Harlequin Intrigue April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Carol Ericson

  “It’s you and me,” Anderson announced before she reached the more senior agent.

  “Great,” Keara said. Anderson seemed pretty easygoing and professional. “Where are we headed?”

  “Up the mountain. The place most likely for a bomber to be holed up, don’t you think?”

  “Let’s do it,” she agreed. She glanced back once more at Jax as she headed out the door and she could have sworn she saw him mouth the words, Be careful.

  As she led Anderson over to her police SUV—specially equipped to handle Desparre’s rough roads and dangerous weather—she wondered if Jax worried about her. She wanted him far away from danger, didn’t want to have to fear finding another man she cared for the way she’d found Juan. But she’d understood the dangers with Juan because she faced them herself. What must it be like for Jax, somewhat on the outside, to hear that she was heading into a remote area that would be a good place for a bomber to hide?

  Pulling out her phone before she hopped into the car, she sent Jax a quick text:

  Let me know how it goes with the victims today. I’ll keep you updated, too.

  It felt like the sort of thing she’d text if she was actually dating him. Hoping she wasn’t making assumptions about plans that weren’t reciprocated, she tucked her phone back into her pocket.

  Climbing into the driver’s seat, she asked Anderson, “Which part of the mountain? You know it’s pretty massive, right?”

  “We have one of your veterans paired up with one of our longtime agents. They’re hitting the far side of the mountain. I thought we’d handle the closer side. We’ll do as much as we can today and see what pops.”

  “Sounds good,” Keara agreed as she started up her vehicle.

  Some people headed this far north in Alaska just to find a good adventure. But most of the people who landed in Desparre were looking to be left alone. Usually, there was nothing sinister about it. Maybe they were running from a tragedy, like she was. Or maybe they were running from a threat, like Tate Emory was. Sometimes, though, they were hiding because the law was after them or because the vast spaces of Alaska seemed like a great place to stay off law-enforcement radar or hide a victim.

  For the first ten minutes of their ride, Anderson was quiet, just texting or watching out the window. Then he slid his phone into his pocket and shifted toward her. “So this symbol...”

  She glanced briefly at him, then back at the road. In the spring driving up the mountain wasn’t dangerous like it could be in the winter, with the heavy snow and avalanches. But the roads were still narrow, the vehicles here usually large. On a couple of occasions, she’d had to hit the brakes for an animal. Once, it had been a bear.

  “What about it?” she asked. “You have a theory?”

  “Maybe. I’ve been thinking through what Jax told me this morning about how different the victimology and MOs in each of the cases has been, even the way the symbol was written. In marker or spray paint or even pen.”

  “And?” Keara prompted, her hands tensing around the wheel, hoping he had a new idea that would make sense of it all.

  “We know savvy criminals learn from each other. What if we’ve got a group of them on a dark web site, not just trading insight into how to avoid getting caught, but also sharing this symbol?”

  “Why?” Keara asked. “You think it’s a way to mark their own kills? Keep track and try to outdo each other? But wouldn’t using the same symbol defeat the purpose?”

  “No,” Anderson replied. “I was thinking more like a game, coordinating a single symbol across all these different places and crimes to confuse police.”

  The tension across the back of Keara’s shoulders and neck notched tighter. “That makes sense,” she admitted. Not only would it confuse the authorities if they connected the crimes through the symbols, but it also added a cooperative-competitive element that she could imagine appealing to a killer or a bomber. Attention from an eager audience without the risk, since they were all criminals, too.

  If Anderson was right, the bomber wasn’t committing the other crimes. If the communication was happening in a chat room on a dark web site, then the bomber probably didn’t even know who the other people were.

  A familiar frustration welled up. Even if they caught the bomber, would it get them any closer to Juan’s killer?

  Or was her dream of finally solving his cold case just that?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Talking to Aiden DeMarco’s parents had been brutal. All of their dreams for their eldest son had been shattered in a single moment. Jax and Patches had been able to offer them support over the whole day that Jax knew they needed. And he’d managed to gather as much information as he could about what Aiden’s parents—who’d been nearby when the bomb went off—had seen. But they had no idea why anyone would target their son or his aunt. Neither did Jax.

  Frankly, he didn’t think anyone had targeted either one.

  Halfway through the day Ben had called him after checking in with Anderson. He’d shared the other agent’s theory about a group of criminals coordinating on a dark web site. It had Ben excited and the cybercrime unit back in Anchorage pivoting to the theory as a priority.

  If they were right, a serial bomber with the knowledge and connections to access a site like that probably wasn’t using bombs as a messy way to kill a few specific people. He was way more likely to be an indiscriminate killer more interested in watching the chaos he created.

  The fact that they hadn’t found other bomb sites with the symbol could have meant his earlier bombs weren’t as perfected and the symbol he’d intended to leave behind had been destroyed in the blast. Or evidence had been poorly collected or missed. Either way, this seemed like a practiced criminal.

  Someone like that was prepared. He was well hidden, might have even booby-trapped his home in case law enforcement ever figured out his location.

  Keara was driving around on top of a secluded mountain, searching for him.

  The idea had lodged a ball of fear in his chest that had just gotten worse as the day turned into evening and the sun set, descending the town into darkness.

  He’d heard from her again early in the afternoon, letting him know they were at the top of the mountain and hadn’t had luck so far, but nothing since then. Jax had resisted calling or texting her, not wanting to distract her at a crucial moment. She was a seasoned law-enforcement officer with more than a decade of experience under her belt, about half of it in a busy city with a much higher crime rate.

  Right now, though, making the lengthy drive back from Luna with Patches asleep in the backseat, he’d been alone with his worry for too long. He’d be at the Desparre police station in five minutes, but he wasn’t sure if anyone would be there since it was after nine. He knew Ben had gone back to the hotel, but he didn’t know whether Anderson and Keara had made it down the mountain yet.

  Was this what it would be like if he could talk her into giving a relationship with him a chance? This constant fear about whether she’d make it home? Was that something he’d be able to handle long-term? Because despite the distance between Anchorage and Desparre, if he and Keara started something, he couldn’t imagine ever wanting to stop.

  “Call Keara,” he told his phone.

  From the backseat, Patches let out a quiet woof, then he heard her sitting up.

  It rang twice before Keara picked up. “Hi, Jax.”

  She sounded happy to hear from him, but he could tell from the exhaustion underneath that the trip hadn’t yielded anything promising.

  Woof! Patches chimed in loudly.

  Keara laughed. “Hi, Patches.”

  “I take it no one recognized the picture?” Jax asked.

  “We had a couple of vague ‘he looks sort of familiar, but I don’t know where from’ kind of answers. But no one had a name and address handy.”

  “So he might liv
e up on that mountain,” Jax said, feeling more encouraged than Keara sounded.

  “He might,” Keara agreed. “We’ll definitely have officers canvassing again tomorrow. The thing is, the mountain is huge. People stake out land and build without permits or actual ownership. It’s not like we can stop them if we don’t know they’re up there. Some of it is pretty far off the beaten path. And if you’ve got someone willing to venture off the road a ways—which we definitely do—it can be nearly impossible to find them.”

  “It sounds like the stereotype of Alaska,” Jax commented. “That you can just venture off and get yourself completely off the grid, if you’re not afraid of the harsh elements.”

  He’d seen some truth to that when he’d gotten here, but Anchorage was a pretty developed, populated area. Still, he could drive about an hour outside town and find solitude at a glacier if he wanted. He and Patches had done it a half dozen times since moving here and only once had he run into another person.

  Compared to Anchorage, Desparre was the wild north.

  “Well, sometimes the best thing about a place can also be the worst,” Keara said.

  He heard her turn signal in the background and the knot in his chest loosened up, knowing she had to be off the mountain to need a turn signal. “Are you going back to the station now?”

  “I’ve already been there. I dropped Anderson off and now I’m almost home. I was just about to call you, actually.”

  “Oh, yeah?” His long day suddenly seemed less exhausting.

  “How did the trip to Luna go?”

  “Nothing new, really.” He sighed, remembering the devastation on the parents’ faces, the confusion and grief in every movement of his three younger siblings.

  “I guess I’m not surprised.” He heard her car door slam, then her voice got more distant, maybe as she juggled the phone and opened the door to her house.

  “Me, either, but I was hopeful. The fact that one of the Luna casualties, Aiden DeMarco, was the one who set up the soccer game and then his aunt was also hurt in a bomb? It seemed like maybe there was something to that.”

  “I don’t think this bomber was after a specific—” She broke off on a mumbled curse.

  “Keara?”

  “Someone’s been in my house.”

  “What?”

  “My office doesn’t look right.”

  “What do you mean? Are you sure?”

  From the backseat, Patches whined, picking up on his anxiety.

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  Her voice was hard and determined and he imagined her pulling her gun from its holster.

  Jax punched down on the gas, wishing he was closer to her house. “I’m coming to you. Get out of the house, Keara.”

  “I’m a police chief, Jax. And I’m already inside. I can handle a walk-through.”

  “You need backup!”

  “I’ll call them,” she promised, “But I need to go.”

  “No! Just wait for backup. That has to be proced—”

  “Jax. It doesn’t look like anyone is in here.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper and he had to strain to hear her final, “I’ll call you when it’s all clear.”

  “No—”

  He swore as he realized she’d hung up, then hit the gas harder, taking curves too fast. If a Desparre police officer pulled him over, all the better. Then he’d have backup.

  He wasn’t an agent. He’d gone to the shooting range with the Anchorage agents enough to be a pretty good shot, but he didn’t carry a weapon. That wasn’t how Victim Specialists worked. On some level probably the agents’ teasing about him being an “agent wannabe” bothered him because it was true. Some part of him would have loved to get into the nitty gritty of an investigation, follow a trail of clues until an arrest and been the one to slap handcuffs on perpetrators. But he’d never pursued it, knowing the role he had now would ultimately fulfill him more.

  At this moment, though, he wished he’d made a different decision. Wished he could be real help to Keara.

  “Call Desparre PD,” he told his phone as Patches whimpered.

  “Desparre Police Department,” a tired voice answered. It was familiar, but he wasn’t sure which officer had phone duty that night.

  “It’s Jax Diallo,” he blurted. “Someone broke into the chief’s house. She needs backup right now.”

  “What?” The officer’s surprise was overridden only by his sudden state of alert. “Okay, we’re on it. Do you know details? Is the person still there? Are they armed?”

  “I don’t know. But Keara is there.” He couldn’t remember ever feeling this helpless.

  “I’m sending help now,” the officer told him, then hung up.

  Jax punched down a bit more on the gas, even though he knew he was approaching dangerous speeds. Then he called Ben.

  From the sound of the agent’s voice when he answered, Jax had woken him up.

  “I need agents at Keara’s house. Someone broke in,” Jax cut off his greeting.

  He didn’t bother ending the call as he whipped his vehicle into Keara’s drive and slammed it into Park.

  From the backseat, Patches slid across the seat and yelped.

  “Sorry, Patches,” he said, then added, “Stay!” as he jumped out of the SUV and closed the door behind him.

  He could hear police sirens in the distance, getting closer, but the house in front of him was mostly dark, only a porch light giving him any real visibility.

  It wasn’t enough. For a house far from neighbors, set in the woods, it wasn’t nearly enough to see if a threat lurked nearby.

  Jax glanced back, watching for the police cars. But they weren’t close enough yet.

  He couldn’t wait. He ran around to the back of his vehicle and dug underneath the spare tire, hoping the rental company wanted their renters to be prepared. Relief filled him as he found a big metal hexagon wrench. It wasn’t a gun, but it was better than nothing.

  He was racing toward the house, holding the wrench too tightly, when Keara stepped out the front door.

  “It’s empty,” she told him, holstering her gun. “Whoever was in here was gone before I got home.” The hard fury on her face was only undermined by the vulnerability in her eyes.

  His grip on the wrench loosened and he realized his hand hurt from how tightly he’d been gripping it.

  Her gaze drifted to the wrench then back up to his face. “You were going to rush in here with nothing but that?” Her lips pursed with what looked like anger, but her forehead crinkled with confusion or concern and she went silent.

  He didn’t bother to answer, just tried to breathe deeply, encourage his frenzied heartbeat to slow.

  From the car, Patches called Woof! Woof! Woof!

  Keara walked over to Jax, put her hand on his arm and he looped his free arm around her, yanking her against his chest.

  Even with the sirens getting louder and louder, there was no way she’d miss his rapid heartbeat; no way she’d misunderstand his fear. But he didn’t say anything. Right now as much as he wanted to pursue something more, they were only colleagues. He’d known her for eight days. He had no right to tell her how to manage a crime scene at her own home.

  But she whispered against his chest, “I’m sorry I worried you. I should have gone outside and waited for backup.”

  As if her words had summoned them, a pair of trucks came screeching into her drive, portable sirens blaring.

  Jax glanced behind him, letting go of Keara as officers jumped out of their vehicles, weapons ready.

  Keara held up a hand. “It’s all clear. But someone was in my house.”

  The officers holstered their weapons as Keara continued, “I don’t think anything was taken. It barely looks disturbed. I think whoever was here hoped I wouldn’t even realize it. But they definitely went through my office, esp
ecially all of my documents.”

  “Any sign of forced entry?” Charlie Quinn asked. There was exhaustion in the dark circles under his eyes and an invisible weight that seemed to pull his whole face downward, but his voice was focused and clear.

  “No.” Keara looked troubled as she admitted, “I’m not sure how they got in.”

  More vehicles raced into the drive and then FBI agents poured out.

  Keara looked embarrassed as she said, “I’ve already cleared the house. It was a break-in, but nothing was taken.”

  Ben strode toward them, looking purposeful and focused. “You get a lot of break-ins around here?”

  She shrugged. “Some.”

  “Do people know this is the police chief’s home?”

  She nodded slowly. “I don’t advertise it, but this is a small town. So yeah, I’m sure some people have figured it out.”

  “Ever had any problems here before?”

  She shook her head.

  Ben nodded briefly at Jax, then asked Keara, “Any chance this is connected to the bombings?”

  Jax’s calming heartbeat took off again as he stared at Keara, watched her consider it.

  “I don’t know. But someone was interested in what I had in my office. I don’t bring police cases home, except on a laptop, which is in my SUV. My paper files are mostly personal.”

  Ben nodded. “Just in case this is connected, how do you feel about letting the FBI’s evidence techs go through your office?”

  Keara nodded slowly. “All of our officers are trained in evidence collection. But in the interest of collaboration, that would be appreciated.”

  Ben nodded at her, then started calling out orders to the other agents as Keara directed her officers to head home.

  Then she turned to Jax, all the vulnerability he’d seen in her eyes earlier gone now and replaced by anger. “What do you think? Why would the bomber come here? He assumed I’d have case files in my home and it would be an easier target than a downtown police station? You think he hoped to find out what we knew about him?”