If You Know Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense (34 page)

“Where did Roz take off to?”

“That’s it, I don’t know.” Tammy lifted her hands helplessly and shrugged. “We don’t
know
. She didn’t tell anybody anything. She was just … 
gone
. Nobody’s seen her since this morning. She talked to Nia and Law, and that’s it. Nobody has seen her since.” She shifted from one foot to the other, chewing on her lower lip. “It’s not like her … I’m getting worried, too. She’s not even answering her phone—she
always
answers.”

Remy came out at just that moment and he frowned as he heard Tammy. He gave Ezra a narrow look, but
Ezra wasn’t about to waste another two minutes here. They’d wasted too much already.

As they pushed through the front door, Remy snarled, “You don’t have any fucking right interrogating Roz’s staff.”

“I didn’t interrogate her. She blurted it out,” Ezra said shortly. “Now yank your head out of your ass. You’re convinced Carter didn’t do anything wrong—fine. Then prove it. I need to talk to him. Where is he likely to be?”

Remy swore. Shoving a hand through his hair, he said, “His workshop.” He pointed off to the side. “It’s about a twenty-minute drive if you want to take the car—we have to cut through on backroads. Or we can take the path he takes—it’s about a ten-minute walk across their property.”

“We walk.” Grimly, Ezra headed down the sidewalk. His leg was already aching and he hadn’t done a damn thing. It was going to be a bitch of a day—he already knew it.

As they started down the path, he pulled out his phone and pulled up Lena’s number. She answered on the second ring. “Anything going on?” she demanded before he even managed to get a word out.

“No.” He shot Remy a look, wondered how much he could say, how much he should say. “Everything okay over there?”

“Oh, we’re just peachy keen.”

The bite of sarcasm in her voice had him smiling. “When you talked to Roz this morning, did she say anything about going anywhere?”

“No. And she wouldn’t be—too many shipments come in today,” Lena said.

Hell
. “Okay. Everybody still there?”

“Yes. Why were you asking about Roz?”

“I was just wonder—”

“Bullshit,” she bit off. “What’s wrong with Roz?”

“I can’t say anything is wrong with her. I haven’t seen her.”

Lena fell silent. Even though he couldn’t see her, he could all but feel her worry. “Do you think …?”

“Don’t start the
what-if
game, baby,” Ezra said, sighing. “Just hang tight. If I hear anything, learn anything, I’ll call. And if
you
hear from her, call me.”

“Okay.”

“And keep everybody there. Don’t leave, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” She paused briefly, then murmured, “I love you. You be careful.”

“I love you, too, sweetheart.” As he disconnected the phone, he was all too aware that Remy was watching him—too aware, but he was already walking on a hair trigger himself. Getting into a pissing match with a man he considered a friend wasn’t going to help either of them right now. And Remy—hell, his life was about to get seriously unpleasant.

Carter was a killer. Ezra knew it in his bones.

“What’s this workshop for? He paints, right?”

“No. Pottery.” Remy’s tone was level, measured, like he knew Ezra was carefully circling around the things Remy wanted to say. “Carter’s a potter. Does the pottery you see in Roz’s shop, in the bookstore on the square. Even gave you and Lena a platter at your wedding—the sign of a killer, for certain.”

Ezra gave him a narrow look. “You’re right. Killers always look like killers. Jeffrey Dahmer looked so evil, didn’t he, Jennings?”

Remy tensed, his muscles bunching.

He could all but see the other man getting ready to lunge.

Ezra stilled. “Don’t. We don’t have time for this shit—and I think, if you’d just take a few seconds and listen to your gut, you know I’m not just making this up. I
want
to be wrong, Remy. Like you wouldn’t believe. And if I
am
, I’m willing to deal with the fallout. But are you prepared to deal with what happens if
you
are wrong?”

“Fuck you,” Remy snarled. Then he started to walk, moving down the gravel path at a fast pace, too fast.

Ezra didn’t bother trying to keep up. Whether it was his own nerves or what, the muscles in his leg were already knotting up and he could just see it buckling under him, see himself flat on his ass. Not going to happen.

Remy got to the workshop ahead of Ezra, leaning back against the door with a sour look on his face. “Surprise, surprise. The door is locked,” Remy said, sneering. “And Carter isn’t in there, because he’d be answering if he was.”

Blowing out a breath, Ezra pushed Remy out of the way and peered through the narrow window in the door. It didn’t let him see much and most of what he could see, he didn’t recognize. Some benches, a huge metal thing hulking over in one corner—a kiln, maybe? There were smaller versions, too. Kilns, had to be. That’s what potters used, right?

“Shit.”

He backed away, reaching up to rub his neck.
Running around in circles
. Head bowed, he stared at the ground, tried to think. He was so focused on trying to figure out the next step, he had probably been staring at it for a full twenty seconds before he
really
saw it.

It was small, much smaller than what they’d found at the house.

Already dry, too. But the blood still looked pretty fresh. At least that was what he’d say if he got asked. He drew his weapon as he put a few feet between him and the door. Remy had already started back down the path—it wasn’t until he heard Ezra kicking the door in that he bothered to look back.

“Damn it, Ezra, what in the
fuck
are you doing?”

“There’s blood on the ground and on the threshold.
Gives me reason to think there might be somebody inside here that’s hurt,” Ezra said, keeping his voice low. Remy came rushing up and Ezra caught his arm, jerked him to the side. “Didn’t you hear me? If I think there could be somebody
hurt
, that means somebody who could be
doing
the hurting could also be in there. Makes sense that the person with the gun goes first.”

Of course, Ezra knew Carter wasn’t in there.

The bastard knew he’d been figured out. He was on the move. Ezra knew it as well as he knew the back of his hand. And as much as he was throwing procedure out the window right now, he didn’t know why he was bothering. But he wasn’t letting a civilian go in there, not until he’d checked it out.

It was easier to think that Ezra had lost his mind than to think about the alternative. Remy was very much clinging to his thoughts of the sheriff’s sad future, how people would shake their heads and sigh about how he’d cracked under the strain.

It wasn’t much comfort, though, because there was nothing about Ezra that he could totally write off as nuts. He’d even looked at the spot on the threshold, tried to convince himself it could be anything
but
blood. Hell, Carter glazed stuff here, right? Could be glaze.

But the longer Remy had stared at it, the more it looked like blood. His imagination—that was all. Getting away with him. Finally, Ezra appeared back in the doorway and nodded. “He’s not in here. Nobody is.”

“Then we leave, damn it,” Remy snarled. “You’ll be lucky if I can talk Carter
out
of pressing charges. He’s insane about his privacy—” The second the words left his mouth, he snapped his jaw shut, wished he hadn’t said anything.

Ezra’s mouth twisted in a smile, but there was no humor in it. “Yeah, I bet he’s insane about his privacy.”
He ambled off, back into the workshop, not even remotely resembling something that looked like he was leaving.

Remy closed his eyes and swore. He had to get the bastard out of here. Had to, before
he
ended up screwed as well.

“What are these things?” Ezra asked, stopping in front of a huge receptacle that took up most of the eastern half of the workshop.

“His kilns.” Remy started over to him, snagged his arm. “You can learn about pottery while you’re in jail for breaking and entering. Come on.”

“You might want to take your hands off me, Remy,” Ezra said, keeping his voice light, easy.

Remy snarled at him, fisting his hand in Ezra’s shirt. “Will you just get the fuck out of here before you screw
your
career
and
mine?”

Ezra glanced down at the hand that still held a fistful of his shirt. Then, eyes narrowed, he looked up. “You want to watch it there, Jennings. I mean it.”

“We’re leaving.”

Ezra reached up with one arm, shifted the other, managing to trap Remy’s hand. As he did it, he whirled around, using his momentum to shift Remy’s body around. Remy hit face-first into one of the smaller kilns—hard. For a second, he saw stars. Then he saw red. But he was hard-pressed to do much about it, which only pissed him off even more. He shoved back, but Ezra had somehow managed to get his arm locked and twisted high between his shoulder blades.

“Enough, Remy,” Ezra snapped. “You got it?”

Remy shoved back, ignoring it as his shoulder screamed a warning at him. “Get the hell off of me.” He managed to budge himself. About one inch. Shit. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes. Counted to ten. “You can’t expect me to believe this shit. Carter’s not just my
cousin—he’s one of my best friends. You can’t just expect me to believe this.”

He opened his eyes. Stared at the kiln just an inch from his face. “You can’t.”

Behind him, Ezra swore. Then said something.

But it was like bees buzzing in his ears. Slack, Remy sagged against the kiln, staring through the small, almost nonexistent peephole. It wasn’t much of a space—just enough to get a glimpse inside.

But that glimpse was all he needed. That glimpse was too much.

“Holy shit. God, oh, God, oh, God … Ezra.”

Ezra let go. “What—?”

The strength drained out of Remy’s legs and he reached up, clamped a hand over the top edge of the kiln. This was a smaller one—maybe twice the size of an industrial fridge. Shaking, he lifted his hand, rubbed his eyes. Looked again.

What he saw didn’t change.

“Aw, no. No,
fuck
, no.”

I
T WAS A DECENT SIZED HOUSE
, N
IA KNEW, BUT SHE
was absolutely certain she was going to come out of her skin if she had to stay there too much longer. Which meant she was going to come out of her skin, she supposed.

As much as she wanted to be out there doing something to find Carter Jennings, Nia wasn’t about to do the dumb chick thing and put her ass out where it didn’t belong. She was a photographer, not a cop. She’d done what she’d set out to do, even though it was mostly through sheer dumb luck and chance. But she’d done her part—she needed to let King do his job now.

But the tension in this place was driving her
crazy
. It was even worse now, ever since he’d called not too long ago to check on Lena.

The other woman hadn’t said much, but Nia could tell she was worried. She’d like to do something, say something to help, but what could she say?
I know your new husband is out there chasing after a psycho, but I’m sure he’ll be fine
, maybe? Didn’t really sound like a Hallmark card.

By some unspoken agreement, they all stayed together. After lunch, they’d all migrated into the living room and
none of them seemed interested in leaving. When one of them left, even if just to use the restroom, Law played their shadow. It was sort of embarrassing, yet still strangely comforting, at least for Nia. He wouldn’t let anything happen, not if he could stop it. And while she’d never wanted or needed a white knight, she’d never realized how reassuring it could be to have one handy.

Right now, he was sitting on the floor at the coffee table, across from Hope, the two of them bent over a chessboard. For some reason, it didn’t surprise her at all that he knew how to play chess. It was a game that confused the hell out of her. He’d offered to teach her, but she could barely hold a thought in her head today.

Lena sat in a fat, overstuffed chair, her legs tucked neatly under her, a weird-looking contraption in her hand. She’d offhandedly mentioned it was her PDA—and right now, she was running the tips of her fingers over it.

Reading, Nia supposed. The device was a lot bigger than any PDA Nia had ever used, but then again, she didn’t have to rely on her hands to read.

Just then, Lena glanced up, a faint smile twisting her lips.

“Do I look that much like her?” she asked softly.

“Huh?”

“Your cousin. Do I really look that much like her?”

Staring at that face, feeling an ache in her heart, Nia said quietly, “Yeah. You look a lot like her.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hell, it’s not your fault.” Because it hurt too much to think about Joely, she asked, “You can really feel me staring at you?”

“When somebody’s staring at you, don’t you feel it? Yeah, I can feel it.” She shrugged and set the gadget on the table next to her chair. “You live without being able
to see most of your life, you start to pay more attention to your other senses.”

“So you used to be able to see?” Then she winced. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry. That was rude.”

“It’s okay.” Lena shrugged. “I don’t mind. Yeah, I used to be able to see. Out of one eye, at least. I was born with this thing called PHPV—persistent hyperplastic primary vitreous.” She grinned. “Try saying that ten times fast. It only affected my left eye. Up until I was ten years old, I could see out of my right eye just fine.”

She reached up and tugged off her glasses, revealing pale, almost crystal blue eyes. “People who have a vision problem on one side are like ten times more likely to have an accident that will screw up the vision on the other side. You know that? But I was one of those kids who didn’t want to be seen as different. My mom was the overprotective sort who would have covered me in bubble wrap, put me on a shelf, and kept me there my entire life if I would have let her. Every chance I could, I did exactly what she
didn’t
want me doing. Things like playing baseball without the safety glasses I should have been wearing. I got hit. That’s all it took.” She finished with a wry smile.