Harlequin Intrigue April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Carol Ericson

  What the hell did that mean? “Explain.”

  “It doesn’t matter that the New Castle Killer was found dead this morning. Not to me.” She studied the curve of the beer in her hand a little too thoroughly, almost as though she was determined to look anywhere but at him. “I’m relieved his victims and their families will finally have the closure they need if we can prove Del Howe was the killer, but that case will haunt me for the rest of my life. Not because of the way they died but because I was humiliated when the people recalled me as sheriff.

  “I’ve dedicated every moment of my life after I realized I was the only survivor of the fire that killed my family to saving anyone I could. But I couldn’t save those men. I couldn’t even get them justice. Someone else did, and the shame—the guilt—of letting them down was too much to handle. I had to start over. I had to move on. I had to forget that case, forget the people I worked with.” She raised her attention to him. “I had to forget the man I was sleeping with, so I could simply move on with my life.”

  Thickness swelled in his throat as her words took shape one by one. “Is this your way of telling me you’re not that into me, or that you think what we were doing was to blame for a killer getting away with murdering three victims?”

  “Whoever killed Del Howe knew who he really was. They followed him here from Delaware then proceeded to murder him slowly and with great precision. Del Howe died with over eight dozen lacerations across his entire body, including his eyelids. Something like that takes time. It takes a lot of patience and a dedicated amount of research and planning.” Remi stretched her hands across the table and leveled her chin. “Makes me think the killer we’re looking for might’ve been in that house—same as you—to study their target, and if they were, they would’ve seen the surveillance photos of me in that closet. They would’ve known Del Howe was watching me.”

  Dylan leaned forward in his chair, the edge of the table cutting into his elbows. He tightened his grip around his beer bottle. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “The killer was obviously punishing Del Howe for what he’d done to his victims. Giving him a taste of his own medicine. Whether it’s a family member or an officer who worked the original investigation, I can’t say for sure, but that scene this morning said this isn’t the work of a territorial serial. I think this killer’s sole purpose might be revenge. It’s personal for them. They’re angry, obsessed and willing to kill. So they target the man responsible for making them feel that way, but in my experience, it doesn’t stop there.”

  She traced an invisible pattern into the table’s surface. “Hate is like that. It consumes and destroys until not even exacting revenge on the person to blame is enough. It builds until they can find a new target, the ones who are really to blame—the investigators who failed to bring their loved one justice in the first place, who let the killer get away. It doesn’t matter who’s to blame for the New Castle Killer slipping through our fingers or if I’m attracted to you or not, Dylan. We both made mistakes in that investigation, and there’s a chance someone will try to make sure we pay for them.”

  Damn it. He’d known Del Howe had set his sights on her before the bastard had turned up dead, but the thought hadn’t ever crossed his mind she could still be in danger. Whoever’d murdered Del Howe had already gotten what they wanted. Right? “What makes you so sure you’re a target?”

  “I wasn’t the only subject of those photos, Dylan. Our entire team could’ve been surveilled, and anyone who worked that case might be at risk. Including you.” Remi took a swig of her beer, those iridescent blue eyes darker than a few minutes ago. A soft ringing reached his ears from across the table, and she tipped to her right to pull her phone from her pants’ pocket. Her theory made sense. If the killer had gone out of their way to track down and murder the person responsible for the three New Castle deaths, stood to reason the officers and investigators who’d failed to arrest the son of a bitch could be included on that list.

  She swiped her thumb across the screen to answer the incoming call and hit the speaker button as Dylan pushed away from the table. “Watson, I wasn’t expecting you to check in until tomorrow. Madison isn’t going to do me any more favors from the district attorney’s office if she thinks I’m making you work late.”

  Dylan cleared his empty beer bottle and the rest of his sandwich from the table and tossed them both into a freestanding garbage bag hanging on the pantry doorknob.

  “She and the baby are asleep upstairs,” Jonah said. Exhaustion weighed the deputy’s every word. “This couldn’t wait. I tracked down the investigating officers from the files you gave me from the New Castle Killer case. Two detectives working the case, four responding officers who arrived on each scene after Dispatch received the 9-1-1 calls, two crime scene techs—anyone who ever stepped foot onto those scenes.”

  Dylan faced the table, waiting, but he couldn’t ignore the pool of dread solidifying at the base of his spine.

  “Sounds like mostly everyone. I’m impressed you were able to track them down so quickly. I would’ve figured some of them had moved on from New Castle, maybe even crossed state lines or joined other agencies.” Remi focused on the phone’s screen, the creases deepening between her eyebrows.

  The strong, assertive sheriff he’d been drawn to in Delaware had taken the wheel and shut down any evidence of their previous conversation, and his gut clenched. She’d drawn the lines between them. After everything they’d been through back east, after what’d happened in that cabin this morning, she’d made it perfectly clear nothing would get in the way of her finding this killer. Not even him.

  “Have any of their credit cards showed activity in Oregon, or was there any evidence they’d been hunting the New Castle Killer on their own?”

  “No,” Watson said. “There’s no evidence to support the idea any of the people who worked that case knew who Del Howe really was, and they certainly didn’t follow him to Oregon.”

  “How can you be sure?” Remi cocked her head to one side but didn’t lift her gaze from the phone.

  A heavy sigh cut through Watson’s side of the line. “Because they’re all dead.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Dead. Every single one of them.

  Remi had ended the call with Jonah Watson more than twenty minutes ago, but she still couldn’t wrap her head around the information he’d shared. The investigators from the New Castle Sheriff’s Department had moved on with their lives after the case that’d destroyed her career had gone cold. They’d been promoted, taken on bigger cases and switched law enforcement agencies, but it hadn’t been enough to keep them safe.

  A fire in Nashville, a car accident in Kansas, a suicide in Wisconsin. She stared at the collection of newspaper articles Jonah Watson had sent to her phone. All of them. Gone. Every single investigator connected to the New Castle Killer case had been murdered, including the dispatchers who’d taken the 9-1-1 calls from family members and roommates who’d discovered the bloody crime scenes. Some were made to look like accidents, some like suicide, some like murder. None had been connected. Until now.

  So many innocent lives.

  “Remi.” Dylan’s callused hands slid into her peripheral vision as he reached for her from across the table. Dark hair laid flat against his muscular forearms, thick veins fighting to break through the underside of his arm. Rough skin caught on the back of her hand as he curled his fingers around hers, but his effort to anchor her into the moment failed. “It wasn’t your fault. Not any of them. You couldn’t have known.”

  “I need the case files for every one of these murders. The killer could’ve left something behind to compare to the evidence scene from the cabin.” Remi shook her head, not entirely sure how to put the pieces together. She’d been trained in homicide investigations, but this seemed almost like a dream. A nightmare. “This is the work of a serial killer. He targeted each of them and methodicall
y planned and executed their murders one by one. All because we weren’t able to find the New Castle Killer.”

  “I’ll pull the files from the federal database while you clean up. You’ve been running on fumes since this morning. You’re no good to anyone like this. Take a shower, get some sleep and we can start fresh in the morning.” Dylan released his hand from hers and left behind a warmth she hadn’t realized she’d missed. “We’re going to catch this guy, Sheriff. He’s going to pay for what he’s done. I give you my word.”

  He was right. She hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours since Gresham PD had called her to the scene at the cabin, and the longer she put it off, the less chance she had of not making a mistake on this case. She knew that, but her defense tactics had already been triggered when he’d brought up their previous relationship, and she wasn’t about to show him any kind of vulnerability. Remi shoved to her feet, and the world tilted slightly to one side. “I’m fine.”

  Someone had killed all her friends, her coworkers, people she’d trusted and worked beside for years. Someone had hunted them down, was hunting her down. Hunting Dylan down. Her stomach rolled with the last realization. As much as she’d claimed she’d put what’d happened between them behind her, it was impossible to forget how she’d broken through his perfectly honed self-control. How he’d done the same for her. How, when they’d been together, neither of them had had to wear the mask they put on for the rest of the world or to keep up their guard. She’d missed that. Missed him. A flash of an image, of him meeting Del Howe’s fate, shot across her mind, and her knees gave out.

  Dylan rushed in to catch her before she collapsed, his chest pressed against hers. Strong arms encircled her as he settled her back into her chair, the spicy hint of his aftershave filling her lungs. “You never were a great liar. You have a tell.”

  “No, I don’t.” She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. She clutched his arm, ordering her legs to support her, but it was no use. The cracks in her armor had already started to spread. If she didn’t get control of herself, she feared she might break right here in the middle of the damn safe house.

  “You bite the inside of your mouth when you’re lying.” That voice, smooth and low, softened the resentment she used to emotionally defend herself against him. Him holding her reminded her too much of what she’d worked to leave behind, and she wasn’t going to give in. Not again. “My guess is you learned to beat a polygraph by forcing your heartbeat to speed up with pain on the control questions, and you never kicked the habit.”

  “You can’t possibly know that.” Could he?

  “I’ve seen it done enough in my former life as a private investigator, Sheriff, and I know you better than anyone else. I’ve seen who you really are.” Dylan lowered his mouth to her ear, and a shiver ran down her spine. “You can’t lie to me.”

  “I’m not a sheriff.” Not anymore.

  He helped her regain her balance on her own two feet, his hand still pressed into her lower back. Bands of heat swirled through her and she forced herself to step out of his reach. To prove she could. She wasn’t a sheriff anymore, and he wasn’t a private investigator anymore, but that didn’t make the desire bubbling under her skin any less appropriate. She was the chief deputy of this district, his superior. If the United States marshal himself got even a hint of intimacy between her and Dylan, she’d lose her job and he’d be suspended.

  She couldn’t let the past ruin what she’d built here. For either of them.

  Remi bit the inside of her mouth with her back molars to keep herself in the moment. He’d been right before. She had disciplined herself to pass the polygraph while in training at Glynco, and she couldn’t seem to give up the habit when everything seemed so out of her control. The pain was the only way to get some of that control back, to remember there were still some things she could do to protect herself.

  Someone was killing off anyone remotely tied to the New Castle Killer investigation, and she intended to find out why. She pressed her hand against her forehead, and the dizziness subsided. For how long, she had no idea. Didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to be able to sleep now anyway. “We need to pinpoint the locations where our suspect has killed and build a timeline of when the murders began. I want to see if there is a pattern we can discern from the data.”

  “We should also create an exhaustive list of anyone who was connected to the New Castle Killer case,” Dylan said. “If we can find out where the killer is going next, we might be able to stop them.”

  Or who might be next.

  “Watson is sending the files now. I’ll get my laptop, and we can start there.” Remi discarded her sandwich bag and half-drunk beer into the garbage sack and rounded back into the main living space. Hands on her hips, she took her first full breath since the moment Dylan had stepped through the door and let it out slowly. Her heart rate ticked slower at the base of her throat. There were too many similarities, too many connections between the New Castle Killer case and Del Howe’s murder this morning. There couldn’t be any mistakes this time.

  Remi tugged her laptop from her overnight bag and headed back into the living room, her boots echoing off the open two-story ceilings. The laptop’s aluminum frame cooled her warm skin as she closed the space between her and Dylan. Hypnotic gray eyes lifted to hers, and her heart stuttered in her chest. Three years. Three years she’d been able to hide from the New Castle case, from him, but the past had fully caught up with her. She settled in the seat she’d vacated minutes before and logged in to her email. The files were already in her inbox. Air caught in her throat as she counted the number of attachments. “There are twenty-five cases here.”

  Twenty-five victims.

  Not even the most renowned serial killer in Chicago—The Carver—had officially claimed that many lives. The last time she’d checked with Deputy Finnick Reed and his witness, they’d attributed twenty to Jeff Burnes and his obsession to destroy women at the top of their fields.

  Dylan leveraged his hands against the back of her chair and the edge of the table in front of her, and her awareness shot straight back into dangerous territory. “Who was the first?”

  She scrolled through the attachments labeled with a case-specific identification number, and double-clicked on the last attachment, presumably the first link in this chain of revenge. The scanned documents filled her screen. The moment she recognized the victim’s name, her gasp broke through the silence between them. “Teresa Hild was killed at her home in Greenville.” Remi licked her lips as she read the initial incident report. “She was one of the uniformed officers who responded to the 9-1-1 call for the scene at Tony Rasmussen’s apartment, the first victim we connected with the New Castle Killer.”

  “Scroll to the witness statements,” Dylan said.

  She used her middle and ring finger to slide up on the track pad, and the initial report slipped to the top of the screen. The witness statements were farther down in the file, past forensics, the superior case review and supplemental check-in reports. Dread pooled at the base of her spine. The New Castle Sheriff’s Department had taken point on the investigation, and from what she could see of the highly organized file, they’d done a damn fine job. But the case was still considered open. No suspects had been noted in the file. “Neighbors reported nothing out of the usual the night of her death, and there weren’t any signs of a break-in. Her dog walker found her the morning after. She let herself in with a key Officer Hild had given her.”

  “Maybe our killer did, too.” Dylan eased back, taking the body heat he’d generated against her shoulder with him. “They question the dog walker?”

  Right. Because men didn’t have a monopoly on murder. “Her alibi checked out. New Castle Sheriff’s Department doesn’t have any real leads. The case has been sitting cold for nearly two years.”

  “What’s the date she was killed?” he asked.

  Remi shifted back to the initia
l incident report and leaned back in her chair. “Exactly one year after Tony Rasmussen’s body was discovered.”

  * * *

  DYLAN DIDN’T BELIEVE in coincidence.

  Someone had used the date of the New Castle Killer’s first victim’s disappearance as a message. Only that message had gone undiscovered for two years. The killer was intricately and deliberately hunting down everyone involved in the New Castle Killer cases. Every single investigator, but neither Dylan nor Remi had come across anything in the files that would lead them to a suspect.

  “Next victim is Detective Diane Wiggs, killed in Maryland after she transferred to Baltimore PD a few months after I left.” Remi took notes on the legal pad to her right then turned back to the laptop. Dim lighting darkened the shadows under her cheeks and eyes. They’d been at this for hours, but she wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t let him see how exhausted she really was. Always out to prove she was the strongest, the most determined, the best. It was one of the qualities that made her a hell of a chief deputy. She wouldn’t be distracted from an assignment, and she expected the same of her deputies, but sooner or later, the clock would hit zero.

  Dylan marked the oversize map of the United States he’d found folded in the safe house’s massive collection of books in the living room. Baltimore, Maryland. Check. They’d gone through half of the twenty-five files Deputy Watson had forwarded for their review, but no discernible pattern had showed itself. Hell, maybe there was no pattern, and the homicides weren’t connected, but subconsciously, he understood exactly what they’d uncovered. A long string of murders to satisfy a deep-rooted desire for revenge, but from that initial spark, a serial had been born. Just as Remi had theorized. “Got it.”