Kiss of Souls

by Morgan Kelley

  Christina got it.

  “I’m sorry. I just…” Then she clammed up.

  Tori headed her way. Christina was NEVER quiet. “Hey, I’m kidding. What’s wrong?”

  Christina burst into tears.

  “Great. You made Christina cry,” Elizabeth teased. “I wasn’t able to ever do that. You are meaner than I am.”

  Tori was appalled.

  “Chrissy, I’m sorry. I was kidding.”

  “I miss my job.”

  That hung there between all of them.

  “Isn’t she working for Tori and Julian?” Arsen whispered, not sure what he was missing.

  Chris leaned over. “She used to work for Elizabeth,” he said, jerking her head toward his best friend.

  “Awkward,” Arsen whispered.

  Chris hoped it wouldn’t be. Then again, he knew how awesome Christina was at her job. This was them trying to woo her back for their team.

  It could be taken the wrong way by the Littlemoons and create bad blood.

  He crossed his fingers.

  “I’m sorry,” Christina said, feeling bad, “but it’s the truth. I miss it.”

  “Oh,” Tori stated.

  “I miss using my mind. Don’t get me wrong, Tori, I love you and Julian, and Vivian, and Justin, and I love Claire and Beckett too. I even love…”

  She cut her off.

  Christina was a rambler.

  “I get it. You love the team.”

  “I don’t use my mind like I used to,” she offered. “I miss being useful.”

  “You are useful,” Tori reassured. “We use your brain every chance we get. Who was the one who taught us the handy black light trick?” she asked.

  “Me.”

  “Your brain is loved and appreciated,” Tori stated, giving her a hug.

  “Oh, Tori, I miss being a Fed. It’s like I gave up my identity.”

  She got it.

  There was only one thing she could do.

  “Then you should go back.”

  “What?” Christina said, setting her free. “Did you just tell me to go back?”

  Tori focused on her best friend as she stood beside Chris Leonard. “Can you get her back into the FBI?”

  She laughed like a lunatic.

  Elizabeth laughed so hard, she actually began crying.

  “Are you shitting me? I have a head tech who is only a head tech because he wants to be an agent one day when he grows the hell up. Of course I could get her back in. Hell! I’ll carry her on my freaking back over fire if that’s what she wants.”

  Then it hit Elizabeth.

  She must be planning to go back herself if her subconscious just let her blurt that out without overthinking it.

  Christ!

  She was going to go back to the FBI.

  “There is always a place for her on my team,” Chris said, as he continued working.

  “Then you have to go back, Chrissy.”

  “But, Tori, I can’t,” Christina admitted. “Kane...”

  That one word said it all.

  Elizabeth knew how to settle this. Taking a chance, she dialed the one person she knew who could rectify this whole situation. He had the power to solve the problem.

  Ethan.

  He answered on the first ring, and immediately, from the tone of his voice on her speakerphone, he sounded nervous.

  “Elizabeth? Are you okay?”

  “Ethan, I’m good. I need to ask you something.”

  She heard talking in the background.

  “I’m sorry. Are you in a meeting?” she asked. “I can send an email instead. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

  There was a pause as he spoke to the people in the room, and then he was back on the line with her.

  “Baby, you don’t send an email. You get a direct line to me no matter who I’m talking to. I may be in a meeting, but it can wait. You come first.”

  They all stared at Elizabeth as her hand shook holding the phone. She had tears in her eyes.

  “Uh, are you feeling okay?” she asked. Was this really Ethan Blackhawk, the Director of the FBI?

  “Yes, and that’s the new rule. You come first. What do you need?”

  Her heart skipped.

  Could this really be happening?

  If it was…

  Jesus!

  She’d take him back right now. He finally got what had been bugging her, in addition to what had gone down between them. Ethan was showing her she mattered more than the job. Maybe she wasn’t losing him to the mire of DC.

  Holy.

  Shit!

  Callen wouldn’t believe this. She almost wanted to call him to tell him the news.

  She was so caught off guard that Chris had to elbow her and motion toward her phone.

  “Christina wants to come back to the FBI. Can I add her to my team and dump what’s his face?”

  “Amir?” he asked.

  “Yeah, him. He said he didn’t want to be a tech. Can Christina come back?”

  “Well, that depends on one thing. Are you coming back?” he asked. “Today?” He crossed his fingers.

  “Eventually, I think I am, but not today. I have some unfinished business to take care of in Salem, and so do you.”

  He got it.

  Their meeting was still on. In three weeks, he had to show up and do the right thing—get his woman back.

  Still, this one call was the miracle he’d been praying to his grandfather for all along.

  So, he’d walk on nails to make her happy.

  “If she wants to, then, yes. I can demote Amir, and he can be a tech until an agent position opens. I’ll promise him the first shot at it, and that should smooth everything over for him.”

  Oh, there was more.

  “Ethan?”

  “Yes, baby?” he asked, wishing he could reach through the phone just to touch her.

  “There’s one caveat, and it’s a big one. I don’t know if you can even pull it off.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Kane needs a job if Christina comes back. She can’t leave him behind. She loves him too much. You know how love makes us do all kinds of things.”

  Ethan didn’t think she was only talking about Christina and Kane. He was pretty sure she was telling him that she couldn’t leave him behind.

  That was the most beautiful thing he’d heard all day. For that alone, he’d move mountains.

  “I can find him something for him. Metro is playing nice. He was a deputy. If he wants to come East, I can work on it.”

  “And if they won’t play nice?” she asked.

  “I can get him a job here at the FBI.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Am I on speaker phone?” he asked.

  “Yes, why?” she asked.

  “Good. I want the world to hear what I need to say to you. I love you so much. Because of you, Elizabeth, I’m a better person, and I’m going to prove it. I will never love anyone as much as I love you.”

  “Ethan.”

  “I lost you, and I’ll do anything to prove I was an asshole. I want to show you how much I love you, how I should have loved you, and what it means to me that you’re the only woman who will ever have my heart.”

  Hers skipped.

  This was definitely not Ethan’s normal way of talking to her with an audience.

  “Just tell me you love me so I know I’m on the right path. I need to hear that I’m doing this right.”

  “I do love you, Ethan.”

  “That’s all I need. I will see you in three weeks. I can see the finish line. I’ll meet you at it.”

  She wanted to cry.

  No, she wanted to crawl through the phone and wrap herself around his body.

  She wanted to smell him.

  Taste him.

  Feel him.

  “I can’t do this again,” she admitted, in a room full of people. They would be her witnesses.

  They would, hopefully, keep her accountable. Her best friends must
have sensed it. Tori and Chris, immediately, moved toward her and offered her some of their strength.

  She leaned on them emotionally and physically.

  “You won’t have to, Elizabeth. If I ever do something like this again, you can shoot me and put me down.”

  She wanted to believe him.

  “I love you. I love you more than I’ve loved anything in my life, including my job,” Ethan vowed.

  And there was that peace. Those words were all she ever wanted to hear from him.

  He’d apologized, and he’d given her this gift. She was ready to forgive him.

  “I can’t wait for these three weeks to end,” she admitted. “I miss you, handsome. I miss you so damn much.”

  Ethan’s heart thumped in his chest. He was going to get his life back. He could see it ahead, and all he had to do was navigate the last few hurdles to get to Elizabeth. Once he reached her, he’d have Callen and their kids too.

  She was the prize.

  God!

  She was all. He’d been a fool.

  “I miss kissing you. Today, a woman showed up in my office, stripped down, and I tossed her out. That’s how much I want to be with only you.”

  “WHAT?” she said. “Who the hell would do something like that?” she blurted.

  Okay, other than her.

  She’d done that in his office, too, but she was his wife. In her world, that was acceptable.

  Poaching wasn’t.

  “Ethan, you’d better explain, and fast,” she said, her heart beginning to thunder as she got scared. Here was her big fear. While the cat was away, all the disease infested vermin were trying to play on Ethan’s sexy playground. She was going to have to have the place exterminated when she got back.

  And she’d be the one doing the killing…

  Oh.

  Hell.

  No!

  He told her everything, and in front of everyone. There would be no more pretending. He didn’t want to lose her. He wanted his wife more than anything.

  “I see.”

  “She wasn’t you. I didn’t want to lie. I want my wife back. I want us to make it. Please meet me halfway.”

  Neither spoke.

  Chris stared at her.

  ‘Meet him halfway,’ he mouthed.

  While she didn’t trust her gut, she did trust his. Chris wouldn’t let her down.

  After the silence, she spoke, “Fine. I’ll meet you halfway. I’ll kill her, and you do the paperwork.”

  He laughed. “Done.”

  “You’re possessed, aren’t you? You hate paperwork, and you love naked women.”

  “Correction. I love my naked wife. I have a surprise for you. It’ll make you cry.”

  “A good or bad cry?”

  Ethan thought about the journal he was going to ensure arrived before he did in Salem. He wanted his wife to see everything he was living, and to understand his heart. She was his center, and now, she was gone.

  “It’s good.”

  “Okay, Ethan.”

  “Is there anything else?” he asked.

  “Who is your meeting with?” she asked.

  “The President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense,” he admitted without even hesitating. “They’re sitting inside the Oval Office waiting for me to come back.”

  “Did she really put her hands on my raven?” she asked. “Did she?”

  “She tried.”

  “Yeah, I’m coming back because I’m going to fuck her up, but first…”

  “Yes?”

  “Did you take separate cars to that meeting?”

  He laughed. “When I told her I was leaving DC to go after my wife, she wasn’t so much interested in me anymore. Apparently, without my title, I’m not as much of a catch.”

  “You’re a catch, Ethan Jackson Blackhawk. You’ve been a catch since the day you showed up in Salem.”

  He hoped she always thought so.

  “I love you,” he said, leaving her about ten kisses into the phone.

  “I love you, too, Ethan. I always have.”

  “Thank you, Lyzee, my love. I’ll see you in three weeks. I won’t be delayed. I promise.”

  She hung up.

  “Wow,” Chris said. “He’s really working hard to get you back. That sounded more like Callen being channeled in Ethan’s voice.”

  She was well aware.

  And that was a damn good thing.

  “Are you going back to the FBI?” Christina asked.

  “I don’t know. I will have a definite answer in three weeks after he meets me in Salem.”

  Arsen should be embarrassed to be hearing any of this, but he would be lying if he didn’t say he was curious. He’d seen the news reports, and the gossip reports.

  This woman was an enigma.

  Chris was watching the man. “If you spill anything you heard in here, Detective, I’ll hurt you,” he promised.

  Arsen laughed. “Okay, Doctor. I’m not going to, but you’re not scary.”

  Elizabeth went to school him, but Chris handled it. “I can kill you about a million ways and no one would find a single trace of how it happened. Of all the people in here, you should fear me the most.”

  “Uh, awkward. Again.”

  Elizabeth laughed, and then she kissed her best friend on the cheek. He was doing what he always did.

  He was protecting her.

  Chris went back to focusing on the victim, so they could wrap up work. “Honey, he’s clean,” Chris stated. “There’s nothing internal, and I see no hemorrhaging. He had to die from the drugs.”

  Well, at least they had that.

  Christina raised her hands.

  It made Elizabeth laugh because it brought back memories. “Yes?”

  “Mass spec spit out your info. The attorney had zero drugs in his system. He was clean. The victim on the table had a body full of drugs. You name it, and he was using it. He was a cocktail of death.”

  So, they both died of their own volition.

  That was interesting.

  “Shelby’s killer didn’t take anyone out but her,” Tori stated. “Well, so much for thinking the killer was tying up loose ends. We’re back to just Shelby being a homicide victim,” Elizabeth stated.

  The whole room got quiet.

  Elizabeth began pacing.

  “What are you thinking?” Tori asked.

  “That I need some time to mull this over. If I can process it, then I should be able to work through it.”

  They got it.

  This was how she worked.

  “I’ll close him up, and then we can leave,” Chris offered. “You haven’t eaten all day, and you need some fuel.”

  He glanced over at the detective. “In my suit pocket is a candy bar. Can you get it out and give it to Elizabeth, please?” he asked.

  The man did.

  He watched as she unwrapped it, and then broke it in half. Then he watched as she fed half to her ME before eating hers.

  Christina moved closer to explain to him. He definitely looked confused. “It’s their thing.”

  “It looks like they’re a couple,” he said softly. “You can see the love there.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, they love each other. It’s beautiful. Don’t judge.”

  Oh, he wasn’t.

  If anything, he wished he understood love. It never happened to him, and he was always confused by the emotion. Maybe he wasn’t capable of love.

  God knew he never really had it—not on the day he was born, and not on the day his adopted mother had died.

  Elizabeth stared at her watch. “Clarissa will be expecting us soon,” she stated.

  They couldn’t be late.

  Honestly, she didn’t want to either.

  For the first time, in a while, she actually wanted to eat something. When she said she wanted to think, it wasn’t all about the case.

  Most of it was about Ethan.

  She was rattled to her core. He’d changed, and she wanted to spend
some time with him.

  She needed to see what was really going to happen.

  Elizabeth had hope.

  There was a possibility that she was getting her Ethan back.

  That in itself was one hell of a miracle.

  * * * L i t t l e m o o n * * *

  Littlemoon Investigations

  Thursday Late Afternoon

  When they arrived back at the office, the media was still there. After bypassing that shit mess, they had a quick meeting of the minds before heading up to dinner.

  Clarissa didn’t like people to be late, but she, herself, was a running a little behind.

  She had two babies now, and Milo and Veronica were desperate for her attention.

  So, while she caught up, they did too.

  “What did you and Tori find?” Callen asked, giving his wife the floor.

  “That Sabrina Adams didn’t give a shit about cheating, that the man she cheated with, Wyatt Grant, exaggerated their relationship, and her husband now knows. Yeah, Tori slipped and spilled the beans. Oops.”

  “My bad,” Tori said, laughing.

  Julian didn’t buy that for a single second. It may have been the twin looks of mischievousness that they were both wearing that gave it away.

  He knew his wife, and he knew Elizabeth. They didn’t do anything accidentally.

  Ever.

  “Slipped, huh?”

  The radio came to life.

  “DON’T. BET. ON. THAT!”

  Tori pulled a Julian. She picked up a bottle of holy water so her spirits could see it.

  “ZIPPING. IT.”

  Elizabeth spoke up, “Good idea, Trey. She’ll hurt you.” And she meant that. Tori had changed a lot since leaving the FBI. She was running her life her way, and that she appreciated.

  Elizabeth continued, “I want her husband run because he didn’t exactly look shocked that his wife was riding someone else’s dick.”

  Tori agreed. “Someone had erectile issues. He’s older, she’s a hussy, and it all equals one hell of a Viagra prescription gone awry.”

  All the men in the room cringed.

  “I hate those words,” Justin stated.

  “Because you have them too?” Tori teased.

  “I will come over there and kick your ass, Army!” he stated. “Don’t even put that out in the universe!”

  She snorted.

  As did Vivian.

  “Can we run Roger Adams?” Tori asked. “Tomorrow, I might want to interview him.”