Callen had news for him.
“You don’t need help escaping, Ethan. You can do that fine all by yourself.”
The truck got really quiet, and Gene braced for it. Oh, that comment was going to land poorly.
When it didn’t, he was shocked.
“Yeah, you’ve got a point,” Ethan admitted. “Then, I guess what I said stands. Take us to the bodies.”
Gene let out the breath he was holding.
That it didn’t erupt…
That was a pleasant surprise.
Callen told them what he’d been told by the deputy so they could assess the situation.
What Ethan had said was right. The reservation police wereNOTequipped to handle this.
If they got there and it was Native victims, he’d have to insist on helping them.
If they weren’t Native…
Not his circus.
Not his monkeys.
Yeah, he was passing this shit off fast.
Mostly because this wasNOThis wheelhouse, and while he was bored on the rez, he wasn’t that kind of bored.
He liked long walks on the beach, reading books, and not working homicides—especially three at once. That took a special kind of crazy.
Ethan crazy.
Clearly.
“Here’s what I know. It was a short conversation. My deputy said he thinks he found three naked women in the woods, and they’ve been mutilated.”
Ethan was listening.
That the deputy could determine gender told him they wouldn’t be bones, like Callen said.
Callen continued.
“So, I’m going to bet it was either a camping trip that ran into a bear, or some nefarious body dump. We don’t get a lot of death here. People go missing, but that’s mostly an escape from the asylum.”
Oh, he was aware.
Ethan had escaped just like so many others. He just walked away and never came back.
Now, here he was.
Oh, the irony.
“Well, if it’s Native, how do you want to proceed, Chief?” Gene asked. “You’ve got to call in help. You don’t have a forensics team, but if us helping is uncomfortable, it doesn’t have to be us.”
Ethan looked over at him.
