Silent Storm

But she had to deal with it. She had to do something. Call for backup. Secure the scene…

A subtle noise somewhere nearby brought Marly’s head up with a jerk. She couldn’t tell what the sound was or even where it had come from, but the sudden knowledge that she was no longer alone chilled her blood.

She eased herself away from the wall and for the first time in her short law enforcement career, drew her weapon.

Heart pounding, her mouth dry with fear, she peered down the murky hallway toward the living room.

Someone was there. No doubt about it. She could see his silhouette at the end of the corridor. His features were indistinguishable, but he appeared huge as he started toward her.

Marly clutched her weapon with both hands. “Police! Stay right where you are!”

To her immense relief, the man froze. He didn’t so much as move a muscle that Marly could see, but she could feel his gaze on her. Dark. Intense. Cold. Gooseflesh prickled along the back of her neck.

“Hands behind your head,” she barked. “No sudden moves.”

Slowly he lifted his hands and clasped them behind his head.

Still gripping her weapon, Marly inched toward him. “Who are you?”

“Deacon Cage.” His voice was deep and smooth. A little too smooth, Marly decided.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“I’m looking for Ricky Morales.”

“He a friend of yours?”

“Not exactly. He didn’t show up for work this morning so his boss sent me over here to check up on him.”

“This boss have a name?”

“Skip Manson. He’s a job foreman for Satterfield Construction. They’re building the new gymnasium at the high school.”

By this time, Marly was standing only a couple of feet from the stranger, and what she saw when she glanced up caused her heart to skip a beat. Dark hair. Dark eyes. High cheekbones and a well-shaped mouth. A chiseled jawline and a strong, determined chin.

Not bad, Marly thought. Not bad at all.

The stranger lifted a quizzical brow, as if he could tell exactly what she was thinking.

He couldn’t, of course, but heat washed over Marly’s cheeks just the same. To cover her embarrassment, she gave him a piercing glare. “Do you always enter private residences without an invitation, Mr. Cage?”

“The front door was open. Besides, when I saw the police car out front, I was afraid something might have happened to Morales.”

“Like what?”

He shrugged. “An accident maybe.”

The way he stared down at her was very unnerving.

It’s like he knows me, Marly thought with a shiver.

Taking a steadying breath, she tried to disregard the icy tingles shooting through her veins. “I’ll need to see some identification.”

She tensed when he started to lower his arms.

“I have to get my wallet from my back pocket,” he explained.

“Just don’t make any sudden moves,” she warned.

He fished out his wallet and slowly handed it to her. He was being very cooperative. Nothing in the least threatening about his attitude. So why did she feel so vulnerable? Marly wondered. So…exposed?

She scrutinized the picture on his California driver’s license, noting his age, address and physical description. To her dismay, her hand trembled as she folded the wallet and gave it back to him. “You’re a long way from home, Mr. Cage.”

“No law against that, is there?”

Marly ignored the question. “I’m going to have to ask you to step outside.”

“Why? Has something happened to Morales?”

“Just step outside, Mr. Cage.”

Something flickered in his eyes, a darkness that made Marly realize how alone they were in the house.

You have a gun on him. No way he can hurt you.

But when he made a slight move toward her, Marly jumped back like a nervous cat.

“I wouldn’t try that,” she warned.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Damn straight you’re not.” She clutched the gun.

He backed off, lifting his hands in acquiescence. “Look, I just want to know what happened here—”

A sound from the living room stopped him cold, and he seemed to grow very tense. “We’ve got company,” he said in that hair-raising voice of his.

Thank God, Marly thought. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could take being alone with him. He was a very intimidating man although she had no idea why she felt that way. He hadn’t threatened her. Hadn’t so much as said anything out of line to her. And yet her instincts told her he was dangerous. In more ways than she could possibly imagine.

Lifting her chin slightly, she tried to peer around him. “Who’s there?” she called out. “Identify yourself!”

A slight hesitation, then a male voice responded, “Tony Navarro. Jessop, is that you?”

The stranger jerked around at the sound of Navarro’s voice, and he stared down the hall for just a split second before he slowly turned back to face Marly. She caught her breath at the look on his face. If she’d thought him dangerous before, there was no doubt in her mind now. None at all.

What the hell was going on here? she wondered desperately. Who was he? And why was she so afraid of him?

There was something about him, something…not quite of this world. Not with those eyes. That voice…

Marly sucked in a sharp breath as she finally put a name to her fear. He was temptation.

She glanced toward the end of the hallway where Police Chief Tony Navarro had appeared. It might have been Marly’s imagination, but she could have sworn the testosterone level in the immediate area shot to a very perilous level.

Even under such grim circumstances, the irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her. She hadn’t had a date in almost a year, and now all of a sudden she found herself in the company of two tall, dark, dangerously attractive men. The chances of that happening in Mission Creek were slim to none, and just her luck, there was a corpse in the next room.

Chief Navarro was taller than Deacon Cage, but not by much. An inch or two only. His shoulders were a little broader, his hair a little darker, longer, just brushing his collar. He might have had a few years on Cage, too, but in a fair fight, Marly would be hard-pressed to predict a winner. The only sure bet was that both men would battle to the finish.

All this flashed through her mind in the blink of an eye, and in the next instant, when she saw Navarro’s hand ease toward his gun, she rushed to say, “It’s okay, Chief. Everything’s under control here.” Quickly she holstered her own weapon.

“What’s going on?” He pinned the stranger with a piercing gaze. “Who are you?”

“Deacon Cage.” That dark, liquidlike voice sent a fresh tremor through Marly.

She cleared her throat. “Uh, he says he works with Ricky Morales and he came here looking for him—”

“That’s not what I said.” Deacon’s gaze challenged hers. “I said Morales’s boss sent me over here to check up on him.”

Marly frowned. “I just assumed—”

“First rule of policework,” Navarro said slowly, as he started down the hallway toward them. “Never assume anything. You know that as well as I do, Deputy.”

Marly’s face flamed at her blunder, and she wondered if Deacon Cage had deliberately tried to make her look bad in front of Navarro.

Lifting her chin, she tried to rescue her dignity. “I was just asking Mr. Cage to wait outside, Chief.”

Navarro gave the man a curt nod. “Sounds like a good idea. But don’t go too far,” he advised. “We may have some questions for you.”

Deacon Cage hesitated as his gaze traveled from Marly to Navarro and then back to Marly. Lifting a speculative brow, he turned and strode down the hall without a word.

THE FIRST THING DEACON noticed when he stepped outside was that the rain had slackened to a sprinkle. He stood on the porch, listening to the steady drip-drip through the trees as he wondered what was going on inside Ricky Morales’s house. What kind of scene had Deputy Jessop stumbled upon that had left her looking so pale and shaken?

Deacon had a pretty good idea. After all, he was not unfamiliar with the scent of death. He’d smelled it before, more times than he cared to remember. One might even say he had an intimate relationship with the Grim Reaper.

He toyed with the idea of coming clean with the local authorities, telling them who he was and why he was in Mission Creek. But he quickly dismissed the notion as hasty and foolish. No one would believe him anyway. He would have to find that one special person, that one open-minded individual who would be willing to suspend credulity long enough to hear him out. Who would be willing to set aside his or her preconceived notions of reality in order to get at the truth.

Was that someone Deputy Jessop?

On first glance, Deacon would have said no. There was a guardedness about her, a self-preservation that suggested she would not easily be coaxed from the safety of her three-dimensional box. And yet something also told him that of all the people in Mission Creek, she might be the only one who could help him find the killer.

Or was that merely wishful thinking? Deacon mused. She was an attractive woman in a quiet, unassuming way, and he wouldn’t mind spending time with her, although he knew very well it could go nowhere. His stay here was temporary, and as soon as his mission was over, he’d move on. To the next town. To the next killer.

Besides, he came with too much baggage, lived with too many past sins. Slept with too many demons. Demons that would never be exorcised, no matter what he did or how hard he fought for salvation.

But that didn’t stop him from trying. That didn’t stop him from dreaming about the kind of freedom that was now only a distant memory. A memory he wasn’t even sure he could trust.

So here he was. In Mission Creek, Texas. On the trail of yet another killer. Someone who was very much like him. They were all like him in one way or another. And at one time, he’d been like them.

So, no, a relationship with Deputy Marly Jessop—or anyone else—wasn’t in the cards for Deacon, and he could allow her to become nothing more to him than a means to an end.

“Hey, you a cop?”

Deacon whirled at the sound of the female voice behind him, annoyed that he hadn’t heard her approach. But then he realized it was raining again, and the sound had masked the woman’s arrival.

She hurried up the porch steps, her brittle blue gaze openly curious as she gave him a lengthy inspection. She was probably no more than thirty and had once been, Deacon suspected, very pretty in an in-your-face kind of way. But now she had the hardened features of someone who had already experienced a lifetime of disappointment.

“I’m not a cop,” Deacon told her.

“Didn’t think so. I know all the cops around here, and I’ve never seen you before.” She lit a cigarette and exhaled the smoke on a quick breath. “So who are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“My name is Deacon Cage.”

She propped her right elbow in her left hand, letting the cigarette smolder between her fingers. “I’m Nona. I live across the street.” She head-gestured over her shoulder at a little house almost identical to Morales’s. “You a friend of Ricky’s?”

“Not exactly. But we have a mutual acquaintance.”

“A mutual acquaintance, huh?” She gave him a doubtful glance. “Pardon me for saying so, but you don’t exactly look like the type Ricky usually hangs out with.”

“Well, you know what they say. Appearances can be deceiving.”

“Ain’t that the damn truth?” Appreciation flashed in her eyes as she gave him another quick assessment. “I saw you come out of the house a few minutes ago. Did you talk to Marly?”

“You mean Deputy Jessop? We spoke briefly.”

“What’d she say about Ricky?”

“She wouldn’t tell me anything,” Deacon replied truthfully.

“Doesn’t matter.” Nona stared out at the rain, her expression suddenly forlorn. “I already know he’s dead.”

“How do you know?”

She shrugged, the action not so much one of nonchalance as acceptance. “Because people are dropping like flies around here.”

“You mean the suicides?” Deacon asked carefully.

“You know what I think?” She gave him an anxious look. “I think it’s the weather. All this damn rain. It’s depressing as hell. Enough to make anyone wacko.” She grimaced. “Marly must be freaking out, though.”

“Because of the weather?”

Nona glanced back at the rain. “No, because of the suicides.”

“What do you mean?”

She hesitated. “Let’s just say, Marly has some issues and leave it at that, okay?”

What kind of issues? Deacon wanted to ask, but he didn’t press her. He had a feeling Nona was a woman who liked to talk, and with a little patience, he’d find out everything he wanted to know from her without having to resort to anything…drastic. “You sound as if you know Deputy Jessop pretty well.”

Nona shrugged again. “Not really. We went to high school together, but we didn’t exactly hang out with the same crowd, if you know what I mean. Marly was the straight-A-honor-roll type of girl while I was—” She broke off and gave him a side-long glance. “You might say I had a different set of priorities in high school.”

Deacon nodded. “Fair enough.”

“I sure as hell never would have pictured her as a cop, though.”

“Why not?”

Nona watched a cloud of smoke drift off the porch. “She’s just not cut out for it. Too much of a goody-goody. Let’s people push her around all the time. Especially her old man.”

“Her husband?”

Nona shook her head. “She’s not married. No, I’m talking about her father. He’s a retired army colonel. Used to be the base commander over at Fort Stanton before it closed. Not exactly Mr. Personality, if you get my drift. I knew some of the guys who were stationed there, and they hated his guts. Said he was one mean son of a bitch.” She paused to take another drag on her cigarette, then expelled the smoke on a nervous laugh. “I don’t mean to bend your ear like this. It’s just…I have a tendency to talk too much when I get jittery.” She tossed the cigarette butt over the porch railing and watched it sizzle in the wet grass. “Smoke too much, too.”

“I don’t mind. I’m enjoying our conversation,” Deacon said.

“Yeah?” Her gaze turned speculative as she gave him another careful once-over.

“You were telling me about Marly Jessop’s father, the retired army colonel,” he gently coaxed.

Nona nodded. “My mother used to be their housekeeper, see. That’s how come I know so much about them. She’s got stories about that family that could curl your hair, let me tell you. She always felt real bad for Marly and Sam, though.”

“Sam?”

“Marly’s brother.”

“Does he live here in Mission Creek?”

“He came back here after he left the service. He’s moved into their grandmother’s old place. Really got it fixed up nice. I even noticed when I drove by there the other day that he has the garage apartment up for rent. Not that I’m interested, mind you.” She gave an exaggerated shudder. “You couldn’t pay me enough. Even if it would mean getting to see Sam every day, and that’s saying something for me. Always did have a thing for him.”

Deacon worked to keep his expression neutral. “You say he was in the service? Which branch?”

“The army, just like his father and grandfather. The grandfather was some big shot general at the Pentagon or something. Sam was supposed to follow in their footsteps, but he quit after a few years and came back here to teach school. From what I hear, the old man nearly had a stroke over it. But Mama said he always did try to run those kids’ lives. Stayed on their cases all the damn time. They never could do anything right. I guess it’s no wonder Marly turned out the way she has.”

“What do you mean?”

Nona thought for a moment. “She’s just…different. She has this way about her. Kind of like…she knows things the rest of us don’t? It’s hard to explain, but I guess being strange runs in that family when you consider what her grandmother did.” She leaned toward Deacon and lowered her voice. “Remember what I said about Marly having issues?”

He nodded.

“Well, old lady Jessop hanged herself when Marly was just twelve. Marly was the one who found the body. I don’t think she ever got over it.”

“Be hard to get over something like that,” Deacon muttered.

Nona lit up another cigarette. “Kind of creepy when you think about it, though. Marly was the one who found her grandmother all those years ago, and now here she is a cop, having to investigate all these other suicides. That’s what I call a really weird-ass coincidence.”

Weird maybe. But Deacon didn’t really believe in coincidences.

Chapter Three

Dr. Alvin Pliner, the Durango County medical examiner, snapped on a pair of latex gloves as he approached the corpse with what Marly perceived as an unseemly amount of enthusiasm. Here was a man who clearly enjoyed his job, she thought with a shudder.

“You’ve protected the crime scene, I assume.” He made the prospect sound doubtful.

“Don’t worry, it’s virgin,” Navarro assured him. He gave Marly a slight wink at the medical examiner’s pomposity, and her stomach fluttered uncomfortably. Navarro had that kind of effect. He was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome, and the .357 Magnum he wore strapped to his hip gave him a certain bad-ass cachet that was downright irresistible.

All the women in town were half in love with him, but no one really knew much about him. An ex-Navy SEAL, he’d come to Mission Creek a little over a year ago to meet with the mayor and the city council, and whatever had gone down in those closed-door sessions had convinced them to hire him on the spot as the new chief of police.

From the very first, he’d been a different kind of cop than his predecessor. Boyd Hendrickson had been an aging lawman who had been all too content to coast along until his retirement. No one could accuse Navarro of complacency. He took an active role in every investigation, but he also remained somewhat of an outsider in the department, eschewing the standard uniform for jeans, boots, and on chilly days like today, a black leather jacket that made him seem cool, aloof and more than a little dangerous.

Marly dropped her gaze and tried to focus on Dr. Pliner as he moved his gloved hands with quick efficiency over the body. “He’s dead all right. Did you notice the blowback on his right hand? GPR is going to turn up positive, I can almost guarantee.”

“So you think it’s another suicide,” Navarro said quietly.

“Lucky Number Four,” Pliner agreed. “Although not so lucky for this poor bastard. I’ll be able to tell you more about time of death after the autopsy.”

He continued to poke and prod the corpse until Marly, still in danger of losing the contents of her stomach, had to leave the room. She walked down the hall into the living area and stood gazing around.

The room was sparsely furnished with a battered old sofa and recliner arranged around a small TV. The walls were decorated with Houston Astros and Harley-Davidson memorabilia, and the dining room table was strewn with mechanical parts, probably from the vintage Harley she’d seen under the carport. Marly could picture Ricky sitting there at night, listening to a baseball game on TV while he painstakingly restored and rebuilt piece by piece what had undoubtedly been his pride and joy.

Being in his house, examining his personal belongings was a little too much like having a glimpse into the man’s private dreams, Marly thought. She didn’t want to poke and prod into every aspect of his life, rip away the last vestiges of his dignity. All she really wanted was to go home, climb into a hot shower and wash that awful scent from her hair and from her skin. And from her memory, if possible.

She wasn’t like Navarro. She wasn’t the kind of cop who could walk away from a gruesome scene and put it out of her mind. Ricky Morales’s death would eat at her. His sightless eyes would haunt her sleep for years to come.

Handing out traffic citations was one thing, but all these deaths…

Marly hadn’t signed on for anything like this, and she toyed with the idea of handing in her resignation. She could just walk out the door and not look back, and no one would really be all that surprised. If anything, the people who knew her best were shocked that she’d stuck it out for this long.

Quitter, a voice inside her taunted. A voice that sounded very much like her father’s.

Well, better a quitter who could sleep at night, Marly reasoned.

Navarro had once told her that she had what it took to be a good cop. She had all the right instincts, he’d said. But did she have the guts?

It was a good question, and one Marly still wasn’t sure she could answer. Especially now, when her instincts were telling her something she didn’t want to hear.

Something bad was happening in Mission Creek. Something…evil.

And Marly didn’t have a clue how to fight it.

WHEN DEPUTY JESSOP FINALLY emerged from the house, she hurried down the porch steps without even a glance in Deacon’s direction. For a moment, it looked as if she were fleeing from the devil himself, and Deacon wondered if he should follow her. Find out what the hell was going on. But then one of the police officers who’d arrived on the scene just after the medical examiner called out to her and she paused. She turned and—reluctantly it seemed to Deacon—walked over to consult with her colleague.

Deacon studied her carefully, noting the flicker of emotions across her face, the almost convulsive movement of her hands. He remembered what Nona had said about her earlier, that she wasn’t cut out to be a cop. She was too much of a goody-goody. She let people push her around.

Maybe.

But in the few moments they’d stood talking in the hallway, Deacon had glimpsed something that made him think there was more to Marly Jessop than met the eye. She possessed the kind of innate courage that had allowed her to stand her ground even in the face of what she had obviously perceived as grave danger. That courage was buried deep, he suspected, but it was there, nonetheless. And if he was right about the nature of these recent deaths, she would need every ounce she could muster in the coming days. They both would.

As if sensing his scrutiny, Marly glanced up and their gazes met across the yard before she quickly looked away. But in that moment, something passed between them. Attraction—at least on Deacon’s part—but something else, too. A flash of understanding or perhaps even precognition that their paths had crossed for a reason.

Lifting a hand to the back of her neck, Marly continued to speak with the other officer. After a moment, he returned to his squad car and drove off while she sloshed back over to the porch.

Nona, who had been smoking quietly as she observed the exchange in the yard, tossed her cigarette over the rail. “You gonna finally tell us what happened to Ricky or what?”

Marly climbed the steps slowly. “I’m sorry, Nona. Ricky’s dead.”

“I already know that.” Nona’s tone was hard as nails, but her eyes glittered with emotion. “I want to know how it happened.”

Marly’s gaze slid to Deacon’s. “Nona, would you mind waiting for me at your house? I need to have a word with Mr. Cage here.” When the woman started to protest, Marly laid a hand on her sleeve. “I’ll come over as soon as I’m finished and tell you what I can.”

Nona sighed. “All right, but don’t leave me hanging, okay? Ricky and I go way back. We may’ve had our differences, but I’ve got a right to know what happened to him.”

Marly waited until Nona had exited the porch before she turned back to Deacon. She tilted her head to gaze up at him, and Deacon realized suddenly how tiny she was. How young she looked with her dark blond hair chopped off short and plastered to her head. She wore no makeup, and the freckles that dotted the bridge of her nose gave her a wholesome, girl-next-door look. But her eyes—an odd shade of gold—reflected a hint of bitterness that made Deacon wonder about her past.