“Watch her back and kiss her for me, Callen. I’m coming. I swear to God, I’m coming back for my wife, and I’ll crawl on hot coals if she asks.”
Callen knew it. “That move was a start. Avoid the sexy Secretary of Defense, Ethan. If you want her back, do what it takes.”
“I will. Give me a few weeks.”
“We love you, Ethan. See you as soon as you’re free.”
“I love you too.”
He ended the call.
Callen closed his eyes and sighed.
Well, at least they’d have access to their badges and some work tablets.
That was cleared.
“Callen! I’m ready,” Elizabeth called.
He closed the tablet and tucked it into his messenger bag. Callen wasn’t sure how Elizabeth was going to respond to seeing her badge in the morning.
Time would tell.
Hopefully, he didn’t get his ass handed to him. One husband about to be voted off the island was more than enough.
* * * L i t t l e m o o n * * *
Tori hated this.
Today was likely the worst day of her life, and she’d had quite a few.
She was about to break her brother, and that was the last thing she wanted to do.
Heading into the apartment, she nodded at Clarissa, who was holding Veronica.
The minute the woman saw her, she knew. Clarissa had that look on her face as she headed toward Tori.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” she whispered.
“Yeah, Mom, it is.”
“How bad?” Clarissa asked.
“Jail.”
“Oh no!”
“I have to tell him what’s going on out there,” she whispered, pointing at the window. “Where is he?”
“He’s on the couch,” she said. “He’s not in a good place. He won’t turn the TV on, and he won’t eat.”
Tori could believe that.
She wasn’t really feeling it either.
Honestly, she hoped her brother was strong. This was going to sting. Where they thought that they had a few months to work on this, they had days.
Three to be exact.
As she headed into the room, he was sitting there not doing anything. Beau was lost in thought, and she knew that look.
They all got it.
It was a Christensen thing.
“Hey,” she said.
When he looked over, he looked lost. Almost like his best friend had bailed on him.
“Hey, Victoria.”
“Can we talk?” Tori asked.
“If it’s about Nyx, no. I’m angry right now. I need some time to digest what she did to me.”
Tori got that.
“Well, this isn’t about her, but since you brought it up…”
“No.”
“LISTEN. TO. SPROUT.”
“You, too, Trey?” Beau asked. “Is this the family relationship intervention moment where you both tell me to forgive and forget? I was basically raped by a ghost. How does one let that go?”
He had a point.
“I’m pissed at the opposite sex. Women suck.”
Clarissa pointed at him. “Hush, child, or I will put you over my knee.”
“Well, she doesn’t suck, and neither does Veronica.” Then he thought about it. “Okay, she does suck, but not in a ‘I hate you way’, but a ‘I need to boobs’ way. We have a lot in common.”
Tori let him ramble.
He was stalling.
When he finally stopped, she knew it was her turn. “I need you to listen.”
“Why?”
“Nyx screwed up, but she was scared. It happens. Don’t make her suffer too long,” Tori warned. “That will destroy what you have. Right now, she’s tirelessly trying to find a way to protect us. Look at it from her point of view.”
“Her point of view?”
Tori nodded.
“Hey, nice to meet you. I’m the victim here—not her. I’m grossed out. I had sex with someone I didn’t want to have sex with, Victoria. I feel violated.”
She got it.
“How do you repair that?”
It was time to share something deeply personal.
“When Julian and I were on a case, I was possessed by Bethany.”
The remote slid across the table.
“I hope that’s her. I don’t feel like taking a jump off a roof,” Beau stated. He felt a kiss on his cheek and someone was holding his hand.
It was comforting.
“Thanks, B.”
The curtains rustled, as did his hair.
“Anyway, Bethany, one night, possessed me, I rode Julian like a wild woman. It was rough, hard sex, and I left marks all over him.”
He stared at her.
“Really? TMI.”
She snorted. “I know how you feel because Julian felt the same, but let me tell you how I felt. I felt like I had betrayed him. I hurt him when I was supposed to protect him. Love is not a one-way street, Beau. I’m willing to bet she is just as horrified that she let some other female manhandle her soldier.” Then she pointed at his lap. “And that soldier too.”
He didn’t think about it that way.
Could she feel just as horrible?
“Bethany said yes,” Tori offered. “She said that Nyx had no choice. Evangeline is too strong to block her, and she forced Nyx to watch. It made her cry.”
He looked around the room.
“Really, B?” he asked.
The pen on the table moved toward the paper.
‘Yes.’
Beau thought about it. Then he focused on his sister. “Did you really feel like that?”
“Absolutely. No woman wants to think that her man is getting his dick rode by another woman, ghost or real. If I had to watch, it would have been that much worse. Nyx was prisoner in her body, watching the man she is going to marry get molested by a malevolent ghost. That had to fucking blow.”
Clarissa gasped.
“Victoria Rose, not in front of my grandbaby.”
She winked at Clarissa. She was trying to help Beau laugh. She’d heard the small Native woman curse like a drunken sailor.
Who was she kidding?
Clarissa was a good mother.
“Now I feel bad.”
“Don’t. You’re entitled to be pissed off. She brought this here and it killed Lena, but she didn’t do it on purpose. She did it to heal so she could be whole for you.”
He sighed.
“Okay, thank you. I’m mad, but I’m less angry.”
“Well, then this is going to piss you off all over again, but I need you to trust me.”
“What?”
She told him what the commissioner had done.
“We’re going to hide you if we can’t solve it. You don’t have to worry.”
Beau’s eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t kill her. I miss her. She was my mother.”
Tori held him. “I’m so sorry, Beau. They won’t toss you in jail. I will make sure of that.”
It must have hit him.
“Wait!”
“What?”
“If I run, you lose this building, and it’s your home! You lose everything, don’t you?”
She didn’t care.
Screw it.
“Yeah, we do, but it doesn’t matter. Family comes first. We can always start again somewhere else. Besides, the rez is really peaceful. Our little Native can grow up there with the horses.”
“Tori, I won’t let Julian do that. If you can’t solve it by Friday, I’ll turn myself in.”
She was horrified.
“Beau! They claim it’s premeditated. They will give you the chair. If you go to trial, there’s no way we can be sure we can get you out again.”
She saw it in his eyes.
He simply didn’t care.
He touched his sister’s cheek. “They won’t because I have faith in you. You’ll save me.”
Now Tori really wanted to weep.
The odds were not
in her favor.
And Beau was the one who was going to pay.
With his life.
Chapter Ten
Wednesday
W hen Tori finished telling her brother about his bail being revoked, and what they might have to do, she wasn’t up to heading to a bar to question someone who might have been working with Shelby in her blackmail scheme. She was all weepy and needed to regroup before hitting it again in the morning.
She must have looked like one hot mess. When Julian saw her, he immediately kissed her softly on the lips, took their daughter from her, and sent her to bed.
For that, she was grateful.
While she didn’t get much sleep, she was still able to hide from the team. There was no way she could play cheerleader when she was feeling out of control.
Her optimism was slipping.
And fast.
Realistically, she knew it was going to be a race from here on out, and she needed to work out a plan. There was no doubt that this was all going to be on her shoulders, and that was a huge weight to bear.
Yeah, sending her to bed was probably a damn good thing in the end.
The next morning, she was no cheerier, but she was able to hide it behind fake enthusiasm.
Yay her.
At the breakfast table, Clarissa was already there, and she was holding Veronica.
“If you want to feed her now, I’ll get you something for breakfast, Victoria. You look better today, but you should eat. Your ass is getting bony.”
Tori smiled. “I love you, too, Mom. Thanks for the compliment.”
“My son doesn’t like a bony ass. He likes some meat on the bones.”
Julian stared at his mother. “This whole conversation is proof that you have no internal filter. I think I’m old enough to decide what kind of ass I prefer, Mom. It’s always going to be hers—bony or not.”
Tori snorted.
It was a victory won.
Clarissa was getting her daughter-in-law to eat, and that was the plan. She winked at her son in appreciation for helping her.
“Eat, Victoria.”
“Shouldn’t you be feeding Vivian? She is carrying two kids. I only had one.”
“She’s next on my duties for the day, after you feed Veronica.”
Tori knew there was no stopping Clarissa, so she took her daughter. “I missed you last night,” she said, kissing her on the cheek. “Who fed you?”
“I did,” Julian stated. “I used some frozen breast milk. You needed to rest.”
She kissed him next.
“Well, that was very sweet of you.”
Julian watched as his wife fed their child. As a man, he always thought as breasts as his playground. Now he saw how wrong he’d been.
Tori was feeding their child and giving her the nutrition she needed. It was a beautiful bonding experience. The only thing that made him sad was they were only going to have one child. He’d love a house full of them.
Well, not this haunted, demon ridden, freak-fest of a building.
No freaking way.
“What’s the plan, Victoria?” he asked as she wrapped up feeding their child.
“I was thinking about Leon Brewer and the other people on that list. I need to see him today. What time does the bar open?”
“Noon,” he offered.
“Well, then before I see him, I’m going to need to work on the two women that are on the list. I really wish I could talk to Fredrick Raymond.”
He got it.
They hated skipping anyone.
“He’ll never see me. There’s no way in Hell.”
“We also have Xavier Lake. We can’t skip him. Hopefully, the team has located him.”
She added him to her mental list.
“If they have, Victoria, we’ll be all over him.”
“I can’t believe this is so hard, Jules. Seriously. I remember when it was so easy to track a person.”
“Yeah, well, you had all the fun Fed toys, and don’t forget, our suspect isn’t gainful employed. That makes him damn hard to locate too.”
She sounded sad.
“Don’t worry, Tori. We’ll save Beau. I promise we’ll do everything in our power to save him.”
She stared at him.
“From the first day that we started this business, I believed we could solve just about anything. This time, I’m not feeling it,” she offered. “That’s so sad, since this is my brother’s life. I just don’t think we can pull it off by Friday night.”
He got that.
Still…
“Tori.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be good enough to pull this off, Julian. There is so much riding on this too. I can’t miss a single thing. The pressure…”
Julian understood.
All of this made him want to wrap her up and keep her safe. The mother of his child was struggling all because this was personal.
She was fighting for her brother.
All the other times, they had been fighting for other people. She could easily put it aside, move on, or let it go. She didn’t have that luxury right now.
One mistake, and Beau would pay the price.
“I have faith in you.”
“So does your brother,” Clarissa offered, as she burped Veronica.
“Where is he?” she asked. “Did he go home last night?”
“No, he rode the couch,” Julian offered. “He still isn’t speaking to Nyx.”
She sighed.
Yeah, add that to her list of messes to clean up. No wonder she was stressed.
Tori was sinking and sinking fast.
“I hope I have this,” she said, eating a muffin that Clarissa had made for her.
“You have it,” Julian reassured.
Yeah, her husband was full of shit.
And she knew it.
* * * L i t t l e m o o n * * *
Delta Falls
Inn
As Elizabeth got dressed, Callen answered the knock to their room door. The sound startled her, since she was lost in a daydream. It involved Ethan coming back, her life being the way it used to be, and her children not crying because they missed their other daddy.
This whole thing sucked.
As he opened it, her heart dropped. A part of her was hoping for her knight in shining Kevlar to be standing there.
Instead, it was some guy in a suit.
What?
It confused her.
“Thank you. Tell him I appreciate it,” Callen said, closing the door behind him.
“That didn’t look like a delivery service driver,” she stated. “Who was it?”
He ignored the question.
“I have a surprise for you.”
“What?” she asked.
“Here.”
Callen handed her the box. Over the last few weeks, since they’d left DC to hide in Salem, Callen had been trying just about anything to heal her heart.
He was buying her flowers, jewelry, and candy. None of it filled the void. All she really wanted was Ethan.
She wanted her husband back.
Unless Callen shoved him in that box, she didn’t give a rat’s ass about the contents.
“Callen…”
He saw the hesitation. Ethan’s relationship wasn’t the only one on the skids. Since this mess, he constantly felt like Elizabeth had given up—on him too.
It sucked.
“Why do you look panicked?” he asked, watching her face. His wife was struggling with just about everything. This wasn’t her normal self.
Not.
At.
All.
Damn Ethan and his job!
How did she tell Callen she was getting cold feet? Elizabeth was beginning to believe that leaving the safety of their home in Salem was a really bad idea.
In fact, why had she left DC?
Yes, Ethan told her to go, and, yes, she’d been hurt, but clearly, he wasn’t going to come back to her. Was leaving the end of their marriage
? Honestly, she thought he’d follow her.
She thought he’d apologize and tell her he loved her.
Was Ethan waiting for her?
Did she have to crawl?
Elizabeth was close to giving him anything at that point, just to know he even cared about her.
“What is it?” she asked, her hand hesitating on the lid.
“Why don’t you open it and see?”
Elizabeth used the rental keys to cut through the tape. Inside, there was packing material, and then something she swore she’d never see again.
There was her badge and gun.
Yeah, it wasn’t some ordinary delivery guy.
Ethan had sent a messenger.
“Callen. How?”
“I called him and asked for our badges back.”
“You spoke to him?” she asked, her eyes filling with tears over knowing that. Yes, Ethan pinged them to talk to his children, but she didn’t know…
“Yes, I call him every day, Elizabeth.”
Callen knew at first that she didn’t want that contact with Ethan. He knew she was holding out for an apology, but she was getting desperate.
Elizabeth really believed she’d lost him.
Ethan believed he’d lost her.
They were a mess.
“Oh, how is he?” she asked, trying to keep her voice level, even, and calm.
It wasn’t easy.
“Honestly?”
She nodded as she ran her finger over the handmade leather holster with the ‘EWB’ engraved in it.
Her heart thumped.
“Yes, honestly,” Elizabeth asked. She’d seen the news. He’d moved on.
“He’s in just as bad a shape as you are. His heart is dying, and he misses his wife.”
She let that soak in.
“Really?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t lie. Ethan has reverted back to…Ethan B.E.—before Elizabeth.”
That wasn’t good, and she knew it. He’d nearly drove himself into the grave with work.
“He misses you.”
“Then why hasn’t he come?” she asked. “If he misses me so damn much, why didn’t he come after me, Callen?”
He heard the anger, and that was part of the problem.
Kiss of Souls Page 20
