Die for Me: A Novel of the Valentine Killer by Cynthia Eden Page B

screaming less than thirty minutes ago. But now she was dead, and fury had his whole body tensing. His breath panted out, hard and fast, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her frozen features.
    Another victim.
Too late.
Dammit. He shook his head, hating the sight of her broken body.
We didn’t find her fast enough.
    Dane backed away from her. Almost stepped on the smart-phone that had been placed on the ground. Why the hell was it there? Had the killer dropped it? Dane tapped the transmitter at his ear. Before he came into the warehouse, he’d gotten wired so he could transmit out to the others. “We found Amy.” He swallowed and said, “We’re gonna need the ME.”
    He could already imagine the expression on the captain’s face as he heard the news—an expression that would match Dane’s own.
    They hadn’t arrived fast enough to save the victim, but the sonofabitch could still be close by.
    “Keep searching,” Dane ordered the men around him. “Every single room. Every crawl space.
Everywhere.
”
    He led the men. They took their time, doing their best not to destroy any evidence. They searched room after room. Air-conditioning ducts. Closets. Storage spaces. Every damn place.
    Then Dane headed outside with his men. Bright sunlight beat down on him. He saw the line of police cars that had assembled and saw the captain glaring at the scene. Uniforms had fanned out and were searching all the nearby buildings.
    They won’t find him.
    Because the killer was just screwing with them all.
    Harley moved to the side, and Dane caught a glimpse of Katherine’s face. Just seeing her so close to the murder scene was like a punch to his gut.
No. She shouldn’t be here.
    He ran toward her and the captain. He tried to hold back his anger, but it broke free as he glared at Harley and demanded, “Why the hell would you bring her here?” How could the captain not understand what the killer was doing? He’d called her, lured her there.
    “Valentine wanted her out here for a reason,” Harley said, his voice rough. “And she insisted on coming.”
    Dane was starting to think the woman had a death wish.
    But the captain was right. The call to Katherine had been deliberate, and Valentine would have been too smart to use the victim’s phone—knowing they could trace both the victim’s identity and the phone’s location through that call—
unless he wanted us here.
    The bastard was jerking them around.
    Because he wanted to watch
.
    “The men need to fan out more.” His gaze left the closer buildings and drifted farther away, then rose. “Get uniforms up there.” He motioned to the buildings on the far right. “He set the scene, and he lured his players out here. I’m betting he stayed to watch.”
    Valentine liked to think he was in control of the game. A twisted game in which he was the only one having any fun.
    Harley sent the uniforms scrambling. They rushed toward the first building that Dane had indicated, a four-story warehouse that would have given the killer a perfect view of the cop cars as they arrived.
    “He saw us coming,” Dane said. “He watched us every step of the way.”
    Katherine touched his arm—a light, hesitant touch. “She was dead?”
    He nodded. The ME’s van was already there. Ronnie would be heading in soon to check the body. “She was still warm.”
    Katherine’s breath shuddered out.
    His gaze shot over her head and landed on the marshal. “Take her back to the station,” he told Ross. He couldn’t leave the scene yet or he’d have been the one to take her. But Dane didn’t like having her out here. She was too exposed. Whatever game Valentine
thought
he was playing,
he needs to think again
.
    Ross nodded, even as his gaze drifted to the buildings on the right.
    “Keep her safe,” Dane added. The last thing he wanted to see was Katherine tied to a table. With duct tape over her mouth. And blood dripping down her arms.
    The woman in there, with her dark hair and pale skin,