- A Naval Reserve lieutenant, who's a chemical engineer, dies when a city bus accidentally hits her on a street in Washington, DC; Gibbs and company investigate. Abby deciphers mysterious writings; the gang figures it out and nab the perp.
- A Naval Reserve lieutenant, who's also a chemical engineer, dies when a city bus hits her, apparently by accident, on a downtown street in Washington, DC; Gibbs and company investigate; witnesses describe her unusual behavior just before the incident; Palmer notices something weird. The victim's mother tells Gibbs about her atypical background; Abby feels deeply impressed, and she starts to unravel the mystery; she finds a code within a code. Tony and Ziva find a message, then Abby works more on the writings, and she asks McGee to work with her. Duck persists, and he finds a small clue, which leads Gibbs and Tony to a suspect, who collapses before them. The vic's mother gives advice to Abby, then Abby makes more progress. Eventually the gang figure out everything, and they nab the person responsible.—DocRushing
- A woman walks anxiously down the street and into traffic, dodging cars. She doesn't look well and seems to think people are staring at her. She babbles about not letting people find her. At a crosswalk she doesn't wait for the light to change and runs out in front of a bus.
Tony comes in to work talking on the phone to a lady friend, whom he calls "a vixen." Her name is Ethel. They've talked about role playing in bed -- she's keeping her desires a secret until Halloween.
Gibbs arrives to announce the body of the week: a dead Navy lieutenant.
At the scene, the victim is Clea Thorson, a chemical engineer. They heard from witnesses about her mumbling about running from someone.
Duckie arrives and notices scratches on her hands. Palmer looks at them and finds writing all over her arm -- what look like scientific formulas. Her other arm is covered, too, as is her torso.
At the office they learn she was a sought after biochemist and worked for Gen 1 Bio Tech Inc in DC, for a man named Martin Stillwell. She was working on a research project until two weeks ago, when she was fired. She was single and her mom is flying in.
She made several recent deposits over $20,000 recently.
In the morgue, Abby snaps tons of pictures of the victim's formulas. She sees a pattern and goes to work on it.
Duckie shows Gibbs the victim's weird eye color. She was sick and she was in near organ failure from poison that'd been in her system for a while. Duckie is not sure what kind.
Upstairs, McGee plays a video of a man threatening to make Thorson's life "hell" if she leaves him. It's her boss, Martin Stillwell.
Tony and Ziva visit him. He says Clea was brilliant but wasn't a team player. Her research project was about helping the Navy go green, getting naval bases off the grid by 2020. They're joined by April Ferris, an engineer who worked with Clea for five years. Stillwell ends the interview.
Back at the office, Gibbs talks to Clea's mom. She says Clea was sending her money to keep "in case anything happened." Clea was bipolar but well-medicated until recently, her mom says.
In the lab, Abby compares the handwriting on each arm and says Clea wrote it herself and was ambidextrous. The writing is pieces of a chemical formula but it's coded. Abby is totally impressed.
She shows Gibbs some coordinates Clea wrote in her elbow.
The team heads to the address. They find pages and pages strung up everywhere with formula on them and the phrase "They're going to kill me" written hundreds of times.
They get Abby out to look it over.
There are security cameras everywhere.
Abby says the writing in the room is the second piece of the formula written on Clea's body. In her journal, Clea wrote that Stillwell was watching her.
Tony finds her medication and suggests maybe Thorson's paranoia was imagined. Abby finds that Thorson's hard drive has been erased remotely.
At the office, Tony recaps the green energy Stillwell's company was working on. There's nothing on the security camera footage except Clea working steadily in the two weeks after she was fired.
Ziva finds references to meetings with a "Mr. K" in Clea's journal.
In the morgue, Abby talks to Clea's dead body, calling her a "kindred spirit." She thinks they thought the same and promises she'll try to figure out what Clea was working on.
Duckie interrupts to make sure Abby is OK. He tells her to go home and get some rest.
In the morning, Abby is in a working frenzy in her lab trying to crack the formula's code. She found mention of Clea's college mentor and thinks they should find him.
Ziva looks at the surveillance footage and finds Clea stuck to a rigid schedule. Tony gets a text from Ethel that freaks him out. She wants him to dress up.
April Ferris comes by with things from Clea's locker. She says Clea wasn't afraid to stand up for herself. Her date book shows meetings with Mr. K, including one today.
Abby and McGee finish up two hours of bus riding around town because it was the path Clea took. McGee gets frustrated so Abby gets on the bus by herself.
Later, she finds Professor Rudner at a university -- Clea's mentor. Clea was on her way to visit him when she died. Abby shows him Clea's formula, which he doesn't recognize. Clea mentioned Mr. K to him. He shows her a book they used to read from, Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." He gives it to her.
Ziva and Tony comes back from trying to find Mr. K, but he never showed. The café manager says Clea was there, but by herself. They have footage of Clea sitting in a booth talking to herself.
Abby comes back, all abuzz. She says the professor knew about Mr. K and they have to find him. Gibbs shouts at her to stop. He shows Abby the footage of Clea talking to herself. Abby says none of them understand.
Abby locks herself in her lab.
Gibbs goes to Duckie, who tells her he found tissue under Thorson's fingernails. He shows Gibbs the DNA results.
At Gen 1, Gibbs and Tony approach Stillwell in his car. He stumbles out, dead, looking just like Thorson did.
At the office, they learn Stillwell appears to have been poisoned like Thorson. They wonder if maybe Clea's formula is the key.
Gibbs brings Clea's mom to her workspace with Abby. Her mom cautions Abby not to get too wrapped up in Clea's delusions. She tells Abby to let Clea go.
Back in the lab, Abby reports progress to Gibbs. One of the formulas was for E coli and another was for photosynthesis. She's missing the last piece of the formula. Gibbs looks at the drawing and says it looks like a plant. Abby goes to the book "Leaves" of grass and shakes it. A memory card falls out. Abby looks at it and declares Clea a genius -- she discovered a way to make fuel from bacteria, which would revolutionize green energy.
They find Avaxis on the screen. The systems director there is Rupert Kritzer, Mr. K. Gibbs meets with him and he admits he paid Clea under the table.
He worried about Clea's work getting back to Stillwell. He denies killing anyone. Gibbs doesn't believe him. He says Clea's formula just made him $2 billion and he was hiring her for another project.
In the lab, Duckie says Stillwell's throat was burned from swallowing ethanol with formaldehyde. They trace it to a patent filed by Stillwell's company.
Duckie says Thorson was poisoned by absorbing the poison through her skin over a period of weeks.
They go back to the footage of her workspace and find she's sick after showering.
McGee finds a canister hooked into her water supply.
The team arrives for April Ferris. Gibbs calls her a phony, saying Clea was the real deal. Ziva reads from Clea's journal in which she said she liked April and hoped they could be friends.
April says they have no idea what she had to put up with, people fawned over Clea. Gibbs arrests her.
Back at the office, Tony walks down the hall dressed like Tony from "Saturday Night Fever" in the white suit. He does a passable early John Travolta impression. He resolves to give Ethel what she wants.
In the lab, Abby decorates for Halloween. Gibbs drops by and Abby apologizes. He kisses her head and walks her out. She runs back to get Leaves of Grass.
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