“I need you to be strong, don’t scare the others, and help Mom. I’m going to be sick for a little while, but I’ll get better.”
She hugged him. “Please don’t die. I need you. Mom sucks at teaching me to drive.”
Livy wiped her eyes and laughed.
“I’ll take you tomorrow night, and the next night, and any day you need me there.”
This was a teaching moment for him. Not as the teacher, but as the student.
Life was giving him a slap of reality. For years, work was his focus. Now he had to live without it a while, and he had to be a father and husband.
“I love you,” she said, holding onto him. “You’re the best dad in the world. I don’t say it, but I’m lucky to have you.”
Those words brought tears to his eyes.
“I’m the lucky one. You’ve always been a gift, Amelia. You never forget that. You are my gift. The day you were born, Mom gave me something so amazing, and I can never forget how much you mean to me.”
Livy needed this.
She needed to see her family like this.
Amy faced her mother. “I’m sorry I said you suck at teaching me to drive. You don’t suck. You’re just not any good at it.”
She laughed. “Gee. Thanks. That’s so much better, Amy.”
The girl picked up a picture. “Who’s this?” she asked.
“You,” Gabe said, touching it. He was asleep on the couch with the tiny baby passed out on his bare chest.
“You look tired.”
He laughed. “I was. Kids are brutal. They’re like military boot camp over and over again. I would do it again in a heartbeat,” he admitted. “One day, you’ll understand that.”
She picked up another picture.
“It’s Aunt Lyzee.”
Livy’s eyes filled again. “She’s kissing some guy.”
Gabe laughed. “Yeah, she is.”
“And here I am eating sand. That can’t be good,” she said.
Livy laughed. “You were our learning baby. We had to screw up a lot to get it down to a science. I’m glad you won’t need therapy.”
She laughed.
“I think you did good.”
Gabe kissed his daughter on the cheek. “You know what, Amy? I think we did good too.”
Damn good.
Gabe had nothing to worry about. His girls would hold up.
He could tell.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Morgue
She beat the men there.
It gave her time to calm down. The last thing she wanted was to be freaked out, but she was.
What had she missed?
Was someone from that original case part of this, or was it simply someone from her past?
When the men walked in, she was pacing. The second she saw Ethan, she headed for him. He looked tense, and she needed a moment.
Jumping up, she wrapped her legs around his hips and buried her face in his neck.
“Ethan,” she whispered.
Whenever she was this storm-filled, he would make sure the world was steady. She needed him.
She was scared, and it didn’t have anything to do with the Chris issues.
If they’d missed something, and it was someone from that original case, they were back at ground zero, and she had to rework all of this from a different angle.
Ethan held her.
She felt amazing against his body. This type of affection was rare in the workplace, but he wasn’t going to complain. He needed this.
That touch of her against him calmed his nerves.
She didn’t go to Callen.
She came to him.
Maybe he was worked up for no reason. Maybe he was being an idiot. Maybe his jealousy was finally rearing its ugly head again, and he was being silly.
Here was his wife, and she wasn’t clinging to anyone but him.
“I have you, baby.”
“I’m three days past screwed.”
He didn’t like the sound of that. “What’s happened?” he asked.
Ethan lowered her to her feet.
“You can tell me anything,” he stated. “I will always have you. What’s going on?”
She began pacing. “This case is a mess. Chris found the identity of the last victim.”
Ethan focused on him. “Okay, and?”
“I think it’s going to change your profile, and I don’t know if we can backtrack fast enough on this one.”
Yeah, Callen didn’t like the sound of that.
At all.
“Okay, let’s start at the top, and I’ll try and help you work through it.”
Ethan knew what was at stake, and it explained why she looked nervous. Her life was next.
This killer was coming for her.
How would they know she was next on his list?
If no one died tonight, they would have their proof.
“Christopher, please start.”
Chris pulled the sheet back on the victim. “This story starts fourteen years ago. We started working a case where hookers were being garroted.”
“The case where you played Miss Kitty for the first time,” Ethan added. “Right?”
She nodded.
Chris continued, “In that case, the killer ended up taking five victims. All but one were garroted and left around town. One was found in the local dump. She was killed three months earlier.”
Ethan was listening.
Yes, he could read the file, but sometimes it was easier if the team broke it down.
They were all listening.
The techs.
The Seatons.
Callen.
“Then he left the next two victims in alleys. The fourth victim, a cop, was undercover and left in her flop, as a message to us.”
Elizabeth was pacing. Her mind was racing a mile a minute. She was letting Chris tell this because she was hoping something would pop and grab her attention.
“The next victim he failed to kill. She was one of his hookers. The killer was posing as a pimp, to weed them out one by one.”
“That’s ingenious and sick,” Callen stated.
Oh, they were aware.
“He was taking their eyes and peeling off their faces. He was so twisted, we didn’t think we’d catch him.”
“How did you?” Johanna asked.
“Elizabeth pretended to be his next victim, a hooker by the name of Petal, and she lured him to a warehouse where he was arrested. Detective Sheehan and Detective Williams took him in.”
The men watched her.
“It was the case that saved my career. I was on the slow slide down as an agent. That case was personal. You profiled it,” she reminded Ethan.
“I know.”
“Well, our final victim is related to one of the victims in that case, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence. This killer wants me to find him. He wants me to figure this out.”
“He’s sick,” Callen stated.
“It’s a game, and I think it’s because one of the suspects from that case is the killer in this one. I think I was courting a cuckoo way back then. Something in him created all this.”
Ethan pointed at the body. “Tell me about her.”
She told him about Bao Yu.
“She was an illegal immigrant who got wrapped up in prostitution. She got pregnant, and she gave birth to a child. I met that child. I saw her face to face, and I touched her.”
Ethan saw why she was upset.
Elizabeth had a soft spot for children.
“That’s her daughter,” she said. “She started hooking, and she was a prostitute like her mother. Now she’s dead, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
Neither did he.
“He’s trying to get you to play. This is how.”
It was working.
She was all over this.
It wasn’t so much that she was being taunted, or that she was in danger. It was more about the fact that he had kille
d a girl who had no shot at life.
It pissed her off.
Now it was on.
“How about we start with the results of what we found, and then when we get home, I’ll have something for you? I don’t know if my assessment will change, but we can bring out your files and start working them. If we have to, we can run the past suspects.”
She knew he’d get her through this.
“Chris?” she asked, needing him to start.
“We have Linda Yu. She was seventeen, she was hooking, and she was already riddled with drug marks and disease. She didn’t have a long life ahead of her. I found healed fractures to her arms.”
“What kind?” Elizabeth asked, “and how long ago had they healed?”
“A long time,” Tony offered. “They were greenstick fractures, and they’re common in abuse. The abuser twists the arms, fracturing the tender bone of a child.”
“That makes me sick,” she said, thinking about Cat and Charlie’s arms.
“Me too,” Chris added.
He prescribed to the Blackhawk method of no physical discipline. He couldn’t yell at Bethe, let alone…
Yeah.
No.
“She didn’t really suffer. There was no sign of torture,” Chris said.
“Uh, Doc, he took her head. I’m pretty sure that’s one hell of a torture.”
“Well, I meant more like rape, burning, anything like that,” he offered.
She stared at the torso.
“I have some questions.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Could she have been garroted? You know, then had her head take right off?”
He stared at her. “That would take an excessive amount of force, and I don’t think a human can remove a head like that. The vertebrae would stop it. She’d bleed out.”
“Okay, then how was her head removed? I’m simply hoping this is all of our overactive imaginations and a coincidence. I don’t want to believe that this killer has been festering for fourteen years, and I have to find him.”
He got it.
Chris pulled a giant magnifying lens over her body, and he began examining the body.
Tony moved closer and began checking out the vertebrae.
“I think she was,” he stated.
Chris touched a part of her neck. “It looks hacked at. I don’t feel comfortable going either way, but with what we now know about the other case’s connection, she likely was garroted.”
She was okay with that. “Tell me more about her.”
“She was loaded up with Special K. He didn’t have to worry about her fighting.”
Ethan made notes.
“Did she have a pimp?” she asked, directing that at Johanna and Brody.
“If she did, we haven’t found it. She was never bailed by one, she was never protected by one, and it looks like she was freelancing.”
Great.
Another dead end.
“Address on file?”
Brody sent it to the screen. “She listed one on her parole application, and it’s a homeless shelter.”
Elizabeth let out the breath she was holding.
“Well, this sucks.”
Yeah, it did.
“Any trace?” she asked Amir.
“There’s nothing that will help you figure out who it is. We’re running and rerunning everything.”
“Keep going.”
“Chris?”
“There was a rose.”
“Where was it?” she asked.
“Shoved into her body by way of…”
She held up her hand. “I’m on system overload right now. How about you just tell me the color?”
“It was black.”
She laughed.
No one else did.
“Of course it was. He’s messing with me now.”
Ethan tried to stay calm.
Callen not so much.
The second he Googled it, he was over it. Yeah, this case was a nightmare.
“I don’t like any of this,” he stated.
“Yeah, well, I’m not fond of it myself,” she stated. “Ethan?”
“He will hurt you if he gets to you,” Ethan stated. “He’s not going to hold back. If he’s trying to woo you, and you don’t play his game, he’s going to try to kill you.”
She was aware. “So if he can’t have me, no one can?” she asked.
“Exactly.”
“Anything else, Doc?” she asked.
“Nothing, Elizabeth. I really think that it’s best you don’t go anywhere alone.”
She was aware.
“Right now, I’m going to head home. I want to add some things to the whiteboard, and I want the team to start running searches. Tonight is going to be one hell of a night.”
Ethan and Callen were nervous.
“I have to cancel all my appointments for tomorrow. I’ll be by your side.”
She touched his cheek. “I’ll have Callen all over me. Look at him. He’s going to be like a second skin.”
“I will.”
“Elizabeth,” he said, knowing what would happen if he left his office to play Fed after canceling on the President and the Director of Homeland Security.
“Are you sure you have this, Callen?”
The man stared at him. “I’m not a child. I think I can be all over her.”
She stood between them. “Let’s go home, eat something, and work, okay?”
“I’m going to help the techs run trace,” Chris said.
“Me too,” Tony offered. “The more hands will make it go so much quicker. We can blow through it.”
She loved her team.
“Seatons, you’re with us. We’re going to eat and then work our tails off. By morning, I want to have eliminated the growing list of suspects.”
“Who’s on it now?” Brody asked.
She stared at him.
“Just about everybody.”
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
He was ready for her.
When she came at him, and she would, he’d play hardball. He was done trying to woo her. He needed Elizabeth as his, or he was going to have to kill her.
It was the end of the road.
So, he’d get her, propose, and if she said no, he’d destroy his soul mate.
It was needed.
If he couldn’t have her, no one could. He was so damn tired of playing games.
He needed his answer.
He’d left the clues, and he was going to get what he wanted.
Finally.
He was going to get her.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Whitefox-Blackhawk
Homestead
When they arrived home, it was madness. Cat was bouncing on the couch, the boys were dressed as super heroes, and Charlie was watching a movie for the fiftieth time with Bethe. The dogs were standing guard, and Wyler was making dinner while his wife watched.
“Hey, Mom and Dad, how was your day?” she asked, dropping her gun.
“Where are my sons?” he asked.
“They are outside talking to security.”
Elizabeth took a seat. On the island was a gorgeous bunch of roses.
“Awwww, Wyler is spoiling his wife. That’s so damn sweet.”
He looked up. “They weren’t from me.”
Elizabeth stared at them. “Who are they from?” she asked, seeing the card.
“I assumed one of my sons. They came here about an hour ago. I thought it was odd to have a Sunday delivery, but Ethan can pretty much order up anything now a days.”
She reached for her pocket and pulled out two gloves.
“Who touched these?” she asked.
“I did,” Maeve stated. “I was here when security walked it up from the gate. I put them on the counter for you.”
Elizabeth could hear her husbands coming.
“We’ve had visitor,” she stated, pointing at the flowers on the island.
&n
bsp; Both men raced toward her. They stopped in their tracks the second they saw what he’d left.
More freaking roses.
Great.
“What the hell?”
“He’s been to the gate,” she said. “He’s left these for me, and we need to find the security who signed for them.”
Ethan pulled out his phone.
“Don’t touch them,” Callen stated.
He wasn’t taking any chances.
“There’s something in there,” she said. “How did they come, Maeve? Just like this?”
Wyler had his arms wrapped around his wife. “Yes, sweetheart. They were in a vase. She carried them from the door when Lucca gave them to her.”
Slowly, she began removing the roses. There had to be about three dozen.
“There’s blood,” she said. “Look at the water.”
“Don’t pick yourself on the rose thorn. With this wackadoo, it could be anything.”
She agreed.
Ethan came in. “Lucca said the gate had a delivery from a florist. He signed, scanned them, and figured they were from Callen or me.”
“What florist?” she asked.
“The same one we use.”
Yeah, they were being stalked by her past. No one’s movements were safe, and here was the proof. This nut knew everything about them.
“Careful,” Ethan said, as she tugged the first few flowers out. When a paper fell out, which had been rolled around one of the stems in the middle, they all held their breath.
She picked it up, and she carefully unrolled it.
Elizabeth studied it.
“Well, we know he likes souvenirs,” she stated, holding it open for them to read.
It was a head, and she assumed it was Linda Yu’s. On the printed-out picture, there were four words.
‘Will you marry me?’
“Apparently, he missed the memo of me being already married. Someone should tell him that I’m already taken and his offer is declined.”
The men weren’t amused at all.
Yeah, this was bad, and she agreed with them.
Ethan began pacing as Callen got an evidence bag to house the picture.
“We’ll have the techs come get this. Maybe he left a print,” Callen offered.
Dying to Love (An FBI Romance Thriller Book 18) Page 45