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

forced herself to step out of his reach. To prove she could. She wasn’t a sheriff anymore, and he wasn’t a private investigator anymore, but that didn’t make the desire bubbling under her skin any less appropriate. She was the chief deputy of this district, his superior. If the United States marshal himself got even a hint of intimacy between her and Dylan, she’d lose her job and he’d be suspended.

She couldn’t let the past ruin what she’d built here. For either of them.

Remi bit the inside of her mouth with her back molars to keep herself in the moment. He’d been right before. She had disciplined herself to pass the polygraph while in training at Glynco, and she couldn’t seem to give up the habit when everything seemed so out of her control. The pain was the only way to get some of that control back, to remember there were still some things she could do to protect herself.

Someone was killing off anyone remotely tied to the New Castle Killer investigation, and she intended to find out why. She pressed her hand against her forehead, and the dizziness subsided. For how long, she had no idea. Didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to be able to sleep now anyway. “We need to pinpoint the locations where our suspect has killed and build a timeline of when the murders began. I want to see if there is a pattern we can discern from the data.”

“We should also create an exhaustive list of anyone who was connected to the New Castle Killer case,” Dylan said. “If we can find out where the killer is going next, we might be able to stop them.”

Or who might be next.

“Watson is sending the files now. I’ll get my laptop, and we can start there.” Remi discarded her sandwich bag and half-drunk beer into the garbage sack and rounded back into the main living space. Hands on her hips, she took her first full breath since the moment Dylan had stepped through the door and let it out slowly. Her heart rate ticked slower at the base of her throat. There were too many similarities, too many connections between the New Castle Killer case and Del Howe’s murder this morning. There couldn’t be any mistakes this time.

Remi tugged her laptop from her overnight bag and headed back into the living room, her boots echoing off the open two-story ceilings. The laptop’s aluminum frame cooled her warm skin as she closed the space between her and Dylan. Hypnotic gray eyes lifted to hers, and her heart stuttered in her chest. Three years. Three years she’d been able to hide from the New Castle case, from him, but the past had fully caught up with her. She settled in the seat she’d vacated minutes before and logged in to her email. The files were already in her inbox. Air caught in her throat as she counted the number of attachments. “There are twenty-five cases here.”

Twenty-five victims.

Not even the most renowned serial killer in Chicago—The Carver—had officially claimed that many lives. The last time she’d checked with Deputy Finnick Reed and his witness, they’d attributed twenty to Jeff Burnes and his obsession to destroy women at the top of their fields.

Dylan leveraged his hands against the back of her chair and the edge of the table in front of her, and her awareness shot straight back into dangerous territory. “Who was the first?”

She scrolled through the attachments labeled with a case-specific identification number, and double-clicked on the last attachment, presumably the first link in this chain of revenge. The scanned documents filled her screen. The moment she recognized the victim’s name, her gasp broke through the silence between them. “Teresa Hild was killed at her home in Greenville.” Remi licked her lips as she read the initial incident report. “She was one of the uniformed officers who responded to the 9-1-1 call for the scene at Tony Rasmussen’s apartment, the first victim we connected with the New Castle Killer.”

“Scroll to the witness statements,” Dylan said.

She used her middle and ring finger to slide up on the track pad, and the initial report slipped to the top of the screen. The witness statements were farther down in the file, past forensics, the superior case review and supplemental check-in reports. Dread pooled at the base of her spine. The New Castle Sheriff’s Department had taken point on the investigation, and from what she could see of the highly organized file, they’d done a damn fine job. But the case was still considered open. No suspects had been noted in the file. “Neighbors reported nothing out of the usual the night of her death, and there weren’t any signs of a break-in. Her dog walker found her the morning after. She let herself in with a key Officer Hild had given her.”

“Maybe our killer did, too.” Dylan eased back, taking the body heat he’d generated against her shoulder with him. “They question the dog walker?”

Right. Because men didn’t have a monopoly on murder. “Her alibi checked out. New Castle Sheriff’s Department doesn’t have any real leads. The case has been sitting cold for nearly two years.”

“What’s the date she was killed?” he asked.

Remi shifted back to the initial incident report and leaned back in her chair. “Exactly one year after Tony Rasmussen’s body was discovered.”

DYLAN DIDN’T BELIEVE in coincidence.

Someone had used the date of the New Castle Killer’s first victim’s disappearance as a message. Only that message had gone undiscovered for two years. The killer was intricately and deliberately hunting down everyone involved in the New Castle Killer cases. Every single investigator, but neither Dylan nor Remi had come across anything in the files that would lead them to a suspect.

“Next victim is Detective Diane Wiggs, killed in Maryland after she transferred to Baltimore PD a few months after I left.” Remi took notes on the legal pad to her right then turned back to the laptop. Dim lighting darkened the