“It means that he’s watching us too,” Ethan added. “He’s going to blend in and likely be in plain sight.”
They all sat there and started working. Each team member was breaking down their own information, hoping to find the link.
Cyra was the first to speak up. “I have issues with that attorney,” she said, pointing at the board. “We find out that he’s working for Barbara Harris, then Denton Cline, and now the council. Can we find a way to connect him to all of them?”
Elizabeth wanted to be objective, and she knew that because of her past relationship, she didn't want a court saying she skewed anything. “How about you and Harper work that angle? Find out all you can on him. He’s divorced too. Maybe his wife was fooling around with Jefferson Harris. He was quite the ladies’ man, before he became someone’s meal.”
Callen raised his hand. “Um, sexy teacher?” he teased, and when his brother started laughing, he did too. “I know that this police thing takes years, and I’m just the liaison here, but I see something right off the top.”
They all looked at him, and not because he called her sexy teacher.
“You’re always telling me that it’s usually the most obvious thing and to run with it, right?”
Blackhawk nodded. “Yes, what is it that you see?”
Callen stood and borrowed her marker. “I see where you’re thinking Joshua Brome is connected, but I have a way to connect everything together.”
“Go for it, Cal,” Elizabeth said.
“Okay, starting at victim one. He was head of council. He disappeared last year at this time, correct?”
They all nodded.
“This happened during the annual Spring Fling.”
“Okay,” Elizabeth said, watching him. He wrote ‘SF’ beside the first victim.
“Next, we have Duke Williams. Council was after him because his smelly pigs were destroying the ambiance of the fairground land. They wanted him to stop ruining the Spring Fling for all the families in town.”
He reached over and hit play on his tablet. It played back the entire conversation that he had with Terry Carney. When it was done, he wrote another ‘SF’ beside victims two.
“Now, if you look at our photographer, Herman Peterson, what was he working on?” he asked.
“He was taking pictures of the fairgrounds.”
“Yep, once more, the Spring Fling is part of this.”
Elizabeth was watching the man work his way through their list of victims, and she was proud. He was growing into a really astute investigator.
“We’re taking Doc Trudeaux out of the equation, so we can skip to Marjorie Willard.”
“Yeah, how are you connecting her?” asked Harper.
Elizabeth saw it. “The woman’s auxiliary. She was in charge of one of the meetings, like her mother was, and her grandmother.”
They didn't see it, probably because they weren’t from small towns. “The auxiliary is responsible for the parade and the vendor booths. If you want to sell something at the fair, you have to fill out applications and apply through them.”
Callen victoriously labeled it with the ‘SF’. He was damn proud of himself, because sometimes, simple was best.
“But what about Justine Stephens?” Harper asked.
“She was going to be competing in the chili cook off, and she was also selling her meatless chili too,” Cyra said, as she thought back to what the employees told her.
“So, this is all about the Spring Fling?” Blackhawk asked. “We have a killer eating people because of a small town fair?”
“If it does have something to do with the carnival, then we can eliminate anyone not involved with managing it, working on it, or delegating the rules,” Cyra said.
They looked at Elizabeth. She was the one who had to ultimately make that decision. If she was wrong, they would have to start all over, and possibly have another victim.
“I need a few minutes,” she said, trying to mull it all over in her head. If she went this route, it only left her Denton Kline, Terry Carney, and Joshua Brome on her suspect list. It would eliminate the Natives, and she would be forced to ignore Brandon Welsh’s information regarding the altercation in the café.
Staring at the board, she began trying to construct the pieces of the puzzle, one at a time, in her mind.
Blackhawk knew what was going to happen next. They were going to lose her for a little while. “Let’s all start working on it as if that’s the route she’s going to take. Callen, call the mayor and explain what you think we have. Then ask him for all the applications that Marjorie Willard had to review. If the killer targeted her specifically, maybe it was something that she saw on them.”
He pulled out his phone.
“Callen?” Blackhawk said, getting his attention.
“Yeah?”
“I’m damn proud of you, bro. Liaison only, my ass. Welcome to the team and finding your niche.”
He grinned at his brother. “I happened to learn from the best, and the rest, it’s genetic.”
He laughed, knowing which part he got credit for on that one. “Let’s get to work. We have a lot of data to process.”
* * *
Chris yawned and stretched out on the couch in the office. Much like his, back at FBI West, it had seen lots of action. He couldn’t count the times that he had fallen asleep on it, after pulling an all-nighter.
Then, he glanced over at the spot that Cyra had sat in not that long ago, and he couldn’t help but grin. Yeah, this couch should be bronzed. It had action that the FBI one didn't.
Not yet, anyway, but it was something to work on.
Chris’s body heated up, as he let the sexy fantasy play out in his head. Since he was thinking about her, he picked up his phone and stared at the messages.
Holy shit! He took a few hours to sleep, and he had data come in, along with messages from his wife. Well, priorities first, so he replied to her, informing Cyra that he was just waking up, and that he had data on the particulates.
As he waited for the reply from her, he scanned his emails. At the chime on his phone, she had his attention once more.
We’re at Hotel Blackhawk. Bring the data and come
share a couch with me, if you can break away.
I missed you. Bring your lab coat and glasses and
we can play naughty medical examiner later.
Hell yeah!
He was all over that suggestion. Chris replied and grinned wickedly. Pulling on his lab coat, he stayed in his scrubs and grabbed his medical bag. Walking out, he waved at Tony. “I’m heading to the bosses. They need that particulate report, so I’m taking it to them personally,” he said, grabbing it off the printer and tucking it in his bag.
“I’m guessing that you’re done for the night?” Tony said, glancing up from a femur.
He shrugged. “You never know what’s going to happen, so keep your phone on if you go back to the roach coach,” he teased. Yeah, it was mean, but he couldn’t help it. This was a lesson to his friend.
“Yeah, you’re funny. I’m putting the victims away and heading out myself. I’m tired too.”
Chris Leonard waved and left the building. Pulling out his keys, he skipped down the sidewalk whistling. When his phone began ringing, and it was the tone for his mother, he opted to ignore it and send it to voice mail. Anything that she would say would just ruin his night. What he wanted was to cuddle up beside a sexy blonde and forget it all. Any night that he could spend some time with his wife, and with the living, was a good thing.
“Uh, excuse me,” someone said from between the two cars in the parking lot.
Chris turned to look at him. “Yes?” he said, pleasantly.
“I’m meeting someone, and I left my watch and phone at home. I think I’m late, because I don’t see them. Can you tell me what time it is?” he asked.
“Sure thing,” he said, smiling. Turning his head, he reached for his phone on his hip beside his badge. Out of his peripheral, he caug
ht motion and then a blinding pain in the back of his skull.
The world went black as he began falling.
The darkness seemed endless as it overtook him.
Well, this just shot his theory about karma to hell and back, now didn’t it?
* * *
Belladonna Leonard was worried.
Something in the cards had her all stirred up, and she knew that she needed to call her son and speak to him. This was far more than him just breaking her heart and eloping.
There was danger coming.
Then, she thought back to the scarf that Cyra had given her when they first met. The funeral markings brought tears to her eyes.
Hopefully, it had all been a mistake.
Then none of it mattered, and she needed to hear his voice in the worst way. When she dialed and it went to voicemail, the dread filled her.
Something was very wrong.
She could feel it.
When the beep sounded, she once again stared at the funeral scarf. Unfortunately, Belladonna knew what it meant, but she neglected to warn them.
“Orion, this is your mother. Call me back immediately. I was reading my cards and the Death card came up, along with all swords. Something bad is coming. Be careful. I love you, and I’m sorry I made you mad.”
When she hung up, the dread remained.
In that moment, Belladonna wished that she had taken the time to get Cyra’s cell number.
Now, she prayed it wasn’t too late.
* * *
She stood up and still stared at the board. Something wasn’t sitting right with her. It was there, but it wasn’t there. Almost all the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, but still she was missing something.
“What’s bugging you?” Ethan asked softly, as the rest of the team began digging through the information they had, to find the thread of commonality.
“I can buy that it has something to do with the Spring Fling, but I don’t feel it all the way. When it clicks, it clicks. I feel like we’re missing something. Why would you take the woman in charge of the booths?”
“You said that she was in charge of handing out the spots. Maybe he got a spot, and then the woman figured something out?”
She still wasn’t feeling it.
At the knock on the door, Callen hustled across the room. Standing there was Tyrell.
“The mayor said to get these to you ASAP. What do you guys have?” he asked, walking in and staring at the five Feds scattered all over the room.
“We think it has something to do with the fair. We just don’t know what yet.”
He sat down. “Let me help. Give me something to start going through,” he offered.
Callen divided the applications in half, and they started going through them. They weren’t sure what they were looking for, but it had to be there.
They had to be missing something, but what?
* * *
Tony Magnus walked out of the building and towards the parking lot. His ass hurt from sitting on a stool all day, his shoulders were stiff, and he really just wanted a beer and some hot wings. As he moved down towards the parking area, something off to the side caught his eye.
It was a black bag.
And it was more than familiar to him, because he saw it every day for the last nine years.
Holy shit!
Walking over to it, he noticed someone had tossed it aside.
Tony stood and started counting the vehicles. There should be four. None of the techs left yet, and with Chris’s Denali, there would be five.
As he counted, he found that he had to do it twice just to make sure he wasn’t making a huge mistake.
Shit!
There were five vehicles. Pulling the gun on his hip, he moved around the vehicles and saw the last piece of evidence that he needed to know that bad things were happening.
Chris’s glasses lay on the ground, broken.
As if there was a struggle.
Everything in him went ice cold as he visualized the heads back in the morgue. It wasn’t lost on him that Christopher Leonard was the second ME to go missing.
His gut churned.
Pulling out his phone, he called the one person in the world who would know what to do.
If she didn't, his buddy was screwed.
Elizabeth heard her phone and wasn’t going to get it, but then again, it might be important. Answering it, she could barely understand the man on the other end.
“Doctor Magnus, what’s wrong?” she asked, trying to get him to slow down. “Again, I need you to say that slowly and calmly.”
Everyone in the room stared at her.
Immediately, her eyes went to Cyra, and the woman knew it was bad. When you were a cop, you always knew when the person you loved had been hurt.
Her eyes filled with tears at all the possibilities. She had just sent him a text.
What if there had been an accident?
“I’m sending Callen and the sheriff right now,” she said, motioning to them. “They’ll meet you in the parking lot. You stay there and get the techs to do their job, do you hear me?”
She hung up the phone. “Callen, head to the morgue. We have a situation.”
They watched their woman walk towards Cyra, and they knew it wasn’t going to be good.
“Come on, Tyrell. I need you to get us there fast,” Callen said, his heart breaking for Cyra. It was obviously bad news, and he could only imagine what was going on.
As they raced out of the house, no one else spoke.
“No!” Cyra said, staring at Elizabeth. “Nothing happened to him. I just spoke to him. He was on his way here.”
Elizabeth moved closer. “Tony was leaving and went outside. Chris’s Denali was still there, and he found his glasses in the parking lot.”
Her brain began rationalizing. “Then he dropped them, or maybe he took a walk.”
“Cyra, listen to me. His bag was tossed off into the grass. The killer took Chris.”
Her whole world stopped. It couldn’t be happening.
Suddenly, she was sick and raced to the bathroom to purge.
“Harper, I have to keep working, I’m running out of time,” she said. “Go make sure that she’s okay.”
The woman ran after her partner, not sure if she was going to be able to help her through this. What did you do when your partner lost her husband?
This was horrible.
Ethan stared at Elizabeth, and he wasn’t sure she could pull it off. It had shades of their last case, only the tables were turned. His gut churned for what she had to be feeling, and what their ME was living through.
“I need to focus. Tony said that Chris was on his way here with the particulates report. Call the lab and get someone to send me that ASAP. I have to figure this out. If the killer took him, it was because he had to be close, like Doc. This was meant to slow me down, and I can’t let it.”
“Lyzee,” he began.
“Ethan, he’s going to kill him, and I have very little time. I don’t have the luxury of falling apart. Get me that report,” she snapped, staring at the board.
Blackhawk understood her angst and moved quickly, getting her what she needed. Chris had become his friend too, and he was praying his wife could pull this off.
It had to be right there.
She just wasn’t seeing it.
Elizabeth Blackhawk let go of everything else in her mind and started breaking the case down, stating at victim one.
He had to be the starting point.
In her mind, she didn't believe it was random.
Now, she was betting her friend’s life on it, and it was a gamble that neither she, nor Cyra, could afford to lose.
* * *
When Callen and Tyrell arrived there, it was pure pandemonium. The tech staff was working overtime, and Tony Magnus was barking orders like a madman as they were checking Chris’s bag for any type of trace.
“God, Callen! I’m glad you’re here,” he said, more than h
appy to hand it over to one of the directors. “I came out maybe twenty minutes after Chris, and his things were all over the place.”
Callen began walking around, and he got why everyone was frazzled at the house. This was their worst case scenario. “Do we have any security tapes?” he asked, pointing at all the poles and buildings.
“No, the morgue is right next to the sheriff’s department. Who’s going to try and abduct a Fed, right here? That’s insanity.”
“We’re dealing with someone who’s eating people. Sanity isn’t relevant in this case.”
“Oh God! Poor, Cyra! Is she okay?”
Whitefox answered his phone, and shook his head to answer the man. “Yo? I’m a little busy here, Ethan. What do you need?”
“Chris was bringing the particulates report. It may have something in it that the killer didn't want us to know about. You have to get Tony to email it to me ASAP. We don’t have time. Elizabeth is under the gun, and Chris’s life is counting on it.”
Callen grabbed Tony by the arm. “Email Ethan the particulates report now. We need it!”
The man took off running into the morgue to take care of it.
“I’ll work it here. Just help her figure it out,” he said, quietly. “They just got married, and she can’t lose him like this.”
Blackhawk knew it. “I’ll text you later.”
Hanging up, he waited for the report to come in, and he only hoped it was on time, or there would be more than one heart that would be broken at the end of all of this.
* * *
Cyra purged everything that was in her body, and she wanted to die inside.
So, this was how it felt to lose the man you loved. Part of her didn't want to believe it. They just got married and were supposed to have the rest of their lives together. She expected at least fifty more years with him.
No! She deserved it!
Consumed by Wrath: An FBI/Romance Thriller (An FBI/Romance Thriller ~ Book 8) Page 52