Whatever doubts Tony had as to the sincerity of Gibbs' feelings for Abby faded as they arrived at the coroner's office. The car journey was completed in silence and, while never talkative, Gibbs did nothing but stare fixedly out of the window ahead of him, his hands clenched on his lap as Tony drove.
"Tony. Jethro." Ducky greeted them, his normally sparkling blue eyes dull with fear and apprehension. The ME pulled himself up to his full height and stared at Gibbs in obvious concern. "If you would prefer, Jethro, I can ID the body on my own."
"No." Without looking at either of them, his gaze fixed firmly on the door ahead of them, Gibbs' tone left no room for argument. "If it's Abby, I need to know."
Ducky exchanged a worried look with Tony before nodding, his reluctance clear. "Then we'll all go in together. If it is her..."
They didn't want to finish his sentence nor believe it was possible.
The three men were alone as they entered the room, with Ducky having cleared the way for the viewing to be private. The ME took up his usual position at the head of the gurney and reached out to pull back the sheet covering the body from view, his usually steady hands shaking.
"Duck." Gibbs' voice stopped him and Ducky let his arms fall to his sides. With hands that trembled despite his best efforts, Gibbs reached out and touched the sheet, grasping the edges with his fingertips. He took a deep breath and heard Tony do the same before tugging it down gently, over the face of the woman on the gurney.
Time stopped.
Her black hair stood out in stark relief against her pale skin, her full lips tinged with blue. There was a tattoo on her neck, a thinly inked image of barbed wire tangled around the thorny stem of a rose.
"It's not her." Tony spoke first, the relief in his tone palatable.
"Oh, thank god," Ducky murmured faintly.
Gibbs stared down at the body, his hand clenching into a fist as, for a moment, he saw a spider web instead of barbed wire and a spider instead of a rose bud.
"Jethro."
"Boss." Tony's hand on his arm steadied him as he swayed. Gibbs let himself be turned away from the body as Ducky recovered it with a sheet. "It's not Abby, Boss. It's not her."
"Not this time."
Next time, they knew, could be a different story.
"Just tell me what I want to know, Abigail, and I'll let you go."
Abby turned her head away from the hand he lifted to her face. She could taste blood in her mouth and spat it out, wrinkling her nose.
Branley rocked back on his heels, shaking his head in exaggerated sadness. "You're making it unnecessarily hard on yourself," he told her, his kind tone a mockery. "Just tell me how to get past the NCIS firewalls," he coaxed gently. "All I want is a little information, a little cooperation..."
"Don't you already have people on the payroll for that?" It was an effort to turn her face back to him, conscious as always of the sharpened knife he held in his other hand. "Is that what you pay them for, Mr. Branley? To cooperate and sell out their colleagues?"
His jaw tensed but he rolled his eyes. "I don't know what you mean, Abigail. I have no one from NCIS on my payroll."
"Of course not," she snorted derisively. "You're just psychic and that's how you figured out where Ronson and Jenkins were."
Branley laughed but there was nothing pleasant about the sound. He stood up, towering over her. His disappointment and disapproval when she tilted her head up and held his gaze instead of flinching away was apparent. "If I had spies, you would have been able to find them, yes? It's what you were working on."
"I found the NSA agents you've got in your pocket," Abby pointed out with a one-shouldered shrug.
"By letting them find you," he conceded. "Probably not the wisest thing you've ever done, I'm sure."
"Maybe." She shrugged again, watching him through narrowed eyes as he walked away from her. "But I've had a lot of time to think since being your guest and I think I've figured it out." Her words stopped him in his tracks and she continued when his shoulders tensed. "There was no money trail between any of your accounts and any account belonging to someone at NCIS, which makes me think you were paying them some other way. Maybe not directly. Maybe the money's going into an account that doesn't belong to them but that they can access."
She waited a beat, watching as he turned around to face her, his expression unreadable. "It sounds unnecessary complicated to me, Abigail."
"I'll give you the complicated part but I think you know it was necessary," Abby continued quietly, studying him intently as she spoke, waiting for the little tell that would give him away. "So you're going to kill me anyway, might as well tell me how you've gone undetected. My best guess at this point would be that you're paying the money into another account, maybe belonging to a dead relative, a lover or maybe a child..." She almost smiled at the slight flicker of his eyes to the side, the giveaway she'd been waiting for. "Is that how you hid the trail, Josef? Bet it gives you a kick to think of something so obvious going undetected for so long?"
He turned away from her again, choosing not to answer – to confirm or deny – her suspicions. He didn't need to; she'd seen the reaction she'd been hoping. Only for a split-second but that was long enough. His barked orders to the two men who'd accompanied him didn't surprise her even as her stomach knotted in apprehension. "Get rid of her. Dump the body where they'll find it. Eventually."
The atmosphere in the squad room wasn't pleasant. While they were all relieved Abby's body hadn't been found, they were all uncomfortably aware that the next body that was found could easily be the one they didn't want to see.
Tony hadn't told his teammates that Gibbs hadn't been alone when he'd gone to break the news but McGee and Ziva could sense there was something not right between the senior agent and their boss. When Margaret Allison Hart walked out of the elevator not more than two hours later, they both saw Tony tense and wondered what was wrong.
Gibbs looked up only when Allison stopped in front of his desk, arching an eyebrow when he realised she wasn't alone.
"It wasn't Abby," Allison said quietly, her eyes searching his for confirmation even though she sounded confident that what she said was the truth.
"Not this time."
"Hopefully I can help make it never," the man standing beside Allison spoke softly, his arm slipping around Allison's waist as Gibbs looked up at him. "My name is John Beckett. I have information you need on Josef Branley."
Getting to his feet, aware that around him his agents were doing the same, Gibbs looked from Allison to John, realisation dawning in his eyes as he remembered her words from the night before. "You work for Branley."
"I do." John held his held high under the weight of the almost accusatory tone. "And I'm willing to help you get him, and save your friend."
"What do you want in exchange?" The question came from Tony, who stared at the newcomer with the same suspicious hope Gibbs felt.
It was Allison who answered, biting her lip as she glanced at her lover. "We'll help as much as we can regardless but we'd appreciate NCIS's help in getting us into a witness protection programme."
"We'd like a new start. One where we can both let go of the past and focus on the future."
After a moment's consideration, Gibbs gave them a slow nod of agreement. "We'll see what we can do. You mentioned Abby..."
"I did." John glanced at Allison, continuing at her small smile of encouragement. "I know where he's holding her. I know what his plans are. I told her I'd get her out of there alive but I'll need your help if I'm going to keep that promise."