- The wife of a Navy Seal is murdered, and the NCIS team discovers she has a background in criminal forensics and recently visited a serial killer in prison seeking his help with another sociopath. Gibbs and company must figure out who it is.
- Navy SEAL commander Ryan Barnes's wife, a psychiatrist, is found by neighbor, a veteran and former patient, fatally shot at home, their daughter Rachel was hiding in her 'fort'. She also recently saw lifer psychopath George Burton in prison. A lead to a terrorist recruiting site requires undercover work by Tim, whose painful experience allows Tony to find former fellow police rookie Zoe Keates, now an ATF Special Agent, on the terror case.—KGF Vissers
- Nathan Curtis and his son Ben walk a young girl named Rachel home after school. They hear screams coming from inside and Mr. Curtis goes in to see Rachel kneeling next to her dead mother's body.
Tony comes in to the office to see McGee futilely trying to convince Ellie that she has to wear a costume to Abby's Halloween party. Tony laments the couple's day it's become and that everyone will have a date. He's gone on six this month, but none of them took.
Gibbs comes in with the body of the week.
On the scene, Duckie says the victim was killed by a single shot to the back between midnight and 2 a.m. The victim is Dr. Valerie Barnes, wife of Navy Commander Ryan Barnes.
Gibbs talks to Mr. Curtis outside, who tells him he was bringing Rachel back from a sleepover because her mom had to work late. He doesn't know her father at all.
Gibbs finds Rachel outside in her elaborate fort, with her mother's blood still on her hands. She's worried about where her dad is and doesn't want to leave her fort, in case the people trying to kill her dad come back.
Back in the office, Tony and McGee reject all of Ellie's cliché couple costume ideas.
Gibbs comes in for the victim rundown. Valerie Barnes worked at a counseling center. Ryan Barnes has been on survival training and he's a highly decorated SEAL.
McGee runs a search and finds that Barnes participated in the raid on Benham Parsa and, after his identity was accidentally leaked, he's now listed as a target on a jihadist website.
Down in the lab, Ellie, McGee and Abby have tracked the jihadist web IP address to Dorian Hobart, who who lives in Maryland and was dishonorably discharged from the army. They cook up a cover ID for McGee to send Hobart a message through his website to see if he'll bite.
Gibbs takes popcorn and hot chocolate to Rachel in the conference room. He gently tells her about his own mother dying when he was about her age. She's mad at her mom for not being on alert against the bad guys like her dad taught them. She wants to go back to her fort safe place. But Gibbs has brought all of the essential fort building materials to make a new one.
Down in the morgue, Duckie tells Tony that Valerie died instantly. He also found a ten year old fracture to her cheekbone that isn't in her medical record.
After Hobart responds to McGee, they head to a park to meet him. Tony leads Ellie through yoga poses as they watch Hobart join McGee on a park bench. When Hobart takes McGee's sample detonator, Gibbs gives the signal to converge.
But before they can arrest Hobart, a woman tackles McGee to the ground and Hobart pulls a gun. As everyone is trying to figure out what's going on, the woman recognizes Tony as "Spider." She's Zoe Keats and used to be with Philly PD, but is now with ATF. "Hobart" is one of their agents acting as a decoy.
She tells them Hobart couldn't be their killer because they've had him in custody for two months. They didn't take down his hit list website because they wanted to maintain authenticity. When Keats says they would have acted if anyone was in danger, Gibbs points out that Valerie Barnes is dead.
Keats gets defensive but insists a .38 to the back is too quiet for terrorists.
Tony and Keats flirt as they remember being rookies together in Philly.
Back in the NCIS morgue, Ryan Barnes IDs his wife's body. Barnes thinks his job is to blame, but Gibbs says it might not be related. Barnes can't think of any threats to his wife, mentioning that he's gone ten months of the year.
Down in the lab, Ellie, Abby and McGee conspire to try to get Tony together with Keats.
Gibbs sees Ryan and Rachel Barnes to the elevator.
Tony has answers about Rachel Barnes' facial fracture. She was beaten up by famed serial killer and cannibal George Burton (Bronson Pinchot), when working as a prison psychiatrist.
Burton is serving a life sentence, but Valerie visited him two weeks ago.
Tony and McGee pay Burton a visit. As soon as he learns they're from NCIS, he assumes Valerie is dead. He says she's one of the few people he respected. He explains that he beat her up ten years ago because he thought a "little outburst" would help his insanity plea. He insists he could have killed her if he wanted to.
He tells them Valerie came to see him because she had another patient kind of like him, a sociopath. He says she was scared, more scared than she ever was of him.
Back at NCIS, Ellie and McGee come up with nothing while going through Valerie's patient files. Zoey Keats comes by with coffee and a peace offering bran muffin for McGee. When they catch her up on the patients, she suggests they look at the ones flying under the radar.
Ellie asks Keats her thoughts on classic movie marathons and home cooked Italian food, and Keats thinks she's asking her out.
Down in the lab, Tony responds to Abby's 911 page. She seals the doors and tells him it's time to talk about Ziva leaving. She tells him it's time for him to face the fact she's gone. He says the truth is he misses his friend.
Abby gets an alert on her 3D rendering of the pieced-together bullet. It was already in the system from an accidental discharge at a private residence. The gun is registered to Nathan Curtis.
In interrogation, he tells them that the accidental discharge was actual him attempting to kill himself when he was depressed after leaving the Corps. He went to Valerie for help and she referred him to a colleague. He gave her the gun for safe keeping because he didn't trust himself with it.
McGee brings up an argument people saw them having outside the school. He says he thought something odd was going on with Ryan and Valerie and after he saw bruises on Rachel, he confronted Valerie, but she insisted he had it all wrong.
Ellie pulls Gibbs into the hall to report that Ryan Barnes was on a training mission 12 miles from his own house and no one saw him between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m.
Ellie and Tony go to the hotel where Ryan and Rachel are staying. They hear a TV on inside and go in, but the room is empty and looks untouched. "Ryan played us, he's gone," Tony says.
Back at NCIS, they put a BOLO out on Ryan Barnes and track Rachel's cell phone to a rest stop. Ryan is sitting next to Rachel on a bench. He surrenders, confessing that he killed his wife. He apologizes to his daughter as she sobs.
Late at night, Gibbs is bothered by the case and visits Duckie. He's been going over Rachel's files and finds she was the victim of severe abuse. Gibbs notices the hospital report dates are all while Ryan Barnes was gone.
He remembers what Burton said about sociopaths going to any lengths to get what they want. Valerie knew the warning signs but still covered up whatever was going on. He thinks that means Ryan Barnes isn't their killer.
Gibbs goes back to talk to young Rachel, telling her she hasn't been honest with him. He found the murder weapon buried under her fort. "I didn't have time to bury it deeper. I needed to get back before Mr. Curtis realized I snuck out," she says.
Rachel says her mother was going to send her to a special hospital in Montana for help. She hated her. She says sometimes he'd come back when she hurt herself, but never stay as long as she wanted. So getting rid of her mother was the only solution.
"Daddy didn't understand either when I told him what I did. He'll come around eventually," she says.
A stoic Ryan Barnes watches his sociopath young daughter through the glass.
Later that night, McGee is upset to see Tony's Batman costume is a tux -- he's going as Bruce Wayne. McGee has a Robin costume. "This is great, now I'm going to be the only one at the party wearing spandex," McGee says.
"Maybe not," Tony says, when he sees Ellie saunter in as Sandy at the end of "Grease." Her husband is meeting them at the party as Danny.
Tony says he has things he needs to do and will meet them there. At his desk, he sees Ziva's star of David necklace in his drawer, he puts it back and sees Zoey Keats standing nearby.
Seeing he looks rough, she asks if he's had a bad day. When he says it was a bad year, she offers to listen.
He asks why she didn't look him up if she's been in DC for five years, and she points out he left without even saying good-bye and she didn't know where he went.
He apologizes and says she deserved better.
He suggests they take a walk to catch up.
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