Chapter Twelve #4
“We’re best friends. We work really well together. That’s all. Is that an issue?” she asked.
Elizabeth shook her head.
“No, you just give off that ‘we’ve been a couple a long time’ vibe. Honestly, I don’t give a shit either way. Hell. Most of my team is paired off with someone they’re dating or married to. I don’t have issues with it, unless personal gets involved in work.”
Tora reassured her.
“I could never be married to him. He’s annoying. When he puts his feet on my coffee table, I want to break them off and toss them out the door. He’s got the manners of a brick.”
Mac snorted.
“Me? I’m the problem? Listen, let me tell you about my partner, and her craziness. She alphabetizes her health and beauty products. I needed a razor, and it was between the Q-tips and Salicylic Acid. It’s weird and annoying. I can learn manners. You’re not unlearning crazy.”
Callen was amused.
“Oh, what’s that like?” he asked.
Elizabeth didn’t even look at him, but she did address his audacity.
“I don’t know, Callen. Maybe it’s going to be like their shared sex lives between you and I. Nonexistent.”
Well, that worked effectively.
He shut up.
FAST.
Everyone else was amused by that.
“I just needed to know. You’re sharing food, and seem comfortable with each other. Curiosity killed the boss,” she stated. “But I have to know. I assign teams. If it works, I don’t like breaking it apart.”
Tora understood.
Honestly, she didn’t mind her asking.
“We are just accustomed to working together. We will be at the FBI, right?”
Elizabeth wanted to sigh. That had been the plan, but shit came up. Look at the predicament she was in now.
“More than likely, unless something comes up. I try to accommodate, but sometimes, there’s issues,” she said, glancing over at Alex, who was eating his food.
Damn.
She hated being the boss for this reason.
Already, she knew it was going to go to shit. She’d known the man over a decade with him working for her.
To refocus them, she went there.
“Oh, but you haven’t proved that you belong on the team, yet,” she admitted. “You still have to do that.”
Tora smiled.
“Well, we’re working on that. We’re still running the list of recent burials, to see if we can find anything, and on top of that, we are digging into who owned the building before it was bought by Devon Slater’s father last year.”
Okay, that worked for her.
That took thinking and initiative. A person needed that on her team.
She was a little impressed that they went there without her telling them to. Clearly, they could work alone.
“Thinking outside the box. Nice. What did you find?” she asked, happy they took the initiative.
Mac shared.
“We got down to the corporation that owned it, but there are so many shell companies, it’s going to take time.”
Elizabeth could give the duty to MATE, but she wanted to see them figure this out.
That would reinforce her gut feeling on them.
“The latest layer says it’s owned by a business called Sundown Real Estate. We’re going to work on Larry Springer, the Farmington Security company, and to get beyond that wall.”
Perfect.
Elizabeth would let them handle it.
“You’ve got this. If you can’t get around it, let me know. I can have my assistant help.”
She left it at that.
This wasn’t the time, or the place to call out MATE.
“Good work, Everyone. I’m proud of how much we got in the half day we were here.
Now, finish up your dinner, and you have your nightly assignments.
Remember what I said about tomorrow. It’s likely going to be a long one.
Whoever this is, they aren’t going to like that we confiscated their collection.
Expect the unexpected. Nine out of ten times, they lash out.
From past experience, I can tell you that it won’t be fun. ”
Oh, and that was an understatement.
A.
Huge.
One.
As they were finishing up dinner, Elizabeth was working on her next step in her head. She wasn’t done for the night.
Not even close.
Together, they talked, had dessert, and inevitably, Elizabeth put off what was coming.
The talk.
Only, there came a point where she couldn’t put it off anymore, and that meant the shitty part of her job was heading her way.
She had to disappoint a friend, and someone she considered family.
“Mac and Tora, go do your research on the four things left on your plate. Tomorrow, I’ll text you with a meetup place where we can hook up. I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but there are likely more interviews. I might send you out with Alex here to handle them.”
Uh-oh.
Immediately upon hearing his name, Alex lifted a brow. What was this?
Where was the ‘Corbin’ part of that? Why was he being saddled with the newbies when he had a perfectly good partner with whom he had a damn good partnership.
Now, none of this made him feel sunshiny and happy. Elizabeth had said that she’d spoken to Corbin, and he was sitting dinner out.
That didn’t sit well with him.
AT.
ALL.
Since they were being dismissed, and there was plenty of work to do, the two detectives got up, and offered to pay for their food, but again, Elizabeth handled it.
It wasn’t like they didn’t have money, and she kind of missed feeding Chrissy.
God.
Those were the days.
When the two detectives were gone, she focused on Alex. Well, after she told everyone else to meet her in the lobby.
Callen got up, paid the bill, and they gave her some space to talk to the man. Gene hightailed it the hell out of there like his britches were on fire.
Smart man.
Even security went to babysit the men, giving her time to deal with this.
When they were alone, she moved to sit next to him.
“Uh-oh. I’ve been screwed before. This feels suspiciously like one hell of a boning. I don’t like this.”
Yeah, well, never let it be said that her team wasn’t the smartest people.
They.
Were.
“We need to talk.”
Shit.
Here it came.
It was never good when the boss wanted a one-on-one with you outside your yearly evaluation.
“I already know what it’s about. It’s about Corbin,” he said. “He’s not here, and you just said I’m going out with the detectives tomorrow. That’s not good. That means he’s quit or you fired him.”
Oh, well, not quite.
Elizabeth kept her voice down, and tried to keep this at a point where it wouldn’t make a scene. Alex tended to be a handful in certain situations.
This was likely going to be one of them.
What she wished was she could Cupid their way out of this. It was clear that Corbin was attracted to Alex, and she knew that Alex had once had a crush on Noah.
If there was a way, she’d shove them together, and hope for the best, but if Corbin needed space, she had to respect that. Hopefully, Alex could see through all of this and figure it out. She was rooting for them.
Because she didn’t believe for a second that there wasn’t chemistry there. Elizabeth saw the way Alex watched his partner, and the way Corbin smiled at his new friend.
She’d bet there was more.
Someone just hadn’t come to grips with it yet, and she hoped Alex would take the hint.
“Corbin came to me, and he’s asked me to put him on a different team, Alex. He just can’t work with you, and I hope you don’t take that personally.”
The man sat there, and his face went blank.
Alex could play poker with the best of them, and she knew it. Only, she also knew that with that blank look, there was trouble. He was throwing that out to protect himself.
“Corbin comes with baggage, and today, something triggered it. This has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with him.”
Well, that was a lie if she ever told one. Yeah, never let it be said being the boss was fun.
It wasn’t.
Oh, Alex was aware that his partner had baggage, but that didn’t matter to him.
They all did.
It had been his chin the gun was under when he woke him from that nightmare.
Not.
Hers.
Elizabeth continued.
“So, we’re going to bump the teams. Axl is going to partner up with you, and Duke is going to resume working with Corbin for the time being.”
He was silent.
But inside, he was mourning.
Inside, there was that scream of rage as stability got torn out from under him again.
His brain was so confused as to why this felt like a bad breakup. It was rare he had one. Alex was known for fucking and running, but when he did make attachments, they were supposed to be long-term.
There were few people he trusted enough to build those ties to, because he’d been burned before.
Deep down, he’d learned that people left.
All.
The.
Time.
Elizabeth knew what he was thinking. She could hear the hamster running in the wheel, so she cut that off at the pass.
“This has NOTHING to do with you.”
He stopped her.
“It always has something to do with me. That’s my history, and we both know it, Elizabeth.
You know what’s in my psych eval. Let’s not pretend we haven’t been to this rodeo before.
This isn’t the first time we’ve had this conversation.
You pulled me aside and have done this before.
I’m the problem child. I know everyone says it about me. ”
Oh, they had.
But he wasn’t the problem child.
Alex was a good person.
He just had a past, like everyone did, and that past effected his life.
When Noah wanted to work with the man he was going to marry, they’d done this then too, and it took Alex a while to regroup. For a while, she didn’t think he’d survive it.
But he had.
“If I didn’t have to do this…”
He stopped her.
“Why?” he asked. “Why is he asking to be moved from working with me? Don’t I deserve that at least?” he asked. “How am I supposed to change my behaviors if I don’t know what I did?”
Only, she couldn’t tell him that.
Oh, she wished she could, but she couldn’t. There was no way she could break that confidence and tell him that Corbin was sexually attracted to him, and he reminded him of his dead husband.
That would be even more problematic.
“Like I can’t tell him about your psych eval, and your past, I can’t tell you about his.”
He stood up.
Only, she wasn’t done.