True Love Lost (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 3)) (13 page)

“How about our last victim?” asked Blackhawk. “What do we have?” He had to stop talking about the tongue death. It was literally making his skin crawl
, and his wife must have figured it out. She was soothingly rubbing his leg with her hand.

“What we don’t have is ears. The killer took them,” she answered, analyzing the picture. “While there aren’t any arteries in
the ear, the External Carotid Artery is right there. If the killer hit it while removing the ear itself, the victim would bleed out. But again,” she was going to state the obvious.

“Yeah we know. Not until you do the exam,” added Elizabeth.

“Sorry, but I can only do so much with a picture,” Desdemona apologized for not having more to give them, and for disappointing them.

“Don’t be sorry, Doc. You gave us a lot. Great job,” answered Elizabeth. “It’s more than I could get from the pictures
, and it’s more than Chris Leonard would give me before personally examining the body.”

Desdemona relaxed a bit more
. Well tried to anyway. Whitefox was running his thumb over her pulse in her wrist, and it was making it difficult to concentrate. Really hard, as her blood pressure was elevating and soon her skin would be flushing.

“We’ll see you in Red River,” added Ethan. “The sheriff is expecting you both, and then you’ll be escorted to the scene.” He waited a second and then said it. “Callen, watch your back, and Doctor Adare’s. We don’t know much about the town and the killer, and you need to keep her and yourself safe. Clear?”

Whitefox grinned. “Don’t worry, Ethan. I think I can manage to keep us safe for an hour. You do know I’m a grown man, and I do have a gun, right?” Now he laughed. His big brother was being protective. Frankly, he expected it from Elizabeth, because he was accustomed to her playing guardian angel for him.

“Doctor Adare, can you use that
weapon,” Elizabeth asked, knowing her ME carried a gun, and although Elizabeth found it odd, in this situation she was glad.

“Yes, I can, Elizabeth.” She had taken classes a
nd was sufficient. “I’m more comfortable with a shotgun, but I can hit the side of a barn if I have to with my Glock,” she added. “People frown when I walk around toting a shotgun,” she added, grinning at Whitefox. Both of them shared the same visual.

Elizabeth was glad she was loosening up, but this situation she took very serious. Her team and
Callen mattered, and she needed her on alert at all times. Risking her family wasn’t an option, especially since she promised Timothy Blackhawk she’d keep them safe.

“Doc
tor Adare, I hate to be the one to break this to you and far be it for me to scare you, but the good news is the barns in Red River aren’t going to be trying to kill you. The bad news is the killer may once we move those bodies. Serial killers get particular and testy when you touch their kills. All joking aside, once we touch those bodies, we don the bulls-eyes.”

Desdemona stopped smiling, and tensed at Elizabeth’s icy warning.

“See you guys soon,” interjected Callen Whitefox, cutting off the call to help calm the doctor down again. He couldn’t blame Elizabeth for being cautious. They had a history with serial killers and the family being put in danger. She was only doing her job, but then again, the woman beside him was now freaked out.

“Don’t stress it, Desi. Elizabeth has to warn us, it’s why she’s a
director and we aren’t.”

It was too late. Doctor Desdemona Adare was already beyond worried and now bordering on scared shitless.

Elizabeth cut off the call and thought about it. Something wasn’t sitting right with the woman they hired as their ME. It wasn’t like she was doing anything outrageously crazy by carrying a gun. She may just like having a firearm, and working for the FBI allowed that, but her gut said otherwise and now that her curiosity was
piqued she needed to know.

“Baby, you have that look on your face.”

Elizabeth knew she did. “How much do we know about Doctor Adare?”

Blackhawk looked surprised. “She passed the standard FBI test and background checks, why? You think there is something up with her?”

“Not up, just off. My gut is in a knot, and now I need to find out why. She comes across as the timid kind of woman, and yet she keeps her service revolver strapped to her hip. I rarely see her without it.”

“So do you,” he added, playing devil’s advocate.

“Yeah, but I’m frequently shot at,” she stated, grinning at her husband.

“Don’t remind me.”

Elizabeth leaned back in her seat. “I also don’t walk around FBI West packing heat, Cowboy. I leave my Glock in the desk. Something about her isn't adding up in my mind, and you know how I get with the details.”

“Like a rabid dog after a small school child?” he
stated, navigating the traffic.

Elizabeth shook her head and
rolled her eyes. “Yeah exactly. Nice picture there. I like how she’s the innocent school child and I’m the scary rabid dog in this scenario.”

“Baby, I didn’t mean it like that.” It wasn’t like his wife to be this sensitive about what others thought about her. She was genuinely upset by his analogy.
That was surprising.

Elizabeth swallowed the intense feelings she was having, and brushed them off as baby hormones. It really didn’t matter what the doctor thought of her. It was funny how she had to keep saying that over and over again.

“You okay, Lyzee?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. I get it. I can be rabid at times. Just be careful I don’t bite you and you have to be put down, Cowboy.” Elizabeth tried to brush it off as humor.

Ethan Blackhawk wasn’t buying it. “Well, when in doubt, call Quantico and get a check on her done, quietly,” he added. “We have the authorization to pull everything on her without her being aware.”

“Yeah
I think we need to do it.” Elizabeth pulled out her phone, placed it on speaker, and dialed Gabe Rothschild’s secretary. She wouldn’t bother her boss with this as of yet, not until she had something substantial.

On the third ring it was answered.

“Director Gabriel Rothschild’s office.”

“Maddy, it’s Elizabeth. How’s it going?” she asked, getting all the chit chat out of the way first.

“Elizabeth! It’s going well. How are you?”

Madeline Miller had been Gabriel’s secretary for as long as Elizabeth could remember. She was the general that guarded the gates to the boss. If Gabe wanted to hide, Patton himself couldn’t break through to see him. Everyone in the FBI referred to her as
Joan of Arc. No one got past her, and she’d throw herself on Gabe Rothschild if he was on fire to put him out.

“I’m getting fat, Maddy, but other than that it’s the same old.”

“How’s that sexy husband of yours doing?” she inquired. “If you’re tired of him, send him on back to Quantico. I miss having him in the office.”

Elizabeth enjoyed the look on her husband’s face. He was horrified. Something about him not knowing that women found him innately sexy was astounding. To this day she still didn’t get it or understand how that was possible.

“I’ll never get sick of him, so you’ll have to look elsewhere, Maddy. Nice try though. I’m not doing this parent thing alone. He’s staying chained to my side.”

“I met his brother and he’s just as hot.”

Blackhawk didn’t know what to think. He really was surprised at the conversation going on between the two women.

“Yeah,
he certainly is. I think it’s a genetic thing, Maddy.” Elizabeth covered her mouth so she didn’t laugh. The look her husband was giving her was hysterical.

“It must be!”

“Maddy, I need a favor, and I was hoping you could help a girl out.” Elizabeth was going to cut him a break.

“What do you need?”

“Our new ME, Doctor Desdemona Adare, I need a deep search done on her and anything you pull sent to either me or Ethan. I don’t want the Doctor aware we’re searching for anything.”

“Uh oh, you think you smell smoke?” she asked, scribbling the information on the notepad.

“I don’t know, but I like to make sure all my bases are covered. I don’t want anything jumping up and biting me or my husband on the ass.”

“Yeah, that would be a shame to take a bite out of Ethan’s ass,” she said, then laughed.

Blackhawk’s mouth dropped open.

Elizabeth almost burst out laughing. “Email anything you find that’s sketchy. If you don’t find anything, then just let me know.”

“Will do, want me to pass it on to Gabe?”

“
Not unless you find some skeletons that aren’t supposed to be there. Like I said, I’m just going on instinct and curiosity.”

“Okay, Elizabeth. I’ll handle it. Give your truly excellent husband a kiss for me,” she said, hopefully.

“I will, Maddy. Thank you,” she answered, and clicked off the phone, then started laughing.

“I’m just mortified.”

Elizabeth laughed more. “Ethan, you’re a sexy man, why are you so shocked that women think you’re hot?”

The heat was creeping up his neck, and he didn’t have an answer for that. Maybe it was his past and the way he always felt about his heritage. Until Elizabeth he wasn’t comfortable with the man he truly was inside and out.

“I don’t think I can ever look at that woman again, and not think about this conversation.”

Elizabeth dropped her sunglasses on her nose and took her husband’s hand in her own. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Ethan.”

“Why’s that?” he asked curiously.

“Joan of Arc will have a bigger fire to put out if she even thinks about taking a bite out of my husband’s ass.
I will give rabid a whole new definition.”

Ethan Blackhawk believed that to be absolute truth.

Monday afternoon

Red River

Callen Whitefox pulled up in front of a building and read the sign. The GPS had been right, they were indeed in the right place. This was the Sheriff’s office.

The rest of the drive had been very quiet. Desdemona would talk to him when he asked her a direct question, but she suddenly wasn’t very talkative
, and he wasn’t quite sure why. The minute the call had ended, she dropped his hand fairly quickly. Granted, he shouldn’t expect her to sit there and hold his hand, they’d just met. Desdemona was purposely avoiding contact.

Part of him wanted to learn more about Desdemona Adare, and part of him wanted to say ‘
screw it’
and jump into the deep end of the pool, just because she was his shot at a normal life off the Rez. His gut instinct was warning him that he needed to think it out and be cautious, but he decided to ignore it. How many chances was he going to get? What he wanted most in life was the life his brother had built, and that meant finding and outsider, much like their Elizabeth.

Now, if he could only get her to open up and stop being super skittish around him. That was going to be the challenge.
That and keeping her from being scared to death of a woman that was really super gentle and sweet once you got to know her.

Desdemona was having a wicked hot flash, and it all had to do with the man sitting next to her. The last thirty minutes of the ride
, she wasn’t able to even think, let alone talk to him. It may have come across as her being cold, but when she was completely flustered like this, she said stupid things. And people then tried to get as far away from her as possible. Desdemona didn’t think she wanted this man to run, she genuinely liked him. From his warm gentle smile, to the caring brown eyes, everything about him felt safe and comfortable. Then there was the fact that he was completely and totally gorgeous. The scientist in her wanted to run her fingers down the sharp angular planes of his face and cheek, and then the woman in her wanted to see if those lines ran everywhere. Yeah, he was very distracting. 

“Are you okay?” asked Callen. “You didn’t say much the last few miles,” he stated, the look of worry on his face.

“I’m fine, Callen,” she said, giving him a smile. Just the fact he even cared made her heart a little mushier over the man. Rarely, in her past had any of the men she dated or slept with ever thought to ask how she felt. There was something special about him. “Are you okay?” she asked back.

“Yeah, I’m ready to head in and start this, but we need to have some ground rules,” he said
, grinning at her.

“I’m pretty good with rules, so I guess we can have a few.” Desdemona smiled at him and knew he was trying to cheer her up and keep her safe. It just seemed like the kind of man he was
inside. Caring and very protective- both she never had before in her life with another man.

“Okay, since we’re here to scope out the scene and get the assessment, we need to observe more than interact.”

“Okay, and that means?”

“That means we don’t know if one of the people in that building is the killer. Until Ethan and Elizabeth get here, we watch everyone, and we try and keep under the radar. That means we tell the sheriff nothing we know or notice until the
cavalry arrives.”