No.
Freaking.
Way.
“Don’t do it,” Ethan warned.
She got it. She was going.
“FINE. EAT.”
They all sat at Chris’s counter in the kitchen and began eating. They cut into the almond and seedy pancakes covered in fresh berry puree.
At first, no one spoke.
Finally, someone did.
“Okay, this is not bad,” Callen stated. “I thought it was going to be horrible, but I could stuff it with some marshmallow fluff and call it a day,” he teased.
“No sugar.”
“You are no fun.”
Chris felt bad about this. They all were making huge changes to their lives and for him.
That wasn’t fair.
“You guys don’t have to do this. I can eat this way and be okay. I will be fine.”
She glanced over at him.
She heard it.
That was total bullshit.
“Callen needs to drop a few pounds, Ethan has been secretly smoking cigars with Gabe, and I need to up my protein as I get closer to fifty. We are all doing it.”
“I think I was insulted,” Callen stated.
“I think you were,” Ethan teased.
“I appreciate this,” Chris said, knowing they were trying to keep it light. “I accept that I have HIV, and this is going to be my new normal.”
“We’ll hit the doctor’s office together.”
“Elizabeth, you don’t have to do all of this. I’ll adjust. It is what it is.”
She looked up and burst into tears. Standing there in the kitchen, she wept.
All three men stared at her.
Chris was the first one up, and he rounded the counter to get to her. Immediately, she went into his arms and he held her.
He’d mourned yesterday.
Today was her day.
“I have you. It’s okay,” he said. “I’m okay. I’m stronger today.”
She cried all over his shirt.
Ethan and Callen watched them. It was odd not to be the ones comforting her, but for now, they let Chris handle it. Since she was crying over him, this needed to work itself out.
And it would.
“Sweetness,” he said, running his hands up and down her back. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You have to stay with me,” she whispered. “You’re the one I’ve always leaned on, and I need you.”
“Which part scared you more?” he asked. “The HIV or…”
She looked up.
“That you’d end your life and leave me.”
He gave her a kiss on the forehead.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Elizabeth. I was stupid. I hit rock bottom. I felt so alone. I won’t scare you like that ever again. I know I’m an idiot for doing it.”
Callen got it.
He’d been there in his life.
“When I came here to see Ethan, while he still hated me, I was where you were, Chris.”
They all looked over.
“What do you mean?” Ethan asked.
“When I gave you that note, it was to say goodbye. I was going home to end my life.”
Ethan’s stomach dropped.
Clearly, he’d heard that wrong.
“Wait. What?”
“I was finished with living. That was my goodbye letter to my brother.”
Ethan wanted to be sick.
He’d never even bothered to open it.
Callen saw the look, and he patted him on the shoulder. He didn’t want Ethan to suffer.
“Hey! It’s okay.”
No, no, it was not okay.
“You hated my guts, and I figured if you reached out to me, if you read it and tried to find me, then maybe there was hope. If not, I was going to end my life.”
Elizabeth stayed in Chris’s arms and listened to her husband explain what he’d been feeling.
“I was so alone. I felt like the world was against me. I was born to a woman who hated me, I was abused physically and emotionally, I made a mistake and lost everything. In that moment, I had nothing left to live for, so I get why Chris wanted to die.”
Ethan’s heart hurt.
It physically ached.
“Callen.”
He stopped him.
“I was going to go home, kiss our grandfather goodbye, tell him I was going hunting, and end my life in the woods. My life insurance policy with the rez police didn’t have a suicide rider. I figured Timothy would have enough money to be okay.”
“Jesus,” Ethan muttered.
He couldn’t believe it.
Elizabeth went to him, and she rested her head on his shoulder.
“What stopped you?” Chris asked.
“Her.”
Chris looked confused, so he explained to him.
“She found me in her own way, and I need a promise from you. If you feel like you’re that down and want to quit, that you won’t take that route. I want you to call me, even if I’m away on a case, or it’s the middle of the night. I know how painful that is, and I don’t want you to go there alone.”
That was an amazing gift.
“I promise. Thank you, Callen.”
He smiled at the man.
“Family will always have your back.”
Except for Ethan all those years ago, and he knew it. He hadn’t had his brother’s back, and he regretted it.
“Callen, I’m sorry. I wish I read the note.”
“Would it have changed anything, Ethan? Would you have seen that I made a mistake and forgiven me?”
This was why it was all rubbing him the wrong way.
It wasn’t the fact that Chris needed Elizabeth.
It was the fact that he had been dying, too, of a broken heart, and no one saved him—until her. She was his solace and salvation, and he was afraid to lose her.
“Yes. It would have changed everything,” Ethan admitted. “I would have found you.”
Or he hoped he would have.
“I’ll reach out if I need you,” Chris promised. “I won’t let anything like this happen again.”
Callen finished his tea.
Elizabeth shoved the last of her pancake in her mouth.
“Okay, let’s focus. I’m done crying,” she said, trying to be strong.
It was hard.
She was hurting for Chris and Callen.
And what she could have lost.
“Then let’s talk work,” Ethan said, sending a text to his father to get that letter out of his safe and send it with security as they headed to the Hoover building.
He needed to read it.
“Okay, I’m ready, boss man,” she said, willing to play this by his rules. She knew Ethan was walking a thin line on this one, and she’d respect that.
“Today, Elizabeth, you’re going to start out with O’Banion. He’s going to be waiting for you. I just have to call Gabe and find out what he’s set up. Hopefully, the Marshals have moved him without a lot of drama. That last thing we need is for him to be waving at the media.”
And they didn’t doubt he would.
O’Banion would do anything to make their lives hell.
“Where does he live?” she asked.
“In an apartment with other normal people. It’s someplace relatively safe.”
“Okay, I’ll hit him up.”
“Question?” Chris asked.
“Yes?”
“Am I really part of this?” he asked, pointing at the three of them.
“Uh, as a Fed or are you talking personally?” Ethan asked for clarification.
“The latter.”
“Yes,” Ethan stated.
“Good. Then don’t let her near that asshole. He’s disgusting, vile, and he has wanted to hurt her from the start. When he tried to abduct her, his plan included raping and killing her.”
Callen growled at the mere words—let alone the pictures in his head.
Being reminded did NOT make him happy.
“Down
boy.”
“First off, that was a while ago. I was young, my ass wasn’t halfway to the floor, and my tits were in the same zip code. He’s not going to say a word.”
All three men stared at her.
“What?” she asked.
“Have you looked at yourself lately?” Ethan asked.
“Uh, I just brushed my teeth. There was a mirror, what’s your point?”
“Chris?” Callen offered.
“Back then you were…”
How did he do this?
Oh, he knew.
Chris made two parallel lines with his hands in an up and downward direction, symbolizing how her body looked back them. While sexy, it wasn’t the same as her ‘current state’.
“Now you’re more…”
He made an hourglass shape, and the lines were curvy and womanly.
That said it all.
“So, a set of hips is going to make him crazy?” she asked. “What is wrong with the male species?”
“Yes, and no one really knows. We’re a hot mess.”
She laughed.
That was preposterous, but not as cuckoo as her avoiding him because she was worried.
Elizabeth could handle herself.
She’d gotten older, and that meant so had O’Banion. He’d already been in his forties when she ran into him. He had to be almost sixty.
She wasn’t worried, but she did have to clarify one thing.
“I’ll shoot all three of you in the ass if any of you even go there again,” she promised. “This is my job, Callen will be with me, and we’re good. I want to talk to him before he goes back to his apartment. He can’t be seen with me, so just let me do my job.”
They had no choice.
“What am I doing?” Chris asked.
“You’re going in to help Tony with the remains. We have eight bodies that were unearthed. They’re all bones, and he’s going to need help keeping that train on the tracks.”
He whistled.
“That’s a full house.”
“Yeah, and we also have all of the pictures, trace, and autopsy results from Beverly Sampson.”
“I won’t be doing the autopsy?” Chris asked.
Unfortunately, that was a big fat ‘NO’.
Ethan explained the holdup, and why the city ME was dragging his heels.
“We can’t get her body. The only reason I have any of this is Kane Redwolf and Quinn Gaines pulled the rotation. We have to wait until there’s a second victim, and then we can officially take this case from them.”
“Well, that sucks.”
They all agreed there.
“Yeah, they think it’s a nut job trying to get attention since O’Banion is dead.”
“I can work off of the pictures and the other doctor’s autopsy without a problem,” he admitted.
Chris opened his mouth to say more, but he suddenly stopped.
“What?” Ethan asked.
“I need to say something.”
“What?” Elizabeth asked.
“I want to tell Tony and Christina that I’m sick. I need to tell them.”
Ethan didn’t look so happy about that. He was worried about a million things, and at the top of the list was Chris’s illness getting out and him losing his job.
“If that gets out…”
“They are the two I work closest with. I won’t lie to people I love and respect. If me being sick can hurt them, they deserve to know.”
“I respect that,” Elizabeth stated. “If it were me, I’d do the same thing. We have a family here, and we have a family at work. They won’t spill the beans.”
Chris agreed.
“I have to do it.”
Ethan got it.
They wouldn’t say a word.
“Okay. I support your decision on this, Chris, and I know you’ll do what’s best for you. It’s hard for me, simply because my first instinct is to have your back, but then I also have to play boss, and that’s a tougher gig.”
He was aware.
Still…
“Now, thank you for breakfast. I’m going to go get dressed. I have a body to photo examine.”
He headed out.
“I’ll check on him,” she said. “I have to get dressed anyway.”
Callen grabbed the last candy bar that she didn’t grind up in the disposal. It was still in its wrapper.
“Really?” Ethan stated.
“I’m hungry. That was like two hundred calories. I need more food.”
He unwrapped it.
“Want half?”
“Hell, yes! I’m going to stockpile my office. If you need a snack, it’ll be in there.”
“Bless you,” he said, handing him some of the candy bar.
“I HEAR A WRAPPER!” she shouted downstairs. “This is NOT my first day at the parenting and babysitting rodeo, boys. Your sons do that all the damn time! Spit that candy bar out!”
Ethan did.
Callen didn’t.
When it came to food or an ass-kicking later from his wife when she smelled chocolate on his breath, he’d take it.
And love it.
He was sick like that.
Upstairs, she quickly dressed and was ready in about a minute. She headed into the room Chris had set up for his clothes and watched him.
“Need help?” she asked.
“I feel like a bowtie today.”
Elizabeth knew him well. Chris only pulled them out when he needed to cheer himself up. He’d once showed her a picture of his father, and he’d been wearing one in the picture.
Chris didn’t have many things of his dad’s, but when he was down, he would go to that to give himself a boost. While he didn’t believe in the other side, he’d heard from his deceased father, or what he believed to be him, when they were helping the Littlemoons.
It was his way to comfort himself.
“Which one?” he asked, holding a few up for her to decide.
“I say the blue one. It matches your eyes. I’ve always loved that one.”
“You bought it for me a long time ago,” he said, touching it with gentle fingers. “It’s my favorite.”
She was aware.
Chris stripped down, and he didn’t even feel awkward doing it. After all, she’d found him in the shower, cleaned him up, and helped him into warm clothing.
And she’d had sex with him about a million times.
Why be modest now?
He began getting dressed. When he had his pants on, and then his shirt, she headed his way. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she placed her chin on his shoulder.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I feel different today.”
“I say that when Ethan’s dick is against me all-night too,” she teased.
Chris laughed.
It was good to hear it. That laugh gave her hope that he’d be okay.
“I meant more like the old me is already dead. He’s gone, Lyzee.”
Tears filled her eyes again.
Chris saw them and elaborated.
“That’s not bad,” he stated. “The first forty-five years were a struggle. I lost my dad young, I was raised by a nut, I never fit in at college, the FBI nearly kicked my ass, I cheated on you, my wife was murdered, and now I have HIV.”
Well, when he put it that way, it did suck.
“And?” she asked.
“I think for my next birthday, I want to change it up. I want to be a little freer. I want to live the next chapter of my life without the restraints.”
She got that.
They were all at the halfway point. From here on out, they were losing time, as they raced against fate and flirted with death. Old age sucked, and they were on a train to geriatrics.
“What do you want to do?”
“Want to jump out of a plane?” he asked.
She laughed.
“Well, that’s a stretch from I’ll wear a bowtie to let’s skydive. When you said free, you meant freefall.”
“
I can do it alone,” he stated.
“Liar.”
He laughed.
“Jump with me? I need to work on my bucket list, and I want to do it with you.”
“What’s on it?” she asked.
“Skydive. It’s a small list.”
“I think you should add ‘Kiss a beautiful woman every day to remember you’re alive’ onto that list too,” she added.
He laughed.
Yeah, he wished.
“That boat has sailed.”
She moved around his body and kissed him. It was warm, it was gentle, and it was what he needed.
When she set his mouth free, he rested his forehead on hers.
“You always knew what I needed. You always knew how to ground me in a way that no one else could.”
“You knew too. When I was down, you were the man who lifted me up.”
She touched his cheek, making sure he was staring into her eyes.
“You have always lived here,” she said, placing his hand on her chest over her heart.
“Thank you for that, Elizabeth.”
“No, thank you, Christopher. You gave me the greatest gift. You gave me ten plus years of love, and I’m going to give them back. You took care of me when I was on that collision course with self-loathing. You picked me up, you brushed me off, and you loved me when I was at my most unlovable. I wasn’t always this amazing human being,” she teased.
He laughed.
“I will give back the love you gave me. I will hold your hand, love you, and be yours when you think no one would want you. I want you, Christopher. You’re mine.”
His heart kicked.
He needed someone to love him.
“I know you said you were going back to your bed, but if you’re not ready, you can stay with us. Remember all the times we’d cuddle up on the couch with Tony and fall asleep.”
“Yes. I do.”
“It’s just like that.”
He knew it.
“It reminded me of your children. They pile on, and they hold on,” he admitted.
“We can learn a lot from kids. It’s not sexual to need to be held, and if you need it, there’s three of us who will gladly be that person for you.”
He was aware, and he was lucky.
Chris continued to rest his forehead against hers as she placed her hands on his hips.
“Thank you.”
“No need. You love who you love,” she admitted. “I’ve learned that from you.”
He knew what she was talking about. No one thought that Elizabeth LaRue would date the geeky ME, but she did.
Dead are Forgotten Page 21
