Fire Burns Hot ((An FBI/ Romance Thriller~ (Book 5))) (53 page)

It wasn’t surprising that she was bothered by the situation. “I’ll be okay, Lyzee baby. I won’t lie to you. It’ll be hard at first, but I’m willing to swallow it for Callen. Just be patient with me. He needs this more than I do right now. I have CJ, and I see how he looks at our son. He loves him completely but there’s still this emptiness and longing there.”

“You know I love you, right Ethan?” she said, standing and crossing to him. Once in his arms, she ran her hand over the tattoo on his chest, hidden by his dress shirt.

Ethan tipped her chin up to look him in the eyes. “Not once have I ever doubted what’s between us, Elizabeth. You live here,” he tapped his chest. “You’re my heart and mother of my child. Giving Callen the chance at fatherhood doesn’t diminish what I feel for you. It feeds it and makes it stronger. Would I like another child? Absolutely, but we’ll have more I’m sure, and I’ll have another baby to call my own eventually.”

She laid her head on his shoulder and just took in the scent of his cologne. “I’m a very lucky girl,” she said, patting him on the ass.

Blackhawk snickered. “Spoiled is more like it.”

“Call it how you see it, Cowboy.”

Ethan rubbed his chin across the top of her hair. The silky black strands tickled him and gave him a wave of familiar heat. “How about some one-on-one time soon? Just you and me?”

She liked the idea of that. “Deal.” Taking the last few minutes to just enjoy the feel of him against her, Elizabeth finally sighed. “Okay, Ethan. We’re done with touchy-feely in the workplace. Now we head on down to the lab. I need you to get your tech supreme, Christina to get me an ID.”

Blackhawk dropped a kiss on her lips. “Let’s go.”

Leaving her office, they stopped at the coffee machine and grabbed two cups of coffee for the trip down to the autopsy suite. In the elevator, Elizabeth held his hand, and leaned against her husband. He was still the center of her world and always would be.

Once the doors opened, the bosses headed into the lab. It was filled with chaos as usual. There were techs working on other assignments for other agents and talk of the holidays.

As soon as their presence was known, the quiet started to settle in. No one wanted to tangle with a Blackhawk. Elizabeth was legendary to be tough on her tech teams, demanding only the best, and Ethan was silent and just plain intimidating.
Now that Christmas was over, it was back to business as usual.

Elizabeth lifted an eyebrow and glanced around the room at her teams. “What? No saluting?” she stated, and then laughed as most of the team did exactly that. It was a little game of cat and mouse they played. She laughed, shaking her head. “
Okay, now we all go back to work team.”

Ethan was highly amused at his wife and the employees that worked under them. Half saluted out of being smart asses and the rest out of fear. “Where’s Doctor Leonard?” he asked, and most of the staff pointed at the office that he and Doctor Magnus shared. “Thank you,” he said, leading his wife there.

Knocking, they waited for an invitation.

“Come in,” he said
not even looking up.

“Doc, you got the post-holiday crankies?” asked Elizabeth, hooking her thumbs in her jeans.

Chris glanced up and leaned back in his chair. “Yes and no. I’m frustrated as hell with this last victim. I think she was most definitely sexually assaulted, but the burns are making it hard to determine conclusively. When he lit her up and strung her up, the burns moved upwards and her genital area had minimal burning.”

“Okay, then what’s the problem.”

“When the skin burns and cracks open, the fat beneath the surface bubbles through. Gravity pulled it down and then that caused it to sear to the flesh. I’m trying to figure out a way to remove the seared subcutaneous fat from the damaged flesh without destroying tissue and evidence.”

“You’ll figure it out,” she
reassured. “You’re the best there is at this kind of thing.”

He nodded. “What can I do for you both today?” he asked. “Do we have another crime scene?”

Blackhawk shook his head. “No, but I need to know if we have ID on the victim to positively give her a name.”

Chris pulled out his file and passed it to his bosses. “We do have positive ID. Christina got it about twenty minutes ago. It is Lisa Delius. We used medical records that her doctor sent over and dentals.”

“Great, that’s step one.” Elizabeth stated.

“
We also have toxicology on her and the other women. I ran a cross comparison to check to see what common substances popped. Victim one who we haven’t ID’d yet, victim three Jessica Arturo, and victim four Sarah Royce all had trace of methamphetamines.”

“So we had junkies that liked meth. Prostitutes and strippers will use to dull the pain of their situation,” stated Elizabeth. “Anything else?”

“Alcohol in the first two, none after that,” he added. “They’re all clean of any type of sedative.”

Blackhawk crossed his arms, thinking about his profile.
“He’s not drugging them and that makes me think that he’s just grabbing a woman randomly. He may watch them all in the strip club or on the street, but then he’s just taking her. No planning with drugging and sneaking them away. With the prostitutes he was most likely the John. No one is going to pay attention to a hooker getting into a car that pulls up, especially on the strip where they tend to hang out.”

“That’s going to make ID’ing him a nightmare,” said Elizabeth. “He started with prostitutes and then moved to strippers, why?” she asked her husband. This was his area and she needed his input.

“Like we just said, he’s probably observing them. Sitting in his car and staring at hookers is going to draw attention. He wouldn’t have the time he’d want to find the right girl. In a strip club, he could watch and sample the ‘merchandise’, before committing to the kill.”

“That’s pretty sick,” stated Chris.

“Yeah it is,” Elizabeth agreed. “So we have a watcher.” Already in her head the wheels began to spin on how to catch the man, and she was pretty damn sure her husband wasn’t going to like it. But for now she was keeping it to herself as a last case scenario.

“What do we have on the woman with the ID’s that links them together? Are there any physical similarities?” Blackhawk asked. “He might be after a woman with green eyes, or brown hair.”

Chris thought about it. “I’ll have Christina do a cross comparison on features. I should have it to you tonight or tomorrow at the latest.”

Elizabeth was good with that. “Hey, can you tell me what you thought about Fire Inspector Wells?”

Chris started laughing. “He creeped me out.”

Both bosses stared at the man. Their ME played in the dead all day, and generally nothing bothered him. “Care to elaborate on that statement, Doctor?” inquired Blackhawk.

“He just feels off to me. Patrick Wells seems like a friendly guy, but he was deriving too much happiness from watching the autopsy. It made me feel uncomfortable.”

Elizabeth felt validated. “
Agent Christensen and I had the same impression. It was like he was a kid in the candy store.”

“Yeah, if your candy was dead crispy hookers and strippers,” grinned Chris. “I don’t think he’s a bad guy, and maybe it was all the FBI shiny equipment and facility. FBI West is pretty spectacular when it comes to tech gadgets.”

“If we get any more women, can we keep him out of the loop on anything that may break this assignment open?”

Chris smiled. “I’m supposed to transmit my findings to him. What do you want to do?”

Blackhawk glanced down at his wife. “You have the look on your face like you want to screw with someone,” he paused. “Specifically rules and authority.”

She laughed. “No, but how about we hold back anything we deem pertinent or plant something not true. I want to watch him and see if something clicks.”

“I can do anything you want. Since he can’t access our files he’ll never know what we’re giving him.”

“What about the detective
?” asked Blackhawk. “Do we trust her?”

It wasn’t hard to see the visible flinch from Chris. Elizabeth left that up to Chris. “Is she trustworthy, Doc?”

“I don’t think she has any love lost for the men she works with. They ride her pretty hard and from what she told me, they don’t like dealing with women.”

This piqued her attention. “Who has issues in general?”

“Detective Leto, and the only person he has a bigger grudge against is Callen. She told me he’s still on fire about you being given command of this one, and when he had his ass handed to him in front of everyone by Callen, it pissed him off. He’d love to cause some harm.”

“I’m glad I’m the burr under his saddle.”

Blackhawk wasn’t happy. “If I catch him trying to even give you a nasty look, I’m personally taking his face off his skull and then stapling it to the back of his head.”

She started laughing
at the visual. “That was pretty damn funny, Cowboy. You’re hanging out with me too much, apparently.”

“I’m serious! My
pregnant wife isn't going to be his target.”

Running her hand up and down his arm, she winked at him. “Speaking of pregnant wives,” she started, glancing back over at Chris. “Is there a DNA test you can run to figure out paternity?”

He leaned back in his chair. “Yes and no. Before DNA tests came about before the 1980’s, doctors used blood work. It’s fairly accurate.”

“Okay, then the no?” asked Elizabeth.

“The tricky part that’s going to come into play is with Callen and Ethan. Both men share half DNA matches. With the test having a twenty percent error rate, toss in that they’re brothers and you up the margin of error. The only way to get an accurate test is to do the amniocentesis. ”

“Can we do the blood test?” Blackhawk asked. “I’ll take the chance of error. It’s not like it’s a huge deal. If there’s an error, we know who the father is regardless.”

“I’m in,” offered Elizabeth.

Chris stood. “Let me go get some needles and vials.”

Once he was gone, Elizabeth looked over at him. “Are you sure you want to do this? We can wait and get a definite in a few weeks.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want anyone sticking a needle into your body and next to the child. There’s risk of miscarriage with that choice. I won’t risk this baby, mine or not
to soothe my conscience.”

She took his hand in hers. “I love you, Ethan.”

Bringing her knuckles to his lips, he left a kiss on their wedding band. “I love you too, baby.”

Chris re-entered the room with needles, gloves and vials. “The test will be complete today. I’ll take blood from Ethan and either find or eliminate the possibility that he’s the father. Since the sperm pool was limited to two men if it shows any genetic markers other than his and yours, then we can safely assume Callen is the father.”

“I’m claiming doctor patient confidentiality on this one, Chris. I know speculation is going to be fierce once the word gets out I’m pregnant, but I want to keep the father information private until the birth.”

“You just want to screw with the minds of the gossipers,” he said, laughing as she rolled up her sleeve.

“Hell yeah I do.”

“No worries, Lyzee. I’ll run it myself and then give you the information and destroy the test matter. No one will know the father but me.” Chris filled the vial and removed the needle. He labeled the vial ‘mother’. “You’re next Ethan,” he stated, getting the next needle ready and his boss rolled up his sleeve.
When he was finished he labeled it ‘father’.

“Can we keep this from Callen until we get the results?” she asked. “If it comes back he isn't the father, I may not want him to know yet. He’s going to take it harder than Ethan will.”

Chris nodded. “Are you sure you won’t let Tony study you three? This would be the most fascinating anthropological journal article.”

Ethan grinned. “Not going to happen. What happens at Fort Blackhawk
-Whitefox stays there.”

“I appreciate this, Chris,” Elizabeth said, patting his arm. “How’s everything working out with what we discussed the other day?”

There was no emotion on his face. “I didn’t call her yet.”

Elizabeth nodded. “If you need my help, just give me a call.” She’d intervene for her friend if need be.

“Thanks, Lyzee.” Once his bosses left, he stared down at his cell phone and then decided against it. Maybe after he ran their blood work and worked on the woman in autopsy. Yeah, Chris knew he was stalling, but he was just too afraid to know he absolutely blew it.

Sometimes not knowing was just a better option.

In the elevator, Elizabeth pulled out her phone and dialed the fire investigator. She wanted his files on any past arson. When she found out he was working out of his home office, it made her day. Now she could weasel her way into his personal surroundings to get a feel for him. Although she wasn’t sure what an arsonist’s home would look like, there was always the possibility she’d see something there that would get her attention. Making an appointment for the afternoon, she looked at her watch. Next step was the profile.