She thought about it.
They did have crazy running amuck in New Orleans. You didn’t get more mental than that.
“Okay, so I get the blood, but why the liver?” Elizabeth asked. “Our killer was working backward. He stole the liver of four dead people first.”
“Well, by the time he took them, they’d been autopsied and their blood may have been removed. That’s dependent on Doctor Perette’s technique. I don’t drain the blood unless we’re taking them down to bones. The FBI doesn’t want to suck up the cost, so we let the families have the funeral homes handle it.”
She let him continue.
“As for the liver, it’s the organ, next to the heart, that has a direct connection with blood. People eat animal liver for the iron content, and it’s an antiquated belief that it helps with heme in the body. Our killer is likely not producing enough, and he’s sick.”
“Oh, he’s sick all right. He’s snacking on hookers with Hep C. You don’t get any wackier than that.”
“He’s also a ticking time bomb.”
Ethan headed their way.
“Why do you look freaked out?” he asked, as she handed the tablet to him. He began reading it.
“That’s fascinating. This might change everything in the profile. I can’t wait to revamp it.”
He snickered at the pun.
She didn’t. “You’re a sick ticket, Ethan Blackhawk. How the hell did you ever catch me?”
He grinned. “You know how.”
She wasn’t going there. “Now, how about you try to act like an agent and help me out with this one.”
“Yuck?” he offered. “That’s gross?”
She laughed.
He was trying to make her laugh. That meant one thing…he thought she was close to losing her mind. It was time to dial it back. She didn’t need him crossing that line again, trying to take over her case.
“We have a vampire angle now. So, on top of four people missing their livers post mortem, we have four fresh women who were harvested of blood and an organ. This killer is out of his damn mind.”
Ethan was aware. “When Gabe offered you this job, he told you it was going to be the hardest, vilest cases. It looks like he wasn’t exactly lying.”
“Doctor,” Merry called, “I think I found something and you should see it.”
They headed toward her.
“What did you find?” Chris asked, pulling on a pair of gloves.
“I see a bite mark on her neck.”
Elizabeth laughed. “I see one too, Merry. Who’s been snacking on you? The big bad wolf?”
She actually laughed. “Yes, a sexy one with tan skin and long hair. Oddly, I don’t mind.”
The detective flushed when Merry called him sexy. That had his heart skipping in his chest.
“Okay, let’s see that bite mark,” Chris said. When Merry turned the dead woman’s head, she pointed at the two punctures in the woman’s neck.
“Right here. We don’t have a full set, but we do have a partial. It won’t do us any good in court, but at least the killer left something behind.”
It looked like Chris was right.
We had a genuine blood sucking wackadoo.
“I want it swabbed for saliva,” he stated. “We’re dealing with Porphyria.”
Merry glanced up. “Vampires? Really? This is awesome!”
Callen had just arrived with Detective Le Bleu, and they both lifted a brow.
“Tell me she’s kidding. There is no way I heard her correctly.”
They all shook their heads.
Shit!
“It looks like Ethan isn’t the only sick one.”
“Well, that can’t be good,” Rolly Le Bleu offered. “Welcome to New Orleans—home of the odd and unusual.”
He could say that again.
Merry began catching them up to speed. “When you have Porphyria, you feel lousy. It’s like the worst case of anemia you’ve ever had. It’s hereditary, and it kills almost everyone who carries it.”
“So we have a blood drinking vampire wannabe running around in a city that most people relate to vampire novels?” Callen asked. “Does anyone find that a bit amusing in a ‘of course we’re going to pull this case’ kind of way?”
Elizabeth wanted to laugh, but she was pretty sure everyone would think she flipped her shit.
Detective Le Bleu wasn’t shocked. “New Orleans is the home to a lot of cults who think they’re vampires.”
Elizabeth didn’t see this one coming.
At all.
“Really?” Merry asked. “I want to visit them. They have to be out of their minds but in an awesome scientific way. Point me in their direction.”
“Yeah, you’re not visiting them, cher,” Boone stated. The drawl was thick, and he was taking a stand. “Those ‘churches’, as they like to pretend to be, are filled with horny, blood drinking crazies. You aren’t going there. Someone else will have to deal with that mess.”
Elizabeth laughed. She was the one who’d be babysitting the wackadoos. “I can’t wait to do those questionings. I guess I’m the one hanging with the vamp wannabes.”
Her husbands stared at her.
The one look said it all.
“What? We finally have a lead. None of this, before this moment, was fitting the puzzle. Now it’s a little clearer. We were being pointed at the priestess, then Kaleb Meeks. Now we have a religious cult, which makes more sense—missing organ, blood, and all.”
“This makes sense to you?” Callen asked. “It looks like someone binged on crazy and regurgitated it all over the place and we’re trying to call it a case.”
She grinned. “Crazy I get. Now I have a direction, thanks to my ME. I told you he was the best. He’s going to help me solve this,” she said.
They shared a fist bump.
“Doctor Death is still on his slightly twisted and odd game.”
He laughed. “We’ll catch him.”
“I sure hope so,” Rolly stated. “The second the mayor hears about this, there’s going to be a mess. No, that’s an understatement. Up to this point, he’s been letting you guys run this. If the media gets wind of vampires…” He shook his head. “Skulls will roll.”
Yeah, they knew whose too.
“And the media,” added Boone. “They’re already circling the wagons.”
Elizabeth grinned. “I love when people use Native American sayings to get a point across. It’s lonely when I’m the only one who tries.”
Ethan and Callen stared at her.
“You are enjoying this way too much,” Callen stated. “He’s not the only sicko.”
“Hey!” Ethan objected.
“I’m going to catch this asshole and lock him away where the sun doesn’t shine, and in his case, that’s a good thing if he blisters.”
Blackhawk prayed for peace. His wife was about to poke the crazies with a stick. That never went well for any of them. Already, he could feel the panic welling in his chest. He was going to need medication.
And soon.
Boone interrupted, “My point is that we don’t have a lot of time,” he stated. “We need to put a lid on this, and fast.”
She was aware.
“Detective Le Bleu, you’re heading back into ‘The Quarter’ to find me a pimp.”
“Otis Short, huh? You think he’s involved?”
“The problem is that I don’t know. This killer is jacking with us. We zig one way, he zags the other. We have to figure out who is really involved and who are the red herrings he’s tossed at us.”
“Do we have an ID?” Chris asked, resting his arm across Elizabeth’s lower back.
When she didn’t even flinch, Ethan and Callen exchanged looks. Had either of them touched her in the middle of a crime scene, she would have been less than magnanimous toward them.
Yet now, the rules seemed to change—for the ME.
It was hard not to feel like she was playing favorites, only not with them—with some other m
an.
Callen picked up the woman’s purse and searched for an ID. When he found it, they ran her name. “We have Daphne Proctor.”
They all made notes.
On the tablet, he pulled up the driver’s license of the dead girl and around her neck was the same necklace that two other women had been wearing.
Well, that confirmed the connection to the pimp. They were going to be talking to him.
“She’s one of his ‘girls’, so that makes him a suspect. Locate him. Since it’s still dark, you know he’s working out there. When a pimp’s girls are out shaking tail, he’s waiting around for money.”
The man saluted and headed out.
“Ethan, get me that warrant. I don’t care if you have to beg, borrow, or steal, but I want it. We need to get into Meeks’ home to eliminate him from this clusterfuck. Then I need my profiler to give me a revised profile.”
Elizabeth smiled at Chris. “Great catch with the vampire disease, partner. You’re on your game.”
Ethan tried not to get angry. He really didn’t want to be an asshole, but his wife was pissing him off.
At one time, it would be his arm around her waist, her telling him he’d done a good job, and them being partners. Now it seemed that he was nothing more than a distant memory.
He was just the profiler—and it sucked.
Callen was watching his brother. He could see the man getting red around the collar.
Literally.
When Ethan glanced over at him, he mouthed, ‘Stay calm! The last thing they needed was for this to escalate. An angry husband was always a bad thing. Later, they could talk to Elizabeth so she understood that they were uncomfortable with what was going on around them. Chris was wounded, but there was a fine line…
She was almost over it.
Motioning toward her two agents, who were not that far away, she caught them up to speed.
“Vampires?” they said at the same time.
It appeared they thought it was wonky too.
“Yes, and I need you both to do lots of research. The detectives tell me that this is a hot bed of kinky, blood fun. Get me the most popular vampire wannabe in the city.”
Brody started laughing.
“Agent, did I say something that tickled your fancy?” she asked. “Or have you lost your damn mind?”
He grinned. “Come on, boss. You have to admit that you’d never thought you’d say that sentence in your life.”
She snorted and offered him a fist bump. “You do have a point, Broderick. Now, get me something.”
Johanna pulled him away before he could say anything else. They began working.
“Callen, you’re the mediator.”
“That’s what they tell me,” he offered, thinking about the epic crankfest that was going on with his brother. Later, he’d be using those skills to keep everyone calm.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to head to the Mayor’s office to make sure we keep this under control. If I go, I’m going to rip his colon out and use it to slap some sense into someone. Ethan has to get me that warrant, and then he’s got a meeting this morning with Doctor Gaines.”
She had a point, even though he felt dismissed by his wife. What he wanted was to be with her in the field like good old times. Change wasn’t always good, and here was the proof.
His promotion meant a demotion in her world, and it sucked.
“On it, angel,” Callen said, knowing they needed team players at this point.
“I’ll take the body back,” Chris stated.
“Actually, Merry will handle that. She’ll start pulling trace while Ethan supervises. Tony is there, and he knows how to set up for an autopsy. The detective will make sure they’re safe, and no one is gunning for them.”
“Uh, what will I be doing? You’re not going to pull my badge and make me hang out with Doctor Gaines. I don’t need her shrinking my brain. I’m good.”
Really, he was.
In fact, he was feeling a million times better.
Elizabeth believed him. He appeared to be getting there, so she cut him a break. “You and I are going to have breakfast and a private conversation.”
That didn’t sound good.
“Lyzee, I’m fine.”
She would say the same thing if she’d been in his situation. Actually, she’d be far worse if anything happened to Ethan or Callen. She’d never recover. “Then humor me. One hour of your time won’t slow us down too much.”
He didn’t look happy.
“Do it for me. I’m scattered, and I need to focus. While this is between us, I can’t do my job.”
He got it.
“Okay. You’re buying, since you planned the date.”
“I do love a date with a smart man.”
Ethan actually growled.
Callen gave her a look, trying to warn Elizabeth that Ethan was on a short fuse. Since his abduction, there were good days and bad ones. When his alpha status was challenged, or Elizabeth was in danger, he got edgy.
Like now.
Callen willed her to get it. He hoped she’d figure it out before Ethan blew.
The look made her laugh.
“Down boys. It’ll be a non-sex date this time.”
Chris laughed. “Story of my damn life. I’m too early to the party.”
Neither man looked happy as they joked around. It wasn’t so much that she was meeting alone with Chris, but that she was going off alone with him while they had a crazy in the city.
Okay, it was the sex comment.
It set them on edge too.
Sue them.
She was theirs.
The men in her life had to walk away. If they didn’t, or should Callen say if Ethan didn’t, someone would get hurt.
Yeah, they were going to have that talk.
“While you supervise the pack up, Chris, I’ll go talk to a priestess. Find me when you’re done.”
What choice did he have?
It wasn’t as if he could hide from her. He should have seen this one coming. They’d made up, but she wasn’t going to let it go.
He didn’t blame her.
If the roles were reversed, she wouldn’t either.
Inside the priestess’s house, she found Marie Babineaux sitting at a table with smoke drifting to the ceiling. She knew the smell the second she sniffed it.
It was distinct.
Yeah, someone was communing with drugged up spirits. For some reason, she wasn’t surprised.
“Really? Marijuana?” she asked. “You have cops and Feds outside, and you’re lighting up? Why not break out the freaking bong and pass it around?”
“Would that work? I could use more.”
She stared at her.
This woman was two eggs short of a dozen.
“Okay, okay! Bust me later. My nerves are shot. I just found a dead woman on my front steps. Maybe you’re accustomed to finding bodies all over the place, but the only corpses I deal with are the chickens.”
Elizabeth took a seat.
This woman was on her last nerve.
In fact, jackassery in general was making her cranky.
“I need to know about your night. Don’t leave anything out. Clear?”
At first she hesitated, and then she sighed. “Fine. If you must know, Mrs. Nosey, I entertained a gentleman here for a few hours.”
Elizabeth waited for more. “Uh, details.”
“A lady doesn’t talk about sex, and we’re not friends quite yet. Although, I’d like to rectify that.”
She snorted.
Yeah, that wasn’t happening. As soon as they left New Orleans, this woman was a distant memory.
As was this killer.
The vampire disease.
And all the other mayhem.
“I guess I’m not a lady. Okay, so since I’m playing the role of the crass one, how’s this? You were getting your kitty drilled by a mystery man as you sucked down some weed.”
The wom
an stared at her. “You try to be a hard ass, but you’re really not beneath it all.”
“Yeah, you figured me out. Tell me who you were bouncing on in this house of chicken horrors, and I’ll be on my way to get your alibi locked in. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me everything.”
The woman didn’t look offended in the least. In fact, she was grinning, but that could have been the pot. If she started searching for munchies, Elizabeth was going to slap the stupid out of her.
“His name is Jasper Butler.”
She made notes.
“When did he leave?”
Marie had to think about it. Every time she began focusing, something else caught her attention.
The cop lights.
The sounds.
Breathing…
Yeah, that was definitely not her first joint of the evening.
Hell!
Elizabeth was close to getting a contact high from the smoke.
“Oh, right about when I opened the door and saw the body. It kind of killed our mood. I didn’t lie to the detective. We were finishing up, and there was the doorbell. I opened it, and found the dead woman. I started screaming bloody murder, and a cop showed up. That’s all there is to tell.”
“What did Jasper do?”
“Uh, took off. He was good with screwing a Voodoo priestess, but not with finding a body after coming in me.”
“Yeah, now you’re just bragging to compete,” Elizabeth said, making notes.
“Still, he bailed.”
Yeah, Elizabeth couldn’t blame him.
Not many would stick around.
“He took off, and I didn’t see why it mattered. I was with him the entire time.”
“We still need to cover our bases. We can’t take your word on this.”
She scribbled his address down. “I hope it helps. It won’t really matter since I’m sure I won’t be seeing him again.”
“It’s tough dating a priestess. Maybe you should find a new line of work.”
“You wouldn’t be the first person to tell me that. If this wasn’t my calling I would. You seem to have had no issue landing men. Two?”
Elizabeth had no intention of playing BFF. She had those roles in her life already covered, and this woman was trying too hard.
Blood Shall Run (An FBI Romance Thriller Book 15) Page 44