Page 114 of Chaos has a Name (An FBI Romance/Thriller #66)

“They were raised by their grandfather, who passed away last year. He came here with them.”

DAMN!

That would fit too.

“Okay, so the grandfather is approached by whoever is doing this, and does it because it’s tied to their own heritage back North.

He then has his grandsons, the doctor and nurse get involved, continuing the tradition.

OR—and hear me out—they did this back home too.

After getting here, the grandfather dies, and the two grandsons take over. ”

Ethan was profiling it.

“But then what happened to the person who recruited the grandfather. That would be two elders, so to speak, that had to die. We know that the gnaw marks matched the last two victims, and the one from three-ish years ago.”

Elizabeth could only think of one person.

“Joshua Stormchaser died last year. Can we find a connection to the two families? Can we find a way to prove they knew each other?”

They kept working.

Gene found it first.

“Their cabins are adjacent to each other. The Stormchasers and the Dreamwalkers are neighbors.”

This was the first viable reasoning she’d had since this whole mess started.

When her phone rang, she pulled it back out of her pocket as Ivan parked in front of the council building.

“Go,” she said, itching to go interview a doctor and nurse.

Tony smiled.

“Have I ever told you how smart and wonderful you are as my boss?” Tony asked.

That immediately made her sigh.

“What did you do, Anthony? Because I’m hanging up since I actually have work to do.”

He stopped her.

“I have trace done, but you’re not going to like it. You’re going to be…cranky.”

Well, yeah.

When he started a conversation just like that, she tended to be bitchy.

“What happened?”

He just told her.

“I swabbed the bone whistle found outside of Rayna Running Wolf’s home. It has a sample of DNA found on it that doesn’t tie to the other two. We re-ran it. We have a third person. Don’t kill the messenger.”

She sat there.

“What do you mean we have a third person?” she asked. “I only had two that grabbed me.”

She thought.

“Science doesn’t lie,” Tony admitted. “Chris and I reran it. I would have had him tell you when he called, but I literally just printed the results out. There are three sets of DNA. Two that match, mostly, and one that doesn’t.”

Oh, holy shit.

Elizabeth had a migraine.

“Send me it, Tony. I have to go.”

If she stayed on the line, she was losing her mind. This was batshit insane. Each day, the suspects went up in count.

When she hung up, she sat there, and Elizabeth said absolutely nothing.

Like she was going to blow.

Wisely, no one said jack shit to her for at least four minutes as she processed what she was learning.

Then, she surprised them.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m good,” Elizabeth added as she opened the car door, leaving all the men to stare at each other.

They hadn’t been expecting that.

As they got out, they focused on Elizabeth. She looked perfectly fine.

“Are you going to lose your shit?” Callen asked. “Because we’ll step back.”

She started laughing.

And laughing.

And laughing.

Elizabeth explained while she wiped the tears from her eyes.

“This is a shitshow. It’s been a shitshow from the start, and there is NO way I’m piecing this together. We first had one killer. Then, we had two. Now, there’s three. Fuck it. For all I know, EVERYONE is the killer, and I’m just being led on a wild ride to insanity.”

Oh, boy.

It was rare she melted down.

In fact, it was once in a blue moon.

“I’m being jumped all over the place, and this time, I really don’t think it’s intentional. I really think that whoever is behind this has lost their nut. Let this be a lesson. Don’t eat people!” she said, loudly.

When she just shook her head, and started walking toward the council house so she could get to the clinic in the same building, they followed.

Oh, but they gave her space.

Rayna was next to Ethan.

“She seems like she’s about to grab her family and leave.”

Oh, well, that was a distinct possibility.

Ethan knew she leaned heavily into forensics, and now, she couldn’t.

They didn’t have Chrissy, and they’d dropped the ball a few too many times. That put her at a disadvantage.

In his mind, Ethan sent out a prayer.

To Timothy.

‘Granddad, help us. We’re struggling here. We need your help.’

When he caught up to his wife, he kept his voice low.

“Do you need to tap out? I can…”

She just laughed.

“One more thing, and I’m going to put myself in a time out. IN WASHINGTON D.C!”

Oh, boy.

He really hoped, and prayed, that there wasn’t one more thing.

As they reached the clinic, she opened the doors, and headed in. There were no people there except for a receptionist.

The woman stood up.

“Mrs. Blackhawk,” she said, smiling at her.

And it didn’t even bother Elizabeth because this place was a walking nightmare for her. Why not be called by her married name when she was wearing a gun and badge.

“Yeah, that’s me. I need to see Doctor Sitsi Dreamchaser, and his nurse, Chata.”

The woman looked nervous.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Blackhawk. They aren’t here. We have clinic hours for the doctor in the morning, but the afternoons we just have basic triage in its place.”

And there it was.

Her thirteenth reason to lose her mind.

She needed to regroup to think this through. She had to be missing something.

The last thing she wanted was a chase on the reservation with two Natives.

Who liked arrows.

“True or false? Do you guys use Halothane here with the patients?” she asked.

She nodded.

Okay.

At least that was a fact.

“Can you give me an inventory list on how much you have in stock and how much was ordered versus used?” she asked.

“Sure, Ma’am.”

The Native woman sat down, and she used the computer to pull up that information.

It looked as if they were going to be heading to the Dreamweaver home to track them down. She had to interview them, and now, she was chasing Natives across the reservation.

That was just what she didn’t want to do.

Yeah, that annoyed her.

When the woman looked confused, Elizabeth was curious.

“What?” she asked.

The Native held up her finger, went to the back, and was there for a while.

When she came back, she sat.

“I don’t understand.”

Yeah, well, that made a whole bunch of them.

“What don’t you understand exactly?” she asked.

The receptionist shared.

“We have some missing. We did an inventory two weeks ago. The system will tell us how much is used, because by law, we have to track that. The inventory and the usage doesn’t match the purchase.”

No shock there.

Someone had used it to incapacitate her. Now, she needed to figure out how much was gone.

“What quantity is missing?”

She was honest.

“One ten milliliter bottle. Just enough to sedate one or two people.”

Yeah.

HER.

“Give me the printouts please,” she said, wanting them for her file.

Rayna spoke up.

“I’ll be back tomorrow to have you file a police report if you think it was stolen.”

She was still befuddled.

“It had to be. We’re VERY careful with the medicines here. We don’t like to break the law.”

Elizabeth was curious.

“And where are they kept?” she asked. “Can you show me?”

The woman waved her to the back, so she went around the desk, and followed. When she got to a back room, there was a door not far away propped open with a desk chair to let some fresh air in.

The room where the meds were kept was not far from it.

“Do you have cameras?” she asked.

The woman shook her head.

Well, that didn’t help her.

Not at all.

Anyone could have walked in there, grabbed it, and headed out, or it could have been the doctor and his relative nurse.

This didn’t cut out suspects, it added more—it could literally be anyone.

Yeah, she wasn’t amused.

Heading back out, she had the papers in hand, and regrouped outside of the clinic in the long hallway that led to the council house.

When she sat down, she was focused on what she’d learned.

On the floor, Gene was sitting, his tablet out, and he was researching.

Callen was doing the same.

When Gene had something, he tapped her on the leg, and handed her the tablet. On it, he’d typed a message with the information.

‘Rayna’s DNA doesn’t match the other two people. Chris just sent this. She has completely different DNA. Could this be her father, her brother might not be her brother at all, and a third person? It would fit.’

Reading over it, that was possible. DNA was a mixed bag of genetics on a good day. What she did know was that if the DNA was pointing at Lance and Eli Running Wolf, Rayna wasn’t related to her father, or her brother. It also meant that Eli wasn’t fathered by Lance either.

This made it stickier.

And ickier.

She had to ask.

“Rayna, does your dad have siblings?” she asked.

The woman paused.

“Uh, yes. Why?” she asked.

Well, this was awkward.

So, Elizabeth lied.

“I’m trying to keep track of all the Natives here I’ve come across. That’s all.”

She knew Gene would do the research, but it was clear the woman suspected something.

But she couldn’t worry about that now.

Right now, she had some suspects, and needed to figure this out. In her head, she had a running list.

‘Sitsi Dreamwalker

Chata Dreamwalker

Joseph Thunderfoot

Oren Skye

Roland Stormchaser

Paditi Stormchaser

Lance Running Wolf

Eli Running Wolf’

Lance Running Wolf’s sibling?

What she knew was the back door of the clinic was open, and near the council house.

This opened the door wide open for possibilities.

She just really needed to go back to the office, pull out the whiteboard, and think this through. Not being able to talk it out in front of the Chief of Police was holding her back.

And she didn’t like it.

Not.

At.

All.

Truth be told, it was jacking with her process. Now, she needed to get back to basics.

On how she did things.

She needed a visual.

“We’re going to head in,” she said, needing to ditch the Chief of Police. “Uriel, you’re still on Rayna. Keep her safe, and don’t leave her side.”

The woman looked confused. The last question concerned her, and now, she was being sent off duty?

What?

She was missing something, clearly.

“I’m done working?” she asked.

Elizabeth nodded.

“I’m going to go back to the office and sit there going over everything. I need to start back at the beginning. I like to do that alone,” she admitted. “So I can focus. If we move out, or I hear anything, Uriel will tell you.”

That seemed to help calm her down.

“Oh, okay.”

Elizabeth was semi-honest.

“I need to see everything laid out and on a whiteboard. That’s how I solve things. Don’t think I’m ditching you. It’s just my process.”

Uriel touched her arm.

“It really is. Elizabeth wouldn’t ditch you. I promise.”

Well, that helped.

A lot.

As they all got up to head to the vehicle, Ivan, Raphael, Uriel, and Gryphen all stopped dead in their tracks, making Elizabeth crash into the back of Ivan.

That was never good when she had a synchronized walking spectacle with her security. That tended to mean they just heard something.

Oh, shit.

What now?

“What happened?” she asked, knowing that they didn’t do that unless someone sent out a call on all of their coms.

When Ivan turned around, he looked exhausted. That was her other sign that this was bad. That was his ‘I can’t take much more of this’ look.

“Wyler slipped out of the house and past Michael, Muriel, and Demeter. They think he’s in the woods hunting. His gun is gone. We have to go in and get him. It’s not safe.”

Well, holy shit.

She was going to kill him.

He didn’t need to worry about the cancer.

Wyler was going to die by her hand.