FADE TO BLACK - Thrilling Romantic Suspense - Book 1 of the BLACK CATS Series by Leslie A. Kelly

gone.
    Stacey rolled her eyes. “Randy’s wife walked out on him when Seth was little. Randy moved back in with his mother, who helped raise the boy. It’s a shame, really. Last year Randy was dating a good friend of mine, Angie, who runs the new Internet café. But I don’t think Mama liked that. She’s a sour old thing.”
    “How about yours?” Dean asked, suddenly wanting to see that smile again. “Did she like that her sweet little girl took over as sheriff?”
    Instead of a smile, he got a snort. “I was never a sweet little girl.” She glanced down, stirring her iced tea with her straw. “Dad did his best, but he never managed to drill many feminine qualities into me.”
    He would argue that point. Noting the softness of her hair, the innate elegance of her movements, the huskiness of her voice that called to some deep part of him, he’d challenge anyone to call this woman anything but feminine. Strong, independent, yes. But still every inch a woman.
    “My mother died when I was a baby, so it was just me, Dad, and my brother.”
    He opened his mouth, trying to come up with whatever kind of lame condolences people offered when they found out about the loss of someone else’s parent. Not that he usually knew what to say to that sort of thing. Did anyone?
    But before he could even find the right words, Stacey said, “About the case.”
    So much for personal stuff and sharing. Which, frankly, relieved him. He wasn’t good at that. And the fact that she didn’t appear to expect him to come up with something inane to say made his opinion of her go up even higher.
    But it also made him wonder, did she ever allow herself to be vulnerable? How many rooms did she have in her subconscious to tuck away all the emotion she didn’t allow herself to deal with?
    “We’re talking about a serial killer, aren’t we?”
    He could have thrown up defensive walls, given her the not-at-liberty-to-talk-about-it line. But something told him he didn’t need to go that route, not with Sheriff Rhodes. She was tough. More important, he had the feeling they were going to need her. She’d proven her worth earlier by pointing them in the direction of the crime scene. And if this small town was like every other one he’d ever been in, she’d know every person here and could prove invaluable at narrowing down potential suspects.
    “Yes, we are.”
    Her lips moved and her eyes drifted shut for a moment as she compartmentalized that information. Anyone in charge of the law in a town this size would react to having a nationally sought-after serial killer operating in her jurisdiction. For someone who knew the victim personally? Well, she was in for a rough time, no doubt about it.
    “What do you have on him so far?”
    “Not much. Most of what we know is from the videos.”
    “Can’t even imagine them,” she whispered.
    “Believe me, you don’t want to try.”
    Dean’s jaw stiffened as a flood of images from the Reaper’s sick home movies flooded his brain. There was so much darkness to this case that even he, an experienced professional, had found himself having a few nightmares in the past few nights. Nightmares involving those poor women, sometimes with the faces of his sister or mother replacing one of theirs. There had been even worse ones involving his son, though thank God none of the crimes had involved children.
    She obviously read the viciousness of it in his silence. Because, for some reason, she reached over, extended her hand, and brushed it across the back of his. The touch was brief, devoid of anything more than simple human-to-human understanding. But it made his hand thrum for a full minute after she’d pulled hers away.
    “How many victims altogether?” she eventually asked.
    Flexing his hand, then fisting it on his lap, he got down to business. He ran down the pertinent details, giving her surface information that he’d share with any law enforcement official helping with the case, because that was