Sacred Burial Grounds (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 2)) (46 page)

“When was he on duty last, Callen?”

At the sound of her brother-in-law’s name
, she knew the relaxation was over.

“Last night, and his patrol car isn’t in his driveway or the office. He’s the one we stopped to talk to before I dropped you off at granddad’s house.
I think we were the last ones to see him.”

Blackhawk slid off the bed and started getting dressed, noticing his wife was joining him and not complaining. “Give me his address,
and we’ll be right there in a few,” he said, knowing his brother wouldn’t call him if it wasn’t important. When he hung up the phone he looked at his wife. “I’m sorry, baby; one of his deputies has vanished, and Callen thinks something bad has happened.”

“It’s okay, let’s head over and start looking. We can split up.”

“You're sticking with me!” Blackhawk realized how it sounded, and he corrected himself after the fact. “Please?”

Elizabeth laughed, “Throwing please at the end of a demand doesn’
t cancel it out. For the record I meant Callen go one way and us the other. We can’t call in the cavalry for a ‘suspected’ missing deputy. Gabe will get wind of that and lose his mind on the overtime. It’s already Sunday and the team is on the clock.”

Blackhawk zipped up his jeans and tucked in his t-shirt. “I’m trying not
to be too bossy,” he answered her. “Just give me a little leeway. I’m working on not being controlling.” Ethan Blackhawk took a deep breath. “As for Gabe, I’ll handle him. He owes me for tossing us out in the field,” Blackhawk sighed. “We could be naked in bed right now. This deputy better not be in a bar somewhere getting drunk or off getting laid.”

“Ethan, you already had me naked in bed this morning.” Then she got serious, and touched his face gently. “I know that you’re trying really hard to not be overbearing, controlling, and a monster. That’s why I didn’t just kick your ass for the order you barked
at me. Don’t forget your Kevlar,” she reminded him. “Because you were the one shot at, and this would be a good way to get us out in the open,” she said, slipping on her boots and clipping her badge and gun to her hip. “I’ll meet you downstairs.” She headed down to the living room to get her phone and her tablet.

Blackhawk closed his eyes
and took a deep breath, silently sending it out to the universe to get them back home and in one peace. At the last second he changed his plea. Just get his wife and child home in one piece. He’d take the chance with himself, just not the ones he loved.

Whitefox immediately felt better as the big,
black Denali pulled up in front of the deputy’s house. His sister-in-law hopped down from the driver’s seat and placed her sunglasses on her head, as she scanned the area. It wasn’t missed by him that she was keeping an eye on the surrounding area, as if expecting worst case scenario. It never even occurred to him that this might be a trap, and he dragged his family right into it. Protectively, he blocked her body with his just in case.

“Thanks for coming. I didn’t know who else to call. It just feels
all wrong to me.” Whitefox broke down everything he knew, and what he had planned for the day with his deputy. “He’s more responsible than I am. This isn’t like him.”

“
So we split up. What is his normal patrol route and which way does he come home from work?” Elizabeth pulled up the map on her tablet and pinpointed their location. Then she drew out the possible scenarios as Whitefox pointed the different options that seemed logical.

“Okay, you head this way
, towards the burial grounds and granddad’s house. Lyzee and I will take the more secluded route, the one over by the river. If you find anything, call us immediately. Don’t get out of your vehicle! You're going to be alone, so watch your back and if it looks and feels off it probably is.”

“Got it,” he said
, walking to his truck.

“Callen, wait!
” Elizabeth ran to the back of the Denali, pulling out a vest and a handgun from the lock box, slipping in the magazine and checking the chamber. “Just in case you get into trouble a handgun is going to be faster than a shotgun.”

Ethan helped him into the vest and handed the gun
over that his wife had loaded. “Don’t play hero Callen. If he’s now a victim there isn’t anything we can do about it. Don’t forget that this guy takes shots at cops and has a problem with us Blackhawks.”

Whitefox noticed he included him in the family name, and he couldn’t help but wonder if the killer did too.

“Be careful, Callen,” nodded Elizabeth. There was no doubt she was going to be all over her husband, making sure the killer wasn’t going to get in a shot.

“Don’t worry about me.
Make sure you both are safe,” he replied, hopping in his truck and pulling onto the main road. That uneasiness filled him, and he didn’t think that it was going to have the outcome he wanted.

“Want to navigate for me?” she asked him, hopping into the driver seat and not giving him the option to drive. She wanted to be in control, just in case they had to get out of there fast.  Elizabeth could tell he was already distracted. The profile wheels were turning in his head at the possibilities.

“Yes,” he answered quietly, as he buckled his seatbelt and stared out the window.

Elizabeth could see the tension on his face and the lines that gave it away around his mouth. “Spill it,” she said
, finally.

“This worries me. If the unsub took the deputy,
he’s now completely gone the other way with his killings. I can’t profile someone that isn’t following pattern. I can’t do my job effectively, and we’re all at risk now.”

Elizabeth patted his knee. “We just need to stay one step ahead Ethan, let’s just aim for that and go from there. I have complete and total confidence in you
, as my partner and the profiler on this assignment. I don’t doubt you for one second.”

Blackhawk felt the tension loosen in his chest. Out of all his partners in the past, she was probably the easiest he’d ever worked with. He had been notorious for going through a partner a year, but with Elizabeth, they slid into the partnership easily. Even if they weren’t a couple, he’d still want to work with her; they compl
emented each other’s skills perfectly.

“Really, I trust you.”

“If he’s going after men now, no one is safe, and as a profiler I can’t do my job and help my partner.” Blackhawk knew that they were going to be at a disadvantage from here on out, and he was relying on just his wife to put the puzzle together.

“If he’s switching it up is it possible he’s screwing with us?
Is it possible that he knows how to profile or has a degree in psychology and he’s possibly tossing us bodies to make us lose focus?” she asked, and took his hand in hers, squeezing it.

“He could be
screwing with us.”

“We still have a physician to interview, and they have psychology rounds in medical school. Maybe we have a direction to head now too.”

“I hope so.”

“For now we should stick with our original profile and go from there. I trust your judgment, Ethan, and I think that he’s got something he’s trying to convey. We just need to stick with it and get to the bottom of this mess. Don’t let him screw with your confidence. That may be his plan,” she reassured him.

“You might be right. I just have to stay focused on the facts. Tomorrow we do the interviews with the doctor, vet and dentist. I remember reading in the file that Doctor Wolman is a little too old for the profile, but he has a son.”

“Don’t stress it now
. Let’s stay focused and just not get shot at while we search for the deputy.”

Ethan Blackhawk nodded.

Elizabeth hoped her husband could pull it off. Without an accurate profile, she just had a bunch of crime scenes and no directionality. This killer was definitely screwing with them, and that just pissed her off. When they finally caught the killer, she was going to kick his ass for screwing with the Blackhawks.

It didn’t take long to find the patrol car off to the side of the road. Both
agents exited their vehicle carefully with guns drawn and sunglasses on, in case any thing glinted in the woods. Elizabeth took the car, and left her husband to watch the surrounding area for anything suspicious. He was watching her back to make sure that they weren’t being ambushed.

“Anything, Lyzee?” he shouted over his shoulder
, as he continued to scan the area. So far everything looked clear, he just wasn’t happy about the trees surrounding both sides of the road. It would make it easy to be caught off guard and shot, if the killer was sitting in the trees tracking them. Just the mere idea made him edgy, and he just kept focused on the trees, looking for the telltale glint of a scope in the sunlight. It wasn’t a guarantee that he would see it, but he might get lucky.

The keys were still in the ignition, and the car was out of gas. “No one in the car,” she answered, looking around at the gravel on the road side. “Ethan, we have drag marks,” she yelled back, pointing. This time she scanned the area to protect her husband and partner while he was inspecting the ground. Elizabeth stood behind him
with her back to his, as he crouched down to look at the marks.

“They lead this way,” he
stated, following them into the taller grass.

Blackhawk was
careful to not step on anything that was hidden or could destroy possible evidence. The dew had been disturbed on the tall grass. There were definitely signs that a large object or body had been pulled through there.

“Anything, Cowboy?” she asked, still alert and focused on the tree lines. There was that bad feeling brewing deep within her gut. 

Blackhawk stood and sighed when he finally saw the body. “Yeah, we have something. Call in the cavalry, Lyzee. Deputy Briggs is dead.”

~ Chapter Fourteen ~

Sunday late afternoon

Elizabeth stood above the dead man, and
she waited for the ME to start his initial check of his body. He was just removing the liver probe, as her husband walked over to join them. He currently had their tech team checking the woods for footprints, or anything that might give them an idea of who left the scene.

“Doc,” he asked, beating his wife to the question. “Give me something.”

“TOD is approximately ten or eleven p.m. I don’t have anything else, he’s not bleeding from anywhere, and I don’t see gunshot wounds either. I need to get him back, get the trace done, and then I’ll start the autopsy in two hours. It’s going to be a late one, Directors.”

Elizabeth patted his arm. “I’ll get your whole
team dinner. Hang in there, Doc. You found the backup ME and the paperwork’s being processed.” The whole team was on burn out, and they needed the rest of the hires on soon.

Blackhawk pulled his wife away discreetly. “Callen isn’t doing so well
. I don’t know how to help him,” he whispered, leaning down towards his wife. “He wants to see the autopsy.”

“That’s a bad idea,” she whispered back.

“What can we do?” he shrugged. If it was someone from his team, he would be insisting he see it too. “Can you try to persuade him to forget that idea?”

Elizabeth nodded towards her brother-in-law. “You supervise the team
, and I’ll handle Callen.” There was no doubt in her mind that she knew how he felt inside. She had wanted to see Ray before they buried him, and her own deputy they lost in Salem. Fortunately for her, the people who loved her wouldn’t let it happen, and now she was going to try to protect her loved ones too.

“Callen?” she called to him,
getting his attention.

“Yes?”
He was trying to not sound hostile. It wasn’t their fault his deputy was dead, and he knew they were doing their best to be respectful of his fallen man’s body.

Elizabeth sat right beside him in the back of the tech van. Reassuringly, she took his hand in hers and tried to offer him comfort. When he didn’t stop her, she took it as a sign that the hostility coming off him in waves wasn’t directed at her. “We
need to talk.”

“Did Ethan send you?”
he asked angrily, looking down at their twined fingers.

Elizabeth ignored the anger
. “Nope, I’m here because I’m your sister, and I can see you hurting. You know your brother and I would do anything to help you, and I’m going to give you a valuable piece of advice.”

“Yeah?”

“Skip standing in autopsy. It’s going to be a hard thing to swallow, and it’s going to screw with you, Callen.”