AN: Woohoo! Last chapter! Were you guys surprised at who the killer was? There is actually a point fairly early on — before the end of Chapter 17 and my posting hiatus — where all the clues needed to figure it were already out there. ;)
Chapter 30
Once Aaron had been arrested and hauled off by Balboa's team, Gibbs led the way to autopsy, where Tony was lying on one of the tables, an IV attached to his arm.
"He's OK, Gibbs." Brad looked up from where he was standing over the supine agent. "His lungs are clearing and if you can actually get him to take a couple of days off, he'll be good as new. Or at least as good as he's been the past few years."
"Hey," Tony croaked. "I heard that, Wolverine." He coughed, the sound weak.
Gibbs walked over and tapped him upside the head.
"Yes, Boss. Shutting up, Boss." Tony settled back on the table, a sweatshirt supporting his head. "So, can somebody explain how a coffee barista almost outsmarted us?"
Vance put his hands on his hips, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, a smudge on the sleeve from the scuffle with Aaron. "I've been wondering the same thing. Gibbs?"
"Boone." Gibbs pressed his lips together. "Bastard."
"Use your words, Gibbs," Abby said. "I figured part of it out and I still don't know why."
McGee hoisted himself onto the empty table across from Tony. "I'm not sure I know why — that's more Ducky's area — but I think I understand what was going on. Sort of." He tried to get all the pieces straight in his head. "When Aaron was a kid, Melissa was friends with Sarah McCray, one of Boone's victims. They were several years older than him, and so treated him the way teenagers usually treat pesky little siblings." He blushed. "Although at least my sister's never tried to kill people because of it."
"I am confused," Ziva said. "What is the connection?"
"I believe Timothy is correct," Ducky said. "The regrettable Mr. Kelly blamed his sister's friend for instigating the torment, though he also did not approve of her role. After Kyle Boone killed Sarah McCray, he saw Boone as the man who saved him from their torment." Ducky shook his head. "Regrettably, this young man was perhaps even more of a sociopath than Boone himself, and he hid it well. Boone became his hero."
McGee picked the thread back up. "So when Gibbs caught Boone, Gibbs became the person who destroyed his hero, and that made Gibbs a target. But Aaron was just a kid — he couldn't do anything. So he had time to plot and plan and weave revenge fantasies. By the time he was an adult, Gibbs had his own team with Burley. Aaron came up with a plan — kill more people than Boone, and not get caught. He targeted Navy and Marine personnel because that meant Gibbs was in charge, and he planned it carefully to make sure Gibbs wouldn't figure out the deaths were even connected until he was well on his way."
"But Boone died years ago," Abby said. "He- That was right after Kate-" She sniffed and twisted her hands together.
McGee nodded, then tried to find the right words to explain this part of Aaron's confession. "I think this is where we should be glad Gibbs is not the team lead many people are willing to work for very long — present company excepted." He rushed on before Gibbs could snarl. "He had a plan, but Gibbs was going through agents so quickly — except Burley — he was never able to put it into action. He was ready to start once Kate had been on the team long enough for him to study her, but then Gibbs added me to the team. So then he had to stalk me for a while." McGee couldn't resist the shudder that time. "He said that he was all set to act when Hannah Lowell tried to kill Tony with the plague. That delayed him. Then he became aware Ari was stalking us, so he pulled back to see what would happen. When Ari killed Kate, he 'messed up' Aaron's plan because now there was a new team member. He had to start his stalking again."
"But Boone was dead then," Tony said, his voice a little stronger. "That was when Paula was with us."
McGee nodded. "That's probably why the first body in the sequence was a Paula stand-in. She was almost as bad as Gibbs in his book, I imagine."
"So he stalked us again once Ziva joined?" Abby said.
McGee nodded. "If you look, the first body was killed the year after Ziva joined the team. And at that point, he didn't have any rush. Boone was dead, so he couldn't show Boone that somebody would outsmart Gibbs. So Aaron slowed his pace way down, and used his knowledge of what was going on around here to time his kills for when we were too busy to investigate. He figured if he kept away from the usual hallmarks of a serial killer, nobody would put the pieces together until it was too late."
"We didn't," Abby said. "I mean, now that I can see all the people he killed, I feel like an idiot for not putting it together sooner — this guy was good, but we're better, and he still almost fooled us."
"He thought of everything," McGee said. "And he was careful all the way through to work on bases where his sister had been so that if we ever did find the Boone connection, we'd find her, not him." He made a face. "This abuse thing was a good example. He told me a couple of days ago he was going to have to break up a fight between his sister and his mother that night. It's the night he killed the SEAL."
"Cover story," Tony croaked.
"Right," McGee said. "He knew he was going to have bruises, and he knew this time we were on the case. He didn't want us figuring it out. So he set her — and us — up."
"The way he was talking after McGee raised the alarm, he wanted us to know he was out there," Vance said. "Part of what he wanted to do was have Gibbs know somebody was outsmarting him."
"He does not know Gibbs very well," Ziva said.
"No, he doesn't," Vance said. "He underestimated each of you, and he overestimated his own cleverness."
"Sadly, a common trait among sociopaths, along with their noted lack of empathy," Ducky said. "I doubt he for one moment considered the families of all the men and women he killed. I do not know quite how to explain this distressing chain of events to poor Malia Jackson." He sighed.
"If it will help, Dr. Mallard, I am more than willing to go with you, or even to talk to Mrs. Jackson myself," Vance said. "As for the rest of you, I don't want to see you for the rest of the week. Take a few days, rest. Dr. Cranston is available for anybody who wishes to talk to her."
"Tony, you're with me," Gibbs said. "Not staying home alone like that." He looked around. "Rest of you, come over tomorrow. Keep him occupied."
Abby snickered. "Bossman means keep you from driving him batty, Tony," she said. She sobered. "If anybody doesn't want to go home alone, I have room to crash at my place." She wrapped her arms around herself. "I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I want to be alone quite yet."
Tony coughed. "You got enough room, Abbs? Even if you put McGeek here in the coffin with you, that only leaves a bed and a sofa."
McGee watched as Tony twisted to look at Gibbs, who gave a short nod.
"OK, everybody gets to bother the Boss," Tony said, a faint version of his usual grin on his face. "Campout at Gibbs' house tonight, and the steaks are on me because you guys saved my ass. Again."
McGee watched small smiles start to fill the faces in the room and thought maybe, just maybe, things would be OK.
I hope you all enjoyed this. I'm glad it's finally done. :) I didn't meet my goal of finishing this *and* novel revisions by Halloween, but Sandy's partly to blame for that. (The Frankenstorm, not Sandbar17.) Thanks to all of you who commented — I really love hearing what you guys think!
Couple of news bits you might (or might not) be interested in. I did a little thinking this week about upcoming writing projects. I'm doing a Covert Affairs big bang that's got to be written in the next three months, but won't post until April. Kyrie and I were brainstorming last month and came up with an idea for a triple crossover: NCIS, NCIS:LA and Hawaii 5-0, written as though H50 was airing after LA on Tuesdays. I'm finishing up novel revisions this week, then sending it off to some beta readers. I'm trying to find somebody who hasn't read my earlier Exeter work to make sure this stands alone, so if you're interested, PM me. You don't need to be a writer — I'm looking for a reader perspective reaction. Once that's done, I've got an Exeter ficlet from last Thanksgiving that's going to kick off a 10-15K story that I'll be doing as a WIP at FictionPress.
Oh, and I've finally wrapped my mind around the differences between my McDad and the canon one, or at least managed to figure out how to write knowing it's really wrong. So that final Breathe series story I promised and then reneged on is back on the table. It's the one where Ziva deals with Somalia, so it's going to be intense. I'm not promising that it will come right away — I think I'm going to get it all written before I start posting — but it is coming at some point.