Page 108 of Chaos has a Name (An FBI Romance/Thriller #66)

Then, Ethan wanted to show her the space for where his mother’s library would be.

“Winn, can you get the food?” Ethan inquired.

The big man nodded.

Heading back to the other vehicle, Raphael grabbed all of the fast-food bags from the car, and passed them out. Then, he opened the door to the vehicle containing Uriel and Rayna.

And a Marine had to bust ass.

When he pulled the door open fast, the two people were just talking.

“Uriel is already having lunch, I see,” he stated, joking around.

Uriel flipped him off.

“I’m just talking to the pretty Chief of Police,” he said. “I’m not a pervert like all of you freaks,” he admitted.

Rayna was flushed.

It made her giddy that the man thought she was pretty. That got her panties wet.

“Lunchtime,” Elizabeth said, and when she got out, Elizabeth busted her ass.

“You have a little something on your collar,” she said, pointing.

When Rayna touched her collar, there was nothing there.

“Where?”

That’s when she grinned.

“Oh, I’m sorry. That’s your neck and a hickey. My bad,” she admitted.

The woman actually laughed.

“Jealous?” she asked, busting her back.

Yeah, she was.

“God. Am I ever? I have cobwebs on my girly bits, and need help removing them.”

Ethan and Callen both raised their hands.

She pointed at Ethan.

“You just got handfasted. You’re on Gene duty for at least a month. He’s earned this after having to look at my tits.”

He raised his hands in the air like he was at a Sunday Baptist revival.

“Amen. The struggle is real.”

She snorted.

“I’ll also mention that when we head home, I’m not going home,” she said.

Everyone looked at her.

“Callen and I are going on a little holiday. He had to cancel his book signing because we needed to be here. I’m taking a vacation.”

Honestly, Ethan was fine with that.

Like she said, he’d be all over Gene for a few weeks to celebrate their honeymoon together.

“How long?” Ivan asked, trying to do the schematics of security in his head.

“A weekend worth of days. This weekend if I can get away after solving this.”

Security would take care of business.

“We’ll take Raphael and Saint. You guys are on Emmy duty,” she said.

Honestly, to be off for a couple of days, and be able to have some downtime…it was worth it.

Then, she made a decision.

“We’re taking Christopher,” she said. It wasn’t fair to leave him behind because he’d be the odd man out. Ethan and Gene would be kanoodling, and that wasn’t right.

Besides, neither of them minded that kind of third wheel. It was always a good time on a beach.

As they ate their fries, she continued.

“I wrapped up with Elkie, and spoke to the council. Not Lance. He was MIA.”

Rayna was sitting on a log with Uriel right next to her. He had his leg touching hers, and he’d been flirting in the car.

And she was here for it.

She still got the impression that he wasn’t saying something. She could just feel it hanging there.

“What do you know about Abe’s children?” she asked.

Rayna was to the point.

“They are teenage boys, and they are super smart. They tend to be homebodies, and their mother’s shadows. I think they’re sixteen and seventeen?”

That tracked since they were almost eighteen and seventeen according to Abe.

“Do you think they could be snacking on victims?”

She blinked.

“I mean, I didn’t think anyone could be, but here we are,” she admitted. “If they were raised that way…maybe.”

Yeah, she was aware.

Honestly, Elizabeth liked this woman, and when Callen called her husband to run the DNA, she had crossed her fingers it wasn’t Lance.

For Uriel’s sake.

Elizabeth continued.

“What’s tripping me up about them is the fact they would have been young three years ago. Tony and MATE tied the same gnaw marks to a skull that had been in the ground longer.”

That was perplexing.

“Could they have been doing it at fifteen and fourteen?” she asked.

Callen went there.

“You know how hungry teen boys are,” he joked.

She stared at him.

IN.

HORROR.

From where he sat, Takoda nearly choked on his burger, and Ivan had to pat him on the back.

“Too soon?” Callen asked.

It just made her laugh.

“It’s never too soon. You know I love an inappropriate response to just about everything. Next time, don’t nearly kill Takoda, though.”

Callen winked at her.

From where she sat, Rayna considered the question.

“I mean, none of this makes any sense to me. This is way out of my wheelhouse. I thought we were leaning toward The Hollow switching up at death. Abe is very much alive.”

Ethan had this one.

“Abe’s children are young. He might be watching over them to make sure they can carry on. This could be trial runs.”

Yeah, the FBI had to handle this.

Rayna hoped Elizabeth was ready to be back at this rodeo next year if the FBI lost this year’s trail.

When Rayna raised her hand, Elizabeth glanced over.

“Yeah?”

“Do you have a list of people you’re thinking are behind this? Or is Abe and his sons the only people you’re focused on?” she asked.

Oh, boy, did she ever.

“Yeah, I do.”

She was curious.

“Who?”

Elizabeth kept her father off of that list and for good reason. They all knew he was on it, but she clearly didn’t. That told them she was damn new at working on a murder.

“The only people I have on it are Abe and his kids, and then Elkie’s sons. Their father recently died, they live above the bar, where Wyler’s two friends drank, and where Thomas was last seen alive. That’s it. Technically, the Stormchaser sons saw the victim last.”

Callen added one thing.

“Along with a bar filled with drunk Natives.”

He had a point.

Elizabeth didn’t have a lot, and she was hoping that this wasn’t just random Natives working together. The DNA was sketchy, and that worried her.

“That’s my list, and for day two, it’s thin.”

All around her, no one commented on that.

As she ate her burger, she would have given anything to have a whiteboard, but with the Chief of Police here, she couldn’t go there.

It sucked to be working out of her head.

There was a lot going on there.

“Let’s finish up our lunch, and regroup,” she said. “I need to think this through.”

They knew what that meant. She might be going back to the office.

Possibly.

From where he sat by Gene, Ethan was curious.

“When we’re done, can I have a moment of your time, Callen’s, and Gene’s?” he asked. “I’d like to show you the space for my mother’s tribute.”

Elizabeth smiled at him.

“You can have all of my time. Just kick the big man to the curb and run away with me.”

Gene laughed.

“Hussy.”

She winked at him.

“Seriously, EJ. Yeah, I have time.”

Oh, and she wasn’t lying either.

Elizabeth Blackhawk had nothing but time because she couldn’t get a lock on this killer and his one hundred and eight kills.

Someone’s family was hidden well.

And that sucked for her.

BIG-TIME.