AN: I'm really sorry for the long delay. Work got insane, I had an epiphany in novel revisions that means major rewrites and the darn CBS crossover got me hooked on Hawaii 5-0 and I had a few baby H50 bunnies I needed to write out of my system. Work and the novel are still going to be sucking up major time through June, but I'm hoping to get back to weekly updates.

Chapter 16

After McGee, Abby and Tony spoke, the lab was silent for a minute.

"Who is dead?" Ziva crossed her arms and looked at her teammates.

"Kyle Boone." Tony hesitated. "Nasty serial killer, really evil." He shuddered. "Boss was the one to catch him. But Virginia gave him the dirt nap the week before you joined the team. This can't be him."

"What about an accomplice?" Dorneget asked.

McGee shook his head. "He worked alone. He tried to train a follower, but Cassidy killed him the day before Boone was executed."

Ziva paced around the table, trying to organize her thoughts. "So that would explain why there was a Cassidy stand-in among the victims." She stopped and looked up at the plasma where Abby had all the information. "And she was the first of the victims we know about. Could Boone have had an admirer who was upset about that?"

She looked over at Tony, McGee and Gibbs, the ones left from that case.

"What about the reporter?" McGee said. "The one who was writing the book about Boone? We thought it was him at first."

Tony was already shaking his head. "He got his book, and a couple of others after that. He's a sick SOB to spend all that time talking to serial killers, but I think he gets his kicks from the books, not from being a serial killer."

Ziva looked over to Gibbs, who hadn't said a word. "Gibbs?"

He didn't answer.

"Boss?" Tony looked over. But Gibbs did not respond to him, either.

"Bossman?" Abby's arms were wrapped around her torso as she worried her lower lip with her teeth.

Gibbs didn't respond to her either, but he walked out of the lab. Alone.

"Boss, get back here." Tony glared after him, then whirled to face the rest of them. "McGee, fill Ducky in, get them up here. Ziva, stay here until Ducky and Jimmy get here. Dorneget, you're on protective detail for Abby, Ducky and Jimmy. McGee, Ziva, meet me in the bullpen once the others are set."

"Where are you going?" Ziva crossed her arms.

"After Gibbs." He jogged out the door.

She turned to McGee. "Is that-"

"Stay here, Ziva." McGee headed for the subbasement where autopsy was located. Only after he left did Ziva realize three of the team were out there alone, unless Tony had caught up with Gibbs. She looked around and Abby still had not moved, and Dorneget looked lost.

"Abby, can you pull up Boone's file?" Ziva walked over to the table, putting her hands on the cluttered surface and leaning forward. "If you are right and this is connected to Boone, there must be a link in his file somehow."

Abby nodded and spun on one heel, attacking the keyboard with her fingers. Still, she did not talk and that worried Ziva. She forced that down for now and looked to the probationary agent. "As Abby comes up with names, help her run them. We need to find this link, before he kills again."

"And he will kill again, my dear." Ducky's voice from the doorway was a welcome surprise. "Our killer, whomever he is, has been accelerating his kills in recent weeks, which likely means he is building up to something."

Jimmy and McGee followed the medical examiner into the lab.

"Ducky, you four stay here and see what you can find," McGee said. "Ziva, come on. We need to find Tony and Gibbs."

Once they were in the elevator, Ziva turned to McGee. "This is a bad case, yes?"

"Boone was sick and twisted. Anybody who's using that as his model has to be even more so." And that was all McGee would say.

~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~

Gibbs didn't hear anything after DiNozzo said Boone's name. That bastard was dead and buried. He was not coming back for a third time. But even as he thought that, he superimposed the hearts Boone carved in his victims' backs with the shape of the heart on the photos found with the earlier victims, with the metal hearts Abby had found on the more recent ones.

He walked out, the shouts dim echoes in his ears. Boone had ruined him once, almost gotten him the second time. Would have gotten him if not for his team. How had this gotten past him? He found himself outside, headed for the coffee shop. He slowed his steps for a second, then kept going. Whoever was after him, he wasn't going to kill Gibbs. Then he wouldn't be able to make Gibbs suffer, and that had to be the endgame here. Suffering. Torture.

He ordered his coffee mechanically, took the cup and headed out without registering anything about his surroundings. He bypassed the NCIS offices and went to stand out by the Barry, look over the Potomac. The heat of the coffee didn't faze him as he drank it down, staring out over the water. Boone grew up not far from the water, down near Tidewater, but he'd played his sick game up here, terrified thousands of women. Boone was a menace, the worst kind of dirtbag. Everything was a game to him, even his own death. Duck had tried to explain how evil like that came to be, but those were just excuses. Boone had been evil, and giving him the dirt nap had been one of the few times Gibbs felt like he had really accomplished something with this badge.

Who looked up to a man like that? You looked up to heroes, people who did good. Evil wasn't something to celebrate, to write books about or recognize. Gibbs always hated the people they had to arrest, the ones who thought they could break the rules and hurt innocents. But he had only run across this kind of evil a few times, and it got to him every time. He had to be harder, faster, better than ever to stop this evil from infecting the good of the world. His team had to be the best to do the same. Ari had been a monster, but he was a choirboy compared to the type of person who would try to copy Kyle Boone.

Gibbs drained his coffee and crumpled the cup in his fist, tossing it in a nearby trashcan.

"We're going to get him, Boss." Tony stepped up. "We. You, me, McGee, Ziva. Not just you. You got Boone alone the first time. You wanted to go alone the second time. This time, it's all of us. We're going to find this sick bastard and we're going to make sure he gets to meet Boone." Tony kept his hands loose by his side, but he stood tall, looking straight at Gibbs.

Gibbs nodded, and turned to walk back to the NCIS building. "Leads?"

He listened as Tony ran down all the things the rest of the team was doing, then nodded at the end.

"Boss, we need to get Ducky to do one of his psychological autopsies. This guy is beyond twisted, and we have to figure out what the heck is motivating him so we can stop him, before he goes any further around the bend." Tony walked by his side, not one step behind.

"First thing." Gibbs waited. "Thanks, Tony. Good work."

His senior agent didn't smile, but he did settle a bit, his shoulders easing just enough that Gibbs knew his message had gotten through.

"Come on, Gibbs, let's get this guy." Tony led the way into the NCIS building.

~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~

There is no point in watching their homes today, any of them. The great Leroy Jethro Gibbs will not allow them to go home until they have solved this case. While he rides them to solve it, I'll be making my next kill. This one will be a crime of opportunity. It is easy to find a Marine who represents the almighty Gibbs. And my weapon is one they will be unable to link to me. If I had more time, I would use one that links to somebody else, somebody who would set them on a false trail. But time grows short, and the body count increases each day. One today, and one tomorrow morning. And then tomorrow night, it truly begins. After that, my time to complete my mission will be measured in days, not weeks. I must move quickly, and be prepared to give up this life for a new one. But I will have my revenge before I disappear. I will have my success.