I do not own NCIS, just the plot…
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He had to find her. Had to know if she was okay. To know if it had been worth it.
But he couldn't. Not yet, anyway. First he had to finish what they had started.
He weighed the gun in his hands, anger boiling up inside him. They would be sorry when he finally found them.
Painfully so.
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"What d'you got, Abs?"
Abby was lying on the roof of the car, waving a luminol over the seat.
"I'm checking for any more traces of blood. I got a bunch already, and I'm running the DNA and any other test I can think of, because I know you need results ASAP…"
"Okay, just-" Gibbs was cut off short.
"I'll let you know as soon as I get any results!"
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Gibbs walked into the bullpen. "Talk to me!"
Tony went first. "The car belongs to Lieutenant Henry Wayne. He's on vacation with his family; the neighbor reported it stolen about-" he checked something on his computer- "thirty seconds before it was found. Interesting."
"Kate! Any ideas?"
"Well, I shouldn't need to tell you that someone is trying to get our attention."
"Yeah, I got that."
"The car was stolen from a family on vacation- they didn't need it."
Gibbs nodded. "On purpose?"
"It's difficult to say- I do know you don't believe in coincidences- but if she stole the car to get to the hospital, she wouldn't have had much time to pick the car…"
"Maybe she didn't steal the car." Gibbs had one of his characteristic looks in his eyes as he sipped his coffee thoughtfully.
"You think someone else did, and put her in it?"
"Well, she was injured and unconscious, and the car alarm… I need to talk to Ducky." He left abruptly.
Tony was confused. "The car alarm?"
Kate nodded, having caught Gibbs' hidden point. "He means the alarm wasn't set off by the girl leaning against the car. Whoever left the woman in it had the remote –probably broke into the Waynes' house and stole it- and hit the panic button so people would find her."
"Okay, I see your point. But right now we need to focus on identifying this chick-" he clicked the button on the remote, pulling a photo of the woman onto the plasma. Turning around, he suddenly ducked as Kate flung one of the paper wads back at him. "Sorry, Katie. 'We need to'-" Again he ducked, covering his arms as another wad bounced off his ear. "Take it easy!"
Kate had no intention of taking it easy. She gathered up all of the papers and launched them at Tony one after the other. "You are such a chauvinistic, misogynistic, self-centered piece of-"
In the middle of Kate's tirade, McGee walked in carrying three coffees. He sat down at his desk and sipped one of them, content to watch.
Eventually, Kate ran out of paper and settled for glaring at Tony, her fury not entirely spent. Tony wisely made for the exit, muttering something about "go help Abby". Before he reached the elevator, he was accosted by McGee. "Hey Tony! We had an agreement!" Tony sighed and pulled forty dollars out of his wallet, handing the money to McGee.
Kate turned to McGee. "What was that?" McGee smiled. "Tony and I had a bet on who you would get mad at first- me or him." Kate rolled her eyeballs, glaring at them both. Tony smirked and disappeared.
Kate walked over to McGee's desk and grabbed her coffee, smiling. McGee handed her two of the bills.
"It was fun watching that. And now we can work without Tony bothering us!"
Kate agreed. "I love this job! I get paid to yell at Tony!" Laughing, they set about getting a name to go with the face of the mystery woman.
"Gibbs and Ducky will probably get her prints, and Abby has her DNA, so let's try facial recognition."
"Where do we start?"
"Try customs over the last couple of months."
"Why?"
"Call it a gut feeling."
"Okay… This is going to take a while. Any way we could narrow it down?"
"Female, probably late twenties or so, and you can rule out anyone who has a driver's license in the D.C. area, because we already checked those. Do you think Gibbs has any idea what this is about?"
"Probably, but he won't tell us; he expects us to figure it out." McGee shook his head and typed a bunch of commands into his computer.
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"You sure about this, Duck?"
Ducky nodded. "I even examined the injuries myself and reached the same conclusion as the doctors who treated her."
Gibbs sighed and shook his head. "You know, I'd kind of thought this whole thing could just be over, but now…? Anything could happen." He gestured at the woman, who still hadn't woken. "Who do you think she is? Girlfriend?"
"It's hard to say, Jethro. But, you know, we all have someone, even those of us who are…"
"Complete bastards? Yeah, I know…"
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"What do you got, Abs?"
Abby spun around from her computer. She seemed startled.
"You're not Gibbs; you stole his line!"
"He's still at the hospital talking to Ducky, and I'm just wondering if you have anything yet." He held up a Caf-Pow!. "Could you be enticed to share?"
Abby happily seized the drink and slurped it. "I can say with reasonable accuracy that mystery chick didn't write the message- the angle's wrong for how she was positioned. It does match her type, though, so it could be her blood smeared by someone else after she passed out, but I'll have to wait for DNA to confirm or deny it."
"Don't call her a chick- I did, and Kate lost it at me."
Sighing, Abby set her Caf-Pow! down and handed Tony a twenty-dollar bill.
"This is the last time I bet against Kate getting mad at you."
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Author's note: Wow, this chapter is a lot longer than I usually write. I guess my muse just decided to be really nice to me. Also, no, the woman is not Shannon, Kelly, or Jenny. But we do know her!