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Dangerous
By:
Patricia Rosemoor
Releasing
January 6th, 2015
Loveswept
Blurb
Fans
of Linda Howard will love Dangerous, the story of a driven female cop who teams
up with an irresistible ex-con to bring a killer to justice—and discovers that breaking
the rules is hotter on the wrong side of the law.
Chicago homicide
detective Camille Martell will stop at nothing to track down “Angel,” a sexual
predator who has already butchered two young victims—even after her
off-the-books investigation leads to her suspension. But when her relentless
attempts to contact Angel online puts her teenage neighbor in mortal danger,
Camille’s worst fears are realized. Panicked and overwhelmed with guilt,
Camille needs help—even if it comes from the one man she swore she’d do
anything to forget.
After serving time
for a trumped-up charge, private investigator Drago Nance doesn’t trust cops.
Nothing will change that, not even the steamy weekend with Camille that burned
itself into his memory. But with an innocent girl’s life at stake, Drago can’t
ignore the need in Camille’s eyes, or the heated promise in her touch. He
agrees to help—if she’s willing to play by his rules. He just never suspected
that seducing his partner could be just as thrilling as chasing a madman.
Excerpt
Frustration
filled Camille Martell when she checked the list of people logged into the
“come and get some” chat room, her nickname for the Chicago area dating site
Meet ’n’ Greet, where she’d found Angel. The scum wasn’t there now. Obsessed
with stopping the sexual predator who’d murdered at least two young women he’d
seduced via the Internet, she’d been spending every waking hour away from the
job hunting him on her home computer.
“Damn
it! C’mon, you bastard, where are you? Show yourself!”
As
if her demand zapped him through the ether, his avatar—a dark angel holding a
sword—appeared.
“Yes!”
Her adrenaline surged, and she quickly logged in as Morrigan, the old college
photo identifying her as a twenty-one-year-old redhead. Exactly Angel’s type.
He didn’t have a clue she was a cop.
Max
nudged her leg and whistled through his nose.
Patting
the dog’s big, scruffy body, she absently murmured, “Good boy,” as she tensed
watching the parade of messages scroll up her screen.
BigMan: anyone
wanna talk with me will show photo
Cougar: let’s see
your photo first—not your face, BIG man!
hotgirl: camshows
$10/10 minutes skype hotgirl69
Camille’s
gaze flicked to the column of sign-ins. Angel was there but not interacting.
She’d engaged him twice in the last two days. He’d been flirting carefully with
her, like he had been testing her. He knew she was here. What was he waiting
for?
She
took a big breath. “C’mon, c’mon!”
Unable
to wait for it, she took the lead.
Morrigan: Hey,
Angel.
Angel: how’s it
playing?
Morrigan: Bored ’n’
lonely
Angel: sorry
Morrigan: You can
fix
Would
he take the bait? Say he wanted to meet? Her pulse fluttered through her as she
waited for his reply.
Cougar: woo-wee,
angel, she’s comin’ on to ya
Angel: r u, M? what
you wanna do with me?
She’d
like to do all kinds of nasty things to a lowlife like him, but she’d settle
for cuffing him and bringing him in. She thought about saying something sexual,
but instinct told her to play it cool.
Morrigan: Just
wanna talk . . . to start . . .
BigMan: let’s you
’n’ me talk, honey—skype name?
Morrigan: With
Angel only! IM Morrigan22
Camille
held her breath as she waited to see if Angel would use it.
Angel: gotta go
ttyl
An
instant message popped up on her screen, but it was from the guy who called
himself BigMan. Camille ignored it. Her hands curled into fists, she sat
staring at the monitor, willing Angel to IM her. If he got the mental message,
he was ignoring it. Had she played it too
cool? Should she have lured him in with the promise of something more than
talk?
Another
failed attempt. Her adrenaline crashed, deflating her once more.
“Damn
it!”
She
wanted to punch something.
Max
was still sitting there, staring at her, and she realized she hadn’t fed him.
Thankfully, she’d hired Sandy Kawecki, the teenage girl who lived next door, to
walk Max after school, so he didn’t need to go out right away. She hadn’t meant
to have a dog with her busy schedule, but the bruiser had been a pitiful sight
on the street barking in terror at anything that went by. That had been barely
a month ago. She’d tried to find his owner, and when that had proved
impossible, then she’d thought she could find him a good home. He’d found hers
instead.
For
the last few weeks after getting home from work, she’d gone directly to the
computer, since she’d been unable to conduct her search at the office. Each
time she wished Angel would IM, but wishing wasn’t going to make it happen, so
she pushed away from her desk and headed for the kitchen, the dog following
close on her heels.
“Hungry?”
His
big brown eyes hopeful, Max whined and licked his chops.
Patting
his side, she fetched a can and opened it while considering the irony of her
being taken off the Chat Room Predator Case—the reason they gave her was she
was “too emotionally focused” on it, and letting other cases slide. But that
focus was what had connected her with the presumed killer, though she still
hadn’t gotten him to go beyond chatting.
It
might take some time, but she would
find a way to meet him and arrest him and get him to trial, if it was the last
thing she ever did.
Author Info
With
90 novels and more than seven million books in print, Patricia Rosemoor is
fascinated with "dangerous love" – combining romance with danger. She
has written various forms of romantic and paranormal romantic thrillers, even
romantic horror, bringing a different mix of thrills and chills to her stories.
Patricia
has won a Golden Heart from Romance Writers of America and two Reviewers Choice
and two Career Achievement Awards from RT BOOKreviews, and in her other life,
she teaches Popular Fiction and Suspense-Thriller Writing, credit courses at
Columbia College Chicago. Three of her Columbia grad students and two students
from other venues are now published in novel-length fiction
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