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

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?”

Jax stared back at her, all his worry over her home being targeted fading into the background as he remembered the first time he’d seen her at the bomb site. Then the expression on her face when she’d identified that symbol for them. A symbol that, as far as they could find, hadn’t appeared on a crime scene in Alaska until the Luna bombing.

“I think we were right from the beginning,” he realized. “I think the bomber is connected to your husband’s murder.”

“What? Why?”

“I think all of the cases are connected,” Jax said, the theory gaining strength in his mind as he said it out loud. “I think we just found the missing motivation.”

“What do you mean?” Keara asked.

“I think the missing motivation is you.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Dread mingled with fury and residual adrenaline as Keara stared at Jax. The excitement in his gaze told her that he thought his new theory was right.

“How could I be the motivation for these bombings?” Keara asked. “I didn’t have a close relationship with any of the victims—unless you count the fact that Nate works for me. I wasn’t even there when the Luna bomb went off. And if he wanted to target me in Desparre, he could have come out here earlier, planted the bomb at my house.”

The thought that the bomber knew where she lived, that he could have been in her house, looking through her personal items, made her home somehow feel less hers. The idea that he might have seen her photo album from her wedding sitting on her coffee table, might have flipped idly through the pages, smiled at the memory of killing her husband, made her fists clench.

The bomber coming here to find out if they were onto him made sense. But him setting bombs because of her didn’t.

When Jax stayed silent, his lips twisted and his pupils rolled slightly upward, like he was still working it out in his mind, she prompted, “You need to explain this theory to me.”

Behind her, the other agents had gone quiet, but stepped closer. They were all listening, too, waiting with enough patience that Keara knew they valued Jax’s psychological insight as much as she did.

“What if we’ve stumbled on to a serial killer who isn’t interested in a certain victim type or a particular weapon?” Jax asked slowly.

Keara held in her immediate rebuttal: they’d already decided this wasn’t a serial killer/bomber because there wasn’t a common victimology or MO. “Then what’s his motivation?”

“He gets off on outwitting police,” Jax said, a mix of surprise and certainty in his voice.

“Police in general?” Keara pressed. “So not me specifically?” She didn’t like the idea either way, but the thought that a serial killer was somehow focused on her, motivated to kill because of her, was really unsettling.

“Yes,” Jax said, his hand reaching out like he was going to take hers, then dropping back to his side. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that it was you personally motivating him. I think he’s motivated by whoever is working to solve the crime he committed. It’s like a game to him—can he keep committing crimes without the police finding him?”

Keara frowned. Behind her, she could hear the agents shifting, like they were impatient and unconvinced, too.

“Every serial killer wants to outwit police,” Ben spoke up. “I don’t think that’s enough of a motivation alone.”

“Why not?” Jax countered, crossing his arms over his chest. “You thought a group of criminals were playing games by using the same symbol and laughing at police on a dark web chat room.”

“Sure,” Anderson said. “But—”

“Hear me out,” Jax interrupted. “It could explain why there have been so many different locations. Because he’s looking for a new challenge each time, a new police office to test, to see if he can find a worthy opponent.”

“Or he’s just trying to outrun the investigations by changing jurisdictions,” Ben countered. “A lot of serial killers try that.”

“Sure,” Jax agreed, not looking deterred. “But you didn’t think it was a serial criminal responsible for everything, because of all the differences. What about the similarities? How likely is it really that we have six different criminals—murderers, an arsonist and a bomber—all using the same symbol and all equally skilled at leaving behind such clean crime scenes? Not to mention, all of them only committing one—or maybe two—crimes before