Page 37 of Chaos has a Name (An FBI Romance/Thriller #66)

It didn’t take long before his voice came over the com, and he sounded pretty calm. That was a good thing too.

“Hey, Lyzee, my love,” Ethan said.

She was glad to hear his voice, and see that he was okay.

“How’s tricks, Handsome?” she asked. “Are you and my CJ behaving like I know you always do?”

He laughed.

Yeah, she was funny.

“Well, we handled the council,” he admitted. “Callen did what he had to do.”

She was curious.

“Why don’t you sound happy about it being handled?” she asked.

Oh, well, she wasn’t going to be happy either.

“Well, there are a few things.”

Uh-oh.

Now, she didn’t like this.

“What?” she asked, bracing for it.

Ethan knew with their woman, it was easier to just rip off the bandage.

“The council wants the Secret Service OFF of the Native land. They said basically, that was absolutely not negotiable. We can stay because…well, we are part of the tribe.”

That worried her.

“We’re short on security,” she admitted.

Oh, he was well aware.

They were short on everything, and soon, his wife would be short on patience.

Bet.

On.

It.

“We’ll have to make sure Oliver and Cora are safe. We are heading back to the office now, and I’m going to tangle with the president. You know how he’s worried.”

And he was.

Since the whole Amy thing went down, it had been ugly. In the three days since he’d done his interview with the media, Amy was on a rampage.

She was victim of her father effectively cutting her off from selling her story to get money to finish school.

That had been what flipped her out.

When she tried to get on the White House grounds, her detainment and being driven back to school by Tiffany had really pissed her off.

She couldn’t reach her family inside, and she couldn’t tell Gabe off.

Amelia was seething.

How much so?

She vandalized her mother’s grave. Amy had gone there, shoved the stone over, and tore up all of the flowers that were there.

It ended up getting her arrested, but Gabe got her off because underneath it all, he was a softie.

Yeah, she was losing her nut, and no one was safe. That was why Gabe sent Coraline and Oliver with the Blackhawks. He thought they could keep her safer, and since no one knew where they were…

He’d been right.

That was the priority, but the agents were to ensure that happened. Losing backup to the Marines left her little choice. They were going to have to work through this somehow.

“Gabe won’t be happy.”

Oh, Ethan was aware.

“We have a solution,” he said, knowing she’d asked for a house with a fence, but this might put her over the edge.

“What is it?” she asked, as they all headed toward the scene.

He was honest.

“Callen is closing the deal on the house you asked for,” he said, prefacing it. “He’s throwing money at it, so the people selling it will close ASAP. Our attorney is already doing the title search, etc.”

Uh-oh.

She heard the tone.

“What has he done?” she asked, knowing that wouldn’t be the bad news. Ethan liked to ease into it. She’d been to this Native rodeo a very long time.

Ethan tried to save his brother’s ass. The structure he was looking at wasn’t a house.

It was a gold baron’s mansion in Damascus. It was freaking huge, and his wife was going to hate it and he knew she would because she’d commented on it when they’d lived here.

It screamed wealth.

It screamed power.

It screamed…stuffy.

She was more a ‘it’s okay to spill cereal on the couch because we have kids’ kind of a girl—not a ‘gilded age long gone’ kind of a woman.

“It’s a big house,” he said.

Yep.

There was no doubt it was going to be ridiculous. Callen only had two speeds.

Normal and over the top.

To buy a house this fast meant that it was going to be absolutely ridiculous. There was no doubt in her mind.

She was to the point.

“Just tell me, EJ. I’m not good with sugarcoating shit. I can handle Callen’s jackassery.”

Oh, Ethan had a better idea.

“MATE, holographic mode,” he said, and light came from her vest and projected the house he was standing in front of at that very moment.

His vest transmitted it.

“Jesus. H. Christ,” Elizabeth muttered as she came to a full stop on the trail.

“That’s not a house, Ethan. That’s an estate.

That’s some rich dude’s attempt at impressing people when he had a tiny dick.

That’s flaunting your money while the peasants toiled in the coal mines.

That’s let them eat cake and being carried to the guillotine for some Friday evening fun with the villagers. ”

He was aware.

Only, Callen was Callen. First, he could afford it, and secondly, he liked busting their woman’s ass as he gave her things that made her twitchy.

He was a masochist when she went nuts.

Ethan gave her what she wanted.

“It was a gold baron’s mansion, and it’s big enough for all of us, and all of our security team—minus Ivan who has a place. We can pull them from the RVs, and get them back into a familiar setting. Plus, it’s off the rez, and where we can be ourselves without upsetting the council.”

She was to the point.

“Wyler will NOT stay there.”

Ethan was honest.

“If you can’t talk him into treatment, it won’t matter,” Ethan said. “It will be a waiting game until he passes. We’re going to have to make a base here at some point, even if we are transporting his body back here for burial. I happen to agree with Callen. We’ll need a place to mourn and regroup.”

Well, shit.

Now everyone knew they were expecting her father-in-law to die.

She hated airing her dirty laundry.

So, she opted to let it go. Everyone was listening, and now, she was thinking about Wyler again. He was annoying her in the back of her mind as she gleefully pictured him trapped in a treehouse with Michael and Demeter.

For now, she let it go.

“Tell Callen thank you, and I know how much he hustled on this. Hopefully, it won’t matter, and we can get Wyler home for treatment.”

Rayna was listening, and she felt bad for the Blackhawks. Losing someone you loved was hard, whether they died or just walked away.

On the call, Ethan had more bad news.

Even after this one, the hits were going to keep taking them down, and this was the easy shit.

The crazy was fast approaching in this news delivery to his wife.

“The sale is going to be final, but before you try to scalp a Native, Callen’s going to restore it as a museum when we’re not here. If we don’t need it, he wants to help save it. You know what he and Chris are like when it comes to old shit.”

Chris was right there beside Gene and Elizabeth as he toted his medical kit.

“Crazy that we like old things?” he asked. “Because I haven’t even thought to buy her a gold baron’s mansion in Utah. I don’t think I’m the crazy one in this.”

Ethan laughed.

He was right.

Callen was a special kind of crazy, living on the edge as he poked the wife, and not the fun kind of poking either.

“You know what I mean, Christopher.”

Yes, he did.

“What do I feel like you’re not telling me?” Elizabeth asked. “Because you’re dancing around this like a boxer in a ring. Land the punch, EJ. I’m almost to the bones.”

Oh, Rayna knew the house they were talking about, and she knew exactly how much the man had spent. It had been up for sale for a very long time because it wasn’t exactly affordable.

So, she helped the woman out.

“It’s haunted,” she said. “Or it’s said to be haunted by the dead family members.”

She nearly lost her damn mind.

Oh.

Holy.

Hell’s.

Bells.

“ETHAN!” she said, knowing that couldn’t be right. There was no freaking way anyone would put her ass in a haunted building after she’d had to deal with Trey the few times he played at The Fort.

It freaked her the fuck out.

She didn’t even like knowing that Charlie, Sam, and Timothy were around. They should be locked behind the pearly gates where she was NOT anywhere nearby.

Oh, this was too much.

And they knew it.

“We don’t know for sure…,” Ethan began, trying to save his brother’s tan hide from being skinned. He wasn’t going to look the same scalped and skinless. Someone was pushing his luck.

It took her a minute, because she was rubbing her temples.

“Uh, EJ,” Gene said, knowing she was about to lose her goddamn mind. “Gloss over this one. It can wait for another time.”

Yeah that was probably for the best.

“We spoke to the council, and had to do the dance,” Ethan said, taking his new husband’s advice on changing the subject.

They’d had a long week, and it was only Wednesday. There was no point stressing their wife out further.

As Ethan continued, Elizabeth forced herself to focus on work so she didn’t freak out about the mansion that was supposedly haunted.

Truthfully, that was the last thing she needed on her list of situations to handle.

She’d sleep alone in the cabin on the reservation with one security guard watching her before she was sleeping in a haunted mansion.

Hell.

No.

“And?” she asked, putting the mansion on the back burner. They were almost to the scene, and out of sight was out of mind—or something like that.

“We can investigate the supposed homicide slash missing person case. That we have approval on from the council.”

Uh, well, yeah.

That she knew.

“It’s our jurisdiction. The Native police don’t have the resources to investigate something like this. That means the US government steps in to do the deed.”

Yeah, so they kept telling the council, but it hadn’t mattered to them.

Well, here went the rest.

“Apparently, what we’ve heard is right. There is a Native legend on the reservation. It goes back a long way. It’s about The Hollow. That’s the name it goes by, and the elders were ALL aware of it too.”

She was confused.

Even Rayna had her brow all scrunched up. That told Elizabeth she wasn’t sure what the hell was going on here.

Not.

At.

All.

“And they are okay with it happening and no one thought to call that shit in years ago?” she asked.

He told her.

“Apparently, not. What we were told is, and I know you know some of this, but for many, many years, there is someone who picks a victim every Summer Solstice and makes a human sacrifice to the Wendigo that watches over this rez.”

She listened.

“This entity is given the sacrifice so the Natives on the reservation get a year of prosperity and protection. The elders feel this is vital for their survival. That’s why no one stops this from going down.”

She.

Stopped.

Dead.

For a full three seconds, she stood there in silence as her brain attempted to rationalize what he’d just said.

To her, that sounded like a bunch of Natives were condoning killing people just to make a sacrifice.

Oh, and as long as it wasn’t them, they didn’t give a shit, but to her, Elizabeth’s brain said one thing.

They’d care when it became them.

What in the dark, Voo-doo-worshipping, black-magick-practicing Paganism bullshit was this?

Clearly, sane minds were not at play here.

“I can’t wrap my head around this,” she admitted. “How do people turn a blind eye to this? How did they not try to stop this?”

Yeah, the only thing she hated more than bullshit was compliance when bullshit was going down.

“I don’t know, Baby. What I do know is they confirmed we’re likely dealing with the same thing.

The victim disappears, their clothing folded neatly on the outskirts of the location, and they are never seen or heard from again.

Then, life moves on for another blissful year until it’s the Summer Solstice all over again.

What Timothy did to protect us all of those years ago seems to be a normal thing here. ”

Oh, Lordy.

This was anything but ‘normal’.

“What the fuck?” Rayna asked. “That’s horrible,” she admitted.

Yeah, it was.

It was clear she didn’t know about this because the look on her face said it all.

She was equally horrified.

And she should be.

“By any chance, they wouldn’t happen to know who is doing this, would they?” she asked. “Or would that be too much to ask?”

Oh, he wished.

That would make their lives easier, and that wasn’t their luck.

“No one has any clue. Apparently, the person doing this, and we’ll call them ‘they’ since I don’t know the gender, has passed down over multiple generations.

Chief Redbear said when the one Hollow dies, the next one takes its place.

I don’t know how he knows that, or if it’s just assuming since this has been going on a long-ass time. ”

Ethan hated this case already.

There was no way they’d be able to find the identities of all of the victims in a short period of time.

“I know this all sounds crazy,” he admitted.

Oh, crazy?

Was that all he thought this was?

Not that they likely had one hundred dead bodies in a pile of bones that would be absolutely useless to her as she tried to find whoever was behind this?

Because she was betting the worst part would be when the defense called her to the stand, and she had to call this ‘Hollow’ person nuttier than a fruitcake.

How else did you explain a Wendigo hunter on a rez?

Since Ethan hesitated, she knew there was more.

“What?” she asked.

Ethan just told her.

It was easier.

“Chief Redbear mentioned that someone had once tried to stop this from happening years ago.”

Now, Ivan was looking twitchy.

Why?

Because Elizabeth was absolutely going to be trying to stop this person and it from happening ever again.

“And what happened when they tried to stop it—since it’s clear they didn’t do it successfully?” she asked.

Ethan gave them the bad news.

“The Hollow got angry, and went after the person who was trying to stop it. Apparently, the act of the sacrifice is something sacred to the tribe. He disappeared after it hunted and stalked him. If we try to stop it, it might get angsty.”

Yep.

Ivan was downright twitchy hearing that.

Oh, holy shit.

This was not what he wanted to hear as the Blackhawks were out in the open on a reservation where something was killing people.

Elizabeth sighed.

“Yeah, I hate this case,” she muttered. “I really hate it a lot.”

And she wasn’t the only one.

The list of antsy people was growing.