Deadly Silence

Matt began, “Barbara told me that someday, when Megan’s memory of that night was ready to become conscious, something would trigger it.” He gave Casey a glance. The sympathy written across her features made Matt want to reach out and embrace her. He had no idea where all of that came from and savagely tamped down the unexpected desire. “I believe that the owl incident was a trigger, but I’m not sure. I have a call in to Dr. Ward to discuss it with her.”

“That sounds hopeful,” Casey said.

“Dr. Ward also said that Megan, at some point, might bond with another woman who she perceives as motherlike. A nurturing woman. She felt it would eventually happen.” Matt stared over at Casey and saw surprise flare in her eyes.

Raising her brows, Casey murmured, “Are you thinking Megan has bonded with me?”

Nodding, Matt whispered rawly, “I’ve never seen Megan throw her arms around another woman since her mother’s death. This is a big first, Casey.” Seeing the turmoil and hesitation in Casey’s features, he asked, “How do you feel about that?” He understood not every woman wanted to have children or to be a nurturing mother type. He’d seen other women take career paths where they showered their natural nurturing upon their employees or choosing service work to help others. All women were maternal, he felt, it was just a question of how they expressed it.

“I come from a large family,” Casey explained. “My parents were U.S. Navy pilots for twenty years until they retired from the military. There’s five girls in our family. And two sets of twins.” Casey smiled a little and said, “I’m from the second set of twins and the youngest—I’m twenty-four. My three older sisters say that Selene, my twin, and I, were spoiled rotten because we were the ‘babies’ of our family. I grew up happy in San Francisco. Not all my sisters want a big family.” She smiled fondly. “Selene and I were the ones who played with dolls. The other sisters loved Lego and geek stuff. Someday, I hope to have a family myself, but I’m too young to do that right now. I want to get some roots into my forest-service career.”

Nodding, Matt noticed the softness of her full mouth. “I see. Can I keep in touch with you about Megan after Dr. Ward calls me? I’m in limbo on this, Casey.” He had to give her options. It wasn’t fair to pin her down and insist she had to work with Megan.

Casey felt his desperation. This was a straw to grab at, she realized. His love for his daughter was clearly etched in Matt’s narrow eyes. Despite being a powerful and masculine man, he was being vulnerable with her. She remembered all too clearly her four attackers, big, strapping men in their late twenties, who were Matt’s size and height. There had been no vulnerability in them; they had nearly beaten her to death. Casey remembered some of her attack, but not all of it. She understood as few could about the memories of the trauma being locked away in her brain, too virulent and potentially threatening to her mental stability to be released. That was the way her shrink, Wanda Haversham, had described it to her while she was still in the hospital.

“I understand your position on this,” Casey told him quietly. She glanced over her shoulder toward the hall to make sure Megan couldn’t hear what she was going to say. She handed Matt her business card. “Call me when you hear something from Dr. Ward. I’ll be happy to help Megan if I can.” She saw instant relief come to his rugged features. His mouth suddenly relaxed. His hands released their grip around the coffee mug.

“Thank you,” Matt said, his voice echoing his relief.

SENATOR CARTER PEYTON sat in the rear of the black limo with his red-haired wife, Clarissa. He was continually on his cell phone with his assistants in Washington, D.C. Barely looking out the darkly tinted windows as the driver slowly made his way through the melting slush and traffic on the Easter weekend in Jackson Hole, he continued making his calls. Clarissa looked bored. But when didn’t she? At thirty-five, Carter knew everyone in Wyoming thought he had it made. He didn’t think so.

His life had taken a terrible, twisted turn three years earlier when his first wife, Gloria, and his two young children, Buck and Tracy, had died in a house fire just outside Jackson Hole. Anger grew in him as he thought about it again. And Matt Sinclaire was to blame. The lieutenant had been on duty that night when Gloria had called 911 in a panic. Their multimillion-dollar home that sat perched high on a hill, two miles off the main asphalt road, was on fire. He was stuck in Cody, Wyoming, because of a blizzard, after having attended a meeting of towns-people. The interstates had been shut down and no flights were available. Carter blamed himself for not being at home when it happened. If he had been, he knew his first wife and their children would be alive today. As it was, Sinclaire’s ineptness at getting that fire truck stuck on the muddy dirt road had doomed his family.

“Let’s eat here in town,” Clarissa said. She touched her lacquered red hair to ensure it was in place.

“The housekeeper will have lunch waiting for us,” he growled, flipping his cell phone closed. The limo crawled along. The sky was cloudy and it looked like it was going to snow again. Carter hated going through town because he saw the fire station where Sinclaire worked. It always compounded the rage that was never far beneath the surface.

Pouting, Clarissa said, “All right then, drop me off at the Aspens restaurant on your way home. Bob can pick me up when I’m finished eating.”

Carter felt torn. He’d married Clarissa a year after Gloria’s death. As a senator, he needed a wife at his side. She was a tall, lissome woman who came from a rich banking and ranching family in Cheyenne. She was only twenty-nine to his thirty-five years of age, but astute and selfish as hell. Still, Clarissa was the ideal Washington, D.C., wife. She was cultured, a true political animal like him, and she desired power. Carter felt she had married him because he was a second-term senator for the state of Wyoming. She had her own agenda she wanted to pursue.

“All right,” he murmured. “I know you have quilting friends here you want to chat with over lunch,” he murmured. Tapping Bob on his thin shoulder, he asked his long-time driver to turn and drop his wife off at the Aspens. The driver nodded and turned down another street in the center of town.

Pleased, Clarissa gathered up the snakeskin purse that matched her heels. She was dressed in a black wool pantsuit, white silk blouse and red silk scarf. The red of the silk matched her shoulder-length hair. “Good. After lunch, I’m going to walk over to Quilter’s Haven. I want to see what new fabrics Gwen has gotten in for spring.”

He managed a wry smile. “I imagined you would do that.” In some ways, Carter thanked God for his wife’s passion for embroidery and for her cousin, Julie Neustedder, who was a famous quilting teacher over in Cheyenne. That was how they’d met: there was a quilting fest at the local high school, with two hundred quilts hung for the public to appreciate. Clarissa had been there with her famous cousin. Carter had come because, as a senator, he always went to big events where he could press the flesh and mingle. That was part of the political game. He had found Clarissa a beautiful jewel among the ranching and mining middle class at the quilt festival.

After dropping Clarissa off in front of a restaurant bedecked with a red-and-white-striped awning, Carter climbed back into the car. His wife was happy now. And so was he.

“Home, Bob.”

“Yes, sir,” the fifty-year-old balding, bespectacled man murmured.

Sitting back, Carter felt his stomach knot and unknot. When he was alone and there was nothing to do, the memories of what he’d done always came back to him. He blamed it on guilt. Carter didn’t feel he should feel guilt about a damned thing. The limo sped up as they left the plaza area and headed up the hill toward his home on Moose Road, near the Teton National Forest, and Carter sighed.

When he’d been able to get back from Cody to Jackson Hole, knowing his family had died in that fire, he’d gone straight to the fire chief, Doug Stanley, a forty-five-year-old of German-English descent. Carter had stormed into Stanley’s office to find out why his family had been left to burn alive, and the chief had defended the man at the tip of that spear: Matt Sinclaire.

Carter snorted softly. Firefighters, like lawmen, stuck together and were thick as thieves. Stanley had argued that Sinclaire had done everything humanly possible to save the lives of Carter’s family. There was the blizzard of the century howling through at the time, the roads were not plowed, the country trucks had been ordered to stay off them due to the danger. Snow was piling up so fast and furiously it was impossible to clear the roads. And then, because the spring thaw was underway, Carter’s muddy two-mile-long road was a mire. Sinclaire had ordered the two trucks up the hill and they had both got stuck a mile away from the burning home.

Smiling a little, Carter tapped his fingers on the leg of his expensive black pin-striped suit pants. He’d waited a year after his family’s deaths and then he’d gotten even. Everyone thought a senator was clean, but Carter wasn’t. He knew how to grease the wheels politically and how to manipulate to get whatever it was he wanted. Through Gerald Vern, his most trusted office staffer, Carter had hired a professional arsonist and hit man. Frank Benson, who lived in Driggs, Idaho, about fifty miles from Jackson Hole was paid a hundred thousand dollars and he’d partially fulfilled his contract.

Carter was unhappy when he found out Sinclaire’s daughter had managed to escape the flames; he was very pleased when he found out Megan Sinclaire had gone mute. That was some payback, but not enough.

Flexing his fist, Carter looked to his right to the elk range. The elk always came out of the mountains to be fed and to winter over near Jackson Hole in a range thousands of acres long and fenced. He saw that about half the thousands of animals had already gone back to the mountains. It was, after all, April. The snow wouldn’t melt until early June and the elk were going to the higher elevations to calve.

Rubbing his jaw, he thought about contacting Benson again. It had been two years since Bev Sinclaire had been shot in the head. Carter still wanted Megan dead. He wanted Sinclaire to feel all the anguish and loss he’d felt. Since the fire chief had staunchly defended his employee’s actions, Carter knew a civil trial to sue Sinclaire would do no good. Rubbing his hands together, Carter gloated over the surprise hit on Sinclaire’s family. He smiled a little. Benson was so good at his job that the police had never found the culprit. And he wanted it to stay that way.

“Soon…” he murmured to no one in particular. Peyton had found that timing was everything. Two years had passed and Sinclaire had moved into town and lived in a one-story ranch house a couple of blocks away from the fire station. Things had settled down in this backwater town. Most people now gossiped and talked about other things rather than Bev Sinclaire’s unsolved murder. It was time to strike again. One final, last time…

“I KNOW LIEUTENANT SINCLAIRE is going to be happy about all this,” Cat Edwin said, sitting at the table eating dinner with Casey.

Sighing, Casey shrugged. “I feel ambivalent about it, Cat.” She picked at the romaine and tomato salad Cat had made for them. She’d gotten home an hour earlier, climbed out of her ranger uniform and gotten into a pair of jeans and a green long-sleeved cotton pullover.

“Why?” Cat asked, eating hungrily. She’d been on duty for twelve hours and had the next two days off.

Casey really didn’t know Cat that well; they were new roommates. “It’s just me,” she murmured, chewing on a tomato. She liked the black-haired woman with intense blue eyes. Her square face went with her solid, large-boned build. Cat was no shrinking violet insofar as women went. She was five foot eleven inches tall, weighed a hundred and sixty pounds and was pure muscle. In one room of their large apartment was a complete gym where Cat worked out religiously for at least an hour a day. Casey knew that firefighting was physical and Cat had to be in top shape to work alongside her male compatriots.

“That guy,” Cat said between bites, “is a good dude. What happened to him is a crime—literally.” She wiped her mouth with the yellow linen napkin and settled it back onto her lap. “I’m not assigned to his watch, but all the guys talk favorably about Matt.” She grinned a little and said teasingly, “You know he’s single.”

Casey cringed inwardly; she wanted nothing to do with men. She was still working through the devastation of nearly being beaten to death by five potheads. “My focus isn’t on relationships right now, Cat. I just graduated and I need to do well here at my first assignment.”

Nodding, Cat got up and walked to the kitchen. She’d made spaghetti and meatballs as a main dish. The air was filled with the aromas of tomato, basil and garlic. Coming back with plates piled high with food, Cat handed Casey hers and sat down. “In my job at the fire department there’s no fraternization between me and the guys.” Cat smiled a crooked smile. “That’s okay with me. I’m only twenty-two and frankly, I don’t want to get married young.” She sliced open a huge meatball. “I come from an abusive family. I got out of it as soon as I could. My father beat us with a belt and my mother never stopped him.”

Casey gave her new roommate a sympathetic look. Cat was beautiful in an arresting way. She had slightly tilted blue eyes that gave her broad, square face a subtle exotic look. With her short, dark curls Casey thought she looked like the mythical Greek huntress Artemis. That goddess was a warrior and a hunter and was just as capable as any man.

Casey frowned, thinking that Artemis had never endured hardship like Cat. “I’m sorry to hear of your hardship. I find that among my friends at the university, if any had a father who beat them up or was verbally abusive to them, they didn’t want to get involved in a male relationship any too soon, either.”

Cat held up her hand. “That’s me. Not that I don’t like men, I do.” She frowned. “But in here, in my gut—” she touched her stomach region “—I don’t trust them. I know it stems from my father. I try to work it out in my head and tell myself that not all men are like my father.” Frowning, she twirled the marinara sauce and spaghetti onto a huge spoon with her fork. “So far, I haven’t achieved it. I wish I could. I’ve met some decent men, but my emotions are still stuck back when I was an eight-year-old.”

“Hmm, I understand,” Casey said, sympathetic. She had the same problem, only her distrust of men had started in her sophomore year of college. “Have you seen any progress with yourself as the years go by?” she wondered.

“No,” Cat murmured unhappily. “I look at guys, but don’t touch. My head is stuck in PTSD symptoms, according to what my therapist told me years ago. Until I can grow up emotionally and lose my fear of men, there’s not much I can do.”

“Do you date?”

Cat’s mouth twisted. “I have friends who are men. I do go to dances with them, I share a beer at a local bar sometimes, and I go hiking with them. But real intimacy? No…I’m just not there. Yet.”

Hearing the determination in her roommate’s lowered voice, Casey hoped she wouldn’t have to live her life in that PTSD cage. Someday, after she got to know Cat a lot better, she’d share her story. Truly, they were two peas from the same pod. “You’re pretty, Cat. I don’t know of a guy who wouldn’t give you a second look.”

Laughing sharply, Cat said, “Listen, my looks and my body act as a guy magnet for every man around. Isn’t it sad?” She patted her hip. “I got this fab body and face and I’m scared to death of men! How’s that for pure irony?”

Finishing her salad, Casey nodded. “It is ironic.”

“So? Are you going to work with Lieutenant Sinclaire on behalf of his daughter?” Cat wondered, giving Casey an assessing look.

“I probably will,” Casey slowly admitted. “If I do, it’s for Megan.”

“You’re not interested in him, huh?”

“No.” Casey thought she must be a liar. Matt Sinclaire made her feel things she’d never felt before. He was terribly good-looking, like a rugged model on a magazine cover. There was nothing to dislike about him from what she’d observed so far. “He’s terribly conflicted and guilty over Megan’s condition. He felt that if he’d been home at the time of his wife’s murder, Megan’s muteness wouldn’t have happened.”

Cat snorted. “Listen, you have to attend fire school a couple of times a year. It’s mandatory for all of us. You have to keep up with the evolution of fire suppression and the new equipment coming out. Matt had to go to that school in Cheyenne, Casey. As an officer he can’t just up and decide differently.”

“I understand that,” Casey said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t have ulcers over all of this.”

Nodding, Cat savored the meal she’d made for them. She was proud of her culinary abilities. “He doesn’t from what I know, but I see him with dark circles under his eyes from time to time. His men who are on watch with him told me once he has bad insomnia.”

Casey knew that symptom really well. She had restless, sleepless nights, too, particularly around a full moon. She got so she hated that time of the month. Before her concussion and beating, she had always slept soundly and deeply. But no more.

“You know, there’s a new doctor in town,” Cat said, almost to herself, “that I’m thinking of seeing. She’s called a functional medicine specialist.”

“What is that?” Casey asked.

“They deal with PTSD symptoms, from what I understand. And they have a good track record of getting rid of the symptoms from a hormonal level. Her name is Jordana Lawton. I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD, and I thought if there’s a prayer of a chance that she could help me get rid of the symptoms caused by high cortisol levels, I’d give her a try.”

“Let me know what happens?” Casey asked. She’d love to get rid of her PTSD symptoms, too, but no one knew she had them. And no one knew what had happened to her, not even her employer, the USFS. And she wanted to keep it that way. It was a private skeleton in the closet of her life. Casey lived in fear of anyone finding out and then going to her supervisor, Ranger Charley Davidson. There was no telling what the USFS might do. They could fire her because she’d not put down all her medical history on her employment form, for starters. It was a risk Casey had to take.

“Oh,” Cat chortled, “I will.” She smiled over at Casey. “This is the first time I’ve had a roommate. I think it’s going to be nice to share with a sister. I don’t usually share much about myself. We had the elephant of abuse in our family’s living room and I never told anyone at school what was going on. I was so afraid.” Cat reached over and touched Casey’s arm for a moment. “So, if I’m being too talkative and sharing, rein me in, okay? I’m not good at this sharing stuff.” She chortled.

Smiling gently at her roommate, Casey realized how fortunate she’d been to grow up in a safe, loving family. She had four sisters who loved her. “I’m pretty good at chatting myself, so I think we’ll get along fine, Cat.” She saw the woman look a little more relaxed over that admission.

“Great, I think we’re a good pair to be sharing this condo,” Cat said, meaning it. “I know my social graces aren’t the best. I trust women. They aren’t my problem. It’s the men.”

Casey nodded and loaded her spoon with spaghetti. “We share a lot in common, Cat. I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

“Sisters in the battle of life,” Cat said, grinning widely.

Indeed, Casey thought. Right now she had a couple of battles she’d never envisioned: Megan’s unexpected affection and being drawn to Megan’s father, Matt Sinclaire. Casey knew she couldn’t separate one from another. There was a driving force in her to help the eight-year-old. Megan didn’t know it, but they shared much more in common than anyone would ever know.

CHAPTER FIVE

MATT TRIED TO CONTAIN his excitement as he walked from the parking lot toward the beautifully constructed visitor’s center just inside the gates of the Grand Teton National Park. Behind him rose the majestic and snow-covered Tetons. Thrusting his hands in the pockets of his red nylon fire department jacket, he hurried down the sidewalk.

It was 10:00 a.m. and so much had happened since Megan had seen the hawk and owl in her class. Hope warred with terror within him. Matt struggled to keep all his emotions in check. He’d found out from Charley, the chief ranger, that Casey would be on duty at the visitor’s center all day. Her job was to answer people’s questions. Should he have called Casey first? Something told him to show up in person. How would she take what he had to say? Would she see him as pressuring her to help his daughter? Was she at all interested in helping? Matt knew she was a stranger who had plummeted into their life out of the blue. He knew he had no right to expect anything from Casey.

Yet, as he pulled opened the glass door that led into the huge, airy center, his intuition told him Casey was a compassionate person and cared deeply for others. Would she care about the news he had?

Because he was a firefighter, Matt had been to the visitor’s center many times. If there was ever a fire here, he had to know the entrance and exit points. He had to be aware of everything so that a team sent into this place would be made aware of the structure and its inherent challenges. Charley had said Casey would be at the map desk. Not that many visitors in late April were interested in hiking trails still covered with anywhere between two and ten feet of snow. Still, a hardy few were up for cross-country skiing on these mountain trails.

He spotted Casey talking to a male visitor over a map. He slowed his pace. The center was pretty deserted at this time of the morning. Over in the gift shop he spotted Cindy McLaughlin. She smiled and waved to Matt. He returned her smile and lifted his hand. Cindy had lost her husband, Steve, to prostate cancer a year ago. Their two children were in college. She managed the gift-shop concession for the company who had won the bid to run it. The black-haired, brown-eyed woman always had a smile for everyone, despite her personal tragedy. Matt knew she wasn’t making enough money to keep her two children in college.

Steve had been a civil engineer with a local company. He’d made very good money. Now, Cindy was losing her financial base. Matt felt bad for her. He turned away and saw that Casey had just handed the young man a map. Good, she was no longer busy. Taking a deep breath, Matt headed in her direction.

Casey felt her heart bang once to underscore the surprise of seeing ruggedly handsome Matt Sinclaire walking toward her. He wore a bright red jacket, his hands stuffed into the pockets. A pair of jeans on him made her appreciate how tall and in shape he was. It was the narrowed look in his forest-green eyes that made her mouth go dry. Casey had the distinct feeling he was like a wolf on the prowl. His black hair was short but a few rebellious strands dipped across his furrowed brow. No woman in her right mind wouldn’t be drawn to this heroic man, Casey told herself. She saw all men and women in the businesses of law enforcement and firefighting as bona fide modern-day heroes. Matt Sinclaire embodied that concept in warm flesh and blood.

“Good morning,” Matt greeted as he came up to the desk. “I hope you don’t mind me dropping by unexpectedly? I have some news about Megan that I’d like to share with you.”

Relief shot through Casey. This was about Megan. For a moment her silly mind had fantasized that Matt was here for her. It had been almost a week since she’d seen him. Her dreams, for once, had taken a pleasant turn and she’d dreamed of him and of kissing him. Feeling heat tunnel up her neck and into her cheeks, Casey grabbed the stool and sat down opposite him. “Of course not.” She gave him a wry smile as he folded his large hands on the counter in front of her. “As you can see, we’re not exactly busy.”