Jethro waited all of three seconds to grab Wills when the agent came back into his office. He shoved the other man against the nearest wall, pinning him there with an arm across the throat as he snarled, “You want to tell me why Beckwood knows all about you and why he called you my bodyguard? He took Tony because he couldn’t get to me, you son of a bitch!”

Wills didn’t fight, which was just as well because Jethro was barely hanging on to his temper as it was. If he’d fought, the results would probably have been very ugly. Instead, he answered, “He’s playing you, Gibbs, so ease off!

Jethro stared at him for a long moment, then growled in frustration and released Wills. “Talk.”

“Beckwood escaped from prison two weeks ago. I’m not your bodyguard, I’ve been trailing him since the escape. We had his family staked out, even though he’s not the sentimental sort, and we had his old contacts staked out, too. It wasn’t until you called the cops this morning that we knew something was up with you.”

“Beckwood escaped and no one thought to warn me about it?” Jethro demanded harshly. “No one thought that I might happen to be in the line of fire? Or that the people in my life might be in danger?”

Wills actually winced at that and replied, “It was an oversight, I can see that now. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t get DiNozzo out of danger,” Jethro snapped.

“No, it doesn’t. What did he say?”

“That he’ll call back tomorrow with specifics, but he’s going to exchange Tony for me.”

“Not a chance.”

“Oh you better believe there’s a chance, if it gets DiNozzo to safety. He’s not going to pay for your screw up.”

They glared at each other until Kate said, “I hear that Gibbs is really accurate when it comes to pissing contests, Agent Wills. You might want to rethink your strategy.”

Both men look at her and Kate shrugged, the casual gesture belying the fire in her eyes. “Who’s at fault doesn’t matter now. Stop the posturing and focus on getting Tony back.”

Calming down a little at her simple words, Jethro said, “Any results on the tire print?”

“That’s what the call was about,” Wills replied, also taking a breath. “It gives us two possibles, but that doesn’t narrow it down, since they’re both popular models.”

The phone rang and Jethro leaned over the desk to pick it up. “Gibbs.”

“I got the results back on the blood samples. Two were from Tony, but the third wasn’t, and it doesn’t match Beckwood’s blood type either,” Abby reported.

“Thanks, Abby,” Jethro said before hanging up. Looking at Kate and Wills, he said, “Blood type at the scene doesn’t match Tony or Beckwood. Not surprising, since he put up a fight.”

When the phone rang again, Jethro frowned at the outside number, but picked it up. “Agent Gibbs speaking.”

“When were you going to tell us that our son had been kidnapped, Agent Gibbs?”

Jethro winced, mentally smacking himself in the forehead, even as he automatically straightened in his seat. As if it would help in dealing with the furious older man on the phone. “Mr. DiNozzo, it just happened a few hours ago and we’re doing everything we can to find Tony and get him back safe. We’re working closely with the FBI and already have some leads.”

“Not closely enough. We just received a ransom demand.”

Freezing in place, Jethro repeated, “You got a ransom demand?”

“Yes! For a million dollars. Instructions about the drop to follow tomorrow morning,” Mr. DiNozzo exclaimed furiously.

Wow. Jethro had known that Tony’s parents had money, but he hadn’t realized they were that rich. He hadn’t delved into Tony’s past, knowing that if the younger man wanted to talk about it, he would some day. Shaking the thought away, he placated, “I’ll have the FBI dispatched to your home immediately so if the kidnappers call again, we can get a trace.”

Not mollified, the other man said, “You had better recover my son, Gibbs, or your career is finished.”

The line was disconnected before Jethro could respond. Grim, he thought, Don’t worry, Mr. DiNozzo, if I don’t get Tony back, my career won’t matter.

To the others he announced, unnecessarily, “The DiNozzo’s got a ransom demand.”

Wills observed, “A ransom demand and you? Revenge and payment?”

“Makes sense to me,” Kate agreed. “He humiliates Gibbs and tries to ruin his career by taking someone on his own staff, and then gets the money he was denied in the first kidnapping.”

Only Jethro was suddenly wondering if Tony hadn’t been a random victim. Thinking out loud, Jethro said, “Beckwood’s only been out for two weeks. Long enough to do background checks on you and DiNozzo, sure, but if he was doing this just to get at me, then he’d have gone for Kate.”

A slender eyebrow arched as Kate questioned, “Oh?”

Apologetic, Jethro admitted, “You’re a woman and you’re still relatively new to the team. I’m still in a kind of ‘protective mode’ when it comes to you. No, I know you can take care of yourself, Kate, and I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. And Beckwood knows me well enough to know that.”

“So you’re a bonus. He gets paid and he gets you. It’s a happy chance,” Wills guessed.

“Except Beckwood doesn’t believe in chance, happy or otherwise,” Jethro said slowly, staring at the phone. Standing abruptly, he continued, “I’m going back to Tony’s apartment to take a closer look. Kate, see if anyone visited Beckwood at Leavenworth over the last year, who sent him mail, or called him, or who he called. Anyone he had contact with on a regular basis, even other prisoners. Wills…”

Snorting, Wills finished, “I’ll arrange the unit to go to the DiNozzo’s residence and meet you at DiNozzo’s apartment.”

“Thanks,” Jethro replied, sincere. It didn’t mean that Wills was giving up the lead permanently, he knew that, but for now, he was stepping down.

Not that Jethro anticipated giving it back, but what Wills didn’t know…

* * * *

Gentle fingers moved a cool, damp cloth over Tony’s forehead, waking him from restless dreams. He remembered where he was and flinched away from the touch, exclaiming, “Get away!”

“Ssh, it’s okay. I won’t hurt you.”

Shocked at the woman’s voice, Tony couldn’t speak at first. When he found his voice, he asked, “Are you all right, ma’am? They haven’t hurt you, have they?”

“So gallant,” she whispered, a smile in her voice. “No, no one’s hurt me. I’m afraid I can’t take off the cuffs or the blindfold, they warned me against it.”

Soft hands brushed across his face and he couldn’t help flinching away. He flushed a little in embarrassment. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she replied, starting to clean his face again.

Relaxing a little under her ministrations, Tony replied, “What happened? Do you know who has us?”

“I don’t remember anything, I’m afraid. One minute I was walking to my apartment and the next, something struck me, here. When I woke, I was on the floor in this room.”

“How long have you been here?”

“I don’t know. A few hours? I don’t wear a watch.”

He couldn’t see the woman, but there had to be a connection. Kidnappers didn’t just grab two people off the street for no reason. Well, not gangs of kidnappers working together anyhow. Random psychos were another story. Frowning, he questioned, “Where do you live?”

“Why? Planning on asking me out later?” she quipped.

The frown shifted into a grin and, trying to put her at ease, he replied, “Probably, but for now, I’m just trying to find a connection between us. A reason why we’d have both been taken.”

She dipped the cloth in the bowl of water and wiped it down his throat, stopping at his collar bone. “Do you mind if I clean you off here, too?”

A little uncomfortable, but knowing he’d feel better with the stink of the fight off him, Tony answered, “Uh, no, it’s okay.”

Unbuttoning his shirt, she rinsed the cloth then silently wiped down his chest, stopping at his abdomen. “You look really bruised. Someone did a job on you. How do you feel?”

“Really bruised,” he answered, wryly. “A few someones did a job on me. I’m clearer than before though, so that’s a good thing.”

She nodded and rebuttoned his shirt, then set aside the bowl and cloth on the floor. “So. Now what do we do?”

Tony realized that she hadn’t answered his question and so repeated, “Where do you live?”

“Oh, I live in…”

The door opened with a bang and he heard heavy footsteps and gruff orders to get away from him. The woman screamed and struggled, but they dragged her out of the room. Tony added to the noise by struggling and shouting to let her go, but he was ignored. When the door closed again, he groaned at the renewed pain in his midriff and collapsed against the mattress.

There isn’t anything you can do. You’re more helpless than she is, because at least she can try to fight back, he thought to himself.

Despite knowing all of that, Tony still blamed himself for not doing more.

* * * *

Looking carefully around the apartment, Jethro found nothing out of place. Well, nothing out of place for how Tony lived anyhow. A faint grin surfaced at the barely controlled chaos of books and papers all over the coffee table and counters in the kitchen. It was neater than the last time he’d been, but then, Tony had said that he’d been planning to do laundry when he got back to the apartment.

The police hadn’t done any damage, thankfully, in the brief time they’d been there. If Wills’ people had gone over anything, there was no sign of it. He frowned and made a note to talk with Wills about that later.

He sat on the couch and pulled on his gloves before looking through the papers and books on the table. It was mostly just newspapers and fieldwork related books and magazines. Tony wasn’t kidding when he said that he liked to keep on top of the latest in technology, not from the science mags that Jethro found in the kitchen.

The dishes were all washed and put away, something that set off warning bells in his mind. Tony washed his dishes, but he generally kept them in the strainer for easy access. It was possible that he could have been in a total cleaning mode, but if so, why weren’t the papers and books neatly stacked where they belonged? Jethro made a mental note to have someone bag them and check for fingerprints and DNA.

From there, he wandered into the bedroom. Seeing the neatly made bed set off more internal alarms because he knew from personal experience that Tony never made it. Ever. He was always in too much of a rush to bother, something that they’d already butted heads about when Tony was staying over at Jethro’s place. He was only just now drilling it into Tony’s head that making the bed was part of getting ready for the day. It was half-and-half that Tony would feel like doing it in the freedom of his own place.

Shifting his gaze from the bed to the nightstand, Jethro stiffened and strode over to the small wooden table. On it, was a small glass vase with a large, blood-red rose.

“Find something?”

Jumping a little at Wills’ voice, Jethro nodded and said, “Someone’s been here. Someone washed Tony’s dishes, and made his bed and put this flower here. We need to have everything here dusted for prints. Everything.”

“How do you know he just doesn’t have a girlfriend?” Wills pointed out.

Jaw clenching, Jethro answered, “Because a girlfriend would know that he hates roses, thanks to being lost in a maze of them as a kid.”

Wills’ eyebrows rose, whether at the news itself or the fact that Jethro knew it, he didn’t know, but all the black agent said was, “I’ll get my people back here.”

“My lab’s closer and faster,” Jethro stated, pulling out his cell.

Thankfully, Wills didn’t argue, so Jethro had Abby put a team together to come down to Tony’s apartment. She was far more subdued than usual, but he didn’t have time to reassure her that Tony would be all right. If this wasn’t a kidnapping for money, it was far less likely that Tony would escape unharmed. A fact that would drive Jethro crazy, if he let it.

When he hung up, Wills observed, “So you’re here a lot.”

“What?” Jethro replied absently as he bagged the flower and vase.

“The security guard knows you. Says that you’re here a couple of times a week. Every week.”

Careful to keep his voice steady and dismissive, wanting Tony to have a career when all this was over, Jethro answered, “Tony’s car is perpetually in the shop. It’s a classic.”

“I know that my boss wouldn’t be giving me lifts to work.”

“DiNozzo and I are friends. Everyone knows that.”

“Apparently.”

There was nothing Jethro could say to that, so he held up the bagged flower and vase, saying, “This puts a different light on everything.”

Wills nodded. “If he was being stalked, then whoever was doing it knows that you’re here often. Maybe even knows that DiNozzo is over at your place sometimes?”

Jethro’s lips twisted, but that was the only confirmation he gave.

“So the best shot of getting at DiNozzo is to hire muscle to kidnap him. And then, to throw the investigation off track…”

“Make it seem like this isn’t about Tony at all,” Jethro finished. “But if the stalker knows this much about him, and about me, then why the cleaning routine? She’s obviously intelligent enough to know that we’d check for prints and DNA.”

“Obsessive compulsive?” Wills suggested.

Jethro shrugged. “Unbalanced, at the least.”

“Of course, there’s nothing to say that we’ll find anything. For all we know, she’s an OC who’s smart enough to wear gloves.”

“True.”

Both men fell silent, then Wills said, “I’m going to go back over the security tapes and see if the doorman notices anyone out of place. Or if there are any new women who moved into the building recently who’ve been hanging around DiNozzo.”

Jethro nodded. “I’ll wait for the lab techs. Meet up back at NCIS?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Watching him go, Jethro had to admit that he was glad for the other man’s assistance…and his discretion.

* * * *

Staring blankly into his coffee, Jethro was trying not to let things get to him, but not doing very well. He’d known that Tony had filled a hole inside, the younger man’s humor and enthusiasm chipping away at his cynicism and patent disbelief in his fellow man. He just hadn’t realized how big the hole was until now. No, not true. He had realized it on a subconscious level. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have asked Tony to live with him, despite the myriad problems inherent in such a living arrangement.

The thought that Tony would never come back to him was too much to bear. His throat closed and his heart accelerated like it was on its way to a heart attack. Breathing harshly, Jethro set the coffee on the conference table and leaned over, putting his head almost between his knees. His hands gripped the side of his head as he tried to block out thoughts of what could be happening to Tony.

Images of torture, rape, death…every possible scenario that he’d seen happen to others over the years. Once the stalker found out that Tony didn’t and wouldn’t give in, and Jethro knew he wouldn’t, the man or woman would snap. And when that happened, Tony’s bubble of ‘safety,’ would be gone. With the fantasy shredded and no chance of having Tony the way he or she wanted, it opened up all kinds of nasty possibilities.

The fact was that if they didn’t find Tony within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, it was entirely likely that they never would. Not alive anyhow.

“No!” he gasped, fingers digging harder into his skull and his eyes squeezed shut.

Life without Tony wasn’t something he could imagine, not anymore. Never seeing or touching his lover again, never telling him how much he was loved, it wasn’t something that Jethro could think about without agony running through him. He gasped again, struggling to bring himself under control.

This was why he didn’t get involved. This was why he’d had three marriages. This was the reason he kept everything locked down as much as possible. Cutting humor and sarcasm were his shields and weapons and he used them well. He had maintained a distance from everyone except Ducky, and that was only because the other man had known him for years. Having someone stitch you up after your wife bashed you in the head with a baseball bat tended to dispel barriers.

But Tony…Tony had blasted through all his defenses with those wide, smiling eyes and his open heart. His persistent disregard for Jethro’s personal space and the patent admiration had been potent, almost intoxicating for Jethro. He’d met his match in a lot of ways, the other man’s sheer stubbornness being forefront in his arsenal against Jethro’s unwillingness to let him in.

It had been a lot like Chinese water torture, only louder.

A half-laugh, half-sob escaped at the thought and his fingers dug in harder, the physical pain cutting through the mental and emotional anguish. Drawing in a shuddery breath, Jethro blanked his mind, forcing all of those images into a tiny box and locking them down tight. It wasn’t a pretty technique for getting his mind on the job, but it worked.

Pulling his hands away, Jethro sat up, quelling the need to throw-up. It took him a few more minutes, but finally, he was presentable. Taking a deep breath, he released it slowly, eyes closed at he concentrated on the nothingness. He took another one and expelled it forcefully, grabbing his coffee and striding to the door, the scowl on his face a mask for the pain he’d just gone through.

The pain still lingering malignantly under the surface, waiting for a chance to strike.

* * * *

Kate looked up as Gibbs came into the office area, coffee in hand. Frowning, she realized that something was different, but couldn’t place what.

“What’ve you got?” he asked, leaning against her desk.

Forcing her attention back to the monitor, she replied, “Ah, prison records for the last two years. He had only three visits in 2002, and all three were his lawyer. Reason given was for updating family records like wills and such.”

“All three times?”

“Yeah.”

“Go on.”

“October through December of 2003, he had six visits from a woman who claimed to be his sister, and she’s been there twice monthly this year.”

“He doesn’t have one.”

“Exactly.”

Thoughtful, Gibbs took a sip of the coffee, grimaced and set it down. “Do we have a picture of this non-sister?”

Kate brought up the attachment and the grainy security photo showed a young white woman with light brown hair, slender and pretty in a vague kind of way. “I talked to the guard on duty the last time she was there and he said that she was there for the duration of visiting hours and they seemed really in deep, conversation-wise.”

Staring intently at the picture, Gibbs said, “I want to know who that is and I want to know yesterday, Kate.”

She nodded and was about to reply when Wills approached, a large file in hand. Arching an eyebrow at him, she greeted, “Presents?”

Wills snorted and said, “Background file on Beckwood. Thought you’d want to get up to speed.”

“We do have those here you know,” Gibbs pointed out, a fine edge to his voice.

“Not with the goodies that I’ve got. We had him in our sights a lot longer than you did, Gibbs, so we’ve got more on him.”

Gibbs held out his hand and the file was placed in it.

“Wait, who’s that?” Wills demanded, leaning closer to Kate’s monitor.

“Someone claiming to be Beckwood’s sister,” Kate answered.

Grinning fiercely, Wills said, “We have our stalker, ladies and gentlemen. Sarah Malloni. Moved into DiNozzo’s apartment building five months ago. Apparently he stopped someone from mugging her and has been hard to get rid of ever since. At least according to the doorman.”

Gibbs frowned. “He never said anything to me, us. Did he, Kate?”

Kate shook her head and agreed, “Not a word.”

“Good Samaritan,” Wills commented. “In any case, the doorman said that Ms. Malloni waits for DiNozzo to return to his apartment just about every night and, though polite, he has told her several times that he’s involved with someone. Or, he was polite until a couple of weeks ago. The doorman said that two weeks ago Thursday, DiNozzo completely lost it and yelled at her until she was in tears and ran off. DiNozzo started to go after her, probably to apologize, but the doorman stopped him and reminded him that that was what he wanted, for her to leave him alone.”

Focused on the picture on the screen, Gibbs said, “And since she didn’t get what she wanted one way, she went after him another. This is enough to subpoena her financial records and get a warrant for her apartment.”

“Which you don’t have jurisdiction to do, so I will,” Wills replied.

Gibbs’ eyes rolled a little but he only stated, “We’ll meet you there.”

It was after the two men had left, Wills to get his warrant and Gibbs to his desk to make a call that Kate realized what was different about her boss. It was like a switch had been flipped. The emotions were gone. He was looking at this like it was any other case, concerned, but not involved.

She sighed. This definitely didn’t bode well for their relationship once Tony came back.