“Uh, if you’re playing dirty for that scumbag president, all respect for you and your people just went down the shitter. I liked you, Alfie. We go way back, and Ethan even likes you.”
“This is bigger than you and me, Elizabeth. For the record, I told him this was a stupid idea. I know how vicious you are, and I was sent in here to calm you down. You can’t kick the shit out of any more people.”
“Uh, your people aren’t exactly pulling punches,” she stated, pointing at her face, the red marks on her wrists, and then Chris’s face. “They kicked the shit out of us too.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. I apologize for overzealous agents who didn’t get the memo right.”
“What fucking memo?” she asked.
The door opened again, and yet another face she recognized came into the room. Everyone would recognize it. It was the Vice President of the United States.
Alfie stood straight like the king walked in. Elizabeth wanted to punch her in the face.
Douchebag.
“Sir.”
He ignored the woman and focused on Elizabeth.
“Director Blackhawk. I’m sorry to be meeting with you under these circumstances. I had them bring you in. We need your help.”
She stared at him like he was insane.
BRING THEM IN?
Someone had them abducted. There is a huge ass difference in those two sentences.
HUGE.
Clearly, he didn’t understand that.
“Gordon, what the hell are you doing? If you needed my help, you could have headed to the Hoover Building or called Ethan. We would have met you. We just saw you last night at the party. What the hell could have come up that was so urgent that you had to abduct two Federal officers out in broad daylight? Are you insane?”
Then it hit her.
“Where’s my security?”
There hadn’t been two of them. There had been three of them. Ivan was MIA, and that didn’t bode well for her.
“Who?”
“Don’t give me that bullshit! You know who! I have personal security! Where is he?”
“He’s fine. They locked him in the trunk before taking you.”
She was horrified.
Was he serious?
The freaking trunk of a car?
“It’s ninety out. He’s in the sun in a trunk? Jesus Christ! Get someone to set him free.”
He brushed it off like the man’s life didn’t matter, and that made her even angrier.
“We really need your assistance.”
“I don’t understand any of this, and I am in NO MOOD to help you. Ethan is going to shit a ton of bricks!”
Gordon Downing had other issues, and what he needed was for her to comply and get in line. They had a huge ass issue.
Chris held her hand, and they stood really close. There were four Secret Service guys behind the vice president, and they were holding guns.
BIG.
GUNS.
It looked like they weren’t going to tolerate her kicking the shit out of him. While agents were free game, this man was not to be manhandled.
He pulled his pocket square and handed it to her as some blood dripped from her nose onto her shirt.
“I’m sorry about this but follow me. We’ll show you what we mean, and why we had to do this so secretly. Then, we’ll get you some medical aid if you help us.”
She couldn’t imagine what he needed help with, but if it had anything to do with that scumbag president…
Yeah, no.
She loved her country, and she fought for justice, but she was not helping Damian Dean. They could keep beating on her, and the answer would be the same.
“This is a high-security clearance situation.”
Elizabeth and Chris followed them out, the four goons behind them with the guns. She knew they’d never make it if they made a break for it. She knew they’d be dead before reaching the door.
If they didn’t get the memo not to beat them up, they likely didn’t get the memo not to shoot them.
Elizabeth had to hope someone found Ivan. Right now, she was equally worried about him.
“This is top secret. Your security clearance is being bumped up,” Gordon Downing stated as he led them to a room at the end of the hall. “I’ve had it handled. You report to me, and me alone.”
Elizabeth had no freaking idea what was going on. It was like she stepped into an episode of The Twilight Zone.
This morning, she was worrying about Chris’s numbers, and Callen catching a safe flight from Chicago. Now she was trying to put this puzzle together, and she was baffled.
What was she doing there?
She’d never seen this part of the White House. It was cooler, so she imagined they were downstairs in the underground bunker.
“Why?” she asked.
He didn’t say anything, but instead led her to a room that looked like a lab.
“Please let there be aliens,” she muttered under her breath. There was a body bag on the one table, and she began getting that sick feeling in her gut.
Chris did too.
He was holding her hand, and they were pressed together like two kids going before an angry parent. Chris was terrified if he let go of her, they’d be separated again.
“See, we have a problem. It happened rather unexpectantly. We don’t know what to do.”
Yeah, she felt that way about being abducted, beat on, and held against her will. It looked like they had something in common.
“What is the problem, exactly?” she asked, already afraid to know. This was like that movie where the people were told some top military secret, and then they killed them to ensure their silence.
Yeah, that was her big fear.
“We had a death.”
Gordon opened the body bag, and inside, there was a pulverized body housed in the plastic. His face looked like it had been bashed in.
Chris whistled.
“Someone was angry when they did that. You didn’t have a death, sir, you had a murder.”
Oh, he was aware, and his face said it all.
Then, it only took her a second.
She saw the pin on the lapel, and it matched the one on the vice president’s.
She’d had this wrong.
The president wasn’t behind this clusterfuck, the vice president was.
“Oh, Jesus. That’s going to be Damian Dean, isn’t it?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Someone killed him. We need you to solve his murder, and we need the good doctor to do the autopsy. That’s why you were brought here.”
“Uh, we can take him to go,” Elizabeth offered.
The man shook his head.
“Unfortunately, Director Blackhawk, your job isn’t quite as easy as your lover’s. You see, he’s going to do the autopsy, but you can’t leave until you solve his murder.”
“WHAT?” they said at the same time.
They couldn’t have heard that right.
“Yes, you can’t leave until you do. As acting President of the United States, you owe it to your country to find the person who killed him.”
She would have laughed had she thought they wouldn’t shoot her. They wanted her to find a killer of a man who likely had half the city gunning for him?
While locked in the White House?
Without her team and only Chris?
Yeah, well, hell.
And here, the day started out so damn well too.
She didn’t need to find a case. One just found her.
And it sucked…
Chapter Three
Hoover Building
Eleven A.M.
E than Blackhawk was beyond frantic over the whole situation. His wife had been missing for two and a half hours, and they still hadn’t seen the discs from the doctor’s office. By the time his security had been handed them, he had returned to the office to update Gabe on the situation.
It didn’t go well.
Basically, the shit had hit the fan.
> He was screaming like a lunatic, and mostly at the security detail. While Ivan took the dressing down, and like a champ, the others weren’t happy.
They hadn’t been responsible for Elizabeth, and none of them wanted that wild ride. Keeping tabs on her was akin to trying to put a harness on an eel.
Rory quit because of it.
Security wouldn’t take her as a job.
Ivan was it, and he’d dropped the ball. Now, they were all wearing the bull’s-eye of Gabriel Rothschild’s anger. There were some unhappy team members.
And yet, through the shouting and anger, Ethan knew he wasn’t out of the clear either.
Callen needed a call.
He was going to have to call his brother and let him know—if he hadn’t seen the news that was already starting to post tidbits about some abduction at a doctor’s office—that his wife was MIA.
Their wife.
The one he was supposed to keep an eye on.
After Callen’s honeymoon, when it went wonky at the end, he’d been freaked-out that something was going to happen to her—especially since the ‘incident’ in Vegas.
Callen was on edge nonstop, and this was going to make him lose it. Ethan knew.
He was almost there himself.
Across the room on his large TV, his brother was in the middle of a live interview. He was answering questions from some flirty, blonde woman. She was touching his arm, she was leaning into his body, and she even brushed his leg with her foot.
Ethan saw it all.
Oh, wherever their wife and Chris were, he hoped to God she didn’t see this. Then again, she might fight to get back to them so she could kill the woman.
This reporter was out of her league and had no freaking clue. His brother didn’t like blondes, and while Jackson James had the reputation of a playboy, it was all BS made up by his previous publisher.
He was a one-woman man and had been since the day he met Elizabeth. What was all kinds of wrong was his brother had mentioned his wedding and wife a couple of times.
Still, he kept his cool. As she interviewed him, and Ethan watched, Callen kept smiling.
And it wasn’t his happy smile.
“So, Mr. James, you recently got married. How’s that working out for you? Where is your lovely wife?” she asked, looking around the studio audience for her. “Doesn’t she usually travel with you? Everywhere?”
Callen didn’t miss the tone of her voice, but he was so glad to be talking about anything but his books. Three days in, and he was bored to death. It was a way to make money to support his family, and it was a pain in his ass.
Like this.
Like her.
Callen managed to keep the smile on his face as he prayed for a fire alarm, commercial break, or something to save him from this serial flirter. He hoped his wife wasn’t in her office working and seeing this jackassery.
The old ladies and lipstick on him from the night before had been strike one. He didn’t plan on hitting up strike two, or three.
“Unfortunately for me, she had to remain at home and work. My wife is a director with the FBI. She runs the Violent Crimes Unit. Her schedule and mine don’t always mesh. This is one of those times.”
“I see! Well, it has to be lonely and difficult when you are traveling without her.”
He lifted a brow.
Uh, where was this going?
Clearly, this woman was heading down a road Callen didn’t really like. He brushed off the touches to his arm, the tit shot she’d given him about five times, and when her foot rubbed his leg.
Yeah, this was not his thing.
Heads were going to roll—his. Elizabeth was going to go all shit nuts if this woman didn’t stop trying to rub herself all over him on national TV. While Elizabeth was fairly secure with their relationship, and knew that Jackson James had admirers, she didn’t like it flaunted in her face like…this.
This woman was pushing her luck. Callen wouldn’t put it past his wife to kick in the studio door, grab the blonde by her plastic surgery, and ass kick her into next month.
Callen kept it light.
“Of course it is. Any time spent away from my beautiful wife is difficult. She’s my soulmate,” he offered, trying to give the woman a hint.
BACK.
OFF.
“I’m sure there are many women out there who wish they could keep the elusive Jackson James company. How hard was it to transition from single man to married man?”
Seriously?
This again?
How hard was it for everyone to grasp that he wasn’t Jackson James? That was the name he’d picked as an author. He was Callen Whitefox, and he’d been with his wife a good chunk of time. No, it wasn’t legal on paper, but you didn’t need a sheet of paper if you offered up commitment.
Christ!
This was on his last nerve.
Callen was lonely, horny, and wanted to climb into bed with his husband and wife.
NOT this floozy.
“Actually, I’ve been with Elizabeth for over five years, so there has not been a ‘transition’. We’ve been a couple, lived together, and we have children together. Jackson James is my pen name. So, we had a life before he was ever born.”
She winked at him and licked her lips.
Christ.
He was done.
“Well, Chicago welcomes you,” she said, resting her hand on his thigh.
ON TELEVISION.
Well, Callen moved it.
Yeah, there was no way he was going to let his wife suffer and have to watch him be flirted with on a morning show. There was no way he’d let her hurt for the sake of book publicity. Callen wasn’t pimping himself out to sell books. In his life, this was his hobby. His first love was Elizabeth, then his career in the FBI as her partner, and then writing.
If his publicist thought this was going to fly…NO.
Just.
NO.
This was going to be him telling his wife he loved her. In his own way. It was time to be Callen James Blackhawk-Whitefox. Jackson James was done for the day.
Let it begin.
“Yes, I noticed the note you had left for me in the Green Room. It was well beyond welcoming me to the city.”
She smiled.
“I like to make our guests comfortable. If anything, I’m a fan of your work.”
He leaned back.
Oh, he bet. Her foot was rubbing against his shin as she spoke, and he didn’t like it. Being a victim of sexual abuse, Callen had learned one thing.
He got to control WHO touched him.
She wouldn’t be it.
PERIOD.
“Are we going to discuss my newest book or how you invited me to your house, a married man, for drinks and sex?” he asked, laying it out there.
It caught her off guard.
GOOD.
She went red.
Stuttered.
Callen wasn’t done.
“I think we should talk about my next book since this stop is supposed to be about me pimping my book, and not my body. I don’t roll like that, Miss Carmichael. If I had a dollar for every woman who tried to get me to sleep with them, I’d be rich. Oh, and they’d be dead. I don’t cheat on my wife. Focus on the book, and not touching me. It’s beneath us both.”
And there it was.
The woman asked for a commercial break, her whole body flushing red.
When it went to commercial, he stared at her.
“I’m not going to sit here and flirt with you for this persona. You can forget it. I’m also never coming back on this show. This was a joke,” he said as everyone stared at him. The producer was sweating now too.
Callen didn’t care.
Screw this.
He was out of here.
“If you think I’ll cheat on the mother of my children with someone who would blow a man in the Green Room, pass. You’ve underestimated me. Good day.”
He pulled off his mic and pointed at the man who had set tha
t interview up. His promoter was a dead man.
Callen had warned him that if it became a whole ‘sex sells’ junket, he was done.
And now he was.
“I’m finished with this bullshit. If you can’t get me on legitimate shows where I’m treated like a human being and not a walking dick some floozy thinks she can ride, I’m never going back out again.”
The woman looked shocked.
THEY all did.
“I love my wife, and I’m not demeaning our marriage for money. I’m not the whore in this room. I’m going back to the hotel to pack. This was a joke. The next interview you set me up with, I want a man, one I can take seriously, and not some interviewer who wants to try to get me to cheat on my wife. Am I clear?” he asked.
Everyone was watching in absolute silence. Sally Carmichael was beet red.
“Yes, Mr. James,” his promoter said as they began moving out of that studio.
Goodbye Chicago.
Pulling out his phone, he loosened his tie. Callen had to give his wife a heads-up. She was NOT going to like the woman pawing at him during the interview.
Her phone went right to voicemail.
She must have been working.
So, he called his brother.
Ethan answered on the second ring.
“Yo, I’m done. I’m heading to the hotel, and then home. Want me to bring you something back from Chicago? They have some kick ass deep-dish pizza. I already scored some fancy schmancy chocolates for the wife.”
“Cal.”
Ethan saw the interview, and he knew it was time. He’d been dreading this, but they still couldn’t find her or Chris. It was time to tell him.
“Yeah?” he asked, waiting for the elevator as he ignored the bitching from the woman he’d just left on the set. She’d finally recovered and was pissed.
“Elizabeth is missing.”
His heart stopped.
“What?”
“We can’t find her or Chris,” he said.
Callen’s heart thumped in his chest, and he felt the world closing in on him. That was his biggest fear, and if this was a joke, he was going to punch his brother in the face. His nerves were worn thin to begin with, and this was making him sick.
“That’s not funny, Ethan. That’s not a cool joke.”
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