Page 4 of Chaos has a Name (An FBI Romance/Thriller #66)

Yeah, and neither was wandering around in just your boxers with wee Thomas sticking out, but they’d seen that behavior from him before too.

That was why she was calm.

This was normal.

Alcohol plus bored natives equaled bullshittery.

Unfortunately for Rayna, that was her every single day.

“We’ll see if we can find him,” Rayna said, as she made the drive a half a mile to the bar, and then another half a mile past it.

When she pulled into his driveway, she saw his rundown Toyota hatchback sitting there.

“Okay, show me what has you concerned,” Rayna said to Wynonah.

The woman got out, and led her to her brother’s door to show her.

Once she pushed it open, Rayna had to admit, there was a lot of blood in a trail coming from his bedroom.

She made the woman stand there, and she followed it back toward Thomas’ bedroom.

When she pushed the door all the way open, she was shocked at what she saw.

Holy shit.

Wynonah wasn’t kidding.

There was a lot of blood there. In fact, if she didn’t know any better, she’d say it looked arterial. That would definitely explain the splatter on the ceiling.

It appeared as if someone had cut an artery and it just sprayed out all over the place.

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

That was somehow worse. If Thomas was wandering around with blood spraying out of him, he would certainly end up dead.

It looked as if this ‘normal’ situation just became ‘not-normal’ pretty damn fast.

This was urgent.

Thomas might need medical intervention.

Walking back out, she walked right past Wynonah, and followed the trail of blood toward the woods. When she reached the tree line, she could see puddling.

And weird marks.

Did Thomas collapse and then drag himself into the woods? Was he that inebriated that he didn’t realize he was bleeding out?

Without warning, Wynonah appeared beside her.

“See?” she asked.

Oh, she’d been right.

This was odd.

“I told you. Something is wrong. It looks like drag marks,” she said. “I don’t think my brother dragged himself into the trees while bleeding that much. I’ve seen less blood come out of a deer,” she added.

Yeah, her too.

He had to be incredibly disorientated for that to happen.

Pulling out her phone, she made a call to the station. When it was answered, it was Forest.

“Reservation Police,” he said, pleasantly.

She didn’t hesitate.

“Forest, get every deputy we have on duty, and meet me at Thomas Adsila’s home. Wynonah was right. There’s way too much blood. He may have cut himself, and got disorientated.”

“On it, Chief,” he said, hanging up the phone.

When she tucked her phone back into her pocket, she stared into the thick trees surrounding he man’s backyard. It was ominous, and gave her the willies.

Only, she didn’t know why.

That was the problem.

Even if it worried her, she had no choice but to go in looking for him.

“Should we go into the trees and look for him?” Wynonah asked, as if she’d been reading Rayna’s mind.

Hell.

No.

She was waiting for backup.

Something about this rubbed her the wrong way, and she couldn’t figure out why.

But it did.

“No, Wynonah, we’re going to wait for the rest of my guys to arrive. Then, we’ll do the search in a way that no one else gets lost.”

Or haunted.

Why did the trees seem suddenly ominous?

Yeah, that seemed like the best thing to do.

Because as of that moment, Rayna didn’t like any of this.

Not.

One.

Bit.

She was officially freaked out.

* * * The Blackhawk Family * * *

Across The Reservation

The Blackhawk Cabin

Same Time

Never let it be said that flying with all of the children in your home was easy.

It was anything but.

In fact, it had been one hell of a flight to get there. They’d all piled onto two of the family jets.

Callen’s, and Christopher’s.

It took two in order to get security, adults, and children across the country to Damascus, Utah.

After taking off, the people who would be working out there would be loading onto the FBI jet that she used to head out for cases, since there were fewer of them.

Then, they’d rendezvous out West.

It would have been easier if they had more time to arrange this, but that wasn’t the case.

This was all short notice.

Three days ago, she was holding her brand-new grandson, Oliver Wyler, and now, she was about to find his namesake and kick his ass for this bullshit.

This chaos was not necessary.

In fact, this chaos had a name.

It was BULLSHITERY.

Run and hide so he didn’t have to go to chemo to try and save his life?

Oh.

Hell.

No.

There was no doubt in her mind that he was absolutely going to chemo.

She’d drag him kicking and screaming.

At that very moment, she wanted to rage, and that was NEVER a good thing for anyone around her. Wyler was just hella lucky that she was calm more times than not.

Because had she been unable to keep her feelings in check, the shit would have hit the fan.

And everyone knew it.

Well, everyone except Wyler, who clearly didn’t care that he was stressing her the hell out.

For the last three days, she had to keep her husbands calm, and not let on too much because of the kids.

Because they didn’t know Wyler was sick.

Yet.

They were going to be heartbroken when it came finding out that their grandfather, the ONLY one, was battling stage-four cancer.

Honestly, Elizabeth wasn’t sure how she was going to break that to them.

There was going to be a lot of pain in that, and she was angry that Wyler had run so she’d have to do the dirty work. With anyone else, she didn’t mind dropping the bomb.

With her kids…

No.

That wasn’t something she liked to do.

His blatant duck-and-cover while she got the blowback was just one more reason why she was annoyed.

She needed Wyler to go to chemo and take the treatment if not for his children, then for the baby birds.

His grandchildren needed him.

Hell!

His sons needed him, too, and to be frank, so did she.

Elizabeth had lost her father, and in the gap, Wyler had become that role for her.

She’d latched on, and he wasn’t her father-in-law, but instead, now, her surrogate father.

Saying goodbye to him would be so damn hard—even more difficult than saying goodbye to Timothy.

She’d only known him a year.

Wyler…he’d been her father for almost fifteen years now, and they had a bond.

It stung.

The anger was front and center right now. She’d been contacted by their attorney.

Someone had time to make plans to devastate them even more.

Wyler wanted her and Ethan to adopt TJ in lieu of his death.

What?

Was he insane?

The man had a wife, and she was sure Caryn was hurt over him passing off his child to them, and not his WIFE.

If that didn’t butter her biscuits enough, he also asked that she recreate Timothy’s burial on the reservation.

That was a burden.

A.

HUGE.

ONE.

Not the work, per se, but the toll it would take on her heart. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

If that wasn’t bad enough, she had to shuffle half of her team to this side of the country so she could not only help her husbands through this, and her children, but also keep up her Deputy Director duties the whole time.

Great.

Oh, and that wasn’t easy.

The biggest issue with that was that most of her team was married to people who couldn’t join them.

The big one?

Christina Redwolf.

In the process of all of this, Elizabeth had lost her head tech in this move, and it didn’t make her happy in the least.

Chrissy was a powerhouse, and she was irreplaceable, and Elizabeth knew it.

What the hell was she going to do now?

While she was out here, she was going to have to take cases, and without a tech to drive the lab bus, it was likely going off a cliff.

What were the chances she’d find another Chrissy?

Slim.

To.

None.

A girl had to work.

She couldn’t leave the Violent Crimes Unit unmanned. She had to keep taking cases that were almost unsolvable.

Yeah, Elizabeth had to do her job.

So on top of convincing Wyler to take the chemo, and running her team in a city she absofuckinglutely hated, she also had to keep Callen and Ethan calm.

This was a whole other ballgame—one where she never thought she’d be back to Damascus.

Not.

Once.

Oh, she came here for meetings—if she was forced to attend them with the staff here, but most of the time, she telecommuted from her office in The Hoover Building.

She was to Damascus like Ethan was to Philadelphia.

They didn’t mesh well due to the past.

Only, here she was.

Back again.

Now, she and Axelle were holding up the whole kit and kaboodle in two different offices with divided families and teams.

Divided?

Like whom?

Oh, maybe her own brother.

Duke was a problem.

His mother was married to Wyler, and he’d opted to follow to be her support. He’d left the kids with Axelle, and came West to work on The VC Unit out here.

How long was that going to last?

That was anyone’s guess.

Honestly, she was betting shorter than anyone expected. Truthfully, Axelle didn’t look thrilled to be on the SS Single Parent.

Not.

At.

All.

This was causing all kinds of mayhem for everyone’s lives.

While Wyler had the right to choose his location to live out his remaining days, what he didn’t have the right to do was hold his last days hostage from them.

Coming back here meant she had to get the kids and his sons here.

And he had more than just Ethan and Callen.

He’d adopted Chris, who also never had a father in his life, and Gene, who didn’t have a relationship with his family since they didn’t want a gay son in the mix.

Their hearts were tied up in this too.

To everyone who had been left behind, Wyler was bailing on all of them.

Or that was how it felt.

Now, she had to figure out how to make this work. It was divide and conquer on just about everything in their lives now.

She was traveling with the minimum team she could. That meant more weight would be on her, Callen, Gene, Ethan, and Chris.

They’d have no choice but to take more cases. They’d have no choice but to work longer hours.