Chapter 2

Gibbs walked into the bullpen. McGee and Ziva looked up.

"Well?" he asked. "What have you got to report?"

They hurried over to him, and Ziva picked up the remote control for the large screen on the wall. It was blank.

"I've been looking at the crime scene," said McGee. "But as we saw, there's no sign of a struggle. There's no evidence for the man's being there- it could be a woman for all we know. No DNA, no fingerprints whatsoever."

He looked at Ziva. She nodded, and pointed the remote at the screen. It started to flicker with head shots of criminals.

"I've been looking for files on criminals who might fit the description of that man's son," she said. "We know his nickname was Mikey, which leads me to believe he was probably christened Michael. But with the amount of criminals who go under aliases these days, he may not be there under that name. And it's possible that the nickname is completely unrelated to the real name; his father could have come up with it because of the son's similarity to someone he knew or admired. That all makes it pretty hard to dismiss anyone who comes up on the search- and there are a reasonable amount of results."

Gibbs nodded. "What did you search?"

"Drug busts that ended in death caused by Tony DiNozzo from 2-10 years ago. They aren't in their hundreds or anything, but we should have a little trouble chasing down all the loose ends."

Gibbs nodded. "Anything else?"

"Well…" McGee looked uncomfortable. "I've been trying to locate the signal that the footage came from- obviously it was live, as it wasn't on a disc."

"But?"

"I can't find it. It looks like a dead end."

There was a silence as they all stood looking at the screen, now empty again.

Then it flickered.

When Tony came to, he was tied to a chair again.

His vision was blurred, but his captor's alcohol-stained breath was blowing in his face again and there was a dark mass looming before his eyes that looked vaguely head-shaped. Tony mustered up the spit and blood and mucus in his mouth and spat in the man's face.

The black mass before him barely hesitated. He planted a foot on Tony's chest and tipped the chair over. Tony bit back a scream as he landed on his broken arms. They flared with pain then burnt dully and sullenly in the background. He blinked back tears.

The voice issued dully from above him as he leaned down over Tony's recumbent form. "I'll have no disrespect, Anthony. You're my prisoner, so you play be my rules."

"The day I play by your rules is the day I believe in fairies."

"Oh, no," said the man, a leer in his voice. "You just killed Tinkerbelle! We'll have to punish you for that," he said sternly, in the way a father does a naughty child.

"But first," he said, his voice suddenly a conspirational whisper, "I'm going to give you a little cut."

Ziva had promised herself that she would be strong. That she would watch. That she would stay in control.

The man was pulling a knife out of his pocket. "just a little cut," ha repeated, in a falsely bright voice.

Ziva breathed out. There was an odd hitch in it- not quite a sob, but not normal breathing either.

Then the blade went in.

The metal was icy cold on Tony's skin, and though he knew that it shouldn't have felt that way, it was as if it was sapping his strength. He felt warm blood trickling lazily from the wound, as the man dragged the cold, sharp knife through his skin in an oddly sharp manner, all the while whispering in his ear...

"You know, they've never really cared about you," he said.

"You're always at the forefront, aren't you? Always the first into the cold, dark places. Always looking after everyone else. You think that you're the big brother, don't you? Well, really you're only the housekeeper... dispensable, replaceable. They don't really care about you..."

"They won't even be looking for you, Anthony..."

The knife was a shard of ice in his skin, tracing its lazy pattern in red...

Red and white, thought Tony hazily. Like Christmas.

But that's wrong. You're the birthday boy.

Gibbs felt his teeth grinding and his hands closing into fists.

He'd only felt this helpless on one other occasion- the day he'd lost his family, the day he'd been alone. Now he felt the same way- he could see this man hurting Tony, who he thought of like a son, and he could hear him, but he couldn't do anything about it. He wanted to hurt the guy, but all he had was a moving picture on a screen- nothing more.

DiNozzo was the son he had never had- and the man on the screen was telling Tony that Gibbs didn't care about him.

I swear, thought Gibbs, as he watched the screen. I will make you pay for this.

The man finished and stepped back.

Tony could feel the wound smarting across from shoulder to shoulder, throbbing with every heartbeat, sticky blood flowing down his chest. He had hardly any energy left already; he felt completely numb.

When the pliers brushed against the skin on the pinkie of his left hand, he didn't even register. And when they slowly began to pull the fingernail out, he found he didn't even have the energy left to scream.

Ziva couldn't take it anymore. The sight of Tony tied to the chair was enough, but this was much worse. He wasn't screaming. He wasn't even making a single sound. He was shaking, silent tears pouring down his face as they pulled out his nail.

And across his chest, spelled out in a childish script and trickling blood, was a single word;

MURDERER