Chapter 9
Arriving to the office much earlier than usual, Tony dropped his backpack at his desk and headed to the rear elevator just has he had planned, nearly running headlong into Gibbs as he turned the corner.
“Oh, hey, Boss.” Tony suddenly felt himself nearly strangle with anxiety as he recalled the events he saw unfold a few nights before, but didn’t want to seem suspicious. “How was your weekend?”
“Fine, DiNozzo. What are you doing here so early?” Gibbs questioned in his typical direct manner.
“I, uh…well, you see…I, you know…” Tony tried to think fast.
“No, I don’t know. How’s about you elaborate,” Gibbs said flatly, taking a long draw on his ever present coffee, waiting for his senior agent’s explanation.
Tony’s brain finally functioned, and he replied, “I had a date this weekend, and things were a bit awkward. I think she was sending mixed signals, and I was thinking that Abby’s so good with people maybe if I talked to her about it she could tell me if I should call this girl back and go out with her again or just leave it alone. I thought I’d come in early to talk to her before starting work for the day so it wouldn’t be a distraction later on.”
Gibbs didn’t say anything right away, and Tony thought for a second he had been seen right through. “Good thinking, DiNozzo. I just came from there, and she’s not too busy. Just make it brief. There is work to be done even without an active case. We still have Paloma Reynosa on the loose.” With that, Gibbs proceeded to his desk, leaving Tony slightly stunned.
“He just complimented me,” Tony said to himself almost inaudibly as he stood in front of the elevator waiting for the doors to open. That was a most puzzling behavior out of Gibbs. Gibbs just about never complimented anyone on his team for anything other than Abby, on whom he dished out healthy doses of praise, hugs, and kisses on the cheeks and forehead on a regular basis, as well as a near constant supply of her favorite drink, Caf-Pow!.
Upon entering the elevator, Tony pressed the button to head to Abby’s lab and hoped he wasn’t making a huge mistake. Everyone knew Gibbs and Abby had a special relationship that no one quite understood, and Tony wasn’t sure that she would accept what he was about to say, but seeing as she was the only one who knew about him and Ziva, she was the only one he could talk to.
The doors opened, and Tony made his way hesitantly into the music filled room known as the lab where the Goth forensic scientist stood in front of a computer monitor at a workstation in the center of the room. She was swaying to the beat of the music, her jet-black pigtails swinging back and forth in time with her movements, short plaid pleated skirt swishing slightly at her hips, her three-inch platform black patent leather boots slightly squeaking as she rocked along, and her fingers tapping furiously at the keyboard. She stopped tapping for a brief second to reach for a giant Caf-Pow! sitting on the workstation and took a huge slurp.
Without turning a fraction of an inch, she called out, “Hey, Tony. What’s up?” and hopped energetically around 180 degrees to face him directly, bringing her thick black spiked dog collar and studded leather wristlets visible. “What brings you to my lab on this bright and beautiful Monday morning?” she asked in her usual chipper voice, broad, black-lipsticked smile plastered across her pale face, green eyes bursting with cheer.
Tony looked hesitantly back at the armed NCIS agent posted at Abby’s door for her protection at Gibbs’ orders ever since Paloma Reynosa had threatened to kill those dearest to him. “Can we talk somewhere private, Abby?”
“Sure, Tony. Is everything okay?” she asked as she led him to her inner office, pushing the button for the door to slide closed, giving them plenty of privacy of conversation, although the glass door offered no visual privacy. Abby plopped down in her desk chair with a bounce. “Shoot. What can I do ya for? Everything okay with you and Ziva?”
“Everything’s great with us. Although this does involve her too, seeing as how we were out on a date together, so you’re the only person to talk to about it.”
He suddenly felt incredibly guilty to involve her in this. Knowing how she loved Gibbs, he didn’t want to be the one to shatter her image of him. Little did he know that Abby had already suffered the reality of Gibbs’ faults when she had to investigate the murder of Pedro Hernandez, the Mexican drug dealer who had murdered Gibbs’ wife Shannon and daughter Kelly. All the evidence made it clear that Gibbs’ had, in turn, murdered Hernandez in cold blood as an act of revenge. No one else on the team knew that this was the reason Paloma Reynosa was after Gibbs. Paloma was Hernandez’ daughter.
“You know, Tony. If you don’t talk, I won’t be able to help you. I can’t read minds. I mean, I’m really good, but even I am not that good,” Abby urged good-naturedly.
Tony thought of an idea that may give him the information he needed without breaking Abby’s heart unless he had proof. “Abby, can you do a search of the criminal database for me using certain parameters from in here or do we have to go out there?” He gestured to the outer room.
“No, I have access on this computer as well. What do you need? Is this for a case?” she asked, always curious.
“I’ll be honest with you, Abby. It’s personal, and I will eventually tell you what’s going on. I promise.”
“Pinky swear?” She held out one hand, pinky finger extended which he wrapped one pinky around, sealing a solemn oath with his friend. “Now, what do you need me to search?” she asked, turning to her computer, fingers poised on the keyboard.
“District of Columbia, charges of prostitution, particularly any of the women linked to the Holly Snow case. I need pictures brought up.” The search yielded too many results. “Can you narrow it by hair color?”
“Yeah. Hair color, eye color, height, weight, any stats that are taken on a criminal and entered into the database.”
Tony tried to recall tiny details about the woman Gibbs was with, how high her heels were, how tall she stood next to him, her build, all things his years as a cop had trained him to notice about a person. He never saw her close enough to get her eye color, but the rest he thought he could narrow down for Abby.
“Okay then. Red hair, 5’8”, 130 pounds, unsure on eye color,” he stated.
He came around to stand behind her, leaning over her shoulder as she entered the information, and watched as results began popping up, scanning his eyes across each photo that Abby showed him. Each one was wrong, and one by one, they closed the windows with the women’s pictures. Tony felt a deep sense of disappointment as the last window closed.
Tony was sure he wasn’t wrong about what the woman with Gibbs was, but perhaps he was wrong about who she was. He could only think of two other options. Possibly, she had come into contact with Holly after the scandal; therefore, she never suffered the public embarrassment of charges or a conviction. The other option was less appealing. Gibbs had hired this woman on his own and was completely unrelated to anything with Holly Snow.
“Remove the part about being tied to Holly Snow, and search again, please.”
“Okay, but then you have to tell me what this is all about,” she answered as she tapped a few keys and began bringing up the new results.
Once again, they scanned through each photo, each one just as wrong as before. Tony was getting more and more frustrated and beginning to get worried that Gibbs would come hunting for him soon. He hoped Ziva was successful in keeping their boss upstairs as she had promised she would if Tony’s discussion with Abby ran too long. He looked at his watch. It was still early. They hadn’t taken quite as long as he thought.
Abby caught him looking at his watch. “Don’t think you’re going to escape my lab without explaining yourself, Anthony DiNozzo. Now tell me what this is all about.”
Taking a seat at the edge of her desk where he could face her he started, “You’re not gonna like what I have to tell you, Abby.
For all the gruesome crimes their team had worked together to solve, for all her Goth looks and sleeping in a coffin, Tony had never known anyone with such a compelling innocence and childlike naivete as Abby, particularly when it came to Gibbs.
“Well, you’re going to tell me anyways because I have ways of getting information from people you know, Tony,” she said in a darkly threatening tone.
Of that he had no doubt. Abby could be very persuasive. “Ziva and I saw Gibbs out the other night while we were on a date.”
“Oh, no, Tony! He didn’t see you guys did he? Are you busted? What did he say?”
“No, he didn’t see us. Our secret’s still safe, as are our jobs, and the backs of our heads, at least for now.” He hoped she forgot about the prostitute search in the excitement of thinking Gibbs caught the two of them.
“So what does seeing Gibbs out have to do with prostitutes?”
No luck. He was going to have to give in and tell her what he and Ziva witnessed, what they figured out, and ask her for help trying to figure out what they should do.
“Gibbs wasn’t alone, Abby. He was with someone. Someone he shouldn’t have been with.” Tony waited for that to sink in for a moment.
Abby stared up at him with her big green innocent eyes, obviously not getting where he was going with this.
“Abby, Gibbs was with an escort. A very classy one, quite attractive, but still an escort.” He waited again for her reaction.
She kept staring for a few minutes then dropped her eyes down, refusing to meet his, refusing to believe him. “No, Tony. Gibbs would never do that. You must have been confused. He must have a new girlfriend.”
“Has Gibbs said anything to you about a new girlfriend, Abby? I mean, he’s probably more open with you than anyone else on the team.”
“No, but that doesn’t mean anything, Tony. Gibbs doesn’t talk about himself like that, not even to me,” she declared adamantly.
Tony took in a deep breath, ran his hand through his hair, and gently slapped his hand down on his thigh in exasperation. “Abby, when was the last time you knew Gibbs to even have a girlfriend?”
Thinking back, Abby answered hesitantly, realizing it had been about three years, “When he was dating Colonel Mann. What’s your point?”
“And how did he meet her?”
“Through NCIS working a case with Army CID.”
“My point exactly. Gibbs’ only girlfriend in the entire time I’ve known him has been a woman he met through work. We certainly haven’t worked any cases with any female agents fitting the description I just gave you, and you know that. The man has no social life outside of work. He doesn’t hang out at bars unless we drag him out with us after a long day, so you know he doesn’t meet women in bars. He doesn’t even own a computer at home, so he certainly isn’t doing the online dating thing. I don’t see Gibbs answering a personal ad in the paper and definitely not placing one. How exactly do you propose he would get a girlfriend?”
Satisfied he had made his point clearly, Tony sat silently and waited for the usually peppy Goth girl’s response.
She answered glumly, “I don’t know, Tony, but what makes you think she was a prostitute?”
“Body language, intuition, years as a cop, and anyway, Ziva saw her too and agreed with my assessment.” Suddenly, Tony felt horribly guilty for telling any of this to Abby. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t something you want to hear.”
“Don’t apologize, Tony. It’s a sign of weakness,” she said, her voice cracking with the same emotions settling across her face. Tony found it ironic that even facing Gibbs’ imperfections and possibly immoral actions, she could still use one of Gibbs’ rules.
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“Tell me why,” she said softly, her big eyes turning back up to face Tony’s.
He didn’t really have an answer for that, only a simple theory. “He’s lonely, Abby. I mean, we’re all like a big dysfunctional family, but as much as he doesn’t show it, I think the boss is just lonely for companionship that we can’t give him. You should have seen him, Abby. He was sharing a bottle of wine with her, chatting over dinner, even danced with her and was laughing and smiling. He wasn’t the Gibbs we see here at the office. He was Gibbs romancing a woman, all smooth and debonair. Maybe sometimes he just needs to be that kind of man, remind himself that it’s still in him, but with an escort there’s no risk of being turned down or getting hurt.”
Abby’s eyes changed as she appeared to be pondering this thought, mulling it over in her mind, feeling sorry for Gibbs being lonely, picturing him in the romantic role Tony described, yet still being hurt and angry over the kind of woman he chose to be with.
“Tony, I think maybe you should talk to Ducky about this. I mean, he’s known Gibbs longer than any of the rest of us and has that Master’s degree in psychology. Maybe he can make sense of this and tell you you’re wrong. Maybe there’s something you’re missing, Tony. Please, talk to Ducky,” she pleaded with her hands clasped together and her big eyes glassy with the tears they threatened to shed.
“Okay, Abby. I’ll talk to him. But right now I’ve gotta get to work or Gibbs will come hunt me down and head slap me for fooling around on his time.”
He gave her a big hug, hoping to make her feel better and headed back the elevator, hoping Gibbs wouldn’t be waiting impatiently for him in the squad room.
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