Disclaimer: NCIS/Navy NCIS is the property of CBS and Bellisario Productions. This original story is the property of Kasman.
A/N: Multiple thank yous, as always, to my co-conspirator, Alaidh. Enjoy, folks!
Tony pressed the red button on the remote he’d picked up from the passenger seat of the car and waited for the tall metal gates to open before driving through. He stopped a moment, and looked up at the house through a light drizzle – the gray end of a gray day. The façade of the mock-Tudor mansion was just as he remembered it – six steps up to the front door, a well-lit conservatory to the left, currently only occupied by plants, as far as he could tell. The driveway ran around to the right in the direction of a pair of electronically operated garage doors.
Tony frowned at the steps, noting that there wasn’t a ramp or any other means of access on this side of the building. He slowly drove around to the garages, hit the green button, and waited for the door to open. The vacant space revealed by the ascending right hand door was the one closest to the exit at the back of the house, and next to his mother’s silver Mercedes sedan, so he knew she was home. Once again, the internal door leading directly into the house was inaccessible to him. However, there was another door, and it only had a small lip to negotiate onto the path that led round to the back patio.
A few minutes later, Tony was knocking on a panel of one of the glass patio doors. He had a sports bag balanced on his lap, a jacket slung across the top, and his backpack suspended from the back of the chair.
“C’mon, c’mon,” he said, hugging his arms. He regretted not putting on the jacket after getting out of the car. He hammered on the glass again, wondering if he should make his way around to the kitchen, even if that meant leaving the shelter of the polycarbonate roof of the patio. Looking out from the shelter of the patio, that idea instantly lost its appeal as it was starting to rain again. He cupped his hands around his face and peered through the glass, just able to make out the scene through a gap in the gauze curtains. He could see part of what appeared to be a huge, tastefully decorated Christmas tree in one corner of the room, but not much else. He was just searching in the top of the backpack for his cell phone – Plan C – when a uniformed maid entered the room. Tony knocked again, and found it hard to restrain a laugh when the girl jumped out of her skin. “I’m Tony,” he said loudly. “Can you let me in?”
The girl pulled back the curtain and unlocked the door from the inside, stepping back to let him pass, before closing and locking it again.
“I’m terribly sorry, sir. Mrs. DiNozzo wasn’t expecting you until much later,” the girl said.
“That’s okay,” Tony said, rubbing his cold nose, feeling it tingle in the heat of the room. “What’s your name?” he asked with a tentative smile.
“Brittany,” she replied.
“Is my mother at home, Brittany?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied.
Tony turned on a dazzling smile. “Can you tell her I’m here?”
“I’ll just go and…” The girl fled, visibly flustered now.
Tony kept grinning as she left, then turned his attention elsewhere. He put the sports bag and his jacket down on the floor and moved further into the room, noting how little it had changed in the three years or more since he’d last been there. There was a pile of glittering packages under the tree he’d noticed earlier. A multitude of colorful cards adorned the mantelpiece in the sunken, more intimate section of the room in front of a fake-log fire. He noted with pleasure that a gently sloped ramp had been installed over the stairs, and grinned at the thought that he was considered worthy of one of his mother’s “fireside tête-à-têtes.”
He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, scenting pine and furniture polish and then catching a whiff of his mother’s expensive perfume as she entered the room behind him.
“Anthony.”
Tony swiveled the chair in the direction of the voice. Irene DiNozzo's smile slipped slightly as her son turned to face her, although she quickly recovered. Tony, seeing the little hesitation, flashed one of his million-megawatt smiles. "Hi, Mom." He dutifully presented his cheek to be kissed. "You're looking well."
"So are you."
"This place hasn't changed much," he said, gesturing at he room.
Tony's mother shrugged. "You probably want to freshen up after the journey," she said, changing the subject. "We…I've converted your father's office to a bedroom for you. It has a…"
"Private bathroom. Yes, I know," Tony finished for her. "Thanks." Wonder what he thought about handing his office over to the black sheep of the family, he mused. Something of his thoughts must have communicated itself to his mother.
"Your father has an office upstairs," she said. "Much bigger room."
Tony's eyes widened for an instant, then he shrugged.
"He didn't really mind, you know," Irene DiNozzo stated, although she seemed to lack conviction. "Come. I'm afraid you caught us on the hop a little. We didn't expect you to arrive so early."
"Got away earlier than I expected," Tony replied, picking up the sports bag and following her into the short hallway. A moment later, she swung open the timber door into the side room that had formerly been Tony's father's domain.
Instead of the heavy wooden desk, book case and various other tables holding computer, fax machine and so on, a pair of overstuffed chairs and a coffee table, the room now only held a timber-framed bed, bedside table and a low chest of drawers. The thick pile floor rug had been removed to reveal the honey-colored floorboards beneath. The bed, he noted with pleasure, was actually his own from his former bedroom upstairs, which he rightly guessed had been handed over to his father as an office now. It was a little higher than he was used to, but that had been taken care of by the installation of a trapeze – a little piece of overkill on the part of his mother, but he let it pass without comment. Tony moved further into the room and placed his two bags on top of the drawers before opening the bathroom door to peer in curiously.
He became aware that his mother was still standing anxiously in the doorway of the room. Having cast his eyes over the flip-up shower bench, raised toilet and grab-rails, he turned back and gave her a beaming smile.
"Is it okay?" she asked.
"Great. Looks kinda permanent to me. You hoping for repeat visits?"
"Well…I-I…"
Tony gave her a cheeky grin, and she relaxed, knowing she'd been had.
"Thanks, Mom. It's perfect," he said. "Can you give me a few minutes to freshen up…"
"Sure. I'll be in the TV room," she said.
Tony raised an eyebrow. "Okay. Won't be long," he said, closing the door after her. Tony exhaled a sigh of relief when she was gone. He was more tense than he'd pretended to her face. He stripped off the heavy sweater and gloves he'd worn for seven or so hours in the car and pulled a lighter sweater out of his bag, leaving it on the bed while he visited the bathroom to splash water on his face. It amused him somewhat to have displaced the father who had all but disowned him. He paused for a moment to reflect on this – Mr. Perfect handing over “his” space to his somewhat less than perfect son – a son so flawed that he had cut him from his life more than three years before – there had to be some sort of poetic justice in that. Tony now had no chance of ever fitting into his father’s scheme of how things should be in a perfect world – a terrorist’s gunshot nearly seven months before had irrevocably ended any thought of that. Not that he really cared. He would never fit in with his father’s plans and had taken great pleasure in doing exactly the opposite for most of his adult life. Indeed, he wore his imperfection for the world to see like a medal of honor – injured in the line of duty, but still in the saddle. He took a certain amount of pride in the fact that he was now back to working his normal 16 to 17 hour days – albeit in modified form, making time for therapy and gym work around his working hours as best he could. Anne, his therapist and friend, fitted him in whenever and wherever it was possible – at his apartment before or after hours, and even during one memorable all-nighter, in the bedroom of a safe-house, having talked Gibbs into letting him help out, while a red-faced McGee manned a surveillance camera in the next room. He had no idea what McGee thought he was doing with the attractive Australian girl who had slipped in unobtrusively through the back door of the house as instructed by Gibbs, but Tony teased the young man mercilessly about it.
Tony grinned to himself as he pulled the lightweight sweater over his head. He quickly ran a hand through his tousled hair and was ready to go. His hand loomed for a moment over the phone he’d left on the dresser beside the bag, then he resolutely left it there, and headed out into the passage in the direction of the TV room. He stopped outside the door for a moment, surprised to hear two voices coming from the room – one his mother’s and another, older female voice responding. The rustle of clothing and a couple of metallic clicks carried into the hallway before a snatch of canned laughter from a sitcom on the TV drowned out all other sound.
He took a couple of deep breaths before pushing the door open wider, while still trying to identify the other voice.
The wheelchair gave a loud creak as Tony propelled himself into the room, causing his mother, who was standing at the sideboard pouring coffee, to look up. It was the other occupant of the room, however, who brought a broad grin to Tony’s face. He looked into a pair of faded blue eyes behind steel-framed glasses, and the pleasantly wrinkled visage of one of the few family members he actually cared about. “Hi, Gran,” he said.
The old lady put down her knitting and held out her hands to him. “Ah, here’s my favorite grandson come to give his gran a kiss,” she said, a warm smile on her face. Tony moved forward into his grandmother’s embrace, scenting powder and old person, comforting odors he’d known most of his life, and feeling her bony hands shake slightly as she pulled him close. “Dear boy. Let me look at you.” Tony’s grandmother looked at him, a very Tony-like smile on her face. “You’re looking well.”
“So are you, Gran.”
“Nonsense, boy, you need to borrow my glasses for a closer look,” she said, tapping the frame. “Now, come sit beside me, and humor an old lady.”
“Sure, Gran.” Tony backed up and moved around to the other side of the sofa. He transferred into the other end of the two-and-a-half-seater, an awkward maneuver due to the close proximity of the coffee table and the softness of the chair. Even with his back turned, he could sense his mother’s nervousness as she fussed with the coffee, pretending not to watch.
“Can I get you anything? Coffee?”
“Coffee would be nice, Mom. You remember how I like it?”
“Yes, sweetheart, of course I do.” She looked at him in some alarm as he settled himself more comfortably on the sofa. She hadn’t expected him to move so readily from the wheelchair to the couch, and the ease with which he lifted himself across took her by surprise.
While Tony was settling himself on the couch, his grandmother packed away her knitting in a plastic bag, which she tucked neatly into the corner between the sofa cushion and arm before reaching out a hand to take his. “Now, tell me every little thing,” she said.
“Gran, I can’t tell you everything. Guy’s gotta have some secrets,” Tony grinned. He looked up as his mother noisily rattled two coffee cups together.
“For goodness sake, Irene, calm down.” Martha Lily O’Rourke spoke sharply to her daughter, who jumped a little at the words.
“Sorry,” she said, her manner somewhat distracted. “I just…”
“Irene, make the coffee, and sit down. You’re making me nervous.” Tony looked at his grandmother sharply, hearing an unaccustomed edge in her voice. She turned back to him and smiled. “How are you coping, dear? I remember when all those beautiful broken boys came home from the war – how hard it was for them and their families.” Her face took on a wistful expression, while Tony was slightly taken aback by the directness of the question. He was more accustomed to people hedging around the issue. “I’m allowed to be direct – I’m old,” she said with a little grin as Irene set the two coffees down on the table.
“You’re not old,” he responded, taking a tentative sip of the hot brew, and giving his mom an appreciative nod.
“Ah, don’t lie to me, Anthony. I turn 82 this year, you know.”
“82…wow,” he grinned. “And I’m doin’ fine, Gran. Things are a lot better these days.”
She released his hand and gave his thigh a pat. “That’s good,” she said.
Tony looked down at the hand he couldn’t feel as it rested on his leg – the prominent knuckles and veins showing through skin so thin it was almost transparent, and covered it with his own. “And you, Gran. How are you…coping?”
“I’d cope a lot better if she,” she said with an imperious wave at her daughter, “would stop mollycoddling me.”
Irene gave her mother a warning look. “Now, Mother…”
“Growing old, Anthony, it’s a terrible thing.”
“As is growing shorter,” Tony responded with an ironic grin. “You have no idea how hard it is to reach the cereal on the top shelf of the supermarket.”
Tony’s grandmother smiled faintly. “Keepin’ the Cap’n Crunch out of your reach, are they?”
Tony laughed and blushed a little. “You know how it is, Gran. You can take the man out of the boy, but you can’t take the boy outta the man.” Irene DiNozzo dignified the response with a small smile as she sat in one of the pair of armchairs opposite the couch. “I’d forgotten you were living here, Gran.”
“You haven’t visited for more than three years, Anthony,” Irene reminded him. Tony looked at his mother. She seemed different somehow – subdued – almost like she was trying a little too hard.
Tony gave her a nervous smile. “Well…you know how it is…”
“Between you and your father? Yes, I do.” Irene sighed deeply. “He’ll be home later,” she continued, flashing him a warning look. “Sometime around midnight, I think he said.”
Tony nodded, accepting the inevitable. “Didn’t figure I could avoid the pleasure of his company,” he said, grimacing.
His mother gave him a slightly shocked look at that comment, but then nodded her understanding. They all silently sipped the hot coffee for a few minutes. Eventually, Tony’s grandmother eased forward on the seat and fumbled for her cane. “I’m going to go to bed,” she said. “Tired…”
“’Night, Gran,” Tony said, offering a steadying hand as she wavered unsteadily on her feet. Irene stood to escort her out.
“I can manage the stairs on my own, Irene,” Martha snapped.
“I know you can, Mother,” she said, but accompanied her anyway. Tony heard them talking in the hallway for a moment, then the shuffle of feet on the wooden stairs. Irene was back a few minutes later and took up her seat in the armchair again, kicking off her shoes to curl her feet up under her and staring into space.
“Mom? You okay?” Tony asked, concerned at her unusual manner.
“Yes, just a little tired,” she said.
“Actually,” Tony admitted, stretching expansively, “so am I. I think I might as well turn in.” He reached for the wheelchair, pulling it back from behind the sofa where he’d pushed it back out of the way and locking the brakes once more. He caught the alarmed look on his mother’s face as he positioned himself to make the transfer. “Mom, it’s okay. I do this all the time.”
She nodded, although her expression was still concerned as he made his move and positioned his feet on the footplate. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said softly. “This is all new to me.”
Tony looked at her with a half grin on his face, the dimples deeply shadowed in the soft lighting of the room. He pushed forward the couple of feet to where she was sitting, and leaned forward. “Mom, I’ll let you know if I need help, okay?”
Irene gave a half smile in response and nodded, then she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “Goodnight, Anthony,” she said. “I’m…glad you came.”
He looked reflective for a moment, then the cocky grin appeared. “So am I, Mom. ‘Night.”
Immediately on entering the bedroom, Tony opened his backpack to extract the phone charger, which he set up using the most accessible power outlet, namely, the one in the bathroom. He paused on opening the sports bag, trying to decide whether to unpack or not. He really didn't know how long he'd stay. The top layer, underneath where the lightweight sweater he was now wearing had been, consisted of three neatly wrapped packages tied with red and green ribbon. Pursing his lips, he took them out one by one and placed them on his lap. Making a decision, he left the room again and went back to the living room, making for the Christmas tree. He pushed himself up close to the tree's fragrant branches, reaching under to place the first of the packages – the largest of the three – underneath.
"Anthony?"
Tony jerked back, and felt himself falling. He hit the floor with a thud, the chair half on top of him.
"Oh, my God. Anthony?! Are you all right?" Irene DiNozzo almost ran in her haste to get to him.
"Oww!" He shoved the chair roughly back off his body and looked up at his mother, at the worry on her face.
"I'm so sorry. Are you hurt? What do I do?"
"Mom, I'm fine." He pushed up into a sitting position, rubbing his elbow ruefully. "You startled me, that's all." He carefully extracted his feet from the pile of gifts they'd landed in and added the other two smaller parcels to the pile before turning back to right the chair, thumping the seat cushion back into position. "Mom, can you step back a bit please?" He positioned himself and closed his eyes briefly in a silent prayer to the muscle gods that he could do it first go, then taking a firm grip on the frame, with a grunt and a heave, transferred up off the floor in one smooth movement. He settled himself, and looked up at his mother wearing a grin of triumph as he positioned his feet. "'Night, Mom," he said. He swiveled the chair and pushed off in the direction of his room once more. Stopping at the hallway door, he turned and gave her a big grin. She hadn’t moved except to watch him go, her expression stunned.
Tony stripped down to his t-shirt and boxer shorts, checked that the curtains were open and climbed up into the bed. He settled himself comfortably and covered himself with the thick comforter. He had thought briefly about actually investing in some pajamas for the visit, but eventually elected to wear a light t-shirt and boxer shorts. There was no way he was going to sleep nude in the family home. It was bad enough when Kate looked him up and down, but to have his mother…Don’t go there, Tony. He gazed in the direction of the darkened windows, comforted by the slight lightening in the darkness indicating the opening. The difference was almost imperceptible, but comforting all the same.
He hadn’t lied when he said he was tired, but he wasn’t really ready for sleep either…just...it was the first time he’d been in this house in more than three years. He felt some trepidation at the coming confrontation with the father he hadn’t seen in all that time. And then there was his mother and her fussing. Tony beat the pillow into a comfortable shape with his fist and closed his eyes, determined to sleep.
-----------------------
“Is he here?” the male voice came from the hall, almost outside his door, waking him from the early stages of sleep.
“Shh, Joe,” replied a female voice. “He’s asleep.”
There was a murmured response, too quiet for Tony to pick up, footsteps, and then the voices were gone. He smiled to himself, and drifted off to sleep once more.
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The door opened softly and Irene DiNozzo padded into the room on stockinged feet, her shoes dangling from one hand. The light from the open door caught her son’s face in profile against the pillows, mouth partly open as he gently snored. The comforter had slid down, leaving his shoulders uncovered. She took a moment to study the smooth contours of his upper body as they showed under the t-shirt – more developed now than they’d ever been in his life. Pity it had to come at such a cost, she reflected. Her eyes drifted to the wheelchair and filled with pain. Tony had always been a puzzle to her – this son she’d borne and raised. He’d always been contrary – a maverick. He’d always chosen his own path, no matter the consequences – taking the good and the bad with grace, equanimity and boundless good humor. There’d been conflict between him and his father all his life. A throwback. That’s what his grandmother called him. A distant echo of some pioneer ancestor, forging a path across the prairies…the only thing they’d agreed on was sports. She reached across and pulled the covers up over his shoulders, closed the curtains that she’d noticed were open and quietly left, pulling the door to after her. She paused outside for a moment to replace her shoes. “Sleep well, son.”
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Tony and Kate huddled together with Gibbs in the back of the van, peering at the surveillance tape.
“And where is he now?” Gibbs asked into the cell phone, watching the image on the screen.
“Shopping precinct,” a metallic voice replied, distorted by static.
“Come on, boss. I can do this!” DiNozzo twitched with excitement.
Gibbs looked over his shoulder at the junior agent. “All right.”
Tony was out of the van a moment later, closely followed by Gibbs and Kate, who watched him go. He sauntered jauntily in the direction of the house, hands in his pockets, seemingly all innocence as he crossed the street…
Tony woke up with a groan and rubbed a hand across his face, the vivid dream fresh in his head. He squinted at the clock on the bedside table, groaned again at the hour, and flopped back, staring up into the darkness above him. A feeling that something was different pervaded his thoughts, and he looked around the room, trying to penetrate the gloom with his eyes. They finally fixed on the section of windows where he’d left the curtains open when he went to sleep, to find that they had been closed. Puzzled, he debated with himself whether it was worth the trouble of getting up to open them again, wondering if he’d get any sleep with them closed.
Feeling a little annoyed, he lay back on the pillows, half turning his upper body to more or less lie on his back, and noticed a little wedge of light filtering through the doorway where one of the hall lights had been left on. He was sure he’d left the door shut when he went to bed. “Mom,” he said out loud. Bet she came in and checked on me. Tony sighed, not wanting to get out of bed. Gees, Mom, I’m not a kid any more. He looked up at the ceiling for a moment, thinking. Hmm…maybe if I turn over, I can forget the curtains…yeah. He grinned to himself and tugged at a recalcitrant leg, trying to move it. Okay…what gives? What am I caught on? He pushed up into a sitting position and, propped on one hand, felt around with the other for the side edge of the comforter, immediately encountering a warm, furry body. “Ack…what’s that?!” He quickly withdrew his hand, startled, as his fingers brushed a cold, wet nose and a loud, “Mrr,” came from the whatever-it-was on his bed.
Tony looked down into a pair of large, luminous eyes and caught the vague outline of upright ears in the light from the doorway. “Hey, Emily! Where did you come from?” he asked, stroking a soft head. There was an immediate answering rumble of noise from deep within the compact body. The little cat stood up and licked its shoulder. Tony, now that he was free of the extra weight, adjusted his position while the interloper moved up the bed, turned a complete circle and curled up in a ball again, leaning against his body and purring loudly. He grinned at the cheek of the little fur-ball and lay back on the pillow, one hand gently stroking a warm back.
------------------------
Tony woke to the distant sounds of an awakening household. The warm spot where Emily had slept was vacant and cooling. Somewhere in the background, a vacuum hummed and there was some desultory chatter as various staff went about their affairs. Eventually, the chink of silverware and the faint aroma of coffee wafting through the door had him sitting up and reaching for the wheelchair.
He had showered, shaved and was on the bed dressed in boxers and t-shirt once more, in the middle of doing some modified stretches, when his mother hesitantly knocked at the slightly open door. “May I come in?” she asked.
“Sure, Mom,” he looked across at her with what he thought was an encouraging smile and stopped what he was doing. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”
Tony gave her a brief grin and reached for his other leg, intent on going through as much of the full routine as he could on his own, despite location and intrusions and whatever else the day held. “I see you still have Emily. How old is she now?”
“Sixteen, but still thinks she’s a kitten.”
“She…appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the night, decided I needed some company.”
Irene watched what Tony was doing for a moment. “What are you doing?”
“Modified range of motion exercises.” He looked at her expectantly. “The PT normally does them with me, but since I’m here and she’s not…gotta make do.”
Irene nodded and hesitated a moment. “Can I…help at all?”
This time, it was Tony who hesitated, then gave her a smile. “Sure, sure you can help."
-----------------------
Tony helped himself to a couple of slices of toast from the rack on the sideboard and liberally coated them with peanut butter. After placing his plate on the table, he poured himself some coffee as well, wedging the cup carefully between his legs to transport it to the table. He pulled a chair out of the way and sat facing the big picture windows that looked out over the lawn. Despite a watery winter sun breaking through the clouds, the garden looked gray and desolate at this time of year, the flowerbeds bare, most of the trees stripped of leaves.
He was the only occupant of the small family room that had been used for breakfast ever since he was a small child. After his mother had left him in his room, he had dressed and come here to quell the rumbling of his stomach. For now, he had solitude, while knowing full well that later in the day the house would be full of people – DiNozzos, O’Rourkes, Johannsens and others - family members and hangers-on of every kind. This had also been the same since he was a child, an unchanging ritual of the season. He heard his mother’s voice in the background talking to one of the staff. He knew better than to expect to see his father downstairs before lunch. He would be in his office upstairs, doing whatever had to be done for the next day, and would only appear for the meal. The sound of the vacuum drew closer.
Tony heard a muffled exclamation – the sound of someone tripping - and Emily appeared in the doorway, a stolen Christmas decoration held in her mouth. She dropped it on the floor and pounced on it, gripping it in her forepaws and kicking with the back.
“Mom will skin you alive if she catches you,” Tony observed to the cat. He pushed back on the table with one hand to swing around in a semi-circle and watch her.
Emily paused and regarded him with calculating green eyes, still holding the bauble between delicate grey paws, her teeth clamped on the ribbon that had once held it on of the lower branches of the Christmas tree. She dropped her prize and sauntered over, rubbing her body against the leg guard of the wheelchair then reared up on her hind legs to rub her head against the edge of the seat. "Merrroowwwww." She paused for an instant before springing into Tony’s lap, kneading his legs with sharp claws and settling into a purring ball.
Tony scratched the cat’s head, feeling at a loss as to what to do now. He was bored and feeling out of place. This house was no longer his home – hadn’t been his home for many years – and he had been persona non gratis for so long that it felt a little odd just being there. A maid came in and looked at him curiously. She picked up the Christmas ornament from the floor and threw a disapproving glance at the cat. Tony nodded to her, indicating that she should start cleaning up the breakfast dishes. Poor thing. Imagine having to work on Christmas Day, he thought, not for the first time. He looked at his watch and pushed off in the direction of the hall. “Going for a ride, Emily.” Emily flicked an ear back at his words, but otherwise didn’t move.
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“Merry Christmas, Gran!” Tony called up the stairs to where his mother and grandmother were slowly making their way down. Tony wondered why his parents hadn’t installed a stair-climber for the old lady…and for him, for that matter…or even given her the use of a room downstairs. His mother was holding her mother’s arm securely for support as she stiffly made her way down, her arthritis obviously worse in the morning than it had been the night before.
“Merry Christmas, Anthony.” She concentrated on the next step. “Did you sleep well?” she asked.
“Fine, Gran. You know me – I can sleep anywhere.”
The buzzer sounded from near the front door indicating that someone was at the front gate. All three of them looked in the direction of the noise. “I’ll get it,” Tony said, quickly turning. He knew that the button to answer the buzzer was well within his reach. “Hello? Who is it?” he asked, pressing the button to answer as the buzzer sounded again.
“Tony?”
“Yeah?”
“Heya, Tony. Long time no see. It’s Petey. Can you let us in? It’s f-f-freezing out here.”
“Sure, Pete,” he said, grinning to himself. He waited to let them in once they had driven up to the house, sitting in position behind the heavy, wooden door until he heard footsteps outside. He opened it to a gust of cold air and quickly scooted back out of the way to let in the first batch of visitors for the day as his cousin Petey, Aunt Marie, cousin Nicole and two boys, aged about eight and ten came in.
“Anthony, how nice to see you again,” said his aunt – his mother's sister, bending down to air-kiss his cheek.
“Aunt Marie, you’re looking well,” he said, natural charm overcoming his aunt’s fake sincerity. He knew that her comparatively youthful appearance owed a lot to the skill of her plastic surgeon.
Nicole offered him a vague pat on the shoulder as she took off in pursuit of the two boys, who had made a beeline for the living room, while Pete took off his coat and leaned back against the door. He folded his arms under the coat, suspending it down his front, and considered his cousin gravely. “What the hell happened, Tony? You piss off the wrong person? Did some irate husband come after you with a 12-guage?”
“No, actually, it was a not-so-irate terrorist,” Tony responded with a wry grin, matching his tone to his cousin’s.
“I’m sorry, man.”
Tony shrugged. “Just part of the job.”
“Your mom told us you’d been hurt…”
Tony sized up his tall cousin. They were physically very similar, although Tony was the fairer of the two. He also held himself straighter – his good posture a remnant of his jock training, whereas Petey tended to slouch. “Bet I can still kick your ass at pool,” he grinned, “Figuratively speaking…”
“You wish…” Petey snorted, straightening up as Tony started to turn.
“You game?” Tony glanced back over his shoulder at his cousin, ready to push off. He jerked his body, startled, as Emily decided now was the moment to leap off his lap onto the floor.
“Rrrp,” the little cat said as she vanished lithely into the living room.
“I am if you are,” he said.
“So where’s…Robert? James? Ah, what was his name?” Tony asked, referring to Nicole’s absent significant other. His aunt had been widowed more than ten years before, but he was surprised not to see Nicole’s spouse in the group.
“Richard. They’ve been divorced for a coupl’a’ years.”
“Really? Huh, how ‘bout that.” Tony nodded and executed a sharp turn into the games room.
“And before you ask, Emma’s flight was delayed.”
“Emma? Weren’t you going out with…Christie? Was that her name?”
“Was…”
“Uh huh. I am soooo out of touch.”
“And Christie,” said Petey, leaning over the pool table to rack the balls, “Was about three girlfriends ago.”
“Wow,” Tony said, selecting a cue from the rack on the wall. He peered along its length to see whether it was straight.
“So…you still…”
Tony grinned. “You know me…”
Pete gave him a knowing leer. “Yeah.” He selected a cue and followed Tony’s lead by checking how straight it was. “Mind if I break?”
“Go ahead.”
Pete placed the cue and lined up his shot, sending balls caroming all over the table. “So how bad is it?” he asked.
“How bad is what?” Tony asked, puzzled.
Petey tapped the wheelchair with the cue as they both scanned the table, Petey looking for his next shot. “This.”
“Oh.” Tony shrugged and made a cutting motion across his body at about hip level. “’Bout there.”
Pete winced. “Ouch. What’s that? About T11? T12?”
“Something like that.” Tony looked at him sharply as he took his shot and missed.
It was Pete’s turn to shrug. “I did some research...”
Tony gave him a wry smile. “Yeah.”
“Hey, you’re family, man.”
“I guess.” Tony leaned into the table, lining up the cue ball. He struck it firmly and was pleased to see the red ball drop into the pocket. He found the angle he was working from to be unusual, but not too hard, all things considered. He moved around the table and lined up his next shot. "You still collecting buttons?" he asked, looking over the pool cue briefly.
"Sure. Why?"
Tony gave the cue ball a substantial hit and watched as the colored ball dropped into a corner pocket. "No reason."
"You still working for that agency? N…C…?"
"NCIS. And yes, still working there."
"They got you tied to a desk. Who could imagine the day…"
"I'm not."
"Not what?"
"Not tied to a desk." Tony frowned, studying the table. "I can still do field work."
"You can?"
"Yeah…as long as the field is accessible," Tony grinned at his cousin. "Mind you, climbing stairs on my ass isn't elegant…"
"What's new about you climbing stairs on your ass?"
"Hey, I told you, I slipped when I was going down!"
“Yeah…right…” Petey looked at him in mock disbelief.
Tony gave him a good-humored grin and lined up his next shot, only to skew it badly. He looked up at Petey hopefully. “Gimp rules?” he asked coyly, only to see his cousin already moving around the table to line up his shot.
“Not on your life,” Petey grinned at him. “I aim to even the score between us, cousin.”
Tony sighed, and gripping his cue loosely, backed up out of the way. He balanced the cue across his lap, and hoping it wouldn’t fall, placed a hand on each wheel and lifted himself up in order to change position slightly. “Where’d you meet Emma?”
“She works for the company – traveling rep,” he replied. “Been there about a year.” Petey watched in satisfaction as another ball dropped into its assigned pocket. He ignored the impatient tattoo he could hear Tony beating on one of his wheel rims and took his time lining up the next shot. “You…ah…spoken to him yet?” he asked, leaning over the table for a long shot, his body stretched full length along the edge.
Tony gave his cousin a puzzled look. “Who?”
“Your dad, of course.”
“Nope,” Tony responded, his expression unreadable.
“He is here, though…?”
“Got in very late last night, I believe…and I didn’t exactly lay out the red carpet or do the ass-stairs thing for him this morning.”
Pete harrumphed a barking laugh. “Can’t say I blame you. The old…he wouldn’t let your mother put in a stair climber for Gran. And apparently everyone from Cold Spring Harbor to Queens heard the arguments when she threw him out of the office and had the alterations done.”
“I didn’t know that.” Tony’s expression barely changed, but he felt a kind of glow at knowing she did that for him. Maybe she’s changed, he thought.
“Do you remember the shooting?”
Tony looked up at Petey as he stepped back to let him take his turn at the pool table. It was a rare thing for anyone to quiz him about the shooting as directly as this – most people avoided the issue. Not that he minded. It was a fact of his life that he now lived with every minute of every day. He and his cousin had been close, back in the day, and Petey’s ability to speak to him on such a personal matter was evidence in itself of this former closeness. He took his time responding, sank a couple more balls before he stopped and looked up at his cousin. “Not really,” he said finally. “One minute I was crossing the street, and the next…I woke up in the hospital several days later and all I could see was my boss’s shoe,” he grinned.
“Your dad/my dad…” they both spoke together then stopped.
“Go on,” said Petey.
Tony gave a sigh and an uncomfortable shrug. “My dad always said I’d end up in the gutter. He was almost right.” Tony sank the last ball with a satisfying clunk. He grinned at Petey. “I still got it.”
“Two outta three?” Petey asked, starting to retrieve and rack the balls again.
“If you two children have finished playing games, we have a houseful of guests, Anthony.” Irene’s tone managed to be both amused and disapproving at the same time.
Tony and Petey exchanged glances. Sprung again! Tony turned to face her, his expression apologetic. “Sorry, mom. We’re coming.”
“I’ll get you later,” Petey murmured. “Sorry, Aunt Irene.”
 |
Emily |
The living room was in a state of bedlam. Tony recoiled from the noise of fighting children before even entering the room. He had to stop at the entrance to wait for Nicole’s two boys to stop wrestling on the floor so he could pass. Petey took the situation in hand, however, squeezing through and grabbing each miscreant by a shirt collar to haul them to their feet. “Hey, you two! Behave,” he said fiercely.
“Sorry, Uncle Pete,” the boys said in unison, then scampered off again. Tony and Pete exchanged looks before proceeding further into the room.
Tony moved into the room slowly, offering smiles and heys to faces only half-remembered, until he found himself beside his grandmother. The old lady was safely installed in a comfortable armchair, cooing over a dark-eyed baby, a member of the extended DiNozzo family.
“She’s beautiful, Gina,” his grandmother was saying.
Tony looked on, feeling bored and out of place. He had little or no experience with children of any age, and had no desire for fatherhood. His own upbringing had certainly left a lot to be desired in most respects, other than material goods, and even that had been cut off, other than some income from a trust fund that was so tied up in legal tape that he could never touch the capital. He no longer dined at the family watering trough. Still, he took a second look at Gina, having not seen her since she was a painfully shy, plump, pimple-faced teenager. He wondered when she’d turned into the confident, attractive, twenty-something brunette he now saw. Gina finally became aware that she was being subjected to scrutiny by her handsome cousin, caught Tony’s eye and blushed prettily.
“Hey, Gina,” he said evenly, although he couldn’t help following up with an impish grin at having caused her to react.
“Tony? Oh, my God, Tony, how are you…” Gina’s voice trailed off uncomfortably as the compassion seeped in.
He was saved from anything further by a voice at the other end of the room announcing that, “Lunch is served.” Gina scooped up the baby and looked around the room, eventually catching sight of whoever it was she was looking for, leaving Tony and his grandmother somewhat bemused by her quick departure.
“Come on, Gran, ups-a-daisy,” Tony said, locking his brakes for stability and giving her a helping hand to rise from the chair. He was gratified to find that Petey had appeared on the other side to give a helping hand under the opposite elbow.
“Go on, I got this,” Pete said, once the old lady was on her feet.
Tony nodded and pushed off smoothly. He had found that most people tended to step aside rather than have their toes run over, and this was no different with family members. He was pleased to see that there was one place setting without a chair, about a third of the way down the table and backing onto the windows.
“Is it okay?” Tony looked up, surprised to see that his mother was beside him.
“Fine, Mom. You think of everything.”
“I’m trying, Anthony.”
“I know.” He slid the chair into place.
A few moments later, Pete and his grandmother entered the room, which was slowly filling. “There. Is this okay, Gran?” Pete asked, helping her into the seat beside Tony and hanging her cane from the back of her chair before walking around the table to sit opposite.
“Thank you, sweetie,” she said, patting his hand.
“No problem, Gran.”
Petey took up a position opposite his grandmother and put a protective hand on the seat beside him, the one in front of Tony, holding it for the still-absent Emma. “Is this girlfriend real, or is she just some story you been telling us?” Tony snickered.
“Oh, she’s real,” he said, and watched Tony’s expression change from the usual cheeky grin to a neutral frown as his father took up a position at the head of the table. Joe DiNozzo returned his son’s look with a glittering, cold glare, then turned to smile at someone else and the moment passed. Tony shrugged at Pete, feeling like he’d just been stripped bare and found wanting. Gibbs really has something to learn in the “terrify the junior” department, he thought.
A bevy of servants started serving the meal, most of them extras from an agency hired for the day. Tony was stunned at the beautiful girl who entered late and came up behind Pete, placing cold hands over his eyes with a playful, “Guess who.”
“Emma! You made it!”
“Stating the obvious there, but yeah, I made it.” Tony couldn’t take his eyes off the attractive brunette. She smiled at him and slid into the seat beside Pete, flicking back a stray strand of hair that had managed to escape her loose ponytail. “Hey,” she said to Tony, fixing him with candid hazel eyes. “I’m Emma Bachman.”
“Tony DiNozzo,” he said, offering a hand to shake across the table.
“Ah, you’re Pete’s cousin.”
“Right.”
“And this is my grandmother, Mrs. O’Rourke,” interjected Pete.
“Pleased to meet you,” she said, offering a well-manicured hand to the old lady, who looked somewhat bemused.
“Gran, this is my girlfriend, Emma.”
“Hello, dear. Glad you could make it.”
Emma turned the smile back to Tony, then wrinkled her nose in concentration. “Tony…you’re the cop, right?”
“Ah, not quite,” he said.
“Tony’s a Special Agent…” Petey started to speak at the same time as his cousin.
“I’m an Investigator with NCIS in Washington,” he said, flashing a look at Petey. Petey, if he registered Tony’s changed status or understood the import of what his cousin had actually said, didn’t comment. Even though Tony was back at work as part of Gibbs’ team, the nature of his injury meant he was no longer eligible to be a Special Agent: he no longer fulfilled all the physical prerequisites for a Special Agent – one of which is the possession of a fully-functional nervous system. Of course, Gibbs, being Gibbs, more often than not turned a blind eye to the rule book, and let Tony in on more than he probably should have, including helping out with surveillance and working on crime scenes. But, effectively, Petey had been right when he said Tony was tied to a desk, because he spent much more of his time in the office than he had in the past. As compensation, he was spending a lot more time interviewing suspects. There was something about Tony’s disarming charm coupled with the wheelchair that caught people off-guard.
“And that is?” Emma asked.
“Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Navy cop, if you like.” He flashed her a quicksilver grin, the one that Anne, his PT, considered should be licensed as a lethal weapon, briefly dimpling both cheeks. “We investigate major crimes and terrorism involving the Navy and Marine Corps,” he continued.
“Oh,” she said, her eyes widening for a moment.
“How was…” Petey asked.
“Horrible,” Emma interrupted, leaning into Petey’s chest. “So was the weather…the flight. Chantelle was hit with the ‘flu, so I had to work the booth on my own for three days. My feet are killing me!”
“I do a pretty good foot massage.” Tony looked back over his shoulder, slightly startled, as a bowl of soup was placed in front of him. He quickly turned back to Emma, however, his eyes glinting as he silently cajoled her.
“Now?” she asked.
“No, tomorrow. I can fit you in around 10:00 am,” he grinned. “Of course now.”
“But the food is being served…”
Tony tilted his head slightly and fixed her with dangerously puppy-like eyes, seemingly all innocence. Pete grinned, having seen the act before, but was also confident that his girlfriend would completely see through his cousin. “Come on, under the table…” he prompted. “You worried about smelly feet?”
“Um, no, not really. Stopped by home and had a shower before I came…” She turned to look at Pete, who squeezed her shoulder and whispered something in her ear.
“Okay, then,” she shrugged. “But this better be worth it.”
He grinned. “It will be.” He carefully sucked some of the hot soup off the spoon. “Just let me…” His voice trailed off as he reached under the table to move his feet off the footrest to the floor, having realized that if he didn’t there’d be little or no space for Emma’s feet, delicate as they may be.
“Sure,” she smiled.
Emma stretched one foot across the dividing distance of the table before finding Tony’s knee. He reached under the table with his hands, feeling around for a moment, and started working some personal magic into Emma’s foot.
“Anthony, can you pass me a bread roll, please?” his grandmother asked. At this time of day, and with the larger gathering, they were having a light lunch – either lobster bisque or pumpkin soup being on the menu, with plenty of crisp rolls for dunking purposes. The main evening meal, usually attended only by close family, would be the full Christmas dinner disaster. Lunch was just a get together of people not seen for the rest of the year, most of whom had other functions to attend later in the day.
“Sure, Gran,” he said, reaching for the rolls with his right hand, while continuing to massage Emma’s foot with the other.
“You’ve never done that for me,” she commented, somewhat petulantly.
“Haven’t I? Well, we can do something about that later,” he said.
He exchanged a quick grin with his mother, who was watching him curiously from near the end of the table.
“Thanks, Tony,” said Emma, retracting her now very relaxed feet. “That was really good.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, smiling as he dipped a spoon into the rapidly cooling bowl of lobster bisque in front of him.
-----------------------------
A maid came up behind Tony and tapped him gently on the shoulder. “Excuse me, Mr. DiNozzo,” she said softly. “You’re wanted on the phone.”
Tony looked over his shoulder at her and nodded. He grinned and shrugged at Emma and his cousin and gave his grandmother’s hand a pat. Looking at his mother apologetically, he caught an odd look from her, and saw controlled anger on his father’s face, before he backed away from the table. “Sorry. This must be important,” he said, and turned away, completely missing the shocked expression on Emma’s face when she saw the wheelchair.
Tony picked up the phone in the hall and said a cautious, ”Hello?”
“DiNozzo, I’ve been trying to reach you for hours. Don’t you ever pick up your phone?”
“Boss, I’m on vacation. Christmas? Ring any bells?”
“Rhode Island sent a call for help.”
“And this has anything to do with me how?” Tony said impatiently. “Look, boss, sorry, but I gotta go…I haven’t even had lunch yet.”
“Hear me out, DiNozzo.”
“Yes, boss,” he said from habit and, resigned, propped an elbow on the hall table and leaned his head on his hand to listen.
“Rhode Island’s stretched thin with a terrorism investigation. They got a coupl’a guys off with flu and Christmas and…well…someone walking a dog found the body of a navy commander in a park in Huntington…” Gibbs paused before continuing. “Seems to be a similar MO to that one in Norfolk. DiNozzo, you listening?”
“I’m here, boss.”
“I need you to get over to the crime scene. McGee is already on his way.” He rattled off an address.
Tony gave a huge sigh, surrendering to the inevitable. “Okay, boss. On my way.” Tony hung up the phone and sat still for a moment, his hand still resting on the receiver.
“Anthony?”
He gave a start. “Sorry, Mom, you startled me.”
“Anthony?”
He swiveled to face her. “Sorry, I gotta go, Mom.”
“But, Anthony, it’s Christmas.”
“I'll be back," he replied firmly.
Tony turned his back on her and went to his room, leaving her to either return to her guests or follow. He stripped off the lightweight hoodie he was wearing in favor of the heavier sweater he'd worn in the car the previous day. He pulled his jacket on over the top of the ensemble then rummaged in the bottom of the sports bag for his ID, shoving it into the inside pocket of his jacket. He also checked the charge on his phone and put that in another pocket. Finally, he checked the contents of his backpack before slinging it over the chair back and pulling on his gloves.
He turned to find his mother blocking the doorway. "So that's it? You're just going?"
"Mom, I have to do this. It's my job."
"No it's not – you're on vacation."
"Mom," he pushed forward, even though she stood her ground in the doorway, blocking his egress. "Can you get out of the way, please?"
She stepped aside. "So that's it?"
"I'll be back. Save me some dessert."
Tony looked into the rear view mirror just once before driving out the gate. He saw the house ablaze with lights, with his mother's form silhouetted in the window of his room watching him go.
-----------------------------------------
Tony pulled up at the police barricade just outside the park and flashed his ID to the uniformed cop on duty. “Anthony DiNozzo, NCIS,” he said.
“Right. Detective Andrews said to expect someone.” He gestured in the direction of a set of playground equipment just off to the left of a winding path. “Just down there,” he said. “About two hundred yards. You can park your car over there.” The cop pointed to a pair of black and whites not far from the barricade.
Tony looked at the weather – rain was just starting to fall – and grimaced. “Any chance I could get a bit closer?” he asked, gesturing at the blue and white tag hanging from the mirror of the car.
“No, sir. No vehicles in or out for now.”
Tony tightened his lips and nodded, then put the car into reverse, intending to move it. He quickly changed his mind, however, and shut off the engine. “I’m gonna leave my car right here. You got any objections to that?” he asked, eyeing the young man, his expression deliberately blank in an attempt at a Gibbs stare-down. He opened the car door and started to assemble the chair in front of a now slightly bug-eyed cop. “You still gonna tell me I can’t take the car any closer?”
“Sorry, sir. Detective Andrews’ orders.”
Tony sighed, “Right.”
Tony completed the transfer, and blinking away some raindrops, pulled the hood of his jacket up over his head. He pulled a notepad and pen from his backpack and stuck them in the pocket of his jacket. “You gonna let me through?” he asked, gesturing at the wooden barrier blocking his path.
The cop obligingly moved the barricade and was already on the radio by the time Tony mounted the footpath to follow its sinuous curves down to the playground. “Brown here. Better tell Andrews that the Feds have arrived…yeah…guy in a wheelchair. Says he’s NCIS…”
Tony’s movements, as he pushed his way along the path, had a careless grace and assurance now, even as he negotiated the rough path that wound its way, higgledy piggledy, to the playground, crossed at intervals by other paths leading to other parts of the park, and bordered by what in summer would be grass and beds of flowers. As Tony got closer to the group gathered near the playground, one figure detached himself and walked towards him. “Tony?” He coasted to a halt at the familiar voice saying his name.
“Nick? Nick Andrews?”
“What the hell happened to you?”
Tony accepted the offered hand in a firm shake. “Long story,” he replied, falling alongside as Andrews started walking back to the crime scene. “When did you leave Baltimore?”
“Not long after you did.”
"So talk me through it."
"Woman walking her dog came across the body of a naval officer – around midday. Single gunshot wound to the chest."
Tony stopped again as his phone started ringing. "DiNozzo," he said without looking at the caller's ID.
"Tony, it's McGee."
"Oh, hey, McGee."
"I'm about thirty minutes out. Don't let them move the body until I get there."
Tony winced as the light rain suddenly started to get heavier. "Ay-sap, McGee." He shut the phone with a snap and thrust it back into his pocket, thinking that he was probably gonna be very cold and wet before too much longer. "Some days it just doesn't pay to answer the phone," he said, somewhat enigmatically.
"Cavalry?"
Tony shrugged. "Sorta." He hunched his shoulders to pop a small wheelie, lifting the casters over the raised edge of the path onto mother earth.
The body was neatly laid out on the ground, hands by its side. The uniform hat sat to one side. The local cops had rigged a rough tarpaulin over the top to shelter the body and the immediate area from the weather. A tall, solidly built, gray-haired man in a dark overcoat, Tony presumed the State ME, knelt by the body.
The ground was soft and muddy – a direct result of a couple of warmer days earlier in the week coupled with the rain. It was slushy, unpleasant going on foot, let alone in a wheelchair. Andrews raised the tape marking the cordoned off area and allowed Tony to pass in and under the comparative shelter near the body.
“Whatcha got for us?” Andrews asked the ME.
“Time of death?” Tony added, fumbling for his notebook. The ME looked up at the unfamiliar voice. “DiNozzo, NCIS Washington,” he said, reaching for his ID.
The ME’s eyes narrowed for an instant at the man in the wheelchair. “At least twelve hours. I won’t be able to tell any more until I do the autopsy.”
Tony nodded. “Can you fax through the results to Dr. Mallard at NCIS in Washington, please?”
“Ducky? Sure.”
Tony rolled his eyes at finding yet another ME who knew the avuncular NCIS examiner. The ME stood a little creakily. “Can we move the body now?” his assistant asked.
“Would you mind waiting? There’s another NCIS agent on the way and he requested that the body be left where it is until his arrival.”
The ME grimaced. He had better things to do on Christmas day than stand outside in the freezing rain to wait for some member of a rival police authority to make his way there. “How long?”
Tony consulted his watch. “About 15 minutes,” he said, somewhat hopefully.
“I think I’ll wait in the truck,” the man said finally and, after nodding at Andrews that he had permission to touch the body, he trudged off.
Andrews withdrew a wallet and a set of keys from the breast pocket of the victim’s coat. Tony pulled off the wheelchair gloves he was wearing and swapped them for latex, gesturing for the wallet. “Well, it wasn’t a robbery,” he remarked conversationally, pulling out a couple of bills to show Andrews. He slid them back into place and turned his attention to the other items in the wallet. “William Andrew Johnson,” Tony read from a driver’s license. “The address is in Cold Spring Harbor.”
“Right in your backyard, Tony.”
Tony glanced up at Andrews sharply. “Gym membership…Cold Spring Harbor Gym and Health Club,” he continued, flipping the card over to see a name handwritten on the back: Nataliya.
“You know it?”
Tony just nodded in reply. “Dry cleaning receipt. Credit card. Couple of other receipts.” He replaced the contents of the wallet and dropped it into the evidence bag Andrews held out to him.
“You want me to send this stuff on to your lab?”
“Yeah, that’d be good.” Tony looked up in surprise at the co-operative attitude of his former co-worker. “Witness?”
Andrew gestured over towards a green painted park bench where a woman in a dark coat sat holding an umbrella in one hand and the leash of a patient but very wet Springer Spaniel in the other. The dog had his muzzle resting on neatly crossed paws as it lay on the ground. Tony eyed the dog warily. He had discovered over the preceding few months that certain larger members of the canine community liked to take advantage of his seated position and he had been the unwilling recipient of several slobbery kisses as a result. Irrespective of that, he pulled the hood of his jacket closer over his head and set off out from the shelter of the tarp, Andrews following with an umbrella.
“Tony, this is Danielle Phillips,” Andrews said by way of introduction, then handed Tony the umbrella to hold and walked off.
“Special Agent Tony DiNozzo, NCIS,” he said, pulling out his ID and flashing it quickly. He tried to ignore the dog, which was eyeing him with alert eyes. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Danielle regarded him gravely with serious blue eyes. “Okay, but I really haven’t any more to tell than what I said to the others.
“Humor me,” Tony said. He pushed back the hood of his jacket and ruffled his hair to relieve the flattened “hat hair” feeling. His hair was short, having been recently cut, and, without the mousse he often used, looked soft. He fixed Danielle with one of his cutest grins, the one Abby described as his shy bad-boy look –he often used it when he was up to mischief but trying to seem innocent. The woman in front of him was absolutely stunning. Her eyes were so blue they were almost violet and framed by thick lashes. Her hair, where it cascaded over her collar, was dark brown, shiny and fell in waves. The full lips parted to reveal perfect teeth as she gave him a slight smile in reply.
“Okay.”
“Can you walk me through what happened – verbally, that is.” His grin became wry at the unintended pun and Danielle looked at him uncertainly – not sure what to make of him.
“Sure. Okay, about 11:30, we entered the park.”
“From what direction?” She gestured towards what was roughly the northern entrance of the park, and Tony noted the position of the gate on a hastily scrawled map of the scene. She looked down as the dog moved, sitting up, almost at attention.
“That’s what…north?”
“Sit down, Monty.” She grimaced as the dog reared up on his back legs, planting a pair of muddy feet on the knees of Tony’s jeans. ”I guess so.”
Tony shoved the dog back, pulling a face at the dirty marks he had left behind.
“Sorry, he’s young, doesn’t know any better.”
“That’s…okay,” Tony replied, trying to brush some of the mud away. He caught Danielle’s eye and grinned. “Dogs…do that to me.”
Danielle fumbled in her pocket looking for something, then looked back at Tony, who was still grinning inanely. “Where was I…” she said.
“You entered from the north.”
“Right,” she said, catching Tony’s grin and returning it. “We came in over there. I let Monty off the leash for a bit – there was no one around…he ran and then he started barking.” Danielle colored, blushing bright red under the NCIS agent’s smiling scrutiny. “So…I walked over to see what he was barking at and…do you always do that?”
“Do what?” Tony asked, the dimple appearing in his cheek for the briefest of milliseconds.
“Never mind.”
“I guess it must have been quite a shock.” Tony, the very stereotype of concern, leaned forward and looked at her seriously. She looked at him for a moment and smiled hesitantly, looking into his green eyes.
“Yes, yes it was, Agent DiNozzo. Not what I expected to find on Christmas Day, that’s for sure.”
“Tony,” he corrected. “I’ll need to get some contact details from you…in case I…”
“Need to talk to me again?”
“Yes, that.” Tony flashed a broad smile. “Maybe I could take you out for coffee…”
“I…don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“It wouldn’t?” Tony asked, somewhat crestfallen, although not giving up yet. “Why not?”
Danielle spoke gently, “I don’t think my partner would like it.” She pushed back her sleeve to look at her watch. “Speaking of which, I’ve been here for hours and he should be home soon.”
Tony looked at her in some surprise.
“He’s a doctor,” she explained. “Got called in on an emergency early this morning.”
“So…you’re married, thinking of getting married, relationship’s on the rocks?”
“No, we’re…we’re very happy. I don’t want to jeopardize that…” She laughed as she tried to let him down gently. “Look…”
Tony nodded and grinned. She took the pen and notepad from his grasp and wrote her contact details out for him. “May I go now?”
“Sure,” he replied and looked over his shoulder back at the group gathered around the body, hearing McGee’s voice.
--------------------------------
“Hey, Tony, I’m done here,” McGee said, walking over to him. The rain had finally stopped in the last few minutes and Tony had closed the umbrella, handing it to the cop who came to claim it.
“Okay, probie, guess that’s it for now." Tony started to push off to go back to the car, not realizing that the ground was so wet that when he tried to move, he ended up sinking into the mud. He tried to rock back and forth to free himself and only succeeded in almost tipping over. He groaned then said quickly to McGee, "Okay, I'm stuck."
"You want me to call a tow truck?"
"Ha ha, very funny, McGee."
“Let me try.” McGee tried to pull the chair, with Tony assisting, by hauling on the sides of the backrest, almost tipping it up in the process. “Whoa!” Tony grabbed at the handrims in alarm as he lost his balance.
“Sorry.” McGee didn’t even attempt to hide his grin of sheer delight at his tormentor’s predicament, not that Tony could see it. All the same, he must have sensed something in McGee’s voice, because he turned to glare at him. “Well, Stanley, this is another pretty pickle you’ve gotten us into,” he said, the humor of the situation overriding his frustration.
McGee scratched his head, looking serious now that he was under scrutiny. “Okay, so…what do we do?” he asked. “Can you reach the bench and I can…”
“Too far away, McGee, and,” he looked at the green wooden bench, “it’s wet.”
McGee’s shoulder’s sagged as he realized what Tony wanted, having seen Gibbs do it a couple of times to get his senior agent into otherwise inaccessible locations. “Don’t you ever get tired of making me look like an idiot?” he sighed, but moved into position in front of Tony.
“No, probie, never,” Tony replied, grinning. He moved himself forward in the seat and climbed onto the back of the awkwardly crouched McGee, reaching up to haul himself on board. The junior agent straightened up slowly, grunting under the burden of some 170 pounds of extra weight, the nearby cops grinning at the sight. McGee took a couple of steps, then stopped. “What’s the matter, McGee?” Tony asked.
“Can you move your arms?” McGee gasped out. “You’re strangling me.”
“Oh, sorry.” Tony obligingly lowered his grip. “That better?”
“Thanks.”
“Now, giddyup, McGee. We haven’t got all day.”
A piercing whistle rent the air and a voice yelled out, “Ride ‘em, cowboy!” McGee blushed bright red, hearing a few of the comments from the local cops, but he doggedly started to stagger along the pathway back to Tony’s car, whipped along by the breezy commentary of the passenger on his back, who exhorted him onwards with a loud, “Heigh ho, Silver, away!”
The young cop on guard duty, grinning from ear to ear, opened the driver’s door of the car, where McGee half-lowered, half-dropped Tony into the seat, then stood leaning on the door, panting for breath. “You need to work out more, McGee,” Tony said. “You’re out of shape.” He grinned broadly, seeming to enjoy the younger agent’s discomfort. Tony sat with his legs dangling outside the car and watching his co-worker pant. “McGee?”
“Yes, Tony.”
“Wheelchair?”
“Oh…” McGee gave Tony a look of complete disbelief, and cast a glare out in the direction of the three detectives who were still standing near the crime scene. While he longed to knock DiNozzo off his perch and demean him in some way, leaving him stranded without the wheelchair was not something he was prepared to do. He trudged back to collect the chair, giving Tony the opportunity to settle himself into the car properly.
“Damn, it’s cold,” Tony said to himself. He felt chilled to the core, and very quickly realized why when he dragged his legs into the car. His jeans were soaked through by the rain, and his legs felt like blocks of ice under his hands. He grimaced, and the thought crossed his mind that he needed to warm up…and fast. He looked over to see what McGee was up to, and was just in time to see him pull the still-stuck chair out of the sucking mud, spattering himself in the process. What had seemed funny earlier, and a way of upsetting McGee, was becoming more serious. “Hurry up, McGee,” he muttered, cursing the couple of days of unseasonably warmer weather earlier in the week that had resulted in his current predicament.
McGee was back quickly. “You got a rag or something I can use to clean this up a bit?” he asked Tony.
Tony looked at McGee in surprise – thankful for the consideration the junior agent had shown him over the months since his return to work, despite the merciless teasing he usually received from both DiNozzo and Kate. “In the trunk,” Tony said, handing McGee the keys.
McGee shrugged and plodded to the back of the car. Tony heard the trunk open. It took McGee a couple of minutes to clean off the worst of the remaining mud from the wheels.
“Thanks, probie,” Tony said, giving the younger agent a genuine smile of thanks before disassembling the chair and stowing the pieces in the front seat.
“You’re welcome, Tony.” McGee turned to go, the muddy rag still dangling from his hand.
“Hey, McGee, you get anything to eat before coming here?”
“No,” McGee replied, eyeing him cautiously.
“Come back to my place.”
“I need to…”
“Come on, McGee. We can call Gibbs from there.” Tony started the engine of the sports car and turned up the heat as far as it would go.
McGee looked at him doubtfully. “Okay…I’ll follow you.”
A mud-spattered and very cold and wet Tony let himself in through the living room door, attracting the stares of the half-dozen or so family members who were scattered around the various sofas and chairs in the room. He cringed at feeling all the eyes boring into him, gave an overly-cheery, “Hi,” and headed for the hallway to let McGee in the front door. His mother got there first, however, blocking his path.
“That’s it…hi?!” she said, annoyed. “Where have you been all this time?”
“I had to work, Mom, and, if you don’t mind, you’re in my way. Gotta let McGee in.”
She gave him a look a complete disbelief. “Who’s McGee?”
Tony’s response was delayed by the sound of the doorbell, and McGee’s muffled voice coming through the door. “Hey, Tony, you gonna let me in?”
“That’s McGee,” he said. He gave her a penetrating look and, after a long pause, she stepped aside so Tony could open the door for McGee.
“Hey, what took you so long?” asked McGee, water dripping from his coat as he stood on the doorstep – the short-lived break in the rain now over.
“Come on in.” Tony backed out of the way and looked up at his mother meaningfully.
“Oh, hey, Mrs. DiNozzo.” McGee had immediately recognized the woman beside Tony, seeing the family resemblance. “Agent Timothy McGee,” he said, offering his hand in a shake. “Nice to meet you.”
“Any friend of Tony’s,” she replied somewhat ironically. She exchanged smiles with the young agent, then looked down at her son, suddenly concerned as she heard his teeth starting to chatter despite the warmth indoors. She looked at him critically and took in his damp clothes, the muddy paw prints on his wet jeans and the mud on the inner side of his jacket sleeves and the gloves he had draped over one leg. “You’re cold and wet,” she scolded, refraining from adding “and muddy,” while mentally noting that she’d better check the floor where he came in for tread prints. “Go and have a shower and warm up. “I’ll take care of Agent McGee.” She was suddenly all business.
Tony gave a mental eye roll, but did as he was told, hearing his mother and McGee chatting as he left. “…just somewhere I can set this up, Mrs. DiNozzo. I don’t wanna be in the way…”
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Tony gradually became aware of a persistent banging on the bathroom door. “Tony!”
He shut off the water, hung the shower head on its hook, and reached for a towel. “What d’ya want, McGee?”
“Gibbs.”
“Gibbs?”
“He wants to talk to you. On the phone…”
Tony sighed and leant back against the tiles, thoughtfully drying his chest.
“Tony?”
“Just a minute.” He laid a towel across the seat and carefully transferred into the wheelchair, placing a second towel across his lap.
“Come on in, probie,” he said, taking malicious delight in that he knew he was causing his co-worker a certain amount of discomfort. The door opened a fraction and a hand clutching a cell phone came through the opening. Tony pushed forward, gently bumping the door onto McGee’s wrist, and stretched for the phone. “Got it, McGee.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks.” He put the phone to his ear. “What’s up, boss?”
“DiNozzo, what are you doing in the shower?” Gibbs said, then added, “Never mind. I need you and McGee to get over to his apartment today. I want you to check it out immediately.”
Tony sighed, “I’m on it, boss.” Gibbs ended the conversation in his usual abrupt fashion. “Thanks, boss, and I suppose you’d like it if I ended up with frostbite out of this,” he said into the buzzing phone. “Probie!” he yelled. When McGee’s curious face peered around the door, he handed him the phone. “Don’t get too comfortable. We’re going out again,” he said shortly.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Tony, stranded outside the elevators in the foyer of the apartment block, turned to give the sign hanging from the piece of cord strung between two plastic chairs a sour look while he waited for McGee to come back downstairs. “Out of order,” he grumbled for the tenth time since McGee had vanished from sight with the wheelchair. “Anyone would think they’d deliberately planned this.” He looked up, hearing voices. A young couple came down the stairs. The guy had one arm around the girl’s shoulders and the other hand in his pocket, jingling what was probably his keys or some change. They looked at Tony curiously, but kept going. “C’m’on, Timmie,” he muttered, drumming on his right leg with impatient fingertips. “What took you so long?” he asked as the younger agent appeared at the top of the last flight of stairs.
McGee ignored Tony’s question. He quickly descended the last few stairs and presented his broad back for Tony to climb aboard. Once McGee had crouched in front of the seat, he scooted forward and grabbed McGee in a hug while McGee got a grip on his legs. “Let’s get this over with,” McGee said miserably.
“Never mind, probie,” Tony responded cheerfully, locking his arms around McGee’s chest. “We’ll have you fit in no time at all.”
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
“Easy, McGee,” Tony said in some alarm as McGee stumbled slightly on the approach to the final flight of stairs.
McGee paused at the bottom step, breathing heavily. He glared at the steps in front of him and adjusted his grip of Tony’s legs slightly, balancing the weight better. “There has to be a better way,” he muttered, half under his breath, and mounted the first step.
“What was that, McGee?”
“Nothing,” he said morosely.
Someone brushed past quickly, heading up. Tony glanced up in time to see the male half of the couple from before grinning down at him from the next set of stairs before the young man disappeared from view, obviously thinking that the piggyback was some kind of joke – which in a way it was. Tony was perfectly capable of getting up the stairs under his own power, even if that was on his backside and hands, but McGee made the perfect patsy.
McGee slowly plodded up the last couple of steps, and almost dropped Tony on the ground in his haste to get the senior agent off his back. Tony managed to save himself with a quick one-handed grab at the chair while he still held on with the other, dragging it underneath his body at the last moment, albeit sideways. He settled himself while McGee, leaning against the wall, caught his breath.
“Which way?” Tony asked, looking right then left along the corridor.
McGee gestured to his right and bent cautiously, feeling his back, to retrieve the backpack he’d left hidden behind Tony’s chair. “End of the passage.” McGee looked up to find Tony already heading down the hallway, checking the numbers on the doors as he went.
“How’re we gonna get…” McGee started to ask, only to find that Tony was already picking the lock.
The lock clicked open and Tony grinned up at his co-worker. “I still got it.” He gestured grandly. “After you.”
McGee, already pulling on a pair of latex gloves, pushed the door open with his shoulder and fumbled for the light switch. Tony’s nostrils flared briefly as he caught a brief whiff of something unpleasant in the stale air from the apartment. McGee was already going through a bundle of papers on the desk in the far corner of the living room by the time Tony had the door shut. “Whatcha got there, McGee?” Tony asked, looking around curiously.
“Bunch of paid bills,” McGee replied, “in the name of Mr. and Mrs. J Johnson. Must be the victim’s parents,” McGee surmised.
“Right.” Tony peered into the kitchen, wrinkling his nose at the faintly acrid odor that seemed to emanate from there. He noted a couple of unwashed dishes on the draining board beside the sink, along with a couple of empty take-out containers – although these were not the source of the smell, which was more animal in nature. Other than that, the room was tidy. “By the way, McGee,” Tony started, then put a finger to his lips, eyes narrowed, as he heard something. He looked up the hall and continued speaking, all the while concentrating on a scratching sound coming from one of the bedrooms. “How did you get here so quickly?”
McGee gestured for Tony to move ahead of him. Tony listened at the first door and positioned himself so that the way was clear for McGee to enter, one hand on the doorknob. McGee drew his Sig and waited, back to the door, for Tony to open it. Tony held up three fingers in a gestured countdown. On three, McGee shoved the door back with his shoulder, tried to take a step inside and instantly tripped, landing sprawled in a heap, as something shot between his legs and skidded down the hall, around the corner and into the kitchen. Tony doubled up with laughter at his co-worker even as the sound of frantic digging came from the litter box in the kitchen.
“You might wanna move your hand, McGee,” Tony observed mildly. “The cat must’ve been shut in here for a while.”
McGee recoiled from the unsavory pile on the floor, almost gagging on the smell now that he knew it was there. He sat on the floor looking up at Tony. “Albany,” he said.
“What?” Tony was confused.
“I was at my aunt’s house just outside Albany. That’s how I got here so fast – that and breaking a few road rules,” he said.
Tony nodded and offered McGee a hand to get back on his feet.
“You may as well keep going in here, McGee,” Tony said, reversing out of the room. “I’ll finish up out here.”
“I was done with the living room.”
“Right. I’ll just make sure you haven’t missed anything.”
Tony looked into the kitchen on his way past, where the cat was hooking the remnants of some dry food from a bowl, eating it off one paw like it was a spoon or fork. She looked away from the food and walked over to him, back delicately arched as she rubbed against the nearest wheel. “Hey, kitty,” Tony said softly, letting her sniff his hand. She rubbed her head against his fingers, obviously deciding he wasn’t a threat, then with a flick of her tail, went back to the food.
Returning to the living room, Tony checked under the cushions on the lounge, stacking them on one end. He looked at the pile of fabric-covered foam for a moment and yawned and stretched, feeling a dull ache in his back. He swung around and reversed up to the pile. He flipped up into a wheelie and allowed himself to drop gently back onto the pile, immediately locking the brakes to hold him in position in his improvised recliner.
His eyes were immediately caught by the glint of something shiny fluttering inside an air vent high on the wall in front of him, and a dull red glow immediately beside it. The vent was way out of reach, right at the top of the wall. Unable to do anything about it and unwilling to call McGee, he tried to figure out in his head what it could possibly be. Inevitably, his eyelids started to droop.
The cat finished its meal and sat just inside the living room washing her face. She stopped from time to time and studied Tony incuriously. Finishing her ablutions, she wandered over to sniff at one wheel of his chair again, rubbing her head against the hub. She leapt up lightly into his lap and settled on his chest, purring loudly as he scratched her head with one finger.
“DiNozzo, what the hell are you doing?” Gibbs shoved the door open unannounced, causing the cat to take fright. She left in a flurry of claws, fleeing up the hallway back into the bedroom to hide under the bed, almost tripping McGee for a second time. Tony resentfully rubbed his chest where her claws had dug in.
“Aww, did you have to do that so suddenly?”
Kate hid a grin by shutting the door.
“DiNozzo!” Gibbs snapped, exasperated.
“Back was killing me. Needed to rest,” Tony replied from his reclined position.
Gibbs fixed him with an icy stare, then spun on his heel and headed down the hallway to check on what McGee was doing.
“Kate,” Tony said, releasing the brakes and pushing himself back up into an upright position. He felt around in one of the pockets of his cargo pants and came up with his knife. “There’s something in the vent,” he said, pointing to the top of the wall.
“You’re kidding me,” Kate said, looking at him in amazement. To her, Tony always seemed to have this uncanny ability to find the deciding clue without putting in any effort. She fetched a chair from the kitchen and stood on it to peer into the vent. “There’s something in here,” she said, pulling on a pair of gloves. She eased the knife under the edge of the vent to pop the cover out of its frame, noting that the screws were already missing.
“I know that, Kate,” Tony said, smugly, pushing across to where she was standing on the chair. She handed down the dirty plastic cover and dusted off her hands before picking up a small video camera, the light glowing redly to show it was on, and an opened film packet with something inside it.
Kate handed back the knife then banged the vent back into position. She accepted a hand from Tony to step down from the chair with a slightly surprised, “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
She sat down on the chair beside him and peered over curiously as Tony played back the start of the recording using the video recorder’s miniscreen, only to find that the picture quality was too dark to see anything much. From the sound, however, it was obvious that there was an argument happening.
Tony shrugged and shut down the camera. Kate reached out a hand for the film package. She looked inside but didn’t comment and Tony didn’t ask.
Tony pulled an evidence bag out of McGee’s backpack and Kate dumped the package in. The camera went into a second bag before he handed both to Kate.
“Whatcha got?” Gibbs asked, walking back into the living room. Kate held up the two packets for him to see. “Good work, Kate.”
“Actually, it was…”
“Thanks, boss,” Kate said and grinned at Tony’s expression. As Gibbs turned away, she stuck her tongue out at Tony.
“McGee!”
“Yes, boss.”
“Let’s go.”
“Okay, boss.”
“Kate?”
“What about the cat?” Tony asked, stopping Gibbs in his tracks. “I mean, we can’t leave it here.” Tony blushed as Gibbs turned stony eyes on him. “There’s no one to…”
“He’s right, Gibbs,” Kate interjected. “We can’t leave it here to starve to death.”
“There’s a pet carrier in the bedroom, boss…” McGee said, somewhat hesitantly.
Tony leaned forward as he looked up at Gibbs, his hand stroking the friendly feline as she wound her body around the side of his chair. Gibbs nodded his assent, sending McGee back to the bedroom.
“Never would have picked you for a cat-lover,” Kate commented as Tony picked up the animal and cradled her on his lap.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Katy,” Tony grinned. McGee was back a moment later. While he held the carrier, Tony carefully persuaded the cat to enter and shut the door after her, knowing full well that most felines resent being caged and bolt at the first opportunity.
“…including what you intend to do with the cat,” Kate continued.
“Ah, Kate, if nothing else, my mom can look after her for now.”
Kate looked at him reflectively. “And she’ll do this?”
“Yeah, she will.”
“Let’s go, Kate,” Gibbs said impatiently waiting at the door.
McGee checked the cage one more time before lumbering down the hallway to the top of the stairs. He waited there for the rest of them to catch up. Handing the cat to Kate to carry down, he turned and offered his back once more to Tony.
“McGee, what the hell are you doing?” Gibbs asked.
“I was gonna piggyback him down the stairs, boss,” McGee looked startled at Gibbs’ reaction.
“He can get down the stairs under his own power, McGee.”
“But I thought…”
Gibbs glared at McGee. “You thought what, McGee?”
“Never mind, boss.”
“What have you been doing to him?” Kate hissed quietly in Tony’s ear, bending down to put the pet carrier on the floor so she could pull on her gloves.
Tony gave her a wide-eyed, mock-innocent look as if to say, “Who, me?”
“Boss, you’ve…”
“McGee, is this a trash-covered, outside staircase?”
“No, boss.”
“So he won’t be risking typhoid if he goes down it on his ass.”
“Aww, boss, it’s so much faster if he carries me,” Tony whined, only to receive a sharp clout to the back of the head. “Ow!” he yelped in surprise.
Gibbs bristled with impatience. “Let’s go. DiNozzo?”
“I got it, boss,” Tony sighed, easing himself onto the floor. He could safely bump down two or so steps, but three floors worth were beyond his ability for the time being – even he admitted to still being a novice wheeler. “Can you take the chair downstairs for me, at least?”
“Nice try,” murmured Kate, picking up the pet carrier again.
Tony grinned up at her, game over, while he pulled on his wheelchair gloves, not relishing the thought of crawling down the soiled stair carpet with his bare hands - up close it looked considerably dirtier than it had before.
Gibbs had taken hold of the wheelchair and moved it around to the top of the stairs while Tony prepared for the descent. “We’ll see you at your place.”
“Okay, boss.”
“Bye,” Kate said, lightly, following Gibbs and McGee down.
Tony sighed again, suddenly finding himself alone at the top of the steps, the voices of his co-workers disappearing around the first bend slowly fading out. He looked at the stairs sourly, hating what he had to do. It was humiliating to have to crawl down like a bug. For once, he wished for the restrictive KAFO leg braces Anne had made him use for a while in order to add some weight bearing exercise to his routine, slowly shuffling his way around, initially with a walking frame, and later a pair of elbow-grip crutches. Feeling hellishly unbalanced on unfeeling legs, he had tottered around the room, one shuffling step at a time. He remembered the shocked look on Gibbs’ face when he had walked in on one of these sessions. It didn’t take Gibbs long after that to talk human resources into investing in an FES bike for the gym and the torture had ended. All the same, he would have felt a whole lot better using them to go down the stairs than he did on his backside, to say nothing of the fact that he was going to have to be extra diligent when he next checked his skin for lesions. Funny how I never used to give my legs a thought when they worked, but now they don’t…With a grimace at that thought, he started to make his way down the stairs.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
“Damn!” Tony, poised at the top of the last flight of stairs noticed that, instead of leaving the wheelchair at the bottom of the stairs, it had been left on the far side of the entrance, near the doors, as far from the stairs as possible. Would Gibbs or Kate do that? he considered, then spoke out loud. “Probie…” Oh well, here goes nothing... He sighed and started down the final section. He was soon at floor level, dragging himself across to the wheelchair.
“Hey there,” said a voice from the stairs.
Tony looked up to see the guy who’d passed by twice earlier, once with his girlfriend going down while Tony was waiting for McGee, and a second time when he was being piggybacked up the stairs. “Hey,” Tony replied, edging himself across the floor.
The guy looked back and forth from the chair to Tony. “Oh, I get it, now. How did you get yourself in this predicament?”
“You don’t wanna know,” Tony replied, and gave a short laugh, setting himself up to move again.
“You must have pissed someone off big-time,” he grinned.
“Something like that.” Tony gave him a slightly sheepish grin.
The guy finished coming down the stairs and pushed the wheelchair over to the point Tony had reached on the floor. “There you go,” he said.
“Thanks.” Tony pulled the chair into position and snapped the brakes on, still speaking. “Crawling across the floor like this is definitely not cool.”
“You’re welcome,” the guy said, smiled and headed out the door, swinging a large umbrella lightly as he walked.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Tony glared out the doors at the weather, which had taken a definite turn for the worse while they had been inside the deceased’s apartment. The rain had turned into heavy, wet snow, which obscured the view of the street. He pulled his hood closer around his head and pulled the zipper on his jacket infinitesimally higher, not relishing the thought of having to go outside again. Someone up there really hates me, he thought. He shoved the door open wide, done procrastinating, almost knocking it back into the wall, and pushed through onto the outside lip, where he found his rescuer from before still standing under the light. “Hey again. Nice night,” he said ironically, turning towards the ramp to the right, finding it heavy going.
“Yeah,” the guy replied. He watched Tony for a moment. “Be careful. The ramp’s kinda slippery.”
Tony nodded. Concentrating hard on the task at hand he moved onto the ramp, feeling how slippery the surface had become. He tentatively pushed forward, feeling one wheel spin then grip, skidding slightly sideways.
“Hey, you need a hand?”
“Thanks, but I got it…I think.” He cautiously made it to the bottom, across the sidewalk and pulled up beside the car. He looked up as the other guy stepped passed, apparently on his way to another car that had pulled up on the other side of the Mustang.
“Nice car,” he said, and walked past as quickly as he could.
Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
The regulation, government issue, dark colored Dodge Stratus was waiting outside the gates with the engine running when Tony pulled up. He caught the brief, peripheral image of the three occupants in the glare of the security lamps and flashed his lights once to let them know to follow as the gates swung open.
He looked into the rear view mirror once to check that the car had followed him through then turned towards the garage, figuring they’d wait for him at the front door as McGee had previously.
In the few hours he had been away, the path around the back of the house had become a treacherous no man’s land that had him cursing and sliding every which way but towards the back door as the slope defeated his shallow-treaded everyday tires.
“Hey, can I help?”
Tony jumped and turned his head to look where the voice had come from, frustration etched into his every feature. “Kate,” he said.
“Ah, yeah. Can I help?” she asked again, more insistently.
“I can do it.” He set his jaw stubbornly and pushed forward up the slope again, slewing slightly as one wheel bit and held and the other didn’t.
“Tony!”
“What, Kate?”
“Stop it! All right? Let me help you. I promise I won’t tell Gibbs. Scout’s honor.”
“You weren’t a scout, Kate,” Tony pointed out, but all the same, his shoulders relaxed as she took up a position behind him, holding the frame on either side and helping from behind as he grabbed the handrims and pushed forward.
“Neither were you.”
“I was a cub…”
“For about five minutes,” she added. “And that’s not quite the same thing, DiNozzo.” She let go as he hit the flat on the patio and was able to take control.
“Thanks, Kate,” he gave her a brief smile of thanks before preceding her in the door. He grinned briefly at his mother, who was pouring coffee at a side table for a group gathered on the various couches in the room, before heading for the front door once more. He heard Kate enter behind him and shut the door. She followed him into the hall.
“Kate, where did Gibbs leave my chair?” Tony asked once they were alone again.
“At the bottom of the stairs. Why? Wasn’t that where you…”
“McGee,” they both said together.
“Let ‘em in, Kate.” He nodded at the front door thoughtfully, pondering his revenge. “I gotta change into some dry clothes.”
“Right.”
“Tony?” The tentative knock only slightly preceded the voice at the door.
“Yeah?” Tony rummaged in his bag looking for another pair of pants to wear, having almost exhausted his supply of jeans and cargos.
“It’s me, Pete. Can I come in?”
“I guess so.” He pulled out a pair of jeans as Pete entered the room. He tossed them over to the bed, where the wet jeans were already piled on one end, and dropped the bag back on the drawers.
Pete cast a quick glance at Tony’s bare legs then looked away, embarrassed. “Your dad’s really pissed. You’re lucky he wasn’t in the room when you arrived,” he stated, walking over to the windows and pretending to look out.
“And this is unusual?” Tony leaned forward on his knees a moment and looked up at Pete. He sighed heavily.
Pete shrugged.
“Look, I can’t remember any important event in all my life where he actually managed to show up. He was never there. Today…it was my turn.” Tony said, starting to work his way into the jeans.
“True,” Pete agreed. Curiosity getting the better of him, he looked down as Tony started to wriggle the pants up over his hips, lifting himself on each side alternately. He looked away again when Tony caught him watching.
“Pete…”
“Yeah…”
They were interrupted by another knock at the door followed by a head coming around the door. “Come in, Kate,” Tony said, sitting up straight to do up the button on the jeans.
She entered and gave him an assessing up and down look, casually flicking her eyes over him before giving a cheeky grin of approval. Pete, picking up on some sort of bi-play, cleared his throat noisily. “Sorry, Tony, didn’t know you had someone with you,” Kate said.
“Kate, this is my cousin, Petey.”
Kate accepted the hand Pete offered in a firm shake. “Ah, right,” she said. “You’re the button guy.”
Pete gave Tony an odd look. “Yeah,” he said uncomfortably.
She turned her attention back to Tony, who was putting on his shoes. “Tony, Gibbs is waiting…”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he stated.
“And your mother has the cat.”
“Right, thanks.”
Pete waited for Kate to go before he spoke again, raising a curious eyebrow. “A cat, Tony? This reminds me of when we were kids and that kitten followed us home…under your sweater.”
Tony grinned at the memory. “Hey, we kept that cat – had it for 15 years.” His expression turned serious. “The owner was murdered, Pete. I couldn’t leave her there to starve if no one came.” Tony busied himself tying his other shoelace to avoid Pete’s amused look, and to hide his own dawning realization that he identified, at some level, with the orphaned kitty.
“What’s with you and Kate?”
Tony looked up at Pete, horror written all over his face, not sure if he was reading the tone right.
“Ugh…that’d be like sleeping with my sister!”
Pete grinned at the bite. “You don’t have a sister.”
“I know.”
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
“Tony!” Abby’s raspy exclamation came from McGee’s computer. He could see her miniature image in one corner of the screen as she grinned impishly in the webcam at her end.
“Hey, Abs,” Tony replied and waved. Kate and Gibbs, who had not heard him enter, turned to see him stop behind them, unable to get closer as they crowded around the table.
“McGee, what’s happening with that file transfer?” she asked.
“Couple of minutes, Abs,” he responded. He had the victim’s video camera hooked up to his computer converting the tape into a file for sending to her. The required section had turned out to only be a few minutes at the beginning, the rest consisting of video of an empty room or, at least, from what he could tell. “Sending it now, Abby.” McGee clicked a few keys to send the file on its way.
Tony pushed up to the other end of the table and picked up the sealed evidence package. He shook it experimentally and was surprised when a small, flat key fell out and lodged itself near the top of the bag. “Looks like a locker key, boss,” he commented. “You want this printed? Cuz that could be a problem. It shouldn’t have been bagged.”
“Why?” Kate looked at Tony in surprise.
“Well, Kate,” he turned his head to look at her, “because you shouldn’t place an object you suspect of having fingerprints in plastic as it may damage the prints. If it’s not going to be printed at the scene, it needs to be wedged into a box so that the surface isn’t touched by the packing. The film packet was pretty squashed up…probably wouldn’t be able to get anything useful from it anyway, but the contents…”
“I’m impressed, DiNozzo,” commented his boss, somewhat sarcastically. “Too late to worry about that now, though.” Gibbs directed a pointed look at Kate, who spread her hands in a gesture of supplication.
“No reason to think anyone other than Johnson put it there.” Tony shrugged and scratched the back of his head while he squinted at the number finely stamped into the key. “27B.” He flipped it over to look at the other side. There was no indication as to its origin, not even a brand name - just the single number.
“What do you think?” Kate asked, looking over at what Tony was doing. “Any indication of what it opens?”
“Nope,” he replied, examining it carefully, “Not even a maker’s brand name. Could be anything – railway station, gym, mailbox...” Gym. “Hmmm…” he put the packet back on the table and leaned slightly forward and to the side, one bent arm resting on the backrest of his chair comfortably, and thoughtfully rubbed the back of his head with the other hand. “Gym,” he said the word out loud. “There was a membership card for a gym in the dead guy’s wallet,” he said.
Gibbs ears pricked and he turned and fixed Tony with a glittering gaze. “You don’t happen to remember which one, DiNozzo?”
“Cold Harbor Gym and Health Club,” he replied. “There was a name on the back of the card – Nataliya. I wondered if she worked there.” Tony caught Gibbs look. “What?”
“And when were you planning on sharing this with us, DiNozzo?”
“It’s in my notes, Gibbs.”
“You call these chicken scratches ‘notes’?” Kate asked flipping through the notepad.
“Hey, I can read it!”
Kate snickered at Tony’s hurt expression.
“Kate, I want you and DiNozzo to…”
“Not open today, boss. It’s Christmas.”
Gibbs drew a breath. “I was about to say, I want you and Kate to head out to the gym in the morning – see if you can track down this Nataliya and check for lockers. McGee, get on the phone – see if you can find us all a hotel.”
“Right, boss. Boss…what should we do with this?” He gestured at the key.
“Repackage it…properly. We’ll get it to the lab tomorrow.” He looked at his watch and then at the window, although the world outside was lost to glare. “And DiNozzo, use McGee’s computer and start typing up those notes so we can all read them.”
“Yes, boss.”
McGee looked aghast at Gibbs. “But boss…”
“What, McGee…”
“Nothing.” He glared at Tony and vacated his seat at the table. Kate pulled the chair out of the way, but Tony hesitated before gliding into place.
“By the way, boss.”
“Yes, DiNozzo?”
“Crawling down the stairs like that today…”
Gibbs raised a curious eyebrow.
“It really sucks.”
“And your point is?”
“Nothing, it just sucks, boss. You oughta try it sometime.”
“C’mon, Tony, it’s not like you were going up the stairs. Coming down is nothin’.”
“You ever tried it, probie? Coz it isn’t.” Tony gave his co-worker a speculative look. “McGee, bend down here for a second.”
“Oh no, I’m not falling for that!”
There was a loud thwap and McGee’s head jerked forward. He turned to see Kate grinning at him. “What was that for?!”
“For making Tony crawl across the floor today,” she said.
“Thanks, Kate.” Tony grinned and caught a similar grin on Gibbs’ face.
“You’re welcome,” she replied, dusting off her stinging hand and smiling back.
A startled gasp from the doorway had all four of them turning to look. “I thought you might like some coffee,” Tony’s mother said, a shocked look on her face.
“Thanks, Mom,” Tony said, turning to face her. She pushed a trolley laden with coffee, cream, sugar, cups and a plate of cookies into the room. Tony followed his mother back out into the hallway.
“There’s more of your father in you than you think,” she commented.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you may not have brought your work home, but it sure seems to have found you anyway.”
Tony gave a wry grin. “I guess.”
“What was that all about anyway?” she asked. “I mean…she hit him. What did he do that was so bad?”
“Ah, just keeping the probie in line.” She looked at him expecting more of an explanation. Her usually talkative son was being unusually taciturn. “Just a little payback, Mom. I not only had to crawl down three flights of stairs, but he left my chair as far from the bottom as possible so I had to crawl across the lobby floor. He got what he deserved.”
Tony’s ears pricked as he heard McGee’s voice talking to Gibbs. “I’ve called three places so far, boss. One didn’t answer and the other two were fully…”
“Tell your boss that you’re all welcome to stay here, Tony,” his mother said. “We have plenty of room.”
“Thanks, Mom, I’ll tell him.”
“DiNozzo!” Gibbs called.
“Coming, boss!”
“Go on, I’ll talk to you later.”
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
An hour later and Tony had finished with his notes. Kate was helping his mother arrange some extra bedding for herself and Gibbs upstairs while McGee had been given the job of getting a mattress out of the storage locker in the garage and dragging it up to the room he was going to be sharing with Gibbs. It was a job that really sucked – dragging a futon upstairs was like arguing with an octopus, as Tony was well aware, having done it a few times himself. He could hear McGee cursing just on the short trip from the garage. Gibbs had gone out to the car to retrieve their bags from the trunk. Alone for a few minutes, he yawned expansively, gave a push on the table-top to roll back a few feet and proceeded to stretch, grimacing at the twinge of pain he felt in one shoulder – the result of wrenching it in the course of his earlier adventures outside.
He pulled out his phone, and after a quick scan through the names, hit the dial out button. It rang for a moment before a cheeky, “Merry Christmas, bozo,” greeted him.
“Merry Christmas yourself,” he replied.
“How’s it all going in the wilds of wherever the hell you are?”
Tony could feel the grin through the phone. “Okay, I guess.”
“You don’t sound too sure.” Anne’s keen ear had picked up an undertone. “What’s the problem?”
“Nothing,” Tony replied, amazed that the PT could always tell when he wasn’t being completely truthful. Am I that transparent? he wondered. “Hey, can’t I just…”
Anne chuckled. “Tony, I know you better than that. Spill. What’s the problem?”
“Mother Nature,” he replied, grimacing, “…and…you know…didn’t get the all terrain wheels, did I?”
“Snowed in, huh?”
“Pretty much.”
“Hmmm.”
“Tires were slipping like mad on the ice. I couldn’t get any grip.”
“Okay, best suggestion for a quick fix – see if you can find a bike shop and get some mountain bike tires to fit your rims. If you can get them, there’s something called…argh what was that dinosaur from Jurassic Park – the one with the claws...”
“Velociraptor,” Tony answered without hesitation, his encyclopedic knowledge of movies coming to the fore.
“That’s the one. You should be able to get them to fit your rims, I think.”
“Is that the best you can do?”
“Hey, I’m not driving up there to hold your hand, DiNozzo. It’s a quick fix.”
“Okay, I’ll give it a try.”
“No guarantees, of course.”
“Of course.”
“We’ll sort you out with some street wheels when you get back. Just bear in mind that they’ll track in mud like crazy. Your mom may not be too happy.”
“Whatever.” He shrugged. “I guess I can wipe down when I come in.”
Tony heard a muffled voice in the background of the call and Anne said, “Look, I gotta go. Take care, all right?”
“Sure.“
“Tony, enjoy the party, it’s only once a year!”
“You too.”
“Oh, I will.”
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
“How ya doing there, McGee?” Kate’s voice carried clearly down the stairs.
Tony was amusing himself by watching McGee wrestle the large and slippery futon around the bend in the stairs. He didn’t hear the footsteps until a measured voice spoke a single word. “Anthony.”
Tony’s hands clenched convulsively on the hand-rims, but he felt he had control of his voice when he spoke, half looking over his shoulder first to check he wasn’t hearing things. “Hello, Dad.” He turned slowly, pivoting on the spot, to face the man he hadn’t spoken to in over three years, and found himself doing something he hadn’t had to do since he’d started the growth spurt in his early teens – looking up at his father. Up close, it was obvious how his father had aged in three years. He had given up coloring his hair, which was now completely gray, and there were more lines on his face. The once trim body was running to fat around the middle and there was a pronounced stoop in his posture. He also seemed to have shrunk over time. He had been five-ten when Tony was in his mid-teens, but his son had gone on to add a few more inches on top of that and his athletic posture had often made him seem taller than the six feet two proclaimed on all his official documents.
“I see you’re still with the boy scouts.”
Tony gave a mock salute.
“You know, you could still take up that job I offered you. We’re always looking for someone competent on the investigative side of the paper chase.”
Tony picked up the note of sarcasm in his father’s voice. “And I’m…still not interested.” When did you ever think I was competent to do anything?
Joe DiNozzo snorted derisively. He had never approved of his son’s chosen occupation, which seemed to be, and indeed was, a deliberate rebellion against the path his parents would have chosen for him – a nice safe job as a corporate high flyer coupled with marriage to a “suitable” girl of their choosing. Golf, tennis and country club.
“I’d look real good traveling down the corridors of power in this thing.” Tony touched one wheel for emphasis. This was the mark of Cain, the sign of his ultimate failure in his father’s eyes.
“You can’t be too much of an asset where you are now. No gun, no field work…”
“There’s more to it than that, Dad,” Tony snapped back. He was working hard to control his temper, although he wasn’t really surprised at his father’s knowledge. Joe DiNozzo prided himself on his knowledge of the people with whom he had to deal.
“I could see to it that you were in charge of your own section…”
Where I’d be under your thumb for life. No, thank you. “I haven’t changed my mind, Dad.” And never will. Tony decided on a change of tack. “What’s up with the pressure? They tell you to employ more crips?” Tony took some satisfaction in seeing his father’s brow cloud over with anger as the barb took and stung.
“DiNozzo!” Gibbs voice came to his rescue.
“Excuse me, Dad. Duty calls,” he said with some irony and turned again to head into the temporary NCIS office in the breakfast room.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
“What’s this, DiNozzo?” Gibbs asked, peering at the computer screen.
Tony slowly read the line Gibbs was pointing to and grimaced. “Ah, sorry, boss,” he said, “guess I left a line out.”
“Fix it,” Gibbs replied testily, reaching for his phone. “And it wouldn’t hurt to run a spellcheck while you’re at it.”
“Right, boss, I’m on it.” Tony flicked through a few pages of his notes until he found the spot he was looking for. “Boss, what do you suppose he could have hidden in a locker? Assuming he has hidden…”
Gibbs looked at Tony. “Assuming, DiNozzo? When do I ever assume?”
“You don’t…I was just thinking…”
Gibbs raised an eyebrow.
“Drugs…money…gems…Boss, did you bring the ALS?” Gibbs was on his feet a moment later, digging through a bag he’d brought in from the car. “Get the lights,” he said.
Tony couldn’t help smiling at the tiny flecks of fluorescence that glowed along one side of the key, rimming the top arc of the key’s grip roughly where the inside edge of an index finger would be when the key is in the lock. Tony turned the lights back on, re-illuminating the room.
“Gibbs, you there?” the speaker on the computer came to life again and Abby’s face came into focus as she moved back in front of the camera.
“Yeah, Abs, I’m here. Whatcha got for me?”
“Where was this thing recorded?” she asked facetiously. “The Batcave? It’s gonna take me a while to clean it up.”
“Might as well call it a night, Abs.”
Abby frowned into the camera. “You all right, Gibbs? You’re not making any sense.”
“Yeah. Merry Christmas. Go home. I’ll be sending you some more things in the morning – weather’s closed the airport for now.”
“Okay, Gibbs,” she said, grinning. “Merry Christmas. You too, Tony.”
“Merry Christmas, Abs.”
“Get outta there before I change my mind.”
She shut down the webcam program from her end. Tony could imagine her dancing a little jig around the lab at getting some downtime.
“Boss?” Tony asked.
“Yeah, DiNozzo. You can go, too.”
“Thanks, boss.”
Tony sniffed the air in the hallway appreciatively. A delicious aroma of roasting meat wafted from the kitchen and set his digestive juices flowing with a loud rumble. Having missed most of lunch, he was hungry.
The living room was a lot quieter than it had been earlier. Dinner was always a smaller group – just close family and, often, one or two of his father’s business associates – dry bankers and financiers and their over-dressed, surgically enhanced wives and girlfriends.
Pete was still there with his girlfriend, but his sister and her brawling brats of children were gone. Looking at the group gathered on the sofas and chairs, Tony was assailed by a kind of social weariness. These were his people, but he wasn’t part of them and it wasn’t really his idea of a good time.
His stomach rumbled again, noisily this time, and in an effort to forget his complaining inner workings, he shifted his position in the chair, lifting himself with a grip on the wheels and adjusting himself slightly as he did regularly throughout the day, having been warned about the horror of decubitus ulcers. Anne had even shown him a video of a paralyzed patient with severe pressure sores. He scrupulously obeyed her instructions to change his position throughout the day, and especially when he wore pants with bulky seams such as the jeans he had on. Settled again, he looked up into Pete’s face. “Thought you could do with a drink,” he said, handing Tony a glass of beer.
Glancing quickly over at his mother to gauge her reaction, he accepted the glass. “Thanks, Pete. You are so right.” He grabbed a handful of peanuts and tossed the first one up in the air, catching it neatly in his mouth, eliciting a grin from Pete, then followed it up with a long draught of beer.
“What kept you so long?” Pete asked.
Tony pulled a wry face. “Duty called.”
Pete chuckled, “Ever yearn for a nice, safe nine to five office job?”
“Nope,” Tony replied flatly.
Pete’s grinned broadened as Tony tossed back another peanut. “Interesting life you lead.”
“Beats banking any day.” Tony looked around as there was a stir from the other side of the room and Emma joined them.
“Come on, guys, dinnertime,” she said, wrapping an arm around Pete.
Loud Italian seeped in from the hallway and Tony instantly cringed. Pete saw his reaction and laughed, “Guess you can’t hide in that thing.”
Tony gave him a sour look in reply. “There’re some things about Christmas that really suck.”
“Yeah, big time.”
“Anthony, aren’t you going to greet your aunt?” Joe DiNozzo asked from behind his son’s back.
Tony jumped at the voice then swung around in a slow semi-circle. “Hello, Aunt Rosa,” he said.
“Anthony, you poor boy. Can I help you?” The pitying look on Aunt Rosa’s face already had him backing away as she leaned forward and enveloped him in a crushing embrace that had him scrabbling fruitlessly with pinned arms for his wheels to avoid tipping over backwards. Pete and his father came to the rescue, each reaching out a hand for the chair back and stopping the coming fall.
“Rosa, careful,” Joe DiNozzo’s words spoken in Italian caught Tony somewhat by surprise, although in retrospect his father wasn’t going to let him be tipped on the floor by an over-enthusiastic relative who didn’t know her own strength.
Tony was spared any further ministrations from his aunt by his mother’s voice announcing that dinner was ready.
xoxoxoxoxoxox
Dinner was a marathon. Tony found himself having to be social with a boring banker’s wife on one side and Pete on the other, though the meal itself was something else – each course beautifully prepared, served with military precision and accompanied by just the right wine, from the turkey with oyster stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans and yams to the apple pie with fresh cream. It was all to be appreciated and savored, sweetened by hunger.
Once the guests had left, the family retired to the living room where there was a small gift-giving ceremony – adults only – the children having been dealt with earlier in the day. Tony had transferred to the sofa to sit with his grandmother at this juncture, where she had hugged him with delight at the NCIS baseball cap he had given her. She still wore it, planted firmly on her gray-haired head, two hours later.
It was then that Aunt Rosa noticed him again. “Oh, you poor boy, you must be cold, sitting there and not being able to move at all. Let me get you a blanket!” she gushed.
Tony cringed at the effusion. “I’m fine, Aunt Rosa, really,” he stated, and if he could have run away, he would have.
“No, no, let me get you a blanket,” she pushed. “Can I get you a hot cup of tea?”
“Rosa, leave the boy alone.” Martha O’Rourke, Tony’s grandmother, spoke up, finally.
“It’s okay, Gran,” Tony said, patting the fine-boned, blue-veined hand that he found resting on his thigh. Unknown to his aunt, he gave his grandmother a lopsided grin and resigned himself to his aunt’s ministrations as she covered him with a heavy afghan.
“There, that’s much better, I’m sure,” Rosa said, standing back to survey her work. “You must have been cold, I’m sure.”
“No, actually, I wasn’t,” Tony managed to say, feeling himself starting to perspire as a result of his entombment in the warm afghan. His aunt had wrapped him firmly from neck to feet in the brightly colored blanket.
“Rosa, let him be. He can take care of himself,” Irene DiNozzo interrupted, taking Rosa’s arm and directing her to another sofa.
Tony gave his mother a look of gratitude as she distracted Rosa’s attention away from him.
Petey, getting ready to leave, came in with Emma on his arm to say his goodbyes. “Hey, it’s a Tony burrito!” he couldn’t help exclaiming.
Tony glared at his cousin then shrugged, surreptitiously loosening the blanket. He could feel his temperature rising nicely – and he hadn’t been cold to start with.
“Never mind, Tony, it’s only once a year,” Pete said, an amused grin on his face.
“Right,” Tony replied, resigned.
“Anyway, we’re outta here. I’ll give you a call next time I’m in DC – maybe we can get together sometime.”
“Maybe.” Tony extracted his hand from the cocoon and shook his cousin’s hand warmly. “Take care, Emma. And if you ever get tired of Pete…”
Emma smiled. “Aww…don’t think that’s gonna happen in a hurry, but I’ll keep you in mind,” she replied with a good-natured smile.
xoxoxoxoxoxox
Tony peered through the patio door out at the garden. He rubbed his sleeve against the glass where his breath had fogged it over, and when that didn’t help, he opened the door and craned his neck to peer down the path to the garage, shivering at the icy wind that blew through. As suspected, it was uncleared and impassible to him. Resigned to taking the stairs down to the garage, he closed the door and turned away in the direction of the hall. He stopped briefly at the door to the temporary NCIS office.
“Kate! Are you ready to go?” he called.
“Coming, Tony.” She was there a moment later, a regulation backpack dangling from one shoulder. She automatically turned back in the direction from which he had come.
“This way,” he said, impatiently pushing towards the other end of the hall in the direction of the garage.
“Oh,” she replied, realizing the problem. “Sorry. I forgot.”
He shrugged phlegmatically. “Not your fault,” he said.
“Right…all the same, I should have thought ahead.”
He shrugged again and stopped at the door McGee had used to bring the futon in the previous night. “Too late to worry about that now.”
Kate regarded Tony’s back as he opened the door with the kind of lop-sided grin she’d often seen Gibbs bestow on one or the other of the team who had done something clever. She had nothing but respect for the way her co-worker had handled himself since his return to work. If nothing else, his injury had steadied him and given him a quiet, uncomplaining dignity that he had lacked before. Certainly he could still drive her crazy with his inappropriate, chauvinistic remarks and avid skirt chasing – although even that had lessened to an extent – but he now applied himself to his work in a more steady manner. The thwaps on the back of the head from Gibbs had become less common.
Tony allowed Kate to pass through first where she found herself on a small landing at the top of a flight of concrete stairs that obviously led to the garage. The contrast to the rest of the house was sharp – these were definitely unadorned and completely functional. Tony followed her through and allowed the door to shut behind him. “We’re doing this the hard way,” he said somewhat grimly and rubbed the shoulder that had been aching since the previous evening.
“Okay, what do you want me to do?” she asked.
He gave her a lascivious grin, earning a glare in response. “Honestly, Tony.”
“You go down first. I need you to hold the door open at the bottom.”
“Okay.”
Tony took a moment to center his concentration before he reversed to the top of the stairs and took hold of the railing with one hand before pushing off backwards to bump down the half dozen steps slowly. Once he was in motion, he held on with a hand on each rail of the narrow stairs, ignoring the jolt this sent through his injured shoulder. This was a trick he had worked on for quite some time with Anne as being a necessary skill – good for shorter flights of stairs, but not so easy if you had to traverse three floors. Kate held the door open, standing well back out of the way to allow him to back through the opening in an arc without having to try to stop and turn in the confined space in front of the door.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
The Mustang nosed out into the street and turned left. “Ah, Tony, isn’t the gym in the other direction?” Kate asked, looking up from the map she had spread over her knees.
“Gotta do something else first,” he said. “And put the map away, Kate. We’re in my backyard here.”
“Heard that one before.”
“Kate, I’m hurt,” he said, and would have placed a hand over his heart had he not required both for driving in the slippery conditions. A few minutes later, they pulled into an angled handicapped parking spot in front of a line of old but carefully renovated shops.
“Tony, this isn’t the gym,” Kate said, stating the obvious.
“I know,” he replied smugly, opened the car door and started to assemble his chair. “What?!” he asked, catching the look she was giving him.
“What are we doing here?”
“You’ll see,” he said, somewhat enigmatically as he prepared for the transfer. When she didn’t move from her seat, he continued, “You coming?”
“Coming where?” she asked, still suspicious.
He nodded at the shop in front of them, the one with the garish red “sale” sign plastered across the front window. “There.”
“Tony, that’s a bike shop.”
“Top of the class for observation, Katy.”
“Why are we going to a bike shop?” she asked, still suspicious. “And does Gibbs know what you’re up to?”
“Kate, this is me, right?” Tired of dallying, he made his move into the chair, again wincing at the pain in his shoulder.
“Yeah, which is why I’m worried.”
“Are you coming or not?” he asked again.
Kate rolled her eyes, shrugged and swung her feet out of the car.
xoxoxoxoxoxox
Kate walked up to the door of the shop but stopped short of the door when she realized she wasn’t being followed. Tony was still on the street struggling with an inadequate curb-cut and the slippery conditions. She also noticed that he was definitely favoring one shoulder. He had frustration written all over his face as he tipped into a small wheelie only to clip a broken chunk of concrete on the curb and slide back.
“Hey, you okay there?”
“I’m fine,” he replied testily, making another attempt, only to pull up short rubbing his shoulder.
“Tony, stop it!” She walked back to stand in front of him.
“Stop what?” he asked.
“The macho crap.”
“I don’t need help.”
“Oh, for the love of…” She gave an exasperated sigh. “There’s no one around to see…again.”
He gave her a somewhat sheepish look. “Okay, you win.”
“It’s not about winning or losing, Tony. I just want to get out of the cold sometime today.”
As Kate made as if to step back out onto the roadway, Tony grinned and said, “Stay there. Give me your hand.” He took her forearm in a firm grip, and with her assistance, popped a neat one-handed wheelie to pull himself up and over the hump and onto the sidewalk. He didn’t stop. Immediately moving up to the entrance of the shop, he stopped at the door to say, “Coming, Kate?” before throwing her a cocky grin and entering the shop.
“No riding bikes in the shop,” a voice from behind the counter said, hearing the thrum of wheels on the linoleum floor.
“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Tony replied dryly.
“Just give me a minute,” the voice said.
Tony rolled his eyes. “Sure, got all day.”
Kate wandered around the store examining the displays of bikes grouped randomly on stands or hanging from overhead racks – everything from a tiny pink BMX with training wheels and a beribboned basket hanging from the handlebars to top of the line road and mountain bikes. There were stands devoted to helmets and other accessories as well, and a rack of tires behind the counter. This was what Tony was studying intently when a head popped up from behind the counter, closely followed by a pair of hands holding a rag and a bottle of cleaning spray. “Sorry about that,” the guy said sheepishly. “Knocked over my coffee and thought I’d better clean it up.”
“What can I do for you people?” The clerk was young – somewhere in his twenties – with hair so short it was almost shaved. He was clean-shaven and neatly dressed in a sweater and jeans. A nametag designated him as “Chris.”
“I need some tires,” Tony said, casting a surreptitious glance in Kate’s direction as she intently studied a stand of helmets while pretending not to listen. He caught a peripheral image of her nodding at his words.
“What kind of tires?”
“Something with a bit more grip than these,” he replied, dropping his left hand to one wheel. “Mountain bike tires…something like that. You got any Velociraptors?”
“Sorry, don’t stock ‘em.”
Tony grimaced. “Well…what have you got?”
“What size rims are you using?”
“26 by 1 3/8,” Tony stated by rote.
It was Chris’s turn to grimace this time. “Don’t have much in that size right now. Let’s see.” He turned and faced the wall of tires, looking at the display. “Hmm…37-590. How knobby do you want to go? Real knobby ones’ll bring in a lot of mud.”
Tony sighed, considering. “As long as I get some extra traction…I’m kinda stuck with having to stay indoors right now.”
“Cramping your style, is it?”
“Yeah, I’d like to leave the figure eights to the figure skaters,” Tony laughed.
Chris thought for a moment. “I got some Kendas that might do. Got a customer swears by them for his wheelchair – says he wouldn’t use anything else.” Chris pointed at a cutaway sample tread on the display.
“Can I see that?” Tony asked.
“Sure.” Chris unhooked the board to which the sample was fixed and handed it across the counter.
Tony took the piece of wood, ran an experimental finger across the tread and grinned. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “I think that’ll do.”
“I know I got a set of these in your size,” Chris smiled.
“Cool.”
“There’re some seats down the back. Pop your wheels and I’ll be with you shortly.”
“Okay, sure.”
Kate was picking through a stand of lurid cycle clothing as Tony passed. “The purple is sooo you,” he purred.
“Yeah, fluorescent spandex is such a fashion statement,” she responded, restraining herself from clouting him across the back of the head. She followed him with her eyes as he found the group of seats clustered in a semi circle beside a padded bench seat that wouldn’t have been out of place in a roadside café. An expression of compassion briefly crossed her face at his awkward, grunting transfer onto the bench seat. Over the several months since his return to work, she had seen him complete this maneuver many times, some better than others, but all the time growing stronger and more confident. She hadn’t seen him this clumsy in quite some time. Looking up after popping off the wheels, Tony caught her eye and gave a grim smile. Kate found herself saying, “Take your jacket off.”
“Take my jacket off?” Tony asked, puzzled.
“Yeah. I’m probably gonna regret this for the rest of my life, but I’m gonna give you a shoulder massage.”
Tony’s eyes enlarged briefly in mock surprise. “Wow, Kate, I don’t know what to say.”
“’Thank you’ would be nice.”
“Thanks,” he said, handing Chris his wheels, but in such a way that Kate wasn’t quite sure who was being addressed. Nevertheless, she helped him remove his jacket, assailed with the sudden memory of a freezing DC night and two cold agents watching an apartment from the car.
“Wake up,” Kate said.
“I am awake,” Tony groaned, eyes closed.
“Could you turn the heat up, please?” she pleaded. “I’m freezing.”
“Can’t,” he replied. “Smoke from the tailpipe will give away our position.”
“Great. I can’t feel my legs here,” she stated, feeling frustrated at being out of her bed on an icy Washington night.
“We can do what the Eskimos do to keep warm,” Tony suggested.
“What’s that?”
“They press their bodies together.” Tony’s eyes opened a slit as he pressed his hands together to demonstrate and he leaned towards her as he continued, “ Of course, the effect is greatly improved if you’re naked.”
“There’s not enough liquor on the planet to make that happen, Tony,” Kate smiled at him.
“I wasn’t suggesting the naked part. But if you want to freeze…” Tony placed a warm hand on Kate’s shoulder and massaged it gently while giving her a knowing look, “…freeze.”
Kate shook her head and looked away. “Oh, I need a vacation.”
“Where would you go?” Tony asked, a grin crossing his face and he leaned back in his seat, although his interest was genuine enough.
“Ooh, someplace warm, somewhere there’s no cell phone reception…”
Tony closed his eyes again. “The tropics.”
“Oh, yes, the tropics would be nice...”
“Hey, what’s up? You stopped!” Tony turned his head to look at her.
She suppressed the memory with a particularly hard dig of her thumbs into the smooth flesh of Tony’s shoulder.
“Ow!” he yelped, pulling away from her. “Hey, flesh and blood, remember?”
“Sorry,” she said dragging her attention back to the task at hand. “Say, how’d you hurt yourself anyway?” she asked, continuing in a more gentle manner. Tony now understood Abby’s frequent demands for Kate to give her a massage.
“Who said I’m hurt?”
“Tony!” she exclaimed in an exasperated tone. She pulled Tony’s sweater back into position and reached for his jacket, helping him pull it back on. She noted with some approval that it fit more snugly than it had the previous winter when, if anything, he’d lacked a bit of muscle tone.
He gave an exaggerated sigh. “Think I pulled a muscle trying not to be Brian Boitano on the ice last night.”
“I’m impressed. You actually know the name of a figure skater.”
“Dated a skater once…”
“Tony!” Kate exclaimed. “Well, that’ll teach you, anyway…or maybe it won’t.”
“Thanks for the sympathy, Kate. Remind me to go somewhere warm where there’s no cell phone reception next Christmas.”
Kate chuckled at having her own words more or less thrown back at her. She wondered if Tony had somehow read her thoughts. “Someplace warm,” Kate echoed, rubbing her hands together. “Got anywhere in mind?”
“Not really.” Tony gave a lascivious grin. “Girls love a gimp who can bong a beer in…”
This time, Kate couldn’t hold back. She clouted him firmly across the back of the head. He was reaching back to rub the spot when his phone started to ring. He pulled it out and glanced at the caller ID before answering, a smile in his voice.
“Hey, Abs, whatcha got for me?”
“Hey, Tony,” she responded cheerfully. “The only prints on the key were a couple of partials from the victim.”
“Right, that makes sense,” he replied thoughtfully.
Tony leaned back against the desk, long legs crossed in front of him, arms folded as he watched Abby, pigtails bobbing, as she leaned over to remove the shard of glass from its packing. She looked up and gave him a lopsided grin. “Where’d you find this?” she asked, writing out a card with the relevant information.
“Under a table,” Tony replied.
She uncapped a small container of black powder. Brow furrowed in concentration, she tipped a small quantity into the cap. “Tony, don’t you have anything better to do?”
“Don’t you want my company, Abs?”
“You’re looming. That makes me nervous.”
“Gibbs told me to wait.”
She sighed. “Can you wait over there?” She gestured vaguely at the computer desk on the other side of the room.
“But, Abs, I wanna watch.”
“Okay, just don’t distract me.”
“I won’t.”
“Right.” She sighed and took up a soft bristled brush. She dipped the bristles lightly into the black powder in the lid and tapped the excess off against the lip then twirled it between two fingers gently across the surface, smiling as a clear, partial print was revealed. She added a scale and took a photo, then tore off a small strip of fingerprint tape and smoothed it from right to left so there were no bubbles, carefully pulled it back up and attached it to the card. Turning the shard over, she repeated the whole process while Tony watched. “What’s Gibbs expecting?”
Tony shrugged. “We found it under a table in the kitchen. Anyone could have handled...smashed that glass...”
“But…”
“But I think Gibbs is hoping it was the killer…”
“Uh-huh.” She scanned the prints into the computer and brought them up on the screen, comparing them quickly to prints of other family members. “Looks like the victim’s wife was the last one to…”
“I found traces of cocaine on the key and in the film packet.”
Tony quickly jerked back to the present. “Okay, thanks for letting me know Abs. What about the video?”
“I’m sending the cleaned up copy to Gibbs right now.”
“Okay. Later, Abs.”
“Later, Tony.”
Kate looked at him expectantly as he put the phone away. “Well?”
“Sshhh…” He looked across at Chris who was starting to remove the second tire – the first wheel, the tire already changed and inflated, was leaning against the side of the repair counter on the opposite side of the shop.
Looking across at Chris herself, who briefly looked back at her and smiled, Kate nodded, “Sure.”
Tony lowered his voice and turned away from Chris to face Kate, their heads almost touching. “The only prints belonged to Wilson.”
Kate nodded.
“And there were traces of cocaine.”
“So this is about drugs,” Kate stated.
“Could be.”
“That’s different from the two in Norfolk, then. No traces of any drugs there.”
“Think we got us a copycat.”
She nodded in reply.
They were both distracted by the noise as Chris inflated the second tire. Realizing they’d be leaving shortly, Tony looked at Kate with liquid, pale green eyes. “Thanks, Kate,” he said in a low voice.
“For what?”
“Well…for not telling Gibbs I’ve been needing help.”
“You’re welcome, Tony.” She stretched her legs out and crossing them neatly at the ankles.
“Seriously, though…”
“Tony, you can be an irritating jerk, but I got your back, ‘kay? I’d like to think you’d do the same for me.”
“I know, but, well…this is different, you know what I’m saying?”
“Sure.”
“Anyway, you told Gibbs about this little side trip, didn’t you.”
“Well, I…”
“Tony!”
“I told him I had to do something first. Didn’t say what.” He couldn’t help a grin at having successfully yanked Kate’s chain yet again.
Kate shrugged, a gesture that could have meant, “Too late to worry about it now,” or “He wouldn’t mind anyway,” or a dozen other things.
Tony looked up as Chris approached with his wheels. “There you go,” he said, handing them over. Tony examined them and grinned widely. He was still smiling as he assembled the chair.
“You may find it’s a bit harder to keep your momentum going,” Chris cautioned, “but I think you’ll find your traction is much better.”
Tony completed the transfer and looked up. “Gotta be worth it,” he said.
“Those are actually street tires – not as knobby as mountain bike wheels.”
“Okay.”
“What do you want to do with the old tires?”
“I’ll take ‘em with me. They’ve only had a couple of months’ wear.” Tony grimaced slightly as he gave an experimental push on the left rim. His shoulder caught, but Kate’s massage had obviously done some good. Satisfied, he turned and looked at Kate. “Coming, Kate?”
“Sure.” She gathered up her handbag and followed both men to the front of the shop, Chris detouring to collect Tony’s other tires on the way.
“I suppose you realized I’m new to all this,” Tony said to Chris.
“The thought had crossed my mind. When did it…happen?”
“I was shot in the back about eight and a half months ago.”
“I’m sorry, man.”
“Not as sorry as the guy that did it,” Tony replied in an unreadable tone.
Chris dumped the tires on the counter. “I think your wife might need to carry these.”
Kate and Tony spoke in unison. “I’m not his/She’s not my wife.” Both wore identical expressions of absolute horror.
“Sorry, my mistake.”
“We’re just work colleagues,” Kate stated.
“Right,” Tony agreed.
“Okay. Where do you work?”
“NCIS,” Kate answered.
Chris handed Tony the receipt and a pen.
“Naval Criminal Investigative Service,” he expanded.
“Oh, okay. I know what you guys do. Got a brother in the navy. So what are you doing in Long Island?”
“Long story,” answered Tony. “Don’t want to go into that.” He handed back the pen and receipt and was given his copy.
“Sure.”
“Thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome. Have a nice day.”
“Oh, bound to,” Tony replied cheerily, turning to head for the door. “Come on, Kate.”
The weather had deteriorated again while they were in the bike shop. It looked like the couple of early hours of watery sunshine were all they would get as the sky darkened. Tony backed out into the street again and turned in the direction they had come, heater on and the wipers cutting swathes across the windshield. “What’s up, Kate, cold?” he asked as Kate hugged herself, snuggling down into the seat.
The weather had deteriorated again while they werein the bike shop. It looked like the
“A little,” she replied dryly.
“Crap!” Tony exclaimed, sharply pushing on the control lever as a car shot out of a side street, nearly clipping the closest fender of the Mustang in the process. The sports car slewed to the side in the slippery conditions, and Kate bumped her head against the window as they came to a stop.
“Hey, you want me to drive? I mean, really…”
Tony pouted. “I’m a good driver,” he snapped childishly.
“Compared to what?” Kate couldn’t resist the opportunity to take a dig at him.
"Very funny, Kate, just like...Abbott and Abbott." He leaned forward over the steering wheel and took a couple of deep breaths, muttering almost under his breath, “I’m an excellent driver.”
“Hey, you okay?” she asked. “What’s the matter? What can I do?” Even to his ears, she sounded tense.
“Absolutely nothing...” He grinned at her. For some reason, the fact that Kate had yet again missed one of his movie references made all the frustrations of Christmas worthwhile.
“So tell me,” Kate said a moment later, “what’s with all that weird stuff in your father’s office?”
Tony’s jaw clenched and a muscle in his cheek twitched. “What stuff? I haven’t been in his office in years.” He was trying to keep it light, but wasn’t sure he had succeeded in the end. He missed the odd look Kate gave him as he concentrated on steering the car around a bend.
“The old uniforms and a bunch of antique guns and swords.”
“Oh, that stuff. That’s part of his hobby.”
“What – collecting war memorabilia?”
“No.” Tony’s voice was tight. “Civil war re-enacting.” Tony stared straight ahead out of the windscreen, only giving Kate a quick sidelong glance. He hoped she wouldn’t question him further or ask whether he had ever had a part to play in it all. “Little poo boy” – the boy who carried around the bucket for the horses to…he suppressed the shudder that threatened to erupt at the memory. He became aware that Kate was laughing and gave her an enquiring look.
“Oh, Tony, that’s just so…”
“Funny? Embarrassing?” There was a note of anger in his voice.
“No, I was going to say it was out of character. I mean, your father just seems so…”
Tony relaxed and nodded. “Ah, here we are,” he said, pulling into a parking spot in front of a modern building labeled “Cold Harbor Gym & Health Club.”
Kate waited for him at the door. They entered the building together, only to have Tony immediately distracted as a pair of attractive blondes carrying sports bags, from which a pair of racquet handles protruded, crossed in front of them. He followed them with his eyes, not moving, while Kate walked to the counter.
“Hey, Tony!” Kate called from her position behind the only customer at the desk.
Tony shook his head to clear his mind of the distraction and pushed forward to join her as she spoke to the clerk. “Special Agents Todd and DiNozzo, NCIS,” she said, flashing her shield. “We’d like to talk to the manager.”
The young staff member behind the desk pointed down the corridor to his left. “Office at the end. I’m not allowed to leave the desk unattended, but I’ll let him know you’re coming.” The staff member picked up a phone to let the manager know he had visitors, as Kate and Tony headed off down the passage.
They had only traveled about ten yards when Tony reached out a hand and touched Kate’s wrist as they passed a group of lockers lining the left hand wall – set up in rows of four numbered from 1A to 30D. Locker 27B was there, its metal door scored by countless scratches, but the newly attached number shining clear. Kate nodded and started walking again with Tony following. The corridor was filled with the all-pervading aroma of paint fumes, and there was evidence of the work that had been recently completed. The paint fumes competed with the strong smell of chlorine from the pool, the lapping water of which could be seen through a pair of glass paneled doors halfway down the corridor. An aquarobics class was in session, judging by the pounding techno pop coming from within.
The end of the passage was marked by a crinkled drop-sheet, which spanned the space between the walls, and a pile of equipment, including two ladders, some tins of paint and brushes, which lined one side. Tony kicked the front of the chair up in a small wheelie to get over the edge of the drop sheet, which had been kicked up into a ridge by the passage of feet.
A brisk, “Come in,” answered Kate’s knock at the door of the manager’s office. She held the door back to allow Tony to enter without scraping the newly painted blue door. She was well aware the damage Tony’s chair could cause to paintwork, having seen scrapes around the driver’s door area of his car. He continually lamented the damage he did to the Mustang. The manager was on the phone. He gestured for Kate to take a seat and frowned while he finalized his call.
The two agents took the opportunity to look around them as they waited. The office was small and bright – not cramped but airy owing to the presence of a large picture window overlooking the terrace outside the gym’s café, currently not in use. A couple of filing cabinets lined the wall behind the manager’s desk, and sitting on top of that, waiting to be re-suspended from its hooks, was a large whiteboard. The room was obviously newly painted in the regulation blue they’d seen elsewhere in the building. The manager himself was in keeping with his surroundings, tall, aged in his thirties with light blonde hair and blue eyes. He looked healthy, but not particularly handsome, and had a solid, muscular build although without the bulk of a body-builder.
Tony ran his eyes over the items noted on the whiteboard. There was a list of names running across the top in columns with times and duties for each day noted underneath in gym shorthand. He read across the list of names, his lips moving slightly as he concentrated on the small writing: Sharon, Brad, Mike, Lisa, Nataliya, Jackson…Nataliya…Tony flashed back in his head to the previous day in the park, seeing clearly the card from the gym with the name scrawled on the back. Kate caught the sudden stillness in her co-worker and glanced over at him, seeing his eyes narrow as he followed down the column under Nataliya’s name. 9:45 A/R he read for that day, and nothing further until early afternoon – A/R, whatever that was, at 1:30 pm.
Tony reached into his pocket and pulled out the fax copy of the membership card and the note with the name “Nataliya” that he’d asked Nick Andrews to send through that morning. Kate looked at it curiously. She’d heard Tony talking to the detective and had rolled her eyes at some of the more juvenile references…and the whole house had heard him bellow up the stairs a few minutes later. “Probie! There’s a fax coming through! It’s for me! Can you bring it downstairs!”
The manager finally ended his phone call and hung up. “Sorry about that. Geoff Carlson,” he said, offering his hand to the nearest of the two agents – Kate as it happened.
She ignored it and flashed her ID. “Special Agents Todd and DiNozzo, NCIS,” she said.
“NCIS…” The enquiry hung in the air.
“Naval Criminal Investigative Service,” Tony filled in.
“Ah, okay. And what brings NCIS to Cold Spring Harbor Gym?”
“We’re making enquiries about one of your members,” Kate stated. “William Andrew Johnson.”
Geoff swiveled his chair to face the computer on the credenza at the side of his desk. Typing with two fingers, he keyed in the name and waited.
“We have a copy of his membership card, if that helps,” Tony said, but didn’t hand over the fax.
“Give me the number,” Geoff said.
“8-6-2-9-5-0.”
“Ah, that’s better.” Geoff leaned back in his chair as the details appeared on his screen. “What information do you need?”
“When did he last visit the gym?” Kate held her palm pilot in her hand, ready to take down the answers.
“Two days ago.”
“And before that?” Tony asked.
“Before that, the last time was September.”
“He was at sea for a couple of months,” Kate stated, “so that makes sense.”
“Were you acquainted with Commander Johnson at all?” Tony asked.
“No,” replied the manager. “But I know he was a friend of Nataliya’s. She introduced him to the gym back in July and she mentioned him a few times. They were friends, I believe.”
Tony and Kate exchanged looks. “Can we talk to her?”
Geoff spun around to face the whiteboard. “She’s taking an aquarobics class right now.” He looked at his watch. “She should be free in about ten minutes or so – these classes are never on time,” he said. He turned back to face the two agents. “Back down the main corridor – just go left into the main pool. She should be at the far end.”
“Just one more question,” Tony said. “Who has locker 27B?”
Geoff exited the membership program and looked up what appeared to be an ordinary list of names and numbers on his computer. “William Johnson.”
Tony looked across at Kate. “Do you have a key to locker 27B?”
“I’m not sure. It was a toss up as to whether the lockers would be replaced or not – they’re old …a lot of the spare keys are missing. As you may have gathered, the gym is under new management – lots of renovations. Normally, the lockers are in the change rooms, but at the moment, due to painting, they’re in the hallway – nowhere else to put them. Look, what’s this about anyway? What happened to Mr. Johnson?”
Kate and Tony exchanged looks. “He was murdered,” Kate said.
“Ah…in that case…” Geoff reached into his drawer and came out with a large bundle of keys all looped onto a length of blind cord. “27B…” He picked through the keys. “Doesn’t look like it’s here. Is that a problem?”
“Not really,” Tony said cheerfully, looking forward to some lock-picking. “I think we should go and speak with Nataliya now, Kate.” He looked at his watch and noted that it was nearly time for the class to finish.
“Sure. Thanks…”
The Manager reached out to shake Kate’s hand.
They retraced their steps down the corridor to the main pool entrance. Nataliya. The name conjured up in Tony’s head the image if a petite, seemingly delicate, Russian gymnast. The reality was somewhat different. Nataliya was certainly petite – barely five feet tall in her running shoes - but well-muscled and with ramrod straight posture. Her light brown hair was tied back in a severe ponytail and the lack of make-up merely emphasized the sallowness of her complexion and the darkness of her brown eyes. She projected the no-nonsense air of a drill sergeant as she conducted the class, grim and unsmiling, to the tune of the pounding music from a karaoke machine. There was a faint Slavic tinge to her speech, “Sceessorrs, turrn…that’s it, ladieesss…” as she put the class of middle-aged matrons through their paces. She noted the presence of the two NCIS agents, but continued with the cool down process at the end of the class without interruption.
“Thanks, ladieesss, I’ll see you next time.” Nataliya turned away to pack up the karaoke machine, a signal that the class was over. The two NCIS agents took this as their signal to approach. As they did, two other gym employees open the door of a storage locker and rolled out a large mobile storage reel around which were wound a number of lane markers. The obstacle blocked their path for a moment, as the two employees pushed it in the direction of the end of the pool. The awkward passage of the reluctantly rolling reel forced them to take evasive action.
Kate stepped back quickly, almost colliding with her co-worker. “Hey, easy, Kate.”
“Sorry,” she said.
“Hey, cutie,” the woman on the nearer side of the reel said as she pushed past. Tony caught a glimpse of the name on her shirt, Sharon, as they passed him by. She gave him a grin and raised an eyebrow, to which he responded with a grin of his own, before Kate tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. Even then he still looked back at her; at five-eight and about one hundred and fifty pounds, the short-haired green-eyed brunette was very much to his taste.
With Tony’s attention still diverted, Kate caught up with the instructor. “Excuse me, are you Nataliya?”
“Yes, I’m Nataliya Petrovska,” she replied, setting the karaoke machine back on the ground. “Are you from the police?”
“Special Agents Todd and DiNozzo, NCIS.” Kate flashed her ID. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.
Nataliya nodded. “I wass expecting the police,” she said. “NCIS. This is good, I think.”
“Is there somewhere more private we can talk?” Kate asked.
“We can use the staff room.”
Nataliya led the two NCIS agents to a small staff room overlooking the pool. Kate shoved a badly placed chair out of the way to let Tony into the room and then shut the door before taking a seat herself. While she booted up her palm pilot, Nataliya fetched a bottle of water from the refrigerator and took a seat opposite the two NCIS agents. She took a long draw from the bottle then waited expectantly. Tony pulled out a notepad and pen, tapping the point in a dotted line along the top of the page.
“Miss Petrovska,” he started.
“Nataliya, please,” she interrupted. “Miss Petrovska is just so…”
“Formal?” Kate asked when Nataliya was unable to find the right word.
“Yes, formal.”
Tony raised an eyebrow and continued. “Are you acquainted with William Andrew Johnson?” he asked.
“Yes, I know him,” she smiled. “We are engaged.”
Kate and Tony exchanged glances. “When was the last time you heard from him?” Kate asked.
“Two days ago. He called me. He was supposed to come to dinner at my place. He called to cancel because…he said there was something he have to do. I-I think he was in trouble of some sort.” She stopped and looked uncertainly at the two agents. “Has something happened to him? I have been very worried. I have not heard from him. I called the police this morning. I think they knew something but they would not tell me.”
Kate hesitated and looked across at her co-worker, who wore a pensive expression.
“Please, you must tell me! Has something happened to him?” She looked at each of the NCIS agents in turn and read their expressions then took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She took a moment to gather herself, taking a couple of ragged breaths.
Kate looked at Tony and started to speak. “His body was found on Christmas Day in a park in Huntington.”
Nataliya blanched and nodded, taking a deeper breath as she retracted into herself, eyes closed. When her eyes opened again, they glittered with moisture but she managed to hold back the threatening tears. The only other outward sign of her grief was the agitated movement of her hands as she shredded a paper napkin picked up off the tabletop. Tony was thankful that Kate had been the one to break the news. It was one aspect of his job…and jobs of the past…that he’d always avoided – a fact of which Kate was well aware.
Nataliya placed her trembling hands flat on the table. “Okay, what do you want to know,” she said slowly, a slight waver in her voice.
“What made you think he was in trouble?” Tony asked after a slight hesitation.
“He was very worried. I ask him what’s the problem, but he would not tell me. This was maybe three months ago – before he was back at sea.” She waited as Tony scribbled this on his notepad. “I think his father is also worried about something, but he won’t tell me, too. They both just tell me not to worry – they will fix it.” She gave a sigh. “Bill’s parents – has anyone told them yet?”
“Another agent was going to see them this morning. They weren’t home last night,” Kate answered.
“They are not home. They went to see Bill’s sister in California – she had a baby just before Christmas.”
Tony exchanged a look with Kate. Gibbs wouldn’t be amused at all.
“What do you think?” Tony asked. “What sort of trouble do you think it was?”
“I think…Bill’s dad is a cop. I think maybe he make a mistake and maybe Bill was trying to fix it, like a good son.”
Tony put his pen down, wanting a moment to think. He put his hands down to his wheels and pushed, lifting himself to change position in a movement that had almost become automatic. Nataliya had resumed her shredding, taking up another napkin, placing the pieces in a neat pile on the table. Troubled, she looked between the two agents, still barely keeping herself under control.
“What do you think was happening?”
“He – Bill’s dad – he was having problem with this guy – bad cop. This bad cop – he knew something about Bill’s dad. I think he was threatening to make big trouble. Maybe it was something from long time ago. I don’t know. Sometimes things are not what they seem.” She caught Tony’s eye and gave a watery smile. “Understand me, Bill’s dad is good man – good cop. But maybe mistake was made and Bill try to maybe buy off bad cop and it backfire.” Nataliya’s grasp of English was steadily deteriorating, as she had to work increasingly hard to keep herself together. A moment later, Kate was taking down her contact details, interview over for now.
Tony found himself saying, “Thank you, Nataliya. We know where to find you if we need to speak to you again.”
Then they were in the corridor outside the pool staring up at locker 27B. The lockers themselves were old and bore the scars of many years’ use. Only the number gleamed bright. The lock itself was basic, meant more for courtesy than security, the faceplate badly scratched by many openings and closings. Tony looked up at Kate speculatively. “You game?” he asked.
Kate looked each way down the corridor and followed Nataliya’s progress out of the building with her eyes. She thought briefly and frowned as Tony reached behind him to pull out a pair of gloves from his backpack. “Got a hairpin?” he asked.
Kate looked at him, a slightly exasperated look on her face. “Tony…shouldn’t forensics look at this first? We could be contaminating the evidence.”
“Don’t you wanna know what’s inside?”
“Just as much as you…” She cut the sentence short as her phone started to ring. “Gibbs,” she said into the phone. “We’re done here. We’re gonna head back to the house.”
Tony picked up a few muffled words then a more clear, “Put DiNozzo on,” came from the phone speaker. Kate handed the phone over and he came out with a cheerful, “Hey, boss.” He listened as Gibbs said something then responded, “Yeah, we’re done here. Just one thing, the locker’s here.”
“Have you opened it?”
“No, boss, we…that is, Kate thought…”
Even Kate heard Gibbs’ exclamation. “Open it, DiNozzo! I wanna know what’s inside.”
“Yes, Gibbs.” Tony sounded remarkably happy at that instruction. He gave Kate a triumphant look. He handed Kate back her phone and as she dug in her bag for a hairpin, a paperclip, anything he could use to open the lock, Tony pulled on the gloves he’d already gotten out of the backpack.
Kate eventually came up with a paperclip and was on the receiving end of a cock-eyed grin as Tony worked it into shape. “You don’t have to say it,” she said.
“Say what?”
“I told you so.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
Tony’s grin broadened into a wide smile. “Sure.” He stuck the bent piece of wire in his mouth for a moment as he moved into position in front of the locker. It was a slightly awkward stretch from below, but it only took a moment or two of careful manipulation for the lock to click open. He pushed back out of the way to let Kate look into the interior of the locker, which was out of his line of sight, a hopeful look on his face. “Well?”
“Nothing. It’s empty. Zip. Nada. Not even dust.”
“Hmmm.” Tony was fumbling for the backpack again. This time he came up with a flashlight, which he handed to Kate with a flourish.
Kate shone the flashlight into the interior of the locker, shining it at an angle to the floor and grimacing at the stale odor. “Yuck, he must have stored thousand year old sweat-socks in here,” she commented. “I can’t see a fiber or anything else. Can we get someone down here now to check it out properly?” Kate asked.
“Sure, Kate.”
Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
They pulled into the garage of Tony’s parents’ house at just after 11:30 am. As the garage door lowered behind them, Kate was already out of the car and peering out the back door to see if the path had been cleared. “You’re good to go,” she commented. She waited patiently by the door as Tony assembled the chair and transferred then retrieved the backpack from the trunk along with a grayish-looking, threadbare towel that he draped across his knee. Her eyes flared curiously for a moment before she stepped back, allowing him to pass out the door, holding it back against a gusting wind that threatened to slam it in both their faces.
She followed up the path to the patio, again holding the door back until he entered and having to awkwardly crib around him when he stopped just inside. She looked at him again, curiosity satisfied as he shifted his weight onto one wheel and proceeded to wipe down the other with the towel.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
“Abs, this isn’t much better than the original.”
“I’ve done what I can with it, Gibbs. I’ve sent a copy to the Naval photo lab to see if they can clean it up more.”
“Okay, Abby. Thanks.”
“What’s up, boss?” Tony asked, watching as McGee reran the cleaned up video on his laptop. He squinted at it curiously, looking for anything that would help identify the two people in the scene. “Stop it there, McGee.”
“What is it, Tony?”
“The guy with his back to the camera…does he have a ring or something – left hand?”
McGee zoomed in on the left hand, caught mid-gesture, losing all clarity in the process, then backed it up to the previous magnification level, which was clearer but a lot smaller. “Can’t really tell. Could be...”
Gibbs leaned over McGee’s shoulder, peering closely at the screen. He gave a non-committal shrug before turning away. “Guess we’ll have to wait on the photo lab,” he said. “Now, what have you got for me?”
“Just a minute,” Tony said, reversing away from the table. He headed into the hall where he’d just heard his grandmother’s measured steps passing the doorway. “Hey, Gran. Can I borrow your glasses for a minute?”
“My glasses?” She looked at him doubtfully even as she slipped them off, unlooping the chain from around her neck.
“Thanks, Gran.” Tony hooked them into the neck of his shirt and spun around to go back into the temporary NCIS office.
Kate, McGee and Gibbs stepped aside from where they’d been peering at the slightly fuzzy frozen image on the computer screen to allow Tony better access, one of them also dragging McGee’s chair out of the way. McGee tittered slightly as Tony donned his grandmother’s steel-framed glasses, earning himself a glare before Tony turned his attention to the blurred hand on the screen. He looked at it closely. The tip of his tongue ran over his lips once, and then he clenched and released his jaws and released of puff of breath as his posture relaxed.
“Well?” Kate finally asked when Tony still didn’t speak.
“He’s definitely wearing a ring. Gold, with some sort of blue stone, I think.”
“You got that, Abs?” Gibbs asked.
“Sure, Gibbs. We’ll see what the photo lab can do with it.”
“Abby!”
“Best, I can do, Gibbs,” she responded.
“How long?”
“Gee, dunno, Gibbs. I should have something by tomorrow.”
“Soon as you can, Abby.”
The webcam window blacked out as Abby shut down the program from her end.
Something tickled at the back of Tony’s memory – something half-forgotten – but he just couldn’t bring it out. He made an impatient movement to clear the gathered bodies from around the wheelchair. The glasses were again hooked into the neck of his shirt as he spun around and pushed himself back out to the hallway where his grandmother still waited.
“Thanks for that, Gran,” he said, handing them over.
“You’re welcome, dear,” she said, putting them back on. “Did they help?”
“Sure.” Tony grinned, “We’ll be giving you a badge soon if you keep this up.”
“Don’t be silly, boy. I’m far too old to join the N-C-I-S,” she said, although it was easy to see she was tickled pink at the idea.
Kate was already giving the report of their morning activities to Gibbs as he re-entered the makeshift office. “Well,” she said, “We spoke to the manager at the gym. He didn’t know the victim well but told us he was introduced by one of his staff, Nataliya.”
“She’s the decedent’s girlfriend,” Tony supplied. “Thought he was in some sort of trouble or maybe his father was and he was trying to fix it. She didn’t have any specifics, though.”
“The locker was empty,” Kate continued, “although the ALS picked up something. Could just have easily been traces of sweat from a gym bag, but we called in the local guys to check it out.”
Gibbs nodded.
“Any luck with the parents, boss?” Tony asked guilelessly.
McGee raised his eyebrows in warning.
“No, DiNozzo, we didn’t have any luck with the parents.”
“The house was locked up. Neighbor said they’re away for a few days,” McGee added. “Didn’t know where.”
“The Commander has a sister in Southern California. His parents are there.” Tony gave a slightly triumphant grin, only to be smacked on the back of the head by Gibbs.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Didn’t know until we spoke to the girlfriend.”
“McGee!”
“On it, boss.” McGee was furiously typing. “Hang on, just a minute,” he said as the keyboard started to spit out the relevant information. “Bethany Anne Smith…”
Gibbs was already dialing the listed phone number.
xoxoxoxoxoxo
“Hey, Tony, wake up!” Kate barged into the room without knocking.
The blankets heaved as he reared up on his hands from a facedown position on the bed, his hair mussed with sleep and looking more than a little bleary. “Wha-what?!”
“Abby just sent through the video again.”
Tony collapsed on his chest again. “You woke me up for that? I was in the middle of a dream about…”
“Tony, I don’t want to know about your…fantasies.” The word “sexual” hung in the air between them, but Kate didn’t actually say it.
Tony looked hurt as he rolled on to his side, pushed up into a sitting position and dragged his legs over and off the side of the bed in preparation for a transfer. “That wasn’t what I was dreaming about,” he said, sounding a little hurt, even grumpy. He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, wearing only a pair of red boxers decorated with reindeer and a white t-shirt, pulled somewhat askew in his sleep. Kate gave a quirky grin. “How festive,” she commented.
Tony looked up her briefly, not sure if she was serious or teasing. “What time is it, anyway?” He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and scrubbed at his face to wake himself up, noting the scratchiness of day-old beard with some distaste.
“It’s nearly 7:30.”
While he stretched and groaned, rolling his shoulders to ease the kinks, he said, “I’ll be there in a minute,” and when she didn’t move, “Kate? I’ll be there in a minute.” He made a shooing gesture with one hand. “Well, maybe more than a minute,” he amended ruefully, thinking about how long it normally took him to dress.
“Oh, okay, sure.” Kate turned away and left the room, shutting the door after her.
The complete team were again gathered around McGee’s computer when Tony entered the room, concentrating on the detailed still image Abby had sent them as an addition to the cleaned up video. Tony announced his presence by clearing his throat noisily. It had taken him a while to get dressed and it was obvious they’d proceeded to examine the recording without him, despite the fact that it had been his observation that sent Abby scrambling to the Navy photo lab to work on the image.
Kate looked over her shoulder as she heard the noise and automatically stepped back out of the way, allowing him to slide in beside McGee. As she leaned in over Tony, resting a hand on his shoulder lightly, to get a closer look, she felt him flinch at the touch. He looked back at her curiously for a second. He gave her a hesitant grin then turned his face back to concentrate on the screen. Kate felt him tense again as recognition dawned. “You recognise the ring, don’t you?” she said, straightening up.
He stared out the window for a moment, straightening his back. His voice was grim as he spoke. “It’s familiar…but…,” he acknowledged. “I don’t know, I just can’t quite place it.” He sighed heavily, something niggling at the back of his brain.
Gibbs nodded. “McGee, with me.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Where are you going, boss?” Tony asked.
“The victim’s parents fly in shortly.”
Tony waited until Gibbs and McGee had gone before pulling out his phone and flicking through the display to the number he wanted.
“Who you calling?” Kate asked, curiously.
“Nick Andrews,” he said.
“Ah,” Kate replied. “The homicide guy.”
“Yeah. I knew him back in Baltimore. Thought he might remember.” He hit the button to dial the number and waited while it rang. “I can’t take your call right now. Leave a message after the beep.” He left his name and number before hanging up.
“So now…”
“We wait,” he said, nodding.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
“DiNozzo.” Tony answered his phone without checking the caller ID, fully anticipating that it would be Nick Andrews returning his call. He’d left a few more messages after the first, and was yet to receive a reply.
“Hello, is that Agent DiNozzo?” a heavily accented female voice said. “This is Nataliya Petrovska.”
“That’s me,” Tony replied, somewhat flippantly. “How can I help you?”
“No, no, you can’t help me,” she said. “I have found some information for you.”
“Okay, shoot,” he replied, reaching for a pen and notepad.
“No, no, you do not understand me. I need you to come here.”
“Here.” His heart sank as he attempted to look out the window at the darkened, threatening skies.
“Yes, here. To my home. This is possible?”
“I guess so. Let me have the address again.” He scribbled on a notepad as she dictated the address.
“How soon can you be here? Twenty minutes?”
“Twenty minutes?” he grimaced. “I don’t know. I’ll try.” He snapped his phone shut, ripped the sheet off the notepad and wrote a quick note to Kate.
The path to the garage was still relatively clear but, with fat, wet flakes of snow again starting to fall, that wouldn’t be the case for long. He pulled the collar of his jacket up close around his neck as something cold and wet made it’s way underneath. “Damn crappy weather. Why’d I have to drag my ass out on such a crappy day.”
Tony pulled the Mustang out of the garage and onto the quiet street. The wet snow was making the roads feel greasy and not pleasant to drive on. Tony grumbled but turned the radio up high, hoping to raise his spirits.
The highway wasn’t much better than the side streets, the salt trucks not having made their way around yet. While Tony was sporting a set of snow tires, the Mustang was not really meant for winter driving – with the powerful engine in the front, the rear wheels had very little weight to give them traction. And, while he was well aware of this, he was still fairly new to driving with the hand controls.
He was having a little trouble keeping the car out of a skid and was concentrating so hard on the road ahead he almost missed his exit.
The exit was approaching a little too quickly. As Tony hit the brakes, the Mustang rebelled, its back end swinging to the left. The entire car swung around into the path of an oncoming tractor-trailer. Tony began to see his life flash before his eyes, but shook it off and quickly reversed the vehicle. Unfortunately the exit came right before an overpass – Tony was on a bridge with no shoulders on which to pull over. Holding his breath, he sped in reverse, praying that the tires would hold the road until he could pull to a stop on the other side.
No luck, the car began a slow skid sideways. The truck was quickly approaching, and Tony was near panicking. He accelerated, turning out of the skid just as he reached the other side of the overpass. He quickly pulled the car over onto the shoulder as the big truck rumbled past. An icy patch caused him to hit the concrete barrier slightly. He winced as he heard it scrape along the passenger side door. He sat there breathing heavily, his heart threatening to pound through his chest.
Up ahead, the truck had slowed to a stop and was shining his big spotlight in Tony’s direction. Tony waved his hand out the window to let the driver know he was okay. The truck’s lights flashed once, and it was on its way once more.
When Tony had ceased trembling enough to continue on, he was able to take the exit on this side of the overpass – he was supposed to be heading north, this one would take him south, but he would be able to turn around on the slower street that passed below the highway.
The rest of the trip to Nataliya’s was fairly uneventful; other than a minor slide at a traffic light, he made it to her apartment in one piece.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Tony boarded the rickety elevator and pressed the button for the fifth floor. Water pooled underneath the wheelchair, running into dips in the cracked linoleum floor as the elevator started its creaking journey up. The single working light flickered and buzzed alarmingly. The interior of the elevator was adorned with graffiti, including an anatomically correct representation of a naked woman artistically scrawled across the back of the door, her lip curled in a “come hither” expression, a long scrape across one shoulder where a piece of protruding metal scraped the door as it opened and closed.
The elevator jerked to a stop on the third floor and a harassed-looking elderly woman clutching the hand of a child with huge solemn eyes boarded the car and pressed the button for the seventh floor. The woman exchanged smiles with Tony, then fussed with something in her handbag while the child fixed him with a stare that he steadfastly refused to meet.
xoxoxoxoxox
“Mrs. DiNozzo, do you know where Tony went?” Kate asked from the doorway of the vacant temporary office.
“No, dear, I don’t. He left about 30 minutes ago, but he didn’t tell me where he was going. He said he wouldn’t be long. Is something wrong?”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Kate replied with a slight hesitation. “I just tried to call him. Guess he can’t answer his phone or something right now.”
Kate turned back into the “office” and saw the hastily scribbled note Tony had left her on McGee’s computer keyboard, cryptic in the extreme even without the chicken-scratch handwriting. Kate tried Tony’s phone number one last time and let it go to voicemail. She frowned at the note, holding it at an angle to the light, finally realising that she could see the shadow of something that had been written on the previous sheet of paper. She grabbed a pencil and, holding it at an angle, softly shaded over the first few lines on the page to reveal what was written underneath. A sense of foreboding overtook her as she recognised the address she’d recorded the previous day. She grabbed her coat, purse, the backpack they’d taken with them the previous day and snatched up the keys to the car McGee had driven down from Albany and headed out onto the road.
Tony’s car was parked in a handicapped spot in front of the building. Kate noticed, with concern, the large scrape along the door. As she pulled alongside, another car drove off from further up the road. She quickly nosed into the vacated spot. She took the time to look up at the old apartment building framed by a glowering sky and tried Tony’s phone one last time.
The foyer was empty and cold. She shoved her hands deep in her pockets as she waited for the elevator to descend, impatiently tapping one foot as she waited. As she stood there, the lights dimmed and then went out completely, leaving her in the dark, in more ways than one. “Damn,” she muttered. She swung the backpack to the ground and rummaged inside, feeling for the flashlight she’d used to examine the gym locker. Flicking it on, she headed for the fire stairs.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Tony exited the elevator into a dimly lit corridor leaving the other occupants to bump and grind their way up. He took a moment to orient himself in the dim glow of the flickering overhead lights before setting off down the hallway. He peered up at the number on the first door as the light bulb above dulled to a mere glow. “Damn,” he muttered. As he reached up to knock, the lights finally fizzled out completely to the accompaniment of a loud bang from elsewhere in the building. “Great, can this day get any worse?” he asked himself as he sat there in the dark. He heard a couple of doors open, as two or three tenants looked out into the hallway. “Okay, Anthony, get a grip.” He rapped authoritatively on the scratched and peeling door. “Nataliya, it’s Special Agent DiNozzo,” he called out, hearing a noise from within. He waited, and when there was no response, he knocked again and called out more loudly. “Nataliya! It’s Tony! Let me in!”
There was a faint click and the door popped open.
Tony pushed the door open cautiously. This was definitely not what he expected. He pushed through the doorway, using the narrow frame for leverage.
“Nataliya? Nataliya, you really should get a proper dead…” The door closed with a click and he felt something cold pressed against the side of his neck. He stiffened perceptibly.
“Hello, Tony,” a voice whispered – a voice Tony found vaguely familiar, but could not quite place. “Just keep your hands where I can see them.”
Tony raised his hands from the wheelrims and held them up, flinching as he felt fingers moving over his body. Tony felt him remove the phone from his pocket. He stared straight ahead, his eyes adjusting to the gloom. Nataliya was on the opposite side of the room, apparently duct taped to a kitchen chair, flanked on one side by a large pile of boxes. Moving? he wondered. “I’m not armed,” he said, his eyes flicking down as he sensed his captor’s attention had moved to his legs.
“I want you to give me everything you have on this case,” the husky voice whispered.
“I really don’t have much of any-,” Tony was rewarded with a smack on the back of his head as he tried to turn around to take a look at his captor. “Hey! I can’t give you what I don’t have! Geez, I get smacked around enough at work, I don’t need this crap from you.” Tony heard a quiet chuckle coming from his captor. From the sound of it, he was wearing some sort of mask that muffled the whisper, making it almost impossible for Tony to identify the voice.
“Look, you give me nothing, the Russian chick dies.”
Even in the darkness, Tony could see Nataliya’s eyes widen. He hoped what he was giving her was a reassuring look, though he didn’t feel all that reassured himself. “I’m not sure what you want from me,” he said quietly.
“Neither am I,” said the whisper, seemingly resigned.
Tony heard the pistol cock and didn’t think, just acted. He reached up over his head for the arm pointed at Nataliya and pulled it down hard against his shoulder. The gun fired, but the bullet was wide. The gun clattered to the floor.
Rather than grab the gun, the gunman spun around and headed out the door, Tony close behind.
The hallway was much darker than the small apartment, and Tony was wheeling blindly, following the sound of footsteps. There was a dim exit light at the end of the hallway. In its light, Tony could see the entrance to the stairwell. If the gunman reached the stairs, Tony would have very little chance of catching him.
The opening of the heavy fire door slowed him down just enough for Tony to close the gap. He reached up and grabbed the man by the arm, getting an elbow in the face in return. Caught off guard, Tony almost lost his balance, but didn’t let go of the arm.
They were both in the stairwell now, Tony having been pulled in as a result of his tenacious grip as he desperately tried to drag the man off his feet.
The stairwell was pitch black once the fire door had slowly closed behind them. Tony had no idea how big the landing was and hoped desperately that he was far enough from the stairs themselves.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Tony felt a big fist glance off his chin. Still not wanting to let go his grip on the gunman’s right arm, Tony swung madly with his own fist, hoping to land a good punch.
Unfortunately for Tony, the perp had been pulling him closer and closer to the edge of the stairs. He let go of the man’s arm, but was unable to save himself. One wheel caught on the top stair and he toppled over sideways, hitting his head hard against the wall as he fell. Through the fog, he heard the fire door open, followed by running footsteps down the length of the hallway.
Tony lay stretched out on the landing where he had ended up, one leg hooked back awkwardly, his foot wedged into the gap between the newel, to which the handrail was attached, and the bottom step. He was frustrated with himself, but he would have to wait until the stars he was seeing in front of his eyes disappeared before attempting to grab his chair and pull himself back up the flight of steps.
Suddenly he heard his name being called from below, followed by footsteps and a light coming up the stairs. “Kate?”
“Tony, where are you?”
“I’m right here on the stairs. I’m fine,” he said, propping himself up on his hands only to find that he was held firmly in place. He started to reach for whatever obstruction was impeding his progress, groping his way down his legs, all the while feeling that there was something else he was forgetting. He shook his head, trying to break the thought free. “Oh crap! The gun! Kate, get to Nataliya! Quick!”
Kate scooted awkwardly past his prostrate form and ran for the apartment, picking it easily by the open door. She carefully pulled away the tape from Nataliya’s mouth, apologising for the pain it caused.
“Tony?” Nataliya asked immediately when she was free.
“He’s okay. Will you be all right if I leave you for a minute? I just need to make sure the bad guy’s gone and see if Tony needs any help getting back up the fire stairs…”
“Yes, go. Please.”
Kate cautiously made her way down the corridor in the opposite direction, but all seemed quiet. There was a second fire door at the opposite end and she figured he’d made his escape there. She pointed the flashlight down the stairs, but heard and saw nothing, before returning to Tony.
Tony was sitting at the bottom of the steps when she reached him, holding his head. “Nataliya’s fine; he’s gone. Now, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” was the curt reply.
“Sure you are,” said Kate sarcastically, as she shone her flashlight on his face, making him blink fiercely and turn away from the bright beam of light. “You look like you’ve been hit by a Mack truck.” Blood coated the side of his face, but she was unable to tell where it was coming from, and he had a large bruise already swelling up on the same cheek. Who knew what other damage he had done?
Tony sighed. “I feel like I’ve been hit by three.”
“Think you’ll be able to make it up the stairs? Or would you rather head down and get to a doctor?”
“Nope, I’m okay,” Tony said as he pulled himself towards the stairs. He turned to look up the stairs, where his chair had lodged part way down, and instantly regretted the quick movement as his head spun alarmingly. “Put my chair up at the top and then cut poor Nataliya loose; she’s probably wondering what’s going on.”
Kate did as asked then headed back down the hall to Nataliya’s apartment.
Tony disentangled his legs and sat on the landing assessing his condition before making a move back up the stairs. Aside from the ringing in his head, and what felt like a graze on his cheek, he could feel a myriad of bruises making themselves painfully clear, and there were probably more that he couldn’t feel. He reached up to touch a painful spot on his eyebrow and felt his fingertips come away wet. He hoped he didn’t need stitches. He vividly remembered splitting his chin open in a fall from a tree as child and having it stitched up afterwards. Just thinking about it, he reached up to rub the slightly raised line of the scar with a fingertip, smearing it with blood as he did.
Xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
The lights clicked back on as Tony was wheeling back down the hallway. He looked up at the dim hall light for a second, despite the dizziness engendered by the movement of his head, then he had to grin in sheer delight as he heard the noise of the ancient elevator starting to descend. He hadn’t been looking forward to trying to descend the stairwell on his ass. He entered the apartment to the sound of retching. Kate turned from where she was looking out the window at the bleak weather – not that she could see much. “You’re bleeding,” she said.
“Thanks, Kate, I hadn’t noticed.” The sarcasm was thick in his voice. He reached up to touch his brow again.
“How’s your head feel?” she said, turning away and ignoring his snippiness. She walked into the apartment’s tiny kitchen area, returning with a couple of tissues in her hand, which she used to wipe around a deep cut on Tony’s brow to the accompaniment of ouches and ows from her patient. “Tony, I think this needs stitches,” she said critically.
Tony grimaced. He’d seen enough of hospitals in the last year to last him a lifetime.
Nataliya emerged from the bathroom as Kate was tending to Tony, wan but otherwise intact.
“Are you okay?” Tony asked, brushing Kate’s hand aside so he could see Nataliya.
“Yes,” she said, nodding to back up the words. “I’m just not used to such treatment. Please, may I see?” she asked. “I have some first aid training – for my job, you understand.”
“So do I,” said Kate with a sidelong glance at Nataliya.
Tony hesitated a moment before nodding his assent, instantly regretting the movement as his vision blurred again. “Whoa,” he said as both women looked at him in concern.
“Kate, I have first aid kit in the bathroom. Can you get it for me, please?” She smiled at Kate sweetly.
“Sure.”
“Come, come with me, in the kitchen. The light is better.”
Tony followed her into the tiny kitchen, his movements somewhat awkward. His every move was starting to hurt. And then there was his head…
“Hey, it is okay, Tony.”
“What?”
“I know what I am doing. We have a lot of injuries at the gym.” Nataliya looked up as Kate came back with the medical kit.
“Tony,” Kate said, looking at him closely. “You’re not looking so good.”
“Thanks, Kate. Tell me something I didn’t know.” He pulled away as Nataliya dabbed at his brow with an astringent lotion.
“Tony, this needs stitches. I can hold it together with tape, maybe, but I think we need to take you to hospital. And we don’t know what other hurt you have done to yourself. How did you do this?”
“I…uh…fell down the fire stairs.”
“He’s a total klutz,” Kate added, and received another glare by way of response.
“Nataliya, do you have somewhere safe you can go, at least for tonight? We don’t know this guy won’t come back.”
“Yes. I think Bill’s family...”
“Yeah, they were coming home today.” Tony looked up at Kate and something in his attitude shifted. “Kate, can you call Gibbs and see if they got in all right?” Nataliya finished her ministrations, fixing the two sides of the deep cut in place with a couple of sterile strips.
“What happened to your…”
Tony fixed her with a baleful look as he gently fingered Nataliya’s repair work.
“Sure, Tony. I’m on it.”
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
The building superintendent, or at least someone Tony presumed to be the superintendent, was crossing the foyer when the elevator doors opened. Black hair, pencil-thin moustache, smacking on a piece of gum and wearing a leather tool belt over a work shirt and well-worn jeans, he eyed Tony’s battered appearance with some concern.
"Oh my God...Schneider..." Tony gasped under his breath.
"What was that?" he said between chews.
"Oh, nothing, it's just that you look like...never mind. What happened?"
“Transformer blew. These old buildings, you never know what's gonna happen, eh. Just gonna check that everything is okay here. You look like you've been through a war. You didn't get stuck and fall or somethin', didja?" The superintendent looked concerned, whether it was because of the possibility of a lawsuit, or genuine concern for his safety, Tony could not tell.
Tony shook his head and instantly regretted the movement. "No, actually, I was pushed."
"Whoa, you should let the police know about that."
"Got it covered, thanks," Tony smiled.
The superintendent smiled back, still looking a little perturbed, then headed into the stairwell.
A look of wonder passed over Tony’s face as Nataliya retrieved his phone from the trash can next to the elevator. He flipped it open. “DiNozzo.” He flinched as Gibbs’s voice came through loudly.
“Where the hell have you been?” Gibbs thundered. “And where’s Kate?”
“Nataliya’s apartment. Kate’s here with me,” he replied. He held the phone away from his ear as Gibbs again spoke.
“Why didn’t you answer?”
“Long story, boss. We’re taking Nataliya to Johnson’s parents’ place.”
“Is that wise, DiNozzo?”
“Well…you got any other suggestions? Someone just tried to kidnap her and extort information,” Tony continued. “She has nowhere else to go.”
Gibbs ended the call without further comment and Tony, realising the conversation was over, snapped his phone shut. “Let’s go, Kate.” He pushed off in the direction of the outside door.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
As they came out of the apartment building, Tony turned in one direction and Kate in the other as they headed for their respective vehicles. Nataliya stopped between the two of them, somewhat bemused, as both said together, “Car’s this way,” with mirror image gestures.
Kate looked back at Tony in frustration. “You can’t drive. You could have a concussion.”
“She is right,” Nataliya said. “You could black out while you are driving and kill us all.”
“Looks like you already tried to kill yourself on the way here,” Kate commented, pointing at the long scrape down the side of the Mustang.
Tony gave Kate a pissy look and sighed, conceding defeat. “Okay.” He turned to follow her back in the opposite direction but balked when Kate hit the button on the remote and the doors of an electric blue Focus unlocked. He hadn’t even given the ugly car a thought since McGee had followed him home from the crime scene on Christmas day. “You can’t expect me to go anywhere in that!”
“Why not?” Kate was genuinely puzzled.
“It’s…it’s…because it’s so damn...” Words were failing the normally glib NCIS investigator. “Fugly,” he finally forced out.
“It’s what?”
“Fugly,” he replied, a smug grin on his face. “It means…”
“I get it, DiNozzo,” she cut him off sharply. “Tony, get in. It’s not like we have a choice.”
Tony looked into the interior of the Ford Focus and turned away. “You can’t expect me to get in that thing,” he said. “Come on, Kate, get real.”
“Tony!” Kate was getting exasperated. “Just because it’s not…”
“Come on, Kate. I’m far too big for that little thing. I’d never get in there.”
“McGee did. It’s no smaller than the Mustang, Tony.”
"Look at those doors! It's too hard to get in! Now look at the nice wide doors on the Mustang...ooh...nice wide doors...c'mon, Kate!" Tony gestured in the direction of his car. “Come on, you can drive the ‘Stang,” he wheedled.
“But I’ve never driven with hand controls.”
“It has a dual system, Kate.” Tony really couldn’t believe Kate’s ignorance of the modifications to the Mustang, considering the number of times she’d been a passenger in the car. “You can drive it with your feet.”
“Tony!!”
“But, Kate…”
“No, Tony.” She turned back to the Focus resolutely. “Come on, we can come back for your car later.”
He studied her retreating back, only moving when Nataliya started to follow her.
Kate ignored Tony as he prepared to transfer into the car. Judging by the stubborn set of his jaw, he was sulking anyway, not that he could ever maintain a grudge for long. It just wasn’t in his nature to sustain it. He morosely transferred into the front passenger seat and proceeded to stash the chair pieces in the back seat. The only sound he made was a pained grunt when he cracked his head on the doorframe. Kate had to quickly smother a laugh as she looked around to find him rubbing the spot he’d just whacked. “You okay?”
“Fugly little matchbox,” he muttered under his breath, even though the Focus had much the same amount of space in it as the Mustang. “I’m fine,” he managed to grind out as he roughly shoved the last piece of wheelchair into the back seat before swinging his legs in and shutting the door more firmly than was actually necessary. He snapped the seatbelt buckle and leant back against the headrest, eyes closed, as Kate started the engine.
Kate, rightly guessing she was unlikely to get anything further from Tony for the time being, turned her head to speak to Nataliya. “Do you know the way to the hospital? I think we should probably do that first.”
“Yes, yes, I can direct you. It is not far. I can call Bill’s father from there, yes?”
Tony’s hand moved to his pocket without him opening his eyes. “Here,” he said, handing her his phone. “Call them now to meet you there.”
“Tony?”
“Yes…”
“Thank you,” Nataliya said and grinned slightly as he opened one eye to look at her.
He shrugged, settling more comfortably into his seat. “You’re welcome.” He glanced at the road ahead for a brief moment. “Right at the next set of lights, Kate. It’s about…what…four blocks from there?”
“Yes, four,” Nataliya confirmed.
Tony leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes.
“So did either of you get a good look at the guy?” Kate asked.
Tony grunted sleepily.
“He was wearing a mask – a…” she thought for a moment, “a ski mask, yes, I think that is what it was.”
“Could you tell anything about him – height, weight, what did he sound like?”
“He was tall,” Nataliya said thoughtfully as Tony gave a confirming grunt. “He knew Tony’s name. He said, ‘Tony’. I think maybe he knows you.”
Tony gave another sleepy grunt.
“Tony? Do you know who it was?”
Tony shrugged, not bothering to open his eyes and not caring that Kate couldn’t really see the gesture.
“What about the voice?”
“It was…muffled – a little bit hard for me to understand. He was wearing the mask over his face, you understand. Speaking through it. He wanted to know what I did with the gym bag,” she finished softly.
“Gym bag?” Kate asked.
“Yes, it was supposed to be in Bill’s locker at the gym. But I do not know where it is – I did not take it out but when Bill did not come home, I did what he said to me. He said I had to take the bag to his father, but when I checked the locker, the bag, it was not there.”
“How did you get into the locker?”
“Bill gave me a key.”
“And you don’t know what was in the bag?”
“No. Money, drugs maybe? I don’t know. I only saw it once for a moment.”
“What did it look like?”
“It was a gym bag,” she shrugged then, unlike Tony, realised Kate couldn’t see the gesture. “Dark colour, maybe blue or green not black, with a zipper on top and two handles. It was just an ordinary gym bag – I see them every day at the gym.”
“No brand name?”
She shook her head. “I did not see one, or if I did, I do not remember it.”
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Hospital waiting rooms I have known, Tony pondered looking around the three sides of the room with its tired paintwork and uncomfortable chairs. There was a table with magazines old enough to have come out of the Ark in one corner and a couple of warning posters on the wall, and that was it for the décor. The desk opposite him was still festooned with tinsel from Christmas. His head throbbed rhythmically in time with his heartbeat. He closed his eyes again to the brightness of the fluorescent lighting and tapped softly on one wheelrim as he waited for his name to be called – dadum, dadum, dadum.
Kate shifted her position on what she considered to be the world’s most uncomfortable seat and flicked over the page of the ancient magazine she’d grabbed from the table. She cast a glance at her co-worker, noting that the cut on his brow was oozing blood out from under the tape, tape that was already lifting away.
Two gurneys from an accident were hurried in with a puff of cold air from outside. The people waiting, Tony included, watched as the two mangled bodies were ushered down the corridor to surgery – a mother and child covered in cuts and who knows what else.
The tapping grew louder, an annoying percussion. Kate looked down at the tapping hand and stilled it with her own. They exchanged looks. Tony freed his trapped fingers and made a brief gesture of supplication before giving a deep sigh.
“Anthony DiNozzo!” a voice called out. Tony looked in the direction of the sound and propelled himself jerkily forward. “Exam 3.” He was pointed in the direction of a small exam room on the right hand side of the corridor, only stopping briefly to say over his shoulder to Kate, “You go. I’ll be fine.”
“Agent DiNozzo,” a pleasant voice behind them stated.
Tony turned to find himself face to face with Danielle, the woman who had found the body in the park on Christmas Day.
“Danielle? What are you doing here.”
“I’m a doctor,” she said with a gentle smile. “I work here.”
“Oh,” Tony realised guiltily he’d never enquired as to her occupation when he interviewed her.
“What happened?” Danielle asked, taking in Tony’s battered appearance. She looked at the file she’d been handed but the notes there didn’t really illuminate her other than the word “fall”.
“I fell down some fire stairs,” Tony stated, glumly, matter-of-fact. “A whole flight of fire stairs.”
“Okay, so did you lose consciousness at all?”
Tony flinched as Danielle touched is jaw, angling his face to the light. He nodded and instantly regretted the movement as his head pounded. “Yeah, I think so, for a coupla seconds.”
“Aside from the obvious, I’m going to have to make sure you haven’t done yourself an injury anywhere…”
“I can’t feel?” He sighed deeply. “I know.”
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
“Well, you look like crap,” was Gibbs’ greeting as Tony slowly rolled into the “office”. Now that the bruises had come out completely, he looked worse than he had the previous night in the hospital. He’d checked himself out that morning after a nearly sleepless night – punctuated by hospital staff waking him to ask inane questions about the date and president and other pointless things.
He’d grabbed a cab from outside the door and gone to pick up his car – grateful to find it intact – and had driven it back to the house. He never thought he’d be so grateful to see his former home. He was unshaven, bone tired and his head still spun mightily with every movement. He felt in need of a good soaking bath. Damn, he thought, no bathtub downstairs. He cast a moody look up the stairs, missing the ability to move from floor to floor with the ease he’d taken for granted most of his life. And then Gibbs…
“Thanks, boss. Nice to see you, too,” he responded in kind. He sat slightly skewed in the chair, protecting his bruised side, one foot clad only in a white sock, the outline of bandaging showing through from underneath. There were dried bloodstains and dirt staining his jeans, which had a small tear at the knee showing an iodised graze underneath, and a new set of scrapes adorned his well-worn leather jacket, aside from the neat row of stitches in his brow which met the large purple bruise running down the side of his head.
Gibbs’ eyes dropped to the injured foot.
“Not broken,” Tony supplied, not entirely truthfully as in fact there was a chipped bone in his ankle, but it could have been considerably worse.
“Hmmm.” Gibbs’ response was mild enough. “Go have a shower,” he ordered bluntly.
Tony stiffly half-turned to go, giving Gibbs a view of the undamaged side of his face. “Yes, boss.”
xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Tony sat on the shower bench, taking inventory of his many hurts as the water sprayed over him. Hello, Tony. Just keep your hands where I can see them. Tony looked down at his hands, seeing the skinned knuckles. He tightened one into a fist experimentally then relaxed the fingers and rested it on his thigh, imagining the ring worn by the perpetrator in the video, but which had been invisible under gloves or not there at all the night before. God. He leaned his head back against the wall of the shower and grimaced through closed eyes as it hit. Damn. There was something there, just tickling at the back of his brain. Something familiar about the muffled voice – a speech pattern, a tone.
“Gees,” Tony said out loud, frustrated that he still couldn’t place a name on the hands, yet certain that he knew the ring.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
“Where’s DiNozzo?” Tony could just make out Gibbs’ voice through the closed door of the bedroom.
“I think he’s still takin’ a shower, boss,” McGee responded.
“Well, tell him I want to see him, pronto.”
Tony grimaced. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to enjoy the forthcoming conversation with Gibbs. He’d messed up and he knew it. There was a soft knock at the door. “Yeah,” he said, dropping the bandage he’d been awkwardly rewinding around his injured ankle. He watched it unravel, rolling under the bed, then looked up at McGee, who had stuck his head in the door. “What’s up?”
“Boss wants you.”
“I heard.” Tony grimaced as he reached for the dangling strip of bandage, intending to continue what he had been doing before the interruption.
McGee looked behind him quickly then came fully into the room, shutting the door after him. He crouched down and retrieved the end of the bandage, rolled it up and continued to wind it around Tony’s injured ankle, finishing by fastening it in place. “Thanks, McGee,” Tony said gratefully.
McGee shrugged. “You’re welcome. Gibbs is waiting.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
xoxoxoxoxoxox
Tony hesitated outside the door, taking the opportunity for a few not-so-deep breaths and to don his most “innocent” grin before pushing it open and entering. He had a fair idea of what was coming.
“Hi, boss,” he said, putting on a confident front.
Gibbs smiled back, and Tony instantly quailed.
Kate was typing up some notes on McGee’s laptop. She had looked around curiously when Tony entered the room, but soon resumed her work until she sensed Gibbs’ stony silence. At a pointed look from the boss, she gathered up her notebook and left the document open and incomplete on the computer. She left the room, shutting the heavy oak door quietly behind her.
Tony peered curiously at the computer screen, but his attention snapped back when Gibbs spoke again.
“What the hell did you think you were doing, DiNozzo?” Gibbs raised his hand to slap his senior agent across the back of the head, then seeing the condition of said head, withdrew it.
Tony cringed and hesitated, trying to formulate a reasonable response. “I had no reason to think there was any danger in going to speak to Nataliya, boss,” he said finally.
“On the contrary, DiNozzo, in view of the circumstances you had every reason to think it.”
“What do you mean, boss?”
“Think about it.”
“Well…” Tony floundered. His brain really wasn’t up the usual glib manoeuvring in which he engaged normally when he had been caught out. “I guess…I wanted to speak to her again alone because I thought she was hiding something and that maybe…”
“Maybe what?”
“Maybe she’d speak to me alone where she wouldn’t with Kate there.”
“And why would she do that, DiNozzo?”
“Why because of my natural charm, boss.” Tony grinned broadly. “I was pretty sure she knew more than what she told us earlier.”
“And did she?” Gibbs had begun pacing, but at this point he stopped, pulled out a chair in front of Tony and sat in it.
“Did she what, boss?”
“Know more than she said earlier.”
“Yes, boss, that is, she told us…”
Gibbs raised an eyebrow. He’d already gotten the information from Kate but he wanted to see what else Tony had picked up on.
“..ah…but you know this already, boss.”
“I want to hear it from you, DiNozzo. From the top.”
Tony sighed then caught his boss’s severe expression. “Nataliya called me.”
“Time.”
Tony consulted his phone and held it up for Gibbs to see. “4.13 pm. She sounded upset – scared even. She asked me to come to her apartment because she had some info for the case that might help. She gave me twenty minutes to get there…” Tony looked up at Gibbs and shrugged. “Boss, you know what it’s like – sometimes it takes me that long just to get in the car…” He paused before continuing, “You and McGee weren’t here. Don’t know where Kate was. I left as fast as I could.”
Gibbs smirked somewhat at the last comment.
“I drove to her apartment. Went up to her floor in the elevator and then the power went out. The apartment door was unlocked – it popped open as soon as I touched it. I entered. A gun was pressed to my neck. Nataliya was tied to a chair on the far side of the room. The guy with the gun wanted info on the case – didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t have any. Said that if I didn’t give him what I had, he’d kill Nataliya. I heard the gun cock, so I grabbed his arm. The bullet went wide. He ran, I chased…”
“And you fell down the fire stairs like the klutz you are.”
“Right, boss,” he said sheepishly. “And that’s when Kate arrived on the scene, coming up the stairs – right after the perp ran the other way.”
“And this guy knew you?”
“He knew my name. A lot of people have that information.”
Gibbs held up his hand as if to slap Tony’s head but held back. “What’s your gut tellin’ you, DiNozzo?”
“Could be he knows me…but I’m not sure. He’s familiar somehow, but with the mask and all…I just can’t put my finger on it, boss.”
Gibbs thought for a moment.
“Boss, how did Kate figure out where I was? I didn’t leave a note or anything with an address…did I?” Tony asked suddenly.
“No, but you did write on a notepad.” Gibbs gestured to the lined pad sitting on the tabletop beside the computer. The top sheet had been lightly rubbed over with a soft pencil to reveal what had been indented into it by writing on the previous sheet.
“Ah…frottage…” Tony smirked. He pushed forward a few feet to get a clearer view and recognised his own haphazard scrawling of Nataliya’s address. Our Katy’s come a long way, he thought, pleased with her and grateful that she’d shown up when she did. He became aware that Gibbs was giving him a curious look.
“Frottage?” Gibbs asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, frottage.”
Gibbs’ eyebrow rose even further.
“From the French “frotter” meaning to rub. The technique of creating a design by rubbing, like with a pencil, over an object placed underneath the paper. Rubbing over the indentations like that is also a kind of frottage. It can also be the act of obtaining sexu…”
“DiNozzo!”
“Sorry, boss.”
“Frottage probably saved your life.”
Tony had the good grace to remain silent.
“Next time, wait for backup.”
“Yes, boss.”
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