It wasn’t any secret Lena was close to Law. Ezra suspected that was why he’d been targeted.
It was a pretty damn clear setup in Ezra’s mind, although there was no telling if the guy had planned other shit. That thought made his gut tighten in dread. What else? What else might the killer be planning?
And what in the hell would he do once he figured out his little plan had just been blown to hell and back?
Any attempt to make it look like Law was the killer would now pretty much fall flat—all because the killer hadn’t realized Law was out of town.
“Is he always this quiet about stuff?” Ezra asked abruptly. “He takes off and only a couple of people know?”
Lena smiled tiredly. “Ezra, if it wasn’t for the fact that he usually runs me into town on Wednesdays, I might not have known. Hope only knows because she was staying at his place, and you only know because you were with me when he called about leaving. Law is kind of … private.”
“He would have checked, though,” Ezra muttered. “He wouldn’t have just dumped the body.”
Hope paled and under her breath, she made a soft, broken little sound—almost a sob, but she cut it off before it could fully form.
Wincing, Ezra said, “Shit … uh, shoot. I’m sorry, Hope.”
Her face wan, she said, “I was up late. I … I have trouble sleeping a lot and I was moving around. Maybe …” she swallowed. When she spoke again her voice trembled at first, and then slowly, it steadied, firmed. “Maybe whoever it was saw me moving and just figured it was Law.”
Lena frowned. “They wouldn’t have been looking very hard, then. There’s no way anybody who can see is going to mistake Hope for Law.”
“Well, if they look and expect to see Law …” Ezra shrugged. “He’s not exactly Mr. Social, right? There weren’t any extra cars parked in front of the house, right?”
Hope gave a wan smile. “I’ve got a car, but I parked in the garage. He’s got room for a small fleet of cars in there.”
“Law likes his toys,” Lena murmured.
“So if nobody has reason to expect to see anybody but Law, then nobody is likely to look for anybody but Law,” Ezra murmured. He rubbed his jaw and scowled at the stubble. Hell, he needed a shower. Needed to shave. Needed another five hours of sleep, and then, maybe a few dozen cups of coffee. Blowing out a breath, he looked at Hope.
No, there was no way somebody who had actually seen Hope would confuse her with Law. But if she hadn’t been seen … he closed his eyes and pulled up a mental image of the house.
Lights blazing. Blinds drawn. All of them, from what he could tell, looking at the front of the house.
“When we pulled up in front of the house, the blinds were drawn,” he said, flicking a glance at Hope.
She nodded. “Yes. I had a lot of lights on, but kept the blinds closed.”
“If the blinds were drawn, how did you see the man moving?” Lena asked softly.
“I looked out.” She rubbed her hands down her arms, staring off into the distance. “Law’s house, well, I’m just not used to it. It’s so big, and quiet. Worse at night. I was wandering around, in the TV room. The blinds on one of the windows … the slats weren’t even.” She grimaced. “I’m weird like that. I went to fix them and I felt … I don’t know.”
She licked her lips and then, her voice hushed, she murmured, “You know that expression, a ghost walked over your grave? Where something just feels really, really wrong? That’s what I felt. I looked out the window, just peeked through the blinds and that’s when I saw him.”
“You’re sure it was a man,” Ezra said.
“Yes.” Hope nodded and looked down at her hands. “He moved like a man. He was already close to the workshop, near the door. The top of his head was pretty close to being even with the top of the door—most women aren’t that tall.”
Ezra smiled at her. “You’ve got good eyes, Hope. You notice things.”
Hope didn’t say anything, just stared solemnly at him, her pale green eyes huge and scared. He gave her a reassuring smile. “It will be okay,” he said quietly. “Law wasn’t even in the state. He can’t get in trouble for this.”
She didn’t look convinced.
Lena slid a hand along the surface of the couch until her fingers bumped Hope’s leg. Gently, she patted the other woman’s knee. “Relax. Law’s going to be fine, okay?” Then she faced Ezra and gave him a breezy smile. “You know, this is kind of like my own personal version of Law & Order, or something.” She waggled her eyebrows at him. “It’s kinda sexy.”
To his surprise, Ezra found himself blushing and it got worse when he saw Hope darting a curious glance between him and Lena. “Yeah, police procedure is sexy, all right,” he mumbled, shoving up from the couch.
Behind him, Lena said to Hope, “I think I embarrassed him. Is he blushing?”
“Ah … yes. Um. I think he might be.”
“Shit.” Ezra scrubbed his hands over his face and shot Lena a dirty look. She might not be able to see it, but he’d bet his left nut she sensed it. She had an impish smile on her face, impish and unrepentant.
“So is he cute when he blushes, Hope?”
Now Hope was blushing and staring studiously at her hands, like they fascinated her. Chuckling despite himself, Ezra said, “Lena, now you’re embarrassing her, too.”
If the smirk on her face was anything to go by, that had probably been her intention—distracting the other woman.
“She’s probably more embarrassed with you pointing it out,” Lena said, grinning. “Why don’t you go make us some coffee or something?”
It sounded like a dismissal, but in that moment, he didn’t mind. Caffeine was probably the last thing they needed on top of tired, addled brains, but he needed a few minutes to clear his head.
A few minutes to think.
And plan.
There was a woman dead now.
If it was the same woman Lena had heard a few days ago, then there was a problem.
Until a body was found, the only thing the sheriff’s department really had was speculation, instinct … and the word of a woman who wasn’t really known for making complaints.
It wasn’t a lot, but it wasn’t nothing either.
Now, there was a body.
But the body had been planted, and very deliberately planted.
If it had anything to do with what Lena had heard, then there were now a lot of problems for somebody in this small town.
The killer might not yet realize it, but his entire ploy had been shot straight to hell the second he decided to plant the woman on Law’s property.
Straight to hell.
And he’d been seen.
Lena had heard the screams.
Hope had seen somebody.
If it was all connected, once word of that got out, those two women were very likely to be in a lot of danger.
“NOBODY, AND I MEAN NOBODY IS TO BREATHE A word of this to anybody,” Nielson said, pausing to look each of his men in the eye. “Not your wives, not your priest, not your fishing buddy, nobody. Not even anybody else in the department. If the person wasn’t on the scene last night, they are not to be told a damn thing … am I clear?”
There was a low murmur of assents. Prather sat at the table, staring stonily outside.
“Prather?”
The sullen eyes that lifted to his had Nielson biting back a snarl. “I heard you well enough.”
“Anybody talks about this, I’ll find out. Until we figure out just what is going on, we keep this quiet.”
“I know what’s going on. A woman’s dead and she was found on Reilly’s land. He had to have something to do with it,” Prather snapped.
“And if he did, we’ll figure it out. But for now … nobody talks. Now all of you go, get some sleep.” It was Saturday and most of them weren’t even supposed to be on duty today. Nielson wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon. He’d gotten a message from Reilly—the man would be arriving in Lexington in two hours
and Nielson would be meeting him.
He wasn’t going to have any more fuckups happen on this.
Law had seen dead bodies—in person, not viewed on a computer, pictures, but actually in person. Twice. He’d even been to an autopsy—once. It wasn’t an experience he ever wanted to repeat. Ever.
But he’d rather look at those bodies in the flesh than at the digital stills of what had been done to this woman.
Bile churned in his throat, threatened to boil up, choke him, explode out of him as he reached up and touched the tip of one finger to one particular image.
She had a butterfly tattoo on the back of her right shoulder. It was a pretty, flighty little thing … so lively, so full of life. For some reason, seeing it on her lifeless body made his throat ache.
“You ever seen her before?”
Swallowing around the knot, Law said gruffly, “I don’t think so.”
It was hard to be sure, though. Her face was so battered, so bruised and broken. “Shit, what kind of person does it take to do this to another?” he muttered, more to himself than the sheriff.
“That’s what I plan to find out.” Nielson’s voice held no emotion, but when Law glanced up, for just a second, there was a flicker in the other man’s eyes. “So, you don’t know her?”
“I can’t be sure, but I don’t think I know her. It’s hard to say, though. Whoever did this, he beat the hell out of her.”
Looking up, he said quietly, “Do you know who she is?”
“We’re looking into that,” Nielson said. He placed another photo before Law. “What about this … you recognize it?”
Law scowled and cocked his head. “Yeah. That’s my workshop.”
“Your workshop?”
“Yeah.” He grimaced. “I had this idea I was going to start fiddling around with woodwork or something. I dunno. I had a building off the main house—was mostly just used as a shed type of thing. Kept pool chemicals in there, lawn mower, that sort of junk. Converted half of it to a workshop but never really got around to using it much.”
“Why not? It looks like you invested some money in it.”
He had. But then he got bored with the idea. Plus, it had aggravated his wrists. Rotating his right wrist absently, he glanced up and said, “I ended up not liking it as much as I thought. Yeah, I invested the money, but I wasn’t thrilled with it once I started messing with it. So I stopped. I do that a lot.”
He looked back at the picture of his woodshop, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “You found her in there, didn’t you?”
Long, long moments passed before Nielson finally admitted, “Yes. Yes, she was found there.”
God. Law closed his eyes and leaned forward, resting his head in his hands. Hope. He’d left Hope there. Alone. She was already so battered …
“Was she killed there?” he asked gruffly.
“I can’t tell you that.”
Law’s temper snapped. Swiping out with his arm, he sent the pictures flying across the room. “Don’t give me that shit,” he snarled, surging to his feet and driving his hands down on the table. “I left one of my best friends in that house—alone—and a woman turns up dead a few hundred feet away from her. Did somebody kill that woman on my property?”
“Do you have reason to think Ms. Carson might be in danger?” Nielson asked mildly.
“Oh, fuck yeah, do I have reason. But you didn’t answer me. Was she killed in my workshop?”
Nielson opened his mouth and then abruptly he stopped, sighed. “Okay, let’s try it this way. I can’t give you all the answers you want … Ed O’Reilly.”
Law blinked. Then he slumped in the chair and rubbed his hands over his eyes.
Nielson chuckled. “Relax. I don’t plan on plastering it on the front page of the Daily. Although it would make great copy, I imagine. But I’ve known what you do for a few years and I haven’t mentioned it yet. Don’t see any point why that needs to change now.”
“A few years?” Law repeated, narrowing his eyes.
“I like knowing what’s going on around my town,” Nielson said, simply. “So here’s the deal. You’re an imaginative guy, a smart one, and you know a bit more about typical police procedure than the average Joe. You understand I can’t tell you everything—you know that. And you also know the more information I have, the quicker I can figure out what’s going on. So … if you’ll tell me what you can, I’ll answer what I can.”
“I’m not answering jackshit unless you tell me whether she was killed on my property,” Law said. He had to know. Had to—hell, he was going to raze that workshop to the ground anyway. But if some psycho had killed a woman in there … fuck, how could he tell Hope? He’d brought her here so she could feel safer … start to heal.
“Okay.” Nielson’s eyes held his. “You understand nothing I tell you leaves this room. I know you’re good friends with Lena Riddle, and you’re probably on a friendly basis with Ezra King. But you tell nobody.”
“I need to know … for me,” Law snapped. “Besides, King was out there. I bet he probably has an idea whether she was killed there or not, and if you don’t give me an answer, I’ll go ask him, and I just might do it in public where anybody can hear. He’s not too fond of at least one of your boys, Sheriff. Chances are, if I play it right, I can ask in front of Prather and I can do it in a way that Ezra will answer me just to piss Prather off … and you know it.”
“You can be a prick,” Nielson said. Then he sighed. “No. I don’t think she was killed there. I can’t be sure, but my gut says she was killed elsewhere, then placed there.”
It made it a little easier to think about going back to the home he loved. A little.
Not a lot.
Hope stroked a hand down Puck’s back, taking comfort in the warm, solid feel of him. He didn’t seem to mind her touch, but she didn’t think he was overly thrilled with it either.
It was weird the way he changed after Lena had put his harness on. He’d scampered and played around the house like any normal dog, although he’d stayed very, very close to his mistress, but the minute that harness went on, the dog was all business.
Something drifted through her mind and she said abruptly, “I’m not supposed to be petting him, am I?”
Lena smiled at Hope over her shoulder. “Normally … I’d say no.” A stern look crossed her face and she said, “And he knows it, too. When he’s got the leash on, he’s working. But the three of, hell, the four of us—Puck included—have had a shitty twenty-four hours. Just don’t do it outside the car. He likes to test things, especially in new environments, around new people. Just to see how much he can get away with.”
Hope pulled her hand back into her lap, and Puck shifted his big, brown eyes in her direction, giving her a sad doggy stare. Maybe he liked the petting more than she’d realized. Still, if she wasn’t supposed to be petting him, she wasn’t going to. “Don’t give me that look,” she said, keeping her voice low. “You’re on the clock.”
In the front seat, Ezra smiled a little. She was more at ease around the dog than anybody else, he’d noticed.
“Think Law’s done with Nielson yet?” Lena asked softly.
He shrugged. “Probably. Nielson doesn’t think he did it—this is just procedure, but he’s got to cover all the bases anyway.” He hesitated for a minute and then said, “I want to have something to eat in town.”
Lena grimaced and touched a hand to her belly. “Ezra, I can’t eat. I can’t.”
“I’m not hungry,” Hope said.
Ezra glanced at her in the rearview mirror and she looked away. “But I don’t mind drinking some coffee or something.”
He focused on the road and said, “I’m not hungry, either. But I still want us to sit down somewhere with Law. Someplace public.”
Something in his voice must have caught Lena’s attention.
“Why?” she asked.
She had her shaded lenses on and he couldn’t very well study her face while he was driving, but he didn’t have
to see her face to know she was probably looking at him with suspicion in her eyes. Smiling a little, he shrugged.
“I know small-town semantics. Whoever did this is probably just waiting around to see what happens. And that somebody is probably going to be shocked as hell when Law walks out of that sheriff’s station, free and clear.”
Lena nibbled on her lower lip.
“Won’t it be hard to tell if anybody is paying special attention?” Hope asked, her voice nervous and soft. “I mean, this is Small Town, USA, and Law … well, this is going to sound weird, but I get the feeling that the people around here seem to think Law is half off his rocker anyway. And a dead girl was found at his place—everybody is going to be looking at him.”
A grim smile curled Ezra’s mouth. “I don’t think everybody knows a dead girl was found at his place. Matter of fact, I know not everybody knows. Nielson was keeping that very, very quiet until he’d talked to Law. The cat will probably be out of the bag by later today, but for now …”
There was silence for a few minutes, nothing but the sound of the car speeding along the winding country road. Then Lena broke the silence. “A lot of the people around here do think Law is a little weird—some people think he’s into drugs, and there are a hundred stories to explain how he has the money to afford the place he built, even though he never leaves it for ‘work.’ He has a solid alibi, right? But still, there are going to be people grumbling.” She leaned her head against the back of the seat and sighed. “Poor Law.”
“Nobody who knows him could really think he’d kill somebody,” Hope said.
For once, that uncertainty wasn’t in her voice. There was a thin, unyielding layer of strength there that brought a faint smile to Ezra’s lips. He could tell by looking at her she’d been through hell. But she hadn’t broken—and if what brought that steel to her voice was the defense of a friend? He had to admire that.
“Plenty of people here don’t know Law.” Lena grimaced. “He prefers it that way. Hell, some of the rumors amuse him—I bet he probably feeds half of them, even though he denies it when I ask him about it.”
If You Hear Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense Page 22
