Sacred Burial Grounds (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 2)) (63 page)

When the arrow ripped past her arm
, cutting it, she was off and into the woods. Mentally she prepared herself for the worst case scenario. He said it was a long way to the main road, so she would have to make the trek smartly.

Into the brush she rushed and then carefully began
moving. Now she needed to leave no trail in the undergrowth. Survival meant essentially disappearing. She may not be Indian, and she may not be able to be invisible, but she knew how to survive and that was going to be the key.

Elizabeth
may be the prey, but he underestimated her.

She didn’t want to die, Since
she was pregnant, it was her mission to assure that the next Blackhawk was born, and she was getting home to her husband no matter what.

The killer prepared to follow,
but he liked to give them a little head start. It made it more like the hunt. There was no reason to be worried, because none of the women had ever been able to elude him. They crashed around in the trees, screaming for help, and begging. They all gave themselves away at some point. He knew all he had to do was follow the main trail. Every other woman started on it and stayed on it religiously.

They we
re all so predictable and hopeless.

There was no doubt a scared Elizabeth Blackhawk would be the same way.
Her biggest mistake would be trying to outrun him. There was no point worrying, she would be easy. Brains were one thing, but endurance on a big hike out of the woods, with no food or water was entirely different.

The nex
t part of his plan needed to be set in motion. Evilly, he laughed as he pulled out her phone and searched for Ethan Blackhawk’s name. Grinning wickedly, he sent the pictures, hoping the man enjoyed them as much as he loved taking them.

Blackhawk stood in his father’s living room, and he didn’t know where to begin. There were bookshelves with pictures and trinket boxes with lots of little mementos from his past.

“There has to be something here,” he said
, talking to himself. He forced himself to think like his father and get into his mind, living his life. Right at that moment he needed to become the person he was studying.  His father wasn’t one to keep private things public, so he wouldn’t leave the information out where everyone could see it. That meant one thing, the bedroom. It was the most private of places in a person’s home.

In his father’s room
, he found a chest at the foot of the bed, and in it were blankets. Yet, something made him dig deeper. Beneath it all, he found a journal, a box of pictures, some letters and a locked box. He pulled out the letters, hoping for a name, a face, anything. There were lots of letters. Some were love notes from his mother, pictures of the boys, and then there was a strange name he didn’t recognize.

“Callen look,” he called to his brother.

He joined him on the bed as both men looked through the letters.

“I see first names, but nothing with a last name,” he said finally. As he pulled out the box of photos he started flipping through them quickly. First he found p
ictures of Catherine Blackhawk and her son. Then there were pictures of his own mother, holding who he assumed was himself as a child. Then there was a single picture of another woman. No child present.

“Ethan
look,” he said, handing him the picture. On the back was a woman’s name.

                        
Angela Teldar

“We need to get back to the lab and start searching for this woman,” said Blackhawk. “There are only three women in this box. It looks like he stopped keeping track after her.” Blackhawk packed everything back up into the chest, put the blankets back on top and closed it. This was the closest thing that they had to a lead. Exiting the small house both men paused. They saw the brown paper bag at relatively the same time.

“Was that there before?” asked Blackhawk.

Whitefox hadn’t a clue. He didn’t remember seeing it, but then again he wasn’t really focused on it when they arrived. “What is it?”

Ethan felt sick. He’d opened
bags on assignments only to have a skull staring up at him. “I don’t know if I can look. What if it’s…?” He couldn’t say more.

“I’ll do it,”
Whitefox offered, understanding what was worrying him. Cautiously, he approached the bag, and pushed it with the toe of his boot. It slid easily and left no wet marks, so he doubted it was a skull or body part. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his pocket knife to slice open the bag. When he did there was a sigh of relief.

“It’s not
parts of my wife, is it?”

“It’s clothes only. I
think it may be Elizabeth’s boots, jeans and shirt. What was she wearing today?”

“Oh
God,” he whispered.

The killer had
taken her clothes off her body and touched his wife. Then he pictured the woman they found in his brother’s living room.

“Focus
Ethan! What was she wearing today?”

Blackhawk took a deep breath. “She had on light jeans
, a plain shirt and her boots weren’t on yet when I left.”

“
The killer left theses to screw with you. Hang in there, Ethan.”

Blackhawk
shook his head. “He’s dressed her like the last one, and he’s playing a game. That means we still have time,” he said, softly. Now he was trying to convince himself.

“Okay, then let’s get these back, maybe he left trace on them, and we can get working on the woman’s name.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

As bo
th men buckled into the Denali, Ethan’s phone chimed. It startled him; it was the tone for incoming messages from his wife. “Elizabeth’s sending me something.”

He opened the messages and dropped his phone
. The pain and rage ripped through him, as he ran shaking hands through his hair.

“What?” Whitefox picked up the phone and looked at the pictures. They were of an unconscious Elizabeth bound and
lying on the ground, bound in a trunk, and a partially naked Elizabeth lying on a metal table with a dove tattooed on her chest.

“Ethan, he’s fucking with you,” he said calmly, even though all he felt was complete and total
loathing. This killer was hurting his family and he wanted to make him pay. Then he heard the chime again.

The hunt has begun. Come quick Raven or the

                       
  dove will die.

Whitefox stared at the pictures. “Ethan, look at the surroundings and tell me what you see. You’re the profiler. Get into his head and make him regret sending you the clues to find our Elizabeth!” he demanded, handing the phone to his brother.

Blackhawk tried to ignore the unconscious
Elizabeth. Callen Whitefox was right, and he needed to focus on everything else in the pictures in hopes that they would give him a clue.

“You can do it, Ethan,” his brother pushed. “Tell me what you see.”

The first picture showed her outside, possibly in the woods. “She’s in the shadows, so there has to be very tall trees blocking her. Look at the ground. She’s on a rock, but around the rock there’s something,” he passed his phone to his brother.

“Pine needles.”

“Okay, so she’s in the woods somewhere, and that makes sense since the techs found sap on the last card and debris in her hair.” Blackhawk pulled up the next picture. “Trunk of a car,” he said, trying to analyze it. “Blue or dark blue I believe. Interior is gray. It doesn’t look boxy to me so I think it may be a newer model,” he said, looking up at his brother.

Whitefox was scribbling the information on paper on his lap. 

Ethan pulled up the last picture, and his heart ached to the point of breaking him down. His beautiful wife lay on a silver morgue-like table, and she was half naked. If the killer assaulted her, he was going to make sure his death was incredibly painful, even if it ended his career and sent him to prison. “Look off to the side. Paint cans, bottles of bleach and a car battery,” he whispered through the pain.  “It’s a garage. First he took her to a house with a garage to prep her.” He spit out the words, even though they made him sick to his stomach.

“
Let’s get these back to the lab. They might be able to tell us something more.” Whitefox patted his brother on the shoulder. “Stay focused Ethan, she needs us. We can do this. We have to do this for Lyzee. We have to bring her home to us.”

Blackhawk nodded.
“I’ll get through this. My wife is tough and bad ass. He doesn’t have a clue what he’s up against. I have to believe that she can beat him at this game.”

Whitefox nodded and hoped his brother was right. He d
idn’t tell him about the dream with her crashing through the woods dressed very much like the picture. In the dream, she was being hunted and chased. It was best he didn’t know what his wife was facing. Part of him didn’t believe his brother could handle the truth and the vision he and his grandfather had shared.

Whitefox said a silent prayer for the woman they both loved
with all of their hearts.

~ Chapter Eighteen ~

Tuesday afternoon

“Oh Elizabeth,” he called to her. “I can hear your breathing, and I’m not that far behind you,” the killer taunted, trying to get the dove to give away her location. Now he could see that a head start for her had been a very bad idea. The two minutes he allowed her, as he sent the pictures, it gave her enough time to become invisible. Damn her, and now he couldn’t see or hear the prey.

“I can smell your fear, Elizabeth,” he shouted into the trees.

Elizabeth kept moving as silently as possible. The killer had allowed her a few minutes head start, and that gave her a tactical advantage. She was able to put space between her and the man that wanted her dead. Now, he was yelling into the woods, and giving away his location. This man wouldn’t have made it a day in the FBI training. The sniper teams would have paint-balled him in the first five minutes.

By going back to her training, she was going to make it out of the woods alive
, even if it was twenty miles to the main road. Once night fell, she’d be at a disadvantage in the darkness, but then again so would the killer. If he had a flashlight, it would giveaway his location if he stopped making noise.

To the right of her location was the main trail. There was no doubt
, he expected her to stick to it, because it was the easiest path. Of course he assumed, as a woman she’d stick to the fast and easy. As a victim ready to fight hard, she’d take the hard route if it offered her and the baby growing inside her protection.

This round wouldn’t be his.

Elizabeth refused to let him have her life and child. Ethan Blackhawk had suffered enough in his life, and the killing blow was not going to be her death. Not if she had anything to say about it.

“I see you, Elizabeth. Just give up, and I promise the death will be fast and p
ainless. I won’t let you suffer- just your husband,” he laughed, and continued down the path, searching for any sign of her.

In hindsight, he should have left her in her clothes. By giving her moccasins and brown colored clothing, he gave her camouflage to hide herself in the woods. He was certain she would have run the path, choosing to outrun him, but instead she went right for the underbrush.

Damn her!

As he looked at his watch
, he calculated how far she could have gone. “I know you can hear me, you aren’t far in front of me now.”

Elizabeth kept her eyes on the ground and right in front of her, assuring she
didn’t get caught in any branches or step on anything that would give her location away. She was paying dearly for the route. The brambles and pickers were ripping her arms apart, but it was the path and death, or the woods and some scratches. She’d suck it up to get back to her husband, and ease the ache she knew he was feeling.

Glancing
down at her watch, she calculated the time. Barely had she traversed two miles. It was going to be a long day in the woods. All she could focus on was making it out, and celebrating their win over the killer.

Elizabeth wasn’t going down without a fight that was for certain. The only other certain
ty was that this asshole was hers when this was all over.

Even if it left blood on her hands and soul.

                            *     *     *

The jet touched down and before the captain could pull it to a stop, Gabe was ready to go. He had made sure a car was waiting, and it would transport him to his family and friend quickly. He nodded to the captain as the door was opened, and he barreled down the stairs to the tarmac. There was little time to lose, and he was sure that his agent was falling apart over the loss of his wife. The longer it took to get to FBI West, the longer the team would be going without leadership. Getting there fast and taking over was a priority.