Die for Me: A Novel of the Valentine Killer (30 page)

Just like with Savannah and Amy.

She wouldn’t be able to fight her attacker.

Not when he came to drive his knife into her heart.

Dane glared at the woods around him. The dogs were behind him, silent now. They’d been barking furiously at first.

Then they’d lost Valentine’s scent.

It didn’t fucking help that the woods backed up to an old highway. Valentine would have known that, of course. Dane was sure the fucker had planned an escape. The bomb had been in place, so, yeah, it figured he’d have a vehicle around too.

“Keep searching,” Dane ordered the dogs’ handlers, but he didn’t have much hope that they’d turn up anything that night.

The scent of smoke was in the air, and as he headed back toward the smoldering remains of the house on Oakland, Dane saw the firefighters who’d gathered at the scene.

The captain was gone—headed to the hospital, as were at least five other cops who’d been injured in the blast.

Marcus glanced up, saw Dane, and hurried toward him.

“Was this in your fucking profile?” Dane demanded.

Marcus was pale. “He’s covering his tracks. The explosion was a necessity for him, not—”

“Not like his damn pleasure kills,” Dane finished, voice snapping. “So what does he do next? He came after Katherine—”

Marcus looked to the side. Katherine stood between two uniforms.

“And she went after him,” Dane finished. She’d shot the bastard
and
saved Dane and his men. The woman was so much stronger than he ever realized. “I guess that blows your theory of her being involved in the crimes to hell, huh?”

“Katherine isn’t what I thought.”

And she was more than Dane had ever expected.

“We’ve got an alert out to every hospital,” Dane said as he headed toward Katherine. He hated that tense look on her face. “He’s injured, so if he goes in for treatment, we’ll know.” Cops were stepping up their searches in the city, too.

Dane’s phone rang. He answered as he closed the distance between himself and Katherine. “Black.”

“I need you at the station.”

Dane frowned. It was Mac’s voice—and it was shaking.

“I’m at the crime scene. We’re not done here, man—”

“Ronnie is gone. She was taken.”

“Are you sure?”
Ronnie?

“Fucking certain. Her Jeep’s still in the lot. Her back tire was slashed, no one can find her.” He could hear Mac’s fury and fear. Everyone else tended to think Mac was controlled, but Dane knew that when it came to Ronnie, that control was weak.

Ronnie and Mac put on a show for the rest of the station, but Dane had caught them making out a few months back. They were involved—damn deep.

“She’s not answering her phone,” Mac said. “She’s not at home. She’s
gone.
”

Katherine frowned and stepped toward him, “Dane?”

“I’m on my way,” Dane said. He ended the call. Glanced at Katherine. At Marcus. “He took the ME. The bastard left us here, chasing our tails—and he went after
her.
”

Ronnie squinted against the bright light. She had a terrible acidic taste in her mouth and—

She couldn’t move.

Her memory came flooding back, and she opened her mouth to scream. But the sound was choked back because something was over her mouth.

Duct tape.

Her hands were bound with rope, secured over her head. Her ankles were tied, keeping her immobile.

She was on a table, much like the ones in her lab. The ones she used for the autopsies.

A tear leaked from her eye.

“You’re awake.”

The voice was being filtered through a distorter, and it had her flinching, then turning. Her glasses were gone. Without them,
she couldn’t see clearly for more than two feet in front of her. Valentine was a black-covered blur.

“I was starting to think you’d OD before we could have any fun.”

Ronnie’s temples were throbbing. Her heart was racing.

The dark blur moved around her, skirting the metal table. “Sorry for the bruises. I’m afraid I had to drag your body inside. I wasn’t exactly gentle on the stairs.”

Her right wrist was throbbing. She suspected it was broken.

“But I’m sure,
Dr.
Thomas, you can understand that, sometimes, a little pain is necessary.”

Ronnie squinted, trying to see more, but the light was too bright and the attacker was too far back.

Then she felt a light stroke on her arm. Just two inches below her elbow.

“Pain is necessary. In order to get things just as they should be.”

She screamed behind the tape but the sound was muffled.

The knife sliced into her.
Cut number one.

“Try not to struggle too much. It’s very important that I get this part just right.”

She wasn’t just going to lie there and let her body be filleted. But when she tried to twist, she found that her muscles weren’t cooperating. It wasn’t just the ropes holding her down. The fentanyl hadn’t fully worn off.

Another slice. This one deeper. Longer.

“That was a good one…”

A scream echoed in Ronnie’s mind.

And the knife came down again.

The cops weren’t used to turning their own turf into a crime scene. But this time, it was exactly what they had to do. Behind the death rooms, the parking lot was swarming with police. Dane saw Mac crouching near Ronnie’s Jeep, and the guy’s face…

His partner had to be close to breaking on the inside.

Hell.

Mac glanced up and saw Dane and Katherine. He headed toward them.

“Katherine, did you get a phone call?” Mac demanded. “He called you when he took Savannah Slater and Amy Evans—did the bastard call when he took my Ronnie?”

Katherine shook her head.

Dane didn’t point out that Valentine hadn’t called when Trent Lancaster had been killed. He knew that Mac was using the phone call as a sign of hope. If they got the call, it meant Ronnie was still alive.

If they didn’t…

Mac swallowed. “We found Ronnie’s glasses. Smashed. Right over there.” He pointed toward the metal door that led into the building. “I’m thinking she saw her Jeep, saw the tire, and tried to get back in the building.”

Dane moved toward that door. With his gloves on, he pulled on the handle.

The door wouldn’t open.

“The stupid sonofabitch is stuck again.” Mac’s voice vibrated with fury. “I told maintenance again and again that the lock kept catching when the door was shut. If she’d just been able to get through that damn door…”

“I’m sorry,” Katherine whispered.

Mac flinched.

The way those two were acting, they were already burying Ronnie. “She’s not dead,” Dane snarled, needing to chase away the fear and defeat from his friend’s eyes. Mac
had
to be stronger than this.

Mac’s head jerked up. His eyes narrowed on Dane. “I checked the logs. Before I called you, she’d been missing for over an hour.” He yanked a hand over his face. “We were supposed to meet up, but with the case, I wasn’t gonna be able to make it. I-I tried to get her on the phone. When I couldn’t, I got worried—so fucking worried…” His words trailed away.

If she’d been missing for an hour before then…shit. Valentine would’ve had plenty of time to patch himself up from the wound he’d gotten—especially if it had just been a flesh wound—and get to Ronnie. The bastard was
playing
them.

“Just how long,” Mac demanded, “do you think it’s gonna take him to put his knife in her heart?”

“Usually at least four hours,” was Katherine’s quiet response. “That’s what it took him before, in Boston.”

Dane grabbed his arm. “She’s alive. We just have to find her.”

The lines on Mac’s face were deeper. His eyes wild. “How?” Fear cracked the word. “The crime techs have been crawling all over this lot. They aren’t finding anything.”

“Video surveillance,” Dane said, thinking fast.

“That camera has been out of commission for three weeks,” Mac said, his shoulders slumping. “Ronnie left after the shift change. No one was out here. Captain had ordered all hands out to the Oakland scene. No one saw a damn thing.”

Dane’s phone rang. He yanked it out, not bothering to look at the caller ID. “Black.”

A woman’s scream echoed on the line.

His blood turned to ice. Then he flipped his phone around and stared at the ID—the call was coming from Ronnie’s phone.

The bastard wasn’t making his before-death call to Katherine this time.

“Let her go,” Dane roared.

Mac’s eyes widened. “
Ronnie!
”

The scream on the line choked away.

Her phone.
Dane mouthed the words. Mac’s head jerked and he hurried away, immediately yelling for the tech team to put a track on Ronnie’s phone. They hadn’t been able to track it while it was turned off, but now they could hit the cell towers and try to get a lock on the signal.

“Don’t kill her,” Dane said, lowering his voice and talking quickly now. “Let Dr. Thomas go. Just leave her and walk away…”

Laughter. The sound was grating. He was clearly using a voice distorter. Then he spoke. “She’s not my usual type.” The voice was as distorted as the laughter. “But I was feeling pretty pissed at you fucking police, so I decided to get some payback.”

Mac huddled with the techs. They’d triangulate that signal. They’d find her.

“Why else would you call me if you didn’t want me to find you? You want us to stop you.”

Silence. No denial.

“So just save us all some time and tell us where you are.”

“It’s not your turn yet. Don’t worry, you’ll be dying soon.”

The line cut away.

“Dane?” Katherine touched his arm.

He stared at Katherine. “He’s hurting her,” he said in a whisper. He didn’t want Mac to hear.

“
We’ve got Ronnie!
” Mac was too busy yelling to hear anything that Dane said. Dane spun and saw Mac rushing toward him.

“The techs tracked her! The signal came from around Fifty-Fourth and Millway!”

He knew Millway was filled with run-down and vacant houses. The perfect place to dump a body.

“We’re searching every house there!” Dane shouted to the men who were jumping to obey him. “Every single one!” The DA was there, standing in the background. He could work out any warrant issue. “Dr. Thomas is one of our own, and we’re bringing her in alive!” Dane still didn’t mention her screams. He just turned with the crowd and hurried toward his car. Katherine was with him every step of the way.

Every man and woman there knew Ronnie’s life was on the line. They had to find her.

Before her screams were forever silenced.