If You See Her (11 page)

“Actually, it’s Mayor Jennings,” Lena said from behind Hope.

Mayor
. Hope smirked inwardly. Now why wasn’t she surprised? “Mayor Jennings, then. But he hasn’t been a bother.”

He inclined his head and then shifted his gaze to his son. “Come on, Brody. We should get home. We’ve got things to discuss.”

Hope opened her mouth to say something else, anything else. But then she closed it, looking over at the boy. He looked sad, scared … alone. She didn’t know what was going on with him, but she knew what it felt like to feel sad, scared … alone. To be so totally isolated from anybody and everybody, with nobody around who could help, who would listen.

Behind her, Law said quietly, “Maybe you should hear what happened.”

The mayor shook his head. “He can discuss it at home. Privately. We’ve got issues to discuss and he’s taken up enough of your day.”

Hope edged away. From the corner of her eye, she could see Law’s face, see the way his lip curled as he stared at the mayor. It reassured her—she was glad she wasn’t the only one who didn’t quite like the way this guy was handling his scared kid.

Of course, Law was more vocal about his dislike. His voice thick with disdain, he drawled, “Yeah, sure. Those private issues are more important than the fact that he ran into somebody in the woods near my place. That the guy had a gun, one he decided to point at your kid. Fine, Mayor, but man, I really question your priorities.”

“My son—”

“Hank.” Remy stood up, one hand resting protectively on the boy’s shoulder.

Hope found herself staring at him, barely hearing whatever he said next. Despite her determination to not look at that man, not think about him, she couldn’t not look at him.

He was staring at the other man. Brothers, she realized belatedly. They had to be. They looked too much alike to not be related. But where Remy had warmth, the other one was nothing but ice, it seemed.

Hank shifted his gaze to Law, then to the boy. “Okay, Brody. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

R
AIN AND FUNERALS
.

What was it about rain and funerals?

Off in the distance, thunder rumbled and lightning flashed. Some of the mourners cast nervous looks at the clouds, but those standing closest to the graveside ignored the weather.

They’d come to say good-bye and a hurricane wouldn’t have pulled them away.

Nia stood at the graveside, a white rose in her hand as she stared at the pale pink coffin.

Bryson, Joely’s fiancé, stood at her side.

He stank of whiskey, but he was sober, his dark brown eyes ravaged by grief, his face gaunt.

He had loved Joely, Nia knew. Maybe he hadn’t been able to be there for one of the last things he could have done for Joely—standing at Nia’s side when it came time to claim the body—but Bryson had loved Joely.

As much as all of this hurt, she was happy her cousin had had the guy, even if it was just for a while. Nia suspected it was the first time he’d been sober since he’d learned about Joely’s death.

Distantly, she felt kind of sorry for him. But it was distant.

She stared at the coffin, tried to find the good memories, tried to remember the laughter, the fun times.

But all she could see was the last, awful memory … the one of Joely lying in a morgue, her face so battered Nia had barely recognized her.

Who did that to you, baby? Who did it?

“What we have here is a clusterfuck.”

Remy snorted and almost sprayed his coffee across the room. Setting his mug down, he grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the sheriff’s desk and wiped them across his mouth and then checked his shirt and tie. “A clusterfuck.”

“Yep,” Nielson murmured. “It’s when you just get a whole bunch of shit going wrong all at once.”

“I know what a clusterfuck is,” he said dryly. And he had to admit—
clusterfuck
described things to a T.

“So the mayor is okay with getting Brody into residential treatment?”

“Shit, no.” Remy scowled as he thought about the past night. He hadn’t had more than two hours of sleep, and once he was done here, he had even more work to do. Sleep was a luxury that would have to wait. “He’s very much
not
okay with it … but I think he realizes he doesn’t have much choice. King will draw a hard line on it if he has to, and maybe that’s not a bad thing. At least he sees that Brody needs help. Hank … well, he
knows
it, but I think he wants to try to fix things himself. But Brody needs more than that. Right now, I think Brody will actually feel better away from his dad, as much as that hurts to say.”

“How is your mom handling it?”

Remy grimaced. “About the same way you’d expect. It’s breaking her heart—Brody’s the only grandchild she has.”

Nielson was quiet for a moment and then finally, he
said, “I’ve always wanted to think that a family’s love heals everything—but sometimes, when the hurts go that deep, you have to get the poison out first. Brody’s got a lot of hurt, a lot of poison trapped inside him. I know Hank loves him—I remember the way they were back before Sheryl died. But maybe this is a way to get that poison out, and then they can both heal.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Brooding, Remy stared off into the distance. “Shit. I should have seen how bad it was before now.”

Then he sighed and made himself focus on the here and now. “What do you think about the guy he says he saw?”

“Your brother doesn’t think he saw anything.” Nielson peered up at him over the rim of his glasses. “I’ve got Mabry out there, though, going through the woods. If there’s anything out there to be seen, he’ll see it.”

Mabry, the deputy sheriff. Yeah, if things could be found, he’d be the one to do it.

“You think he’ll find anything?” Remy asked.

“Do you? I can tell you … your brother doesn’t think we’ll find anything, because he doesn’t think anything happened.”

“Shit.” Remy shook his head. “I get that, and I get why, and that’s not what I asked.”

“I can’t discount either possibility.” Dwight sighed and smoothed a hand back over his scalp. “Here’s the thing, though. That boy? Well, he had a fear in his eyes, don’t you think?”

Nielson had ended up out at Law’s place that night, after all. Even hours later, when Remy had gone home with Hank and Brody, the kid had been shaken up. Terrified.

Fear in his eyes? That was putting it mildly.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “He was afraid, all right.”

Remy thought about that fear, thought about how
pale Brody had been. How his blue eyes had looked all but black in his young face. That fear, it hadn’t come from his dad. It was new. Different.

There was a knock at the door and Remy looked up as Nielson’s dragon doorkeeper opened the door. Law was there … and Hope.

Her eyes glanced over him like he wasn’t even there. They bounced over to the sheriff, filled with that familiar strain.

“We’re a little early,” Law said. He had a hand on Hope’s shoulder.

The look on her face was closed in, shut down. Tense.

Frowning, Remy shot the sheriff a look, then looked back at Law and Hope. “What are you doing here, Law?”

“It’s a personal matter, Remy,” the sheriff said softly.

Hope tugged on the sleeves of the shirt she wore. Under the hem, he could see her narrow wrists, caught a glimpse of one of the long, narrow scars—vivid red, sliced with neat, black sutures.

A vivid, painful reminder of just how badly he did
not
need to be thinking about this woman.

Slowly, he stood. “We can finish our business later, then.” Grabbing his briefcase, he started for the door. Law ushered Hope inside.

Remy’s heart did a rough, angry jitter inside his chest as she continued to fidget with her sleeves and before he could stop himself, he came to a halt. Right in front of her. Close … close enough that he could smell the scent of her hair, the scent of her skin. Close enough that he could see the soft green of her eyes darken as her lashes fluttered.

“You can get help, Hope. You don’t need to live with whatever has you so torn up inside.”

Help …

Hope stared at him, into those dark blue eyes, and to her surprise, she laughed. It wasn’t an
amused
laugh—hell, it hurt her ears, her chest—it was like she was vomiting razor blades.

And as quickly as it came on, it faded and she found herself staring at him.

She could meet his eyes, she realized. She could stare into those blue eyes without wanting to hide.

When had that changed?

When had
she
changed?

Being able to look a man she barely knew square in the eye?

Even this man—

No.
Especially
this man.

“Help. Yeah, I imagine if I had the problems you
think
I have, help would be exactly what I should be looking for.” Then she turned away from him. Over her shoulder, she said quietly, “You don’t
know
me, Mr. Jennings. You might think you do, and I’m sure you gathered your nice, neat little history on me, but you don’t know jackshit.”

Feeling the weight of his stare, she focused on the sheriff.

It was harder to look at Nielson, harder to meet his eyes. Was it the uniform? Was it because of who he was? Hope didn’t know.

Her throat tried to lock down on her and she knew she’d have to force herself to say every last word, just as she had to force herself to look at him as she settled in the straight-backed, wooden chair. It was as miserably uncomfortable as it looked. Perching on the edge, she folded her hands, pressed them together between her knees.

“Let’s get this over with,” she said, her voice gritty and rough.

She didn’t want to be here. Didn’t want to be anywhere even close to here.

Still feeling the weight of Remy Jennings’s gaze, the weight of Law’s gaze, the sheriff’s, Hope wanted to be anywhere
but
here.

Her knees were knocking, all but slamming together and she knew if she hadn’t been sitting down, she might have fallen down. She still wasn’t feeling completely recovered from the blood loss and right now, she felt slightly nauseated, light-headed, and more than off-balance. It hadn’t helped that she’d been too worried to eat that morning, but now, she desperately wished she’d been able to force at least something down her throat.

Panic crowded into her mind and she clenched her fists. Pain tore through her wrists and she hissed out a breath, forced herself to relax her hands.

A hand touched her shoulder. Squeezed lightly.

“Hope.”

Law’s voice cut through the chaos in her mind. She sucked in a desperate breath of air, forced herself to think through the impending panic attack.
Not going there, not going there …

She wasn’t trapped in here—she was here because she wanted to be, needed to be. She could get up and walk out whenever she wanted.

Law bent down, put his mouth right next to her ear. In a quiet, soft voice, he said, “Take a deep breath. Come on, kid. You don’t want to fall apart
here
. Not here, for crying out loud.”

No. Not here. It was the best thing he could have said.

Opening her mouth, she gulped in a deep breath. Then another. Then, finally, she made herself take another, slower breath, and blew it out.

One …

Two …

Three …

The dark swirl of panic started to ease, started to fade.

Four…

Five …

She opened her eyes, uncurled her fists, and rested her palms on her thighs.

Six …

Seven …

Lifting her head, she made herself look at the sheriff. He pretended to be absorbed in something else, giving her some modicum of privacy.

Eight …

Nine …

Behind her, Remy Jennings was still standing there, watching her.

Ten
.

Watching her. Watching as she fell apart.

For some reason, that was all it took for her to clear the rest of the panic from her mind.

You don’t know me
, she thought again. Squaring her shoulders, she took one more steadying breath.

Damn it, you
don’t
know me
.

Just then, the door behind her quietly closed.

The room suddenly felt larger … and colder. Darker.

Man, maybe she
was
crazy.

She should breathe easier with him gone. So why was there suddenly an ache in her chest?

Stop thinking about him. Even if you could handle any sort of relationship, the man thinks you’re a nutjob
.

Besides, she was here to try to convince the sheriff she wasn’t a nutjob—might be easier to do if she didn’t keep acting like one.

Pushing Remy out of her head, she looked at the sheriff.

He had stopped pretending to work and waited patiently,
with a kind smile on his face … the same sort of smile Ezra had, she thought.

And nice eyes. But they were still a cop’s eyes.

Swallowing, she made herself hold his gaze. She couldn’t keep living in terror—she couldn’t.

“Law tells me there’s a problem with the story of events we got. Like about what happened with you,” he said softly.

Hope nodded jerkily.

“Are you going to tell me about it?”

She licked her lips. Feeling Law standing at her back, she almost looked at him—needed that support, that strength. But damn it, she’d jumped all over him hovering. Now was the time to prove she
could
stand on her own, right?

Now
was
the time. Now … or never.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed up the long sleeves of the T-shirt she wore, baring the healing wounds on her wrists. “I … I didn’t do this, Sheriff,” she said, her voice hitching.

“Okay. Do you remember how it happened?”

“No.” She did look at Law, then. “We’d just gotten into the house. Weren’t there any more than a few minutes. The lights were out. He’d gone down to the basement to reset the breaker. Then he came up … after that, things get blurry. I remember seeing Prather—just his face—he was on the floor in Law’s office. I only saw the man’s face, but I knew something was wrong. He was on the floor and I don’t think I
thought
he was dead, but I knew something wasn’t right. I was scared. Then I turned around—saw Law.”