Discarded by Fate

by Morgan Kelley

  She handed him the line he always told her. “You say that a lot.”

  Ivan laughed.

  “Why?” he asked again.

  “Because this time it’s different.”

  “How?”

  “Because I’m in love and this mattered to me. It was special.”

  His heart skipped.

  Ivan rested his head on her chest. The words touched him in some deep, profound way.

  Yet, he didn’t offer them back.

  He couldn’t.

  Not yet.

  “So,” she said.

  He waited for her to bring it up. He waited for it to be a fight. She’d given him something special, and he didn’t offer it back.

  Blue rolled, getting back on top.

  “I like this position best.”

  It wasn’t what he expected.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “So I can be on top of the world,” she said, smiling down at him. “It’s an amazing view up here.”

  That rocked him to his core.

  “Blue.”

  She didn’t let him struggle. Even though it hurt that he didn’t offer the words back, she listened to Elizabeth’s advice.

  She healed him.

  Ivan needed it more.

  If he broke her heart, she’d take one for the team. Blue was resilient.

  She could heal herself later.

  * * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *

  When she got back to their room, Chris was already pulling out his copy of the reports.

  “Are you ready to give me COD?” she asked, sitting down. “I didn’t want to do this with anyone not on our team in the room. I don’t want more details leaking, so IF there is another body, this will be our new procedure.”

  They all agreed with her.

  Better this than red faced in front of the media.

  “Yeah, Chrissy and I have COD,” he said. “She’s in her room. Want me to get her?”

  She shook her head.

  “She’s pregnant. I know she worked all last night to get all the trace done. I think you can handle it. You did train her when she started with the FBI. It’s on you to explain.”

  He could do that.

  “Well, the cuts were done with a store-bought, normal table saw. You know, those hand-held ones that carpenters use.”

  She was aware.

  “I have one,” Ethan stated. “I can’t imagine getting cut with one of those. They normally have guards.”

  “Well, that’s what cut her. Tajel West likely bled out. As for the second victim, Lucy O’Donnell also the same deal. Christina checked what tissue and blood was left in her heart. There was maybe enough sitting in the one chamber to do some tests.”

  “And?” she asked.

  “Well, they both had alcohol in their blood, but since we’ve pinpointed their last location as a bar, that’s normal.”

  “And any drugs?” she asked.

  “No. Both were clean, and for a call girl, you know that’s not often the case.”

  “Okay, so two girls…how did he overtake them?”

  “Well, I can help you with that.”

  “What?”

  He taped a picture to the board.

  “I found two anomalies on each of them. I can explain one, I can’t explain the other.”

  “What?”

  “Look at this.”

  He passed a picture around.

  “It looks like Taser burns, or a stun gun, but they are the worst burns I’ve seen,” Ethan said.

  Callen agreed.

  “Yeah, because I think he modified it. A stun gun would stun. I think he figured out a way to deliver one potent zap that rendered them helpless. I don’t know if it slowed the heart down, or if it put them in a catatonic state.”

  She thought about it.

  “So he walks up to a victim, distracts her, and then blasts her. Where on their bodies was this?”

  “On their sides.”

  She had Chris stand up.

  “Okay, I’m the killer.”

  He snickered.

  “You get to be the girl.” Then she laughed just as much as he did.

  “HA-HA. I laughed too soon.”

  Callen and Ethan even found it amusing.

  “Okay,” she said, picking up the eraser for the board and holding it in her hand to pretend it was a stun gun.

  She faced him.

  “In this position…”

  He pointed to his chest. “You’d come straight at me with an underhanded strike—wrist up. You wouldn’t have the range of motion since we’re face to face.”

  “But if I was behind you…,” she said, moving to stand around him.

  They switched positions.

  Elizabeth put the eraser in her hand, and it indeed went right to his side when she swung at him.

  Ethan was watching and measuring everything.

  “He’s a watcher,” he stated.

  They all groaned.

  Those seemed to be the only cases they were getting anymore.

  And it sucked.

  “My kingdom for a normal crazy,” she said, as he sat down, and she wrote it on the board.

  “Yeah, he’s going to lurk. He crept into the bed and breakfast and left the body. He used that tunnel, and he was stealthy,” Ethan said. “How much did the body weigh?”

  Chris flipped.

  “She was roughly one hundred forty pounds.”

  So again, she stood. “I’m one thirty-five. Chris, carry me from here to the door.”

  She went limp, and he swung her up in his arms. “Ah, the memories.”

  “Can I shoot him?” Callen asked.

  “No, that’s paperwork,” Ethan stated.

  She laughed as she was playing dead.

  Ethan corrected her. “Make your arms and legs all spaghetti like. They were on piano strings. Don’t make it easy for him, baby.”

  She did that.

  Chris carried her, but it wasn’t easy.

  Elizabeth gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for playing killer.”

  “I wish Tony was here. That would make it fun.”

  She snorted.

  “So, Chris is six feet tall, and how much do you weigh?” she asked.

  “I’m one eighty-five.”

  “Okay, so as the average sized man, he could carry me, but how far?”

  “No offense, but you were heavy, and when you wiggled your arms and legs, you threw off my center of gravity. It was brutal.”

  “Did you just call me a fat ass?” she teased.

  “No, you’re just big boned.”

  She punched him.

  “Jesus! You got mean. What did those Natives do to you?” he asked, rubbing his arm.

  “Nothing yet, but if she keeps throwing herself at men, I may do something irrational,” Callen admitted.

  Elizabeth knew he’d never hurt Chris. Neither of the men would. They loved him.

  “Okay, Ethan’s next.”

  He stood. “You’re about six foot five and how much?” she asked.

  “I’m two hundred on the button.”

  She waited for him to pick her up.

  “Carry me.”

  “It’s my pleasure sexy dead girl. Do you come here often? Can I have your number?”

  She snorted. Then she squirmed, wiggled, and waved her arms.

  He carried her across the room. When he put her on her feet, she gave him a kiss.

  “My sexy killer.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows.

  “How was that?” she asked.

  “Sexy.”

  “Be serious.”

  “Well, it was doable. I have more resistance against the wiggle. Chris is shorter and thinner.”

  She pointed at Callen.

  “Come to momma, big boy.”

  He rolled his neck.

  “Let me show these girls how it’s done. If I was going to carry a dead woman, I wouldn’t use the front of my body. That’s exhausti
ng. I’d use my shoulders. I’d distribute the weight until my center of gravity was balanced.”

  “You’re an inch taller than Ethan, and…”

  “I am NOT telling you my weight.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Because then Curly and Larry will be telling me I’m fat. No. It’s not happening.”

  Ethan laughed. “He’s two forty.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Then don’t leave the scale in our workout room on the number. Reset.”

  She patted Callen’s ass. “I think you’re sexier than those two. I like my men bulky and big. Size does matter,” she said.

  “Well, since you put it that way, beautiful.”

  Ethan cleared his throat.

  “REALLY? Playing favorites?” Ethan asked.

  She winked at him.

  “Okay, so pick me up, handsome,” she said.

  Callen tossed her over his shoulder and began walking around the room. She wiggled, she shifted, she tried to get him to falter, but he didn’t.

  “He’s going to either be big like Callen, or smart enough to know how to carry them.”

  He placed her down and then gave her one hell of a kiss.

  “Abducting you was my pleasure,” he teased.

  She giggled as she headed to the whiteboard.

  “Kiss ass,” Ethan teased.

  They appeared to have their killer pretty well described. Now they needed more. Big men weren’t an oddity.

  Hell!

  Heath was the biggest they had.

  “What was that second thing you found?” she asked. “You said the Taser burns and then something else.”

  He handed her a picture.

  “What is that?” she asked, looking at it.

  “I have no idea. It looks like something is stamped into her bone or chiseled.”

  Ethan looked at it.

  Then he began pacing.

  They all watched him. In his head, he was analyzing the information. This was his profiler gig.

  Finally, he stopped.

  “He’s signing his masterpieces.”

  They stared at him.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You know how artists put their name on the bottom of a painting? That’s his calling card.”

  Well, that was sick.

  The killer thought what he was doing was art?

  Uh, no.

  “How is he doing it?” she asked. “Bone doesn’t melt. What temperature does it burn at and turn to ash?” she asked Chris.

  “Just under fourteen hundred degrees.”

  “Maybe something sharp. Maybe knife like.”

  “We may have to confer with our bone guy if we can’t figure it out,” she stated.

  “I’ll have Chrissy run other tests on it. I’m betting it’s etched. It looks like he pulled the flesh back, etched it, and then covered it up.”

  “Yeah, that’s my bet too,” Elizabeth offered.

  Then she started back at the beginning.

  “Okay, so he watched them, picked the women he had chosen…how?”

  Ethan wasn’t sure.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  She offered what she knew.

  “We haven’t tied them together yet, other than technically, Tajel was hooking.”

  Ethan agreed. “She was having sex for grades. That is pretty similar if you think about it.”

  “So, after he picked and stalked them, he stunned them, cut them apart, and then strung them together with piano wire.”

  “Run of the mill piano wire,” Chris stated, flipping through Christina’s paperwork.

  He knew what she was thinking.

  “And a run of the mill saw,” Chris added.

  “We have nothing,” Callen stated. “Not when it comes to the things he left behind.”

  “Any trace?”

  He laughed. “Nope. She was washed down with some cleaner. Chrissy can’t trace it, so he’s making it himself, or it’s something so old, it’s never been cataloged in our system.”

  “No hair?”

  “Nope, and no trunk lint, fuzz, or stray fibers.”

  He was cleaning the bodies.

  This guy knew his way around a crime scene.

  She pointed at Ethan.

  “Saddle up, profiler extraordinaire. I need something. He’s technically taken two victims. By the next marionette, we have four victims. That’s halfway to out of control and Gabe freaking out.”

  She was right.

  With this killer, she was on double time. He wasn’t killing one at a time, but two.

  “He’s going to be white.”

  “How can you tell?” Chris asked. “He’s taken a Caucasian and African American victim.”

  “The crime is very planned out. I’m not saying someone of ethnicity couldn’t plan it out, but most serial killers are white males. So, in this fifty-fifty guess, I’m going white.”

  She agreed.

  “Once you go white…”

  Both of her husbands stared at her.

  “Geez. It’s a tough room today,” she teased.

  Chris laughed. “I’ll point out that I’m white…”

  Callen muttered something in their native tongue, and Chris offered something back.

  “Holy shit! Chris cracked the language code. We can’t talk about him anymore,” she teased.

  Ethan and Callen didn’t understand how he’d done it.

  “How?” Blackhawk asked.

  “I wanted to learn. You’re both my brothers, and I see how important it is for you. I wanted to show you I respect it. I hope that’s not an insult for me to use it.”

  “It’s not,” Callen said. “In fact, that’s a beautiful thing. Thank you for that gift.”

  “Lyzee has been teaching me. I wanted to teach Bethe too. Since her best friend is Native, it’s important she learns about her culture and life.”

  Ethan headed toward him and hugged him. “Thank you, Chris.”

  Callen joined him.

  “Now maybe you can teach Ethan, because he sucks at it,” Callen teased, as he hugged him.

  Elizabeth grinned.

  “Men hugging it out. Anyone want to do it naked while I take pictures?”

  All three of them looked at her.

  “Really? Like you didn’t think I was going there with a comment?”

  “Back to the killer,” Ethan said, before one of them found herself spanked.

  “White is my call.”

  Elizabeth was good with that since almost every case they’d had was a white man who ran amuck.

  “What else?” she asked, writing it on the board.

  “He’s going to be older. I’m going to say fifties,” Ethan offered.

  “And still strong?”

  “Yes. He’s going to take care of himself. Likely work out, but also blend.”

  She made more notes.

  Elizabeth loved when he gave her a direction. So far, all of the people they’d interviewed were white, and could pass as physically fit.

  “What else?”

  “He’s going to be angry. Where if he was killing someone to paint a picture with blood, it’s not the medium. It’s using the blood as a paint. With this one, he’s actually using the whole person, so he has no regard for human life.”

  Great.

  That was NEVER good.

  Cuckoo alert.

  “He’s going to be watching, and he’s going to revel in this being about him. If he’s stamping the bone, that means he’s taking ownership of it, and he’s proud.”

  Yeah, they had a cuckoo.

  “What else?”

  He got up and began pacing.

  “Is he sexually assaulting the women?” he asked Chris.

  “Well, that’s the hard part,” Chris offered. “We only have one torso, so only one vagina.”

  “Was she raped?”

  He shook his head.

  “Forcefully? No. I mean, with Lucy O’Donnell, she had se
x, but there was no vaginal tearing, or hematomas. She had a latex residue when we swabbed her, but no sperm. We don’t have all of Tajel, so I can’t answer as for her status.”

  Ethan hated to disappoint her.

  “If he’s washing the bodies, then he’s going to be using a way to protect himself.”

  “So someone is using condoms.”

  “Thank God,” Chris stated. “You never know what you could catch.”

  “I hope you were protected when you were assaulted by the ME. She’s a festering, walking hole of…”

  Ethan covered her mouth.

  “We don’t need to visualize that.”

  Chris began laughing. “I was safe, honey. I don’t need to get any shots. Besides, I have my six-month blood test coming up from when I was cut on that hooker.”

  She didn’t want to think about it.

  Elizabeth got them back on track since she was the one who distracted them in the first place.

  “Okay, so what are we looking at with a timeline?”

  He thought about it.

  “Well, he took the women Wednesday and Thursday, then left them reinvented on Sunday…”

  She did the math.

  “So two days to swipe, and one to create?”

  He nodded. “If he sticks to that timeline. If he escalates it, he’s out of control, and you may start to see more messages to you, sexual assault, and general mayhem.”

  Well, at least they knew what to look for in the crazy. That was half the battle.

  Although, it was nice to know that no one was really after her. This guy was playing to her, and so far, only taking women. Her husbands and Chris were safe.

  That was all that really mattered.

  After Bonnie, she didn’t need someone going right after her.

  Elizabeth needed a break and a case where she was simply the investigator—not the target.

  “Well, it looks like we shouldn’t have a body until Wednesday,” she offered.

  Ethan agreed.

  “Well, at least we’ll get a good night’s sleep,” she teased.

  Callen wiggled his eyebrows.

  “Now’s a bad time to mention I lost my earbuds,” Chris said, grinning.

  Callen sighed. “We have a chaperone.”

  Elizabeth was about to say something snarky, when someone knocked on their door.

  She was the closest, so she headed there.

  As she opened it, the visitor caught her by total surprise.

  “Wyler?” she asked.

  That had everyone’s attention.

  All three men headed there.

  “Dad, are you okay?” Callen asked. “What are you doing here? Are the kids okay?”