The times, they were a changin’.
“Uh, you’re packing two guns?” she asked. “Getting ready to charge the hill, Director?”
He laughed. “Just being prepared.”
Yeah, she didn’t believe that for a second. He was worried about Bonnie if he was wearing a double holster.
“And for the record, I have three guns. I have an ankle holster too.”
She laughed. “Thanks, handsome.”
He checked the chamber and then placed his one Glock on the counter. “I don’t want you roaming around without a gun. That’s just asking for trouble.”
Chris laughed. “Yeah, said no one ever.”
He had a point. Normally, Ethan was telling her not to shoot someone.
It was an odd day.
“Better safe than sorry,” he admitted.
Yeah, spoken like the husband who was married to a crazy magnet.
“Thank you,” she said, washing the goo out of her hair.
“How’s your shoulder and arm?” Ethan asked, pulling back the curtain enough to peek in.
“I’m good. I landed on something soft,” she stated.
Chris laughed. “Glad I could be of assistance.”
Ethan checked out her back. There wasn’t any bruising from the buckshot. It all hit at one point, and the vest did its job.
He made a mental note to get her another vest.
ASAP.
At this rate, they were going to need it.
“I’m going to head down and help Callen get this mess under control. The neighbors are swarming, we have media who thinks it was Chris who was killed in here, and the teams need someone to scare them into work mode.”
Yeah, that sounded about right.
“Who is it?” she asked, needing to know. “It’s not Chris, it’s not Tony, so who is the doctor?”
Ethan stared her in the eyes. “It’s Doctor Rachael Michaels, the head anthropologist of the FBI.”
Chris shook his head. “I saw her last night.”
They all looked over.
“What?” she asked.
“Tony and I were leaving work at the same time. He dropped the last victim into the beetles, and we headed out. Doctor Michaels was in the elevator with us. When we headed to our cars…”
Ethan cut him off. “Did you park in the garage or the unsecured lot?”
“Lot,” he stated.
Damn!
That meant limited to no video surveillance. He’d have to hope the building cameras caught something.
“Continue,” she said, going back to cleaning the nastiness from her body.
“Well, Tony and I headed toward the main lot, and Doctor Michaels headed toward the one closest to the street.”
Yeah, they knew why.
It was likely a snatch and grab.
“Maybe they took her from her home,” Chris offered, almost hearing the wheels turning in their minds.
“No, then they would have used her home. She didn’t want Doctor Michaels.”
Ethan agreed.
“She wanted you, but our appearance on the news must have pissed her off. She went over the edge, and she took anyone she could get her hands on to up the schedule. Normally, what do you do today?” she asked.
He thought about the day.
“I would head to the courthouse to be ready for any of the cases that I’m required to testify on. I had two scheduled for this afternoon, but I spoke to the attorneys. They offered to do video depositions.”
And there they had it.
Chris was going to be the one they took.
“She scoped out your home, and she knew it was a safe place to kill someone. Bonnie and Lizzie simply couldn’t get to you in time to pull it off.”
“Ivan was waiting for me.”
She peeked around the curtain at him. “See why I need you to stick close?”
He wanted to be sick.
Chris could have been the body downstairs.
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, you can say that again.”
Ethan patted him on the back. “She knew you were staying with us, so she planned on grabbing you on your way to or out of the courthouse. It would be whenever it was more convenient.”
“That scares the shit out of me,” he stated.
Yeah, them too.
They’d just dodged a bullet on this one.
It looked like her and Ethan hitting that party had bumped the schedule and saved Chris’s life, even though it had cost Rachael Michaels hers.
Elizabeth’s gut was in a knot.
“It terrifies me that they were watching me and Bethe all this time. I thought I was so sneaky, hiding here.”
Apparently, not.
Ethan knew what he needed to do.
He needed to get confirmation. “I’m going to get us those cameras. If it was the lot, we might have something.”
She agreed.
“Can you call Marshal Valley and give her the name of our victim? I want her to get to work on tracking Bonnie. Maybe that cell number will turn up on her phone.”
He could do that.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that Bonnie took something. She’ll leave me a trail, trying to get me to rush away from this scene to a different one.”
Yeah, he agreed.
“I can do that. Chris, get showered and try not to overthink it. You’ll freak yourself out.”
He could say that again.
Ethan walked away with Chris still in the room with her.
“He’s not going to watch me to make sure I don’t try anything inappropriate?” he asked.
“He trusts you,” she stated. “He wants us to trust him, and he’s returning the favor.”
That was a good way to start to heal.
Chris genuinely loved his family.
“Want me to shut the water off?” she asked, peeking out. “Can I have a towel?”
He handed her one. “No, I’m going in now.”
She laughed. “That’s what you said to me every morning,” Elizabeth stated.
“Yeah, I would go last because I had to shave.”
She smiled at him, and it took Chris back almost twenty years to their youth.
“Before Bethe, you were the most important person in my life, and I’ll always cherish that,” he said. “Thank you for saving my life today.”
She got out with a towel wrapped around her body.
“Any day, Newton. Any day.”
He climbed into the shower, and she held the evidence bag for him. Chris dropped his boxers in, and then he took off his father’s Rolex.
He didn’t want to part with it.
“Give me it,” she said, knowing what he was thinking. It was over fifty years old, and he couldn’t bear to part with it.
Chris dropped it into her hand, and watched as she began washing off the metal band, and carefully wiping down the face.
He felt so many emotions in that moment.
“I love you.”
She looked over her shoulder and smiled at him. “I love you, too, Christopher. I’ll always have your back.”
He went back under the shower and cleaned up.
They needed to get moving.
It was going to be a long ass day.
And he was an emotional mess.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Salem
When he got the call, he was excited. She was back in town, and that meant he’d have someone to hang out with to pass the time. Salem’s dating scene was slim pickings, and as an eligible bachelor, that sucked.
Still, he had to keep trying to find that one person who completed him.
Tony Morel didn’t want to believe that he was going to be alone for the rest of his life.
Fact of the matter was, he was an idiot for letting a good woman get away. Had he not listened to Elizabeth’s father, they might be married, have a brood of kids, and on their way to their twenty-fifth anniversary.
That
realization always stung. It gave him this empty ache in the pit of his stomach, and for good reason. He’d really screwed his life up.
The debauchery.
The drinking.
The screwing of every woman in Salem.
Well, that was the past.
And it didn’t pan out.
But this girl, yes, she was younger, but she was sweet. She looked at him like he was something special.
Now, if he could only get her to put out.
That would be perfect.
Who knew? Maybe tonight would be the night.
His plans were rather simple. He’d hop in the shower, order some delivery, and woo the girl. If that didn’t work, he was done with the babes in Salem.
It would be time to pack it in, move along, and try to find anyone who could find something good in him.
Like Elizabeth LaRue once had.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Christopher Leonard’s
Brownstone
They were both cleaned up, dressed, and ready to go. As they came down the stairs, she was ready to start processing this case. Avoiding the blood and techs at the bottom of the stairs, she slipped past them to get to the dining room.
Once there, she shook her head.
HOLY SHIT!
This was a cornucopia of crazy.
“I’d ask what we have, but I don’t think Chris can put this meat puzzle back together again enough to answer that. We might have found the one victim that stumps even him.”
He shook his head, and then snapped on a double pair of gloves.
“Actually, I’ve reconstructed worse,” he admitted. Chris had to block out the fact it was someone they knew. Yeah, granted, he didn’t get along with Doctor Michaels, specifically since the woman disliked Elizabeth, but he still felt bad for her.
This was supposed to be him.
Suddenly, Chris took Elizabeth’s face in his hands and planted a kiss right on her mouth.
“Uh? Flag on the play,” she stated, looking at him like he, himself, had caught the crazy.
“Thank you for not letting her do that to me. Thank you for once more looking out for me. You saved my life. AGAIN.”
She got it.
As did Ethan and Callen.
“Say it with cupcakes, Newton, or better yet, I have a better idea.”
“What?” he asked, getting ready to do the job.
“Give me something I can use. What’s COD?” she asked.
He didn’t even fight.
“Honestly, Elizabeth, you don’t need an autopsy. She’s been taken apart and there are pieces of her missing. You just need tissue samples tested.”
That was a first.
“Where is the rest of her?” Elizabeth asked.
They all looked around.
“Oh, shit!” Chris muttered.
“What?” Elizabeth asked.
“I have a garbage disposal.”
They all looked at each other. Would Bonnie be that sick and twisted?
Could she have done that?
“Amir, go check the garbage disposal.”
The man headed in.
No one spoke.
“We have a shitload of tissue in here,” he called. “We’re going to have to take the sink apart, pull everything out, and try to fish out what didn’t go into the sewer.”
Well, that was a whole new level of gross.
Bonnie really went for shock and awe.
“Okay, so no autopsy for our nearly fleshless doctor,” she stated. “Still, Chris, what can you tell me?”
Chris looked for the doctor’s head, and got to work.
“Her tongue was cut out relatively early. There’s coagulation of the blood, and the tissue is pink.”
Callen made notes.
Chris kept looking.
There was blood in the orbital sockets. “She was blinded and had her eyes cut out when she was alive.”
“Jesus, this was a bad one,” Callen stated.
Elizabeth couldn’t let herself feel anything. This was the job. Yes, they baited a killer.
Yes, they made it harder on Doctor Michaels.
But they saved Chris.
“Death is going to be decapitation,” he stated. “She was alive until that point.”
Well, that sucked.
“I don’t know what to say,” Elizabeth stated. “This has blown my mind.”
“The killing?” Ethan asked.
“No, the fact that Chris just gave me all the details and I didn’t have to beat it out of him. Maybe I hit my head and I’m still out cold. This has to be a dream.”
“We were naked in the same room together,” he offered.
“What?” Callen stated. “Repeat that for me. I could have sworn you just told us you were nekkid with our wife. Recently.”
They both pointed to their wet hair.
“If I smack him around, will I get in trouble?” Callen asked his brother.
“Yes.”
“Damn.”
Elizabeth knew he was trying to lighten the mood. She knew what Callen was like when he was really mad.
This wasn’t it.
The men were giving her latitude.
“Maybe we should work instead of thinking about who I get naked with,” she offered.
Both husbands laughed.
“Yeah, let’s just work,” she stated.
That was fine with them.
“What’s with the table set up? Does that seem odd to anyone?” Callen asked.
Elizabeth moved around it to get a better view.
“Look what I found,” she said, grabbing a pair of gloves from a tech. “Bonnie switched it up. I have the medallion.”
Ethan was curious.
“Who is it?” he asked.
Elizabeth pulled on the gloves and picked it up. “I have never seen this one before. My Catholic is a little rusty.”
She held it in her hand for Callen and Ethan to see.
Callen pulled out his cell and began searching. When he found it, there was good and bad news.
“Well, this is bothersome.”
They all looked over.
“What?”
“It’s Saint Luke the Evangelist.”
She didn’t get it. “Why is it disturbing?”
“My search shows that Saint Damasus is the patron saint to anthropologists and archeologists.”
“Okay, but that’s not the saint in my hand.”
He was aware, so he clued her in.
“Luke the Evangelist is the saint for ME’s, surgeons, and physicians.”
He pointed at Chris.
“Check, check, and check. You were right. He was the original target.”
She let out the breath she was holding.
“Yeah, I wish I was wrong. Ethan, can you get him round the clock security?”
“I can ask. Gabe has to approve it.”
She pointed at the destroyed woman who had once been a Fed. “I’m thinking if you send him a picture, this might do all the talking.”
She had a point.
“Well, now that we found that, how about the actual table,” Callen stated.
She went back to focus on that.
It was set with pricey china, and on four of the plates, there was a card with their names.
“Ethan, process this cuckoo calamity.”
“Oh, I already have. This time, I’m one step ahead of you. She placed the head on your plate. It’s without its eyes, ears, and tongue.”
“Yeah, I see that.”
“Then there are three more plates,” he offered. “Each one, holding something different and with our corresponding names. I got the eyes because I’m always watching out for you.”
She listened and processed it.
“Callen got the ears because he’s your closest confidant. You trust him with your secrets.”
That was pretty damn accurate.
Bonnie had been watching them a little too closely. Th
at was definitely creepy.
“Chris got the tongue because he’s the little voice of reason in your ear, and you two go way back.”
“And I’m the head.”
“Yes, and you’re empty without the parts.”
She got it.
“I hate symbolic shit like this. Why can’t she just write me a love note like all the other crazies?” she asked.
Chris pointed at the ceiling.
“She did.”
They all looked up.
“Jesus on a ten-year voyage! She’s out of damn control,” Elizabeth muttered as she read the note.
‘We missed your lover, Elizabeth. Maybe next time we can have lunch together. You, me, Lizzie, and Doctor Dick. We all know you liked it for years. Sorry about spilling everything to the media. I needed to have some fun. You missed me, but I’ll see you soon. Three of Six.
Bonnie.’
Well, that explained why the media was riding her ass over personal shit.
Bonnie was playing games.
“I don’t know what to say,” Chris stated. “I want to make a joke about it, but I feel like it would be totally inappropriate since I can picture my man junk in a blender.”
Yeah, now was not the time.
“How the hell did she find out about Chris and I?” she asked. “A limited number of people knew.”
Ethan gave it a shot. “Maybe she read the letter on my car that Amy left.”
“WHAT?” Chris asked. “She left that?”
They explained what had happened that morning with the Gabe, Livy, and Amy.
“Jesus! When I was a kid, I was reading books. I wasn’t trying to destroy a marriage.”
Yeah, her too.
Still, Elizabeth pondered the whole situation.
“Ethan might be right about Bonnie seeing the note on his ride. Anything is possible. She’s been following us. She might have seen it, then saw we separated.”
“I hate that word.”
She did too.
“Bonnie has been busy,” Callen admitted. “She’s watching us, she’s laying traps, and she found a partner. Someone needs gainful employment, or to be put down like a rabid dog.”
Dakota, who had said nothing to that point laughed. “I vote for the latter. She’s a menace to society.”
Revenge has Come (An FBI/Romance Thriller Book 19) Page 43
