Chapter Thirteen #2
“Is he really gay?” she asked. “Or is he bisexual? Because we have semen all over the goddamn place.”
Ethan helped her out.
“I’m going to say he’s definitely gay. I don’t think he was faking his dates to parties in DC.
I think he likes men, but his father might have found it shameful, and that’s why he had to pretend by taking female victims. He might get off on perversion, and that’s how he can fuck a corpse.
It’s the perversion that gets him off, not the gender of the victim. ”
Gene went there.
“If he gets Elizabeth, is he going to pull that shit?” he asked, tensely.
Ethan nodded.
“Yes, but not because he’s sexually attracted to her. He’ll do it to show his power over her. Like his father had power over his mother, he’d want her to know he is a completely different level of power than she ever had.”
Elizabeth went there.
“Fuck the patriarchy,” she stated. “Literally,” she said, pointing at them. “It has to befuddle him how I have this many men wanting to sleep with me.”
Ethan nodded.
“And that could also tie into the nun and hookers. In a way, he sees it as you liking perversion too.”
Well, yeah, that kind. She liked a big-ole bed romp with the men she took vows to. In her world, it wasn’t about the kink, but about sharing love with who your heart chose.
Callen shrugged.
“Who doesn’t like kink?” Callen asked. “We do, but we manage not to kill innocent people. I think at some point, it goes from kink to just downright sick and twisted.”
He was aware.
And Blackhawk agreed.
When Elizabeth finished her burger, Chris put the other half of his on her plate.
He wasn’t hungry, and talking about all of this made his stomach roll with revulsion.
“You have to keep in mind that at the beginning, we were under the impression he was killing people to have sex with the dead bodies,” Ethan admitted.
“That was him starting the game up. Don’t take anything we’ve discovered before Jethro Von Gunter at face value.
He needed a way to get Elizabeth’s attention. ”
Oh, she didn’t.
“Well, that sucks,” Callen admitted.
And it did.
Ethan shared.
“He needed a way to challenge her, so he set the scene. Likely, his father’s kink wasn’t taking eyes. It was hurting women. I’m willing to bet he killed all the women he’d chosen because they were like his ex-wife.”
Gene knew they’d have to find them eventually.
To put them to rest.
Blackhawk wasn’t done.
“The game is him taking on Elizabeth. He’s been training his whole life for this, and when he killed Jethro Von Gunter, he was showing that he is just there for a good time.
Period. Every part of that last case was planted, from the building to the people involved.
We walked right into it, and we never saw it coming. ”
Elizabeth agreed.
They’d been blindsided.
Like what was happening now.
“We can’t focus on anything but the clues he’s left. Everything else is tainted,” she admitted. “He’s cocky enough to give me a way to solve this. He’ll make sure it’s a pitfall, but he’ll still enjoy watching me and studying me.”
Ethan agreed.
“Like Elizabeth said, he’s fucking with the process because he wants to seem like he’s giving her a way to win.
He’s not going to. If she gets a big piece, he’ll have a backup plan.
Like her arriving in DC by picking up the clues in Corpus Christi.
The pitfall would be the Russian spy on the back burner to jump in and derail her acceleration on the case. ”
And it had done just that.
She scrolled on the tablet so they could go over the rest of the clues.
“He wanted me to play, so he sent the sheriff there a little love note to get me there for this one. The first time, it was the scene in the building, knowing I was here on this side of the country. Everyone and their mother knows who gets the almost impossible cases when it’s a serial killer.”
She raised her hand and then pulled up the note on her tablet.
‘An offering was made, the Eucharist done, and I have left my presence. Three women were sacrificed, and all because of one’s whorish ways. Call Director Blackhawk at the FBI, and give her this note, and the bodies. She’ll know what to do.’
Yeah, they were all familiar with it.
Elizabeth continued.
“So, I show up, and it’s the beginning of the new, altered game,” she stated. “So, after that mess, he’s watching to see if I figure out the next set of clues. When I see them, I’m pointed East by the clock, and the blood splatters on a license plate.”
Ethan was curious.
“Did we run the plate?”
She paused.
“No.”
Well, that was the best place to start then.
Using the tablet, she took the numbers on the license plate, and put them in. They came back with nothing.
“It’s not a valid plate.”
Ethan was focused.
“Run the numbers, but take DC out of the equation.”
She did, and they had a hit, and she didn’t like it. It was to a car in South Carolina.
“Is that what I think it is?” Callen asked, seeing the name. “Please say it’s not.”
It was.
‘Registration belongs to Anthony Morell. Forty-seven Filmore Avenue, Salem, South Carolina.’
Only, there was no way that was possible.
Chris went there.
“How? He’s dead,” Chris said. “He’s been dead for a couple of years now, when he tried to take you down,” he stated.
Yeah, well, she was aware.
As he asked, Elizabeth saw the renewal date.
“It was renewed in the South Carolina DMV last year. He was leaving another clue.”
But what?
That was the question.
“He’s been planning this for a while,” she admitted. “I put a hole in Tony for trying to kill us.”
Chris lowered his voice.
“Is there a way he could have known any of this?” he asked. “These are all very personal things. Someone is either helping him or he’s buying intel. It feels like less and less of him only having older file information.”
She hoped it was the latter.
If someone was helping him, someone she loved, Elizabeth would lose her mind.
Betrayal was always ugly.
Ethan offered his opinion.
“I’m betting he was preparing you for another drop. He likely will make some victims show up there. He was also testing to see if you figured out the clue, or if you missed it.”
And she had.
They’d not looked it up until just now. Had they earlier, she might have headed there next.
That would have been the country road—back to that hellhole.
“We have to keep moving through the information,” she said, letting it percolate in her mind. For her, there was very little downtime allowed in this.
He was trying to run her into exhaustion, but little did he know, she ran on coffee and sarcasm.
That was a bottomless well.
“So, we are pointed to DC by the plate, the clock pointing East, and the words, ‘Corpus Christi’, which just so happens to be a Catholic celebration in DC.”
Gene picked up for her.
“And not only that, but he made sure to leave a crucifix mixed in with the uterus, but with Jesus off of it. He was ripped from it. That gives us a non-Catholic church since Catholics use a crucifix while other denominations tend not to.”
On that, she agreed.
That was how she knew to have Dex look in non-Catholic churches.
“So, to keep going, I get the cops involved. They go from church-to-church and find one with a stained-glass window that ties to the broken cross. Jesus wasn’t on the cross, he was buried and was resurrected. I then assume it’s three days until he comes for one of us.”
Was she wrong?
No one was sure.
Tomorrow was day three, and she’d find out one way or another. Hopefully, it didn’t cost someone their life.
“I guess we’ll find out,” Callen said. “And that terrifies me.”
It should.
Because there was a lot left behind by this nut, Elizabeth kept going.
“Dex and Quinn find the skeletal remains at The Church of the Redeemer. Inside that church, we see the remains of a male and female. Corpus Christi relates to the sacraments, and the only one I haven’t had is the marriage one.”
Chris put his hand over hers.
“But we know we have had that one. The question is does he?” he asked.
Ethan was to the point.
“We have to assume he does. If so, he’s paid money to find evidence. He’s bought a witness, or someone who remembers that happening.”
Chris went there.
“I paid BIG money to remove the paper trail. There’s no record in Colombia anymore tied to that license. We have the original and the paperwork thanks to Charlie.”
That they did.
She was curious.
“So why South Carolina? Is that directed at me because I grew up there? Clearly, he knows about my father moving me there. I’ve never hidden that in interviews. When asked, I tell people I was born here, and raised there.”
Ethan thought about it.
“Could there be more bodies there? At that address?” he asked, talking it out.
Gene shook his head.
“I was just looking it up. They tore that building down and put up a shopping center. Tony’s old home is no longer standing.”
Elizabeth was curious.
Since everything led to something else, she had to assume that each clue would do the same.
“What’s in the shopping center?” she asked, curiously.
He pulled it up.
“A grocery chain, a women’s clothing store, and a pet store,” he stated. “They have puppies.”
Because it was a slippery slope, Ethan shook his head.
“All of this feels like a way to stall us. Remember, he wants her behind. If she can get ahead of him, we have him. Devon knows how good she is. He’s just cocky and thinks he’s better. He’s not.”
Elizabeth appreciated his faith in her, especially since he told her it was gone earlier.
“So, let’s put that on the back burner and go back to DC and the church. Let’s keep our focus on this. He left a Bible verse. In it, I’m being told about fathers giving good gifts.”
Ethan took a shot at it.
“I might be off, but he learned this all from his father. So did you. Charlie taught you how to be a cop. Maybe this is father versus father in his convoluted brain.”
Elizabeth considered it.
Charlie was on her mind since the dream. She didn’t know what it all meant, but she did know where her roots were. They were with a man who instilled right from wrong in her.