The EMTs broke through the brush.
"Here!" Dane shouted. "We"ve got an officer down!"
Two men and a woman immediately ran toward Dane.
"Anyone else injured?" Another guy called out. He was coming up at the rear.
Dane backed away so the EMTs could work on Mac. "Our prisoner was stabbed." He was edging near Valentine"s body. Dane had his arms at his sides.
The last EMT headed toward Valentine. "No." Dane grabbed the man"s arm, stopping him. "Where"s the cop with you?"
A woman pushed through the brush.
"Karen, give me your backup weapon," Dane demanded when he saw the detective.
He took the gun from her. Checked the clip, then said, "Now let"s make d.a.m.n sure he doesn"t have a pulse."
They advanced on Valentine. Katherine didn"t move. She felt as if her muscles were locking down. One of the EMTs put a blanket around her shoulders. It didn"t make her feel any warmer.
Carefully, Dane crouched near Valentine. Dane"s fingers went to Valentine"s throat. Stayed there.
Katherine began to count in her mind.
One.
She saw Michael, as he"d been the day they first met. That wide grin. The sparkling eyes.
Two.
She saw him with the engagement ring. Down on one knee. Asking her to marry him.
Three.
She saw him in his black painting ap.r.o.n...a knife still in his hand. Blood. You didn"t come home soon enough. The words whispered through her mind.
Four.
She saw him as he"d been moments before, when he"d turned at her shout. He"d seemed almost...eager as he pushed toward her. As he thrust his body right at the knife, even angling his chest so that her knife would sink into just the right spot.
Five.
She saw Dane shake his head. Valentine-Michael-was gone.
Dane rose and walked toward her. "It should have been me," he said, voice rumbling. He pulled her into his arms once more. "I should have been the one to kill him. You didn"t need that on your shoulders."
Actually, she did. Valentine had wanted to be saved. And in the end, maybe he"d gotten just what he wanted.
Streaks of red were lighting up the dark sky. Dawn was coming now. The night was truly ending. The darkness gone.
"What the h.e.l.l?" Dane growled, and his body stiffened against hers.
She turned in his arms, followed his stare. With the rising of the sun, she could just make out the battered form of a small shack at the edge of the swamp.
"Sonofab.i.t.c.h." Dane blew out a disbelieving breath. "He brought us to them. He brought us to them."
It looked as if Valentine had kept his part of the bargain, to a certain extent. But would Maggie and Ross be alive?
She and Dane started running as one. Slogging through the mud, shoving away the bushes and branches. Dane yelled for backup.
The EMTs had loaded Mac onto a stretcher.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
She and Dane kept running.
Then he was at the shack"s door. He had his weapon drawn. "New Orleans PD!" he yelled. "We"re coming in!"
Then he grabbed the k.n.o.b. Twisted. It didn"t give, so Dane kicked the door in.
The scent of death hit her then. Blood and decay. h.e.l.l.
And she wasn"t so sure they would be rescuing anyone that day. Valentine just might have taken more victims before death had taken him.
21
He didn"t see blood, but he could smell it all around him. Valentine hadn"t been lying when he told them about his secret little hideaway. h.e.l.l, out in the swamp, he"d probably been able to slice up his victims and feed the body parts to the gators.
No wonder no bodies had been found sooner.
It was always easier to keep the dead quiet when there were no dead to find.
The floor sloped in the cabin. Dane followed the scent of the blood. It was heaviest toward the right. The light from the growing dawn fell through the old blinds and revealed a wooden door in the right corner. Faded with time. Padlocked.
Screw the lock.
Dane lifted his foot and kicked that door open too. Then he rushed into the room.
The scent of blood was so much stronger...because there was a woman lying on a table in the middle of the room. A woman with pale blonde hair. A woman with duct tape over her mouth and with her hands and feet bound with rope.
Her arms were cut. Deep slashes that had sent blood dripping onto the floor.
Only the blood had dried on the floor.
And the woman...
Dane touched her. She flinched. Tears leaked from the eyes that she"d squeezed shut.
Katherine gasped behind him.
He knew this scene would be too familiar for her.
But this time, the ending would be different. The bad guy wouldn"t win. He wouldn"t win.
"It"s all right," Dane told the blonde. Maggie. "You"re safe." It looked like Valentine had been careful with his torture. No veins had been sliced. No tendons severed. He was playing with her. "It"s me, Maggie. It"s Dane. I"m here to take you home."
Her eyes flew open.
Gently he pulled the duct tape off her lips.
"Dane?" Desperate hope.
"Yes, Maggie. You"re safe now."
Deep, shuddering sobs shook her body.
He jerked at the ropes. Twisted. Yanked. Had her hands free. She was naked and b.l.o.o.d.y and she locked onto him, holding tight.
Katherine freed Maggie"s legs. Dane didn"t even know where she"d gotten it from, but Katherine wrapped an old blanket around Maggie.
"You..." Maggie whispered as she blinked at Katherine. "I know you..."
Katherine"s bottom lip trembled. "You"re going to be safe now."
Maggie shook her head. "He"ll come back. He said he was coming, that he was going to kill us."
"He"s the one who"s dead," Dane gritted out as his back teeth ground together. "He can"t hurt anyone ever again." He hoped the b.a.s.t.a.r.d was f.u.c.king burning in h.e.l.l right then.
Tension thickened in Dane"s gut. They"d won. They"d defeated Valentine. They"d just found one of his victims-alive.
Only...
Only the scene felt wrong, and he kept remembering the explosion that had rocked the house on Oakland. Valentine had told Katherine that he"d learned from his mistake in Boston. That he didn"t want to leave evidence behind.
The shack was crammed with evidence.
Valentine had planned everything so perfectly. Too perfectly?
He said he was coming, that he was going to kill us. Maggie"s words whispered through his mind.
At the station, the guy had kept saying...Tick, tick, tick.
He"d made the house on Oakland explode because he didn"t want to leave any evidence behind, and this little cabin with its heavy stench of death-it was full of evidence.
Tick, tick, tick.
Dane swallowed and fought to keep his voice steady as he said, "Katherine, take Maggie out to the EMTs." Get out, Katherine. Get out now.
"Ross has to be here," Katherine said, glancing around.
Dane would search for him while Katherine waited safely outside. But if he told her why he was worried...
She won"t leave me.
And he couldn"t leave Ross alone there. Not if his suspicions were correct.
Choices...
He was making his.
"Get her out. I"ll be right behind you."
Maggie let go of him and grabbed tightly to Katherine.
Dane caught Katherine"s chin. Tilted her face up to meet his. "I love you, Katherine Cole."
She smiled at him. "And I love you."
His jaw locked. "Go."
Valentine had told him that Ross didn"t have much time left. If the guy had been cut, bleeding out...h.e.l.l, even Valentine couldn"t have been that precise about the timing of the guy"s death.
What had Valentine said? Every precious second just ticking past.
Tick, tick, tick.
Had the b.a.s.t.a.r.d been telling Dane exactly what he had planned?
Katherine was at the front door. She was guiding Maggie out. Katherine glanced back. Smiled at him. He saw love on her face.
I love you, Katherine.
If you wanted to get specific about a man"s time of death, there was one surefire way to guarantee the kill.
Dane glanced at the door on the left. The door that Katherine had probably thought was just a closet, but he"d gauged the length of the cabin and he knew the door would lead to more secrets. More death?
He twisted the doork.n.o.b. The door swung inward easily.
The rising sun hit the lone window in that room. He could see all of the photos on the wall. Dozens of them. Black-and-whites. So many bodies. So many deaths as victims were immortalized in their last moments.
And though Dane heard no sound, his gaze was drawn to the far corner of the room. The corner cloaked in shadows. The corner where Anthony Ross sat, tied to a chair, with duct tape over his mouth.