Harlequin Intrigue April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Carol Ericson

  Her eyes were still heavy, but the fact Dylan was standing by her hospital bedside at all eased the last few hours from her memory. “He shot you. I thought...you...were dead.”

  “Nah. It’s a flesh wound. One of the ER doctors pulled the slug. We’ve sent it to ballistics to match it to your abductor’s weapon. With any luck, we’ll be able to tie him to at least one of the murders Watson uncovered.” A seriousness erased the smile from his mouth as he stared down at her, and her gut clenched at the rapid change. “I wasn’t going to let a bullet stop me from getting to you, Sheriff. You’re too important.”

  A lightness flooded through her as those last three words settled between them. Important to the team or important to him? Did it matter?

  “Do you remember anything your kidnapper said? Maybe some identifying factors that can help us narrow the field of suspects?” Deputy Finnick Reed pushed off the wall near the door and closed the distance between them. Inquisitive blue eyes—masking his usual sarcastic nature—settled on her. “There’s a chance the hiker who called in about Del Howe’s body is our guy, but it seems he gave Gresham PD a fake name and address. Turns out Annabell Ross, his hiking partner that day, barely knows him. Only met him a couple weeks prior to that hike in a caver group she’s part of. He’s not answering his phone. No one can find him.”

  Images of those thin white scars across the back of the suspect’s hand shot to the front of her mind. She could do more than that. “He’s a victim.”

  “What do you mean?” Dylan asked.

  “One of the New Castle Killer...victims.” She motioned to her opposite hand, the one limited by the IV line. “I saw the scars on his hand. He told me how... Del Howe targeted him using his job as an elevator inspector, how the killer had broken into his apartment and waited for him to come home. He was...knocked unconscious. When he woke up, he’d been tied to a chair by the wrists and ankles with rope and had duct tape over his mouth to keep the neighbors from hearing him scream.”

  Confusion contorted Dylan’s face a split second before he hid behind that all too familiar controlled expression. “You’re sure?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, hell. No wonder your man has targeted every investigator involved in the case. He’s out for revenge. Not for a family member, as we originally believed, but for himself.” Reed crossed his arms over his chest, the superhero logo of today’s T-shirt bright white in the shape of an elongated skull. Fitting, considering Reed had been the one to punish the Carver for the women he’d manipulated and killed, including the marshal’s witness-turned-fiancée. “You didn’t happen to catch his name or recognize him in the middle of that damn cave, I imagine?”

  Images of pain—of desperation—demanded attention, but Remi wouldn’t let them out. Wouldn’t let her team see the cracks beginning to form. She diverted her attention to the cold sensation building in her toes. Whatever painkiller the surgeons had used to keep her sedated during surgery had started wearing off. She fisted her sheets, preparing for the pain. “No.”

  “Investigators were never able to recover the last two bodies in Delaware. All that was left at each scene was a life-ending amount of blood. It’s possible one of Howe’s victims escaped, and that would explain the string of murders we’re connecting now. Although, how someone had survived all that...” The wheels visibly turned in his gaze as Dylan worked through the new information. He straightened. “That narrows the pool down to two possible suspects. Brett Smith and Tad Marrow.”

  She didn’t miss the dip in his tone at the mention of the last victim, the one he’d failed to protect from the New Castle Killer, and her heart jerked in her chest. He still blamed himself for what’d happened to Tad Marrow, and despite her revelation that she wanted to be part of the solution—to be the one to help him move forward—she imagined he always would. “Unless there’s a fourth victim we don’t know about.”

  “You think that’s a possibility?” Reed asked.

  “At this point, we can’t...discount anything. He’s killed twenty-six people across the country. That takes a lot of time, a lot of planning and a lot of...patience.” She raised her gaze to Dylan’s, completely at ease as he studied her. He’d saved her life in those caves, even after she’d tried to attack him. That kind of debt couldn’t go unpaid. “He failed to kill us once. He’ll do whatever it takes to make sure he doesn’t...fail again.”

  Reed uncrossed his arms as reality settled between the three of them. “You’ve got yourselves a unique kind of serial killer. He’s not doing this out of compulsion. There’s no MO connecting him to any of the murders he’s committed. No pattern that can predict his movements. This is straight-up retribution. Both of you need to get the hell out of Dodge.”

  “Give us a minute, Reed. There’s something the chief and I need to talk about.” The weight of Dylan’s attention pressurized the air in her lungs. Hardness bled into his features, accentuating the muscle and veins under warm skin.

  Remi felt raw. Exposed. Every inch of her insides ached. Her emotions had been stripped of the protective layer she’d built over the years. A killer had abducted, stabbed and nearly killed her. She’d almost died in those caves. Would have if it hadn’t been for Dylan.

  Reed closed the door behind him, leaving her alone with Dylan and feelings she’d denied for years. Feeling climbed up her legs, and she internally panicked for the return of sweet numbness. Because without it, she feared the current of feelings she’d held back all these years would suck her under the surface and tear her apart. “There’s something you didn’t feel comfortable enough saying in front of Reed?”

  “You were kidnapped, stabbed and tortured less than six hours ago, Remi.” The shock of her name on his lips tunneled beneath the heavy layer of emotional denial and straight into bone. His voice held nothing of the authoritative, aggressive deputy US marshal she’d hired six months ago, the one who’d sworn what they’d had together in Delaware wouldn’t affect their working relationship as marshals. This was the Dylan Cove who’d worked past her defenses so easily during the New Castle Killer case, they might as well not have been there at all. He closed the space between him and the edge of her bed, sliding the tips of his fingers against her wrist. “I’m the only one here. You don’t have to hide what you’re feeling from me. You can trust me.”

  Tightness swelled in her throat, and she forced herself to focus on taking slow, even breaths to counter the effect. She bit the inside of her mouth to keep herself in the moment, to keep herself from constantly replaying the bone-shattering strikes from her attack. She’d done everything she could to stop the New Castle Killer during her time as sheriff, but it hadn’t been good enough. Neither had running. Now a killer had wiped out her entire former team and turned his sights on her and Dylan. Because she’d been too weak to stop him. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re biting the inside of your mouth again. I can confidently say that’s not the case.” The mattress dipped under his weight as Dylan settled on the edge. Rough fingers speared through her hair at the back of her neck and urged her to look at him. “I’m here. Whatever you need to feel, whatever you need to process, don’t hold it in. It’s only going to tear you apart.”

  “I can’t.” But those two small words weren’t enough to protect herself from the flood raging forward. No matter how hard she tried to stay in control. Tears burned in her eyes, and she clung to Dylan’s hand as hard as she could. He carefully tugged her upright into his chest, right over his heart, and...she shattered. “I can’t let you die because of me.”

  * * *

  DYLAN PUNCHED IN the code to the safe house door. The keypad beeped, the LED light blinked green and he pushed open the door. Shadows disappeared with a simple flick of the entryway light, and he motioned Remi past him inside. Mild concussion, twenty stitches in the back of her skull, even more in her side from the knife wound. She was lucky to be alive. If it hadn’t been for her d
etermination to fight back, he wasn’t sure she would be, and damn, he admired the hell out of her for it. Not one of the investigators the killer had gone after had survived. No one but Remi.

  “I’ll clear the back rooms. You take the kitchen and office.” She lowered her hand from her side as he closed the door behind them. Always the one to deny she was in pain, but Dylan knew the truth. She didn’t wait for him to answer, disappearing down the hall.

  He did a quick sweep of the areas he’d been assigned and met her back in the entryway. Scrapes, bruises and outright exhaustion marred her perfect features, and he wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her again. “I had Watson stock the fridge and pantry and set up the bedrooms while you were recovering in the hospital. Why don’t you clean up while I cook something for us to eat?”

  “What? You didn’t like the peanut butter, jelly and nacho chip sandwiches?” A hint of a smile broke through the haunted emptiness in her features. Visibly fighting to stay steady on her feet, she shuffled back through the hallway toward the bedrooms. Three steps. Four. She stopped just past the office off to the left and turned her head over one shoulder, a shadow of the woman who’d led the Oregon division to the highest closing office in the country. “Thank you. For getting me out of there. I’m not sure I would’ve been able to find the exit to the lava tubes if you hadn’t come for me.”

  The biological part of him wanted to close the short space between them, to help her forget everything she’d endured and to smooth the rough edges of the emotions that’d broken through to the surface in that hospital bed. Instead, he curled his fingers into the center of his palms to keep himself in place. “You were there for me when I needed you. It’s about time I returned the favor.”

  Remi nodded once then continued down the hallway. A door clicked closed, and the sound of water hitting tile echoed through the house.

  Dylan stared at the corner she’d vanished behind as his own pain reminded him a slug had been dug from his side less than twenty-four hours ago. The bullet itself had been sent to the forensics lab to see if it matched any other crimes in the database, but he didn’t think anything significant would come back. Whoever’d abducted Remi had been too careful these past two years. He’d murdered twenty-six people before Watson had made a connection to the same killer. The bastard wasn’t going to let a single bullet bring him down, and Dylan doubted the prints from Remi’s phone would yield any useful results, either.

  He dragged himself into the kitchen and wrenched open the oversize fridge to see what the former FBI bomb technician had stocked. The pain flared again. Nothing compared to the agony Remi had shouldered these past few hours after insisting she be discharged against doctor’s orders. The doctor had sent her home with pain meds, but Dylan knew her. She’d only see the pills as a hindrance to solving the case.

  Dylan pulled a fresh head of broccoli from one of the drawers, a bag of spinach, a cube of butter and sharp cheese from the fridge. He studied the selection of pasta in the pantry before choosing small shells for his plan. “Cheese solves everything.”

  He made quick work of shredding the block of cheese, poured a cup of milk and started boiling the pasta. Pure comfort food, and exactly what they both needed to get through the night. Mixing it all together in a single pot, he caught the sound of bare footsteps padding down the hallway. He took the homemade mac and cheese with broccoli and spinach off the stove and divided it between two large ceramic cereal bowls he’d found at the back of one of the cabinets. “Hope you’re hungry.”

  He lifted his gaze to her and froze, pot in hand.

  Lean muscle shaped curves along her calves and thighs below a pair of running shorts, and his mouth dried. The oversize T-shirt sponged water from her long, wet hair and did nothing to hide the outline of gauze underneath. Any thoughts he’d had of dinner instantly vanished. His gut flexed. Damn, she was beautiful, as though she’d been designed just for him.

  “You’re staring,” she said.

  “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you in anything less than your standard uniform of long-sleeved shirts and boots. Can you blame me?” The heat from the pot registered, and Dylan tossed it onto the kitchen island. The loud reverberating sound of metal on granite shot through him. “Sorry. I... I didn’t expect—”

  “That I didn’t sleep in my holster and Kevlar? I tried. It’s not very comfortable. I had to settle for keeping my gun under my pillow and my vest beside the bed.” A smile tugged at the edges of her mouth, and his heart jerked in his chest. When was the last time he’d seen her smile? Had he ever? Her bare feet stuck to the hardwood slightly as she entered the kitchen. She pressed her hands into the granite, accentuating the long tendons in her forearms beneath the tattoos. The block letters branded across her forearm ended just above her wrist. “It smells good.”

  “The carbs and fats will help you recover faster, but veggies are an important food group.” He pushed a bowl toward her and turned to extract two forks from one of the drawers. Handing one off to her, he dove into his own portion, and nearly melted in exhaustion right there in the middle of the floor.

  “You seem to know your way around a kitchen. Why don’t I remember that?” She forked a large bite into her mouth, careful of the split in her lip. A thin string of cheese flattened along her chin, and he reached up, slowly, to wipe it away. Her eyes widened as she stopped chewing, and the whole world seemed to stop right then.

  Heat coiled through him as he envisioned closing that small distance between them, but Remi had made it clear before. Nothing would happen between them as long as they were working together, and he’d never been one to change the chief’s mind. He forced himself to take a step back. “I don’t think we got that far. You and I both know what we had in Delaware was nothing more than stress relief from the case. It worked. We didn’t need much else.”

  “Is that what you really thought of us?” she asked. “That we were taking advantage of each other?”

  “As far as I knew.” Dylan took another bite to give himself long enough to process the change in her tone. One of the conditions she’d laid out when he’d joined her team of marshals had been to keep what’d happened between them in Delaware between them. There hadn’t been any discussion, no hope of seeing if those passion-filled nights would lead to something more, and under no circumstances an encore. He set his bowl on the counter. “What would you call it?”

  Remi stared at her dinner, pushing it around with the prongs of her fork. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t realize you thought so low of me that you believed I could use you like that.”

  “I didn’t see it as you using me, Sheriff.” He shifted his weight between his feet, his serving of mac and cheese forgotten as the hurt in her voice resonated between them. “We both got what we wanted out of our arrangement, and you made it clear as soon as you’d left Delaware that we were through. I didn’t automatically think because I came to Oregon that we would start up again.”

  “Are we through?” Her mouth parted as though she couldn’t believe she’d said the words herself, and he froze in anticipation. “I know what I said when you signed on to work in my office. I know I’m your direct superior and anything unprofessional between us could lose us our jobs, but right now, Dylan, I need—”

  He slid his hand behind her neck, pulled her into him and crushed his mouth to hers. Lightning struck behind his eyes as everything he’d fantasized about became reality. The kiss rocked him straight to his foundation, hungry, eager, desperate. A potent mixture of citrus body wash and Remi went straight to his head faster than the best-tasting whiskey and brought a low growl from his throat. He fit her against him, careful of their injuries, and deepened the kiss.

  She arched into him, and every reason he shouldn’t push for something more between them evaporated. The investigation, the fact she’d become his chief deputy, the past—none of it mattered. Remi matched his fierce desperation.
They’d denied themselves for so long, but damn it, he didn’t want to wait any longer. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. There was only Remi.

  She pressed her hand into his chest and increased the space between them, breaking the deliriously addictive desire twisting in his tender gut. Eyes closed, she settled back and smiled.

  Opening her eyes, she pinned him with her bright blue gaze and fisted a handful of his shirt. “What I was going to say was that I need you to forget our professional titles tonight and sit with me to keep me from falling asleep because of the concussion, but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy that.”

  “Oh, good. I was worried there for a minute you actually wanted me to kiss you.” A laugh escaped up his throat as the truth of that statement burned between them, and he extracted his hand. Pulling the hem of her T-shirt in place, he leaned in close to whisper in her ear. “But remember, I let you go once, Sheriff. I’m not letting you get away a second time.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  I’m not letting you get away a second time.

  Moonlight beamed through the windows high above the large sectional she’d commandeered for the night. The light from the television cascaded around her, but she didn’t care what program was on. Dylan’s words still echoed in her head. As did the heart-pounding kiss he’d pulled her into in the kitchen. He’d taken lead in clearing the perimeter after he’d piled their dinner dishes into the sink, but the desire under her skin had yet to dissipate.

  Remi studied the photos pinned to the makeshift board they’d created before the attack and brushed her finger against the pattern of scrapes across her knuckles. Dylan had saved her life. She’d been indebted to him the moment he’d pulled her from those caves. But if she was being honest with herself, kissing him back, letting him claim her from the inside, had nothing to do with repayment and everything to do with craving that human touch he’d offered. It’d been so long since she’d trusted someone the way she’d trusted him, and she hadn’t been able to turn away. She hadn’t wanted to turn away.