AN: Updating again. Thank you guys, and girls, for so many reviews! As of now chapter four is close to being done, a few more hundred words. But I will take the reviews from this chapter as well as the forth, when it is posted, to give me an approximate range of words for chapter five. All of your reviews have given me motivation to write, also they make me smile! :)
My regards to, DarkRook, who edited this story.
"What's taking you so long, kid?" Tony asked as he glanced in the mirror and fixed his hair. He was now in the bathroom with the boy. The kid was changing in one of the stalls and in Tony's opinion, he was taking far too long.
Inside the stall, Alex stood in sweats and a black, long-sleeved, Kevlar shirt. It was a good thing he had chosen to wear it today of all days; he had been caught off guard and was now supporting multiple bruises underneath the fabric. A bullet had caught him in the lung, probably bruising a rib or two, but he was alive. He also had a few bullets in his chest. The bullets were stuck in the Kevlar, and would have to stay there for the time being.
He sighed and threw on the sweatshirt Tony had given him. He felt a small need to take a shower, with the blood all over him and such. He popped open the stall and saw Tony cleaning his teeth out with a toothpick.
Tony took Alex's ruined clothes from him and pointed to the sink. "Since we have these," Tony held up the clothes, "You can wash your hands and rinse your hair out."
Alex nodded, grateful that the faucet would be able to get rid of the smell and the way the dried blood clung to his skin. He hated the way it felt up in his hair, so without further ado he rinsed everything down the drain.
The music blared in the basement of HQ. Ziva and McGee got off the elevator, following Gibbs. The automatic door slid open; the music increased in volume with every step they took. Ziva and McGee set the computer and safe downwhile Gibbs walked over to the stereo and lowered the music's volume.
Abby turned around from her computer to glare at whoever had just turned down her music, but her glare quickly changed to a squint. Her smile was huge as Gibbs walked over to her. "Thanks, Gibbs," Abby exclaimed as he handed her a Caf-Pow.
"No problem, Abby. You got anything?"
She frowned as she sipped on her caffeinated drink. She spun back around to the computer and typed something in. Everyone crowded around the computer as a few pictures popped up on the big screen.
"Well, I am still waiting on those clothes, and the gun you gave me is taking forever to scan. The chamber has been loaded and unloaded multiple times, but has been kept in good condition. However, there are four bullets missing from the gun. I'll have to look up the specific make; I can't think of it off of the top of my head."
"What does the gun look like?" Ziva asked.
Abby held it up. It looked like the simple handgun their team has been issued. Ziva took it and held it in her hands; she was surprised by it's weight. It had a silencer, yet somehow it wasn't heavier than the one she had. She made sure the safety was on before aiming at the floor. She pulled the trigger and nothing happened.
"Could it be jammed?" Gibbs asked.
Ziva shook her head. "No, if it was jammed then the trigger would have at least moved. When I do it..." She tried to shoot it again, with the same result. "This gun is handmade, the trigger is fingerprint sensitive, and it has no code number on the back." She returned it to Abby.
"Alright, keep at it Abby. Tony should be here soon. McGee, help Abby with the stuff you guys found. Ziva, you're with me."
"So this is him, huh?"
"Yep, found him at the gas station I was called to."
"If this boy is the kid from the scene, which right now appears to be the case, then he killed the colonel, along with his daughter. And maybe more," Ziva said.
"More?"
Ziva nodded. "Palmer found extra blood samples at the house. They suspect at least two more bodies."
They were on the other side of a glass pane, watching Alex. Nothing had changed since the last time Gibbs had been here. Alex still had a blank stare, only this time it was directed at his hands. Gibbs also noticed that he had been cleaned up and was now wearing the over-sized clothes Tony had given him. The blood on his hands and hair had been washed away.
Overall his hunched form looked innocent, but his eyes told a different story. And the fact that he hadn't spoken one word to them made him look like the criminal.
"I'll go talk to Ducky later."
"Are we planning on staying up all night, playing the silent game?" Ziva asked as she stared at Alex.
"It looks like our best bet; he hasn't talked yet. I'm shocked he hasn't passed out."
Ziva frowned. "Why would he pass out?"
"According to Tony, he was drowning himself with half a bottle of whiskey by the time we got there."
"He is a college student. Don't they normally do things like that?"
"All the time. But they usually they have friends or company with them."
"I see. Do we know his name?"
Gibbs pulled out a wallet and opened it. "The wallet we found on him seems to be his own, though it's hard to be certain. He doesn't appear to have a driver's license." The wallet had a few credit cards, a five dollar bill, and various pieces of paper crammed into it. Gibbs extracted a pink paper and unfolded it. It looked like a bad scanning job; in the middle of the paper were online class names such as Human Geography, Psychology, English 205, and Applied Mathematics. Next to all the classes were grades, ranging from B's to A's.
"It looks like a report card," Ziva said, examining the classes and grades that went with them.
"Yeah, and look here," Gibbs pointed towards the top, where the name Crown College was in bold. Under that was the name they were looking for.
"How's it going, guys?" Tony asked as he stepped into Abby's lab, a bag with the kid's clothes in his arms. He set the bag of clothes on a table, next to where McGee was working on hacking into the kid's computer. Abby was next to him, chipping away at the safe. From Tony's perspective, it didn't look like they were getting anywhere.
"Oh, Tony, set the clothes over there." Abby flicked on a flame to open the safe.
"This is impossible," McGee grumbled as he sat in a chair before two large computers. The kid's laptop was off to the side. "I want to go ask the kid how he did it."
"Wow, didn't know that you, the McGeek, couldn't hack a computer. That just goes to prove that the kid's hiding something, right?"
"This is complicated stuff. I can't even hack into his hard drive. Everytime I even get close to it, it shuts down my computer, then turns itself off. It has already fried one of my chips. I want to find out who he hired to set this up, and why he would need this much protection."
"McGee's right, Tony, I let my baby try and it almost killed it. That computer is serious business," Abby said as she slowly fried the metal off the lock.
"Well, we need some evidence. Abby, how's that safe going?"
"This, my friend, is beyond a bank safe. Not only does it need a key and a code, but a fingerprint is also required access its contents. This safe isn't for any ordinary person."
"All the more reason to bust it open and find out what he's hiding. We have so little on him; the only piece of evidence we can use against him is all the blood and the fact that he reads Probie's books," Tony said as he leaned over McGee to see how much progress he was making on the computer.
Abby stopped doing her work on the safe to stare at McGee. "Please don't tell me you wrote another book about one of us getting killed off."
"You know, Abby, it wasn't like that. You're safe. And no, I haven't written anything in quite a while." McGee typed something on one of his computers. He sighed when both computers made a noise, and went black.
"Let's hope this killer isn't a psychopath like all the others," Abby said as she went back to burning the metal.
"You and me both," Tony agreed and walked over to Abby's main computer. It was in the middle of scanning something. "What's this, the gun?"
"In a way," Abby turned the dull flame off and walked over to the computer. She started typing as she talked. "Ziva found out the gun had to be handmade and also discovered the trigger was finger sensitive." She grabbed her Caf-Pow, and drank it.
"Meaning..." Tony trailed off. "That he is the only one who can use it?"
Abby smiled, "Right on, Tony. So instead of looking for who the gun itself is registered too, I took the fingerprint off of it and should get a reading here in a few minutes."
Tony nodded. "Good job, Abby. Keep up the good work. Probie, you need to step it up some."
"Tony, I am doing the best I can. This computer is something we need here."
"I'll be sure to get on that," Tony said as he turned around. He was going to go see how Ziva and Gibbs were doing on the kid, when a beeping sound halted him in his tracks.
Everyone lifted their heads and looked towards the source of the noise. The scan was complete. Abby walked over and typed something in; an image popped up on the screen.
"Uhh, Abby," Tony asked as he stared at the screen. "Are you sure you scanned the right gun?"
"Yes, it was the gun you gave me, I just... it should have been right."
McGee snapped his fingers. When the other two in the room looked at him, he elaborated. "Ziva tried to fire the gun; that's why her fingerprints are showing up."
"That's right, so it wasn't your fault, Abby. The program just got messed up," Tony said, smiling.
Abby shook her head, "Then your prints would be on there, as well as Gibbs's and mine. The thing is, I eliminated our prints off the data base. So it should have taken an accurate read..."
"So what does that mean? Why did it screw up?" Tony asked as he glanced at the photo of Ziva, then back to forensic scientist.
"I have no clue." Abby shook her head.
Gibbs stared across the table at Alex, who did the same. Ziva was on the other side of the glass, watching the boy's reactions. The boy turned out to be 'Tom Gerald', a twenty year old who attended Crown College. That was all the information they had on him so far.
"So, Tom," Gibbs nodded towards Alex, who was not surprised in the least. They did have his wallet, after all. Who knew what he had left in there? "We have information from an eyewitness. They said you were running away from Mr. Lawson's house after multiple gunshots were fired. Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. What will it be, Tom? All you have to do is tell the truth."
Alex eyed Gibbs, he didn't know what they had found. The alcohol he had downed was finally buzzing through his veins, making it hard to think clearly. He did admit that drinking hadn't been his best move. At the time it had seemed to be the only thing that could calm him down. Well, there was nothing he could do about it now. Therefore, he said the first thing that came to mind.
"They deserved to die."
AN: Thank you for reading! Please drop a review, I want to make a long chapter 5, and I want to know how this story is going. And I apologize for the lack of Alex, he will be coming soon, I promise.