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

shadows under her cheeks and eyes. They’d been at this for hours, but she wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t let him see how exhausted she really was. Always out to prove she was the strongest, the most determined, the best. It was one of the qualities that made her a hell of a chief deputy. She wouldn’t be distracted from an assignment, and she expected the same of her deputies, but sooner or later, the clock would hit zero.

Dylan marked the oversize map of the United States he’d found folded in the safe house’s massive collection of books in the living room. Baltimore, Maryland. Check. They’d gone through half of the twenty-five files Deputy Watson had forwarded for their review, but no discernible pattern had showed itself. Hell, maybe there was no pattern, and the homicides weren’t connected, but subconsciously, he understood exactly what they’d uncovered. A long string of murders to satisfy a deep-rooted desire for revenge, but from that initial spark, a serial had been born. Just as Remi had theorized. “Got it.”

Who, of their current suspect pool, had the meticulous determination to hunt down and slaughter every single officer tied to the original case?

Jonah Watson had discarded the notion an original investigator had taken the law into their own hands. So far, the marshal had been right. They were all dead. A family member then? A partner they’d never known about ordered to finish what the New Castle Killer started? Hard to believe all these deaths were the work of one killer, but it was possible. The planning and locating of targets alone would take months, if not years. He wrote the date of the detective’s death beside her pushpin on the map he’d taped to the wall and stepped back. “I can’t make out a pattern here, Sheriff. This guy is all over the place. As far as I can tell he’d locate a victim then head straight there to add another notch to his murder post.”

Remi set her chin into her palm and studied the map as he faced her. “You might be right, or he purposefully switched up which targets to hit and when in order to confuse law enforcement. If he’d killed his victims from the east coast to west coast, there was a chance someone would notice. Maybe the randomness is the pattern, same as the MOs he used to kill his victims. He didn’t want any of them connecting back to him. No pattern, no way to determine his next step.”

“Except we made the connection when we looked into the case.” He folded his arms across his chest and pressed the edge of the pushpin into his finger. They’d narrowed down everyone who’d worked the investigation three years ago and compared the names to the files, but were there more? A dispatcher, a witness, an EMT they hadn’t thought of?

“You made the connection.” She pushed to her feet, and a yawn contorted her features as she headed into the kitchen for another cup of black coffee. “I ran as fast as I could as far as I could to leave this case behind.”

Dylan rolled his lips between his teeth and bit down. “How is the killer getting the names of his targets?”

“What do you mean?” Remi refilled her mug and pulled one from the shelves, presumably for him. No end in sight for her—not tonight—but it was only a matter of time before the long hours caught up with her and she’d pass out wherever she landed. He’d watched it happen too many times before. Hell, the only reason she’d been able to give Gresham PD an alibi had been because cameras had caught her asleep at her desk around the time Del Howe had been murdered.

“I mean we didn’t know some of these victims were connected until Watson pulled their files and sent them to you, and we were working the damn case. Our theory is that the killer is murdering anyone involved in the New Castle investigation, but how did the killer know who was involved in the first place?” He crossed to the table as tendrils of adrenaline released into his veins. This was why he’d become a private investigator. This was what he’d been trained for. To take the smallest amount of evidence and suspicion and connect the dots.

He scrolled back through the open cases on Remi’s laptop. Straightening, he pointed to the screen. “A family member wouldn’t have been told the name of the dispatcher who’d taken the first 9-1-1 call or the name of the EMT who’d first arrived on scene. Those names are included in the initial incident report written by the officers on scene, and then detectives question them and submit their statements after the interviews.”

The small lines between her eyebrows were back as Remi moved along the length of the kitchen island toward him. Her eyes widened. “You’re right. Family members aren’t briefed on who arrived on the scene, who collected evidence from the crime scene, who ran the samples in the forensics lab, yet every single one of them has been killed. So how is the killer getting this information, and how does he know their whereabouts?”

“I can think of one way.” Occam’s razor. The simplest answer was usually the right answer, and Dylan didn’t see any other way around it. “He’s got to be law enforcement.”

“We’ve already concluded it couldn’t be one of the officers who worked the original case. According to Watson, they’ve all been accounted for, apart from you and me.” Remi shook her head. She rounded the table, one arm crossed over her chest as she bit down on her thumbnail and bent at the waist to scroll through the files on her screen again.

His gut clenched. Watson’s research had been thorough. The former FBI bomb technician was trained to spot the most minute details and uncover a suspect’s motive, means and opportunity. Dylan trusted the marshal had tracked down anyone involved in the New Castle Killer case,