Christmas is Killing (A Croft & Croft Romance Adventure Book 3)

by Morgan Kelley

  Croft was fully immersed in the moment. The tangle of tongues and glide of lips over lips helped heal both of them. It would give them the strength to preserve as they both faced their fears.

  Hers were of the man who had taken her.

  His were of the need to take a life and cross a line.

  Both found comfort in each other, as they knew they always would. Together, they were more than Greyson and Emma, they were one living breathing soul, bound together in love.

  The phone on his desk buzzed.

  Slowly, he broke the kiss, not wanting to stop. The feeling was so enrapturing that it held him deep in its grips.

  “Director,” Linda said over the intercom. “Your warrant is here.”

  “Okay Linda,” he answered, staring into Emma’s eyes. That brief look shared all the emotion that they were feeling. “We’ll be right out.”

  “I love you, Greyson,” she whispered, leaving feather light kisses all across his jaw and throat. “Forever, I promise.”

  He believed every word she said, knowing that he too would only find peace and solace in her arms. “Will you please stay behind me when we go through that door?” he pleaded, knowing he needed to focus.

  “Yes, Grey,” she answered, willing to bend a little, since he’d done the same.

  “Thank you.” He pushed her up from his lap and patted her on her ass. “Let’s go get a killer and kidnapper, so we can move on.”

  * * *

  When they contacted Captain Ford, they advised him to be waiting outside the morgue and suited up for kicking in a door. They couldn’t risk anyone in the media getting wind of the warrant search, so they had to be extra sneaky. Pulling into the parking lot might not be noticed in their undercover vehicles that the FBI used for stakeout, but it would draw suspicion when two police officers in full gear ran from the building to jump in to them.

  As the white vehicles pulled around the corner, the two back doors opened, and Detective’s Westmore and Captain Ford joined them.

  Buckling in, he glanced up at Emma in the passenger seat. “I didn't think she’d be with us,” he stated nonchalantly.

  Brynn held out her hand, taking the twenty from her boss. “Thank you for contributing to my rainy day fund,” she said.

  Emma started laughing. “Greyson tried, but he had a change of heart.”

  Croft glanced up at the man in his mirror. “Marriage rules supersede FBI common sense. Anyway, she’s promised to be safe. Since she’s not the bullet magnet, I’d be more worried about Westmore back there.”

  “Hey!”

  “We can’t take her to a party without gunfire,” he teased.

  “God! A girl takes a bullet one time on the red carpet in Vegas, and no one ever lets her forget it.” Brynn winked at her partner. She could laugh about it now, but when she was hurt a few months ago, it was far from funny.

  Ford grinned. “Yeah I know.” Suddenly, he got serious. “Not that I don’t believe that the FBI has all its ducks in a row, but you know I have to ask for proof.”

  Emma handed him a file and turned on the dome light.

  They gave him a few minutes to scan the information. “What a bastard. He’s taking contracts out on people and selling out cops. That pisses me off.”

  “Yeah, well imagine how I feel about all this,” Croft said, following the navigation system’s direction. “He put his hands on my wife, and in my book that can make a man pretty damn irate.”

  Ford needed to know. “What’s the plan?”

  “We sneak up to the house. The agents in the other car will cover the back, and we four will serve the warrant through the front. Did you tell Detective Westmore how vital it is we take him in alive?”

  “What? I have ovaries and suddenly I can no longer figure out the obvious?” she asked. “I happen to realize he’s useless to you if he’s dead, but thanks for remedial cop one-oh-one.”

  Emma started laughing at the look on Ford’s face. He looked mortified that someone brought up girl parts in front of him.

  “I apologize to you and your organs,” Croft replied, grinning over at his wife.

  Emma’s fingers ran down the scar on his cheek. “You be safe too, Director, or your wife is going to be pissed. I’ve had to save you once, and next time, I start charging for my services.”

  Ford watched them together. Yeah, he saw it. They were a matched set. “Is that how you got that wicked looking scar?” Ford inquired.

  Croft nodded. “It was a serial killer’s parting gift. Fortunately for me, my wife gets testy when people abduct me.”

  “Isn’t that the truth,” she replied.

  Brynn threw in her two cents, “I think it makes him look mysterious. It works for him now that he’s the director.”

  Emma remembered the day that he got it. “Yeah, well when I first saw it, I nearly got sick,” she stated. “That day will live in my heart forever.” There were nightmares where she didn't get to him fast enough and the crazed killer in Celestia took his life. The sickness rose up, and she stared down at her clenched hands in her lap.

  Her life could be very different.

  Croft knew what she meant. He felt the same about her abduction. Only, he wasn’t meant to survive his, but his wife made sure he did.

  “Okay, it’s up on the right,” Emma said, disconnecting the navigational system and passing back two earpieces and wireless links for their collars.

  “Can you hear me, Briggs?” Croft said, over the link. Like magic, his voice was in their ears.

  “We’re here. All three are live.”

  “I want you, Archer, and Brass to take the back door. One of you needs to set up in the grass behind the house to monitor the windows on the second floor. If you hear shots and have to come through the back, you make sure you know who the hell you’re aiming at. If I get shot, Emma’s going to go nuts.”

  “Yes, she is,” she confirmed grinning. “Even if it’s just a flesh wound, I’m going to be pissed. If you shoot my husband you better run for it.”

  Briggs voice came back over the earpieces. “Vacating vehicle and making our way to the back of the structure.”

  Croft watched them move through the trees to the house. “Captain, you and I are first through the door, ladies, you watch our asses,” he outlined.

  If this hadn’t been a serious situation, she would have made a joke about it. Since they didn't know what they were walking into, she opted to go the professional route. “Got it.”

  Now, they’d wait until the team in the back gave them the okay to make their move.

  Briggs led the way, scanning and checking the back of the house before he nodded. Archer and Brass moved as a team, and it was obvious that they’d done it before together.

  “Give me the tactical,” Archer said, planning to take the most dangerous spot in the grass. He didn't want Tessa to be completely unprotected and out in the open.

  She muted her link to keep it between them. “No way, Paris. You had it last time we served a warrant. I’m on the grass.”

  His stomach was sick, as she stayed behind them until Briggs cleared the back. So, this was part of the torment of working with someone you cared about. You had to watch them put themselves in danger.

  “Be careful,” he hissed, as her hand left the back of his vest. When she discretely patted him on the ass, it caught him off guard.

  “Later, Paris,” she said, winking as she moved past him. Tessa’s com was back on and her eyes were all over the location. Moving to the dead taller grass, she found her position and got down on her belly. “Brass in position,” she spoke, watching the back of the house with the shotgun.

  Curtis took one side of the door. “Briggs in position.”

  Before long, Paris too had found his spot to ride out the warrant. “Archer in position. Access the house.”

  It felt like he was holding his breath for the longest time. Now, he’d be a nervous wreck watching the back door and the woman who had just entered his life, lying in
the grass barely hidden.

  Crap!

  All four exited the vehicle and moved through Officer Torrance Burn’s front yard. Slipping into position on the porch, Croft took the one side with Emma behind him.

  Her hand was on his lower back, just under his vest. Emma had gone through enough doors to know that if for some reason there was no visibility, she needed to be able to feel her partner ahead of her. Plus, it allowed her contact with her husband against her hand, and that offered her reassurance that everything was going to be all right.

  God, she hoped so.

  Croft stuck the warrant to the door, a sign that they were going to be doing an official search. Glancing over, he gave Ford the sign. He was the kick man and was getting ready to knock then enter. Behind him, Brynn was ready to guard his flank.

  Over the earpiece, came Brass’s voice. “I have clear sight into the back window with the scope. I can see the front door. You have no obstructions. All is clear. I repeat, all is clear.”

  Holding up three fingers, he did the countdown and pointed at Ford.

  “Torrance Burns, open up, we have a search warrant.” He gave him five seconds and said it again.

  “No motion or activity, boss,” Brass answered, giving them the clear.

  Ford booted the door and moved in with his gun out. He was ready to start clearing the house. He and Brynn went one direction and Croft and Emma the other.

  The house was unusually warm and had a very pungent smell that assaulted them the second they were five feet in the door.

  Immediately, they all went on alert.

  As they rounded the corner, the second team came to a stop.

  “We have a problem,” stated Ford into his link. “You may want to head to the living room, Director.”

  Croft didn't like the sound of that at all. With Emma right behind him, he moved towards their voices from a few rooms away. Once beside them, he saw what the man had meant.

  In the recliner was a body. Only, you couldn’t tell who he was, since his face was blown off. Behind him on the wall there was the sick spray of brain matter, skin, hair and bits and pieces of skull.

  “I don’t know if that is Torrance or not,” stated Ford. “There’s really not much of his face to give a visual. It looks like we now have a crime scene.”

  Emma scanned the room. “Whoever took his life cranked up the heat,” she stated as she pointed at the thermostat. Hopefully, there would be some fingerprints on it that they could use. “It’s at ninety degrees in here. They didn't want us to pinpoint the day the man was killed.”

  “Someone wanted us off their trail and confused as hell,” stated Croft.

  “Yeah, well I guess we know what they’re willing to do to tie up the loose ends,” Ford added.

  Yeah, someone wasn’t afraid to do some heavy duty killing.

  They now had to find a contracted killer’s murderer.

  Everything just got more complicated and a hell of a lot more messy.

  Leave it to Las Vegas.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Monday Afternoon

  There wasn’t much more they could do, but stay out of the way. They had done a preliminary search of the house and found no money, but they did locate evidence that the man had everything to do with the contracted abduction. In his closet, they hit pay dirt.

  When Croft found the clothes that Emma had been wearing that day, tucked in a bag with duct tape, rope and zip ties, he wanted to go back in and kick the shit out of the corpse.

  Was it irrational?

  Hell yes it was! This was more mounting evidence that that faceless body was the abductor who took his wife.

  Watching the lab team, he tried to not get in their way, but the entire thing was making him antsy and edgy. “Dust the bag for prints, and try and find me something on Emma’s possessions that tie her to that asshole.”

  If anything, his people were being incredibly patient. If he’d been in their place, he would have told him to beat it about ten minutes ago.

  Wandering back into the living room, he found the ME navigating the body and taking it all in. The way he was trying to inspect the bits and pieces imbedded in the wall, made his own stomach turn. Greyson had seen many brain splatters, but it didn't matter, it was still pretty damn gross.

  “What do you have so far, Doctor?” Croft asked, watching the man dig a piece of skull out of the wall.

  “Well, I can’t tell you cause of death just yet, if that’s what you’re asking,” he answered.

  “You mean that his head splattered all over the place isn’t enough evidence for you?” Croft stated. Sometimes, the ME just enjoyed his job a little too much. Doctor Bentley obviously wanted to cut into the man just to make sure.

  “I won’t know if he was dead before the bullet made contact with his skull, until I do the autopsy. If I assume anything, it’ll taint this case. We already know how tricky this one is going to be. You have the possible killer of Kristopher Karson here, who is not only the likely abductor of your wife, but also a cop. This one is a giant mess that I need to tread lightly through.”

  He understood what the man was saying. Once the media got a hold of this, there would be wild speculation. They had a cop killer on the loose, and a dead man who once took the director of the FBI’s wife.

  This was three days past messy.

  Terrific.

  “What can you tell me?” Croft asked, needing anything at this point. A start was better than nothing.

  “If he was alive at the time, then he was sitting here relaxing. I doubt if someone snuck up on him since the entry wound was to the front of his face with an exit wound to the back of the skull. The only access into this room is the way you just came in.”

  The wheels in Croft’s mind began spinning. From all of this, it looked like the man knew his killer. It was wrong of him, but Greyson honestly hoped he was conscious and scared shitless in the last moments of his life. There was that tiny seed of glee that the man found his end. Yeah, it would have made it easier to find him alive and beat a confession out of him, but this still made him happy.

  It was karma at its finest. Asshole meets end of life with a large caliber bullet to his brain. He would take what he could get at this point.

  “When will you do the autopsy, Doctor?”

  The man walked over. “Greyson,” he used his first name and stared at him. “Emma’s my friend, and that makes you one too. You can’t be in the autopsy. It’s already going to look iffy that the man you were gunning for ended up dead.”

  Croft knew it. “I haven’t been alone for days. I can guarantee that I didn't do this to him. I may have wanted to, but if I were the one who did this, he would have suffered a great deal more for what he did to Emma. It wouldn’t have been fast or painless.”

  Steele Bentley patted him on the arm. “I would venture to say I would have done the same thing, but I’m closing the autopsy and not letting anyone in for this one. I’ll be the only one who touches his body. It’s to keep you and your wife safe.”

  Croft appreciated it. “When you’re done, send us over the information. I need to know if he had DNA under his nails, if he knew his attacker and the rest of that shit.”

  “I’ll handle it, Director.”

  Starting for the door, he paused. “Steele?”

  The man looked up from his clipboard. “Yes?”

  “Thank you for watching out for my wife. I appreciate that she has people who care about her and want to make sure she’s safe and protected. I can’t always do it myself.”

  He smiled. “Your wife is a very sweet woman. It’s my pleasure to call her a friend. You don’t often find people in our field, that this job hasn’t made hard and calloused toward life.”

  Croft knew the man was absolutely right. He headed out to the front of the house to rendezvous with the team and share what he knew.

  Which was pretty much nothing.

  Emma couldn’t help herself.

  If this was the man who
took her, she really wanted to know why he did it and how much money it took to buy his allegiance.

  They were cops and that meant something.

  Law enforcement stuck together and didn't pull shit like this. When you took the oath to serve and protect, it was also directed at the people you stood with too. She couldn’t imagine the kind of person who would willingly take a woman, bind her, and then terrorize her for cash.

  Yeah, she’d waded through enough crazy to make her doubt her sanity once in a while, but she would never cross that line. The bait had to be pretty damn big to lure a man into kidnapping, stalking and possibly attempted homicide.

  Sneaking up the stairs, she knew her husband wanted her to stay as far away from the house as possible.

  But she needed to know.

  Emma began to look around, as she tried to figure out if this was the place she was held, when she was taken.

  In the one bedroom, she began to feel off-balance and found a familiar scent there. This wasn’t the first time she had noticed the fragrance. After returning to work, she had walked through the bullpen with Greyson and stopped dead. It assaulted her senses then, and it was back again.

  Wandering to the dresser, she picked up a bottle and unscrewed the lid. Taking a sniff, she nearly dropped it. Everything around her disappeared, and she was back in the dark, blindfolded, and scared.

  Emma fought to listen, but again there was no sound. Then, she heard it in her memories. There was a ticking of a clock, the bark of a dog and the squeak of a floorboard.

  This was the place.

  It was all coming together to patch up her tattered memories and make them whole once more. Staying with them, she focused on all of it, as she stood alone in the bedroom of the man who tried to steal her away from life.

  It was time to face the memories that chased her.