“What?” he asked. “Maeve, honey, I don’t think…”
Elizabeth cut him off at the pass.
“It’s in the laundry. You may want to wash it first. Callen gets messy.”
Ethan took control before there were too many pictures of that floating around in anyone’s head.
“We have to go,” he stated. “We have autopsy results that are waiting for us.”
He hung up.
“I think I love her,” Ethan said. “I almost wish she was my mommy.”
Callen punched him. “Wait until you’re caught with her and they’re busting you ass. I guarantee you won’t find it nearly as funny.”
“I won’t get caught outside the house doing felonious things,” he stated. “My job depends on it.”
He had a point.
The public frowned on an FBI director picking up hookers in his spare time—even if they ended up being his wife. Ethan’s life was more on the straight and narrow. All the kinky fun had to be reserved for their bedroom.
Which sometimes sucked.
Callen was glad his didn’t. He could always fall back on his writing.
“Jackson James made me do it.”
She snorted.
Together, they headed down to the autopsy suite. When they got there, it was relatively empty. There was just Doctors Magnus and Leonard, Amir, and them.
“I sent the rest of the team off duty,” Chris stated. “They were worn out from running everything all night. They needed some down time,” he offered.
“And you?”
“I need some too. After this, I’m heading back to the house. I need to stop thinking.”
She heard it in his voice.
Elizabeth would always know when something was wrong. She and Chris were close. She knew his moods, his temperament, and his emotions.
“I’m calling COD as strangulation. Her lips were cut off post strangulation. There were no drugs in her system. No special K.”
“Okay, so the killer is switching it up. Do the techs have anything?”
“Nada. He’s not leaving trace.”
“He bagged up?”
“Yep, and he likely shaved all his body hair off. There’s not a pubic hair to be found,” Chris said.
“Well, that’s both gross and helpful as I look for a hairless pervert who likes killing ladies of the night.”
Chris didn’t laugh.
Yeah, something was up
“Anything else?”
“Like I said, the lab work is back.”
“Spill it, Newton. What’s bugging you?”
He wanted to tell her. He wanted to lean on someone, so he could let the fear go.
“Her blood work was done. She didn’t get drugged, but Amir found something.”
“What?” she asked.
“She has HIV.”
That’s all he had to say. They got it.
Chris had gotten tainted blood in his finger. It was going to be a crapshoot the next six months. He’d either be safe, thanks to the barrage of antivirals, or he was going to get a little present from the dead hooker that would last him the rest of his life.
His much shortened life.
She stared at him. “Amir, head out for a little bit. Take a coffee break.”
The man didn’t hesitate. Clearly, he could feel the tension in the room.
Chris needed them.
He needed his family.
She needed to comfort him.
The head tech hustled it out.
Moving toward him, he pulled off his paper scrubs and gloves. Chris kicked the table carrying all his tools. Things went everywhere.
“Damn it!” he shouted. “Goddamnit! How could I be so freaking careless? This may have just cost me everything!”
She moved toward him.
“It’s okay. It’s okay, Christopher.”
She hugged him.
He was shaking.
“I need to do this here and now, just in case. I need you to listen to me, and help me through this.”
She suspected what was coming.
It horrified her.
This was the last thing she wanted. She didn’t want to talk about the what ifs or the ramifications. She didn’t want to think about what could happen to him.
The odds were low, but she knew that he could have very well contracted HIV. It was a death sentence, and they all knew it. Even with all the drugs, he’d be a ticking time bomb until one day when his body couldn’t fight it any longer.
Yeah, she didn’t want to think about it. There was enough on her shoulders.
“Chris.”
“Please let me get this off my chest. Once I do, I’ll be able to focus. I need you, Elizabeth. God! I really need you.”
She ran her hands up and down his back. “Okay, Christopher. I have you. I’ve got you, sweetheart.”
He knew she did.
Elizabeth always kept her promises. In that moment, he simply drew from her strength.
“We’re here,” Callen stated, watching the motions playing out on Chris’s face.
He was appreciative of that.
“If I get sick and I die, I need you, Ethan, and Callen to take care of Bethe. I need you to promise me that you’ll not let her go to Cyra’s brother—if she’s young. Right now, she is with her family. She’s going to have a long life with Charlie as her best friend. I need you to tell me you’ll take her under your wing and love her like she’s one of yours.”
“Christopher.”
He didn’t have to ask any of this. Of course they would do just that. Bethe was part of their circle. She’d die to protect her.
She’d die to protect him.
“I’ll have the paperwork drawn up from my attorney, and I need you to promise me she’ll be okay. You’re the ONLY one in this world that knows everything about me. You’ll be able to tell her what she needs to get through it. I need my best friend to hold her up if this takes me down.”
Elizabeth hugs him. “Please don’t say this okay?” she begged. “I can’t today. I can’t lose you too,” she whispered in his ear. “I need you to get old and be my best friend, Newton. I need you to hold me up when I can’t. Don’t talk about dying. We’re all going to get old, mean, and crotchety together. You promised me a long time ago.”
He ran his hands up and down her back as he tucked her face into his neck. They’d done that so many times before. She fitted to his body, as if she was made to be there.
And she was, but only as his friend.
He held her.
“Shhhh, honey, it’s okay. I’m just covering my ground. I’m sure I’ll be fine. I have a low chance of getting sick, but I need to know my child is safe. Then I can focus on what I need to do.”
She got it, she really did. All those years ago, it was them against the world. They came first. Now that they were parents, it was them doing battle for their children.
Time changed nothing.
They were still connected by their past.
The entire time Chris stood there holding Elizabeth, Ethan was watching. The whole time, he was thinking one thing.
There’s something there.
It was deeper than just friendship. Finally, he saw it, and it confused the hell out of him. It looked more like the way they held her.
It was loving.
It was intimate.
It was…more than friends.
But how?
Chris told him they never had anything more than a friendship, yet this one moment said otherwise.
It felt off.
His gut was screaming out in warning, but his brain and heart were confused.
“Promise me,” Chris said, staring at the three men behind Elizabeth. This wasn’t only for her, but for them. Chris needed their vow in all of this.
They were family too.
“You’re going to be fine,” Tony stated. “This too shall pass, like everything else we’ve weathered over the years. Now it seems huge. Later…it won’t be
.”
He hoped so.
Still…
Callen and Ethan promised.
She promised too. How could she not? This was her best friend, and someone who mattered.
“I swear I will.”
Ethan, Callen, and Tony knew it was time. They crossed toward the two of them, and circled around them. Together, they protectively wrapped themselves around him.
No one moved.
No one thought twice about it until she spoke.
“I just got a group hug by four men. Today is my lucky day,” she stated. “I’m buying a lottery ticket.”
Chris laughed.
The storm had passed.
Slowly, they broke apart.
Elizabeth wasn’t done. She wanted to help Chris focus on something, anything, else.
“You’ll be happy to know, I talked to Livy,” Elizabeth said, as she set him free.
Chris wiped her eyes with the pads of his thumb. “Did you?”
She told him everything.
“Seriously?” he asked. “Did someone write this day on the calendar?”
Ethan went to say something, but she pointed at him. “Don’t do it, handsome. I will hurt you and your sexy brother just for being the same partial DNA.”
“Hey! What did I do?” Callen asked. “I didn’t even cop a feel in our huddle.”
“Someone grabbed my ass,” Chris said.
“Oops,” Tony teased. “I was aiming for her.”
They all laughed. Once more, their coping mechanism kicked in to save them from the pain.
“When will you be done with the autopsy?” she asked, pointing at FeeFee.
“Soon. Will you wait?” he asked. “I don’t really want to be alone.”
“I’m here,” Tony offered, holding out a bag of ranch-flavored beetles.
Chris laughed.
It brought back memories.
“What I should be saying is ‘Oh God! Please don’t leave me alone with Tony,” he said.
She snorted.
“I totally get it. He’s in the bugs again.”
She knew she should be working, but instead, she opted to help someone she loved.
“We can wait. When you’re done, we’ll head home, order whatever you like, and work more then.”
“I can help,” Chris offered.
Then he thought about it.
“Are you trying to feed me to make forget?”
“Is it working?” she asked.
“A little.”
Then that’s all that really mattered, and she knew it.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
When Gabe got the call from his security team, he knew it was important. They didn’t call him often, and his gut knew why they were trying to reach him.
Livy.
A part of him wanted to freak out, but the rest knew what it had to be about, and it looked like he was up to bat.
He was on clean up duty.
Obviously, she’d found Elizabeth and it didn’t end well. Gabe had been dreading this.
He already knew what was going to happen, and he was going to be stuck in the middle. A few years ago, he would have made Ethan’s life hell, tore Elizabeth a new one, and sided with his wife.
Now he couldn’t.
Livy had been sheltered the last sixteen years. He’d made this monster. When she’d been raped, he took it as his fault, and he did everything in his power to make her feel safe.
It included spoiling her.
It included looking the other way when she behaved with less than nice behavior.
His wife had been the center of his world. He tolerated her little snits, swallowed the fights, and let her win.
He owed her.
But now, Elizabeth had to have laid down the law. When his team called him to tell him that she was sitting in her car, eating copious amounts of fast food, he knew the shit had hit the fan.
His wife only took this route when she was really at the breaking point.
So, he got a ride there and found her.
Going to the passenger door, as she sat alone in the car, he wanted to help.
He knocked.
She jumped.
The second she saw him, she started crying.
Gabe got in. “Let me guess. There was a sale on fried food?” he asked. “And you thought we needed more in the house with teenagers?”
She began sobbing.
Gabe fought the need to comfort her.
He had to play this just right.
“She told me pound sand,” she whispered through the tears, “and I deserved it. I’ve been a horrible friend to her. I’ve dumped my emotional shit all over her for years, I’ve made her life miserable, and I hurt her. I deserve this.”
She shoved a chicken nugget in her mouth and furiously chewed it to bits.
“Can I have one? I missed lunch.”
She handed them over.
Gabe dropped them into a bag.
“I’m a bitch.”
“Yeah, you really are,” he offered. “You had your reasons, but you did hurt her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you stop me?” she asked.
“What? And wear your wrath as my payment for saying anything? A happy wife is a happy, ball keeping, dick havin’, man. After all these years, I know better. Sometimes, you have to let the woman you love figure it out on her own.”
She snorted through the tears. Then she shoved fries in her mouth by the handful.
Gabe began praying that she didn’t puke on him—or choke to death.
“Can I have some?” he asked, once more.
Livy handed them over.
Gabe tucked them into the bag with the nuggets. He was trying to save her from her fast food suicide mission.
“I lost my only friend.”
“I’m your friend.”
She cried even harder.
Well, that didn’t work.
“What if you tried to earn her friendship back?” Gabe asked. “That might help. What if you proved that even though it’s been a one way street for so long, you’re flipping the script and going to play her role the next twenty years.”
Livy thought about it.
It seemed to slow the tears down.
“Do you think that would work?” she asked. “Do you think she’d take me back?”
He shrugged. “It’s worth it. Is she still talking to me or am I voted off the island too?” Gabe asked, wondering how big of a mess he was facing.
“Probably. You didn’t do this. I did.”
He held out his hand. She took it.
“No, I wanted the burger.”
She laughed.
Then she handed it over.
“We’ll work on it together, Oliva. We’ll find a way to fix what you broke.”
“I don’t want you to fix it for me,” she stated. “This was on me, and I need to do it.”
He smiled.
Apparently, whatever Elizabeth had said got through to his wife. She seemed to get it.
That was the first step.
He had no doubt that she would find her way back.
Livy was tough.
This was repairable.
“Want me to take you home?” he asked, stuffing the burger into the bag.
“What are you doing with all my stuff?” she asked, pointing at the greasy fast food sack.
“I’m rescuing you, fair damsel.”
She stared at him, then the bag, and finally back at him again.
“You realize this is how we got into this mess to begin with,” Livy offered. “The knight should have let me fight my own battles.”
By God, she was right.
He was doing it again.
Gabe did something he never thought he would do. He handed his wife the bag, and let her take control.
She was going to have to learn how to drive the bus or fail miserably while doing it.
Chapter Twelve
Thursday Night
When they arrived at home, the whole team settled in to get some work done. The Seatons were running every person they’d come in contact with, Ethan was digging out the whiteboard, Callen was printing out file after file, and Elizabeth…
She was dealing with the fallout of playing hooker.
The second she walked in the door, Cat was there, and she was asking all kinds of questions.
Elizabeth knew with her, there was no way she was going to be able to BS the kid.
She was too smart.
She was precocious.
Elizabeth assumed she got that from Desdemona.
Damn her.
“Momma, Grandma said to pray for your soul. What’s a soul?” she asked.
Elizabeth tucked her into her lap and braided her growing hair. She was getting more Native by the day. From running around the yard, her skin had picked up a glowing tan.
She was going to drive the boys crazy. Callen was going to be fighting them off with sticks, bats, and guns.
“It’s the thing in all of us that makes us who we are. Like you, Kitty Cat. You have a beautiful soul.”
“Do I?” she asked.
“Yes, yes, you do. You have a special gift.”
The little girl played with the feather necklace that Elizabeth had given her—the one that Callen had bought for his wife. They all had them now and wore them. It was Callen’s way of claiming all of his tribe—brother’s children and all.
It was a beautiful gesture.
“What is my special gift?” Cat asked.
“Your brain. When you get older, I need you to do one thing,” she stated.
“What, momma?”
“Use it. Make sure you go to school, study really hard, and show the world what a great woman you’re going to be.”
“I want to be like you, Momma.”
She cuddled her.
“Oh, Kitty Cat, I’d rather be like you.”
Ethan and Callen watched from the kitchen. They watched as Elizabeth loved her child. They knew why she wanted to be a child again.
It was pure.
It was calm.
It was innocence.
All three of them, but especially Elizabeth, had seen way too much. Life, as of late, was weighing on her shoulders.
It was heavy too.
Callen leaned on the counter. His heart skipped when his woman did things like this. Little Catherine would never know how unwanted she had been at the beginning of her life. He knew Elizabeth doted on her more, even over her own child, Charlie, so the playing field was level.
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