The Killing Times (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 1)) (51 page)

Elizabeth opened the door, and there stood her step
-mother and half-brother. On a good day, she didn't want to see the woman, but today…

It was official. Someone hated her.

With the kind of day she was having, them just showing up like this was going to have a horrible outcome. Her patience was already worn thin.

The woman
marched right in like she owned the place.

“Gee, come on in Abigale,” she sighed, waiting for George to enter too.

“We were in the store, and we heard a horrible rumor about you. Someone said you married that Indian man from up north.”

Yep, the day was rapidly deteriorating
and the ‘
topless husband
’ at the beach fantasy wasn’t going to be enough. If he wanted to keep her calm, he should start stripping right about now.

Elizabeth laughed, and it wasn’t a good laugh. It was the kind
that was followed by some horrible act of violence.

“
It’s not a rumor, Abigale. It’s absolutely correct. I married Ethan yesterday.” Elizabeth turned and walked away, knowing it was happening again. First, it was the minister and his wife, and now her father’s ex-wife and her half-brother. This was her proof. Someone above was testing her patience to the extreme today. This had to be her karma for cursing in church.

Elizabeth
just knew it.

“By the way, not that you’ll get this, but the ‘
Indian man’
has a name, and in our house, use it or get the hell out.”

Abigale looked appalled and made some strangled noise at being corrected.

“Ethan, you remember Abigale and George,” she reintroduced them, going to stand by his side in unity. “Abigale and George, this is my
husband
.”

The woman blanched.

“Oh yeah, I recall them vividly,” he smiled, dropping his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “This time I’m dressed thought.” Since they weren’t involved in his investigation, he didn’t care if Elizabeth lost it now. In fact, he leaned back with her against the counter and sipped his wine, waiting for it. Surely, the evening’s entertainment would be starting soon. Maybe it wasn’t Tony, but it was still going to be fun to watch.

“You ran off to the north to get married to him?”

“Again, ‘
HIM
’ has a name. Try using it.”

“You went off to marry the FBI man?” Abigale
rephrased, refusing to use his name; he was nothing to them but a stranger in her house.

Elizabeth was about to toss them out, when her husband stroked her back. This woman was a hopeless battle, and she didn’t have the energy to fight it now.

“No, I ran off to the north to have my father’s body exhumed, and then while I was there we decided to get married.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the room, that’s how silent it went
at the word ‘
exhum
e’. The look on Abigale’s face was priceless. The older woman looked like she sucked a bag full of lemons.

“How dare you defile his grave,” she
hissed at the woman.

Elizabeth stood next to her husband and
stared into her step-mother’s eyes. “How dare I defile my own father’s grave? Listen up! Charlie was murdered. Someone defiled his life. I had to have him exhumed to find out what killed him, so I can nail this murderer to the wall. As for the legality of it, he was my father and I was the executor of his will. I had the legal choice, when the FBI requested it.”

“He was my dad too, E.L
,” George said softly. “I would have liked to at least known.”

“Ye
s, he was and I’m sorry. I didn’t have time to confer with you, George. We have a killer here in Salem, and I needed to not waste precious time with dramatics from his
ex
-wife,” she emphasized the word ex.

Abigale looked like she was slapped.

“I apologize to you, George. I should have called, but we were trying to keep it quiet, and word in this town travels like wildfire.”

“So did you find anything?”
George inquired. “What killed dad if it wasn’t his heart?”

“Can’t discuss
it while the case is ongoing,” she replied, placing her head on Blackhawks shoulder, as if almost daring them.

“Why did you get married?” Abigale asked, giving the FBI agent a dirty look. “
What happened, did he get you pregnant?”

Blackhawk almost choked on his wine.

Elizabeth waited for him to recover. “Are you okay, Ethan?” she asked, and then turned on Abigale venomously. “Why does everyone find it so hard to believe that I fell for a good man, and that is the only reason why I would marry someone?” She wrapped her arms around his waist, and held onto him, possessively. “I married Ethan because I’m in love with him. That’s it.”

“You haven’t known him
long enough to know if you love him. You can’t know anything about him, Elizabeth. Think about this. There’s time to get this marriage annulled.”

Abigale just kept
digging the hole deeper.

Elizabeth felt the tension start in her husband’s body, and it passed right
into hers. Enough was enough. “You're absolutely correct Abigale. I shouldn’t stay married to him.” She turned towards Blackhawk. “Ethan, I have a confession to make. I’m using you.” She noticed he looked confused, unsure where she was going with it.

Abigale looked shocked. “Elizabeth!”

“How are you using me, Lyzee?” Blackhawk asked curiously, as he continued sipping his wine. Part of him trusted her completely, but the broken part kept screaming ‘
told you so’
. All he could do was hope she didn’t mean the words.

“I
’m just after you for your smoking hot body, wild heathen sex and your fast shiny car,” she admitted and this time her husband did choke on his wine. “We better get a divorce quick now that the truth is out.”

“Take me home, George,”
Abigale muttered, disgustedly. “You always were such a handful, wild, and out of control.  I told your daddy to beat the spitefulness out of you, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“Thank God
that he didn’t,” said Blackhawk, grinning wickedly. “It would have downgraded the heathen sex considerably if he did that.”

“You stay out of this
! You’re an outsider here.”

“Correction, she’s my wife, and honestly I don’t like you upsetting
her in our home. George, please leave with your mother and keep her away from Lyzee. No offense, but she isn’t welcome until she has learned the basics in manners required to come here.”

“Who do you think you are?” accused Abigale.

Before Elizabeth could open her mouth he answered her. “I’m the man who is going to keep you from insulting my wife and myself in our home. You aren’t her mother, so stop trying to force your will on her. We’re married, we’re staying married, and that’s the end of this discussion. Now, please get out of our home.”

Even George looked surprised at
how angry the agent sounded. “Uh, okay. Come on Mom, we better go before this escalates further. Dad wouldn’t want us fighting like this. Bye, E.L,” he said, leading his mother out of the room.

Both Blackhawks waited until the door closed.
“Nice,” she said, kissing him. “I have to learn how to do that, and still remain suave and cool. That, my handsome Native warrior, was sexy as hell. I don’t think anyone’s ever told Abigale off like that. I’m impressed and completely turned on.”

Blackhawk pulled her against his body and looked down at her lips.
The wicked grin he gave her said it all. “I do try, baby.”

Then he kissed his wife in their kitchen.

J
ust because he could.

                            *   *   *

He sat on the side of the road, pretending to be broken down. He knew the route of the deputy, and it was a matter of time. He would just wait, and she would come. Once she did, he would send a message to the sheriff about cleansing the town of any and all who deserved it.

As her patrol car rolled to a stop, she exited smiling at the familiar face.
“Oh no! Did you break down?” she asked. “Need any help?”

“I think I just need a jump
. Do you have cables, Sara?”

“
I sure do, let me grab them for you,” she answered. “You're usually not out on the streets this time of night, everything okay?” Sara leaned into her trunk to grab the equipment. Unfortunately, Deputy Bishop never heard his answer, because a sharp pain filled her head and darkness crashed around her.

The voice wanted her as punishment, and now it was
done. It was time to kill her and leave her for the sheriff as a little wedding present.

He couldn’t wait to sit outside her house, and watch her find the girl.

                            *   *   *

The
phone rang at two in the morning, and both of them jumped out of bed reaching for their cells. It turned out to be hers, and Elizabeth’s stomach immediately sunk. Calls in the middle of the night meant one thing.

Someone was dead.

As if on autopilot, she walked towards the closet, to get dressed. “Sheriff Blackhawk.”

“
Boss, it’s Tyrell. I think we have a big problem,” he said into the phone.

She could hear the nerves and fear in his voice as he spoke. This was going to be bad. Elizabeth
pulled on jeans, and watched her husband do the same. “What’s the problem, Tyrell?”

“Sara never checked in off duty
. She was off an hour ago, and she’s not answering the radio either.”

“Call in Christopher, and I’ll be ready and out looking for her in a few minu
tes. Ethan is alerting his team, so keep trying to reach her,” she ordered. “I’ll call you in a few!” She hung the phone up, and rushed to her husband’s tablet, pulling up the site with the names of the witches.

Blackhawk
moved to her side, reading over her shoulder. “Bishop?”

“Yeah, it’s on the damn list,” she said, running from the room, clipping her firearm to her hip. “Son of a
bitch,” she muttered. “I should have checked all of our names on the team against the list.

“Lyzee, we couldn’t have known
.” He slid his own gun onto his belt.

“I should have known! It was my job to know, Ethan.”

He understood her anger and pain. How many times had he said the same thing on an assignment when it had gone bad? Now they had to hope and regroup.

“I have to go look for her,” she said
, hoping it wouldn’t be too late.

“I’m coming with you,” he informed her, pulling on his shoes.

Elizabeth hit the door with Blackhawk at her back, and she slid to a stop when she saw what had been left for her. Lying in the middle of her driveway was the body of her deputy. Around her throat was a sick red ribbon tied in a bow. At that second, the rage exploded from her.

“Are you watching me
, asshole?” she screamed, into the darkness. “You want to play fucking games, it’s on! You come for me next and then we’ll play a game! Or are you too big of a spineless moron? I’m going to take you down and bury your pathetic ass! There won’t be enough of you for your God to save when I’m finished with you!”

Everything in him went cold. E
than knew the killer would be watching her as she found her dead friend and deputy. Now Elizabeth threw down the challenge, insulted the killer, and placed the bull’s-eye on her back. He heard the ricochet as a bullet hit the light above their heads. Yanking her back up the stairs, he threw them both down on the floor as he kicked the door closed.

“Damn it, Elizabeth!
What the hell have you done?”

Blackhawk pulled out his phone sending a text to his team, putting them back on duty.
They were going to have to return to her house to sweep the tree lines and secure the place. He wasn’t leaving her alone for a single second. Now the game was on and his wife had just volunteered to be the final target. Anger brewed in him, that she just potentially risked her life.

“Well, I guess he accepted my challenge,” she
answered, pulling glass from her hair.

“
Yeah, that’s just great,” he hissed.

“God damn it
!” Elizabeth yanked out her own phone to call the ME and her team. Once the FBI cleared the area, they had another crime scene, and this time it was one of their own.

Elizabeth stood above her fallen colleague, and she was filled with rage and remorse at the same time. It was her fault for not checking all of their names against the dead accused witches. This one was on her, and Elizabeth had to tell her deputies that they had all lost a part of their family. When she did, Christopher got angry, Tyrell wanted to see her, and Tony just stood still with a look of shock on his face that she was actually gone.