True Love Lost (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 3)) (76 page)

The man sighed. “Agent Blackhawk,” he began until she interrupted him.

“Please, Elizabeth is fine.”

“Elizabeth, it’s not that I have a problem with the FBI or you. It’s that I’m trying to keep my people from making your lives hell. They don’t like you or didn’t. Julian Littlemoon is an entity
all his own, and then my secretary, well she’s just not a people person.”

“We can handle ourselves.”

“So I’ve heard, Elizabeth. I also hear you found a corpse added to the van.”

Elizabeth should probably update the man, since it was his town, even though he said he wanted to let the FBI run it and just keep him in the loop.

“We did. Our ME has determined that it’s female and the killer is using male parts that she’s harvesting.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Really? What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“I haven’t spoken to Ethan for a new profile yet, so I honestly can’t answer that, but it’s a big twist in the game,” she said.

“Can I interest you in some coffee?” he asked, pointing to his coffee pot. “I just put it on,” he
offered.

“Thanks, cream only,” she answered, and then took the cup from him
, sipping it. “I have a few questions, and was hoping maybe you can help me.”

“Sure thing
.” James Duffy sat back at the desk with his own coffee.

“Have you had any women disappear in the last year or two, just up and poof?”
Elizabeth Blackhawk was thinking about how to figure out who the mummy corpse was downstairs, in case they couldn’t pull DNA.

Sheriff Duffy turned to his computer and began typing. “Nothing official Elizabeth, but you know how small towns are since you're from one. People come and go all the time. Unless someone reported a person missing, we have no record of it.”

“Hey, it was just a shot,” she said, finishing her coffee. “I appreciate it. Thanks for getting the tow truck to us so fast.”

“I’m just glad dispatch found Randy for you,” he
replied, sipping his coffee. “For the record, Elizabeth, thank you for all the work you all have been doing. I do appreciate it. I can only imagine how hard my people have been making it.”

“No problem,” she answered. “I’ll be in the conference room if you need me
.” Now it was off to find a nutjob.

Sheriff Duffy watched
Elizabeth walking away and he thoroughly checked her out. Yeah, she was pregnant and married, and the FBI could arrest him for thinking about it.

After all, he was still a male.

Elizabeth sat at the table and dialed her husband’s phone. Looking at her watch, she mentally calculated how far away he was from Red River. He should just be an hour away from FBI West.

“Hey baby, what’s going on?” he asked, answering on the third ring.

“Are we on speaker phone?”

“No, why?”

“Because I was going to sexually harass my co-worker and didn’t want anyone to be able to testify at my HR hearing,” she purred.

Blackhawk
sharply inhaled. “Well, if that’s the case feel free. I won’t press charges.”

“How about a rousing session of really explicit phone sex?” she asked, seductively.

Now he was laughing, because he couldn’t say what he was really thinking. “Always, but it’ll have to be one sided for now.” The laughter became nervous, because Elizabeth wouldn’t think twice about it, and he knew it.

“I miss you, handsome. Can’t wait until you get back so I can crawl all over you,” she began. Yeah, she was buttering him up for the cold blow of the information they discovered.

“I think you know how I feel about that,” he answered back. Damn, to just be alone with his wife, or even alone on the phone. They’d never been apart since getting married and this was a new avenue to pursue on his sexual bucket list. 

“I love you,” she said, baiting him with kisses over the phone. “I dare you, Ethan.” She didn’t think he’d do it and let his staff see him be a big puddle of mush for his wife.

“I love you too, Elizabeth,” he said, and then laughed as there was silence, and he knew she was waiting. “Come on,” he laughed and then gave in, giving her a kiss over the phone. He was sure he was blushing and could feel the heat rising up his neck to his face. When Christina looked over at him grinning, he was even more mortified, more so than if she were staring at his ass.

“Now that’s my sexy FBI husband,” she laughed. “I didn’t think you’d do it. Wow, someone
has shocked the hell out of me today,” she added.

“I do try
to surprise you now and again.”

“Well, speaking of surprises, I happen to have one for you and I’m not sure what to do with it, and I’m dropping it in your lap.”

Blackhawk didn’t like the sound of that. “Elizabeth, I really hate surprises that are work related, please be gentle.”

“The corpse we found in the van?”

“Yeah?” Now he was sure it wasn’t going to be a good surprise.

“Well, Desdemona identified the gender,” she said, cautiously.

Blackhawk didn’t understand. “We have a woman killing men to rebuild a man. What’s there to identify other than the man’s name?”

Elizabeth twirled a piece of hair around her finger as she tried to plot out how to tell him. “Are you driving?” she
inquired.

“No, why?” It had to be pretty bad if she didn’t want to tell him while he was driving. “Is it that bad, baby?”

“The corpse is a woman.”

“Huh?” That surprised the hell out of him. “The mummified body is a woman not a man?”

“Yes, and that means I need a new profile from you,” she added. “Surprise!”

“I don’t think I can even explain or rationalize it.
We have a woman killing men to rebuild a man on a woman’s body? I don’t’ think the text books teach you that at Quantico. I think we’re in uncharted territory.”

Elizabeth didn’t exactly like that idea. “Far be it for me to put the pressure on here, Ethan, but I need your insight. Give me anything you can at this point. I have a bunch of puzzle pieces and I don’t know where to begin putting them together. Anything
darlin’?”

Blackhawk stared out the window at the dark landscape and thought about everything they knew about the killer.
Okay, they had a woman with blonde hair, taking strangers, and removing one part off each one, and then trying to reanimate him now or later. Ethan Blackhawk the profiler knew how off the wall this was, and as the husband to the woman that had to put it all together, he was frustrated that he couldn’t give his wife more.

“Please Ethan
, give me something.”

“
Okay, let’s start with the corpse; she obviously kept it for a reason. It’s going to either be a family member, a sister, a lover. It had to mean something significant. The fact that she’s trying to rebuild the dead person using male parts is puzzling. People keep a body for three reasons; to hide the evidence, they loved the victim, or they felt guilty and it’s punishment to see it daily. Sin atonement, so to speak,” he paused. “Can I have a little while to dwell on it and call you back once we hit FBI West?” he asked. “I need to be focused on talking to Derek’s family, and then I’ll have a clear head.”

Elizabeth could tell he needed the time to play it out in his head, and she’d give it to him and start working on what she could until he called her back. Something had to give sooner or later.

“Okay, be safe, and call me back.” She hung up the phone and heard the telltale beeps. The tech reports were incoming and soon she’d have the answer to a few more questions. She hoped and not more answerless questions. There were days Elizabeth wished she did the profiling, and this part of the job was her husband’s. The stress of knowing a killer was out there and you had to put it all together could be crushing at times. Her only consolation in all this was they were safe. Ethan was almost back to FBI West, and Callen Whitefox was safely watching over his fiancée. For now they could just work it and try and figure out what was going on in Red River.

At the knock on her door, she looked up to see Deputy Julian Littlemoon. She wasn’t expecting him to be standing in the doorway.

“Yes?” Elizabeth asked a little ice in her voice. “Can I assist you with something, Deputy?”

“I probably deserved that,” he said, walking in and sitting down. “You need any help?” he
inquired. “Sometimes when you can bounce things off a person out loud it helps.”

“No, I’m fine
.” Who was she kidding? Elizabeth did like to talk it out, but it pissed her off how the man just wrote her off as a pregnant woman. Men like him made her want to kick their asses around the room just for shits and giggles.

“I’m sorry about earlier. I underestimated you, and it was rude, arrogant
, and wrong of me. Please accept my deepest apology. Had I known that you were some covert native woman disguised as a mere outsider, I wouldn’t have judged.”

Elizabeth looked at him and started to laugh. “If that wasn’t full of bullshit, I don’t know what is,” she added.

“Want to start over?” he asked, grinning. “Hi, I’m Deputy Julian Littlemoon. I’m Native and at your service.”

“Why?” she asked
, suspiciously.

“Well, one- you stopped that overgrown cat for eating me, and two- you’re married to a Native man, and that means he must believe you’re worthy, or he wouldn’t have married an outsider.”

Elizabeth thought about it. “Okay, deal. We call a truce. Wave the white flag in surrender.”

He just looked at her and then began laughing. “Truce,” he put out his hand to shake hers. “Now, what had you looking so damn perplexed?”

“First off, the way these bodies were carried to the Boy Scout camp. I’m a woman, and I’m relatively tall, but I don’t think I could carry you or my husband through the snow and not leave trace all over you.”

“Didn’t you find trace?”

“We found blonde hairs. That’s it.”

“What if the killer isn't working alone?”

Elizabeth thought about it. “Okay, so you and I are killing people together,” she began. “I’m hacking the parts off men, including PARTS,” she emphasized the last part, pointing towards his groin and watching to see if he got it.

“God, that’s just...” There were no words for that in his mind. He almost wanted to cross his legs.

“Yeah, I know. So, we’re killing people, can you actually see a man doing that to another man?” she asked. It just didn’t feel right to her. It felt more like a woman would want to hack off men parts. “Maybe I’d do it to a man I was angry with, or to rebuild a lover, but why when a man is helping? It feels off.”

Her phone beeped again. “Want to help me go through these tech reports? Maybe a fresh set of eyes will
catch something.”

“Can do,” he said, taking the tablet she was offering
.

“Okay, Julian. Let’s see what we can pull out of all the techie mumbo jumbo.”

                                    *     *      *

She paced her house nervously. The stupid FBI bitches had stolen her lover away again. Now she couldn’t even begin to put him back together again. He was gone. She screamed in frustration and kicked the furniture around the house. She punched the wall, leaving a hole in the sheetrock, and instead of making her feel better, it only pissed her off more.

She’d hid his body in the van in hopes of getting her lover out of the little storage room behind her kitchen wall. The FBI was poking around, and digging into things they shouldn’t be. It was her last ditch effort to keep him safe and with her, and now it backfired and only ended up causing more of a mess. Now she had to figure out a way to get her lover back and then it hit her. There was a way, and it was going to be easy. In fact, when she was done, she’d have the last part of her lover, the body she’d so carefully been working on, and help with bringing him back to life.

She’d seen the man and doctor in the sheriff’s station. It was easy to access the place, just through the garage doors and they’d be all hers. Slipping in unnoticed was simple; it wasn’t like there was a lot of crime in Red River. Sheriff Duffy didn’t keep the bay doors to the garage secured.

Easy in and then easy out.

Yes, it was a perfect plan. Now all she had to do was implement it.

                        *     *     *

“Hey, Doctor Adare!” yelled one of the techs. “We’re heading out for dinner, do you and Agent Whitefox want to join us?” he asked, peeking into the makeshift morgue.

Desdemona was just packing up the corpse and wasn’t really in the mood for dinner. “No thank you, Brigit, but I appreciate the offer. All of you head out for the night. I’ll just do the paperwork and head back to the house.”

“Okay! Night Doc! Night Agent!” she answered, closing the door behind her.