Elizabeth hopped down and smiled at her staff anthropologist. “Doc, as always you’re the best. We’re lucky to have you.”
“Yes, you are and say it with a few more staff members. I’m short staffed and on burnout.”
“You and me both Doc. You and me both.”
“A little birdy tells me that you allowed Chris to hand pick his own back up ME,” he added with a grin.
“A birdy huh?” Elizabeth looked up at the man. “Are you telling me you don’t trust my judgment in hiring another in-house bone man?”
“Never, but I’m offering my services as always,” he said, grinning wickedly. “Can I get a bone babe?”
“Uh, do you think we lost our damn minds? You get a new computer program and that’s it,” she teased. “FBI frowns on sexual harassment in the workplace.”
Ethan Blackhawk couldn’t stand there any longer. Once he saw the flirting he was close to dragging his wife back to her office. “I’ll wait for you in the elevator,” he mumbled, pushing out the doors and striding away.
“What’s up with the boss man?” inquired Tony.
Elizabeth just shrugged and nodded to her brother-in-law. Even though she didn’t have a clue, she was sure she was going to hear all about it shortly.
The ride up in the elevator was tense. Elizabeth could feel her husband practically vibrating in anger. She didn’t say anything, because she didn’t want to push him over the edge. She wasn’t sure what had made him this angry. When the elevator doors opened, he stepped out first and looked over his shoulder.
“Can I see you in my office alone?” he asked, softly.
Elizabeth nodded and watched him walk away.
“He’s going to blow big time now.”
“Oh, yeah he is. Can you meet me down in the garage? I want to get fingerprints from Wyler, and then call over to Black Falls to see if I can get a little face to face time with Sheriff Dumbass.”
“Sure thing, Lyzee. I’ll be down in the garage,” he nodded to the door that led to Blackhawk’s office. “Good Luck with my brother.”
“Yeah, thanks,” she answered, already knowing this was going to be the second biggest fight of their marriage. It was all going to come down to her pulling off the major feat of keeping completely calm.
Yeah, right.
~ Chapter Eight ~
Ethan Blackhawk was ready to lose control at any second. He could feel the heat creeping up his body and filling him with so much anger that it needed to have a way to escape. He wanted to talk to his wife calmly, but in actuality he knew it would be a miracle if it didn’t escalate to screaming. All of this was just pushing him over the edge. It was her pregnancy, her unwillingness to step back for the safety of their child, and the jovial relationships with the staff. It was all just too much to handle. She was baiting him, and he was ready to snap. A bit of incredulousness was overwhelming him that she would ever bait him in front of other men. He believed they had a better relationship than that. The hurt was the next thing that was squeezing his heart at her actions.
“You wanted to see me?” she asked, standing as far away from him as possible. Not because she was afraid for herself, but for him. She might just haul out and knock her husband on his ass for his behavior. He gave her the silent treatment, called her boss to get her pulled, and now was being superior by ordering her to his office. Something was going to give if he really thought she could be treated like his minion and not his partner. Right now they were in dangerous territory. They weren’t focusing on the game, and that is what would end up getting someone killed.
“What the hell is going on, Elizabeth? I’d call you Lyzee, but it seems you just let anyone call you that anymore. I remember when you were a bit more selective about it!” Ethan Blackhawk snapped the words out like a whip. Yeah, he was proprietary with her nickname too. “When that name mattered and only people close to you used it.”
Elizabeth stared her husband down. It took her a few seconds to formulate a complete sentence that didn’t come laced with obscenities. Lucky for him she had some control remaining, but it wouldn’t be for long. “Wow, so now I can’t have people use my nickname without your permission, Ethan? Since when were you given the authority to act like you owned me?” She sat in the chair opposite his desk and rested her boot on her knee. Her eyes never left his face because he was the angry one in the room. Sane Ethan was gone and in his place was ‘irate out of control Ethan’. “I didn’t know this ring came with a very short leash held by you.”
“I didn’t know you were on a first name basis with our lab and tech crew. It seems you’ve spent a lot of time with them for that to happen.” Accusation dripped from his voice, and he wasn’t sure what he was saying, but it still gushed from him. “Happy hour, Elizabeth?”
“Ethan, I’m having a hard time figuring out who you're mad at right now. You skipped eating with me this morning, bailed on your promise to make me breakfast,” she leaned forward and continued, “you ignored me in the car like I did something personally wrong at the house, and then you stormed into your office not wanting to talk to me when we got here. I call Gabe back, and he tells me you tried to get me yanked from this assignment. Granted I was aware of that, but come on Ethan. Right now, my magnanimous mood is getting the shit kicked out of it. You toss me a few calm words like breadcrumbs in the elevator and expect me to jump and thank the universe that you forgave me. Now you throw happy hour in my face? Why?”
“I’m pissed right now!”
“I get that, Ethan. What I don’t get is why you are jumping down my throat about the way I treat the lab staff.” She stood up. “Figure out what the hell you’re mad at today and then send me a memo. I have things to do today that are a bit more important and are actually regarding this assignment.” She turned from him, and it took everything to give him her back when he was this angry. When she felt his hand on her arm, she refrained from punching him as he spun her around. All she could think of was the discussion he had with her regarding the fight he had with Kaya Cheek, and the violence he felt. Part of her braced for him to shake her.
“Don’t walk away from me when I’m talking to you!” he practically growled, holding onto her arm. “I hate when you do that!”
“Ethan, get your hands off me. I’ve never put my hands on you when I’m angry, and I expect the same courtesy from you. Whether you care or not, that’s my bad arm, and it does hurt when you yank on it.”
He let her go like his hand was burned, as he fought to regain control through the red haze. “I don’t appreciate your manner with the lab staff. It was completely unprofessional, and you haven’t been their acquaintances, or boss, long enough to be their new best friend!” He threw that at her acrimoniously. Deep down, he knew it was wrong, but his control was gone. It was like he was watching himself outside his body, and he was definitely fighting dirty. Now he was trying to bait her in retaliation.
Elizabeth refused to fight him, but she wasn’t afraid to tell him off. “For your information, Christopher Leonard and I go way back. When I worked out of Quantico he was the ME there in Virginia. We’ve worked together for at least ten years. As for Tony Magnus, he’s the best damn anthropologist I’ve ever worked with at the FBI. I worked with him for about eight years. They’ve been using my nickname a lot longer than you, Ethan.”
Elizabeth took a step towards her husband, angrily. “Are you alluding I slept with them and had an affair, Ethan? Like I did with Ray? Because that’s crossing a line that you can’t ever come back from, and I’d tread lightly if I were you.” Elizabeth never thought he would throw the mistake she made with her old partner in her face, but she wanted to warn him that if he did, it would destroy them.
He was about to make a comment and she cut him off.
“But since you brought it up, Ethan, let’s discuss the premise of inappropriate behavior and names, why don’t we? You brought Christina out here to be your lab tech supreme, knowing she had a crush on you, and I let it go. I don’t
buy that a smart man like you, a profiler, doesn’t see that there’s a situation brewing.”
Elizabeth paused and pushed down the anger. “Because she’s damn good, I swallowed watching my husband be another woman’s eye candy daily at work. I’ve even played nice with her despite how it pisses me off. You call her by her first name, and I’ve seen you walk with her, with your arm over her shoulder when you’re talking. That’s very friendly indeed Mr. Director, but also very hypocritical when it comes to professional behavior in the work place. I haven’t touched any of the men that worked with me. What I have done is work side by side with them for at least a decade in the trenches, slopping through death and all the shit I did yesterday. You hired your choices for the lab, and I said nothing. I hired mine, and you give me shit over it because they use my nickname? Not going to fly Ethan, and until you yank whatever stick is back up your ass out again, we have nothing to talk about. I’m your partner and wife, not your whipping boy and handy target in your anger. Screw you for trying to make me look like the bad guy when all I did was my damn job. Before you accuse me of no professionalism, you need to take a good long look in the mirror, Ethan. The people I picked for the job don’t stare at me like I’m an option on the menu.”
Blackhawk started to feel remorse. He didn’t know they were her friends before him. He gave her free reign to hire her lab staff, and he did the same thing. They divided the tech team to make it more manageable. Of course she’d hire who she perceived to be the best and tested in the field.
“When I was shot, those men came to visit me and cheer me up that first day. They sat and waited to see if I would live or die. We have history, and you know what, I never behaved inappropriately with them. Only you have the questionable behavior with your employees and now your wife.”
This time she did walk out and slam the door, because maybe they were right.
Married people couldn’t work together.
For the first time, she genuinely wondered what the hell she had been thinking when she took this job with her husband.
Elizabeth grabbed her purse from her desk, and walked out to Ginny who was typing up a report on her computer. “I’m going out in the field. If there are any calls patch them through, okay?”
“Sure thing, Mrs. B.”
“Oh, and we need a new front desk receptionist to work the off hours when you’re not here, Ginny. Can you get the process started for me?”
“Yes, Mrs. B. I’ll get right on it.”
“Set up the interviews, and if I’m in the field you can take them. You know what kind of employee that we need.”
Ginny was excited. The job was currently overwhelming for just one person, not that she’d complain. “Will do, I’m on it!”
Elizabeth nodded and mentally crossed one more thing off her director list. Now she just needed to regain her focus to meet the man her husband hated more than anyone in the world. The day just kept getting better and better.
Ethan Blackhawk sat at his desk and knew he just screwed up big time. He not only put his hand on his wife, but he accused her of inappropriate behavior with their employees. Screwed up didn’t cover the half of it. She was absolutely right. This had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the killer finding their home and stalking them. Elizabeth ended up being the one bearing the brunt of his anger. Now he wished he had vented to her instead of at her.
Talk about feeling horrible. What he was feeling was beyond horrible, if that was possible.
She was right about the lab techs too. He often called them by their first names or their nicknames. He did sometimes put his arm over Christina’s shoulder, and he never thought how that would make her feel as his wife. They called him Ethan all the time where they called her Special Agent or Director. Oh yeah, he was a huge hypocrite, and he deserved an ass kicking for his stupidity. The sooner he apologized the better off they’d both be. There was only one person wrong here, and it was him. He started to her office, and when he opened the door Christina was about to knock.
“Oh, sorry, Ethan.”
“Did you need to see me?” he stepped back, and gave her room to enter his office, and immediately he put space between them.
“Uh, no. I was actually looking for Elizabeth.”
The use of her first name surprised him. “She isn’t in her office?”
“No, she isn’t,” she continued, “I ran the trace tests she requested, and our killer didn’t leave any DNA. What he did leave was a powdery residue on the feathers. It’s going through the mass spec now to determine the substance.”
“Great,” he was confused as to where she could be.
“And if you put her up for the job she handed me, thanks. I appreciate it, Ethan.”
Blackhawk had that little wave of awareness now that his wife pointed out the things he was doing that made him look hypocritical. “Let’s go with Agent Blackhawk or Director if you don’t mind, and what job are you talking about?”
Christina was surprised. He never minded when she called him by his name before. “Elizabeth asked me to interview and hire the techs I needed. I just assumed you put her up to it. I’m usually your tech of choice, not hers.”
That wave of awareness hit again that Christina just confirmed he played favorites. “No, we want you to handle it,” he answered, starting out of his office. Now he felt like a bigger asshole. Here she was being a boss, and he was acting like he was a jealous teenager. “Ginny, where’s Elizabeth?”
The woman looked up and placed her hand over the phone mouthpiece. “Out in the field, Mr. B.” She went back to her call.
Now, his blood just ran cold at the mere thought that she was out in the field after they had a fight. He had a flashback of their fight in Salem, again his fault. He pulled out his phone to start to dial hers, when a strange number showed up on his display.
“Blackhawk,” he answered, gruffly.
“Ethan my boy,” said his grandfather. “I tried to call you at your office and your wife also, but I wasn’t getting any luck. Are you free to come by this evening with your lovely wife? I have a list for you from the tribal council of the women we know have left the reservation. There’s also a list you requested of the individuals practicing shamanism.”
He wasn’t really sure where his wife even was at that point to comply with his grandfather’s request. “I think we’re free, Granddad. I’ll try my best to get there with Elizabeth, but we are a little busy right now. Dead women and all…”
“I’ll see you both for dinner at six thirty, Ethan.”
It was non-negotiable. Ethan Blackhawk had just been summoned to his grandfather’s again like a child, much like he ordered his wife to his office.
Karma was a bitch. Now he was convinced.
“Okay Granddad, we’ll be there,” and he ended the call before he got trapped into anything else against his will. He was desperate to find his wife. This time he dialed her number and hoped she’d at least answer.
Elizabeth met Callen Whitefox downstairs in the garage. He was leaning against his truck, waiting for her.
“I don’t see tears or blood.”
“Yeah, I don’t kill everyone I fight with,” she said, holding the tech kit and continuing, “and sometimes a fight isn’t worth the tears.”
“What do we need to take care of now?” he asked, taking the kit from her hands.
“I need prints from Wyler, and then I want to head to Black Falls to talk to the sheriff.” Elizabeth said, walking to her Jeep.
“I’ll drive, Lyzee. No offense but on the Rez, people tend to get spooked when the FBI rolls up in their fancy cars. If you arrive with me, it’ll still be spotty, but I won’t let them start with you,” he said grinning and dropping on his sunglasses.
“Great, more people starting with me today. If they all knew I was pregnant and ready to kill maybe they’d back way off.”
Whitefox laughed. “Did Ethan lose it?”
“Oh yeah, he seriously did. It was a complete
and total loss of his mental facilities.”
“Well, I think I should go on the record for him, since he’s not here. Let me point out that he’s on edge right now, because this killer is focusing on pregnant women, and he’s relating it to you. If he didn’t love you like he does, he’d be calm and cool.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s why I didn’t fight with him; I love him too much to do battle when I know he’s losing it. Coming home was hard for him, and I’ve taken all that mess into account too.”
“He’ll get his footing. The Ethan I grew up with always landed on his feet, and when he had to be was logical, controlled, and calm he pulled it off. Give him time to work it out.”
“I am but sometimes he just needs a reality check when it comes to us. I don’t have any doubt that he’ll work it out. I have complete faith in my husband.”
Whitefox pulled onto the reservation road, stopping next to one of his deputies. Elizabeth figured she’d get some work done, and called ahead to the sheriff’s office. There was no point driving over there if they wouldn’t talk to her. The sheriff seemed like a man to hold a grudge, especially against the woman that embarrassed him on the crime scene.
Whitefox opened his window. “How’s it been?”
Chester Briggs nodded at his boss and the woman with him. He wasn’t giving her a second thought. She was an outsider and not one of them. “It was quiet last night, but today word travelled that there were multiple bodies pulled off the land.”
“Chaos?”
“Oh yeah, they’re about to lynch any outsider that they get their hands on,” he said, motioning to Elizabeth with his head subtly. Hoping his boss got the message that if he had any fondness for the woman to keep an eye on her.
“I need you to start compiling a list of anyone women that left the reservation in the last year. Whether they went to school, ran away, got married to an outsider or anything.”
Sacred Burial Grounds (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 2)) Page 19