DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NCIS OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS!

Ch4

Tony and Ziva arrived with not much to show from their search; only a box containing Sarah's books, her cell phone and a few other miscellaneous items, presumably from the alley.

Taking a cursory look through the bagged evidence, Gibbs stared up at his returning agents, "This is it?"

"Yeah Boss. For an alley it was pretty empty. I bagged everything I could find," Tony eyed Tim before adding, "It's almost as if she vanished without a trace. No sign of her besides the stuff she dropped."

Tim heard what Tony was saying and tried to visualize how someone could take Sarah without leaving any evidence. It became more and more likely that this was related to the FBI cases. Their suspect, so far had left them no leads to follow.

They were having difficulty even profiling him. The few similarities really lacked any continuity. The victims were all women who walked alone at night, but they ranged in age from 19-45. The locations though there had been no witnesses had each been different: a mall, a park, a library, a grocery store, and one from her own home. Add Sarah to that mix and you have a college campus.

Unlike other serial offenders, this particular man had longer gaps of time between each kidnapping. So it seemed he was learning to take his time with the victims before he killed them. Even the causes of death varied: two were strangled, two were beaten to death and one was stabbed multiple times. The only things in common with those were that all required close proximity to the victim and the murderer had to use his hands to end their lives.

These thoughts did little to ease Tim's worry. None were appealing to imagine his sister experiencing, let alone whatever could happen while she was still alive.

It was easier to think she was a target of a sorority or fraternity prank. His gut screamed against that. He could only pray that she remained safe until they found her.

"There has to be a connection somewhere," Tim slammed his desk with his hands in frustration.

"We'll find her Tim," Gibbs promised with certainty.

"How?" Tim flashed his anger at his boss. "There's nothing. Not from tonight. Not from any of the other sites where the victims were abducted or dumped afterwards. Whoever this guy is, he's good at his planning."

"We're better," Gibbs was willing to let Tim vent out at him, but he really needed him to focus, as hard as that was for him to do. "You look at all the places they were taken. Find something, anything. We'll check it out," he indicated Fornell, who had at some point been joined by his agent, Ron Sacks.

"That's right McGee," Fornell backed up Gibbs' statement. "A fresh set of eyes may help us nail this S.O. B."

Nodding begrudgingly Tim looked again at the photos of where the women were kidnapped. Deciding to take an eagle's eye view he pulled them up on the big screen. Though he was right about no consistency of place, the times were approximately all within an hour of each other. That had to say something about the perp's life. The earliest snatch was around 10 PM and Sarah's was the latest at just past 11 PM. The others were based around the last time they were seen, so the times were not exact. Only Sarah's because Tim was witness to it over the phone.

He tried to recall if he'd heard any other sounds. How could the man have been so calm with Sarah screaming? And he would have to have heard her phone ringing, yet he didn't let it distract him from his plan.

If he took that much time to plan, he had to have some kind of pattern. Tim only had to get into his mind and think like a predator.

Down in the lab Abby was aligning all the evidence to compare similar pieces to each other. The only thing the forensics could tell her was that they were all definitely victims of the same unknown man.

"Well he's certainly never been in the system. Nor the military or government employed. He's either very new at this or very, very good. I've got searches out for any similar crimes both solved and unsolved."

"Solved ones too?" Tony asked wondering how that could be helpful right now if the guy had never been busted.

"Sure, this guy could be a copy cat, or learned from a 'master', or maybe someone else is serving time for his work," Abby explained.

Ziva nodded. "I hope we can find something. Tim is nearly at the end of his string."

"End of his rope, Ziv," Tony corrected quietly, a small smile at her break in the tension.

"Yes, well Abby if you do not have nay more need for us perhaps we should go back up and see what we can doing," Ziva tilted her head toward Tony, an then to the door.

"Let us know if you find anything, Abs," Tony told her making a quiet exit behind Ziva.

"I always do Tony," she called in reply seeing him nod and wave his acknowledgement.

"Alright my babies let's find who's behind all this and where we can find Sarah," Abby instructed her evidence and machinery as she began to test each piece of evidence.