Harlequin Intrigue April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 Carol Ericson (short books to read TXT) 📖

When he stared at her assessingly, as if waiting for her to confirm what he already knew, she nodded.

“Did you notice anything unusual? Anyone hanging around who seemed off?”

Ben didn’t need to clarify as all three of them stared at her, waiting for an answer.

At the scene of a bombing, in a small town full of people who liked their business to be their business, it would be easy to slip into the edges of a group. Pretend to be sympathizing. Pretend to be there out of safety concerns or empathy for neighbors, while actually reveling in your handiwork.

Police officers—especially someone like her, who’d spent years on patrol in a busy city—learned to spot the outliers. People who were trying to blend in, but were just a little too focused. On the woman alone, walking in front of them. Or the fire blazing in a building, origins unknown. Or the devastation of an attack, like a bombing.

Keara mentally reviewed the people she’d noticed at the edges of the scene, near the hastily assembled memorial made of candles and flowers and stuffed animals, or down the street, pointing and shaking their heads. Everyone had looked the way she’d felt. Shocked. Horrified. Like a veneer of safety had just been ripped away, revealing a vulnerability they’d never expected.

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t know everyone here. Not even close. But many of the people on scene I recognized at least vaguely. If the bomber was there, he’s a good actor.”

“Or she,” Anderson put in.

Keara shrugged, acknowledging that truth, although as far as she knew, bombers were more likely to be male. Running murder investigations in Houston had told her that men liked to kill violently: strangulation, bullet wounds, stabbing. Women were less likely to murder in the first place, but more likely to use arson or poison. And they were more likely to kill a single person; men were significantly more likely to kill multiples or commit mass murders. Of course, those were generalizations. Bombings weren’t something she’d ever investigated.

“What about this?” Ben asked, sounding like he already expected the answer to be negative. “This is a bomb fragment. Does the symbol on it look familiar? Does it mean anything to you?” He held out his phone, zoomed in so she could see the detail, the series of interconnecting loops.

Distantly, she felt Jax leap up and grab her arm as she swayed. She heard Anderson’s surprised “You know it?”

But she couldn’t focus enough to answer. The lobby around her spun in dizzying circles as her whole body seemed to catch fire and her lungs couldn’t get enough oxygen.

She’d seen that symbol once before, seven years ago. On the wall at a murder scene in one of Juan’s last investigations before he was killed.

CHAPTER FOUR

Could their bomber be connected to a case Keara’s husband had investigated seven years ago?

Jax’s heart thudded too hard as he watched Keara, her olive-toned skin too pale, a sudden tightness around her eyes and mouth. The knowledge that she was a widow surprised him, filled him with sadness for what she’d experienced, along with a tinge of jealousy. Ridiculous and inappropriate, but he was self-aware enough to recognize why. He’d been instantly intrigued by her, attracted to her. Seeing her in trouble in the bar, then seeing her in action, had only increased those feelings.

None of that mattered. Not when she was staring back at them, trying to get it together after she’d announced that her dead husband had investigated a case with the same symbol. Not when she might have the key to the investigation.

Ben and Anderson were staring at her, too. Ben’s fingers tapped a frantic beat against his chair and Anderson was leaning toward her, hanging half out of his seat. But both of them were experienced enough not to rush her.

Finally, her fingers loosened the death grip they’d had on the couch since he’d helped her sit. “I haven’t seen that symbol in seven years.”

“Are you sure it’s the same symbol?” Ben asked.

She held out her hand for his phone, then zoomed in and stared at it a long moment. “I’m pretty sure. It might not be exact, but it’s close enough to look connected.”

“Tell us about this case,” Anderson requested.

“It was a murder,” she said and some of the intense energy radiating from Ben and Anderson instantly deflated.

Jax had been part of enough investigations—even though he was on the periphery—to know why. A murder was pretty different from a bombing.

“The victim, Celia Harris, was fairly well-known in Houston. She owned a popular chain of bakeries and was always volunteering her time to local charity events. The press picked up news of her murder fast, maybe because she had two young kids and was killed in a back alley in a bad part of town. Probably also because the murder was violent. That symbol was spray-painted on the wall behind her. I didn’t work the case, but I know Juan and his partner suspected it was going to be the start of a series of killings.”

“They thought it was a serial killer?” Ben asked. “Why?”

“None of the obvious suspects panned out. There were signs Celia had been abducted and probably not by someone she knew. They thought the symbol was a serial killer’s signature.”

Anderson scooted back in his seat, looking less anxious the more Keara spoke. “But...”

“But there were no more killings that matched. They never saw the symbol again. Well, Juan’s partner didn’t. Juan died a few weeks into the investigation.”

Jax didn’t ask the question he most wanted to know the answer to right now: What had happened to her husband?

Instead, he glanced from Ben to Anderson. He knew them well enough to recognize their waning interest. They didn’t think this was connected. But the symbol was unusual, an odd series of interconnecting loops that he’d heard the agents say earlier didn’t mean anything they could identify.

“Any