The Killing Times (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 1)) (53 page)

“
Not likely, Lyzee.”

“Okay
then, let’s go.” Elizabeth linked her arm with his, and again, walked right past her husband, still refusing to look at him. After she escorted Doc to the ME van, Elizabeth then got in her Jeep and pulled away from her home. There were two things she needed to get done, and the one would be to find the patrol car, the other to tell the parents their daughter wasn’t coming home.  Elizabeth would rather deal with the killer and the patrol car first and the notify last.

If there was anything she dreaded, it was going to be facing Sara’s family alone.

Elizabeth swung into town since
she needed to get the log sheets, to see what section of town Sara was scheduled to patrol. Walking into the office, it was silent and her heart lurched in her chest. There would be no more seeing Sara here daily, and no more of her cheery laughter. Her first instinct was to cry, but she pushed it down until later.

Now she needed to focus.

Grabbing the logs, she moved back out to her Jeep and flipped through them, searching for the data she needed. Sara was scheduled for the northeast side of town in the countryside just above Elizabeth’s home. Now she would go out and start her own search. If she was lucky, she’d find Sara’s car and hopefully the killer.

If they came face to face, she could already guarantee that one of them wouldn’t be walking away alive.

Now it all came down to fate.

And the strongest will to survive.

It didn’t take long to find her deputy’s car. It was pulled off the side of a deserted road, and she was pretty sure Sara wouldn’t just park there. Something had lured her out of her vehicle in the pitch black night.

Elizabeth found it funny that she was about to do the same thing, and only hoped it didn’t have the same outcome. As mad as she was at her husband, she didn’t want him finding her in their driveway with a bow around her throat.

She pulled her Jeep to a stop behind the patrol car, and turned on her bright lights before exiting the Jeep. Gun drawn, she walked around the patrol car slowly, taking no chances she’d be ambushed. When she cleared the back seat and then the front, her flashlight caught the scrap of paper on the dash.

Elizabeth looked around, listening
for anything that would tip her off that she was being watched or stalked in the darkness. Nothing sounded out of place. Returning to her Jeep, she pulled out a pair of gloves and an evidence bag. Crouching beside her deputy’s seat, she picked up the note and read it.

  
No need for the challenge, you were next anyway    

   Sheriff Blackhawk. Kiss your husband
goodbye.

                                                      - God.

“Don’t bet on it asshole,” she muttered, picking up her phone to call the tech team to get over to the car. She was going to finish the game and win, not die playing it.

Blackhawk made sure everything was running smoothly, and the last thing on his ‘
to do’
list was shipping the bullet off to ballistics for fingerprinting. He already called to check on the tox report, and was told it was almost there. It would be ready in the next a few hours.

Guilt was starting to eat away at his temper, as he had
watched his wife walk past him three times. She had to be pretty angry, since she wouldn’t even look at him.

Yes, h
e lost his temper with her, and he was beginning to believe he deserved the silent treatment. Now that he was calming down, he couldn’t believe he told her that he didn’t want to be near her. As soon as he saw her again, he planned on apologizing for his vicious words. When it came to her, he had no control and he just proved it.

It was a g
reat start to being married.

The chaos was slowing
down, as the body of Sara had just been transported. He had seen Doc leave, escorted by his wife, and then he lost track of her.

As he walked to
wards her office, he could hear her voice, but she sounded like she was on a phone and far away.

That couldn’t possibly be right.

Entering her personal space, he found Tony sitting at her desk. He was scribbling something on paper as he listened to her instructions.

No, this definitely wasn’t right.

“I got it, Lyzee. I’ll pass it on to the tech team as soon as I hang up with you. I’ll get them out there right away,” he looked up, nodding to Blackhawk as he stood in the door.

“Thank you, Tony,” she paused. “I’m going to lock up her car and get
the hell out of here. Right now, I’m a sitting duck. It’s isolated and pitch black, and I wouldn't see him sneaking up behind me in this darkness. All I can hope is he isn't watching me from the tree line. If he is, I’m screwed. Get the team here fast and keep the deputies off site. I’ll check in as soon as I can.”

“W
ill do, Lyzee. Get out of there now before you get yourself hurt or killed.” Tony disconnected the call.

Blackhawk felt sheer panic
at the word killed. “Where is she?”

“
Lyzee went out looking for Sara’s patrol car. She just located it and was calling in to have a tech team get out there to dust it for prints and evidence.”

Everything in him went ice cold.

“Let me get this straight. My wife is out there alone?” And then he remembered what he said to her in anger. How he walked away from her and broke his promise to always keep her safe.

Yeah, this was a terrific start to married life.

Day three; scream at your wife, hurt her feelings and then let her go out into the middle of the night to be killed by a lunatic.

Yep, husband of the year.

Someone bring him the big trophy on this one.

“Yeah, she’s out there alone, but she’s leaving the site.”

“I have to get out there,” he said, moving towards the door.

Tony stood.
“Ethan, don’t do it. Like you said earlier, he’s going to play with her, and what he’d like most is to kill her new husband and break her. If you chase her around, you’re risking her life. By the time you even get to the address she’s going to be gone.”

He hated that
Tony was right.

“He might be watching her right now waiting for her to be vulnerable. You’re her weakness.”

Damn it! Elizabeth was on her own.

Ethan Blackhawk sat at his wife’s desk
and knew because of him she was off her game.

She
had left the house without her cowboy hat. There was no one to blame but himself. He lost his cool, and now he might lose his wife. All he kept thinking about was what she said. ‘
You lose your focus and someone dies
’, and he lost his focus and she might die. In all of his life, he’d never been more scared than he was in that moment.

He called her cell over and over, praying she would answer. He left message after message, telling her to call him, to forgive him
, and that he was sorry. There were promises that he didn’t mean it, and to come back home to him. All he could think about was how the words wouldn’t matter if the killer had her.

He prayed
.

H
e paced.

A
nd he begged for another chance, where he didn’t walk away from her in anger.

Sitting there, he noticed her closet
light was on and the door was slightly ajar. He knew he shouldn’t be snooping in her closet, but something was peeking out and had his attention. Going to the door, he stared in, only to find a Kevlar vest hanging there ominously.

There were blood splatters, and five full bullet holes in the back. He turned it inside out, and saw the metal plate; it was stretched to its limit, almost breaking. There were tiny fissures in the metal, a sign of failure and almost death. It cau
sed a lump to form in his chest and squeeze the breath from his lungs.

This was the vest that she wore the day she threw her body over
her partner.

Blackhawk traced his fingers over a ridge that ran across the shoulder. It was where the bullet had glanced off the top of her vest and deflected. Then he recalled her story of how Ray died. The bullet that killed him had just missed her own neck, millimeters from hitting flesh not Kevlar. He placed it back in the closet and closed the door. He had almost lost her then too. In that car, it was almost her blood spilled instead of Ray’s.

This was the worst day of his life; the waiting to hear from her was killing him
and eating away at his heart. All he could see in his mind was the bullet riddled Kevlar hanging in her closet.

Sickness rolled into his body, as he
remembered her tossing the FBI vest at him and walking away angrily. Why didn't he force her to wear it right then and there?

Or beg?

Or plead?

Or…

Walking out to the living room, he saw his own FBI vest on the arm of the chair. If her Kevlar was in her closet, and the FBI vest was in his hands, that meant Elizabeth was out looking for the patrol car unprotected.

O
ne shot was all it would take to end her life.

Panic swamped and overwhelmed him like no
thing he ever felt before. All he could visualize was the killer taking aim, and the bullet hitting her and stealing her life.

His own words came back to haunt him.
“I can’t be near you right now and for the first time since meeting you, I don’t want to be.”
 

If anything happened to her, he would never forgive himself, ever.

Blackhawk stood in the kitchen, as a wave of techs wandered into the house. They were buzzing around and talking about shipping something to Quantico. They must have pulled something from the car of importance. 

“What do you have?”
Ethan asked, stepping around the corner and surprising them.

“Sir, w
e have the note the killer left. It’s getting shipped to Quantico for trace.” The tech held the bag in his hand, seriously afraid to let him see it. After all, it was his wife it was threatening. 

“Let me
have it.” Blackhawk held out his hand, and the tech was smart enough to offer it up. He read the words over and over, and all life began to soak from his body in a matter of seconds. He handed it back and grabbed his phone. Once more he began dialing like a mad man.

It was official.

If he didn’t hear from her soon, he’d tear Salem apart looking for her.

Elizabeth walked up to the door of the
cheery, yellow house. The sun was just starting to rise, and she could see the glow beginning to spread across the sky. She wished Sara could have another sunrise and sunset, but it wasn’t going to happen.

Taking a breath, s
he knocked on the door and waited, knowing they would know the minute they saw her standing there.

The parents always knew.

The door opened and a woman in a robe stared at her. Realization dawned as she began to cry. The woman began to crumble, and Elizabeth moved to catch her. At this point, all she could do was just hold her as she screamed over and over.

“NO! NO! NO!
Not my Sara!”

She pounded on Elizabeth
’s shoulder, beating out the anger, as she tried to make someone pay.

When the rest of the family came around the corner, she saw
Sara’s father begin to weep. He fell to his knees, as the two teenagers looked around in confusion.

They
were too young to know that when you have a job like their sister’s, this call was always a possibility. Sara’s mother wailed and her father sobbed, and Elizabeth sat there on the floor, just holding her and letting her mother get it all out.

After
sorrow, would come the anger, and then there would be healing.

The wounds would begin to close, and yet always remain very close to the surface and easily reopened by a smell, a sight or a dream.

The pain never stopped, and that she knew for a fact.

When his phone rang, he nearly vaulted over the counter to get to it, practically knocking over two techs. “Hello?”

“Special Agent Blackhawk?” inquired the familiar voice in hushed tones. They were almost a whisper.

“Yes!”

“It’s Martha. I just got to work. The boss is in her office, and she doesn’t look so good. I hope you don’t mind, but I thought you should know.”