“I should have been here,” he sobbed, defeated. “I should have been here and not chasing after a woman. Because of me, you had to do this alone, and Elizabeth missed being here. I’m so sorry,” he said, weeping into his brother’s shirt.
Elizabeth went to them both and wrapped her free arm around them. “Cal, it’s okay. I swear it’s going to be okay.”
Ethan held his brother against his chest and let him just get it out. He was going to keep his promise to his granddad. The old man wanted him to take care of his brother and he would.
“Where’s Dad?” asked Elizabeth, looking up at her husband. When he motioned to the bedroom, she took her son and went to find him. There he sat beside his father, holding his hand and crying.
Elizabeth went and stood behind him and placed her hand on his back and rubbed reassuringly.
When Wyler looked up at her, he looked so empty and lost.
“It’s going to be okay, Dad. I promise. You're going to go out there with your sons, and you're staying at our house for a while. Tomorrow, I’ll go get you some things from your cabin. Okay?” She kissed him on the cheek and wiped a tear.
“I’m going to miss my dad,” he said, softly. “He was the last parent I had, and now I’m alone.”
“You're far from alone. You have Callen, Ethan, CJ and me. We’re going to get you through this. Go be with your sons. I’ll take care of him now. I know what he wanted, and I have his instructions. I’m going to do what I promised to do, and you just need to go be with your boys. They need you, Wyler.”
The man nodded, and leaned down to kiss his father goodbye one last time. “Bye Dad.” He turned to Elizabeth. “Can I take CJ? He’s my little buddy.”
Elizabeth kissed her son and handed him to his grandfather. “Go ahead. I have him now.” Elizabeth watched him walk away and pulled out her phone.
The lab picked up on the third ring. Fortunately she got lucky, and it was her husband’s favorite tech. “Christina, it’s Elizabeth.”
“Oh Director! It’s late, what can I do for you?”
“I have some evidence in my car, and I also need a body retrieval, but there are circumstances involved.”
“Okay, what do you need?”
Elizabeth sighed. “It’s Director Blackhawk’s grandfather. He just passed away. Because he’s Native they have strict burial rituals. I need him transported to the morgue. No one is to touch him but me. Am I clear?”
“Yes, boss.”
“No body bag and no one pokes at him. I’ll follow transport, and then I’ll take care of the details there. But right now I need him treated like he’s a king. Because to us he was, and I need everyone to be very respectful of that.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, Elizabeth. I’ll personally pick him up for you and drive him back.”
“I don’t want him gawked at or to be a spectacle. I’ll be transporting his regalia with me. Tell anyone that touches him or does anything that I haven’t specifically requested that they are immediately terminated, after I inflict the maximum bodily harm possible.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Send out transport, and is Chris Leonard there?”
There was a pause. “Yes.”
Elizabeth looked down at their granddad. “Tell him put him where no one is going to touch him. I’m very serious about this. It’s strict custom. Only family can touch him after death. I’m not screwing around with this.”
“Okay, boss. I’ll be there in twenty.”
“Thank you, Christina.”
Elizabeth went to his closet and found the sealed clothing bag, and the note attached to the front with her name on it. She tucked it into her back pocket, and pulled out the bag. Laying it over the back of the chair she walked out to the men in her life.
“Transport is coming. I need you all to say your goodbyes now. Granddad is in good hands. I will do exactly as he asked in the instructions Timothy left for me.”
“We can help,” offered Whitefox.
“No, his wishes specifically stated that you’re not to do it. I’m to handle it and then the next time you see him will be for burial.”
“Doctor Wolman called the council. The teepee will be set up and ready for you whenever you need it,” said Wyler.
“Ethan, take everyone to our house, tuck in the baby, and the three of you sit on the couch and drink some beers. Remember granddad and celebrate eighty-nine kick ass years. I’ll be home as soon as I take care of everything on my list.”
The boys went into the bedroom and each one laid a hand on their grandfather, and closed their eyes. Wyler began speaking in a language that none understood. When he was finished they all laid a kiss on his forehead and said goodbye. Even little CJ’s lips were placed against his great-grandfather’s cheek.
Elizabeth stood guard over him, and waited until the men were loaded into the vehicles and gone. Then Elizabeth picked up her phone and started making calls to everyone on her list that granddad had instructed her to call. She made the plans and then prepared to transport the patriarch of their family for his final preparation.
* * *
Julian wandered back into the bed and breakfast completely exhausted after searching the swamp all day for a body. When he dropped his gear in his room, he finally got reception on his phone and read all his messages.
There were three from Elizabeth Blackhawk. He read them and then logged into his email to send Ethan a condolence on the loss of his family member, and then he pulled out his map and crossed off one more section. According to the local tribes, there were only three more possible dumping spots, and one of them could hold the remains of a body.
He stripped out of his clothes and looked at his body in the mirror. No leeches this time. At least that was a plus. Julian stood in the shower for at least ten minutes to wash the filth of the swamp from his body.
Next time, he was going to ask WHERE he has to track first, before accepting an assignment. Swamps and bayou are not ever happening again.
* * *
Desdemona was sobering up, and her high school acquaintances were re-accounting the events to her. When they got to the part about her slapping Elizabeth, everything in her went ice cold.
First Ethan warned her and then she physically put her hands on her boss and her fiancé. This was a disastrous mess, and she needed to apologize in the morning.
Her head was pounding.
“You slapped her so hard her head turned,” said Holly Delray. “It was really loud!”
“Oh my God! The look on her face, it was scary. You’re lucky she didn’t kill you. I swear, her hand went to her gun and I really thought you were going to get shot,” added Ivy Delray.
“If it matters, your fiancé is really hot!”
Desdemona shook her head and wanted to cry. “I think you could call him my ex at this point. I think tonight’s drunken performance was the end of the line for me.”
Both women sympathized. “Hey, there’s plenty of fish in the sea. You just have to go fishing.”
Desdemona wanted to curl up in a ball and die. The woman she slapped was her friend, and that was certainly a dead end too. Who’d forgive that behavior?
Maybe the entire trip here was worthless. All it cost her was her future with Callen, any chance at family, and oh yeah, HER CAREER. Talk about making horrible choices.
Desdemona looked up at her grand'mere’s voice. Now all she needed was to hear the lecture from her.
“Girls, time to call it a night. This old woman has to make a list and get ready to go back out in the bayou in a couple days. I need Desdemona’s help tomorrow. She can’t come out and play.”
Both women laughed and hugged their reacquainted friend.
“I’ll call you both,” she mumbled, as she held her head.
“Come on, Desdemona. I want to lock up.”
Doctor Desdemona Adare was going inside, on a Saturday night, when her grand'mere told her to go to bed. Right now, she could be in bed with Callen Whitefox,
and having mind shattering orgasms. What the hell was wrong with her?”
She was going to make an appointment to see a psychiatrist, and soon. It was official. Now, she doubted her sanity.
* * *
Elizabeth carried in all the things she needed for the cleansing and dressing of Timothy. He wanted to wear his blue tribal regalia and his headdress, as he lay in interment. In his instructions, they were to each wear the family color. It was going to be a long day when they had to say goodbye.
It was something she wasn’t looking forward to either.
Looking at her watch, she had to get granddad cleaned and dressed into his regalia wear. This was going to be one of the hardest things she was going to have to do in her life.
She wouldn’t lie. If she didn’t promise the man already, she would have preferred to not be the one doing this. It wasn’t how she wanted to remember him at all. What she wanted was to recall the tattoo on his forearm that he showed her at her wedding. Reverently, he fingers ran over it as she traced the letters with her fingertip.
“I love you, Timothy Blackhawk. You are going to leave a giant hole in my heart. Since I first saw you with your arms crossed and trying to intimidate me, you didn’t have me fooled. I saw what a big old teddy bear you were.”
Elizabeth ran the brush though his gray hair and memorized the way it felt. It was exactly the same silkiness that she recognized from when she’d touched Ethan and Callen’s hair. Now she would commit it to memory, as she braided it for him, and weaved in the feathers that he’d had in the sealed garment bag.
“I hope I do you justice, Granddad. I hope that I can pull this off and make you proud. I swear to God, you better be here for the entire ceremony, and not off chasing your beautiful wife around the happy hunting grounds.” Elizabeth laughed, feeling her eyes fill with tears.
“Are you going to be okay?” asked Doctor Chris Leonard from the doorway of the morgue, as he listened to his friend speak to the dead.
“Right about now, I’d have some joke, and make a comment to lighten the humor, but I’m not feeling it.”
“Want my help?” he inquired, stepping forward to stand by the man on the table.
“Yes, but you can’t. It’s his religious beliefs that no one touch the body until he crosses, and that means I have to do this on my own.”
Chris Leonard was accustomed to death; he lived it every damn day. “How about I keep you company then until you’re done, and then I’ll get you a coffee, Lyzee?”
She really didn’t want to be alone right now. “Maybe you can check off everything on the list to make sure I don’t miss anything?” she asked, finishing the next braid, as tears welled up in her eyes.
“Okay and hey, we have an iron in the lounge. How about while you prep him, I iron his regalia so he’s all nice and spiffy?”
Elizabeth laughed through the sadness. “Thank you, Chris.” She moved to Timothy and kissed him on the cheek. “I appreciate it.” Gently, her fingers stroked his cooling face.
“Hey, that’s what friends are for, Lyzee.”
When he left the room, she looked down at the man she loved, and held in the tears, the sorrow, and the pain. Now she needed to be the strong one.
“Okay, Granddad, let’s get this done. You have a party to attend, and I’m sending you off in Blackhawk style.”
* * *
Sunday Early Morning
It was officially the longest night of her life. One would think prepping a body would be easy and then getting him dressed, but when the body weighed more than you, and no one could help you, it took forever.
Stumbling into the house, Elizabeth deactivated the alarm, and dropped her purse by the door. Her keys followed, then her shoes, and immediately she headed right for the kitchen for some beloved coffee. God, what she would give to feel human right about now.
Elizabeth was a mom and sleep was nothing anymore. She could function on very little, as long as she drugged herself up with caffeine. Pouring a cup she placed it on the counter and then just decided to lay her head on her arm.
Just for a few minutes.
She promised.
Ethan smelled the coffee and climbed out of bed. Someone got up with his son last night. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure who, but he knew it wasn’t him. Creeping to his son’s room, he found CJ asleep lying on his uncle’s chest while they both snoozed in the chair.
The scene touched him that the man was caring for his nephew, even when he was beyond exhausted and in mourning too. Carefully he picked his son up, and rocked him a little before putting him back into the crib to sleep some more.
When he glanced back over, he found his brother staring at him. Callen’s eyes were tired and empty of all emotion but sadness over the loss of Timothy. He thought back to the words whispered in his ear as his grandfather succumbed to death. ‘Take care of your brother and share your life. You're all he has left. Don’t let him fall into the darkness. Let love lead the way.’
He didn’t need to be told that. Everything in him demanded he take care of his younger sibling. Ethan always felt proprietary towards his brother. Growing up as kids, they really were all they had. All his youth was spent with the man sitting in his child’s nursery. They ran together, worked together, and lived together. Callen Whitefox wasn’t just a half-brother, he was completely his brother. There wasn’t anything in the world he wouldn’t do for him.
Blackhawk motioned for them to go downstairs for coffee and his brother nodded and followed. When they arrived down there, they found Elizabeth sitting at the island, asleep. One of them should carry her upstairs and put her to bed for a little while. She was dead on her feet.
“No one move me. I’m trying to fool my body into thinking I have a snowball’s chance in hell of making it through today,” she mumbled into her arm and still didn’t move. “If I don’t move, my brain may actually believe I fell asleep and that I don’t have a vicious case of jet lag either.”
“Baby, you have to sleep sometime,” he said, going over and touching her coffee cup. “It’s still hot. What time did you get back?” he asked, running his hands down her back.
“What time is it?” she asked, too tired to move her arm to look at her watch.
“Six twenty one.”
“I got home ten minutes ago,” she answered, still not moving. “I have to be out the door at nine to get to the mall. CJ needs something turquoise. I picked up Wyler’s tribal wear. It’s in the car. Callen, yours is in there too. Ethan your clothing is in our closet, left side behind my wedding dress. Not dress one but dress two. I have to manage to find something turquoise to wear myself.”
“You hate shopping.”
“I’m well aware of that fact, but I love granddad,” she said, lifting her head. “I’m giving him his final wish.”
Both men felt the grief and then it registered. “What the hell happened to your cheek?” Ethan went to her side and touched it.
“Desdemona may be little, but she packs quite the slap. Don’t worry; some foundation will cover it right up and no one will notice it.”
Blackhawk erupted. “You think I’m worried about you covering it?” he practically shouted.
Elizabeth and Callen both jumped at the tone in his voice and the anger vibrating through the words.
“She’s fired. I can’t and won’t overlook her putting her hands on you in the field.”
Elizabeth looked over at Callen and saw the turmoil brewing in his eyes. Right then she did what she promised; Elizabeth protected and covered for him. “Then you have to fire me too, because I physically assaulted her too, when I shoved her into alligator infested water.”
Blackhawk was too close to the edge for this today. “When granddad’s funeral is over, I will hear all about this from one or both of you,” he demanded, looking at both of them. “I’m emotionally bankrupt right now and can’t deal with it.”
“Okay Ethan,” she said, quietly.
“Lyzee, what can I handle for y
ou today?” asked Whitefox, needing to be helpful. “I’m going crazy just sitting here.”
“There’s nothing left to do but clothing. I called the council, the teepee is set up and ready to go for tonight. The women of the tribe are currently cooking up enough food for... a tribe. There are drummers and dancers. I ordered a headstone, and it matches your grandmother’s, but it won’t be ready for a couple of days. Apparently, granite is hard to carve and can’t be ordered on short notice. Go figure.”
“We would have helped you.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Granddad specifically listed what needed to be done, and that neither of you were to worry about it. You’re a control freak.” She pointed at her husband, “And he was worried about your heart.” Elizabeth pointed at Whitefox.
“What about you? You can’t do this alone.”
Elizabeth stood up and grabbed her coffee. “Wow, I must look pretty bad if Callen didn’t poach my coffee.”
Both men just stared at her.
Yep, there was the confirmation. “I’m going to shower and then get dressed to go shop. I have to get that finished before I can rest.”
“Thank you for taking care of him.”
She didn’t turn back around because if she did, she’d weep. The dead she was used to handling. Loving the man lying on the table in the morgue and having to care for him was brutal, but a promise is a promise. “Granddad looks really good, and he’d be happy that no one saw him at his weakest,” Elizabeth continued walking up the stairs to her son’s room. Peeking in, she blew him a kiss, and promised when this was all over he’d get some mommy alone time.
Callen poured himself a cup of coffee. “I hate shopping.”
“I like to shop, but you aren’t going to be standing her up in the shower. I'm tired but I’m not that tired.”
“Damn.” Whitefox laughed. It was a pathetic attempt, but at least it was something other than tears and grief. “What if I close my eyes?”
Deep Dark Mire (An FBI Romance Thriller ~ book four) Page 15