A/N: I am so sorry this took me so long! I had an editor request one of my original stories and got caught up getting that polished for them. I put the last three paragraphs from the last chapter to give you a refresher. Hope you're still with me!

Determined to stay awake, Jane had connected the earphones to Wiley's laptop and listened to every channel for each of the rooms where the speakers had been set up. He wasn't really sure why he'd thought that'd be fun or interesting, because if no one in the hotel was up, there would be nothing to listen to. Except the concierge, who as it turned out wasn't asleep, but humming a grating tune off key. He'd immediately unplugged after that and glanced over at Fischer.

He was tempted to wake her and insist she play twenty questions with him, when he caught sight of something on the floor under the coffee table. He bent down and reached under the table until he felt cool metal under his fingers. He grasped the object and pulled it out, smiling at his discovery. It was Wiley's listening antenna. Jane had completely forgotten that Wylie had hidden it there. He fiddled with it for a moment before plugging in his headphones and aiming it at different walls as though it were a gun.

He heard nothing. Not even the crackling of dead air. He dropped the device on the coffee table in front of him, and made a mental note to ask Wiley how it worked tomorrow. He reached up to pull the headphones off when they crackled to life followed by a bloodcurdling scream that caused him to rip the headphones from his ears.

Chapter 6

"What are you doing?" came Cho's groggy voice from the bed below where Jane stood.

"Quiet," Jane snapped pressing his ear to the wall. He closed his eyes and listened intently, but only the rustling of sheets as Cho moved off the bed was heard.

The light switched on and Jane opened his eyes. Cho stood across the room by the open bedroom door with his hands on his hips. Fischer was awake now and only a few feet back from Cho, still in the living room.

"What's going on?" Cho asked Fischer.

She shrugged and rubbed her eyes. "I was just going to ask you that."

Jane jumped off the end of the bed, and yelped at the pressure he felt in his ankle, before hobbling as fast as he could out of Cho's room, past Cho and Fischer, across the living room and to the door of his room. He opened the door and switched the light on. "Jason, get up!"

Wiley started and sat straight up. Jane didn't stay to watch him pull it together.

"Jane," Cho said with a barely noticeable hint of alarm in his voice, "what's wrong?"

Jane came to a stop in front of the monitors. "I heard a scream from next door."

"A scream?" Fischer asked, just as Wiley came into the room.

"There was no scream." Cho rubbed his eyes.

"I didn't hear anything either," Fischer told Jane.

Jane reached for the listening device.

"I was using this," he said handing it to Wiley. "Turn it on."

"Wait," Fischer asked moving back into the living room followed by Cho, "how could you have heard anything with it if you need Wiley to turn it on."

Jane clenched his jaw. "I was playing with the buttons and it came on, I heard the scream and then it went silent again."

"Maybe it was static," Cho suggested.

"It wasn't!" Jane barked pointing in the direction of the other room. "It was her."

"That's weird." Everyone's eyes went to Wiley. His eyes were glued to the screens. He looked at his watch.

Jane moved next to Wiley and watched as Jacob Gibbs came out of his room and made his way down the hall and to the elevator.

"Kim, call down to the front and have them send up champagne," Jane said as he pulled off his vest and kicked off his shoes. He turned to Wiley, "Stop that elevator from getting to this floor until the champagne comes." He pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor in front of the monitors with his vest.

Wiley moved to the couch and sat down, tugging up his right pajama pant leg as he did.

Kim averted her eyes as Jane reached for the zipper on his pants, "Jane, what are you…"

He ignored her as he made his way into his room, slipping his pants off in the process, and grabbed the robe hanging on the back of the door.

"Do it Kim," Jane heard Cho say, right before he came back into the living room and grabbed the ice bucket. Wiley was already tapping away and Kim picked up the phone. He slipped his robe on as he stepped out into the hall.

Gibbs stood at the elevator, his hand in his suit coat pocket. He was a handsome man with brown perfectly combed hair, even for this time of morning. The hand Jane could see was clenched into a fist on in the soft area between his thumb and index finger was a crescent shaped scar. It looked like a scratch. Jane reached up and ran a hand through his hair and planted a goofy grin on his face as he walked down the hall when he saw Gibbs look up at him.

"Evening," Jane said as he did his best to not limp while passing Gibbs and made his way to the ice machine that was only a few feet from the elevator. "Or morning." He chuckled.

Gibbs glared at him and jabbed the down button again. Jane started filling the ice bucket and turned to Gibbs. "Was it the screaming?" he asked as pleasantly as he could muster over the noisy machine.

Gibbs's head whipped in his direction, his expression a mixture of fear and fury. "Excuse me?"

Jane let it marinate for a minute before responding. "I couldn't help noticing that it's almost two in the morning and you're heading out."

"What's it to you?" Gibbs looked away and jabbed the down button once again.

Jane removed his now overflowing ice bucket and smiled. "It's nothing to me." He shoved the ice bucket under his arm and walked back toward Gibbs. "I only asked because I know we were being loud."

Gibbs looked at him and visibly relaxed. "Loud?"

Jane shrugged. "My lady friend and I."

"Didn't hear a thing," Gibbs smiled. Relieved.

"Good, good." Jane lifted his hand. "Jacob Gibbs, right?"

Gibbs looked at Jane's hand. "I'm sorry; I don't believe we were introduced." He took Jane's hand.

"I met your girl this afternoon. Allie, right?"

Gibb's grip tightened on Jane's hand. "She's not my girl."

Jane winced as the man squeezed a little tighter. "That's quite a grip you have there."

Gibbs dropped his hand. "I think the elevator's broken."

Jane fought the urge to shake his hand from the pain. "She's from an agency, right? Which one?"

Gibbs turned back to the elevator. "Why, you looking for a different 'lady friend'?"

"I might want to branch out." Jane stepped around him and moved toward his room. "Pleasure to meet you," he stopped as though he'd just thought of something and turned back to Gibbs, "and tell Allie I said 'hi.'"

Gibbs faced him once more, a wary look on his face. "She's no longer with me."

Jane furrowed his brow. "Really? That's strange."

"What's strange?"

"This morning she seemed to be under the impression that she was permanently in your employ."

"Today was her last day," Gibbs returned looking more and more nervous as the conversation continued.

Jane smiled. "In that case I think I'll give her a go—hope you don't mind?"

Gibbs stepped toward Jane just as the elevator opened. A waiter stepped off pushing a little trolley with a bottle of champagne and two glasses. The door to his suite opened.

"Baby?" Jane heard Kim say from behind him, "there you are."

Jane looked over his shoulder at her and his eyes nearly bulged out of his head. She stood barefoot in front of the door, wearing nothing but his button up shirt he'd discarded in the living room. He pulled it together and walked over to her, throwing his arm around her shoulder. "Our champagne is here."

"Finally," she said pulling him into the room.

After room service had left, Jane and Kim went back into the living room. Cho sat with his elbows on his knees and looked more awake now, and Wiley was leaning back against the couch, his hands grasped in his lap and his face redder than a cherry. Jane noted the pile of Kim's clothes not far from his own.

"What is it?" Cho asked, worry creasing his brow.

"He killed her. And she's not the first."

Jane had his foot propped up on the table in front of the couch and ice on it, but it was swollen and even the slightest of movements hurt. Lisbon was not going to be happy about this. There was even a moment where he thought he might have broken it. He pretended it was fine, however, for Allie's sake. Someone needed to care more about her than themselves and even though it was too late to save her, he could do that.

It was almost nine in the morning now and warm light spilled in from the balcony windows. Fischer had left a couple hours ago and that was about the same time Cho and Wiley had gone back to sleep. Abbott had arrived half an hour ago and Jane had told him everything that'd happened.

"Where's your proof?" Abbott asked from where he was pacing the carpet. He was wearing a shiny dark blue suit that might have made Jane chuckle under different circumstances. He'd felt sympathy for the cops and their families, but his heart ached for Allie. Innocent she hadn't been, but naive, young, and desperate she had. His chest throbbed painfully.

"I already told you…"

Abbott stuck his hand up in a warding gesture. "A scream that only you heard and shaking the man's hand isn't proof of anything."

"He also came and went from his room half a dozen times in the night, each time carrying luggage," Jane told him keeping his tone calm even though he felt anything but.

"Which you think suggests what?" Abbott stopped and placed his hands on his hips. "That he dismembered her in his suite?"

Jane looked down and rubbed his thumb over the side of his index finger. "I-I don't know." Even he had to admit that it was incredible unlikely that Gibbs would be capable of dismembering her in his room. Where would he get the tools? How would he do it without leaving blood everywhere? His brain immediately supplied him with several possibilities that he kept to himself. He fiddled with a button on his vest. "But I do know that that man killed Allie and that he's killed before."

Abbott stopped pacing and looked at Jane. "You've been right about crazier things before, but you have to remember Jane that we are already here on a murder case—a murder case involving several FBI agents—"

Jane clenched his jaw.

"—I'm not saying we won't try and get justice for this young woman, if she has indeed been murdered in the first place, but we have to take care of our own first," Abbott was a little more forcefully now.

"All right, fine. But I won't keep working this case unless you agree to send someone to the agency to see when the last time anyone heard from her and if there have been any other girls matching her description that have disappeared," Jane said. "We're also going to need one of those blood test thingies, the ones that change color. We need to get into Gibbs's room."

"I am not going to waste time on Gibbs and risk losing Jacob Brown in the process." Abbott furrowed his brow.

"Then you can find someone else to work the case, because I won't do it."

Abbott smiled at him and shoved his hands in his pant pockets. "Let me make sure I understand this correctly. You want me to pull an agent off the murder case of several FBI agents to see if a prostitute has gone missing?"

Jane clenched his jaw. "I met this girl, Dennis. She was a good girl. Sad, lonely, and confused, yes, but this wasn't the life she wanted. She dreamed of more. She dreamed of real love not of being used as a play toy by men twice, three times her age—and she certainly didn't dream of being murdered."

Abbott nodded and a hint of a smile played at his lips. "Okay, when Wiley's awake tell him to see what he can dig up and I'll get Fischer on the phone now, but I expect results and soon. When's Lisbon going to be here?"

Jane looked at the cameras and caught sight of her entering the hotel. She stopped at the desk. She wore a gray, tight fitting, knee length skirt and was wearing a maroon button up shirt. Her hair was parted deep to the side and hung straight over her shoulders. She wore six-inch black heels and had a large bag hanging in the crook of her left arm. A young male desk clerk, different than anyone else he'd already seen, was on the phone. Lisbon waited patiently for him to get off.

Jane couldn't help but smile. "She's here," he told Abbott who turned his attention to the screen as well. Abbott chuckled and Jane looked at him in time to see him shake his head.

When he looked back at the screen his smile fell. Both Jason Gibbs and Jeff Brown walked up to Lisbon and flanked her. Gibb's looked much the same as he did at two in the morning, but Brown was dressed differently today. The other times Jane had seen him he'd been in suits, but now he wore jeans, a hunter green t-shirt and a black sports coat. His black hair was styled, but not parted, his posture as straight as ever and he was smiling, though it didn't reach his eyes. If anything he was hiding irritation.

Lisbon looked to the one on her right, and then to the one on her left and slowly turned in place and leaned against the counter. She wore a wide smile and after a moment all three of them were talking. She looked down at her watch after Brown spoke to her, and Jane's gut clenched when he saw Gibb's eyes trail up and down her body.

The clerk got off the phone and Lisbon looked back at him over her shoulder, then she said what Jane assumed, and hoped, were her goodbyes. They were too far away for him to read their lips. His hunch was unhappily confirmed, however, when Brown kissed her hand and Gibbs leaned in close, whispering something in her ear. Her face fell for just a moment, but a perfect flirty smile was back in place when he leaned away from her. She didn't respond only turned and started talking to the desk clerk again. Brown and Gibbs walked away, but not before Gibbs looked at Lisbon's back side one more time.

A moment later the clerk was escorting her to the elevator. The moment she was safely enclosed in the elevator Jane was up and limping her way. He reached the elevator doors before she arrived and counted the numbers above the door until the doors opened.

She stepped out and he wrapped his arms around her.

"You saw?" she asked, trying to act cool, but he felt a chill run through her body.

He pulled away from her and dragged her to the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Once inside, he grabbed her arms, keeping her from leaving the secluded entry way, and hunched down to look her in the eyes.

"I don't want you anywhere near those men," Jane told her, "they're dangerous."

She stepped out of his grasp. "Jane, it's my job to be in danger, and look," she said raising her arms for him to look at her, "not a scratch on me."

"What did Gibbs say to you?"

Her face fell and she tried to deflect with smirk. "And here I thought you were going to give me the run around over Pike." It had to be bad if she was bringing up Pike in a joking manner.

In all honesty Jane had forgotten all about Pike. Right now he had bigger problems. Gibbs had most definitely marked Lisbon as being the next toy he desired, which meant they were going to have to work a whole lot faster. This was a man who got what he wanted when he wanted it. He guessed that they maybe had a day, two tops, before Gibbs became suspicious about why he wasn't getting her.

"Teresa," Jane asked again, sliding his hands up to her shoulders. "What did Gibbs say to you?"

She looked down. "I'd rather not repeat it."

Jane felt ill.

"But I will tell you this—whatever it was you did in that restaurant yesterday made an impression. He double checked to see if we were still planning on having lunch there at noon."

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him that I didn't know what you had planned for me." She smirked again.

Jane wanted to kiss her. He did kiss her. Hard. She'd done exactly the right thing without having to be told. He wasn't surprised, but he also knew he couldn't have planned it better himself. She was really and truly his perfect match.

"You're a genius," he told her when he reluctantly pulled away.

She smiled and bit her lip, then she sobered. "Jane, what's going on?"

Allie popped into Jane's mind and the glimmer of pride and happiness he'd felt in his little cocoon of time went up in smoke. He knew he hadn't hidden it from her when her hand came up and cupped his cheek. She waited silently for him to speak.

He breathed out. "Gibbs is a serial killer, he killed a young girl last night. And I wouldn't be surprised if he killed those agents too."

Her brow furrowed, but she didn't question him, only nodded.