If You Hear Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense

by Walker, Shiloh

  “How long has she lived here now, do you remember?” he asked, glancing at Jennings.

  “She moved here a little before I came back home.” Jennings remained sitting, so stiff, so straight, he could have been at attention. “A year or so before, I think. Would be close to nine years.”

  “Yeah. That sounds about right.” It was right about the time Dwight had settled into office here. “Nine years, Keith. She’s been here nine years and to my recollection, this is the first time she has ever had us out to her property.”

  Dwight plucked the report from the folder, studying it. “Go back out there. Talk to her again. Get the story one more time and do another walk through the woods. See if anything changes.”

  As Jennings left the office, Dwight turned away and stared out the window. Her story wasn’t going to change. He knew it.

  A nice, quiet little town. He wanted it to stay that way.

  Yet he had that itch in his gut.

  Something very, very bad was going on.

  So he hadn’t found much in the woods out by Lena’s place. Yet.

  But Ezra wasn’t one to sit around and wait, either. The day after he’d prowled around through the trees, Ezra found himself waking up early with the sole intention of going into town. Or at least it seemed early to him.

  Over the past six months, he had become a little too lazy. Getting out of bed before nine or ten was to be avoided at all costs, if possible—one of the new rules he had established when he decided to waste the rest of his life.

  Noon sounded ideal to him.

  But today made the second day he’d been up before eight, and he wasn’t even grouchy about it.

  Right now, he had a mission. Right now, he had something to focus on, besides the damn deck, besides working himself into exhaustion so he’d sleep too deep to dream about the night his life had gone to hell.

  He even had a focus that wasn’t entirely centered around Lena. Yeah, he knew he needed to keep his distance. That was the wise thing to do. The smart thing.

  Although the longer he thought about it, the more he thought about her, the more he wanted to say, The hell with being smart.

  Maybe you’re just so hard up for her, you’re imagining things, he tried to tell himself. Creating some mystery where there really isn’t one.

  But that wasn’t it.

  There was something fucked up in the works—he knew it, as well as he knew his own name.

  After hauling his tired ass out of bed, he spent a few minutes stretching his right leg, doing the exercises he knew he needed to do, even though he skipped them half the time. All in all, his leg didn’t feel that bad, considering he’d spent a couple of hours tramping through the woods the day before.

  He felt almost optimistic, almost useful. Up at a decent hour, had a goal, had something resembling a plan.

  It wasn’t until he was in the shower that he started to question himself.

  So what are you going to do when you get into town, slick? You don’t have a badge to flash. Nobody here has to tell you anything. What do you think you’re going to accomplish?

  The first question was easy—he wanted to know if the sheriff’s office had much of anything, although he really doubted it.

  And yeah, he knew pretty damn well nobody needed to tell him anything. He could ask all he wanted, but that didn’t mean anybody had to answer.

  That last bit grated on him, burned him, like salt in a fresh wound. For the first time in six months, he was questioning whether or not he really wanted to walk away from his badge. If he had a fucking badge, he could do something.

  Before, he’d always been in a position where he could help and now? He just didn’t know.

  Maybe that was why he had to try.

  He couldn’t ignore the feeling in his gut, couldn’t ignore what his instincts were telling him. Even if all he could do was watch, even if all he could do was ask questions, at least he was doing something.

  The thought of doing something left him with some sense of satisfaction—the kind of satisfaction he hadn’t felt in months. Not since he walked away from his job.

  Being a cop was more than carrying a badge, more than carrying a gun—and shit, he didn’t know if he wanted to carry a gun again. Maybe he missed that sense of purpose, but he didn’t miss the responsibility that came with it, and that was part of the reason he was still on leave.

  Blood—blood on my hands …

  Before his mind could travel down that path, he jerked it back in line. He didn’t need to be thinking about that. Not at all.

  No, what he needed to be doing was making some coffee, getting dressed. Then he needed to get his ass to town. Mind made up, he set about doing just that.

  Thirty minutes later, he was in town. What little morning traffic this town had was already cleared. The hot, late summer sun beat down on his head as he climbed out of his truck and started toward the sheriff’s office.

  It was housed in a plain, squat building of gray brick across from the town hall. Some optimistic soul had planted flowers in cheerful red, white, and blue in the beds in front, hoping to cheer up the look of things.

  It didn’t do much good.

  It looked like exactly what it was.

  Nothing could really pretty up a place like this—it might be a little different in small towns, but basically, cop shops were all the same. Full of cops and the occasional lawyer. Hell, they even smelled the same.

  It was busier now than it had been the last time he was here. There was a kid sitting slouched on the bench just inside the front door, a sullen look on his face. He had a fat lip, and the swelling just under his eye was going to be one hell of a shiner before much longer.

  There was another kid somewhere close by, arguing. Judging by the sound of his voice, these two had gotten into it.

  There were also other people, including one woman sitting in front of a desk and staring despondently off into the distance. Unlike the boy by the front door, this woman’s bruise wasn’t fresh. Somebody had whaled on her and hard. The discoloring had faded to a sickly yellow, and it spread from just over her left brow to more than halfway down her cheek.

  Sensing his attention, she glanced up and away.

  Afraid of her own shadow. Ezra knew the type, and he imagined he even knew the type who had put the mark on her face. He also suspected she’d be going back to him when she left here, even though part of her already knew she shouldn’t.

  There were times when this was the most frustrating job in the world.

  “May I help you?”

  He stopped and met the harried gaze of a woman whose head barely came to his chest. She had a steel-gray helmet of hair covering her scalp, and the glasses she wore were about the same shade of gray. Her eyes were a bright, vivid green and they glared at Ezra with biting impatience.

  He flashed her a smile.

  She lifted a brow.

  Okay, so charm wasn’t going to work. “I’m looking for Sheriff Dwight Nielson.” No, the charm hadn’t worked, but it had given him the two seconds he needed to rack his brain and remember the name of the man he needed to speak with.

  Surely by now, there was some sort of report … right?

  Might as well see if he couldn’t sit down with the top dog and find out whatever there was to find out.

  The woman turned out to be Nielson’s secretary.

  Ezra wondered if she’d been a dragon in her former life—the kind who guarded some secret treasure locked away in a cave or something. He wouldn’t be surprised, considering how she acted—much more befitting a treasure than the affairs of a small-town sheriff.

  Maybe she was buffing up for a job with the Secret Service.

  She kept him waiting for close to forty minutes before he was told in a lofty voice that he could have a few minutes—if he could wait another forty minutes.

  Seeing as how he’d already wasted half the morning, he figured he might as well do what he came for, and he gave her an easy, completely fake
smile. “Sure. Got nothing better going on right now,” he said.

  She sniffed and dismissed him.

  He killed the time reading magazines from the last decade and staring out the window, watching the town go by.

  Forty minutes later, on the dot, to the second, he was ushered into the sheriff’s private office. She pointed to a chair and Ezra just lifted a brow. “I’m good, thanks.”

  She opened her mouth and the sheriff cut her off. “Ms. Tuttle, if he wants to stand, let the boy stand.”

  Boy? Ezra thought with an inner smile.

  She gave another one of those disdainful sniffs and left. As the door closed behind then, Ezra studied the other man. He didn’t look like a cop—unless you looked in the eyes.

  More than anything, he looked like a professor. Maybe a preacher. A skinny face, his eyes dark and watchful, mouth unsmiling.

  “So.” Nielson leaned back in his seat and said, “I’m going to take a shot in the dark here and guess this isn’t about the trespassing out at your place the other night.”

  Ezra shrugged. Hell, he’d half-forgotten about that, not that he was going to point that out. “Well, as irritated as I am, I wouldn’t hang around this place for nearly an hour and a half over trespassing.”

  “Figured as much.” Nielson straightened in his chair and leaned over his desk, rummaging through the files and folders. “Although while you’re here, if you intend to file that complaint, you need to go ahead and finish it. You left it unfinished.”

  “Well, you can thank your deputy Prather for that. I hope you don’t mind me pointing this out, Sheriff, but I’ve seen hall monitors more capable than him,” Ezra said. “He spent a good ten minutes trying to talk me out of filing the damn thing.”

  “Did he now?” Nielson smoothed a hand back over his head and lowered his gaze, studying something on his desk.

  The report, Ezra assumed. “Yeah. Something about the kid who owns the four-wheeler is the mayor’s son—the deputy seems to think it would be problematic for a citizen to actually expect the mayor to have law-abiding kids.” Then he shrugged. “Not that he said it in so many words.”

  Nielson made a sound in his throat that could have meant a thousand things. He shoved the report toward Ezra and said, “Well, if you want to file the report, just sign it and we’ll get things rolling. Or …”

  Ezra scowled.

  Nielson caught the look on his face and smiled. “Hear me out, Detective. Jennings isn’t a bad kid. He’s just … well, his mama died a few years ago. Cancer. She was only thirty-eight. It hit them all pretty hard, as you can imagine. Brody and his dad … well, they’re going through a rough patch.”

  “Aw, hell.” Ezra turned away and reached up, pinching the bridge of his nose. He didn’t give a damn whose kid it was, but hearing something like that … well, hell. Yeah, it changed things, some. Plus, it helped that it was coming from somebody who didn’t come off as a total asshole.

  “Somebody has to talk to that kid and his friends,” Ezra said, before he changed his mind. “I won’t file the complaint this time, but the next time he’s on my property …”

  He let his voice trail off.

  Nielson nodded. “Understood. And it’s appreciated.” He gave a slow smile and said, “I’m sure his dad will appreciate it, too. Brody, probably not so much, especially at first. But we will talk to him. Now … why don’t you tell me just why you decided to spend nearly an hour and a half waiting to talk to me?”

  “Lena Riddle.”

  The man would have made one hell of a poker player, Ezra decided. He didn’t flicker an eyelash. “And what about Ms. Riddle brings you here? You can’t tell me she was out four-wheeling on your property.”

  Giving in to the ache in his leg, Ezra settled on the one chair in the room that wasn’t stacked with files, boxes, or something else. Now that the dragon wasn’t on guard, he might as well sit. “No. It’s about what happened out at her place the other night. I’m curious as to what you plan on doing about it.”

  “You’re curious.”

  Ezra shrugged. “You have to admit—kind of odd. Disturbing. Dead of the night. Woman hears screams. Nobody finds anything. No accidents reported nearby. Odd. Not the sort of thing you could just ignore, really.”

  “That’s assuming she really heard anything.”

  “You think she did,” Ezra said, narrowing his eyes.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  As Ezra studied him, Nielson returned the favor. The man in front of him looked like exactly what he’d expected to find—a cop. Young, just enough of an edge to him, and still some idealism left in there, too.

  He either hadn’t been on the job long enough, or he was just one of those who kept that idealism the whole way through.

  No, Nielson wasn’t surprised by what he saw in Ezra King, nor was he surprised to see the state cop in his office. King had been seen with Lena at the café, and while that wasn’t a declaration of marriage, seeing as how Lena hadn’t had a meal with anybody other than Law Reilly and Roz Jennings since she’d broken things off with Remy Jennings a year earlier, well, it said something.

  Besides, he had ears.

  More than a few of his deputies had commented on Lena’s visit to the office Sunday, and the fact that Ezra King had also been around.

  The man in front of him might well be a cop—being on leave was irrelevant—but he was also a man. It wasn’t just a cop’s interest that had Ezra in his office. Nielson knew it as well as he knew his own name, as well as he knew his town.

  Made things dicey.

  Nielson had no problem sharing some information with a fellow cop.

  Had a bit more difficulty sharing it with a man who had a personal interest in somebody the sheriff’s office was viewing as … a person of interest.

  “At this point, I’ve yet to make any decision,” Nielson hedged.

  King snorted. “You can try that line on somebody who doesn’t know the routine, Sheriff. Look, I just want to know if you plan to pursue this.”

  “Do you mind if I ask why?” Nielson asked. “Other than your … interest in Ms. Riddle? You do have an interest, am I right?”

  “That interest, whether I have one or not, doesn’t have any bearing on why I’m here.” He reached down, rubbed a hand on his thigh, an absent expression on his face.

  “On the job?” Nielson asked as King shifted his gaze away, staring out the window.

  “Yeah. Six months ago.”

  “You going back?”

  King’s gaze, a vivid and clever green, slanted toward Nielson. “Don’t know.” He hesitated and then, finally, he added, “Not sure if I can.”

  Those words carried a world of weight to them. Understanding, Nielson nodded. Story there, he suspected. But he wasn’t going to pry. The man’s eyes, they held dark, sad secrets. Nielson would leave them alone.

  “Look, I’m not trying to piss you off here or anything.” King leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. His eyes met and held Nielson’s easily. “This is your place, I know that, respect that. But let’s just say I overheard how your deputy was talking to Lena on Sunday and I wasn’t impressed with the amount of concern he was showing her. That dipshit Prather couldn’t have been any more dismissive of her if he’d escorted her to the door the minute she stepped foot inside. That one? Major asshole you got there, Sheriff.”

  Actually, that was putting it mildly. Prather was more than an asshole, but Nielson had learned to work with him. He wasn’t at all surprised to hear that the man had been dismissive of Lena Riddle’s case—a little irritated, but not surprised.

  He’d have to have a word with Prather about that, too.

  A faint smile tugged at the sheriff’s mouth. “I’ll take that under advisement. But that still doesn’t exactly tell me why you’re so concerned about this.”

  Ezra figured that question, or a variation of it, would pop up and he’d already figured out how to answer. Slouching in the chair, he kept his face care
fully blank. “I’ve got a friendly interest in Lena Riddle—at this point, just a friendly interest. I want her safe. That part is personal. Then there’s this part—I’m a cop. Whether I’m on leave or not, I’m still a cop and it pisses me off to no end to think there could be something majorly fucked up going on just a few miles from where I live and the woman who is a witness—and that’s what she is—is being dismissed on account of the fact that she can’t see.”

  “Lena Riddle’s inability to see doesn’t mean jackshit to me,” Nielson snapped.

  Ezra believed him. Mostly. The guy struck him as the fair, level sort, the kind who’d look at a matter from all angles. “I’m glad to hear that. However, you’re letting at least one of your deputies write her off on that basis alone, and there’s no way in hell you can deny that. Hell, that fuck implied she ought to have a live-in companion there with her at night—hell, he didn’t imply it. He said it. She’s not a damned invalid. She can’t see. Your deputy obviously can’t think, and I don’t see him applying for a live-in companion.”

  Something that might have been humor flashed in Nielson’s eyes, but it was there, then gone so quick—Ezra couldn’t be sure.

  “Look, Detective King, I understand where you’re coming from. I really do. And I don’t plan on just shelving this complaint.” He sighed and leaned back, smoothing a hand over his scalp in what Ezra had decided was a nervous, habitual gesture. “But there’s also the plain and simple fact that we can’t find a victim. Ms. Riddle heard screams. If we could find a victim, if we could find a body, if we could find some evidence of a crime … something … then that would make it a lot easier to proceed.”

  He met Ezra’s eyes and spread his hands. “But right now, there’s nothing. What would you have me do when there is absolutely nothing to go on?”

  “Do you believe her?” Ezra asked.

  He didn’t want to answer. Ezra could tell by the look in the sheriff’s eyes. He didn’t want to answer that question, for some weird reason.

  Leaning forward, Ezra pressed, “Has she ever done anything like this before? Ever caused any sort of trouble? Ever given you a reason not to believe her?” He studied Nielson’s face, but suspected he already knew the answer. Lena wasn’t a troublemaker. She wasn’t an annoyance, either.