Lie Again

Little Green Men

Tony let her take the lead because, well, honestly, she took it. That was Ziva for you.

He stuck close, trying not to pant with the effort of keeping up with her. He definitely wasn't a young man anymore. Maybe Ducky was right to caution him about the pizza? Nah.

"Ziva, slow down!" he hissed.

"Hurry up!" she hissed back at him. "He's going to get away."

"You mean them."

He took a moment to appreciate how her heels made hardly any sound on the pavement. Ziva made stealth look easy.

Finally it seemed like the light was drawing nearer, or at least they were eating up its lead.

"What's our plan of attack?"

She didn't bother to answer. If anything, she picked up the pace.

"Ziva!"

Whatever.

He watched as she leaped over a fence, landing in a neat roll on the other side before continuing after the bobbing light. Tony took a bit longer to get over.

When he was on the other side, Ziva had already tackled someone. A tall man.

CI-Ray?

"NCIS. Why did you run?" she demanded, shoving her flashlight in the man's throat.

Definitely not Ray.

"Because you were chasing me! I was scared!"

"You were running before we started chasing you."

"How was I supposed to know that?"

Ziva rolled her eyes. "Why were you out here? Why did you think you needed to run?"

"Okay, you're taking a little walk at night, you see someone following you, I think any sane person would take off!"

"Talking a walk at night?" Tony glanced around. "Not exactly the nicest place to go for a walk at night."

"Maybe I live around here," the man reasoned.

"I doubt it."

"I do!"

Ziva shifted her weight to let the man pull out his wallet and driver's license.

"See? I live three blocks away! I walk this way every night!"

That caught Tony's attention like a fly to fly-paper. "Do you?"

"Yeah, did you not look at my license?"

"It's dark, genius. Were you here last night?"

"Of course. I just told you I walk this way every night. Why?"

"A lady was murdered right over there last night." Tony pointed back in the direction of the others. The lights were barely visible from here. "You know, where you first thought we were following you."

"You were following me. I wasn't just imagining it."

Tony sighed. "Ziva?"

She shifted her weight again.

"Ow, ow, ow! Okay, yeah, I was here last night, around this same time. I didn't see anything. I don't think I saw anything."

"No cars, no people? You didn't hear anything?"

"No, I mean, I don't think so..."

"Think harder. Someone was murdered."

"Sure, sure. Um, do you think you could get off me? It's hard to think..."