If You Know Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense

bad.”
    “Worse,” he muttered. He shoved a hand through his hair. He fucking needed a drink, but couldn’t. Not yet. Probably wouldn’t be wise to have one later, either. Not until he’d figured out how Nia was going to react. If she had any plans on slipping away, he had to be ready, had to watch her …
    This was probably all over town by now.
    “Did you hear?”
    He held the coffee cup loosely, focused on doing just that because he wanted to crush it. Wanted to hurl the steaming liquid in Natalie Walbash’s pretty face. Instead of doing that, he gave her a puzzled smile. “Heard what?”
    Of course he’d fucking heard—
    Everybody in the whole damn town knew. The sheriff’s department was crawling all over the woods. His place. They knew about his fucking place.
    Nia—
    “Something weird is going on down in the woods between where Lena and Ezra live and the Ohlman property. I don’t know what—I’ve heard everything, too. Somebody said they found where a cult worships, andsomebody else said they found a serial killer’s hangout, and somebody else said it’s where they stashed money from a bank robbery. But something is
weird
.”
    He forced a wry note into his voice and asked, “I wonder if the next story is going to involve little green men from Mars. Or maybe it’s the secret hideout for a vampire …?”
    Natalie rolled her eyes. “Please. Not vampires. I’m so tired of them. Grandma is getting hooked on them. She likes the ones that sparkle.” She topped off his coffee and looked up as the bell over the door jangled. The café was already packed, but it was only going to get worse.
    Which was why he was there. The best place to hear news. Gossip.
    Everything.
    “I’ll be by in a few minutes,” she said, smiling at him. Then she was gone.
    Leaving him alone. He stared down into the dark, steaming brew, but he didn’t see it. Didn’t see the cup, or the table … it wasn’t Natalie’s voice he heard, or anybody else.
    He saw Nia, as she’d looked coming out of the forest. And he was imagining how she would have sounded if he had just aimed his van for her, run her down.
    It would have been too quick. Too easy. And
over
. His secrets would have been safe. His hands trembled, the coffee splattering out, but he barely noticed.
    Damn that fucking whore. He shouldn’t have left his things there. Not after last night. But how could he have risked moving them
then
? With her poking her nose into everybody’s business and showing up exactly where she shouldn’t be …
    Damn her.
    “… wasn’t that Carson guy.”
    He stiffened. Without turning his head, he slid his eyes to the side, trying to find the speaker.
    Female—ahhhh … bingo. He knew her. Married to one of the deputies, too. Ethan’s wife. Oh, this was priceless.
Exactly
why he was hanging around here.
    “What do you mean?”
    She shook her head, her mouth drawn tight in a frown. “I don’t know. He wouldn’t say anything else. I get a feeling I might not be seeing much of him for the next few days.”
    “Shit. I don’t want to think that we might have another crazy fuck running through our town. What in the hell is going on around here lately? The Carson guy, all the insanity last summer …”
    Idly, he reached down and stroked the knife he’d used to cut up the steak he’d ordered for lunch. He imagined taking it, standing and moving to stand behind the gossiping bitch just behind him, a little to the right. Grabbing her hair and jerking her head back, exposing her neck. The spray of blood as he dragged the blade over her flesh.
    She’d be dead before anybody realized what he’d done, most likely.
    Everybody would be so shocked—
    You’re slipping
.
    Because the image was so enticing, so rich and intriguing, he pushed the knife away, folded his hands around his cup of coffee. Too enticing, too intriguing.
    He was slipping …
    No. No, you’re not. You’re in control
. He was in control. He’d always been in control. He didn’t notice that as he set his coffee down, his hands continued to tremble.
    Nia stared through the windshield. “I don’t give a flying fuck if you want me alone or not. I said,
take me back to my cabin
.”
    “Damn it, Nia.” He slammed a fist into the steering wheel. “Don’t you get it? You were right, okay? Somethingfucked up is going on, all the more reason for you to be careful and you want to go back there?”
    “Not especially.” She slid him a thin-lipped