If You See Her (15 page)

This woman was probably a few years younger, but just a few and even with the slight difference in age, the similarity was … eerie.

Swallowing, he looked up and stared at the sheriff.

In the pit of his stomach, he already knew who she was.

But he asked anyway.

“Who is she?”

“Her name was Jolene Hollister.”

Ezra’s stomach sank.

Even before the sheriff continued, Ezra already knew.

“It’s the woman we found at Reilly’s place.”

Closing his eyes, he reached up and rubbed his hands
over his face, tried to battle down the bile rising in his gut. Shit, shit, shit. Fuck.

“They look enough alike to be sisters,” Nielson said. “Almost twins.”

“I’m not blind,” Ezra snarled, opening his eyes. “I can see that.”

Nielson nodded. “Yes, I know.” Then he put the picture away. “Do you think you’ve ever seen the woman before?”

“No, I haven’t.” As much as she looked like Lena, if he’d seen that woman before, he’d know. There was no way in hell he
couldn’t
know.

He blew out a breath, tried to reconcile the two images in his mind—the bloody, battered carcass he’d seen in Law’s workshop weeks earlier, to the woman in the picture. But he couldn’t. The woman, she’d been beaten, brutalized, beyond all recognition.

His heart started to pound, slow, heavy beats as something occurred to him. The screams … holy shit, those screams. The screams Lena had heard.

Fuck.

Was it somebody after
her
?

Adrenaline started buzzing through his system. He wanted to crawl out of his skin—find a target,
any
target. Instead, he kept himself focused. That was the only thing that would help right now.

“The screams Lena heard … how likely is it that it was Jolene?” he said.

“You know there’s no way we can know that,” Nielson said, shaking his head.

Ezra curled his lip. “Yeah, well, you’re perfectly capable of having a hunch. Of listening to your gut. My gut tells me this … it was that girl. The sick fuck who killed that girl was in the woods out by Lena’s house chasing her down—just yards away from her.”

Abruptly, he surged to his feet and started to pace. Shit.

The room was too damn small.

He felt caged in, trapped—so damned trapped, and helpless. Useless.

Completely useless.

Near the minuscule window, he stopped and rested his hands on the sill, staring out over the town square. Ash, Kentucky—middle of nowhere. Was supposed to be quiet, safe … boring. Some place for him to just sit, do nothing, while he figured out how to waste the rest of his sorry life.

He’d spent just a few weeks doing that, too. Then he met Lena. Bye-bye, Boredom. Now he was shit-faced in love with Lena Riddle, and ass-deep in the middle of a mess the likes of which he had never expected.

Stuff like this wasn’t supposed to happen in quiet, pretty little small towns. In an ideal world, it wouldn’t happen
anywhere
, but definitely not here.

He closed his eyes only to open them back up as the image of the dead woman’s face flashed through his mind, haunting him. Taunting him.

So like Lena.

What the hell.

“So why are you telling me this?” he asked softly.

“Because it seemed like what I needed to do.”

Ezra glanced over his shoulder and looked at Nielson. “Why?”

Nielson lowered his gaze and Ezra, despite himself, found himself doing the same. Although he couldn’t see the picture, he knew the sheriff was staring at it, seeing that woman’s pale, pretty face.

How old had she been?

What had she been planning to do with her life?

And what the fuck did it matter? Some bastard had robbed her of that. All of it.

“It could be nothing but a coincidence that she looks so much like Lena,” the sheriff said. He closed the file and set it aside before he looked up and met Ezra’s gaze. “It could just be one of those things.”

“But you don’t believe that.”

Nielson shrugged. “I don’t
not
believe it. But I’m also not going to discount any possible connection … and I’m not going to take any chance that she could become a target of his. Especially considering that she
did
hear something. The more aware you are of the situation, the more you’re going to watch her.”

Ezra scrubbed a hand over his face.

Shit, if he watched her any more closely, he’d have to hide in her back pocket. Not that he’d mind, but it might get a little tedious for her after a while.

Grimacing, he focused on the town square once more, watching the people as they passed by.

“I bet you never imagined anything like this happening here, did you?” he asked absently.

There was a long, heavy moment of silence and then Nielson sighed. “No. No, I didn’t. You know, some cops probably dream of shit like this—it’s the kind of thing that makes a career.”

Ezra nodded. He knew plenty of cops who would be all but salivating to have this kind of potentially fucked up case on their hands.

“Is that how you feel about it?” he asked, staring at the sheriff.

“Hell, no,” Nielson said, shaking his head. “I wish to God it wasn’t happening—wish more than anything else none of this had ever happened in my town.”

It was a bad thing to have a strain on a friendship.

Lena Riddle knew this very well.

She hadn’t had so many friends in her life that she could afford to be dismissive of any. But then again, because
she hadn’t had all that many good,
solid
friendships, she was still madder than hell that one of her supposedly
good
friends had dumped on another friend the way Roz had dumped on Law.

It had been a few weeks since it had happened, but still, walking into the Inn … well, it no longer felt like a second home.

With her hand gripping Puck’s harness, she made her way into the kitchen, half-hoping Roz would be busy with a phone call, a meeting. Hell, even upstairs screwing Carter.

But as the door to the kitchen swung open, she caught the scent of Roz’s familiar perfume and managed to bite back a sigh.

“Hey, Lena!”

The forced gaiety in her friend’s voice almost had Lena gritting her teeth. “Roz.”

“I was thinking about going into Lexington on Sunday … you wanna come with me?”

“Sorry.” Fortunately, she even had an excuse. She had some vague idea of doing a cookout—she had already planned on making Law bring Hope. Both of them needed to get out of the house. “I’m having Law and Hope over.”

“Oh … well. Some other time.”

The despondent tone in Roz’s voice poked at Lena’s conscience as she made her way over to the opposite side of the kitchen and knelt down, slipping Puck off his leash. “I’d invite you over, but I imagine you’re still not overly comfortable being around Law.”

Take that, conscience
.

“Lena, that’s not fair,” Roz said, her voice soft, hurt.

“Fair?” Lena shook her head. Hell. Her conscience could get screwed sideways. “No, Roz. What’s not fair is you thinking he could have killed that girl. So don’t bitch to me about fair.”

“How long are you going to stay mad at me about this?” Roz asked quietly.

“I don’t know. Maybe when you admit you were wrong?”

Roz was quiet.

Lena sighed and pushed a hand through her hair. “You won’t do it, will you? You know, I hate it when I screw up just as much as anybody else, but when I
am
wrong? When I’m unfair to somebody, I do try to own up to it. Whether I like it or not. Law’s a friend of yours and you were ready to all but throw him to the wolves—you never even gave him the benefit of the doubt, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Shit, Lena. You’re acting like I was ready to go and lynch him or something.”

“You thought he’d killed that woman,” she said, her voice low, angry. She had to fight not to yell. Her hands curled into fists and blood roared in her ears. “
He wasn’t even in town
, but screw that, it shouldn’t have mattered to his friends—it shouldn’t have mattered to
you
. I believed in him from the get-go. I can understand some people in town thinking that shit, but you
know
him and—”

She stopped, made herself take a deep breath.

She had to stop this, had to get past this, or she and Roz were going to push this friendship beyond any hope of repair.

She took her time hanging up Puck’s leash and went over to the sink, washed her hands. “You know him, Roz. You’ve known him for years, but you didn’t trust him, didn’t believe in him. That wasn’t fair and I’m having a hard time forgetting that, or forgiving that.” She dried her hands off on a towel and then turned around.

“Lena, it’s not like I wanted to think he’d do something like that,” Roz said, her voice hesitant. “I just …”

“It was easier for you to go along with thinking everything
the rest of town thought than to think for yourself?” Lena lifted a hand. “And you didn’t
want to think
it? You know, when I don’t
want
to think something—I don’t. It’s that simple. Then again, I’ve never been one for letting people think my thoughts for me. But that’s me. Maybe it’s not you. Whatever. For now, I think maybe you and I will be better if we just … take a break. We have to work together and right now, I’m sorry, but Law needs me a hell of a lot more than you do.”

“Are you saying … what, you don’t want to be friends anymore?”

With tears pricking her eyes, Lena shook her head. “No. What I’m saying is, right now, Law needs his
real
friends—those who are going to stand beside him, no matter what. And I’m not going to be pulled in two. If you’re ever able to be that friend to him, fine. But until then, until things are more settled around here, we have to work together, but that’s all I want.”

Roz said nothing.

A few seconds later, Lena heard the soft
swish
as the door swung closed.

Then she leaned back against the counter and wrapped her arms around herself.

One crazy thing she’d discovered about friends—you never really knew just who they were until everything went to shit.

She would have sworn that Roz would have stood beside Law. Solid and sure.

But she would have been wrong.

Considering how very little information he had, it sure as hell amounted to an awful lot of paperwork, Remy realized.

It was pushing eight thirty and outside, it was dark, the cool, brisk breeze heavy with the scent of fall.

He had an early morning meeting with another DA. He’d spent the past few hours coming to the realization that he couldn’t handle anything remotely connected to this case. He was too fucking close to it.

If it was just Reilly, he’d be fine.

If it was just the one murder victim, he’d be fine.

But throw Hope Carson into the mix … and
fine
went out the window.

And they were connected. Somehow, they were all connected. He knew it in his gut. Of course, if Nielson didn’t turn up some sort of evidence soon, this case could very well end up going absolutely nowhere.

With his mind on the case, and on Hope, when the phone rang, he wasn’t entirely thinking when he answered. “Jennings here.”

“Remington Jennings?”

It was a familiar voice and just the sound of it had Remy’s back up.

“That’s me,” he said. Years of practice let him keep the edge out of his voice, but he found himself squeezing the receiver and realized his other hand had curled into a fist.

“It’s Joseph Carson.”

Remy waited in silence—it was either be quiet or start snarling like a chained, trapped wolf.

When he said nothing, Carson elaborated. “Detective Joseph Carson … we’ve spoken a few times about my wife?”

“Ex-wife,” Remy said.
Ex-wife, you fucking bastard
.

There was a brief pause and then Carson said, “Of course. As I’ve said, I still have the hopes that we’ll reconcile.”

Over my dead body
. Forcing his muscles to relax, Remy said, “What can I do for you?”

“I was just wondering if everything was okay with Hope. It’s been a few days since we talked. I wondered
if anything new had been discovered. I’ve been worried.”

Yeah, I just bet you’re worried
. Remy had no doubts that Carson had been doing the exact same thing as him—investigating, checking up on things—things made so much easier by the Internet. Ash might be smaller than hell, but they did have a little, locally run newspaper, with a website, and plenty of people who’d talk to an out-of-state cop who knew how to ask the right questions.

“Ms. Carson is fine, as far as I know,” Remy said, keeping his answer noncommittal and impersonal—the last thing he wanted the bastard knowing was … well, much of anything about Hope.

“There haven’t been any more incidents?”

“None,” Remy said as he fantasized about creating his own incidents, mainly by doing bloody, brutal things to the man on the other end of the phone.

Then, reason started to override the rage, and he began to wonder just what in the hell the guy was expecting to hear. Why the hell was he calling?

Frowning, Remy checked the caller ID. Yeah, it was the same number he’d called when he’d spoken with the man.

“Has there been any progress made on the investigation?”

“No, but it’s early yet. Besides, I’m a DA, not a cop.”

“Yes, well, that didn’t keep you from calling me. Besides, if your small town is anything like my small town, sometimes the DA ends up doing a bit more investigating than the cops would prefer … asking all those questions like you kept asking me,” Carson said. “You still think she was attacked, though? No changes in that theory?”

“Oh, we’re pretty certain she was attacked, all right.”

“Seeing as how you’ve got some crazy stuff going
around … well, it would be an easy way for her to manipulate those details. Get you and the local boys into thinking whatever she wants you to think,” Carson said softly.

Remy damn near bit his tongue to keep from telling the bastard to shove it up his ass—hell, there was definitely a manipulator afoot, but it wasn’t Hope.