Die for Me: A Novel of the Valentine Killer (24 page)

Dane was watching her.

“Dane…”

“I like the way you taste.”

She wanted him inside of her.

He still had on his jeans. He needed to ditch those.

Her hands slid down between their bodies. She undid the snap and eased down his zipper. His cock was big and heavy, and her fingers stroked over him.

“
Katherine.
” There was such need in his voice.

The same need that she felt.

“I don’t want to wait.” She wanted the pleasure—she wanted him. Right then.

He reached into his back pocket. Pulled out a foil packet, and then he was positioning his aroused length at the entrance to her body.

Death had come too close to her that day. But at that moment, Dane was reminding her about life.

He thrust into her.

Her legs wrapped around his hips. He was still wearing his jeans, and the material rasped against her inner thighs, but she loved the rough friction.

He withdrew, then drove deep, over and over. And he kissed her. Thrusting his tongue into her mouth as he took her body.

Her nails scratched over his back. She didn’t worry about being controlled or restrained or anything. She just felt.

Alive.

Then his mouth was on her neck. Licking. Sucking the skin. Scoring her lightly with his teeth. She arched toward him as the pleasure built within her, spinning her higher and higher.

Then her climax hit, stealing her breath, and the explosion rocked through her—the most powerful release she’d ever felt.

Katherine held tight to him, and in the next instant, he was shuddering above her. His eyes seemed to go blind, and he held her so tightly.

As if he’d never let her go.

Slowly, so slowly, their heartbeats eased back to a more normal rhythm. He eased away from her, and she fought the urge to reach out and hold onto him.

Dane disappeared into the bathroom. She heard the splash of running water.

Her eyes squeezed closed. When the pleasure ended, reality came back far too soon. She would have rather just stayed with Dane longer, curled in his arms, so she could pretend—for just a little while more—that death didn’t stalk her.

Then the bed dipped beneath his weight. Her eyes flew open in surprise. “Dane—”

“Shh….let me take care of you.” A warm cloth slid over her sensitive skin. She gasped at the contact, soothing and arousing at the same time.

Was it wrong to already want him again?

She felt like she needed, wanted too much with him. As if her feelings were out of control.

Maybe they were.

He started to rise. She grabbed his hand. “Stay.” She wasn’t sure just how much time they had left. Not with Valentine out there.

Watching.

Always watching.

She didn’t want to be alone in the dark.

He slid back into the bed. Curled his arms around her. Pulled Katherine back against his racing heart.

She closed her eyes and hoped that—this time—she wouldn’t dream of blood and death. Of a man who’d said he loved her even as he lifted a knife and prepared to take her life.

“You didn’t have to bring me home,” Evelyn said quietly as the detective walked her to her door. “I could have taken a taxi.”

“The NOPD wanted to make sure you arrived safely.” His voice was carefully modulated to show no emotion.

“The NOPD just wanted me away from the station.” She rubbed her temples. She was so bone-tired then. Her shoulders slumped and she reached for the doorknob.

Only her door was unlocked.

Tension snaked through her suddenly stiff body.

“Dr. Knight?”

She glanced back at Detective Turner. “I locked my door.” She
always
locked her door. Her heart beat faster.

The detective pulled his gun even as he pushed her behind him. Evelyn swallowed, and the image of Trent’s sheet-covered body drifted through her mind. She reached out for the detective, moving on instinct, and her fingers curled around his shoulder.

“Stay behind me,” he ordered.

She nodded, but he didn’t see the move.

Then the detective slipped into her house. It was dark inside, quiet, and the thick carpeting muted the sound of their footsteps. The detective was methodical, searching every room, every closet, but no one was there. Nothing was disturbed.

They returned to the living room. With nervous hands, she quickly turned on all the lamps in the room. The detective watched her with a guarded gaze that she didn’t like.

“Your alarm wasn’t activated, Doctor.”

“It should have been,” she whispered, almost to herself.

He pulled out his phone. Called for a crime-scene unit.

“Why are you doing that?” She glanced back toward the door. It
had
been locked when she left that morning, right? She’d been so frantic to find Trent.

Surely she hadn’t just run out and left the door unlocked.

“I want the door dusted for prints. I want fresh eyes in here looking at the scene.” He put his phone back in his jacket. “You want to know why the crime team is coming?” He shook his head
as if he didn’t understand. “Lady, your partner was murdered by the Valentine Killer. You just went on the news and outed his exfiancée, a woman who was supposed to be protected with a new identity. Did you even stop to think for a second that you could be putting a target on yourself?”

A target? No, that wasn’t possible. “Valentine wouldn’t come for me.”

“You sure about that?” He stepped toward her. “Then who the hell else do you think might have broken into your place tonight?”

Her heart was beating so fast and hard that she feared it would burst from her chest, but she tried to control her expression—an old habit—because she didn’t want the detective to know how she truly felt.

“Valentine is killing in this town,” he told her, giving another slow shake of his head, “and with your performance today, you just might have set yourself up as his next victim.”

She hadn’t planned for an early morning trip to the morgue, but that was exactly where Katherine found herself at six a.m.

When he’d been talking to her, Dane had called the place “the death rooms,” and she thought the name was apt. The building behind the police station was cavernous, deep, and chilled. The place smelled of antiseptic and bleach, and she had no idea how the ME could spend so much time there.

“I could have gone back to my place,” Katherine said as she pulled Dane to a stop beside her in the hallway. “You didn’t have to bring me here.”

“I want you where I can keep an eye on you.”

“You can’t watch me twenty-four hours a day.”

“I fucking want to,” he muttered.

She frowned at him. He’d gotten a call before dawn that sent him surging out of bed and rushing her to the morgue.

“Ronnie has something she needs to show me. She said it was important.” He paused as his gaze swept over her face. “It’s about Valentine, and I thought you deserved to hear the news that she has.”

Katherine nodded, then she braced herself as Dane pushed open the swinging doors that led to the morgue.

A woman swung toward them. She wore a rumpled white lab coat and wire-framed glasses. Dark shadows lined the woman’s eyes. “Great. I was beginning to wonder—” She broke off, her eyes widening behind her glasses as her gaze shifted to Katherine. “You’re…her.”

Katherine cleared her throat.
Her?
She’d gotten that wide-eyed stare plenty of times back in Boston. Now that she’d gone on the news and revealed her identity, Katherine figured she’d be getting it plenty more, too.
Deal with it.
She straightened her shoulders. “Yes, I’m Katelynn.” The name felt foreign to her, wrong.

“This is Katherine Cole,” Dane said in the next instant, voice hard. “Katherine, this is our ME, Dr. Veronica Thomas.”

Before Veronica could speak, the doors gave a swish of sound behind them. Katherine glanced back and saw Mac pushing inside. There was a tense, hard look in his eyes.

She felt Dane go on alert beside her. “What’s happened?”

“Took the shrink home last night,” Mac said. “When we got there, her door was unlocked.”

“Evelyn?” Katherine said as she rubbed her arms. How did Veronica stand that chill? “Is she all right?”

“She’s fine. I left a uniform outside her place, but…” He exhaled. “She wasn’t even one hundred percent sure that she’d set her lock and alarm. She told me she’d left that morning in a panic and couldn’t remember.”

“Was there any sign of an intruder?” Dane asked.

“No.” Mac strode past them. Went to Veronica’s side. Seemed to stand a little too close to her. “I got the techs to sweep everything, but there was no trace of anyone else there.”

The goose bumps were still on Katherine’s arms.

“I want to keep a uniform on her, just as a precaution,” Mac said.

Katherine understood what he wasn’t saying:
In case Valentine is going after her.

Her gaze slid back to Veronica. The other woman was studying her a little too intently. When she realized that Katherine had caught her staring, Veronica gave a little jump.

“I found something last night. Something that could help with the investigation.”

Veronica turned away and pulled a slab from one of the nearby lockers. Cold air brushed against Katherine’s skin. Mac and Dane edged closer to the slab, but Katherine didn’t move.

Veronica unzipped the bag, and her gloved fingers pointed toward Savannah’s neck. “Take a look here.” She shone a light on Savannah’s neck and pushed a magnifying glass toward Savannah’s throat.

Dane leaned forward.

Katherine edged back. Her eyes weren’t on Savannah’s neck; they were on her face. So still and pale. All the color bleached away. All of the life—just gone.

“I see the bruise,” Dane said.

“Not just a bruise. An injection site.”

Katherine’s gaze snapped to Veronica.

“I didn’t even realize what it was at first because it’s so small, but once I got the tox screen back on her, I knew what to look for.” Her voice rose with excitement. “The killer injected her with fentanyl, a high enough dose to knock her out for a good long while.”

“Fentanyl?” Katherine repeated, lost. “What’s that?”

“It’s like morphine, but much stronger. With the dose that Savannah Slater was given, she would have been unconscious within moments.” She licked her lips. “Helpless.”

“I’ve heard of fentanyl, and that’s not exactly an easy drug to get your hands on,” Dane muttered as he eased closer to Katherine.

“No.” Ronnie pushed her glasses higher on her nose. “You need a prescription. Doctors would have access. Nurses.”

“Hot damn.” Now excitement had entered Dane’s voice, too. “We might be able to track the bastard through the drug.”

Veronica nodded.

“We’ll start a check, trace down the distribution—”

Katherine grabbed his arm. “Valentine never drugged his victims. They all came with him willingly.” Her eyes were on Savannah’s body. “He seduced,” she whispered. “He didn’t drug.” That wasn’t the way he’d worked in Boston.

“
This
killer is drugging his victims.” Ronnie pulled out another body from a second locker. Unzipped the bag. Katherine took a sharp breath when she saw the woman’s dark hair. Was that Amy Evans? Yes.

Ronnie was still talking. She used her magnifying glass and said, “Same injection spot. Same drug. Same high dose.” Ronnie’s gaze turned to Dane. “Both victims were unconscious when the killer took them.”

“What about Lancaster?” Dane demanded. “Did he have the same injection mark?”

Ronnie shook her head and moved away from the slabs. She walked toward a sheet-covered body that waited on a table in the middle of the room. “I’ve got his tox screen running now, a rush order, but I checked thoroughly, and I haven’t found any sign of an injection on his body.”

Katherine turned and walked toward that table. She stared at Trent’s covered body. A tremble shook her.

“I did notice something different, though.” Ronnie’s voice was contemplative. “The angle of the attack is different with him. The knife plunged into him deeper, harder. There was a hell of a lot more force used in this kill.”

“Because he was angry,” Dane said, coming to stand by that table, too.

Trent’s face was covered by the sheet. Katherine didn’t want to see his face.

Not again.

I’m sorry, Trent.

“Valentine was angry,” Dane said again. “That’s why the wounds were harder. He was pissed off.”

At Trent.

At me.

Ronnie cleared her throat. “There are the exact same number of slashes on the arms of all the victims, the pattern is perfect.”

“Because it’s the same pattern that Valentine has on his arms,” Katherine added. She’d seen those scars, touched them, so many times and not even realized…“He suffered, so he wanted his victims to feel the same pain he felt.”

She had no doubt that Trent had felt plenty of pain before he died.

“We need to talk to the profiler,” Mac said. “If our perp is drugging his victims, then his MO has changed.”

Katherine turned away from Trent’s body. The scent in that place was making her sick. No, just being there, so close to the victims…