Harlequin Intrigue April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Carol Ericson

  Sergeant Nguyen lifted his pencil from the notebook and motioned with the eraser end toward the back of the cabin. “The body is in the bedroom. They saw it through the window on the south side of the house. I collected statements from both hikers before EMTs took the female hiker—Annabell Ross—to the hospital. Seems she contracted a stomach bug from drinking straight out of a stream near here. The other one, a guy named Henry Sallow, is still here giving his statement. Neither of them saw or heard anything suspicious, as far as they remember. I pulled the property records and informed the owners about what happened. We don’t get a lot of homicides in Gresham. Have you been out here before?”

  “No. Most of my cases keep me in Portland.” A stone fireplace took up most of the space in the small living room, a kitchen just beyond that to the right at the back of the structure. Shadows cast across the hardwood through the windows from a ring of pines stretching overhead outside. Remi took in the old sofa, a coffee table and the small built-in bookshelves on either side of the fireplace. No personal effects or décor. No television. Not unusual for a place like this in the middle of nowhere. It was hard enough getting electricity let alone cable, but the place looked deserted. A rental? Or an opportunity the killer had taken advantage of?

  A mountainous wall of muscle shadowed the doorframe behind her as Deputy US Marshal Dylan Cove stepped onto the scene, and every cell in Remi’s body rocketed into awareness. Well over six-two, with healthy, brown hair, a permanent scowl and gray eyes she found herself unable to avoid, the former private investigator locked his attention on her with an intensity that’d followed her all the way from Delaware. “Do we know how long the victim had been staying here?”

  “Not yet, but there’s an overnight bag in the closet behind you with a few changes of clothes, so I’m thinking he was on vacation.” Nguyen leveled his gaze with hers. The glare from the sunlight reflecting off his silver badge prevented her from seeing his expression. Daniel Nguyen had been Gresham police longer than she’d headed her division. He was a veteran, experienced with homicide investigations and evidence collection, and was perfectly capable of handling this scene on his own. What were she and Cove doing there? The sergeant faced her. “Are you sure you’ve never been here?”

  “Positive. We don’t get scenes like this in my division.” She would’ve remembered if one of her assignments had brought her out here. The closest she’d come had been to drive straight through Gresham on her way to Mount Hood during a case in which a senior deputy district attorney had been abducted and her team had been called in to provide backup. Her boots reverberated off the hardwood floors as she followed the sergeant toward the back of the cabin. Remi memorized the floor plan as they moved down the short hallway, past the secondary kitchen access and into the northwest corner of the house. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as heavy footsteps fell into rhythm behind her. Cove. Wall paneling dimmed the natural light coming in through the single window as she rounded the corner, and there, in the center of the bedroom, was the reason she’d been called to the scene.

  Her throat worked to repress the bile churning in her gut. The victim—male, approximately six feet, maybe one hundred and eighty pounds—had been tied to a chair by the wrists and ankles. She zeroed in on the blood crusted under the ropes, evidence the cuts on his skin had more than likely resulted from his spending hours trying to escape. However, it was the dozens of other lacerations, the ones that’d most likely led to his death, that demanded her attention. Her mouth dried as the past collided with the present. Memories of a scene almost identical to this one threatened to escape the grave she’d buried them in when she’d left Delaware. The rope, the lacerations varying in width and length across the victim’s entire body, the lack of forced entry and isolated location. “Do you have a pair of gloves for me?”

  Nguyen circled around one of the crime scene technicians and collected a pair of latex gloves then handed them off. “We recovered the victim’s wallet on the dresser over there. Delaware license belonging to Del Howe. You recognize the name?”

  “Should we?” Cove donned his own pair of gloves and flipped open the victim’s wallet. He hadn’t showed any signs of surprise or recognition since coming into the room. Of all the investigators who’d worked the New Castle Killer case, she would’ve expected him to react to this scene.

  “Doesn’t sound familiar.” Did Nguyen honestly believe because she and the victim were both from Delaware, she’d know him? Styled dirty-blond hair cascaded over Mr. Howe’s forehead, hiding most of his face as his chin rested on his chest. Bands of muscle roped down the victim’s arms and across his back, yet there was no sign of a struggle in the cabin. Nothing seemed out of place. “Del Howe obviously worked out, took care of himself. Makes me think he wouldn’t have gone down without a fight. His attacker must’ve been bigger, stronger, or he’d been drugged with a sedative.”

  She took in the clean floor, the furniture, the rumpled bed—everything seemingly in its place. Centering herself in the door frame, she focused on the bed. “But there aren’t any defensive wounds on his hands or skin under his fingernails, as far as I can tell. He could’ve known his attacker. It’s possible he let them in, and whoever killed him took him by surprise.”

  The sergeant scribbled in his notebook. “We’ll know more once the medical examiner has a chance to do the autopsy.”

  “You obviously connected my last case in Delaware to this one, Sergeant, and I can’t lie, there are a lot of similarities.” Remi forced herself to take a calming breath, to detach from the case that’d ended her career as the sheriff of New Castle, Delaware, and secured her emotional armor in place. But having Cove here—having another investigator who shouldered as much blame as she did for what’d happened on that case—threatened to resurrect the past. She kept her gaze on the corner of the bed and not on the pool of blood that’d seeped into the cracks of the hardwood floor around the body. “The manner of binding the victim to a chair, the dozens of cuts that most likely caused him to bleed out, the lack of struggle and the fact there are no signs of forced entry.”

  This scene ticked all the boxes neither she nor Cove had been able to solve. But what were the chances the killer who’d gotten away with three murders of college-aged men back east had come to Oregon?

  “Do you believe this could be the work of the New Castle Killer?” Sergeant Nguyen poised his pencil above the notebook that doubled as a barrier between him and the victim. “That he followed you here from Delaware in order to taunt you?”

  Cove’s head snapped up.

  “I’m not ready to make that jump yet, Sergeant.” Now why on earth would the sergeant think she was connected to this case at all? There were hundreds of thousands of murders a year in the United States but only so many different ways to kill a human being. There was bound to be some overlap from one case to another. Remi moved around Del Howe’s body toward the back of the bedroom. No sign of company while he’d been in Oregon. No female clothing, long hairs on the pillowcases or feminine touches. The crime scene unit would be able to confirm the victim hadn’t had any visitors, but the knot in her chest wouldn’t let her discount the possibility Nguyen had a point. Of all the locations this killer could’ve caught up to his prey, why take a cold case she’d worked in New Castle and recreate it here in Gresham? To get her attention? To send a message?

  “I’m more inclined to believe whoever did this was a copycat,” Cove said. “The investigation got a lot of national attention after the last victim went missing and, no matter how hard we tried to prevent it, the media uncovered a lot of details we never released to the public.”

  “I’m happy to turn over my case files and notes if you want to compare the scenes.” Anything to dislodge the knot of guilt twisting in her gut. She hadn’t been able to bring any of the victims home, but there might be something in her old files that could help Gresham PD prevent it from happening again. A soft click reg
istered from the corner of the large bedroom, and Remi realized the crime scene photographer was documenting everything inside the walk-in closet.

  Confusion rippled up her neck and across her shoulders as something compelled her to look inside. Had there been more blood evidence found in the closet? She forced one foot in front of the other as the crime scene photographer angled his camera at the floor, backing out of her way as he studied the LCD screen on his camera.

  Revealing the surveillance photos taped over every square inch of the closet.

  Remi froze as recognition flared.

  It was her. The photo to her left showed her crossing the office parking lot. Then, straight ahead, one of her coordinating a manhunt at Heceta Head Lighthouse when a serial killer had taken one of her marshal’s witnesses. To her right, the photo was of her debriefing the firefighters at the scene of a thermite bomb explosion. Every photo was of her. Hundreds of them.

  She didn’t understand, turning to Cove in a desperate attempt to make sense of what the surveillance meant. This was why Gresham PD had pulled her into the investigation.

  Nguyen stepped up behind her as the world threatened to rip straight out from under her. “You can see why we might’ve wanted to question you concerning the murder of Del Howe, Chief Deputy Barton.”

  * * *

  GRESHAM PD WASN’T going to pin this on Remi.

  Deputy US Marshal Dylan Cove pushed into the police station. Battle-ready tension tightened the muscles down his spine as he scanned the folding chairs directly ahead of him then the long desk with a single officer on the other side. Remi wasn’t there. The sergeant who’d been at the scene hadn’t put her under arrest, but Dylan had read the officer’s desperation to connect Remi to the scene through the discovery of those surveillance photos.

  Most of Gresham’s crime fell into domestic and burglary offenses. The local police didn’t have a whole lot of experience with a murder investigation, but when they had one, they wanted it handled quietly. With only one hundred thousand or so residents, Gresham, Oregon, tried to hold on to a small-town feel while growing every year. That meant keeping the news of a victim viciously murdered in a cabin outside the city limits under wraps and solving the investigation as quickly as possible to prevent panic.

  And those photos of Remi... Dylan curled his fingers into fists as he pushed past the front desk and stalked toward the back of the station. They’d done their job in giving the chief deputy motive for killing the victim. A humorless scoff escaped his throat. The victim.

  Del Howe wasn’t a victim.

  The SOB had gotten exactly what he’d deserved.

  Rows of empty desks bled into Dylan’s peripheral vision as he focused on the single conference room at the rear of the station. A head of long black hair materialized through the barrier of white plastic blinds, and every sense he owned homed in on her. Remi. Rage coiled tight as he watched her square off with Captain Elijah Paulson. A dense gray beard hid the length of the captain’s neck as he pushed a single photo from the crime scene across the conference table. The captain’s blue eyes, almost as colorless as Remi’s, narrowed on his chief and spiked Dylan’s blood pressure. He put the captain mid-fifties, early sixties, but Elijah Paulson was far from retirement. Mentally and physically.

  Remi’s team had only one other case Dylan could recall that had brought them into the captain’s radar, but that short amount of time had been all Dylan had needed to get a read on the man himself. Intense, reliable, hardworking. Exactly what Gresham deserved from a police captain. Someone who dedicated himself to the job to serve the citizens of the town and not to inflate an oversize ego. Of all the officers in Gresham, Dylan trusted Paulson to see past the sergeant’s mistake in bringing Remi in and to treat Del Howe as the psychopath he was—had been. Not a victim.

  His heart thundered behind his ears, an uneasy rhythm as he sat on the edge of the desk behind him and waited. Remi didn’t need him to burst in there and save her. The chief deputy was one of the most self-reliant, straight-talking women he’d ever known. She could handle herself.

  Remi pushed back in her seat to stand and turn toward the door. Iridescent blue eyes settled on him as she reached for the handle and wrenched it open. Every cell in his body responded to her as he straightened.

  She’d shut down her expression, but Dylan had known Remi long enough to read past that controlled facade. That meeting might’ve revealed her alibi at the time of Del Howe’s death, but it would certainly raise more questions.

  She closed the conference room door behind her. The green cargo pants and skintight long-sleeved running shirt highlighted the brightness of her eyes and the sharp angles of her cheekbones. “Any other photos I need to know about back at the scene? Maybe something showing I was the one who tied Del Howe to a chair and cut him repeatedly until he bled out. Because being a stranger’s obsession doesn’t quite feel good enough.”

  “Went that well, huh?” He held back his smile as sarcasm dripped from her perfectly shaped mouth. “I had CSU take me through the rest of the scene, inside and out. No such photos. The only vehicle tracks leading up to the cabin belong to the rental Howe paid for three days ago, and the techs haven’t been able to put anyone else there at the time of the murder.”

  Yet.

  “Well, the victim didn’t do this to himself.” Remi surveyed the rest of the station before resting that startling gaze on him. She stepped into him and lowered her voice, and his insides clenched. “You saw the way he was butchered, Cove. I know you’re thinking the same thing as I am. Delaware driver’s license, same MO as the New Castle Killer. This victim is a few years older than the first three, but what are the chances these cases aren’t connected? We never caught up with him.”

  Cove. She’d gone back to using his last name the moment they’d stopped sleeping together after she’d taken up with the marshals service and left him behind. Dylan pulled back his shoulders, trying to offset the lingering desire constantly coiled in his gut when she got this close. “You think the killer followed his prey here.”

  Not just any prey. Her. The surveillance photos had exposed Remi as a target.

  “We were close. We almost had him after the third victim disappeared, but I...” She’d lost her elected position as New Castle County’s sheriff for failing to capture a killer determined to stay two steps ahead of them. She’d been forced to step away from the case and shamed by the public for not being able to get the job done. Remi didn’t have to say the words. He knew. She’d been the one to bring him onto the case when the department had exhausted all the county’s resources and manpower, and he’d been shut out the moment the people had removed her from office. “This feels like him. Like he wants to finish the game he started. I don’t know how he found us, but it’s not over. Not for him.”

  Dylan caught sight of an empty office at the other end of the station. Threading his hand between her rib cage and arm, he directed her through the maze of desks and unanswered phones. “Come with me.”

  “What are you doing?” Lean muscle strained against the inside of his hand, but Remi didn’t move to wrench out of his hold altogether.

  He swung her ahead of him and followed close on her heels into the darkened space. She turned on him as he closed the door, the fluorescent light coming through the blinds carving shadows into her features. Hints of her citrus scent tickled the back of his throat as he closed the distance between them, and he breathed in as much as his lungs allowed to counter the sickening nausea behind the truth. No one would overhear them here. “I knew Del Howe was here.”

  “You knew the victim.” Her eyebrows drew inward, deepening the lines between them, then smoothed. Cocking her head to one side, Remi studied his face from forehead to chin, every inch the former sheriff he remembered. Uncompromising. Strong. One of the first things he’d noticed about her when she’d hired him to work the New Castle Killer case had been her unend
ing patience while she waited for her suspects to fill the silence. She’d done a damn fine job as sheriff. Not a whole lot had changed between that investigator he’d met and the chief deputy standing in front of him. If anything, she’d only impressed him more.

  “We weren’t friends.” Hard to be friends with someone he’d surveilled from a safe distance for over a year. Nervous energy shot down his fingers. Del Howe had been alive the last time Dylan had seen him. One piece of hair, one tread from his boot—that was all it would take to swing this investigation in the wrong direction. He had to get out in front of this while he still could. “But it’s possible my DNA might be recovered at the cabin where Del Howe was killed.”

  Her exhale brushed against the underside of his chin and heightened his awareness of how close she’d let him get. Folding her arms across her chest, Remi shifted her weight between both feet before her expression collapsed with understanding. “You mean other than the fact you were there to walk the scene less than an hour ago.”

  “I warned the owners what kind of man they’d let stay in their rental. They were only too happy to give me a key to the place to make sure nothing had gone missing or that he wasn’t doing anything illegal. I waited until Howe drove down the mountain before I went inside. I swear. He was alive when I left. I didn’t kill him.” Would she believe him? He pulled back his shoulders. “I was searching for proof he was the man I’ve been looking for, and when I saw the photos of you in the closet, I knew I had the right guy.”

  “What do you mean what kind of man they let stay there?” Remi unfolded her arms and stepped closer to him. Scanning the station on the other side of the window, she lowered her voice so as not to divert Captain Paulson or any other officers’ attention their way. “Who is Del Howe, and what does any of this have to do with those surveillance photos of me?”