If You Hear Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense (46 page)

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 hit 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?

And the last thing he wanted to do just then was look himself square in the eye.

No matter what the evidence said, no matter what the logic pointed to, it just didn’t feel right.

It just didn’t feel right … at all.

There were days when Hope Carson wished she’d just driven right through Ash. Instead of stopping in the small
Kentucky town to see her friend, like she’d promised, she should have just kept on driving.

No matter how much she loved Law, no matter how much she’d missed him, missed having a friend, there were days when she wished she had broken that promise and never stopped.

Maybe she should have driven straight to the ocean.

Hope had never seen the ocean.

She’d wanted to go to the ocean for her honeymoon, but Joey … her not-so-beloved ex-husband hadn’t liked the idea.

Everybody goes to the beach. Let’s do something different
.

They’d gone to the mountains.

Skiing in Aspen.

But Hope hadn’t been very good at skiing. And she hated the cold … it was like it cut right through her bones. She’d fallen down so many times, and had so many bruises.

“Should have just kept on driving,” she muttered as she listened to the voices just outside her door.

Would have been wiser, that much was sure.

Desolate, she stared out the window and wondered if she’d have a room wherever they were taking her next.

Would it be another hospital?

A jail?

She just didn’t know.

Another hospital, probably. One with
real
security
.

Dark, ugly dots swirled in on her vision.

Fear locked a fist around her throat.
Locked … trapped …

She barely managed to keep the moan behind her teeth.

When the door opened, she stifled her wince.

Barely.

It was just one of the nursing assistants—this time.

But soon … soon, it would be uniformed deputies. She knew it.

Hearing the quiet, muffled sound of shoes on the linoleum, she stared out the window and tried not to think about what was coming.

No matter what, she had to be grateful for one thing.

No matter what, she wasn’t trapped back in that house in Oklahoma with her husband, and she wasn’t trapped in that hospital where he had complete, total control over her.

She’d almost willingly be held for a crime she didn’t commit rather than go back to that particular hell.

At least she wasn’t anywhere close to Joey.

At least she wasn’t under his control, in any way, shape, or form.

That counted, for a hell of a lot.

But it wasn’t enough and the longer she stared at the plain, white walls of the small hospital room, the more they resembled a cell. So instead, she stared out the window—a reinforced window, one she couldn’t open. Not that she’d tried.

But the nurse had been a little too free with that information, right after she’d come in to check her blood pressure and
offer
her the medications—just an offer this time.

Nobody had tried to force it on her again.

Not since Remy …

She swallowed and tried not to think about that. It really, really wouldn’t do her any good to think about that, about him. As humiliating as it had been, for anybody to see her like that, it had been nothing short of a miracle in the end. Whether he’d said something to one of the doctors after he’d left or just scared the hell out of the nurses … well, nobody had tried to force any more drugs on her.

No antipsychotics, no tranquilizers, nothing. That
fancy law degree of his, Hope imagined. She didn’t know, and honestly, didn’t care.

As long as nobody was forcing drugs on her she didn’t need.

Her head was completely clear. She should be grateful.

And she would try to be.

But her gut told her she hadn’t seen the last of Remy Jennings, and the next time she saw him, it wasn’t going to be over the drugs the hospital staff had been forcing on her.

No, the next time it would be over the night she’d been found unconscious, just a few days ago, her wrists slashed open, her prints on the bat that had been used to beat a man damn near to death.

Her best friend—the people here thought she was capable of that.

They wanted her in jail for it.

Closing her eyes, she rested her head against her pillow and sighed. It wouldn’t be long now, either. She’d seen it in the doctor’s eyes when he’d been in to see her yesterday.

Sympathy, knowledge … and a grim acceptance. She was no longer in need of the medical services a hospital could provide. And they weren’t about to let her traipse away where they couldn’t keep her
secured
.

In their eyes, she’d done something awful, and it was time she paid for it.

But I didn’t do anything …

The sad, forlorn whine wanted to work its way free but she swallowed it, shoved it down inside. She sure as hell wasn’t going to go meekly along with whatever they had in mind, but she was done with wringing her hands and moaning, too.

She just needed to figure out what she
was
going to do …