Mind Games 2 : Level Up

07-The Book Club

|Washington D.C|

"For the past few days, she's been working like that. Non stop. We should tell Gibbs." Tony sits near McGee and whispers to him.

"What are you talking about?"
"She didn't take days off after the funeral, she finished all paperwork, she even did mine. It makes me worry."
"Yeah Tony...when you mentioned it. She's also more...calm. You know...there's no cynical look from her when you throw a bunch of paper on her. Nothing."
"I know right! She's supposed to be annoyed, she's usually will smack my arms. But nothing..."
"She can't hear us, can she?"
"Nahh. Look at her. She can't even hear a dead drop of a bomb." McGee looks at him, cynical. "That's it! That's the look she supposed to gave me! Thank you McGee."

They both watching her and McGee realize something himself, "You're right. She drinks tea. Allison doesn't like tea. What the hell happened?"
"Well apparently Allison here doesn't like to be bothered. So back off. And stop making a gossip about me." She looks straight to them, ready to jump on them but then she takes a deep breath and continue to sipping her tea.
"No times to gossip, grab your gear. Got a dead marine at Norfolk." Gibbs suddenly shows up and manage to stop for awhile near Allison's desk. "You've been hanging out with Ducky?"
"No, why?"
"Nothing. You use tea leaves. That's Ducky thing. Come on! Gas the truck!"

Soon after they arrived at the scene, they're surprised by people wearing hazmat suits. "What's going on?" She fix her cap and look around. "That's what we're gonna find out." Gibbs walks in and meet the man in charge.

"We've been called here. They told us a marine is dead."
"Yeah right. But we can't let anyone inside. Not until we clear the room. Right now they're sterilizing the house. Now excuse me." He leaves Gibbs and his team.

"Okay, so we're waiting here boss?" Tony asked. "Yup. We're not going anywhere." Soon as he said that, Gibbs looks at his back. He heard some familiar voices. "Tobias."
"Gibbs."
"What are you doing here? Case is ours. He's a marine."
"Not really, this one is marine. The others not."
"Yeah? How many victims in there?"
"One. The other family members are safe. But I'm not talking about them."
"So?"
"There are similar cases around the states. They're all died from some kind of allergic reaction."
"Allergic reaction? That's a stretch."
"They're all didn't have history of allergies. We believe it's a bio attack."
"We? Who makes that conclusion?"
"Them."
"Ah.." They're all surprised to see the BAU here. Including Allison. She and Reid haven't been in touch that much after their last encounter.

"Hi." Reid breaks the ice first. "Hi there. You looked great." She points at his now trimmed hair. He looked tidy. "Yeah. Hotch and Morgan thought I joined a boyband. I didn't."
"Haha. Understandable."
"Yeah..." He pauses for a second and then look at Allison, "I'm sorry about Milt. I heard."
"Thank you. And I'm sorry about Maeve....so I heard."
"Uh uh. It's nice to see you..Al."
"You too Spence." They're both looking to each other while Tony watch from afar.

"The house is clean now. And we took the body for precautions. But you're free to enter the house." The man in the suit comes and gives them a green light. "Alright, thanks." Gibbs then get his team to look at the scene.

"What do we have McGee?"
"Col. Lauren Cale. Single mother, lived with 3 kids and her mom. They're all safe and clean. We're waiting a tox screen from Col. Cale."
"Don't bother." Morgan walks in and gives all of them a heads up, "All of the previous victims have a clean tox screen."
"Any connection between them?"
"Nothing, so far. Different age range, race, sex, social class. We couldn't find any connection between them so far."
"Not even a book club." Reid adds.

"Okay, you're saying that you got nothing so far? Right." Gibbs looked frustrated.
"We need agent McGee's help."
"You got him. In the meantime, the rest of my team will work the lead from Col. Cale."