Ash flipped the switch, blinking as the harsh fluorescent glow seared away the darkness. Beside him, Jax drew in a sharp breath.
“Christ, Ash. I wondered why your new place seemed so empty when I went to pack you a bag. You haven’t moved in,” he said.
Ash allowed his gaze to skim over the piles of boxes that lined the walls and the heavy furniture that he had stacked at the back. “I’ve been busy.”
“Or maybe it’s not home,” Jax suggested, moving forward to pull open one of the boxes.
Ash refused to consider his brother’s words. “I’ve been there five years.”
“And all you have is a few clothes, three plates, two glasses, and a roll of toilet paper. That should tell you something.”
“That you’re a nosy bastard,” Ash groused even as he silently admitted his brother had a point. He clearly needed to rent a moving van and haul his belongings to his house. It was no wonder he’d never felt comfortable there.
“True,” Jax agreed without shame, pulling out the bottle of champagne and engraved glass that Ash had bought as a graduation present for Remi. He’d moved away before he could give it to her. “If you want me to get rid of some of this stuff—”
“No,” he growled, moving toward the back of the unit with jerky steps.
“Sorry.” Jax replaced the items and closed the box before he hurried to join Ash.
“I’ll deal with my personal stuff later,” Ash promised, a hint of apology in his voice. He hadn’t meant to snap at his brother. Then he bent down to grab a plastic bin from the floor. “These are my private notes on the Butcher, as well as Gage’s.”
Jax arched his brows. “You didn’t give them to the department after he died?”
Ash shook his head. “They have our official reports. These are mostly filled with our investigations that turned out to be dead ends and interviews with witnesses who we didn’t really trust to tell us the truth.”
There were also the more sensitive inquiries they’d kept on the down low. They didn’t want anyone to know that they’d interviewed a lawyer who worked in the district attorney’s office, as well as the son of a prominent businessman. Not when the evidence had been sketchy at best. No need to ruin any reputations.
“Why keep them?” Jax demanded.
“At the time I just wanted to hide them away and forget. Now . . .” Ash allowed his words to trail away.
“Now what?”
Ash grimaced, a shiver of disgust spreading through his body. Just holding the container with the files made him feel tainted. As if a portion of the killer’s evil had managed to seep into the files inside.
“I think I knew this day would come,” he said, lifting his head to meet his brother’s somber gaze. “None of us truly thought the Butcher would just stop killing. It was only a matter of time before he returned to Chicago.”
“I never worked the case. Did you believe that the Butcher left the area after Gage died?”
That period in his life was a blur in Ash’s mind. He’d been consumed with grief and guilt, and at the same time he was terrified by the thought the killer was still out there, just waiting for his opportunity to strike again.
“Either that or he was incarcerated for some other crime. Serial killers rarely start and stop on a whim,” he said.
Jax furrowed his brow, as if Ash’s words had struck a sudden inspiration. “You know, it’s possible that the Butcher changed his MO.” He slowly spoke his thoughts out loud. “He had to know that killing a cop would have put him on the radar of every law enforcement agent in the country. I might pull a few of our unsolved cases and give them a second glance.”
Ash blinked. He’d never considered the idea that the Butcher had remained but changed his method of killing. Sadly, there were enough unsolved murders in Chicago that his victims might have been labeled as random deaths. “A good idea.”
Jax smiled with wry amusement at the surprise in Ash’s tone. “I might not have a fancy degree, but I’m a kick-ass cop,” he boasted.
Ash snorted. “I’ll agree to the ass part.”
Jax rolled his eyes. “It’s colder than crap in here. Let’s go.”
* * *
Remi pulled into the garage of her bi-level home with its green siding and a large bay window. It’d belonged to her grandparents for forty years. When they’d decided to move to Florida, Remi had purchased the house and moved in. The neighborhood had once been an upscale area for solid, middle-class workers like her grandfather, but over the past few years it’d started to edge toward shabby. Remi didn’t mind. It was a nice, peaceful area where she felt isolated from the hectic bustle of the city.
Entering through the side door that led into the kitchen, Remi was braced when her dog came pounding forward. Buddy possessed an unshakable belief that she wanted to be mauled by a seventy-pound dog as soon as she entered the house.
With a laugh, she bent down to give the mutt a good back scratch, allowing the beast to slobber over her face before she grabbed the leash off a nearby hook.
“Come on, boy,” she said.
Buddy responded with an excited bark, barely allowing her to clip the leash to his collar before he was dragging her through the house to the front door. Remi jogged to keep up, her dark thoughts shattered by the enthusiastic dog.
Not that she could completely turn off her fear that the Butcher had returned to Chicago. Or the lingering shock at seeing Ash. But no matter what happened during her day, Buddy could always lift her mood.
Opening the door, she was careful to ensure she had her pepper spray in her pocket before heading out for their evening walk. The icy night air added a speed to their trip through their neighborhood as they were both anxious to return to the warmth of the house. Once back home, Remi closed and locked the door before leading Buddy into the kitchen. Expecting the dog to rush to his food bowl, Remi’s heart slammed against her chest as he instead barked toward the glass sliding door that led to the back porch.
Trying to tell herself it was a squirrel, or maybe a stray dog, Remi flipped on the outside light. Still, she paused to grab a large knife from a drawer before she slid open the door. Better safe than sorry, right?
She also waited for Buddy to join her before stepping onto the porch and glancing around. Buddy growled and Remi froze. She strained to see through the darkness. Had there been a shadow moving at the edge of her property?
“Hello?” she called out. “Who’s there?”
There was a loud rustle from the side of her house before a man strolled into the light that pooled around her back porch.
“Trouble, Remi?”
She managed to swallow her primitive scream, feeling like a fool. Doug Gates was a short man with thinning blond hair and a round face. Six months ago, he’d moved into the ranch-style house next door. Since then, he’d made a habit of appearing whenever she was outside. Like the Jack-in-the-box she had when she was young. She hated how it would suddenly pop up and make her scream.
She pasted a smile on her face, feeling guilty for her less-than-neighborly thoughts. Doug was a perfectly respectable banker with a couple of kids who lived with his ex-wife. He’d been nothing but nice to her.
“No. I thought I saw someone in the yard, but it must have been my imagination playing tricks on me,” she told him, hiding the knife behind her back.