Hey readers - Here we are with another new chapter : )
I actually don't have an awful lot to say this time, other than a MASSIVE thank you to everyone that has reviewed, favourited and followed this story. The support you guys have shown to it continuously blows me away, and I really appreciate it, so please keep it up : )
Please remember that NCIS does not belong to me : )
I hope you enjoy this chapter : )
Mind Games - Part 6
Within an hour of McGee's quite-frankly genius idea bearing fruit and miraculously giving them a new location to search with fresh eyes, the large white NCIS investigative van was grinding to a halt along a stretch of muddy trail in the Great Falls National Park. Kate, who had performed her duties as the overseer of the inventory in record breaking time, had got the van fully stocked up with all the equipment that they might need out here as fast as she could, which in turn had allowed them to arrive here as quickly as they had. They needed to find the missing victims and bring them home as soon as possible after all, their families had waited long enough, and aside from that, Kate honestly wasn't sure how much more of this mind game that Boone was playing with them that Gibbs could stomach. The silver haired man who was both her boss and her friend had been on edge ever since this whole situation had a risen, and Kate couldn't help but have this ominous feeling of dread that if they didn't end this soon, things were going to get much, much worse.
Only time itself would reveal to Kate the irony of her having that thought...
Swallowing any feelings of anxiety that she might have at the moment however, Kate forced herself to focus on the matter at hand for the time being and opened the door of the NCIS investigation van to disembark from the vehicle. She glanced around at her surroundings, and a small smile graced her face at what met her eye.
Beauty.
All around her was the beauty and majesty that was nature. Kate's smile widened slightly. She had always been a massive fan of the great outdoors, even from when she was just a little girl. Some of Kate's most treasured memories were of herself and her father going on long hikes through places just like this, every other Saturday morning if they could manage it. It was something that they had in common, and had bonded over right from the time Kate with able to walk. It was just one of the things that had cemented her close relationship with her dad, and Kate couldn't help but feel particularly wistful as she reflected back on those happy times now. She missed her Saturday morning walks with her father, but sadly that was just one of the many sacrifices she had made when she had moved away from home in order to become a federal agent. Still, she wasn't here to reminisce on the past. She was hear to do a job. So forcing herself to exit Memory Lane as quickly as possible, Kate stepped aside to allow McGee to exit the NCIS van as well. Tony got out of the vehicle from the driver's side, and quickly began instructing the other two so that they could get down to business as quickly and as efficiently as possible.
"Kate, can you please start unloading the van?" the senior field agent requested of his partner, before quickly adding, "But can you just start with the essentials and lighter things, like the cameras and sketch pads, for now? I want us to be absolutely sure that we're looking in the right place first before we bring all the heavy stuff out. There's no point in wasting time having to move it all twice".
Kate nodded her understanding at the man's logic. It made sense after all. Besides, Gibbs wouldn't be too pleased with them if he found out that they prolonged the investigation in such a needless way.
"You got it Tony" she said, and at her partner's dismissive nod, Kate turned and headed towards the rear of the large white van they had arrived in. She quickly opened the double doors and began rooting around inside for the equipment that they'd need at any potential crime scene first and foremost.
Meanwhile, Tony had now turned his attention to McGee, and was issuing his instructions to the junior field agent.
"You got the exact coordinates of where this site is supposed to be, Probie?" Tony suddenly asked him.
The senior field agent realised that that was probably a question he should have asked back at NCIS headquarters, but he hadn't really thought about it until now. He hoped that McGee had had enough common sense to either write them down, or have them in his phone. Getting a call through to Abby out here in the middle of nowhere might prove more difficult than one would expect, and if they spent hours wasting time looking in the wrong place, Gibbs would kill him. Tony was in no rush for that, thank you very much.
"Of course Tony" McGee replied, not bothering to refrain from rolling his eyes because of course he was going to remember something as important as those right now, "The site where the photos were taken is two hundred and sixty five feet on a track of three hundred ten degrees. We need to get through here".
The junior field agent indicated towards some thick dense bushes off to the side of the trail. Tony gave the nearby vegetation an appraising look, before he slowly nodded at his head in deep contemplation.
"Okay" the senior field agent wrapped one of his muscular arms around the younger man's shoulders, and began steering him away from the man path through the woods, "Now remember what I told you about the poison ivy, all right?"
McGee grimaced, but quickly nodded is understanding.
The young man could vividly remember his last encounter with that vile plant after all and what it had done to him. McGee was in no hurry for a repeat of that incident today, thank you very much. He wasn't sure he'd be able to stomach it a second time, nor the sheer amount of teasing he'd get from Kate and Tony either. Before the junior field agent could verbally replied to Tony however, the two of them soon heard approaching footsteps from behind them. Glancing over their shoulders, the two men saw Kate hurrying to join them, a collection of small cameras, sketchy pads, writing utensils, and an assortment of other items all gathered in her arms.
"Don't tell Kate" the senior field agent quickly whispered in his Probie's ear.
McGee couldn't quite manage to refrain from rolling his eyes upon hearing the whispered demand, but thankfully he didn't have to chasten Tony for being so juvenile. Having caught the general gist of what had just happened, Kate narrowed her eyes at the senior field agent shrewdly.
"I heard that DiNozzo!" she barked fiercely, scowling up at him in annoyance.
That would be so typical of Tony, to either allow her to infect herself with poison ivy, or else he'd probably deliberately push her into a pile of the stuff, just for a joke. Either way, Kate had no intention of spending the rest of this day scratching her own skin off and looking like a humanoid tomato.
Playing the innocent, an act which didn't fool Kate for even a single moment, the Italian man grinned charmingly back over his shoulder at her.
"Heard what Kate?" the senior field agent asked his partner teasingly, never able to pass on an opportunity to wind the young woman up, " I didn't say anything. Did I Probie?"
McGee just scowled. The junior field agent was making it pretty clear that he did not want to be dragged into this. Kate just rolled her eyes at both of them.
"Well that's funny!" both Kate's tone and expression were practically oozing with sarcasm, "Because I could have sworn that I just heard you tell McGee not to warn me about the poison ivy in the area! Hoping I'll be clumsy enough to walk straight into the stuff and get a nasty rash, are you?"
The look of faux-innocence on Tony's face only continued to grow.
"Would I do a devious thing like that?!" the senior field agent pretended to gasp in mock offensive, and once again Kate found herself rolling her eyes at her partner's teasing.
"In a heartbeat" the female federal agent retorted, and McGee snorted whilst Tony's unconvincing look of pure innocence quickly morphed into a sly grin, "But when are you going to learn, Tony? McGee might be a very intelligent man, but I have a lot more common sense than him!"
"Hey!" McGee whined in protest, whilst this time Tony was the one that snorted in amusement.
"Lady's got a point Probie" the Italian agent remarked, and McGee huffed indignantly but did not try to retort any further. Instead, Tony just glanced down at Kate, his expression still incredibly teasing, "But what exactly are you driving at, Kate?"
The woman in question's face twisted into a mockery of a rather frosty smile.
"What I'm driving at, Tony, is that I'm not going to be stupid enough to wander into a patch of that horrible stuff, and wind up looking like I set fire to my own face" she retorted bluntly.
Tony just laughed. It was McGee that look more disgruntled by that last comment in any rate.
"You said it didn't look that bad when I had poison ivy!" the young man's voice was dangerously close to a whine again.
"Yeah well she lied, Probie!" Tony smirked at the other man gleefully, vividly remembering that case in which McGee's whole face had ended up covered in the toxic plant, "You looked awful, and it was hilarious, and... WWWWAAAAHHHH!"
Kate and McGee both jumped when the senior field agent suddenly cried out an alarm, their eyes widening in shock when he suddenly seemed to just... disappear from sight right in front of them. The two of them quickly realised that that wasn't quite accurate however, and so cautiously approaching the spot where Tony had been standing just seconds before, they looked down and saw that he had stumbled and ended up falling into a rather deep ditch.
The two of them honestly couldn't help it.
Both Kate and McGee threw back their heads and roared with laughter. A couple of metres below them, Tony levelled the two of them with an incredibly sour look.
"Ha ha, very funny!" the senior field agent grumbled in annoyance, wincing in pain as he clambered back to his feet. Seeing the disgruntled pout on his handsome features however, only made his two co-workers and friends laugh even harder at his misfortune. He huffed, and indignantly said, "It's nice to know that you're so concerned about the fact that I almost broke my neck!"
Kate couldn't help but just giggle harder at his indignation.
"Serves you right for thinking it'd be funny if I got poison ivy!" the female federal agent told her disgruntled partner gleefully, "I've told you before Tony, and I'll tell you again. You need to watch that bad karma you keep building up".
"Whatever!" Tony grunted, his tone and expression still both very annoyed that he had somehow ended up being the butt of the joke, "Just hurry up and get down here! And be careful because if I haven't already proved it to you, that slope is steep!"
"Nice to know you care Tony" McGee remarked in a casual voice, his lips twitching in playful amusement. The senior field agent gave him a withering glance, but ultimately decided not to dignify that remark with a response.
Still chortling away to themselves at Tony's well-deserved misfortune, Kate and McGee both carefully began making their way down the sloping mound of earth. Managing to maintain their balance while also carrying all of the equipment that Kate had brought between them, both of the federal agents managed to make it down to Tony's level without tripping and falling. Soon enough, all three of them were taking in their new surroundings with an air of curiosity.
"Well... if this is the place I can see why Boone picked it" Tony remarked as he took in the isolated landscape, "It's off the beaten path, there's no hard surfaces to reflect sound. Those girls could scream their heads off and no one would hear. Yeah, this is the perfect spot".
Kate couldn't quite manage to suppress a shiver.
Everything that Tony had just described was all perfectly true, and it really did make this place the ideal location to dispose of someone you never wanted to be found again. If the very idea of it all wasn't so grotesque and horrible, Kate might have found the planning behind it all intelligent, in a dark twisted sort of way. Either way, she was dreading what they might find here. She knew that it was only right that they brought Boone's many, many victims back home to their families, but still he couldn't help but feel disturbed as she began surveying the area. Trying her best to pull her mind away from the horrors just waiting to be unearthed, Kate noticed that McGee was staring off into the distance with a faraway look in his eyes.
"Everything okay McGee?" she asked the junior field agent inquisitively.
"Yeah" the young man swallowed hard, turning to face Kate and looking a little green around the gills, "But we're definitely in the right place you guys. You see that powerline over there? I recognise this entire view as the backdrop of one of those photographs in Boone's scrapbook".
Kate hadn't really spent much time examining the thing since it had been taken straight to Abby's lab for processing, so she'd have to take his word on that.
"Okay..." Tony nodded his understanding, taking McGee's word for it as well, "Kate, McGee - both of you spread out. We need to tape off this entire area".
"You got it" Kate obediently nodded, producing a role of bright yellow police tape from the assortment of items that she had gathered from the NCIS van. She chucked it to McGee to catch, which he thankfully did. Kate then turned her attention back to Tony, "Then what do you want us to do?"
Tony didn't even have to pause and think about it before he was already offering his answer.
"We'll hike back and call Gibbs once we've finished taping it off" the senior field agent decided, "Call it a gut feeling, but I think he'd want to be here, considering that he couldn't find these poor women ten years ago".
Kate and McGee both just nodded silently at his reasoning. It made a lot of sense after all, and this had obviously become so personal for their fearless team leader, that all three of them knew that now was not the right time to be taking independent action. Everything needed to be ran through Gibbs, lest they incurred his wraith.
And so with that unanimously decided, the three of them quickly got to work.
Meanwhile, back at the NCIS headquarters building, Gibbs had no idea that his team were so close to the area where they suspected that the missing bodies were all buried. The silver haired federal agent was currently standing in the observation room that looked into their interrogation suite. He was brooding and he knew it, but right now he honestly just couldn't summon up enough mental energy to care. There was just... something about this case that had him feeling all out of sorts, and it wasn't just because of the psychotic nature of the animal he was being forced to spend time with. There was something else, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what that may be.
Needless to say, it was frustrating him to no end.
"Come on, Jethro!" Boone's voice called from the interrogation room beyond the one-way mirror, and a petty part of Gibbs could admit that it pleased him to note that the prolonged isolation finally seemed getting to the monster in human skin, "We both know you're in there".
Gibbs clenched both his jaw and his fists tightly in anger. He hated that Boone was somehow able to so accurately predict him, when not many other people, not even his closest friends, were able to do that. It only served to stoke the boiling hot rage that was brewing in the silver haired man's stomach, and it took all the self-restraint that Gibbs possessed to not go marching into the room next door, and giving that smug bastard a black eye.
Fortunately, a distraction soon presented itself to the seasoned federal agent, before he could take that small pleasure.
Quite suddenly and without any kind of warning whatsoever, the door to the observation room slowly opened, and glancing back over his shoulder, Gibbs was rather surprised by who he saw entering the darkened room.
It was Abby.
Of all people, it was Abby.
That in and of itself was quite unusual, since there was no real reason for her to venture into this part of their workplace, but nothing was more bizarre in that moment than seeing how quiet and contrite the usually over-excitable woman was right now. At first Gibbs wondered if maybe she had found something important in the case and had come to inform him, but he quickly realized that that wasn't what this was. Instead, Abby's gaze was fixed firmly on the looking glass. She somehow looked both apprehensive and fascinated all at the same time.
"Hey" Gibbs greeted the gothic forensic scientist, and he was surprised by how soft his voice was, considering the anger he had felt not five seconds before. Then again, Abby always did manage to have a calming effect on him.
"Hey" she timidly whispered back as she closed the door to the observation room behind her, her gaze never once leaving the animal in the room on the other side of the one-way mirror.
"What are you doing here?" the silver haired federal agent couldn't help but ask curiously, and also with a heavy doze of concern in his tone and expression.
Abby merely shrugged her shoulders up at him, looking a little uncertain about that herself.
"I wanted to see what the monster looks like" the gothic forensic scientist eventually admitted, her voice barely more than a whisper. She stared at Boone long and hard for a couple of moments, "He doesn't look that scary".
Gibbs couldn't help but scoff lightly upon hearing those words.
"You saw the photographs?" he couldn't help but feel compelled to challenge the young woman on the rather naive statement she'd just made, because whilst he respected Abby's intelligence far more than anybody else's he'd ever met, she better than most should know that you shouldn't judge by appearances.
The gothic forensic scientist shifted uncomfortably where she stood. Of course she had seen the photographs. She'd spent the best part of the day processing each and every one of them for evidence, and oh God... the things that were in them. What Boone had done to those poor, poor women, what they must have gone through in their final moments of life... it was enough to make Abby feel sick to her stomach. She was certain that she'd nightmares for weeks to come after seeing them. So trembling, she eventually nodded her head grimly.
"Yeah" the gothic forensic scientist admitted faintly.
Gibbs swallowed hard, feeling a lot of sympathy for her. He knew that that couldn't have been easy after all, but right now he didn't have the time to get all touch-feely with the woman he loved like a daughter. He had a macabre number of missing victims to find, and he had to make sure that the monster responsible would arrive at his designated execution at the promised time. There was no way that he was going to let Kyle Boone wriggle out that. No way in hell.
And so with that thought spurring him on, Gibbs side-stepped Abby, opened the door and walked out of the observation room opening, quietly closing the door behind him again.
It was time he got back in there.
After they had finished taping off a wide area as per the senior field agent's instructions, Kate had gone off on her own to have a look around at some of the trees on the far side of the enclosure that they were currently searching, looking for anything that could possibly point to the location of one of the missing bodies. Truth be told, the young woman wasn't entirely sure what she was looking for, and was just hoping that she'd know it she saw it.
Meanwhile, McGee was just finishing tying off the last piece of police tape around a low-hanging tree branch when Tony walked up to him, having also finished in his efforts to secure the potential crime scene.
"All done?" the Italian man asked the junior field agent. Said junior field agent silently nodded back at him, and Tony smiled, "Good. I have to admit, you've done really well today, McGee. I'm proud of you".
The lack of any distinguishable trace of a sarcastic undertone in his words made McGee raise his eyebrows suspiciously at Tony.
"And?" the younger man promptly, unable to allow himself to trust the compliment. Not even one little bit. Tony arched an eyebrow at him, looking a little perplexed.
"And what?" the senior field agent asked in confusion. McGee just scoffed and rolled his eyes at him.
"Well usually you add some kind of insult at the end" the younger man pointed out to him.
This time Tony was the one who scoffed in indignation.
"No, I don't!" the handsome man protested, but when McGee just gave him a flat look, Tony begrudgingly conceded, "Well, okay, maybe sometimes. But the point is, we're a team..."
But that was as far as Tony got before he was unexpectedly cut off.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The two male federal agents both almost jumped right out of their skins when a shrill, frightened, and definitely female scream suddenly echoed throughout the entire forest around them. It was a scream that both Tony and McGee were able to recognise without any difficulty whatsoever.
"KATE!" Tony bellowed at the top of his lungs, his eyes practically burning with concern for his partner.
Without hesitating for even the briefest of moments, the man immediately had his gun in his hand, and he began sprinting through the forest, smashing his way through the undergrowth, as quickly as humanly possible. He had to get to his partner and ensure that she was safe. He just had to. Thankfully not bothering to try and warn Tony that he ought to exercise a little caution, McGee was right behind him, his gun also in hand.
Thankfully for the two men however, their weapons would not be necessary right now.
Within seconds of hearing Kate's blood-curdling shriek, the two men all-but crashed into the very woman in question. She had been running in the opposite direction, a look of panic and outright fear etched into her beautiful face.
"Kate!" Tony gasped in relief as he caught his distressed partner in his arms and held her close, almost as if mentally reassuring himself that she was okay, "Are you alright?! What happened?!"
"We heard you scream!" McGee added, a little unnecessarily.
The female federal agent swallowed hard, before she looked down at the ground in shame. Sensing that he was feeling little uneasy by their close proximity, Tony released her from his arms and took a small step back in order to give her some breathing space.
"Y-Yeah..." she managed to stammer out, but she still looked as white as a sheet, "I'm s-sorry... I didn't mean to get so spooked... it's just... oh God... it's horrible!"
Tony and McGee both looked at each other uneasily. Kate was not the kind of person that scared easily after all, so whatever it was that had left her so shaken and rattled, it must have been something pretty horrendous. Dreading the answer, Tony asked the question which he knew he needed to.
"What is?" he asked his friend nervously.
Unable to bring herself to speak, Kate just shook her head, and raised a trembling finger. She used it to point at something back down the way she'd come running from, and Tony and McGee both glanced in the direction she'd indicated.
Then they saw it.
McGee looked as though he was about to vomit right there and then, and even Tony, who had seen many horrible and disgusting sights throughout his career in law enforcement, had the wind knocked out of him. Because the sight before the three of them... it was... it was... it was like something straight out of a nightmare.
Tragically, it was the corpse of a young woman.
Now it wasn't the body itself that spooked the three federal agents so badly. After all, they had all seen numerous corpses before, more than they could count in fact. No. It was more the condition that the poor girl was in that had left them all so shaken. She was still recognisable as a woman, but she was a mess. Her skin had turned a sickly yellow colour, and was rotting away in places. Her hands were bound, and she was hanging from a low-hanging tree branch, dangling in the air like some kind of bizarre marionette. It was that element that made her so freaky to look at.
"S-She... She couldn't have been dead more than a few days" McGee breathed in shock as the three of them all cautiously approached the dead body, practically huddled together in fright.
Kate swallowed hard, but bravely stepped away from the two men for a closer look. As the female federal agent slowly approached the hanging corpse, it gently twisted around without any action on Kate's part, granting the woman a view of her back.
What Kate saw almost made her sick.
"Tony" she whispered, and Kate wasn't ashamed to admit that in that moment, her voice was completely faint with nerves, "You're not going to believe this".
Swallow hard, and wondering what else there was to discover about this horrible, horrible sight in front of them, Tony hesitantly stepped up to his partner's side. His eyes immediately widened in horrified shock.
There, as clear as the sun in the skies overhead, was a heart.
The jagged symbol had obviously been craved into the poor woman's back, and it was even still oozing with blood. It was exactly like the ones in the photographs they had found in Kyle Boone's scrapbook.
"Boone's mark" Tony breathed in horrified awe.
That was... that was... that was completely impossible!
Yet here they were, with evidence stating the otherwise quite literally under their noses. Kate, Tony and McGee all just fell into an incredulous silence as the stared at the poor dead woman in terrified disbelief.
After all, what was there to say at a time as awful as this?
It took quite a while for the three of them to recover from the nasty shock they'd all got, but once they had managed to pull themselves together, they quickly got on with business as normal. Tony and McGee were already processing the scene, professionally taking photographs and measurements between them, whilst Kate had been selected to be the one to call back to base and inform Gibbs of the rather morbid discovery that they'd made. A heavy scowl was beginning to grow on Kate's face as she paced around the forest clearing however. Her cell phone was in hand, and the female federal agent was waving it through the air, trying to get a signal but not having much luck. She kept her eyes firmly averted away from their victim; the poor girl was enough to unnerve even Kate. She wasn't the type to scare easily, and her time at NCIS had been enough to grant her a rather strong stomach, but this was different.
This wasn't just any other victim.
Kyle Boone had something to do with this, and that shook Kate all the way down to the core. The man was an infamous monster, known across the whole of America if not further, and so to discover yet another body courtesy of that maniac was truly very frightening. Frightening and sickening.
The bloody heart on the poor girl's back didn't help alleviate any of the creepiness about this whole situation either.
Eventually, the female agent came to a halt, just as Tony was lining up his camera to take some more crime scene photographs of their unfortunate victim. Kate stashed her phone away in her pocket as she turned to face him.
"Damn it!" she eventually cried out of frustration, "There's no signal!"
Tony finished taking another shot of the young woman's lifeless face before he glanced up at his partner.
"Not exactly surprising Kate" he remarked, rather casually given what was currently positioned between the two of them, "Butt-nowhere isn't part of our coverage plan".
Kate allowed a small sigh of frustration to slip her lips as she couldn't help but allow her gaze to fall on the limply hanging victim again. She didn't know why this body was getting too her so much. Sure, it was horrible and tragic and it shouldn't have happened, but she'd seen a lot worse in her time. There was just... something... that really rattled her about this one though.
"I think I'm gonna head back to the road" she announced once she had finally tore her gaze away from the young woman's face, "See if I can't get a call through to Gibbs".
"Okay" Tony nodded in agreement with the suggestion, "Just make sure you tell him that we're going to need everything we have and everyone on this one".
"You got it" Kate nodded her head solemnly.
Sparing the poor unfortunate soul once last mournful glance, Kate turned and began marching out of the forest clearing that had been twisted and warp by Boone into becoming his personal dumping ground.
"Hey!" Tony's voice called after her, causing Kate to halt in her tracks where she stood.
"Yeah?" she turned back to him, an eyebrow raised curiously. Tony seemed to struggle for a moment to find the right wording to properly express what he wanted to say.
"Just... keep your eyes pealed, okay" he eventually said, and the concern in his tone made Kate raise an eyebrow at him, "I don't know why... but I've got a funny feeling about this".
If Kate didn't feel so on edge herself, she'd probably have scoffed at him.
"I can take care of myself Tony" she told him bluntly, feeling a little hurt by the insinuation that she couldn't.
"I'm not doubting that Kate" Tony was quick to assure her, and he said it with such sincerity that Kate couldn't help but believe him, "I know you've a very capable woman, and an even better agent - just... be careful. Please?"
Kate couldn't help feel slightly touched by the sincerity with which he said that. And it was for that reason, that for once, she resisted the urge to poke fun at him.
"Okay Tony" she nodded, giving him a strained smile.
Tony returned the gesture, before he decided that there had been enough seriousness, and dare he say, tender concern, so he attempted to lighten the mood that had fallen between them.
"And don't take all day about it either" he barked out suddenly, doing an remarkably uncanny impression of Gibbs in the process, "I'm not doing all the heavy lifting at this scene whilst you take it easy!"
Grinning widely in amusement, Kate stuck her tongue out at him.
"Oh I don't know" she teased him playfully, glad that they were able to fall back into their usual routine so easily, "There's a first time for everything after all, and that would certainly be a first!"
Tony pouted indignantly, and Kate couldn't help but laugh at the expression now gracing his face.
"I'll be back in twenty minutes, tops" she quickly assured her partner, receiving a silent nod from the senior field agent in response.
Turning on the spot, Kate once again began heading out of the clearing and back into the forest, setting off in the direction of the main road where they'd parked the NCIS investigation van. And if she just so happened to feel a shiver run down her spine as she went, or the hairs standing up on the back of her neck, well... Kate must just be imagining things.
Imagining the feeling... that she was being watched...
Gibbs' blood felt like it was boiling, he was so furious right now.
The silver haired agent was currently in the observation room outside of interrogation again, glaring through the one-way mirror at the piece of scum on the other side. Despite the conversation he'd had with Abby in here earlier, he hadn't been able to go back in there just yet. The gothic forensic scientist was gone now, and for that Gibbs was relieved. He needed some time alone to think, but that was getting harder with each passing moment. It honestly was taking every ounce of self-control the man possessed to resist the urge to march right in there and throttle Kyle Boone on the spot. He knew he had met some nasty sons of bitches in his time at NCIS, but this guy really topped them all.
Gibbs couldn't believe that Boone actually had the sheer gall to lay himself down on his back atop the table, his eyes contently closed as he gently hummed a soft tune under his breath. To all the world, it looked like he had not a single care in the world.
Another surge of anger coursed through the agent's entire body.
How dare this bastard behave this way?!
It couldn't be clearer that this man... no, he wasn't a man, far from it... this animal... it was so overbearingly obvious that he felt nothing for his numerous victims and their families. Even at the very end, Kyle Boone still felt not a shred of remorse for his monstrous depraved acts. It sickened Gibbs to even look at this disgusting creature...
He was positively dreading the moment he'd have to go in there and talk to the slimy bastard again.
Gibbs was just going over his battle plan for this interrogation in his head one last time, when his cellphone suddenly started to ring. Feeling a surge of hope - that perhaps he and his team could figure this out without having the need converse with the lunatic before him once more - Gibbs dug the ringing phone out of his pocket.
"Yeah, Gibbs" he greeted, carefully masking any nerves that might have been betrayed by his voice in his moment of unease.
"Gibbs!" Kate's voice cried, and the man noted a hint of relief in her tone, "At last! My call made it through!"
"What do you have Kate?" Gibbs demanded to know.
"For once it's good news" Kate's voice replied, although there was something off about the way her voice shook slightly, immediately putting Gibbs on edge, "We did it Gibbs! We found Boone's dumping ground!"
Gibbs' shoulders actually slumped due to sheer relief.
He was immediately glad that none of his team had been around to see that reaction, but he honestly couldn't help it. He was just so pleased to avoid going back in that interrogation room and facing the monster that had haunted him for years.
"That's... that's really good work Kate" he praised her earnestly, and it was rather obvious that he was speaking from the heart in that moment.
"Yeah, well thank McGee" Kate's voice replied, and Gibbs couldn't help but smile. Kate never was one for accepting credit when it belonged to someone else, "His idea of using satellite imagining was brilliant, and he really came through this time".
"That he did" Gibbs nodded in agreement.
Then there was a slightly tense pause on the other end of the phone.
"Except... it's not all good news" Kate's voice informed him anxiously, and Gibbs felt something unpleasant slip into the bottom of his stomach.
"What is it Kate?" he couldn't help but sigh, his mind already picturing the worst. A worst which was about to be confirmed by his agent.
"Well... when we got to the scene, we err..." Kate's voice was hesitant, but before he felt the need to push, she continued in a solemn tone, "We found a body Gibbs. A fresh body".
Gibbs closed his eyes, resisting the urge to punch his side of the one-way mirror. Damn it! Things never were straight forwards, were they?
"Female of course" Kate's voice continued, and Gibbs forced the bubble of anger and loathing now in his stomach away in favour of listening to the female federal agent's words, "And I know I'm not Ducky, but I'd say she can't have been killed more than a week ago, and that's not all..."
"What else?" Gibbs pinched the bridge of his nose in sheer exhaustion.
"I know this is gonna sound crazy Gibbs, but this woman... this girl..." Kate's voice suddenly sounded fearful, and that unnerved Gibbs more than he already was, "She's got Boone's mark on her back".
Gibbs' eyes widened in abject horror.
"What?!" he exclaimed, scarcely able to believe it, and sure that he must have heard her wrong. He hadn't.
"I know!" Kate's voice cried in response, an almost panicked edge creeping into it now, "If he hadn't been in prison all this time, I'd swear that Boone himself did it".
"No, that's impossible" Gibbs immediately shot her words down.
"Exactly" Kate's tone was grim by this point, "Which of course means..."
"We're dealing with a copycat killer" Gibbs finished for her, his tone and expression both very grim.
Lowering the phone from his ear for a moment, Gibbs' whole body seemed to sag with defeat. He had sworn to himself over and over again that he wasn't going to let Kyle Boone sucker him into his twisted mind games again, but it seemed like he no longer had any choice in the matter. A new body changed everything, and Gibbs wasn't sure what he could do to stop this from spiralling even further out of control. It was only the sound of his female agent's voice that pulled Gibbs out from his morbid thoughts and back into the present.
"Gibbs?" she was saying repeatedly in confusion, probably assuming that the signal had dropped out again, "Gibbs... Gibbs, can you hear me?"
Gibbs allowed another sigh of sheer exhaustion to pass his lips before he eventually replied.
"Yeah, I heard you Kate" he said into the phone, "You and Tony start sealing off the whole area. I'm on my way".
"Got it" Kate's voice confirmed her understanding, and then the line went dead.
Clenching his teeth as he felt the frustration starting to build within him, Gibbs returned his cell phone to the pocket of his jacket, before he sensed that something was amiss. Turning on the spot so that he was once again facing the one-way mirror that spied into the interrogation room, Gibbs once again felt his blood beginning to boil in his vein.
Kyle Boon was no longer lying on the table looking up at the ceiling.
No. Now the bastard was sitting upright, his legs dangling off the edge of the table as he stared at the mirror, almost like he could see Gibbs straight through it.
And he was smiling.
Squeezing his fists so tightly that his knuckles turned a stark white, Gibbs forced himself to take a deep breath in an attempt to calm his raging emotions. The idea to go in there and beat that piece of dirt to a bloody pulp was almost overwhelmingly tempting, but the silver haired federal agent forced himself to resist the urge.
Kyle Boone would get what was coming to him, Gibbs forced himself to remember.
It was only a matter of time.
McGee's face was pinched tight as confusion played across his features. The young agent was kneeling before the lifeform form of the girl hanging down the tree branch. He was carefully studying the poor woman's face, a face that screamed of familiarity. It took McGee a moment to place it, but once he had, his eyes widened out of pure and unadulterated shock.
"Tony!" he cried, attracting the senior field agent's attention, "Something's not right!"
"Well nothing has been since Boone showed up at NCIS" Tony shrugged at him, failing to pick up on the panic in the younger man's face and tone.
"No!" McGee frantically shook his head, "No, I know this girl!"
Tony's jaw dropped wide open as his head snapped up incredulously.
"You know her?!" he gawked at the junior field agent in sheer disbelief, sure that he must have heard him wrong, "How?!"
McGee's entire body was almost trembling with confusion and growing nerves as he looked Tony dead in the eye. His face was a white as a sheet.
"You know her too" the junior agent informed him grimly, only serving to confuse Tony even further, "She was the last entry in Boone's scrapbook. One of the Jane Does".
Tony, who had been growing as tense as McGee thanks to the anxious edge in his voice, allowed himself to relax as he rolled his eyes out of annoyance.
"He's been on death row for ten years, McGee" he reminded the younger man pointedly, his tone a little bit condescending, "She's been here less than a week. That's not possible".
"Look at her!" McGee insisted frantically, gesturing wildly at the body dangling down from the tree branch between them.
Tony sighed deeply, but realising that his Probie probably wasn't going to let go of this crazy notion he'd got into his head, the senior field agent stepped closer and peered into the lifeless face of the unfortunate victim. Then his eyes widened out of horrified amazement.
Because despite knowing that it was impossible, that there was no way in hell it could be true... McGee... was right.
The woman hanging dead by her arms before them, was one of the women photographed in Kyle Boone's scrapbook. Tony remembered her photographs as clear as day, her eyes wide and desperate, as if begging the viewer for help.
But that just couldn't be right! It just wasn't possible!
Kyle Boone had hidden that photo album well over a decade ago, long before he was captured and sent to prison. And if the girl hanging between them had been dead for all that time, she'd been nothing but dust and bones by now. She couldn't have been exposed to the elements for more than a couple of days, by the state of her. The two things together just didn't make any sense.
"It can't be!" Tony breathed out in horrified disbelief.
And yet somehow... it was.
Loathed as he was to do it, Gibbs knew he couldn't leave NCIS headquarters until he had spoken to Kyle Boone at least one more time. He didn't want to do it, but Gibbs knew that it was imperative to the investigation that he had least gage the disgusting creep's reaction when informed about the newly discovered corpse. He knew that Boone had nothing to do with this more recent murder, but he would still be the key to working out what was happening. Talking to him was crucial, despite Gibbs' own personal feelings on the matter.
Pushing the door open and walking in with his usual confident stride, Gibbs was once again forced to resist the urge the punch the living daylights out of the bastard standing in front of him.
The bastard grinning at him with sickening smugness.
Gibbs' blood boiled again, but the silver haired federal agent took a deep breath, practically willing himself to remain patient when Boone opened his mouth to speak.
"You look a little peaked, Jethro" Kyle remarked casually, and Gibbs clenched his fist before forcing himself to calm down, "Is something wrong? Maybe I can help. A new development, perhaps?"
Gibbs gave the man a withering look that would have cowed a lesser man. Boone just smirked up at him in amusement as the silver haired agent leaned his arms down on the table so that they were taking the weight of his mentally exhausted body.
"I've got to hand it to you, Boone" Gibbs glared at the monster he couldn't wait to be shot off once and for all, "I did my best, but you got me to play your game. Congratulations".
His tone was like ice, and yet Kyle Boone just cracked another wide grin. Again, the urge to strike the bastard surged through Gibbs' entire system, but he tempered it... for now at least.
"You found the bodies" Kyle realised, sounding so thoroughly delighted that it made Gibbs' skin crawl, "Good. Not what you were expecting, was it?"
Gibbs just levelled him with a harsh glare, but didn't reply to the obvious mocking.
"You see, there's someone else out there, now" Kyle continued, his grin widening even further, like the cat that got the cream, "A new threat. And I'm the only one who can help you find him. You'll have to request a stay of my execution".
Gibbs just barely managed to hold his temper this time.
"I'm gonna have to pass on that" he ground out through his teeth, stuffing his hands into his pocket lest he stuff them in Boone's smirking mouth, "No matter how this plays out, you're going to sit in that chair on Saturday".
His tone would have made anyone sane tremble in fear.
Kyle Boone on the other hand just regarded the seasoned federal agent before him with an air of puzzled curiosity.
"You can't have changed this much" the depraved lunatic finally remarked, his tone incredibly casual considering they were discussing his own execution, "You have a sworn duty".
It was Gibbs' turn to smirk this time.
"Maybe ten years ago" he said with smugness in his tone, turning his back on the prisoner and walking over to the interrogation room door, "Now... hell, I can wait until Sunday to start an investigation".
He opened the door and made to leave.
"You're bluffing" Kyle said behind him, and for the first time, he didn't sound so cocky and confident. Gibbs smirked to himself when he heard the note of fear in the psychotic man's voice. Turning back, he grinned nastily.
"You're dead in thirty six hours" Gibbs promised him darkly.
Then without waiting for another word, he turned and marched off, shutting the door behind him. Storming down the corridor in the direction of the elevator, Gibbs had only one thought was blazing through his mind.
He had to make sure that bastard fried.
Even though she had managed to get the necessary phone call through to Gibbs, Kate was so close to the edge of the forest now that it seemed silly not to stop by the NCIS truck and pick up the rest of the equipment that they'd need to assist in their investigation.
Finally emerging through a large bush, Kate sighed deeply and brushed a few stray twigs and leaves off her clothes and out of her hair. She smiled when she saw the familiar white vehicle parked close by. Heading over to it, Kate paused in her tracks when she felt a peculiar shiver run down her spine. It immediately her nerves on edge, and made her bite her lip anxiously. Swallowing nervously, Kate glanced around the country lane in which she found herself, but saw no one.
Shaking herself slightly to rid herself of the nerves she'd suddenly been flooded with, the female federal agent took another few steps towards the NCIS investigation van to collect the equipment that she needed.
SNAP!
A twig cracked somewhere close to her.
Allowing a soft gasp of alarm to slip past her lips, Kate somehow just sensed that it wasn't a wild animal approaching her, but a human being. A human being that was clearly going to great lengths to remain hidden from sight. That was never a good sign. The female federal agent wasn't about to take any chances though, and so her hand immediately flew down to the gun in the holster at her side. Unfortunately for the dark haired young women however, she would never get the chance to so much as draw her weapon, let alone pull the trigger on anyone.
WHAM!
Pain exploded against the side of her face, and the female federal agent couldn't help but cry out from the sheer agony that came with the blow. Before she knew what was happening, Kate's knees had buckled underneath her, and her pretty eyes rolled back in her head, as she weakly crumpled to the ground like a discarded ragdoll. A soft feeble moan of pure and unadulterated pain slipped past her lips as she lay in the dirt in the middle of the woodland trailer.
Moments later, darkness consumed her.
CLIFF. HANGER.
Yep, I really decided to do that to you guys ; )
So yeah, we finally get to see just who it is that is going to be kidnapped in my version of events. I think most people had guessed pretty early on that it would be Kate, but hopefully there's something coming up soon in this episode that will be entirely predictable, since I didn't even have it planned until I started writing it : )
But I think that's just about it from me for this week, so thank you for reading this chapter and my story in general, and I really hope you're enjoying it. Please also consider leaving a review as I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback on how I'm doing so far, and like I said before, please also keep those suggestions coming in as well, especially for the episode 'Silver War', because some of them have been extremely helpful : )
Until the next time, keep on reading : )
