If You Know Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense

by Shiloh Walker

  No time, though, no fucking time. All he could do was continue to pump his fingers, in … out. He nuzzled her neck again and felt a shudder run through her. He bit her lightly and felt her stiffen. With a twist of his wrist, he brought her to climax—the sound of her harsh, ragged moan was almost enough to have him coming in his jeans. He groaned, burying his face against her neck as she rocked against his hand, whimpering, her nails biting into his shoulders.

  Hot … sweet, and so damned perfect. Erotic as hell.

  Nia sagged against him, stunned, dazed. She … what … hell.

  Tipping her head back, she stared at him. “I … wow.”

  Law grinned at her. Then he dipped his head and rubbed his mouth gently against hers. “I have to go.”

  “Go?” she repeated dumbly. Fifteen seconds later, she remembered. Shit. His friend. That, more effectively than anything else, served to cool the fire in her blood.

  His friend. The one who looked eerily like Joely.

  “Yeah,” she said, forcing the words through her tight throat. “You go.”

  She swallowed and eased back, tried not to let anything show on her face.

  But those eyes of his, they seemed to see everything—far below the surface. He brushed his knuckles down her cheek. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” She gave him a tight smile and moved across the room on shaky legs. Need still pulsed inside her, making her head spin. Making it so hard to think, so hard to focus. “I just … um. Your friend, Lena. She …”

  “I’m running her to the doctor’s office,” Law said quietly.

  “Yeah.” She scooped up her robe from the floor and tugged it on, wrapping it around her suddenly icy body, needing the warmth. She hadn’t been cold until she’d stepped away from him. Hadn’t been cold at all. But now … Suppressing a shiver, she gave him another smile, a little less forced, a little more real. “You need to go,” she said quietly.

  He crossed the room, paused by the sink and washed his hands. Then he turned to her, cupped her chin. “Rain check,” he muttered, pressing a hard, hungry kiss to her mouth. “Man, you’re doing bad, bad things to my head, Nia. Bad things.”

  For some reason, that made her smile. Only fair, she figured. She took one look at him and the ability to think clearly seemed to disappear.

  Guys didn’t affect her like that. They simply didn’t.

  But Law, she had already realized, wasn’t just any guy.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  SHE DIDN’T TRACK HIM DOWN ANY TIME SOON.

  She was tempted, though. That rain check was one she definitely wanted to redeem. Nia couldn’t let herself get distracted by him, though. As appealing as he was, he wasn’t her reason for coming.

  Joely was, and damn it, she was going to find some answers.

  She spent the next few days researching, combing through archives and newspapers at the library, although at the oddest times, thoughts of Law would creep into her mind and she’d find herself thinking about him. She’d find herself thinking about heading out to his place, wanting to see him.

  A few times, she almost decided to go there. Almost. Something always stopped her, though.

  First, she needed to do what she came here for. Joely—she was here for Joely. Although, damn it, she was just spinning her wheels, it seemed like. Spinning her wheels, existing on nothing but Diet Coke and cigarettes and cereal. She couldn’t even find her much-needed Monster at the Circle K half the time.

  The archives were proving to be useless. Very useless. Nothing useful there, but then again, she really didn’t figure the killer had taken any victims from his hometown. Stupid that.

  All sorts of women had gone missing, but without any bodies …

  The names, they blurred together on her, ran together like smeared ink, making no sense, one big jumble on her mind, with nothing standing out. By Thursday, she was so tired of reading about missing women, so tired of this self-assigned quest and wondering why she couldn’t do this from home. Instead of heading to the library, she went to the courthouse.

  Not to talk to Ezra, though. She didn’t have anything to talk to him about. She just needed something else to focus on—a starting point. Good thing she knew how to research like mad, because that something turned out to be going through the police reports in the weeks following Joely’s disappearance, bits and pieces she picked up on when reading through the archives and such.

  Had to love the open government thing—unless they played into open cases, nobody could tell her she couldn’t look at police reports.

  A lot of drunk and disorderlies. A lot of driving under the influences. More than a few reports that had something to do with spousal abuse. Nia sighed as she combed through them, figuring she was wasting time. After three hours, her head was pounding, her neck was stiff, and her eyes were gritty and dry.

  Lunchtime—she’d go until lunchtime and then take a break. Or maybe stop for the day. She needed a smoke, anyway. “Need to quit,” she muttered, although she was a little surprised she even cared. But she wasn’t going to worry about that right now.

  Five minutes before her self-imposed deadline, she came across a mention of a name that sounded very, very familiar.

  Lena. Lena Riddle.

  Lena … Yeah, they’d just gotten married. Was this Ezra’s wife?

  Getting that report took a few more minutes than she liked and she had an itch down her spine the entire time she waited. That itch only got worse once she had a copy of the report in her hands.

  What she read was enough to make shivers run down her spine.

  Especially when she got to the date. Just a few days after Joely was kidnapped. Before her body was found.

  Nia squeezed her eyes closed, counted to ten.

  Subject reports hearing screaming in the woods:

  “Somebody was in the woods. I could hear her screaming, screaming for help.”

  Subject described the voice as female. Heard the voice call out five times and claims the screams came from the woods to the east of subject’s property.

  The subject. That would be Lena.

  Shit. Lena heard somebody screaming … screaming in the woods by her house. After a few days of nothing but frustration and emptiness, Nia’s headache was gone, replaced by the low-level burn of excitement, the hum of her instincts.

  This was something. She didn’t know how she knew it.

  But it was something … She needed to check out those woods.

  Of course, she suspected the sheriff wouldn’t be too pleased if she was out there trespassing.

  So she’d have to make sure she wasn’t caught.

  “I heard you were down here.”

  Speak of the devil …

  Nia didn’t flinch at the sound of Ezra King’s voice, nor did she blush. She neatly gathered up her notes before she looked up at the sheriff.

  “Hello, Sheriff.”

  He eyed those reports for a second, then shifted his gaze to her face. “Heard you’ve been spending a lot of time reading up on police reports, checking out the archives.”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  “The town has an awful lot of people with the last name of Jennings,” she said dryly. “And more than a few people who can’t hold their liquor.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” he muttered, shoving a hand through his hair. “But somehow, I don’t think that’s the sort of thing keeping you from going back to Virginia, Miz Hollister.”

  “It’s not.” She slid her notes into her bag, then her laptop. “I’ll go back when I’m ready.”

  “And when will that be?”

  She shrugged. “Man, some of you are really interested in how long I’m hanging around. A girl might think she isn’t welcome. Between you and Law …”

  “Law.” A grin tugged at Ezra’s mouth. “Yeah, I heard you went out with him on Monday.”

  “We didn’t go out. We just ended up at the same place.”

  “And t
hen he took you back to your hotel,” Ezra finished, still grinning. “Brought you coffee the next day and you answered the door all but wearing your birthday suit.”

  Nia narrowed her eyes.

  “Small-town gossip. It’s effective.”

  “That Sparks woman is a malicious bitch,” she said.

  “True. Although she’s not the one who mentioned the fact that you two were seen leaving the Grill on Monday. I actually heard that one from a deputy of mine.” He glanced back at her desk, but Nia had already cleared it of anything that might give him an inkling of what she’d been looking at, other than the police reports, and he’d known about that hours ago—he even knew which reports she’d asked to see. He’d be checking out those reports later, too.

  “Well, I’m glad my personal life is so interesting to everybody,” she drawled.

  “Hey, you’re not from around here and you’ve got something interesting attached to your name,” Ezra said, shrugging. “If you thought people weren’t going to pay attention, especially if you start hanging around somebody like Reilly … well, then you weren’t thinking too clearly.”

  “And what’s wrong with Reilly?” she demanded, only to snap her mouth shut the second the words left her mouth. Damn it. “You know what? Never mind. It’s not like I’m looking to marry the guy. I got to go.”

  No, she didn’t. Not really.

  But she’d managed to keep Law Reilly out of her mind for the past few hours and she’d like to keep it that way. Except now, it was a little too late. Ezra had opened those gates back up and once more, thoughts of Law were dominating her thoughts.

  “Shit.” Ezra rubbed the back of his neck as Nia stormed off.

  He’d handled that well.

  “Hey, Sheriff.”

  Distracted, Ezra looked up, saw a familiar face—Jennings—one of the infinite Jenningses. Pleasant face, blue eyes, and wire-rim glasses, bald … the man was familiar, but Ezra couldn’t place him.

  The name escaped him for a minute, and just then, he was too aggravated with himself to worry about wracking his brain for a name.

  He needed to catch up with Nia—talk to her, and forget her love life.

  All the prying around she was doing, well, he wanted to know if she had seen anything that caught her eye, and he also wanted to make damn sure she was being careful.

  Lately, he was feeling twitchy. He hadn’t felt this twitchy since the day Lena had told him about the screams she’d heard. Something weird was going down and he needed to be ready for it.

  So instead of slowing down to chat, he just nodded and kept on walking.

  Of course, by the time he got outside, Nia was already pulling out of the parking lot.

  Later that night, Nia told herself she wasn’t going to the Grill just to look for him. At least not just to look for him. She needed to eat dinner, right? And if she decided to go to the Grill rather than out for fast food, so what?

  He wasn’t there, though.

  She did bump into a city cop who seemed vaguely familiar—very vaguely. He kept his hair clipped short, so close to his skull she could see the scalp. He had nice eyes, eyes that briefly flicked over her body with an appreciative glance as she settled onto a stool at the bar.

  She’d thought about leaving, but if she left, how would she know if Law came in or not? So she didn’t leave.

  “Hey.”

  She smiled at the cop with half a mind to dismiss him, but then she realized that maybe she could work him a little, get some information out of him that she hadn’t been able to get from King earlier that day.

  Not entirely likely, but possible.

  “Hi.” She gave him a less forced smile before signaling to the bartender—a Diet Coke, this time; after the beers she’d put away last time, she didn’t need anything else.

  “You’re Nia Hollister.”

  She suppressed her wince—barely. Giving him a wry smile, she said, “Hell, I guess the stuff I’ve heard about small-town grapevines is all true, huh?”

  “Yeah, pretty much.” He smiled. “Kent Jennings.”

  “Another Jennings …” She shook the hand he offered.

  He grinned at her. “You know, there’s really not as many of us as it would appear. It just seems that way.”

  “Uh-huh.” She lifted a hand and ticked off her fingers as she counted. “So far, I’ve met a deputy by the name of Jennings … family?”

  “That’s Keith.” He grinned. “Third cousins, maybe fourth. I don’t keep track.”

  “Okay. The mayor’s a Jennings. I saw that in the paper. There’s also a DA Jennings.” She ticked off two more fingers.

  “Yep. Brothers. That’s Hank and Remy. We’re also cousins. I’m a fairly watered-down Jennings, to be honest.” Kent shrugged and said, “You get used to it, growing up around it. Remy and Hank, they’re kind of the center, if that makes sense.”

  The power base, she supposed. Every dynasty had one. From all she’d been able to tell over the past week, the Jennings family had their own little miniature dynasty going here. A friendly one, but still. At least on the surface.

  “I heard you been spending some time going through police reports and other public-type documents,” Kent said.

  Nia slid him a narrow look. “So just how does this small-town grapevine work? Word of mouth? Telephone? E-mail?”

  “All of the above. It makes that grapevine even more efficient.” He winked at her. “That’s how I was able to keep up with everything, even working a few extra shifts. I’ve heard about your interest in our town’s arrests and all, I’ve heard about your bike, I know what hotel you’re staying at …” He flashed her a smile. “Other things, but my mom might smack me if I mentioned one or two of the details.”

  Nia didn’t blush. She didn’t give a damn if people were talking about the fact that she’d all but crawled all over a good-looking guy. She did wonder if it might bother Law, though. Wondered if it was going to cause him problems with Hope. Yeah, he’d said she wasn’t his girlfriend, but she was something to him—Nia had seen that.

  Smiling at the cop, she asked, “You always listen to gossip?”

  “So it’s gossip then?”

  In the middle of lifting her drink to her mouth, she paused, thought about it. Shit. Blowing out a breath, she said, “No.”

  “Didn’t think so.” Then he sighed. “Reilly’s good people. Not from around here, but he’s good people. So. How come you’re here then?”

  “Because I am,” she replied edgily. Geez, what was with these people, so fucking nosy.

  Kent slid her a look, flashed her a smile that was so easy, so charming, it was hard to stay irritated. “Sorry, don’t mean anything by it. I’m just curious. If you’re looking for him, not likely to find him here. He doesn’t come into town much on the weekend—we don’t get too rowdy around here, but when we do … well, it happens on the weekend.”

  She flushed, shrugged. Was she that obvious?

  Hell. Maybe.

  “I’m here to get something to eat, to drink. It’s not like they serve dinner at the hotel.”

  “Good point. If you’re going to be in town awhile, you ought to hit up Roz over at the Inn. She sublets the cabins every now and then—and they got better food there. A few of the cabins even have kitchenettes. Quieter out there. A lot more private than anything you’ll find in town.” He slid her an amused smile. “It’s only a few miles away from where Reilly lives, too.”

  “And that should make a difference, huh?”

  “You going to tell me it doesn’t?” He lifted a brow.

  Shit.

  Scowling, she focused on her drink and wished she’d ordered something stronger.

  “The Inn, huh? So where is it?”

  He laughed.

  He knew she was still in town.

  After all, this was Ash, and in Ash, anything different was a hot topic for discussion … Nia Hollister was different, and not only was she different, she was hot—in more ways than one.
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  He’d heard she all but closed down the Grill with Law Reilly earlier that week.

  He’d heard she had been seen in the sheriff’s department.

  He kept hoping to hear she was leaving town, but so far, that hadn’t happened.

  As a matter of fact, as the days passed by, she’d spent them at the library, researching … going through the archives. And rumor had it she’d spent today going through police reports filed through the city and county.

  As if it wasn’t bad enough just having her in his town, where she didn’t belong. Just having her here was bad. Troublesome. In a lot of ways. There was little question in his mind why she was here. She hadn’t accepted what had happened to her cousin. She wanted more, was willing to dig to find it.

  But how long would she stay …? How deep would she dig? Why was she messing around in the archives at the library? Over at the courthouse, rummaging through public documents?

  Slowing to a stop in front of the Ash Hotel, he glanced over—casual. He knew how to do casual. Knew how to go unnoticed, how to be unseen even when everybody was looking right at him.

  Then he narrowed his eyes, hardly able to believe what he saw.

  She was packing up. Loading her things onto her bike. Well, well. He hadn’t seen this easy ending coming. Still smiling, he pulled on through the stop sign and finished the drive into town. He was in the mood for some coffee and breakfast. Maybe he’d hit the café.

  She was leaving … good.

  Damn good thing.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  Rolling onto her belly, Lena buried her face in her pillow and groaned. They’d only been married a few months and normally, Ezra just wasn’t the type to hover.

  Then again, normally, she didn’t spend several days all but hugging the toilet. It had finally passed, but she was still so damned tired. All week, all she’d done was sleep, wake up, try to eat … then lose interest and go back to sleep.

  “I’ll be better after about another twenty-four hours of unconsciousness,” she mumbled. “Go. Go to town, have coffee with the boys and talk about whatever you cop types talk about at these ‘not-staff’ meetings.”