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

normal, she probably wouldn’t be working at all on a Sunday. But with worried citizens needing reassurance, and a town that needed extra vigilance because of a nearby bombing without an obvious motive, she’d come in early and stayed late.

Heading home didn’t mean she was off the clock. In a small town like Desparre, there was no such thing as truly off the clock. If something happened after the station was officially closed for the night, the officer—or chief—who was closest to the action would get the first call.

Tonight she didn’t want to get on the road. Didn’t feel like making the relatively short drive to her house.

She’d been distracted all day, moving on autopilot. In a job like hers, that was dangerous. But knowing that didn’t make it any easier to focus.

After she’d returned home from Luna last night, images of her life with Juan had taunted her sleep. She’d woken on a scream, on the memory of returning home from work that horrible day.

She’d been exhausted, frustrated by a case she hardly remembered, one she’d subsequently solved. She’d wanted nothing more than to settle on the couch in front of the TV with a delivery pizza and a bottle of red wine. To simply snuggle with her husband and forget the argument they’d been having on replay every few weeks.

The house had been lit up, the front door locked, no sign that anything was wrong. She’d walked inside and headed straight for the shower, a holdover habit from her days on patrol. Forensics said the timing wouldn’t have mattered, that Juan had been dead before she even arrived home, but the shower still bothered her. The fact that she hadn’t suspected for a second that anything was wrong, that she’d had no idea the man she’d loved so deeply was already gone.

And then, afterward, the hint of annoyance when she’d walked through the house and couldn’t find him. The sigh she’d heaved as she’d realized the back door was open, that he hadn’t bothered to come in from the garden when she’d arrived. The way she’d desperately tried to suck in gulps of air once she’d fallen to the ground beside him, but her lungs still screamed, telling her she wasn’t getting enough oxygen.

The investigation had determined that someone had hopped the fence into their backyard while Juan was relaxing on a lawn chair. They’d slipped up behind him and slit his throat.

If he’d realized anyone was there, the knowledge had come too late. There were no defense marks on his arms or hands. No awkward angle to the slice across his neck, which might have happened if he’d tried to turn at the last minute.

She hoped it meant that it had all happened too fast for him to suffer. But even an instant of pain, even a flash of insight that everything he’d fought for in his life was over, was too much.

It was too much for her, too. For six years being in Alaska had kept the memories at a survivable distance.

Now the bombing was bringing it all back. But if the person who’d killed Juan had come here and set off a bomb, why had he chosen such a different crime?

Fitz hadn’t sent her the case file from Celia Harris’s murder yet, but if that killer was responsible for the bomb, too, something drastic had changed. She’d seen the evidence photos from Celia’s murder; the whole office had. They’d been gruesome enough, with such an unlikely victim, that Juan and Fitz had consulted briefly with the rest of the detectives.

Celia hadn’t been killed in the alley where she’d been found, and her killer had taken his time murdering her. Although Keara’s cases tended to be the standard sort—motivated by more obvious reasons like greed, jealousy or anger—Houston wasn’t immune to serial killers. She’d understood immediately why Juan and Fitz had thought there’d be more murders.

But a bombing seven years later? Even if the bomber had stood nearby and watched the pain and death his handiwork caused, was it really the same as wielding a knife? She’d never heard of a violent killer becoming a bomber.

Maybe she was reaching, grasping at a similar symbol because she still needed answers, despite how far she’d run.

The crackle of the intercom from outside the entrance of the building, followed by a familiar voice asking “Keara? Er-Chief Hernandez?” startled her.

The distinctive voice made goose bumps prick her arms. Keara rubbed them away as she stood and strode to the front of the station, swinging the door wide.

“How did you know I was here?”

Woof! Patches answered, making a smile break through the mask of competence and calm that Keara used automatically on the job.

“Yours is the only civilian car in the lot.”

He’d noticed what car she was driving? She studied him more closely, taking in the focused stare belied by a relaxed stance. Maybe psychologists were more like police officers than she’d thought, both needing to be observant and analytical.

“You have news on the bombing?” As she asked it, she realized the only reason he’d tell her in person was if it was connected to her past. Bracing her hand on the open door frame, she asked, “Is it connected to my husband’s death?”

“What?” Jax’s too-serious expression morphed into concern as he took a step closer.

Too late, she remembered that he knew her husband had investigated a murder where the symbol was found, but not much more. He didn’t know anything about Rodney Brown, or the fact that her husband’s murder had never been solved. Or even the fact that her husband’s death had been a murder.

She took a step back, losing the stability of holding on to the door frame, but also escaping Jax’s cinnamony scent. She didn’t know if it was aftershave or cologne or if he just liked to mainline chai, but it was the sort of scent she wanted to keep breathing in.

It was distracting. He was distracting.

Something bumped her leg and Keara looked down, finding Patches