If You Know Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense

back?”
    “No.” Law sat down, tugged Nia down to sit with him. “She’s always either juggling calls, brides, or her husband … something. Roz doesn’t do boredom well. If she only thinks she’ll be a minute, that’s all she’ll need.”
    Then he pressed a kiss to her temple. “You’ll feel better when this is over, anyway.”
    “Hmmm.”
    Something silvery flashed in the corner of her eye and she glanced back at Roz, watched as the woman slid something from one hand to another.
    A bracelet.
    A fist reached up.
    Grabbed her around the throat.
    Law felt Nia tense next to him, although he wasn’t sure why. He reached up, rested a hand on her neck, rubbed the tense muscles there, not that it did any good.
    She was still sitting there. Tense and stiff, getting more so by the second.
    Staring at Roz as though she’d never seen her before.
    Leaning over, he murmured, “Are you okay?”
    She shot him a glassy-eyed look. “I … um …”
    “Okay, then …”
    Roz hung up the phone and Law looked at the other woman. “How are you two doing?” She flashed them a wide smile and winked. “Don’t tell me you’re here to set up a wedding.”
    “No. Nia needed …”
    Nia shot up off the couch. “Is there a bathroom?”
    Her voice, thin and strained, clued him in that something was wrong. Very wrong.
    Her pupils were mere pinpricks, all but lost in the dark gold of her eyes.
    Standing up, he caught her hand. “Nia, what’s wrong, baby?”
    “Just need the bathroom,” she said, her voice a faint whisper. She stared at him, but Law could have sworn she was seeing
through
him.
    “Use mine,” Roz said, giving her a gentle smile. “It’s just through that door.”
    Nia pulled away and headed toward the bathroom, her normally graceful moves awkward and jerky.
    What the …
    Roz arched a brow as the door swung shut behind her. “Everything okay?” she asked. She dumped something on her desk and pushed up, moving out from behind her desk to the small wet bar. Law liked to tease her about it, but he’d seen—from a distance—a few of the brides she’d worked with. More than a few of them probably were easier to handle if they had a glass of wine on occasion, not that many of them got into Roz’s private office. She probably had the liquor back here just so
she
could handle some of her bride-zillas.
    “I don’t know. Hey, you got whiskey, right?”
    Roz lifted a brow. “A little early for you to drink, isn’t it?”
    He scowled. “Me, but not you? And it’s not for me. Give me a whiskey and Coke—I think she might need it.” For whatever reason.
    “Hmm. You might be right. She looks like something freaked her out real fast.” She mixed up a whiskey and Coke and then grinned as she handed it over. “Maybe she doesn’t realize I do weddings and she thought you were here for one.”
    Law snorted. “She doesn’t spook that easy.” Still, keeping it casual, he skimmed a look around the room. “Can’t be anything in here. Even I’m not going to go ghost-white at the sight of a wedding dress, Roz.”
    He didn’t see anything. At least, he didn’t think he did.Roz’s office looked like it always did—a state of organized chaos. Glancing around the room, he frowned.
    Something wasn’t right.
    The bracelet—
    Bent over the sink, Nia sucked in a desperate breath of air.
    Hell. It wasn’t like the bracelet she’d seen in the pictures had been
unique
. Just the inscription engraved on the inside. And even that wasn’t exactly a one-of-a-kind twist of phrase, right? She hadn’t even seen it
close
.
    But her hands were sweating.
    Her gut was roiling.
    Adrenaline crashed through her so hard and fast and she could hear the blood roaring in her ears.
    The bracelet. Damn it. She had to see that damn bracelet. Had it belonged to Kathleen Hughes … the girl who died in Chicago? Was it the bracelet the killer had taken from her body? Why did Roz have it …?
    Nia’s hands clenched on the counter.
    Roz was married.
    A man’s face flashed through her mind.
    The name eluded her.
    But his face didn’t.
    Friendly eyes, Nia thought. He had friendly eyes.
    Ezra watched as Lena hung up the phone.
    The tension in her shoulders told him she wasn’t pleased about this.
    He didn’t give a shit if she was pleased or not. He would be spending a good, long while dealing with his crime scene and he couldn’t leave her alone either.
    She had just about gone through the roof when he told her he