Double Standards

Chapter 1

Nell walked into ops, trying her best not to show any signs of pain.

"Oh, hey Nell. Will you please tell Deeks that, wait, are you okay?" Kensi asked.

Nell nodded slightly, "Mhm, I'm fine. I have to get up to ops."

"Nell, did you fall over or something? You have a bruise on your cheek. Are you sure you're okay?" Sam asked.

Nell nodded once again, "Yes. I'm fine. I think I should pay more attention to where I'm walking." She spoke, turning back and walking up the stairs to ops.

"Nell, is everything okay? Walking into walls again, I see." Eric spoke.

"Yeah, I'm good. There is no knowing when the wall is going to turn on you." Nell spoke, trying to sound convincing.

"Haha, glad I'm not the only one."

Nell sat down at her computer and started typing away, finishing up her final reports, until a new case came up.

"Might want to finish up that report, because we have a case. I'll go and alert the team."

The team were sitting in the bullpen, when they heard a weird sound coming from the top of the stairs. However, it wasn't the usual 'whistle' that Eric had added into his routine when there was a case.

It was an unusual trumpet of some sort, which brought looks of confusion and wonder to the rest of the teams faces.

"Really, Eric? A trumpet? What's it going to be next, a saxophone?" Deeks asked.

"Deeks, don't encourage him." Sam spoke, once he saw Eric's smirk, when Deeks mentioned a saxophone.

"Right, sorry." Deeks replied.

"We have a case!" Eric announced, turning on his heal and walking back up to ops.

The rest of the team stood up and hurried up stairs to be briefed of their latest case.

"Former marine, Nadine Daftsford, was a well known business woman in the north of LA. She mainly dealt with politics within the Navy. You know, making sure everything runs smoothly and no classified Intel got into the hands of terrorists or criminals." Nell informed, tapping away on her tablet, pulling up photos on the big screen in ops.

"Now, Daftsford had just found important Intel, which could have led to the arrest of several drug dealers that have been trying to smuggle drugs onto Navy ships in the past two months. She died before she was able to exchange names of those she thought were responsible." Eric added.

"How did she die?" Callen asked.

"Blood loss. She was basically beaten to death." Eric explained, making Nell show a look of worry and disgust.

"Do we have any suspects?" Sam asked.

"Only one. I've been digging through security footage all morning. There was a guy with her before it happened. They got into a full argument, however I couldn't tell what it was about." Eric explained.

"Have you been able to identify this guy?" Kensi asked.

"No. You see, in the little security footage I was able to find, he had his back to the camera, so we haven't been able to run him through facial recognition." Eric explained.

"Pull up the footage, Eric." Callen ordered.

Eric nodded, pulling up the footage on the big screen in ops.

It showed Daftsford and the man arguing, and then they saw him slap her across the face brutally, before slipping his hood on and backing away slowly, keeping his back to the camera.