Disclaimer: Disclaimed.
Friday, 18 December 2015
Early in the morning, before the sun had properly risen, Ziva quietly entered Bonnie Stewart's mother's house. The residence had been sealed since Bonnie's body had been taken away and NCIS had wrapped up their preliminary investigation of the crime scene, and although the central heating had stayed on, Ziva shivered as she closed the front door. It felt empty in there. The kind of emptiness that followed a death and clung around long past the time it was welcome. She jammed her hands deep into her coat pockets and turned to the living room, stepping softly so as not to disturb the grieving silence. She flipped on the light switch, feeling a streak of fingerprint powder transfer to her fingertips, and then blinked in the new light and looked around. The Christmas tree was still standing tall above a mess of dried blood on the carpet. The couches hadn't been straightened after they'd had to move them to get Ducky's stretcher in. The curtains were still drawn, keeping the outside world from looking in at the aftermath of tragedy. But Ziva was more interested in what was left behind upstairs.
She turned around again and headed for the staircase, and as she climbed the stairs she tried to justify to herself her reason for coming. They hadn't found too much when they'd looked into Ricky D'Augustino, aside from a potential reason for him being in the Stewarts' home. He was a plumber working out of Arlington, and a quick call to Bonnie's mother had provided confirmation that he'd been called in the day before Bonnie's death to look at a blockage in the kitchen drain. That didn't mean he hadn't killed her. It was completely possible that Ricky had seen Bonnie when he'd come to the house and, for twisted reasons they couldn't guess at yet, came back the next day and killed her. Ziva would track him down and interview him later today, but right now she had something else to check. Because she still couldn't shake the feeling that Eddie Hertzog was somehow involved.
Monday, 1 July 2013
Ziva had almost completely zoned out when the doorbell brought her back to earth. She had been sitting at her kitchen island and staring at cabinets she hated more and more every day when she'd started thinking about how to fix them. A coat of paint wouldn't do. She didn't like the country-style carvings in them. But she didn't want them to be plain either. Her brain had been in a cabinetry daydream for too long without an acceptable payoff, so she was happy to slide off her stool and rejoin the real world.
Never in her life would she have thought she'd have time to waste on thinking about kitchen cabinet doors.
The doorbell rang again when she was about halfway down the hallway, and Ziva jogged the rest of the way. Bonnie was standing on the doorstep, looking distressed and clutching her handbag tightly.
"Hi, Ziva."
Ziva gave her a friendly smile and opened the door wider for her. "Hello. Come in."
"Are you busy?" Bonnie asked as she brushed by her into the foyer.
"No, not at all," Ziva replied a little too quickly. "I was just thinking about lunch. Have you eaten?"
Bonnie held her hand up at the implied offer. "No, I'm not hungry."
Ziva nodded and gestured up the hallway. "Well, come in and we can talk." She led Bonnie to the dining room that had become the team's makeshift workspace over the last week. Although they had an office in the basement, it didn't feel comfortable to work in. Ziva would have to do something about that. After she worked out what to do with the kitchen.
"Would you like a drink?" she offered as they walked into the dining room.
Bonnie shook her head, and took a seat. "No. Thanks. I just wanted to show you something I got this morning."
Ziva took the seat adjacent to her and nodded. "Of course."
Bonnie reached into her handbag and brought out a letter-sized envelope. As she turned it over in her hands, Ziva noticed that it had a handwritten address on the front, but no stamp. Her gut made a noise before Bonnie reached into the envelope and pulled out a few photographs. She handed the small stack to Ziva, and then crossed her arms angrily.
"Those were under my door this morning," she said, her voice hard.
Ziva sighed to herself as she turned the photos right way up. Eddie had already sent Bonnie photos of her out and about. It was an effective way of giving someone the creeps. But while the other photos he had sent had all been from a distance, these ones were very close up. The top photo was on Bonnie on the phone in her kitchen inside apartment, and also taken from inside her apartment. The next was taken from within Bonnie's bedroom as she sat on the corner of her bed. The final was an extreme close up of the side of Bonnie's face and the top of her hair. It was difficult to determine where that one had been taken, but the image had the same slightly fish-eyed exposure to it that the others did.
Eddie Hertzog had been inside Bonnie's apartment.
Ziva looked up at Bonnie to find her staring at the photos with wide eyes and a tight jaw. Her protective streak fired at the intrusion of Bonnie's safe place, and she found herself reaching over to touch Bonnie's hand.
"Are you all right?" she checked.
Bonnie nodded tightly. "Mhmm. Just furious."
"They arrived today?"
"Yeah. Sometime after Kavita left for work. I called her as soon as I found them and she said they weren't there when she left."
"Was there a note?" Ziva asked, reaching for the envelope. She peered inside as Bonnie shook her head.
"No. Nothing."
"Do you recognize the handwriting?"
She nodded. "I'm pretty sure it's Eddie's."
"And you are positive that no one else has a key to your apartment?"
"Yes, one hundred percent. I don't know how he took these photos but it was never through any implied permission for him to be there." She paused and scowled as she added, "That ass."
Ziva looked at the photo of Bonnie on her bed. She felt sick to her stomach. Taking photos of a woman without her knowledge or consent on the street was bad enough. Taking photos of her without her knowledge or consent while she was literally sitting in her most personal place was an utter violation.
"Ziva?" Bonnie said. "What if he breaks in again? When I'm there, and Kavita's not. What if he…" Her fear kept her from finishing the sentence, but Ziva didn't need her to. She reached over to squeeze her hand, and looked her directly in the eye when she answered.
"Bonnie, I don't think he will. Right now he is getting his kicks from scaring you. From bullying you from afar. Right now, he is too much of a coward to face you."
Bonnie swallowed and absorbed that. She seemed to relax a little, but not all the way. "But what happens when doing it from afar isn't enough for him? That's how these guys work, right? They escalate or something."
"Sometimes," Ziva replied, seeing no point in lying to her. "But me and Tony and McGee are here to stop that happening."
She attempted a smile. "Okay."
"Do you mind if Tony and I check your apartment this afternoon? I want to work out how he got these photos."
Bonnie nodded. "Yeah. Me too."
…
"Left a bit."
Tony took half a step to his left, following Ziva's instruction. Across the room his partner held up one of the photos Bonnie had given her, and looked between it and Tony's position in Bonnie's kitchen.
"That's it," Ziva said. She turned and looked behind her at where the camera that took the photo should have been positioned. But there was no obvious camera there. "Hmm."
Tony left the galley kitchen and walked across the living room to Ziva. Together they stared at the wall of shelves and all the places that a camera could have been hidden. There were books on the shelves, some little decorative boxes, jars, candlesticks and framed photos. Beside the shelf a large, framed abstract print hung on the wall. There were no electronics to be seen.
"Okay," Tony said to himself. "I think it's probably going to be at my head height." He reached up to pull out a stack of books, and Ziva got up on her tiptoes to pull down a framed photo of Bonnie and Kavita. He thumbed through each book and gave each one a shake, but came up empty. He put them back on the shelf and started on the next one down.
Together they took five minutes to go through three shelves carefully. Every book was inspected, box was opened and knick-knack checked. But they didn't find anything.
"Maybe he removed the camera already," Ziva suggested.
"Maybe," Tony replied, but he wasn't convinced. He looked at the framed print beside the shelves. "Or maybe he's a bit better at this than we give him credit for." He stepped closer to the print and started feeling around the frame, and looked over his shoulder at Ziva. "Remember how tiny some of those cameras Abby's planted on us in the past have been?"
Ziva nodded. "Yes. But are those kinds of cameras easy for a civilian to get? I always thought they were just an Abby thing."
Tony chuckled and lifted a shoulder. "Yeah. Maybe." He used a fingertip to pull the frame away from the wall.
"Wait, stop," Ziva said, and put a hand on his arm. "I saw something then when you moved it."
"Where?"
"Top left corner. There is a small hole in the print."
Tony pulled the frame away from the wall again and looked up behind the print. There, he saw a small black disc a little larger than a quarter, with a little black wire coming out of the side of it. Adrenaline fired through him as he pulled the print completely off the wall and turned it around to show Ziva.
"That's got to be it."
Ziva leaned forward to inspect the device. "Is that a transmitter coming off it?"
"Could be. I don't think that thing is big enough to have a hard drive. But on the other hand, what the hell do I know?"
Ziva scratched her head. "Okay. So we have evidence. But we cannot prove who the evidence belongs to."
"Can't lift fingerprints."
Ziva looked up at him with a hopeless smile. "Could we bribe Abby?"
For a moment, Tony did consider it. But ultimately he shook his head. "We can't risk getting her in trouble. And if you, me and Timmy McGee are going to keep doing stuff like this, we need to change the way we investigate. No forensics."
"So we have to use our brains?"
Tony grinned at her, and she gave him a knowing smile back. "Uh-oh."
"Mmm."
He blew out a breath. "Okay. Let's take some photos of it but leave it where it is. It's evidence we can use to build a case against Eddie."
Ziva pulled out her cell phone and took a few photos of the device and its position behind the frame. Then Tony put the print back on the wall.
"Bedroom," he said.
They found Bonnie's bedroom and went through the same process. After fifteen minutes of searching, they found an identical device behind another framed print, and took some more photos. Then they stood in the middle of Bonnie's bedroom and looked at the final photo.
"I have no idea where this was taken," Ziva said.
Tony squinted at the picture, trying to make out any background that could help them pin it down. But all he could see through Bonnie's hair was a white wall. There were white walls all through the apartment.
"I guess it'd have to be someplace where you have to walk close to a wall," he said. "You know, to get a shot that tight."
"Hallways and near doorframes," Ziva said. "You take the front of the apartment, I will take the back."
Tony nodded and headed back towards the kitchen. For a moment he just stood there and looked around, hoping that the camera's hiding place would just jump out at him. But hiding places were exactly that because they didn't jump out at you. He heaved a sigh and started at the front door, then worked his way back inside.
As he searched, he thought about what he and Ziva had talked about. They couldn't do any forensic analysis here. They couldn't pull a fingerprint, put it into AFIS and get a quick match. They couldn't analyze stray hairs they found, or the composition of dirt in a boot print that would tell them where their suspect had been recently. They couldn't use any physical evidence to nail someone for their crime. And even if they could, they weren't authorized to arrest anyone. The most they could do was take their evidence to the police and hope that they did something about it.
For a career cop like Tony, it was hard to accept. But he couldn't let it derail him. Okay, so he couldn't arrest anyone. But he could still use all his skill and his experience to help people like Bonnie. He could talk to people until they talked back. He could follow people from a distance so long as they didn't feel threatened. He could go through their garbage. He could get McGee to track down their online lives. He could build a profile of the bad guy. And he could spend an afternoon turning a client's house upside down searching for hidden recording devices.
His stomach turned as he thought about that. He'd come across so many pieces of scum in his career who would be capable of this kind of thing. And worse. Those guys didn't deserve to be walking around free on the streets. They deserved to be in small, dark rooms, shackled and caged. So even if Tony wasn't a cop anymore, he'd keep doing his part to make sure people like Bonnie didn't have to live in fear. Or people like Abby. Or people like Ziva.
He moved through the kitchen as his thoughts fixed on his partner. Technically she wasn't his partner anymore. But technically she would be anyway until the day he died. And technically, Ziva wasn't the kind of woman who lived in fear and needed his protection. But his desire to watch her back was sometimes so strong that it felt like a tangible thing he could reach out and touch, and hold like a shield in front of her. He couldn't, of course. He could think of too many injuries—physical and psychological—that had slipped past his defensive line and landed squarely on her. Rationally, he knew he couldn't stop bad things from happening to her. Nor could he go back in time and stop men like Michael Rivkin, Ilan Bodner and Saleem from getting their hands on her body and their abuse in her head. But he could continue being her partner, no matter what the circumstances, and do everything he could to keep the next bad guy from getting too close to her.
"Tony?"
At her call, he gave up his search of the living room and went in search of Ziva. He checked Bonnie's bedroom, but when he didn't see Ziva in there he continued to the bathroom. There, he found Ziva standing inside the shower stall. He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms.
"Whatcha doing?" he asked.
Ziva clenched her jaw and nodded at the framed print on the wall across from bathroom mirror. "It is behind that."
Tony pushed himself off the doorframe and checked for himself. Sure enough, there was a third camera there, just like the other two. He looked around, trying to work out why Bonnie would stand so close to the wall. Then he realized that the towel rack was right beneath the print. It was very likely that Bonnie walked right up to the camera every day. He took a few shots of the device and sighed.
"Well, he's thorough."
"He is sick," Ziva spat.
Tony didn't disagree with her, but her tone drew his eyes to her. She was still standing within the glass shower stall, and now her fist was as tight as her jaw.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
She looked at him with a frown that seemed to suggest she was disappointed in him for not understanding. "He is filming her bathroom, Tony."
"It's sick," he agreed.
"He is watching her shower," she said, her voice rising as she got more worked up. "He is watching her get ready for her day. He is spying on her here and in her bedroom, where she is at her most vulnerable. And he is rubbing it in her face."
Tony held his hand out to her and beckoned her out of the shower. "I know," he said calmly. "Come here."
Ziva stepped out of the shower and stood facing him. "She doesn't deserve this," she said angrily.
"No."
"We need to get this man, Tony."
He put his hands on her shoulders. "We will," he told her. "We'll get him. But don't let it get under your skin."
She held his gaze as the anger ebbed from her eyes to be replaced with a sadness that made his soul hurt. And he knew where her head was. The same place his had been just minutes ago.
"It is just…" she started thickly, and then looked away when she couldn't finish.
"I know," he assured her. "Ziva, I know." He ran his hands down her arms to her wrists, and Ziva bent her hands to reach for him. They gripped fingers for a few seconds, and then she nodded and lifted her chin again. The sadness had left her eyes and she was Ziva again. Back in control.
"Okay," she said. "We will get him."
They left the bathroom to regroup in the living room.
"Did you find anything else?" he asked.
She shook her head. "No. You?"
"No. How are we going to prove these cameras are Eddie's?"
Ziva bit her lip. "Perhaps if we got McGee here he could trace the signal with one of his," she made a waving motion, "computer program things he uses."
Tony clicked his fingers. "Yes! He could do that." He paused and rethought it. "Could he do that?" he asked, now not so sure. "Without our usual resources?"
"I have no idea," she said on a sigh. "Call him."
He pulled out his cell phone and speed dialed McGee.
"McGee."
"Hey. Me and Ziva are at Bonnie's house, and we've found a couple of those pinhole camera thingies installed around the place."
There was a pause. "Ew!" McGee finally said.
"Yeah. Bonnie came to see Ziva this morning with a couple of photos of her taken from inside her apartment," Tony told her. "It's creepy. Listen, these things have these little transmitters on them. If you came over, would you be able to track the signal?"
McGee blew out a breath. "Uh…in theory. I could get my hands on a program that could help with that."
Tony gave Ziva a thumbs up sign. "Well, great! Get over here."
"It'll take me a while," McGee said. "I'll have to talk to some people."
Tony felt less confident. "Okay," he said at length. "What people? Regular people or shady people?"
There was another pause. "Not sure yet."
Tony winced at Ziva. She made a face back that told him she got the message.
"When you say the transmitters are little, do you really mean little? Or are they actually a decent size?" McGee asked.
Tony frowned at being questioned about it. "I mean little."
"But sometimes if you haven't seen a big one, you might think it's little."
Tony scoffed. "I know what a big one looks like, McGee."
"What on earth are you two talking about?" Ziva asked.
"McGee thinks that the little transmitter might actually be a big one, simply because I don't know what I'm talking about," he said.
Ziva rolled her eyes. "It is a little one, McGee," she said loudly.
"Get that?" Tony asked him.
"Okay, fine!" McGee said. "Well in that case, if it is a little one, the receiver would probably have to be somewhere nearby. That's all."
Tony let that sink in for a moment. "Ohhh," he said. "Okay, then we'll look. Where are you?"
"Outside Eddie's workplace," McGee said. "Been here for five hours. Having a great day."
"That's great," Tony said, and then quickly hung up on him. He pocketed his phone. "McGee says the receiver would be somewhere close by."
Ziva pursed her lips and they both looked around the apartment before coming to the same conclusion.
"It is not going to be in here," she said.
"No. But let's see if the building manager is around."
…
The man in his mid-30s who opened his apartment door to Tony and Ziva looked annoyed by the intrusion. TV-style gunfire was blaring from inside his darkened apartment, and it looked like there were crumbs of some sort stuck to his hipster moustache t-shirt.
"Help you?" he asked.
Tony and Ziva plastered on their best smiles.
"Hi there. Sorry to bother you," Tony said. "I'm John, this is my wife Sarah."
Ziva gave a little wave as the man's eyes slid over to her and looked her up and down. "Hi."
"We're friends with Bonnie and Kavita up on level two," Tony said. "And we've been talking to them about moving into the area. They said they thought there might be an apartment free in this building. Do you know anything about that?"
The building manager regarded Tony quietly for a moment. Tony kept his smile in place, even as he prepared for his bluff to be called. The manager looked him up and down, then looked at Ziva, then looked back at him and leaned against his front door.
"You two want to live in this place?" he asked them, incredulous. "It's mostly a dump full of kids in their twenties."
Tony opened his mouth to reply, but stayed silent when Ziva put both her arms around his waist. "Well, it's just that we're having a baby, and this neighborhood is close to my mom's house. It would be very convenient for us."
The manager looked down at Ziva's stomach and then back up at Tony. Tony gave him a douchey smile.
"Close to the monster in law. Can't wait!" he said, and then mimed shooting himself in the head. Ziva looked up at him with a scowl, and Tony shook his head and rubbed her back. "No, I'm just joking. I love your mom." He pressed a kiss to her head.
Ziva looked back at the manager. "Are there any vacant apartments in this complex right now?"
The manager looked between them again and relaxed a bit. Either he believed them or he just didn't care. "Uh, there is one up on the third floor. Number 302. But the owner's not renting it out right now. She wants to do some repairs and renovations."
"Oh," Tony said, sounding disappointed. "Do you know how long that'll take?"
He shrugged. "No idea. The last guy moved out two months ago, but I don't think they've even started working on it yet. Could be a while."
"That's a shame," Ziva said, and tilted her head back to look up at Tony. "Maybe we should check across the street."
"Sure," he said, and then tossed the manager a smile. "Thanks anyway. Let's go, honeybear."
They turned and walked up the hallway again, and then hung a left when they heard the building manager's door close. Ziva hit the elevator call button, and then turned to look at him with a thoughtful expression. It made Tony nervous.
"What?"
"I think you would have liked my mother," she said.
A small smile touched his lips. That wasn't what he'd been expecting her to say. "Really?"
"Yes."
"Did she like movies?"
"No."
"Did she like basketball?"
"No."
"Hmm." He tried to think of another potential common ground. He didn't want to hate on Eli so soon after his death, so he went for the most obvious connection. "But she liked you."
The corner of Ziva's mouth twitched upwards. "She seemed to."
"Well, that's something."
The elevator arrived and they stepped in together. Ziva pressed the button for the third floor, and he leaned back against the wall and looked at her curiously.
"Would she have liked me, do you think?" he asked.
Ziva crossed her arms and leaned back against the opposite wall as she took her time looking him up and down. The coy smile on her lips reminded him of the first time they'd met in the bullpen, and it did the same flip-flop thing to his insides now as it did back then. He broke into a nervous smile.
"What?"
"I think she would have been resistant at first," Ziva told him. "But then she would have realized what a good man you are. And she would have liked you very much."
For a moment Tony was frozen between making a joke and being sincere. He and Ziva had gotten a lot better in the last year at being earnest with each other, and honestly it was a huge relief. But it still wasn't habit, and he still wasn't ever 100 percent sure of her intentions when she was openly kind or warm to him. It was history's fault that he kept expecting the other shoe to drop. But after a few moments of staring at each other, he knew she wasn't setting him up for a fall. He smiled self-consciously and dipped his head.
"Well," he said, and then cleared his throat. "They say that mothers and daughters can be very similar."
"Sometimes."
They got to the third floor and stepped onto the landing. They knew from spending time on Bonnie's floor that apartment 302 would be down the hall and around the corner to the right.
"You got photos of your mother?" he asked as they walked down the hallway.
"Some. Why?"
He shrugged with nonchalance. "No reason. Just, you know. I showed you mine. You should show me yours."
Ziva looked over her shoulder at him with her Mona Lisa smile. "I thought you saw mine when I got out of the shower the other day."
He couldn't help grinning. "No," he insisted. "You were well covered up." He waited a beat. "I checked."
Her left arm came back to smack him very gently, and then she pointed ahead with her right hand. "There it is."
They approached the door and took a moment to listen for any noises on the other side of the door. Hearing nothing, Tony nodded at her and she reached into her coat pocket for her wallet. She pulled out a little lock pick from the centre compartment, put her wallet back in her pocket, and then knelt in front of the door. Tony kept watch for residents, not that he thought they had much chance of getting caught. It was the middle of the afternoon and Ziva could pick a lock in five seconds.
"Hey," she said suddenly.
His head snapped around to look at her. "What's wrong?" he asked, thinking she might have seen something or found an explosive or gotten the lock pick stuck.
But Ziva was glaring at him like he'd done something wrong. "You want to see a photo of my mother because you think women turn into their mothers."
He had the distinct impression that this conversation could go very wrong for him. "Um…"
"You think you can look into the future with that picture," she accused.
"I'm just curious about your mom," he half-lied.
Ziva's eyes narrowed further. "You want to know if I am going to get fat or look ugly."
Tony chuckled that away. "I don't see how that could ever be possible," he said charmingly.
She threw him a dirty look and turned back to the lock. With a twist of her wrist the door opened, and Tony held his hand out to help her up. She ignored it, and led the way into the apartment.
The layout was the mirror image of Bonnie's place downstairs and one apartment over. Galley kitchen leading into meals and living area, and a door to a hallway off the side. From where they stood the place looked empty.
"I will check the bedrooms," Ziva said.
Tony wandered around the empty room with a sense of disappointment. He didn't know what he was expecting to find. A couch set up in front of a TV that was recording live footage from Bonnie's apartment? A wall of photos of Bonnie going about her business, each individually signed by Eddie Hertzog? Probably not.
Ziva came back and shook her head. "Nothing."
"Nothing obvious," he said. "Shall we do a little snooping?"
She smirked at his polite invitation, and he sensed that she wasn't really mad with him about the photo of her mother thing.
"While we are here, it would make sense," she said.
Tony went to the kitchen and started opening cupboards and drawers. All he found were mice droppings and some bait. But when Ziva opened the hall closet, she hit pay dirt.
"Got it!"
Tony hurried over to see what she'd found. Stuck in a dark corner of the closet was a small laptop and a black box that was connected to it. Ziva opened the laptop, and they didn't even have to turn it on. It was running, and the black sleep screen switched to an image of Bonnie's living room.
Tony breathed out an expletive. "Look at that. He's recording her."
"He is vile," Ziva said in a low voice.
"No argument from me," he said, and pulled out his phone. He took a couple of shots of the set up.
Ziva closed the laptop and pushed it back to where she had found it. "The next time Eddie reviews the footage he will see that we have found his cameras. Do you think that will stop him?"
Tony got a sinking feeling in his stomach, and shook his head. "No. You?"
"No. He does not seem concerned about being caught out. He seems arrogant enough to think he will be able to talk his way out of any trouble."
"Maybe we should go to the building manager," Tony started, but stopped when he heard a noise outside the front door. His wide eyes met Ziva's, and he started pushing her into the closet so they could hide. But Ziva pushed him back.
"No! Bedroom!" she whispered, and they both took off running for the first bedroom.
Tony swung open the built-in closet door, and swore to himself when he saw it was only the width of the door and not even three feet deep. But he jammed himself in there anyway, turned to grab Ziva, and pulled her in with him. Ziva pulled the door closed, and everything went black.
"Brilliant," he started, but then made the mistake of lifting his head. He smacked it into the clothes rail, and then bit his lip to stop himself from crying out. He dropped his face to rest against Ziva's shoulder. "Ow," he whispered into her clothes.
"Shh," she said hissed, but then squeezed his hand.
He kept his eyes closed and head down as he listened hard for noises from the front of the apartment. He thought he could hear footsteps, but it was really hard to tell when his own heartbeat and breathing was so loud in his ears.
"Eddie?" he whispered.
"Don't know," she whispered back, and then pulled his hand down from where he'd unwittingly planted it right below her throat to rest an inch lower. He was going to apologize for the move, but then he realized the position he'd pulled her into in the closet. He was holding her very tightly from behind, with one hand now resting over her racing heart and the other wrapped around her waist and pulling her back into him. And now his face was pressed into her shoulder and he was sucking in the smell of her that made all of his nerve endings snap awake and his mouth water in preparation for licking it off her.
Was this awkward?
He tried to dump his inappropriate thoughts and started to relax his hold, but then he tensed again when someone walked into the room. He felt Ziva's chest rise as she sucked in a breath, and Tony held one right along with her. He started trying to think of what they could possibly say if they got caught either by Eddie or, worse, by the owner of the apartment. But then the person left and went to the next bedroom. They both let out their breaths as quietly as possible.
They stayed there for another minute or so as he person walked through the apartment. But as soon as the front door opened and then slammed shut again, Ziva pushed open the closet door and took off running. Tony stumbled out after her and rubbed at the slight crick in his neck from standing in the awkward position. He found her standing on her tiptoes at the front door and checking the peephole.
"You see them?" he asked as he came up beside her.
Ziva lowered herself to her heels and looked up at him. "I think it was the building manager."
Tony frowned. "Building manager? Why would he come up?"
Ziva lifted her right shoulder and then let it fall with a slight wince that she probably didn't expect him to notice. "Either he did not believe us and he was checking that we didn't come snooping, or he set up the cameras. Not Eddie."
"Or Eddie paid him off for access," Tony returned. "Is your shoulder okay?"
She looked fleetingly surprised at the question, but covered it well. "Yes, fine. We should look into the building manager as well. Just in case."
Friday, 18 December 2015
When she died, Bonnie had been staying in the bedroom beside the stairs at her mother's house. With memories of what she and Tony had found in her old apartment in her head, Ziva spent a good half hour that morning checking the room thoroughly for cameras or any other devices that might tie Eddie Hertzog to the scene. She checked every frame on the wall, but she came up empty she started checking the windows, the clocks, the bookshelf and the vents. When that came up empty, she checked power points and lamps for bugs, upended chairs and looked under the desk.
Nothing.
She stood beside the bed and breathed heavily as she tried to work out her next move. There was a voice in her head—Tony's voice, to be specific—that told her to give it up. Bonnie had only been staying with her mother for a few weeks before she died, and surely that wasn't enough time for a man who was behind bars to find out where she was, somehow get recording equipment into the house and start building another photo gallery of her. Neither Bonnie's mother nor Kavita had mentioned that Bonnie had received more photos, and even if they were being taken, what did Eddie want them for? To plaster the wall of his cell with? No, it just didn't feel right to her.
And yet, she couldn't let it go. So even though Gibbs had told her not to investigate Eddie yet, even though Tony warned her not to go off on her own, even though she knew in her heart that she probably wasn't going to find anything, the thought that there might be something made her keep looking. If there was even the slightest chance that she could come up with something that would keep Eddie in prison for the rest of his life, she had to look for it.
She checked her watch and estimated that she probably still had another half hour before her absence from work would be noted. With that in mind, she turned and headed for the bathroom to keep looking.
A/N: I wrote this chapter months ago and only just realized right before posting it that the 2013 action should have been from Ziva's perspective. I know it'll irritate some of you, so my apologies for the mistake. But I'm too drained to fix it (lazy writer alert). There is a reason I wanted to include Tony's POV.
I'm getting behind on my responses to reviews, but a blanket thank you to everyone taking the time to drop me a line and tell me you're enjoying this. Your readership is sincerely appreciated.