Inveigle

Abby finally gave up on looking for the kitten outside the building and headed into her lab to start her work day. She quickly finished up her findings from Tony’s apartment. She hadn’t found anything beyond the lead that she’d given to McGee and Gibbs. Well there had been one odd thing.

It had made her wonder when Tony had gotten a cat. There had been considerable cat fur in the apartment, but she thought nothing of it. Not even when she realized that the cat fur had to belong to multiple cats. She had filed it under weird, but not important for now. She was far more concerned about McGee and Gibbs now.

Abby hadn’t heard from McGee or Gibbs since they’d gone to follow the lead she’d found yesterday. They hadn’t shown up later that day and when she’d finally gone home yesterday she’d hoped that they just hadn’t found anything for her and were checking out a new lead without communicating that to her.

She knew she wasn’t always the first one they contacted and that with no other team members to keep in contact with, it was far more likely that Gibbs would forget to let anyone at NCIS know what was going on unless he found something or needed someone to look something up.

However, when they hadn’t been in the office when she arrived that morning, she knew something was wrong. She attempted to trace their phones. Unfortunately, she couldn’t find their phones. Something was blocking the signal. Even the built in gps chips had been blocked somehow.

Beyond worried now, Abby completely forgot about the kitten and started searching everything she could think of to try and figure out what had happened to McGee and Gibbs. Once she had all the searches she could think of running, she rushed to Director Morrow’s office and immediately started babbling about conspiracies and missing Tony and there was a kitten in there somewhere.

Morrow usually had no trouble understanding Abby, but he couldn’t figure out what she was talking about today. He asked his secretary to have Balboa sent up. Once Balboa arrived, he handed Abby off to him and asked Balboa to get to the bottom of whatever was going on. Abby started her babble over on Balboa, but while he didn’t deal with her as often as the MCRT did, Balboa knew enough to know how to calm her down.

Silently directing her into a conference room, Balboa calmly commanded, “Slow down, Abby. I can’t help if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“It’s this whole case with Tony missing. We still have no idea who took him or where he was. The only lead I found led to a shop and I gave the address to Gibbs and McGee yesterday and I haven’t heard from or seen them since. They aren’t answering their phones and I can’t trace their phones.” Abby finally just dumped the information hoping Balboa would understand.

Balboa nodded thoughtfully. “That is concerning, Abby. Now what was this about a kitten?”

“I found a kitten on my way into work this morning. It was completely bedraggled and soaked to the bone, so I picked it up thinking to take it to a shelter, but it clearly didn’t want to go and I was so worried about Tony, McGee, and Gibbs that I rushed here with the kitten, completely forgetting about it while I was driving as it had been so quiet. Next thing I knew, it had rushed out of the car when I stopped in the NCIS parking garage. I tried to follow it, but couldn’t keep up and I searched for a bit before coming into work, but I couldn’t find it. It was just a poor kitten.” Balboa shook his head. The cat didn’t seem to have any significance, but Abby was clearly still worried about it.

“I’ll get one of the probies to search for the cat, Abby. Let’s just focus on McGee and Gibbs for now. Since we know where they were last seen unlike Tony.” Balboa reasonably explained.

Abby nodded still worrying. Something was bothering her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. “Ok. I can send you the address I gave Gibbs and McGee, but you have to be careful. We have no idea what you might find or might be walking into.” Abby whispered harshly, her mind whirling with how to help.

“That’s great, Abby. Now, tell me about the apartment. What have you found aside from that? Any clue may lead to not only Tony, but McGee and Gibbs.” Balboa prompted gently.

“Uh. That’s the only thing I’ve found. Everything else was Tony’s and doesn’t seem to have anything that’s even traceable on it.” Abby gasped, stopping her explanation and suddenly jumping up as she realized what was bothering her. “The kitten we have to find the kitten.”

“Wait, back up, Abby. Why do we need to find the kitten?” Balboa pressed.

“There was a bunch of unexplained cat hair in Tony’s apartment. At first, I dismissed it thinking that Tony had just gotten a cat and hadn’t told me, but there were way too many different types of cat hair for it to be that. Tony would have had to be fostering cats for that to make any sense. The predominant cat hair was black like the kitten’s. We have to find it. It may be a clue to Tony’s disappearance. I need a sample to compare against what was found in Tony’s apartment.” Abby babbled excitedly.

Balboa thought it sounded a bit farfetched to him, but he nodded anyway. “Ok, Abby. Send the address to my SFA and then you work on tracking down the kitten with a probie. I’ll take my team and ask Morrow if another team is available to back us up and go check out the address you give us, ok?”

Abby nodded and rushed down to her lab to quickly send off the address and then begin the search for the kitten. She searched all the nearby cameras for any sign of the kitten and not finding any quickly started searching through the internal cameras visually, while she kicked off a digital search through all cameras she could access for the kitten.

At first, she thought she was barking up the wrong tree, but she knew they had to find this kitten. It may know something that could help them find Tony. She hit paydirt when she found the kitten on the cameras making it’s way into the bullpen. She couldn’t see the kitten right now, but from the angle it had run through the camera, it looked like it was heading for Tony’s desk.

Suspicious, Abby decided to go to the bullpen and see if it was true. The probie that Balboa had found and assigned to her, followed her up to the bullpen. Abby headed straight for Tony’s desk and sure enough the black kitten was curled up behind it. The black kitten had been napping, but startled awake as he heard footsteps getting close to where he was sleeping.

When he saw Abby peering over the desk at him, Tony in his kitten form immediately hightailed it out of there. He was certain that Abby had come back to take him to a shelter or worse. He couldn’t let that happen. He knew the only way he’d find Gibbs or get information on his whereabouts was here at NCIS.

“After him, Probie.” Abby ordered as she tried to chase the kitten, but with her high heels she still stood no chance at keeping up with the kitten. The probie at least, was wearing sensible shoes and stayed closer to the kitten. Even then the kitten, managed to lose the Probie as he ran down the stairs and into Abby’s lab, which had fortunately been left open in her haste to tell the Director.

The probie continued on past the lab assuming that’s where the kitten had gone when he couldn’t see the kitten after he rounded the stairs to the next level. He assumed the kitten was heading for the lowest level seeking to escape to the street.

Tony would have breathed a sigh of relief, if he could have, as he heard the man chasing him walk past the lab without entering. Thinking he was in the clear, he started towards Abby’s computer. Hoping to use it to find more information on where Gibbs and McGee were. He froze when he heard Abby’s footsteps coming down the stairs. Panicking, Tony darted into Abby’s office.

Tony hissed as he heard the lab door close. That meant that he was trapped in Abby’s lab until someone opened the door, which made it even more likely that Abby would find him. Tony quickly scuttled underneath the only thing with a dark enough shadow to camouflage him, the short filing cabinet with the microscope on top of it.

The probie quickly searched the bottom floor and didn’t find anything. He even entered autopsy and verified that neither Ducky nor Palmer had seen a black kitten come through. Returning to the second floor, the probie searched the second floor for any sign of the kitten. It definitely hadn’t gone to the third floor, but the probie had no idea where it might be now.

He finally entered Abby’s lab and reported that the kitten was nowhere to be found and that he’d lost the kitten on the second floor and it either went back upstairs or into Abby’s labs as those are the only places he hasn’t checked.

Abby quickly told him to shut the door to her lab. If what she suspected was true, the kitten would have darted into her lab and had to be in here somewhere. Together Abby and the probie searched her lab for the kitten. They couldn’t find it anywhere.

Abby returned to her lab and started pulling up cameras trying to retrace the kittens steps. Abby stared in shock as she watched the kitten go into her office. The kitten headed right for the only place he could hide. Abby knew there was more to this than it seemed then.

Abby closed her office door to keep the kitten inside and sent the probie out to get some kitten treats and some pizza for them. She specifically requested pepperoni, sausage, and extra cheese. Entering her office, she tried to coax the kitten out from where it hid, but it just moved further away from her and Abby stepped back disappointed.

Instead of forcing the kitten to feel even more trapped, she waited for the probie to return. She knew she could inveigle the kitten into leaving if she started up a conversation with the probie about how amazing Tony was and how much help the cute kitten could be in finding him. Especially with Tony’s favorite pizza on hand, the kitten was bound to recognize it and come out.