What the hell did that mean? “Explain.”
“It doesn’t matter that the New Castle Killer was found dead this morning. Not to me.” She studied the curve of the beer in her hand a little too thoroughly, almost as though she was determined to look anywhere but at him. “I’m relieved his victims and their families will finally have the closure they need if we can prove Del Howe was the killer, but that case will haunt me for the rest of my life. Not because of the way they died but because I was humiliated when the people recalled me as sheriff.
“I’ve dedicated every moment of my life after I realized I was the only survivor of the fire that killed my family to saving anyone I could. But I couldn’t save those men. I couldn’t even get them justice. Someone else did, and the shame—the guilt—of letting them down was too much to handle. I had to start over. I had to move on. I had to forget that case, forget the people I worked with.” She raised her attention to him. “I had to forget the man I was sleeping with, so I could simply move on with my life.”
Thickness swelled in his throat as her words took shape one by one. “Is this your way of telling me you’re not that into me, or that you think what we were doing was to blame for a killer getting away with murdering three victims?”
“Whoever killed Del Howe knew who he really was. They followed him here from Delaware then proceeded to murder him slowly and with great precision. Del Howe died with over eight dozen lacerations across his entire body, including his eyelids. Something like that takes time. It takes a lot of patience and a dedicated amount of research and planning.” Remi stretched her hands across the table and leveled her chin. “Makes me think the killer we’re looking for might’ve been in that house—same as you—to study their target, and if they were, they would’ve seen the surveillance photos of me in that closet. They would’ve known Del Howe was watching me.”
Dylan leaned forward in his chair, the edge of the table cutting into his elbows. He tightened his grip around his beer bottle. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“The killer was obviously punishing Del Howe for what he’d done to his victims. Giving him a taste of his own medicine. Whether it’s a family member or an officer who worked the original investigation, I can’t say for sure, but that scene this morning said this isn’t the work of a territorial serial. I think this killer’s sole purpose might be revenge. It’s personal for them. They’re angry, obsessed and willing to kill. So they target the man responsible for making them feel that way, but in my experience, it doesn’t stop there.”
She traced an invisible pattern into the table’s surface. “Hate is like that. It consumes and destroys until not even exacting revenge on the person to blame is enough. It builds until they can find a new target, the ones who are really to blame—the investigators who failed to bring their loved one justice in the first place, who let the killer get away. It doesn’t matter who’s to blame for the New Castle Killer slipping through our fingers or if I’m attracted to you or not, Dylan. We both made mistakes in that investigation, and there’s a chance someone will try to make sure we pay for them.”
Damn it. He’d known Del Howe had set his sights on her before the bastard had turned up dead, but the thought hadn’t ever crossed his mind she could still be in danger. Whoever’d murdered Del Howe had already gotten what they wanted. Right? “What makes you so sure you’re a target?”
“I wasn’t the only subject of those photos, Dylan. Our entire team could’ve been surveilled, and anyone who worked that case might be at risk. Including you.” Remi took a swig of her beer, those iridescent blue eyes darker than a few minutes ago. A soft ringing reached his ears from across the table, and she tipped to her right to pull her phone from her pants’ pocket. Her theory made sense. If the killer had gone out of their way to track down and murder the person responsible for the three New Castle deaths, stood to reason the officers and investigators who’d failed to arrest the son of a bitch could be included on that list.
She swiped her thumb across the screen to answer the incoming call and hit the speaker button as Dylan pushed away from the table. “Watson, I wasn’t expecting you to check in until tomorrow. Madison isn’t going to do me any more favors from the district attorney’s office if she thinks I’m making you work late.”
Dylan cleared his empty beer bottle and the rest of his sandwich from the table and tossed them both into a freestanding garbage bag hanging on the pantry doorknob.
“She and the baby are asleep upstairs,” Jonah said. Exhaustion weighed the deputy’s every word. “This couldn’t wait. I tracked down the investigating officers from the files you gave me from the New Castle Killer case. Two detectives working the case, four responding officers who arrived on each scene after Dispatch received the 9-1-1 calls, two crime scene techs—anyone who ever stepped foot onto those scenes.”
Dylan faced the table, waiting, but he couldn’t ignore the pool of dread solidifying at the base of his spine.
“Sounds like mostly everyone. I’m impressed you were able to track them down so quickly. I would’ve figured some of them had moved on from New Castle, maybe even crossed state lines or joined other agencies.” Remi focused on the phone’s screen, the creases deepening between her eyebrows.
The strong, assertive sheriff he’d been drawn to in Delaware had taken the wheel and
