Chapter 14: Alone at last

With a clear identity of our killer, now we had the simply task of finding him. After all, where could a man with metastasized cancer in desperate need of medical attention hide?

Apparently, there were plentiful places. Joyce gave us a list of places Norman used to visit, so Gibbs divided the list between us and ordered us to go in pairs to our share. Of course, he paired me and Laura again, despite her attempts or mine of asking for a change of partners.

All Gibbs had to do was send me a glare and I immediately shut up, grabbed my coat and grabbed Laura's hand, dragging her behind myself towards the elevators.

We visited in sullen silence four places, sharing only the minimum words to ensure we were following the same lead. Finally we reached a small house he used to rent in Seat Pleasant, outside DC, finding a small alley which led to a dilapidated property that no one had visited for a long time.

Laura and I left the car and studied the layout of the place and for a moment I couldn't help thinking that this place was ideal for an ambush or for a monster to jump out of the shadows and attack us.

We entered the alley behind the house and found only what one could usually find in a suburban area: garbage cans, filth, bubble gum wrappers and there was even a black cat lazily sleeping on the steps of a fire escape stair hanging from the brick building to our left.

"Bearing in mind the demographics of this place," Laura commented, looking up to a dirty child's face peeking at her from an equally dirty window pane, "I would say that a man with a disfiguring disease would fit right in."

"Why do you think he started killing people?" I mused out loud and I was surprised when she answered amicably.

"They have something that was taken from him, a future, so he is retaliating with the only thing he still has."

"What would that be?"

"Anger. He's angry at the world, angry that his life - his future - was stolen from him, his wife has abandoned him for her gym and yoga instructor after throwing in his face what an abomination she thought he was. All that coupled with the uncertainty of the treatments results, the empty promises made by lying doctors and the debilitating results of chemo and we have a very angry man on our hands."

"But why kill people? Why can't he simply take his treatment and die with some dignity?"

Laura stopped and for some reason I had the impression I had touched a nerve somewhere.

She looked at me with anger and for once I had no idea why I had pissed her off again, "You need to have something to fight for in order to keep going. He has nothing. So he's striking out."

"You sound like you condone these actions."

She glared at me before kneeling to get a paper from the floor. "I don't condone his actions, but I understand his reasons."

"So just because someone is hurt they are excused to vent their anger as they wish, is that so?"

She looked exasperated at me, walking deeper down the alley and muttering over her shoulder, "I'm just saying that we won't ever really know what are the reasons people might do things. There are always good reasons for people's reactions, but sometimes they are not comfortable in sharing them."

I started following her while I turned her words in my head. Finally I stopped in the middle of the alley, staring at her back as my mind did a leap and I finally figured it out.

"That's it, isn't it?

She stopped and turned around, looking at me confused. "What are you talking about?"

"You have your reasons but you just don't want to share them with me, right?"

"Please, McGee. This is not the time or the place."

She dismissed me and started walking towards the exit of the alley, blowing me off again, but I wasn't about to let her do that again.

I grabbed her by her arm and brought her body close to me, ignoring her trying to twist out of my grasp.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Her efforts to get rid of my arms were feeble, so I simply waited until she looked up at me with angry green eyes.

"It wasn't a mistake." I muttered, immediately hearing her intake of breath as she froze and stared at me with a deer in the highlights expression.

Her gaze didn't waver as I kept saying what was in my heart, observing every single twitch and flicker of emotion on her face.

"I don't commit mistakes like that. I don't sleep around, much less loudly announce my conquests to others. I wasn't raised like that. And I would never ever treat you like a whore, because you're not one, despite of what that idiot Thoreau might have told you. You are an amazing agent, and I'm sure that given time you will figure it out on your own, without me or someone else having to point that out to you."

She simply stared at me as I slowly let go of her arms, breathing deeply as we took a step apart and gazed at each other for a long moment.

I don't know how long it lasted, but her silence stretched for too long, so I thought to myself, why not, and simply obeyed my instincts.

I took a step closer, noticing how her pupils flickered, the green almost disappearing with the brown, her freckles all over her nose which I remember kissing last night before trying to find the others which went down her neck. I took her chin and brought her face closer to mine, taking her lips gently with mine before the memory of last night took over and I was lost.

God, she tasted like cappuccino with a hint of caramel from the Starbucks we had after our third visit and... I can't believe that she tastes even better than yesterday.

I slowly let go of her lips, opening my eyes to find her glazed ones staring at me in shock. She was breathing heavily, slightly trembling in my arms.

My gaze was totally focused in her eyes so I didn't see her arm moving and the impact was phenomenal.

"Ouch!" I flinched back and touched my cheek, feeling it warm under my fingers where her small hand slapped me.

She looked at me horrified, almost unbelieving of what she had done. She was gasping as shock and fear mixed, her eyes showing her confusion about what had just transpired between us.

I clenched my teeth as fury boiled down my veins, making me angry at myself for being attracted to her, at her for not knowing if she hated me or if she liked me, at the situation which had forced us together imposing this impasse which seemed to be rubbing the nerves of us both raw.

I closed my eyes for a moment, seeking some deep source of self control but that was useless. Something snapped inside me and I was reminded of all those times that I was humiliated, cheated or deceived by someone who had pretended to like me, to be interested in me just to reveal herself as a mean spiteful woman... or a cold assassin.

I simply grabbed her by her shoulders and for once I felt like I was ready to shout at her, scream and vent all my fury at all those who had one day used me for their own goals - me, the probie and the geek, the useful innocent who would always be there eagerly barking at someone's feet just for some breadcrumbs of affection.

All those facts flashed before my eyes in seconds and I opened my mouth to scream at her and and I... I...

I kissed her.

Again.

I'm not talking about a simple peck of lips where our mouths barely touch each other, but the type of kiss poems are written of or receive standing ovation when they appear in some Hollywood movie.

Gosh man, what was I thinking?

I honestly don't know.

Maybe about how she tensed at first when I brought her flush against my chest, her arms fighting me as I squeezed her small body against mine. Finally her protests diminished and stopped, before she finally responded to my intrusion in her senses with the same voracity and hunger which I was demonstrating in my actions.

Or I was thinking about her low moan when my tongue invaded her mouth, asking for permission for a visit, how her nails dug on my back as we were together last night and how her hair felt like silk between my fingers as they ran between her reddish brown curls.

Or about how those same curls would look decorating my pillow.

I don't know how long we kissed because time and space seemed to contract, collapse and finally disappear as she surrendered to me, making my heart give a little jump inside my chest as I felt her trembling fingers scratching my neck and playing with my hair.

After a few minutes - days, months, years, who cares - I finally left her go, gulping before opening my eyes to find hers blinking owlishly at me. Finally she looked at me enchanted before her eyes were fixed on something behind me, her mouth opening to scream.

"Timothy!"

I felt only the sting on skin of my neck and then I saw no more.