If You Know Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense

was in the woods. I could hear her screaming, screaming for help.”
    Subject described the voice as female. Heard the voice call out five times and claims the screams came from the woods to the east of subject’s property
.
    The subject. That would be Lena.
    Shit. Lena heard somebody screaming … screaming in the woods by her house. After a few days of nothing but frustration and emptiness, Nia’s headache was gone, replaced by the low-level burn of excitement, the hum of her instincts.
    This
was something. She didn’t know how she knew it.
    But it was something … She needed to check out those woods.
    Of course, she suspected the sheriff wouldn’t be too pleased if she was out there trespassing.
    So she’d have to make sure she wasn’t caught.
    “I heard you were down here.”
    Speak of the devil …
    Nia didn’t flinch at the sound of Ezra King’s voice, nor did she blush. She neatly gathered up her notes before she looked up at the sheriff.
    “Hello, Sheriff.”
    He eyed those reports for a second, then shifted his gaze to her face. “Heard you’ve been spending a lot of time reading up on police reports, checking out the archives.”
    “Yes.”
    “Anything interesting?”
    “The town has an awful lot of people with the last name of Jennings,” she said dryly. “And more than a few people who can’t hold their liquor.”
    “Ain’t that the truth,” he muttered, shoving a hand through his hair. “But somehow, I don’t think that’s the sort of thing keeping you from going back to Virginia, Miz Hollister.”
    “It’s not.” She slid her notes into her bag, then her laptop. “I’ll go back when I’m ready.”
    “And when will that be?”
    She shrugged. “Man, some of you are really interested in how long I’m hanging around. A girl might think she isn’t welcome. Between you and Law …”
    “Law.” A grin tugged at Ezra’s mouth. “Yeah, I heard you went out with him on Monday.”
    “We didn’t go out. We just ended up at the same place.”
    “And then he took you back to your hotel,” Ezra finished, still grinning. “Brought you coffee the next day and you answered the door all but wearing your birthday suit.”
    Nia narrowed her eyes.
    “Small-town gossip. It’s effective.”
    “That Sparks woman is a malicious bitch,” she said.
    “True. Although she’s not the one who mentioned the fact that you two were seen leaving the Grill on Monday. I actually heard that one from a deputy of mine.” He glanced back at her desk, but Nia had already cleared it of anything that might give him an inkling of whatshe’d been looking at, other than the police reports, and he’d known about that hours ago—he even knew which reports she’d asked to see. He’d be checking out those reports later, too.
    “Well, I’m glad my personal life is so interesting to everybody,” she drawled.
    “Hey, you’re not from around here and you’ve got something interesting attached to your name,” Ezra said, shrugging. “If you thought people weren’t going to pay attention, especially if you start hanging around somebody like Reilly … well, then you weren’t thinking too clearly.”
    “And what’s wrong with Reilly?” she demanded, only to snap her mouth shut the second the words left her mouth.
Damn it
. “You know what? Never mind. It’s not like I’m looking to marry the guy. I got to go.”
    No, she didn’t. Not really.
    But she’d managed to keep Law Reilly out of her mind for the past few hours and she’d like to keep it that way. Except now, it was a little too late. Ezra had opened those gates back up and once more, thoughts of Law were dominating her thoughts.
    “Shit.” Ezra rubbed the back of his neck as Nia stormed off.
    He’d handled that well.
    “Hey, Sheriff.”
    Distracted, Ezra looked up, saw a familiar face—Jennings—one of the infinite Jenningses. Pleasant face, blue eyes, and wire-rim glasses, bald … the man was familiar, but Ezra couldn’t place him.
    The name escaped him for a minute, and just then, he was too aggravated with himself to worry about wracking his brain for a name.
    He needed to catch up with Nia—talk to her, and forget her love life.
    All the prying around she was doing, well, he wanted to know if she had seen anything that caught her eye, and he also wanted to make damn sure she was being careful.
    Lately, he was feeling twitchy. He hadn’t felt this twitchy since the day Lena had told him about the screams