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

by Kelley, Morgan

  “You do it one time, and a person never lets you forget,” Merry said, wiping her eyes.

  Elizabeth patted her cheek.

  “If you can’t do this, Merry, we can get another tech. You can go to my house and hang out with your love muffin.”

  “No. I’m not running.”

  She smiled at the smaller woman. “I want you in-house for the duration of this investigation. We have plenty of techs who can sweep for evidence.”

  “What if we get a body?”

  “Then you can go out, but you make sure you’re with someone. If you get your ass abducted, Boone is going to throw down some chicken bones, dance naked around them, and whip out the Voodoo. No one wants that. We’ll all be in HR.”

  Merry couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Can I share something?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  “I’m converting to Voodoo.”

  Elizabeth found that uproariously amusing. Her very scientific head tech had found religion.

  She kept laughing.

  “It’s a fascinating religion.”

  Elizabeth wiped her eyes. “Merry, I’m happy for you. I just keep picturing you sitting there in front of an altar of chicken bones, rearticulating them in your mind.”

  She found that amusing. “Guilty.”

  Elizabeth grinned. “Do you feel better?” she asked.

  Really, she did. Elizabeth may have a reputation for being badass, but she was really sweet and like a mother to them all.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Great. Let’s start our day.”

  She nodded. “Thank you for being a great boss, Elizabeth. You brought me to DC, and because of it, I got to meet Boone. He’s the love of my life.”

  “Marry him.”

  “I will if he asks.”

  She grinned. It looked like Cupid wasn’t quite done with this couple yet. She had some work to do.

  And soon.

  There was a baby on the way.

  In the morgue, she hopped onto a table and got ready to do her thing. The team was ready.

  So, she opted to shake them up.

  “Let’s talk about ordering supplies.”

  They all looked up.

  “What?” Chris said, staring at her like she’d lost it. “I thought you wanted…?”

  She shrugged.

  They began shuffling papers to find the stuff they needed for the lab. It was odd, but they weren’t going to question it.

  “Kidding. Tell me about our victims.”

  Chris started laughing. “Really? I spent the night with Ethan and a house full of kids. How do you not go insane?”

  She swept her arm around the room, pointing at each and every one of them. “I’m used to babysitting children.”

  It took a second.

  Then they all started laughing.

  “Anyway, boss,” Chris said, pulling up the files on the big screen. “Our first body, belonging to Richard Goodwin, was already autopsied. I went back over Doctor Brass’s work, and she was spot on.”

  Elizabeth looked around.

  Boone was standing beside Merry, Ethan was working on his phone, and Callen was right beside her, but there was no Detective Nelson.

  “Uh, hold up, Doc. Detective Savage, where’s your partner in crime fighting.”

  “She called in sick.”

  Elizabeth lifted a brow. “Uh, there are no sick days on a serial killer case. Did she miss that part of cop one-oh-one? I'm pretty sure bosses frown upon that.”

  He shrugged. “All I know is what she sent me. I got the text twenty minutes ago, saying she wasn’t coming in today.”

  Elizabeth glanced over at her husband. “Ethan, will you run interception on this one? I have a feeling her sick day is actually a bitch day, and we have shit coming.”

  He agreed.

  It wouldn’t be the first time they had issues with working with the locals.

  “I’ll get ready for it.”

  Boone didn’t get it. “What’s going on?”

  Chris fielded this one. “In ten years, every time someone has called in sick when working with her,” he said, pointing at Elizabeth, “they’ve gone to their police captain, the media, HR, or anyone who could save them from the wrath of Elizabeth.”

  She smiled sweetly. “I’m a charmer. What can I say? People love me to bits and pieces.”

  That amused the team.

  They all recalled what happened to that person when the shit finally hit the fan.

  “We don’t need her anyway,” Elizabeth stated. “Keep going, Christopher. I’m sorry I interrupted. I just hate when a chick falls out of the nest.”

  He went back to the file.

  “We have COD as drowning. Doctor Brass was torn between that and blunt force trauma to the head, but there was trace of chlorine in his lungs. He was alive when he went under.”

  She got that.

  “Well, I interviewed the merry widow, and that name is appropriate. She’s more than happy he’s dead.”

  “Really?” Boone asked. “Did she actually say that? If she did, just wow!”

  “Well, not in so many words. It seems her husband, like we suspected, was helping himself to the hired help.”

  There were ‘ohhhhs’ and ‘ahhhs’ from the peanut gallery the second she said it.

  “Nice touch, team. I love sound effects. Someone throw down some blood curdling screams when Tony walks into the room. Bonus points if he’s holding shit and drops it.”

  They all grinned wickedly.

  Was it wrong?

  Yes.

  Only that’s how she ran her shop. If you couldn’t torment the ones you loved, who could you torment?

  At that moment, Tony strolled in and they all laughed.

  “What?” he asked.

  Chris shook his head and continued, “That’s a good reason to kill someone. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had a wife off a spouse because he was deep sea diving in the wrong ocean.”

  Yeah, they knew it.

  Only on this one, her gut said otherwise. “Tony, strip him down to the bones, to see if there are any other injuries, but I really don’t think this woman is guilty.”

  “Why?” Callen asked.

  “Christopher, how tall was Richard Goodwin?”

  He checked his notes. “He was about your height.”

  “Okay, so we have a man maxing out at six feet. His wife is no bigger than Merry. Here’s how it looks to me. We have a big man by the pool. This tiny little woman comes over, swings a twenty pound kettlebell, wraps a huge chain around his neck, and then pushes him into the pool without leaving drag marks along the rough concrete.”

  It didn’t seem probable.

  “If she did do it, she wasn’t alone.”

  Callen agreed.

  “I’m going to interview the maid today. She was waxing his furniture every day, so she’s going to have a different perspective than the scorned wife.”

  Or so she hoped.

  “Merry, any trace?”

  “They pulled it all, boss. We didn’t find anything new on him, near the pool, or with the weight.”

  She didn’t think they would.

  While Vanessa Brass didn’t like working with the FBI, she was still a competent ME. She wasn’t Chris Leonard competent, but few were to that level.

  “What do we have with Fern Yoder?”

  Chris laughed. “Sorry, but someone shoved hot coals down her throat. It sealed her larynx and caused suffocation. That’s your COD.”

  “Just yuck,” she stated. “I swear the criminals are getting sicker by the minute.”

  They didn’t disagree.

  “Whatever happened to a simple drive by shooting?” she asked. “It made life so much easier. You could get a witness, pull some rounds out of a dead drug dealer, and the day was done.”

  Ethan looked up from his phone. “Seriously? Are you out of your mind?”

  She laughed.

  Maybe she was.
>
  “Okay, so we have two dead, two COD’s and they don’t match. That sounds like a fun one. We have crazy all over the board on this one. This is going to suck.”

  Yeah, for the profiler who had to figure this hot mess out.

  “Merry, what about the handkerchiefs? What can you tell us about them?”

  “They were brand new out of the pack. There wasn’t even lint on them. They were clean, so no trace.”

  Of course not.

  “Okay, so we know they weren’t at the houses for long. Fern Yoder’s place was a hoarder’s paradise.”

  She pointed at her team.

  “I need a group to hit up the missing man’s car. Conley still hasn’t show up, but we might find something. I don’t know if I’ll have time to check out his house or the ride, so I want detailed reports.”

  Merry went to grab her gear.

  How quickly she’d forgotten.

  “Not you, Merry. Like I said, you’re staying in-house unless we have a body. We don’t need you out there.”

  All the techs looked at her.

  There was a mix of worry and curious stares.

  It was time.

  “You need to tell them, since they’re family, too, they should know what’s happening.”

  Merry was embarrassed, but Elizabeth was right. Plus, she was in danger and anyone around her was too.

  “I’m being stalked by an ex.”

  That was all she had to say.

  The team immediately rallied around her.

  Elizabeth knew they would.

  She focused on Seaton and Madden. “Tell me you have information on that money,” she stated.

  Johanna Madden grinned. “We do. He made a large donation to a charity. We’re still trying to pinpoint it. The bank is giving us a hard time. The widow has closed all of his accounts and transferred funds.”

  Of course she had.

  She moved fast.

  “What about Fern?”

  “She has no family, so we have a call in to an estate lawyer to release her financials. You’ll have it soon.”

  It was better than nothing.

  It was only the top of the second day. She had to be patient on this one.

  Still…

  The job had to go on.

  “Boone, see if you can find your partner. Tell her she has one shot at getting back on this case. If she insists she has the sniffles, she’s off.”

  He pulled out his phone to make the call. He sincerely hoped Sima didn’t screw this up.

  “Ethan, call her boss. I have no time for this BS. We have to move fast. This killer is cuckoo.”

  He did it.

  “Callen, you and I are going to hit up some interviews. Team, call me in the field if you need me.”

  “Oh, Callen?” Ethan called.

  “Yeah?” he asked, as he headed toward the door.

  “Gabe sent me an email.”

  He swallowed.

  Callen immediately knew what it was about. He’d outed himself to the press as they left the hotel and roughed up a reporter.

  “He’s not yanking me from being her partner in the field, is he?”

  “He wanted to for the stunt you pulled, but something saved your ass.”

  Callen waited.

  “Livy won’t be working in the field. She’s opted to remain in-house. She’s going to be working with the agents.”

  “What?” Callen said in surprise.

  He looked around.

  “Really?”

  He was really shocked to hear that. As far as he knew, Livy and he would be switching off with each other in the field.

  Now he was thinking…

  “She’s all yours.”

  He grinned and rubbed his hands together as if he was coming up with maniacal plots in his mind.

  “Only Gabe said…and I quote, ‘the next time you touch a reporter, you get to play partner to your unemployment paperwork’,” Ethan stated.

  Elizabeth started laughing.

  Callen stared at her. “That’s not funny. I don’t want to get my ass fired.”

  “Jackson James would think it’s funny as hell.”

  “You’re a mean woman.”

  She winked.

  That wasn’t the first time someone told her that, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last.

  Call it a hunch.

  Chapter Six

  Saturday Mid-Morning

  She loved the interview process. It was one of her favorite jobs as an agent. The fact that she was able to stare down a killer, ask them questions, and read them was always a thrill.

  It was like a wild hunt.

  They were trying to hide in plain sight, and she was trying to end their reign of terror.

  “You’re smiling,” Callen said, pulling up the address for Marta Jones on his tablet. “When you do that before we even arrive at the interview, it makes me incredibly nervous—especially since Gabe told me not to manhandle anyone.”

  “Am I?” she asked. “For the record, you played ‘touch the reporter’ all on your own, Cal. I was an innocent bystander and we all know that can’t be said all that often.”

  Yeah, she was right.

  “I was defending my woman. I’ll beat down some asshole any day for you. No one is going to disparage the mother of my children. It’s not happening.”

  She smiled at him.

  “There it is again. You still have that scary smile plastered on your face. You know the one. It’s about halfway between ‘you better run’ and ‘I’m going to make you bleed’. It makes me twitchy.”

  She laughed. “I’m in suspect mode. Don’t freak out. I was working out the interview in my head,” she said. “Sorry. I get carried away and giddy with excitement when I get to rake some hussy over the coals.”

  He was aware.

  This was what his wife was meant to do. Callen knew it was her calling.

  The only other thing she was this happy with was when she could cuddle her kids.

  “Are you going to hit her hard?”

  She snorted. “Oh, yeah.”

  “All because she was having an affair with a married man?” he asked.

  “Uh huh.”

  “Maybe there was a reason.”

  That had her attention. “What? Are you, in a roundabout way, trying to tell me that an affair is acceptable?”

  “Yes.”

  She nearly wrecked their vehicle.

  “What? I know I’m hearing things. A married man just told his wife that it’s okay to cheat. That can’t be good.”

  He placed his hand on her thigh to connect them. “Here’s my example. Are you my soulmate?”

  Elizabeth didn’t know where he was taking this one. “I would hope the answer to that is yes.”

  “Am I yours?”

  “You and Ethan, yes.”

  “What if I had married Desdemona? What if she had stopped fighting the wedding and I walked down the aisle with her before we’d become a couple.”

  He saw Elizabeth’s reaction on her face. There was no doubt that the mere idea horrified her.

  “Just trust me on this one. I’m going to make a point. I promise.”

  She was trying, but the whole conversation made her sick to her stomach.

  No.

  It made her want to cry.

  The mere mention of Desdemona’s name made her want to run and hide. She’d done irreparable damage to their family—starting with Callen’s heart.

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Even if I married her, I know me. I would have eventually succumbed to my feelings for you. The heart wants what it wants. I would have died inside each day with her, knowing you were my one true love. I would have crossed a huge line for you.”

  “And if I didn’t cheat?” she asked.

  “Would you have been able to hold off?”

  She stared at him. “I don’t like this conversation at all.”

  “Okay, let’s change it up then so you can answer. Eth
an and you never met.”

  “Well, this is getting better by the second. In the first scenario, I’m a cheating whore, and in the second one, you just booted Ethan off ‘Marriage Island’.”

  Callen laughed. “You meet me, and I’m married to someone else. We fall in love. Would you sleep with a married man? Would you have risked everything for your soulmate?” Callen wasn’t upset that she couldn’t answer earlier. He got it. Elizabeth loved Ethan just as much as she loved him. They’d never want to hurt him—even if he never found out about the conversation.

  “Well?” he asked.

  She thought about it.

  This was like the Ray mess.

  She’d slept with a married man, but it had been out of trickery, his lies, and desperation to feel.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Now it’s me who hates this conversation.”

  “Would you have cheated?” she asked out of curiosity and need. “Really? Had you married her and I wandered into your life, would you really have crossed that line for me? Even if you had kids?”

  “I would have in a heartbeat. I tried to fight what I felt for you, Lyzee, and I was failing miserably. The only thing that kept me from doing it was Ethan. I didn’t want to hurt him. Had he been anyone else, I would have left my wife for you. I would have fought for you. I would have stolen you away in the night to live happily ever after with the only love I’ve ever really known.”

  Her eyes filled with tears.

  He was putting it out there.

  She had to too.

  “I would have had an affair with you had you been married and I wasn’t. I fell in love with you the day I saw you at FBI West. I knew you and I were meant to be together—just like I knew when I saw Ethan. Fate had me so confused on this one. Two men walked into my life, and I was meant to be with both of them.”

  Callen kissed her knuckles. “See? Maybe you should take it easy on Marta Jones after you figure out if she killed him and Fern. Maybe she’s mourning the loss of her soulmate.”

  “There are days you suck the fun out of my badassery. This is an example.”

  He laughed. “Do you hate me for it?”

  “No. I love you for it. This is why you have to be who you are, Callen. You’re gentle inside that big ol’ chest of yours. You’re a really good man.”

  “I’m telling Ethan you would have cheated on him.”