He’d never dated anyone in law enforcement, despite working so closely with them, despite some mutual interest a few years ago when he’d been in DC. He’d never wanted the constant fear that came along with it. But Keara? His gaze darted to her once more, took in the serious determination in every line of her body. Being with Keara would be worth it.
The four hundred miles between Desparre and Anchorage wasn’t ideal, but it suddenly didn’t seem impossible.
The bigger hurdle was Keara herself. Her reaction to waking up next to him this morning had been equal parts adorable and frustrating. But even if she was willing to try and pursue something long-distance, would her heart really be in it? Or would she never be able to truly give him a chance while her past was unresolved? Her words at the police station ran through his mind:
What scares me is the idea that I’ll never be able to solve Juan’s murder. And that as long as it remains unsolved, I’ll never be able to fully move forward myself.
As he stared at her, hoping this case would be able to shed light on her husband’s murder, would be able to give her that closure, he also hoped he could find a way to breach her walls even if it didn’t.
She’d been closed off for years, running away to Alaska but never able to escape her husband’s unsolved murder. It probably made her feel like a failure in some ways, and it wouldn’t matter how often someone told her that wasn’t true. She’d always wonder if she should have done more, if she should have insisted on staying on the case. He didn’t need training in psych to guess that. At the very least, he wanted her to find some peace, and maybe it could be with him.
Patches nudged him again, harder this time, and Jax smiled down at her. “I know. Let’s do some work.”
He angled his arm toward the big tree behind the gazebo, with fresh tape around it marking it as part of the crime scene.
She tilted her head at him, as if questioning why there were no people in the direction he was telling her to go. But she walked that way anyway, periodically glancing back to make sure he was following.
This wasn’t part of his job, but he needed to see the symbol himself, needed to evaluate how similar it was to all the others he’d seen in case files yesterday.
The white spruce was charred like the gazebo, strips of wood dangling from the tree. The lower leaves were charred, too, and a few branches had snapped off. But on the side facing away from the gazebo was a familiar set of loops. It wasn’t an exact match to the other symbols, but only because they all had some small variation—mostly due to the materials used. This one was neatly carved, suggesting that the person who’d done it was skilled with a knife, and Jax couldn’t help but think of the way Keara’s husband had been murdered. With one quick slice across the neck.
A chill darted up his arms and Jax shivered, his gaze going to the surrounding forest, dense with trees and places to hide. He didn’t have a lot of experience with serial bombers, but it wouldn’t surprise him to learn that they liked to stay close, admire their work.
Woof!
Patches’s reminder that he needed to get to his own job—and hers—was overlaid by Anderson calling, “Jax!”
The agent was standing across the street from the park, beside a couple Jax remembered from yesterday. When he’d first seen them, they’d had a young girl between them. Now the woman had a hand curved protectively over her stomach, which had just enough of a swell to tell him the reason she’d climbed into an ambulance yesterday, despite looking okay. She’d been checking on her baby.
Jax jogged over, Patches at his heels.
He hadn’t had a chance to meet the family yesterday before they’d all taken off, the dad and daughter jumping into their car and following the ambulance out of Desparre. He was surprised to see them back here today.
“Jax is our Victim Specialist and Patches here is a therapy dog,” Anderson introduced them. He gestured to the petite Black woman with worried eyes. “This is Imani.” Then he motioned to the man beside her, a mountain of a guy whose thick beard and pale skin patchy with anger made him look like someone who could handle Alaska’s wild terrain. “And her husband, Wesley.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jax said. When he noticed Imani eyeing Patches, he added, “She’s technically still a puppy. If you want to pet her, she’ll love it.”
A smile peeked free and Imani reached her hand out toward Patches, who rushed over and sat on her feet.
Wesley pet her, too, keeping his other arm wrapped protectively around his wife. “We saw you at the park yesterday,” Wesley finally said.
Jax nodded, letting the couple lead the conversation, knowing that Anderson had called him over for a reason.
“You were taking to the chief after she helped the officer who was hurt.” Wesley and his wife shared a glance full of worry. “Is he okay?”
“He’s critical.” Jax told them the news Keara had gotten this morning. “But he’s a fighter.”
“It’s our fault,” Imani said, her voice tearful. “We called him over and that’s when the blast went off.”
“That’s not your fault,” Jax said. Deep down, she knew it. But it often helped victims to hear someone else say it. “But why did you call for him?”
Anderson nodded at him as Imani and Wesley both pet Patches faster, their anxiety suddenly palpable.
“We saw this guy skulking in the woods by the gazebo,” Imani said.
Jax’s pulse leaped as Anderson leaned in. Had the guy they’d seen been lurking there because he was carving a symbol into the tree behind the gazebo?
“We were here with our daughter,” Wesley continued. “We were heading to the
