Why?
Love.
“Please be careful with O’Banion today. I don’t trust him. Once a snake, always a snake.”
She helped him tie his bowtie.
“I have this. I promise.”
Chris had to accept that.
“You look handsome. This was a good choice. I like you in a bowtie. As for skydiving, you’re on. I’ll jump beside you, and I’ll be on the ground when you land.”
He knew she always would be.
“Thank you for that, Elizabeth.”
She headed for the door.
“Christopher, I removed the candy from your bag, I replaced it with dried fruit, and I emailed you a list of acceptable things you can eat from the cafeteria. You need to eat lunch and dinner. You need to stay healthy—for me.”
He smiled.
“That was very wifely of you,” he teased.
She placed her hand over her heart.
“Yes, I know. I just wanted you to know it too.”
Chris didn’t know what to say. That one statement changed everything in his world. It fueled him for a battle that he would surely lose, but fight to the bloody end.
“I love you,” she offered.
“I love you too.”
And he always had. So much had happened in his life, but she was still the one who gave him that foundation from which to build.
“Be safe.”
Elizabeth smiled and headed out.
There was one hell of a mess going down in DC, and she was going to clean it up once and for all. Now that her personal issues were handled, it was time to kick some ass.
Carl had assumed he’d get away with this shit.
Well, she knew better.
He was about to meet her again.
Only this time…she wouldn’t shoot him in the foot.
She’d shoot him in the head.
It was time to put down Michael O’Banion’s rabid dog. He’d trained him, but she…
She would end him.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
FBI Office
Violent Crimes Unit
It had been a damn long night, and the two Feds and the one detective were wearing down. On the table in front of them, there were enough paper coffee cups to stock an entire office.
They had been running on caffeine and the fear of not finding anything.
Elizabeth would take no prisoners if they screwed this up, and they knew it.
She was tough.
She wanted results.
So, now, after hours of toiling away, they were edgy, tired, and working on very little. They were giving up hope.
And that was bad.
“Did you find anything?” Noah asked his old partner, Alex, as he sat beside him. Across from them, Max was steadily working on Carl’s trail after being released from the supermax prison.
He flipped through the pages.
“Yeah, Beverly worked for a local business. She was an office manager. That’s all the normal stuff,” Alex stated.
“We need something juicy,” Noah stated in his spiffy plaid suit and matching tie.
“Well, I’m working on it, but this whole social media crap sucks. I get cybercrimes. I don’t get why people want to post pictures of their cats eating birthday cake.”
Max laughed from across the table.
When they didn’t, he looked up.
“Oh, you were serious.”
This time it was Noah who laughed. “You are that generation, so I’m not surprised. In our day, we didn’t use things like this.”
Max got the frustration.
He’d been there at one time.
“Well, I had a blog once, and I used it to blow off steam. It nearly got me tagged as a suspect by Elizabeth. I get how things like that can be dangerous, but a cat eating cake…that’s just awesome.”
Noah rolled his eyes, and then he realized something. He’d called the boss lady something other than director.
Alex picked it up too.
“It’s cute how he calls her by her name,” Alex stated. “It’s like he thinks that’s okay.”
Max was confused.
“What do you call her?” he asked.
“Bitchy, balls to the wall, and the great emasculator. I like that one best. I made that one up when I was riding with her. Elizabeth can take you down three notches before you even realize it happened.”
“They don’t sound nice. She’s a pretty decent person. I like her.”
They laughed even more.
They laughed like he was doing standup comedy—only he was dead serious. He genuinely liked her. She reminded him of a…mom.
“If we don’t find something, she’s going to feed us to the sharks. Ironically, she plays that role too.”
He kept typing.
“Anyway, on this stupid page, Beverly has a picture of her cat—eating cake, a piece of pizza that is supposedly ‘superb’, and stamps with Elvis’s face on them. From this, I’d assume she likes mailing cats to her friends in Italy.”
Max laughed even more.
“Can you show me? Let me see your tablet.”
“I can do better than that.” He swiped his finger across it, and it appeared on the wall.
“I thought you didn’t like tech,” he stated.
“No, I am in the cyber terrorism team. I don’t get why people post pictures of cats. There’s a big difference. Tech gets me hot.”
Noah laughed.
He only wished. He’d always had a crush on his partner, but the man was as straight as they came.
“So much sexiness wasted on women. If only I could clone you and teach you how to dress better.”
Alex snorted.
Then, he fist-bumped his old partner.
“Uh, that was…awkward,” Max stated. “I’m pretty sure sexual harassment too.”
“Nah, my buddy here bats for the same team. I’m cool with it. We worked together for a while. Now he recruits agents.”
“I’m better with people than you ever were, and you know it,” he stated.
Alex laughed.
“How they placed you in HR…no freaking clue. No one saw that one coming?”
Max was studying the dead woman’s posts.
“How do I get it to scroll up there without the tablet?” he asked.
“This is the Mobile Automated Tech Entity,” he said. “The FBI is going high-tech. Tell it, MATE, scroll.”
It began.
“This is sweet,” he stated. “We still have old-school things back in Boston. Police get the good stuff last,” Max said, putting on his dark-framed glasses. “Wait! Stop!”
It kept scrolling.
“I mean, MATE, stop.”
It did.
There was a printer in the corner, so he went for it.
“MATE, print page.”
The printer came to life.
He giggled.
“That was kinda hot,” Noah teased. “I like the glasses too. You have this Clark Kent thing going on.”
Alex kicked him under the table.
“Uh, excuse me?” Max said, glancing over at him. “You’re old enough to be my dad. That’s all kinds of wrong. You’re too old for me.”
Alex had expected him to be offended, but that was the best comeback yet.
Even Noah laughed.
“Again, shot down. Now tell us what you found. We have like two hours before hurricane Blackhawk hits the shores and less time before the bossier one rolls in.”
“She broke up with her boyfriend two days before she died,” Max offered.
“REALLY?” they said together.
He pulled the paper from the printer and dropped it on the table. With his pen, he circled one thing.
“She had a status update. She went from in a relationship to single. It likely wasn’t a good breakup for the guy. She has all those hearts and smiles tagged to it. She was clearly happy to ditch his ass. When a woman does that, it only means one thing
.”
Oh, Alex was aware.
It likely was her decision to leave the man.
“What if she wasn’t killed by Carl, but she was murdered by her boyfriend, and he guessed?” Max asked. It was their job to look at it from all angles.
Noah wasn’t buying it.
“Everyone thinks O’Banion is dead. This has to be connected somehow, but how? Maybe the boyfriend is connected to Carl. He had to have mob buddies. Maybe he’s getting rid of the ex-girlfriend and using something he’d heard?” Max stated.
Alex was willing to play devil’s advocate on this one, but this didn’t feel right for him.
“I don’t know,” he offered.
Noah was there too.
“If we want to prove that, we had better be able to make the dots connect,” he stated.
Max understood.
He was willing to keep digging since that was his suggestion. Now he needed to find proof.
“I think, more importantly, we need work on pinpointing Carl,” Alex stated. “Elizabeth will connect the woman to Carl. She’s going to want to know where Carl is—first and foremost,” he stated.
“I’m tracking,” Max stated. “I have him heading to DC. He bought a ticket here on the train.”
“Then what?” Noah asked.
“Nothing. Can we get some footage?” he asked. “Maybe he met someone at the station. We can pull that up, can’t we?”
“I’ll work on it,” Alex stated. “What’s the date?”
“Four months ago,” he said, reading the rest of the date. “You hit that up, and I’ll work on who Beverly was so happy to break up with,” Max stated.
That was good with them.
It was something at least.
So, they all got down to business.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Morgue
Hoover Building
When Chris arrived at the morgue, everything was already better. Chris was always in his element there.
Always.
He’d done his best work in the basement of this building, and he always would—for as long as he could.
When he was having a bad day, the hum of the mass spec or the chatter of techs brought him down to a calmer level.
He was in the zone.
Once inside, he could see his team was all stirred up. They were working on the eight victims, pulling trace, and working on COD.
Tony was a prankster for the most part. He was more likely to crack a joke, try to get them to laugh, and be his regular silly self.
Now he was stepping in during Chris’s absence to be the man in charge. He was running the show and a damn good doctor.
Chris appreciated that.
He was cataloging, he was moving body to body to ensure each bone was laid out on a table just right, and he was making notes.
He was the professional.
“Need help?” Chris asked.
Tony turned and grinned at the sound of his voice.
“There’s my tag team partner! I was getting worried! I was going to have to do eight bodies alone.”
“I’m here, but I need to have a short meeting with you and Chrissy before I suit up,” he offered.
Chris wanted to get this over with and fast.
“Uh oh, who screwed up?” Christina asked. “If someone did something foul, I’ll kick your asses,” she stated, pointing at the techs.
They all shook their heads with wide eyes. Pregnant Christina was meaner and ran a tight ship.
“No, I just need to update you on some things. Can you head into the office?”
Chris walked past Jaxon, who was very pregnant and getting ready to deliver any day. She was sitting on a rolling chair and her baby belly was pretty much all of her.
“Hey, Chris!” she said. “I’d get up but…”
He gave her a kiss.
“How are you, Jax?” he asked.
“Fat. I’m fat.”
Chris had been there before with Cyra and many times with Elizabeth.
“Yeah, but you get the prize soon, and it will all be worth it. I promise.”
She smiled.
“Thank you for that. How about dinner, Sunday, after this case is closed?”
He didn’t think they’d have time.
“You may be busy with a newborn. We should make it for later, but then I’m in. I get to hold your baby.”
She was good with that.
Chris considered something. Jaxon was family since she was married to Tony. He wanted to tell her too.
“Can you come in for the meeting too?” he asked, offering her his hand.
She took it, but it was…weird.
Chris wasn’t his normal happy self. She could see the sorrow, and it worried her.
“Sure,” she said, taking his hand.
Chris led her inside the office and then set her free. He was full of nerves. To busy himself, he hung up his suit jacket and placed his bag on the table.
This was hard.
Damn hard.
Harder than he thought it would be.
“You’re wearing a bowtie. What’s going on?” Tony asked. “That’s the same tie you wore after you and Elizabeth broke up. You lived in it.”
He was aware. She’d bought it for him, and he’d loved it so much.
Today, it had a different meaning.
It was offering him strength.
Chris jumped right in, unable to handle it anymore. He was going to get an ulcer.
“I found out some news yesterday. I wanted to let you in on it, since I work the closest with you, Tony, and you, Chrissy. I wanted you to know, Jax, since you’re married to my other best friend.”
They sat.
This didn’t sound good.
“What happened?” Tony asked. “Are you dying?” he teased, trying to lighten the mood.
Of course Tony would nail it.
“Yes, I actually am.”
Christina gasped.
Jaxon covered her mouth and tears filled her eyes. She knew something had been wrong. She could just tell.
Tony, he just stood there, caught off guard by what he’d said. There was no way he was serious.
“What?”
“Remember that case where I cut myself and contaminated my blood with hooker blood?”
How could they forget?
“Yes,” Tony said.
“She gave me HIV. I’m positive, and I’m dying.”
Christina began crying and pushed herself off the couch. Immediately, she and Jaxon headed his way. They hugged him.
They hugged him so tight that he could hardly breathe, in that moment, he knew he’d screwed up. He wanted to die because he was alone, but he wasn’t.
He did have a family.
Here they were. Chris knew he was a lucky man to be loved this much.
“Oh, Chris,” Christina stated. “Normally, I wouldn’t cry this much, but I have baby hormones, and this breaks my heart. What do I say to you?” she asked.
He gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“You just tell me you love me and will be here for me,” he said.
“I will! I will be here no matter what!” she said. “I do love you. You were my first friend here. You let me into this group, and you made me love my job. You’re my brother.”
And there it was.
His circle was bigger than he had even noticed.
“Thank you, Chrissy.”
He gave her a kiss.
“I was out yesterday because I thought I lost everything, and I was ready to die.”
Tony just stood there.
“I’m telling you guys because if I cut myself, you two are the two closest to me when I’m working on a body. I would never want to risk you. I would never want to hurt either of you. When I’m using a scalpel, you have to wear protective gear—all the way down to the plastic face guards. Normally, you don’t, but I can’t risk you.”
They couldn’t believe he was worried more about the
m. They would be fine.
Chris…he was dying.
“Are they making you quit?” Chrissy asked. “Please say no. Please say that they wouldn't do that to you. If you say yes, I’ll march my wobbly ass up there, kick in a door, and tear someone a new one!”
“Me too!” Jaxon stated. “You don’t want to piss off a pregnant woman. We get mean.”
He laughed.
Chris needed this.
“Gabe was going to remove me, but Elizabeth resigned, as did Callen, and Ethan. That’s where she and I were yesterday. My job was in limbo.”
Chrissy rolled up her sleeves like she was ready to kick ass.
“Fortunately, I had the Blackhawks in my corner. If I went, they went. So, Gabe kept me on, but there’s a condition. No one can find out. You know how strict they are on biohazard contamination. Since I walk around with a scalpel...”
“We’ve been a team for a while,” Chrissy began, “well, before I left. I know you’re careful. I know how hard you work to keep everyone safe. I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
Oh, not as sorry as he was, but he appreciated them being so kind and loving.
“What can we do?” Jaxon asked. “If you need anything, you just have to call. I can drive you to your doctor appointments once I can fit behind my steering wheel again,” she offered.
He laughed.
“Thank you, Jax, but Elizabeth is going to take care of me. She has me on a diet that she’s googled, and she’s going to the doctor with me. I’ll start meds, and I’ll see how long my body can hold up.”
Chrissy rested her head on his shoulder.
“You have to fight. You have to fight for all of us, Chris. You’re our family.”
He was aware.
“I really wanted to die yesterday. Today, I’m only a little down. Tomorrow, it’ll be better.”
They hoped so.
“Tony, you’re being quiet,” Chris said, noticing his other best friend hadn’t said anything.
“Can I talk to you alone?” Tony finally asked. “I have some concerns,” he stated with zero emotion.
He handed both women tissues, and they composed themselves. Chris expected the worst. He fully expected Tony to tell him he didn’t want to work with him.
He hoped this didn’t blow up in his face.
Dead are Forgotten Page 22
