Consumed by Wrath: An FBI/Romance Thriller (An FBI/Romance Thriller ~ Book 8) (62 page)

When his eyes met hers, there was an exchange of reassurance.

It was all Callen needed and all the fears were gone.

The doct
or laughed. “Well, if he’s male and in the peak of his sex drive, then you very well could. What’s more instinctual than sex or food? We eat because we’re hungry. We have sex because something in us hungers for us to procreate.”

Both men checked out Elizabeth’s ass
as she stood at the whiteboard. When she turned and pointed at them both, they tried not to laugh.

They would pick sex over food any day.

Elizabeth scribbled a name in red.

       Jason Walters

The man made it onto her whiteboard for one major reason. He was a walking horn dog, and had tried to get into her pants when he first met her. Plus, he was shacking up with the wife of the first victim and had violent tendencies.

“When he took that
first life, the dopamine exploded, rushing his brain and giving him the same feelings after really good sex. Picture your best sexual climax, and then not having to do anything to reach it, but eat.”

Elizabeth tapped her chin. “
So it’s like the way some women feel about chocolate?”

“Yes, but a million times more addictive and reactive. He probably dreams about it and thinks that he’s hungry all the time. It’s not the pangs of needing to eat, it’s his mind telling him he needs another hit of that drug.”

Blackhawk thought about it. “Then, he’s likely doing it more and more often. Like with people addicted to drugs and sex, you need to keep feeding that need to meet the same level of satisfaction.”

“Yes. If he’s killing multiple people, he’s probably eating them daily.
That would mean that he’s storing them somewhere, and that makes me think about when my husband goes hunting,” Doctor Gaines said. “He processes the meat, and then freezes it.”

Once more,
she underlined Jason’s name. He freely admitted to hunting, but had he crossed the line?

“The act of consuming his victims
may have even taken the place of sex in his life. Quite possibly, he may have had something happen in his sex life that made him veer from it and towards the consumption of flesh. If he’s getting the same feel good feeling during a meal, he may not need to have sex to still feel pleasure.”

“The dopamine is like crack,” Elizabeth said. “We have a horny, addicted, cannibal.”

“Yes, likely.”

The
aspect of abstaining from sex didn't fit if they were looking at the Native boy toy, unless it was all an act to throw them off. If he was guilty, he would try and point suspicion away from him to confuse them.

Damn it!

What she wouldn’t give for DNA evidence.

“Like the drug addict,” Ethan
paused before continuing, “he’s going to need to keep that fix going. We have the first victim at one year. He kills him, and then goes off the grid for three months. Then, our second victim disappears nine months ago, and days later, again, he takes victim three.”

“
What happened next?” asked the doctor.

“Then
, he goes off the grid again,” Elizabeth said. “When he comes back, he takes the ME from town. We know why he took him, and it’s because we believe Doctor Trudeaux was working on finding him. We think that he asked questions that made someone uncomfortable. It’s a small town, and anyone working around Doc would have suspected what he was working on, not to mention his patterns deviated. Even his lab assistant and a deputy noticed.”

“Why did he wait for three months
, and then take two more?” Callen asked. “Then, nothing for nine more months?”

“He was probably eating them. Maybe he didn't have room for them in storage and didn't want to waste the flesh,” Elizabeth said.
This fit the doctor’s hunting scenario. “Think about it, Cal. When you’ve hunted in the past, you killed, gutted, and then stored the meat, right?”

“Yeah.”

“When would you hunt again?” she asked.

“I would go out when my freezer was empty. I didn't hunt until I needed to,” he offered.

Ethan pointed something out. “You do realize that I’ve hunted too, and Callen isn’t the only one that knows his way around a deer, and how to butcher it.”

Whitefox had to agree. “Ethan is right. Whenever it’s Italian leather season, he bags a great pair of boots
without breaking a sweat.”

The man laughed and punched his brother in the arm.

Doctor Gaines was pleased to hear Ethan Blackhawk finally laugh. For a while, she didn't think that he was going to return to his old self.

“Nice one, Cal,” Elizabeth said, offering him a fist bump.

Callen continued, “We both know who’s going to be teaching our sons to hunt.”

Ethan didn't give him a chance. “Yeah, Wyler.”

There was an unladylike snort from Elizabeth.

“
Anyway,” Ethan said. “I can’t imagine giving up sex for eating flesh. I would become a vegetarian before thinking that a burger was sexier than my woman.”

“Your wife appreciates that,” Elizabeth said, shaking her head.

“I told you my fantasy about Elizabeth and bacon wasn’t weird,” Callen teased.

It got him slapped.

“Not in front of the shrink. Who knows what Ethan has told her about us!” she reprimanded, teasingly.

“I drew pictures, so I wouldn’t break any husband rules,” Blackhawk added.

The doctor laughed. “You three have an incredibly healthy relationship. I can tell just by listening to you. It’s like you’re a well-oiled machine.”

Blackhawk stared at his family and was incredibly appreciative that this part of his life was back. He didn't know what he was missing until just then.

“Yeah, we’re a team.”

Elizabeth dropped a kiss to the top of both of their heads. “Yeah, well the team needs to focus. What can you tell us that you haven’t already, Doctor Gaines?”

“At this point in the game,” she began, “he isn’t going to be able to stop. He’s going to be wrapped up in it and need it more and more.”

“Great,” Elizabeth said. “We’ve just found the pubic bone of a woman without her head. He kept that for a reason. We didn't find anything else.”

“He may keep the heads because he is relating to their humanity, or because he doesn’t want you to find out who they are. It could lead them to him.”

Blackhawk leaned back in his chair. “He’s going to justify it with any means necessary. He’ll
do anything to feed that hunger, and that means the likelihood of this escalating into something bigger is a possibility.”

“You’re correct, Director,” Doctor Gaines said.

“I appreciate you helping us with this,” Ethan said.

“
I’m glad to assist anytime. I look forward to having you all in session so we can talk. When you come back, set up an appointment.”

“I get dibs on the couch,” Elizabeth said, grinning.

The woman on the phone started laughing. “I’ve been warned about you, Director Blackhawk. This should be entertaining.”

“Hey! Who warned you?” she asked. There was no reply, only the click of the line going dead. “What did you tell her about me?” she asked, staring at her husband.
“I thought you were only kidding about drawing pictures.”

“Just that I was madly in love with you, you were scary when you were mad
, and our sex life was very fulfilling.”

“True, true, and true,” stated Callen. “Especially the scary part.”

She whipped a marker at him.

“Speaking of scary,” Ethan stated, drawing their focus back to the board. “We have a
bona fide psychopath. It’s rare to have a genuine one in your midst. Most people have tendencies towards it, but to really truly be one, is something totally different.”

“
Great. We attract all the sickos,” she said, pausing. “Well, I do, anyway.”

Callen whipped the marker right back at her, pegging her in the ass.

“What worries me,” began Blackhawk, trying to regain control as he continued, “is that this person is going to have no empathy. He’s not going to care that he’s killing loved ones. All that is going to matter is getting that fix and his next meal.”

“Is that going to make it harder to catch him?” she asked.

“No, it’s going to make it more dangerous. He’s not going to care if you try. The only thing that would get him to focus on the FBI is if we tried to take his food away.”

The minute he said it, he regretted it. In the past, his wife had put a bull’s-eye on herself to catch killer
s. This time, Blackhawk didn't think he could handle it. His heart was still a little fragile from what happened to him.

Callen went there immediately
, sparing Ethan from having to draw the line in the sand. “Under
NO
circumstance are you to bait this nutjob. Am I clear? Where Ethan may not say it, I will. You are not going to be on his dinner plate, and just saying that makes me want to break down and weep in a corner.”

She looked at both of them. “Hey, I’m done playing
kiss me, fuck me, with the crazies. The last time one was after me, he went after one of you. While I’m willing to gamble my own life, I’m not willing to throw either of you to the wolves.”

That helped Ethan relax a little bit.
At least she finally got it. Her wearing a target was a terrifying thing.

“I need more on him, so we can collectively stop him.”

Blackhawk pondered it. “I’d say he’s going to be between thirty and forty. I base that on his strength of carrying a bunch of skeletons and abducting Doctor Trudeaux from his front yard without drag marks.”

“Okay, so we can narrow down our suspect pool.”

Callen laughed. “Do you have a secret one that we don’t know about?”

“I’m going with the obvious here. I don’t think
that it’s Chief Runningwolf. We walked out to the lake, and he was out of breath. He’s in his sixties, and not exactly in great shape. I doubt that he does much hunting or dragging his kill home.”

The
y all thought about Wyler and how physically fit he was at his age. No, the chief was a far cry from that.

She tapped the board
above Jason Walter’s name and pointed out the obvious. “The man likes sex. Maybe he’s getting off on eating people and jumping Barbara Harris.”

Blackhawk shrugged. “He could be.”

Elizabeth continued, “How discerning could he be? He was willingly shagging a lady with an STD. That just screams crazy to me.”

The men had to agree.

“Maxwell Steppapaw had an issue with Duke Williams. Maybe he got mad and decided to have himself a snack.”

Callen thought about it. “Can we connect him to Jefferson Harris?”

“No idea, but that’s where we’re going to have to head next. At some point, my research monkeys are going to have to do some work.”

“Cyra is going to be thrilled. She hate
s when you chain her to a desk,” Ethan said, grinning.

Callen added,
“Yeah, and she’s with a probee, no less.”

Elizabeth started laughing. “She’s leaving us, so this is my way of sending her on her merry way.”

“Be nice to her. She’s training Kanje and Sungila,” Ethan warned. “She’s going to be able to make or break the warranty on our carpets.”

She snorted. “Yeah, yeah. Tell me
how much time I have until this wackadoo escalates.”

“That depends,” he said. “If he’s addicted to the kill, then
it’s going to be soon. If he’s addicted to just filling up his freezer, then we have some time.”

“Okay, so let’s hope that he’s just some sicko that likes eating people, until I can get a line on who he is.”

“The man is probably going to be a private person, live alone, and likely be single. If he’s having sex, it will be nondescript, just to get off. Since he only has room for one relationship in his life, and that’s the one between him and his flesh. He’s going to be egocentric, selfish, and focused on only his needs. The person doing this knows how wrong it is, but the pleasure outweighs the punishment in his mind.”

She wrote it on her board.

“This has been going on for a full year. Something kicked it off, so we need to find the catalyst.”

She put that on her list of priorities.

“If we can track it backwards, we might get lucky,” Blackhawk added.

She capped the marker and moved towards
Ethan’s lap. Sitting in it, she stared at all the information, as her mind began working through it, a little at a time. As she sat there, Elizabeth realized that they had a loose end that needed tying up. Even though she would rather sit in Ethan’s lap all night long, they had a job to do.

“I need to take a walk.”

Both men looked at their watches.

“
Baby, it’s dark,” Ethan said. “Can’t we run in the morning?”