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

including him and Remi. That meant the killer wasn’t finished. If whoever killed Del Howe this morning truly had access to the files from the initial investigation, sooner or later the bastard would come for Remi, come for him.

And hell, having that information didn’t only put the killer ahead of them, it strengthened Gresham PD’s case against Remi. Only a law enforcement officer would’ve been able to access those files. The fact Del Howe had been following her, combined with the history between her and the New Castle Killer case, would give them enough probable cause to seek a warrant from a judge.

But Dylan wasn’t going to let her take the fall. This was what he’d been trained for, what all those years of off-the-books investigations had sculpted him into. No matter how hard Captain Elijah Paulson and his sergeant pushed to make her a suspect, Dylan knew without a doubt Remi hadn’t done this. “We need to go through the background checks you originally ran for the first three victims’ family members again. It’s possible we missed something, maybe a law enforcement connection that didn’t seem relevant at the time.”

“I remember something like that coming back when we initially notified the next of kin for one of the victims. A distant relative maybe, but I can’t...” Her eyes slipped closed—almost involuntarily—but she cleared her throat and set her expression. “I can remember. Just give me a minute.”

Dylan trailed his hand up her spine and pried her away from the screen. She’d made it clear she’d rather forget what’d happened between them all those years ago, but he couldn’t. He never wanted to forget. Never wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened. For the first time in years, he’d found someone he could trust, who was as authentic on the inside as they claimed to be on the outside. He’d spent most of his life being lied to in one form or another, but with Remi, he’d never had to wonder if the words coming from that flawless mouth of hers were the truth, and it’d cleansed him in a way. Given him clarity. Helped him realize the culmination of keen observation skills and a lifetime of working on his own didn’t have to hold him back. When she’d hired him, she’d made him part of a team, and he wanted more of that. He wanted her. “You really can’t handle your coffee. Come on, Sheriff. You know how embarrassed you get when you fall asleep on your keyboard.”

Her voice softened as her words slurred together in an indistinguishable one-sided conversation.

Hell, she was about to collapse. Dylan maneuvered her down a hallway branching off from the kitchen, where the bedrooms had been laid out. Shouldering most of her weight, he passed the first door—a large bathroom—and headed for the second on his right. She wasn’t going to make it to the end of the hallway. He kicked the door into the stopper behind it and flipped on the light.

A bare queen-size mattress had been centered in the room. Remi had told him the house had been acquired by the marshals service within the last two weeks. The case was still in the courts, which explained the lack of bedding, but it’d have to do. He swung her from his side to his front and braced his legs on either side of hers to keep himself from dropping her. Setting her on the mattress, he leveraged both hands against his knees. She was still wearing her shoulder holster and her weapon. Damn it. He was going to have to figure out how to get her out of it without pissing her off. Or maybe sleeping with the thing was common practice for her nowadays. He had no idea. They hadn’t shared a bed in three years. “Okay, Sheriff. I’m going to get you out of your holster. No biting, no kicking, no punching.”

She mumbled something as her eyes slipped closed, and he couldn’t help but smile. The woman didn’t drink alcohol, but she certainly passed out cold as hard as any addict.

Dylan intertwined his fingers in hers and moved to thread her elbow back through the shoulder strap.

A strong grip shot up and locked around his wrist, those piercing blue eyes suddenly wide and aware. Remi wrenched her upper body off the mattress and dug her nails into his skin. “He’s connected. Sergeant Nguyen...is...connected.”

Her grip relaxed from his wrist, and she fell back, instantly unconscious.

CHAPTER FIVE

Sharp architectural angles came into focus as Remi cracked open her eyes.

Grogginess and the unrelenting ache of passing out when her body had given up weighed her down, something she’d become more used to over the years. Sleep hadn’t been the same since she’d left Delaware. In sleep, the nightmares waited, and she battled every waking hour to push it off more and more. Until she couldn’t. It was the perfect solution. Passing out ensured utter numbness. She’d burned the midnight oil a few too many times while she’d been sheriff back east. In those moments, she’d realized when her body simply gave out, there hadn’t been any nightmares. No shame. No humiliation for what she hadn’t been able to change. Over the past three years, that darkness had developed into a safe space, an emptiness she couldn’t wait to hide inside. Sometimes it’d take a day, sometimes two, for the blackness to find her. This time had been on the shorter side, and her stay even shorter.

She turned her head to one side, her hair catching on the divots in the bare mattress’s structure, and the grogginess drained. Except the past had caught up with her. She bolted upright and instantly patted at her side. Her shoulder holster and weapon were gone...with her boots. Studying the room, she recognized the color of the bare wood trim around the closet, and brief memories of the night before surfaced. Watson had sent everything he’d had on the murders of her former coworkers and investigators involved in the