He’d done this for her? The bread collapsed under the press of her thumb through the plastic, and her mouth watered. Peanut butter, grape jelly and nacho chips. The meal that’d gotten her through some of the worst moments of her life after her dad had died. But Dylan couldn’t have known that. He’d simply picked up on her preferred meal back in Delaware, and she’d never been so thankful for his observation skills than right now. The automatic tightness in her chest when he’d gotten near eased. She led him to the dining table in the next room. Turning on the light, she tamped down her anxiety of being exposed by the wall of floor-to-ceiling glass windows and stay in the moment. She pulled one chair out for him then took her own seat across the table. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.” He spoke around a mouthful of chips and peanut butter, and she couldn’t help but smile at the disgusted look on his face. Dylan set the sandwich on top of the bag he’d wrapped it in and leaned back in his chair. “You eat this every day?”
“It’s not that bad.” Remi took a bite from her own sandwich and instantly fell into an emotional safety zone as cheesy nacho chips combined with the sweetness of the grape jelly. “We didn’t have a whole lot of money back in Delaware when I was a kid. Bread, peanut butter, jelly and chips were about as good as it got. My dad used to make this for me every day when I came home from school. Sometimes he used potato chips, but the best are nacho cheese, in my opinion.”
“You never told me about your family.” Dylan tried another bite, but she got the sense he’d only done it to prove he could.
“There’s not a whole lot to tell.” Peanut butter and bread stuck to the roof of her mouth as she focused on the pattern of tree rings engrained into the dining table. She raised her gaze to his. “They’re all dead.”
HELL. SHE’D KEPT such a tight lid on anything having to do with her family, he hadn’t realized it’d been because she didn’t have any left. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Nobody knows. The fire happened such a long time ago, I wonder if the memories I have of my parents and my little sister are even real.” Remi traced the zipper along the plastic sandwich bag with her thumb. Her ribs expanded on a strong inhale, and she wrapped both hands around her sandwich as if clinging to it for dear life.
“I was eight. The smoke detector batteries in our trailer had died the week before, but my dad couldn’t justify spending what little money we had buying new ones. He’d dedicated his entire life to working in the mines, but almost anyone who hauled coal barely walked away with a living wage. My mom, dad and two-year-old sister were sleeping in the only bed at one end of the trailer with me at the other in a pullout. The last thing I remember was trying to wake them up, but the smoke had already suffocated them. I got my sister out on my own, but even after the paramedics had gotten there, she never woke up.”
Remi brushed her hands together to dislodge the crumbs from her fingers, but she still wouldn’t look at him. “My parents were too heavy for me to carry by myself. I just...wasn’t strong enough. The fire marshal who’d come to investigate said the fire had started because of a faulty outlet in the bedroom. The whole trailer had gone up in a matter of minutes.”
“Sounds like you were lucky to get out of there alive,” he said.
“I haven’t told anyone that story.” She shook her head. Remi finished the last of her sandwich, and a new appreciation for the trust she’d showed him spread. She ran a hand through her long black hair and a memory of that same hair surrounding his face as she kissed him surfaced. “Not sure why I told you that, to be honest. I must be more tired than I thought.”
“Neither of us was expecting the New Castle Killer case to come back to haunt us after you were let go from the sheriff’s department.” Dylan played with the crust of his sandwich.
“You believe Del Howe is the killer who outsmarted us all?” That iridescent blue gaze lifted to his, and the world threatened to tip on its axis. He’d known Remi long enough to realize the question went deeper than the words that’d fallen from her lips.
She’d brought him onto the New Castle case based off his previous work as a private investigator. She’d witnessed how far he’d go to get to the truth and had sought him out to work the investigation in tandem with the sheriff’s department, despite the blowback from fellow officers and the governor. She wasn’t asking him if he was sure he’d uncovered the New Castle Killer’s identity. She already knew the truth. No. Remi was asking if he was prepared to step into the ring again, if he was ready to see this case through to the end.
Dylan peeled the corner of the label from his beer as a heavy knot of determination twisted in his gut. “I believe the fact I ignored Tad Marrow when he approached me for help was what got him killed.” He took a sip of the beer, not really tasting the flavor as it prickled down the back of his throat. “I promised myself I was going to spend the rest of my life making up for that mistake by ensuring his killer paid for what he’d done. But then the SOB turned up dead this morning. Now I’m not sure what to do.”
Silence settled between them. A minute, maybe more.
“I didn’t leave because of you, Dylan.” His name on her lips constricted the skin along his scalp. Her voice had barely registered over the
