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

Her back teeth ground together.

I love you, Kat. I didn’t think it would be possible to care about someone the way I do for you. But you’re different. You make me want to be better. To be someone else. His warm green eyes had stared into her own. Marry me. Let’s start over, together.

“I suspect he originally approached Kat here…”

She flinched at the name. “Don’t call me that.”

“Is that because Michael did?” Marcus asked.

“You know he did.”

“Just as I know he approached you because you fit his victim profile. You were the perfect victim for him. Right hair, right eyes, right age.” He paused. “Right past.”

Her gaze snapped to his. Don’t talk about that. Don’t go there. She would share what she knew about Valentine, but her own wounds—the wounds that had come long before she ever met Valentine—those weren’t open for the world to poke and prod for their pleasure.

“The women he targeted were all damaged.” Marcus’s eyes weren’t looking away from her. They were trying to look into her. “You could have been his perfect prey, but he didn’t kill you. He didn’t put you on his table. Didn’t slice into your arms twenty-one times and then drive a knife into your chest—”

“That’s f**king enough.” Dane had dropped his neutral expression. His gaze was blazing as he jerked Marcus’s chair back. Marcus stumbled, nearly falling to the floor.

Katherine realized her chest was heaving. So much for her slow breathing technique. Her heart was pounding too fast.

“To understand Valentine, you have to know why he picked Katherine,” Marcus insisted, tilting his head to study her. He was sweating. She could see the gleam of moisture on his temple. “I know why he picked you. You were his mirror. His perfect, broken mirror.”

Dane grabbed the guy by the shirt. “The FBI actually sent you? Or did you just bribe someone up there?” He dragged the man toward the door. “Time to kick your ass back to D.C. You don’t come into my precinct and start talking to her like that—”

“Because she makes you feel protective?” Marcus jerked free of his grasp. “She made Valentine feel that way too. He should have seen her as prey, but for some reason Kat’s good at—”

“How many damn times does she have to tell you?” Dane snarled as he opened the door and shoved Marcus outside. “Her name is Katherine. Learn it, ass**le.” Then he slammed the door in the agent’s face.

Katherine exhaled slowly. “Thank you.”

Dane turned to face her. Mac hadn’t moved. Maybe the guy was too shocked to move.

“I’m not real interested in what Agent Wayne has to say about Valentine,” Dane said. “I want to know what you think. You’re the one who knows him best.”

If only. “I’m the one who never really knew him at all.” Her nails—she always kept them short and unpainted—tapped on the tabletop. “But I’ll tell you as much as I can.” And, maybe this time, things would be different. Maybe Dane or Mac would pick up on some detail that she and the other cops had overlooked.

Maybe this time they would actually catch the bastard.

Marcus Wayne entered the small observation room. The police captain turned toward him, a glower on his face. “Smooth, Agent, real freaking smooth.” The captain’s jaw locked. “I want your ass out of my precinct.”

“The purpose of my going in there wasn’t to break Katherine Cole.” I know you hate being called Kat. His gaze darted to the two-way mirror looking into the interrogation room. Sorry about that, Katherine.

“Then what was your purpose? To piss off Ms. Cole?”

“No, it was to bring out more of the detective’s protective instincts.” And those instincts had sure come out. “If Katherine is going to be of any help to us on this case, then she will have to trust Detective Black. Katherine isn’t a woman who trusts easily.” He was rather surprised that she could trust at all, given what had happened to her.

“Always playing your little mind games.” The mutter came from behind him. The marshal. Marcus knew the guy was far from being a fan.

Marcus glanced over at him. “She’ll talk more freely now. She’ll tell Dane as much as possible because she sees me as the bad guy and him as her white knight.” He didn’t mind playing the bad cop. With his slight build and fresh face, it wasn’t a role he got to play often. Pity.

“Maybe she’ll just talk,” Ross said, voice snapping, “because she wants to catch Valentine. She wants him off the streets just as badly as we do.”

Marcus locked his jaw but didn’t respond. Ross didn’t get it. Katherine Cole was the safest woman in the world. Valentine could have sliced her and killed her a thousand times over. He hadn’t.

She was special to the killer.

The trick—the real trick—was finding out why she was special. If she’d just trust the detective enough to let down her guard, then Marcus might finally be able to get inside Katherine’s head and figure out how she’d managed to reach the heart of a sociopathic killer. A man who, for all psychological intents, should have no heart at all.

– 6 –

“I learned a lot about Valentine. After he vanished. I started putting all the puzzle pieces together so I could see the real man he was.”

Dane sat across from Katherine. She was pale and perfect, seemingly an ice princess, but he knew the ice was just on the surface. And the ice was cracking.

He could also see the pain in her eyes. Hear it in her voice. The jerk from the bureau had pushed her too much. Stirred memories that had ripped into her.

I should have ripped into him.

When women were hurt in any way, his protective instincts became difficult to control.

“I’ve studied serial killers.” Katherine’s confession was hushed.

Dane glanced at Mac and saw that his partner had lifted his brows.

“When you realize you’ve been sleeping with one, you’ll do anything to make sure you never get fooled again.”

He had to unclench his fingers from the edge of the table. Sleeping with one. A surge of jealousy caught him by surprise.

“In some ways, I think he was like Bundy,” she said. “So charming on the surface. So smooth. He always seemed to know just what to say or do in order to put people at ease.”

That must have been how he’d lured in his prey. Back in Boston, he’d killed four women in all. Four women they knew about. Three before he met Katelynn Crenshaw, one after.