If You Know Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense

while, at least. Lena and Ezra were occupied. She might as well poke around. And although she hadn’t taken it with her to Law’s, she
did
have another unregistered gun. One she’d be more than happy to use.
    Yeah, it was stupid—very damn stupid, she knew it. Dangerous.
    But Nia was going to take a chance on being stupid,on doing something dangerous, because she couldn’t live with this uncertainty in her gut, and unless she
found
something, nothing would change.
    Ezra King might have some doubts of his own—she wouldn’t be surprised.
    Law Reilly might suspect that not everything was exactly as it was reported in the official files. But suspicions wouldn’t do a damn bit of good if nobody ever bothered to look any deeper.
    Or look
at all
.
    That’s all she wanted to do right now—look. Look around some, see if she’d see anything, notice anything … or anybody.
    She parked her bike just inside the woods. It wouldn’t be a good thing if somebody saw and then called it in, reported it. Nia had no doubt Ezra would hear about it, and she didn’t want him rushing out here.
    He wouldn’t have any trouble figuring out what she was doing.
    So it was better she just not be caught. She kept the gun tucked into a holster just under her left arm—easy to draw, hidden by the light jacket she wore. Although it was hotter than hell, even under the trees. She’d rather be hot and alive than cool and dead.
    She also had a compass, used her phone to mark the position of her bike with the GPS—yeah, she’d done a few hikes before. She had bars on the phone, so hopefully she wouldn’t get too lost. Hopefully, she wouldn’t get lost at all.
    Moving into the perpetual twilight of the trees, she paused a moment, let her eyes adjust. She’d deliberately picked a spot close to Lena King’s place to enter the trees. From here, she could just barely make out the gap where Lena’s property started, although she couldn’t see the house, yet. It was back from the road just a bit and as Nia walked, she started to catch glimpses of thewhite-painted wood, the russet-red shutters, bright blooms of flowers.
    For reasons she couldn’t explain, seeing that house left her chest aching. Had tears stinging her eyes.
    She could almost see Joely struggling through the underbrush, struggling to reach the house.
    Could hear the footsteps behind her—
    A breath hissed out of her and she threw herself to the side, drawing the gun from her holster, staring around the woods, her back pressed to a tall oak. Listening—was there somebody following her?
    No.
    There was nothing.
    You’re going crazy, Nia
.
    Blowing out a breath, she closed her eyes, sent a look skyward. Over the next thirty seconds, her breathing calmed, her heart rate leveled out. Once she thought she might be able to speak without dissolving into the screaming meemies, she stared out over the trees … waited another minute.
    Nothing. No sound.
    Not even the breath of sound. Not even the suggestion of it.
    Okay.
    She took another slow step, and another … trying not to let thoughts of Joely crowd her mind. It was hard, though; she felt like there was nothing but the other woman’s memories, her thoughts, her losses, her aches, her sorrows, storming inside her.
    Focus on why you’re here. Not on Joely
, she told herself.
    But Joely
was
why she was here.
    Joely’s life … ended. Her wedding—the one that would never happen.
    Echoes of those dreams.
    Why?
    If Lena had heard screaming, if it had been Joely,
why
had she been
here
?
    Was there a house? Some place for him to hide her? To hide
them
?
    “No,” she muttered, shaking her head. Didn’t make sense.
    If there was a house here, Sheriff Nielson would have known—they would have checked things out. Investigated. A shiver raced down her spine as she took one step, then another, her footfalls crunching on the damp bed of twigs and leaves.
    Something—there had to be something out here.
    Moving deeper into the woods, her eyes running along the trees, she started down a slope. The trail abruptly veered to the north, away from the lip of a cliff. Cautiously, with a quick glance around, Nia edged off the trail toward that precipice.
    Something … had to be something.
    “No,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Not
something
. Someplace hidden.”
    She kicked at the rocky ground under her feet, an idea brewing in her head. A cave, maybe?
    “A cave,” Nia muttered. Abruptly, she passed a hand over her