“I’m up to my eyeballs. We have rats in my house, and my one detective is going to start a task force to find them. I need to keep this as calm as possible. If it smells suspicious, your agent will have heat all over her.”
There was a pause.
Gabe didn’t want that either. This was a fine line. If she was in the media spotlight, she might be safer.
“Elizabeth, what do you want to do?”
“I will work with the detective. I’m not afraid of the mob. As for the reporter, you know that won’t go well, Gabe. You know I don’t play well with certain people.”
“The mob will gun for her, Gabe,” Levi stated. “I can’t protect her if she’s being stubborn.”
Chris wanted to be ill.
Still, he kept calm.
“I have this, Gabe. So far, Michael O’Banion hasn’t made contact with me.”
She didn’t tell him about the bank or how she knew she was being watched. Gabe would lose it.
“He will,” Levi stated. “He’s going to be intrigued by the fact that you’re young, pretty, and someone he’d like to collect. He’s going to want to own you.”
“I’m not buyable.”
Gabe sighed.
“He’s being watched. That’s all I can say, but my agent is safe there. Let her do her thing. I have a few agents in your city. I’ll have them there for backup if she needs it. Hell! I’ll ride in if there’s a situation. I don’t let my people swing!”
Levi relaxed a little.
“He’s getting stronger here, and now that he has cops on the inside, it’s a bad thing. We are losing the war with the mob for Boston.”
There was only one way to push back.
“Then let her do her damn job.”
“I can’t call off the reporter. I suggest she play nice and maybe keep him busy.”
“Operation Switcharoo,” she stated.
Chris laughed.
“I’m in.”
Gabe knew the plan since he’d taught her it when she first started.
“I’ll ignore that he’s following me around, but I’m going to play by my rules.”
“What?”
“Don’t you worry about that, Commissioner. I’ll handle him. I’m really good at multi-tasking.”
“Maybe someone else should handle this, Gabe. You know…someone else.”
She opened her mouth, but Gabe beat her to the punch.
“I sincerely hope that wasn’t a shot at her gender because I will let her go shit nuts in your town to prove that she is just as effective, if not better than any man I have. You are lucky to have her on this case. I’d tread carefully.”
She stared at him.
“No offense meant,” he stated.
“Oh, a shitload was taken,” she stated. “I’m sorry I don’t have a dick since clearly, that’s what it takes to solve a case. Oh, wait…you had two dicks handling this, and they couldn’t get it done. Maybe it takes a vagi…”
“Elizabeth!”
She backed down, but only for him.
“What do you have?” Gabe asked, trying to distract her from killing the man. He knew his agent, and that was the next step.
“I have something that might pan out. I’m not sharing it now, but I will email you the details.”
“Okay, Elizabeth. If you need backup, you call me. I can have Alex and Noah up there.”
She was good with that. While Alex Bartlett didn’t want to be her partner, and he was now working with Noah Stokes, she’d trust him to have her back.
They simply didn’t mesh.
He was still a good agent.
“Okay, Gabe.”
“Watch your back, and Elizabeth, try not to piss off the mob man.”
“I’m going out to a nice dinner,” she stated. “If he wants to watch me, that’s great. He’ll think I’m not working.”
Gabe gave her latitude.
“Do you need a profile? I can have one done in a few days.”
“I think I got this. We have three women, all white. Our killer is going to be Caucasian, and he’s going to be angry. He escalated and beat the hell out of victim two. I will have more when I see victim four. There will be more. It’s a matter of time.”
The commissioner didn’t like that.
“Christ.”
That was how it was going to be. Crazies were going to be crazies.
“If you need someone to watch your back in public,” the commissioner offered, “I can lend you a detective.”
Chris nearly bit off his tongue, but he managed to keep his mouth shut.
“No freaking way. I only trust five people in this city. Christopher Leonard, and my four techs. They won’t screw me over. Sorry, Doc, you’re taking me out and going to have to play date.”
He grinned.
She’d managed to work a romantic date into a case, and now they actually had time to spend the evening together. It was work…technically.
He was good with that.
“Well, if you’re going to hold a gun to my head.”
Gabe laughed.
Yeah, no one was buying that. He was well aware that the doctor was likely eating this up like popcorn at a movie.
“Just don’t get shot or abducted. If either happens, I will send so many fucking agents there, Levi, your city will bleed bureaucratic red tape.”
“I get it.”
“Anything else?” Elizabeth asked.
“Do you trust who you’re working with?” Gabe asked. “The cop who’s helping you…can he be trusted?”
“Someone took shots at us today. They weren’t aimed at me. They were aimed at him. He’s just lucky I’m fast and alert because he was playing target.”
“WHAT?”
“The report is coming,” Elizabeth stated. “I’m good, and the detective is good. I trust him. I don’t trust his partner. I won’t work with him if my life depended on it.”
“Elizabeth, I want you to find the person shooting at cops, and help Levi out.”
“Killer and mob. Got it. While I’m at it, does anyone want me to make them a sandwich?” she asked sarcastically.
“LaRue!”
Chris didn’t like this.
At all.
“I’ll email you, Gabe. I need some searches run. Can you by any chance have some drone in the office do them? I want them ASAP.”
“Detective Bronson takes over as mob task force leader on Monday. You have him two more days. That’s it. I need him working this,” the commissioner stated.
Elizabeth had this.
Time was running out. They had to get moving, or she was going to be working this one on her own.
“On it.”
She hung up the phone.
“I’m sorry. My hands are tied. I have so many issues now and I can’t even go there.”
She got it.
The commissioner was fighting his own fires. It was tough out there when the mob was trying to run roughshod over the city.
“You just let me do my thing, and I’ll get it done.”
“Are you really good at your job?” he asked, “Or was Gabe exaggerating?”
She smiled.
“Oh, yeah. I’m not afraid of the mob, and I’m damn good at what I do. Nothing scares me.”
And that was a big, fat lie.
What she did fear is that Chris would be in danger now too. If O’Banion wanted her for his collection, he wouldn’t hesitate to take out any obstacles.
Meaning a man she cared about.
That was something she wasn’t willing to risk.
Outside the office, she blew off the one cop and focused on the other. The asshole betting against her and her team could kiss her ass.
“I’ll handle setting up the meet with the professor’s alibi,” she stated.
She purposely didn’t say anything more. Elizabeth wasn’t giving the other cop anything he didn’t already find out.
“Okay, and I can run some reports and see what I find.”
“I’ll message you when I get the time. Tomorrow, meet me at the morgue. I want to make sure my ME gets there safely.”
He got it.
No one was riding alone.
“Don’t bring the nitwit,” she said, jerking her head at Patty O’Brien. “We’ll work faster without someone dragging their ass.”
He got angry.
“You can’t push me out. He’s my partner,” he stated. “You can kiss my ass!”
“Not if you were the last man alive and I needed some magical antidote you kept there,” she stated.
“I will be helping,” Patty stated.
“Oh, now you want in? Seriously? You had your chance, and you withheld information. It sucks, doesn’t it?”
Max tried not to laugh.
“I told you that would bite you in the ass.”
Patty stormed away.
“I don’t trust him,” she said. “Don’t share information, and if you have rats in your house, you have issues.”
“That’s going to be part of my new role on the mob task force,” he admitted. “While I’m handling the mob cases, I’m also going to be looking for rats. I’m going to be the unofficial Internal Affairs liaison in the office. I will clean it up.”
She hoped he did.
For everyone’s sake.
“You might want to keep that quiet,” she stated. “I suspect that those gunshots were mob related and aimed at you.”
Oh, he was well aware.
“If we can find the guy who took shots at me, we might have a chance. I’ll work on that angle tonight. Unless you need company,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.
“Stop.”
Elizabeth glanced over at Chris. She’d almost forgotten he was standing there.
“Elizabeth has plenty of company for this evening. Go do your thing. I can handle this.”
The man laughed.
“Your boyfriend is territorial. Nice.”
Yeah, it kinda was in some ass-backward way. No one had ever been territorial of her before. It was new, and she wasn’t turned off by it.
At all.
She gave his hand a squeeze.
“Yeah, he is, and I’m good with that.”
Chris squeezed her hand back.
“Well, we had better go make ourselves look like we aren’t in the mood to work a case,” she said.
“It might make the mob back off,” he said, “or it might blow up in your face.”
Well, that was a risk she was going to have to take.
She was flirting with the mob.
And not in the sexy kind of way.
Great.
As he drove them back to the hotel, Chris was quiet. Elizabeth was making a call to a hooker, and he couldn’t help but listen to her make a date.
She was going to pay for sex and catch the woman off guard.
She was something.
Every day with her in his life was one hell of an adventure, and he was grateful for it. There would never be a day where he got bored with watching her do her thing.
Then she typed up some reports on her phone, grinning the whole entire time.
His girl loved tech.
As Feds, it made their lives so much easier. In fact, he already knew what he was buying her for her birthday. She was going to get some sexy, shiny, high-tech phone that was just coming out on the market.
They were calling it a smartphone, and he thought it would be perfect for her. She was pretty smart.
“I’m almost done,” she said, hitting send. “Not being tied to a laptop is so much easier. The FBI had better start giving out tech to everyone.”
Chris was going to make sure that for the rest of their lives, she had the best equipment to do her job. It would give her the edge she needed to stay ahead of the crazies.
And that mattered.
“About tonight,” she said, breaking the silence.
“What?”
“I’m scared shitless.”
He glanced over.
It was NOT like her to be afraid. In fact, she’d just told a room full of people she was good with screwing with the mob—much to his horror.
“Is it mob related? I know you can handle it, honey. I have faith in you.”
That touched her on some deep level, and she leaned over to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for that. Thank you for believing in me. It always means so much.”
“I’m your cheerleader.”
And he was.
It was one more reason why she really loved being with him. Chris never doubted her. When the going got tough, he was there to tell her she could pull it off.
It was that faith in her that she truly appreciated.
“Don’t go out with me tonight. I said it so Gabe would be calm. I am going to head out and grab a beer. Alone.”
He pulled off the road and threw the vehicle into park.
“NO.”
“Christopher…”
He stopped her by giving her a kiss. It was warm, soft, and full of love. He held her mouth to his, refusing to let go. Chris needed her to feel what he felt.
He wanted her to understand that without her, he wasn’t whole, and he couldn’t let her risk her life.
They were partners.
Lovers.
Slowly, he set her mouth free, and she was watching him with those sexy blue eyes.
“You’re my girl. I’m not letting you go by yourself. What kind of man would I be?”
“A smart one.”
He refused to look away from her. He refused to break that eye-to-eye contact.
“You’re scared and want to go out alone? Talk to me, Elizabeth. Help me understand.”
“I’m scared they’ll go for you. I’m scared that O’Banion will hurt anything in his way to ‘acquire’ me.”
There.
She said it.
He got it now. Chris realized that she wasn’t so much worried about her, but him.
He touched her cheek and she rested her face against his hand.
“Honey.”
“Christopher, I don’t want you to be hurt. I can’t live with that.”
“Can I make one suggestion?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I know you don’t like the idea of using a reporter, and you are immediately motivated to be against it, but if you’re in the media…maybe you’re safer. Let him follow you. I didn’t bring that up there because it wasn’t my rodeo. This is your case, but you need to be protected.”
She thought about it.
He had a point.
If she was safe, so was he. It just went against everything she was for in life. While she told them she’d handle the reporter, that was her way of blowing it off. She had NO intention of giving him anything.
Ever.
“Do it for me. If you’re in the media, O’Banion won’t make a play for you.”
She rested her forehead against his.
“Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll let the scum-sucking reporter tail me, but he’s still getting fake information. I’m not going to help this killer. I don’t care if O’Banion wants this city. The dead get justice.”
He gave her a kiss.
Elizabeth kissed him back. When they broke apart, they were both breathless.
“I really am looking forward to this date,” he stated. “I’ve been dying for this one date for months.”
“Where are we going? I brought one dress, so make it count.”
That caught him off guard.
“You’re going to wear a dress for me?”
“I’d rather be naked, but yeah, I am.”
He laughed.
“What?”
“I’d rather you naked, too, but not in public. Today, I realized that my girl is a hot commodity.”
She punched him in the arm.
“We are not commodities, Christopher. We are women, and this one could hurt you.”
He laughed.
“And you remind me often when I say things like
that, but I’ll be honest.”
“Yes?”
“It will only make me want to work harder for you. If you know you can lose something, you never stop appreciating it. I know you’re a gift. I’ll treat you as such.”
She touched his cheek.
NO ONE had ever done that.
As she was about to tell him he had nothing to worry about, her phone began ringing.
“Oh, it’s Charlie and Friday night. What a coincidence?” she teased. “It’s time for his weekly update.”
“If you love me you will let that go to voicemail. If you loved me at all, you won’t chase me when I get out and run.”
She laughed at the visual of that.
“Oh, Christopher, I have to pick up. He’s going through a divorce. I need to be there for him, and by boyfriend proxy, so do you. Suck it up, buttercup.”
Chris braced himself.
He expected the worst.
“Hello, Daddy. How are you?”
“Oh, there’s my sweet girl. I missed you, Lyzee. Are you safe and doing good?”
“I’m on a case. It’s a messy one, but you know how I do love trudging through the bullshit.”
“Elizabeth, you watch your mouth. Shit like that is so inappropriate.”
She snorted.
That was their thing.
She learned her questionable vernacular from her daddy, and she was damn proud of it.
“Yes, sir. How are you?”
“Woman-free, but that’s the highlight of my week. Who would have seen that coming?”
“Awww, did the harpy crawl back into her sea cave with the other witches?” she asked.
“Elizabeth, for your brother’s sake, be nice.”
“Okay, for Georgie, I will. For her, she can kiss my…”
He cleared his throat, and she got it. Bashing Abigayle was off limits.
For now.
“Are you behaving?” he asked.
“Yes, Daddy, you know me. Hey! I do have news.”
Chris was shaking his head and pleading with his eyes. He prayed she didn’t do it.
“Oh, is it about a case? Do you need your old man’s help solving it? I can bring my gun and be right there.”
She laughed at the horrified look on Chris’s face at the mere idea that her father would show up there.
Dawn of Evil_FBI Flashback Page 21