If You Know Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense

chilled glass, Nia smoked her cigarette and suffered the miserable silence alone.
    Her name had been Mara Burns.
    She’d been his first—a man didn’t forget his first. His first fuck. His first love. His first wife.
    His first kill.
    He’d had different firsts … Mara had been his first kill, and she’d been … sweet.
    It hadn’t been planned.
    At all. It had been back in college and she had been a hot, sweet little bitch, but the first few times he’d tried to ask her out, she hadn’t given him the time of day.
    That changed his senior year—and she’d been the one to ask
him
out. As a ploy to make a boyfriend jealous, mostly, and he had known. They’d gone out, fucked in his car. Then she whispered for him to hit her. To choke her.
    He hadn’t. But he’d imagined it.
    When he took her home, she’d mocked him, but he’d been so caught up in those images, he had barely noticed. That night, he’d dreamed about it. Choking her. Hitting her.
    Thoughts of it consumed him.
    Weeks passed, turned into months, they rarely spoke, but he saw her, and each time, it made those fantasies burn hotter. Brighter.
    One night she’d been walking home from her job. He’d seen her … because he’d been watching. Watching. Dreaming. He had offered her a ride. Because it was starting to rain, or maybe because she wanted to taunt him some more, she’d accepted. But then he hadn’t taken her home and she had put her bitch-face on. He’d backhanded her.
    Instead of getting pissed, or scared … she’d been turned on.
    They went back to the quiet, secluded little area outside of Lexington where they’d fucked that first night, and they went at each other like animals. They started out in the back of the car, moved to the trunk, and eventually ended up on the ground.
    He’d hit her, and she would come. He’d squeeze her neck until she almost blacked out, and she’d come harder. For hours.
    But then, toward the end of the night, as he was driving into her, chasing another climax, his fingers digging into her silken neck, he’d squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed … he’d let go, watched as she sucked in a ragged breath of air right as he climaxed so hard it had almost hurt, and he’d thought about how he hadn’t wanted to let go.
    Then, when she was smiling at him, he’d closed his hands around her neck.
    For reasons he couldn’t understand then, he’d started choking her again. And that time, he hadn’t stopped. Not when her heels beat on the ground, not when she had torn at his hands with her nails, real fear beginning to flicker in her eyes. Not even when her bowels and bladder had released.
    His mind had remained cool, detached throughout all of it, even as his heart had raced at the thrill.
    His first kill.
    Yes … Mara had been one of the most beautiful firsts of his life. A man didn’t forget his first. He’d worried for years somebody would discover her, discover what happened to Mara, and somehow link her back to him.
    But in the end, she wasn’t the one who was coming to haunt him.
    Hers wasn’t the face he dreamed of at night now.
    And she wasn’t the reason he had been forced to put a stop to his games for a while.
    Because he couldn’t indulge in those games, he was all but burning, all but dying to feel that thrill again, the pleasure he found only when he took a life. She wasn’t the reason he felt like a ticking time bomb, one that burned hotter, brighter, every damn day.
    No, that honor belonged to one Jolene Hollister and one Lena Riddle. Jolene had almost gotten away from him, had screamed bloody murder … and Lena had heard her screaming, had called the cops, had stirred up too much attention.
    Six months. It had been six months.
    He knew how to wait.
    Sometimes he felt like a lump of coal under extreme pressure, like he’d emerge a diamond—after a bit of polishing and cutting down.
    Other times, he just felt like he was going to explode and right now was one of those times. Six fucking months.
    It was worse being in here in this crush of people.
    A wedding was a big deal in a small town like Ash, though, and Lena and Ezra hadn’t spared any expense. The Inn was full to bursting. The reception had been going strong for more than an hour and he had no doubt it would keep going for another hour at least.
    He couldn’t even make a quiet escape, though. It would be too easily noticed.
    So he waited, chatted, and danced.
    He danced with the bride, he danced with