Die For Me: A Novel of the Valentine Killer (For Me #1)(9)

Katherine, you’re not getting away.

Not when he needed her so badly.



The house was clean. No, more than that. Immaculate. Fresh paint on the shutters. The windows gleamed as if freshly polished. There were no leaves or any debris anywhere in the front yard.

Dane stared up at the house. Katherine Cole’s house. She had no close neighbors. No one to see what was happening at her place.

No one to hear the screams.

He raised his hand to the door and knocked hard with his fist.

While he waited, he exhaled slowly and wondered what kind of sweet talk he should use.

Then Katherine Cole opened the door. She stared at him with her wide, lost eyes, and he just said, “Help me catch the bastard.”

She nodded.





– 3 –


The house smelled like her. Fresh strawberries. Sweet. Heady.

Katherine led him into the den, a den that looked like something out of a glossy home magazine. Picture-damn-perfect, but without a single personal touch. No photos. No mementos.

“You know who I am.” She turned and faced him with her chin up.

He inclined his head. “Katelynn.”

“No!” she snapped as she shook her head, sending her dark hair sliding over her shoulders. “I…” She cleared her throat. “I go by Katherine now.”

Right. Best to lay the cards on the table. “You planning to leave town?” Dane asked as he raised an eyebrow.

“That’s what Ross wants.”

The marshal was going to be a problem. “And what do you want?” he demanded as he strode toward her. He gave her credit. The woman didn’t back up.

Her breath whispered out over her lips. Sexy lips. “I want my life back, Detective Black.”

He closed in on her. Inhaled more of that sweet scent. “Then work with me,” he said. “Stay here in New Orleans. If this really is Valentine, help me to stop the bastard.” He said “if,” but the truth was that he already suspected they were facing the real deal. The crime scene had been so perfect, and those wounds on the victim’s arms had been an exact match to the other killings.

Katherine stared up at him. She was small, no taller than five foot five, and she tilted her head as she met his eyes. “I will help you.” Firm. “That’s why I came to the station. Why I told you to contact Sean.” Her stare didn’t waver. “I’ve already let Ross know that I won’t be leaving town.”

His captain would be shit-eating-grin happy over that news.

Her eyelids flickered. “Believe me, I want Valentine stopped as much as you do.” Her laugh was bitter, broken. “More than you do, okay? More. I want the guy caught and locked in a cage for the rest of his life.”

Bloodthirsty.

“So I’ll be staying here, Detective—”

“Dane.” Not just detective. They were going to be working together, working very closely together, and he wanted her calling him by his name.

She blinked and nodded slowly. “I’ll be here, Dane. This time I won’t run away.”

He realized that this Katherine wasn’t the same as the broken woman in the photograph. Determination tightened her features and kept her back straight.

A fighter.

Good. She’d need to be.

He’d wondered just what kind of woman Valentine had lost his heart to. Now he knew.

And Dane realized that he’d been right about Katherine all along. She could be a very dangerous woman indeed.



Dane returned to Katherine’s house that night and watched her from the shadows. Now that he knew her relationship to Valentine and with one woman already in the morgue, he couldn’t bring himself to leave her unguarded.

There was just something about Katherine Cole…

She was working her way right under his skin.

Was this the way it had been for Valentine? The question whispered through his mind. Had Valentine met her and not been able to get her out of his head?

She’s in my head.

If he weren’t careful, the situation could be deadly.

Headlights lit the area as another car approached. The vehicle slowed and then braked at the end of Katherine’s drive. Dane tensed, then saw a guy in a three-piece suit hurry out of his fancy sports car.

He ran a hand over his face. He hadn’t expected Katherine to have a date, but it looked like the lady had planned a night out on the town. For some reason, the sight of the jerk in that overpriced suit pissed him off. Katherine, dressed in a form-fitting black dress that hugged her body like a sweet glove, smiled at the bozo when she opened the front door and even let the guy kiss her cheek.

Bastard.

Dane wrote down the bastard’s tag number and called it in while he trailed them to a high-end restaurant. In less than five minutes, he knew that Katherine’s date was Dr. Trent Lancaster, a local shrink.

Jeez, a shrink? He’d never liked the head case doctors. They analyzed everything to death.

The guy’s hands were a little too clingy as he led Katherine toward the restaurant. And Dane realized he was gripping his steering wheel a little too tightly.

Just a case. Just a case. Breathing deeply, he forced his hands to relax. Then he pulled out his phone and called Mac. One ring. Two. The shrink and Katherine disappeared into the restaurant.