "Who's she?"
If Max hadn't been undercover she would have been laughing at the situation the kid had gotten into. His mother dragged him into another room to lightly scold him about being rude, with Max's super hearing she could hear every word.
She used this opportunity to sneak an invisible clone upstairs to check the kid's room. Natalie had been keeping a close eye on her until now so this was the first chance Max had gotten to look around, and using the clone meant she couldn't be caught, it was invisible just in case the kid was paranoid and left his web cam, or similar, on and recording. It was what she would do.
The first thing her clone noticed was the death god floating above the bed. Why it wasn't with the kid Max had no idea. It at least confirmed her suspicions.
Natalie returned to the living room just in time for a knock at the door. After opening it and confirming who it was, she showed DiNozzo in, to which Max reacted as a normal kid would in her situation. She put down her hot chocolate and launched herself at DiNozzo, hugging him like a frightened child. He returned the hug, a hand rubbing her back while the other smoothing her hair.
"I was so scared Tony, my brakes just wouldn't work. I thought I was going to die," she sobbed, her body shaking slightly but noticeably.
"How is she?" DiNozzo asked Natalie, he couldn't help but be impressed by Rho's acting skill. The woman genuinely seemed to like Rho, even after such a short meeting that took skill. And the way Rho had reacted, he'd almost believed she'd been in an actual accident.
"I put three stitches in her forehead, I work as a paramedic, a couple of bruises, no signs of a concussion but keep an eye on her anyway. She may be a bit shaken up from her experience but she'll be fine. A tow truck's on its way for the car, you can wait here until it turns up."
Some how it ended up with Tony and Natalie talking in the kitchen while the kid, Jason, had been told to keep an eye on Max as she went back to staring into space, still not recovered from the trauma according to Natalie. Actually she was watching Ryuk, Jason's death god. Jason had taken to glaring at her. Until he noticed something that piqued his interest.
"Is that a tattoo?" he asked, some awe in his voice, moving to poke the mark on her neck. Max blinked as she fell back to reality with the kid standing way too close. She grabbed his wrist before he could make contact.
"Don't touch," she released his wrist and rubbed the mark on her neck, the memories associated with it were never good.
"I want to get a tattoo but my mom told me I can't until I'm older."
"For a good reason." Both teens turned to see Natalie in the doorway, her arms folded, Tony was hovering behind her. "Tow truck's been delayed by an accident so I was going to order pizza, that ok?" the teens nodded. Natalie was just happy Max was still reacting to outside stimuli. "Why don't you two play video games upstairs or something?" Jason turned bright red at the 'or something' suggestion. It took Max a while to catch on at the assumption Jason had made.
The two teens eventually did move to Jason's room if only to get away from the adults. It was painfully obvious Jason didn't get many girls in his room. She did notice Jason subtly shift a familiar black book under a pile of magazines which he then hastily tried to hide.
"So, got any other tattoos?" he asked, trying to distract her from what he was doing.
"Yes, but you don't get to see them." Max's clone 'accidentally' bumped into where the pile of magazines had been placed, somehow making the whole thing took natural as they slipped all over the floor. Max sighed and crouched down to help, and moved the magazine covering the death note. She smirked, reaching into her pocket she took out some rubber gloves, putting them on so she couldn't contaminate any evidence on the book.
"Don't touch tha-" It was too late Max had the book open and was thumbing through the pages. He made a grab for it but Max kept it out of reach.
"I never twigged you for a killer, but I suppose it's not always obvious."
"What?"
"I guess you're still new to using this or you wouldn't have been noticed. I bet Ryuk didn't tell you many of the rules, just for the hell of it really."
"How-?"
"Me and Ryuk go way back. Why'd ya kill them? I mean Kira wanted to cleanse the world of all evil, you must have a reason."
"I didn't kill them, you can't prove it."
"Wanna bet?" Max smirked. "I worked the Kira case, we have proof that this isn't an ordinary book." The door to Jason's room was swung open, Natalie looked at her son, not wanting to believe it. Tony stood in the background holding the pizza.
"Is this true Jase?"
"She's delusional mom, I wouldn't kill anyone."
"Really, cuz' this is too much information to be a coincident." She flipped the book for the adults to see. "These are all navy personal who've died in the last two months, not all of these were released to the public. He shouldn't know these."
"He needs to come with us, we can get this sorted out at NCIS," Tony said. Max half expected hysterical yelling from either of the Kepp's but they both seemed resigned to it, probably the shock of everything.
Max stood in the observation room, on the other side of the glass sat Jason with Ryuk floating behind. His mother was sat next to Jason, holding his hand as silent moral support.
"How can you be sure it wasn't planted?" DiNozzo asked. Max flinched slightly, she hadn't actually noticed him enter the dark room. She had been too focused of watching Jason, mentally noting his body language.
The door to the interrogation room opened and Gibbs entered, a pile of folders under one arm with the Death Note sealed in an evidence bag on top of the pile. He placed them on the table, separating the folders into a line with plenty of space between them. He then picked up the evidence bag with the death note and made a deal of examining it.
"If you have nothing to ask my son then let us go," Natalie said, her voice sounded forced. Max almost felt bad, Natalie seemed to really care about her son, she supposed after her husband's death she wanted to make sure her son wouldn't go the same way.
"I have many questions. The first being why he killed these men" Gibbs said, with that he opened each of the folders, on top of the paper inside was the facial shot from when they were autopsied.
"How could he have killed them? All you have is a record of the deaths in that book"
"It's not an ordinary book, Jason knows that, but so do I, I know what it does. Have you heard of the Kira case Mrs Kepp?"
"Of course."
"Kira used the same weapon. So using what you know of the Kira case do you really believe you're son couldn't do this?" Gibbs said gesturing at the photos.
"It's not mine, I don't own it." Jason said, stressed. Max growled from where she watched. Ryuk had just shrugged and floated off. DiNozzo gave her a funny look but quickly looked back at the interrogation room when he heard a thump. Jason had just passed out.
"I'll kill the bugger," Max fumed. She left the room and stormed into the interrogation room. "Has Abby collected all the evidence she can from that thing?" Max asked pointing to the death note. Gibbs nodded just as Jason began to wake up. Max donned a pair of latex gloves and took the death note from the evidence bag.
"What just-" Jason sat up looking around.
*Smack*
Max slapped Jason with the Death note making him the owner again and letting him regain his memories. A confused Ryuk entered the room seconds later.
"Try that again, I dare you," she hissed. Replacing the death note in the evidence bag she left the room without another word.
"What just happened?" Natalie asked.
"My agent got very annoyed with your son, she lost someone to Kira and is adamant that it doesn't happen again"
"I don't ow-" Jason started. Max barged into the room and stomped over to Jason and held her fist menacingly in his face.
"Want to finish that sentence?" Max threatened. She wasn't sure how many rules he knew, but if he knew about the one detailing how you could only regain your memories of a death note six time. Well that would make everything infinity more difficult. "Are you going to try anything funny?" Max asked.
"You still can't prove it," Jason said, much to his mother's dismay.
"Oh, really? What makes you so sure?" Max turned to the mirror and nodded at it. She'd asked the technician to load the tape from the Kira case before the interrogation and agreed on that signal.
The screen opposite the door flickered on, the familiar scene playing for most of the occupants of the room to see. Max had looked away, she disliked watching the clip.
"That clip's from the Kira case, I know because I was there. The book in that clip is the same as the one your son has, the handwriting matches his, we even have a fecking motive. This interview is only happening to see if you can explain any of it."
"Why, Jason?" Natalie was in tears.
"It was their fault mom, they killed dad." Max hid a smirk, a confession.
It didn't take too long to wrap up the case, it had to be treated specially because of the abnormal circumstances. The paperwork was a nightmare. It was really irritating that she couldn't wipe their memories, they hadn't touched it and it was morally wrong, not to mention the case had to be covered up by someone. At least she had the death note, Ryuk was now following her around demanding apples, but she could deal with that.
Despite the case being finished Max still had a week left of her employment at NCIS, no one had expected her to solve it so quickly. She returned to the bull pen after discussing things with Director Sheppard.
"You're staying?" DiNozzo asked.
"I was hired for a week, might as well stay and observe how you solve normal crimes for the rest of that time."
"Does that include the sexual harassment lecture tomorrow?"
"The what?" Max was not reassured by the grin on DiNozzo's face.
The end of the day finally arrived and Max returned to the hotel suite she and Gaara shared. She wasn't sure if it was a good or bad sign that it was still clean.
It was also void of a certain Kazekage. Max rubbed the bridge of her nose, this was troublesome. She sat on the floor in a meditative pose, she had a clone with him but it was on autopilot so she needed to extend her senses to find it again.
She found it wandering around a college campus, a quick search through the clones memories showed that Gaara was interested in the environment in which kids learned stuff. Sighing Max left the hotel to track him down, jumping from roof to roof faster than the normal eye could see. She wanted a vehicle, but with all the travel she did it would be irritating to take with her.
Being back in a school environment gave Max the shivers. Some cheerleaders were practicing on the grass as she made a beeline for Gaara's location. She couldn't help but hope one of them would slip, life was getting to boring and a cheerleader falling would make her day that bit brighter.
"Keep walking loser." Ah, she'd been noticed then.
"I was just wondering if you've gained weight, looking a bit chubby, not pleasant to watch but it's like a train wreck, I can't look away." That was her daily quota of 'insult someone' sorted. The cheerleaders started gasping and looking down at their stomachs feeling it for any fat, the disruption in balance cause the whole formation to topple. "I can't believe that actually worked," she muttered and continued on her way, only to have someone fall into step with her.
"That was pretty cool, you've just turned them all more anorexic than usual."
"All in a days work, you wouldn't happen to know the quickest route to the library?"
"Just heading there. I'm Sarah McGee, you new here?"
"I really should have seen that coming," Max mumbled. "Rho, that's the only name I'll answer to at the moment." The two girls chatted on the way to the library, mostly about skanky cheerleaders.
Once at the library it was easy enough to find Gaara, just look for the guys in black suits packing heat.
"Whoa, someone's popular," Sarah commented looking over they guys.
"It's not like he actually needs the protection," Max muttered.
"You know him?"
"Yup, I probably should start my shift as bodyguard. Nice meeting you." Max left the girl in a state of confusion and took her place as part of Gaara's protection detail.
"You had to pick a school," she grumbled in Japanese for his benefit.
"I was bored"
"You could have been bored somewhere else, like an arcade," Max whined, she picked a book at random and opened it at a random page. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Nice.
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