Fire Burns Hot ((An FBI/ Romance Thriller~ (Book 5))) (5 page)

Didn’t she know
it? “Send me the information. You tell the governor that he needs to contact the detectives in charge and explain we’re taking over. I don’t want to deal with a bunch of cranky cops that want a pissing match over the dead bodies. You know me. I have a history of police related violence.”

Rothschild snickered at the truth behind the joke.
“I’ll convey that little detail to him. Just remember, the news has wind of this, and you’re going to get some journalists asking questions.”

“Yeah, and?”

“Don’t beat them to death.”

Elizabeth
snorted “Gabe, one time I bitch slap a journalist and you never let me forget!”

Gabe sighed. “I’ll tell your husband later, when I have him over for dinner. Then the entire building won’t hear him lose his
cool.”

“Good idea. Kiss your wife for me, and tell her I love her.”

Rothschild smiled. “Come see us soon, and bring that little boy of yours too. He needs to meet his best friend.”

Elizabeth smiled at how
she and Livy had both had boys. CJ was six months old, and little Gabriel was nine months. “Will do, Boss. Send me all the details. I’ll grab my new partner, and we’ll head into the field.”

“Watch your back, Elizabeth
!” Gabe got very serious.

“
Dragon Slayer, no worries. I’m not a hooker, prostitute, or stripper. What the hell can possibly happen to me?”

Gabe shook his head.

With Elizabeth Blackhawk running point on an assignment, one never could tell.

Special Agent Tori Christensen
was in her cubicle, typing up her report that was due at the end of business day. She’d volunteered to take the grunt work, so her partner could cut out and spend the holiday with his wife and kids.

Since she didn’t have
a family anymore, the holidays were the last thing on her mind. In fact, Tori hated Christmas with a passion. It was just another reminder of how alone she was in life.

Suddenly, t
he atmosphere around her changed. Someone was stalking towards her and there was an awareness of being observed, much like prey. Glancing up, Tori saw Elizabeth Blackhawk crossing the bull pen, and she froze. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the woman; she thought she was awesome, especially after seeing her in action in Cypress Grove.

The woman took a bullet to the center of her vest, and then popped out of the water to take down a killer, with deadly accuracy. That just screamed of admiration, but this woman was her boss. It demanded respect. In the military, you didn’t call your
superior by his or her first name. Not unless you wanted trouble, a write up, and to be demoted in rank.

Watching
Elizabeth stalk towards her, Tori was filled with reverence. If there was a boss she wanted to be like, it was this woman. Here she was heading up the second largest FBI headquarters in the country, and also shacking up with two sexy Native men. It wasn’t the men per say, but the ‘who gives a shit’ attitude about the entire situation. Rumors had been circulating for the last three months, over what went down in Cypress Grove between the three of them. It was talk around the water cooler and the hot topic on everyone’s lips.

Elizabeth, Ethan and Callen as of yet were ignoring the entire thing, and that only added more mystery and speculation to the mix. Personally, she didn’
t care who the woman slept with outside of work. Bedroom issues should remain at home. Work was work. Sex and love were not a thing for the office.

And that was something she personally knew all too well.

Elizabeth Blackhawk proved she was bad ass in her eyes, and that’s all that mattered to her. Yet, part of her hoped she’d walk right past her cubicle. There was something to be said about being invisible.

The bosses didn’t stroll through the
agent area often. There really wasn’t any need. They got their assignments from either Ginny or Jameson, depending on the time of day they were being sent out. A Blackhawk social call generally meant your ass was about to be nailed to the wall, especially if it was the female director. Ethan rarely handled agent issues, leaving them for Elizabeth. Tori suspected it was out of love for his wife, and how happy it obviously made her to scare the bejezuz out of the staff. It was ironic that the most beautiful woman on staff was also the scariest.

As Elizabeth got closer
to her intended location, Tori glanced around. She was the only agent in the row and just knew. The boss was coming for her.

Well hell
! What could this be about? Both she and her partner cleared their assignment relatively quickly, by the book, and without any incident. It couldn’t be work related.

When she stopped in front of her, Tori stood. “Yes, Director?”

Elizabeth couldn’t help but notice how stiff the woman was, and hoped it wasn’t going to be a bad idea taking her out into the field, as her back up. After all, this was life or death. Victoria Christensen was about to become her partner and the one responsible for her life. With her military background, she should be relatively good at watching someone’s back.

Elizabeth hoped…

“Agent Christensen, I noticed you’re back in house. How do you feel about going back out again?” Elizabeth leaned against the side of her cubicle, crossing her boots at the ankle. Generally, when an agent was back in house, they gave them a day or two to acclimate before sending them back out. “I know it’s been less than twelve hours.”

“I’ll go back out.
I don’t have anything planned for Christmas. Really, I don’t mind, Director.” Yay! No sitting home alone on Christmas. Maybe there was a God!

Elizabeth saw the emotion in her eyes, and how well the woman covered it
with the calm façade. “We have five women that were lit up, and the local detectives think it’s all connected.”

Tori generally handled all the fire related cases for Ethan Blackhawk. It was just her ‘thing’. Now she could relax because it was work related.
Fire and explosives she got, the boss woman not so much.

“I’ll take it. Am I going in alone as a consult?” That was generally the only way the Blackhawks would allow an agent to go in by themselves.
Keeping an agent safe was priority, and a consultant meant no field time. It was simply office drone work.

“No you get a new field partner on this one. We’re short staffed because of the holidays.”

Tori didn’t really mind. It was fun working with different agents. You got to see how they all worked, behaved and melded together. As much as she enjoyed working with her regular partner, this at least meant some company for the next few days. It made her wonder who the other pathetic soul was that would take an assignment this close to Christmas. It gave her a measure of peace that she wasn’t the only loser alone for the holidays.

“It s
ounds good to me, Director. I don’t mind mixing it up with a new partner.”

“I
’m glad to hear that,” she said smiling. It was obvious that the woman didn’t know it was going to be her. If Tori did, Elizabeth fully expected Agent Christensen to be a bit more freaked out. Partnering with a director was a big thing. It made the agents nervous as hell, and she loved every damn second of it. If the Blackhawks were going out on assignment, it was almost always together. Elizabeth only partnered up with Ethan or Callen in the field for one main reason; they were the only ones she trusted implicitly with her life.

“Who
’s my new partner, and when do we head out?” she inquired, getting her gun out of the desk, and badge off the papers sitting there.

“I’m your new partner, and we leave as soon as the information comes in from Gabe Rothschild.”

Tori just stared opened mouthed. “Excuse me? You’re my new partner?” she asked, incredulously. “Out in the field?”

Elizabeth grinned wickedly.
Ahhhh, the joys of being the boss. Inciting this kind of response from her staff gave her a warm fuzzy feeling.

Out came the southern accent.
“No worries, Agent Christensen. I promise to be on my best behavior. Believe it or not, this isn’t my first day at the rodeo,” she drawled, laughing and walking away. “Hot damn! I hope I remember how this fieldwork thing goes,” she called over her shoulder, teasing the woman. “You think I should bring my gun with me or leave it here?”

There were a few snickers from the remaining agents at their desks, as their boss busted another agent’s ass. Some of them even started at Tori with looks of sympathy.

The looks said it all. It was like the reaper had come to take her soul away.

“Well
jingle fucking bells,” muttered Christensen. This was going to be one hell of an assignment.

~ Chapter Two ~

Waiting down by the Denali, Elizabeth observed the woman crossing the parking garage towards her. She was slightly shorter than her, but still relatively tall for a woman. Her red hair was pulled back in a ponytail, much like her own. It was the smoky, gray blue eyes that intrigued her. They showed all the emotion that her face didn’t give away. The eyes spoke a great deal of the woman. As for the clothing, where Elizabeth liked to be comfortable, Tori Christensen dressed in the standard FBI black, all the way down to her shiny boots.

Hey to each their own.

If she was more comfortable like that, who was Elizabeth to comment? All she knew was it was going to be fascinating to work with the woman. Since observing her in action in Cypress Grove, and hearing Julian Littlemoon rave about her, Elizabeth had to admit that she was curious. The woman found a black plastic garbage bag at the bottom of a swamp while diving completely blind.

That took skills and balls.

Elizabeth appreciated that in an agent. Women in their field were often discredited as being less effective than their male counterparts. Any time she found one that was ‘balls to the wall’ and could do her job, Elizabeth was beyond excited.

So far, Tori Christensen impressed the hell out of her.

“Agent Christensen, are you ready to start this assignment?” inquired Elizabeth, stepping up into the Denali, placing the keys in the ignition.

“I am,
ma’am,” she stated, calmly.

Elizabeth started laughing. “Okay, well we need to have a few rules here, Agent. First of them being, please don’t call me ma’am, Director, or
Boss. I feel old and keep looking around for my husband to pop up behind me.”

Agent Christensen nodded.

“You're my partner in the field. What do you call your normal partner?” Elizabeth asked, watching the woman carefully.

“Bob.”

“Okay, then how about we go with that then,” she offered. “First names are a good start.”

Tori Christensen kept a straight face. “Okay, Bob.”

Elizabeth began laughing. “Nice one. I know I walked right into that one, didn’t I? Usually I’m a bit quicker on the take.”

Now Tori laughed. “Yeah
, you did.”

Backing up from the parking space, they began their assignment. “I think I may like you already, Agent Christensen.”

“Tori. If I get to call you Bob, then you probably should call me by my first name.”

“Thank you, Tori, but as much as I like humor, let’s go with Elizabeth
. We’ll confuse all the men we work with, or my husband will think I’m having some raging affair with a mystery man.”

Christensen shrugged. “Works for me.
I’d hate to see Bob get his ass kicked by Directors Blackhawk or Whitefox.”

Elizabeth grinned wickedly. “That would suck for Bob.
How about you brief me on the papers in that file, and we can drive out to the last crime scene? I hear that the detectives in charge have been instructed to meet us there, and pass off control of this one.”

“It’s going to be ugly isn't it?” she asked.

“This one’s coming directly from the governor of our fine state. It may get ugly, but at least they really can’t argue with us over it. Their captain has been briefed and was instructed to hand it over to us ASAP.”

“Gotcha,” she said, opening the folder. “Okay, here’s what we have,” Tori read the file to Elizabeth as she drove. “Five victims. Each one was found in a different location and lit up like a Christmas tree. Victim one hasn’t been ID’d yet
, but the preliminaries are that she was young. Maybe early twenties. Can’t give you eye or hair color. The body was charred up pretty good, when they finally found her. They found accelerants on the body.”

“Oh good. What did the killer pick of his
‘burn’ of choice?” she asked. The arson teams used the term for accelerants in the field. Elizabeth had worked a few killings with bodies and fire in her past.

“Yeah, not good. He used
ordinary alcohol.”

“Well crap
!” Basic alcohol was easy to find and get one’s hands on. It also meant it didn’t offer them a way to track the killer through supplies he used.

That was going to be a dead end.