If You Know Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense

first. More like a mile and a half, and it was a waste of time. It had long since caved in. The second one wasn’t in much better shape.
    It was a harder hike to get to the third, although distance-wise, it wasn’t as far from Lena’s house—it was a hike down the cliff, and by the time they got down to the base, Ezra looked ready to bite something in two.
    Law didn’t blame him. They’d been out there for more than two hours and the way their luck was going, they’d be out there another three hours before they hit all the areas. This third one wasn’t proving as easy to find as it should be, either. They’d been in the area for thirty minutes and still, nothing.
    Swearing, he stopped and studied the map, aware that Nia was all but mindless with impatience. He wished he could do something, say something to help, but he had nothing for her.
    He checked the compass once more, then the map. “Okay, we need to leave the trail,” he said. “The trails aren’t going to take us where we need to go anyway.”
    Ezra nodded, his face grim, mouth set in a firm, flat line.
    Nia all but took off running—or would have if Law hadn’t caught her arm. “Together,” he said softly. “We need to stick together, and slow down now. We shouldn’t be too far off.”
    She rolled her eyes but remained at his side. “Just what are we looking for, anyway?”
    “I’m not too sure,” he said, sighing. “This is farther in than I usually come. I’ve done some walks with Lena, but she doesn’t come near the cliffs and she knows I’m not fond of hiking, so we don’t generally come this far back. I’m out of my depth here. The big, bad sheriff over there doesn’t do much hiking, either, I don’t think.”
    Ezra grimaced. “Shove it, Reilly.” His limp had become more noticeable over the past hour and harsh lines bracketed his mouth.
    With a faint smile, Law kept walking, easing deeper into the undergrowth.
    “There,” he muttered. “Shit, I bet it’s in there.”
    There was an odd growth of greenery there—something that didn’t quite match with the rest of the forest. If he hadn’t been
looking
for something out of place, he wouldn’t have noticed, not in a million years.
    “What?” Nia asked.
    “I’m not sure yet.” He drew closer and his paranoid mind had him going slower, slower … nothing. But his skin was prickling, all over.
    “Damn it, are you part snail?” Nia hissed behind him.
    He shook his head.
    Ezra muttered, “Keep your eyes peeled, Reilly.”
    He grunted, still inching forward. As he placed his right foot down, something creaked.
    Wood—
    Carefully, he lifted his foot. Narrowing his eyes, he used his foot to sweep it back and forth over the forest floor—or what
should
have been the forest floor.
    But it was cloth—durable, thick cloth, the same indistinguishable shade of brown as the ground, covered with leaves and dirt. He backed up and crouched down, searching for the edge of it. Once he’d found it, he started to lift it. Nia gasped and lunged, but Ezra caught her. “Slow down,” he said brusquely. “We don’t know what we’re looking at yet.”
    “But …”
    “I said
slow down
. Reilly, come on. We need to mark the area—I’m going to call some favors in, have some friends come in and help me …”
    Law tuned them out. Yeah, he knew what Ezra wasthinking. He suspected the sheriff hadn’t entirely expected to
find
anything but more of what they’d already found.
    This … well, it was unexpected. Somebody had gone to the effort to hide this, and that was already an oddity. The cop’s mind was probably in overdrive now, whirling and spinning, either thinking about a compromised case, or maybe down the same direction Law’s had gone—Law was a paranoid bastard. Maybe this guy was, too. Maybe there were traps …
    But he got the cloth up without incident and found himself staring at a door, set in the earth.
    He reached for the iron handle.
    “Damn it, Reilly.”
    Lifting his head, he glanced at Ezra over his shoulder. “You want to call them and say,
Hey, I found a cellar. Come out here and help me make sure nobody died in it
. Or would you want something that looks … nefarious?”
    Ezra opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. Finally, he snapped, “I can’t
use
anything that I find down there. Not a damn thing.”
    “No.
You
can’t. If
you
go in right now, into this place that’s not on
your
territory, and
you
find something that could become