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

to go deeper. Pure, comforting numbness was all that waited—no nightmares, no pain, no guilt—but where she’d retreated to that space over and over again in the past, it wasn’t good enough anymore. Not after her abductor had nearly taken his revenge.

“Take it easy. Wouldn’t want to have your nurses have to restrain you again.” That voice. She knew that voice. Coaxing and dangerous at the same time, a perfect combination that promised to bring her back to the surface.

Remi clung to it, battling to bring herself past the drugging haze of unconsciousness. Piercing fluorescent light intensified the stiffness in her neck and shoulders, and flashes of the headlamp that’d kept her attacker’s identity in shadow scored across her mind. She turned her face from the outline above her and tried to raise her hands to block the light. Stinging pain shot along her arm.

“You’ve got an IV in your arm, Sheriff. Try not to tug it too hard.” Warm, callused fingers coaxed her arm back to her side, and it took everything inside her not to pull away at the physical touch. Steel-gray eyes came into focus before Dylan looked up at something across the bed. “Dim the lights for me, would you? They’re bugging her eyes.”

Movement shifted from somewhere within the room as the brightness eased. Coarse sheets, white tile, a door with a bright silver handle. A hospital room. Soft beeping filled her ears from one side of the bed. A loose blood pressure cuff encapsulated one arm, the catheter for her IV line in the other. Bubbles floating in clear liquid filled the thin plastic tube. Fluids. She must’ve been in worse shape than she’d originally estimated. “How long...?” Rawness coated the entire length of her throat, hints of dirt still clung to the inside of her mouth. Her voice had lowered an octave, unrecognizable even to her own ears. “Unconscious...?”

“You came out of surgery about four hours ago.” Dylan smoothed a section of her hair away from her face, and a buzz fizzled across her over sensitized skin. That was the second time he’d touched her in as little as two minutes. “The surgeon was finally able to stop the internal bleeding and sew up your wound, but you lost a lot of blood between the caves and the hospital. You lost consciousness right after I got you into the SUV. Your doc wants to keep you overnight to make sure your vitals stay stable. Then there’s the cut at the back of your head and the concussion you endured when your kidnapper took you from the station.”

Her eyes were still heavy, but the fact Dylan was standing by her hospital bedside at all eased the last few hours from her memory. “He shot you. I thought...you...were dead.”

“Nah. It’s a flesh wound. One of the ER doctors pulled the slug. We’ve sent it to ballistics to match it to your abductor’s weapon. With any luck, we’ll be able to tie him to at least one of the murders Watson uncovered.” A seriousness erased the smile from his mouth as he stared down at her, and her gut clenched at the rapid change. “I wasn’t going to let a bullet stop me from getting to you, Sheriff. You’re too important.”

A lightness flooded through her as those last three words settled between them. Important to the team or important to him? Did it matter?

“Do you remember anything your kidnapper said? Maybe some identifying factors that can help us narrow the field of suspects?” Deputy Finnick Reed pushed off the wall near the door and closed the distance between them. Inquisitive blue eyes—masking his usual sarcastic nature—settled on her. “There’s a chance the hiker who called in about Del Howe’s body is our guy, but it seems he gave Gresham PD a fake name and address. Turns out Annabell Ross, his hiking partner that day, barely knows him. Only met him a couple weeks prior to that hike in a caver group she’s part of. He’s not answering his phone. No one can find him.”

Images of those thin white scars across the back of the suspect’s hand shot to the front of her mind. She could do more than that. “He’s a victim.”

“What do you mean?” Dylan asked.

“One of the New Castle Killer...victims.” She motioned to her opposite hand, the one limited by the IV line. “I saw the scars on his hand. He told me how... Del Howe targeted him using his job as an elevator inspector, how the killer had broken into his apartment and waited for him to come home. He was...knocked unconscious. When he woke up, he’d been tied to a chair by the wrists and ankles with rope and had duct tape over his mouth to keep the neighbors from hearing him scream.”

Confusion contorted Dylan’s face a split second before he hid behind that all too familiar controlled expression. “You’re sure?”

She nodded.

“Well, hell. No wonder your man has targeted every investigator involved in the case. He’s out for revenge. Not for a family member, as we originally believed, but for himself.” Reed crossed his arms over his chest, the superhero logo of today’s T-shirt bright white in the shape of an elongated skull. Fitting, considering Reed had been the one to punish the Carver for the women he’d manipulated and killed, including the marshal’s witness-turned-fiancée. “You didn’t happen to catch his name or recognize him in the middle of that damn cave, I imagine?”

Images of pain—of desperation—demanded attention, but Remi wouldn’t let them out. Wouldn’t let her team see the cracks beginning to form. She diverted her attention to the cold sensation building in her toes. Whatever painkiller the surgeons had used to keep her sedated during surgery had started wearing off. She fisted her sheets, preparing for the pain. “No.”

“Investigators were never able to recover the last two bodies in Delaware. All that was left at each scene was a life-ending amount of blood. It’s possible one of Howe’s victims escaped, and