If You Know Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense

chest, and if she hunched in any farther on herself, she might just disappear inside the seat.
    Sighing, Law said, “Bullshit. I saw you in the mirror hanging outside Roz’s office.”
    “What … you … I …” She ran out of steam and snapped her mouth closed. Thunking her head back against the seat, she sighed. In a quiet, almost desolate voice, she murmured, “It’s a bracelet.”
    “Okay.” His gut went icy and his hands went slick with sweat, but he kept his tone cool. So she’d taken a bracelet. He almost wished he could tell himself this was some latent klepto streak she’d developed under stress. But he knew better. “You want to tell me the significance of the bracelet, beautiful?”
    She licked her lips and shifted, reached inside her pocket.
    When she pulled it out, sunlight shining in through the windshield hit the diamonds and made it gleam. Somehow, Law suspected that wasn’t some JCPenney purchase. “Nice sparkly there,” he said, keeping his tone light.
    She didn’t respond, just flipped it over and studied the underside of it.
    “Pull over.”
    He shot her a glance. One look at her face had him arrowing the car for the side of the road and slamming on the brakes so hard, the car behind him laid on the horn. She barely got out the door before she started to puke.
    For my angel
.
    For my angel
.
    For my angel …
    The words seemed to shriek inside her mind, danced around like a horrendous, speed-induced hallucination. They had teeth, nipping and tearing at her flesh.
    For my angel …
And that tiny little flash of blue.
    She moaned and leaned forward, retching.
    A gentle hand came around, supported her brow. “Easy, Nia,” Law murmured. “Just breathe. Whatever it is … we’ll get through it. Just breathe.”
    She focused on his voice—on him. So much easier than thinking about the words that mocked her and taunted her.
    That bracelet. Oh,
fuck
. She’d been sleeping yards away from the man who’d kidnapped, raped, and tortured her cousin—renting a
bed
from him …
    Another spasm of nausea hit her, doubled her over.
    It seemed like ages before it passed, before it ended.
    Her face stung and burned, and tears soaked her flesh.
    But when she went to straighten, the nausea, while it lingered, didn’t pounce on her anew. Something hard and round was pushed into her hand. Looking down, she saw a bottle of water. Puzzled, she glanced at Law. He shrugged. “Maybe I should have been a Boy Scout. I keep water in the back.”
    She nodded and twisted the top off. It helped, rinsing her mouth. She didn’t trust her belly enough to drinkanything. Spitting it on the ground, she closed the bottle and then eased herself down to sit on the car’s seat, her feet still outside.
    “We need to go into town,” she said quietly. “Talk to Ezra.”
    Looking down, she stared at the bracelet she still held clutched in her hand.
    “Okay.” He knelt next to her, touched one fingertip to the glimmering piece of jewelry. “Mind telling me what this has to do with anything?”
    Sympathy glinted in his eyes as he looked up at her. “Was it Joely’s?”
    Nia shook her head. “No. I think it belonged to the woman he killed in Chicago a few months ago. Her name was Kathleen Hughes.”
    He tugged on it gently, staring at it. Then he looked at her. “Baby, this looks like it could have been bought at just about any decent jeweler’s. It looks expensive, but …”
    With a shaking hand, she reached over and turned it, exposing the inscription. And the little sapphire. “Yeah. It could have been bought at just about any decent jeweler’s. But the odds of Roz having the exact same inscription, and the exact same stone set on the inside?” Her voice shook, both with fury and fear. “No.”
    “Shit.”

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
     
    H E COULDN ’ T CONCENTRATE .
    Something was niggling him in the back of his mind and Ezra couldn’t focus on his work to save his life.
    Swearing, he threw his pen down and leaned back in the chair, blanking his mind. Once he did that, a face settled there. A man.
    Familiar. But … not. Something off.
    He’d seen him before—
    He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to remember.
    Courthouse.
    At the courthouse when Nia had been going through records. Something about him had struck him as familiar. But not.
    The eyes …
    The answer hovered just
there
, just right outside his reach. He could
almost
feel it forming, almost feel the pieces settling into place.