Slay Bells Ring (An FBI Romance Thriller Book 12) (18 page)

Elizabeth laughed. “They’ll find something. I don’t trust anyone but my team. If Chris thinks he can pull a miracle from this, then he and Tony will.”

“Yeah, I noticed you’re still working with them,” he said, pointing at the two doctors, but specifically Chris.

“Best friends stick,” Doctor Leonard said.

Yeah, there was bad blood there. They could all see it.

Dakota let it go. After all, they were being let in. That was a big enough win for the day.

“What do you have so far?”

“We have four dead, two heads, and not a single ID to be found. We’re running on nothing, and my agents are digging through the missing person reports as we speak.”

Callen touched her arm. “Maybe the sheriff could ID them. He’s probably met just about everyone here. We should invite him in for a little head reveal. Bodies look different when they’re cleaned up. Hell! Heads might too.”

“Great idea, Callen,” she stated.

“You two need to watch your backs. If they’re gunning for you, they won’t stop at anything until they get you. You’re marked.”

She wasn’t worried.

They weren’t getting either of them.

“Oh, Dak, if you only knew how many people have tried to kill me in the last five years alone, you wouldn’t be sporting that concerned look.”

Chris and Tony laughed.

“Our cat has forty lives,” Chris added. “Plus, each attempt makes her meaner than a rattlesnake. They don’t know what they got themselves into by threatening her men or babies.”

“Truth,” she said, grinning at her doctors. No, she wasn’t going down, and Callen wasn’t either. Bonnie and Clyde may be tricky, but she’d been down this road before. If anything, Elizabeth was ready.

When they screwed up, she’d be there waiting with a bullet in the chamber and a grin on her face.

Payback was a bitch.

“Callen, can you call the sheriff and invite him over for tea and crumpets? We’re going to find out who they are, so we can get a move on it.”

He picked up his phone. “On it, Lyzee.”

“Awww, cute. He has a nickname for you like mine.”

Callen glared at him. What he wanted to do was revoke the man’s right to use his version of the nickname. Better yet, he could yank the man’s tongue out of his mouth, wrap it around his hollow skull, and boot his head across the room.

Yeah, that would be awesome.

He actually grinned.

She saw the look on his face.

“Callen James, don’t even go there.”

He made the call.

She might tell him not to do it, but no one could stop him from fantasizing about it.

No one.

                                                          
* * *  B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x   * * *

Johanna and Brody were tracking their one boss, and it was a pretty easy assignment. It wasn’t hard to follow a Denali through the streets, and then a Native man in a snow covered parking lot.

This was likely the easiest job they’d ever get in their lives, and they knew it.

“There he is,” Brody said, making notes for Elizabeth. So far, Ethan Blackhawk had made a pit stop at a liquor store. When he came out, he was carrying a bottle of Jack.

Yeah, someone was going to be tying one on.

The boss lady wasn’t going to be happy about this, at all. When she heard, the shit was going to hit the fan.

“He’s got to be heading back to the reservation,” she offered. “I’m betting he’s going to be drinking because of that Marshal.”

Brody knew how he felt. “When you left, and I thought you’d moved on, I had many dates with Jack too. Oh, and Jim. They tucked me in at night.”

Johanna glanced over from behind the wheel.

“I’m sorry, Brody.” She’d never be able to apologize enough. Yes, she left him, pushed him out of her life, and walked away, but she suffered too. “I hate that I hurt you. If I could take it back, I would.”

He was well aware.

“It’s okay. We’re fixed, and that’s all that matters to me,” he offered.

Taking his free hand in hers, she squeezed it. “If it makes you feel any better, I binged too.”

He glanced over. “On booze?”

“No. I’m a girl. I had a torrid affair with cookies and ice cream. We had to break up so my ass didn't get fat.”

He snorted. “I love your ass. Want to get naked and eat cookies and ice cream?”

She shook her head. “You’re missing the point of this conversation,” Johanna stated.

Brody grinned. “You may think I am, but now I’m thinking about that truly spectacular behind of yours.”

Johanna loved how silly he could be. It always brightened her day.

Then they saw their boss pulling off into a parking lot. Johanna had been wrong. He wasn’t heading back to the reservation to get shit faced drunk.

“Uh oh, he’s heading to a no-tell motel.”

Brody knew this was going to go bad. “If he goes in there and drinks that bottle, he’s not coming out alive. He’ll kill himself.”

They watched and waited to make sure they weren’t going to be scaring Elizabeth without probable cause. When Ethan Blackhawk strolled out of the lobby with a key in his hand, they knew they’d been right.

“He’s going into room nine.”

“Well, then you know what we have to do,” Johanna stated.

“Stop him?”

She shook her head. “You saw him lose it today. Do you really want to go into that room to wrestle that bottle of Jack from his hand?”

“You have a very valid point.”

“Yeah, you better do the deed. This is a job for super wife.”

Brody pulled out his phone and sent the text that was definitely going to piss their boss off.

She was working a case, and this meant stopping what she was doing—again—and making a trip out there.

“I hope she doesn’t make us go in there,” Brody stated.

Yeah, Johanna agreed there.

Ethan Blackhawk was scary enough, but throw in a bottle of Jack, and that wouldn’t end well.

At all…

             
* * *  B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x   * * *

He watched.

He waited.

Then he made his plan.

As the man moved around town before heading back to his place, he knew that it was time.

Glancing over, Bonnie sat beside him, smiling in glee. It was going to be time to take another pair, and when they did, the fun would begin.

They’d make him scream.

“Where’s the woman?” Bonnie asked, batting her eyes at him.

Clyde was working the plan out in his head. He knew that it would all work out.

“She’ll be showing up later. She always does. We’ll wait for her to come home.”

Bonnie didn't say anything more. There was a fine line between questioning him and pushing Clyde past his breaking point. The last thing she needed was to be the focus of his anger, so she shut up.

“Are you curious?” he asked, grinning wickedly.

“I don’t want to make you mad.”

He leaned over and forced her mouth to his in a kiss. It was brutal and full of heat. When he pulled away, she was blinking.

“Good girl. You’re learning.”

She stayed quiet.

“We know that he meets up with her when his wife is away. So, he’s going to head to his mistress’s place. We’ll wait for her to show up there. When she does…we’ll have them both.”

It was risky, and Bonnie knew it.

Again, she wasn’t going to say anything.

Not now.

“Great idea,” she stated.

He smiled. “I know. I’m a genius.”

It took everything Bonnie had to not roll her eyes. “We should text her from his phone so she comes home sooner. Then we can kill them both at the same time. Then your plan will astound them, and it’ll give the FBI a clue. Maybe you can get another couple out of the deal.”

He knew who she was talking about.

Elizabeth Blackhawk.

“Yes, I was thinking that.”

“You’re so smart, Clyde.”

He didn't even notice she was tweaking his original idea. Clyde was so lost in the blood lust that he hadn’t figured out that she was actually running the show.

Instead, he grinned.

“Perfect. Do you want to send the text?” he asked.

“Oh, babe, can I? I’d love to do it.”

“You can, doll. You deserve it.”

They followed the man, letting him lead them to the woman’s place. When he entered, using a key, they knew what they had to do.

They gave him a minute, and then rang the doorbell. Once he opened, a smile on his face, they gave him something to wipe it away.

Clyde punched him in the face, and then Bonnie tasered him.

As the man’s body twitched on the floor, there was laughter.

They now had half of their next pair.

When the woman came home, they’d have her too.

“This place is nice,” she offered.

Clyde looked around.

“I say we use it.”

She grinned.

“Good idea. Let’s.”

                 
* * *  B l a c k h a w k - W h i t e f o x   * * *

That’s The Spot

Motel

Well, holy shit!

She was going to kill him. When she got her hands on his sexy Native hide, he was going to be in for a world of hurting.

When Elizabeth got the text message from their agents, she at first thought they were yanking her chain. They had to be kidding. There was no way Ethan would pull a stunt like this.

When Ethan had insisted on taking the rest of the day off, putting himself in a self-imposed time out, she never saw this debacle coming.

He was the sane one.

Normally, this was something Callen would do—not her incredibly suave husband. In fact, she would have bet money that he was going back to the cabin on the reservation to work. It wasn’t like him to do anything like this.

If someone told her he was going to be copping a squat, as he got shitfaced drunk in a motel, and in some crime ridden neighborhood, there was no way Elizabeth would have believed it.

Not Ethan.

Never him.

Now, she was faced with the cold hard reality that her normally sane man was out of damn control.

When she got to the motel, the name alone told the tale. Once she got to him, she was going to chew chunks out of his sculpted ass.

Oh, she was pissed—not only because he could kill himself with the booze and no one would have known, but because she should be working on the case.

This was jackassery and tomfoolery, and she didn't have the time for it.

Once out of her vehicle, she signaled to her two agents to head back to work. Now that she was going to be dealing with this, someone had to be working on finding Bonnie and Clyde.

It certainly wasn’t going to be her.

Well, not until she wrangled a cowboy and talked some sense into him.

At the door, she banged on it. When she didn't hear anything coming from inside, Elizabeth was pretty sure she was going to have to kick it in.

It pissed her off more.

This was paperwork!

Damn it!

As she continued banging, she could hear footsteps heading her way. They weren’t the casual gait of a controlled man.

NO.

They were stumbling—like a drunk on the strip.

Oh, Christ, she was going to make him bleed.

When the door was wrenched open, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Her husband stood there, but his shirt was unbuttoned, his hair was a mess, and he’d already worked his way through half a bottle of Jack.

Crap!

He was chugging it.

Someone was going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning. Immediately, her attitude changed. This wasn’t going to be about tearing him a new one. She was going to have to save him, and fast.

“Ethan.”

“Shut up, Lyzee. Go away. I’m off duty, and I need to think.”