Darkness Of Truth (An FBI/Romance Thriller~ Book 6)

by Kelley, Morgan

  “Are you using our names,” Blackhawk asked, “or our job titles?”

  “No, it’s very nondescript. I don’t use the specifics of your lives. Most of it is based on your ethnicity and the premise that it’s hardwired into your DNA to be acceptable. It’s mostly about the Native American cultural norms versus that of the European genetics.”

  “I don’t care if you study us,” Elizabeth said. “I trust my friends to not endanger my family. That’s what this all comes down to Tony.”

  “You can study me,” Callen said. “I’m the father.”

  Blackhawk shrugged. “As long as we’re not named, then have at it.” It was probably time to talk to the two men about what recently happened in Cypress Grove. “This brings us to a topic we need to discuss.”

  Elizabeth knew where he was heading with it. “Guys, we have to give you some news.”

  Chris and Tony had worked with her a long time, and they knew the difference between serious and jest. Their boss wasn’t being jovial at all.

  “Callen received a call yesterday. Doctor Adare went into labor and passed away during childbirth.” She tried to be gentle. They were all co-workers and friends while they worked together.

  Both men stared open mouthed.

  “I just talked to her the other day,” stated Chris, and then he realized they didn’t know that or need to know it. “She never told me she was having a baby. I swear!”

  Callen didn’t speak.

  “Anyway, she had a successful live birth- Callen’s daughter.” Elizabeth let it hang in the room. “We’re only telling you because we know you were very friendly with her.”

  Chris didn’t know what to say. “I’m really sorry, Callen. If there’s anything I can do, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  “Same goes here. I didn’t know she was pregnant either. I haven’t spoken to her since Cypress Grove.” It was the truth. Tony wasn’t as friendly with her as Chris had been.

  “Onward to part two,” stated Elizabeth. “We’re raising the baby as ours,” she said, pointing at the three of them. “We’re only telling you because if you ever see her, you two will be the ones that ask the most questions. It’s also because we trust you to keep our family safe.”

  Callen dropped his arm around her shoulder. “Lyzee is going to be her mom from here on out. She’s our daughter and that’s what we plan on showing the world.”

  Julian and Tori watched everything unfold. They’d never spill a secret that they asked them to hold. Elizabeth, Callen and Ethan were their friends and that mattered. “Our lips are sealed,” stated Julian.

  “It’s not a secret, but we have no intention of explaining it to anyone outside of this room. It’s no one’s business but ours,” Blackhawk said, staring at the two men. “We trust you both enough to not spread this all over. If it becomes a point of gossip, we’ll know where it came from. Since you’re studying us, you might as well know the whole truth.”

  Chris pulled off his gloves, undoing the protective covering over his scrubs. He crossed the room to Elizabeth and hugged her. “Congrats on your daughter,” he said, happy for his friend.

  “Thank you, Chris,” Elizabeth answered.

  Next he went to Callen and hugged him, patting him on the back. “Congrats on being a dad, and I’m also sorry for Desdemona’s passing.”

  Callen didn't say anything, since he was emotionally exhausted.

  Chris stood in front of Ethan. “Uh, yeah, you have to help me with this one. Is it congrats on your new niece?”

  Blackhawk grinned. “How about ‘congrats on your child’, and we’ll leave it at that and not over emphasize the small details. Catherine is our little girl.”

  Elizabeth took his hand in hers and squeezed. She did the same with Callen’s, joining them together.

  Julian and Tori grinned at their united front. “We need to have a baby shower,” stated Tori, laughing at the look of horror on Elizabeth’s face.

  “No we’re not. Do I look like a baby shower kind of woman, Agent Christensen? If I do then you need more damn therapy! I’m shipping you back to the VA.”

  Tori started giggling. “Yes Ma’am!” When she saluted, they all laughed.

  “Okay, fun time is over and back to work and the case at hand. We have a victim and need some facts.” Elizabeth walked over towards the table and stared down at the man. “What can you tell us, Doc?”

  He grinned. “Okay, let’s go with the obvious. I ran his blood, and he was indeed intoxicated.”

  Julian chimed in. “Whenever he wasn’t on duty, Jimmy was drinking. Well that and screwing. He honestly only had two favorite things in life- beer and babes.”

  Tori pinched him.

  “Ouch! I don’t ever reference women as ‘babes’. That was me channeling my inner Jimmy. I call you bad ass women or ladies,” he smiled at Elizabeth, and when she winked he laughed.

  “What else?” inquired Blackhawk.

  “Without pathology even in the process yet, I don’t have much more. I can say he was knocked out, and that’s how he was grabbed. Look at the hematoma that’s formed on his occipitofrontalis muscle.”

  Elizabeth backed up. “Sorry Doc, but that’s a bit too close to his very dead eyes. The boys are going to have to ride that bull. I’m not getting near it this time.”

  “Not a problem, Lyzee. Needless to say, someone clocked him one in the head.” He gave Tony the signal.

  “Is it show and tell time?” he asked, getting excited.

  “It is!” Chris confirmed.

  Both Callen and Ethan groaned.

  “Oh don’t worry; we don’t need your beautiful wife to be the one we kill this time. In fact,” Chris grinned pointing at Callen. “You’re about the size of James Duffy. You get to be the dead dude.”

  “Okay, as long as you guys aren’t climbing on me. If you try, I’m going to feel obligated to cause bodily harm.” Callen pointed at Tony specifically since he liked show and tell a bit too much. At least they weren’t crawling all over his pregnant woman.

  This time!

  “Actually, we need a few killers. Here’s why; the victim was most likely standing when he was attacked. If he was lying on his back, when he was struck there would have been some sort of damage to the back of his skull. We found nothing to prove that.”

  Tony grinned. “That means he was attacked from the front in an upright position.”

  Blackhawk considered it. “You believe he knew his assailant.”

  Chris nodded. “We found no defensive wounds and his nails were scraped. We don’t believe he got a shot in at all. There was bruising on his knuckles, but it wasn’t fresh. He’d been in a fight recently.”

  Julian owned up to it. “He put his hands on Tori, and we had a scuffle the other day.”

  “Good to know,” he continued, crossing to Callen. “Either of you ladies have lipstick?”

  Tori reached into her pocket. “I have tinted gloss. Will that work? Are you going to put it on Callen? Then I need a picture of this.”

  Elizabeth snickered. “Me too.”

  Tony laughed. “Yeah, that’s perfect. No it’s to mark the hit on his forehead.” He drew an X with the wand. “Now, see the location of the X? We need to find someone the right height to hit Callen on that exact spot.”

  Whitefox shook his head. “Is this really science?”

  Blackhawk laughed. “This might be fun. Can I go first and beat on my brother?”

  Callen gave him a look.

  “Okay, here’s a stapler. Let’s pretend it’s a rock. Make a downward motion trying to aim at your brother’s X.”

  Blackhawk caught the stapler and stood in front of Callen and tried to hit him on the X. Since his brother was a little shorter than him, it felt awkward. “I think I’m too tall.”

  Tony and Chris agreed.

  Next up was Elizabeth. She was shorter than both Ethan and Callen.

  When she mock swung the stapler it didn’t feel right either. It was closer to the
X, but not quite there.

  “Tori, you’re up,” stated Chris, cutting into the man’s gut. “You’re the shortest in the group.”

  She caught the stapler and swung. It was just below the X. “I’m too short. Julian’s not much taller than me, but maybe it’ll work for him.”

  He walked over and mimicked their actions. It was just about where Tori’s hand touched. “So basically, the killer is taller than me, but shorter than Elizabeth?” Julian inquired.

  Ethan did the calculations in his head.

  “We believe so. We also have another theory if you’d like to hear it.” Tony offered.

  “Spill it,” Blackhawk said, watching Chris dump stomach contents into a jar. It was probably the worst choice of words he’d ever tossed out there.

  “We drew the X on the left side of Callen’s face. On our victim it was on the right side.”

  Elizabeth got it since she was ambidextrous. “We have a left handed assailant?”

  Chris grinned. “Not bad for something you didn’t think was science,” he teased. “Other than that, you’re going to have to give us some time. I can see from the stomach contents that it’s mostly beer. Sheriff Duffy was definitely inebriated.”

  Elizabeth grabbed a tissue, wiping the gloss off Callen’s face. “So, he knew his left handed attacker, or was at least familiar with the face. He was drunk as a skunk and that may have led to slowed reaction times.”

  “Give the pregnant boss a prize.” Tony replied, grinning

  Chris continued. “I’ll run the tox and have it to you later tonight or tomorrow morning.”

  “Tony, will you find Christina? We need her expertise too,” Elizabeth requested.

  The man headed for the door. “On it.”

  Chris began inspecting the heart he held in his hand. “So far, it looks like the same weapon as the last three. Again, I’d say it was a single strike. From the entry wound, death would have been fairly quick.”

  “At least he didn’t suffer,” stated Tori. She was beginning to worry about Julian. He was quiet and tense. Maybe he shouldn’t be in this autopsy, since he knew the victim.

  Christina entered the room with Tony right behind her. “I was coming to find you soon, Directors. I just got the information you requested from the serial number on the dental bridge. It came back confirmed to be James Duffy. Going one step further to double check, I had the dentist fax over his dentals. If Doc will look at them, you can have your double confirmation.”

  Chris motioned her to his side. “You hold the records and I’ll check them out,” he stated, opening the victim’s mouth. Since rigor had set in, it wasn’t an easy task. Glancing back and forth from the paper and the man’s teeth, he finally looked up. “We have James Duffy. I’ll confirm it on the dentals and sign off on it.”

  Elizabeth knew they needed to divide and conquer. She didn’t want the sheriff’s deputies rushing to Duffy’s house and stomping all over their potential evidence. “Julian and Tori, can you both head to his house and see what pops. We’re going to his office to talk to his staff. Hopefully, we can figure out where he spent his time last night. We’ll have to go from there and hope it leads us somewhere.”

  Tori hopped down off the counter and followed Julian from the room. “We’ll message you with anything we find,” she replied, closing the door behind her.

  “So we’re on bad news patrol. Great,” said Callen. “Then we need to get you something to eat.”

  Elizabeth didn’t argue. It basically was futile and the men were going to win on this either way. “Okay.”

  They followed her out to the Denali, ready to get it over with. All three were expecting some hostility and tears once they dropped the news. The other thing they were expecting was the blame. There was no love lost at that office for the FBI, and now it was sure to be even worse.

  “How are we going to do this?” inquired Callen.

  Blackhawk already had a game plan. “I’m going call the mayor, and give him a heads up first. Then while I’m handling that, you both get to gather the staff and break it to them gently.”

  Elizabeth was pretty sure that was their best option- minus the gently part. Sometimes it was best to not sugar coat bad news. “It’s going to be messy, but we need to get an authority figure in place. We can’t just lob that bomb and walk away.”

  Callen agreed. “Is it wrong that I’m praying Sheila doesn’t work on Saturdays?”

  She completely had the same prayer going on in her head. “Your mouth to God’s ears, Cal,” Elizabeth muttered, glancing down at her watch as they pulled into the parking lot.

  “Ready team?” questioned Blackhawk.

  Elizabeth and Callen both sighed.

  “Yeah, as ready as I’ll ever be, walking into a pit of vipers,” Elizabeth added, hopping down. “And you both know how much I love snakes.”

  “I love it when a day starts out bad and just gets downright shitty,” stated Whitefox.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  ~ Chapter Fifteen ~

  Saturday late Afternoon

  Strolling into the sheriff’s station, the three noticed immediately that all eyes were on them. Yet the energy of the place seemed a little bit off. Generally, there was blatant dislike, but today there seemed to be a bit of confusion. Little did the co-workers of James Duffy know, it was about to get far worse.

  Blackhawk walked right up to Sheila’s desk, staring down at her. “I need your mayor’s private number.”

  She looked frazzled. “I can’t just go around giving that out to anyone that walks in here.

  “What’s his name?” he asked.

  Sheila didn’t see the harm in being honest. “Harrison Grant.”

  Elizabeth perused the desk, grabbing the old fashioned rolodex off the top. “You should probably go digital and move away from things like this,” she stated, flipping through and finding him not under his name, but listed under ‘M’ for mayor. “Anyone can just grab it and steal information.”

  “Hey! You can’t do that!”

  She ripped out the card and handed it to her husband. “Here you go, Cowboy. Have at it.”

  Callen began gathering up the other employees and directing them to the conference room. The sooner they got this over with the better.

  “When Jimmy gets here, you’re going to be sorry you came in here thinking you own the place!” Sheila protested.

  Elizabeth was used to her bitching and idle threats, and if anything it entertained her generally- just not today. What they had to tell them was somber and there was nothing funny about it. “Follow your deputies and staff into the conference room and grab a seat.” She patted Max Kelly on the back as he passed by. The boy had a big smile on his face, and there was regret that they were going to be the ones that broke that innocent streak in him.

  Blackhawk moved off to the corner for some privacy and made the call. Almost immediately, a pleasant voice came over the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Grant?” inquired Ethan.

  “Yes, who’s this?”

  He continued. “My name is Director Ethan Blackhawk, and I work for the FBI. I’m calling regarding the ongoing investigation that’s occurring in Red River and in conjunction with the local reservation.”

  The man’s tone changed at the FBI Agent’s introduction. “Oh, yes Director. What can I do for you?”

  Blackhawk went into James Duffy’s office and closed the door, noticing Sheila Court was watching him like a hawk. “How much has he told you about it?” Why not go easy and then give him the bad news? As of yet the man hadn’t given him a hard time.

  “All I know is someone killed two of our citizens, and Jimmy was helping you out.”

  Yeah, suddenly he wished the man hadn’t been assisting them. “I have to tell you that now it’s three of your citizens. We had another body turn up, and I needed to notify you.”

  The man sighed. “Is Jimmy fighting you on this, Director? I know he tends to hold wicked grudge,
but he’s a good Sheriff. He’s still raw over what happened to his brother last year. Do you need me to talk to him and get him to cut back on the attitude?”

  Here it goes. “Sir, I’m sorry to be the one that tells you this, but our lab just made a positive ID on the victim found today, and it’s James Duffy.”

  “What?” the voice sounded incredulous. “Are you serious?”

  Blackhawk continued. “We’re here about to tell his staff, but we know there needs to be someone here to take charge, or this could be messy. We don’t want his employees running amuck with the intention of getting revenge for their boss. In order to handle this in the best interest of the town, I need someone here to control and direct your team.”

  “Oh God! Poor Jimmy!”

  Blackhawk looked around his room. The deceased man definitely had his sympathy. “Can you head over here and take over? This does fall under your jurisdiction. You may need to appoint an acting sheriff to run the department, unless you want Sheila handling it.”

  “Hell no! I’m on my way to the car. I’ll be there in five minutes,” he stated. “Don’t let that woman stir up the pot any more than need be. She’ll have a lynch mob heading to the reservation to burn it to the ground.”

  Since he recalled having to work with her before, Blackhawk didn’t doubt that at all. “Yes Sir. My partners are telling them right now. I’ll be in the lobby waiting for your arrival.”

  “Thank you for the call and your concern for Jimmy’s people, Director.”

  He hoped Elizabeth and Callen were breaking the news without too much drama. This time he won the crap-fest lottery and happened to get the calmer part of the assignment.

  From the minute they managed to get everyone situated into the room, the administrative assistant was completely stirred up. She was loud, objected to being forced into compliance, and her general dislike for the FBI was clearly made.

  “Are you done?” asked Elizabeth, willing to wait the blonde out for as long as it took. “Or you want to sit here and make lots of useless noise, while we wait on your temper tantrum?” She wasn’t in the mood for her crankiness.