Chapter Seven #3
“I don’t want child support. Nothing. I want her to sign over all of her rights. She will NEVER make them feel abandoned. I’ll be both their mother and father. I don’t need a woman to raise my children.”
Yowza.
Never let it be said that a LaRue wasn’t spicy when pissed off.
They.
Absolutely.
Were.
This was the proof.
“I’m going to have to tell your brothers-in-law. I can’t keep this cat in the bag. Is that okay?”
He didn’t mind.
He loved them too.
“They’re my family. I’m going to need to lean into them since I’m going to be doing this fatherhood thing all alone. Tell them. Maybe they can write me a manual.”
She reassured him.
“You don’t need a manual. You knew to protect them, and that’s the whole battle. Keep them clean, get them an education, don’t let them get arrested—in fact, don’t talk to the men. They’re doing a bad job with our boys.”
He laughed softly.
“We both know that’s not true.”
It wasn’t, but it was calming Duke down. No one wanted to see a cranky lumberjack.
“I got you, Boo. I promise. Cross my heart, and hope not to die because Ivan is going to kill me if I do one more questionable thing.”
He relaxed a bit.
Duke knew he could always count on his sister.
“Check out for the day. Go be with the girls, and I’ll have Ivan lock down the house—just in case.”
He was so appreciative.
“I love you, Lyzee.”
She knew.
“Back at you, my brother from the same father and another mother.”
When he hung up, she added one more thing to her list of shit to do. Tonight, she had to check in with the Conference Center for the wedding, get her baby brother an attorney, and not get anyone killed by a corpse-humping nutbag.
How difficult could that be?
It looked as if she was about to find out.
Rattling off a text to Chris, she took care of the easiest of the problems on her plate.
‘Heads-up. I need the name of the best divorce attorney in the country. Can you make that happen?’
It didn’t take long for a reply.
‘What did Callen buy now? Don’t you think divorce is a big step? Can’t you just make him sleep on the couch for a week like a normal money-phobe?’
She laughed.
Then, she explained to her husband.
‘Long story short. My men are safe. Duke just dropped that his wife doesn’t want to do the wife and mother thing anymore.
I need an attorney for him. Not me. I’m happy in the chaos.
Can you forward him the name of someone who will get him full custody, and make sure Axelle’s parental rights are terminated? ’
True to Chris’ nature, he didn’t argue, and that was one of the reasons she loved him so much.
‘Consider it done. I have one on retainer—and don’t make assumptions, or you’re going over my knee.’
She snorted.
Well, that was handled.
‘Thank you, my love. I’ll talk to you later. Behave. I owe you two bouts of shower debauchery.’
With that, she tucked her phone away.
Heading toward the vehicle, she hopped in and parked her ass by Gene.
“Toady, I need you to contact home. Put the house on lockdown.”
That was all she had to say.
Everyone turned.
“What happened?” Ivan asked. He’d not gotten a call about something going down, so he wasn’t sure why she was asking for a lockdown.
She told them.
“Axelle told my brother that she’s not happy about being a mom, and that he forced her into it. He’s filing for divorce to protect the girls. The lockdown is just precautionary. Put someone on him and the girls.”
Ivan stared at her.
“So hire another Marine?”
She nodded.
From where he sat, Ethan was appalled.
“What the fuck is Axelle thinking?” Ethan asked.
Oh, she wished she knew.
“She told him that she had a job offer from the CIA, and she was thinking of taking it.”
Gene was curious.
“What are you going to do?”
She was honest.
“I’m going to dance around that Native sand mound, hoping she takes it, and moves away.
Duke is ready to break. Salem’s death and now this?
He’s a man on the edge. The security on him is more precautionary to make sure he doesn’t start binge drinking again, and less about Axelle.
She doesn’t want her kids. She’s not coming for them. ”
Now, they all got it.
She was worried about Duke.
And how he might crash and burn.
* * * The Blackhawk Family * * *
Not Far Away
Holladay, UT
First Stop
Elizabeth wanted to knock this out, since it was just to see what the owner knew about the building, and the killings. She was betting very little, but since they had today to handle interviews, she might as well be thorough.
This killer was going to be an interesting chase, or so she suspected.
“This shouldn’t take too long,” she admitted. “I’ll take Gene in with me, but I’ll keep MATE on so you can get updated as I’m going.”
Speaking of MATE, she’d been MIA.
And that was weird.
In fact, Elizabeth was shocked that she didn’t come out earlier when Benjamin asked to have ‘custody’ of her. Normally, she heard her name and showed up to the party.
Her mother senses kicked on, and she suspected something was up. She’d been to the teenager rodeo a few too many times not to investigate.
“MATE.”
It took her a second.
Then, she appeared in the vehicle, and was quiet. There were no funny comments, or jovial banter.
Yep.
Something was going on.
“What have you been up to?” Elizabeth asked, suspiciously.
The AI cracked like a nut being hit by a hammer on the first swing. She didn’t even try to make shit up—unlike two teenage boys.
“I can’t lie! I was hanging out with the techs! They’re fun, and…”
Elizabeth stared at her.
“I know you told me that I shouldn’t fraternize with the techs, but I have been. I’ve been seeing them behind your back. You can ground me.”
She actually laughed.
Why?
It was absolutely absurd. MATE wasn’t a real person, and she wasn’t grounding a computer. That then made her the insane one.
“MATE.”
Her AI tried to calm her down.
“Don’t be angry.”
She snorted.
Of all the problems she had, a petulant teenage AI was the LEAST of her issues today.
She had a wedding in days—that she was planning, her brother was going to get divorced, and she had to run two divisions in different offices.
Oh, and her partner in running the FBI was bailing.
Yeah, her plate was full.
Her AI cheating on her with other people, specifically people they worked with doing forensics…
There were worst things.
“Uh, MATE, Chris has access to you. So the techs have access to you if they need help.”
She was sitting there, saying nothing, and that spoke volumes.
“You weren’t helping them, were you? Not with work.”
Gene found that amusing.
“Of course, our head tech has an AI fetish. If he says she’s his girlfriend, I’m not giving her the sex talk,” he joked.
That amused Ethan.
“Not it!”
Callen stared.
“I don’t think I should have to give AI a sex talk. MATE has a mother and father. That’s your burden on this very odd conversation.”
MATE was still saying nothing.
“You know you can’t be his girlfriend, right?” she asked, making sure they were on the same page.
She chortled.
“I know. I’m studying him. He’s fascinating with his belief that he’s immortal.”
Elizabeth stared.
What?
Oh, she hoped to God that her gothy head tech didn’t believe he was a vampire.
She’d have a stroke.
“Kidding. He is teaching me how to play Dungeons and Dragons. I could learn online, but it lacks human nuance. Father told me to study humans, and I’m done studying you guys. Kinky, Perverted, Depraved, and Wicked,” she said, pointing at the four of them.
Ivan just laughed from the front seat.
“Amen, MATE. AMEN.”
Elizabeth punched him hard in the arm.
“You only wished you had a cool nickname,” she teased.
Uriel just shook his head.
“This family needs therapy,” he stated. “Or meditation. Or something.”
Yeah, well, no one was questioning that.
They happened to agree.
“Go make sure that Chris has this under control. He wants to hire Alexi Redmond as a backup ME. Run him, and I want you to get into CIA files, J. Edgar Hoover’s files, and make sure he’s on the up and up. If he’s working with my husband all day, I want to know how powerful his stream is.”
MATE saluted.
And giggled.
“I can ask him.”
Elizabeth knew she understood sarcasm.
“If you do, make sure Chris is there. I like to be funny too. Only, don’t mention the hiring thing, MATE, or running him. That’s classified.”
She winked, and then disappeared.
“Okay, well, that’s handled,” she said. “I told Chris we needed to run him. I’m not getting burned. We had that case in NOLA where it was the ME eating people’s livers and drinking blood, and that’s where Chris picked up HIV. I’m not playing reindeer games in Utah.”
No one argued there.
She was to the point.
“Ivan, can you please make sure that Saint is all over Chris inside the morgue?”
He nodded, and radioed to the other man.
That freed Elizabeth up to focus on work, and not having to worry about the morgue staff.
“Ethan, I need a profile, since you’re going to be heading home soon. You can work on that, and Callen’s researching the name we have for the groundskeeper. See what skeletons are in Jeffrey Von Gunter’s closet. I’m taking Gene in, since he’s my partner in crime.”
Callen pouted.
“You’re my partner in depravity, like MATE said. Gene needs to remember that.”
The man just shook his head.
“How can I forget it? I’ve seen it in action, Callen. You’re a pervert.”
That made Callen all giggly.
He tried.
Oh, and he smiled like he won an award, as his brother just shook his head.
Someone was a nut, too.
“Ready?” she said to Gene, as she got out, and Ivan followed. Uriel stayed in the car, as Raphael was behind them in a backup vehicle.
They headed toward the building, and once inside, it was nice.
Like Jackson James nice.
Someone had some cash.
Elizabeth would bet on it.
There were shiny marble floors, and a pretty woman behind the desk. It screamed money, and when she looked at Gene, he knew what she wanted.
Research.
The man who owned this company wasn’t just rich. He was RICH-RICH.