Chapter Six - "Why didn't you tell me?"
Tony walked back into the bullpen only to find McGee at his desk working on something and Gibbs nowhere to be found. Tony walked over to his desk and put his stuff down, before walking over to McGee's desk. He needed to know what he missed while he was gone, more importantly how Ziva was going.
"McGee" Tony said to get McGee attention. McGee looked up at him.
"Boss has been wondering where you've been" McGee said to him.
"Working on a new lead" Tony said to him, trying not to say too much in case it didn't pan out. "How's Ziva?"
"Not well" McGee said to him. "She might be putting on a brave face, but something is going on"
"I was afraid of that" Tony said.
"I went to check on her and she nearly jumped out of her skin when I touched her shoulder" McGee told him.
"And she nearly shot my head off when she first came back" Tony said to him. "This isn't the Ziva we know."
"She's up in the conference room" McGee said to him. Tony was glad he didn't have to ask.
"If Gibbs asked, working on a new lead. If it works out will call you" Tony said to him before heading towards the conference room.
As Tony walked to the conference room he couldn't help but think about everything that had gone down the last couple of months. He didn't know why he didn't see something wasn't right. Ziva had been gone awhile and all he did was call to make sure she was okay. He was kicking himself for not going to see her, and then he would have known. Tony walked to the door of the conference room and there he saw Ziva standing by the window, looking out it. Tony slowly walked in.
"Ziva" Tony said softly. Ziva snapped out of her trance and turned to face him. "Hey" He said with a small smile.
"Does Gibbs have more questions?" Ziva asked him.
"No, but I do" Tony said as he walked over to the table. "All the times we talked why didn't you once tell me you moved?"
"Why does that matter?" Ziva questioned him.
"I was just at your apartment building, because I remembered you told me about the new security system. I figured we could prove Matt really did kill Lily, by seeing if he entered her apartment and left around the time of the murder." Tony explained to her, even if he knew he wasn't really supposed to talk to her. "So I asked him about you and he said you moved out."
"Did it prove what you wanted?" Ziva said to him a bit cold.
"I wanted to talk to you first" Tony said. "You are my partner, but my friend first."
"I do not see what this has to do with any of this?" Ziva said confused.
"I'm worried about you, Zi." Tony said to her and walked a bit closer to her. "You have not been acting like yourself since you came back. Is there something else we don't know going on?"
"Matthew killed Lily, and now he is killing women who look like Lily in NCIS jurisdiction to hurt me." Ziva said to him. "I am fine Tony, I will be fine."
"You know I'm just a phone call away, right?" Tony said.
"Yes" Ziva said to him. "But I am fine."
"Okay" Tony said giving her another small smile, before heading out of the conference room.
Gibbs walked into the bullpen with a coffee in his hand, McGee was hard at work at his computer and once again Tony was nowhere to be seen. Gibbs stopped once he reached right before his desk and stopped. He turned to face McGee, who was very focused on what he was doing.
"Where's DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked him. McGee stopped what he was doing and looked up at Gibbs.
"He said he was looking into a lead and would let us know if anything panned out." McGee said to him.
"We got anything new?" Gibbs asked him, as he walked over behind his desk.
"I have been looking to see if I can find anything new, but I keep coming up empty" McGee said. "Ziva says his real name is Matthew Mackenzie, but there is no record of him anywhere. No bank records, no history, I think it was just another alias."
"So then find out who he really is" Gibbs said to him. He needed to find this guy and needed to find him three months ago.
"Abby's running facial recognition, ran all the prints at the scenes, I have put bolo, contacted FBI, CIA, local LEO's and still haven't heard anything back." McGee said to him. "I just think we are missing something here."
"We are" Before Gibbs could even say anything, they both heard Abby speak. They watched as she entered bullpen and walked over to Gibbs. She handed him a file.
"I was talking to a friend I have over at Metro, don't ask long story. I kind of own him a favor and he owes me a favor, but not the point." Abby said, starting to ramble a bit before catching herself and getting back on topic. "There was another victim and she survived. This attacked seemed to be different than the others; it's all in the report here. Don't ask how I got it, but it is part of our case so it's now ours."
"Abby" Gibbs said trying to get her to her point.
"Right" Abby said getting back on topic. "It was a week and a half before our first murder, as we have found out all the murders were spaced nicely two weeks apart." Abby said starting to get off topic again. "This was he wasn't trying to kill her, just hurt her. She reported it, just my friend said that she refuse to give them anything. So they have no case now. I didn't look at the file, figured you'd want to see it first."
"Thanks Abbs" Gibbs said to her, he then looked over at McGee. "See if you can track down this Jane Doe" Gibbs said to him.
"On it boss" McGee said to him.
"I have expanded my search with the facial recognition and the unknown finger prints. I will not stop until I know who he is and you find him." Abby said to Gibbs, before walked out of the bullpen and back to her lab. Gibbs sat down at his desk, picked up his glasses and put them on. He opened up the file Abby had given him and started reading it.
Tony walked off the elevator and into Abby's Lab to find she was nowhere to be found; he figured he must have just missed her. Tony walked more into her lab and over to her desk. He sat down and figured he'd just wait till she got back. They needed figure out if it was worth the trip or not, He was hoping it would tell them something they didn't already know. Just as Tony was getting comfy, Abby walked into her Lab, Tony shot up and walked over to her.
"Do you have the footage?" Abby asked him, as they walked over to her main computer.
"It's the last five months" Tony said as he handed the disk over to Abby. She opened it and placed it in her Computers CD-ROM drive. "Hopefully this wasn't all for nothing"
"Positive thoughts only Tony. We have Seven dead women, and possible an eighth if we don't find him first" Abby said to him.
"Wait what?" Tony said, hoping he heard her wrong. "We have another victim?"
"Well yes and no" Abby said to him. "He attacked someone after he killed Lily, only he didn't kill her. It's weird, she reported it, but she refused to give her name."
"So if we find her, we'll have to convince her to help us, but he left a live victim?" Tony said. He just didn't understand it at all. He had left all these dead bodies, only to leave one alive.
"I got something" Abby said, snapping Tony out of his thoughts. The two moved closer together as they looked at her computer screen. "It's the time just before Lily was murder and there he is…. And there he goes, into the apartment next to hers"
"Maybe we should have read the report first to see if they said anything about the footage" Tony said, known now Metro more like got the same thing they did, a whole lot of nothing.
"Wait, wait, wait, he is coming out of the apartment and there it is" Abby said to him.
"There what is?" Tony asked her, looking at the footage.
"He is coming out of the other apartment, after the murder." Abby said to him, as she pointed at the time. "It fits the time of the murder."
"Only problem is, he is going through the wrong door Abby, and there isn't a door inside that joins the room." Tony said to her. He wanted more than anything for this to be the smoke and gun, but all it told them was it wasn't Matt who killed Lily.
"What did I tell you about positive thoughts" Abby said, she then shrunk the video footage and pulled up a search. She started typing in the apartment complex, trying to find anything that could help prove he did it. After a while she was finally able to pull up a layout of the complex. "There is a small ledge between those two rooms."
"It's going to be hard to prove he did that Abby" Tony said to her. "Unless…"
"Unless the windows haven't been cleaned in the last three months" Abby said, finishing his thought for him.
"I'm going to go tell Gibbs. Maybe this might be the thing to finally nail this bastard" Tony said to her, before heading towards the door. Abby minimized the search she had and brought up the footage from the apartment building again.
"Tony. I think I might know who that Jane Doe is" Abby said to him. Tony turned back, heading back to her computer.
"What?" Tony said. Abby just pointed to the video. The two watched as it all unfolded, Tony finally figured out why he left that one victim alive. After the watched the door slam shut on the video, they turned and looked at each other.
"You don't think…." Abby started to say, but Tony cut her off.
"Don't even say it." Tony said. He didn't really know what to think right now.
"But Tony?" Abby said. Tony could see how hard it was for Abby to watch, she was just about to the point of tears.
"Abby I need you to do me a favor. We never saw this, don't tell anyone" Tony said to her. "I will talk to Ziva and see if she can clear this up, but till then not a word."
"Tony" Abby said, as the tears started to fill her eyes.
"Promise me Abby" Tony said to her.
"I promise" Abby said and then tried to put on a smile.
"It will be okay" Tony said as he pulled her into a hug. "It will be okay"