Page 11 of Marked For Revenge

This is all for you, Mom.

Without Ava’s picture on the masks, Harley could have reasoned that the killer was going after women he was punishing for something his mother had done or hadn’t done. But that mask either meant Ava was the mom figure in this scenario or else that’s what the killer wanted them to believe.

That meant...well, anything.

Because if the killer was only using Ava to throw them off his scent, then the murders could be about anything, including any and all connections to anyone in Silver Creek. Or to her father. Or, hell, to anyone else for that matter.

Harley wasn’t able to bite back the grumbled profanity over the frustration that they had three dead women and no answers that would get them closer to stopping this sick SOB before he went after someone else.

Ava turned into the driveway of her house and Harley was glad to see the security lights flare on as her vehicle approached. He knew, too, that she had a good security system that would have alerted her had anyone tried to break in. Still, systems could and did fail, so they couldn’t let down their guard.

She used the remote on her visor to open the garage door and neither of them got out until the door closed behind them. Neither actually removed their guns from their holsters, but they placed their hands over them.

Ava stepped in first, with Harley right behind her, and they immediately went in to start a search of the place. Harley had been here before so he knew his way around, and he headed for the hall where the bedrooms were located. He searched the guest room, the master and the two bathrooms before he made it to the nursery.

The crib was already in place, giving him a jab of emotion. And worry. Soon, Ava and he would be parents, and he figured some worries would still be there. But he didn’t want a serial killer to be on their list of concerns.

After he was sure there were no signs of a break-in or an intruder, Harley made his way back into the main part of the house to join Ava, who was at the sink taking some meds. No, not actual meds, he realized when he saw the bottle, but rather a prenatal vitamin.

Harley certainly hadn’t needed another reminder of the baby, but he got a couple what with the vitamin and the chalkboard wall next to the fridge. There were names on it.

Abigail, Rebecca, Gracelyn, Holly, Laine, Isabel, Jemma, Carly.

“I jot down possible baby names as they come to mind,” she explained when she followed his eyes. “I’d planned on asking you for input,” Ava added.

“Thanks for that,” he said. Harley picked up the chalk from the ledge above the board and added two names. Olivia and Charlotte.

Ava nodded her approval and tipped her head to the hall. “You can use the guest room,” she said, all business now. She was no doubt making sure he remembered there was a reason he was being sent there and not to her own bed.

She looked at him, and Harley felt the old punch of heat when their gazes connected. Old but still somehow new and fresh. Apparently, his body had no intentions of letting him forget that Ava had once been his lover, even if he wouldn’t be sharing her bed.

“Go ahead and send me my half of the names from Duran,” she said, pulling her eyes from his. “I’ll look them over before I fall asleep.”

Harley frowned because he figured if she was looking over possible candidates for a serial killer, then she wouldn’t be getting much sleep. “Let’s just both glance through them now. Glance,” he emphasized. “And then you can get some sleep.”

Her silence let him know she was debating that, but Ava finally motioned for him to follow her to her office. She booted up her laptop and opened the file after Harley sent it to her from his phone.

“Hundreds of them,” she muttered on a sigh.

Harley had done some sighing as well, and he pointed out the names that Duran or Edgar had highlighted. “Those are the people who tried to set up your father for the black-market land deals that were basically fronts for money laundering.”

It was a sore subject, all right. Because it’d been this very investigation that had caused her to break off things with Harley.

Ava’s mouth tightened. “You’ve already investigated these people.” It wasn’t a question, and there was a chill in her voice to go along with that tightness.

“I have,” he confirmed. “I found offshore accounts and false documents to prove they had indeed set him up.”

“You found what my father wanted you to find,” she muttered. “That doesn’t mean he was innocent.”

“No,” Harley agreed, and then he stared at her until she made eye contact with him again. “Are you ever going to be able to forgive me for dropping the charges against him?”

“No,” Ava snapped, but then she sighed again and waved that off. “I don’t want to get into all of this again.”

Part of him didn’t want to push her on this. Not when she was tired and had been through hell and back over the past couple of hours. But another part of him wanted to give it one last shot at trying to clear the air between them.

“I had a strong gut feeling that Edgar had some kind of connection to those land deals. Maybe connections he wasn’t aware of at the start, but when the investigation started, I believe he covered his tracks so all the evidence would point to them.” He tapped the names that had been highlighted. “Trust me when I say that I looked for anything and everything that could prove your father’s involvement.”

She shifted her attention from him and back to the list, but her body language was still defensive and all business. “Could any of the men on that list have committed these murders to get back at my father?”

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