Deep Dark Mire (An FBI Romance Thriller ~ book four) (76 page)

Looking down at the badge and the gun, she shook her head
at the woman’s words still audible through the door. Confrontation was expected, but that was just a volatile brew. It broke her heart at the words Doctor Adare threw around, especially the hate directed at Ethan and Callen. Elizabeth tucked the gun in the back of her jeans and pulled her shirt over it. There were days she hated being boss, and today was definitely one of them. Despite what Desdemona believed, she cared.

Maybe too
damn much for her own good.

But that was no one’s cross to bear but her own.

Both men
glanced up as Elizabeth walked through the door of their shared room. They’d been waiting for her to come back, and her face said it all. It had gotten really ugly.

“
Was it that bad, angel?” questioned Whitefox, feeling horrible that she had to do the entire thing alone.

Elizabeth nodded, but said nothing more. She tossed the badge in her hand to her husband. “She quit, and I tossed her out of the bed and breakfast.”

“I’m perfectly fine with that,” added Blackhawk. Immediately, he pulled out his phone and sent his administrative assistant an email, requesting her to process the termination paperwork immediately. If Doctor Adare was going to take this all out on his wife, his sympathy well was going to dry up fast.

Callen
went to her side and lifted her chin to look into his eyes. “I’m sorry for whatever Desdemona said to put that look in your eyes. I know she probably went for the jugular on this one. I know when we would argue, she could fight dirty.”

Elizabeth shrugged.
“Desdemona knew what buttons to push, and she wasn’t afraid to hit them all. It was best I took this one, Cal. I didn’t want you to be her target right now. Anything Desdemona said to me wouldn’t hurt as much, as what she could say to you.”

“Want us to go kick her ass for you?”
inquired her husband, also coming to her side. There was no doubt in his mind that if she was that hurt, it had to be them that she verbally attacked. His wife was feeling the pain like a slice to the heart.

“No,
you don’t need to kick her ass, but let’s just say the bridge is burnt down, and isn't ever going to be built back again. You can’t cross the line and then expect the words to not come back to haunt you. Everything she threw out is now in the universe to haunt her, and I can’t forgive the things she said. I won’t forgive them.”

Ethan
glanced over at his brother. Yeah, the words were definitely directed towards them. Since only one thing really pissed her off personally, it had to be about their heritage.

In this case
, it was one of those definitive rules that sometimes not knowing was a better idea for everyone involved.

~ Chapter Nineteen~

The three stood outside the church, observing the people who were beginning to congregate for Saturday morning prayer meetings. It was lost on Elizabeth why people felt the need to head to a church to pray. If they really wanted to talk to the higher powers, they only needed to close their eyes and do it where ever they stood.

Maybe it had something to do with feel
ing safe and in a place that offered them peace. She was thinking most of the people congregating there wouldn’t be feeling so comfortable and safe, if they knew the truth. The man who was leading their parishioners had been having a torrid affair while married, with the child of the bayou witch.

Yeah, they wouldn’t be happy
to hear that their connection to God was just as laden with sin as they were. Then her thoughts went to the murdered woman. Had she felt remorse for having the affair? Possibly planning to come forward and tell the truth, and then had to be taken care of before that happened.

Who knew what lived in the mind of a killer.
It eluded Elizabeth how killing someone was a far better option in one’s mind than just being called a cheater and adulterer. Was one sin a better option over the other in his mind? Or was a sin a sin, regardless of the nature?

“You're thinking,” stated her husband, as they leaned against the Escalade just watching and waiting for Jefferson Delray to arrive.

“I’m trying to figure out why he thought murdering the mother of his two children was less of a sin than just admitting he was having an affair.”

Whitefox dropped a kiss on the top of her head. Since she left Desdemona’s room, she’d been lost in quiet contemplation. Something she said had stirred Elizabeth up. “Maybe he did it in a fit of passion and heat of the moment.”

She shrugged. “If either of you plan on having an affair, please be aware that I’ll be doing the killing.”

Ethan
laughed and dropped his arm around his wife’s shoulder. “I’m well aware of how vindictive and dangerous you are. I’m not stupid enough to believe I could get away with it.”

“I wouldn’
t do it either,” added Whitefox, “and not because I’m afraid of what you’d do to me, angel, but because I wouldn’t want to hurt you like that.” Now he knew what Desdemona had planted in Elizabeth’s mind and heart. She was worried that the men she loved were going to turn on her and break her heart. Desdemona indeed had gone for maximum damage, by trying to plant that nasty seed of fear. It was hard to find anything redeemable in the woman, who he was going to marry at one time. All Callen felt now was anger that she had used Elizabeth as a verbal punching bag.

“Okay,” she said, not sure what to
reply. All this was tripping her up. Elizabeth had to believe that the men in her life would love her forever, and everything Doctor Adare said was just to screw with her. Getting distracted like this was a sure fire way to get yourself killed.

“Do you think I’d cheat on
you, Lyzee?” asked Whitefox, needing to know the truth. Callen turned her face towards his, so he could see her eyes.

Before
Elizabeth could answer, a blood curdling scream caused them to jump. All three agents ran for the church and up the stairs to the sound, guns drawn and ready for the invisible enemy waiting.

What they found was the horrible ends to a sad situation.

Jefferson Delray was sitting in his desk chair and he’d taken his own life. A twelve gauge shot gun lay propped between his knees, and his brains were spread out on the wall behind him. The man had taken his life by eating his own weapon.

Blackhawk pushed the hysterical woman from the room, trying to regain control of the scene. People had come running and now there were sobs and hysterical banter over the loss of the leader of their flock
, and the grotesque splatter of brain matter behind him on the wall.

Whitefox kicked the door closed behind his brother, not wanting to touch anything around them to preserve the scene. He also didn’t care to hear weeping ove
r a man who caused this mess. “I’ll call the tech team in for a body retrieval and evidence sweep.”

“
Please if you don’t mind, Cal. It looks like Minister Delray knew we were coming for him, and the truth was about to come out,” stated Elizabeth. She carefully walked around the back of his chair and peered at the exit wound at the back of his skull. “Well holy shit, Cal. He picked the right damn gun for a dramatic exit. Nothing like literally blowing your damn brains out as you go to meet your maker.”

“Jesus, there’s brains on the ceiling too. Watch they don’t fall on you, Lyzee. I’m not picking them out of your hair later.”

Elizabeth glanced up and stepped out of the potential brain free fall. “I’m not taking another one for the team and delivering this news to Desdemona.”

“I’m out too. I may strangle her for whatever it is she said to you earlier. Ethan is probably feeling that way too, so let’s have Doctor Leonard pull this one.”

Elizabeth stared into the almost hollowed out shell that once was his head. “I’m with you. I don’t have the stomach for it. Which is absolutely ironic since I’d rather look at this mess than do the notify to someone that was once my friend.”

Whitefox pulled her back as a big chunk of brain fell from the ceiling
, or at least it looked like brain. With this ungodly mess- who knew? “Watch it, angel.”

“Thank you, Cal,” she said, carefully trying to not step in the evidence that was splattered everywhere.
Next Elizabeth stared at the blood and brain spatter across the wall and the projection looked fairly accurate to her. There was no doubt in her mind that this wasn’t a set up.

The man took his own life. Elizabeth was pretty sure that he viewed suicide as a sin, and yet that didn’t bother him either. Really, the whole religion thing pissed her off.

Just at that moment, a thick chunk of brain slid down the wall, and drew her attention. “Oh, terrific! I think I can see the bullet hole from the slug up by the ceiling. It was hiding behind some brain. Now the tech team doesn’t have to dig through the ick to find it.”

“That’s probably going to disappoint them,” added Whitefox. “You know how they love their work.”

Elizabeth nodded, as she walked towards the desk and the dead man. His eyes were open, and she was completely freaked out by the empty stare. Dead eyes were her big ick, and she couldn’t help it. Ever since her partner died in front of her, they haunted her.

“You okay?
” Callen asked, watching her stare at the man’s face.

“Yeah, he hasn’t been dead long. The eyes haven’t gotten that hazy look yet. Once that happens, all bets are off for me.”

“Good to know,” he said.

“Do you have a tissue, Cal?” she asked,
watching him walk the perimeter of the room, looking for anything that looked out of place. Callen was memorizing the scene for the report.

“Yeah, here’s a box of them,” Callen answered, pulling one and looking at his phone as it beeped. “Tech team has left the ME office and
is in route. They should be here relatively soon.”

Elizabeth accepted the tissue, nodding at his words, but focused on something on the desk.
“Looks like the late great Jefferson Delray left a note for us. I love when they leave a farewell to make our jobs easier,” she retorted, sarcastically. “Oh look, it’s sticking out of his bible. Maybe he should have read the book a little more and spent less time cheating, lying and committing suicide by twelve gauge.

Tell my
daughter that I’m sorry. I was the one that stole her mother away from them. 

“He knew we were getting close,” said
Elizabeth, laying the note back down. “Jefferson Delray believed this was his only way out. Before he took himself out, he confessed and repented all at once.”

The door crashed open, and both agents went for their guns
, as Jonathan Delray charged through the door. What he found was the worst thing he’d ever seen in his entire life.

“Dad!” he
bellowed, rushing towards his father, only to be taken down by Whitefox. They both landed in a heap on the floor not far from the pieces of brain. “Get off me!” he screamed in horror. “I need to get to my dad!”

Elizabeth closed the door again and went back to the men struggling on the floor. “Jonathan, you can’t touch him, you know this is a crime scene now. We have to preserve it.”

The man struggled and the tears rolled down his cheeks. “My dad!” he sobbed.

Whitefox kept him pinned to the floor. “Let us do our job, Jonathan
, and then you can have him back when we’re done.”

“Who killed my
father?”

Elizabeth crouched beside the men. “It looks like he took his
own life, but we need to have the tech team find the truth and an ME decide on that.”

“NO!
You’re very wrong! Suicide is against God’s will! Someone had to do this to him, because my father wouldn’t ever do that! He was a man of God!”

Elizabeth’s eyes met
Whitefox’s and she sighed. “Jonathan, we were coming here to question your father. We believe he took his life because he knew we’d found out the truth about what happened twenty five years ago.”

The man looked confused. “I don’t understand,” he sniffled.

“Your father began having an extramarital affair almost three decades ago, and it resulted in the birth of two children.”

“He had an affair?” That to him seemed even more incredulous. “No way! My father loved my mother, and when she died of cancer, he was crushed. There’s no way he ever had an affair, and you can’t tell me otherwise.”