Consumed by Wrath: An FBI/Romance Thriller (An FBI/Romance Thriller ~ Book 8) (73 page)

As he counted, he found that he had to do it twice just to make sure he wasn’t making a huge mistake.

Shit!

There were five vehicles. Pulling the gun on his hip, he moved around the vehicles and saw the last piece of evidence that he needed to know that bad things were happening.

Chris’s glasses lay on the ground, broken.

As if there was a struggle.

Everything in him went ice cold as he visualized the heads back in the morgue. It wasn’t lost on him that Christopher Leonard was the second ME to go missing.

His gut churned.

Pulling out his phone, he called the one person in the world
who would know what to do.

If she didn't, his buddy was screwed.

Elizabeth heard her phone and wasn’t going to get it, but then again, it might be important. Answering it, she could barely understand the man on the other end.

“Doctor Magnus, what’s wrong?” she asked, trying to get him to slow down. “Again, I need you to say that
slowly and calmly.”

Everyone in the room stared at her.

Immediately, her eyes went to Cyra, and the woman knew it was bad. When you were a cop, you always knew when the person you loved had been hurt.

Her eyes filled with tears
at all the possibilities. She had just sent him a text.

What if there had been an accident?

“I’m sending Callen and the sheriff right now,” she said, motioning to them. “They’ll meet you in the parking lot. You stay there and get the techs to do their job, do you hear me?”

She hung up the phone. “Callen, head to the morgue. We have a situation.”

They watched their woman walk towards Cyra, and they knew it wasn’t going to be good.

“Come on, Tyrell. I need you to get us there fast,
” Callen said, his heart breaking for Cyra. It was obviously bad news, and he could only imagine what was going on.

As they raced out of the house, no one else spoke.

“No!” Cyra said, staring at Elizabeth. “Nothing happened to him. I just spoke to him. He was on his way here.”

Elizabeth moved closer. “Tony was leaving and went outside.
Chris’s Denali was still there, and he found his glasses in the parking lot.”

Her brain began rationalizing. “
Then he dropped them, or maybe he took a walk.”

“Cyra, listen to me. His bag was tossed off into the grass. The killer took Chris.”

Her whole world stopped. It couldn’t be happening.

Suddenly, she was sick and raced to the bathroom to purge.

“Harper, I have to keep working, I’m running out of time,” she said. “Go make sure that she’s okay.”

The woman ran after her partner
, not sure if she was going to be able to help her through this. What did you do when your partner lost her husband?

This was horrible.

Ethan stared at Elizabeth, and he wasn’t sure she could pull it off. It had shades of their last case, only the tables were turned. His gut churned for what she had to be feeling, and what their ME was living through.

“I need to focus. Tony said that Chris was on his way here with the particulates report. Call the lab and get someone to send me that ASAP. I have to figure this out.
If the killer took him, it was because he had to be close, like Doc. This was meant to slow me down, and I can’t let it.”

“Lyzee,” he began.

“Ethan, he’s going to kill him, and I have very little time. I don’t have the luxury of falling apart. Get me that report,” she snapped, staring at the board.

Blackhawk understood her angst and moved quickly, getting her what she needed. Chris had become his friend too, and he was praying his wife could pull this off.

It had to be right there.

She just wasn’t seeing it.

Elizabeth Blackhawk let go of everything else in her mind and started breaking the case down, stating at victim one.

He had to be the starting point.

In her mind, she didn't believe it was random.

Now, she was betting her friend’s life on it
, and it was a gamble that neither she, nor Cyra, could afford to lose.

                                *   *   *

When Callen and Tyrell arrived there, it was pure pandemonium. The tech staff was working overtime,
and Tony Magnus was barking orders like a madman as they were checking Chris’s bag for any type of trace.

“God,
Callen! I’m glad you’re here,” he said, more than happy to hand it over to one of the directors. “I came out maybe twenty minutes after Chris, and his things were all over the place.”

Callen began walking around
, and he got why everyone was frazzled at the house. This was their worst case scenario. “Do we have any security tapes?” he asked, pointing at all the poles and buildings.

“No,
the morgue is right next to the sheriff’s department. Who’s going to try and abduct a Fed, right here? That’s insanity.”

“We’re dealing with someone
who’s eating people. Sanity isn’t relevant in this case.”

“Oh God! Poor, Cyra! Is she okay?”

Whitefox answered his phone, and shook his head to answer the man. “Yo? I’m a little busy here, Ethan. What do you need?”

“Chris was bringing the particulates report. It may have something in it that the killer didn't want us to know about. You have to get Tony to email it to me ASAP. We don’t have time. Elizabeth is under the gun, and Chris’s life is counting on it.”

Callen grabbed Tony by the arm. “Email Ethan the particulates report now. We need it!”

The man took off running into the morgue to take care of it.

“I’ll work it here. Just help her figure it out,” he said, quietly. “They just got married
, and she can’t lose him like this.”

Blackhawk knew it. “I’ll text you later.”

Hanging up, he waited for the report to come in, and he only hoped it was on time, or there would be more than one heart that would be broken at the end of all of this.

             
                  *   *   *

Cyra purged everything that was in her body, and she wanted to die inside.

So, this was how it felt to lose the man you loved. Part of her didn't want to believe it. They just got married and were supposed to have the rest of their lives together. She expected at least fifty more years with him.

No! She deserved it!

The more she thought about h
im, the more she began to sob. What she wanted was reassurance that someone was going to get her husband back for her.

Harper sat beside her on the floor and held her partner as she wept for her husband. It was horrible and heart wrenching to watch the woman suffer like this.
This was why couples were frowned upon in the FBI.

She would never allow herself to take this route. Who wanted to hear this kind of news, ever?
No one should have to have their loved one taken by a serial killer. Watching her strong partner fall apart was making her want to cry too.

“It’s okay, Cyra. We almost have him figured out. Director Blackhawk is working on it, and we know
that she’s really good at this,” she said, hopefully.

Where she wanted to go outside and rage at Elizabeth, she knew she couldn’t. When her husband was missing, they worked like maniacs to find him. Now, she had to believe that the
woman, who was out there, loved her husband and would help bring him home.

“You have to have faith,” Harper said, patting her reassuringly on the leg.

“I do have faith,” she whispered. “It’s all that I have left, right now.”

Elizabeth worked her way through the puzzle, ignoring everything around her. She heard Cyra return from the bathroom, but if she turned and looked at her, she would lose her focus.

Staring at the first woman’s name, she tried to rationalize it. How do killers pick their victims? Money, love, and then…

I
t hit her. The killer wouldn’t take her if he had been approved, he would take her out of revenge or anger.

That’s why she died.

Glancing over, she stared at Ethan. “He took Marjorie Willard because he wanted a booth. He isn’t in that pile. Who was the very last person approved?” she asked, as Ethan furiously flipped through the papers.

“The last approval was two weeks ago, and it was,” he paused and looked up at his wife. “Justine Stephens.”

Shit! There it was.

Okay,
that piece clicked into place. “I’m willing to bet that he killed her because he wanted her spot. I need you to call the mayor and get me all the rejections that Marjorie Willard signed off on. We don’t have time to transport them,” she said, glancing at her watch. “Have him get them and read you all the names.”

He handed her the particulates report. “This just came in,” he said, handing it off to her as he began dialing.

Elizabeth made the mistake of looking back at Cyra. “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to look away from the woman’s haunted eyes. She recognized them well enough.

They were her eyes four months ago.

Only then, they had twelve hours to save Ethan. Cyra’s husband had maybe two hours max.

“Please find him. I’ll owe you my life
and give you anything I have to get him back. Please don’t let him die on me,” she whispered, her voice breaking into a sob.

Yeah, there was already enough pressure
, but Elizabeth couldn’t blame Cyra. She couldn’t focus on what was at risk. For now, she needed to stay on the data.

It was always in the information, you only needed to find it, extract it, and make it fit.

For a brief second, she sent out a little prayer. It wasn’t lost on her that it was the second time in a week she offered one up. At this point, she’d do whatever she could to save a friend.

And in a way
, she’d be saving herself.

                                *   *   *

Chris Leonard’s head was pounding. He wanted to open his eyes, but in all honestly, he was scared shitless. He could feel his hands and legs restrained, and he could hear the methodical sharpening of the knife.

There was no doubt what was going to happen. What he hoped was
that he could figure out a way to escape, or at least defend himself.

Maybe when this was done, he needed to get Elizabeth to take him back to the gym and teach him how to outsmart a serial killer.

He must have slept through that lesson.

“Come
, come, Doctor. I can’t start until you wake up. I hope I didn't do too much damage to that brain of yours,” he said, easily.

Chris slowed his breathing down
and formulated his plan to buy the Blackhawks some time.

As lo
ng as the man believed he was asleep, it meant he wasn’t going to be someone’s snack. He prepared for any trick the man might throw out to wake him, and stayed calm.

For now, h
e had to have hope.

Chris trusted the people he called family. They could figure this out.
He had seen Elizabeth work bigger miracles in her years in the FBI, and this time, it meant his life or death.

She could do it.

Then
, his mind drifted to the love of his life, and he fought to not let any tears build up in his eyes. One single tear would give him away.

For now, he needed to be strong to get back to his wife.

He had just got his Goddess, and he wasn’t ready to let her go quite yet.

             
                  *   *   *

She stared at the report as Ethan wrote all the names on the board. One by one, she studied them, trying to hear that click in her brain.

Not one single one did it.

Then finally, she saw it.

“Wait!”

Blackhawk paused. He was on his twentieth name, and his hope to see their ME alive again was dwindling. Nothing seemed to be matching up.

She scanned the paper and closed her eyes
as she made the ultimate choice. Elizabeth was throwing the dice and making a gamble.