Gibbs and company were at Carly's apartment trying to construct when she was taken. Except for the flower petals they had no idea what sort of timeline they were looking at here. Five and a half hours was enough time for whomever this person was to have taken her out of state. And it was now two hours later than that. There was no way to tell where either of the women were.
Gibbs phone rang. "Gibbs."
"Jethro, you need to get back here right now." Ducky told him urgently.
"Ducky, we're still in the middle of looking around Carly's place." Gibbs was saying as he heard the phone being moved.
"Tell Tony to leave my lingerie alone and get back here, Jethro." The voice ordered.
"Carly?" Gibbs said in disbelief. The whole team looked up from what they were doing.
"Yes, it's me. Michelle and I are here at NCIS and we're fine, but we need to talk."
"On our way." Gibbs told her and hung up the phone.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Carly was sitting on the corner of Gibbs desk and Ducky was attending her lip when they walked in. Jimmy had his arms around Michelle and hugged her tight when she moved to step away. She looked from Gibbs to Jimmy and settled back close to him. Gibbs took Carly's chin in his hand, eyes narrowing as he looked at her lip.
"I thought you said you were fine." He asked softly.
"A busted lip is nothing compared to what Cole Jackson could have done." Carly told him.
Abby had been bouncing around, happy her friends were safe, but that name made her stop dead still. "Cole Jackson?"
Carly looked at her and nodded. She had been compiling the information Gibbs would need without Abby's help, knowing her friend would react this way. She took the remote and brought up his picture.
"He was dead. At least that's what we all thought." She began.
"All who?" Tim asked.
"LAPD, his family, myself. He ran his car into a cement overpass and he was burned badly. For two days, all his family could do was watch him die. Apparently, the man they watched die wasn't Cole Jackson."
She pulled up the rough draft rendition of what he had looked like last night. "The voice was the same. His face was the only difference." She looked at Abby and took a deep breath. "Ready for a history lesson?"
Flashback
"It's over Cole. I told you on our first date, if you can call it that, that we wouldn't go anywhere. It was just for fun. I'm not looking for what you are and that makes us incompatible."
Cole was a handsome cop, but Carly had already realized there was something that wasn't connecting behind those eyes of his. He looked ready to cry and she hated when men did that to her.
"Look, Cole, we're just too opposite to be good for each other. It was never meant to be anything except fun and with the look on your face, I can tell it's stopped being that." She walked away thinking she wouldn't have to deal with him again.
~~~~~~
She had been wrong. Hang up phones calls at all hours of the night were the least of her headaches. What really freaked her out was having evidence delivered right to the door of her apartment. Evidence that even in blind tests led straight back to Cole. Had his CO believed him capable of murder? No, of course not. Carly was the insane woman who dumped a good cop and then went on to try to ruin his life.
So, she went back to work, knowing he would not leave her alone and he wouldn't stop whatever game he was playing now. That's when the notes started arriving with the packages she received.
"It's all in fun."
"It wasn't meant to be."
"The fun continues."
So many containers of evidence and no one believed him capable of committing these crimes. Carly had turned in her resignation, packed her apartment and was ready to leave LA when a news report came on TV that a man had taken a woman hostage in a downtown hotel. Witnesses ID'd him as Cole Jackson. He was ranting and looking crazed, shouting about just how fun he could be.
Thankfully, they got to him before he hurt the woman, but Carly's mind was already made up. No amount of apologizing would get her to go back to her old job. When her plane landed in Houston, she was greeted with headlines from LA and how a murderous, crazy police officer had managed to escape and evade his former fellow officers only to end up broken and burned, not expected to survive.
End Flashback
Carly was quiet now that her story was told. Everyone it seemed had fixated on a different spot to avoid looking at her she thought. She didn't realize they were ready to take this man apart just like they had wanted to do with Abby's stalker.
Gibbs brought her chin up and looked her in the eye. "We're going to get him this time, Carly."
With a humorless smile she replied, "I know and I know exactly how to catch him."