Her officers nodded somberly. Normally, she might have gotten a couple of rolled eyes at that request, but not today.
Policing a small town could get tedious, make you let down your guard. You thought you knew the people, thought you knew the dangers. But out here, where it was common to take calls alone, communication was their best defense. It was something she preached on a regular basis.
“I’ve got pairings up here,” Ben announced, and everyone headed his way.
Keara turned to Jax and lowered her voice. “Did you talk to Ben and Anderson any more about the other cases and the inconsistencies?”
“Yeah. They’re as confused as we are. They think our best chance of figuring out what the symbol means is to follow the other leads right now.” Jax’s lips pursed. “I still think there has to be a way to use the symbol to find the killer, but I don’t know how.”
It wasn’t his job to know how. His psychological insight was useful, but he’d already stepped into profiler territory by confirming that the symbol was important, that it linked these crimes somehow. Jax wasn’t an agent or a detective. It was her job—and Ben’s and Anderson’s and all of the other agents and officers—to follow the leads and uncover the bomber.
“You should focus on the victims,” she told him. “I’ve seen the difference you and Patches make.”
Woof!
Keara smiled and pet Patches more, as Jax stared at her pensively, his expression unreadable.
Had he felt insulted that she didn’t think he should run leads? Would he feel the same way if he knew it made her more comfortable pursuing something romantic with him when he was sticking safely on the outskirts of the case?
His lips twitched, like he could read her thoughts.
“Let’s get going,” Ben said and Keara gave Patches one more pet, nodded goodbye to Jax and hurried over to see who she’d be running leads with today.
“It’s you and me,” Anderson announced before she reached the more senior agent.
“Great,” Keara said. Anderson seemed pretty easygoing and professional. “Where are we headed?”
“Up the mountain. The place most likely for a bomber to be holed up, don’t you think?”
“Let’s do it,” she agreed. She glanced back once more at Jax as she headed out the door and she could have sworn she saw him mouth the words, Be careful.
As she led Anderson over to her police SUV—specially equipped to handle Desparre’s rough roads and dangerous weather—she wondered if Jax worried about her. She wanted him far away from danger, didn’t want to have to fear finding another man she cared for the way she’d found Juan. But she’d understood the dangers with Juan because she faced them herself. What must it be like for Jax, somewhat on the outside, to hear that she was heading into a remote area that would be a good place for a bomber to hide?
Pulling out her phone before she hopped into the car, she sent Jax a quick text:
Let me know how it goes with the victims today. I’ll keep you updated, too.
It felt like the sort of thing she’d text if she was actually dating him. Hoping she wasn’t making assumptions about plans that weren’t reciprocated, she tucked her phone back into her pocket.
Climbing into the driver’s seat, she asked Anderson, “Which part of the mountain? You know it’s pretty massive, right?”
“We have one of your veterans paired up with one of our longtime agents. They’re hitting the far side of the mountain. I thought we’d handle the closer side. We’ll do as much as we can today and see what pops.”
“Sounds good,” Keara agreed as she started up her vehicle.
Some people headed this far north in Alaska just to find a good adventure. But most of the people who landed in Desparre were looking to be left alone. Usually, there was nothing sinister about it. Maybe they were running from a tragedy, like she was. Or maybe they were running from a threat, like Tate Emory was. Sometimes, though, they were hiding because the law was after them or because the vast spaces of Alaska seemed like a great place to stay off law-enforcement radar or hide a victim.
For the first ten minutes of their ride, Anderson was quiet, just texting or watching out the window. Then he slid his phone into his pocket and shifted toward her. “So this symbol...”
She glanced briefly at him, then back at the road. In the spring driving up the mountain wasn’t dangerous like it could be in the winter, with the heavy snow and avalanches. But the roads were still narrow, the vehicles here usually large. On a couple of occasions, she’d had to hit the brakes for an animal. Once, it had been a bear.
“What about it?” she asked. “You have a theory?”
“Maybe. I’ve been thinking through what Jax told me this morning about how different the victimology and MOs in each of the cases has been, even the way the symbol was written. In marker or spray paint or even pen.”
“And?” Keara prompted, her hands tensing around the wheel, hoping he had a new idea that would make sense of it all.
“We know savvy criminals learn from each other. What if we’ve got a group of them on a dark web site, not just trading insight into how to avoid getting caught, but also sharing this symbol?”
“Why?” Keara asked. “You think it’s a way to mark their own kills? Keep track and try to outdo each other? But wouldn’t using the same symbol defeat the purpose?”
“No,” Anderson replied. “I was thinking more like a game, coordinating a single symbol across all these different places and crimes to confuse police.”
The tension across the back of Keara’s shoulders and neck notched tighter. “That makes sense,” she admitted. Not only would it confuse the authorities if they connected the crimes through the symbols, but it also added a cooperative-competitive element that she could imagine appealing to a killer
