If You See Her (38 page)

N
IELSON STARED DOWN THE STREET, EYEING THE
blue sedan. He’d seen it before. Just once, from his window, the day Nia Hollister had come to his office, right before she’d left town that last day.

So far she hadn’t been back, but he wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing. She was too hotheaded and that worried him. Of course, Nia Hollister didn’t worry him anywhere near as much as what Remy Jennings had just told him.

Joe Carson. Hope Carson’s ex-husband. There was a possibility he had almost run her off the road, that he had been following her on the interstate.

After the attack on Hope, Nielson had done some investigating about Joe Carson and he had to say, he wasn’t too impressed with what he’d heard. Actually, he was downright pissed off. Nothing bothered him as much as a dirty cop.

Carson might not be on the take or anything like that, but a bastard who beat his wife, a bastard who had her locked away as he’d done … dirty didn’t even describe him. The problem was Carson had quite a few people snowed. People who thought the guy shit daisies and could do no wrong.

Nielson’s gut, though, said otherwise.

As did a few people who had been willing to talk, however abstractly. The words they said, and the words they didn’t say, were enough to leave Nielson with a bad, bad taste in his mouth.

Carson didn’t need to be in his town. That was all there was to it.

Nielson had enough shit going on around here—he didn’t need this. Hope’s safety could be in question. Plus … it was just a little too strange.

All these strange events started happening and there were too many connections to either Hope or Law or both. As much as Nielson didn’t want to think it was at all tied to either of them, he’d been a fool to overlook a possible connection.

Joe Carson was a connection. To both of them.

Slumping down in the seat of his off-duty car, he kept the sedan in his line of sight, watching. Jennings had asked him to watch Hope, and that was exactly what he’d do.

Somebody was fucking with his town and he was tired of it. Was damned tired of wading through blood. The Hollister girl. Prather. What had happened to Hope and Reilly.

Enough was enough.

It was almost lunchtime when he finally saw Hope appear. Her dark hair gleamed under the fall sunshine, and Nielson waited until she’d pulled away, watched as the blue sedan did the same thing.

He, himself, waited an extra few minutes. Then he pulled away from the curb. This shit, it was going to stop, damn it.

She was alone. Finally. When Joe had seen Jennings leaving, he’d been all but ready to make his move then,
but he knew better. Knew way too better. He couldn’t make his move in town. Couldn’t risk it, couldn’t do it.

“Fucking cunt,” he muttered, rage beating inside his head, an angry, roaring monster.

He’d watched them. The two of them, crawling all over each other.

His wife had fucked another man.

It made him sick, with fury, with disgust.

And something he couldn’t even name, because not once had she lain there all still and passive like she had with Joe.

“Fucking
slut
,” he snarled.

His hand itched, ached to pull his weapon, put a bullet in her head … badly, so badly he wanted to do that. But that wasn’t how they’d end it. No. She was coming home, damn it. Home.

He wasn’t giving up on his wife.

But he needed her out of town. Hell, even at Reilly’s would be fine, now, because Joe would be just as satisfied if he plugged a bullet between Reilly’s eyes. He’d enjoy doing that. Reilly was part of the problem, had always been part of the problem.

Hope wasn’t heading to Reilly’s, though. She was heading toward the interstate. No … that wasn’t what he wanted. Not what he wanted at all. Run her off the road—that was what he needed to do. Run her off the road, get her into his car. Yeah.

But as he revved his engine to pull up next to her, he heard a louder, throaty purr.

Just then, a line of motorcycles appeared in his rearview mirror. And damn, what a line … it stretched on endlessly. Fuck.

That sedan was back there. Hope tried not to shake. Was tempted to turn around. Tempted more to stomp
on the gas. But more than anything, she wanted to know if it was him. She had to.

The not knowing was worse than anything.

The not knowing was even worse than the fear.

An unknown fear was worse than a known fear and she was tired of it.

Her hands ached from clutching the steering wheel and she wanted to grab her cell phone, call Remy. Call Reilly. Call Ezra—somebody, anybody, so she wouldn’t be alone on this stretch of road with her abusive ex-husband shadowing along behind her.

“
Maybe
shadowing you,” she muttered.

She didn’t even know and that was driving her nuts. She needed to know—
had
to know …

The sedan edged closer. Closer.

Sweat turned her hands slippery and she bit her lip.

Shit. Shit.
Shit
—what should she do?

It was even closer now and she had the sudden, sickening realization that he was going to do something, something bad. Run her off the road. What in the hell was he thinking?

Something roared in her ears, loud. So loud.

Engines. A lot of them.

Shooting another look at her rearview mirror, she saw the sunlight glinting off the chrome of a motorcycle. Then another. And another.

A fricking procession of them, one that stretched back farther than she could see. For some reason, it made her smile, soothed the ragged nerves in her gut.

The sedan backed off, allowing more and more distance to grow between them. A few minutes later, her heart rate slowed to something resembling normal and she kept shooting a glance at the bikers behind.

Whoever would have thought she’d be that happy to see a bunch of motorcycles?

Still, that uncertainty loomed in her mind.

Was it him? She had to know. Had to. Although, in her gut, she already did.

When she saw the sign up ahead for the little mom-and-pop gas station on the outskirts of town, Hope hit her turning signal like she was going to slow down, moving into the exit lane. But just as she was pulling off and the blue sedan was edging to go around her, she sped up and looked over.

The driver looked over at the same time and she found herself staring into Joe Carson’s flat, emotionless eyes. It was him. Her gut knotted. Fear threatened to turn her bowels to water, darkening her mind. But she pushed it back. He smirked at her.

The sight of that smirk—that challenging
I-can-do-anything-and-you-know-it
smirk—flooded her with rage and fear. To her surprise, the rage edged in over the fear and she lifted a hand, flipped him off.

Without giving him another look, she pulled into the parking lot of the gas station, half-wondering if he’d follow her.

He didn’t, though. Her knees wouldn’t stop shaking. Still sitting there a good ten minutes later, she gripped the steering wheel and stared straight ahead, tried to convince herself she either needed to get out of the car, or pull out of the parking lot.

The bikers had pulled in behind her and through the crack in her window, she could hear them calling to each other, teasing and shouting. Just their presence grounded her, made her feel steadier.

Still, when somebody tapped on her window, her heart leaped into her throat and it scared her so bad, she screamed.

Pressing her hand to her mouth, she found herself staring at Sheriff Dwight Nielson.

He lifted a brow at her. Relief hit her, so hard and fast, it was almost dizzying.

“Oh, shit,” she mumbled. Clumsily, she fumbled with the keys and pushed the button, rolling the window down. “Hi, Sheriff.”

“Hope.” He bent over, resting his arms on the car door. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she lied. No, she wasn’t. She was scared to death, she thought she might get sick and her gut was a clenched, nasty mess.

“You sure about that? You been sitting here for a few minutes, staring at the parking lot like it might bite you.”

She shivered as she realized he’d been watching her. Who else …? Who else had been watching her? Had he turned around? How long had he been here?

“I’m fine,” she said again automatically. Then she stopped, shook her head. She couldn’t lie about this—shouldn’t lie. “Shit. No. I’m not fine. My ex-husband was just following me on the highway, Sheriff. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

For a long, long moment, he was quiet. Then he nodded. “Okay. You’re sure it was him?”

“Yeah.” She closed her eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure.” All too sure this time.

“Okay, then. Well.” He blew out a breath. “You want to see about filing a report? Some sort of restraining order?”

She laughed humorlessly. “It wouldn’t do any good against him,” she said quietly. “Nobody believes him capable of doing anything bad. They won’t see the reason for one.”

“You’re wrong there,” Nielson said quietly. “I believe he’s capable, and I see a reason. But I can’t make you do it and I can’t do it for you. It has to be your call. Completely your call.”

Something fierce, hot flooded her mind. Somebody
believed her … and not just Remy, although that was amazing, not just Law. Somebody believed her … 
her
.

Somebody believed her over Joe. Somebody believed in her. Trusted her.

If she hadn’t been so damn scared, she might have danced. But as it was, she managed a wan, tired smile and looked at him. “It’s a piece of paper, Sheriff. You and I know how little those sometimes do. Unless he wants to pay attention to it, it won’t keep him away from me.”

From the depths of her memory, she heard Joe’s voice, an ugly mockery of a promise, “ ’
Til death do us part, Hope … you’re mine
.”

No, I’m not
.

“Yes. It’s a piece of paper,” Nielson said, his voice soft and quiet. “We know sometimes they don’t mean much. But this isn’t his town, Hope.” He leaned in closer, his voice hard and flat, his eyes serious. “It’s mine. And I don’t let abusive bastards run roughshod through my town. File the report. Let me do my job. Let me help.”

He sounded so sincere. So serious. Licking her lips, she looked at him.

Then she stared back at the road, over the motorcycles that separated them. Those damn bikes. She had the weirdest feeling those bikes had spared her from something awful. Something horrible.

Closing her eyes, she nodded.

“Okay.” She blew out a breath and said louder, “Okay.”

She glanced down at the phone in the cup holder next to her, thought about calling Remy.

No. Later. She’d tell him later.

Remy stared at the slime-bucket who’d come in from Lexington to represent Pete Hamilton.

Thanks to this weasel, Pete was out of jail on parole,
but he wasn’t overly pleased with not being able to see his kids.

And for the past two hours, instead of being with Hope the way he wanted to be, he was dealing with this shit. Well, actually, the first hour and a half had been a different matter, a true emergency. Then this had cropped up when Frank Isaacs waylaid him at the courthouse, and it was the last damn thing he wanted to mess with.

Wife-beaters never ranked very high with him, but right now, the kind of man who’d put his hands on a woman … well, Remy’s patience was worn well past thin. If Hamilton had any sort of brains, if his lawyer had any understanding of Remy at all, they never would have bothered with this last-minute meeting.

And when Remy found out who in the hell had tipped them off about him being in the courthouse …

“No,” he said for the second time.

“Now I don’t see why you’re not willing to talk about a deal,” Isaacs said, a smarmy smile creasing his wide, pale face. He spread his hands and gave Remy his good ol’ boy smile. “What we have here is a private issue between a husband and his wife. It should remain that way, don’t you think?”

“Private issues between a husband and a wife cease being private when fists become involved and children see their mama being beaten in front of them,” Remy said, flicking an invisible piece of lint off his shirt. “Now is this really why you insisted on meeting? It’s the weekend, and this isn’t exactly what I’d call an urgent matter.”

Isaacs smoothed a hand down his silk tie. His suit was custom-made, Armani. Remy recognized the cut and he guessed he was supposed to be impressed, figured the bastard was thinking he was dealing with some smalltime yokel.

“I’m anxious to help my clients at any and all hours.
And Mr. Hamilton is just so despondent about his daughter’s birthday coming up.” He glanced over at Pete.

As if on cue, Pete looked down. In a mournful voice, he said, “It’s her thirteenth. That’s a special birthday, you know. She’s not going to be a little girl, anymore. Me and her mama, we’d wanted to make it special … I … look, I just want my family back.”

“Really.” Remy bit back a snort. “Special. Okay, so what sort of party were you planning?”

Pete shot a look at him. His lashes flickered. Rage danced in the murky depths of his eyes.

Remy cocked a brow. “So special and you can’t even remember what sort of party y’all were planning? Slumber party … cookout … costume party. You tell me, I’ll check with your wife, back up the story. You convince me how sincere you are.”

Pete’s mouth twitched, a mean snarl forming, but then he looked down. “Aw, now you know I’ve never been good at remembering that sort of thing, Jennings. It was always her mama that did the planning.”

“But it was so special—her not being your little girl anymore. Damn, it must really matter to you.” Shaking his head, he stood up. “Sorry. No deal. I plan on seeing you pay for the bruises you put on that woman, Hamilton. And for the scars you gave your daughter. Isaacs, next time you need to have this sort of conversation with me … call.”

On his way out of the courthouse, he checked his phone.

No messages from Hope. No calls. He was tempted to call her.

But he needed to go to his office now and get some paperwork done, thanks to his unexpected trip to the courthouse. It wouldn’t take long. An hour, maybe.