This chapter is dedicated to Alibob, who not only made my day, but also encouraged me to keep writing. Thank you for it.
It was dark behind the windows of NCIS Squad Room, yet the whole Team Gibbs was still there, sitting at their desks with down expressions. The lack of leads was infuriating.
They had found the van's owner. A man in his late 50's, living in Maryland with his wife. Car had been stolen from his front yard two days ago.
Thus far BOLO had given no results.
They had no idea who might've done it and why. All of them were searching for someone who might've had anything against Tony or Ziva. It felt like chasing a ghost. Giving that ghosts could drag little children into green vans, of course.
Everyone's mood was dark as they sat there, none of them saying a word to break the heavy silence of the room, just waiting for something to happen.
They had not seen Abby since they had left her lab. They all knew it wasn't technically her fault, there was nothing she could've done, but that didn't stop some of the team from blaming her.
A loud ring of a cell phone suddenly pierced the dead silence that hung heavy above the team.
It was Ziva's. She automatically reached into her jeans pocket, taking out the phone.
She glanced at the caller's ID before answering. An anonymous caller.
She had a suspicion as to who it might've been even before she answered the call.
"David," she said into the phone. It was a habit she had picked up from Gibbs, to answer with her last name.
"Finally," said a male voice on the other end. "Finally I get to speak to the woman who killed my brother."
Everyone's eyes were on Ziva. She motioned for McGee to start the trace on the call.
"Who are you?" she asked, even though she was sure he was not going to just tell her his name.
"You haven't already figured that out with your oh so smart brains there?" he asked with a little laugh. "That's a little disappointing."
"Why did you take Rachel?" she asked yet another question.
He laughed again. Evilly. "Isn't it obvious? I want to hurt you like you hurt me."
"You are sick," Ziva replied with disgust in her voice.
"Maybe," he said casually, "but I have your daughter, don't forget that."
Ziva felt anger rising inside her. "If you touch a single hair on her head…" she started, but his maniacal laughter cut her off.
"Then what? You gonna arrest me?" he asked, his voice skeptical.
McGee gave her thmbs-up, indicating that the trace had been successful.
"No," Ziva said, her voice pure hatred. "I am going to kill you."
He just laughed at her words.
Meanwhile, the other members were getting ready to go out. McGee wrote the address out and handed it to Gibbs. Tony started to stand up too, but Gibbs stopped him.
"You stay here and find out who he is and what you or Ziva have done to piss him off."
Tony opened his mouth to argue, but thought better of it when he saw the look on his boss' face.
Ziva took the cell from her ear for a moment and covered the speaker with her hand. "He said I had killed his brother," she told Tony in a low voice.
He nodded. "That might help."
And then they all left for the elevator, leaving Tony to his computer. Ziva put the phone back to her ear, just in time to hear the kidnapper's next words.
"How could you kill me if you don't even know who I am?" he asked with yet another laugh.
"I will find out," Ziva promised as the elevator doors slid shut.
"Now I'm really scared," he retorted sarcastically.
The dots suddenly connected in Ziva's head. "Why did you kill Maggie?" she asked on a sudden impulse.
"Ooh," he said mockingly, "you have figured out something."
Ziva just waited.
"Well…" he pretended to be thinking. "I guess she became too annoying. She wanted to protect the kid, you know." He said the latter in a conspiratorial tone, something that made Ziva want to really jump through the phone and strangle him, as she had once promised to do when she was pt on hold.
She said nothing, though.
"I mean, what else could I have done, she would've ran right to you and warned you," he said, as if killing someone was a completely natural thing to do in a situation like that. It almost seemed like he spoke of that the same way he would speak of going to buy milk.
Ziva decided she had enough of that topic, so she quickly switched to a new one.
"What do you want for Rachel?" she asked. Her plan was to keep him talking, so that he would maybe not move to a new place.
"Nothing," he replied, surprising the Israeli. Kidnappers always wanted something. Mostly money. "I didn't do this for money," he explained, his voice malicious. "I told you, I did this to make you suffer. To let you know what it feels like to lose someone you care of."
Ziva silently grinded her teeth. How come she had stumbled onto a psycho of that caliber? Couldn't it really be a little less psychotic psycho?
"Wait until we catch you and we will see who will suffer then," she threatened.
The team reached their car and they got in quickly.
"You will never see your daughter again," he promised, his tone mean and full of hate. "At least not alive." And with that he hung up.
"The hell I will not," she muttered darkly under her breath, the quietly said sentence containing a promise that she would do everything she could to get her child back alive and well.
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