Sacred Burial Grounds (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 2)) (53 page)

“I can make myself scarce
. I don’t want to be used to hurt him anymore than I already have on my own.”

“Where will you go?” she whispered, hoping her husband would stay in his office a little longer. Yeah, she was going behind his back, but it needed to be done.

“I have some hunting spots on the reservation land. I need to restock for winter anyway. I can go hunting and be invisible for a couple of days.”

“Tell no one but your father, and get the hell out of dodge.”

Wyler Blackhawk laughed at her reference. “You’re an interesting woman, Elizabeth Blackhawk.”

“So everyone
keeps telling me.”

Again, she looked over her shoulder and touched his arm
as she held out a card. “Here’s my personal number. If you need anything, you call me. When you come back to your house please phone me, so I know to keep an eye out for you.” she patted his arm and turned. “The tech team is waiting for you in the garage. Happy hunting, Wyler and be safe.”

Wyler watched
his daughter-in-law walk away. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t expect the woman that knew how he treated his son to treat him like he was human. It gave him hope that maybe he was redeemable. He tucked the card into his pocket and made mental plans to head deep into the reservation hunting lands to save his son anymore pain.

When Elizabeth finally made it into her husband’s office with her brother-in-law, Ethan Blackhawk was on the phone. It was on speakerphone and she could hear the woman talking.

“We have one appointment for tomorrow morning, it’s at ten a.m. and then not again until the following week on Friday. Doctor is very busy this month.”

“Okay, she’ll take the appointment tomorrow.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration.

“Okay Mr. Blackhawk, if for some reason she can’t make it, call and let us know and we’ll reschedule.”

“Thank you.” He disconnected the call and glanced over at his wife.

“Why do you look frazzled over the doctor appointment?”
Ethan had wanted to control freak it to death, and now it was apparently causing him some sort of anguish.

“Tomorrow I have a bunch of meetings, and I can’t go with you,” he didn’t like the idea of her going without him. It was his child too
. Shouldn’t he be there with her? “I wanted to be there with you for every appointment, like a supportive husband and father should be.”

“Cowboy, you know how many appointments I’ll have in the next eight months? I think I can manage to leave our house and drive to the doctor without an armed escort for blood work. Besides, you tend to intimidate,
and we don’t need to piss off the doctor and nursing staff when they’ll control my pain meds during delivery.”

Whitefox laughed and winked at his sister-in-law. “Want me to take you to your doctor appointment?”

“Oh yeah, that looks even better. ‘Hi, I’m Elizabeth. No he’s not the baby daddy. He’s the daddy’s brother’. Really boys? Do we need to make this child a redneck before I have it? Let’s ruin the child after I have him. Please a little dignity while I’m carrying Baby Blackhawk.”

Blackhawk and
Whitefox both began laughing at the term.

“I guess you have a point, baby.”

“I can leave when you do. I’ll go to the office early and work on my tablet there, and then come back here. Okay?”

“Yes, Mrs. Blackhawk. Now that this is over
, what’s our next order of business?” he asked, feeling calmer.

Elizabeth walked over to the white board and pointed. “We have a few suspects, Mrs. Wolman, Doctor Wolman, Doctor Reginald and the vet, Doctor Barnes. I say we saddle up and start with the Wolmans. It’s two at once.”

Blackhawk thought about it. “How about we divide and conquer? Callen take the vet, since he’s familiar with him. We can take the dentist. Meet up for lunch and hit the Wolmans together?”

“Even better.” Elizabeth deferred to Whitefox. “You okay with that?
Since there’s no evidence being collected, we don’t need to worry about someone from the FBI going with you to preserve chain of evidence. Can you handle the vet on your own?”

“He’s a family friend, and I think I can manage. Where and whe
n do you want to meet for lunch?” He looked at his sister-in-law, since she was pregnant and would likely have the deciding choice anyway.

Elizabeth smiled sweetly at her husband and looked down at her
still flat stomach. “Baby Blackhawk, what would you like for lunch today?” she paused, as if having an imaginary conversation. “Uh huh, uh huh, oh, I happen to agree,” she looked back up at her husband. “Apparently, the Blackhawk child and I are in agreement. We both want burgers, and before you make any comment, Doc Leonard said eat more red meat, and secondly feel free to prove the baby didn’t just tell me that.”

Blackhawk couldn’t help but laugh at how silly his wife was behaving. Yeah, he couldn’t be happier he was married and was having kids. “I know better than to argue with you over things when
you aren’t pregnant and hungry. Burgers and pow wow, one p.m.”

“You threw that in for me, didn’t you,” she said laughing with her brother-in-law over his
Native American reference.

“
You think you’re the only one that can be funny, Elizabeth?” he asked, grinning.

“Hardly darlin’,” she said smiling. “I
find myself laughing at you and Callen all the time.”

Ethan and Elizabeth Blackhawk headed to the office of Doctor Reginald. The office was in town and one weekend a month the good doctor would head into the reservation to donate time and servi
ces. It was a huge glass office. Apparently both Blackhawks should have been dentists. This must be where all the prestige and money was in careers. Elizabeth was a little wary. They didn’t have much information on the dentist, and she didn’t like going in blind. Nasty surprises popped up then and she was known to get nasty right back.

Once inside the building
, they stopped at the receptionist’s desk and Ethan allowed his wife to do the dirty work. He knew she enjoyed playing with the civilians. His forte was cleaning up her wreckage and watching with amusement.

“Time of appointment?” asked the woman behind the glass, not even looking up. “Time of appointment, please.”

“How about now?” said Elizabeth.

The woman looked up and didn’t even flinch. She obviously had to turn away many people
, who tried to bully their way in before.

“I
f you don’t have an appointment, you need to make one. We don’t take walk-ins, ma’am. Do you wish to schedule something?” She clicked away, disregarding the people at her window. “We have an opening in January, the twelfth at two forty five p.m.”

“No, I’m pretty
sure that you can fit us in now.” She took off her badge and held it up so the woman could see it. This was going to be fun. In the back of her mind she always hoped they’d put up a fight, that just made her day more of an adventure. If this was her last time out in the field, she wanted to make the most of it.

“Are you insane? Put that down. We don’t need to have our patients think something is wrong!”
The woman practically hissed, as she stood in her chair, hoping to block the waiting room from seeing the gold shiny FBI badge.

“My partner and I would like to see Doctor Reginald now.
You could say it’s official business.” Elizabeth was enjoying this, and she could tell her husband was too. He was completely relaxed beside her, sunglasses still on and arms crossed, but she could see the curl to the corner of his mouth.

“The doctor
is with a patient.”

“Okay, see that table over there?”
She pointed at the glass topped coffee table. “In two minutes, I’ll be standing on the top of it, holding my badge up in the air, and asking loud annoying questions about dead bodies. Then my partner here will be asking every person for their ID as they try to rush from the building in absolute horror and terror. Then they’ll go home, call all their friends and tell them what happened.
ALL
because you thought I was yanking your chain about this being official business.”

The woman gave her a nasty look and slid the glass closed. Elizabeth wished she could read lips, she was sure the woman was dropping some major profanity. It made her proud.

“Like that glass can protect her,” Blackhawk said laughing under his breath. “I love working with you. I just have to stand here and look intimidating, and you do all the hard work.”

Elizabeth tried not to laugh. S
he was busy working on her daunting look as she stared. She was talking fast into the phone, hand waving in the air, as she turned three shades of red.

The glass slid back. “Have a seat, you’ll be seen shortly,” she mumbled
, venomously.

“Nope
. Not good enough,” she paused, and read her name tag, “Tiffany. Let me explain something you don’t seem to get. I’m a federal agent. I’m paid by the taxpayers, and I am on a schedule. If you think it’s a good idea to send me over there with the civilians, then you must be a few cards short of a deck,” she drawled.

Ethan loved when his wife got
all southern on the civilians. It turned him right on and made him want to kiss her right there and then.

“I guess you think I’m kidding,” she started walking towards the table and the waiting patients.

“Wait! Come back!”

Elizabeth turned, and her husband was fighting so hard to not laugh. She had to give him
credit; she almost wanted to grin too. It was completely ridiculous. That table wouldn’t hold her weight, so she wouldn’t actually stand on it. Maybe near it, but on it was absurd.

The woman turned. “Gina, escort the agents back to exam three to wait for Doctor Reginald.”

Elizabeth clipped her badge on her hip for shits and giggles. By leaving the badge side out and not closing her blazer jacket, everyone one would get a good view. Yeah, there were days when she loved her job. This was obviously one of them.

When the door closed to the room, Elizabeth leaned against the wall and twisted her black hair around her finger. 

“What?”

He laughed. “If we weren’t working, I
’d kiss you right now.”

Elizabeth shook her head. She was about to say something when the door opened and a petite blond woman rushed into the room.

“I’m Doctor Reginald…” she paused, looking up and down Ethan Blackhawk’s body. “Well hello there Agent. What can I do for you?”

Elizabeth wanted to laugh but decided to just watch it all unfold. She’d seen that look
directed at her husband before. Christina wore it on her face all the time and sometimes Ginny too. Her husband was a handsome man, tall, tan, and very exotic. The attention probably should bother her, but it mostly amused her, since it made him completely uncomfortable. There was no way her husband would stray. Something about him being panicked and trapped by the tiny woman was pretty damn funny.

“My name is Director Special Agent Ethan Blackhawk and this is
,” Ethan Blackhawk didn’t get to finish.

She tucked her hair behind her ear, flirtatiously. “I
’m not lucky enough for this to be a social call, but what can I do for you? By the way your smile is amazing, and I know smiles.” The woman batted her eyelashes at him and took a step closer.

Elizabeth could have watched this forever. She saw the color creeping up her husband’s neck and knew she needed to save him, especi
ally when he took a step back. Now the woman was in his personal space, and he was uncomfortable.

“Um excuse me? Hello? Other agent in the room, as Director Special Agent Blackhawk was trying to say,
we need to ask you a few questions about...”

“Oh,” she gave Elizabeth a look dismissing her and then redirected back to the sexy man in front of her. “You can ask me any questions you’d like, how about starting with my number?”

Blackhawk was both worried and horrified. Women occasionally hit on him; he was sure it was the whole FBI thing that turned them on. He’d smile and turn them down, but with his wife this close… When she lost it, he was pretty sure that it wasn’t going to be pretty. “Doctor Reginald, I appreciate your directness, so let me be direct back. I’m very happily married.”

“Oh, well I won’t tell if you don’t
,” she winked, salaciously.

Elizabeth just started to laugh. The look of panic on her husband’s face was priceless. Okay, playtime was over, Elizabeth took control back. “Excuse me, Doctor?” She snapped her fingers until she had her attention, she smiled. “His wife will actually know, because I’m the wife,” she looked at her husband. “Aren’t I, Ethan?”

“That’s what the marriage license says, baby.” He was grateful that Elizabeth looked calm, but outer appearances could be deceiving. 

Elizabeth held up her badge. “See? Matching names and trust me when I say,
it’s not because he’s my brother.”

Doctor Reginald looked shocked and embarrassed that the woman in front of her was married to the man candy.