Devil Hath Come (an FBI/Romance Thriller ~book 7) (14 page)

“Doctor Parrish, how you choose to run your autopsies is up to you. Your name has to go on those, but when the FBI does a full one, regardless of the outward appearances, we do it by the book. My name is at the bottom of this one, as it heads off to trial. I’m not going to have all my years of working with the FBI or medical degree questioned, solely because I took a shortcut.”

It pissed the man off.

“What if the victim swallowed a finger she removed from the killer’s hand? I have to check everything to find stomach contents and get her last meal. My boss will need everything, and trust me, you don’t want to do it half assed when it comes to her.”

The man didn't care. “That poor girl suffered enough. Someone
took her life and slit her throat. From the amount of blood all over the scene, it’s obvious how she spent her final minutes. She didn't need to be cut open more. You didn't find anything different than I did.”

Chris was elbow deep in the woman’s body when his hand encountered something. “Yeah, I just did.”

Ethan was up and out of his seat to see what he had found. “What do you have, Chris?”

Doctor Parrish was at his side
too.

Cutting into the lower esophagus, he reached in with his fingers to pull out a chain. “It’s
a piece of jewelry,” he stated as they all watched it slide out. When he had it free of her body, he laid it in the palm of his hand for his boss to take a photograph.

“It’s a penta
cle,” Patrick Parrish stated. “I can’t believe it. I owe you an apology, Doctor. You were right on this one.”

Chris dropped it in an evidence jar. “No worries, Doctor Parrish. It happens to the best of us.
Accidents can happen when we’re used to doing the same thing every day.”

Blackhawk wasn’t feel
ing all that magnanimous. He had to give the man credit. If Chris didn't push for the full autopsy, this would have escaped their attention. This was why Elizabeth had insisted on taking their people with them.

They
were simply the best.

“Hey, are we having a party here in the morgue?” asked Elizabeth from the doorway.

At the sound of her voice, Ethan relaxed. His wife was now back at his side, and that meant he could be at peace. His eyes met his brother’s and Callen signaled that it was all under control.

“Yeah, we’re having a big one,” Chris stated, staring into the woman’s cavity. “Want to come play?”

She wasn’t sure how to answer that. “What did you find?” Elizabeth asked, moseying on over to stand beside her ME. “Hello, who are you?” she inquired, staring at the man beside Chris.

Ethan did the introductions. “Director Elizabeth Blackhawk, this is the ME
in Circle Rock, Patrick Parrish.”

Immediately,
she understood the underlying tension in the room. Local and Feds had been clashing before her arrival. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Doctor Parrish. I hope you don’t mind us utilizing your facility for the duration. We promise to clean up after ourselves.”

Patrick Parrish nodded. This must be the
‘boss’
Christopher Leonard had been talking about. It was funny, because she didn't seem all that ferocious. He was more taken aback by her two apparent body guards and the pretty blonde woman.

Chris laughed at the term
‘clean up’
, since he’d done just that, only this time it had been after the other ME. Their people weren’t going to be the issue. It was all going to be on the faculty in town.

Elizabeth lifted a brow. “Something funny, Christopher? Want to share with me?”

He shook his head and grinned, but before he could make a comment, he saw her and the smile disappeared. Behind his boss stood Cyra, and she looked as gorgeous as ever. “Hello Agent Austin,” he said neutrally. He’d found when he was near her, his brain froze up and he said incredibly stupid things.

It wasn’t easy to not look like a fool when she was in the room.

“Hey, Doctor Leonard.” She kept it light, even though that wasn’t what she was feeling at that moment. The man was in his lab attire, and the scientist glasses hiding his blue eyes made her heart skip. He was absolutely adorable, and she’d love to fix the spikes of sandy brown hair that were standing up.

Elizabeth looked back and forth between the two of them, and then stared over at her husband who was grinning. He had a look on his face, and
it was completely out of character for him.

“What did we find
?” Callen asked, befuddled by what was going on around him.

Chris finally found his brain. “First off, you can have the trinket that was down her throat. She either swallowed it willingly, or it was
pushed down there post death.”

Elizabeth took the
jar that was sealed in plastic and examined it in the light. It was a pentacle, and unlike the markings on the altar, it told them that they were dealing with witches. “Okay. What else?”

“I prepared the samples for tox. They’re in the cooler until the team gets in from the field. I can tell you now
that she was relatively healthy.”

Patrick Parrish voiced his opinion
, “We already knew that before you began. She was a young woman.”

Elizabeth glanced over at the ME and then to her ow
n. Chris simply rolled his eyes and gave Elizabeth enough of a hint as to what was going on in the room. They had worked together long enough that they didn't need words to clue the other in.

“What else, Doctor Leonard?”

“Her throat was definitely slit from ear to ear, and I’m calling cause of death as homicide with exsanguination as COD.

There was a sound from the town ME, “If you’ll excuse me, I have some paperwork that needs my attention. You’re not finding anything that I didn't already tell you.”

Elizabeth watched the man leave. “What the hell ha
s his knickers in a twist?”

Chris spoke up
, “He was about to release the body without ever doing an internal autopsy. He missed finding evidence and is a bit angry that the Feds came in and showed him up on his own turf.”

Blackhawk shrugged. “Let him be bitchy. He screwed up and that’s on him.”

Elizabeth let them in on the cop situation and the note that he had tossed. What she chose to leave out was the lingerie comment. Unfortunately, she knew who wouldn’t let that little tidbit go.

Immediately, Callen gave the remaining details.

“What?” demanded an outraged Blackhawk.

Cyra began laughing.

“I’m going to hunt him down and feed him to the garbage can,” Ethan demanded, pissed that any man was picturing his wife in anything less than full Kevlar and sixteen layers of clothing.

Chris decided
to bail his friend out. “Back to the autopsy,” he stated. “Scarlet Red had wrist abrasions that are indicative of struggling. She was awake at some point and fighting to get free. They’re also on her ankles too. Since we didn't find rope on the scene, and from the pictures that I saw, it was possible that she was posed after her death.”

Elizabeth had to agree. “Did he drug her?”

Chris shook his head. “That I can’t tell you until the team runs the tox. I can give you TOD, and place it around midnight last night, give or take a few hours. It’s relatively cold outside at night. It may have altered my estimate by an hour here or there.”

She was okay with that.

“If you want more, I need a show and tell moment.”

Ethan, Callen and Elizabeth all groaned. Here they went again. For some reason, her medical staff liked to torture her with making her play victim for their amusement.

It was the sick little game that they thoroughly enjoyed. Before she could object, Cyra Austin volunteered.

“I’ll do it.”

Elizabeth wanted to kiss the woman. “Thank you,” she stated as she laughed. “I’m never going to autopsy without you again.”

She walked towards Chris Leonard. “Will I be suitable to play your victim?”

He had to force himself to think. “You’ll work perfectly, since you’re relatively the same height.” It was getting warm in the morgue as she moved closer to his body. He was trying to not notice the pretty pink button down shirt and the well fitted black pants. It made him wonder if he’d ever find out what was beneath them.

“Uh
, Doc,” Elizabeth stated, breaking their apparent trance. “Let’s get this show and tell on the road. I’m hungry and tired.”

Chris nodded
as he led the agent by the hand to the table. “Can you lie on your back, Agent Austin?”

She hopped up
and was oddly touched that he helped her delicately get into place. “It’s Cyra,” she reminded him.

He stared into her eyes
and prayed that he wouldn’t do anything stupid. “Okay, the killer had the victim on the altar,” he began as he moved her arms above her head. “When I examined her brain, there were no hemorrhages and no fractures to the skull.”

“Meaning
if he did knock her out, it wasn’t to kill but to incapacitate,” added Blackhawk.

“Exactly,” he said, as the rest of the team moved around the morgue table to watch his breakdown.

“I can tell that from the angle and depth of the cut that he was standing on the left side of the victim. The cut is deeper at where he would have started.  If he’d been on the opposite side it would have made an awkward cut and not bled out the way it did.”

Elizabeth began picturing the crime scene in her head. “Okay, so I need a visual. Draw me a pentagram on a piece of paper and lay it on Cyra
’s torso.”

“Okay,” stated Chris, moving towards this tablet. With his finger, he drew exactly what she was asking for and placed it on the woman’s body.

It matched up to the one carved in the wood. Had the killer been on the opposite side of the altar, the pentagram would have been point facing up. Because of the angle of the cut, they knew the point was facing his body.

Callen got it
relatively quickly. “It was an inverted pentagram. We’re not reading it backwards. The killer did it on purpose.”

Blackhawk could feel his skin crawl. He’d had one case he’d worked a long time ago th
at crossed paths with a killer who was madly in love with Satan. Her goal was to be his bride. It had been bloody, murderous, and a mess. In the end, they caught her, but she’d taken out quite a few
‘sacrifices’
along the way. “So, we have a devil worshipper.”

Chris glanced up. “Oh great.”

Everyone looked over at him.

He covered his comment. “It’s almost Halloween. All the crazies are coming out to celebrate the holiday.”

“Anything else that you can tell us about the victim? At this point we really don’t have enough to even speculate more than the obvious,” added Elizabeth.

Chris thought about it. “Well, she was alive when he
slit her throat. Most of the blood was gone from her body. Had she been dead already, she wouldn’t have bleed like a gusher. I venture to say that her heart was still pumping.”

“That rules out strangulati
on then,” stated Callen, continuing, “We have no other marks or signs of death.”

The ME agreed. “Unless he drugged her, but that won’t be back
until tomorrow at the earliest. When the lab does the tox, you’ll be the first to know as always.”

“Can I get up
?” Cyra asked, staring up at the man above her. It was really hard to hear a single thing that he’d said, since she had been staring at his lips and wondering if she would ever get another kiss from him.

God,
Cyra wished that she had never invited him back to her place after the Christmas party. Maybe…  She pushed it out of her mind, since it didn't really matter.

That boat had sailed almost a year ago.

“Yes, I’m so sorry, Cyra,” he stated, helping her up to a sitting position. “Thank you for being my homicide victim. It was nice for a change to not have to fight someone to do it for me,” he added as he stared over at Elizabeth.

“Hey, I don’t come down here and as
k you to hold a can on your head to be my target when I need to practice, do I?” she asked, pointing at Chris. “There are boundaries, even between friends.”

He laughed. “I could be your target. I’ve seen you sh
oot. I’d be perfectly safe.”

Callen laughed. “Have you seen her when she’s mad?
Elizabeth and Ethan hold wicked grudges. I would retract that statement if I were you. They just let you off paperwork duty, and it’s been months.”

Callen took a rib shot for his
comment.

Chris assisted Cyra off the table
and couldn’t help but enjoy the way his hands felt on her hips. “You have a point.”

Staring into his eyes, she found herself lured into
the serene color. Then her senses were assaulted with the scent of his aftershave. “Thank you,” she said softly, as she tried to remain blank on the outside.

He released her, knowing his
bosses were observing the entire thing, and he was sure they were going to bust his ass. After all, he tormented them about being a couple.