If You Know Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense by Shiloh Walker Page B

Need still pulsed inside her, making her head spin. Making it so hard to think, so hard to focus. “I just … um. Your friend, Lena. She …”
    “I’m running her to the doctor’s office,” Law said quietly.
    “Yeah.” She scooped up her robe from the floor and tugged it on, wrapping it around her suddenly icy body, needing the warmth. She hadn’t been cold until she’d stepped away from him. Hadn’t been cold at all. But now … Suppressing a shiver, she gave him another smile, a little less forced, a little more real. “You need to go,” she said quietly.
    He crossed the room, paused by the sink and washed his hands. Then he turned to her, cupped her chin. “Raincheck,” he muttered, pressing a hard, hungry kiss to her mouth. “Man, you’re doing bad, bad things to my head, Nia. Bad things.”
    For some reason, that made her smile. Only fair, she figured. She took one look at him and the ability to think clearly seemed to disappear.
    Guys didn’t affect her like that. They simply didn’t.
    But Law, she had already realized, wasn’t just any guy.

CHAPTER
EIGHT
     
    S HE DIDN ’ T TRACK HIM DOWN ANY TIME SOON .
    She was tempted, though. That rain check was one she definitely wanted to redeem. Nia couldn’t let herself get distracted by him, though. As appealing as he was, he wasn’t her reason for coming.
    Joely was, and damn it, she was going to find some answers.
    She spent the next few days researching, combing through archives and newspapers at the library, although at the oddest times, thoughts of Law would creep into her mind and she’d find herself thinking about him. She’d find herself thinking about heading out to his place, wanting to see him.
    A few times, she almost decided to go there. Almost. Something always stopped her, though.
    First, she needed to do what she came here for. Joely—she was here for Joely. Although, damn it, she was just spinning her wheels, it seemed like. Spinning her wheels, existing on nothing but Diet Coke and cigarettes and cereal. She couldn’t even find her much-needed Monster at the Circle K half the time.
    The archives were proving to be useless. Very useless. Nothing useful there, but then again, she really didn’tfigure the killer had taken any victims from his hometown. Stupid that.
    All sorts of women had gone missing, but without any bodies …
    The names, they blurred together on her, ran together like smeared ink, making no sense, one big jumble on her mind, with nothing standing out. By Thursday, she was so tired of reading about missing women, so tired of this self-assigned quest and wondering why she couldn’t do this from home. Instead of heading to the library, she went to the courthouse.
    Not to talk to Ezra, though. She didn’t have anything to talk to him
about
. She just needed something else to focus on—a starting point. Good thing she knew how to research like mad, because that
something
turned out to be going through the police reports in the weeks following Joely’s disappearance, bits and pieces she picked up on when reading through the archives and such.
    Had to love the open government thing—unless they played into open cases, nobody could tell her she couldn’t look at police reports.
    A lot of drunk and disorderlies. A lot of driving under the influences. More than a few reports that had something to do with spousal abuse. Nia sighed as she combed through them, figuring she was wasting time. After three hours, her head was pounding, her neck was stiff, and her eyes were gritty and dry.
    Lunchtime—she’d go until lunchtime and then take a break. Or maybe stop for the day. She needed a smoke, anyway. “Need to quit,” she muttered, although she was a little surprised she even cared. But she wasn’t going to worry about that right now.
    Five minutes before her self-imposed deadline, she came across a mention of a name that sounded very, very familiar.
    Lena. Lena Riddle.
    Lena … Yeah, they’d just gotten