Page 10 of Chaos has a Name (An FBI Romance/Thriller #66)

They were a good ten miles into the trees, and there was no way that Thomas could bleed out and reach this spot.

Why would he come here?

This was all the way across the rez to a section that was mostly used for hunting, and nothing more due to its location.

Had the man wandered this way?

Was he brought here?

Yeah, she had so many questions.

And very few answers.

“What did you find, Beau?” she asked, as she reached him.

Not far from a rock was her dog and he was sitting there. That was his sign for he’d located what she wanted him to find.

That’s when she saw it.

There was a pile of clothing, neatly folded. On top of the clothing, there was a wallet.

It was a weird scene.

For sure.

Uh…okay.

Pulling out her phone, she called one of her deputies—the one who had been put on Wynonah. What she needed was the woman to answer a question or two.

When he finally answered, she was to the point. They still didn’t know where Thomas was, and if these were his clothes, he was now naked and bleeding.

Somewhere.

“Ask the sister what Thomas was wearing yesterday,” she said. “When she last saw him.”

Her deputy, Kory Spark, didn’t let her down. It only took a minute, and then, he gave her an answer. It was exactly what she did NOT want to hear.

They had a problem.

“He was wearing a blue and grey flannel shirt, jeans, and boots—or he was when he was at the bar. She saw him there around six last night.”

Oh, well, they found his clothing. Only, it was covered in blood.

Like COVERED.

There seemed to be a lot of that going on, and there was no doubt someone had not come here on his own. She was standing on her assessment that this much blood meant he would have bled out MILES ago.

Yeah, there was no way he made it ten miles losing that kind of blood.

It had definitely been arterial.

Now, the new question was how to explain who folded the clothing.

Oh, and where was Thomas?

Using a stick, she flipped open the man’s wallet, and there was his driver’s license inside the one section. Beside it was his Native Identification card.

Yep.

They found his things.

“Why would he take his clothes off in the woods?” Forest asked.

She had news for him.

This wasn’t by choice.

“He lost way too much blood to be taking off his clothes. He bled a lot. Someone helped him with this. The big question is where is he?” she asked. “Because we have his personal effects but not the person. That’s some sketchy shit, Forest.”

Yes, yes, it was.

What the hell was going on?

None of this boded well for her.

Not far behind Rayna, Beau, her dog, was digging in some dirt.

Like heavily digging.

In fact, it was obsessive and to the point it had everyone’s attention.

It was the soft dirt that was under the makeshift fire pit that the hunters would use while staying at this campsite.

Get you a bloodhound, they said.

It would be fun, they said.

Uh, it wasn’t fun.

This dog liked to put holes everywhere digging like he was after a treasure. Now, Beau was ripping up a part of the rez.

“Beau! Knock it off,” she said, as the dog furiously dug into the soft dirt.

As she headed his way, she reached for his collar, and that was when he turned around, and in his mouth was a bone.

What was attached to the bone?

A hand.

She gasped.

Oh.

Holy.

Shit.

Immediately, she was horrified at what he’d found, and what was in his damn mouth.

“Drop it!” she said.

Beau looked at her like she was the crazy one—not him. The fleshy hand moved back and forth, and on the one finger was a piece of Native turquoise jewelry.

“Drop it now!”

And he did.

As her deputy moved closer, she was still staring in horror at what Beau had dug up.

Honestly, she couldn’t believe the turn the day had taken. It had all been so peaceful when she was at her desk doing the payroll for last week.

And now…

Now, she was standing over a semi-fleshy arm that her dog had found.

Oh, how her day went South.

Fast.

“Is that an arm?” Forest asked. “Did your dog just find an unattached arm in the dirt? Where’s the flesh? Shouldn’t there be person still on the bone if the hand was meaty?”

Well, you’d think it would.

This was all kinds of gross.

This was just her luck.

It appeared she’d found where Thomas had been placed, after he made it ten miles from his cabin, arterially bleeding, and then folded up his clothes, neatly.

This was going to be bad.

She.

Could.

Tell.

None of that made sense.

Getting down, her deputies followed suit, and they all began digging in the dirt to see if the man who had bled out was the owner of that arm.

Because this was nefarious if nothing else. There was no way he buried himself—in pieces.

Granted, bones were common on the rez.

Deer bones.

Bear bones.

Elk bones.

Just not human bones.

That hand had been flopping around, and there was no way it wasn’t human.

Someone had buried a body at the hunting site, and she was willing to bet the victim was Thomas Adsila, or they had someone else missing now too.

Could her day get worse?

What started as paperwork was now a hot mess.

Together, they kept digging, and when she found another arm, disarticulated by something, she pulled it from the ground.

“Found another forearm,” she stated, picking it up in her hands.

As she held it, carefully, Forest held up the one that Beau had found.

“Uh, Chief?” he asked.

She looked over, after brushing off the knees of her pants.

“Yes?”

He pointed out one thing.

“Did Thomas Adsila have a birth defect?” he asked, curiously.

What?

What did he mean by that?

She didn’t know what he was talking about. It appeared to be another arm, but the hand didn’t have any flesh on it.

“What are you talking about, Forest? Why do you think he had a birth defect?”

He held up his arm.

And still, she was confused.

It took Rayna a few seconds to figure it out, but that’s when it hit her.

He was holding up a left arm.

Looking down at the one she found, it was pretty much fleshless, and something else.

It was another left arm, according to the hand still attached.

Oh, boy.

Immediately, she gasped and took five steps back from the soft earth that they’d been excavating.

This told her one thing.

They.

Had.

Issues.

Glancing over at Forest, she said one thing.

“DROP IT!”

Like the dog, he obeyed, and boy did he ever drop it fast.

In fact, he dropped it like it was hot.

And she knew the truth.

They’d both uncovered two left arms. There was no way in the state they were in, that they belonged to Thomas Adsila.

They had multiple bodies.

And this was definitely out of her jurisdiction.

They needed help.

Fast.