Devil Hath Come (an FBI/Romance Thriller ~book 7) (39 page)

“I agree
,” she added.

Ethan picked up the box with the ring and slipped it onto her middle finger on her right hand.

Holding her hair, she waited for Callen to do the clasp. “I’m a very lucky girl.”

Both men laughed
at her comment.

“What?”

Ethan leaned in to kiss her. “You’re a hellion in bed, and that’s why we’re very lucky men.”

Callen continued for him
, “Who have no problem buying their wife jewelry,” he finished, “As bribery for hot sex.”

She kissed him next. “If you think I won’t use
that to get sparklies, then you’re dead wrong.”

Ethan’s phone began to ring.
As he answered it, his face said it all. “We will meet you there.”

“
Oh boy,” Elizabeth muttered. She already knew where it was heading. She’d been an agent for a long enough time.

“We have another body,” he answered,
hopping off the bed.

The sick feeling in the pit of his stomach was bubbling back up again
. “He’s escalating.”

Didn't Ethan know
it? “I’ll have that profile worked up for you tonight, baby,” he stated. “I know that you were going to bring it up.”

She raced towards the bathroom.

“Where are you going?” Ethan asked as he dressed and zipped up his fly.

Elizabeth stuck her head out. “Thanks to Callen, I am a crime scene. I was mauled
by some sex crazed maniac and need a shower before someone tries to check me for evidence.”

Callen
was more than proud of that one statement, and he offered up a very telling, smug grin.

“Hurry!” Ethan said. He turned and gave his brother a fist bump
. He was sorry that he missed participating. “It must have been a good one.”

“Yeah, it really was.”

Cyra woke in bed alone. Even though she fell asleep
just fine, she had a night filled with a few nightmares. In each one, her partner was killing Chris and stealing him from her. Every time she woke with a start, he was there to comfort her. Now she didn't need to open her eyes to see that he was gone.

“I’m here,
sweetheart,” he answered, as if he knew what she was thinking. “I had some reports come in, and I needed to go over them before I meet with the Blackhawks.”

She rolled over
to already find him dressed and ready for work. “Did I sleep in?” she asked, staring down at her watch.

“No, it’s early. I couldn’t sleep.”

“I’m sorry.”

He glanced up
from his tablet. “For what?” He wasn’t able to sleep because all night he was filled with such fear of being too late to save her. What if he’d stopped in his room? Or stayed to talk to the Blackhawks longer? Those thoughts filled his mind and caused the night to be nothing but torturous.

“I kept you up.”

He shook his head. “No, my brain kept me up. It happens sometimes.”

Cyra climbed out of bed, her body screaming in pain. “How’s your side?”

He patted it. “I have a high threshold for pain.” Standing, he crossed to her. “I should be the one apologizing to you, Cyra.”

Now she
was confused. “Why?”

“I almost didn't get here in time. If I
had been a few minutes late, it may have been far worse.”

Cyra went against his body and clung to him. “But you weren’t, and ultimately that’s all that matters. You saved me, Chris,” she whispered
as she gazed into his eyes.

“
Move in with me.”

That caught her
totally off guard. “What?”

“When we go back home, I want you to pack your things and move in with me.”

Cyra didn't know what to say.

“You told me you didn't want me to ever go, and I’m telling you that I don’t want you to either.
We have two separate houses and can’t live in both. Rent yours out and stay in mine.”

It was hard to even catch her breath.

Her silence was terrifying. “It’s not really a mausoleum,” he tried to reassure. “It’s just a big, old, lonely house that I don’t want to spend another night in without you.”

She refused
to dwell or over think it. If she could honestly say that she loved him, then how could she not move in with him?

“
I’ll move in with you, Christopher, but maybe we should live in my house. You did say that you hated yours.”

He couldn’t believe it. “Seriously?
You’re saying yes to me?”
Shit!
He should have gone with a bigger question bouncing around in his mind. Had he known she was going to be so agreeable, he would have. This was far easier than he ever thought it would be.

She laughed. “Yes.”

“We should stay in the bigger one to have more space. Women like shoes,” he teased, even as he began analyzing and thinking. What he wasn’t prepared to say out loud was that when they had kids, there’d be more room at his place.

“I have three bedrooms,” she offered.

Chris didn't think that would be enough for what he planned. Since he had grown up without siblings, he wanted to have at least four or five children of his own.

“I have
six bedrooms.”

She stared. “Chris, how big is
your house?”

“Well, it’s
fairly large, and I also have a pool. I’ve don’t really use it, but I have one.”

Now
, Cyra was laughing. “Sold. You had me at swimming, because ultimately I’m easy.”

Chris grinned. “
I do feel obligated to tell you that it’s haunted.” She might as well be warned up front, so Cyra couldn’t blame him for not giving her the heads up later.

“By what?”
Now, she was wary.

“My mother. I can’t seem to keep her out of it.”

Cyra was entertained. “How can I say no to a pool and a mausoleum that has its own witch? This is going to be an adventure.”

He was about to agree, when his phone began beeping. The familiar code filled the screen. “We have a new body. You should be getting a call…”

He didn't get to finish.

“Agent Austin,” she answered, pulling out work clothes. “Okay, we’ll meet you there.” Hanging up, she glanced over. “We have to meet them at the station. Once again this place is out of the way and we need an escort up
to the scene.”

Chris began packing his things and then looked up. “Are you really going to move in with
me?”

“Do you really want me to?”

“Yes, I do.” How could he not? He was getting a blonde Goddess to move into his haunted mausoleum. This had to be some record for geeks everywhere.

“You
’ll have to help me move. Oh and I have a dog. He’s a really big lovable German Shepherd. ”

Chris pulled on his jacket
and was thinking that a dog might make the place cozy and warm, instead of cold and dead. “I always wanted a dog.”

Cyra smiled. “Rex is very well trained. He can bring you the newspaper if you bribe him with something tasty.”

“Deal, oh and I have a pet too.”

That intrigued her. She didn't take him for a pet kind of man. “What do you have?”

“I live with a tarantula.”

She stopped in her tracks
. Certainly, he didn't just say that he was buddy-buddy with a hairy, vile, disgusting spider. “Really?”

“
Yes, but it’s not actually mine. It’s more my mother’s pet. She keeps it at my house so it can have a change of scenery every now and then. She swears it gets lonely, and that might be true, since it sometimes gets out of the terrarium and ends up in bed with me. Don’t worry though, he’s been defanged. Igor doesn’t bite.”

“Chris.”

He looked over at her. “Yes, sweetheart?”

“Are you trying to freak me out, or do you really have a free roaming spider in your bed?”

“It’s not every night.”

She shuddered. “And
waking up to that that doesn’t scare the bejezuz out of you?”

He looked at her like she was crazy. “Cyra, I dig out people’s spleens and brains. I’ve seen eyeballs pop. Trust me, Igor is nothing compared to my day job.”

She was horrified.

“We better hurry,” he said
grinning. When she stood there and stared at him, he wanted to laugh. “I told you that it was a haunted mausoleum.”

Cyra wasn’t sure if she should freak out or try and convince herself that he was yanking her chain.

Either way… she really hated spiders.

~ Chapter Ten ~

Thursday Mid-morning

As they pulled up to the station, there was one cop leaning against his cruiser waiting for them to
arrive. When he saw them, he hopped into his vehicle and led them to where the killer had left his last victim.

The location this time was
of a field-like area, with no trees and lots of open space. Elizabeth was beginning to wonder why they had three very different locations. Was the killer trying to convey something with that too?

Walking up to the police chief, she stood alongside her employee. Officer Marsh wasn’t in work clothes at the time, and must have been off duty.

“Morning, Directors. It looks like your killer is picking up the pace on this one,” Gena Lowry stated.

It wasn’t hard to detect a little snideness in her comment. Yeah, they were up to their neck in killings, and she wasn’t exactly sorry to see them dealing with it. Elizabeth would like to say she was surprised, but she wasn’t.

“Did we get another note?” Ethan asked, trying to intercede between the two women. Gena Lowry was heading down a dangerous road. Elizabeth would chew her up and spit her out.

“We did.” She handed her the sealed up note. “It was found on Officer Marsh’s vehicle.”

Elizabeth inspected it.

I’ve left another gift.

The directions were beneath, and this time the letter was typed and not printed by hand. Again, it was one more thing that the killer had changed up.

She passed it to her partners, waiting for them both to read it. “Were you at the coffee shop?”

Marsh shook his head. “No, I was at the gym. We don’t have an in-house facility, so I sometimes go there in the morning before my shift to get my workout in for the day.”

Add that to the list of changeups too.

“Do we know who she is?” Callen inquired.

Neither local cop was going to be of any help in that area
.

Well, so much for making it easier.
It looked like they were starting at the beginning on this one. Elizabeth turned at the sound of her name being called a short distance away. “Yes, Doc?”

“I need you to see this!”

The three directors and the police chief all crossed the field, stopping just outside the circle of salt.

“Look,” he said, pointing.

It was the pentacle that was carved in her body.

The police chief spoke, “What about it? It looks exactly like the other two he created.”

Chris traced his finger over the raw, angry slashes. “Look at the pooling of blood. I’m going to give my preliminary estimation that this was done while she was alive.”

Well the surprises just kept on coming. The killer seemed to be re-inventing each scene to screw with them
and throw them off balance. This was only going to make Ethan’s job harder to come up with an accurate profile.

In return, that made her part of solving all this even more of a hot mess
.

Damn it!

“So he switched it up? I don’t get the issue,” Lowry stated.

Ethan fielded this one
, “A killer just doesn’t change up his methods mid-kill. If he’s removing things, altering or changing it up, there has to be a reason.”

“Well FBI, why is he?” she stared at the three of them.

“When we figure it out, you’ll be the first to know,” Callen added, trying to be the mediator. Already, he could see the tempers beginning to flare, and that only made the entire situation more volatile.