Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS, I'd love to meet the cast though
A/N: Hey this is technically my second NCIS fic, for those fans who saw my first one I apologize, my computer died and I lost the rest of that story so it is essentially dead. The good news is that I think this story is way better than that one.
As the title suggests this story is based on a real case, Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach, for those of you who don't know Maria was raped and killed by her commanding officer, Corporal Cesar Laurean, when she was eight months pregnant with his child by the rape. Many other crime shows take cases from real life and incorporate them and it was my wish that NCIS would do so with this case, so I decided to write it. Things will be different, I will change some outcomes but most of the facts will be the same and I will of course add some Tiva drama.
For this story Tony and Ziva have been in a relationship for six months, the time of this story is set some time in the indeterminate future.
Enjoy
Ripped from the Headlines
Chapter 1: Cleopatra, Queen of Denial
Tony decided that there were many benefits to finally getting into a relationship with Ziva; he'd be lying if he didn't admit that at the top of that list was the goings on in the bedroom. There was also the fact that she was an undeniably good cook, after a few home-made omelets and steak with potatoes dinners he'd begun to wonder why he ever found fast-food joints appealing. Then there were the little things, sitting on the sofa with her head on his chest, explaining to her the plot-line of the John Wayne film they were watching, and just waking up to see her beautiful brown eyes in the morning, all of these contributed to his complete happiness in this moment in time.
But Tony wasn't drawing on the positive things from their relationship, at this moment all Tony could think of is why the hell women take five years to go to the bathroom!
"Ziva, come on!" Tony yelled through the closed door, "You've been in there for half-an-hour!" He proceeded to knock on the door loudly but the sound of his phone ringing stopped him, "Great," he muttered, his cell-phone ringing on a Sunday meant one thing: a case. He flipped open his cell phone, "DiNozzo," he spoke and the on-call dispatch proceeded to tell him to come in immediately. He tuned out their annoying voice and his eyes focused on the closed bathroom door.
What the heck was Ziva doing in there?
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
Ziva had heard Tony's plea to open the door despite the fact that she'd been ignoring his attempts to break down the door. She hadn't been primping for the day, brushing her teeth or any of the other suggestions Tony had mumbled about while trying to pick the lock. All she'd been doing was sitting on the closed toilet staring at the pregnancy test in her hand.
The positive pregnancy test.
For the twentieth time she compared the test to the answers on the box, hoping that perhaps she was reading the results wrong. Ziva knew she was fooling herself, the plus sign only meant one thing.
This cannot be happening she thought leaning her head against the wall. This was without a doubt the worst timing, she and Tony had only been in a relationship for six months! NCIS didn't even know about them yet, her father probably did thanks to his spies following every move she made. She groaned; her father was not going to like this, best case scenario: he would demand that she return home. Worst case scenario: her father shoots Tony.
Neither option appealed to Ziva.
Her father's reaction wasn't the one Ziva was worried about; she couldn't begin to imagine how Tony would feel. Sometimes he acted like a child himself how was he supposed to raise one? He didn't even know how to act around them; during her first year here Zach Tanner could barely be in the same room as Tony, though Carson Taylor had liked him that probably had something to do with the fact that they were practically clones.
Perhaps denial was the best way to approach this.
"Ziva, you have got to come out of there now!" Tony yelled from behind the door. Fed up with his yelling, she hid the pregnancy test and box in the cabinet underneath some wrinkled washcloths and behind half-empty bottles of soap.
"What Tony?" She asked annoyed once she swung the door open.
Tony looked up her up and down with a look of surprise, "That must have been one bad hair-day for you to spend nearly an hour in there."
"It was not an hour," she told him still frustrated.
"I beg to differ," Tony replied, "you went into the bathroom at exactly 6:13, I know this because I was…"
"Enough!" Ziva held up one of her hands, "What is it?"
"Call just came in, we've got a missing Lance Coporal," Tony explained, "I'd get changed first if I were you, unless you want to show up with just my shirt on," his gaze fell to her long tapering legs underneath the said argument, "I sure wouldn't mind it."
It was at times like these that Ziva loved Tony and hated him at the same time
McGee was already at his desk when Ziva stepped off of the elevator and into the familiar squad room. "Hey Ziva," McGee remarked once he saw her, "I was working on my new novel when the call came in, you?"
Sitting in the bathroom watching my worst nightmare come to life…no wait, deny, deny, deny. "Not much," she replied.
"Did you get a hold of Tony?" He asked, not noticing her avoidance to answer the question.
"Oh he should be here any minute," she replied knowing full well that he was only a few minutes behind her. Over the last few months they had gotten very good at showing up to work without letting it on that they'd been spending the hours in between cases together.
The elevator pinged and McGee looked up, "Speak of the devil."
"Goooooooooood morning Vietnam!" Tony quoted as he spotted his two teammates.
Ziva looked up at him confused, "We are in Washington D.C."
"Really?" Tony remarked, "I thought we'd teleported to The Enterprise."
"Why did you say we were in Vietnam?"
"I didn't," Tony explained, "That was from a movie, Good Morning, Vietnam with Robin Williams, Forest Whitaker…"at Ziva's still puzzled looks Tony sighed, "So much work to be done."
"You think DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked as he entered the squad room his signature coffee cup in his hand.
"Hey boss I was just explaining to Ziva….it's not important," Tony faltered when Gibbs gave him his famous stare.
"Good choice, gear up!" Gibbs told his team, "We've got a missing Lance Corporal Mary Lambert."
The team quickly grabbed their badges, bags and guns per the usual routine, "How long has she been missing?" Ziva asked as she followed Gibbs to the elevator with Tony and McGee behind her.
"Since 2100 yesterday," Gibbs told them.
"Short time frame boss," Tony remarked, "usually they wait 24 hours to report them UA."
"Well this is a special case," Gibbs explained, "she's in the middle of a rape case against her CO, evidence still pending. She's also on leave."
"For what?"
"She's pregnant."
Ziva couldn't hide the horrified expression on her face when the elevator doors closed.
Denial wasn't working out for her.
Lance Corporal Mary Lambert's home was empty, not that the NCIS agents were expecting anything else. From outside the house nothing seemed amiss, inside is where things got interesting. It was Tony who caught the first clue, "Boss there's a cell phone on the floor near the door, looks like somebody dropped it…maybe in a struggle."
"It wouldn't be easy to kidnap a pregnant woman at eight months," Gibbs remarked surveying the small living room.
"The door does not appear to have been forced in," Ziva inferred, "if someone did take Lance Corporal Lambert she probably knew them."
Gibbs didn't say anything; he continued to look around the room. A book of baby names sat on the end table, the remote on the arm of the sofa, shoes kicked off on the floor. It looked like she'd been settling in for the night. Who interrupted what should have been a normal evening for her?
A knock on the door broke the silence, Gibbs looked up to see a young African American officer, "I'm Corporal Michael Jennings, Lance Corporal Lambert's CO you must be Agent Gibbs."
Gibbs nodded, "Agents DiNozzo and McGee and Officer David," he introduced his team quickly, "You the one who called it in?"
"Yes sir," Jennings explained, "Considering her condition I make it a habit to check up on her in the mornings, her family lives out of town and she doesn't have a lot friends after everything that occurred with her former CO."
"You think we can move this outside Corporal?" Gibbs asked, "We need to preserve the crime scene."
"Of course sir."
"McGee, with me," Gibbs told his youngest field agent, "DiNozzo, David, sketches, photographs."
A few minutes later, Gibbs, McGee and Jennings were outside on the front walk, "I was aware that Lance Corporal Lambert had a rape accusation against her former CO," Gibbs remarked to Jennings.
"Yes sir Corporal Enrique Ramirez," Jennings explained, "She reported the rape eight months ago, the charge was investigated but there wasn't much to go on…"
"But then she found out she was pregnant," Gibbs finished.
"Yes sir," the Corporal continued, "the case was put on hold and a paternity test would have been done after the child was born."
"She could've had an affair with him," Gibbs noted.
"I'm aware of that but Ramirez has always claimed that he never touched Lambert, it's all he said she said but Lambert had no reason to ever lie about the rape," Jennings noted, "I spoke to some of the other men in her unit. All of them said the same thing; Ramirez never outright did anything inappropriate but sometimes his manner suggested otherwise. He is also known for having a temper…"
"So do a lot of Marines."
"But those Marines haven't been accused of spousal abuse," Jennings finished.
McGee perked up, "He's beaten his wife."
"I believe so, yes," He continued, "she never filed charges but her friends all said the same thing, Ramirez is bad news. In my opinion, if Lambert is missing, he's behind it."
"Why?" Gibbs asked, "The rape charges are flimsy at best."
"I'm aware of that," the Corporal agreed, "but when that paternity test proves Ramirez is the father at the very least it will prove he had relations with Lambert."
"And that would be the end of his career," Gibbs finished.
"More than enough reason to want her gone," McGee inferred.
"Yeah," Gibbs agreed looking at the neighborhood around them, "the question is: where is she?"
Deny, deny, deny, the words repeated in Ziva's head as she and Tony continued to survey the small home. She repeated the words as she searched the living room, she repeated the words when she looked through the kitchen; she repeated the words when she looked through Lambert's bedroom, but the next room she looked in drew her mind to a blank.
The baby's room.
It was painted in soft shades of yellow with a crisp white crib, changing table and dresser. A dark wooden rocking chair sat in the corner next to a large stuffed giraffe and elephant. The paintings on the wall reflected a jungle theme, hippos and lions peeking from under water and behind trees smile at Ziva. A mobile with a tiger, lion, monkey, elephant and zebra hung above the crib with a stuffed monkey sitting in the corner of the crib. The words "It's a boy!" were displayed over the changing table in soft blue letters and Ziva was certain that if she opened the drawers to the dresser she would find many baby blue jumpers and sleepers.
The entire room was bright and colorful, beautiful and touching, Ziva could easily see Mary Lambert sitting in the rocking chair gently humming a lullaby as she rocked her son to sleep. A pain in her heart grew as the image changed and instead Ziva saw herself sitting in the chair with her child in her arms.
An involuntary smile came to her lips when she thought of cradling a newborn son or daughter in her arms. A little girl that she could dress up and later as she got older, braid her hair and sing songs with. A little boy she could hold close and watch him play sports. The smile grew when Ziva saw her son with Tony, throwing a baseball back and forth, arms outstretched waiting for a joyous hug.
"Ziva?!"
She was broken from her thoughts by none other than Tony, "What are you doing?" he asked since it was obvious that she was no longer investigating.
Ziva continued to look around the baby's room, "She was having a boy," she remarked with awe.
"Yeah," Tony agreed still confused, "are you alright?" Ziva didn't reply, she was still entranced by the room and her own thoughts. "Ziva," he touched her shoulder to force her to look at him, "Are you alright? You've been acting…weird for a little while now, with the party in the bathroom this morning and you haven't been talking that much over the last few days."
"I'm fine Tony," Ziva told him, Deny, she reminded herself, no matter how much you don't want to.
"I don't think you are."
"We have a case to work on, yes?" Ziva reminded him, "why don't we find Lance Corporal Lambert before you question my health."
Tony stared at her quizzically for a moment more, "We should finish checking the house," he said obviously allowing the conversation to drop for the moment.
Ziva stayed in the room a minute longer, still touched by it's warm feeling, before following Tony to the another room. The bathroom was next and as neat as the rest of the house, nothing seemed amiss at all until Ziva noticed something a little peculiar.
The shower curtain was wet.
She kneeled next to the tub and pulled the curtain away, the tub was pristine except for a few faint stains the could be nothing more than bad cleaning…or something more. With rubber gloves she gently felt around the drain, she didn't feel any blockage but when she looked at the liquid stained on the white glove it came off with a reddish pink tint.
"Tony!" She called quickly, her heart plummeting at what this may be…and what it might infer.
"You found something?" He asked when he stepped inside the small bathroom.
"Maybe," she repeated pulling a blood test from the kit as well as some q-tips. First she gently swabbed the inside of the drain, the head of the q-tip was stained an even darker red than the fingertip of her glove. She dripped some solution over the tip and her heart sank further when it glowed a bright purple, "Its blood."
She took another q-tip and repeated the procedure but this time swabbed the now blood-stained tip inside another small container of solution, she squeezed a drop on an indicator to see if it was human. The single line made her heart plummet even more than the positive result she'd received earlier that morning. "It's human."
Tony looked at the results with a grim face, "Doesn't look like we're looking for a missing person anymore."
"No," Ziva agreed, "now we're looking for a murderer."
*Foof*
A/N: I hate to end it there but it just seemed like the perfect moment for a Foof, please send me your reviews since I am a poor college student and reviews are better than chocolate.