Redemption is Here (An FBI/Romance Thriller Book 9) (57 page)

“Did you love her at all?”

“Yes, but not in the
‘spend the rest of your life’
together, kind of way. I was in love with the idea of her. I wanted someone who would be mine.”

“How did you know it wasn’t real?” Tony asked.

“When we fought, she’d get violent. Things would be said, guilt was thrown out, and tears would be used. That’s not a relationship. When you love someone, yes, you fight, but you don’t fight dirty. Desdemona would throw things, call me names, and all I wanted was to be loved. I wasn’t sin free,” he stated. “I couldn’t give her my heart, because I knew who I wanted. I’m just lucky my brother was willing to share.”

Tony tried to picture it. “I know it’s likely a Native thing, but how do you do it?”

Callen took a bite of pizza, pleased that Tony was doing the same. “We both love her and each other. When you care about someone with your whole heart, you’d die for them. Along with our children and my father, I’d lay down my life right now for either Ethan or Lyzee. That’s how you know it’s true love.”

Tony thought about
earlier that day, when he thought she was dead. He would have traded places with Jaxon in a heartbeat. “I love her.”

“Then if she runs, you find and chase her. If you let her go, and she was the one, no other woman will ever fill that void. Trust me. I saw Elizabeth, and before I knew she was my brother’s wife, I was ready to propose.
All it took was one minute and I knew.”

He felt better.

“Ask yourself, what would you give up for love? I’d walk away from my job for Elizabeth and Ethan. Now, you have to answer that question.”

Tony thought about
it, and already knew what he’d do.

Anything he had to…

                                *     *     *

After setting up the whiteboard in the small living
room, Elizabeth and Ethan decided to get down to work. She was itching to fill the board with all the information bouncing around in her brain.

She was beginning to believe that rolling around with Ethan was cathartic and helped her think. Laughing, she stared up at him when he lifted an eyebrow.

“I was thinking about sex,” she stated, like he didn't already know that.

“Yeah, I’m not shocked. I’ll let you crawl all over me once you get this all out
, and we discuss a profile.”

“You go first, love bu
g. Lay that profile on me.”

Ethan got that nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was normal since the abduction. There was a part of him that feared failing her.

“I’m going with a male who is going to be in his late thirties to late forties. For a crime this elaborate, there’s a more mature mastermind behind it. It takes planning and work to find that hiding spot, trying to mummify his prey, and then burying them. This isn't some spontaneous kid on a thrill kill.”

Elizabeth scribbled
the information on the board.

“He’s going to be a resident of this town
, because he knows it too well. He’s moving around easily, all the while staying hidden. After going after Jaxon, he escaped unseen in front of a grounds crew, and that tells me he’s average. He’s not going to be handsome or anyone who stands out. If anything, he may be plain.”

She continued to write it down.

“At some point in his life, he lost someone important. He’s so focused on death, that it likely means that a controlling force was taken away from him. If I were to guess, with what we know now, I’d say a mother figure. The male child tends to gravitate toward the opposite sex parent. There is a bond between mothers and sons, and daughters and fathers.”

She wrote it down.

“From his obsession with death, he’s either trying to prove something, or he’s trying to appease this person.”

Stopping, she looked over at him. “Like, ‘
Hey mom! Look at me from the great beyond. I’m going to make you proud
’?”

“
Precisely. He may be trying to prove that he didn't fail like predicted. If that is the case, it’s likely he’s living in someone’s shadow. So, our killer may have a brother or sister who outshined him. Now, he’s proving a point by being God’s right hand.”

“Great.
We have a wackadoo playing make believe in a quest to vanquish sin, all in the name of religion. I’ll sleep so much better now.”

He paused
before continuing, “You believe in God. I heard you in Salem praying for us to have a girl.” Why he blurted it out, he didn't know.

Elizabeth stared at him. “I do believe in God. What I don’t believe in is how he lets good get swallowed up by evil. When that happens, we write it off as his will and none of our business. Yes, there’s a higher power. No, I don’t worship him anymore. After doing this job for as long as we have, how can
I? Dead mothers, babies, children, soulless killers, and there’s me trying to hold it all together.”

“Then why the prayer?
”

“
I did it because I love you, and if it meant covering all my bases, I’d do it. I really thought I was going to lose you. I would have offered up anything to keep you from walking away. If praying to God was what it took, so be it. I’d swallow my feelings for you.”

He was touched.

“Next?” she asked, changing the subject.

“He’s going to be arrogant at some point. After all, he’s God’s angel.”

She snorted. “Yeah, he’s no angel. He’s more like God’s bitch. He’s convoluted in thinking that the Almighty would give him the time of day. He’ll smite him right off this big blue marble.”

Ethan smiled. “Likely.”

“What’s he going to be like now that we jacked with him? How pissed is he really going to be?”

Thinking about it, he tucked a pen behind his ear. “Well, we’ll know at the next victim. We stripped him of his ‘temple’, his tools, and his methods. He’s either going to regroup and find more things to use, or go one hundred percent the other way.”

“As in?”

“Crackers.”

Awesome.

Now, she was sorry she asked.
Sometimes it was best not to know.

“He’ll likely keep the victims as planned, since he’s spent time watching and preying on them, but now he’s going to be out for a vengeance, against us and them. He’ll sanction it as something God deemed.”

“Yep, crackers was a good word.”

“It’s more like a break from sanity. He lives in death, because he’s familiar
with it. A part of him is dead, and he’s trying to numb that.”

“Okay, how about we go down the suspect list.”

He was ready.

“Let’s start at the church, since this all seems to move around that one entity. We have Father Dowell. By all accounts, he’s laid back and
not easily riled up. Is it an act? Who better to enact God’s judgment but a priest?”

“You have a good point. Plus, he’s been there over a decade. He’s going to know his way around that church. How could he not?”

“Then, there’s Sister Francine. Just from one interview, she comes across holier than thou.”

Ethan thought about it.
Other than his belief that it was a male doing the killing, he had other reasons to exclude her. “I lean toward no with the sister. She’s not going to be strong enough to strangle a person, plus, she’s pretty plump. She might not fit down that passageway. You’re half her size and barely managed.”

“
You’re being very kind. That would be like stuffing an entire loaf of bread in the toaster at one time.”

He stared at her. “You are so going to hell.
I know I tell you that a lot, but this may have been the deciding comment.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Yeah, preaching to the choir.”

Rolling his eyes, he continued, “How do you feel about Dustin Sims?”

She thought about it. “I think
it’s weird that an eighteen year old is playing altar attendant. I knew kids who were ten and didn't want any part of it.”

“Maybe he just loves God.”

She wrote his name on the board. “Well, that gets him a one way ticket to the whiteboard. Despite your age thing, he’s on my list, plus he’s my size and could fit. Could you be off on that little detail?”

“Yes, because it’s just a generalization. He might be mature for his age. There have been killers who started young and did it their entire lives before being caught.”

Elizabeth stared at the board. “Who else?”

“Elsa Baily,” Ethan offered.

“Pass. She’s a nosey woman, but I doubt she could choke out a person. Elsa is half my size and wouldn’t be able to reach the back of anyone’s head with a hammer, unless she brought a step stool. Plus, she’s female.”

“Good point.”

“Yeah, thanks. I’m observant like that,” she teased. “How about Miles Copeland?”

Ethan weighed it in his mind. “He was right outside the crypt when Jaxon was grabbed, and he works maintenance on the church. He could know about the passageway. He would blend in too
because everyone would be accustomed to him wandering around. Who’d question him milling around a crypt or coming out of the coal bin?”

“He’s bigger than me
, but he could get through if he had to. His shoulders are nowhere near as wide and delicious as yours,” she offered, getting him to wiggle his eyebrows lecherously in response.

“Maybe you can use them to rest your legs on
later,” he teased back.

The heat flushed through her.

Yeah, if she was lucky she would.

“
That’s all for the church,” she got out, hoping she wasn’t bright red. “Is it hot in here?”

Blackhawk began laughing. “Yeah, I think it is.”

“Since I have Native on the brain, let’s go with Brian Brewster. He was jumping in the sack with an STD ridden victim. Maybe he found out and lost it.”

“I don’t know,” Ethan began
, weighing the suspect in his mind. “If he was angry, she would have been hacked apart. While removing her genitalia was nasty, it wasn’t done in rage. Then, you can toss in that he was using her services, so that would mean he was pretty much sinning too.”

“Is our guy going to be impotent?”

He had to think about it. “He’s either going to be unable to perform in bed, or need to be a sexual deviant to get off. That may be another reason why he’s doing this.”

She stared at him
, not understanding.

Ethan clued her in.
“You’re a good Catholic girl. Think of the abstinence as penance.”

“I’m shacked up with two sexy men who like lots of rolling around. That’s my penance. I’ve been a naughty girl.”

He laughed. “Keep it up, and you’ll be punished again, Elizabeth.”

She wasn’t going there. If she did, she’d be naked and in his lap. This needed to come first. “What about Anna Tunica?”

Oh, Ethan would rank her right up there on the list, despite her gender. “I think she’s strong enough and angry enough, but my real issue is that she’s Native. If she’s never been to the church, she wouldn’t know that much about the cemetery.”

“It’s right by the Rez. Maybe she played in it as a kid. I know when I was younger, Jacob and I used to meet
in the one outside town to make out under this one tree. You could get hot and heavy, and who was going to catch you?”

“One, I don’t like picturing my wife naked with anyone but myself and Callen, and two, you’re a freak.”

She snorted. “Point taken, love bug.”

“You can put her on the list, Lyzee, but I think one thing is going to eliminate her, other than the religion thing.”

“What?”

“While we think the killer will go over the edge now, he was careful and calculated before. Anna Tunica has no control or filter, as you saw.
She’s a loose cannon waiting to go off all the time.”

She had to agree. “Okay, how about Wade Dixon?”

Ethan weighed everything he knew about the man before speaking. “I need another interview with him. I want to watch him in action before I make up my mind, but I’m leaning toward suspect.”

Elizabeth wrote him on the board. “Talk me through it, Ethan.”

“Well, his family was killed. Is this revenge, or some sick way to pay penance? Again, that could be the theme here. He was dicking around on his family, and in exchange God took the ones he loved away.”

“Or Emelia Southland could have dumped his ass, and she was all he had left. I know if I gave you everything and you dumped me, I’d be pissed too.”

“Enough to cut out my heart?”

“Nah, I’d go for the junk,” she said, pointing down.

He cringed a little bit since he’d seen a victim that week turned into a eunuch. “You’re a vicious woman, Lyzee, my love.”

She winked at him.
“Honestly, I feel the same as you do about Wade Dixon.”