Die for Me: A Novel of the Valentine Killer Read online

  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…

  They’d all suffered too much. And for what? Because Valentine had marked them for death.

  But why them…and why not me?

  “Katherine!” Dane called her name as she rushed for the door.

  But Katherine just shook her head. She needed air. She was suffocating in there. She pushed past the doors, didn’t wait for the elevator but rushed up the stairs.

  Then she was outside. The back lot was all but deserted, and she sucked in deep gulps of air.

  A hand wrappe
d around her shoulder. She knew the touch instantly. Dane.

  She didn’t turn toward him. “I want this to stop.” What did they have to do?

  “The drug is the biggest break we’ve had. We can track its distribution and run the bastard down.”

  “He didn’t drug his victims—”

  Dane caught her chin and forced her to look at him. “That was three years ago. Maybe something happened to him. Maybe he has to drug them in order to get them under his power. Whatever the reason, this is the break we need. We can find him.”

  She couldn’t get those dead bodies out of her head. She would never be able to get them out. “He’s always watching,” she said. Her gaze darted around the parking lot. “He knew about me and Trent, so he killed Trent. He knows about us, Dane.” Dammit, she’d been so selfish last night. Wanting to be with him because he made her feel alive.

  Even though just being with her could make him dead.

  Katherine shook her head. “He said I should stay away from you.”

  “And that’s exactly why you’re staying close to me. That bastard doesn’t get to dictate to you. We’re not playing his game.”

  Yes, they were. Didn’t Dane realize it? With each body they discovered, they were just running blindly behind Valentine.

  “I don’t want you to be the next victim in the morgue,” she said, and suddenly Katherine was the one holding on to him. Her nails sank into his arms. “I don’t want that, do you understand?”

  Not when she’d just started to care for him. He’d broken through her wall, and she didn’t want him to die because of her.

  “He’s not going to catch me unaware. I’m the one who’s going to catch him.”

  So confident. So determined.

  She wanted to believe him, but she was afraid.

  What if…

  Dane kissed her. Hard. Deep. “You’re not losing me, and I’m not going to let you go.”

  “I want you to stay at the station,” Dane said as he checked his weapon. He was going to head back to Trent Lancaster’s place and make sure the techs hadn’t missed any detail. The more he learned about his victims, the more he could potentially learn about Valentine.

  “No.” Katherine’s voice was quiet and determined and damn well not saying what he wanted to hear.

  She was seated in his desk chair. He leaned over, caging her with his hands. “I have to know that you’re safe.”

  “I can’t keep hiding.” Her chin lifted. Sexy. Strong. But driving him crazy when he just wanted to protect her. “He’s never tried to hurt me, don’t you get that? If Valentine wanted me dead, he could have just stabbed me in the heart at the gallery.”

  That wasn’t the visual that Dane wanted in his head. But he knew she was right—he’d thought the same thing.

  He had the opportunity. Plenty of time. Valentine could have easily killed Katherine before Dane arrived.

  “I’m not going back to the safe house. I’m not going to hide at the station all day.” Her gaze was clear. “Hiding won’t draw him out. My being out there, walking around where he can see me—”

  Where the bastard could watch.

  “—that’s when he’ll be more likely to slip up.” Her breath whispered out. “Just put cops on me.”

  The uniforms hadn’t done her a damn bit of good before. This time, he’d tell them to stick shadow close.

  “But I’m not going to cower in the shadows.”

  He could admire that. He did. He actually admired a hell of a lot about her.

  If they hadn’t been surrounded by a roomful of avid cops, he would have kissed her.

  Again.

  “I need to see Joe and Ben,” she told him.

  His brows climbed. “The guys from the diner?”

  “After what happened yesterday, I just…I need to talk to them.” She glanced down at her trembling hands. “They’re the closest thing to friends that I have in this town. I feel like I owe them an explanation.”

  She didn’t owe anything to anyone.

  “So I’m going to the diner, then I’ll go home.” Her lips twisted. “Because I’m guessing my gallery is off-limits.”

  “It’s an active crime scene.”

  “And the showing won’t be happening. Not that anyone would want to come now, knowing who I am.” Her lips twisted. “Or maybe they would. There’s always the freak show aspect.”

  “You’re not a freak.” Just hearing her say that had rage pulsing through him. Katherine had worked hard to build her new life, but that life had been ripped apart by a few minutes of prime-time TV.

  “Hendricks! Johnson!” Dane barked for the uniforms.

  They rushed toward them.

  He glared at the two men. “You’re her shadow today, got it? Where she goes, you go.”

  The men quickly nodded.

  “If anything happens, anything that makes her nervous or makes you nervous, then you get her to a secure location and you call me. Got it?”

  More quick nods.

  His gaze turned back to Katherine. “I don’t like this.” Just so they were clear.

  “I don’t either, but it’s what I have to do.”

  Not be afraid. Take charge of her life.

  Fuck. It would be so easy to love a woman like her. With a spirit that couldn’t be broken.

  So easy.

  Screw the cops watching. He took her lips again. Then growled, “I’ll come to you as soon as I finish my check at Lancaster’s.” And as soon as he started running down those drug orders.

  She nodded. Her gaze showed no fear, but he knew Katherine was good at hiding her emotions.

  Good at not screaming from nightmares.

  Good at not breaking when death came.

  What would she be like, he wondered, if she didn’t have to be so careful? So good at staying on guard? He’d like to see her that way. The real Katherine.

  One day, he vowed, he would see her like that.

  The door jingled as Katherine entered the café. The morning rush was in full effect, and the place was packed with hungry customers.

  The cops were behind her. They were staying about five steps away from her for every step that she took.

  The café was still a sea of red with the tablecloths that Joe had put out before, but now, Katherine saw that Joe had added vases of roses to the tabletops. The sickeningly sweet scent of the roses hit her the instant she stepped inside.

  So many damn roses. With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, the roses were everywhere. And she hated them.

  Katherine exhaled slowly and squared her shoulders. She’d come there for a reason, dammit, and she wasn’t going to let some flowers stop her. When she approached the counter, Joe’s head lifted. His eyes widened when he saw her.

  “Katelynn.”

  Right. “So I guess you saw the news.”

  She eased into her usual seat at the bar. Ben wasn’t there. Pity. She would have liked to talk to them both.

  And tell them to be on guard.

  Because that was part of the reason she was there. Not just to apologize for scaring both men yesterday, but also to warn them.

  She’d told Dane the truth when she said these men were the closest things to friends that she had. Would that closeness cause them to be targets?

  Katherine couldn’t take that chance.

  Joe’s gaze swept over her face. He was guarded today, whereas before he’d always greeted her with a warm smile.

  The smile was gone now.

  “I saw on the news,” Joe said quietly as he leaned toward her, “they found that man in your gallery.”

  She nodded.

  It seemed as if the other voices had hushed in the diner. Or was that her imagination?

  “Then you were walking here, with that gun in your hand…”

  Katherine took a deep breath and leaned toward him. “There’s a very dangerous killer hunting in this city.”

  “Valentine.” The lines near his eyes seemed deeper.
/>   “Yes. I had the gun yesterday—I had it because I was trying to protect myself.”

  “From the killer.”

  “He’s a man who doesn’t give up what he wants.” Lucky her, she seemed to be what he wanted. Katherine leaned forward. “I want you to promise me you’ll be on guard, okay? Don’t go alone anywhere, don’t stay at the café late by yourself. Just be careful.”

  His brows climbed. “Is that why you came here today? To tell me to be careful?”

  “I think he’s been watching me.” I know he’s been watching me. “So that means he might have been watching the people in my life, too. You and Ben…you two have always been good to me, and I would never want anything to happen to either of you. You and Ben…you’re the closest I came to having friends here.”

  Joe was silent a moment, then he turned away from her. Katherine’s shoulders wanted to slump, but she held them upright with an effort. She hadn’t exactly expected a warm reception, but she’d wanted to warn Joe.

  A hot mug of café au lait was pushed in front of her. Katherine glanced up in surprise.

  Joe held her gaze. “We’re not close to friends. We are friends…Katherine.”

  Her smile trembled.

  But then Joe was called away by another customer before she could say anything else to him. Katherine took a sip of the café au lait. She felt warmer now, and it wasn’t because of the drink.

  The bell on the door jingled, and Katherine glanced over, hoping to see Ben. Only Ben wasn’t in the doorway.

  Another familiar figure was.

  Evelyn?

  Tension knifed through Katherine as Evelyn’s gaze seemed to laser in on her.

  Katherine shoved to her feet. She tossed some money down on the counter. This was not the place to have a public battle. Joe deserved better than that. Evelyn had tracked her there, obviously. From their sessions together, Evelyn knew of Katherine’s routine stops by the café.

  She came looking for me.

  Fine, but Katherine would take that battle away from Joe.

  Evelyn marched toward her.

  Katherine shook her head. “I’m not going to—”

  “I’m sorry.” Evelyn’s voice was stark.

  Katherine frowned, and she realized that mascara stains were beneath Evelyn’s eyes. The woman’s makeup was rubbed off. No, it looked like she hadn’t put on any makeup since the previous night.