Act of Blood (An FBI/Romance Thriller ~ Book 16)

by Kelley, Morgan

  Her husband was hurting over this.

  She had to do something.

  Livy picked up the phone as soon as the water kicked on in the shower. She needed to make a call.

  “Blackhawk.”

  “Ethan, I need a favor,” Livy said, calling the one person she knew could help her.

  “What’s up, Livy?”

  She told him everything, leaving nothing out. She knew Ethan would get it, and he could help her fix this.

  “Can you arrange that for me, or am I crossing some line that’s going to cause you and Gabe issues?”

  “I can pull it off. I’m technically your boss, and Elizabeth is under Gabe. If that’s what you really want, I can make it happen, but you have to be sure.”

  She was.

  What choice did she have?

  “Can you discuss it with Elizabeth? I’d call, but Gabe will be out of the shower soon.”

  “I can, Livy. Are you positive this is what you want to do? You may not get another shot at this.”

  She was willing to do anything for her husband. He’d sacrificed so much for her and the country. “Yes.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you, Ethan.”

  She hung up the phone. Now all she had to do was keep her husband from stressing this the entire weekend. On Monday, she was going back to work.

  Well, she was sort of going back.

  Until then, she needed to help him through this. “Gabriel, make room for me,” she called.

  She knew what would distract him.

  Livy knew how to be a good wife.

  * * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *

  Fern Yoder’s

  Mansion

  It was clear that she was a patron of the arts. Her house was filled with all kinds of mediums. There were paintings, sculptures, murals, and it all screamed eclectic. It was just like Richard Goodwin’s home, but magnified.

  If he liked art, she LOVED it.

  From looking around, it was clear to see that Fern had definitely been a recluse.

  The giant mansion was packed full of treasures. Well, there were ones that the dead woman would consider treasures. To Elizabeth, it simply made her OCD go shit nuts.

  “Wow,” Callen said, pointing at the one statue. “Someone liked naked men and big dicks.”

  Elizabeth didn’t even bat an eyelash. “We always do. That size doesn’t matter phrase is total bullshit. That was the only thing that Fern had right.”

  He started laughing because she caught him completely off guard with her comment. “I want to ask so many questions right now, but I’ll sound pathetic.”

  She snorted. “Yes to all of them. You’re impressive, Mr. Whitefox.”

  That was all he had to hear to plaster a smile on his face for the rest of the day.

  Sue him.

  He was easy.

  Callen pulled on a pair of gloves to help his wife do the searching dirty work. She was rustling through papers on the desk.

  “Pay dirt!”

  He glanced over. “What?”

  “Here’s her checkbook. She just wrote out a check for fifty thousand dollars three days before she died.”

  Callen whistled.

  “Yeah, not chump change, but then she’s loaded. In fact, why are you whistling? You’re loaded too.”

  He stared at her. “That sentence is insulting and I don’t even know where to start with what’s wrong with it.”

  Elizabeth stood up. “Why?”

  “I’m loaded?”

  “Well, Jackson James is, and since he is you, that makes you the original person we’re discussing, doesn’t it? Isn’t that how this works?”

  “So, when you think of him, you think of money?”

  She didn’t get what was bugging Callen. “It’s hard not to. You’re a freaking bestselling author. Your first book sold a half a million copies. Your second book has already beaten that.”

  Callen didn’t speak, but his jaw ticked.

  “Callen.”

  “No, it’s best we drop this. This isn’t the time or the place to be dealing with the shit you just threw down.”

  Her eyes went big.

  “Pardon?”

  “You said ‘I’m rich’,” he clarified.

  She had never been more confused than she was in that moment. It was a fact. Why the hell was he getting all freaked out by it?

  “You are.”

  “Again, you don’t get it, do you?” Callen knew he probably should let it go, but it hit on his one insecurity, and she wasn’t getting it.

  “Callen, I don’t get why you’re mad. I wasn’t being rude. I was simply pointing out a fact. You’re Jackson James, and he’s wealthy.”

  “So, I’m not part of you? I’m not your partner?”

  “What? Of course you are.”

  “So your money is your money, Ethan’s is Ethan’s, and mine is mine?”

  She knew this was a minefield.

  She just didn’t know that he was ready to blow. Callen was generally the calmest of the three of them. This had to be a really sore spot if he was having a fight, on a crime scene, and with her.

  Fortunately, there were no techs there to hear it.

  “Callen.”

  “See? I was under the impression you were my wife, and we didn’t have separate accounts. I thought I was loved enough to be included in the marriage, but I see that I’m not.”

  “Callen.”

  He was actually glaring at her.

  “I didn’t…”

  He cut her off. “I began writing because I’d lost the use of my right arm. You told me that even if I couldn’t go back to work again, it was fine. We were a unit, and our money was our money. I still wanted to contribute.”

  She got it now.

  Shit!

  She’d just done to Callen what she’d kick anyone’s ass if they did it to Chris.

  Oh boy. She’d screwed this one up.

  “It’s true.”

  “Is it? Because when I give you a gift, when I try to buy my wife something, she gets upset. That doesn’t scream equality to me. You make me feel like I’m trying to buy your affection, and now you called it MY MONEY.”

  He was getting red. In fact, she was worried he was going to have a stroke.

  “Callen, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant…”

  Again, he shut her down.

  “I’m going to go search the upstairs bedrooms. You have this down here.”

  “Callen James…” She tried to apologize but he didn’t care. He was already gone.

  Shit!

  She really screwed this one up, didn’t she?

  As she was ready to go after him, her cell rang, and she was forced to take it.

  “Whitefox-Blackhawk.”

  “Baby, how’s the field?” Ethan asked.

  She wished it was so much better. This was a shit mess in the making. Elizabeth wished she’d kept her damn mouth closed and stuck to work.

  “I’ve had better days.”

  “Uh oh. What happened?”

  “Well, apparently, I told Callen he was rich, and he flipped his shit over it.”

  “He’s not rich. We all are.”

  She sighed. “Yeah, well, that wasn’t my comeback. I didn’t think about it. I was processing Fern Yoder’s death, balancing Richard Goodwin’s now widow, and trying not to think about big dicks.”

  He started choking.

  “WHAT?”

  “Fern liked dicks. The place is full of them. I wasn’t talking about on a real man—on statues.”

  He started laughing. “You owe me a tie. I spilled coffee on mine.”

  That was the story of her life.

  She needed to handle her relationships better—apparently.

  “I really hurt his feelings, and he’s pissed at me. He walked away, and he’s not speaking to me.”

  Ethan got it.

  Being a threesome was fun, in bed, but sometimes i
n reality, it was tougher than it looked. It was easy to tromp on someone’s feelings.

  “Want me to fix this?”

  “I should be the one doing that. I made the mess.”

  “Well, what are you going to do?” Ethan asked. “Want a suggestion?”

  “Yes. No. Yes. I don’t know. I’m bad at this, and I’m buried in work right now.”

  Oh, he was aware. Elizabeth pretty much didn’t have a filter. She said what she was thinking, and the men in her life sometimes had to swallow her words.

  Callen apparently had enough. That was saying a great deal considering how laid back he was in life.

  “Spend ‘his’ money.”

  “What? That’s your freaking advice?”

  “You hurt his feelings. You need to patch this up. You’re going into a case, and you can’t have Callen distracted. If you do, you get Ivan back.”

  “Oh, come on!”

  “You know the rules. The only reason he’s not all over you now is because Callen isn’t on protective duty since he’s not our spouse on paper.”

  “Yeah, about that?”

  “What?”

  “He should be.”

  “I know, but he’s asked that we don’t.”

  She thought about it. “So, we are supposed to say that we’re a unit, use each other’s money, but he doesn’t need protection? That doesn’t sound wrong to you?”

  Ethan began laughing.

  She had a point.

  Fair was fair. If Callen was going to play this game, then he was going to have to deal with the outcome.

  “I said fix it with him. I didn’t say piss him off even more. Now I have to give him a tail.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m irritating like that.”

  “Well, that’s not why I called. You have another issue,” Ethan stated.

  “Great. What now?”

  “I just spoke to Livy. She doesn’t want to work in the field.”

  “WHAT?”

  He told her everything that Livy had told him, and he added his perspective to the mix.

  “She wants to back out of coming back?” Elizabeth asked. “Really? This totally screams Gabe.”

  He agreed.

  “She doesn’t think Gabe can handle it. He’s freaked out, and she doesn’t want him to freak out, or worse, drop dead.”

  Elizabeth got it.

  She really did.

  She’d been there when Livy was raped by ‘The Butcher’. That had been a hard road back. Apparently, Gabe was still on the mend.

  “Okay, what are you going to do?” Elizabeth asked.

  “I’m going to keep her in-house. You can use someone on your team to do fulltime research.”

  “Uh, Seaton and Madden.”

  “You’re going to have to let them head out in the field more often. The only other choice is she’s gone. If I can’t utilize her, there’s no other division that’s going to take her.”

  She was aware.

  All the other agents did field work, office work, and double duty. Livy was already getting preferential treatment.

  “Livy is under me, and I have to handle this. Normally, I’d say tough shit, get to work, but this is Gabe we’re talking about here. If he’s a mess, day in and out, he’s going to be a bitch to work with. Do you really want him riding your ass since he’s your boss?”

  “Hell no! I don’t like you doing it, and you have to be nice because we’re married.”

  “Well, I can’t be nice if Gabe is breathing down my neck. In fact, I can’t be rational.”

  “Okay, keep her in-house. I can juggle the team and use Callen all the time.”

  Speaking of which, she was headed upstairs to find the man they were now discussing.

  “I really need a clue on this one, Ethan. I screwed up.”

  He had an idea.

  “Callen?” Elizabeth called.

  She couldn’t find him anywhere.

  “He’s gone.”

  “Hold on, baby,” Ethan said.

  In the background, she could hear her husband on his office phone. When he hung up, she was worried sick.

  “He’s on his way back in. Ivan is outside waiting to transport you.”

  “What?” she asked. “He sicced that goon on me and ditched my ass at a scene? Seriously? Do you know how jacked up that is?”

  Oh, he was aware.

  Ethan didn’t condone it, but he got it. There were times when they had to walk away from their wife or it would escalate.

  “He’s pissed, Lyzee. You hurt his feelings. He’s in a bad place. You need to really make this up to him, and fast.”

  Yeah, well, he wasn’t the only one who was pissed. Her partner bailed on her, she was stuck with Igor the Idiot, and Callen hated her guts.

  Today sucked.

  The whole.

  Damn.

  Day.

  * * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *

  When he got back to the Hoover building, he found his brother in his office. Ethan was behind his desk, staring out his window—obviously pondering something important.

  “Are you busy? Can we talk?” Callen asked from the doorway.

  “I’m never too busy for you or Elizabeth, so sure, what’s up?” Ethan offered, pretending he didn’t know what was happening between them. This was a precarious position to be in, and he knew it.

  On one side was his blood, and the other his wife.

  This was shitty.

  Again, threesomes weren’t all sex and sunshine. Here was more proof. There was always one person stuck in the middle playing mediator of sorts.

  “When you think about me, Ethan, what goes through your mind?” Callen asked.

  Ethan knew this was a slippery slope. He could see it all over his brother’s face. “I think of you as my blood, our husband, and our family. Why?”

  “Anything else?”

  “My employee?” he asked.

  Callen began pacing.

  “What’s going on, bro? You look all stirred up and about ready to boil over.”

  “I just flipped out on Elizabeth while we were working a scene. I totally lost it, and I don’t know what to do.”

  “Uh oh.”

  Ethan prayed that he sounded shocked.

  “Do you want to discuss it?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Why did you lose it?”

  He told his brother all about it. The emotions came out in a gush, flooding free, and yet he still didn’t feel any better.

  “I feel like I’m being shoved out of the relationship because of this other job. Maybe I should stop writing. I don’t want it to damage what we have together.”

  Ethan stared at him.

  “Just say it.”

  “Don’t be an idiot.”

  “Gee. Thanks. Had I known you were leading in with that, I wouldn’t have told you to speak your mind.”

  “I mean it, Callen. You’re a damn good writer, bro. Don’t quit and pretend it’s because you feel like you’re rich and we aren’t. We’re all better off because of the money. You bring a lot to the table.”

  Reality dawned. He wasn’t the first one to get to Ethan to talk this out. Why was he shocked?

  “She called you, huh?”

  “Well, you did ditch her ass at a crime scene, and you did sic her least favorite bodyguard on her. Let’s just say that she’s not really happy at this point either.”

  He sighed. “I didn’t want to fight.”

  “Well, this was a horrible way of going about it. Maybe having you in the field with her is a bad idea.”

  “Hey!”

  Ethan had a fine line to walk, and whether his brother liked it or not, he had to do it. Elizabeth and Callen were the loves of his life, BUT they were also people he was ultimately responsible for in the field. He could only give them so much leeway before the jackassery had to be cut off.

  Here was his burden.

  Boss.

  Spouse.

  It wasn’t
easy to balance.

  “You just left your partner. What else am I supposed to think?”

  “The weight of it all…it’s getting to be heavy,” Callen admitted. “I feel like I’m going under and I can’t catch my breath.”

  That worried him.

  “What is?”

  “What if my next book blows? What if I let people down? I’m only as good as my next novel, Ethan. What if it’s a fluke and I’m some hack who can’t do it?”

  And here it was.

  This was why he jumped down Elizabeth’s throat. Callen was worried he’d let them down, and that he couldn’t live up to the hype.

  “Then the book sucks. Do you really think you’re the first writer who puts out a shitty book? You’re not, Callen. What you are doing is putting way too much pressure on yourself. It’s only a job. It’s a career, and at any time, you can retire. Sometimes, writers disappear. You have that luxury.”

  He closed his eyes. “Today, when I signed that contract, I was happy. Then I was scared. I went shopping, and I know I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “Why?”

  “She hates when I buy her shit. I just don’t know why. Any other woman would be happy, right? Girls like pretty things, don’t they? I’m pretty new to this romance thing. Before Elizabeth, it was simply buy them a beer, take them home, and then boot them out. I can’t figure it out all the time. All I keep thinking is, is it me?”

  Ethan moved around his desk, across the room, and closed his door. “Callen, you’re letting this screw with you. She called it your money because technically, it is. You earned it. You stayed up late writing. We didn’t. She didn’t mean it as an insult. You’re looking for a scapegoat to crucify, and trust me—you never want to point that at your woman. It’ll only get ugly.”

  “Then why won’t she accept my gifts.”

  “Why don’t you ask her that?”

  “I don’t want a fight.”

  “Again, we’re three days past that. You ditched her in the field. She is searching a house with Ivan outside. She’s not going to be happy about this. You might have irritated her by asking, but this mess…yeah, she’s going to chew ass over this and likely for a long time.”

  He was aware.

  “I didn’t do it to upset her.”

  “Here are the facts of this whole thing. She has a million things on her mind right now. There are two bodies in the morgue, she has a killer playing games, and the media follows her around all the time. She’s buried. I’m sure, had she been focused on you, she wouldn’t have said it the way she did. You caught her at a moment where she was working through the case in her head. You know from partnering with her that once she’s focused, she’s not thinking about anything else but the dead.”