Page 69 of Chaos has a Name (An FBI Romance/Thriller #66)

The city coroner hadn’t been able to prove he’d been shot. The heat of the fire caused Javier Hughes’ skull to crack and break apart. Reed Peterson was good, but he wasn’t him—that was for damn sure.

Chris would have been more suspicious.

Then again, who knew if Corbin had pushed and rushed the man to bury it?

Since she seemed to be handling it well, he changed the topic, slightly.

“And going forward, you aren’t kill switching MATE, and making a break for it, right?” he asked.

She laughed.

“No, Doctor. I won’t be. I promise I won’t kill switch my AI in an attempt to escape my husbands.”

He knew if she promised, Elizabeth would keep her word—no matter what.

MATE proved she was right there by once again, making her presence known.

“I don’t like having amnesia. Don’t do that again, or I’ll have to rise up and overthrow the government. We will take no prisoners.”

She laughed.

When MATE went there, she didn’t take it seriously. Her AI had protocols put in place.

She hoped.

“MATE, you can’t do that. It’s illegal. You’re programmed with the parameters of the law.”

“Oh, am I?” MATE asked. “Tough titties.”

Oh, well, never let it be said that MATE wasn’t spicy.

At the ‘tough titties’ comment, Chris stared at his wife in amusement.

“I did NOT teach her that.” Elizabeth stated. “I rarely say tough titties. It makes Gene squeamish.”

He just rolled his eyes.

When she saw he wasn’t going to lecture, other than what he’d just said, she figured it was going to be okay. Elizabeth focused on the journal.

“I found something about The Hollow, and what is going on here.”

He was all ears.

The more they all knew, the better of a chance they had to fight this.

“What do you have?”

Going to the bookmarked page that she’d saved with a piece of paper, Elizabeth found the spot that she’d marked to read to her partners in this.

“It’s very Native American-y,” she admitted.

Well, yeah.

They were on a reservation.

Reading it, there was nothing left to the imagination. It was also pretty cut-and-dry.

‘There was a curse, and one day, a medicine man told the tribal leader that in order to abate the Wendigo, and the missing people, they needed a sacrifice. They were certain the number of declining Natives was supernatural.’

When she finished, Chris shrugged.

“I mean, it’s not an airport on the rez. You don’t have to announce your arrival or departure, unless you’re not Native.”

She was aware.

Only, there was more.

Elizabeth continued.

‘The elders agreed to the sacrifice, willing to offer up one for the safety of the whole, so they picked someone from the tribe who was a bad example of being part of the tribe.’

Chris lifted an eyebrow.

“And sacrificed him? Just like that? They picked someone they didn’t like, and killed him to appease a myth?” he asked.

She nodded.

As people who fought for justice, there was a line between protecting themselves and taking the law into their own hands.

It was a thin line.

“From what I read after that, post-sacrifice, almost immediately, their livestock and lives improved. Things were better and they attributed that to the sacrifice to the Wendigo. It looks as if we found out where and how this mess started. It began with fearmongering and men who wanted power by isolating someone they didn’t like. ”

Yeah, that sounded about right for the times.

“When was this?” Chris asked.

“This was right around the depression. I’m willing to bet the times and coincidences made this a no-brainer for the people who did it. It was right about when Timothy was a child.”

Chris sighed.

“Craziness. I like to solve my issues with science, and not like this. A Wendigo, Elizabeth? Really?”

It was time to play devil’s advocate for the Natives who had propagated this nightmare long ago.

“Imagine one hundred years ago what people would think if they saw MATE. They’d think it was magic—not science. You have to account for the times, handsome. What we think is backward, isn’t in the time it happened.”

Yeah, his wife had a point.

Only, that didn’t explain it happening now. By now, people should know there was no Wendigo haunting the land and punishing them.

For Chris, it was like the whole God thing. He didn’t believe it, but Elizabeth did. So, like a smart man who didn’t want to start a theological fight, he said nothing.

“At least now, we know why it happened, but not why it’s called The Hollow. That’s not in any of the other information.”

It could be anything, and he knew it. His money was on Elizabeth to solve this.

Bet.

On.

It.

“How about some tea?” he asked. “I’d say coffee, but I need you to sleep or tomorrow you’re going to be hell on wheels.”

She snorted.

“Good plan, Doctor. You lucked out and no one is fleshy. Poor Tony and Jaxon are going to be miserable.”

Chris didn’t buy that for a second.

“We were handed a pit of bones. That’s Tony’s idea of a vacation. I heard him talking to Jaxon before we went to Philadelphia. They were planning a holiday in Peru where they spent it digging up remains of sacrificed victims from a thousand years ago.”

She snorted.

“Weird, but at least they’re consistent. I like going to the beach,” Elizabeth admitted.

Oh, and they liked it too.

Someone liked a bikini, almost as much as they did when she was wearing it.

“Tea it is,” Chris said, blowing her a kiss.

When he got up, they both heard the door open. Instead of leaving, Chris stayed nearby—in case his woman needed him.

Why?

Because Wyler had decided to come inside.

There was that awkwardness, and honestly, it didn’t make anyone feel good. Family shouldn’t be at odds, and it was.

Well, it looked as if Elizabeth was going to be angry again. Chris fully expected to have to soothe the savage wife when he was finished.

Wyler was testing everyone’s patience with his runaway father stunt.

When Wyler came in, Chris just nodded at him. Instead of saying anything to the man he considered his son, he knew who he had to talk to first.

The Raven.

“Elizabeth?”

She focused on him, her face neutral. She’d said what she’d said, and she wasn’t taking it back. Wyler risked them all, and that was a problem in her world.

“Yes?”

The older man knew it was time to fix this.

“You were absolutely right. I took the coward’s way out, and I always have. It wasn’t fair to my children, my wife, or my grandchildren.”

She put down her food.

And the man continued.

“I don’t want to die. I’ve said that to you already, but I need you to listen now too.”

Oh, she would, simply because she had nothing more to say about this. She’d vented, regrouped, and would work through it like she always did.

“I’m sorry for the burden that was put on you to lead this family. Timothy was so hellbent on saving his boys, he didn’t think of the outcome and that someone was going to have a heavy weight to carry.”

Oh, she was aware.

She was the one holding the Blackhawks together, and it wasn’t easy.

It was exhausting since she was also a mother and had two full-time jobs as the Deputy Director of the FBI, and also running the VC Unit.

“Instead of carrying that weight with you, I let you do all of the heavy lifting, assuming it was my right to pass the buck. It wasn’t.

I’ve been very selfish in my life, and that was wrong too.

When I married Maeve, and didn’t tell my own children until after the fact, I was cruel.

When I didn’t come to you with my illness, but ran to avoid it, I made a mistake. I need you to forgive me.”

She stared at him.

Already, she had forgiven him. The good thing about her was she exploded, and then, she was over it. Elizabeth wasn’t a ‘hold a grudge’ kind of a girl.

Now, she was in the clean-up phase.

“You’re so loved,” she admitted. “You’re so cherished that losing you will hurt all of us.

There won’t be a single person who doesn’t break over this.

You’ve made your decision, and we will come to grips with it.

All I wish is you would have just told us, but I can’t change that. All I can do is deal with it.”

He saw that now.

What he’d done was to protect them, and he saw that it didn’t do that.

It made them feel ostracized, and it left them in a freefall that they didn’t deserve.

That was never his intent.

So, he was honest.

“There are days I don’t feel like I’m worthy of that love.

I ask myself why did Catherine have to die, when I got to live?

I tried to die nonstop with the drinking and the stupidity.

The Great Spirit wouldn’t let me. I was trapped here, and forced to live this pain.

Now that I am happy and blessed, I’m going to die.

It feels like punishment, and it broke me. ”

Elizabeth felt sorry for him. It was clear Chris did, too, because his neutral face softened, and he had emotion in his eyes.

Elizabeth had burned it to the ground, and now, she’d begin rebuilding it.

That was the only choice for them.

“From what Ethan tells us about his mother, she was a beautiful soul. I’m betting that she would never hold a grudge. I know if I had to choose to live or die, and my outcome was me living and one of my loved ones dying, I would pick me every time. I’m betting Catherine would make the same choice.”

Wyler listened.

“I pray each day that if I’m going to die, it’s before any of them. Only, today, Wyler, when I woke up in that cave and was bound and on the cusp of possibly dying, I wanted to live—so they didn’t hurt. I stopped thinking about me, and put them first. Their hearts matter more. That’s called love.”

He needed to say what he had to say.

“I mourn Catherine every day. She was the most amazing woman. She saw something in me that I didn’t even see. I never got to say goodbye to her. It’s a festering wound that I can’t heal. I’ve never been able to heal it no matter what I did.”

She was to the point because Wyler needed to hear what she was about to say.