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

had traces of the rock in their boots and would have an intimate knowledge of the caves. Was one of them Remi’s attacker?

That was where her abductor had taken her. That was where he’d find Remi. Adrenaline dumped into Dylan’s veins as he stumbled for the driver’s seat and slammed the door behind him. The wound in his side screamed as he started the SUV and sped toward the on-ramp. He set the phone in the passenger-side seat on speaker. The article he’d read about the caves only specified the general area where the cavers had discovered the entrance to the tunnels. He needed more than that. “Get the United States Geological Survey on the phone. Tell them we have a marshal who’s been abducted, and we need to know the exact coordinates near my location to the lava tube caves recently discovered.”

“On it. I’ll send you the map as soon as I have it.” Reed ended the call.

Time stretched into a distorted fluid, seconds into minutes, minutes into what seemed like hours. Congested lanes and landscaped terrain bled into open road and miles of trees and towering mountains. So different from Delaware, the life he’d left behind to follow Remi into the marshals service, but Dylan didn’t have attention for any of it. He couldn’t lose her. Not after everything they’d already survived together.

While he’d initially crossed the country to find Del Howe and make up for the mistake of not listening to the killer’s last victim, Remi had been the one who’d gotten him to want to stay. The DOJ had believed a former private investigator diversified the array of men and women who’d taken up the federal shield, but many chief deputies around the country didn’t trust the way he’d built his reputation by being suspected of circumventing the law. Didn’t trust him. After his application had been accepted and he’d finished his four-month training in Glynco, Georgia, Remi had offered him a position in her district. She’d given him everything at the risk of losing her job. Given him a purpose. He wasn’t going to turn his back on that.

The ping from his phone ripped him back into the moment. He couldn’t right the mistake he’d made with the New Castle Killer case, couldn’t help any of the bastard’s victims or catch the killer himself, but he wouldn’t fail Remi. His knuckles fought to break through the skin on the back of his hands as he strengthened his grip around the steering wheel.

Dylan swiped his shaking fingers across the phone’s screen, and a map replaced his call history as he sped north. The US Geological Survey had forwarded an updated map of the lava tube entrances. The nearest opening was at least ten minutes from his current location, and he’d already pushed the SUV as hard as he dared. Ten minutes. Remi had been abducted, knocked unconscious with the help of her driver’s-side window and stabbed, according to the woman who’d picked up the chief’s phone.

She was running out of time.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Do you know how much blood the human body can lose before it goes into shock?” her attacker asked. “I do.”

A glint of metal blinded Remi right before stinging pain sped across her upper arm. A single strike. Nothing compared to the stab wound in her side, but her heart couldn’t tell the difference. Her pulse hiked, and her fight-or-flight instincts revved up a notch. Only, she couldn’t run. The headlamp swept across her arm as blood trickled from the newest wound. She pulled against the ropes at her wrists and ankles with everything she had.

A low, menacing laugh filled the cave and echoed back to her. His outline above her grew larger as he closed the distance between them. “I cut Del Howe over one hundred times before he started to lose consciousness. Nausea, sweating, shallow breathing. He lost a lot of color as his toes and fingers went numb. You see, the body tries to compensate when blood pressure drops. Considering how much you’ve already lost, Sheriff, soon your heart will try to keep up with less volume.”

Another quick slice of the knife across her midsection lit up her nerve endings, and she shuttered a groan at the back of her throat. “He begged me to stop, you know. Just as his victims had done over and over, but I have a feeling you’re not like my other victims. You won’t beg for your life, will you?”

“How...would you know Del Howe’s...victims begged?” The scars across his hands. The faint raised lines she’d noted when he’d slammed his fist into the ground near her face. Remi set her head back against the smooth rock supporting her from behind, trying to fill her lungs. Her stomach churned as sweat beaded in her hairline. Her body had already started sliding into shock. She was losing too much blood. From her head, from the stab wound in her side, from the new lacerations across her skin. “You were one of them, weren’t you? One of the New... Castle Killer’s victims.”

Pieces of the puzzle started falling into place. The timing of those first murders—a year after the last victim had been taken—the targeting of her colleagues and officers, the methodical patience and hatred it must’ve taken to torture and slowly kill Del Howe. Cut by cut, scream by scream. Remi closed her eyes against the hurling dizziness in her head. A victim would blame the investigators who’d failed to bring them home. “We never recovered...the last two bodies.”

“No, you didn’t.” Footsteps, farther away now, reverberated off the walls around her, and she forced herself to stay conscious enough to track them with her eyes closed. Memorize them in case he switched off the light again. “Do you know how Del Howe got into my apartment building? He used his job as an elevator inspector. I’d noticed him on more than one occasion, which, now that I think about it, was unusual. How many inspections did a single