The Killing Times (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 1)) (29 page)

Moments passed as
their breathing slowed, and he lifted himself up, resting on his elbows. Right then he was ready to give her the words and his heart. Blackhawk just didn’t think she was ready to hear them, and he didn’t want her to run from him, or feel the cold claws of rejection. She joked about marriage, but the next time he wouldn’t joke back. He loved her just like he knew he would, when he saw her in those dreams.

“You ok?” she asked, watching the dark blue black eyes
intently watching her. It was as if he was studying a subject, analyzing and trying to find the answer.

“I’m very okay,” he said, pull
ing her up. “How about we shower now?” he said, changing the subject and kissing her again. He could feel her hands tracing intimate patterns across his back, and it made him want her all over again. Just that one touch of her hands against his flesh, brought it all back alive in him and he wondered if the wanting of this woman would ever lessen.

Elizabeth looked at the clock and
they had an hour before they had to be at Kathy Cory’s home. “We have time,” she offered, deepening the kiss. Yeah, he made her crazy with just a kiss.

“Yeah?” he answered, his body responding at what
Elizabeth was suggesting.

“Oh yeah
, Cowboy. There’s plenty of time for what I have in mind.” Elizabeth led him into the bathroom grinning, wickedly.

By the time they raced out the front door, they had just enough time to make it to Kathy Cory’s house. She drove quickly, not wanting to make the victim’s father wait for them. Walking in was going to be a sobering experience, as it always was and should be. This young woman had been alive just days ago, and now her family was left to face why she was taken from them. Whenever she had to search a victim’s room, she always felt like she was invading their privacy.

Elizabeth parked and sighed.

“I feel the same,” he said, getting out of the Jeep and meeting her at the door. “I’ve had to do this a lot, and I always end up feeling angry afterwards.”

Elizabeth knocked, when the door opened, Mr. Cory stood there and he was clearly in mourning. His eyes were red, and he smelled like whiskey. Any place but here would have been more desirable at that point. “Mr. Cory, we’re here to look through Kathy’s belongings
.” Elizabeth sympathetically patted his arm.

“Come in
.” He stepped back into the house. “Can I offer you both a drink?” he said, holding out the bottle of Wild Turkey, or what was left of the bottle. He had been drinking all morning from the look of it.

“No, we’re okay sir, if you will just show us to her room, we can start looking for what we need, and then we can get out of your way.”

Blackhawk observed the man warily. He was drunk and in his lifetime, he had seen many a cooperative drunk turn dangerous, and fast. “Which way?” he wanted to get this over with, as soon as possible. He followed the man’s garbled directions.

Kathy’s room was a typical young woman’s room. There was makeup, shoes
, and clothes everywhere. As they split up and put on gloves, they began looking for anything that would tell them who and what was behind her murder. There was very little conversation during the entire search. They were more focused on finding anything that may help them. When they found her diary, they bagged it.

“I think we’re searched out,” said Blackhawk
. “Let’s take the diary and read it back there, or pass off to the techs, so they can handle it.”

When they exited the room, Mr. Cory was passed out in the chair, whiskey bottle between his legs.

Elizabeth went into his kitchen, took his truck keys and hid them in the back of the refrigerator.

“What are you doing?”

“Assuring he doesn’t kill anyone driving drunk. I have enough senseless killing going on right now,” she said, following him out, and locking the door behind them.

When they pulled into the station, it was busier than hell. People were
everywhere and they were yelling and pushing. It looked like a general brawl was going to start at any second. There were members of Dansforth’s church, and then concerned citizens, followed up by her three deputies, trying desperately to keep the peace.

“Sheriff LaRue! Sheriff LaRue!” c
ame the shouts as the pushing continued. When someone slammed right into her arm, and she saw stars, Elizabeth knew she needed to put an end to it.

“That’s it!” she yelled, jumping up on one of the benches, and whistling loudly. Immediately, silence fell. “What the hell is going on here?”

Dansforth yelled out. “It is hell! Armageddon is upon us fellow citizens of Salem. These women were being killed because they disobeyed God’s will! We are being judged!”

It stirred the pot again and more noise
ensued.

Elizabeth pointed at Dansforth
and signaled to Chris Santana. “Bring him in and put him on ice until he cools down,” she shouted over the crowd. It gave her an iota of satisfaction to watch him being dragged away.

“You can’t do this!” screamed his wife. “Freedom of speech prev
ents you from doing this to him! This is America! We have rights!”

Now the woman was stirring it up more
, and Elizabeth had just about enough. Pulling out her gun she fired once into the air, a warning shot. That was the beauty of no longer being in the FBI. No paperwork for discharging her firearm. People dropped to the ground, and she re-holstered her weapon.

“Now that I have your complete attention, you do not
have a permit to protest here. Move along and head home. The minister will be released when this all clears up, and not a minute sooner. Am I crystal clear?”

Slowly the crowd disbursed, and backed away, shocked and worried that the sheriff had lost her mind.

“That was an interesting technique, Sheriff LaRue,” Blackhawk said, laughing. His heart almost stopped when she pulled her gun, he thought Elizabeth had seen something threatening her. She was lucky; he almost dove on her to protect her from whatever invisible enemy was coming.

“Desperate times,” she replied, walking towards her building.

“My team is in route,” he knew he needed to have this conversation and soon, before they stormed the building and took over. “I need to talk to you for a few minutes- just the two of us, alone.”

Elizabeth saw his nervousness, and nodded
. She wasn’t sure what he was going to say to her, but she had a feeling she wasn’t going to like it.

“Martha, release the minister when the crowd is completely gone
. If he gives you any shit, tell him you’re getting me.” Elizabeth led the way to her office, sitting in her chair, and placing the evidence bag with the diary in it on her desk. She dropped her booted feet on the corner of her desk, and took the water he held out to her, her eyes never leaving his. “I’m ready. Go ahead, Ethan.”

“I want to call a press conference.”

“Okay, so call one,” she answered easily, sipping the water and watching him carefully. In the short time that she had known him, she had learned to recognize when he was tense, and right now Ethan was beyond tense. The Cowboy was tied in knots, so this was going to be big.

“I also want you to officially announce that you are handing over all c
ontrol directly to Lily and me,” he waited a beat, watching her face.

“Not happening, Ethan.”

Here came the battle, like he knew it would. “I need to have complete control, so I can bury the Tony issue. If you remain in charge, then it’s going to get out, and cost you your job and Tony his. I’m doing this to protect you and keep you safe. Let me protect you, Lyzee. You can run it behind the scenes; I won’t take over your control,” he pleaded his case.

“Ethan,
this has nothing to do with me or you running it. I know you’re the best FBI agent I have ever worked with, and I will gladly turn it over to you. I just can’t turn it over to your partner,” Elizabeth dropped her feet and sat forward.

He looked confused that she was going to hold back, and risk her job because Lily had pissed her off.

Elizabeth had a question for him, “Do you trust me?” Putting down the water bottle, she looked into his eyes. “I mean really trust me and my judgment and know that I wouldn’t put you in a position of compromise, or do anything to make your job harder?”

“Yes, of course I do,” he knelt in front of her, so they could be eye to eye. “What’s bothering you, Lyzee?
Talk to me.”

“Ethan, I trust my team. I know they wouldn’t
intentionally toss me to the wolves. What Tony did was pretty boneheaded, but it wasn’t to hurt me. I trust my team completely and the more I think about it, the more the leak bothers me.”

“Lyzee, tell me and let me help you with this
. You don’t have to carry it by yourself,” and he meant it.

“I don’t trust your partner.”

Blackhawk wasn’t sure what she was trying to say.

Elizabeth continued, “This has been bothering me now for two days
, and I told you once I get a scent of something, I’m like a dog to a bone.” All she could hope for was it wouldn’t damage what they just started building. “The minute you arrived in town, Ethan, hell has started breaking loose. Someone leaked we had a serial killer, and now we have the minister spouting these women were killed because they disobeyed God. These are things only seven of us were privy to, information wise.”

He didn’t know what to say. “You're accusing my partner
of being the leak?” he almost felt sick just saying it out loud. In the time he had known the sheriff, he learned a few things about her. She wasn’t one to miss little details, or not tell it exactly how she saw it. Had he missed something? Thinking back and analyzing what she was saying, he tried to see her thread of thought, and his mind spun as he was trying to find the merit in it and find the truth.

“I’m not asking you to do, or say anything, Ethan. I’m just explaining what’s bothering me
, and why I can’t put my trust in her to take care of my town. What you choose to do with it is up to you. I trust you completely. I will go out there right now and hand it all over to you, but I won’t hand it over to her. I don’t trust her. This is my home, my town and my job. I need to protect all three and most importantly the people in it. I believe your partner is betraying you by compromising this investigation with leaks.” There, she said it, and she felt like shit for having to do it. “I’m sorry.”

Suddenly, the entire room went red with anger. Blackhawk stood, backing away from her
as he shook his head. Leaving the room, he slammed the door with such force the glass cracked in the window.

Well hell, that didn’t go well at all.
Elizabeth sat back in her chair and closed her eyes her heart being squeezed in her chest. Everything in her went cold the minute he slammed the door. Her heart felt like the frosted glass in her door that was now split in two. She held the information for as long as she could. Somehow, she knew this was going to happen. The room seemed colder without him in it.

Damn him for making her fall in love with him, only to have it fall apart like this.

Elizabeth opened her eyes, as her intercom buzzed, forcing her to pick it up. “Yeah, Martha what’s up?”

“I sent the minister home and there are two young ladies here. They said they are friends of Melissa Martin.”

“
Martha, there seems to be a crack in my glass. Can you get that fixed for me?”

The woman had heard the door slam and knew her boss and the agent had been in some sort of squabble. “I can
, boss. Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, I will be.
I’ll be right out,” she replied, trying to find some composure. She just needed a minute to get over Ethan Blackhawk’s response to her and her intense feeling of loss.

Who was she kidding? Unlike the glass, her heart wasn’t going to ever be repaired.

Both young women sat on the bench outside her office, and looked scared. When the door opened they jumped, staring up at her with large eyes.

“Ladies, how are you
?” she asked, smiling gently. Elizabeth couldn’t help but notice they were but children. If they were a day over eighteen, she would be surprised.

“Are you Sheriff LaRue?” The one girl asked, nervously.

“I am and I hear you need to talk to me.”

They both looked around apprehensively, speaking in hushed whispers, “Can we go somewhere else? If my mom hears I was here, she’ll shit herself and think I did something wrong.”

Elizabeth grabbed her hat from the hook in her office, and walked back out to them. “How about we grab a drink from ‘
The Barrel
’,” she suggested, leading them to the door. “I could use a break from here myself.” She held the door open and walked out into the cooling air. “What seems to be bothering you?” she asked, trying to keep it light.