Harlequin Intrigue April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 by Carol Ericson (beginner reading books for adults .txt) 📗

killer last year had been brutal. It had taught him that human beings were capable of far worse atrocities than he’d ever seen before up close. It had also taught him that many of the perpetrators came from violence themselves. Instead of learning empathy from it, they’d sought it out, tried to inflict pain on others.

Maybe the bomber was the same. Maybe the symbol came from a traumatic incident in his childhood and he was now marking his own crimes with it. Maybe...

Jax sighed and set aside one more case, wondering if he was wasting time. Even if he was right, the symbol could have been overlooked or never entered in the FBI’s voluntary database.

Then his pulse spiked as he flipped to the next case. Here was the symbol he’d seen at two bomb sites, staring back at him from a twenty-nine-year-old case. A murder that had happened in Texas, not far from Houston.

He read fast as Patches sat up, scooting closer and resting her head on his leg. Although the FBI database was meant for unsolved cases, the police in this case had known exactly who the killer was. They just couldn’t find him.

Arthur Margrove had been known around the community as a violent man. Prone to picking fights with anyone—including his wife—he’d been arrested repeatedly for assault. He’d served multiple short sentences in jail, but never learned his lesson. After being fired from yet another job, he’d returned to his job site, broken in and smashed everything he could find. Then he’d gone home and murdered his wife.

Today Arthur would be in his sixties. He wasn’t the bomber.

But Jax tapped the computer screen, his fingers marking the information he’d been searching for all afternoon and into the early evening. Arthur Margrove had a son.

Todd Margrove had been five years old at the time of the murder. He’d been standing beside his mother’s body when police came looking for Arthur, covered in her blood, probably from trying to help her. Both of them were underneath a bloody symbol drawn on the wall. A symbol that had now been replicated across the country.

Jax grabbed his phone and dialed Keara’s number. Frustration gnawed when the call went to voice mail, and he left a tense message:

“Call me back, Keara. I know who the bomber is.”

KEARA GLANCED AT the readout on her phone as she drove down the mountain. Jax was calling.

She gripped the wheel tighter as she debated whether to answer. She’d spent the day running leads with her officers, the fury and frustration in her chest building and building until it felt ready to burst.

Nothing was panning out. Thinking about what had happened with Jax in the morning just added fear to the mix.

Whatever Jax wanted now, it wasn’t to tell her he’d gone home; she knew that much. She hadn’t spoken to him since she’d left his hotel room that morning, but she had talked to the FBI agents, suggesting they get him a flight. Ben had raised his eyebrows at her and told her Jax understood the threat and was staying off the streets. The FBI didn’t believe he was in real danger. They thought if the bomber wanted him dead, he wouldn’t have missed.

They thought today’s shooting was a message. The bomber knew what they were doing and he wasn’t falling for it.

He was having fun with them, because after all, if Jax was right, this was what he wanted anyway. A strong opponent to chase him, the thrill of getting away despite their best efforts.

It wasn’t going to happen. Not this time.

They might not have prints to give them a name, since the rifle had come up empty. But they had a partial license plate. They had a sketch.

Her phone stopped ringing as Keara rounded another bend, riding the brakes because this stretch of road was steep. She’d gone up to the top of the mountain to talk to the loner who’d been at the scene of the Desparre bombing. He’d called the station and implied he might have seen the person in the sketch. He’d asked for her personally, and because he was a recluse who’d opened up to her in the past, she’d agreed.

Charlie Quinn and his FBI partner had spoken to him yesterday and reported back that he was crotchety and uncooperative, but didn’t have any useful information. It seemed unlikely he’d have something new today, but she had to check. Plus, it gave her some time to herself.

But when she’d arrived, no matter how many ways she asked, the information he’d claimed to have didn’t surface. Instead, he’d spent the entire discussion digging for details on the case. Maybe it was because he’d suffered some minor injuries, cuts to his legs that had required stitches. Or maybe he was just one of those guys who got off on crime scene details.

He wasn’t the bomber. In his late fifties, in poor health and bad shape, not only did he not fit the description, but he’d lived in Desparre too long.

Still, Keara’s radar was up. As soon as she’d returned to her SUV, she’d called the station to update them, let them know she was heading back in.

The whole thing had been a waste of time. Peering up at the sky through her windshield, she scowled at the fading light filtering through the towering trees. Pretty soon it would be dark. Her officers had been working a lot of overtime in the past four days. The shooting downtown today meant they’d needed to spend as much time reassuring the public and keeping a visible presence there as running leads.

The more time that passed from when the bomber had shown up in the park, the farther he could run. Yes, he’d found a police department—and a group of federal agents—to try and outwit. But he hadn’t made it so many years without being caught by being stupid. Maybe the shots at Jax had been his parting ones. His way of telling them they’d gotten