If You See Her by Shiloh Walker Page A

work it out. Get him help—he isn’t going tofind what he needs in jail, but he can’t just walk away from this either.”
    Remy shifted his gaze to the sheriff.
    Dwight closed his eyes. Then he reached over and grabbed the necklace. “I wasn’t in here, Remy. Wasn’t in here. I left to get me a soda. You two idiots stay in here for the next ten minutes, or so help me God, I’ll beat you both bloody.” With that, he tossed the necklace at Remy.
    On his way out the door, he shot them both a dark look. “If this comes back and bites me on the ass, I’m going to make the two of you very, very sorry.”
    “Stupid kid.”
    Keith Jennings, flipping through a book, looked up as Nielson came storming into the breakroom. He looked pissed, Keith decided. Very, very pissed. Leaning back in his seat, he studied his boss for a minute, torn between finishing the book and asking.
    Curiosity got the best of him. “Which one?”
    Nielson shot him a look. “Nobody.”
    Huh
. Well, he’d hear about it sooner or later, he figured. That’s the way it worked in this town. Turning down the page he’d been reading, he tossed the book aside and watched as Nielson plugged some quarters into the Coke machine. “Is anybody telling King about the similarities between the victim and Ms. Riddle?”
    Nielson grunted an answer.
    Keith thought it might be a yes. He wasn’t sure. Damn. Something really, really had the boss in a mood today. He didn’t bother asking what it was, though. He kind of liked his head where it was.

CHAPTER
FIVE
     
    S OME PEOPLE MIGHT SAY THAT A WISE MAN WOULDN’T be here.
    But he couldn’t think of another place to be just then.
    Watching Hope seemed to be just the thing to do.
    Just the thing.
    Even though there were all kinds of trouble going on in Ash right now. If anybody saw a strange, shadowy figure skulking about in the woods, well, he might find his ass plugged with buckshot, and yet, here he was.
    He couldn’t not watch her.
    She had been in the hospital and according to the gossip grapevine, just a few hours away from getting arrested. The words he’d heard had been
criminally insane
.
    Just thinking about it was enough to make him chuckle.
    Her … insane.
    He laughed.
    She looked like she would scream at a loud noise.
    She looked like she would run if somebody jumped out from behind a tree.
    And they had been ready to arrest her for assault, maybe even for murder?
    It was amusing.
    But now she was out … and he imagined she would run soon.
    That was what she did.
    And all he had to do was watch.
    Once she ran …
    “I shouldn’t be here,” Hope muttered.
    The sun beat down on her back as she paced the porch, but she was still cold.
    Law slumped on the swing at one end, his eyes closed. He wasn’t sleeping, though. He cracked one lid open, peered at her with that shrewd, intense gaze, and then closed his eye again.
    “You aren’t leaving, Hope.”
    Shooting him a narrow look, she continued to pace.
    “Not really up to you, is it?” she shot at him.
    He smiled a little, but didn’t say anything.
    No. She wasn’t leaving. Not right now.
    Three days. She’d been back at this house for three days, and each day was like a waking nightmare. Her skin crawled, just being inside that place. Memory flashes of the night haunted her, all the damn time. They were vague, so damn vague, nothing but blips, really, but even those were too much.
    Neither she nor Law had terribly clear recollections—not too surprising with Law, considering how badly he’d been battered. The hit she’d taken to her head could easily be blamed for her vague memories, but she wondered how much of her hazy recollections were because she was just too big of a coward to remember.
    She kept seeing Prather … oh, shit. She covered her eyes with her hands, as though that would block out what few memories she had of that night. The clearest one she had of him was his face—lifeless, but his expression had been one of