A case-development chapter for you. Hopefully it makes sense! Thank you for the encouraging reviews and for sticking with me :) We're almost there.

Chapter Fourteen

"Tony!" Abby beamed, taking his hand and leading him to a stool at a desk.

"Abby," Tony returned the smile, frowning slightly as he watched her chug the last of a can of Red Bull, tossing it on top of another three empty cans in the trash. "So, what mystical scientific experiments am I going to attempt and ruin for you today?"

Abby giggled, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Oh don't be like that. I bet you're a natural scientist."

"Sorry to disappoint but I majored in phys-ed."

Abby gave him a once-over, nodding in approval. "I thought you were pretty well built. You can start on those." She pointed to the large pile of clear fingerprint slips collected from the scene. "Pretty simple stuff. You take the print, put it on the scanner and hit the big green button." She demonstrated slowly. "Then once it's scanned into the system, you hit the search button on the computer, cross your fingers and hope for results, then start scanning the next print. Easy!"

Tony nodded, copying her actions and grinning with success when the fingerprint scanned successfully.

"Nice," Abby remarked, hearing the tell-tale 'ding' of the computer from across the room. She was busy rifling through test tubes and pressing buttons on the large machine that Tony had never taken the time to learn the name of.

"You know," she called out, carrying the tray of test tubes to a closer bench. "We never really got to finish our conversation."

"And what conversation was that?" Tony asked, knowing perfectly well which one she was referring to.

"We were discussing the ins and outs of why a tall, hot cop is single in a big city like this."

"Is that an offer?"

Abby laughed. "I don't know. If it's going to get me a straight answer, maybe."

Tony raised an eyebrow suggestively. "I'm not sure how Gibbs would feel about that. I don't think I'd like to find out. But, since you asked so… I'd say 'nicely' but I think 'enthusiastically' is the better word, there've been plenty of women." He grinned at the memory. "Just none right now."

"Plenty? Maybe you've run the city dry of beautiful women then."

"No chance of that Abs, I've haven't even lived here for two years. The fish are biting, believe me."

They exchanged a dirty grin, before Abby laughed wickedly.

"So, if you're such a ladies man, did the hoards of flame-bearing jealous women chase you out of –"

"Philly," Tony supplied. "And no, I was not driven out of town by jilted ex-lovers. I'll have you know that I'm still on speaking terms with most of my exes."

"Keyword being most?"

"Don't go there," Tony warned, holding up his index finger. "Don't you have chemicals to mix and complicated machinery to operate? Or does Gibbs pay you to chat?"

"I can multitask," Abby poked out her tongue, raising the tray of test tubes she'd finished sorting. "Unlike you." She pointed to the pile of fingerprint slips. Tony had only managed to make a small dent in the peak of it.

"Do you normally do all this yourself? Seems like a lot for one person," Tony frowned at the fingerprint scanner.

"Well that's why you're here. Ordinarily I'd just get a lab assistant to scan all of those, but Gibbs wouldn't let me. Not that I mind or anything; you're far more attractive and interesting than any of the geeks working here." She took a deep breath. "Do you think Gibbs is being paranoid about this all?"

"Gibbs? Nah. I mean, he doesn't want anyone to access the evidence. They could tamper with it or something, couldn't they?"

Abby nodded fervently, the effects of 4 cans of Red Bull quite obvious. "Sure, there's plenty of ways to screw up a test or whatever."

"Damn." Tony's hands stopped moving. The computer flashed at him impatiently.

"Tony?" Abby stepped closer, trying to get his attention.

"Huh? – Oh, right. Sorry." Tony blinked, still staring at the pile of fingerprints.

"What are you thinking? You've got a funny look about you…"

Tony stood up, walking around the desk so he was face to face with Abby. "I think I figured this out. We've had nine crime scenes, nine victims, right?" Abby nodded and he continued. "Nine cases and yet no real leads. No prints, no DNA hits."

"Yet." Abby cut in, throwing a glance to her humming mass spectrometer.

"Yet. I mean, whoever we're dealing with is obviously good, disturbingly good at what he does. But nobody's that good. He doesn't wear gloves but we haven't been able to match up any prints between the crime scenes, let alone get a hit from any of the databases. That just doesn't make sense."

Tony took a few steps around the room, his mind racing.

"I mean, I'm a cop not a scientist so I don't know the figures or anything, but it's just not possible. No hits, no matches, no substantial evidence. Nine cases. What are the chances of that?"

Abby tilted her head in agreement, still not seeing the reason for Tony's excitement. Unless, she figured, he'd found some more Red Bull somewhere.

"That's it Abby. It doesn't make sense! It isn't possible!" He grabbed both her hands.

"I don't – Tony?" Abby was lost.

"We know it's an inside job. We just didn't know whereabouts inside."

"… and now we do?"

"Gibbs doesn't want anyone tampering with the evidence, but what if its already been tampered with? I mean, we're literally swimming in it now and between the techs and assistants and the evidence changing hands every time a new shift clocks on, chances are nobody would notice a minor discrepancy in the results. We don't know what we're looking for, so we're not going to miss any results we don't receive. It's gotta be someone from down here, someone working the forensics."

"Tony, I get what you're saying, but we've been running the evidence for the last two cases alone, no involvement from any of the labrats here. Nobody could have messed with it so, if what you're saying is correct, we should have had a match or something by now."

As if on cue, Tony's computer beeped. They walked across to it. MATCH FOUND flashed across the screen in green. Abby sat down on the stool, her fingers flying across the keyboard.

"Tony, you're – it doesn't make sense…" She hit several more keys, then turned back to face the detective. "The print you just scanned was from Lisa Jefferies' belt buckle. It matches prints pulled from all eight other crime scenes. Including the print from the knife…" Abby trailed off, eyes darting down to the scratch marks still lining her arms.

Tony stood behind Abby at the computer, his hands resting reassuringly on her shoulders. "That's good news, isn't it? It's definitely the killer's print then. So what's the problem?"

"It just – it doesn't fit with your theory. All police officers have their prints in the system, right?"

"All Government employees do." Tony agreed.

"So if the Friday Rapist is someone from the inside, their prints should be in the database, we should have gotten an almost immediate ID on the prints. But all the search has given us is just a connection between the nine crime scenes, the print is common to each of them. It don't match any in the system. I'll run the program again to check, but it isn't giving us any hits."

Abby twisted around, staring up at Tony. "I don't know how to explain it, but this can't be an inside job."

TBC