Chapter Three #3
Now, she was curious, and a little turned on. The man could rock out some threads.
That was for sure.
“Uh, a suit, EJ?” she asked. “It’s our day off,” she said, motioning to her jeans and boots.
Oh, he was aware.
Only, he didn’t want to have to change again.
“I was in the smoke, and Granddad said you’re about to catch a case. I’m being proactive. I just dropped Callen at his office, and Gene is in at his desk. We’re assuming the old man is right again.”
She lifted a brow.
Only, Ivan went there first.
“So you’re taking the word of a man who has been dead almost fifteen years?” he asked. “While high as a freaking kite on Peyote?”
Ethan nodded.
“Yep. I’ve found, Ivan, in cases like this, it’s best not to question the woo-woo. The ‘old man’ in question gets spicy.”
That’s when they all heard windchimes.
In a room without any.
Ivan looked around, as did Saint, Raphael, and Uriel. That made them all twitchy. You could tell because every Marine’s hand went to their sidearm.
Elizabeth just laughed.
“Demeter said you took a little stroll.”
He shrugged.
“In the walk, I was wandering around with my mother. So, that’s likely why. Timothy was known to do that when he had a little too much herb in the pot. I may, or may not, have packed that pot full. I assumed it would be difficult to get Wyler where he needed to go.”
She stared into his eyes.
Oh, and she could tell that was a very true statement.
“You’d better wear sunglasses. Your pupils are dilated. Someone definitely shouldn’t be driving or pulling a gun.”
He wrapped his arm around her waist, and kissed her on the cheek.
“Raphael wouldn’t let me. He said something about you kicking his ass, and that sounds like you don’t trust my peyote’d driving skills. Which pedal makes the vroom-vroom go?” he asked, laughing.
She snorted.
“And we wonder where the boys get that wild streak. I think we’ve found the source.”
He slapped her on the ass.
“I have no idea, Deputy Director,” he said, winking at her. “As for the gun part, I’m not carrying, so we’re good,” he added.
He knew that in order to keep his badge, he couldn’t carry a gun if he’d used peyote. It was one of the accommodations the FBI demanded with his religious status.
And he respected that.
As the profiler, and shrinky-dink, it was rare he needed a gun. The Marines were carrying in spades.
“Raph has it.”
Well, that was good.
When they heard heels on the floor, they knew who was coming. It was Vivian, and she was heading their way.
When she got into the room, she saw that Elizabeth was there, and she clued her in.
“Elizabeth, there’s a call from Axelle on line two for you. She said you pulled a case.”
And there it was.
Well, never say that Timothy wasn’t all the way up in her business.
Because he was.
It was funny how that haunting didn’t bother her, but waltzing ghosts did.
Crazy.
Ivan just sighed.
“We stand corrected again,” he stated. “Woo-woo, one, Marines…zero.”
It appeared so.
Vivian was to the point.
“She said she needs to speak to you regarding the case. Where do you want to take it?” she asked. “Oh, and heads-up, she sounded very perturbed.”
That was a nice word for bitchy, and Elizabeth knew it, too.
Since it was Axelle, she knew she needed to talk to her about the situation going on with her people.
This was going to be an ugly conversation, so she’d do it in her office. That way, when it got wordy and mean, she had privacy.
“My office,” she said. “Thank you, Vivian. I’ll get on it as soon as I get back there. Tell her I’m doing my rounds, and it won’t be more than a couple minutes.”
Maybe that would help her chill the fuck out.
The woman nodded, and headed out.
“Can someone alert Chris? I don’t know where we’re going, but he’ll need to get Benjamin and his team ready to go. A case means bodies for us.”
Ivan nodded.
“Saint will get it handled.”
She appreciated that.
Well, so much for time off for good, or bad, behavior. She was back on duty, and this case had to be handled by the weekend. They had Ethan’s wedding to Gene on the schedule.
Time was of the essence for her.
Heading out, her husband was beside her. He kept his voice low.
“This weekend…”
She stopped him.
“I’ll have it handled, or I’ll pass the case off. I know how important this weekend is. Don’t worry, Ethan. We’re going to be there. I promised to help you pull this off, and I will.”
He slipped her hand into his, and squeezed it.
That wasn’t what he was going to ask, but he appreciated her already being on top of it.
“I love you. Never forget that. You’ve been my biggest supporter, and I owe you the world.”
She squeezed back.
“No one owes anyone in this relationship. We don’t keep score. We love because we are the core, and if me helping you is what you need to heal, I’ll do it.”
He was honest.
Now, he needed to vent, and while he’d talked it out with the dead, it was the living who really mattered.
“I was a dick to Wyler. He left angry.”
She said nothing.
Why?
Oh, she wasn’t falling into that trap. Instead, she just let Ethan vent and get it off his chest. She wasn’t quite sure where it would be going, but she was grateful that Ivan had given her a heads-up on it.
Why start a fight when there was no need? Personally, she wished Ethan would cut the man a break. He was fighting for his life.
“I was wrong, and later, I’ll apologize. I want to do the walk with him, and I didn’t get away unscathed. I got my lecture from Timothy.”
She figured he would interject.
Timothy was like a yenta.
Up in people’s business.
Even dead, the man had little ability to stay out of shit. He was always ringing windchimes and playing granddad on the other side—just like he had in the breakroom.
“He’s trying,” she said, as they got to her office. “Wyler is a lot of things, EJ, but he’s genuinely trying to make amends for what time we have left with him.”
Yeah, he saw that now.
This could only go two ways. They rebuilt the bridge, or at some point, there would be regrets.
He didn’t want to carry the latter.
So, Ethan was honest.
“My mother said I’m getting another child. I’m going to assume it’s with you since you collect them.”
She snorted.
“Be glad I’m a human hoarder. If I wasn’t, it would be lonely in our bed, and we have fun but not nearly as much fun as we have.”
He laughed.
That they did.
“She told me I’d name him after her. Kennedy James. So, if you find a male child, that’s the name. I’m not pissing my mom off by not listening.”
She understood that.
Honestly, Kennedy was a cute kid name.
“And what did she say about Wyler?” she asked, curiously. Since he opened the door, she was going through it.
He was honest.
“To give him a break, and that she hurt him just as much as he hurt her. So, I’m going to listen to her. She never lied to me as a child, and I trust her judgment.”
She was glad.
Ethan needed someone to help him work through this. She was a bad choice because she had allegiance to both sides. Wyler had only ever loved her, so she didn’t know how to be anti-Wyler.
“I know you’ll make the right choice,” she admitted. “I know the man you are inside.”
Yeah, so did he.
And he questioned himself a lot.
When her phone beeped on her desk, reminding her she had a call, Elizabeth had to focus.
“Buckle up because this call is about to be wild. Hold your thoughts because I have a mess to handle. We can continue talking about Wyler in a bit if you’d like.”
He was honest.
“I think I’m good. Handle your call,” he said as he sat, and listened.
Elizabeth answered the call, and put it on speaker.
“Hey, Ax. What’s happening?” she asked.
The woman was curious.
“Are you in the office? I called your phone, and you didn’t answer.”
She was honest.
“I was doing my walkthrough of the department, and I left my phone on the desk in here. But yeah, I’m in my office now. What’s going on?” she asked.
The woman was to the point.
“A homicide captain a town one over from you in Holladay called the FBI dispatch like asking for help. Apparently, they have a mess there.”
Elizabeth was making notes.
“What kind of a mess?” she asked.
Axelle went there.
“They had a vagrant who was killed, and he was left in a rundown building. When they wandered the place, they found a room filled with something right up your alley.”
She was curious.
That was a wide alley.
She liked the wild cases, so she was definitely curious.
Like.
A.
Cat.
“What did they find?”
She told them.
“They found skulls with eyeballs in them. They were skinless skulls, and they had mismatched eyeballs. Some were the same color, some were different, and all were staring at them.”
Oh, boy.
Now, that was a case.
“Okay, how many are we talking?” she asked, so she knew how bad this was going to be.
She was to the point.
“MANY. We don’t have an accurate count, but at least fifteen to twenty sets of eyes. There were jars of eyes, so that’s why I don’t have a definitive for you. You know how the crazies like to collect them.”
She was to the point.
“Do they know not to touch the scene? Because if they do, there will be another scene of the crime with their bodies. Chris will shit his scrubs.”
She was direct.
“The room is locked. They had to look through a window. It’s being preserved, and they won’t touch it until your techs arrive. Do you have a team that can handle this?”
Oh, she was the team.
If Axelle thought she’d turn down jars of eyeballs and a few random skulls, she was crazy. Toss in a killer who was cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs…she was in.
“I’m the team. I’m free. I’ll take Corbin and Alex as backup. They just came off a case. I can send them on their way if something else pops up.”
Axelle figured.
“Thank you. Your contacts are Detectives Quinley and Yardley. They will be at the scene. It’s a forty-minute drive from FBI West.”
Elizabeth looked at her watch.
“I’ll be there by eleven. I’m going to mobilize a team, and then, we’ll head out. Only, before I do that, do you have a minute?”