Harlequin Intrigue April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 by Carol Ericson (bill gates best books TXT) 📕

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Madison has been able to tie thirteen of the twenty-seven murders to Tad Marrow.” Watson handed Remi a manila file folder, the contents of which laid out the FBI’s case against the only victim who’d ever escaped the New Castle Killer. Once they’d been able to prove Tad Marrow had crossed state lines, the Bureau had taken full jurisdiction. “She’s still working through the rest. The baby might be trying to destroy us through sleep deprivation, but she’s got a good set of deputy district attorney’s taking on some of the work.”

Remi set the folder across her lap, careful not to let the crime scene photos slide from the hospital bed. Stinging pain spread through her side. Torn stitches, recovering concussion, additional bruises and lacerations.

She sifted through the evidence log pulled together from the FBI’s detailed search of Annabell Ross’s home which Marrow had used as a stronghold after killing the woman. Rope matching the strands used in half a dozen of the murders, including the marks left behind on Annabell Ross, Dylan and Remi’s own wrists. A sheath for the blade recovered from the bottom of the lake following the fight in the woods with DNA embedded in the leather. Fingerprints. The documents Sergeant Nguyen had reported stolen after the break in two years prior with a driver’s license using Marrow’s photo. The credit card used to book reservations in six of the cities where several of her former colleagues had been murdered. It was all there, and it would be enough to put the bastard away for the rest of his life. “Is Marrow saying anything about the deaths Madison hasn’t been able to tie to him?”

“Not yet, but I’m sure she and her team are working on some kind of deal that might loosen his tongue.” Watson sat back in his chair beside the bed, his gaze more intense than a few minutes before. “But that’s not what you wanted to ask me about, was it?”

She flipped the file closed and set it on the table to left, heat climbing from her chest into her neck and face. No. That hadn’t been the question she’d wanted to ask, but she was still the chief deputy of the Oregon division and Watson’s superior officer, for the time being. Personal questions clouded that relationship. “I might have been injured in the line of duty, Deputy Watson, but I can still make sure you never walk again for prying.”

“My lawyer might have a problem with that,” he said.

“The district attorney is not your personal lawyer.” She swallowed a laugh threatening to pop her new set of stitches.

“I’m pretty sure it became part of the deal when we had a kid together.” Watson’s smile drained from his expression. The former FBI bomb technician had been trained to spot the details, to make sure nothing had slipped his attention during an investigation. It was one of the things that’d initially impressed her when he’d applied for the marshals, but Remi suddenly felt as though she’d become the next puzzle for him to solve. “Reed informed me Cove is out of surgery. He and Foster are standing guard outside his room. He’s awake and talking.”

“That’s good.” She couldn’t deny the flood of relief coursing through her, and neither could Watson, she was sure. Lowering her gaze to an invisible thread in the hospital bedsheet, Remi forced herself to breathe evenly through the pain suctioning to the black hole in her chest. “You know, I hired Cove to work the New Castle Killer case in Delaware. He was the best investigator I’d worked with, including some of the men and women in my own department. He’s always had this...responsibility inside him. Like it was up to him to solve every case he took on, and I admired that.”

Watson didn’t answer.

“But now...” Remi cleared her throat. “I suspended Cove after Gresham PD searched his apartment. They uncovered evidence he was using USMS resources to fund his own investigation into the New Castle Killer, and the forensic report from the cabin placed him at the scene before Del Howe was murdered.”

She stared at the bag of her belongings resting on the bench below the single window to her right. Her boots, clothing, two badges side by side. Hers and Dylan’s. She’d had both in her possession when she’d confronted Tad Marrow, but now the space between those two chunks of metal seemed impossibly wide.

“To be honest, Watson, I wasn’t surprised. His determination to uncover the truth was why I’d manipulated the system to get him into this division in the first place. I wanted him to apply the same methods he’d taken on in Delaware to our cases here, but then I found out he lied. That he used my position as chief deputy to catch a killer. So I took his badge and his weapon and everything they represented away from him. I made it personal so I could hurt him as much as he’d hurt me.” She shook her head as though the simple motion could rewind time. “I left Delaware and the New Castle Killer case—I left him—behind to take back some tiny part of control in my life after I was forced out as sheriff, but now that the case is solved, I feel more out of control than ever. How is that possible?”

“Love is like that. It has a funny way of making us feel in control and lost at the same time. Anchored and desperate. Strong and exposed.” Watson leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I’ve watched the way your eyes get lighter when he’s around, Chief. I’ve seen how hard it is for him not to touch you while we’re on assignment. I’m not sure you even notice, but the rest of us have, and me, Foster, Reed—we all had to learn the same lesson when we fell for the women we were meant to love.”

“What lesson?” The words slipped