Page 93 of Chaos has a Name (An FBI Romance/Thriller #66)

Thomas Adsila’s

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Thursday Morning

Since her process was pretty simple, and rarely ever changed, Elizabeth wanted to make sure that with the head and whistle headed in, she took this back to where it seemed to begin a few days ago.

Thomas Adsila’s cabin.

For her, she needed to backtrack his steps, hoping to find out if someone had been following the victim before he met his maker.

She was also going to make sure his cabin was checked for trace. The new team was going to have another long day.

Hopefully, they didn’t disappoint her.

Man.

What wouldn’t she give to have Chrissy there to help her?

Somehow, she was pretty sure she’d have this case solved by now if she did.

When they pulled up to the man’s home, she had a full vehicle. The Chief of Police was with her, while Uriel was in a tail car, the one he drove over to her place last night.

Later, they could spread out, but for now, she had no time. There were interviews to handle.

“Okay, Gene, contact Ethan, and see what he’s doing,” she said.

He could do that.

“If he’s available, patch your vest into his tablet so he can see us walk the scene. If Axl is with him, and he should be, I want him to be there too.”

Gene was rattling off a text to his husband, and it didn’t take Ethan long to text back.

‘I’m logging in. I’d love to see the scene.’

He showed her the message, and that worked for her. While she’d read his profile, Elizabeth knew that they could change on a dime if something came up.

Ethan seemed quiet that morning, and he hadn’t put up too much of a fight about going to the office.

That told her he was worried about something. For her sanity’s sake, and his well-being, she wanted him where he was safe.

She was crazy like that.

“MATE, patch in Doctor Blackhawk via my vest camera,” Gene said.

The hologram appeared, and Rayna jumped.

“What the fuck is that?” she asked, as the woman turned and smiled at her.

“I’m a who,” MATE admitted. “You can call me Zen or MATE. I’m her AI. I’m the one she sends to dig into all of your secrets, Chief of Police Rayna Running Wolf. You take a lot of pictures of your dog.”

The woman blinked.

“Is this for real, or am I having some sort of medical issue?” she asked.

Callen laughed.

“Oh, you’re seeing what’s real, sort of,” he said. “When you’re within ten feet of her, she can clone your phone and get your information.”

MATE glanced over at Callen.

“Someone likes dick pics,” she said.

Immediately, Elizabeth raised her hand and threatened her AI.

“And if he stops sending them to me, MATE, I may just activate that code…”

MATE stared at her.

“Who pissed in her cereal this morning?” MATE asked.

Ivan didn’t miss a beat.

“Everyone. That’s her kink,” he said, earning himself a slap to the back of his Marine fade. “HEY!”

Then, they all ignored him.

Not far away, Rayna just sat there.

“And she’s a hologram?” she asked, moving her hand through her.

Because MATE was a ballbuster, she giggled.

“That tickles.”

When Rayna pulled her hand back, MATE laughed. Well, she chortled in that scary voice she used to freak people out, intentionally.

“Kidding.”

Elizabeth reassured her.

“Ignore my assistant. She’s unhinged,” she said. “Much like most of us.”

If she said so.

Rayna was both curious and freaked out that Elizabeth had a hologram that followed her around. That was…weird.

Getting out, Elizabeth heard her husband’s voice over Gene’s vest, and it was clear they were now patched in, and ready to see the scene.

“Hey, Baby,” he said.

She walked up the path.

“Hey, handsome doctor. Do you have a good view from your office?” she asked.

Oh, he did.

“Gene has the camera aimed at the back of you, so I’m not complaining.”

The man laughed.

“It’s an inclined driveway, EJ. She’s in front of me. I’m not doing it intentionally. Trust me.”

Not to be left out, they heard Axl get in on the action.

“I mean, it’s a view,” he said.

Then, they heard him say ‘ouch’.

Oh, and there was no doubt why.

“That’s what you get,” Ethan said. “Keep your eyes off of our prize—or at least know better than to say it out loud.”

That made her roll her eyes.

“Let’s do a walk-through,” she said. “Then, I want to backtrack to the bar. We know Elkie’s sons own and work there. It’s early, but I know how the rez is.”

Rayna reassured her.

“Oh, the bar is going to be open. Roland Stormchaser gets there early to do the paperwork, and handle the money, and he lets some of the Natives in.”

Well, that was handy.

“He’s not supposed to sell alcohol, so he gives it away as a big fuck you to the local law. Let’s just say that Roland isn’t cop friendly, and his father wasn’t either. Joshua Stormchaser made the last chief work for it,” she admitted.

Well, then, that would be their next stop.

“If you can stay with us, EJ, it might help.”

Oh, he would.

“We’re just going over the information to make sure our profile stays the same,” he admitted.

That worked for Elizabeth.

At the man’s door, Elizabeth was being extra cautious. There was no way she was just walking into a building without covering herself.

Behind them, Ivan, Gryphen, and Uriel were covering their backs.

Pulling her ‘borrowed’ gun, she used a gloved hand to open the door, and the toe of her boot to push it.

That’s when she scanned the cabin, making sure they were safe.

There was no one inside that she could see.

Keeping her gun out, they began surveying it. That’s when she knew what she wanted.

“Axl, text Doctor Leonard and give him my location from MATE. Tell him send a smaller team here to do trace. We have a lot going on.”

Like what?

Oh, maybe the blood smears on the back of the door, splatter on the ceiling, and the bedding was eviscerated with what looked like knife slices.

She was betting that Thomas Adsila had fought as he bled out.

Oh, and fought hard.

Axl did what she asked, and before long, he told her that they were on the way.

As everyone stood in there, Takoda beside his mother, Elizabeth kept looking.

That’s when she saw it.

On the man’s dresser, there was a bone whistle, just like had been found on the campground scene, and Rayna’s porch.

It was the calling card.

“So that’s like a calling card, right?” Takoda asked.

She nodded.

“Yeah, it appears to be.”

Ethan was checking out the scene from Gene’s vest, and he chimed in.

“It’ll be a bone that most likely belongs to the victim, or the previous one. I can’t imagine bone carving is an easy task,” he suggested.

Then, he saw it.

“The closet door is open,” he said. “How much do you want to bet that one of them chased Thomas or stalked him from the bar, and the other was already in here, lying in wait?” he asked. “So they could double-team him.”

Oh, that was a bet she wasn’t taking. There was no doubt in her mind that he was right.

Tucking away her gun, she glanced over at Ivan and his team.

“Keep us safe. I’m going to start looking around and don’t plan on having my gun out,” she said, making sure they understood that Takoda was their concern.

The Marine nodded.

The message was delivered.

“Spread out,” he told his two employees, and they did. Uriel put himself by the bedroom door, Ivan took the front, and Gryphen was outside, walking the perimeter of the house—just in case.

The whole time, Ivan was watching her, and Koda. How much trouble could she get into inside?

When she began going through the man’s things, Koda beside her, they found a quiver with some arrows in it—which wasn’t odd since their cabin had the same thing there.

As her son held it in his gloved hands, she was curious.

“Gene, get closer. Ethan, pull up the crime scene photos from where the nuts shot at us in the clearing.”

She heard typing.

“I have it up. What are you thinking?” Blackhawk asked.

“Show your father,” she stated, and Koda did just that. He held it in front of Gene’s vest for MATE to transmit to Ethan.

She waited.

Then, she got the news that didn’t surprise her.

“It’s a match. They are identical.”

And that meant the killers weren’t dumb. They also got lucky, because she was willing to bet that they took a few, or came back here to get them the second they found out the FBI was going to be hunting them.

“Text Chris to alert his techs that they’ll find the DNA from Thomas Adsila on them. We have a little of his flesh, so cross-compare it.”

Ethan heard her loud and clear.

“Can do,” he said.

As Takoda bagged it up, doing what she’d taught him at the Chief of Police’s home, she went through drawers, the closet, and the rest of the man’s house. Sadly, nothing else really stood out to her.

The whole time, Rayna was watching her.

“I never thought to do any of this,” she admitted. “Maybe you should be teaching me, and your son.”

Maybe.

There were some things you learned by doing, and not just being taught.

When she didn’t say anything, Uriel, who was watching the door, reassured her.

“Elizabeth has been doing this a very long time. She lives, eats, and breathes a crime scene. It’s like second nature to her. Don’t stress it.”

Rayna wasn’t, but it fascinated her how the woman moved through the room and had just figured out that the arrows that had been shot at them belonged to the victim.

She’d never pieced that together in her head.

“What do you see, Koda?” she asked, back to being a teacher.

He looked around.

“A lot of blood. As Dad would say, it’s definitely arterial. I see that his bed is a mess, and most of the blood is on it. Does that mean he was cut, and then fell backward?” he asked.

She nodded.

“CJ?”

He came over, and they showed him by acting it out. He moved out of the closet, holding his pen, and ‘slicing’ it across her throat.

She staggered back.

“He fell to the bed, and the killer was on him. As the blood sprayed and seeped into the bedding, he must have been fighting. The killer slashed at him, and the bedding.”

Koda was taking it all in.

“So, the drips on the way to the trees?” Rayna asked.

“He was empty at that point. With this much blood, he was just dripping it from where he laid in it.”

Koda was watching.

So, she was to the point.

“Blood splatter tells the tale. I can see a couple different kinds. The killers must have cleaned up any footprints they left behind, but left the rest.”

Ethan was to the point.

“That’s sloppy. For a killer who removes one Native a year, this whole scene tells me one of two things.”

She waited.

“The person or persons doing this didn’t expect quite the fight, and it got out of hand, or this was new for them. They left a lot of mess behind.”

Oh, she could see either being applicable.

“Yeah, it could be either one of those things.”

Gryphen radioed inside.

“I found something out here,” he said. “You should probably see it.”

When Elizabeth heard that over her vest, she led them outside, and to where the man was behind the cabin. He wasn’t far from the bedroom window.

“What did you find, Gryph?” she asked, as Takoda was right beside her, near his father.

The man pointed.

“Shoeprints.”

They all looked, Gene making sure to get them in the video call to Ethan so he and Axl could also see them.

“So the killer came here and waited for him?” Rayna asked.

Elizabeth shook her head.

“No. They came back. They came back a few times,” she said.

Her son had to ask questions.

It was clear that he wasn’t connecting the dots.

“How do you know?” he asked.

Elizabeth pointed at the shoeprints, and they were clear in the dirt.

“It rained yesterday. It poured. If this was from the night before, they would have washed away or muddied up. They didn’t. That tells me that they likely came here for something.”

As Ethan was in his office, something occurred to him, and it sent chills down his spine.

Oh, no!

Ethan’s voice came over the vest.

“Or they keep coming back to see if you’re here. I don’t like this, Elizabeth. I suggest you leave the scene right now!”

The second he said it, they all heard it.

An arrow made a very distinct sound as it was flying through the air.

“DOWN!” Ivan warned, as he took down both Callen and Gene, while Uriel took down the Chief of Police. Gryphen went for Takoda, and he tried to get Elizabeth too, but she was just out of reach.

The arrow went right past her head, missing her face by inches. She felt the drag and pivoted her body just in time to avoid it.

When it hit, the arrow went into the wood behind her.

When her Marines got up, ready to run into the woods, she stopped them.

“NO! Don’t!” she said.

It stopped them in their tracks.

“They want us to do this,” she admitted. “They came back here, and now, they’re trying to get us to spread out. Don’t go near the trees.”

As Ivan helped Takoda up, Ethan agreed.

“They are studying us. They’re trying to learn what we do, and how we react. Don’t follow. Elizabeth is right. This is either them needing one of us to pay her back for escaping and taking the skulls, or he wants to rattle her cage.”

Well, Elizabeth knew what she was going to do. Since Gryphen was now crowding her, she grabbed his gun, and began firing into the trees, randomly.

She emptied the whole clip, reloaded, and fired another twelve shots.

As she did, everyone watched in shock.

What the hell?

Elizabeth Blackhawk had enough.

And this was proof.

* * * The Blackhawk Family * * *

In The Woods

Watching

Waiting

When they saw her come outside of the cabin, they honestly believed that they had just gotten lucky.

The Wendigo’s blessing delivered when it was time.

This was proof.

Pulling out one of the absconded arrows that they’d just stolen minutes before the FBI showed up, it was placed on his finger, and the bowstring was pulled back.

And off it went.

The arrow flew straight, almost hitting its target, like they’d planned.

If she was going to keep investigating, after nearly dying by their hands, they’d up the stress.

On her family.

Because they’d kill her and enjoy it.

The Hollow had demanded that she die, and that was exactly what they were going to do.

PERIOD.

When The Hollow spoke, they listened.

As the arrow hit the cabin, just missing her, they fully expected her to charge back into the trees.

That was what they wanted.

But that wasn’t what they got.

Instead, they had seconds to get down before the trees were hit in a barrage of bullets, and aimed at where the arrow had come.

They.

Got.

Down.

Then, when she stopped firing, they took off. Through the woods they ran, putting space between them and with good reason.

She was unhinged.

The woman had indiscriminately fired two clips into the trees, not knowing who was there.

That told them all they needed to know.

A smart Native would run.

And run fast.

It was time to regroup.

As they disappeared into the trees, they knew they needed to figure out a way to stop this investigation.

And that was when it hit them.

The Chief of Police.

Well, this should be fun, and all kinds of interesting.

For them.

Not her.