But he wasn’t sure.
At all.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Landon Turner’s
Home
When she came to, Callen was beside her and Ivan was above her.
And her freaking head was killing her.
“And this is why being distracted is a bad thing,” she muttered, trying to sit up. Luckily, she landed flat and didn’t break her freaking neck in that fall.
Christ!
She smelled like booze and felt like shit.
That was always a bad combination—only, she didn’t get to have any fun getting this ‘hangover’.
“Elizabeth, Jesus! We have an ambulance coming! Are you okay?” Callen asked, freaked out by the goose egg forming near the small cut on her head. He couldn't help but feel like this was all his fault. He’d taken the worst time to have a disagreement with his wife.
“I’m dandy. This week has been fucking awesome. For my next party trick, I’m going to juggle newly sharpened chainsaws.”
“Tex, what do you want us to do with the drunken, drugged batterer? I can kill him if you…,” Ivan asked.
It would be his pleasure.
“Call the cops. Have them pick him up. I’m going to guess he’s most violent when he’s drunk,” she said, touching her head. She had a lump, and she smelled like a barroom floor.
God!
She was going to puke.
Someone had a freaking concussion.
“Cancel the ambulance. I’m good. I have a thick skull, and there’s nothing to worry about. Just tell me the media didn’t catch me getting belted by this asshole.”
Ivan did what she wanted.
“No, they didn’t,” he offered as he was dialing the phone like she’d asked.
Callen brushed her off.
“Maybe you should…”
She gave him the look. It was that one look that a wife could give, that would stop any sane man in his tracks. It said ‘if you keep talking, I’m going to use your testicles as doorstops’.
Wisely, he shut it.
Elizabeth headed toward their ride, and Ivan was already there and holding her bag.
“Ambulance is canceled. I’ll call the cops for a pickup,” he offered, handing the bag to her and walking away to give her privacy to change.
Elizabeth pulled off her jacket, unclipped her gun and badge, and then pulled off her beer soaked shirt.
She said nothing.
“You hate me right now, don’t you?” Callen asked, waiting for the meltdown.
“No. I would never hate you, Callen. I hate me.”
She pulled her shirt out of the bag, pulled it on, and then dug out her FBI pullover. She only wore it when they were entering a building, but her other jacket was wet.
And smelly.
Fortunately, she didn’t get any beer in her hair.
“Elizabeth.”
“Stop. I know better. I was thinking about how I was going to kick Chris out of our home because you don’t trust me, and I didn’t see his intent to break my fucking head in.”
He flinched.
“This is on me, and not on you,” she stated.
He didn’t believe that.
“I do trust you.”
She looked up at him and glared at him.
“REALLY? Because then you wouldn’t have an issue with this if you did. I’m not going to have sex with the man. I’m giving him a place to hide in his darkest hour. You wrote that note to Ethan in yours, and you got lucky. Chris was lying at the bottom of a shower and did too. It’s the same shit.”
Callen felt horrible.
She was right.
He knew it.
“I don’t love your kids over Ethan’s or over Bethe. I don’t love Ethan more than you. Your jealousy is unfounded. I want him to have something as he’s dying. Do you get that? Do you see that I’m marrying you next month in front of our family, our kids, and the world? That, right there, should say it all. That should end this discussion.”
He let her vent.
She’d earned it.
Besides, what was he supposed to say?
“This shit makes me insane. I don’t ask for anything from anyone,” she said, continuing her angry tirade. “You wanted kids, I popped them out. Ethan wanted kids, I gave him some too. You want me to do this, I go. He wants me to play fucking arm candy, and I do it. Why? Because when you love people you do what they need. When they matter, you give them what their soul needs to go on. Chris was my first real love. He taught me how to be me. I’m not going to toss him away because you think I will climb into bed and fuck him.”
Callen flinched again.
She was pissed.
Rarely, was it ever at just him.
“I know the man. He’s sick, He’s never going to take his dick out again in reference to me or to another woman. He’s going to focus on his child. He’s going to work on staying alive. Maybe he just needs a hug, or someone to hold him. Maybe when he’s scared he just needs someone to love him—like all of us.”
She clipped her gun on, and then her badge.
“I just wish you would trust me.”
“It’s hard with him.”
“Why?”
“Because I know how much you love him. With Ethan, I’m the spare. With Chris…I feel like you could say goodbye.”
She wanted to scream.
She walked over to Ivan, who was drinking a coffee. It was only fair she take his, since she’d given hers earlier. Elizabeth kicked the whole thing back and handed him the empty Styrofoam cup.
“I needed that more than you do. Trust me.”
Then she walked back to Callen to finish this.
“That’s your issue, Callen, not mine. From day one, I’ve fought for us to be together. I can’t give more. I’m maxed out with everyone needing something. I need things too.”
He was aware.
“I don’t want to lose you.”
“Not trusting our unit is a way to do that. If you looked up ‘how to lose your woman’ in the couple’s manual, that’s the number one reason a woman will walk away!”
That scared him.
“I’m going to the cab company,” she stated. “Head home. I’ll head out with Ivan.”
He looked horrified.
“Elizabeth,” he said, wishing he would have kept his mouth shut. This did not go well at all.
“I have to work, and you’re a distraction. Head home.”
She whistled, and Ivan headed her way. “Toad, get me to a coffee shop, and then we have to head to interview a cab driver.”
He swapped keys with Callen, and the man didn’t look happy, at all.
“Have a good drive, Callen, and if you follow me, let me warn you that I have a concussion, I still smell like a brewery, and I’m three days past nuclear right now. Don’t live dangerously with me right now.”
Ivan hopped into the driver’s seat, and Elizabeth followed on the passenger side.
Callen watched them drive away.
And he knew…
He’d really jacked this up.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Somewhere In
Washington D.C.
He got the call.
“Are you ready for tonight,” he asked, keeping his voice down.
“Yeah, I am. I know what to do. I won’t let you down on this one.”
“Do you need me there?” he asked his apprentice. He needed to be sure he could handle this situation. It meant doing it right, and the first time.
The man laughed.
“I can handle this.”
“Are you sure? It has to be perfect. One mistake…”
The man was aware.
This wasn’t rocket science.
“You’ll keep your end of the bargain, right?” his apprentice asked him.
“Of course I will. I am a man of my word. You just make sure you get the right woman, you end her, and you make it coun
t. This has to go perfectly. Remember, kill her and walk away. Don’t get tempted and touch her.”
He didn’t tell the man he’d already succumbed to that forbidden fruit, and he wouldn’t.
This was his little prize for a job well done.
“I got it.”
“Call me after,” he said to the apprentice. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”
“I will. As soon as I’m done, I’ll call.”
He hung up the phone, and he was pleased with how everything was going.
This was going to go down without a hitch.
He was an evil genius.
And he would get the notoriety he deserved.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
When Callen arrived home, the house was a hot mess. The kids were running, the dogs were barking, and he needed to find somewhere quiet to sit.
At that moment, he felt like shit, and all of it had everything to do with how he’d treated Elizabeth.
She’d been right.
He was a dick.
So, to escape the mayhem, he headed into his brother’s office to hide until he could figure out a way to make this right. The ONLY reason he wasn’t freaking out was because Ivan was with her and she was safe.
As he took a seat, Callen closed his eyes and mulled it all over. It was a bitch to deal with his pain, her anger, Chris’s suffering, and everything else.
But it was there.
When there was a knock on the door, he wanted whoever it was to go away.
“What?”
“It’s Chris.”
Well, this was not the person he wanted to see. Still, he couldn’t be an asshole anymore today. He’d used up his one ‘be a dick’ card, and at this point, he was ostracizing family at a high rate of speed.
“Come in.”
Chris headed in with a beer for him, and a mug of tea for himself. As he kicked the door closed behind him, he hoped nothing bad had happened.
You didn’t often see Callen without Elizabeth. While working a case, they were joined at the hip.
“When you came in, you looked like you needed this,” he said. “Where’s Elizabeth?”
“She sent me home.”
Jesus.
It was bad.
“Really? That’s…surprising.”
Callen chugged the ice-cold beer as he moved over so Chris could join him on the couch.
“Why is that surprising? We argued, she nearly got hurt really badly, and she sent me home—pissed.”
“Wait! She got hurt?” he asked, the cup of tea pausing halfway to his mouth.
He told him about the hit to her head.
“I’ll check her later to make sure she doesn’t have a concussion.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I royally pissed her off.”
“She’ll be fine by the time she comes home. Elizabeth is like a volcano. It builds, she blows, and then the lava stays dormant until the next eruption.”
“I wouldn't be so sure,” Callen admitted, as Chris pulled a bag of apple chips from his pocket and offered him one.
“Trust me. She’d forgive you of anything you did.”
He didn’t buy that.
“How do you know?” he asked.
Callen took one of the chips and popped it into his mouth as he waited to hear this one.
“Well, that’s easy. You’re her favorite.”
He stared at the man.
“What?”
Chris laughed. “Like you didn’t know,” he said, punching Callen in the arm.
He didn’t know. His wife loved them all equally, and he knew it too.
“She doesn’t play favorites.”
Chris sipped his tea. He was adjusting to it. The flavor was… tolerable.
“Well, not intentionally, but the way to Elizabeth’s heart is with humor. When someone can make her laugh, they are in. When we started dating, the only reason I got past the friend zone was because I made her laugh. She is really amused by you. When you’re not around, she’s always discussing you.”
He didn’t know that.
Callen just assumed when he wasn’t around, she was focused on whoever she was with. That it was him…that was so very special.
“When you sent her that box of donuts, only it was carrot sticks for valentine’s day, she laughed her ass off all day. When you superglued Ethan’s pens together, and then to his office carpet, she snickered and said you were the ONLY one who got her.”
His heart skipped.
“She fell for you because you make her forget that the world sucks, and there’s pain. You will always be her go-to guy. I know. I spent ten years with her wondering why she liked me. Brains are important, but she’s bigger on compassion and humor. That’s the way to her heart.”
Yeah, and he’d just done the opposite of that and hit her with guilt and shittiness.
Well, it was time to own it.
“Chris, I did something really shitty, and I’m sorry,” he offered.
It was time to come clean.
“What?” Chris asked, staring at him.
Callen told him. He held nothing back from the story because the man deserved it.
Callen waited for him to be angry.
“I understand,” he said. “I’ve been there. I lost Elizabeth because I was jealous. It was the beginning of the end for me. I appreciate you telling me.”
“I was wrong.”
Chris understood.
He got up from the couch and took his tea with him.
“I’m going to get some rest. I’m still beat from yesterday, and I’m not emotionally there all the way. It’s been a rough couple of days.”
Well, now Callen felt a million times worse.
“Chris! Wait.”
He didn’t turn around.
“I’m going to pass on dinner,” he said trying to keep it light. “All this healthy eating is for the birds.”
Then he left, leaving Callen to sit there alone in the office.
Well, he was wrong.
It could get worse.
Not only did he feel like a dick with how he’d treated Elizabeth, he felt like shit with how he hurt Chris.
Well, this sucked.
Callen Whitefox was batting a big, fat zero.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Cab Company
Elizabeth had turned off her phone.
She didn’t want to be bothered.
She and Ivan met the driver, who had picked up Carl, as he showed up for his shift at the cab company. He was getting his vehicle ready when they headed his way.
“What do you want me to do?” Ivan asked.
“Just don’t let him coldcock me. I’m off my game. I’ll do the intimidating. Just have my back.”
He understood that. It looked like they had a lot in common on this one.
“Hey! Can we talk to you?” she called.
The man turned around.
He was in his twenties and looked like every other millennial she’d ever met before. He had the boy band haircut and the huge smile.
“HEY! You’re that Fed!” he said, smiling. “I saw you in the tabloids while I was grocery shopping. You had an orgy with…”
She stopped him as Ivan snickered.
This was the last thing she needed with her head pounding like a freaking drum.
“Are you Carson Gallagher?” she asked, cutting him off at the crazy.
“Yeah, that’s me.”
She pulled up a video of his cab, pulling up at the station. “This was a few months ago. Your boss said you picked up this man,” she said, showing him Carl’s picture next.
It didn’t take him long.
“Yeah, I did, but he wasn’t alone. About halfway through the ride to the business district, he had me stop on fifth, and pick up some dude.”
She was making notes.
“Who?”
“Well, he called him Jay. I don’t know anything more
than that. They talked about the weather in Boston, and how before he knew it he’d be in his grave. I think he was sick.”
She kept going with the notes.
“And?”
“I dropped them at a pub, and I was gone.”
“Can you tell me a little more about his passenger friend?” she asked.
“Yeah, he was about thirty and he was a smoker because I told him he couldn’t light up, and he was blonde. There was a mole on his face here,” he said, pointing beneath his eye.
Then he stopped.
“What?” she asked, sensing the hesitation.
“That’s the weird part. It looked like it was drawn in. You know how some ladies like to add that beauty mark?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess,” she stated. Personally, she was all freckles, so if anything, she was trying to hide them—not add more. That would be crazy.
“Well, his looked totally fake. Like I said, he was blonde but had this big black mole. It was hard not to stare at it. I kept wanting to laugh.”
Elizabeth pondered that. Was Carl working with someone to help him kill O’Banion?
Had he picked up a helper along the way?
That would make it easy for him to blend in. He could lay low and O’Banion would never see his death coming. It was a damn good plan, and if she were a killer, she’d do the same thing.
All of the culpability was on the killer, and Carl…he’d be in the clear.
It was a page from his old boss’s playbook.
“I wish I could give you more,” he said. “It was a fast ride, and they ignored me. Like I said, I was fixated on the mole and trying to keep him from smoking in the ride.”
She had more than enough to go on, and it looked like they’d have to pursue another angle on this one.
Carl might have a sicko helper.
“Thank you, Mr. Gallagher. You’ve actually been a huge help.”
“You’re welcome!”
Elizabeth and Ivan hustled away, and she was lost in thought. She was thinking about what to do if they were dealing with two people.
Dead are Forgotten Page 29
