True Love Lost (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 3)) (67 page)

Whitefox snorted. “Uh,
Ethan, your wife is incredibly hot and probably about three leagues above both of us. Do you really care if it was her master plan or not? You definitely won the
‘sexy wife lottery
’,” he replied grinning.

“
Come to think of it, you’re right,” he started laughing. “There’s days I just watch her and wonder how the hell I get to sleep with her, have kids with her, and even caught her in the first place.”

“
Perhaps the Blackhawk grin?” he asked, laughing.

“Please,” he said, “that grin only gets you so far. If she didn’t marry me as fast as she did, I would have sworn it was mercy sex.”

“Lightening doesn’t strike twice, you better be very grateful to the sex gods.”

Blackhawk knew it and debated if he should talk openly with his brother.

“What’s wrong,” he said, noticing his brother’s face change suddenly.

“Yesterday she actually was worried I’d cheat on her. Carly Kester walked out, and she told me she felt unattractive. I jumped down her throat telling her I wasn’t dad
and to not stress it.”

Whitefox understood where his brother was coming from. 

“If you ever cheated on your wife, I’d beat the hell out of you myself.”

“Wow, talk about blood being thicker than water.” Blackhawk laughed. “I wouldn’t ever do that. Like I said before, I got really lucky catching a woman like Elizabeth.”

“Yeah you did, but I understand how you always think you’ll be like dad. I feel that way too sometimes. Just take it easy on Elizabeth. You’re lucky.”

“I told her about our conversation.”

Whitefox didn’t know what to say to that.

Ethan Blackhawk could read the look on his face. “Just do me a favor,
bro.”

“Yeah?” Something about Elizabeth knowing about their discussion tightened his body.

“Before you commit to Doctor Adare, make sure she’s the one your heart completely wants.”

Callen stared out the front window. He wasn’t going to lie to his brother. Both of them knew that he wanted a woman he couldn’t have.
That ship had already sailed. “Thanks for the advice.”

“If you need to talk, you can always come to me.
I’ll never not be here for you to guide you through anything. There’s nothing you can say to me that’ll make me hate you or divide us.”

Whitefox nodded.

Blackhawk tried to reassure his brother. “For the record, Callen, Doctor Adare isn't too shabby herself. You definitely could win that lottery too and get very lucky.”

“Yeah, well I have to seal the deal, and if she hears about this DNA, I’m a dead man.”

“My lips are sealed,” he answered.

“You aren’t the one I’m worried about,” he paused. “Two words: girlfriend code.”

Blackhawk laughed as he pulled away from Carly Kester’s book store. “You’re so screwed.”

~ Chapter Eighteen ~

Elizabeth Blackhawk sat on the counter and watched her friend autopsy a co-worker. Now that she thought about it, she should have found someone else to do it. It was clearly visible on the woman’s face that she was suffering. The tears kept coming, as she removed organ, after organ and spoke into the recorder. Despite whatever Doctor Adare thought of herself, there was only one true fact. She was tough.

Her heart ached as she looked over at the face of the man that worked in the lab, and always had a pleasant cheery word for her when she came down to the morgue. Derek Williams would be missed, and then it occurred to her, they would have to notify the family.

“When will the body be ready for release?” she asked her friend.

“In a day or two, Elizabeth. I need to get the test results in, and make sure I caught everything the first time. We don’t want to have to notify the family and girlfriend that we need to exhume for a second go at the body.”

Yeah, that just sucked, she’d been there for her father, and she didn’t want that to happen to anyone else. “I think Ethan wants to call the family today, and let them know.”

Desdemona looked up.

“I’d prefer we keep the body until we can find everything the killer took,”
Elizabeth said, nodding her head at the obviously missing parts of the man’s anatomy.

“Me too, but honestly, they may be degraded too much, and really I can only hold him for so long. Legally, he has to be released by a certain date.”

“I understand,” said Elizabeth. “What do you know for sure now?” Hopefully the doctor would give her something; she didn’t want anyone else to end up on the table, especially like Derek.

“I think the main question is if he suffered, correct?” She started the stitches to close up his chest.

“Yeah. Please tell me that Derek didn’t feel that being done to him.” Elizabeth couldn’t imagine the horror he must have felt if he was awake for that act. Just the idea made her stomach swim.

“He took a strike to his head, and in fact,” she turned Derek’s head and pointed to a sticky substance. “The killer left trace, for the first time.”

Elizabeth hopped down and looked at the spot. “It looks like grease or some kind of oil product.”

“I already swabbed it, and packaged it. I have a courier coming in the next hour to transport the samples back to FBI West. We should have results on this, and the evidence found under his nails
in a day or so.”

“We found
DNA trace?” she asked, surprised.

“Epithelial cells.”

Elizabeth was surprised. This would be the first human trace that the killer left behind other than the blonde hairs. She was either getting sloppy, or they were close and she was having her cage rattled. “Derek, you got a few shots in didn’t you,” she whispered, softly. “Good for you. I promise that I’ll get a few in for you too.”

Somehow Desdemona didn’t doubt it. When Elizabeth Blackhawk promised payback, she got it. The lab techs talked about how she nearly killed her own brother and took out the last killer without flinching. She was very glad the woman was her friend and not her enemy.

Elizabeth’s phone beeped and she looked down at the screen. “It looks like our killer isn't a real blonde,” she said, reading the message from their head tech. “Christina pulled up the reports and looked at the chemicals on the hairs, and there was peroxide present.”

“Bleached blonde huh? We seem to have a few of those around her.”

“That eliminates Courtney Brewer, she’s the only real blonde in the bunch. We’ll still run the DNA in case she’s helping someone commit these crimes.”

“Good idea.”

“I'm going to forward this over to Ethan,” she said, typing up a quick email.

“Want my professional opinion
on what happened to Derek?” she asked.

“I’m always open for the impression of our fine ME staff,” she said
, looking up and smiling at the woman. She was pretty sure she knew what had happened, but why not get the outside perspective on the situation.

“I think Derek was drugge
d, when he woke up he struggled.” Desdemona lifted his wrists, and showed Elizabeth the abrasions. “He got free and then tried to fight off his killer. That’s how the trace got under his nails. The killer subdues him with something handy. Derek gets struck this way,” she demonstrated the downward strike. “It cracked his skull, and it caused intracranial hemorrhaging. Death was fast at that point. When the killer took his genitalia, he was already dead. There was very little bleeding, and he was already beginning the coagulation process.”

“Thank
God he didn’t feel that.” Finally she said it out loud.

“Exactly.”

“Now I need this report in hard copy form. I have to give it to Ethan.” Elizabeth wasn’t looking forward to that, once he knew the wound that was inflicted, she was pretty sure that would be insult to injury, and he was going to be upset. Then again, most men would be upset, putting themselves in his place.

“I’ll prep it for you now, Elizabeth. Do you want me to tell him about it? I don’t mind being the one that breaks it to him. I could use some big terminology and bury it in there so he doesn’t quite get the full impact.”

Elizabeth laughed. “You have big word terminology for ‘
his penis was removed’
?” She felt a little better, that her new friend was willing to take the heat for her.

Desdemona thought about it. “Yeah, you’re right, you better tell him.”

“I thought as much. I’ll tell you one thing, when I get my hands on the woman doing this; I swear I’m going to ass kick her into the next county, just for making me have to deliver this report to my husband.”

Desdemona transmitted the report from her tablet to the printer. As it printed out, she washed up her tools. “Hey, where’s Callen?” she asked, suddenly wondering where he’d disappeared
to earlier. He’d gotten a text and then ran out, promising to return later.

“Oh, he and Ethan went to go get DNA from Carly Kester.” Elizabeth pulled the report off the printer.

“Oh did we get a warrant?” she asked, drying off her tools.

“Well, not exactly.”

Desdemona looked over the top of her glasses at the agent. “Not exactly?” That didn’t exactly offer her reassurance. “Then how was he going to get DNA from the woman?”

Elizabeth grinned and didn’t say anything.

“On second thought Elizabeth, it’s probably best I have no idea what went on today. I have a feeling that it’s not going to make me happy at all.”

She laughed. “I knew you were a smart woman,” she said, winking and then heading out of the room to find her husband and brother-in-law.

Desdemona Adare thought about it. Yeah, well now she was obligated to find out what the man she was sleeping with had done to get DNA from a suspect.

T
hen she just might kick his ass herself.

Saturday afternoon.

Elizabeth added another photograph to her whiteboard. Victim number seven was one of their own, and she placed his FBI photo ID on the board and for her husband’s sake, didn’t put the picture of him from the crime scene. Hearing about the injuries was going to be bad enough, and she still had yet to write the wounds on the board, because she needed to be the one that told him, not the board. Maybe she could soften the blow.

Hopefully.

She could hear their voices, as they walked down the corridor to the room. Elizabeth braced herself, and hoped she’d have the courage to tell her husband the truth of the situation. Plastering a fake smile on her face, she prayed for patience and the ability to stay calm if there was an implosion in the room.

Callen carried the baggie with the evidence into the room, and saw from the look on his sister-in-laws face,
and knew the autopsy was complete. “Hey Lyzee, I got your DNA for you,” he said, trying to keep his voice light. “You’re sadistic, and I’m glad I’m the love of your life or that would have been particularly miserable,” he teased, dropping the bag on the table and a kiss on her cheek. Whitefox took a protective stance at her side. He was ready for what was coming.

Blackhawk laughed, and then looked over at the Whiteboard. There was his tech’s picture, happily staring back at them all. “Where’s the death picture,” he said, knowing exactly why it wasn’t up there. His wife didn’t think he could handle it. Just that alone pissed him off, and made him want to lose his temper.

“I don’t want to see it,” she said, lying. Immediately she prayed he’d not notice the way he was killed wasn’t posted on the board either.

“Why didn’t you fill in the rest of the information?” he asked, angrily.

Elizabeth knew she was going to be the target, and she wanted to get her brother-in-law out of the room before the eruption happened.

“I didn’t get there yet,” she said, staring at him evenly.

“Bullshit, Elizabeth.” He felt rage that she just lied to him.

“Callen, can you take the DNA down to Christina
?” asked Elizabeth, picking it up and handing it back to him.

“Maybe I should stay
.” He didn’t want to leave Elizabeth alone to take the heat. She was pregnant and didn’t need to be dealing with his hostility alone. He’d never seen his brother this angry before at Elizabeth, and it worried him. The male in him wanted to stay and protect her. The part of him that was in love with her was demanding he do it.