If You Hear Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense (29 page)

It was hours later.

Dawn was nothing but a memory, and the need for sleep was weighing on all of them, but none of them could sleep.

Hope had come home with Lena—Lena had insisted, and Hope had been shell-shocked enough to agree.

“A body?” Hope whispered, her voice hoarse, almost broken. There was a look in her eyes, one that said she couldn’t quite believe what Ezra had told her.

Lena sat silently on the couch next to Hope. Puck sat between Lena’s legs, and she kept hugging the dog, stroking a hand down his back. Shaken … scared.

Ezra couldn’t say he blamed her.

Especially since she’d already made the possible connection he’d made himself.

“Ezra, what if it’s the woman I heard screaming that night?”

“There’s no way we can know that,” he murmured.

Not unless the killer up and confessed. But Ezra knew. He suspected Lena knew it, too.

Ezra had a feeling things were going to get worse.

This whole thing had been orchestrated to throw attention away from what Lena had heard, to focus it on an actual crime—with an actual victim, with the focus on an innocent man, one chosen with a specific purpose.

It wasn’t any secret Lena was close to Law. Ezra suspected that was why he’d been targeted.

It was a pretty damn clear setup in Ezra’s mind, although there was no telling if the guy had planned other shit. That thought made his gut tighten in dread. What else? What else might the killer be planning?

And what in the hell would he do once he figured out his little plan had just been blown to hell and back?

Any attempt to make it look like Law was the killer
would now pretty much fall flat—all because the killer hadn’t realized Law was out of town.

“Is he always this quiet about stuff?” Ezra asked abruptly. “He takes off and only a couple of people know?”

Lena smiled tiredly. “Ezra, if it wasn’t for the fact that he usually runs me into town on Wednesdays, I might not have known. Hope only knows because she was staying at his place, and you only know because you were with me when he called about leaving. Law is kind of … private.”

“He would have checked, though,” Ezra muttered. “He wouldn’t have just dumped the body.”

Hope paled and under her breath, she made a soft, broken little sound—almost a sob, but she cut it off before it could fully form.

Wincing, Ezra said, “Shit … uh, shoot. I’m sorry, Hope.”

Her face wan, she said, “I was up late. I … I have trouble sleeping a lot and I was moving around. Maybe …” she swallowed. When she spoke again her voice trembled at first, and then slowly, it steadied, firmed. “Maybe whoever it was saw me moving and just figured it was Law.”

Lena frowned. “They wouldn’t have been looking very hard, then. There’s no way anybody who can see is going to mistake Hope for Law.”

“Well, if they look and expect to see Law …” Ezra shrugged. “He’s not exactly Mr. Social, right? There weren’t any extra cars parked in front of the house, right?”

Hope gave a wan smile. “I’ve got a car, but I parked in the garage. He’s got room for a small fleet of cars in there.”

“Law likes his toys,” Lena murmured.

“So if nobody has reason to expect to see anybody but Law, then nobody is likely to look for anybody but Law,”
Ezra murmured. He rubbed his jaw and scowled at the stubble. Hell, he needed a shower. Needed to shave. Needed another five hours of sleep, and then, maybe a few dozen cups of coffee. Blowing out a breath, he looked at Hope.

No, there was no way somebody who had actually seen Hope would confuse her with Law. But if she hadn’t been seen … he closed his eyes and pulled up a mental image of the house.

Lights blazing. Blinds drawn. All of them, from what he could tell, looking at the front of the house.

“When we pulled up in front of the house, the blinds were drawn,” he said, flicking a glance at Hope.

She nodded. “Yes. I had a lot of lights on, but kept the blinds closed.”

“If the blinds were drawn, how did you see the man moving?” Lena asked softly.

“I looked out.” She rubbed her hands down her arms, staring off into the distance. “Law’s house, well, I’m just not used to it. It’s so big, and quiet. Worse at night. I was wandering around, in the TV room. The blinds on one of the windows … the slats weren’t even.” She grimaced. “I’m weird like that. I went to fix them and I felt … I don’t know.”

She licked her lips and then, her voice hushed, she murmured, “You know that expression, a ghost walked over your grave? Where something just feels really, really wrong? That’s what I felt. I looked out the window, just peeked through the blinds and that’s when I saw him.”

“You’re sure it was a man,” Ezra said.

“Yes.” Hope nodded and looked down at her hands. “He moved like a man. He was already close to the workshop, near the door. The top of his head was pretty close to being even with the top of the door—most women aren’t that tall.”

Ezra smiled at her. “You’ve got good eyes, Hope. You notice things.”

Hope didn’t say anything, just stared solemnly at him, her pale green eyes huge and scared. He gave her a reassuring smile. “It will be okay,” he said quietly. “Law wasn’t even in the state. He can’t get in trouble for this.”

She didn’t look convinced.

Lena slid a hand along the surface of the couch until her fingers bumped Hope’s leg. Gently, she patted the other woman’s knee. “Relax. Law’s going to be fine, okay?” Then she faced Ezra and gave him a breezy smile. “You know, this is kind of like my own personal version of
Law & Order
, or something.” She waggled her eyebrows at him. “It’s kinda sexy.”

To his surprise, Ezra found himself blushing and it got worse when he saw Hope darting a curious glance between him and Lena. “Yeah, police procedure is sexy, all right,” he mumbled, shoving up from the couch.

Behind him, Lena said to Hope, “I think I embarrassed him. Is he blushing?”

“Ah … yes. Um. I think he might be.”

“Shit.” Ezra scrubbed his hands over his face and shot Lena a dirty look. She might not be able to see it, but he’d bet his left nut she sensed it. She had an impish smile on her face, impish and unrepentant.

“So is he cute when he blushes, Hope?”

Now Hope was blushing and staring studiously at her hands, like they fascinated her. Chuckling despite himself, Ezra said, “Lena, now you’re embarrassing her, too.”

If the smirk on her face was anything to go by, that had probably been her intention—distracting the other woman.

“She’s probably more embarrassed with you pointing it out,” Lena said, grinning. “Why don’t you go make us some coffee or something?”

It sounded like a dismissal, but in that moment, he
didn’t mind. Caffeine was probably the last thing they needed on top of tired, addled brains, but he needed a few minutes to clear his head.

A few minutes to think.

And plan.

There was a woman dead now.

If it was the same woman Lena had heard a few days ago, then there was a problem.

Until a body was found, the only thing the sheriff’s department really had was speculation, instinct … and the word of a woman who wasn’t really known for making complaints.

It wasn’t a lot, but it wasn’t nothing either.

Now, there was a body.

But the body had been planted, and very deliberately planted.

If it had anything to do with what Lena had heard, then there were now a lot of problems for somebody in this small town.

The killer might not yet realize it, but his entire ploy had been shot straight to hell the second he decided to plant the woman on Law’s property.

Straight to hell.

And he’d been seen.

Lena had heard the screams.

Hope had seen somebody.

If it was all connected, once word of that got out, those two women were very likely to be in a lot of danger.

“N
OBODY, AND
I
MEAN NOBODY IS TO BREATHE A
word of this to anybody,” Nielson said, pausing to look each of his men in the eye. “Not your wives, not your priest, not your fishing buddy, nobody. Not even anybody else in the department. If the person wasn’t on the scene last night, they are not to be told a damn thing … am I clear?”

There was a low murmur of assents. Prather sat at the table, staring stonily outside.

“Prather?”

The sullen eyes that lifted to his had Nielson biting back a snarl. “I heard you well enough.”

“Anybody talks about this, I’ll find out. Until we figure out just what is going on, we keep this quiet.”

“I know what’s going on. A woman’s dead and she was found on Reilly’s land. He had to have something to do with it,” Prather snapped.

“And if he did, we’ll figure it out. But for now … nobody talks. Now all of you go, get some sleep.” It was Saturday and most of them weren’t even supposed to be on duty today. Nielson wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon. He’d gotten a message from Reilly—the man would
be arriving in Lexington in two hours and Nielson would be meeting him.

He wasn’t going to have any more fuckups happen on this.

Law had seen dead bodies—in person, not viewed on a computer, pictures, but actually in person. Twice. He’d even been to an autopsy—once. It wasn’t an experience he ever wanted to repeat. Ever.

But he’d rather look at those bodies in the flesh than at the digital stills of what had been done to this woman.

Bile churned in his throat, threatened to boil up, choke him, explode out of him as he reached up and touched the tip of one finger to one particular image.

She had a butterfly tattoo on the back of her right shoulder. It was a pretty, flighty little thing … so lively, so full of life. For some reason, seeing it on her lifeless body made his throat ache.

“You ever seen her before?”

Swallowing around the knot, Law said gruffly, “I don’t think so.”

It was hard to be sure, though. Her face was so battered, so bruised and broken. “Shit, what kind of person does it take to do this to another?” he muttered, more to himself than the sheriff.

“That’s what I plan to find out.” Nielson’s voice held no emotion, but when Law glanced up, for just a second, there was a flicker in the other man’s eyes. “So, you don’t know her?”

“I can’t be sure, but I don’t think I know her. It’s hard to say, though. Whoever did this, he beat the hell out of her.”

Looking up, he said quietly, “Do you know who she is?”

“We’re looking into that,” Nielson said. He placed
another photo before Law. “What about this … you recognize it?”

Law scowled and cocked his head. “Yeah. That’s my workshop.”

“Your workshop?”

“Yeah.” He grimaced. “I had this idea I was going to start fiddling around with woodwork or something. I dunno. I had a building off the main house—was mostly just used as a shed type of thing. Kept pool chemicals in there, lawn mower, that sort of junk. Converted half of it to a workshop but never really got around to using it much.”

“Why not? It looks like you invested some money in it.”

He had. But then he got bored with the idea. Plus, it had aggravated his wrists. Rotating his right wrist absently, he glanced up and said, “I ended up not liking it as much as I thought. Yeah, I invested the money, but I wasn’t thrilled with it once I started messing with it. So I stopped. I do that a lot.”

He looked back at the picture of his woodshop, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “You found her in there, didn’t you?”

Long, long moments passed before Nielson finally admitted, “Yes. Yes, she was found there.”

God. Law closed his eyes and leaned forward, resting his head in his hands. Hope. He’d left Hope there. Alone. She was already so battered …

“Was she killed there?” he asked gruffly.

“I can’t tell you that.”

Law’s temper snapped. Swiping out with his arm, he sent the pictures flying across the room. “Don’t give me that shit,” he snarled, surging to his feet and driving his hands down on the table. “I left one of my best friends in that house—alone—and a woman turns up dead a few hundred feet away from her. Did somebody kill that woman on my property?”