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

She took the card with a shaky hand, nodded.

Akna’s mom looked at him questioningly, even as her gaze skimmed over his coat, emblazoned with FBI. “You’re investigating the bombing?”

“I’m a Victim Specialist, not an investigator. I’m here for your daughter. If she saw anything that could help the investigation, she can talk to me. Or if she wants information about the status of the case. Or if she wants help finding someone to talk to about what happened today. The same goes for you, ma’am.”

Surprise registered on the woman’s face as she glanced at the card in Akna’s hand, then back at him.

Akna swiped the tears off her face with the sleeve of her bloody sweatshirt, then whispered, “Thanks, Jax.” Then she gave his dog a shaky smile. “Bye, Patches.”

Woof!

Her happy bark made a handful of Luna police officers glance their way.

Akna let out a surprised laugh, then she left, her arm looped around her mom’s waist.

Jax pulled out a notebook and jotted down the details Akna had mentioned, before tucking it back into his FBI jacket. Then he raised his arm to gesture toward the other group of civilians gathered at the edge of the park. “Let’s go, Patches.”

She headed toward them without pause, used to her role of calming people.

As he followed, snippets of their conversation drifted toward him.

“Why would anyone set off a bomb here?”

“...nothing here, man!”

Right now Jax needed to focus on the victims’ immediate needs, on information he could gather to help them later and on the details that might matter in the investigation. But he had a background in psychology and he’d never quite been able to turn off the analytical side of his brain that sorted through why a person did the things they did. It had helped him back in his therapist days. As an FBI employee, it sometimes made him clash with the investigating agents.

But right now he couldn’t stop wondering: What had a bomber been doing in this small park?

Jax had been to the sites of several bombs since he’d joined the FBI. Usually, they fell into two categories: big spectacles meant to cause widespread panic, or small explosives meant to kill a certain person. This didn’t seem like either one.

This crime scene was different from anything he’d experienced. Even though knowing the motivation behind a crime didn’t necessarily make it less scary, for Jax, it made it easier to comprehend. And usually, easier to comprehend meant a starting place for him, for the victims, even for the Special Agents in their investigation.

He squinted at the destruction in this once-beautiful place and dread settled in his gut. Was the bomber finished or was he just getting started?

BEING POLICE CHIEF in a remote Alaskan town was supposed to be quiet. It was supposed to be simple.

Today Keara Hernandez had spent the day reassuring scared citizens that they were safe in Desparre, that the explosion in the town next to them was under investigation. That she’d have more information over the next few days, that it would be solved soon. She hoped her reassurances were true. But she’d been unable to get through to her colleagues in the Luna PD all day.

So now, instead of going home to rest, she was on her way down the mountain that separated Desparre from Luna. Getting to Luna was a two-hour venture if you went around the base of the mountain. Trekking up and then down the mountain again took half the time. In winter that trip could be dangerous. Right now, with May a few days away and the snow melted except in the highest parts of the mountain, it was much easier. But Keara felt every minute of the drive.

Her throat was sore after talking to more citizens in a day than she usually did in a week in her town full of recluses. Her shoulder ached from one of her regular calls, close to her own house. A belligerent drunk who liked to scream at his wife. At least once a week Keara was out there, talking him down and occasionally tossing him in a cell. Today he’d taken a run at her and she’d had to cuff him, bring him in the hard way.

She wanted to soak it off in a tub, relax in her quiet house, set apart from her neighbors by a few miles. She wanted to continue to live in the fantasy that a small town like Desparre would never face the same types of threats a big city like Houston saw.

The thought of her hometown made her chest tighten and Keara pushed it out of her mind, punched down on the gas. This was a fluke. She’d lived in Desparre for six years and although bar fights and domestic violence weren’t unusual, big, complex cases were few and far between. Other than the kidnapping case that had given Desparre way more attention than it had ever wanted five years ago—and a rehash six months ago when one of the kidnappers reappeared—Desparre and its neighbor Luna were places people came to stay below the radar. Not to set off bombs.

The idea made her shudder as she navigated off the mountain and toward downtown Luna, toward the quaint little park where she’d come more than once over the past six years. The first time she’d seen it, she’d thought what a fun place it would have been to take kids. Which was irrelevant for her, since that part of her life had ended before it ever got started. But right now she prayed the park hadn’t been hosting one of their toddler play groups when the bomb had exploded.

The news had reported six dead and at least thirteen injured, but they hadn’t offered many more details. The hospital was keeping media out and police weren’t talking, other than to say they were contacting next of kin and working with the FBI to investigate. And typical of the