A Silent Terror & A Silent Fury: A Silent Terror / A Silent Fury

The fact that she let it go amazed him. “Then tell me about your sister.”

Another direct hit, that one to the gut. He swallowed— hard. “Ashley was…amazing. She went to the deaf school.”

“Ashley O’Hara.” Realization dawned. “I knew her. The girl who was killed in the parking lot of the local high school by the…”

“…drag-racing teens,” he finished. “Yeah, she’d been to a ball game with some of her hearing friends from church. They were a little late getting back, and with the parking lot almost empty, she wasn’t paying attention when she headed toward…” The lump in his throat surprised him. After almost three years you would think he’d be at the point where he could at least talk about the accident without getting so emotional. If only the regret, the feeling of being responsible for…

“Oh, Ethan, I’m so sorry.”

Fresh guilt sideswiped him. He dodged it. “She would be twenty years old this year.”

“And the boys who were responsible? I don’t think I ever heard what happened.”

“It was ruled a negligent vehicular homicide. Both boys had stiff fines and the one who actually hit her served some jail time. They’re still doing community service stuff.”

Time to change the subject. He asked, “Did you call the school dormitory and cancel basketball practice yesterday?”

Blinking at the sudden turn, she answered, “No, of course not.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Someone called the dormitory on the TTY and pretended to be you, canceling practice.”

Anger flashed over her features, mixed with fear and frustration. “So, this person not only knows my schedule, but also knows who to call, how to call and what to say to impersonate me.”

“I’ve got Catelyn working on tracing the phone call. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t hold my breath on finding anything out there.”

“I know. That call could have been placed from anywhere that has a public TTY.” She leaned her head against the window, staring at the passing scenery. Josh held a Nintendo DS game that kept him enthralled.

Unable to stop himself, Ethan reached over to grasp her hand once more. Her eyes shot to his. He squeezed, a gentle pressure meant to offer reassurance. He felt the fragile bones, the slender, graceful fingers, and he appreciated her courage as she gave him a wobbly smile and squeezed back.

Ethan returned his attention to the road. Checked the side mirror, the rearview mirror.

Made a mental note about the car coming up behind them.

And noticed it was coming fast.

NINE

Marianna registered the sudden tensing in Ethan’s shoulders, his body’s abrupt shift to alert mode. Wondering at the lightning-fast change, she watched his eyes, not wanting to ask and take his concentration from whatever it was that grabbed his attention.

Flicking a glance in her side mirror, she noticed the black car approaching at a high rate of speed. Instant terror blindsided her. “Ethan?”

“Just hold tight.” She caught the words even though they were muttered between clenched teeth.

Ethan kept his eyes fixed on the road before him as well as the car behind him. Marianna did the same. Closer, closer. Bracing herself for either the impact or Ethan to swerve suddenly, she was almost floored by surprise when the car flew past in the left lane. Then relief left her shaking.

A breath blew out of Ethan, and she watched the tension ease from him, his fingers relaxing their white-knuckle intensity on the steering wheel.

“Wow.” Marianna couldn’t keep the word from slipping out.

“Yeah.”

Josh continued to play his game in the back, oblivious to the tension oozing from the front seats.

“That was a government car. I glimpsed the license plate as he went by. Stupid. Driving like that. Guy must have been going ninety-five, a hundred miles an hour.” Disgust emanated from him.

“Maybe there was an emergency somewhere.”

“Humph. In the form of being late for some bureaucratic meeting or something.”

Marianna gave him a grin, glad she could find it now that the false alarm had passed. “Don’t have a very high opinion of our government officials, do you?”

He slanted her a glance and offered a wry smile. “Only a select few.”

Absentmindedly she wondered out loud, “I wonder how the campaign will handle Mr. Luck’s death. I guess Steven Marshbanks will have his work cut out for him, although maybe moving from assistant to the campaign manager position into the primary campaign manager position won’t be a big deal for him. Who knows?”

“Clayton Robertson will bounce back. Nothing negative ever seems to touch that guy. He oozes charm.”

“Hmm…which is why he’s so popular with the people, I guess.” She lay her head back on the headrest. “I think all my adrenaline just seeped out. Do you mind if I close my eyes for a few minutes?”

“Go right ahead. We’ll be there in about an hour.”

* * *

The rest of the drive passed in peaceful silence, broken only by the sound of the video game coming from the backseat. Finally, Ethan pulled into the entrance to a small, well-kept farm. The long driveway wound around and up to the side of a large white house with black shutters.

Even in January, the grass was green, showing loving care and skill in the maintenance of the property. Two horses grazed behind the house out in the large pasture. A brown barn nestled underneath a grove of trees gleamed in the bright sun; bales of hay stacked neatly to the side brought to Ethan’s mind the one summer he’d gone to a wilderness camp. He’d been about nine years old, and he and his cabin buddies had sneaked down to the barn and scattered and piled the hay about five feet deep under the loft.

They’d had themselves a blast jumping into the mess. He’d been sent home early, and his parents had never let him forget it. But he wouldn’t have given up those rare carefree moments for anything…not even his parents’ short-in-supply approval.

Marianna’s eyes flickered open when he put the car into Park. “We’re here?”

“Yep. Safe and sound.” Thank You, God.

She gave him a small sleepy smile and his heart lurched. Uh-uh. She was part of a case. Don’t get your emotions involved with a case.

Then he wondered what their first date would be like.

Get out of the car, O’Hara.

He climbed out and Marianna followed, opening the back door for Josh. Josh put his game away and let out a squeal when he realized he was home.

As he ran for the fence that held the horses in the pasture, the door to the house opened, revealing a heavyset, gray-haired woman in her late sixties.

Grief showed on her plain face, but her joy at seeing Josh shone through. “Joshie!”

The woman smiled at him hanging over the rail petting the nose of his favorite horse. The change in the boy was remarkable as he leaned over to go nose to nose with his four-legged friend.

Then with sadness replacing her momentary joy, she headed over to him and Marianna. “Thank you so much for bringing him home. My husband fell last week and injured his ankle, so us driving over to get Josh would have been a hardship.”

Marianna reached out to hug the woman saying, “It’s no problem, Mrs. Luck. I wanted to be here for Josh and you, too.”

Tears welled but didn’t fall. “It’s hard to believe this has happened; at the height of Roland’s career, too.” She sighed, shaking her short gray curls. “But I guess it’s not always for us to understand.”

Marianna kept her own tears at bay through fierce determination. Then Josh’s grandmother waved a hand in front of her face as though swatting away a fly and said, “Come in, come in. I have a fresh pot of coffee on. Let’s sit down a few minutes.”

Everyone trudged into the kitchen, leaving Josh with his horses. He would be fine, Marianna knew. She took note of the house as she followed Mrs. Luck. Pride showed in every part Marianna could lay eyes on. From the scented plug-ins to the plethora of pictures on every available surface. Pictures on the wall, pictures on the end tables, knickknacks, family mementos. It reminded Marianna a little of her own childhood home. Maybe that’s why she liked Mrs. Luck so much. The woman resembled Marianna’s mother in a lot of ways. Marianna picked up a picture of Josh when he was about six years old and dressed in army fatigues.

Mrs. Luck saw her interest and stopped to say, “That’s Joshie, taking after his daddy. Roland served twelve years in the army along with some buddies of his that he went to school with. Most of them are in politics now.” A myriad of pictures cluttered the table, and she wished she had the time to study each one.

“I remember seeing photos Josh brought to school for Veterans Day.”

A sad smile curved the woman’s lips.

“And that one is my daughter, Lisa, and her family.” Marianna studied the picture framed in a simple black rectangle. Ethan stepped up behind her to look. His nearness sent a sudden shiver of awareness zipping along her nerves. When his hand rested on her shoulder, she noticed it felt…right. As if it belonged there.

Briefly, she met his gaze and noticed he’d felt it, too… and wasn’t quite sure what to think about it either. He let his eyes linger on hers, his fingers gave a gentle squeeze and pressure danced along her nerve endings.

Mrs. Luck intruded on the moment as she motioned them on.

Ethan let his hand drop to hers, entwining their fingers as he led her to the kitchen.

Sitting at the round table, sipping coffee, Marianna, Mrs. Luck and Ethan chatted for a few moments. Then Marianna ventured, “Well, I guess we need to see about getting a couple of hotel rooms for the night. I know the funeral is tomorrow. Can you suggest a place for us to stay?”

“Why don’t you stay here with us? We have plenty of room. All my kids are grown and…gone.” Looking away, she got a hold of her emotions once more, then offered a weak smile. “Don’t reckon I’ll ever get used to thinking of Roland as gone permanently.”

“I know it’s hard,” Ethan murmured, “losing someone you love. I lost my sister three years ago.”

“Oh, you do understand then, don’t you?” Mrs. Luck nodded. “It’s really strange, too, because he had just come home for a short visit.”

Mariana perked up at that. “Really? Josh didn’t say anything about seeing his father on the weekend.” Usually, if Josh had seen his dad over the weekend, he would come in Monday morning signing, “See Daddy. See Daddy. See Daddy.” Sometimes it was all Marianna could do to get him focused back on his work.

“No—” Mrs. Luck shook her head for emphasis “—no, it wasn’t on the weekend. It was last week. In fact it was Monday afternoon. It was so odd for him to just show up out of the blue like that. I wondered what was going on, but he claimed he was just here to visit, although it did seem something was bothering him.” The woman sniffed and wiped her nose with what was left of the frayed tissue she held. “Well, now I wonder if he had some kind of… idea…inkling that something was going to happen to him.”

Again, Marianna felt compassion sweep her. “Who knows what was going on with him? It could have simply been a bad weekend or week for him. You know how it is in politics.”

Mrs. Luck gave a watery chuckle. “Well, you’re certainly right there. I don’t guess I’ll ever know what was going through his head.” She slapped the table and stood. “Let me check on my husband and see about getting you a couple of rooms fixed up.”

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