If You Know Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense

up to look just that way. Her fingerprints were all over the bat that had been used on me. But then other evidence came up and I came out of the coma …”
    “Coma—” Nia snapped her mouth closed, passed a hand over her face.
    “Yeah.” He crooked a grin at her. “You said you’d done some digging around … didn’t you read up on that night?”
    She looked away. “Not so much about that night. I skimmed some things, but reading about you and Hope … well, not exactly what I wanted to do.”
    “Shit. There
is
no me and Hope.”
    “Yeah. I get that.” She glanced back at him. “What exactly are you getting at? Other than trying to distract me?”
    “Like I said, I’m wondering now. About everything. First people thought it was Hope. Then we started wondering if it was whoever had put your cousin’s body here. But then Joe Carson shows up and it looks like it was him—everything circled back to him, and it was like people almost forgot about the weird shit going on
before
. The screams Lena heard. What happened out there. Everybody just assumes Joe was the problem.”
    “And you’re thinking otherwise.” Nia tilted her head to the side, studying him.
    He jerked a shoulder in a shrug. “I’m thinking it’s a damn clever way to distract everybody.”
    She was no longer shooting glances at the front door—no longer measuring the distance between them, like she was trying to figure out if she could get to the door before he got to her. Although she didn’t have a car. And she hadn’t grabbed any of his keys—he’d made sure of that.
    Hoping that meant she was cooling down, he took a few steps closer, watching her face, staring into pale gold eyes. “What’s it going to hurt to wait another day, baby?” he asked softly. “This way, you got the sheriff with you, and he’s not worrying about his wife. Plus we can let Remy know what’s going on, too.”
    She sighed, shoved her fingers through her hair. “I hate waiting,” she muttered.
    “I get that. But a day …? And I know this is killing you, but whether you like it or not, if all this shit really is happening the way you think, this is tied to all of us now. This bastard pulled all of us into it—Lena could be in danger, Hope could,
you
could.”
    “Just the women, naturally,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Or have you forgotten somebody beat the shit out of you?”
    Law scowled. “Beat the shit out of me, busted up my arm—and tried to kill my best friend? No. Haven’t forgotten that. But on a scale of one to ten? What happened to me is a zero compared to what happened to Hope. What
could
have happened to you the other night. And hell, Lena would kick my ass, but if she’s left alone? She’s too vulnerable. All it takes to get to her is getting Puck out of the way.”
    The look in his eyes tore Nia’s heart up. And then she realized just
why
he was so worried about Lena being alone.
    “Oh. Oh, shit …” Rubbing the back of her hand over her mouth, she wanted to kick herself. “Yeah, no wonder Ezra doesn’t want her alone. Damnit, does she even know what’s going on?”
    Law shrugged. “I don’t know what he’s told her. I figure he’s probably told her some stuff, but how much? I don’t know.”
    She saw him reaching for her and while a huge part of her still wanted to tear out of there and find what she’d come here for, she held still. As his fingers laced with hers and tugged her close, she stared into his eyes, waiting. Yeah. One day didn’t matter much … and it was getting late. It had been about this time, maybe a little later when she’d gone into the woods the other day. Ifthey really wanted to do some digging around, they needed more daylight.
    He cuddled her close. “Will you wait?”
    “You’re bossy,” she said on a sigh. But she slid her hands around his waist and tucked her body against his. “Why am I even putting up with this?”
    “Hmmm.” He skimmed a kiss down along her neck, murmured in her ear. “Maybe because you know I’m right. Because you agree. You just don’t feel like you should?”
    Scowling, she poked him in the ribs.
    He laughed. Then he caught her wrists, loosely braceleted them with his fingers. “Well, would it help if I told you I’m not letting you out of this house? You could pretend you had no choice?”
    Nia rolled her eyes and lifted her head from his shoulder. “Yeah, the Neanderthal act will really help.”
    She went to pull away but there was