Dying to Love (An FBI Romance Thriller Book 18) Read online

  “I screwed up.”

  He laughed. “You have no idea how bad this is. You punched someone in the face. Worse, you punched Elizabeth Blackhawk in the face, in her home.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Own it.”

  She didn’t have a choice.

  “Where is she?”

  Gabe told her. “She’s working a case, so she’s going to be in and out of the office all day. You might be able to catch her there.”

  “I have to go fix this.”

  He handed her a cup of coffee, and understood. “I’ll come with you.”

  Livy had to bite the bullet and apologize. She was sure that when she did, they could get past this.

  They were friends.

  Despite it all, they had a past.

  They had a great friendship.

  * * * B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x * * *

  Morgue

  Hoover Building

  When she strolled in, everyone was working. As soon as they realized the boss lady was there, they focused on her and what she was going to ask.

  Chris was prepped and ready to go.

  That’s when he saw her face.

  Elizabeth had one hell of a shiner.

  He opened his mouth.

  “No one point it out,” she stated. “I took a face shot, I know I have a black eye, but let it go. The first person to point it out gets hurt.”

  Everyone closed their mouths.

  Chris approached her and Callen with a look of concern on his face. “Are you okay?”

  “Uh, did you just miss what I said?” she asked. “I clearly stated I’d hurt someone.”

  “You said not to point out your black eye. I asked something entirely different.”

  Yes, yes, he did.

  She sighed. “I’m better. I’ll be okay. It’s a new day. In fact, if my team dazzles me, I might not kick their asses around the room. I need to get to work. Someone start!”

  Chris headed back toward the autopsy tables, and he pulled up some files on the big screen. “We have two dead hookers. The first one, Sharon Jones, had some interesting tales to tell.”

  “Like?”

  “She was strangled. When I did the full autopsy, I found that her hyoid was indeed fractured.”

  “Okay. So, he strangled her.”

  “Not quite,” said Chris. “Our big mystery is getting bigger,” he offered.

  “Okay, what?”

  “The children died before their mothers.”

  “What?” Elizabeth asked. “How is that possible? Our killer targeted the babies and then the mothers?”

  “What the hell?” Callen asked. “Why?”

  Chris shrugged. “All I can tell you is TOD for the first baby, Chrissy Jones, is ten at night. Her mother’s TOD is around one in the morning.”

  Elizabeth was confused. “Okay, go on.”

  “With hooker number two, Jody Landry, she died at around midnight, and her baby, Leah, and the babysitter, were dead by ten.”

  Chris was right.

  This was confusing as hell.

  She thought about it. “He’s telling us something, but I don’t get it.”

  Callen was making notes.

  There was only one way she could think this happened. “Where’s Amir?”

  Chris looked around. “He’s probably running toxicology and all the other reports I gave him.”

  “Find him.”

  Chris texted the man, and he came running back from the other lab.

  “WOW! Who gave you the shiner?” he asked.

  She stared at him.

  “Back up, son,” Chris stated. “She’ll kill you for pointing out the obvious.”

  “Sorry,” he muttered as he took three steps back to a safer distance.

  Elizabeth opted to let it go. To be fair, he wasn’t there for her lecture.

  “Mr. Hayden, did we get tox back on the two hookers?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “When?”

  “A couple hours ago.”

  “Why didn’t I get a copy sent to me before now?” she asked.

  “I figured I’d give it to you when you showed up to work,” he offered. “You know…in our meeting.”

  All the techs began making whispery comments. They all knew what he’d just done.

  Apparently, he was the only one who was clueless.

  Well, Elizabeth wasn’t going to lose it. This wasn’t her job to train him. This fell on her best friend.

  “Chris?” she asked, knowing he’d handle it. “The head tech is your responsibility.”

  “As soon as you get any reports, they get sent over to the investigators ASAP, Amir. We don’t hold anything unless specifically asked to do so. Some investigators, like Elizabeth, like to work at all hours of the day. She can’t do that if the reports are locked up on your workstation.”

  “Okay, sorry.”

  “Thank you,” she said as he handed her the report. Elizabeth scanned it.

  “Ketamine, Christopher.”

  He got it.

  “He drugged the women, killed the children, and then he went back to the hookers. With Ketamine, they would have been out within a minute. It’s crazy strong.”

  Yeah, and widely available on the street. They weren’t tracking their killer that way.

  Somehow, she figured he knew that.

  “Okay, that explains how, but not why.”

  “Seaton Squared, how about you tell me everything I’ve ever wanted to know about these hookers? Was there security at the buildings?”

  Johanna went first.

  “No, ma’am. We checked. He picked the right victims for his crimes. They lived in slumlord tenements. The landlords didn’t care if his renters were safe, or if they spent the majority of their time getting arrested.”

  Great.

  Strike one.

  “What else?”

  “Sharon Jones, also known as Cheeky, was a single parent. She had a minimal arrest record. She did her thing, took care of her child, and that’s about it. We didn’t find any PFA’s against her or filed by her, and she wasn’t all that old.”

  Chris continued, “She was a child herself. She was twenty-two.”

  Elizabeth knew what that meant—no husband, or boyfriend, so this baby was likely one of her John’s kids.

  “Can we run the baby’s DNA and try to find her father?” she asked. “If he was buying hookers, he might be in the system—if we’re lucky.”

  Amir got to work. “On it, ma’am.”

  She sighed.

  “Don’t call her ma’am,” Chris corrected. “It’s Director Whitefox-Blackhawk, or Elizabeth, if she gives you permission,” he said, not even looking up from his folder.

  “Thank you, Christopher.”

  They’d been doing this dance a long time. He knew each subtle nuance she’d throw out.

  “There were no swimmers left behind this time,” stated Chris. “She was clean, and for a hooker, that’s an oddity.”

  “Good to know. Next?”

  Broderick took this one.

  “I ran Jody Landry, and she was known as Peaches on the street. I don’t know why, since her completion is anything but peachy.”

  Elizabeth snorted into her coffee. “Haven’t had much experience with hookers, have you?” she asked.

  “Uh no.”

  “That’s not a bad thing,” his wife admitted. “Really,” Johanna stated, grinning at her boss.

  “I still don’t get it,” Brody stated.

  “She called herself peaches because she liked to believe that she was as sweet as a peach,” she stated.

  Her agents stared at her.

  “Really? You’re adults. I have to break it down?”

  They didn’t get it.

  “Chris? Give it to them medically.”

  “The nickname likely has to deal with the fact that someone told her that when he performed cunnilingus on her, her secretions were sweet like a peach.”
/>
  “Jesus,” muttered Brody. “That was far worse the way he said it.”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s why I had him do it. A girl has to have some fun.”

  Callen laughed.

  His wife amused the hell out of him.

  She gave Chris a fist bump. “Ah, we’ve used that one before, my friend. I’m glad you remembered.”

  He snorted. “How could I forget? The day you had that conversation with the tech, I nearly peed myself.”

  Callen watched them.

  There was nothing but love between them. Again, he relaxed. Chris was a good guy, and he respected their history.

  “How about you tell me about Peaches, Brody?”

  “Other than her name is gross? Who wants to go down on a hooker? I’d rather lick a biohazard bin.”

  She stared at him, trying not to laugh.

  “I think I just said too much.”

  Johanna shook her head. “You think, babe?”

  Broderick cleared his throat. “Anyway…she’d been in the business a while. We have arrests going back at least ten years, and she has had more arrests than I’ve seen before.”

  No one was shocked by that little fact.

  “Yeah, they go in, they get booked, and they come right back out. It’s like a swinging door. Pimps are notoriously callous when one of their girls gets snagged. They don’t bail them. They make them use their own money, and then they beat the hell out of them afterwards.”

  “That sounds like a charming life,” Johanna stated. “I can see why they do it.”

  “Yeah, makes me want to sign up. I like when Callen spanks me.”

  Ah, the sarcasm was flowing in Autopsy Suite One.

  He started choking on his coffee. Clearly, he wasn’t prepared for her comment.

  “I’m about to spank you right now,” he said, giving her the look. It made her laugh, and that was his plan. Callen was trying to cheer his wife up any way he could.

  “Tell me about her child.”

  Brody sent the birth certificate to the screen. “We have the mother’s name, and no father, much like with Sharon James.”

  “She didn’t know her baby daddy either.”

  Callen watched her.

  She was working through the details in her mind, trying to find something that connected them.

  “Poor little Leah never saw it coming. I hope.”

  For that, she had to look over at Chris.

  “Please tell me those babies didn’t suffer at the hands of this asshole.”

  “They didn’t,” he offered. Even if they had, he wouldn’t have told her the truth. He would have lied to her to save her heart. That’s what she would need.

  “What was their COD?” she asked, trying not to think about it too much.

  “I’m calling COD as blood loss.”

  She knew him. Chris was keeping it short, sweet, and to the point. Elizabeth also knew that if those babies bled out, they had suffered. It wouldn’t be as quick as a stab to the heart.

  She could kiss him for that.

  “So everything after?”

  He knew she was talking about the evisceration. “Yeah, it was overkill. There was no pinkening to the wounds. They were gone by the time he started cutting into them.”

  She relaxed.

  At least there was that.

  “What do we know about the woman who was babysitting?” she asked.

  “There was no assault, and she died when he cut her throat. From her ID, Mary Moore lived across the hall.”

  “We talked to the other tenants,” Johanna offered. “She babysat a lot for her neighbor.”

  “So one mother got a sitter and the other left her child alone. They were obviously a different quality of mother, so that might not be why he picked them.”

  Clearly.

  “Okay, let’s talk pimps. Am I getting lucky?”

  “You just did this morning,” Callen stated.

  She stared at him. “You got me back for the spanking comment. Good one.”

  He winked at her.

  “I meant, am I going to have one pimp to interview, or two?” she asked, focusing on her agents.

  “Two,” Johanna offered. “We have locations where they stroll. We used the reports from their arrests, found the streets, and dug up some pimp names.”

  “Good job. Lay them on me.”

  Johanna sent the ID’s to the screen. “You have Big Daddy, and Johnny Rockit.”

  “Rocket or Rockit?” she asked.

  “With an I. Apparently, he was cleaver, and so were you for asking.”

  She shook her head. “No, this has nothing to do with me being smart. I’ve met him before. We’ve crossed paths. I believe his name is Gavin, right?”

  Brody pulled up his driver’s license. “You’re right. Gavin Weeks was pimping out Peaches, and Edward Becker was handling Cheeky.”

  “How do you know a pimp?” Callen asked. “Or is this one of those things I don’t want to know?”

  Chris stared right at her. “If you love me, you’ll let me tell them the story.”

  Immediately, Callen knew it was going to be Miss Kitty related.

  She snorted. “Have at it.”

  “He was Miss Kitty’s Daddy on the street for a couple of cases.”

  Callen stared at his wife in her beat-up boots and jeans. “You are a constant surprise.”

  “When I was under, he was my cover. He was a cop informant back then. They laid off him, and he would point the police at drugs, other pimps, and anything illegal.”

  “Basically, the cops turned a blind eye,” Callen stated.

  “Yep.”

  “I don’t have words.”

  She grinned. “I led a sordid life before you, Callen, my love. It involved hookers, pimps, and a plethora of cops.”

  He shook his head. “I just had hookers, sluts, and Kaya Cheek. Wait, she fit into the first two categories.”

  Elizabeth stared at him.

  Chris started laughing.

  “What? It was funny,” he said, when he noticed she was giving him a look.

  “Don’t encourage Callen. He’s a reprobate.”

  And she loved him like that.

  “Anything else?” she asked.

  No one spoke.

  “Okay, so we have two hookers, who were drugged, they had their keys stolen, their kids killed, and this killer left NOTHING behind?”

  They all looked at Amir.

  “We haven’t processed all of the trace, but we’re on it. We checked the messages he left you, and no fingerprints. We found bloody cotton swabs in the trash but no prints. The roses are clean, and we even searched the notes. I have two techs looking for those specific color roses, but DC is huge, and flowers are common—especially roses.”

  She figured it was a dead end, but he’d tried.

  That’s all that mattered.

  “Good job. Get me the trace reports ASAP. I’m going out into the field with my current Daddy.”

  Callen wiggled his eyebrows. “You better believe it.”

  “Elizabeth,” Chris said, getting her attention.

  “Yeah?”

  “Watch your back. I have a bad feeling.”

  Then he looked at Callen. “You too. I mean it.”

  Callen knew exactly what he was talking about.

  He still had that feeling too.

  At least for now, Elizabeth appeared to be on her game.

  Chapter Six

  While Callen drove, she programed the address into the GPS for the location of the man’s home. She wanted to hit up Gavin Weeks before anyone else on her list. Since she was familiar with him, she was hoping he could help her out.

  Elizabeth’s fingers were crossed.

  As they headed there, she was silently sitting in the SUV. Callen could tell she was thinking. Her face, the part he could see not covered by her sunglasses, was tense.

  “What are you thinking about now, angel? Want to discuss it?” he asked.

 
Where to even start.

  “That I’m a shitty wife and you both probably deserve someone better.”

  That took him a little by surprise.

  “Why? What did you do?”

  “I’ve neglected your life. How’s your book coming?” she asked. “I don’t think I even asked you about it,” she stated. “I know you’ve been getting up on the weekends to work, but I just didn’t think to discuss it with you until right now.”

  Callen got it.

  They had crazy lives.

  “You’re asking now, Elizabeth. That’s all that really matters.”

  “Are you struggling with it?”

  Boy, that was one hell of an understatement.

  “Yeah, I am. I can’t find a storyline that I really like. I keep thinking about all the cases we’ve had, and I can’t focus. One minute I think there are so many awesome ones, and then I’m horrified by my choices.”

  “Can you make one up?”

  He thought about it. “I could, but…”

  How did he put this nicely?

  “But what?”

  “What if it sucked so badly that I’m run out of town, embarrassed, and people think I’m a hack?”

  “It won’t suck, and no one will think you’re a hack, Callen James. As far as the readers are concerned, you write literary gold. At the last book signing party, the ladies were swarming you.”

  Yeah, he noticed, but what if it didn’t have anything to do with his writing.

  “That one wanted to have my babies. I don’t think it was for my writing skill.”

  “I neutered her in the ladies’ room. No worries.”

  Callen stared at her. “Please tell me…”

  “I’m kidding. Relax. Honestly, Callen, you’re a talented author. If you wrote it, it’ll rock. I know it.”

  One of the things he loved about his wife was that she always gave him that boost of confidence. It made him believe he could do anything he put his mind to.

  “I had an idea.”

  “Talk it out. I’d love to hear it.”

  “It’s about this cop. He’s madly in love with this woman, but he can’t seem to reach her. They keep crossing paths, but she’s just out of his reach.”

  “Okay, and?”

  “She’s killed. She dies before he can ever meet her, but she’s haunting him.”