Deep Dark Mire (An FBI Romance Thriller ~ book four) (70 page)

Blackhawk motioned them over to the table beside them. “Sit and join us, both of you. Lunch is on
Elizabeth today.”

Julian grinned and took a
seat; Tori followed but kept the neutral face in place.

When the waitress came over, Julian ordered their pizza without even asking the woman. More proof to Elizabeth that there was more than just field work between them.

“Great job today! I hear you netted me the mother lode. I appreciate your exceptional work.”

“Yes, ma’am,” replied her agent.
Tori watched her boss and the two men with her. One just stole the pizza off her plate, and he was grinning at her wickedly.

“Callen! Stop stealing my
damn food,” she demanded, and then shook her head, laughing. It gave her husband the opening he needed, and he swiped the other slice. “Really Ethan? Both of you are teaming up against me to be gluttons?”

The men
just shrugged as they consumed her pizza.

“I miss being pregnant. At least then you both fed me, not
jacked my lunch at every given chance. You both ate that entire pizza minus one slice.”

Whitefox held out the piece he stole
, letting her take a bite of her own commandeered piece. “Don’t say I didn’t feel bad for you, angel. I at least have a conscience.” Callen wiggled his eyebrows at her lecherously.

Julian laughed
and covered it with a cough. If Tori wanted to get into the gossip foray, here it was for all the world to examine. The bosses were being normal people in a big loving relationship.

Elizabeth shook her head and focused on the others across from them. “So tell me all about your swamp adventure,” she requested
, wiping her lips on her napkin.

“We tracked the individual pretty deep into the swamp. Where
the bag was dumped wasn’t far from where I found the bodies. It looks like he’s familiar with the area, Elizabeth. The bag was weighted down with rocks, and dropped in the one deep section of the swamp. Tori had to go down.”

“Great job, Agent Christensen. Excellent work and we
greatly appreciate it. The tech crew thinks the tools in the bag may have blood trace. That may give us a profile to track down.”

Tori Christensen nodded
but stayed silent.

“What are you thinking about, Agent?” asked Blackhawk. He could tell the woman was processing something.

“I didn’t get a good look at all the wires and explosives gear, but if you’d like my personal opinion, I can give it to you on what I did see.”

Elizabeth sat forward and was ready to listen. “Absolutely.”

It wasn’t lost on Agent Christensen that when she laid her hand on the table, Director Whitefox ran his fingers gently over her knuckles and rings. Also, Director Blackhawk had his hand on his wife’s leg. It was clearly visible from her seat. Both men had a thing for the woman, that was clearly evident and neither were attempting to hide it. That explained why Doctor Adare was no longer in the picture.

Apparently, three’s company and four
was a crowd.

“All the wires were standard
and likely acquired from a hardware store. I’ve seen a few homemade explosives, and they’re easily built if you have the detonator. All of which can be put together quickly, easily and locally. I’ll wager that if you check the local stores, you’ll find that the wires, the caps and the main components were purchased there. To build a detonator, you simply need to Google it.”

Elizabeth appreciated her input on the subject. “Give me a frame of reference on your experience, Agent.
I don’t recall your personnel file off the top of my head.” All Elizabeth knew was the woman was often used as ‘fire and explosives’ expert by her husband in the field.

Christensen tensed
but answered her boss. “I did two tours attached to an infantry unit on the ground in Afghanistan. I’ve seen bombs made out of everything imaginable. What you’ll find in that bag is basic, bottom line equipment and made in a hurry. It was meant to be simple and cause maximum damage, ma’am.”

Blackhawk
glanced at his brother. “Call the tech team and have them send someone over to the hardware store with pictures of what they recovered. I want to lock this bomber down and find him fast.”

Whitefox pulled out his phone
, dialing one of the techs he passed on their boss’s directive.

Julian could tell that Tori was out of her element sitting at the table with the ‘big’ bosses. Currently, s
he was shutting everything out and looked uncomfortable, as Elizabeth scrutinized her. When the pizza was placed in front of them he tried to change the topic.

“Elizabeth would you like some of our pizza?” he offered, smiling. “You don’t have to come to the teepee.”

She laughed. “Thank you, Julian, but these two would just steal it out of my hand. I’m actually good. I’ll make them feed me for dinner, and it’s going to be very expensive.” Elizabeth motioned for the bill and the waitress brought it over. “I’m paying for anything they order at their table,” she pointed at the two sitting across from them. Elizabeth handed the woman her credit card.

“Thanks for lunch
, boss,” stated Julian.

“Thanks for the awesome job
.” Elizabeth offered Julian a fist bump. Then turned to the woman, and offered her one too. “Good work, Agent. You both enjoy lunch, you earned it.” Elizabeth scribbled a name on the receipt the waitress held, and handed the credit card to her husband.

“Hey, this one’s mine!
” he objected. “It was in my wallet.”

“Yeah I know,” she winked at
the two across from them. “Next time keep your damn hands off my food. As a heads up, that saying about ‘what’s yours is mine’ is exclusive to the wife’s perspective only.”

Whitefox laughed and stopped when she pointed at him. “You think I
won’t take your card too for the next time, ace?”

He pulled his wallet out and handed it to her. “I’ll make it ea
sy on you. I know when I’m beat. Consider it yours,” he said, as they started walking out. He dropped his arm around her shoulders and saluted Julian who was grinning at them.

“Now you’re learning, Cal,” stated his brother.

When they were gone, Agent Christensen glanced over at the man sitting with her. “I’m so very confused about what just went down here between the three of them.”

Littlemoon shrugged and bit into his pizza. “I’m not
confused at all. I completely get it,” and he did. Maybe it was just a Native thing.

                                *   *   *

Heading into the ME lab, the Blackhawks and Callen Whitefox were all distracted. Ethan was on the phone with their boss giving him an update on what they just discovered in the swamp.

Elizabeth was flipping through the journal entries again, in hopes that she could find something to help them, but
she knew what it was going to come down to for her was the whiteboard. Elizabeth needed to see it mapped out in front of her to get a visual.

Callen was on the phone too, but this call wasn’t business. It was personal. He was checking in with his father to make sure he was doing okay, and that little CJ was thriving in his care.

Blackhawk was the first one off the phone, and listened to his brother’s conversation. “Let me talk to dad when you're done, Cal,” he said, glancing over.

Whitefox handed over the phone to his brother and relaxed knowing
not only were they safe, but his father didn’t sound sad.

“Dad, if CJ is getting to be too much work, you can take him to the daycare center in FBI West. I can call Ginny
, and she’ll meet you downstairs and take him in for you.”

Wyler Blackhawk refused the help. “CJ isn’t any problem at all.
This boy is the happiest child on the planet, and he’s keeping me company. If I didn’t have him with me I’d be going crazy,” he admitted.

Blackhawk understood. Now that his father’s dad was gone, the man
was lonely. “Hang in there, Dad. We’ll be home in a couple days, and then you’ll have company.”

“I can’t wait. I miss you all.”

He completely understood, and knew this had to be hard for Wyler. “We miss you too, and we have lots to talk about,” he said, looking over at his brother. This was going to be an interesting conversation, explaining that the three of them were involved in an unconventional relationship.

“I love you
, Son, kiss your wife, and Callen too, for me.”

“I’ll kiss the
m both,” he answered, “I love you too, Dad, and kiss CJ for us and tell him we all love him.”

“Be safe Ethan. Take care of your family,” and then he disconnected the call.

“You're not kissing me,” interjected Whitefox. “But she can,” he turned and wiggled his eyebrows lecherously at the woman, until she laughed.

“Oh I had no plans to kiss you
, but because you’re being a smart ass, you can tell dad you’re having sex with Elizabeth.”

Whitefox’s mouth dropped open. “
I was hoping we could just not tell him.”

Elizabeth laughed from the back seat. “
Yeah, that’s going to go over well. He’ll never figure it out when he finds us all in one bed. How’s my baby?” she inquired, changing the subject since Callen looked horrified.

“Dad loves him to death. He wouldn’t be able to survive these last few days
, because CJ distracts him. You may have to wrestle a middle aged Native man to get our kid back,” he said, laughing.

“My money is on the devious woman. She’s evil.”

Elizabeth snickered. “Hell yeah, I am.”

Blackhawk parked their vehicle, and looked around the parking lot of the ME building. There were quite a few cars there, and there were even techs wandering the lot, patrolling. “Hey look, the team is
still being proactive, and you didn’t have to slap anyone around. Go figure.”

“Finally!”

“Who are you kidding?” added Whitefox. “I heard them whispering about you being titanium and indestructible. They’re scared shitless.”

“Amen,” she said, hopping out of the back. “Let them be afraid, it keeps them
from trying to out think me.” Elizabeth snorted and shook her head, as the one tech saluted her. “Funny. Our teams think they’re comedians. Who’s going to be laughing when I make saluting mandatory?” she yelled over her shoulder to the tech.

Both men flanked her into the building and scanning the area. It was a natural response, and both had almost lost her already once and they weren’t taking any chances.

Inside, the tech teams were working, and buzzing around the room. Instead of dissecting a body, they were pulling apart wires, and the contents in the bag.

“What does the world’s finest tech team have for me?” she said loudly, announcing their arrival.

Doctor Chris Leonard came over with a clip board to do the update. “We had a team go to the hardware store. They came back with nothing we wouldn’t normally expect,” he said, pointing to half the team. “Team B is pulling apart the samples we purchased from the hardware store to do a side by side comparison.”

“Do we have any DNA?” asked Whitefox.

“We do, and we’re running it right now for the matches in the system but you know how big of a long shot that’s going to be. The bodies didn’t have any DNA from a perpetrator, so we’re walking blindly on that one.”

“Okay, well keep going. We’ll have to keep our fingers crossed and hope we come across something.”

Ethan Blackhawk spoke, “When you get the reports done, email them to us ASAP. We need to move on this guy, before he thinks about blowing up any more vehicles or FBI agents.”

Chris Leonard dropped his voice and moved closer to his bosses. “Lyzee, we had a report from the hospital, and Christina is having a particularly bad day. Can you think of anyt
hing that would cheer her up?” He motioned his head towards her husband.

“Oh, I think we can go visit her at the hospital and brighten her day. Don’t worry Doc, I got this one.”

Blackhawk shook his head. There was no doubt that he was about to become the sacrificial man-lamb on the tech-lust altar.

“They had to clean the burns on her arms, and it was painful. It would really make her day if her hero showed up. Since she heard that Director Blackhawk saved her life over his own wife…”

Whitefox laughed. Oh this was going to be priceless and he wouldn’t miss it for a second.

“We’ll get right over there, and Ethan would be more than happy to give her a smile.”

Doctor Leonard touched her arm. “You're not as bad ass as everyone thinks.”

Elizabeth leaned into the doctor
and dropped her voice. “If you say that out loud again, I’m going to have to hurt you just to prove that sentence is completely false. Consider that your warning.”

Chri
s Leonard laughed. “Yes, ma’am.” He saluted her too.

“Keep working, team!” shouted Elizabeth
Blackhawk, rolling her eyes. “Come on boys, we have a little trip to make to the hospital burn ward.”