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

by Kelley, Morgan

  “So cooking lessons and your own chair? Do you have your own bedroom here too?” she asked, laughing.

  “Yes I do.”

  Oh boy, he did practically live here.

  Desdemona went into the kitchen and took the cup of coffee he offered her. “Why the apron?” She couldn’t help but laugh. Here was this big sexy Native man wearing a gun and a flowered apron.

  He pointed up at the sign above the kitchen window. “I made the mistake of having my father carve it for her for Christmas and now it’s law,” he said smiling.

  Desdemona read it.

  ‘Lyzee’s kitchen- Lyzee’s rules’.

  “You three are really close.” It wasn’t a question, just an observation. Yeah, he’d said it a few times, but the man donned an apron in Elizabeth’s kitchen, and that said it all.

  “Ethan’s my blood. I’d die for him. Elizabeth and I just clicked from day one. Some people just wiggle their way into your life and stay there forever,” he said honestly. If he was going to try and start something meaningful with this woman, she deserved the truth. “I’d do anything for her,” he paused. “Three musketeers.”

  “Ahhh a literary reference. That I completely get,” she said, winking. She wanted to remind them that they didn’t have a relationship. One night of sex wasn’t a relationship or anywhere close to one, but why ruin the mood because she was dwelling on that one important fact?

  “I’m very close to my family, and anyone that I’m having a relationship with should be aware of that and be able to accept it. I won’t decide between them and a partner.” Maybe he told her that as a warning, and maybe he told her to see how she’d respond. As he cracked an egg into a bowl he glanced over at her. “They’re my foundation and I want the woman I date to be part of it.”

  Her heart started pounding in her chest. Just the idea of them having a relationship made her a nervous wreck. She wanted it more than anything. Just being near him gave her a sense of peace and she’d fallen in love with him. “Are you directing that at me, Callen? Are we having a relationship?” Now she held her breath and she only hoped he’d answer before she turned blue and fell backwards off her chair.

  “I think we’re already having one, unless for some reason you’re not interested in starting one with me.” He watched her face, first came the fear and then the calm that followed and he had to take it as a good sign.

  “What about your grandfather?” she asked, he mentioned he didn’t like outsiders.

  “I wouldn’t worry,” he answered, smiling. The smile was a complete front. Right now he needed to listen to his brother and pray his sister-in-law had the magic touch once more. Right now he was placing all his faith in her and laying it at her feet. The ball wasn’t in his court anymore; it all came down to exactly how much influence Elizabeth had over their granddad.

  “Sure you don’t need my help?” she evaded.

  Callen walked around the counter and lifted her chin in his fingers. “Answer me, Desdemona. Are you interested in being in a relationship with me?” Now he pushed harder.

  Desdemona’s breath caught in her throat. “I’m interested in beginning one.”

  Whitefox grinned, and brought his lips down to hers, possessively. The kiss was slow, deep and showed ownership. Callen was thinking about the next step in the plan. Finally he’d gotten her to agree to the first step and that was huge. She didn’t bolt. Now he was going to lock her down and ensure she never had the chance to run away. This would work. It had to work. He found he was desperate to achieve his goal. He may not get another chance to mimic what his brother had found.

  Desdemona broke the kiss, and found herself pressed against his body and trapped. “I think I like the way this relationship is starting,” she said, softly.

  “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

  Whitefox began planning their first date re-do, and he knew just what he was going to do. Elizabeth said do something special and he knew what would impress her.

  “I can’t wait,” she answered, accepting another kiss and for a brief moment allowing herself to forget what was happening at her house across the back yard. Callen was good at making her forget.

  Now she hoped he was just as good at keeping himself safe.

  Elizabeth read the rest of the tech reports and looked up at her husband; he was reading something on his smartphone. “What’s up?”

  “Callen just got to our house. The alarm has been deactivated,” he said, putting his phone down. “At least they got there safe.”

  “Desdemona sent us an email,” she replied opening it, reading it, and then passing it to her husband. “It seems they found two very angry blondes last night.”

  “Well what do you know? It looks like the sheriff knows one of them personally. Maybe when we head into the station we should start there,” he said grinning, and then he stopped when he noticed she wasn’t smiling or listening to a word he was saying. In fact, she had the work look on her face. “What did you just figure out?”

  “Something’s been bothering me about the victims, and it’s been nagging the crap out of me, but until now, I didn’t figure it out.”

  He leaned forward and she had his full attention. His wife was really good at picking up the tiny details that usually solved the assignment. If it was bothering her, then it had to be important. Sometimes he wished he had her skill, and would swap the profiling job any day. It was incredibly stressful, but then again, so was having an entire assignment resting on her figuring it all out.

  “What is it, baby?” he asked.

  “We have five original victims, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “We know all of them aren’t from around here, so here’s what’s bugging me. Where are all the cars they were driving?”

  This was one reason why he loved her. He hadn’t even thought about that, and she picked it up. As a team, he was the definite lucky one to be her partner.

  “If we figure that out, then maybe we can sweep the vehicles and find more evidence, and that may lead us to the killer.”

  “I think we need to discuss that with the sheriff too, when we head into the office.” Blackhawk stared at his wife and felt the overwhelming need to hold her. “Come here, Mrs. Blackhawk,” he pulled her into his lap and kissed her long and slow. “Have I ever told you that I think your mind is incredibly sexy?”

  “You’ve mentioned it a few times, but I think you’re bullshitting me and thinking about my ass most of the time.”

  Blackhawk snickered at her blatant honesty. “Yeah, I am,” he answered, and then kissed her some more, enjoying the taste of his wife before work.

  Elizabeth felt her husband’s body coming alive as his hands wandered her body and his mouth took all he wanted. “Mr. Blackhawk!”

  “I can’t help it, a smart woman who wears trashy lingerie is such a turn on,” he stated swinging her up in his arms. They had a few minutes before work and he planned on showing her just how appreciative he was of her mind, her very fine posterior and the incredibly sexy lingerie.

  He stood outside her home, holding her hand and preparing her for what may or may not lay waiting for them inside. He’d received the call from Special Agent Christensen, and she’d told him it was clear of techs and clean-up crew. Now he just had to trust that Desdemona wasn’t going to get any nasty surprises.

  “You don’t have to do this, Desi. I can handle it.”

  “No, I have to do it, Callen,” she said, squeezing his hand. “How’d he get in?” she asked. If she could she’d pack up and run away from the house, but she owned it. It was hers. It was home and because of it she now had ties with people too. If she ran she’d lose Callen and her new girlfriend.

  Her ONLY girlfriend.

  Desdemona could live without love, she had for such a long time, but she finally had a best girlfriend and that was an amazing feeling.

  “Your office window,” he answered, leading her into the foyer. Everything was righted back into its place and not
hing was lying in their path. Score one for the tech team and clean-up crew. “Most of the damage was in there,” he said, and noticed she looked horrified.

  She dropped his hand and rushed to her office. Her heart pounded that her single-most important treasure had been destroyed. “I only have one thing in there that matters,” she yelled over her shoulder to Whitefox.

  He assumed it was the book. When she walked right past it to the book shelf, she burst into tears and dropped into the arm chair beside the bookcase and just began sobbing. “Sweetheart,” he rushed to her and sat beside her. “What isn't here?” he asked, looking around.

  “I had only one picture of my mother,” she said between sobs. “It was her, me and my sister.” He picked her up in his arms and carried her to the desk chair and sat with her in his arms until she stopped sobbing. “Honey, we’ll look for it, maybe the tech team misplaced it. The entire room was tossed.”

  She listened to his reassuring words and the tears slowed and eventually stopped. “Okay,” she whispered, believing that he’d tell her the truth and they’d find it.

  His heart was breaking for her, and he wiped her tears, and offered her kisses to soothe the hurt, like she was a lost child. Slow kisses that drew her attention and made her focus on him and nothing more. Once he knew she was thinking about him, he deepened them, holding her mouth to his, refusing to let her pull away until he believed she was forgetting about everything around them. His own body suffered at the closeness and the way she felt sitting across his lap. He prayed for control and patience as he soothed her body and tormented his own, unmercifully. When he finally broke away her eyes weren’t filled with tears, but hazed with heat and lust.

  “Better?” he inquired, his voice barely there.

  “Yes,” she whispered, and licked her lips. They tasted like him and it kept her thinking about the man she was currently resting against.

  Whitefox needed to think about anything else but the woman sitting across his body, or they were going to be clearing the desk and copulating right there. He prayed again for control, and then realized this was probably his karma for not being a saint for all those years and lusting after his brother’s wife.

  “At least your book is safe.” Whitefox threw it out there, drawing her attention to the book.

  “Yes,” then she cocked her head, and looked confused. “Did the team put it on my desk?”

  Now he was confused. When he toured the house with Agent Christensen, he was sure it was on the desk. They wouldn’t have put it there. “It was there when I entered the house. Why? Where was it?”

  She turned in his lap, and faced the book and the box. “It was beside the picture on my shelf. I bought that book a few years ago. It was an impulse buy.”

  “Sweetheart, a candy bar is an impulse buy. A hundred thousand dollar book is an investment,” he laughed, and tried to cheer her up. “I hope you have insurance on it.”

  “I do,” she answered, pulling open her desk and removing a trace kit she kept as a spare. Out of it she pulled gloves and then proceeded to carefully lifted the glass lid to the box. “I don’t ever touch this book. It’s too rare and valuable. Oils and dirt on fingers would degrade the value.” Now she noticed it was crooked on the little holder. “Someone touched the actual book.”

  Now he looked alarmed.

  Slowly Desdemona opened the book, and inside was the picture of her mother, her and her sister. A sigh slipped past her lips. Then she turned it over, in her gloved hand, and there in angry red words were the warning.

  COME HOME OR

  I’LL KILL ANYONE YOU LOVE.

  Desdemona dropped the picture and stood from Callen’s lap. The stalker was now willing to hurt anyone she became attached to, and there was only one person she loved.

  “You have to get as far away from me as possible,” she whispered and rushed from the room. She felt sick to her stomach that she could be the reason the man she had fallen for would be pulled into his mess.

  Whitefox watched her hurry away from him. He read the message over and over. Part of him was worried that the lunatic was going to scare her away, and the other part of him was thrilled that she was worried about him. That meant one thing. She did have feelings for him, and he may have a chance with the woman. As for her going home, he was inclined to keep her there with him permanently. If the killer wanted her there they were going to do the exact opposite.

  Desdemona wasn’t going back to the bayou.

  EVER! At this point in the game he was going to forbid it.

  The team of Blackhawk and Blackhawk sat in the sheriff’s office and worked on getting as much information out of the man as possible. When they arrived in Red River, they had offered to allow the sheriff in on the investigation, giving him the option to be part of the team. To their surprise, he told them to just handle it and update him when need be. That was relatively surprising, most law officials saw the FBI as a horde taking away control, but the sheriff, he didn’t want anything to do with it.

  It was odd.

  It was off-settling.

  And frankly it pissed off Elizabeth Blackhawk to no end.

  She’d been a sheriff, and she knew what it felt like for the FBI to roll into town, and there was no way in hell she would have given over control of her town. Not even on a bad day. Every time she thought about it, it made her want to shake the man and see what fell out of his head.

  Sitting there and listening to her husband update the man, she really was at a loss, and it took a great deal to render her speechless, and she was battling with herself for composure.

  “I’m sorry, I have to interrupt. Sheriff, forgive me for being so blunt, but why the hell do you just look bored out of your mind when we come to update you?”

  Blackhawk should have known it was coming. His wife was like a bloodhound and anyone that wasn’t sucked in by the curiosity of the entire situation had to be a few bricks short of a wall in her book.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Her husband gave her the look. It pretty much said ‘don’t piss off the locals-too much’.

  “You just don’t seem to care what happens to your town, or for your own well-being. Last night you were at a bar, getting cozy with a blonde. Were you not?”

  Sheriff Duffy shrugged. “The FBI is good at taking care of these things, and I’m not. I’m fairly laid back, Director Blackhawk. Why get in your way? As for the blonde, that was just Carly Kester. She owns the local book store. We hang out all the time, if you know what I mean.”

  Blackhawk jumped in before his wife slapped some sense into the man. “You are aware that there’s a blonde woman killing men and leaving their bodies in your town. Right?”

  “I do believe you told me that the other day.”

  Elizabeth just shook her head in disbelief. This man was a lost cause and she needed to take a new tact. “Okay, what do you know about Carly Kester?” Maybe that route would get them more information. Apparently, self-preservation didn’t matter to the man.

  “Carly is plenty of fun. I don’t think she’s seeing any one man specifically.” He leaned back in his chair waiting for the FBI agents to get his meaning. When neither spoke he elaborated. “She gets around and just likes a good time.”

  “And you frequent her company?” asked Elizabeth.

  “I do off and on. Carly is like a good pair of shoes. You don’t wear them every day, but sometimes you miss them and try them on a few days in a row.”

  Blackhawk spoke fast. His wife was vibrating in her seat over the man’s choice of descriptive endearments for a woman. Maybe it was a very good thing that the sheriff had very little interaction with the team. He might be strangled by a pregnant woman in a rush of hormones. “Who else does she ‘frequent’?” Blackhawk could see his wife getting ready to pounce.

  “Well, I believe she and Bobby Lee had a few one night stands.”

  Elizabeth actually smacked herself in the forehead and laughed. Here was a sheriff, his deput
y killed by a blonde nutjob, and here he had just had a relationship with the woman. “In most investigative circles, we’d call Carly a suspect.”

  He laughed. “Agent Blackhawk, I grew up with Carly. We’ve been hooking up since we were sixteen years old. I know she’s not a killer. Carly is opportunistic, a man collector and possibly a nymphomaniac, but what she isn't-is a killer.”

  Ethan knew it was a dead end. So he changed the subject before his wife had a stroke. “Here’s a new topic. Has anyone reported any abandoned vehicles? The victims weren’t from Red River, so that means they had to drive or be driven. Did anyone see any?”

  Sheriff James Duffy thought about it. “If there were any vehicles left on the roadside or in private parking lots, they’d be towed to the impound lot.”

  “How long would they be held for?”

  “That I can’t tell you, you’d have to swing on over to the impound lot and ask for Randy. He’s my brother, so he’ll help you out, if you ask nice.” He directed that right at Elizabeth.

  Blackhawk patted her on the leg. “Do you know anything about a Courtney Brewer?” he inquired. “It seems that she had a domestic squabble in the middle of a restaurant last night.”

  “She’s had it tough since her husband took off with his secretary. Courtney loved him to death, and then one day she just found the truth out. He loved dicking around with a younger employee.” He leaned forward. “It makes you think to not hire younger secretaries,” he added, laughing.

  “I have a younger secretary,” interjected Blackhawk, grinning at his wife. “I’m quite attached to my wife and wouldn’t dream of cheating on her,” he added, reassuringly.

  “What a coincidence,” added Elizabeth grinning back at him and not missing a beat. “I seem to have my own younger administrative assistant, and he’s Native.” She started laughing at the look on her husband’s face. The fact she had Native eye candy in the office and it wasn’t him drove him nuts. Why tell him the young man did nothing for her, when she could make him completely insane over it?