Chapter 5
Still with a bad gut feeling about sudden reappearance of her former stalker ex-boyfriend, in her head were the wheels still spinning trying to come up with at least one reason what Steve had planned and if she could anything against the success of his plans. Eric looked at her from time to time, knowing that there indeed was something that Nell didn't tell him and of course he asked himself: What did she hide from me? He was interrupted in his train of thought as his headset announced a call from Kensi, he quickly banned the thoughts about Nell from his mind and finally took the call from Kensi.
Marks finally decided it was time to get the next phase of his evil plane into motion, it was time to lure Nell out in the open and so he called the mobile phone that Joe had given him. Is the man on the other of the line finally picked up he just said: "It's time to lure the target into the open, make sure that the NCIS finds the tablet that I've given to you." Then he hung up the phone and was really happy in the end that everything was going according to plan right now.
Kensi and Deeks had just left the base, where Peter Crenshaw had been stationed at for the last four years and apparently had hit a dead end in their investigation. His commanding officer and all the colleagues that Deeks and Kensi had talked two had been really surprised by the sudden death of their comrade. "I don't why but I have the slight feeling that all this seems a little too good to be true, someone is clearly trying to hide something from us don't you think Deeks?"
"Or you are getting a little bit too paranoid Kens." Deeks said because to him there was no reason to believe that someone was hiding something from them. Kensi was sure that she wasn't getting paranoid, because she could always trust her instincts and in the end there hadn't been many times where they had let her down.
"I'm confident Deeks that there's definitely still a lot of pieces from the puzzles missing in this case and that those men on the base haven't told us everything they know yet." Deeks definitely agreed on the first point with his partner and replied: "Maybe you're right and those men are not telling us everything they know but the death of Petty Officer Crenshaw could have been also caused by someone from outside the base." Meanwhile back at OPS Nell had finished collecting the data for Callen and discovered something disturbing as she went through it: Steve, here stalker ex-boyfriend and the victim knew each other and now she of course had to ask herself the question: Should I tell Callen that I know the guy, whose prints where on the dead body? She decided to let it slide for now, because of the fact, that it maybe was just a coincidence that those two knew each other and she definitely had no reason to think otherwise. She mailed the information about him on Callen's phone, the question still remaining in her head if Steve's sudden reappearance after a couple of years wasn't a coincidence at all. But in the end she still had no idea what he may have planned right now and she had to admit to herself, that the fact that she didn't know anything about Steve's intentions really bothered her. Back at the now empty apartment of the victim, one of Joe's men was busy with fulfilling his duty: placing the tablet in the apartment so that the NCIS would find it. His comrade was waiting in the car for him, keeping an eye on the street the whole time to avoid that they would get busted before they were able to finish their little assignment.
They had stolen the tablet from Crenshaw's apartment after the good planned hit on him had gone down and Marks, who had been an Encryption Specialist in his time at the Navy Intelligence Office, had placed an encrypted file for Nell Jones to decrypt on it. Let's hope that she really falls for that bait. One of the henchmen thought as he was finally on the way back out of the house and had placed the tablet with the file on directly onto a little table in the living room.
Meanwhile Nell had finally decided to open to Eric about her stalker ex-boyfriend, because she just felt that it would be wrong to have any secrets standing between them: this relationship should be based onto trusting each other.
She finally took a deep breath and said: "Can we talk Eric; I need to tell you something very important." He turned around his chair to face his girlfriend, wondering what she wanted to talk about with him and finally replied: "Of course we can, now shoot Rockstar because I'm totally listening only to you right now." Nell smiled at him short and then said, even if it was so difficult to say for her: "I know the guy…who left his prints on the dead body, because he is my stalker ex-boyfriend. " Eric had to digest all what he had heard before he asked: "What happened with you and him?"
"He cheated on me, so I said to him that it was over but he didn't want to let me go so…he started to stalk me till I got a restraining order against him at court. I left my former home Seattle any way because I couldn't live with this maniac in one place any more, even if he was sent to a mental institution shortly after the first court meeting." She decided not to tell him, that she thought Steve was after her out for revenge because she clearly didn't want Eric to worry too much about her. Both of them didn't really know what to say for quite a while and after a long pause Eric finally said: "I'm glad you told me about this man even if it probably was very difficult for you to open up to me."
He softly caressed her right cheek with one hand for a moment, sending Nell on Cloud Nine like always and then he said: "Don't forget that I'm always there for you to support you, no matter what happens." They continued to look deep into each other's eyes for a moment before she finally answered back: "Thank you Eric….for everything."
Joe's two henchmen finally left the apartment; thankfully nobody had disturbed them during the drop off of the faked evidence and all they had to do now was: waiting for their target to fall for the bait.
AN: Thanks to- insert iser name here for reviewing the story and for adding it to her/his story alert list, Thanks to- Red Sonja 88 for adding this story to her story alert list, Thanks to- Skateway for reviewing this story and adding it to her/his story alert list, Thanks to- zatanarya for adding this story to her/his story alert list. Please read and review
