Page 39 of So Wicked

So, he just smiled and said, "Yeah, Ellie, it's great. I'm just a little tired, is all.”

Ellie returned a smile of her own, the gently exasperated one that he had gotten used to seeing every time he came home exhausted from a case. “That’s because you don’t sleep. You’re going to drive yourself into an early grave.”

Almost certainly.“I’ll turn in early tonight. I just have a few more things I need to wrap up.”

“You can’t wrap them up at the office tomorrow?” She leaned down and let her arms slide down his chest. “Maybe?”

She kissed him softly behind his ear, and a thrill ran down his spine. “You have no idea how much I wish I could.”

She sighed and stood. His shoulders slumped a little when she pulled her hands away. “Even when your friend is killed, you can’t take real time off?”

“Sorry, Ellie.”

“They gave Faith time off. Why not you?”

“I’m the senior partner. I have to make sure the paperwork is in order.”

“Really? It sure seems like Faith is the senior partner. She gets all of the special privileges and gets handled with kid gloves. People act like you’re just her assistant. Watson to her Holmes.”

“Hey, Watson was a lot more important than people give him credit for. Without Watson, there wouldbeno Holmes.”

“Exactly my point,” she replied, ignoring his joke. “You let them ride roughshod all over you, and it pisses me off.”

He felt a flash of irritation but pushed it away. Now was not the time to let his ego get in the way. “They’re not riding roughshod on me, Ellie. They just expect me to be able to keepthings organized. Faith and I both have our strengths. This is mine.”

“So because you’re a better agent, she gets time off?”

Michael shifted uncomfortably. Ellie tolerated Faith on a good day, but it was clear that she resented her. Michael suspected that his brief romance with Faith years ago had more to do with it than anything else, but he didn’t want to get caught up inthatargument right now. “Faith took the Boss’s loss harder than I did. He was a friend to both of us, but he was a mentor to her.”

“You told me he was a mentor to you too.”

"Ellie, what do you want me to do?" he snapped. "I'm just filing paperwork, okay? I'm not out in the field fighting criminals or staring at creatively rearranged corpses. So, as far as I'm concerned, thisisa vacation.”

Ellie’s lips thinned, and Michael knew he’d just earned himself the silent treatment for the rest of the day. He sighed and rubbed his temples. “Look, I’m sorry. I’ll get this done really quickly, and then we can go out for dinner tonight. Sound good?”

“Sure,” she said curtly. “Whatever you want.”

She spun on her heel and stalked out of the room. Michael leaned over his desk and groaned.

God, I hate this.

He hated it, but it was necessary. Faith was right about one thing. The Messenger wasn’t going to work on the FBI’s time. The longer she went “ignoring” him, the more people were going to die.

She was right about another thing too. He and Ellie were no doubt high on the list of potential next victims. He wasn’t just doing this for Faith. He was doing it for Ellie. One serial killer had already nearly killed Ellie. He wouldn’t give another one a chance.

And that was the big lie, the one that would make both Faith and Ellie furious with him. The one that would make his new Boss furious with him and possibly endanger his FBI career.

Michael was going to work the Messenger case.

No one knew he was going to work the case, and no one would know. That was because Michael wasn't going to look through the case files Desrouleaux and Chavez had compiled and try to go from there.

No, Michael was going to talk to the one person who might possibly know something about the Messenger, the one person who could help him understand the mind of a violent psychopath obsessed with Faith Bold.

Michael was going to talk to Franklin West.

He grabbed his cell phone and stepped onto their balcony, then called the jail. After a few minutes with various receptionists and secretaries, he finally got a hold of the warden.

“Yes, hello?”

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