Page 71 of Chaos has a Name (An FBI Romance/Thriller #66)

“Someone I used to drink with disappeared a while ago. It was right before I gave up the alcohol. Maybe twenty years ago.”

She was paying attention because they knew there were one hundred skulls en route to the FBI building, and one of them might tie back to Wyler’s recollection.

She hoped.

“Who?”

Wyler put his spoon down, and tried to remember the man’s last name. It took a few seconds. Like he’d said, it was a while ago.

“It was a man by the name of Jolon Tuttle.”

She wrote the name down.

“Oh, and before Timothy died, another of my friends disappeared. His wife said he ran off to get laid and likely drank himself to death.”

Now, she was getting somewhere. Wyler didn’t realize that this little walk down memory lane was helping her a great deal. It might give her a ground zero where The Hollow tracked its victims.

“Who?” she asked, ready for the name.

Wyler shared.

“It was John Ankiti. He was friends with me, Tom Redbear, and Lance—since we were young. I don’t know if they stayed close to him. After Timothy died, I stopped coming here all that much.”

Chris knew his wife was in her element. She was getting information, and that made her happy.

“When did he go missing?” she asked.

He tried to put a date on it, but the mind wasn’t like it once was.

“I don’t know the exact timeframe,” he admitted.

She went there.

“How old were the boys?” she asked, trying to give him a point of reference.

That seemed to help.

“Ethan and Callen would have been babies. I would go out with them and…”

He stopped.

Elizabeth already knew.

“It’s okay,” she said. “They know that you slept around, Wyler. Ethan isn’t going to be angry. He’s beyond that point in his life.”

He was honest.

“It’s that I hurt Catherine. I was a horrible person. When I drink…”

Oh, they knew.

That was why he didn’t drink.

“Focus for me,” she said. “I need as much as you can give me. Let’s be blunt. I’m going to be roadblocked by everyone on this reservation, minus this family. I’m still an outsider to a point.”

He knew she was right.

“They were two of my friends. When Lance and I had our falling out, it was right around that time. He was pissed I cheated on Catherine, and that I was a shit person. Now, as I’m sober, I can say he was right.”

Well, they all had things they wished they could change, but couldn’t.

That was life.

“Did either of your friends who died have family here?” she asked.

He considered it.

Then, he nodded.

“Yeah, they do, or I think they do. I haven’t seen them around since I’ve been back the last few days.”

Oh.

Hot.

Damn.

She was focused on them for one reason, and one reason at all.

If his friends had been victims of this crazy, she could work backward to find out why they were being taken.

Did The Hollow have grudges or was it all about something else?

That was a question she needed to answer.

Two people who were drinkers and killed, and then add in that Thomas Adsila was also at a bar right before he was killed?

Oh, this was helping more than Wyler would ever know. It was giving her patterns.

“And they were questionable with their moral choices too?”

He nodded.

Chris knew where she was taking this.

“Do you think that The Hollow not only believes that it’s keeping the Wendigo at bay but also cleaning up the rez at the same time?”

She nodded.

“And targeting people that might not be missed as they play God. It appears that little requirement went back a long way to when Wyler was young, and during his midlife. There’s no way that the person who blindsided me, and I was chasing is old. This has to be a new generation of killers.”

That Chris agreed on.

Elizabeth was fast, and she was strong. The Hollow took her down without any issues.

“I’m betting we’re talking young-ish, or in really good shape.”

Chris let her think it out.

This was her process.

“If we can figure out how they all connect, we can narrow down the killer. These two individuals likely crossed paths in order to watch. We definitely have a watcher, of sorts, and a collector.”

She saw the skulls, and what Ethan had uploaded. This person was carrying on the tradition.

Oh, boy.

Honestly, Chris hated when they had one of those. They were more likely to hide in the shadows and get bitchy when you took their ‘prizes’.

Which was already happening at the scene by Gene, Callen, and Ethan.

They were going to have one hell of a chase on their hands. Natives were good at hide-and-seek when they were hunting.

Despite it all, this made Elizabeth happy.

For now, she had a lead.

“Tomorrow, I’ll dig into those three men. I’ll see what I can pull up.”

Already, Chris saw that spark coming back, and that fear had abated. This was exactly what she needed to get back on her feet.

There was no doubt that tomorrow, she’d hit the ground running, and raise some hell.

When Wyler finished his food, Elizabeth gave him her bowl of venison stew that she hadn’t finished.

He gratefully took it.

While she watched Wyler eat, the hamster wheel in her brain was going full speed.

Before this was done, the people who had grabbed her would be caught.

They’d made a mistake by giving her a chance to get her bearings.

Elizabeth Blackhawk was going to end the legend of The Hollow.

If it was the last thing she did.