Discarded by Fate

by Morgan Kelley

  She was lovely.

  At that very moment, she was before him, stripping her heart out as she tried to impress the men around her. It was precious how she put her whole heart into it.

  Tonight, when she left the club, he’d be waiting.

  She was marked.

  She was his.

  She would be half of his next marionette. By the time he took her, the other girl would already be in the cage.

  In fact…

  He shoved a one-hundred-dollar bill into her G-string, feeling her up. Her skin was soft, supple, and perfect.

  “See you later, gorgeous,” he whispered, right before he headed out.

  He needed to take a trip to the hospital.

  He was feeling a little under the weather.

  Well, he knew a nurse who would change that.

  Later, she’d be his too.

  His beautiful puppet…

  Chapter Five

  Morgue

  Sunday Afternoon

  W hen they arrived, per his request, Chris was already elbow deep in the mismatched victims. He was pulling out internal organs while Doctor Julliard was in turn shaving off parts of the dead woman’s liver. They’d taken her apart, and removed all the wires so she wasn’t a sick puppet.

  Instead, she was a sick reminder of the cruelty of mankind. Waiting for them, the two women were placed on tables side by side. On one sat a head and hands, and on the other sat a body missing those parts.

  As she took in the absurdity of the scene, she laughed.

  Everyone there looked up from their work and their faces said the same thing.

  They thought she was losing her mind.

  Elizabeth knew she had better explain.

  “Sorry for that. I was thinking about how insane people are and thinking back to when we were first starting out.”

  Chris grinned at her over the protective facial guard he was sporting to keep any splashing from the woman’s torso.

  “Yeah, we used to get the run of the mill killers back then, honey. I miss the days of poisoning, rampant postal gunmen, and people who weren’t so damn crazy.”

  She hopped up onto the spare table, and Callen took a seat beside her.

  It was a sad testament to that one statement. She missed the straightforward crazies too.

  Well, it was time to get down to business.

  “You rang, Newton?” she asked.

  He pulled off his facial guard and rolled his shoulders. “Yeah, I think I found a way to help you when it comes to IDing the body without a head.”

  She was up for any help he could give her.

  “How?”

  “Well, our one victim had a tattoo.”

  Chris moved the magnifier and placed it over the small butterfly. “Here.”

  She examined it on the screen. While it was a long shot, she’d take it, and Elizabeth knew exactly who was going on this wild goose hunt.

  Oh, not her.

  The commissioner said to let them be part of this whole thing. Well, ask and ye shall receive.

  “Hey, Detective Chase, tag. You get to locate a victim’s ID. Here’s your parameters. She’s Caucasian with a tattoo.”

  He pulled out a notebook and got ready. “Okay, what else do we have?”

  She was about to tell him nothing, but Chris stopped her. Apparently, he had more.

  Luckily for Detective Chase.

  “I can give you approximate age. I had an idea and called Tony. I know he’s off with Jaxon, stressing her pregnancy, so I gave him something to distract him.”

  “Good plan,” Elizabeth stated. “What did he come up with?”

  “Well, he said her collar bone is fully formed, so he placed her age to be around twenty-five-ish.”

  The cop looked a little lost.

  She sighed.

  Newbies…

  “Joey, help the man out. Show him how to do it,” she stated, giving him an on the fly lesson on how you had to think if you wanted to be a detective or Fed.

  “On it, boss.”

  Johanna pointed to the papers he’d brought, and they began spreading them out on a vacant table.

  Chris still wasn’t done.

  “I can also give you something on the African American victim.”

  “What?” Elizabeth asked.

  He pulled up the information and sent it to the screen on the wall. “See this?” he asked, pulling a pair of earrings up in a picture.”

  She hoped off the table to get a better look.

  “Yeah, I can see them. Is that a sorority symbol?”

  “I can do even better than that,” he said, pulling up more information. “That’s a Delta Gamma first year pin in the form of earrings. Your victim was a pledge.”

  Elizabeth smiled because she’d done this dance with Chris before. He didn’t bring something up unless he had already figured it out.

  She rubbed her hands together in excitement.

  “If you can tell me where they are linked to, I’ll give you a prize.”

  “Are we talking about my favorite prize?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

  Callen cleared his throat, suspecting where this whole thing was going.

  The both stared at him.

  “Really?” she asked.

  Elizabeth pulled a candy bar out of her pocket. “Uh, get it out of the gutter, Callen James. Not all of us are pervs.”

  He knew her better than that.

  “ONCE in all these years. Don’t even try to pretend that you’ve not been in the gutter with the rest of us.”

  She snickered.

  He had a damn valid point.

  “If you can tell me where, Newton, I’ll feed you this candy bar personally.”

  He was starving.

  There was no way he was turning that offer down.

  “It belongs to Delta Gamma, and there happens to be one of those sororities at Harvard. Coincidence? I think not.”

  She unwrapped it and held it just out of his reach.

  “I know you. There’s more. Did you do the research?” she asked, holding the candy bar as an enticement.

  He pulled up another picture behind him.

  “You had better believe it. There is this year’s pledge class. Second row, third girl in. You have Tajel West.”

  Elizabeth moved it to his mouth so he could take a bite of his favorite candy.

  “You’re the best, Newton.”

  “I’m easy. You know the way to my heart. I work for candy.”

  She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You are absolutely the best,” she said. “That’s why we’ve been doing this for so long.”

  There was a sigh from the other doctor, and Elizabeth wasn’t surprised.

  “That’s going above the scope of his job,” the other ME stated. “We do the medical. You do the investigating. We are not required to do your legwork.”

  She was going to stay calm.

  Elizabeth continued to hold the candy bar as they worked.

  “Uh, except when I was new at this gig, he was my first partner, and the ONLY person I trusted. So, while it may be out of his ‘scope’, because of his job title, he’s got my back and always will.”

  “She’s correct,” he said, chewing. “She is my best friend. When she’s out there investigating, anything I can give her will keep her safe or a step ahead of people who do this,” he said, pointing at the body. “That’s why I do it. It’s not to play investigator, but to ensure I see her again at the end of the day.”

  She placed her arm around his waist. “Thanks, Newton. You are the best.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows.

  Callen pointed.

  “Okay, that time I was in the gutter,” he teased.

  It made Callen laugh.

  “Ah, back to Harvard. If you need my contacts there, Elizabeth, let me know.”

  She would.

  “Add her to your list, Johanna,” she said, pointing at her agent. “Blue gauged her TOD at about forty-eight hours. Someone
would have noticed a Harvard girl gone missing.”

  She flipped through the papers.

  As predicted, it didn’t take long at all.

  “I’ve got her. We have Tajel West—a prelaw student. She’s from Boston,” she said, grabbing her tablet to run some information. “Oh, and she’s from a rich family.”

  There was a pause.

  “Uh oh.”

  They all looked over. No one liked hearing that during an investigation.

  “What?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Her father is a congressman. His name is Dorian West, and it just got ugly.”

  That was saying a lot considering what the killer had done to the two women, but Elizabeth didn’t disagree. Politics made EVERYTHING in her world more difficult.

  “Well, this is going to suck the big one. Once a politician enters into this, the game changes.”

  “Why? Because they matter more?” Doctor Julliard asked in one of those tones.

  It was the kind that pissed her off. While DC might be full of corruption, Elizabeth didn’t play that game. Once you were on the table with her ME, digging in the body, they became hers. Rich, poor—it didn’t matter to her. Death was an equal opportunity killer.

  “NO, because they expect me to kiss their asses and bend over backward for them. There are only two people I pull that stunt for, and it’s LITERALLY to bend over backward.”

  Callen laughed.

  Chris raised his hand, and she elbowed him.

  “Not this moment, Christopher. Your timing sucks.”

  He snickered as she fed him more candy bar.

  “So, I’m going to cut this train off at the pass. We are going to hand this bureaucratic nightmare off to the big dog. This is more up his alley than mine. I don’t play well with politicians.”

  “Or cops,” Christina offered.

  “Or killers,” Chris added.

  “Or people in general,” Doctor Julliard added.

  Oh, Elizabeth wanted to kick in the woman’s teeth, but she’d stay cool.

  “Ethan gets to have some fun?” Callen asked.

  “Yeah, he’s still in DC, so he and Gabe can tag team the hell out of this one. This father, if I remember correctly, is pretty pro-cop. So, he’s going to have the whole Boston PD riding shotgun when this hits the media. That’s going to make this one of those quagmires for us.”

  “What are you going to do?” Chris asked.

  What could she do? She was going to track down her suave husband, and their boss, to tag them in on this circus of crazy.

  She pulled out her phone.

  When Gabe answered, she put him on speaker. “Hey, baldy, I just ran into the shit storm.”

  “Elizabeth, try Gabriel, Gabe, Mr. Director, Mr. Rothschild. I know you can say them. You’ve used them before.”

  “Really? That’s your concern in that whole sentence? I am screwed seven ways to Sunday.”

  Why wasn’t he surprised?

  “Who did you kill, and do you need me to bail you out or break you out?”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Shut up, you jackwagons. Be serious and get back to trace or he’ll be talking about your painful demise!”

  “Who, Elizabeth?”

  “You saw the victim—do you recall the head and hands?”

  “You have an ID?”

  “Oh, I absolutely do on half of her, and YOU are going to hate it.”

  “Why am I going to hate it?” he asked, really not enjoying any of this conversation.

  “Dorian West.”

  That was all she had to say.

  Gabe stopped talking.

  When he resumed, Elizabeth already knew what he was going to say. The man was predictable if anything.

  “Please, please, please tell me you don’t have his ONLY daughter on that table.”

  “No.”

  He sighed, and there was that glimmer of hope.

  “I don’t have her whole body. I only have her head and hands. We don’t know where the hell the rest of her is.”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ, the wise men, and two camels. This is about to get ugly.”

  “Yeah, that’s why I called you. She’s been ID’d by visual. We need her dentals sent over to Christopher so he can sign off on it, but we are pretty sure it’s her.”

  “And?”

  “We need her father notified. So, can you and my spiffy hubby head on over to the congressman’s home and drop the truth bomb on him?”

  “Elizabeth!”

  “Well, if I do it…?”

  She let him paint that picture in his head, and it wasn’t a pretty one. While she could do a somber notify, the odds were NOT in her favor—or his.

  “Stop.”

  “I can’t leave Boston to travel to DC, and if the media sees him showing up here, in his district, we will have a mêlée. I don’t think you want me to be the ringleader of that, do you?” she asked.

  “Why do I answer my phone? When I see it’s you, I should just jump out my window.”

  She laughed.

  “This is NOT funny, Elizabeth. You are the conductor of the crazy. I don’t know what happened to you, but I recall a time when you pulled the normal cases.”

  “Oh, that was more a freaked out laugh than one of amusement. I don’t know where the rest of his daughter is, and I certainly don’t want it getting out that some fruit loop made a marionette out of her,” she offered. “As for the ‘normal cases’, you gave me the violent crimes division to make my own. This wasn’t on me, baldy.”

  Yeah, he was well aware.

  “Before I go get my ass handed to me by a politician, please tell me we have something on the maniac doing this. That’s the first thing Dorian is going to ask me. I know him.”

  “Christina?”

  “The note was clean. We found nothing that’s going to make this a cake walk. I’m tracing the paper as we speak. It’s a rich linen. Whoever did this isn’t poor. As to anything else, that may or may not have been left behind, I’ll have more later. We’re talking a bed and breakfast. The trace is staggering.”

  “There you have it,” she said. “Day one, and we are just beginning this triathlon of cuckoo.”

  There were days when Gabe wished he’d become an accountant. This was going to be one of those days.

  “Did we figure out how he left the body?” he asked.

  Here was her conundrum.

  She knew, since she’d gotten the email from her other agent, but the detective was in the room. She weighed her options. She was going to pretend she didn’t know, and hope anyone who did know kept their damn mouths shut.

  She didn’t want this getting back to Patty, the angry homicide captain or his PR loving boss.

  “Good question. My agent and security aren’t back yet, but as soon as I know, you’ll know. Oh, and your buddy Ronan Schwartz wants an update. Tag. You get that too. I played nice. You know that’s not like me.”

  Now she wouldn’t have to lie to the commissioner. She’d lied to Gabe, and he could tell the man that they didn’t know. She’d dodged that bullet.

  Whew!

  She fed Chris the last of his candy bar as he did the stitching for the incision. Elizabeth was proud of her team. They knew that Gabe was not one to trifle with, and they were keeping their heads down, and getting their job done.

  “I have a complaint,” Doctor Julliard stated.

  They all looked at her—mostly like she’d lost her damn mind.

  It took Gabe a few minutes He was pretty sure that wasn’t a tech. They knew better.

  “And you are?” he asked, only hearing her voice.

  Elizabeth, Chris, and Callen made the ‘finger across the throat’ sign to signal the woman to shut the hell up. While he tolerated Elizabeth, he didn’t like many people.

  They didn’t call him ‘The Dragon Slayer’ for shits and giggles.

  “I’m Doctor Heather Julliard. This is my morgue. We’ve met before.”

  Gabe didn’t give a shit. H
e couldn’t understand why she was talking to him.

  “And?”

  “She makes her ME do research! That’s not something he was supposed to do. He’s the reason she knows the victim’s name. It had nothing to do with her.”

  Elizabeth still said nothing. While she could beat the hell out of the woman for being a pain in the ass, she’d let the whole ‘snitches get stitches’ thing happen in due time.

  Oh, not by her.

  Gabe would leave a big ol’ bite from her ass.

  “And?” he asked.

  “It’s not professional.”

  Elizabeth waited for it.

  In three…

  Two…

  One…

  “Well, thank you for bringing this to my attention, Doctor Julliard. I wasn’t aware that my people were going above and beyond their jobs to find criminals. I should stop them immediately. We wouldn’t want to get justice for the dead. That’s crazy. We should do less for the taxpayer’s dollar. What the hell was I thinking?”

  Elizabeth smiled at her.

  Yeah, she was an idiot. Here came the bloodshed.

  “Maybe you don’t give a shit about your job, but Doctor Leonard cares about his, and that is an admirable trait to have in an employee. So, he gets the gold star, and you get a warning. Shut up, Doctor. Tattletales belong in preschool, and I don’t tolerate them.”

  The woman looked stunned.

  “Now, if you’re done having a conversation with me that I didn’t need to hear, I think I’ll go do something more important like run the bloody FBI!”

  Callen had to look down. He was going to laugh his ass off over this one. Everyone who worked for Gabe knew that unless spoken to, zip it. That’s where Elizabeth had picked that little rule up.

  “Thanks for your help, Gabe. I appreciate it,” Elizabeth stated, trying to keep a straight face. Well, they warned her. She chose to be childish.

  “I don’t mind, Lyzee. Ethan and I will do the notify. Can you not dig up another congress man’s child?”

  “Doesn’t the president’s daughter go to school….?”

  He hung up.

  “Well, clearly, he doesn’t appreciate how hard we worked on this,” she teased. “Well, some of us,” she said, smiling at the other ME. The woman was bright red.