“You really should tell her.”
“Yeah, I know, but I can’t. Now isn’t the time. The job has me stressed.”
Callen understood where he was coming from on this one. He was there too.
“I feel the same about being a writer. As of late, it’s become more a pain in my ass than a joy. I used to write to be happy. I used to write to give my woman sweet words. Now…I feel pressured. I feel like I’m slipping under this quagmire of misery.”
“So stop writing for a living.”
Yeah, he wanted to.
“I was planning on it, but now I’ve been outed. There will never be peace. Before, it was ‘who is Jackson James’, and now it’ll be ‘why did you quit’?”
He got it.
“It sucks when something you once loved goes sour so fast. I wish I had an answer, but I’m doing battle with it myself.”
“It’ll get better,” Callen offered. “Have faith.”
Yeah, he did, and he hoped the man was right. There had to be plenty of other jobs he could do in the area that would get him home at night to his family.
“Let’s go get Merry’s things,” Callen offered.
They headed up the stairs to the brownstone, and to the door. Boone put his key in the lock as Callen stood behind him. When the door was open, they stepped inside.
Once there, Boone wanted to weep. Then he wanted to rage around in anger.
Their home had been trashed.
Their furniture had been cut to ribbons, their walls had scribbles all over them, and the messages were horrifying. He couldn’t believe that their happy love nest had been destroyed.
It was worse.
It had been violated.
If Merry saw this, she’d cry for days.
“Jesus,” Callen muttered.
“The baby’s room!” Boone said, running up the stairs to the room situated in the sunniest part of the house. They’d picked that room for their child so they’d always have plenty of light and good energy.
When he went into the room, he couldn’t believe his eyes. It was the stuff nightmares were made of. Their child’s personal space had been violated.
The room was destroyed.
The crib they’d bought and put together, as they made their nest, was shattered in pieces.
It broke his heart.
Then over the bed, he saw the words that scared him to death. They were a message penned to Merry from the fucking nut job.
‘I know it’s my child, you worthless whore. I should have killed you when I had the chance. You were always nothing to me. Every time I hit you, made you cry and beg, I loved it. Well, Meredith, it’s not over. I’m going to kill that child. I told you I didn’t want kids, and you did this behind my back. Since I know there’s no way it can be his, I’ll take care of this.
This child is dead.
You’re dead.
That half-breed Indian is dead too.
By the time you read this, BANG!
You’re gone.’
He wanted to vomit—not so much that he’d been there, but that he really believed that their child was his. Boone had seen the bloodwork. He did the research.
That baby was his little one. Merry was carrying his child, and he had to protect her no matter what the cost.
He couldn’t let Derek win.
He’d go down fighting.
“Callen!” he called.
He could hear the big man moving up the stairs. When he got inside the room, he whistled.
Then he read the note.
The hair on the back of Callen’s neck stood when he got to the second to the last line.
BANG.
It stood out.
When he looked at Boone, he got it. Before he could tell him to move away from the window, he heard the glass.
There was a horrific shattering and then the spray of blood as the bullet hit the man in the neck.
Boone went down.
First to his knees, and then to his side. The look of surprise on his face told the tale. He didn’t expect to die today.
Everything moved in slow motion.
As Callen raced toward him, he pulled off his shirt to ball it up, and did what he had to do to save the man’s life.
Time was of the essence.
He couldn’t believe that Boone’s prediction had come true. It couldn’t end like this.
Not for Merry.
Not for him.
Callen had to do whatever he could to save his life.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
Ethan was in his office preparing for a meeting. When his phone began going crazy, he picked it up and saw it was his brother. He was going to send it to voice mail, but his gut told him to answer.
“Yo, Cal, I’m busy. I have a meeting with the President’s chief of staff in five minutes.”
In the background, there were sirens.
Shouting.
Lots of mayhem.
“We have a problem.”
He told his brother what had happened.
“He’s on his way to the hospital. You need to get Chris to take Merry, keep her hidden, and out of this crazy’s sight. She’s going to be next.”
He told Ethan about the message on the wall.
“Jesus! Where did the shot come from?”
Callen wasn’t sure.
It was hard to tell.
“All I know is he was facing East when he was hit. The shooter would have been to his West—behind him. Tell Chris to hurry and get Merry to the hospital. I don’t know how bad it’s going to be.”
Ethan could do that.
“What do you need?” Ethan asked.
“The cops have the whole neighborhood locked down. I told them we’d have the FBI there as soon as possible. I may, or may not, have lied and told them it was part of a serial killer case. I figured you’d want jurisdiction over this one. Well, Elizabeth would.”
Callen had been right. He absolutely wanted to handle this. It may be a shitload of paperwork, but Boone mattered to them because Merry did.
They owed it to their family.
“We’ll get there as soon as possible.”
Callen hung up.
Ethan had to do something he didn’t really enjoy. He had to do a notify of sorts.
This sucked.
As he raced downstairs, the second he entered the morgue, everyone turned around and looked at him.
Everyone stared.
Elizabeth knew from the harried look on his face. There were stress lines around his mouth, and she knew that only happened when something really bad had gone down.
Immediately, her mind went there.
Ethan focused on his wife to get his bearings.
The way her mouth opened, and her eyes went wide, she knew something had happened. He’d seen that look on her face the second he’d told her that Callen had been shot.
She stood.
“He’s fine.”
There was that momentary relief shared by them both that their husband was safe.
Then came the overwhelming pain of having to tell one of their own what had gone down.
Elizabeth moved toward him as he glanced over at Merry. “I need everyone but Merry, Chris, and Tony to clear out.”
They all stared.
“NOW!”
They jumped and moved faster than they’d ever moved before. When Ethan raised his voice, it wasn’t going to end well, and they knew it.
He gave them a few seconds to disperse.
“Uh oh,” Merry whispered to the doctors. “What equipment did you order now and not tell them? I’m not going down for this one,” she stated.
Chris knew it was more than that.
Ethan Blackhawk never raised his voice unless he was ready to lose it. This had to be bad.
Really bad.
“Merry, I just got a call from Callen.”
“Okay, and?”
“They were at your place, and Derek broke in. He ransacked
it, and destroyed everything.”
She was horrified. “Oh, no! When will he stop?” she asked, her eyes filling with tears. “Can’t I have any happiness?”
Yeah, it was about to get worse.
This sucked.
Still, Ethan pushed on.
“While Boone was reading something on the wall, someone shot at your house from across the street. Boone was hit in the neck. Callen is following him, and they are on the way to the hospital.”
She felt her legs give out.
It was Chris and Tony who caught her before she could hit the floor. Her sobs filled the room, and they broke everyone’s heart.
This was what she feared.
“He killed him,” she whispered.
“He’s alive, and he’s heading into surgery. I need you to let Chris and Tony get you there. They’re going to take you in an unmarked van so if Derek is watching, he can’t hurt you. We can’t risk you next.”
“I can’t go on without him,” she whispered. “I can’t bury him and do this without Boone. He’s all I have in life. He’s everything,” she sobbed.
They all knew what she meant.
Elizabeth had been there.
Ethan had been there, and so had Chris.
Hell!
Even Tony had been on the other side of it, fighting for his life.
They all knew how hard this was going to be for Merry, and they would carry her.
“Please,” she said, staring at Elizabeth. “Please find him before he kills my child.”
Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears. “Take her, Christopher. I need you and Tony to be safe.”
“We’ll get her there,” Tony offered. “I promise.”
They led her out.
Elizabeth focused on her husband. “What are we going to do?” she asked. “We can’t let him hurt Merry or that baby. We have to stop him.”
He agreed.
“Callen said the cops have locked the neighborhood down for a serial killer. He lied to the cops when he called it in. He needs us to get down there.”
“You’re going out?”
“Where’s Livy?”
“She’s with Gabe, I think. He wanted an update, and I figured she could do it.”
“You’re not going alone. We’ll do this together. He’s somewhere on that block.”
“If you get me there, I can tell you where he took the shot from,” she stated, following him out of the morgue and toward the parking garage beneath the building.
He told her what Callen had said, as they pulled vests from the back of the Escalade. When they heard Livy and Gabe racing their way, Ethan knew his boss was going to shit a brick.
“Where are you going?” Gabe asked. “I was called and informed by your secretary that you missed a meeting.”
They told him.
“You can’t go, Ethan. You have responsibilities here that need to be handled.”
He knew he had to play this the right way.
“Okay, here you go, Livy. Don’t get shot. He’s snipering from a window. Watch your ass and make sure on your first week back at the FBI you aren’t killed. I have to go talk to the President’s lackey. I’m too busy to handle something like this.”
Gabe’s face said it all.
“Well played, Ethan. Go, but keep this off the news. We don’t need you two cowboying it up all over Georgetown. Already, they’re focused on you two.”
Elizabeth Velcro-ed into her vest and began attaching sidearms to the front and hip. She was going to be ready for anything. Ethan’s words freaked her out. While Livy would be safe, they wouldn’t be.
She couldn’t help but think about their kids. If they both went down, Callen would be left alone with five children, and a lot of pain.
Elizabeth had to swallow it. Going after a shooter, she needed to be focused on the task at hand. That’s all she could think about, or they’d be screwed.
“We’ll keep it low key,” Ethan offered. “Don’t worry about us. The media is the least of our issues, but we’ll try and stay off the front page. Right, Tex?”
“I’ll try. You know how gun happy I am,” she stated, checking her Glock.
“How’s Merry?” Livy asked, trying to keep her husband from losing his mind. He had that look on his face, and she recognized it.
There was a freak out coming. They were going to be sitting in his office and watching this on the news.
“She’s scared shitless. We’ve all been there.”
Gabe softened. He knew that feeling when Livy had been assaulted by ‘The Butcher’.
“Get it done, make it fast, and then get your asses back into this building. I don’t want to know how you got the police to hold on until you get there. This isn’t our jurisdiction.”
“Shit! You mean it’s not a serial killer?” Elizabeth asked. “Wow! That’s going to suck. I’m glad I’m not the one who is going to have to explain this to Metro PD. We all know how much they love us already.”
Ethan let out the breath he was holding. Oh, he was well aware who was doing the paperwork. At this point, the police commissioner was going to be on his speed dial.
First Detective Nelson, and now this.
He was going to be busy.
Gabe groaned. “I told you that I didn’t want to know how you did it, Elizabeth.”
She was aware, but why should they be the only ones who had to stress it?
Ethan wasted no time getting out of there.
They were in the Escalade and flying out of the underground parking garage in less than a minute.
They had a job to do.
Derek Zanders had crossed a line.
Now he was going down.
One way or another.
* * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *
All the way there, Merry was sick to her stomach. Tony drove as if he was fleeing the scene of the crime while Chris sat in the back of the van holding Merry together.
“He’s going to leave me,” she whispered. “I’m going to lose him, I know it.”
“You are not. You have to have faith,” he said, keeping her hand in his. “You have to believe that Boone’s will to live is stronger than anything else in the world. He wants to be with you and your child.”
“Like Cyra’s?” she asked.
It was a cheap shot, but she was sick, scared, and pregnant. If Boone died, she was alone in the world.
Chris didn’t say anything.
What could he say?
Merry realized that she’d said something so mean and uncalled for that she had to apologize. Chris was trying to be kind and reassuring, and she was being a bitch.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
“It’s okay. We’ve all been scared. I know how you feel. When we got to my house, and I had to watch it burning, I wanted to die. I felt like there was nothing left to go on for in life. Then I found out Bethe was alive. I had to go on for our child. I don’t know how this will end, Merry, but you have a little person in you that needs you to fight.”
“I don’t want to live without him.”
He hugged her. “You have to live. You can’t think about yourself anymore. You have to think about what you and Boone created.”
She began sobbing.
Chris wrapped his arms around her, trying to offer some sort of reassurance.
“Hurry, Tony,” Chris stated.
“We’re almost there,” he yelled back, as the two passengers slid haphazardly across the seat in the back of the tech van.
“It’s going to be okay. I promise,” Chris said. He knew when Cyra died that he needed to hear those words.
Had it been all right?
No, but still…
It had helped at the time.
When the van slid to a stop, and they heard footsteps running around the back to the door, they got ready to exit. The ER bay was quiet, and no one was following them.
Both men helped her out. As soon as she was out of the van, Merry raced int
o the hospital, the two doctors right behind her.
Inside, she found Callen.
He was shirtless beneath his blood splattered blazer, he was pacing back and forth, and when he pulled his hands from his pockets, they were stained with blood.
Boone’s blood.
Merry saw it and nearly collapsed.
“I’ll go talk to the doctors,” Chris offered. “I’ll find something out for us.”
He headed away.
When Callen led her to a set of benches, they had stares the entire time.
It wasn’t like they could blame the onlookers. Here was a large Native man, splattered in blood, shirtless, and they were all wearing badges and guns. Not to mention his face was all over the news and tabloids as Jackson James.
It had to be a spectacle.
“Callen…”
She didn’t know what to say. What she needed was someone to tell her what to do, think, and believe. Merry needed someone to hold her up.
“Shhhhhh, Merry. It’s okay. They’re doing surgery. He was awake when we got here.”
Callen didn’t tell her that he was getting ready to pass out from blood loss as they wheeled him in. There was no point freaking her out even more than she already was.
“I have to see him,” she said.
Tony sat on the other side of her and held Merry’s free hand in his. He knew that wasn’t going to be possible. Until Chris figured out what was going on, they would have to wait.
“We have you, Merry. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to have you no matter what. You’re family.”
She let them hold her.
When Chris Leonard approached, he knelt in front of her to give her the news.
“He’s alive.”
“Just tell me, Chris. I don’t need you to sugar coat this. I need the facts. Talk to the scientist in me.”
If that was what she wanted, he could give her that.
“The bullet missed his carotid artery. It was close, but it didn’t hit it.”
Callen didn’t think so.
While he was bleeding, he wasn’t gushing. They had him at the hospital in seven minutes, but had that artery been hit…
Act of Blood (An FBI/Romance Thriller ~ Book 16) Page 43