Kate sat down at her desk and pulled out a sheet of paper. It had been a few months since she had written to her uncle and she hadn’t spoken with him for a while either.

Of course she could hardly be blamed for this considering in the last three weeks she had been blown up, kidnapped, and shot three times. She sighed in despair as she thought about everything she had been through.

She had received a letter from her uncle promptly telling her off for being careless on the job. Apparently her mother had found the time to write to her brother-in-law and inform him of Kate’s newest job troubles.

Kate looked down at the paper, her mother blamed her career choice on her uncle. She had chosen a career in law enforcement after she graduated from college. Her uncle was a retired NYPD officer and Kate loved the idea of that. But she’d aimed higher - a Secret Service agent on Air Force One, protecting the president. That was great - until she’d been fired for breaking Rule Number Twelve - no relationships with your co-workers. Special Agent Gibbs had then offered her a job in NCIS.

Ever since then she’d had a pretty extreme life.
She leaned over the paper and began writing. Twenty minuted later she slipped the letter inside an envelope and turned out her bedroom light, she never noticed the man that stood in the shadows outside her bedroom window staring at her with a look of longing and desire on his face.

-

The next morning Kate picked up the envelope and put it into the mailbox on her way to work. The man from the night before slowly made his way to the mailbox and inconspicuously pulled the letter out.

When Kate arrived at NCIS Headquarters and entered the bullpen, the first thing she noticed was the silence.

Everyone turned to stare at her when she exited the elevator. Kate made her way over to her desk and sat down. Tony was the one she noticed when she sat down, as his desk was opposite hers. She could feel his eyes boring into her.
"What?" she asked him, accusingly. He looked down, "I guess you haven’t heard then…"

Kate could feel her heart start to beat faster and a wave of panic washed over her. She took a deep breath and asked him what he meant.

"It’s your uncle, Kate. They found him this morning."

The panic that swept over her now made her gasp in shock. "How?"

Tony pulled out a file from the ever-increasing pile on his desk and walked up to Kate. He held out the file to her, which she snatched from him. Tony watched Kate’s face as she read the medical examiner’s report..

Two gunshot wounds, one to the back of the head, one to the small of the back, shot execution-style from behind. Lacerations on the back of the neck,. Cotton fibres found in neck wound. No weapon present at scene.

Kate shook her head, "No, no," she muttered to herself. She reached for the phone and started dialling, but all she heard was dial tone. Tony had cut off the call. "What’d you do that for?"

He took the phone from her hands and placed it back on the hook. "Don’t do this to yourself, Katie."

"Don’t call me Katie!" She fumed at him. He didn’t understand how she was feeling. How could he?

Kate got up from her desk and headed for the elevator, "I want to see him Tony. Right now."

Tony followed her and grabbed her arm, "I can’t let you do that." He had a serious look on his face, "Come on, we’ll go into Room One." Kate stopped in her tracks, "What? You want to interview me? I’m a suspect?

"Kate…Gibbs asked me to. The local PD’s getting antsy, they wanted to handle the case. Technically we shouldn’t have jurisdiction, but Gibbs managed to pull some strings and get NCIS jurisdiction." He was trying to reassure her, he could see how upset she was. "You didn’t do it."

"I don’t need convincing Tony," she said sarcastically, " Why’d Gibbs get you to do the interview anyway?" She looked at him from the corner of her eye. He still had his hand on her arm, which made her uncomfortable.

Tony avoided the question. The truth is he’d volunteered to interview her; he knew how hard Gibbs could get, and Tony knew Kate was innocent. She didn’t need to be subjected to Gibbs at this time in the morning. Especially without his morning coffee. That could get dangerous. He guided Kate into the elevator, pressing the button for the 3rd floor. "I’ve never heard you talk about your uncle before…Pat, yeah?"

"Yeah." She said as she watched the numbers go down. She didn’t really feel like discussing Pat with him now - or ever. Kate tried to avoid making eye contact with Tony. She knew that he was trying to be kind to her, very un-Tony-like. He was a womaniser, it wasn’t in his nature to show compassion towards a female without flirting with her at the same time.

-

Tony hadn’t been hard on her in the interview room. What was the point? She didn’t know anything. The local PD had wanted to know if Kate’s uncle had told her about anyone bothering him. A stalker, perhaps. But Kate hadn’t talked to her uncle in a while, so she wouldn’t really know.

Tony looked straight at Kate. He needed to ask her something, he was just worried how she’d react.

"Kate…there was a note with your uncle. From you."

Kate looked up, "Yeah, so? I wrote to him.

Tony shook his head. "It was addressed from you, but it was a threatening letter. That’s why the local PD wanted to interview you. There were death threats in it."

Kate couldn’t believe what she was hearing, "Death threats? Tony this is me you’re talking about! You know me! I’d never…" she trailed off, how could he even suggest these ridiculous things?

He didn’t answer her. He couldn’t answer her. The intercom buzzed, Kate recognised Gibbs’ voice. He’s been watching them the whole time? Gibbs called for Tony to come out of the interview room, he wanted a word.

Kate waited. She couldn’t hear what the two men were saying, but she noticed a steely look on Tony’s face, he was very aware that Kate was watching him, studying his face for some clue. Tony sat back down with Kate as Gibbs exited the room, giving kite an apologetic look as he left.

Tony took a deep breath. "We got another body."

"ID?" Kate asked.

"No licence, but Abby’s running his prints," he said, "He ah… had a photo of you in his jacket pocket, and a letter addressed to your uncle."

"What? A photo of me? What would he want that for? I haven’t exactly been handing out photos of myself, Tony." Kate crossed her arms, this was getting ridiculous. Sure, she didn’t have an alibi for the timeframe that the medical examiner had said her uncle had been killed in, she was at home, but local PD sure were stretching it if they thought that she had anything to do with it. They must be desperate.

"Have you noticed anyone following you lately? Watching you?"

Kate scoffed. "A stalker? What you think someone’s got some weird, whacked-out obsession with me? Or maybe it’s just my genius plan of giving info to the hit man I hired - write letters to people. Better watch out Tony, I was going to write to you tonight as a matter of fact."

Tony frowned; he wasn’t seeing the funny side here. "Well if that were the case, then your plan backfired."

Kate laughed, "Not my style Tony, I would just shoot you."
Tony was still frowning, "Kate…"

"What? It’s all circumstantial! And since when has NCIS listened to local PD?" Kate raised her voice, then went silent. "Have you ever made a mistake, Tony?"

He smiled. "According to you or me?"

"Why can’t you be serious just for one moment, DiNozzo?" Kate snapped at him.

"Okay! Look, I’m going to go talk to Gibbs." Tony started to get up when Gibbs came into the room.

"Sit down, DiNozzo. Local PD says they’ve got nothing on John Doe. No ID, nothing."

Kate glanced at her boss, "Tony said that Abby’s running his prints. Got any hits?"

"Yeah actually. It seems our guy was an agent." Gibbs said.
Kate’s eyes widened. "An agent?" she repeated.

"Yeah. You know boss, we’re not meant to be telling Kate any of this." Tony told his boss.

"Don’t you think I know that, DiNozzo? If she was guilty, it would matter, okay? Now, it seems our guy worked in the same office as Ari Haswari for six months." Gibbs’ eyes glazed over, he despised Ari, that bastard should rot in hell.

Kate cocked her head. "I though we were told everyone Ari worked with was clean."

Gibbs shook his head. "Rule Number Three: Don't believe what you're told. Always double check."

Kate scoffed. "Should I write these rules on my Palm Pilot, or crochet them on pillows?"

Gibbs smiled. Kate was innocent, that was obvious, and because NCIS now has jurisdiction it should be a breeze to get her out of this. Local PD was the only problem.

Suddenly Gibbs’ phone started to ring, he swiftly flipped it open and answered it. Kate and Tony watched him intently. When Gibbs hung up, he was smiling.

"Good news?" Tony prompted.

"That depends on your definition of good news."

Tony frowned. "Not the answer I was looking for."

"You’re clear." Gibbs smiled. "It seems Ari’s friend did kill your uncle - we got the damn idiot on tape - he then shot himself. Clean to the head. It wasn’t hard to work it out, he tried to make it look like a murder."

Kate breathed a sigh of relief. Tony looked across at Kate. "Obsessions can be dangerous, hey Kate?"

She nodded, "Lucky Ari didn’t chose a smart guy to do his dirty work. Does that mean we’ve got some new leads to Ari’s whereabouts?"

Gibbs smiled, "Sure does…"

Tony looked across at Gibbs, he seemed unusually happy. "We gonna jump through any legal hoops?"

Gibbs shrugged, "Oh, that's kind of a grey area."

"How grey?"

"Charcoal."

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