“Come on! Take me to Harvard.”
He could do that. In fact, what wouldn’t he do for his girl? She made his life so much better.
Elizabeth pulled him up, and they headed out carrying the dog. Tony was getting a roommate.
After all, he said he was bored and alone.
Now, not so much...
* * * E l i z a b e t h L a R u e * * *
Boston
Pizzeria
He wanted her too.
She worked at the pizza place, and she was always serving up flirtiness and pizza.
He found that alluring.
In fact, he found that he wanted her more than anything.
So, as he watched her, he was going to make sure she became his.
He’d asked her out.
She said no, and she laughed at him too. That mocking made him want her all the more.
Now she’d have no choice.
She’d be his.
Just like the others were.
She could fight, but in the end, she’d lose. He was going to be the man, and he was going to prove that when he wanted a woman, she had no right to say no.
* * * E l i z a b e t h L a R u e * * *
Harvard
Chris led her into the building that she’d been in the other day, and toward a familiar place he’d remembered fondly when he was a student there.
“How do you know them?” she asked.
“They are professors here, and I was in a few of their classes for my undergrad degree. We stayed in touch with Christmas cards, and emails. I genuinely liked them. They made the experience so much better.”
She knew Chris hadn’t enjoyed all aspects of college. He’d buried himself in the work to forget that geeks didn’t have the same fun that the jocks had.
Well, she had news for him.
She’d take a geek over a jock any day. Chris had what a lot of men she’d met lacked.
He didn’t try to appear studly and impress her.
He was kind, sweet, and honest about himself.
That was the kind of man she wanted.
So, she let him lead her into the building and to the meeting.
Upstairs, they knocked on the door to a professor’s office, out of courtesy.
When they were told to enter, Chris hugged the man that greeted him.
Then he made introductions.
“Mark Harrow, this is my girlfriend, Elizabeth LaRue,” he said.
They shook hands.
“Mark was my professor, and we always got along. He taught my biology class.”
She took a seat when Chris pulled the chair out for her.
“How did he catch a gorgeous woman like this? Was it his brain?” the man asked, sitting on the edge of the desk. “Chris was always way too smart for his own good.”
“No, it was definitely his dick. He’s hot in bed,” she said, a little irritated that the man had just put him down.
The man stared at her, and then started laughing.
“She’s a funny one, Orion.”
She looked over at him and smiled.
“Elizabeth, don’t do it,” he said, knowing she loved when people threw down his real name. While Christopher was his middle name, there were only a few who knew that truth.
She zipped it.
“Who punched you in the face?” Mark asked. “Did it get rough?” he teased.
“It was a suspect.”
That was all he said. The man just kept talking and going on and on.
“What can I help you with?” the older man asked. “I was surprised to hear you were in town.”
“We need your help. My girl has some questions about Professor Prince.”
The man laughed.
“Well, he’s a weirdo,” he said. “I wouldn’t leave any woman near him. If Elizabeth is thinking of coming here, she should pass on any of his classes.”
“I already went to college. I’m not interested in his classes. He’s my suspect in a killing,” Elizabeth offered.
He was surprised.
It was all over his face.
“Holy shit! Now I know why I recognize you! You’re that Fed! I knew you couldn’t be his girlfriend. Orion barely looked at girls unless it was a body.”
He blushed.
“That’s not true. I looked at plenty of girls. They just never looked back, and again, I go by Chris. Can we use that, and not talk about my virgin ways? As for her being my girlfriend, she really is. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.”
The man smiled.
“Uh huh.”
Elizabeth leaned over and gave him one hell of a kiss to prove that Chris absolutely could get a girl like her.
Hell!
She was damn lucky to have a guy like him.
When she pulled away, he stared into her eyes.
“That never gets old,” he said.
The man was amused by the whole thing.
“Well, no one in your class would have seen that coming,” he teased. “A live one.”
Chris changed the focus, and fast.
“Have you seen Professor Prince today?”
“No, but that’s not unusual. He’s all over the place. You should head down to his office.”
Yeah, except they knew he was on the lam.
“He’s suspected of killing women, so anything you might know, or where he might go, will be very helpful to us.”
The man stared at them as he tried to figure out what would help them out.
“I don’t know him personally, but you should talk to my associates. Let me get them for you.”
The man headed out, and when he came back in, two men were with him. He introduced them to Elizabeth since Chris was already aware of who they were.
He told them what was going on.
Professor Donny Claire was the first to give them information.
“Aye, I’d be looking at that scary TA in the history department if I were you,” he said, his Irish brogue thick.
“Would you? Why?” Elizabeth asked.
“I was in the library the one day. He was looking up the ‘Boston Strangler’. I didn’t think nothing of it since he’s a history major, but if you want weird, he’s the king.”
History major?
This was interesting.
The ‘Boston Strangler’ would be taught in some history classes. Was it a coincidence?
“He was ogling students, and he had a big old crush on Miss McGowan. She was always batting away his innuendos. It was painful to watch. He had to be twenty years younger than her, and he told her he could rock her world. I almost choked on my tea,” he admitted.
The other professors agreed.
“Who is the history TA?” she asked, a little confused by who it could be. She hadn’t come across one, had she?
Donny Claire didn’t hold back.
“Kai Fitzpatrick. He’s got the office…”
She cut him off.
“Across from her. He’s the one who pointed us at Professor Prince.”
“That useless goat?” Donny said. “Remember the time Daryl got locked in the locker room all night?” he asked.
Mark laughed.
“Yes. He’s not too bright. I don’t think he’s a killer. I think he’s a con man who makes people think he’s suave and intelligent. He couldn’t scheme his way out of a paper bag.”
Elizabeth’s head was spinning.
Kai Fitzpatrick had pointed them at the professor, he would have had the opportunity to hurt Mirel McGowan, Professor Prince’s TA, and the secretary who returned to school.
But how did he connect to the others?
More importantly…
“When I interviewed him, he told me he was gay.”
The men all laughed.
“If he’s gay,” Mark began, “it’s because the ladies keep shooting him down. He got shoved into the water fountain by some girl. I can’t recall her name, but she was in one of Harry’s classes, wasn’t she?”
The third professor nodded.
“Yeah, Joy Scott. She was in my Economics class. I overheard her telling another student he copped a feel, and she wasn’t having it from the geek.”
Elizabeth stared at Chris.
This was good.
They needed to follow up.
“I can’t thank you enough,” she said, kissing Mark on the cheek and heading out to the hall.
“Thank you,” Chris said, shaking his hand, Donny’s, and then Harry’s last.
“You should keep an eye on your lass, son,” Donny said. “She’s a might-pretty one. There will be men who want her.”
Chris was well aware.
He couldn’t fault them for that. Look at him. He’d been chasing her for a while, and finally caught her.
“Come see me again,” Mark called, as the two of them raced off.
When he closed the door, Donny picked up the desk phone and made a call.
It was answered on the third ring.
“Mr. O’Banion, we gave them the information. The rat is about to be found. You might want to cut your ties before the shit hits the fan.”
“Thank you, Donny. As always, you’ve been helpful. Pick up your payment and split it with your friends. I won’t be in contact for a while.”
“Oh, well, I’m sure you’ll contact me again if I can be of service.”
He hung up.
“Want to go get a drink?” Donny asked.
“I’m in,” said Harry.
Mark smiled. “Yeah, let’s go. This round is on Michael O’Banion.”
And they would enjoy it.
He followed her down the stairs and to the steps outside the building. When she sat down, she pulled out her phone and began running the ‘gay’ TA’s name.
Chris sat beside her.
“Why do you look pissed?” he asked.
“Because Kai Fitzpatrick mentioned to myself and Max that he was gay, and I automatically excluded him. I assumed that he wasn’t lying, and I broke the first rule of investigating and not backing it up with research.”
“It happens.”
She glanced over.
“Yeah, and when it does, people die.”
He knew where she was taking this, and he was cutting that off fast.
“You are not to blame for Max.”
She didn’t buy that at all, and she’d carry it for a long time. How could she not?
“When I excluded him, no one on the team ran him. Only Max and I knew about him. I didn’t include him on the suspect list to Gabe, Noah, or Alex.”
That was a big screw up on her behalf.
HUGE.
“You’re still learning, and you were dealing with a mob guy and no partner,” he stated. “It happens.”
“It can never happen again,” she muttered, as she worked on finding anything from him.
“Did you find anything?” he asked.
“I’m on the family history now. His father is Carl Fitzpatrick. He’s been working for O’Banion for a long time. He runs the drugs from here to Ireland, or so the FBI thinks. They call him ‘The Knife’. He takes lives easily.”
She pulled up a picture.
“Look familiar?” she asked.
Oh, he’d never forget that face.
That was the man who roughed him up, and Elizabeth shot in the foot.
Well, that would explain why O’Banion had been running interference. He likely knew the kid was a few bricks short of a wall but didn’t want Kai’s father in the spotlight.
Carl led to O’Banion, and anything that could tie him to illegal activity was a bad thing.
Chris watched her work.
Only, it wasn’t coming together.
It was still way off, and he could tell by the look on her face.
“What?”
“I can’t connect him to Naomi Emery or Debbie Helton. I can barely connect him to Francesca Jackson except that they were both TA’s.”
Chris let her work it out in her head.
“Jesus! Come on!” she muttered, scanning information as it was coming up.
Chris wanted to help her.
Only, this wasn’t his thing, so he tried to do what he’d seen her do so many times before.
“When I went to college here, I didn’t have to get a job. Students become TA’s for two reasons. They want to teach, or they want money. Professors pay well. If he was working as a TA, maybe he needed cash.”
“But his father was working for O’Banion. He’d have money for all his dirty deeds.”
Chris tried to rationalize it.
“Did you have Charlie’s money when you went to college?” he asked.
“No, he wanted me to learn to be responsible, so I had to fend for myself.”
“What if Carl is squirreling away his money for when he can’t be O’Banion’s muscle?”
There was that.
“It’s also going to cause issues if a college boy is tossing money around. What if his father didn’t trust him?”
Yeah, there was that too.
“So if he’s working this job…”
“He might have others,” Chris stated.
She pulled up the IRS database and ran his name.
It gave her exactly what she needed.
First, she kissed her phone.
“Well, that seemed unfair,” he teased. “I was the one who…”
He didn’t get to say anything more.
She kissed him and held his mouth to hers. It was heated, it was deep, and girls who were walking by began giggling at the public display of affection.
Finally, she let him go.
“Never let anyone ever tell you that smart men aren’t the sexiest men on the planet. They are. Your brain is hot. Like, melt the panties right off me, hot.”
He was so glad he was smart.
Only now he was thinking about her in no panties.
“What did my brain do?”
She showed him.
“Guess where he works part-time?”
“The pizza place down the street?” he asked, reading his IRS papers. “He’s a delivery boy.”
And that would mean he’d cross paths with all kind of women—possibly multiple times.
“Yeah, and what did Becca at the boutique tell me?” she asked, replaying the conversation for him.
“No clue.”
“She said, that men didn’t go in there except for the delivery guys. She and Debbie were having pepperoni pizza, and she told her she thought she was being followed. I’m willing to go all in and bet against this boy-child. I can now ask Noah to run the financials.”
She called him.
“Do you have your laptop?” she asked when Noah answered his phone.
“I do, and your puppy. He ate Tony’s shoe, and he’s pissed.”
It looked like she owed the man new shoes.
“I need you to run something.”
“What?”
“Can you run the financials for Naomi Emery and Debbie Helton?”
“I already have. What are you looking for?”
“Pizza.”
She told him about Kai’s second job delivering pizza for ‘Dominic’s Pizzeria’.
He searched.
“There were credit card charges for the teacher. She ordered five trays for some big gathering about two months before she was killed, and a few more charges after that.”
And there was one connection locked down.
“How about for Debbie Helton?” she asked, as she and Chris crossed their fingers.
“I have a delivery about a week ago with a charge for seventeen dollars. She ordered something.”
BINGO.
She connected the dots.
“It’s him. He’s the killer. I know it.”
She told them about the three professors, and how she excluded him because he was gay.
Noah laughed.
“So he was masquerading as a gay man? That makes us all look bad.”
“And me
too.”
“You figured it out,” Noah stated. “That’s what counts. What do you need us to do now? Don’t go after him alone!”
Oh, hell no.
“He’s Carl Fitzpatrick’s son. That’s the man I shot in the foot when he tried to kill Chris and abduct me. He works for O’Banion, so that means backup.”
“And that explains why he was trying to distract you with shooting at you, and the heads-up to his guy Tommy ‘The Greek’, who killed Max.”
Yes, yes, it did.
“I need a plan. Call Gabe and have him meet me in the hotel room. I’m on my way back in. We solved it. Kai Fitzpatrick is our killer, and we are going to catch a damn rat.”
“On it, LaRue. Good job.”
She hung up, happy, but was still worried.
It wasn’t over yet.
Chris helped her up, and as they walked, Elizabeth began making the plan in her head.
Oh, Kai was going down.
If that weasel thought he was going to point them in the wrong direction, she had news for him.
The man was shit out of luck.
Justice was coming, and his serial killing ways cost a good cop his life.
Elizabeth was on his tail.
And Kai Fitzpatrick was on his way to jail, and then he’d truly understand playing gay.
The hard way.
* * * E l i z a b e t h L a R u e * * *
When she gave Gabe her plan, he wasn’t sure it was going to work, but he still gave her the latitude to do her job.
As he and Elizabeth sat outside the pizzeria, part one in their plan, they were watching the one girl behind the counter, and the boy supposed to be delivering pizzas.
He was flirting, and she was ignoring him.
In fact, she blew him off to flirt with some other guy at the counter.
The look on Kai’s face said it all. He looked three days passed pissed.
“That’s going to be his next victim. Look at his face and body language.”
He was.
But…
“If you’re wrong, we could lose him,” Gabe warned.
“If I’m right, then we put a bow on this and get out of here with one hell of a shot at O’Banion. That’s his left-hand man’s kid. If we can bring him in…”
Dawn of Evil_FBI Flashback Page 41