“I’m all about justice. If he’s meant to pay, he will. I’m not working this for him. I’m working it for them,” she said, sliding her phone across the table.
They all saw the victim’s faces—post murder.
“I have to get justice for the three women that this killer is using to play this game. They were innocent. I fight for them.”
“So it’s not easier to let Carl get to him?” Ivan asked.
She shook her head.
“Easy on paper doesn’t mean right. I have to catch Carl. If O’Banion has to be put down, I won’t let him be tortured,” she said. “I will figure this out, and I’ll find a way so the ends justify the means.”
Ivan gave her a fist bump.
“You passed.”
“What?” she asked, a little confused.
“That was to see if you’re still the woman I wanted to protect with my life. Had you taken pleasure out of letting O’Banion be a sitting duck, I wouldn’t be able to offer up myself for you.”
She got it.
That meant a lot to her.
“Thank you for that. I appreciate it.”
“No problem, Satan.”
She laughed.
When a waitress headed their way, dropping their check, she wanted her help with the case. They ate, and now it was time to do her thing.
She needed information on the dead woman and the bartender.
“Do you know Mariah?” she asked.
The woman nodded.
“Yeah, I do.”
“What’s your name?” Elizabeth asked.
“I’m Willa. I work the days and afternoons, and she worked the late afternoons and nights. We’re all broken up over her death. Her fiancé called us to let us know. He’s a mess. I’ll do whatever I can to help. I know you’re investigating this. I saw the news.”
Yeah, she was hoping everyone saw the news.
“Was anyone bothering her?” she asked. “When she was working, did anyone stand out as a person who might be a little creepy?” Elizabeth asked.
She hesitated.
“Ehhhh.”
“Spill it, Willa.”
“Cam was.”
She didn’t know who that was, but she’d take it. With everything going on in her head, she needed a direction, and right now, this woman was offering up one.
She had to chase the facts, even if they were farfetched.
“Who is Cam?”
“Cameron Montgomery, and he’s the bartender. He just got in,” she said, pointing his way.
“Callen, pay the bill. I need to ask a bartender some very direct questions, but Willa may want in on it first.”
He held up a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill. That was four times their bill.
This was a big ass tip.
“How much was he bothering her, and how so?” Elizabeth asked.
That money unlocked the woman’s lips.
“We were all excited when she got engaged, but Cam…he wanted in on that before she met her fiancé. He would flirt, he’d be obnoxious, and he’d put his hands on her.”
“Like?”
“Ass grabs or pats. He’d trap her in the cooler, and he’d try to…go too far.”
She listened.
“Mariah was going to quit, but she wanted her dream wedding, and this place is full of easy tips at night if you had a decent set of tits and a nice ass.”
That was exactly what she wanted to hear.
Cam was around Elizabeth’s age, and he’d recognize O’Banion—possibly. While the waitresses would see a man, there was a chance that the dark-haired bartender might have seen him before.
It would be a likely way his identity got out.
Elizabeth had to run with it.
She handed her the hundred, and she took the bill and hustled away.
“Well?” Callen asked.
“Carl would want someone to watch O’Banion, right?” she asked,
Ethan agreed.
“Look at him.”
They watched the man rub against Willa as she tried to put the money in the till.
Then they saw the ass grab.
“Yeah, dark hair, he’s coming in at noon, so he’d be leaving when Mariah left…”
“Want us to handle this?” Ethan asked.
She laughed her ass off. Once again, the facts and evidence were lining up. She’d have to take a shot at it.
If not, it was back to her gut.
“Nope. This one is all me.”
Callen got out of the booth and helped his wife down. They sat there and watched as she headed toward the bar and the unsuspecting man.
“Fifty says she punches him in the face,” Ethan stated. “I have it happening in under five minutes.”
Callen was down with that.
He dropped money on the table by his brother’s already placed cash.
“I say she kicks him in the balls,” Callen stated.
“Throat,” Ivan stated. “I say she goes for the throat shot without even batting an eyelash.”
He anted up.
Then they watched.
The Lyzee show was about to begin.
And it was going to be one hell of a performance. It always was.
As she arrived at the bar, the man was wiping it down as he prepped for the afternoon crowd. She purposely took the seat on the end, making sure her husbands, and Ivan could keep an eye on her back.
Just in case.
“Hey! Can you help a girl out?” she asked, crossing her legs. She could feel all three men behind her watching her, and she wanted to laugh.
“What do you need, hot stuff?”
She pulled out a picture of Carl, praying that this man didn’t see the press conference.
He looked at it.
“Do you recognize him?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, well, you’ve heard about Mariah, right?”
He leaned in toward her.
“Yeah, I did. It’s a shame.”
“Do you not walk her to her car?” she asked, recalling what her fiancé had told her.
“I try to, but she told me not to do it. She said she was fine, so I let her go out by herself. I’m sorry she got hurt.”
“I hear you didn’t like the fiancé.”
He laughed.
“Mariah was a flirt. That’s how she got the big tips. She laid it on thick. I ate it up. Unfortunately, it was a show. She wasn’t interested in riding dick.”
If his crassness was supposed to shock her, she had a surprise for him. She was the queen of it.
She made sailors blush.
“I noticed you have cameras outside. Can you give me a copy of the video?” she asked.
He laughed.
“Oh, sugar, those are dummy cameras. They don’t actually work. We put them up so people don’t do stupid shit.”
That didn’t look good for him.
He’d just made himself look bad again. He didn’t walk Mariah, he basically said she was asking for it, and he knew the video cameras were bogus.
Yeah, Cam…he was looking like a good suspect—just as good as Brian Montany had.
“Was anyone bothering her, but you?”
He laughed.
“I wasn’t bothering her. I was simply pointing out that I was available if she wanted to take a ride. We could have had fun. Now, how about you, hot stuff?”
She stared at him.
Really?
God!
This man was one hell of a letch.
“I’m a mother, and I’m married,” she said, flashing her rings.
“Even better. I love me a big-titted MILF.”
She hated that word—not ‘big-titted’, but ‘MILF’.
It rubbed her the wrong freaking way.
“Pass, but thanks for your help, Mr. Montgomery.”
When she got up, she turned to move the stool, and she felt it. His hand landed on her ass and slapped it.
Then, to add insult to injury, he added a squeeze
.
She turned.
“Well, that’s inconvenient.”
He laughed.
“Not for me. The MILF has one hell of an ass. Do you work out?”
She sighed.
And then she kicked his ass.
There.
In front of everyone, and to the delight of the other women, who he sexually harassed, her husbands, and her bodyguard.
And no one who bet had won.
She punched him in the face, kicked him in the balls, and then elbowed him in the throat.
He went down like a sack of potatoes.
“You do not touch women without their permission. If my sons ever did anything like that, I’d kick their pathetic, womanizing asses,” she said, her heeled foot on his chest.
“Apologize.”
“I’m calling the cops.”
She flipped out her badge and showed him.
“You put your hands on a Fed. You’re a special kind of stupid or touched in the head.”
He whimpered when he knew he was in trouble.
Only, she walked away.
If he was the man helping Carl, she’d be ready.
At the table, she grabbed the money Ethan was holding, and tossed more onto the table for the people who would have to clean up the mess.
You didn’t mess with her.
In a skirt.
In jeans.
It was never a winning bet.
Ever.
Elizabeth Blackhawk was one hell of a wildcard.
All the time.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Morgue
Well, not only did they find a chemical trace on the last set of bones, but when Tony reexamined them, he found more.
The killing blow to this man…
The angle was off.
It matched the current victims.
It matched the three women they’d already found.
That threw them all into a spiral, and they needed to figure out what the hell they were going to do next. They had told Elizabeth that one killer ended the people in the grave, and Carl’s helper had done the three women, but that didn’t look to be true.
It was anything but.
Tony was running around like a chicken with his head cut off, and they knew it was bad.
“Stop. Breathe. Talk,” Chris stated.
He told him what he’d just found.
Chris, eating a salad, that had magically appeared for him from Ethan’s secretary, knew what had to be done.
“We have to double check everyone. Get the two women out of the beetles. Elizabeth is going to be back in-house by this afternoon, and if we don’t have something to explain why AGAIN the evidence is wonky…”
Yeah, they were aware.
Heads were going to roll.
Theirs.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Outside ‘Coopers’ Ethan waited for his ride to show. Unfortunately, he had to get back in-house to do his real job. While watching his wife kick some handsy man’s ass was always fun, this was a work day for him.
He had files to sign.
He had paperwork thanks to Gabe giving Elizabeth a detective and two agents.
He had to prep for Miles Lane and Vegas.
And he had to face the music from his episode in the White House.
What had him the most upset was the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he might be handling the Vegas situation on his own. Until that very moment, he hadn’t realized how much he was relying on her being his partner in crime.
Now it was looking like she wouldn’t be ready to head out with him. While he could give her a day or two, he couldn't stall forever.
Elizabeth was no closer to solving this, and that had him worried.
Oh, she’d do it.
There was no doubt, but what if he wasn’t there and she needed him.
What if something went south, and she got hurt?
Blackhawk hated leaving her in the lurch, and while he was Deputy Director of the FBI, he was first, and foremost, her husband.
“Here comes Wilcox,” Ivan stated, standing guard.
“Thank you.”
He faced his wife.
“If you need me, then call. I’ll drop everything and get back out to you.”
She gave him a warm kiss on the mouth. It was sweet, it was gentle, and she loved every second of it.
“I’m good, handsome. Callen and Ivan have my back. I’m going to do this interview at the tattoo place, and then I’m going to have Ivan stop at the house.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I won’t be able to make it home later, and I need to get changed before I hit up the morgue for an update.”
He touched her chin.
“Keep safe. I love you.”
He kissed her and then kissed Callen.
It didn’t bother him at all that people were taking pictures and the media was lurking. If anything, it egged him on. He wanted the world to know he was hers and they were his.
Sue him.
“I’ll see you both back at the office. I want to see you before you head to your stakeout. Promise me.”
“I promise you. If I find anything out, can you do a profile update on the fly?”
He was curious.
“Why?”
“At first, Brian was our best suspect, but now I have the handsy bartender. He fits, but not the age. Can it be off?”
He thought about it.
“It can be.”
She let the evidence lead.
“Okay, that helps.”
“I’ll go back over it.”
“Thanks, boss man. I love you.”
He climbed in, and Wilcox waved from the front seat. When he rolled down the window, she leaned in.
“You look pretty in a skirt, ma’am. Is that your church attire?”
Callen laughed, and Ivan actually took a full step back. They both knew what was coming.
“Yes, this is my ‘get on your knees’ attire,” she stated.
He smiled.
“Jesus will appreciate that.”
“Are you shitting me?” she asked her husband. “Is he freaking for real? Where the hell did you find him?”
He reached down and pulled out the jar.
“Two dollars please. Freaking is just like the ‘F’ word in my book.”
Callen paid for her.
“You should go,” he stated. “Today is not the day to poke the hive.”
Ethan patted him on the shoulder.
“Wilcox, get me to the office,” he said, winking at his wife. “Be safe. Come back to me.”
He blew her a kiss, and then his guard pulled away.
Callen and Ivan were by her side.
“Ready to get some info from the tattoo place?” she asked.
Callen was.
“They normally aren’t open, but I managed to locate the owner’s name and made a call.”
She gave him a kiss. It said it all, and he was grateful for that every day of his life.
This was love.
“I am totally your favorite, aren’t I?”
Ivan smirked.
“No comment,” Elizabeth stated, trying not to laugh. Her husband was a funny man. She had two sexy men in her life. How exactly did one choose?
“Shut up. Let me dream,” he teased.
They headed down the sidewalk, taking the path that the woman might have taken. Hopefully, the tattoo place’s cameras would be the real deal.
Yeah, she had to be hopeful. If the evidence didn’t work out, once more, she was chasing that ghost, and it didn’t make her happy.
At the door of the tattoo place, Callen knocked, ignoring the questions coming from the few media stragglers who were hell-bent on following them.
To them, they just had to ignore them.
It was a part of their life.
When the door opened, there was a man standing there, and he looked
like a mix between a biker and a tattoo artist.
He was covered and wearing more leather than anyone should wear. It couldn’t be warm on that chilly day.
“Are you the man who called?” he asked Callen.
“Yes, thank you for coming in to talk to us. It’s important,” he stated.
“Yeah, well, I live upstairs, and there’s a really hot babe in my bed. Make it fast,” he stated.
They entered and he locked the door behind him.
She made the introductions.
He shook her hand.
“I’m Billy Bailey. I run ‘Tattoo Hell’. She’s my baby. Welcome. What can I do for you?”
“We need your security cameras and to ask you some questions regarding that murder that took place across the street.”
He laughed.
“Whatcha buying?”
Elizabeth lifted a brow.
“Pardon?”
“If you want me to talk, then you want me to tattoo. I’ll give you what I have, but you have to let me do Jackson James. He’s on my bucket list.”
“I really hope you just meant a tattoo…,” she stated, seeing the look on her husband’s face.
Billy roared with laughter.
“Yeah, I did. Again, sexy babe upstairs. I don’t swing that way.”
Callen objected.
“I really don’t want to…”
He cut him off.
“I promise to be gentle, princess.”
Ivan snorted.
This man was in for a surprise.
The only person he knew with more ink than Callen was Ethan. He doubted his hesitance had anything to do with getting a tattoo and was more about what to get. They were permanent.
Still, the man egged him on.
Callen had to take his challenge. His girl was right there, and in man code, if he backed down, he was a pussy.
It was all about the ego.
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
Callen began stripping out of his suit as Elizabeth and Ivan headed to the windows to pull down the blinds from the outside world. The last thing they needed was this on the news. She could hear it now.
‘Callen Whitefox stops for a tat in the middle of a serial killer investigation. News at eleven.’
Dead are Forgotten Page 53
