Two little boys are chasing each other through a corn field. They are playing tag. One boy runs into a scarecrow and falls backwards. The other boy laughs and tags him. The dark haired boy on the ground wants to know what “that is,” pointing to blood dripping from the scarecrow. He uses a stick to remove the mask from the scarecrow and reveals a dead Marine. Both boys scream and take off running.

McGee walks into the squadroom, passing Ziva who is coming out of the elevator. She ask him if he’s not using the elevator and he tells her it’s all about the cardio these days. “You have been looking increasingly Kate Mossish there McTim. What are you down 2-3 lbs.?” Tony asks. McGee says he’s down 15 pounds and thanks Tony for noticing. “That’s what I do, eagle-eyed special agent,” Tony says. Tony thinks McGee lost weight because of a girl but McGee says he usually gains a few pounds over the holidays so he was countering it. Ducky walks in and hands out invitations to Thanksgiving dinner to each team member. Ziva thinks Ducky misspelled “fixins” on the invitation. Palmer has already left town for the holiday. McGee is having Thanksgiving dinner with his sister and Ziva accepted an invitation with her neighbor. Tony says he also has plans. “Are you letting some blonde bombshell baste your bird?” Ziva asks Tony. Tony says he’s going to a poker tournament with an all you can eat crab buffet. “Pilgrims and Indians gambling together, that warms the heart,” McGee says. Ziva asks about Ducky’s mother. He says she’s doing well, the staff take good care of her but she barely recognizes him when he visits. “That leaves me with a 20 lb. bird and all the fixings to feed Cox’s army,” Ducky says. Gibbs walks in and says “Marines, got a dead one in a cornfield.” Gibbs walks to his desk and asks if Ducky is waiting for an invitation when he doesn’t move. Ducky hands Gibbs an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner. Gibbs hands him one back, the address to the cornfield.

The team shows up at the cornfield and Ziva and Tony have a slight argument over the name of corn and Indians. Gibbs tells DiNozzo to process the scene. Ziva points out the footprints and says some of them are very small. Tony points out larger footprints and drag marks from behind the dead marine. He says from the drag marks, the Marine was already dead. “Ah fresh corn, that gives me an idea. Why don’t we have corn chowder as the first course,” Ducky says. Each team member responds with one word each: “Poker,” say Tony. “Sisters,” says McGee. “Neighbors,” says Ziva. “Later,” Gibbs adds. Ducky begins to process the body and says the victim wasn’t killed on site. The victims name is Marine Lance Corporal Trevor Lazatta, stationed out of Quantico. Ducky discovers the victim is missing a hand, which was removed after he died, otherwise the blood pool would be greater than it was. Tony jokes around that maybe the crows carried off the hand and makes crow noises. Ziva uses a crow feather and pokes Tony’s ear, startling him. Gibbs just looks at Tony and Ziva says “Sorry, I had to do it.” Tony apologizes. Ducky says the time of death was approximately 8-10 hours ago. Tony notices a mark on the victim’s arm “PC.” He says that they are a local gang, big up and down the east coast. Tony wonders if it was an initiation “kill a Marine and your in.” Gibbs informs them that Lazatta was part of gang before he joined the Marines. His tattoo was lasered off. Gibbs tells Ziva to get on Tony’s shoulders. Tony questions Gibbs and Ziva doesn't want to do it until they both see Gibbs face. “Bend over Tony,” Ziva says, which gets a chuckle out of Gibbs. Once Ziva’s up, Gibbs calls a direction (North, South, East, West) and has Ziva tell him what she sees in each direction. Once she’s covered all directions, they realize whoever put the body there wanted Lazatta to be found.

Back in the squadroom, McGee has Lazatta’s information up on the big screen and gives Gibbs the Corporal’s background information. Lazatta had a spotless service record, multiple tours, rewarded with a very desirable duty post guarding the Satler Institute for Strategic Studies and Analysis. Gibbs calls it an “R&D Government Think Tank.” Lazatta had been assigned there for 6 months. Ziva and McGee are assigned to check out Lazatta and Gibbs has DiNozzo go with him to the Institute. “Satler Institute? Oh boss, shouldn’t Mcsmarty-pants go to the nerd theme park. It’s going to be a nerd’s paradise with the World of Warcraft wallpaper and the pocket protectors and the elfan shaped beds because I probably shouldn’t…” Tony says but gets cut off when Gibbs tosses him the keys.

Gibbs and DiNozzo show up at the Institute and are met by Krista Dalton, Facilities Coordinator. Tony tells her that Lazatta was killed approximately 20 miles from there. She asks how it happened. “Not very nicely Krista,” DiNozzo replies. Gibbs wants to know what Lazatta guarded. Krista hands them each a visitors badge and brings them into a room full of children. “He guarded a day care center?” DiNozzo asks. Krista tells him it’s not a daycare center, it’s their intelligence testing center. Gibbs asks if they test the intelligence of the kids. “Nope, they test our’s,” Krista replies. She walks up to one child named Parker and asks how he’s doing. Parker’s specialty is redeployment of rapid response groups. “I thought we had people at the Pentagon who do that,” Gibbs says. She says they do but they found that gifted children have a less-linear, less-bureaucratic way of approaching things. “Simpler, cleaner, purer,” she adds. Tony is playing on a motorcycle game on the side of the room. He asks where the parents are. Krista says they have an arrangement with the parents and the kids visit for a week or two at a time. It helps maintain a nice balance between home and the Institute and keep the kids focused. Tony walks up to a young boy playing a game on the television and waves his hand in front of the boys face, but gets no response. Tony believes Lazatta was basically a babysitter. “These kids are incredibly valuable to us and the military,” Krista says. An older boy, Brett, walks up and asks Krista when he gets his MP3 player back. She tells him when he stops wrapping the cord around the ceiling fan. As he explains why he was doing it, Tony walks up smiling, points at Brett and says, “Val Kilmer, Real Genius." Krista tells Brett he can have his MP3 player back after Thanksgiving. Brett walks away and Krista tells them that Brett is one of their prized and oldest students. Gibbs wants to know if any of the kids were particularly attached to Lazatta. One girl, Angela Kelp, was. She had been acting distracted lately and Krista asked Lazatta to keep an eye on her. The two ended up hitting it off. DiNozzo is playing an electric guitar so Gibbs tosses a small ball at the guitar to get his attention.

Angela is playing a military video game and a man, Greg Norvell, is videotaping what she’s doing. She apologizes and says she sees mistakes. She points out a better way for the troops to have gone their route and saved more lives. She connects some of her drawings on the screen and makes it a cat head. Gibbs tells Angela that her art is impressive. Angela tells Gibbs her cat’s name and that her parents split when she was little. She realizes something happened to Lazatta. Gibbs asks if the two of them can go and talk privately. Greg says they can talk in her room. Gibbs, Krista and Angela head out of the room. “I had a combined SAT score of 950, is that good?” Tony asks Greg as he looks around.

In he room, Angela offers Gibbs a cupcake. He takes one, sits down, and eats it. Gibbs asks why she thinks something happened to Lazatta. Angela says it’s because he’s there and Lazatta’s not. She believes Lazatta was killed. Gibbs notices the artwork on her wall. Angela says she drew them, Krista told her it was important to express herself. Gibbs writes down his phone number and tells her if she remembers anything, she should call him. Gibbs phone rings and McGee calls him with information. While he’s on the phone with McGee, Angela walks over and takes the sticky note with his phone number off the monitor and holds it. When Gibbs hangs up, he thanks Angela for the cupcake and heads out the door.

The team has found Lazatta’s car 6 miles from the crime scene. McGee didn’t find anything in Lazatta’s apartment but the fact that he was a member of a local gang. Gibbs finds one of the slugs they didn’t find in Lazatta in the door. McGee checked the map system in the car and based on the time of death, it appears Lazatta had just left work. Ziva tells Gibbs that the fuel line was cut on the car. They think Lazatta was ambushed. Gibbs finds Lazatta’s cell phone on the side of the driver’s seat. When McGee looks, he sees 6 missed phone calls, all from the same number. Gibbs sends DiNozzo off to find the missing caller.

DiNozzo brings Eddy Castillo into interrogation. Eddy had made the phone calls to Lazatta and he is part of the PC gang. Eddie claims that while they had their disagreements, he and Lazatta were like brothers. Tony points out that Metro Gang Division says Eddy tried to kill Trevor a few years ago when he left the PC’s. “People felt betrayed but we worked it out,” Eddy says. “You worked it out. That doesn’t smell so good to me,” Tony replies. Eddy says that he and Trevor had some unsettled business, that Tony doesn’t need to know about. Tony sits down and shows Eddy the photos of Trevor’s body. He asks him why he cut his hand off and carved PC into his arm. Tony asks Eddy if he has an alibi for the night before. “Lullabye, it’s a night club for rich kids,” Eddy says. They handle the refreshments there. “Well we’ll see about that. In the meantime I hope you like being swabbed, poked and pricked,” Tony says. “We are checking you for gun shot residue, blood, and dirt from the crime scene, anything that I can think of. You know why. Because your messing with my holidays and I don’t like it when people mess with my Thanksgiving,” Tony says.

In the squadroom, McGee shows Gibbs and Ziva security footage from the Institute. According to security sensors, Lazatta entered the dorm room at 6:00am that morning. Dorm access requires palm access. The intruder got in using Lazatta's hand then went into Angela’s room and left less than a minute later with nothing but Lazatta’s hand. “Empty handed,” Gibbs says.

At the Institute, Gibbs returns to Angela’s room and questions her. She tells him she was asleep and didn’t see anyone. Gibbs asks if anything was missing. Angela looks around and notices two of her collages are gone. He asks if there is anything special about them and she says no. Gibbs asks to borrow her video camera and picks it up with a glove, then pockets it. He tells her that her mother knows she is going with him and she will be safe. He asks again if she saw anything and she says she’s positive.

Gibbs walks into Abby’s lab. She lost her grandmother’s recipe for cranberry sauce and is trying to duplicate it before Ducky’s dinner. “I don’t want to let Ducky’s turkey down, ya know,” Abby says. “What can I do for you Gibblet?,” Abby asks. She tells him it’s a seasonal play on his name. He hands her Angela’s camera and has her upload the photos. Gibbs sees the 2 photos missing from Angela’s wall and wants Abby to tell him what they are of. As he leaves, he tries the cranberry sauce and tells her “more sugar.” Abby chuckles.

Gibbs walks into autopsy and Ducky asks him to pick up a dozen dinner rolls from the baker. Gibbs wants to know the confirmation of death. Ducky says it was a gunshot wound to the head. He doesn’t know yet what damage it caused. Gibbs pulls up a file and tells Ducky he needs a psych evaluation on a 12 year old girl. Ducky asks Gibbs where he goes for Thanksgiving. For the last 9 Thanksgivings he’s called Gibbs at home and he doesn’t answer. He’s even driven by but he’s not there but he expects to see Gibbs at 16:00 for dinner the next day. Ducky says he can’t go home without “him.” He walks over to one of the autopsy drawers, telling Gibbs what kind of rolls to bring. He opens one of the drawers and takes out "him," the turkey. When he turns around, Gibbs has left.

In the squadroom, Ziva hands Angela a drink. She asks Mrs. D'Arcy McKenna, a Legal Youth Advocater, if she wants something. Gibbs walks by and puts a pop on the desk for her. D'Arcy is pleased Gibbs remembered. “Well your memorable Darcy,” Gibbs says. He walks up the stairs to MTAC and Angela watches him. She walks over to Ziva and asks why she needs a Legal Youth Advocater. Darcy whispers, “It’s the law sweetie.” D'Arcy is sending her husband her grocery shopping list via her cell phone. Angela asks Ziva if she’s every killed anybody. Ziva lies and says no. Ducky calls and tells Ziva he’s ready for Angela. Ziva walks her to the elevator and the door opens. Gibbs is inside and he says he’ll take Angela up. When the elevator doors close, Angela remarks on how Gibbs takes the stairs up but the elevator down. “Knees, “Gibbs replies. Angela reaches over and shuts the elevator down. Gibbs crosses his arms and leans against the wall, telling Angela she’s got his attention. She knows Gibbs thinks she’s hiding something. Gibbs tells her she’s safe. She says she knows, she’s not in danger. Gibbs asks her who is. She hesitates for a moment, then reaches over and flips the switch on in the elevator. “Glad we talked,” Gibbs says as the elevator starts back up again.

Ducky meets with Angela and Darcy in the conference room. Angela asks if it’s a psych evaluation. She knows there are 3 types: general, emergency and clinical. She tells Ducky it feels clinical to her.

Ducky comes out of the conference room as Gibbs rounds the corner. He tells Gibbs that Angela got him talking about his first pet, a guinea pig called HunkerMunker. “Duck, you were supposed to find out about her past,” Gibbs says. Ducky says if she’s hiding anything, she’s hiding it well because he didn’t get anything. Angela is sensitive and may act twice her age but inside she’s anything but. Angela has secrets but Ducky tells Gibbs to not push her, when she’s ready she’ll tell them but if she’s pushed, she’ll push back. Tony runs up and hands Gibbs a file, tells him Eddy Castillo is back again. Gibbs tells DiNozzo to go talk to him. Tony tries to weasel out of it because he has travel plans but Gibbs sends him anyway.

Tony runs down the hallway, then slows and walks into interrogation. He walks in and says, “Hey, miss me Eddy?” Eddy says he came in with information about why he was calling Trevor. “I’m all ears,” Tony says. Eddy has a 9-year old nephew who is already getting into trouble. He called Trevor to see if he would talk to the boy about the Marines. Eddie didn’t want his crew to know he was trying to get his own blood out of that life. Tony antagonizes Eddy. He tells Eddy he was jealous of Lazatta because he had the brains to get out and make something of himself and Eddy didn’t. Eddy was proud of Trevor but didn’t kill him. He tells Tony that Trevor called him about a girl in trouble, the girl’s name was Angela. Trevor couldn’t go to the cops as it would cause more problems for Angela.

Gibbs walks into Abby’s lab as she’s trying her cousin Tetra’s lime jello with yams, marshmallows and pecans. She says some family traditions should not be upheld because they "really, really, really, suck" and throws the jello away. Angela’s drawing is her own code. She used 26 different colors to correspond with the letters of the alphabet. It’s a poem, dark and creepy, very detailed. It’s called "The Lady in the Fountain" and it’s about death. Abby brings up the second collage and tells Gibbs it’s frequency jamming signals. It’s every communication code for every ship, plane and helicopter in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corp. Abby doesn’t know why she was hiding military secrets in her collages unless she was going to sell them. “Or someone was going to sell them for her,” Gibbs says. He kisses Abby on the cheek, then calls for Angela’s mother’s bank records as he heads out.

Gibbs gets off the elevator in the squadroom. Ziva comes running up and tells him that Angela’s mother has called 13 times, she wants to see her daughter. McGee has pulled up the mother’s financial records. Over the last 13 years she’s averaged around $43,000. Over the last 3 months, she’s made three additional deposits totaling $60,000. Either the mother is playing the ponies or she’s taking advantage of her little girl.

The team has the collages up on the big screen. Tony compares the collage to the magic eye posters. You stare at them and suddenly make out the image. He keeps looking at the image and talks about focusing. Gibbs walks up behind him, headslaps him and tells him to focus. Tony crosses his eyes, says the image is dolphins and moonlight and thanks Gibbs. McGee tells Gibbs that the jamming codes belong to a Marine maneuver called “Ballistic Winter.” Copies of the signals appeared on the black market three months ago in China and it’s an open NCIS investigation. Ziva doesn’t believe Angela stole state secrets. “Clearly you’ve never seen The Bad Seed,” Tony says. Gibbs wants to know if Interpol has any suspects. They have one, C-Ten Dynamics, a defense firm who does R&D in conjunction with the Satler Institute. The C-Ten sales rep is Debra Leigh Dalton, same last name as Satler’s Think Tank Coordinator, Krista Dalton. Tony confirms the two women are sisters. Ziva wonders if Debra is the one who slipped into Angela’s room. Gibbs wants to talk to Debra but McGee says it’s going to be tough to do. Debra flew into D.C. five days earlier and never arrived at her house. There’s been no record of sale or credit card activity since she arrived. Tony begins to quote “Hannah and Her Sisters” meets "The 39 Steps." He is cut off by a look from Gibbs. Gibbs wants Krista brought in for questioning and Angela brought to a safe house. Ziva tells him the safe houses have been compromised due to a computer glitch, which should be fixed the next day. She asks about a motel. McGee wishes her luck in finding one before Thanksgiving. Gibbs hands her Ducky’s invitation and says Ducky has a spare room. “Yeah boss, we’ve all got plans this holiday season and...” Tony says. He’s cut off again when Gibbs tells him to cancel them.

Gibbs walks into the break room and Angela is playing checkers with Ray Mabus. She hustles him for $1 but Gibbs takes it. He goes and buys a cold drink instead. Gibbs sits down and asks what the buy-in is. She tells him $2. He wants to play for different stakes. If he wins, she tells him the truth about Lazatta, military secrets, everything. He tells her they found the jamming signals in her artwork. She says she wasn’t hiding them, it’s just how she works. Angela holds Gibbs hand and tells him he builds things, woodwork. Her father made cabinets. “Didn’t you ever express yourself in the things you made?” Angela asks. Gibbs wants to know how many people at the Institute know what was in her artwork. She says she isn’t sure. Ziva walks in and tells them the safe house is ready.

Gibbs goes to see Angela’s mother, Darlene. She is upset that NCIS is holding her daughter. Gibbs shows her the bank statement and says she’s been getting a lot of money lately. Darlene insists it’s Angela’s money. “You really thought Angela was getting paid all that just to play video games?” Gibbs asks. Darlene says she was told Angela’s work saved soldier’s lives. Angela felt good about helping and the money is going to go towards her college fund. Gibbs wants to know how the money got to her. She tells him the larger amounts came from C-Ten Dynamics. She just assumed they were projects Angela worked on. The checks were approved by Debra Dalton. Darlene only talked to Krista Dalton and the checks came in the mail. Gibbs get a call from McGee informing him that they found another body at the Institute. He gets up to leave and Darlene wants to know when she can see her daughter. “Soon,” Gibbs says.

A maintenance worker found Debra Dalton’s body. “That’ll spoil your Thanksgiving,” Tony says as he looks at the body. Gibbs points out Angela’s room, then says “Lady in a Fountain.”

Ducky is getting the turkey ready to put in the oven. Angela is looking for something to do. His television is on the fritz and his laptop is in the car. So she goes into the library looking for books. Ziva wants to follow her but Ducky needs her help stuffing the turkey. Ducky realizes he needs one more pair of hands so he calls for Angela. Angela doesn’t answer after Ducky calls her twice so Ziva calls for her, then goes looking for her. She pulls out her gun when she finds a locked door and goes around to another door. She find the patio doors open and Angela is gone. She tells Ducky, “She’s gone, call Gibbs.” Ducky looks distressed at the thought.

The team is at Ducky’s house doing a search for Angela. They find nothing in the house or on the grounds and got no hits on the Amber Alert or BOLO. Ziva and Ducky each try and take the blame but Gibbs tells them it’s both of their faults. McGee gets a call that Krista Dalton is in interrogation. Gibbs leaves with Ziva and Tony while McGee remains behind with Ducky.

In interrogation, Krista tells Gibbs the care and safety of the kids is her only concern. Gibbs hands her a piece of paper. Ziva tells Krista they did some digging and found her overseas accounts. She tells them it’s not what they are thinking. “What am I thinking? Because it sure looks like you made money selling government secrets using these kids,” Gibbs asks. Krista says they sold battle scenarios for games to game designers in China. They paid a lot. Debra made contacts from her trips to Asia for her firm. They took some of the money and the rest they gave to the families. Krista says it was old, useless information. Ziva tells her what she did is treason, the information was still classified. Krista doesn’t understand why they are talking to her about games and what it has to do with Lazatta’s death. Gibbs pulls out a crime scene photo of her sister. Shook up, Krista flips it back over and wants answers about her sister’s death. Gibbs says the two dead bodies are tied to her and the Institute. Gibbs wants answers and Krista says that Debra was seeing someone, she was afraid of him and wanted to break it off. Gibbs asks for a name but Krista says Debra wouldn't give her one because she didn’t want her involved. Gibbs slaps his hand down and says, “You are involved.”

Gibbs walks into the squadroom for an update. The team informs him they’ve gotten no hits so far, whoever has Angela is keeping her hidden. Ducky walks in and says he was going over the photos of Angela’s artwork. Apart from the cat, all the photos and artwork on her wall were from the outside world, nothing of herself. She resisted showing the world what she cares about. When Ducky spoke with Angela, she never spoke of her home or the town she was from. She was guarding it. Ducky thinks deep down, Angela is just a scared little girl trying to protect her mother. Ziva tells Gibbs she's been trying the mother’s home every 10 minutes and nobody answers. McGee says he just got a credit card hit, one of Ducky’s credit cards. “What she took one of mine? Clever girl,” Ducky says as he pulls out his wallet. Angela bought a map of her hometown at a service station. Gibbs says she’s dropping bread crumbs, she wants them to come get her. If the killer is thinking the same way they are, he’ll be waiting for her.

Gibbs is driving the team down the highway. Tony is in the back seat feeling ill. He thinks it’s the clam chowder he ate. Abby calls Gibbs with a connection between Lazatta and Debra Dalton. She found traces of beeswax and bleached linseed oil on both Lazatta’s body and a thumb impression on the back of Debra Dalton’s head. Both the oil and wax are base ingredients found in oil based paints. Gibbs asks Tony about the paintings at Gregg Norvell's workstation at the Institute. Tony tells him they were oil based then complains again, he shouldn’t have had the clam chowder.

Gibbs pulls up Angela’s street and sees Angela standing at the end of the driveway. She waves for him to wait and goes inside. When she walks in, the phone is off the hook. She goes into the kitchen and hugs her mother. Darlene tells her to run but Norvell comes around the corner pointing a gun at them. Darlene doesn’t understand what’s going on. Angela wants to know why he killed Debra. Norvell says she humiliated him, it had to be done. Same thing with Lazatta, and Norvell thinks NCIS bought the whole gang retribution thing. He holds Angela at gunpoint and gets Darlene to walk outside in front of them. Ziva, Tony and Gibbs corner him. He threatens to kill Angela. Gibbs puts away his gun, kneels down and tells Angela to look at him. He asks Ziva if she’s got it, and she says she does. Norvells says she doesn’t have the shot, she’ll miss. Gibbs asks Angela what the probability of that is. Angela tells him 97.6%. Norvell won’t give in so Gibbs gives the order to shoot and Ziva takes Norvell out.

Everyone joins Ducky for Thanksgiving dinner except Gibbs. Ducky says how wonderful it is for all of them to be together, even though their togetherness wasn’t their first choice. Tony whines a little about missing “Indian poker, all you can eat crab buffet, showgirls.” McGee tells him to suck it up, but there’s a lot of wine. As Abby pours Tony a glass, Ducky points out it’s time to carve the turkey but Gibbs isn’t there. Just then, the door opens and Gibbs walks in with chips and animal crackers, not rolls, because not a lot was available. Everyone laughs and Ducky wants a toast. “Toast friends and dear family all. A bountiful thanks and good things for fall,” Ducky toasts. “And to all a good night,” Abby adds. When everyone stares, she says, “wrong holiday.” They all raise their glasses and toast.