Page 23 of Chaos has a Name (An FBI Romance/Thriller #66)

Oh, what was this?

“Jump in?”

She sipped her coffee and ate a cookie. She was starving, and if she didn’t put something in her belly, she was going to be hangry.

No one liked her hangry.

No.

One.

Elizabeth nodded.

“Yeah, I’m going to be working on the situation you brought to us. That’s also my job.”

Rayna blinked.

“I’m so confused,” she admitted. “You’re going to take and work this? Why?”

She laughed.

How could she not?

The woman looked genuinely confused, and she understood that. Elizabeth was willing to bet that the Chief of Police was a victim of media consumption.

The media that talked shit about her, and made her look like some idiotic, arm bunny that couldn’t spell criminal, let alone chase them.

“Well, first, multiple bodies in a pit are kind of my thing,” she admitted. “Second, the rez is near and dear to me. We’re staying here for the unforeseeable future, and I don’t want someone dropping bodies there.”

Wasn’t that the absolute truth?

The last thing she wanted, if they were staying, was to deal with a serial killer around her children.

For God’s sake, they didn’t have a fence.

From where she sat, Rayna mulled that over. Oh, she knew that the Blackhawks were big donators to the reservation.

Because of them, they now had a civic center with a library attached to it where the youth could go for help.

They fully staffed the medical clinic in honor so that they could be healthy and stay on the rez, as many of the elders preferred.

She honestly just thought it was guilt funding, and nothing more.

Once you got off the rez, you never looked back—unless your overbearing, control-freak father guilted you into coming back to take over the Chief of Police job.

“You’re staying for the unforeseeable future?” she asked.

Elizabeth nodded, and was going with the worst-case scenario on this one.

“Yes.”

This was all befuddling.

“How about you tell me about what is going on?” she asked, seeing movement from the doorway.

When she looked over, it was her ME, and it appeared that he had been looking for her.

Now, Chris looked hesitant to bother her.

She clued him in.

“Come on in, Christopher,” she said, as he did just that. “Grab a coffee. You have a pit of bodies.”

He laughed, not the least bit surprised that he was going to be inundated that first day.

“Why am I not shocked that our first day here, you somehow manage to find a plethora of work for me? I’m beginning to think you’re jinxed,” he stated.

“Beginning?” she asked. “Really? After the last twenty-plus years, you think it’s only starting now?”

He laughed as he carried his coffee toward them. With each person, he greeted them with a kiss.

The whole time, Rayna watched.

Yeah, this was befuddling.

Elizabeth warned him.

“This is Chief of Police Rayna Running Wolf, and she didn’t think I’d be the one working this.”

That made him laugh even more.

“Bodies in a pit? Craziness going down? Who else would be handling it, if it wasn’t you?”

Truth be told, Chris was grateful for the distraction. When he’d come to Damascus all of those years ago, it was to escape DC. The place haunted him, and he’d been planning a fresh start.

Hadn’t he been shocked as shit when he found out that Elizabeth had asked her new husband to get her the best ME to work there, and that had been him.

Fate was funny.

It all led to this.

Rayna clarified, and hoped she hadn’t insulted the woman.

“I just didn’t think you were going to be the one who handled this. I figured you’d toss it to some agent, and be done with it.”

Yeah, that wasn’t her thing.

Not.

At.

All.

She was honest.

“I tend to be very protective of the reservation,” she admitted. “I have Native children, and I want it safe for them. Plus, my team has yet to arrive. I have agents coming who will handle cases like this, but I’m up to bat. Problem?”

She hesitated.

Elizabeth cocked her head.

“You can just say it. What has you concerned? I can read a room, Chief Running Wolf.”

She shrugged.

“I mean, I kind of thought that you would be more an office girlie, and not a ‘get-your-hands-dirty’ girlie. That’s all.”

The men laughed.

And laughed.

And laughed.

Callen took this one. It was best the woman knew what she was in for because once Elizabeth got her fangs into a case, she wasn’t letting go.

She’d alpha predator it to the end.

“Rayna, she gets very dirty and loves it. Trying to get her to put on a suit is like trying to get a greased pig into a cage,” he said, and then felt it when she kicked him in the shin.

He flinched.

“Not the kind of pain I like, Angel,” he muttered, moving his ankle away.

Only, she didn’t miss a beat.

“Then use an analogy where I’m not the slippery porker, Callen James. You know better than to use a figure of speech with me being the slippery pre-bacon oinker. We’ve been married almost fourteen years.”

Ethan was amused.

Yep.

They were back.

This was very reminiscent to the days where they flew by the seat of their pants, trying to get shit done.

It was kind of cathartic to be back in this groove, in a way.

Instead of saying more to Callen, she focused on Rayna.

“What you’ll find, Chief, is that I’m not exactly easy to predict when it comes to what I’m going to do,” she admitted. “I’m not what you see on TV or in the media. Callen is right. I’m much more comfortable in this skin, than the public persona.”

She sipped her coffee.

“I see.”

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes.

“Is me being white going to be problematic for you?” she asked, taking a stab at it. Whenever she encountered a Native, they were almost always hesitant due to her ethnicity.

And she got it.

If she’d been marched down a trail, given smallpox, and locked away on a reservation to starve, she’d be antsy around people too.

“Not me, per se,” she admitted. “With the council. Nothing can go on without their approval.”

Elizabeth pointed at Callen.

“My liaison to the Native community will clear the way. If they don’t want me on the reservation working a case, I have bad news. I’m living in Timothy Blackhawk’s cabin. I’m already here, so I might as well keep the reservation safe.”

Well, Rayna also had bad news for her.

“That’s not a cabin. That’s a mansion built of logs. When you have to clear more trees to keep building on a cabin, it’s no longer that.”

Oh, she was aware.

Glancing over, she pointed at Callen.

“I told you that the McMansion was going to bite me in the ass,” she admitted. “Oh, let’s build it bigger, he said. It will not even be noticed, he said. It’ll blend in with the surroundings, he said.”

Callen laughed.

How could he not?

He loved riling his wife up, and given the chance, he was going to do it often.

Every.

Single.

Day.

“Beautiful, you can’t fit five of us, three grandparents, and a slew of kids in that old cabin. You like kids and are easy. That’s not my fault.”

Chris laughed when she picked up a cookie, and tossed it at him.

Callen caught it, and bit into it.

“Thanks. Fast food.”

That was when she rolled her eyes.

Why?

He wasn’t wrong.

“The bottom line, Rayna, is I’ll be respectful to the council. I’m really Native friendly. I promise. These two nuts seem to like me.”

Ethan shrugged.

“You’ve grown on us,” he stated, moving his leg before he got kicked in the shin too.

She snorted.

It appeared one of them was on his game, and expected her to react.

Also, they amused her.

As for Elizabeth, already, she was feeling better. Give her a case, and she could normalize it. Elizabeth had decompartmentalized the situation, and now, Wyler was on the back burner.

For the time being.

Oh, she’d deal with him later.

Uriel had updated her, already. The man wasn’t back, and the kids had burned off some energy. They were inside the home, watching movies and eating snacks.

Caryn was at the helm, and Janet was helping back her up. The kids were no match for the grandmas.

“Again, tell me what you have, and I’ll get this started. You’ll see that I’m not exactly the worst human being to come to the reservation.”

Callen dropped his arm over her shoulders, and kissed his wife on the side of the face. She smelled like Ethan’s cologne, and he saw his brother’s hickey.

Old habits die hard when you were back on the rez. He wasn’t sure who was calming whom at the time, though. It was anyone’s guess.

Rayna put her cup down.

“Well, this should be an interesting one for you then,” she offered, dropping the resistance.

If this woman wanted to help, and she was legit, she’d take the assistance. Besides, if you were a Blackhawk, on the reservation, you were pretty much welcome to do whatever you wanted.

The bad boys of their youth had gotten their redemption by helping the reservation in their later years.

On top of that, she didn’t know anything about multiple bodies and crime scenes. Those weren’t her areas of specialty.

Unfortunately for Rayna, she’d been a beat cop, and this was a steep learning curve for her.

“I like interesting,” Elizabeth admitted. “Let’s see if you can top the crazy I’m accustomed to.”

Rayna began.

“It all started this morning when I was doing payroll. A Native woman showed up in my office. Wynonah Adsila’s brother, Thomas, was missing, and she went to find him at his home. He never showed up to work and there was blood at his house.”

They listened.

“The last part wasn’t so shocking, since Thomas likes alcohol about as much as he likes anything,” Rayna admitted. “He’s consistent if nothing.”

They all got it.

There was a lot of drug and alcohol abuse on the reservation.

“So, I told her that I’d look into it. Honestly, I figured he cut himself and was passed out somewhere from being drunk. It’s a common theme here.”

Oh, Callen knew.

Been there.

Policed that.

“I transported her there, and we entered his house. Once there, I could see something bad had happened.”

One thing made Elizabeth curious.

“How much blood are we talking?” she asked.

Rayna tried to describe it.