Devil Hath Come (an FBI/Romance Thriller ~book 7) (21 page)

She wasn’t amused
by his game. “Yeah?”

He stepped
closer and yet she didn't move. “The women in our church are only permitted to view it when they lie naked on it. Want to be my guest? I can promise you that the pleasure will be… life changing. We have an altar service tonight at ten and would love to show you what we do here.”

Callen was ready to kill
the man for placing that visual in his head. “If I kick the shit out of a pervert while on vacation, will that get me fired?” he asked his brother.

“No,
and I’ll help as long as you act as my alibi in court.”

Arlen James wasn’t worried.
“The men behind you are possessive. I can’t say I blame them. The followers in my congregation would love to worship at your vessel. You would be an offering like no other. I can promise you the greatest sexual experience. Give it some thought.”

She laughed
in his face. “Oh sure, let me think about it. Um, NO. I get plenty of fun in the bedroom, and the men I sleep with don’t have to play dress up or sell tickets to the show.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to get a warrant to see our inner sanctum. Those are your choices. Offer yourself up for a night
of pleasure, and you may have total access. In fact, you can even bring your men to watch. If you decline, then do it the legal way.”

She didn't even respond. If she opened her mouth, a slew of derogatory things were bound to fall out.
Turning, she headed out the door. It was hard not to notice his eyes following her every move.

Both men moved
protectively to her side.

Outside, the sun warmed her skin
, and the gloom and doom feeling was dissipating.

“You’re not considering it, are you?” Callen asked
. His voice held so much disgust and disdain that any other men would be offered an opportunity to look at their woman, let alone touch her.

She laughed
at his question. “Are you out of your damn mind? I wouldn’t give him the pleasure of that opportunity. If I’m going to lay naked on an altar and be worshipped by men, it’s going to be my husbands. Not Count Creep-u-la.”

Blackhawk
laughed as the tension in his chest finally unknotted. “So, if I build us an altar…”

Elizabeth snorted
and patted his cheek. She was glad he was joking around. When they were inside, she was sure that he was going to snap. “Find a reference to it in Native lore, wear war paint and feathers, and I’ll play your sexy Indian games.”

Both men thought about it and
their bodies reacted.

“You two are
too easy.”

Ethan knew
that they needed to focus. “What now?”

Elizabeth headed to the
Denali as she pondered her game plan. “Well, I say we head in to visit Gena Lowry and give her an update. While we’re there, we can ask her officer which business he saw the victim at and then check it out.”

“Works for me,” Callen said
, preparing to climb into the back of the vehicle.

Before Ethan and Elizabeth could hop in, there was a
familiar sound that drew their attention. Both of them stared at each other and were frozen where they stood.

That was something they didn't expect to hear while on assignment.

“What?” Callen asked as he glanced back and forth between them. “What’s wrong?” He didn't like the look on either of their faces. It was somewhere between shock, fear, and worry.

“Did you just hear that?” Elizabeth asked her husband
as the hair on the back of her neck reacted.

He nodded, unable to speak.
It was loud and crystal clear. Turning, he looked back at the building to find Arlen James standing in front of it. The man was focused on Elizabeth.

“What did you hear?” Callen asked
as he became more nervous.

Elizabeth
kept her voice neutral, as she worried about freaking out Ethan even more. “I just heard wind chimes.”

Callen looked around
in a panic. The last time they both admitted to hearing them, someone had taken a shot at Elizabeth with a twelve gauge shotgun. If Ethan hadn’t been alert, she would have been killed. “Are you sure? I don’t hear anything.” In fact, he didn't see any either. There weren’t any other buildings where they could be hanging out in the breeze. “Maybe it was something else,” he tried to reassure them both.

Ethan jumped in and closed the door. Once Elizabeth was inside, he looked at his brother. “I think we just
received a warning.”

“Granddad?” Callen asked.

Elizabeth had to agree. “We’re either on the right track,” she began.

“Or he’s telling us to watch our asses,” finished Blackhawk.

Where they all wanted to believe it was the first one, they all knew the truth.

They needed to tread lightly.

Something bad was brewing.

Cyra had never been more uncomfortable in all her life around another human being. The man working beside her was basically ignoring her, which in itself wouldn’t be a bad thing, if she wasn’t getting weird vibes from him too. He was obviously mad, and she wasn’t quite sure why. It wasn’t like she ever flirted with him or promised him more than their partnership. In fact, the only time she ever went ‘out’ with him was if they were on assignment, and they needed to eat.

In her life, s
he had a hard and fast rule about dating cops. If it felt off at first, it was probably going to end badly. Relying on her gut was an important thing in her life, and now it was sending out big signals to warn her.

“You want the bedroom or the bathroom,” he
finally asked, breaking his silence.

Cyra
answered, “I’ll take the bathroom.”

He
didn't reply as he headed into the room with his partner. As she went to work on the small powder room, Rickard deconstructed the boudoir. “I don’t see anything that shouldn’t be here,” he said, speaking once more.

She finished her search
of her assigned space and headed out to help him. “There’s nothing in here either. All that I found in the medicine cabinet were some vitamins and her toothpaste.”

Shifting her mattress,
Rickard found a blade of sorts. “I think I have a weapon,” Rickard stated, lifting it carefully by the carved handle. “It’s some sort of dual sided knife.”

Holding out a bag, she sealed it after he dropped it in. “It looks sharp.”

Tommy couldn’t take it anymore and the dam broke. “You know that he’s a mistake, right?”

Cyra looked up at her partner
as he caught her off guard. “Excuse me?” Certainly, he couldn’t be talking about Chris.

“You’re going to be bored out of your mind with him. He plays in dead bodies
for a living and is a giant geek.” He was only speaking the truth. Nerds were fun to watch and maybe be friends with, but how good could they be in the sack?

The
annoyance began brewing over his words. Everything that he was spewing, regarding Christopher Leonard, was making her very angry. “I don’t think what I do in my personal life is any of your concern. Then compound that with your comments being way over the line. Chris isn’t a geek. He’s a very smart man that has a noble profession and I respect him a great deal.”

Thomas Rickard shrugged. “It’s never going to work. You need a real man to keep you safe. Not some glorified
scientist that can’t even defend himself. I bet he goes home at night to a pet fish and a book.”

It was taking all her control to keep her patience. Fortunately, Christina entered the room
and saved her from knocking her partner on his ass.

“Uh, am I interrupting something?” she asked, feeling the tension in the room. It was suffocating
and she had only been inside for a few seconds.

“Yeah,
and you should back out of here and leave,” he stated harshly.

Christina bristled
at his hostility. The man had no right to talk to her that way, and if he didn't knock his shit off, she’d file a complaint. If he thought just because he was an agent, and she was only a tech that he had a right to be rude, he was mistaken.

Cyra shook her head. “No, Christina. Our discussion is more than done. In fact, it’s never happening again.” She focused on the tech. “What did you find?”

“We found a little room. It must have been a pantry at one time, off the kitchen. Scarlet Red was using it as a place to worship.”

That had her attention. “Worship what?”

“
We didn't start digging through the things in there yet to be able to give a definitive answer. We figured that the investigators would like to see it first. Right now, we’re beginning to photograph it.”

They followed the
tech as she led them to the space. Once there, they stared inside.

“It’s an
other altar.”

Christina nodded. “I don’t think it’s the same as the one at the crime scene. We peeked underneath the cloth and there
aren’t any inverted pentagrams.”

“There
are also books in here too.” Christina pulled one from the pile and handed it to the agent.

Rickard
read the title out loud, “Wicca for Women.”

Cyra stared over at her partner. “You better call the Blackhawks. Our dead victim was a practicing witch.”

They waited for the woman to show up in her office. Apparently, she had something important to handle before she had time to see them. Her administrative assistant, Clifford, had sent them up and asked them to have a seat to wait.

There were a few things that pissed Elizabeth Blackhawk off
big time in life. The big one was when assholes made comments about the men in her life, and the next was her time being needlessly wasted. Sitting there gave her mind time wander and instead of the assignment, she was contemplating how to torture the chief of police for playing games. If the woman wanted a contest at who could be the biggest bitch, she’d give her a run for her money.

And win!

When she walked in, Chief Lowry was drinking coffee and didn't look the least bit in a hurry.

Yeah,
Elizabeth got it. The woman wasn’t in the mood to play nice. Well, now neither was she.

“What can I do for you?”
Sitting back in her chair, her focus was on the fellow law enforcement officer in front of her. She had just gotten a call from the town ME, and he had spilled all the details about her. As a collective front, they decided to keep their eyes on her and share information between them. There was a saying;
‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’
, and they found it very apropos in this case.

Elizabeth Blackhawk was a thorn in her side. Obviously, she planned on making all of their lives hell.
The woman was bossy, rude, and a pain in the ass. Parrish had told her about the medallion, how he’d missed it, and how the FBI was making a huge deal out of it. That didn't fly with her. People made mistakes all the time and allowances should be made. Look at the huge one that she had made by calling the FBI in as soon as she saw the note. In hindsight, Gena never should have dialed the phone.

“We came
in to update you on what we have so far,” Elizabeth offered neutrally.

“That’s surprising. I didn't think you needed our help. You stomped into town, took over the morgue
, and are running this assignment without even asking my opinion.”

She didn't have time for this. “I don’t know what your problem is, Chief, but let me assure you
that we’re not storming your castle. This is how the FBI works. We arrive and we manage the situation. I’m here to find a killer, not see who has a bigger set.”

“You’re being disrespectful.”

Elizabeth stood. “I’m being honest. Your one cop tossed evidence in the trash, and that’s blatant ignorance on how to be a law enforcement officer. He didn't wear glove to pull a note from his windshield and then filed it under
‘G’
for garbage.”

“We’re not
accustomed to murders here. My officers are competent and very good people. They are trying to learn on the fly.”

“I don’t doubt that they’re really spectacular human beings
. What I don’t trust is their ability to run a case.
THUS
the reason we took over. If you want to really get technical, your town coroner didn't do a full autopsy. He looked at a victim and called COD. No one in their right mind would trust that. What if she was poisoned first?”

“He said she was drained of all her blood. She was alive while it happened.”

“I’m going to assume that you’ve never heard of a little thing called gravity. If you hang a body upside down or just elevate the legs above her head, a victim will completely bleed out. Our ME had to do a full autopsy, because it’s his job to be thorough. Whether you like me or not, I’m here to get justice for the woman that was killed. I don’t play games, and I also don’t have pissing matches. I don’t give two shits who loves me or hates me in the end.”