True Love Lost (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 3))

by Kelley, Morgan

  “Yes,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “The sheriff, he’s a good man. Jimmy is fair and runs this town the best he can, but you’re going to have problems here.”

  He helped Desdemona into the Denali to get her out of the wind. “What kind of problems, Julian?” He was pretty sure that he knew where this conversation was headed.

  Julian Littlemoon measured the woman with them, and gauged if she could be trusted, after all she was Caucasian.

  “I assure you that my partner doesn’t have issues with Natives. Do you Desi?” he asked her softly.

  “I’ve nothing but respect for the Native people that were here before the Europeans. I don’t believe in Manifest Destiny gentlemen,” she said, honestly.

  Julian Littlemoon and Callen Whitefox both looked over at the term. Manifest Destiny was the belief that the Europeans had the right to steal the land Natives inhabited because ‘God’ wanted it to happen. It was a touchy subject between the Native people and white man for many years.

  Julian Littlemoon smiled at the woman. He liked people that spoke their minds and didn’t pretend.

  “Again, what kind of problems, Julian?” asked Whitefox.

  “The problems that turn up with the white man,” he nodded at the doctor. “No disrespect ma’am.”

  Desdemona smiled at him. “None was taken, Deputy.”

  “Who should I expect issues with?” he inquired.

  Julian Littlemoon looked over his shoulder. “The deputy at the crime scene doesn’t like anyone that’s not like him, and he’s pretty vocal about it.”

  “Anybody else?”

  The deputy laughed. “How about I tell you who you won’t have a problem with in town? Me and James Duffy.”

  Callen Whitefox could move Sheriff James Duffy back into the category of trouble, but he kept it to himself.

  “Just watch your back, and your partner’s,” he said, and then walked over to his vehicle.

  “Thanks for the heads up,” Whitefox yelled after him.

  “Tech team’s here,” said Desdemona pointing and drawing his attention off the deputy.

  Whitefox ran over to the first one, and Christina rolled down the window. “Follow us up to the scene. We’re heading there now to begin retrieval. The Blackhawks are in route and twenty minutes out.” He almost called them by their names, but in the field they preferred titles, and he knew how Christina had the boss lust for his brother. Why provoke his sister-in-law while she was pregnant.

  “Sure thing, Agent Whitefox,” she smiled brightly. “We’re ready.”

  Whitefox hopped back up into the Denali and brushed the snowflakes from his jacket. “Snow’s picking up. When we get up there, stick close, okay? Don’t wander away from me up in the woods. It’s wild animal season and something other than the sheriff might decide to try and have you for a snack.”

  Desdemona stared at him with her mouth open. She wasn’t sure which horrified her more. The comments regarding the sheriff or the wild animals.

  “It was hard not to notice,” he said, wishing he never brought it up.

  “I was well aware of the Sheriffs’ innuendos and for the record Callen, he’s not really my type. I don’t go for ‘good ole boys’,” she added.

  Whitefox was going to ask her what her type was, but decided against it. For his first day on the job he’d been kissed, held his partner’s hand, almost punched out the sheriff and was warned by the only Native in town to watch his back. Luck wasn’t on his side today, and self-preservation of his ego kicked in, and he decided to let it go.

  Some things were left best unsaid even if the curiosity was going to drive him crazy for the rest of the day.

  Elizabeth and Ethan Blackhawk pulled up to the crime scene and watched the tech team mill about like ants on a mission. There was one thing that was a constant on assignments. They had amassed the best group of techs that could be found in the country. After the assignment on the reservation that reunited Ethan and his brother, the bosses decided to promote Christina to head of the unit. She’d earned it with her constant dedication and her willingness to go above and beyond to get the job done.

  Elizabeth knew why the woman gave it five hundred percent. It was because the tech had crazy, mad lust for her husband, but if it got the job done and kept them solving the assignments, she’d look the other way. That was until it crossed the line and became a problem with the dynamics of the team. For now, Christina was still scared shitless of her, and she wasn’t afraid to use that to her advantage. Especially since now she was getting big and wobbly.

  “Looks like they’ve gotten a good jump on it,” commented Blackhawk. He noticed his team was setting up night lights. Which meant Doctor Adare felt it was going to take a while to remove the bodies. Blackhawk scanned the area and didn’t like what he saw. It was an abandoned camp, surrounded by nothing but thick, dense trees with one road in and no other way out.

  Elizabeth noticed the lines of tension around his mouth.

  “Baby, maybe you should head to the house and make sure that Gabe isn't screwing with us,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant. His pregnant wife out in the open and snow didn’t set well with him, and if there was a higher power, he’d be able to convince her to listen for once.

  Elizabeth grinned at him, and knew he was worried about her. It was just how it was going to be, and especially since their last time out in the field. Ethan was going to hover and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Instead of the constant fight, she tended to chill out and cater to his panic and fear neurosis. “Okay, baby,” she said smiling.

  “Really?” Did his wife just agree with him? It had to be the beginning of the apocalypse for that to happen. He looked out the window at the sky.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

  “I’m waiting for the horsemen of the apocalypse. Are you really going to obey me for a change?”

  Elizabeth opened the Denali door laughing. “Keep looking for them,” she said grinning, and then she hopped out. “And to answer you, no I’m going to blatantly ignore any directive you give me in an attempt to assure the end of the world doesn’t happen on my watch.”

  “Damn it,” he muttered, chasing after her. She may be pregnant, but she still moved pretty fast, and he planned on standing incredibly close to keep an eye on her.

  The man approaching her had to be the sheriff. The coat and hat with the silver star on it kind of gave it away. She could tell that he was assessing them, and probably even checking her out. Boy was he going to be in for a surprise when she took off the big bulky coat. If anything it was laughable, but as a pregnant woman, she’d enjoy it while she could. Soon she’d be as big as a bus and no one would find her sexy, well maybe one person might. Elizabeth could feel her husband slide up behind her protectively, resting his hand on her lower back.

  “You must be Special Agent Blackhawk,” he said, holding out his hand and grinning. Whew wee, the woman was a looker. As he took in her tall body, he couldn’t help but appreciate the big beautiful eyes, and the mass of chaotic hair peeking out from the hood of the parka. She was going to make this even more interesting. Where the doctor was interesting to look at, this agent was sexy and going to be fun to work around.

  “That would be me,” she answered, holding out her hand. “It’s actually Director Special Agent, and you get not one, but two with the same name.” She looked over her shoulder at her husband. The thing about Ethan Blackhawk was he was the observer out of the two. Since it was his job to profile the killer, he watched everyone with a healthy dose of skepticism. Now he was measuring up the man before them, and the blank look on his face and sunglasses still blocking his eyes meant one thing. Ethan Blackhawk wasn’t happy. Gone was basic courtesy.

  “Two?” he looked confused. “I think I missed something,” and he had. “When I spoke to Gabriel Rothschild in Quantico, he mentioned a Director Blackhawk, a Special Agent Whitefox and the ME.”

&nbs
p; Elizabeth laughed. “I’m sorry, maybe you misheard Gabe, but out of FBI West, we happen to have two directors, and both just happen to be Blackhawks.” She pointed at both herself and her husband. “We’re co-directors, and we’re married,” she said filling him in, and she was sure she saw disappointment. “This is my husband Director Special Agent Ethan Blackhawk.”

  Blackhawk stepped forward, and shook his hand. It wasn’t lost on him that the man looked like he wanted to swoop in and steal his wife away. The proprietary part of him wanted to knock his ass into the snow bank and beat the hell out of him, but the civilized part had adjusted to the entire situation. His wife was beautiful, and she garnered attention. It was fact and he’d come to live with it, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t secretly fantasize about killing the man.

  “Nice to meet you, Director Blackhawk,” nodded the sheriff. Well shit, the woman would still be nice to look at, even if he couldn’t cozy up to her. “I’m glad you both arrived safely,” he said, pulling an envelope out of his pocket. “Here’s the key and address to the house that Gabriel contracted for you and your team.”

  Ethan Blackhawk took the envelope and tucked it into his pocket. “Thank you, Sheriff.” He pulled back on his gloves. It was ridiculously cold outside and the snow was starting to fall again. “What can you tell me about the site,” he asked, pointing at the buildings.

  “It used to be an old Boy Scout camp, and then they stopped coming up here when one of the kids fell prey to a mountain lion. No one really comes up this far into the woods unless they’re hunting or trying to get lost. Beyond the camp is nothing but old Indian hunting grounds and no one goes there but,” he paused hoping he wasn’t offending the FBI agent staring at him. “Indians.”

  “Native Americans,” corrected Elizabeth. She may refer to her family as Indians, but anyone else should be politically correct, especially if they were considered outsiders.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, nodding at the man.

  She let it go. “Yeah, it was pretty treacherous getting up here,” added Elizabeth. “Ethan, I’m going to go light a fire under the tech team. I want the scene cleared in two hours, before it gets dark and any mountain lions decide to come out for a night time snack.” She whistled loudly and as if trained, the entire team stopped and looked towards the sound.

  “Two hours team and it starts, now!”

  They all started moving faster, knowing that if they were rushing a scene, there was a good reason.

  “That’s skill,” the sheriff said, laughing. “Think she can teach my deputies to listen when I whistle?”

  Ethan Blackhawk spoke, “That’s not training. That’s pure unadulterated fear. If they don’t have the scene cleared in two hours, she then will start handing them their asses and they know it.” Blackhawk kept his voice neutral. Already he didn’t particularly like the man they were assigned to help. In his world first impressions were often accurate.

  “Hey, whatever works,” he said laughing, as he stood by the director. He was glad calling him Indian didn’t offend him. Now he was beginning to wonder if Julian Littlemoon had been offended all the times he’d made that error, or if the female FBI agent was just riding him.

  Somehow he suspected the later.

  Elizabeth found Callen and Desdemona in the building that had the bodies. She couldn’t help but notice the look on Whitefox’s face as he watched over the woman inspecting the bodies. Yeah, she’d seen that look before on Ethan’s face when he looked at her. Her brother-in-law was developing a thing for the ME.

  Elizabeth pondered that.

  It wasn’t like she disliked the woman, but she didn’t really know her well enough, and when it came to Ethan and Callen, she’d promised their grandfather that she’d take care of them both. That meant that she now needed to learn everything humanly possible about Desdemona. Something deep down made her wary, but she brushed it off as hormones and nothing more.

  Timothy Blackhawk wasn’t going to be fond of the idea that his other grandson was chasing a non-Native woman. Since Ethan Blackhawk was only half Native, he’d given up trying to keep the bloodline pure. When he first met her, there was that moment of tension until she won him over. But Callen was pure Native blood, and Timothy wasn’t going to like this at all. Her heart broke for her brother-in-law, and she knew she was going to have to intervene and help him out. She’d face down the elder patriarch, so Callen could catch a break.

  Yeah, he was watching her the same way. Oh boy, things were going to get interesting.

  “Callen, is everything okay?” she asked, grabbing his attention.

  Immediately, he heard the voice and relaxed. His brother and Elizabeth were here, and he could just focus on the doctor and keeping her safe. “Lyzee,” he approached her, hugging her. “I’m so glad you both arrived safe,” he said, leaving a kiss on her lips.

  “Your brother was driving, so it took us longer.”

  Desdemona glanced over at them and the easy nature of their relationship, and she was envious. How she wished she could walk into a room, especially one with corpses and command someone’s attention like that. Really, there were dead bodies all around them, the room smelled like death, and still Elizabeth Blackhawk had his full attention and the intimacy of a lip kiss. That was skill. Then there was the jealousy of the closeness between them, and it was something she didn’t understand. Not often in her life did she feel jealousy, but now it seemed to be there eating away at her.

  “Director,” she said, nodding.

  Elizabeth nodded. “What do we have, Doctor?”

  “Well, I can tell you what we don’t have,” she said. “We don’t have time of death, since the bodies are frozen solid. We don’t have any identification on any of them,” she continued, “and we have no chance of autopsy until tomorrow when they thaw out.”

  “Great, and here I thought it was going to be hopeless,” she said, grinning.

  “Bodies are all stiff, but I can’t tell if it’s because they’re popsicles or if it’s because they are in the rigor mortis stage. I need a good eight hours in the chiller to defrost them.” Desdemona leaned down and tried to move an eyelid. “Even their eyeballs are frozen,” she said, sliding the skin over the solid orb.

  Elizabeth turned into Callen’s body and his arms came around her automatically. She could handle anything about a corpse but the dead eyes. They really freaked her out, and had since the day she lost her partner in the field and watched him die, his eyes never leaving her face.

  “Drop the lid, Desi,” Whitefox said, softly. He knew it made Elizabeth squeamish. “It’s okay, Lyzee. I have you.”

  Desdemona did what he asked, and looked over at her boss. Was it possible that the woman with brass balls that scared the tech team was afraid of corpse eyes? That amused her, and she tucked it away for future reference.

  Whitefox whispered in her ear and she turned, squeezing his gloved hand tightly. Callen kept her against the front of his body protectively. Deep down he hoped Doctor Adare didn’t make a production out of it. Not many people caught Elizabeth at her weakest moments, and he didn’t want her big fear made into a joke at her expense.

  “Sorry, Doctor. What do we know, since we seem to have a great deal of unknown?” She changed the subject fast. It didn’t sit well with her that the doctor had just seen her cower in horror. She had a reputation to uphold with her tech team, and if word got out, her credibility was shot. Leaning against Callen, she felt icky feelings drift away, as he hugged her against him protectively.

  “We know that the killer is only taking one piece of each person. There are no other visible external wounds.”

  Elizabeth moved over towards the victim with the stained shirt. “This is victim three right?”

  “Yes, and I can’t tell you what he’s missing. When I pulled back the shirt, there’s an incision of some sort, but its frozen solid. If I go digging around before he’s thawed, I may lose evidence and risk us being able to figure out the weapon or knife us
ed.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “Do we have a place to thaw the corpse-cicles?”

  Whitefox answered. “The sheriff offered us a room in the basement that has a cooler. We’ve yet to see it, but he guarantees it’s adequate.”

  “It’ll have to suffice. We’ll dump them there overnight and go from there,” added Elizabeth.

  Blackhawk wandered into the building. “Wow, and here I was hoping to eat again one day soon. I guess that’s just not going to happen.”

  Elizabeth snorted. “Two hours and you’ll be eating something. Who are you kidding?”

  Blackhawk laughed. “Yeah, probably.” Turning he put his focus on Doctor Adare. “Nightfall is coming soon, Doc. How long will it take for us to pack this up and get away from this abandoned feeding ground for mountain lions?”

  Desdemona stared at her boss with big eyes. “What? Mountain lions? Where?” Granted Whitefox mentioned wild animals, but she thought he was just being sarcastic because of the sheriff.

  “Oh yeah the sheriff just mentioned it, so the less time here after dark the better off we are.” He shook his head and patted his brother on the back. The man was staring at the doctor, and he knew that look. It was the one that spelled out trouble. Specifically, woman trouble and since he’d recently been there himself, he knew what was coming.

  “Give me an hour to get the trace contained and then we’ll be ready for transport back to the sheriff’s station.”

  Blackhawk was good with that and nodded. “Callen, can we talk?” he jerked his finger outside.

  He didn’t want to leave either of the women alone.

  “We’ll be okay, Callen,” said Desdemona, smiling brightly at him.

  He followed his brother out and glanced over his shoulder at the two women. When his eyes met Elizabeth’s, she nodded and he knew they’d be fine for a little while without them. “What’s up, Ethan?”

  “What’s your initial assessment on the sheriff?” He didn’t want to be biased, and he was since the man had hit on his wife, right out the gate.