Deep Dark Mire (An FBI Romance Thriller ~ book four)

by Kelley, Morgan

  “No.”

  “Good, thanks for answering. Now, can you please submit to a DNA test for confirmation?”

  “Confirmation for what?” Now he was confused.

  “Oh, didn’t Desdemona tell you? Her sister was pregnant, and we have fetal DNA. We need to officially eliminate you as the father of the dead woman’s child.” Whitefox saw the sign a little too late and took the punch to the face. It knocked him back, and then he was ready for when the man leapt on him. The both rolled around, struggling to get on top.

  Yeah, Jonathan was having more than sex with Cordelia.

  He was definitely having a serious relationship with her.

  Elizabeth was about to begin questioning the women when she heard the yell from the back yard. Both Blackhawks ran for the door in time to see Callen Whitefox rolling around on the ground trying to subdue the deputy. There was blood and it didn’t look pretty. The man looked out of his mind.

  Blackhawk jumped into the fray, helping his brother get the man into handcuffs.

  “What happened?” he asked, lying across the man’s shoulders until his brother could cuff him.

  “He punched me when I asked him for a DNA sample. Apparently, he was offended when I told him Cordelia Adare was pregnant.”

  Both sisters gasped and looked down at their brother but said nothing.

  Elizabeth went to the Escalade and found tissues.

  Whitefox stood and wiped his mouth on his hand and saw the blood. “Good thing I’m taller or that would have been my God damn nose!”

  Desdemona came over and touched his arm. “Come inside with me and I’ll check you out, Callen.”

  “No thank you,” he said, pulling away. When he saw Elizabeth coming with tissues, he went to her side and took them from her. “Thanks, angel.”

  Elizabeth touched his lip and looked at it with concern. “Your lip is split. I don’t think you need stitches,” she said, caressing his cheek.

  “Good to see you’re a doctor now too,” muttered Desdemona, going back over by the women. “Thank God I wasted ten years getting a degree.”

  Elizabeth gave her a look, but then continued to check Callen’s face. She wasn’t going to play games with the woman. There was a time and a place, and this wasn’t it. “So he punched you and you didn’t hit him first or back?”

  “Nope. He punched me, and I tried to subdue him.” Whitefox knew better. They have him behind bars now, and could get a warrant for his DNA. “All I asked for was his DNA. How was I supposed to know that he didn’t know that she was pregnant?”

  Blackhawk pulled the man to his feet. “Did he admit to sleeping with her?” he asked, grinning at his brother.

  “Not verbally, but punching me speaks pretty clearly.”

  Elizabeth walked over to him and stared into his eyes. “So, basically you punched an FBI officer for no reason whatsoever?” she inquired. “That screams either death wish or plain stupidity. Which is it Jonathan? Are you on a suicide mission or just a really big dumb ass?”

  “Now you're provoking him!” snapped one of the sisters.

  Elizabeth turned around and walked over to them. “He just assaulted a director of the FBI, and if we find he’s lying that’s jail time for obstruction. You ask your new best friend Desdemona if I’m yanking his chain on sending him to jail. She’ll tell you the truth.”

  Desdemona sighed. “She’ll toss him in jail just to piss us off and enjoy every second of it. Elizabeth has no conscience, compassion or soul.”

  Whitefox stared over at the woman angrily, furious that Desdemona was taking jabs at her. If she wanted to slice at someone, she needed to come at him and him alone. From day one he’d made it clear, Elizabeth was off-limits. Now it was more so than ever.

  Elizabeth drew the attention back to her. “I’m a big scary bitch like that. I get offended when people lie to me and then try to beat the hell out of the people I care about.” She turned around. “Ethan, will you baby sit the deputy for me? I want to finish questioning the ladies, and then we’ll take him for a ride.”

  “Sure thing.” Blackhawk led him to the Escalade and opened the back door. “Have a seat.”

  “Where are you taking him?” questioned Ivy Delray.

  “Oh, he’s going to work; just in handcuffs. Since I don’t have a holding cell here, his boss is obligated to hold anyone I bring in for questioning.”

  “Hey!” objected Jonathan Delray. “You can’t do that!”

  Elizabeth laughed. “Oh, yeah I can, until I find that you satisfactorily answer my questions. Since you struck my partner, that means we can hold you on assault. If I can tie you to Cordelia Adare, I’m going to make your life a living hell until I get that warrant for DNA.”

  “Elizabeth?” Whitefox was grinning.

  “Yeah?”

  “In the struggle, I think I scratched him.”

  Elizabeth started laughing. “Awesome. Looks like I have my DNA to check against that fetus.” She was so glad that Desdemona didn’t know that the zygote was missing. The less she knew the better, because she didn’t believe she wouldn’t betray the investigation.

  “I’ll call Christina to drive out and check, Callen,” offered Blackhawk, pulling out his phone and dialing his tech.

  “Thanks for punching Director Whitefox, Jonathan. You just made my day much brighter.” Elizabeth turned to the women. “Now, let’s go talk ladies. I love girl talk in the morning, don’t I Desdemona?”

  Whitefox grinned and tried to not split his lip more. “I’ll wait until she scrapes my nails, and then I’ll be in to keep you company.”

  Desdemona led the way, ignoring Elizabeth. She didn’t have anything nice to say to her, and she really just wanted to get this over with as fast as possible.

  Elizabeth sat in the chair facing the couch. Morgana Adare sat between the girls and her granddaughter. “Now, who here wants to tell me why Jonathan just sucker punched my partner for asking a simple question related to the investigation?”

  No one spoke.

  “I will take you all in on obstruction. If not to find the truth, just to piss you all off for making me irritated.”

  Desdemona spoke. “I have no idea if he was sleeping with Cordelia. I wasn’t here. I was off living my own life, and you know that’s the truth. My life used to be right next door to yours,” she spat, angrily.

  Elizabeth nodded. “You're the only one here that I honestly believe has no clue what’s going on.” She pointed at the sisters. “Was he sleeping with Cordelia?”

  Neither spoke.

  Elizabeth leaned forward, pulling cuffs off the back of her skirt. “Let’s go ladies,” she stood.

  Finally, Ivy spoke. “He was dating her, but we just found out about it maybe a month ago. They’d been seeing each other for less than a year.”

  “That wasn’t too hard, now was it?” she asked, sitting down. “Did he know she was pregnant?”

  “I doubt it. He would have married her. Our brother is a good guy and would have done the right thing.”

  Yeah, he was a regular boy scout with a wicked temper.

  Elizabeth looked over at Morgana Adare. “Did you know? Before you lie to me, ask Desdemona if I give a rat’s ass you're the bayou witch or an old lady.”

  “Elizabeth!” protested Desdemona.

  She shrugged. “I don’t care. This whole assignment is one giant clusterfuck of lies. I’m three days past giving a shit. Someone here is going to tell me the damn truth, or I’m going to start doing violent things. Old woman, witch, sisters, whatever at this point, but you’d think this family would spill it, because they want to know the truth.”

  Desdemona took her grand'mere’s hand. “Please, if you know anything then you need to tell her. She’s a bitch that stole my fiancé and ruined my life, but miraculously she happens to be good at her job.”

  “Gee thanks for that compliment.” Elizabeth said, sitting back and crossing her legs. “Morgana, start with your daughter. Who was she seeing at the
time she died?”

  The woman sighed and patted her granddaughter’s hand. “My daughter was seeing a man. I don’t know his name, only that she fell into the wrong kind of group that I didn’t approve of at all.”

  Desdemona was shocked. “Drugs, Grand'mere? My mother was doing drugs?”

  “It was worse than that Desdemona. Religion. There was a man at church that she was hanging around, and I believe having a relationship.”

  Elizabeth found it ironic that this time it was a witch pissed that her daughter was shacking up with a Christian. It took a great deal of control to not make a comment. Right now she needed the details of her daughter’s past. That had to come first and later she’d let herself be amused. “Do you have a name?”

  “No, all I know is the day she went missing, I came home and he’d been here. The house smelled like cologne. I confronted her. The girls were at school, and I wanted to make it clear that this wasn’t some illicit love nest.”

  “How long did this relationship continue?”

  “Years, but when Trinity informed me her intent was to start practicing Christianity to be with him and the girls, I lost it. I told her to get out.”

  “And she did?”

  The old woman started crying. “If I didn’t tell her to go, maybe she would still be alive.”

  “Oh, Grand'mere, this isn't your fault.” She hugged her grandmother and kissed her cheek, giving Elizabeth a dirty look.

  “It comes down to spiders and flies, Desdemona. Sometimes you build the web and sometimes you get caught in the lies.” She knew the woman understood. Not long ago they shared a quote, when they were friends. ‘What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly’, and in this case, it seemed the Adare family was playing the role of fly. “I’m the spider just trying to do her job, and I’m sorry you see it as me being mean to the people you love. I’m just trying to find justice for your mother and sister.”

  Desdemona ignored her, even though she knew she was right. The quote that once gave her strength and made her feel like she belonged, now made her angry.

  Elizabeth stood. She was finished with the women, but the man in the car, not so much. He was going to be spending some time with them answering their questions. Whether or not he went free was going to depend on the answers he gave. “Thank you ladies, for being so helpful,” she said, walking out of the house.

  “Wow, Des! That woman’s a total bitch,” said Holly, patting her friend on the back reassuringly. “How do you work with her?”

  Desdemona simply shrugged, letting Elizabeth take the heat.

  The woman had been her friend until she broke that trust, but she kept the truth to herself.

  “You need to come back home and stay here. The ME retired not long ago. Why don’t you apply for the position,” offered Ivy. “Then you can be close to friends and your grandmother.”

  Desdemona swallowed the knot in her throat. “I have a house back where I work.”

  “Sell it and come home.”

  Morgana Adare squeezed her hand. “Come home baby girl. I miss you.”

  Desdemona closed her eyes. Really she had no reason not to come home now. Except she still was madly in love with the man she had been engaged to, she loved her house, her life at FBI West, and there was a stalker that probably killed her sister. “I’ll think about it,” she said, softly. Life changed so fast, and in a heartbeat. How she wished she could rewind a few weeks and redo everything, but now it was too late.

  Wandering to the door, Desdemona observed the people outside who once were family. Elizabeth had gone directly to Callen and she was in his arms, offering him a kiss. Ethan stood with his hand on her back, connecting the three.

  Yeah, spiders and flies.

  Desdemona’s heart hardened a little more.

  Sadly, she knew the role she was relegated to for the rest of her life. Now she just wanted to escape the biggest spider of them all.

  Elizabeth crossed the yard and checked on Whitefox. “Hey, you going to live?” she asked, moving to his side and going up on her toes to kiss him delicately on his split lip.

  “I’m better now,” he said, dropping his voice. “Except I seem to hurt all over, will you kiss that later too?”

  She laughed. “You're thinking about sex, so you’ll live.”

  “Christina just did the scrapings. Although, we don’t really need them,” stated her husband, keeping his voice low to keep the deputy from hearing. “What’s your plan for slugger?” Blackhawk motioned to the man sitting in the back seat.

  Elizabeth looked at her watch. It was almost lunch time. “I say we question him and cut him free, unless he admits to murder. Then grab some lunch before heading to the lab. I want Doctor Leonard’s impression on something.”

  “What?”

  Elizabeth told them both about what Morgana Adare admitted to during the interview. “I want to know how she reacted to seeing the bones.”

  Whitefox moved closer and dropped his voice. “You think she killed her own daughter?”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “She would have been in her fifties. She practically knows this swamp like the back of her hand, and she admits to fighting with her daughter that day.”

  “And what about the granddaughter?”

  “I admit, it’s a stretch, but what if she found out she was pregnant and the cycle was repeating?”

  Both men shrugged. “Could be. I’ve seen more outrageous scenarios,” said Blackhawk.

  “I need a timeline of when Cordelia was seen last, and I think that we need to get it out of our friend here.” She tapped the side of the Escalade. “Let’s take him for a little ride.”

  Ethan Blackhawk grinned. “You're going to terrorize him, aren’t you?”

  “Hell yeah I am! He just sucker punched a man I’m shacked up with, and where I come from that means someone has to shed a little blood or tears. Since I’m dressed nicely, I’m heading for tears. Saddle up boys, but we have a suspect to interrogate.”

  Both men grinned, moving into their perspective positions. Elizabeth sat in the front, Whitefox drove, and Blackhawk sat in the back with Jonathan Delray.

  When Whitefox started the vehicle, the deputy looked nervous. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Just hold on,” answered Elizabeth, pulling out her phone and pretending to dial. “I need to talk to our boss first and get his permission to interrogate you.”

  The man looked nervous at the use of the word ‘interrogate’.

  Elizabeth set him up. “Yeah, Gabe, I have a suspect but I need him to ‘disappear’ from work for a while. Can you call his boss and make some FBI excuse?”

  She paused, pretending to be listening.

  “That would be great. I don’t know the time frame, maybe a few hours to a few days. It depends on how hard we have to work to break him.”

  Again she paused, looking over at Callen who was struggling to not laugh.

  “I swear to God, Gabe, that was an accident! I have the boys with me; they won’t let me get out of hand this time. I promise.”

  Now Jonathan Delray appeared downright sick to his stomach.

  “Thanks Gabe. I appreciate you covering for us.” She pretended to hang up the phone. “Looks like we’re clear to do a thorough interrogation, but Gabe said keep it quiet.”

  Blackhawk was amused by his wife. “Where should we take him then? It should be isolated, in case he starts screaming like the last one.”

  Whitefox looked over. “I am NOT doing the clean up on this one. I couldn’t get the blood off my cowboy boots. I had to buy new ones and Gabe wouldn’t reimburse me, since ‘technically’ the interrogation never happened.”

  “Stop bitching, Cal. I had to carry the body. He wasn’t exactly one hundred pounds.”

  Elizabeth looked back at the deputy, still with a straight face. “It should be fine, unless he has a high threshold for pain. Then,” she shrugged before continuing, “We’ll have to see.”

  “What do you want to know?”
Delray asked, scared out of his damn mind. The woman was crazy, and proved it by knocking him out easily. Jonathan didn’t put killing him past her.

  “We want an account of the last moments of Cordelia’s life minute by minute. Since you were the one sleeping with her, you likely saw her last.”

  “I didn’t kill her! I was in love with her. We had a really great relationship. I swear!”

  Elizabeth pulled out her tablet and started entering information. “So the day she went missing?”

  “Cordy was freaked out about something. The day before it all started, she went digging through the house in her mother’s old stuff. She wouldn’t tell me what for, but she was really upset. I tried to calm her down, but Cordy wouldn’t let me anywhere near her. Then she had a doctor appointment. I didn’t ask why, only because she wasn’t talking to me at that point.”

  Blackhawk nodded. “That’s the day she met with Doctor Lombardi.”

  “I didn’t know she was pregnant. We were using protection, and it must have failed. It happens but I would have done right by her. I swear!” The man looked miserable. “I miss her. I really do.”

  “Please continue,” pushed Elizabeth.

  “The next day I called her, and she kept dumping my calls into voicemail. She wouldn’t see me. She wouldn’t answer me. I decided to give her some time off, maybe to figure out some things.”

  “You didn’t go check on her?” asked Whitefox. “I know my woman goes missing for a full day, I sneak over to her house and peek in the windows. I try to find her and chase her down like a man on a mission.”

  “I did go over! I knocked on the door and the lights were off. I assumed she went into the bayou with her grandmother. It wasn’t uncommon. The old lady disappears for days at a time to harvest her herbs and if you follow her in, she’ll blow your brains out.”

  Elizabeth looked back at her husband and they shared a look. It said the same thing; the old woman could have lured her back into the swamp and took her life.

  “Okay, so then you stop going by?”

  “Hell no! I went every single day. Then two weeks later I stop by and Morgana’s there, and I ask her where Cordy is and she’s clueless. I made her fill out the report.”