If You Know Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense (35 page)

How in the hell could she tell that story with a smile? Nia gaped at her, stunned. “My God, I’m so sorry.”

Lena laughed. “Why?
You
didn’t make me not wear the glasses.”

“You were
ten
,” Nia snapped.

“Yeah. I was ten. Kids never think anything bad can happen.” She sighed and slid her glasses back on. “Actually, plenty of adults think nothing bad will ever happen. But it does. It’s not like it was the end of my world, though. I can’t even say it ruined my life. It
changed
my life, but considering how my life is going? I have to say it changed it for the better. How do I even know I’d be
where I am, married to Ezra, with a career I love if my life had gone a different way?”

“You’re one hell of an optimist,” Nia muttered.

At that, Law laughed.

Nia shot him a look.

He glanced up from the chessboard, a smirk on his face. “She’s about the most
un
optimistic person I’ve ever met. She’s just realistic.”

Lena made a face in his direction. Then she shrugged. “He’s right. I’m hardly ever optimistic. But I love my life—I wouldn’t do anything that might change how it’s going now. Especially if it meant that I might not have Ezra in it.”

“That’s so sweet.” Hope smiled.

“Yeah. I’m sugar, all right.” Lena snorted and picked her PDA back up.

“It
is
sweet. Romantic.” Hope shrugged and looked back at the chessboard. “I mean, there are probably a lot of people who couldn’t say that—they’d
want
a chance to go back, undo what the ten-year-old kid did, you know? Your life could have been easier. But you don’t care, because Ezra’s worth it.”

“It’s not
just
about Ezra,” Lena said self-consciously. Then she shrugged. “But yeah. He’s worth it. And hell, would
you
change things if it meant you wouldn’t have Remy? You had to deal with more hell than I ever did.”

Hope glanced at Lena. Then away. “Remy’s worth everything. Anything.”

“When it’s real, when it’s right, that kind of love
is
everything.” Lena focused on her PDA again. “And now I want to read—this much mushy talk is going to make me want to wear pink and dance on mountainsides or something stupid.”

Envy, longing, stirred in Nia’s heart.
Everything
 …

Feeling the weight of his stare, she looked up and saw
Law looking at her. Her heart skipped a beat and then started to race.

Everything
 … Yeah. She could believe that. Maybe she wouldn’t have a few years ago. Even just a few months ago. But Law was changing all sorts of things.

Remy tore at the door to the kiln, wrenching at the complicated mechanism even as Ezra tried to grab his arm. “Get the fuck away,” he snarled. He got the door open just as Ezra managed to jerk him back.

Ezra froze as he saw what Remy had glimpsed through the kiln’s tiny peephole.

It was Roz.

Bound hand and foot, her head lolling against the side wall of the kiln.

“Dear God,” Ezra whispered.

Remy barely heard him.

He had to crawl inside to get to her. It wasn’t one of the bigger kilns, but it was too big for him to pull her out without getting in. Part of him was terrified to touch her. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing. Couldn’t tell if she was alive. And he wouldn’t know until he touched her. But he couldn’t live in denial anymore.

There was only one way she could have gotten here.

Ezra had been right—Remy had been horribly, terribly wrong.

And he was going to kill Carter.

His hand was shaking as he reached out, touched Roz’s neck, checking for a pulse. Her skin was warm and under his fingers, he felt a thready, erratic beat. Heaving a sigh of relief, he awkwardly eased her body out. “Thank God,” he whispered.

“There’s a pulse?”

“Yeah.” Remy cradled her against his chest. “Roz? Roslyn, sweetheart.”

She didn’t move. Didn’t seem to hear him.

He heard Ezra talking and glanced over, saw him on his radio. Calling it in, he realized.

Shit. This was really happening.

Carter—

Dazed, he looked at Ezra and shook his head. “I can’t believe this is happening, man. I … what in the fuck is going on?”

Ezra paused, lowered the radio. “I don’t know.” He looked at Roz’s still form, and then shifted his gaze back to Remy’s. “I really didn’t want to be right, you know.”

Memories, fragments from their childhood flashed through his mind. Camping in the woods. Hunting. Fishing. Chasing after girls. Racing down the highway after Carter had gotten his first car … Remy had stood up with him at his wedding. Carter had been there when Remy’s dad had died.

Brushing all of that aside, he swallowed and met Ezra’s gaze. “I know.”

“Sirens,” Lena murmured, lowering her PDA.

Law climbed to his feet and moved to look out the window, even though he couldn’t see more than a slice of the road. He caught a glimpse of red and blue lights, but that was it. “Heading east,” he said softly.

“Wonder if it means anything,” Hope said.

“It means they are heading east,” Lena said flatly. “Toward the Inn, most likely.”

Law turned and watched as she reached into her pocket, pulling out her phone. Gripping it like it was a lifeline.

“I wish Ezra would call already,” she muttered.

“It’s only been about twenty minutes or so since the last time he called,” he said softly. He moved to sit on the ottoman in front of her. Taking her free hand, he squeezed it. “I know you’re worried about him, but he can handle himself, sweetie.”

She scowled. “This being married to a cop thing is going to have some rough spots.”

“Just remember he’s worth it,” Nia said from across the room. “And that man of yours can handle himself.”

Lena smiled faintly. “Yeah. I just don’t like not knowing what’s going on.”

“None of us do. But we can’t go bugging him, either, if we want him to concentrate. He’s safer if he’s got his mind on the job anyway, right?” Nia pointed out.

“Yeah.” Lena sighed.

Law smiled at Nia. She jerked a shoulder in a shrug and crossed her arms.

Carter was a patient man under most circumstances, but today wasn’t most circumstances. He kept his radio tuned into the frequency the local cops used as he turned the little BMW down Reilly’s driveway. People recognized his van too easily. They didn’t drive the BMW as much—hopefully, it was less likely to be recognized.

His head pounded as he slammed on the brakes in front of Reilly’s place. Nia’s bike was there, parked in front. Good. Take care of them both. The bitch, Reilly. Then he’d deal with Lena before heading back to his workshop, where he’d finish things.

He only had a couple of hours before the drugs wore off on Roz. Well, assuming she hadn’t suffocated. He wanted to be back before she woke up. He’d give her more drugs before he took care of her, make sure she didn’t know what was coming.

He loved his wife. Hurting her was something he’d never do.

Time was short. Because he didn’t have time, he didn’t bother knocking. He knew there was an alarm system and he’d planned on only being there a few minutes anyway. It didn’t take long to aim and pull a trigger, after all.

But the three minutes he was in the house were wasted, because the house was empty.

Damn it.

Rage was singing in his blood by the time he was back in the car. He didn’t have time for this shit. He’d be damned before he got his ass arrested. No fucking way.

Now he had a choice to make. He deliberated as he headed to Lena’s. Did he waste any more time trying to find Nia? She was the reason for all of this.

“Well, actually, that’s Lena,” he muttered, his voice harsh, rough. All those months ago. When she’d heard the screams when his little bitch got away.

Just thinking about
that
had those memories flashing through his mind—her screams. Him tracking her. Catching her—

The way she’d sobbed as he hauled her back, her pitiful pleas …

Blood roared in his ears, so loud, so hard.

He didn’t even hear the sirens wailing until the first deputy car came flying around him.

Spine stiffening, he looked in the rearview mirror and saw another.

Sirens wailing, the car flew around him, the same as the last one. Heading east down the highway … toward the Inn.

And his workshop.

Breathing raggedly, he gripped the steering wheel. Lena’s house was coming up.

He made a split-second decision.

He had to know—because if they were at the workshop, he couldn’t risk going back there.

Ezra still had a million and one things to do, and this was already a nightmare in the making as far as crime scenes went, but the lost look on Remy’s face, when the
man was normally so fucking cocky and collected, hell. It was killing him.

“I called for an ambulance, too,” he said, moving to stand in front of the bench where Remy was sitting, cradling the unconscious woman.

“Ambulance,” Remy echoed. “Yeah. Good idea. Why won’t she wake up?”

Ezra had his suspicions. He lifted one of Roz’s lids, peered at her eye. The pupil was a mere pinpoint. “I think he drugged her. I’ll tell the EMTs—they’ll probably look anyway, but they can let the doctors know, run some blood tests.”

Remy nodded.

Still, that lost, dazed look remained on his face. Ezra didn’t have time to shock him out of it, either. Hell,
Remy
didn’t have time to sit there looking lost, or confused. There was too much at stake, too many people who could become potential targets and Remy, better than most, might be able to figure out who was most at risk.

“You going to sit there all damn night looking like he killed your dog or are you going to snap out of it and do something?” Ezra said, going for a cold, flat tone and hoping it would do some good.

Remy stiffened.

Then slowly, he looked up, his blue eyes shuttered. “You’re going to have to give me some time to adjust to the fact that my cousin—my blood, my
friend
—is a killer.”

“No. I don’t have to give you some
time
, Counselor. Because
time
is something we don’t have. Somehow I don’t see him tucking his wife into an oven and just disappearing. He was going to come back and kill her, but he had a plan, damn it. He was going after somebody. He’s pissed and I bet you can figure out best who is the
most likely target. Nia? Since she came back and fucked it all up? Reilly? Lena?”

“What … why would he go after Lena?”

Ezra spun away, shoved a hand through his hair. “Hell. You really aren’t thinking like a lawyer, are you? Are you thinking at all?” He looked back at him. “She heard one of his victims, Jennings. The screaming. Probably Nia Hollister’s cousin.”

Remy went white. Then he closed his eyes. Nodded. He took a deep breath and looked at Roz, then back at Ezra. “I can’t process all of this—I just can’t. Give me a few minutes—let me get her to the hospital.”

As he said it, they both heard the sirens wailing. Remy rose, still cradling the burden of Roz’s limp, practically lifeless body. He looked toward the window. “I need to call Hope, let her know what’s going on.”

Ezra softly said, “She already knows most of it. She was at the Inn this morning with Lena. Left when Lena did. She’s at our place and she’ll stay there.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “She knows, then. About Carter.”

Ezra inclined his head.

“Okay. I need to talk to her. I need a few minutes. Then I can think.”

He headed for the door and then looked back. “It won’t be Reilly, though. It would be too fair a fight. Even when we were kids, one thing Carter never could stand was a fair fight. He wouldn’t call it that—had it in his head that it was strategizing or whatever. But he’ll go after somebody he has a chance at taking down. He wouldn’t have a chance with Reilly, and he knows it.”

Then he paused. “Actually, he’s most likely to go for the weakest one, the most vulnerable. While others are focusing on her, he’d have his fun with the rest. Mind games. He was all about mind games.”

“Hope.”

Remy’s mouth twisted and he shook his head. “Hope’s quiet, but she’s not weak, man. And he doesn’t have any reason to go after her. He’d only fixate on somebody who posed a problem to him. Hope’s not the vulnerable one I’m talking about.”

Ezra’s gut turned to ice.

T
HIS TIME
, E
ZRA GOT THE WARRANT EASILY
.

It was hell on earth, too, because this was now the last place he wanted to be. He wanted … 
needed
to be with Lena. But instead, he had to be here. Doing the job he could have been doing earlier if Beulah had given him the benefit of a doubt.

Instead of being with his wife, he had to be a fucking cop. The only consolation was that he would be better able to protect her once he had what he needed to lock Carter up. And it would have to be a strong, solid case because the people of Ash, Kentucky, might just make that legendary Blue Wall of Silence among cops look mild. They weren’t going to like seeing one of their beloved Jenningses go down—Remy was proof of that, and Ezra liked the guy.

He’d be damned if he left her unprotected, though.

He had Ethan and Keith out there. They might want to be
here
, but he trusted those two more than anybody else on his team and if he couldn’t be with Lena, then it was going to be them.

He barely managed to keep himself from tearing into the place while he waited for the warrant. Once Beulah had it to him, though, Ezra and his deputies all
but peeled the workshop apart, looking for a clue, a sign.

Granted, the deputies weren’t too keen on it at first.

But Steve Mabry made a gruesome discovery that changed everything. It was dumb luck that he’d even found it, though. The kilns were heavy mothers that would need to be moved with forklifts—and those were the smaller ones. The bigger ones, Ezra didn’t know how they’d even begin to move those bastards.

This kiln was a smaller one, the same size as the one Roz had been in. Identical, even. But Steve had noticed the internal dimensions were off. Because of that, he’d checked the make of the kilns. Identical.