If You See Her Read online

  If You See Her is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Ballantine Books eBook Edition

  Copyright © 2012 by Shiloh Walker

  Excerpt from If You Know Her copyright © 2012 by Shiloh Walker

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BALLANTINE and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book If You Know Her by Shiloh Walker. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-51758-6

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Author’s Note

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Excerpt from If You Know Her

  Other Books by This Author

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  “SHE’S A DISTURBED WOMAN, I’M AFRAID TO SAY.”

  Remington Jennings pinched the bridge of his nose and tried not to think about the sad green eyes and silken brown hair of one Hope Carson. “Disturbed, how? Can you help me out any here, Detective Carson?”

  On the other end of the line, the man sighed. “Well, I’m reluctant to do that. You see, I wouldn’t have a DA on the phone, asking about my wife, if there wasn’t trouble. And I don’t want to cause her trouble.”

  “She’s your ex-wife and she’s already got trouble. Do you want her to get the help she needs or not?” Remy asked, his voice taking on a sharp edge. Hell, anybody with half a brain could see that woman wouldn’t hurt a fly unless she was just pushed …

  “You want to help her, is that it, Jennings?” The detective laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. It was sad and bitter.

  “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have called. I’m not trying to lock her up and throw away the key here. Help me out, Detective.” Damn it, Carson, gimme a break.

  “Help you out. You mean help you help Hope.” Once more, Joseph Carson sighed. He was Hope’s ex and a cop from out west. He was also proving to be one hell of a pain in the ass.

  Faintly, Remy heard a heavy creak. “Mr. Jennings, pardon my French, but you can’t help Hope, because she doesn’t fucking want help. She’s a very troubled young woman. She … shit, this is hard, but we hadn’t been married very long when she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. She’s manipulative, a chameleon—she can make a person believe whatever they need to believe. You might think you’re seeing a woman you can help—if she’ll just let you. But that’s not the case. You’re seeing what she wants you to see.”

  Remy clenched his jaw, closed his hand around the pen so tightly it snapped.

  Shit—that … no. Not right. Everything inside screeched just how wrong that was. It couldn’t be right—it just couldn’t.

  But his voice was cool, collected, as he said, “Borderline personality disorder, you said? Does she have a history of violence?”

  Long, tense moments of silence passed and finally, Carson said, “Yeah. There’s a history of violence. Only against herself … and me. I kept it very well hidden. I didn’t want people thinking bad things about her, and on my part … well, I was ashamed. For her, for myself, for both of us. It wasn’t until things got really bad that I couldn’t hide it anymore.”

  “You’re telling me she was violent with you?” Remy knew he needed to be making notes, processing this.

  But he couldn’t—couldn’t process, couldn’t even wrap his mind around it. That woman lifting her hand against somebody?

  No. The picture just wasn’t coming together for him.

  “Yes.” Carson sighed once more.

  “So you’re telling me she does have a history of violence?”

  “Shit, didn’t I just go through that?” he snarled.

  Remy clutched the phone so tight, it was amazing the plastic didn’t crack. This was wrong—so fucking wrong, and he knew it, knew it in his bones.

  She’s manipulative, a chameleon—she can make a person believe whatever they need to believe. You might think you’re seeing a woman you can help—if she’ll just let you. But that’s not the case. You’re seeing what she wants you to see.

  Damn it, was he just letting her lead him around, he wondered?

  Right then, he wasn’t sure.

  He took a deep, slow breath, focused on the phone. “Can you give me some examples? Tell me what happened?”

  “Examples. Shit.” Carson swore and then demanded, “Why should I tell you this? Just answer me that.”

  “Because if she’s got a mental disorder, then she does need help and if she needs help, I’d rather her get help then get locked up. You should know her better than anybody. So if you do care about her, help me help her. Come on, Detective. You’re a cop. You’re sworn to uphold the law, to protect people. If your wife could prove dangerous …”

  “You fucking lawyers, you always know what to say,” Carson muttered. But there was no anger, no malice in his voice. Just exhaustion. “Yeah, you could say she has violent tendencies. You could say she has a history of violence. She’s very manipulative and all those violent tendencies get worse when she doesn’t get her way. She becomes unstable, unpredictable. There is no telling what she might do to somebody she perceived as being in her way.”

  Abruptly, his voice lost that calm, detached tone and he snarled, “There. I gave you all the dirt you needed and don’t tell me you can’t use that. God help me, I hate myself even though I know she needs help. Now tell me what the fuck is going on!”

  Remy blew out a slow breath and said, “She’s in the hospital at the moment—attempted suicide. Plus, there was an attack on a friend of hers. It looks like she might be responsible.”

  “Fuck.” The word was harsh, heavy with fury and grief. “She’s tried to commit suicide before, so as much as I hate to hear it, that’s not a big surprise. But the friend … you said there was an attack on a friend?”

  “Yes.” Remy scowled absently at nothing. “Maybe you’ve heard of him—it seems like the two of them go back quite a while. The name’s Law Reilly?”

  “Reilly.” Carson grunted. “Yeah. I know Law. I wish I could say I was surprised to hear that she’d turned on him, but Hope’s always had a way of turning on those who’ve tried to help her. Those who care about her.”

  Remy closed his eyes.

  Damn it, was there anything this guy could say that would make it a little bit easier for him to figure out how to handle Hope?

  Of course if he wanted her put away, this guy would be making his whole damn night.

  But right now, he could almost hear the cell door swinging shut on her and it was just tur
ning Remy’s stomach. “So you think she could have hurt Mr. Reilly?”

  “With Hope, I just don’t know. The one thing I do know? She’s capable of just about anything. I also know that I wish I could help her. Hell, I’d like to believe you can. But I know I can’t, and I can’t believe you can either. She doesn’t want help, won’t admit she needs it. Look, if there’s anything I can do to make sure she gets that help, just ask. I don’t want her in trouble, but I do want her to get help. Before it’s too late.”

  Remy barely remembered the rest of the conversation. He was too busy finally processing the fact that he’d more or less gotten the supporting evidence he needed.

  Hope Carson’s fingerprints had been found all over the weapon used to beat Law Reilly.

  She had slit her wrists.

  She had a history of violence.

  A history of turning on people who cared about her.

  According to her ex-husband—who seemed to care about her—she was manipulative, prone to doing whatever it took to get her way.

  Fuck and double fuck.

  Instead of feeling satisfied with what he needed to do, what he could do, he found himself thinking about those sad, sad green eyes …

  Fuck.

  By the time she landed at Blue Grass Airport, Nia Hollister was so damned tired, she could barely see straight, so sick at heart, she ached with it, and she longed to curl up in a dark, quiet room and just … sob.

  Giving in to tears had never been her way, but this time, the temptation was strong, so overpowering, there were times when she felt the tears swelling in her throat like a knot. And a scream—just beyond the tears, there was a scream begging to break free.

  She kept it held inside through sheer will alone.

  Now wasn’t the time to scream, or to cry.

  Somewhere inside her heart, she still wanted to believe they were wrong.

  All of them.

  Joely wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be. They were like sisters—almost closer than sisters.

  They rarely fought. They were best friends, in their hearts, their souls. Even when Nia was on the other side of the country for half the year—or out of the country …

  They could be wrong. All of them—Bryson, Joely’s fiancé, who wouldn’t even go with her to identify the body, the cops who insisted it was Joely … everybody. They could all be wrong.

  It might not be Joely.

  But if it wasn’t her cousin lying dead in a morgue in Ash, Kentucky, then where was she?

  Her fiancé hadn’t seen her in more than a month.

  She wasn’t answering her cell phone or e-mail.

  It was like she’d dropped off the face of the earth.

  No … she hasn’t dropped off the face of the earth. She’s been lying dead in the deep freeze in the morgue, you selfish bitch, while you’re off on assignment.

  Abandoned—because law enforcement always turned to family, although Bryson might have been able to do it if he’d pushed, especially since Nia hadn’t been reachable. Out of contact—fuck.

  She hadn’t been around, while her cousin was kidnapped, hadn’t been around while she was killed, hadn’t been around at all and because of that, Joely was treated like some worthless piece of garbage.

  Nia hadn’t been around. Oh, God … Tears pricked her eyes. She’d been out of contact for almost three weeks. Joely could have reached her, but would she have shared that information with her fiancé? Probably not.

  With weariness and grief dragging at her steps, she lugged her carry-on through the airport. Years of living out of a suitcase had taught her to pack light and the bag was all she carried. The rest of her stuff was being shipped back to her house in Williamsburg.

  Soon, she’d have to find a Laundromat and wash her clothes, but that was a problem for another day.

  Now, she needed to get a rental car. Rental car. Then she needed to …

  She stopped in front of an ad—it was brightly colored, displaying a chestnut horse racing across a field of green grass. Numb, she just stared at it for a minute and then once more started to walk.

  Rental car. Ash, Kentucky. She needed to get there. Needed to …

  “Miss?”

  Nia started, then found herself staring dumbly at one of the airport security guards. Blinking, she glanced around. She wasn’t sure where she was, or how she’d gotten there.

  He eyed her with a strange mix of concern and caution. “Are you okay?”

  Nia swallowed. That knot in her throat swelled to epic proportions and she realized those tears were even closer than she’d thought. “I … rough few days.”

  “It looks like it.” He gestured with his head off to the side. “You’ve been standing in the middle of the hall for the past five minutes. Can I help you find where you’re going?”

  Nia pressed the heel of her hand against her temple. Shit.

  The ache in her chest spread.

  Ash—she needed to get to Ash, wherever in the hell that was.

  But if she was standing around like a zombie in the middle of an airport, the last thing she needed to do was get behind the wheel of a car. Reality breathed its icy cold breath down her spine and she sighed. “I guess I’m heading outside to catch a cab to a hotel,” she finally said.

  Getting to Ash would have to wait until morning.

  She loathed the idea, but her pragmatic side was strong, even in grief. As exhausted as she was, it would be suicide to get behind the wheel of a car and she knew it. As desperate as she was to get to Ash, she had some damn strong inner demons.

  Besides, maybe she’d luck out … she’d go to sleep and wake up, realize this was nothing but one awful, horrid nightmare.

  The conversation with Detective Joseph Carson was still ringing through Remy’s mind hours later as he tossed and turned on his bed, trying to sleep.

  Settling down wasn’t happening, though. It was past midnight when he finally slept.

  There were nights when he hit the mattress and sleep fell on him like a stone. As one of the two district attorneys in the small county of Carrington, Kentucky, he had helped put away meth dealers, a couple of child molesters and rapists, more than a few drunk drivers, and several wife beaters, and he routinely dealt with petty theft.

  Even in his small, mostly rural county, crime wasn’t nonexistent.

  He enjoyed what he did.

  But tonight, sleep didn’t come easy. Hell, screw easy—it didn’t want to come at all.

  Every time he closed his eyes, he thought of a green-eyed brunette and he thought about what he had to do in the morning.

  It wasn’t a job he wanted to do.

  It was a job he’d give just about anything to not do.

  But he hadn’t taken this job just so he could walk away from the hard ones.

  All the facts pointed to one thing: Hope Carson was a violent, disturbed woman.

  His gut screamed Screw the facts. But he couldn’t ignore what he saw, couldn’t ignore the evidence, couldn’t ignore what he’d been told and what he’d learned.

  His job was clear.

  And his job, sometimes, sucked.

  It was well past midnight when he finally fell into a restless sleep, and into even more restless dreams.

  Nightmares.

  Dreams where he saw her as he’d seen her that night in the emergency room. Covered in blood.

  Pale.

  A disembodied voice whispering, You did this …

  “No, I didn’t. No, I didn’t,” Hope said, her voice shaking, but sure.

  Remy stood there, horrified. All he wanted to do was pull her into his arms, take her away from this, away from all of it. But then Nielson, the sheriff, was there, pushing a pair of handcuffs into his hand.

  “You want us to arrest her? Fine. You do it.”

  But that wasn’t Remy’s job—he wasn’t a fucking cop. He didn’t arrest people. He got warrants. He prosecuted.

  “Yeah, you make us get our hands dirty. But you want her arrested, you do i
t yourself.”

  And that was what he did. Remy put cuffs on wrists that seemed too slender, too fragile for such a burden.

  Remy was the one who led her to a cell.

  And when he opened the door, she walked silently inside. But he saw it in her eyes.

  I didn’t do this.

  As he turned away, the screams started. Endless, agonized screams. But he didn’t know if they were hers … or his own.

  That was how he came awake.

  With the sound of screams echoing in his ears.

  “Shit,” he muttered, jerking upright in bed, fighting the sheets and blankets that had become ropes around his waist.

  With his breath sawing raggedly in and out of his lungs, he sat on the edge of the bed and stared off into nothingness. His gut was a raw, ragged pit and his head throbbed like it hadn’t since his college days. Back then, he had thought he could get by on naps and caffeine.

  In a few hours, he was supposed to meet the sheriff at the hospital.

  Hope Carson was being arrested today, and there wasn’t a damn thing Remy could do about it. That woman had the ability to turn him into knots just by looking at him. No other woman had ever done that to him. Not a one. Shit. This was a mess.

  Not that she knew.

  Nobody knew, thank God.

  At least he’d managed to keep that much hidden.

  But shit, he had to get it together.

  Had to get his head together, his act together, had to do … something.

  Shoving to his feet, Remy shambled naked toward the bathroom. Maybe if he blasted himself with enough hot water, and then flooded his body with enough caffeine … maybe.

  Maybe, maybe …

  He turned on the lights, but they hit his tired eyes with the force of a sledgehammer and, groaning, he turned them off again.

  No light. Not yet.

  Shower. Caffeine.

  Then light.

  Maybe.

  Not that he really needed light anyway. Not like he needed light to shower … or even to get dressed. If he didn’t have any light on, he wouldn’t have to worry about seeing his reflection, right?