True Love Lost (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 3)) (77 page)

“Wow, she’s chipper,” he
stated, grinning. “Not hungry?” he asked.

“Not after today. I have a pretty strong stomach, but I have to say, it’s a bit queasy right now,” she
replied. “I just have to store our friend here back in the van. Ethan wants it locked up inside where no one can get to it.”

“I’ll take it out while you start on the paper work,” he offered, hopping off the table.

“Are you sure?” she asked, looking up as he crossed to her.

Whitefox pulled her into his arms and began nibbling at her neck and ear. “Yeah, I’m really sure,” he whispered. “We can finish up
, and I’ll take you home and we can find something to fill our time,” he suggested.

“Uh, we’ll have Elizabeth with us,” she answered as she leaned into him. The man had really creative lips, and she felt herself getting warm.

“Oh well the more the merrier,” and then he took the elbow to the stomach. “Point taken,” he said, laughing.

“I’ll be right here doing paperwork
.” Desdemona kissed him on the lips.

“Mmmmmm. I have to stop thinking about you in those glasses, sweetheart,” he said, pulling away.

“If you’re a good boy, I’ll bring them home for later,” she offered.

“
Desi, good is my middle name.” Whitefox wiggled his eyebrows.

“Uh huh,” she waved him off. “Go!” she laughed, as her phone beeped. The tech reports were in, and she decided the paperwork could wait. Desdemona Adare sent them to her printer, and read them as they came off. Something wasn’t right, or maybe something was very right and they just missed the obvious. The DNA under Derek’s nails was male. She circled it with her red pen. Then she saw the next thing. The lab results on the trace they found on Derek. The patch of greasy liquid was Ethylene Glycol, in the form of hydraulic fluid. Desdemona circled that, and thought back to the puddle in the garage after the truck pulled away.

Crap!

Callen lifted the body into the back of the van and was whistling. He was looking forward to taking the women back to the house and tucking them all in until his brother got back into town. So far so good on keeping everyone safe.

As he stood up, he heard a sound behind him, and he turned at the last minute. Whitefox saved his own life, as the tire iron slammed into his head, and knocked him out, instead of crushing his skull.

Blackness came fast, as he felt himself being rolled into the back of the truck. His last thought was for the women that he just failed to protect.

Desdemona continued to read the papers, and heard the door open. “Callen, we have to get this paper up to Elizabeth,” she looked up and stopped breathing.

“Hello Doctor. If you don’t come with me, I will shoot you. If you think that the agent can be of any assistance, I’ve already handled him.”

“You better not have hurt him,” she snapped, angrily.

“Oh, he’s hurting. Now let’s move, Doctor.”

Desdemona had to leave Elizabeth a clue. Casually she slid off her engagement ring, and left it on the papers she’d just circled information on, hoping once Elizabeth saw it she’d put the pieces together.

“Now!”

Desdemona raised her hands, as the gun was pointed right at her heart. “Okay, I’ll listen,” she said. “I don’t know why you need me.”

“You
, Doctor, are going to help me bring my lover back to life.”

Desdemona didn’t understand what that meant, but she kept walking and weighing her options.

“You drive!”

Desdemona got behind the wheel of the tech van carrying the bodies, and prayed Elizabeth Blackhawk was as good at figuring out things
like everyone continually said.

Hers and Callen Whitefox’s lives
were on the line.

~ Chapter
Twenty One ~

Elizabeth stared at the papers in amazement. The blonde hairs didn’t match any of the women that they’d gotten samples from. The killer wasn’t Wilma May, Courtney Brewer, Carly Kester or Sheila Court. That surprised her, but what surprised her more was that the DNA under Derek’s nails was male.

“So the blonde hairs don’t match?” asked Littlemoon. “Could they have been thrown in to screw with the FBI?”

Elizabeth shook her head, and didn’t know what to think. Everything was all tossed upside down. “I need to head down to see Desdemona. Maybe there was a mistake in processing, and I’m reading this completely wrong.”

“I’ll come with you,” he said, remembering his promise to the other Blackhawk.

“I have the feeling we’ve been wrong from the start, and if that’s the case this whole things going to implode now that we have the killer’s corpse downstairs.” Elizabeth hustled down the stairs, and ran into the lab room. It was empty.

“Desdemona?” she called. “Cal?”

“No one’s in the cooler,” he said, walking back out.

“Julian, wi
ll you check the garage? Maybe they’re loading the body into the van for storage,” she said, hopefully.

“Can do,” he said, striding towards the garage.

Elizabeth went over to the lab table and looked down, and she knew instantly something was wrong. There sat the ring that belonged to the Blackhawk family. Desdemona Adare wouldn’t have taken off the family treasure and carelessly left it sit on a table where it could get lost or stolen. Elizabeth picked it up and slid it on her finger for safe keeping before flipping through the tech reports that Desdemona had been going through. She checked all the parts that were circled.

Male DNA was present under the nails of their technician. Then there was the trace evidence found on the body. The oily substance was Ethylene Glycol in the form of hydraulic fluid. Elizabeth thought back to the earlier part of the day, and grabbed the phone sitting there. She dialed the sheriff’s office.

“Hello Duffy,” he said.

“Sheriff, earlier you said you were glad dispatch could find your brother when we called for a tow truck.”

“Yeah, he wasn’t in his office at the garage.”

“Can you call dispatch and find out if they ever reached him?” she asked, her heart beginning to pound in her chest.
“I have a question.”

“Uh, okay. I’ll call you back.”

“Thanks,” she said, hanging up.

Julian ran back into the room. “I think there’s a problem. The van is gone, and I found
this,” he said, holding a tire iron in his hand, wrapped in a rag he found in the garage.”

“Shit,” she rushed over to it.

“I think there’s blood on it,” he said, holding it for her to check.

Elizabeth touched it with her finger and then sniffed it. There was the scent of copper pennies, and she knew for a fact, they had a huge problem.

The phone on the lab table rang.

Elizabeth ran to it, grabbing it. “Yes?”

“Dispatch said they didn’t find him, he never called in for his messages. I don’t understand how he showed up without dispatch contacting him.”

Elizabeth knew. He was staking out the area, and saw them hiking into the area. “Question. Is your brother gay?” she asked, waiting for the answer.

James Duffy was outraged. “Hell No he isn't! In fact, he was dating a perfectly nice girl not too long ago. She was a pretty little blonde thing and completely devoted to him. Then she flaked out and left him breaking his heart. He’s never been the same since she left him. She was the love of his damn life!”

Elizabeth felt that wave of awareness and then the sick feeling.
“And she left him?”

“Yes, why?”

“Just wondering,” she said, trying to sound blasé. They had their killer now, and the killer had her family. “Thanks for the time,” she said, hanging up.

“It’s Randy isn't it?” asked Julian Littlemoon.

“If I’m wrong my family is dead. You know where he lives?” she asked, hoping she wouldn’t have to ask the sheriff and tip him off.

“I do, want me to drive?” he said, following her up to the conference room.

Elizabeth thought about it. “Shit. Okay, you get to saddle up and be my backup,” she stated, ignoring the look on his face as she pulled on her coat. “We need to walk out of here calmly; I don’t want to alert him that we’re heading to his brother’s. He will either tip him off or he’ll want to tag along to prove I’m wrong. I don’t know if the brother was working alone or not, so we have to do this on the down low.”

“
Gotcha. Okay, I’ll grab my coat and meet you out at your vehicle.” He strolled out casually, peeked his head in to see Sheriff Duffy. “Hey boss, I’m heading home for the night. I’ll see you tomorrow ok?”

Duffy looked up from his paperwork. “Yeah, have a good night, Julian. I’m heading out soon myself.”

Littlemoon grabbed his coat and watched the FBI agent stroll out before him. He was pretty sure she started running the minute she was out the door. When he followed, he hopped into her Denali and she was already dialing the phone.

“We need a location where we can creep up on him. I don’t want him seeing us coming, and then hurting either one of them.”

“I know where to dump the Denali, but then we have to hike in a little bit. Randy lives out of the way.”

“Give me a second,” she said, as she heard her husband pick up.

“This is an incredibly bad time, Elizabeth. I’m just here with Derek’s parents,” he whispered into the phone. There were tears and crying in the background.

“Ethan, this is a worse time for me.
The killer is Randy Duffy; he’s got Desdemona and your brother. I’m going in to get them back, and I just needed to advise you and tell you I love you.”

“WHAT!” he practically yelled into the phone. “You sit still, and I’ll get you back up.
Don’t you dare go in and get anyone! You’re pregnant!”

Elizabeth laughed. “
Thanks for the newsflash on the pregnancy. Wait for backup, Ethan? Who are you going to get for backup? You’re three hours away and there’s a snow storm coming. Our tech team is a bunch of nerds that like looking at bugs and things through the microscope.” She popped her ear piece in and continued, “I have back up. I got me a new Native American partner on this one,” she said, trying to calm her husband.

Blackhawk started cursing and Elizabeth pulled the phone away from her ear until he was done.

“Put me on speakerphone,” he demanded, scared shitless that his wife was going to be playing cowboy, and he was three hours away. This was why she needed to sit her cute ass in her desk chair in FBI West. Elizabeth Blackhawk was going to be the freaking death of him yet.

“Julian, you make sure you watch her back,” he said, practically shouting into the phone.

“I got it,” he said, as he continued driving through the snow.

“Ethan, I have to go.
We need to plan this out and get in location. I’ll call you as soon as I can, but my phone’s going off until this is over. I can’t be distracted if I’m trying to stalk and sneak up on the killer.”

“Baby, be careful. You remember that promise you made me back in Salem?” he asked, hoping she’d keep it again.

“Hell yeah, Cowboy. Don’t you worry. I’ll meet you back at the OK Corral for a late night dinner,” she said, lightly. “Set the table for five. I’ll be bringing home our family and company.” Elizabeth glanced over at her new sidekick. He was going to have her back, and she hoped that wasn’t a huge mistake.

“I love you, baby,” he said, softly.
“Do what you have to do to finish this.”

Elizabeth knew he was referring to the time she had to save Livy’s life.
“I got this, Ethan. Baby Blackhawk and I love you too.” And she disconnected the call.

“Okay, what’s the plan, Boss?” asked Julian Littlemoon.

Elizabeth handed him an earpiece and miked his collar while he drove. They’d have to be going in as silently as possible; they didn’t want to alert the man holding her family. “We hike in, I go in, you cover me and I bring them both out alive.”

“What about Randy?”

Elizabeth just looked over at him.

“Native to
wife of Native is that man walking out of there alive?” he asked, softly.

“
As long as he doesn’t hurt them. If I can neutralize the situation without shooting then I will. I could lie and tell you otherwise, Julian, but if he even caused either one of them an ounce of pain or I have to take the shot, I’m going to do it.”