Devil Hath Come (an FBI/Romance Thriller ~book 7) (29 page)

Cyra began laughing. “I’m glad I could accommodate you and help you reach your pinnacle.” Cyra was
trapped beneath Chris and never wanted to be set free.

“Do you think that we can do it all over again later?” He waited nervously for her reply. She was his ultimate in dream women. If he could repeatedly score with the hottest
babe ever, his life would officially be complete.

She stared up into his blue eyes. “I
do believe that I told you that I never wanted you to go, and I was serious.”

Shit
!

Chris
figured that it was just some post coitus conversation and didn't mean anything. Knowing that she seriously meant it, released every fear and worry in his mind.

He’d scored a babe!

Holy crap!

What did he do now?

Oh yeah, he knew the answer. It was time to simply score.

Lowering his mouth to hers, he let the heat seep lower, until his brain was no longer doing the thinking
. Just as he was about to head down her body to his ultimate prize, he heard it.

“NO!
Oh, come on! I play in the dead for a living. Now, I want to play with the living!”

Cyra started laughing at the horror on his face. It was priceless to watch a grown man go from excited to
terrorized in a matter of seconds.

“Please higher
powers don’t let that be my boss. If I’ve ever done anything good in my life, let there be no bodies today but the naked one beneath me,” he prayed.

She was
brought to tears, as she reached for her now beeping phone too.

Chris stared down at the code. “Crap!”

“We better shower. We’re covered with more trace than a crime scene,” she added as she raced into the bathroom before he could grab her.

Following, they
rushed through their showers. They needed to be out the door in five minutes. Back out in the room, Cyra was about to start dressing when there was banging on her door.

Chris watched her as the calm disappeared and the fear was back. “I have this,” he stated, walking to the door with just a towel slung low around his waist. When he opened it, he found Cyra’s partner standing there.

“Yes?”

The man didn't look happy in the least.

“I’m here for Cyra. We have to hustle to the crime scene. The Blackhawks are expecting us.”

“She’s showering,” he stated. “I’ll get her there
, since I’ve also been summoned. You can head there without her. I assure you that she’s fine.”

“You
do realize, Doctor, that she’s not your partner. Cyra is mine,” Thomas Rickard spit out. The man was monopolizing her time, and it was damaging their partnership. He had to get her alone to have a little talk.

There was no point in even arguing with the man, but he did want to clarify one little thing. “
What you’re absolutely right about is that Cyra is your partner in the field, but she’s my girlfriend, and that makes her my partner outside of work. Personal time trumps work related issues for most situations.”

The man spun on his heel and stormed away, leaving Chris to close the door with a shrug. When he turned around, she was staring at him.

“You called me your girlfriend.”

“Aren’t you?” he inquired. “I mean if you have a problem with that terminology, there are so many ot
her terms that we can use, like, significant other, partner, woman, bed buddy.”

It
made her want to laugh. “How quick do you think we can do it, Christopher?”

He grinned wickedly as he dropped his
towel to show her the evidence of his need. “As fast as you want me to be.”

Walking across the crime scene, the three directors were taking in the situation and weighing their options. Each knew their role as it was unfolding. Elizabeth’s job was to handle the cops and run the scene. Ethan was in charge
of his tech team, since they tended to stay calm when he was there, and Callen was on bodyguard duty. Both he and his brother decided that no one was getting close to their woman. Essentially, that meant that someone was going to be her official shadow, even when surrounded by FBI agents and police officers.

Now
, they only had to pray it all went down without a single hitch. They both knew that wasn’t likely going to be the case.

Elizabeth was a magnet for trouble
and a wild card.

Ahead of them
stood Chief Gena Lowry, and she was flanked by two of her men. In fact, it was the same two officers who had been on the last crime scene.

“Directors
, I see that you arrived pretty fast,” she stated, holding out a plastic bag with a note in it.

Elizabeth
noticed that all three of them had gloved up. Maybe a little ass chewing would go a long way after all. “We’re used to early morning wake up calls and getting out of bed in seconds.” Yeah, that was more than enough of the pleasantries. In all honestly, she didn't have anything else to say to the woman, so why fake it? “What do we have?”

The police chief spoke
, “I was notified by Officer Marsh that as he was getting into his patrol car this morning and there was a note on the hood. Immediately, he followed proper protocols to assure it was preserved for the FBI.”

Taking the bag from her, she analyzed the
message.

I left you another. Here’s where you’ll find her.

Elizabeth made note of the handwriting. It wasn’t printed out, but done with pen and ink. “Christina,” she called and then whistl
ed as loud as possible.

The brunette hustled over. “Yeah
, boss?”

“Place this in evidence.” Her focus shifted. “Did anyone touch
this?”

Marsh shook his head. “I put on a pair of gloves from my cruiser. I dropped it in a plastic bag and called it in
first thing. We all came up here together. I wanted to make sure all my bases were covered.”

Finally,
there was someone who had a freaking clue with how to run a scene. It was like a miracle.

“I appreciate your fortitude, Officer. Would you like to help out on the scene
again?” Elizabeth was willing to play nice, especially when she found a cop who wasn’t useless. Since he had assisted last time and Christina didn't tell her that he was a hot mess, Elizabeth could use the man power.

“I’d like that, m
a’am.”

The head tech
motioned for him to follow, and they headed off together to get down to business.

All the focus was now directed at the chief of police.
“I’m going to assume that in light of our last conversation, you have already questioned your officer,” Elizabeth stated.

The woman nodded.

“Lyzee baby, I’m going to make sure the team runs it right. I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Blackhawk said, dropping a kiss to her forehead.

“Ethan! No kissy
-face at work!” she hissed, trying to be horrified but it was a half assed attempt, even by her standards.

He simply laughed
as he walked away to take care of the team.

Callen,
in response, moved closer to her frame, just in case. He was now fully alert and scanning the predawn area for anything that might try to jump out and hurt her.

The police chief watched as the man walked away. “We don’t get many Native American’s in the town, and I can say I’m sorry about that.”

Elizabeth snorted. Since the woman didn't drop the
‘Indian’
word, she was feeling a little more magnanimous towards her. Maybe they just got off on the wrong boot. “So, break it down for me,” she stated.

“My officer was just beginning patrol this morning. He was stopping for a coffee and breakfast. When he came out, there it was on his windshield. After your visit, I had a little impromptu meeting, where I explained the ramifications of handling evidence improperly.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Don’t. It was a long time coming and important. If we ever have this situation happen again, I don’t need a screw up
on a scene. I’m not calling the Feds in again unless it’s pretty much a murder free-for-all.”

Well, so much for playing nice. Someone still had her britches in a twist over a little verbal altercation. The woman needed to get a thicker skin.
She wouldn’t make it a day as a Fed.

“Where was he?”

“Officer Marsh was at the town coffee shop.”

Elizabeth had to wonder if the killer was using that place for a reason, or he just knew where to find a cop hanging out.

“Officer Murphy and I would also like to assist, if you wouldn’t mind.” The woman waited to see if the director was going to play hardball or bend a little. After all, her team had just done everything right.

Elizabeth contemplated it. “Officer, you can head on over to Director Blackhawk. He’ll give you something to do.”

They watched the man hustle away.

“If you’d like to stick with us, Chief, we’re about
to begin focusing on the victim.”

The woman nodded
and allowed Elizabeth to lead the way.

“What can you tell me about this location? The last
one was an abandoned mining camp, but this one looks even less used. What do we have here?”

She looked around
and wasn’t sure how to answer that. “I can do some research for you, but as far as I know, it’s just some land. I’m not even sure if it’s owned or not. This is a pretty isolated area.”

Elizabeth was good with that.
It would give the woman something to occupy her time, and stay out of her hair. “Thank you. I would really appreciate your help with that.” Who said she couldn’t play nice? Meanwhile, she would have her own people follow up. If anything, Elizabeth liked to cover her bases.

As they approached the body,
the techs standing there each handed them a pair of gloves. Efficiently, they snapped them on and got down to business.

It wasn’t lost on Elizabeth that her one agent was working alone
. He was leaning over the altar and checking out the corpse.

“Where’s your partner,
Agent Rickard?” Callen asked, scanning the surroundings for Cyra Austin.

“
She’s too busy screwing the ME to come to work today.”

All three people stared at him, including the two techs
, and everyone had the decency to look mortified at his reply.

Elizabeth wasn’t about to let her team have free reign with their attitudes. That was
her area of expertise. As far as she was concerned, there was only one person allowed to have balls enough to say shit like that out loud, and it wasn’t a Special Agent. “I think that comment is very inappropriate, Rickard. How about you rethink it and try again, before you make me cranky.”

“I arrived at her room and I was told by a half-naked Doctor Leonard to go ahead, he’d brin
g her. So, as you can imagine, ma’am, I jumped to conclusions.”

It wasn’t
hard to miss that the man sounded incredibly angry over the whole thing, and Elizabeth doubted it had anything to do with Cyra being late.

“
Since you’re handling the altar, where would you like me to focus my attention, Director?” he asked, wanting to escape.

“Work the perimeter.”
That was most likely the best place for him. It would mean keeping him far away from Chris when he finally arrived.

Elizabeth glanced over at Callen and they shared a look. It looked like Rickard was going to be
a loose cannon after all.

Focusing on the body,
Callen, Elizabeth, and Chief Lowry stared down at the dead woman. From outer appearances, everything seemed to be similar to victim number one.

“Shouldn’t we read the note,” Gena asked, pointing at the card stuck down in the gaping wound.

“We can’t,” Callen replied. “Doctor Leonard likes to see the body ‘
in situ’
. It helps him understand the methodology of the killer and gives him clues to the death. As soon as he arrives, he’ll okay it.”

Chief Lowry wondered if they were just being difficult. “I can pretty much guess what killed her, and I don’t have a medical background,” she stated, pointing at the ear to ear slice across the woman’s throat.

“Yeah, so can I, Chief, but that’s not my job. We investigate and the ME handles the murder,” Elizabeth answered. “I don’t do his job and he doesn’t do mine.”

“If you’re wondering, I can ID the victim,” stated Gena Lowry.

That had Elizabeth’s attention. “You can?”

“I recognize her from town. She
works at the same deli that I sometimes eat at. Her parents own it, and they’re going to be crushed when they find out that she’s dead.”