Chapter 10: Dear John
They kept working away without any new evidence. It seemed like desperation was the motor that kept them going. From time to time he checked on Ziva with a single look. She tried not to let it show, but she was clearly effected by the fact that her father was either out killing Jenny's daughter or was getting killed himself. Whenever she thought no one was looking the conflicted emotions were written all over her face.
"DiNozzo, take Ziva and get us something to eat. Looks like we'll spend all night here," he told his senior field agent, who seemed surprised by the request. When their eyes met he did understand though and just nodded.
"Come on, Ziva, you heard the boss man," Tony said and pulled her off her chair and handed her her jacket. "Anything specific, boss? Chinese? Italian? Mexican?" he asked.
"I don't care. Just not any of that veggi/soy crap," he replied. Ziva just followed Tony without even asking him for the car keys. That said a lot.
"Boss, I just found the last trace of Eli David's cell phone. They must have met right outside Noemi's apartment," McGee reported.
"And then?"
"Switched off and thrown away?" his agent speculated.
"When DiNozzo gets back you go with him and look for the phone," he instructed. "I'm going down to see if Abby has something new," he added.
"Ok," McGee replied, stunned that he had told for once where he was going.
"Gibbs, what are you doing here?" Abby asked when he came into her lab.
"Check if you got something new," he replied.
"I would have called you, Gibbs," she pointed out sadly. "I really wish I did have something," she sighed.
"Ziva already told us that Joelle's really good and Eli David agreed with her. Maybe he trained her a bit too well," he tried to say something uplifting.
"You know, he is Ziva's father and all, but after everything I know about him I can't say I would really mind if she kills him," Abby pouted.
"She's a sixteen year old child, Abs, she shouldn't kill anyone," he disagreed.
"Do you really think one of them is already dead?" she wanted to know.
"I don't know, Abby," he told her and looked around the room where the contents of Jenny's house were lying around, bagged and tagged. While Abby started typing again he looked for the first time at the things his team had brought in. They had been really thorough and he could only imagine that there'd be nothing left beside the mostly burned furniture. He picked up the bag with the shards of the perfume bottle and opened it, then took a deep breath.
He had once complimented Hollis for her choice of perfume, although he had known that it had been Jenny he had been smelling on her. Sometimes he still imagined he could smell her in the director's office or in the elevator. Once he had followed a woman through a supermarket because she had worn the same perfume, and felt like a crazy stalker afterwards. He could deal with memories if he chose willingly to pull them out. If they just sprang on him , however, that was a different story.
He closed the bag again before Abby could catch him and held the shards up against the light. Some were slightly red with Joelle's blood on them.
"Hey Abs, would it be possible to run a paternity test with that blood?" he asked her quietly and felt embarrassed that he had to ask. He'd always figured he'd know his kids and would see them grow up.
"I haven't tested it yet. I don't know how contaminated it is by the perfume and the water. And it's not a lot," she said. "But I could try." She waited for his reaction, but now that he had the option of actually getting to know the truth, he hesitated. "Do you want me to try?" she asked when he remained silent.
"Maybe later," he decided. He just wasn't ready yet. He placed the bag back on the table and looked through the others. Every book, every shampoo bottle was bagged. When he got to a bag with a letter in it, he halted and turned the bag over. He could only read the last few lines of the letter, but it didn't matter because he knew the rest by heart. It was the Dear John letter Jenny left in her jacket when she ended things between them. Today he suspected that she had ended things with him because she had known that she and her daughter had been in danger and didn't want to tell him. All those years he had believed that she had just wanted to climb the ladder in the agency faster. Or were those two events even linked? Maybe she had still done it for her career? Or had she wanted to climb faster so she'd have better ways of protecting her child?
He just wanted to place the letter back on the pile when he stopped again.
"Abby, where was this letter found?" he asked and held it up for her to see. She took a look at the number on the evidence bag and checked it on her list.
"In the bedroom, under her bed, hidden underneath a box with old photos," she informed him. "Why?"
"Because that letter shouldn't be in her house," he said and threw the bag back on the pile and hurried out. This was his Dear John letter and three weeks ago when he had last checked it had still been in his attic, together with all the other memories of Jenny.
When he reached his house he parked the car and took out his gun. He was here to look for evidence in his own house and he knew he shouldn't have come alone. But he was armed, he had slept in this house for weeks after she had obviously broken in and so far he was still alive. Seemed like if she had wanted to kill him she could have done it all along.
His door was locked, simply because he always locked it when he wasn't home. He unlocked it and went inside, left it unlocked behind him. He looked around in the dark, and wondered if he had really closed the door to the basement that morning. He couldn't remember. It wouldn't help if he got paranoid, he decided and reached out to switch on the lights when he smelled it. Jenny's scent was in the air. It wasn't her perfume, it was something he had thought he'd never smell again. It was a mixture of her shampoo, her body lotion and the scent of her skin and it was barely there.
His heart sped up and he unlocked safety on his gun, because now he was sure that he wasn't alone.
As quietly as possible he opened the door to the basement and walked down the first few steps so he could look down at his boat through the railing.
The light was on and beside the boat sat Eli David, tied to chair, a puddle of blood already surrounding him. His shirt was stained with it and he was barely conscious. Joelle was there, sitting on the floor a few feet away from her victim, her back resting against his boat. She looked deep in thought and was even tinier than he had expected. She reached over and injected David with something that made him snap out of his daze in an instant.
"Joelle, stop this, let me go," he begged her. "You know they will find and kill you."
"I don't care if I live or die, Eli. I haven't in a long time," she replied. Her voice had the same silky undertone to it as her mother's. Only it was younger and colder- lacked all emotions. "I'm dead inside anyway," she added more quietly and then stood up.
He shifted back, hiding in the darkness of the stairway. He knew that with everyone else he would just have taken the shot and ended this, but she was Jenny's daughter and he couldn't do it. He kept staring at her, comparing her to her mother in his mind .
"And now tell me why and I might let you go," she said to Eli David and crossed her arms in front of her chest.
"I don't know what you are talking about," he replied.
"Why did you set her up? What did she do that you sold her name to those people?" Joelle went on and calmly walked over to his tool table and picked up another syringe.
"I never sold her name to anyone," David insisted. She came back, holding the syringe up in front of her and tapped it with a finger, so the air would get out.
"No, you got the old files from Kort and then sold Decker's name to the Black Rose, knowing it would get my mother killed as well as Gibbs," she told him, spitting his name out like it was poisonous.
"Your mother wasn't the good agent you picture her as, my child," David replied. " She left lose ends and one should never do that. You would never do that, you're too good." He even grinned a bit when he said it.
"Working for the decryption unit was fun, but you just couldn't leave it at that, could you? You made me a killer, just like Ziva. Only difference is that Ziva trusted you. I never did- not after what you did to your own kids." She injected him with some of the liquid, even though he tried to wiggle away. It took a few seconds then he was groaning in pain. "You should have never trained me so well. Maybe I would have never found out what you did," she said directly into his right ear and then stepped back. She walked back to the tool table and did something he couldn't quite make out, because from where he was sitting she shielded it with her body.
Eli David started screaming in pain and she only needed one hit against a spot on his neck to silence him and have him slip into unconsciousness.
"You should have never trained me," she told his limp form. "My mother told you not to do it." She walked around and looked down at the man who was slumped on the chair.
"And you shouldn't have come here alone tonight," she said in the same quiet voice and before he could react she had whirled around and threw a knife at him. He saw it coming, but couldn't react fast enough. For a second he was relieved when he realized it had only hit his lower thigh. Then he felt lightheaded and everything went black.
TBC