There was deep satisfaction that she’d never locate their hidey-hole.
She was shit out of luck.
“What’s next?” Lizzie asked.
“We move immediately. If we give her time to think about it, she’ll be all over us. I’m waiting until morning to grab our next victim. He’ll be heading to work.”
Lizzie cuddled with her. “That’s genius, Bon-Bon. You are so smart. I’m a lucky girl.”
Bonnie stared down at her. “What did you say?” she asked. “I was thinking.”
She repeated it.
Bonnie smiled.
On the outside.
She recalled saying those things to Clyde at one time. They were never genuine. In fact, she was blowing mega smoke up his ass, and here, she was saying the same thing. Plus, the cute nickname was grating on her nerves.
“Yes, you are lucky,” she stated.
Only she wasn’t.
Her time was coming.
Bonnie knew the truth. She didn’t need this woman much longer. Once she didn’t…?
She’d be sacrificed too.
For the good of the team—her team.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
The Wayfarer
As Sarah and Blue started researching, they were hitting a brick wall. None of this made sense.
They had a dead elderly lady named Tammy Beard.
They had a maid who didn’t exist. Fadila Shakih was a ghost who had been made up.
Then lastly, they had Keres Hatch.
She did exist at one point, but she’d died in college. She was killed when she fell off a balcony.
It was getting frustrating as hell.
“Maybe they’re tied to Keres Hatch,” stated Blue. “We can run some backgrounds and see who she hung out with.”
Sarah was frustrated.
“Only, who do we connect her to? Tammy Beard is a dead old woman from Salem. Fadila Shakih is bogus and made up. Who do we connect Keres Hatch to, exactly?”
Blue wasn’t sure.
“How about we start at the beginning and try that?”
Sarah knew what they needed to do.
“At the beginning, Elizabeth gave me a point to start off at, but I’ve been buried. I think it’s time to do it.”
Blue was intrigued.
“Where?”
“Let’s start with Filip Howe. He was Bonnie’s original partner. We’ll find something.”
Blue hoped so.
The Blackhawks had a reputation, and no one wanted to piss them off.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Chris Santana’s
Home
When the vehicle that Christopher Leonard had been in pulled up, Elizabeth was sitting in the front passenger seat of her ride. One of their security guys dropped him off, and he was glad he saw her there.
She looked…bad.
“Hey,” he said, carrying his medical bag and cane.
Elizabeth didn’t look up. Instead, she stared at her hands.
Chris watched as a big tear dropped onto her skin from her face. Yes, she was in a bad place.
“Oh, honey.”
“It’s bad, Newton. It’s one of the worst I’ve seen in my life. He was brutalized.”
He tugged her to her feet to offer some comfort. Chris pulled her into his arms, and she immediately, began weeping. “It’s going to be okay.”
“When I catch her, I’m putting a bullet in her brain, but after I make her bleed for this.”
He let her get it off her chest.
“I’m sorry I was wrong,” he said. “I’m sorry I told you it was people who you didn’t like. Clearly, you did.”
She stared into his eyes. “When I first came to Salem, and was asked to finish my father’s term, I didn’t like him. Chris Santana challenged me at every decision. He had wanted my job.”
“Then what happened?” he asked.
“Then Sarah Bishop, one of my deputies, was killed. It broke him. He thought he’d found love.”
He wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“I did something.”
“What?” he asked.
“I know I’m not supposed to touch the scene before you get there, but…”
He looked down in her hand.
There was a small black box.
“He hid it in the flowers. I saw it, and I couldn’t leave it in there. She didn’t deserve his heart. She didn’t deserve a second of his affection.”
Chris felt for his friend.
“He was going to propose to her,” she stated. “She twisted his love, his trust, and his soul until it was nothing more than a mangled pile of flesh on his floor.”
He held her. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not. This is a clusterfuck. She’s targeting people I dislike. Then I’m standing over their bodies…”
He stopped her. “This is what I meant. She’s messing with you. She wants you to blame yourself. You can’t. She knows you’ll feel guilty about all of this, and she’s using that to break you. Look me in the eyes.”
She did.
“YOU are not responsible for any of this. Do you hear me?”
She heard him, but believing that was hard.
Damn hard.
Chris wiped her tears with the pads of his thumbs. “You have this, Elizabeth. My faith is in you.”
She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself.
“My enemy is next. She’s likely already moving. She won’t wait.”
He was aware.
“We’ll process the scene. Amir and I will…”
She stopped him. “Amir had to take a commercial flight. He’s stuck in DC on the tarmac. WE have to process this. We don’t have enough techs to do an entire house. It’s all hands-on deck.”
He got it.
“Go back to the house. I’ll call security.”
She shook her head. “Fuck that. I have to do this. She can’t see me break. I can’t falter.”
“Why?”
She stared into his eyes. “Because I’m Elizabeth fucking Blackhawk, and I’m cursed.”
That hung between them.
“Elizabeth,” he said, not sure what to say after that. Did she really see her life like that?
“I’ll meet you inside,” she said, a chill to her voice. “We have work to do. I have to find Bonnie and end her life.”
She headed toward the house.
Chris dropped the ring into his bag as he worried about her. She was angry, bitter, and pointed at Bonnie.
This had the potential to go bad.
All he could hope was that it wouldn’t.
For Elizabeth’s sake.
Inside, Ethan and Callen were wearing gloves and booties. Callen was documenting everything by taking a million pictures. Since it was just them until morning, when the rest of the team could hit the ground, they were going to make the best of it.
Ethan was making a log of everything in the room, and getting out all the sample cases for Chris. They’d pick the trace of the man’s body before bagging him.
Elizabeth stood there, and she couldn’t do it.
There was no way in hell she could face the man. When she called earlier and gotten that first text, she should have known.
The mayor lived by his phone.
He would have answered for her.
“Hey,” Chris Leonard began. “Why don’t you go…?”
She stopped him.
“I’m going to be your tech. Let’s start processing,” she said, her voice shaky.
Both men glanced over at her, but neither said a word. It was about supporting her with their silence. The more she focused on the evidence, the less she’d see the dead man.
Doctor Leonard pulled on his gear and gloved up, handing her a pair and his clipboard.
“If at any time you can’t, go.”
She nodded.
Christopher stared down at the other Chris in the room. He’d met the man once
, when they had been here on their last case. Still, he was barely recognizable.
He was destroyed.
Clearly, this was a shot at Elizabeth.
“I’ll record so you don’t have to write,” he offered.
She was grateful.
Chris pinned a recorder to his clean suit, and began.
“Our victim has third degree burns to his feet. They bound him to the recliner, and used it as a way to torture him.”
“They destroyed his feet for a reason,” Ethan offered. “They didn’t want to risk him escaping.”
Elizabeth focused on anything but the mutilated body. She couldn’t do it.
The guilt was eating her alive.
“They took out his eyes next,” Chris offered, examining the arteries that were in the eyes. They were pink and had bled when he died. His heart had been beating.
“I’m going to bet they took them as late in the game as they could,” Ethan offered.
Chris looked up. “Really?”
“Yeah, they would want him to see what was coming so he could be afraid,” Ethan offered, wishing his wife would go home.
She was silently standing there.
“His tongue is gone,” Chris stated.
“Why did they leave his head on?” Elizabeth asked out of the blue. “Why did they switch it up again?”
Ethan knew why.
This was a game.
“She did it to rattle you,” Ethan offered. “Without his head, you’d be able to see just the torso. You could ignore what they’d done to a human being—to your ‘friend’. That dehumanizes him. They wanted you to feel this one.”
“I’m getting nowhere with this.”
Neither were they.
It was like one big circle.
They were all frustrated.
“How do two serial nuts not leave anything for me to find?” she asked. “HOW?”
They didn’t know.
“Not a hair or a fiber that points me in a direction. How is that even possible? I’ve chased some geniuses who left more trace. With these two…nada.”
Ethan wished he had an explanation.
“COD?” she asked, even though she could probably guess what it was going to be.
“They bled him to death,” Chris stated. “The material on the recliner absorbed most of it. The cushion was one big sponge.”
Great.
“His dick is gone.”
“We have a blender,” Callen stated, pointing to the counter.
Chris had worse news. “I’m going to bet that the residue on his face was where she forced him to drink it.”
She wanted to puke.
She wanted to rage.
Elizabeth wanted to hurt her.
“Step outside,” Ethan stated.
She shook her head.
“THAT wasn’t a request, Director Blackhawk!” he stated. “That was an order as a superior.”
She stared at him.
Neither moved.
Then she slammed the clipboard down and headed past him. Callen went to follow.
“No. I’ve got this. Since Amir is tied up, and the team is running on minimal people, I want all this gathered and sent back to the Hoover building. I want Christina and the team to work it as soon as it arrives.”
Chris would pack it up. “It’ll be to her by morning.”
“Fingerprints, hairs, everything.”
They could do that.
“She needs gentle right now,” Callen stated.
His brother stared at him.
At first, Callen thought he was going to start a fight. The old Ethan…
Yeah, challenging his authority wouldn’t have been pretty.
At all.
“I know, Cal. You had her the last two months. I think it’s time I took my turn.”
He hoped the man knew what he was doing. Their family didn’t need to be divided anymore.
They were already a mess.
Ethan pulled off his gloves and dropped them into a bag on the counter.
Then he headed outside to find his wife.
When he got there, she was pacing.
As soon as he approached, she exploded at him. “This is my crime scene.”
Ethan let her rage.
“I run it! You crossed the line!” she pointed her finger in his chest.
“It’s mine! He was mine!”
Ethan grabbed her by the arms and pulled her into his body. The second she was there, she struggled to get away from him. The more she fought, the more he held her against his body.
Finally, Elizabeth broke.
The tears came.
They welled out like a fountain that was at its maximum capacity.
They raged from her, vicious, cold, and angrily.
“Shhhhh,” he whispered, taking a seat on the ground with his back to a tree.
Elizabeth sobbed.
“I have you, my love. I have you.”
This was breaking her heart. The more she faced it in there, the worse it was.
“I can’t do it,” she said. “I just got you back, I’ve had a brutal seven weeks, and now…”
He rocked her. “I know, baby. I know. This was a shitty time for her to come at us. We were just regaining our balance. I’m good. Let me help you stay upright. I will be here for you now.”
Blackhawk knew the truth.
She was in pieces inside, and he was to blame. There was no doubt in his mind that Bonnie had studied them, and she would know that there had been trouble in paradise.
That’s why she struck.
That’s why she preyed on Elizabeth now. She knew that she was weak.
“She can’t beat you in a fair fight, Lyzee, my love. She can’t take you down. This is why she’s doing this now.”
“I could have saved him.”
“No, you couldn’t have. She did this because she’s cold and broken. You have to be the opposite. That’s what’s going to win. Compassion and love.”
She was trying.
God!
She was desperately trying.
“He was going to propose to that monster. She had him fooled.”
“She’s sick,” he admitted. “She’s going to do whatever she wants because someone hurt her. This is revenge, payback, and vengeance. You can’t go at her with that, Elizabeth. You have to do what you normally wouldn’t do.”
“What?”
“Keep her off guard. She’s got the playbook, so you make up the new rules.”
She listened.
It was a plan.
What did she have to lose?
“Thank you,” she said, sniffing the cologne on his neck. It made her calm down considerably.
She found her balance.
Ethan cradled her against his body.
“We will catch her.”
“How? Everything I have stops at Tammy Beard. It’s like forensically, the game stops there.”
He was aware.
“We have Christina. If there is ANYONE who can find something in this mess, it will be her.”
“Ethan.”
“Want me to have Ty bring you home? There is no shame in walking away when you can’t do it.”
She loved that he was giving her an out, and a choice to stay. The old Ethan would have barked orders at her and waited for her to do it.
He was different.
Better.
“Just bag him. If Chris puts the body away, I can work. I can handle this. I’m excellent at fingerprinting.”
He kissed her on the forehead.
“We will finish this—one way or the other.”
She stared into his eyes.
“Promise me that we’ll find her and make her life a living hell no matter where she goes on this green Earth.”
Oh, he could do better than that.
He’d guarantee it.
Chapter Seventeen
W hen she arrived back inside, after sitting in the dark under a tree far from Chris Santana’s home,
Dakota Rakin was pitching in to help Doctor Leonard to bag up the victim. Elizabeth knew that if she stopped thinking about him like he was a person, she’d get through this.
It was shitty, but what choice did she have?
“Tell me what you can,” she said to her ME.
“That I can’t tell you anything more.”
“Christopher, I don’t need my chain yanked,” she stated. “Really.”
“I’m not doing that, Elizabeth. I’m simply at my limit for telling you what I have. His wounds were perimortem. There’s no other wounds like a missing head, so I have to open him up.”
He paused.
“Oh, and you are not permitted there.”
Elizabeth crossed her arms.
“I’ve seen you in your britches. I’m picturing it, and you’re not scary,” he said, putting away his liver probe.
She tried to laugh.
This was like Ethan outside. Chris was offering what he knew worked best.
Humor.
“Okay, give me a fingerprint device, and I’ll do that, unless you think I’m not capable.”
He could tell she was pissy and this was a fine line to walk. He’d seen her stirred up before, but never like this.
Chris didn’t blame her.
She’d just seen a friend mutilated. He’d be bitchy too.
“You can handle that,” he said, pulling out a scanner. “I’ll notify Christina that they are on their way in, and she’ll start working them there. It looks like Amir lucked out.”
Yeah, for now.
She was sure there would be more shitty drudge work coming.
Elizabeth started upstairs in the man’s bedroom.
He’d put out candles, a bucket of champagne in now melted ice. Oddly, the champagne was open, and there were two used glasses.
Both had lipstick.
“Callen!” she called.
He came bounding up the stairs. “Swab these. It looks like the two evil skanks had a celebratory drink.”
He could hear her anger.
“On it, boss.”
She kept scanning objects, waiting for the machine to stop once it found something.
Revenge has Come (An FBI/Romance Thriller Book 19) Page 53
