* * *
Ethan Blackhawk panicked when he saw the Denali gone from the front of his house. She had just been there. Maybe fifteen minutes had passed since he drove by, leaving her. “Where could she have gone?”
He was starting to panic at the idea she was out there alone. Then she had told him she was going to do it. He was so hell bent on forcing his will on her, he didn’t even register when she told him she would go right back out.
Whitefox didn’t say anything. ‘I told you so’ seemed so inappropriate at that moment, when his brother was genuinely panicked.
“This is my biggest fear,” he said to his brother, as he parked the Denali and rushed into his house, hoping she left a note.
Just the look on his face when he emerged said it all. No note and no sign of Elizabeth.
“We have to find her. If you were a pregnant, angry woman where would you go?”
“I have no idea,” his brother answered, not really sure where Elizabeth would be. “If she told you she was going out in the field, then chances are…” He let it go at that.
Now Ethan Blackhawk was beyond panicked and into complete and total terror. He pulled out his cell phone and started tracking his wife.
~ Chapter Twelve ~
Saturday late afternoon
Elizabeth pulled into Timothy Blackhawk’s driveway and picked up her cell phone. It appeared that her husband had figured out she wasn’t at home. He was calling nonstop. Dropping the phone into her purse, she grabbed the cake that was for dessert. It was carrot cake. Her least favorite, but guilt overwhelmed her when she thought to buy chocolate. She was supposed to be eating healthier. As she approached the door, the old man opened it for her, and offered her his hand.
“What’s wrong, Elizabeth?” he asked, softly. It was obvious that the woman was upset. Just the look on her face said it all. “What has my boy done to upset you this badly?”
The flood of tears started again, and she couldn’t help herself. Elizabeth didn’t know if it was because of the pregnancy, or the fight she just had with her husband. All she did know was she needed some time away and wanted to think.
“Come in,” he said, closing the door, and putting his arm around her shoulder. He had heard the tears in her voice when she called, and he knew she was going to be emotional. There was no doubt it was a long day for her.
“Thank you for letting me come here,” she replied, sniffling. “I didn’t want to sit at home alone and think.”
“Want to talk about it?” He sat beside her, and let her lean against him, as he protectively pulled her under his arm. “You seem to have an aura filled with bad energy tonight my little raven.”
“Ethan.” It was all she could get out before the tears started again, making it hard for her to catch her breath.
“Tell me about it from the start.”
Elizabeth started with how he almost got killed, and the finished with how he told her she couldn’t go and do her job, treating her like she had no choice in the matter. She was hurt at how heavy handed he had been. “I’m an FBI agent. I can take care of myself pretty well, and all I feel like now is just a means of reproduction. I stopped being Elizabeth just because I’m having a child with him. It’s like he thinks I don’t care that I’m pregnant. Of course I’m worried and scared! I just don’t have the luxury of sitting at my desk crying about it while someone’s after my husband.”
“Oh Elizabeth, my little raven. You are so much more than just a child bearer. Even if that was all you were, it is the most important job in the world. The spirits gave woman the duty to procreate, because she was the only one strong enough to carry the burden of loving a child her entire life. Man was passed over for the duty; we don’t have the heart, or spirit of a mother’s love.”
Elizabeth took the tissue he offered her, and watched him as he walked across the room to a bowl. Inside were pretty glass stones. He returned and sat beside her, taking hold of her hand.
“When Ethan’s mother found she was sick, and there was no cure left to help her I gave her this stone. She used to hold it, and worry it with her thumb. You can tell that she had many worries.” Timothy Blackhawk placed it gently in the palm of her hand.
“At this rate I’ll wear it right away,” she sniffled and started rubbing the blue stone. It was the color of her eyes.
“Then I’ll give you another one, and you can wear it away too. Ethan found most of them at the old quarry behind the reservation land. When he was a boy he liked to collect them, and believed they held magic inside them.”
Elizabeth gave him a kiss on his cheek, and laid her head on his shoulder. “Thank you, Granddad, you don’t know how much you’ve cheered me up.”
“Then what would you like to do, child? Eat or have cake?”
“If I ate cake before dinner, Ethan would be upset,” she answered automatically. “He wants me to eat healthier and already thinks I don’t care about the baby.” Elizabeth sniffled and lovingly placed her hand over her stomach. “So no cake for us.”
Timothy was going to sit his boy down, and he was going to give him one hell of a lecture when he got his hands on him. Now he had her worried about eating cake and not dinner first.
“I’d like to go see Ethan’s mother. I have flowers in the car for her grave. I think I’d like to talk to the woman who worried this stone before me.”
Timothy Blackhawk’s heart was touched by the woman before him. She listened, she understood, and she was full of life. He knew that despite this bump in the road, they’d fix this once his grandson figured out the fine line between being overbearing and protective. He stood from the couch and offered her his hand. “You drive and I’ll point,” he said, walking to the door of his home. “Maybe you can get Ethan to visit her as well one day. When he is ready.”
Elizabeth nodded. “I know he can’t bring himself to it, but I’ll do it for him so he doesn’t have to go.”
“And this, Elizabeth, is why the spirits and the ancestors past made woman the one that carried the burden of the heart; because only she could. We men aren’t worthy.”
Ethan Blackhawk was in sheer panic. She wasn’t at work, she wasn’t at the stores, and she was just gone. There was only one last place she could possibly be, and that place was his grandfather’s house. He looked over at his brother, who had said nothing the last hour. It was obvious that he was angry at him too.
“I guess I deserve this,” he muttered. This is exactly why he wanted to lock her away.
“I wouldn’t wish this fear on my worst enemy, Ethan. So I won’t wish it on my own brother,” he said, quietly. “But you did create this mess.”
“My own brother turns against me.”
Callen Whitefox finally looked over. “I haven’t turned on you; I’m just siding with your wife on this one, because I happen to think you were way over the line.”
“This is why I want to lock her away and keep her safe. This fear is consuming me right now.” Blackhawk felt the panic and terror that he’d managed to drive away his wife. For all he knew she could be on a plane back to Salem and her old life, taking away his family. The fear of losing them both was overwhelming.
“That’s the problem, Ethan. You can think about locking her away, and you can hover over her, but then you need to draw the line. The minute you forget that she is a human being and treat her like you own her, you’ve just lessened what she is in life. Elizabeth seems to be a pretty good agent. Is she? ”
Blackhawk pulled up in front of his grandfather’s house and sighed. “She’s the best I’ve ever worked with, and I get what you’re saying. I crossed the line.”
“Bro you didn’t just cross it, you fell off the cliff tripping on it. Cut her a break. You’re damn lucky to have her in your life, and I wish I was half as lucky. Guys like us only dream about girls like her. We don’t get to make it a reality. You did.”
Blackhawk knew he was right.
“I’ll help you find her,” he said, hopping out of the Dena
li and going to his grandfather’s door. It was locked and all the lights were off. “You’re going to have to just head home and wait. She’ll turn up. It’s getting dark soon, and she’ll eventually come home to sleep.”
Ethan had never been this worried in all his life. That wasn’t true. Once, in Salem he felt this way, and it was his fault then too. Now, it was different. He wasn’t only scared for the woman he loved, but terrified for the child she carried that was part of both of them. He’d go home, but he wouldn’t stop worrying until she walked back into their home and his arms. All he wanted to do was keep her safe.
Instead he’d driven her away and probably into danger.
Elizabeth parked the vehicle on the roadside, gazing out at the burial grounds. “It’s pretty,” she said, softly. It didn’t appear to be a normal cemetery. There were beads and feathers blowing in the slight breeze. Pretty wind chimes decorated the handmade crosses, stones, and statuaries. Stepping down from the Denali, she went to the passenger door to assist Timothy. As she offered him her hand, he looked into her eyes. His brown meeting her icy blue and she couldn’t help but feel like he was staring directly into her soul and measuring her against his Native wisdom.
“What do you see, Elizabeth?” he inquired.
She looked around at the grounds, and just let herself observe what was there. Using the same instinct she used for observing a crime scene, she finally had an assessment. “I see a really beautiful place that isn’t just to bury one’s dead, but a place to find peace and the answers to questions.”
Timothy walked into the area and to the stone that was where his wife was buried. “My wife is here,” he said, touching the stone with his wrinkled hand and whispering some words in a language his wife would have understood. Oh, how he missed her. After many years of marriage, his heart still ached now that she was gone. He believed she watched over him. In fact, he believed that his beloved wife had found a way to send Elizabeth to them.
To heal their family.
Elizabeth sat in front of the stone and pulled a third of the flowers from the bunch that she had in her hand. Reading the dates she could understand why there was so much sadness in his eyes. Timothy had been alone for a long time. “You miss her a great deal.” It was a statement. Not a question.
“More than words can ever express,” he said, touching the beads that hung over the stone. “She died when the boys were very young. I’ve missed her for over thirty years now, the same as I did the first day she left on her journey without me.”
“You never thought to remarry, Granddad?”
“Never. Why try to replace the love of your life?”
“I don’t blame you,” she whispered, and tears threatening to come back and overwhelm her. There was no way she could remarry if something happened to her husband. He was her heart.
“I’m going to ask a favor from you, Elizabeth. It’s a heavy burden, but you’re the only one that I can trust with the task.”
She looked over at the man and nodded. “Yes, Granddad?”
“When it’s my time, and it will come because I have had a long life on this earth. I need you to take over for me and take on the job of holding them together. Promise me that you will be there for both of them and keep them together.”
She didn’t know what to say. That this man would trust her with the men he loved very much touched her heart.
“I need to know that they’ll be safe and taken care of, and I don’t believe anyone can carry on for me but you. I believe the raven we discussed was sent to you. I would like to think it was a harbinger from my wife, giving me a message. I believe you were sent here to help put my family back together again. I thought my boys would always hate each other, and my son had damaged them both. Now I see how Ethan lives freer and lighter. I also see how my Callen isn’t as hopeless; he sees a chance in life like his brother has now. I believe, Elizabeth that you have made the difference in this family.”
“You honor me, Granddad.” Elizabeth stood and walked over to the man, careful to not step on his wife’s grave. She kissed him on the cheek and took his hand. Everything he said touched her heart. “I’ll take care of them both, I promise.”
“I thought that I lost Ethan years ago, and it broke my heart. When he came back I was given a new gift. He gave me a granddaughter that I wouldn’t have had. I trust you with his heart, and with Callen’s until he finds the right woman. I’ll need you to take care of my burial. The boys I fear they will be unable to cope.”
Elizabeth accepted the duty. “You write down what you want, and I’ll make sure it is carried out to your specifications. As for Ethan and Callen, I’ll carry them and get them both through it, Granddad.”
“Somehow Elizabeth, there was never a doubt you would.”
Blackhawk pulled into his driveway, and the house lacked luster. It was too late in the afternoon on a Saturday to do anymore work. The dentist office wasn’t answering the phone, the vet was out taking care of some horses, and his wife was missing. When he and his brother entered the house, he dropped his papers on the desk in the office that he and his wife shared. Maybe if he begged some more, she’d come back to him.
Whitefox grabbed his phone and called his deputy. When the man answered, he whispered into the phone. “Find the FBI agent, my brother’s wife. I have a feeling she’s on the reservation with granddad.”
“You want me to pick her up?” asked Chester Briggs.
“No, find her and call me with her location. Don’t approach her just observe her unnoticed.”
“Okay boss,” he answered.
Elizabeth had to be with his grandfather. The old man had a routine, and Timothy was a creature of habit. On Saturdays he was always home at night, planning his weekly rituals. If he was missing, and the doors to his house locked, then chances were he was with Elizabeth. Granddad never left the Rez, so it narrowed it down.
“I’ll find her, boss.”
“Thanks. Call me back.”
Elizabeth stood in front of the tombstone of her husband’s mother. It was well kept and covered with beads just like the other one. She ran her fingers over the stone and the name. She never knew her name was Catherine. It was the same as her own mother’s name, and she too died way too young.
“Catherine, it means pure,” she said to Timothy.
“It does.” He watched the woman with old eyes that had seen many things in his life, and yet she brought a new breath to his time left on the earth. She was a blessing, and when he saw his grandson, he was going to sit him down and talk to him about what he was throwing away with his carelessness. There would not be a repeat of his own son’s behavior.
She pulled off one more third of the roses and took a moment to take in their scent. To her, roses always meant funeral flowers, but they still were beautiful. Laying them on her grave, she spoke to the woman. “Catherine, my name is Elizabeth and I’m married to your son. I know that you’ve been gone a long time, but I have to believe that part of our parents remain with us when their spirits leave. I know how much your son misses you. I can see it in his eyes every day. He wants to come back here and see you, but he just isn’t ready yet. I’ll do it for him, until he’s strong enough to return.”
“She would have liked you,” said Timothy, as he observed her quietly. “I believe she would have loved you instantly, because of the way you love her son.”
“That gives me peace, because I always wonder if she would have accepted me as part of her family.” Elizabeth tucked hair behind her ear as the wind picked up. Something inside her made her look around the burial grounds, scanning for the disturbance.
“In our culture Elizabeth, we are connected to nature and that around us. Feel how the wind has picked up? That is your answer from the spirit world. Catherine hears you.” It wasn’t lost on him that Elizabeth was very astute, and she didn’t miss much. When the wind started, she looked around, seeing everything with her icy blue eyes.
Elizabeth smiled. “Then this trip wa
s well worth it, to meet his mother.” She turned and moved one stone over to the next grave in the family.
“That would be Callen’s mother. I had them all buried together. The women in this family, they all were called back to the Great Spirit way too soon.”
She ran her fingers over that stone too, placing flowers across the front for her brother-in-law. She noticed the wind slowed, and the beads on the stones stopped moving. “I think it’s time to return back to your home, Granddad.”
“Come child.”
Elizabeth took his arm and helped him across the grounds to the Denali. It was time to get out of the open. Being a trained agent, she just knew when eyes were watching her, and her gun was in her purse. The hairs on the back of her neck stood, and she wanted nothing more than to be locked behind the doors of the car and fast. Before she helped Timothy into the vehicle, she reached into her purse and clipped her gun to her hip.
“Worried, Elizabeth?” the old man asked, watching her curiously.
“Just thinking about self-preservation,” she answered, helping him into the vehicle. She scanned the area and again saw nothing but the burial grounds. Only her cop instinct said otherwise. After being in the FBI for over ten years, she had come to rely on her instincts for survival. In the field they were sometimes all you had to survive.
Someone was watching them.
Elizabeth Blackhawk had no doubt and would bet her next paycheck on it.
Callen Whitefox ordered pizza. He figured they might as well have something to eat, since they were just sitting there going over information. He noticed his brother was wound tight, ready to spring and snap at any moment. When his phone beeped he read the display. Elizabeth Blackhawk and his grandfather had been in the cemetery. Now they were on the move again, and what were his instructions. He typed back a message to keep an eye on both of them, and if anyone approached them to keep them safe. He went back to his papers and waited for dinner to arrive. Once a final location on his sister-in-law was reported to him, he would give his brother the news and some peace.
Sacred Burial Grounds (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 2)) Page 30