If You Know Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense

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 allbut 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.
    Watching the big deputy crouch inside it made Ezra’s gut clench—the thing was nothing more than a big oven, one that got really, really hot. He circled around it, checking the display. It was dark, but still, it freaked him out seeing one of his men in there. Almost as bad as it had been seeing Roz—
    “Sheriff, there’s something weird about the back wall of this thing.”
    “Something weird about this whole damn thing,” he muttered, shaking his head. Then he sighed and headed back around to the front, peering inside.
    Mabry tapped the strange white bricks that lined the back.
    “They don’t match.”
    Ezra frowned. “I couldn’t care less if it matches or not, man. It’s not like we’re running a fashion show here.”
    Mabry shifted around more, giving Ezra a better view. “You’re not using your imagination there, Sheriff. Look.” He tapped the sidewall in front of him, then gestured to the other one. “See? These two, the material matches. The bottom, the top? All match. It’s the back that doesn’t. And look.”
    Ezra watched as Mabry used his flashlight and tapped it against the sidewall. Nothing happened. But when he tapped it against the back wall, the white brick crumbled.
    “You know how hot these things get?”
    “Really hot?” Ezra said helpfully.
    Mabry snorted. “How does about two thousand degrees or so sound?” He pointed to the back of the kiln. “The brick is supposed to help insulate against fire and stuff. How safe you think that is?”
    “Well, probably not very. But we’re not here for fire safety—”
    “This, here, Sheriff, is a patch job.” Mabry pulled a pocketknife out, wedging it in between two of the bricks. “There’s something behind this. I bet he doesn’t even use this kiln. It’s just here for show.”
    Narrowing his eyes, Ezra folded his arms over his chest and watched.
    It took more than an hour.
    But when they were finished, they found a small, secure little cache. Two locked metal boxes, long and skinny, the kind Ezra would expect to see in a bank’s vault. The first one held hair. More than a dozen different swatches, different shades, different textures.
    The other box, a larger one, was the most disturbing, though.
    It held ashy fragments of bone.
    Mabry looked up at him. “Is … ah, is that what I think it is?”
    The rest of his men gathered around to peer inside.
    Ezra blew out a careful, controlled breath as he studied the kilns. “How hot did you say these suckers could get again?”
    “Two thousand degrees, easy.”
    Gently, Ezra placed the lid back on the metal box. “The human body can be burned to nothing but ash andfragments of bone when it’s exposed to temperatures that high for a couple of hours.”
    “Oh, God.”
    He didn’t know who said it, but he echoed the sentiment. Somehow, he didn’t suspect they’d be finding many bodies. That was part of the reason Carter had gotten away with this for so long—there was never a trail. He picked women who weren’t from here, women with no connection to him, and instead of burying the bodies, he’d burned them.
    “Sheriff.”
    He glanced over. “Yeah, Kent?”
    The deputy stood by one of the workbenches, staring down at something. Needing to get away from that macabre discovery, he joined Kent. “I saw this earlier. Didn’t think much of it until you all pulled that out,” he said, his voice thin and reedy.
    Ezra frowned, looked at Kent, at his pale face, the sweat beading on his brow. Then