Chapter 8: Out of a child's mouth

Jane Austen once wrote "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." The same truth could be applied to the Lindorm, who grew and reached maturity and decided that it was time to get married.

After all, he was a good catch. He was the heir of the kingdom, a prince! Someone would be interested in getting married with such charming lad, right?

Nope.

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After a tearful interview with the little girl's parents, who cried both by the death of their friend as also for the safety of their child, Gibbs ordered me to join him in the conference room as we questioned the little girl who had witnessed Jessica's kidnapping.

Lyndsay was a gorgeous little girl with bright blue eyes and long black hair, pale skin that made her an exact image of what Disney's Snow White would have been at her age. She was sitting on her mother's lap hugging a Barbie, and she was looking warily at me and Gibbs as we sat down to question her.

After the initial minutes in which Gibbs as always showed me how good he was with children, he delicately probed the little girl about what she knew of the events that led to Jessica's kidnapping.

"Is Jessica your friend?"

"She plays in the big girl's league. I'm still trying to learn how to hit the ball, but she's very good."

"I'm sure when you grow up you will be as good as her."

"Maybe."

"Lyndsay, where were you when Jessica went missing?"

"I had to go... but I knew I wouldn't make it to the little girl's bathroom so I ran to one of the bushes and hid and peed in there."

"So you were right at the bushes when she was taken."

The girl nodded.

"Did anyone see you in there?"

"No."

"Did you see the man who took Jessica?"

The little girl shook her head.

"But you've just said that you knew who took Jessica." Gibbs insisted, eager to get a description of our suspect.

The girl burrowed deeper in her mother's arms, playing with her doll's head nervously as she looked at Gibbs, biting her red lips as she looked at him, "It wasn't a man."

Now I was the one confused, "Are you saying that a monster took Jessica?"

Lyndsay shook, her head, looking at me with wise eyes, "It was Voldemort."

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"She is lying." Ziva said after rechecking the little girl's statements.

"What if she is not?" I had to pipe in, just to receive a snort from Tony, who sat down relaxed on his chair and stared at me.

"Ah, please, next you will want us to search for the big bad wolf." Tony chuckled incredulous.

"What would make a little kid say that the man she saw was a monster?" Laura wondered out loud, looking at the pictures of the victims again, trying to find something she had missed the first time.

"Degenerative disease?" I offered and both Laura and Gibbs look at me with the same pensive expression. Apparently, I was onto something.

"Any of them that could disfigure a face?" Gibbs asked and after just a few seconds typing, my search hits honey pot.

"We have several."

I selected a couple of the pictures I've found and put it on the plasma, making Ziva and Tony cringe at them.

"These are just some examples of really bad degenerative diseases that could cause deformities as the Lindsay told us."

Gibbs approaches the plasma, studying the pictures carefully. "She said he had no nose like Val...Vol..."

"Voldemort." Laura added, "In the Harry Potter`s movies, the villain, named Voldemort, is brought back from the dead and receives new flesh over his decaying body, but the process is not really complete as there's some..." Laura flutters her hand over nose, twitching it prettily in a very attractive way, drawing my attention to the faint freckles which covered it, before glancing at the other agents who are looking at her in different ways.

Tony is grinning as he found another movie aficionado. Ziva is smirking and I'm just staring at her surprised at her knowledge of the children's movie.

"What? I like the books." She said, blushing deeply. Gibbs just rolls his eyes and turn to look again at the plasma and I still hear her muttering under her breath. "And the boy who plays Harry is hot."

"You think Daniel Radcliff is hot, uhm?" Tony insisted, making Laura blush even more.

"I dig the British accent, okay? Is that a crime?"

"No, I just would never have pegged you as a cradle robber."

"So we're looking for a killer who is a psychopath who looks like Voldemort." Gibbs tried to get our minds back on track.

'We could search a database of people of such disfiguration on DC hospitals and widen the search from there." Laura proposed.

Gibbs turned and looked at her as she exposed her theory, "Regardless of what we may think, this guy is local. He knew the places well where he made his kills, the movements of people, its blind spots, the CCTV cameras and where he should dump his bodies without being noticed. If he has such disability, we might find him as a patient in one of the hospitals in the metropolitan area."

"McGee."

"Doing a search in all specialists in face and mouth disfiguring diseases, Boss."

"You should also look for patients who are listed for at home care." Laura suggested, "Some of them are prescribed drugs to take home for self medication and you could cross reference with the anesthetic found in our victims.

"I'll do that." I went back to my search, while Gibbs kept giving orders.

"Ziva, go to the Georgetown Memorial and ask around. Take Laura." He throws the key to Ziva, who is just surprised at his choice of partner.

Tony looks at Gibbs questioningly, "Boss?"

"DiNozzo, you with me."

"Where to, Boss?"

"We're going to visit the Wicked Witch of the West."

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Gibbs and DiNozzo were the first ones to come back several hours later, after visiting the girlfriend of the first victim, a personal trainer, and the second victim's wife. Both were distressed, but had very little to add to the investigation. Ziva and Laura arrived two hours later, a little bit after midnight, carrying two boxes filled to the brim with medical reports.

"What are those?"

"Copies of the database of patients with degenerative diseases only in Metro Area. Apparently Georgetown hospital is a center for treatment for mouth, ear, nose and throat cancers in the country so sixty percent of the cases nationwide are recorded in their files." Ziva muttered as she dropped her box on her desk and wiped the sweat off her face.

I looked at the pile of folders, "Didn't they have that in digital format?"

"They are still compiling the system, but they are short on staff to digitalize everything. So we have the hard copies." Laura said, dropping her own box on the floor and sitting tiredly on the chair by my side.

"Oh, joy."

Gibbs glanced at the clock and noticing the hour, said, "We're going to check those files tomorrow. Go home."

We froze staring at Gibbs, who was well known for putting us through all-nighters.

"Boss?" Tony ventured to ask, just to be shot down by Gibbs.

"We're starting tomorrow early, go home all of you."

Tony and Ziva smiled, rushing to their desks to pack their things. I've noticed how Laura's face closed down and she moved sluggishly to the corner where she had dropped her bag in the morning.

"Is something wrong?" No reason to be impolite to the young lady and she looked genuinely in distress.

"Ah... do you know if you guys have an ATM in the building? I need to get some money so I can get a taxi home. There's no subways or buses to my place after midnight."

"No need of it," Gibbs said, fixing the collar of his jacket and grabbing his gun and badge from the drawer. "McGee will take you home."

"I will?" Boss, you don't really want me to...

"Yes, you will. And you will pick her up tomorrow bright and early too."

Laura blushed at my scrutiny and obvious discomfort, "I don't want to be a burden, I can take a taxi home and..."

Gibbs went to her and towered over her, effectively shutting her up. She gulped as he stared down at her, silently daring her to contradict his orders.

"Okay." She muttered, accepting the order. Gibbs smirked and turned around, saying goodbye for us and rushing to the elevators, not waiting to see if we were following him or not.

Tony and Ziva grabbed their backpacks and rushed after Gibbs, unwilling to miss the elevator, leaving me and Laura alone in the bullpen in the indirect light at the dark hours of the night, hearing only the noise of Peter, the night cleaner, passing the vacuum over the carpet in the mezzanine.

I closed my coat and looked at her, seeing how uncomfortable she was for having to rely on me to go home tonight.

"So... where do you live?"