Silent Storm

Meteorologists were calling it the wettest spring South Texas had seen in over five decades, and they blamed the unusual precipitation on everything from El Niño to global warming. But Marly didn’t much care about the science behind the soggy forecast. She had very little knowledge of, or interest in, the upper-level troughs and low pressure systems the so-called experts kept babbling about on the evening news. What she did know was that the dreary weather was starting to wear on her nerves.

The weather…and now the suicides.

Three unnatural deaths in just over a week would be a disturbing phenomenon for any community, but in a town the size of Mission Creek—population 18,733 give or take—it was downright scary.

Wiping a nervous hand down the side of her uniform, Marly turned and knocked on the front door of the wood-frame house. When there was no answer, she gave a quick glance over her shoulder, as if expecting someone to sneak up on her.

But no one was about. The rain had chased everyone inside. The whole community wore an air of abandonment. No passing cars. No barking dogs. No kids playing in puddles.

The only sound came from the raindrops that pattered incessantly against the porch roof, whispered eerily through the citrus trees in the front yard until Marly wanted to lift her hands and cover her ears. The rain was almost like a presence, a ghostly entity that settled over Buena Vista, a blue-collar neighborhood for day laborers, automechanics and construction workers like Ricky Morales, who hadn’t been seen or heard from in over three days—according to an anonymous caller—despite the fact that his brand-new Ford pickup was parked underneath the carport.

Marly rapped on the door more insistently. “Ricky? You in there? It’s Marly. Marly Jessop. Chief Navarro sent me out here to check up on you. Some of your neighbors are getting worried about you. Come on now. Open up.”

Still getting no response, Marly put her ear to the door. She could hear nothing at first over the sound of the rain, but then came the faint tinkle of music. Whether it was coming from inside the house or from somewhere else—her imagination perhaps— Marly didn’t know, but the distant strains gave her an eerie sense of déjà vu.

Without warning her mind skidded back in time, and suddenly she was twelve years old again, a gawky adolescent on the cusp of womanhood as she stood on her grandmother’s front porch, calling through the door: “Grandma, you home? It’s me, Marlene. I came over to see if you’re okay. Mama was worried when you weren’t in church this morning. Grandma?”

There’d been no answer that time, either, just the low, mournful wail of trumpets and the singer’s achingly beautiful voice blending with the rain.

The record had been scratched, Marly remembered, so that one part played over and over:

…Gloomy Sunday…Gloomy Sunday…Gloomy Sunday…

She could see herself opening the door and stepping inside, her nose wrinkling at the abrasive odor of ammonia that could never quite dispel the old woman scent that permeated the house.

“Grandma?”

Walking quietly down the hallway, Marly glanced over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t leaving muddy footprints on the hardwood floor. Her grandmother hated dirt, almost as much as she despised children. Grubby creatures, she called Marly and her brother, Sam. Unsanitary heathens.

“Grandma?”

…Gloomy Sunday…Gloomy Sunday…Gloomy Sunday…

Marly followed the sound of the music up the stairs to her grandmother’s bedroom. Hanging from a ceiling beam, the old woman was suspended in a shaft of late-afternoon sunlight. Dust motes danced almost giddily in the air around her, and as Marly stared at the body in horror, she couldn’t help thinking how much her grandmother would hate to be found like this. In her own filth, she would call it.

She was missing a shoe, too, and if there was anything Isabel Jessop obsessed over more than her house, it was her appearance. She never wore anything but dresses, all specially made for her by a seamstress in San Antonio. Cotton for everyday and silk or linen for Sundays and special occasions. And she purchased her makeup and toiletries from the cosmetics department at Dillard’s. Wonderful smelling concoctions that came in lovely little bottles and jars, which Marly wasn’t allowed to touch, let alone sample.

Her grandmother was wearing one of her Sunday dresses now, a crisp lilac linen, and Marly could see the diamond earbobs she’d always coveted glittering from her grandmother’s lobes. In the split second before Marly screamed, she wondered what would happen to those earrings now…

…Gloomy Sunday…Gloomy Sunday…Gloomy Sunday…

The music faded with the memory, and Marly put a trembling hand to her mouth. Had she really heard that song? Or was her imagination playing tricks on her?

Considering everything that was going on in Mission Creek, it would be understandable if she had conjured the melody in her head. Everyone in town was on edge. Miss Gracie’s tragic suicide had been hard enough on the community, but then those two high school kids had OD’d four days later.

Marly shuddered. Mission Creek was a small town. She knew all the victims, and their deaths had affected her deeply. And they’d brought back her nightmares with a vengeance.

A wave of dizziness swept over her now, and for a moment, she rested her forehead against the door frame to keep from being sick.

She clenched her fists tightly, willing away the vertigo. This wimpy stuff wasn’t going to cut it. She was a peace officer in the township of Mission Creek, in the county of Durango, in the great state of Texas. She was sworn not only to uphold the law, but to serve and protect. If someone inside that house was in trouble, it was her duty to check out the situation and offer assistance. It might not be too late. This time might not be like the other…

But what if it was?

A hand fell on Marly’s shoulder, and for a split second, she froze in terror, certain that if she turned, she would find herself staring straight into the sightless eyes of her dead grandmother.

…Gloomy Sunday…Gloomy Sunday…Gloomy Sunday…

RAINDROPS POUNDED LIKE A WAR drum on top of Deacon Cage’s truck as he headed toward the outskirts of town. Impatiently he reached over the steering wheel to swipe his jacket sleeve across the windshield. He had the defroster going full blast, but the glass kept fogging up on him. And he was cold. Chilled to the bone even though the outside temperature hovered around sixty.

But the dampness slipped in through the vents, crept underneath the doors and around the windows. It came in like an omen. Like an anxious harbinger sent to warn the good people of Mission Creek that evil had slithered into their town while no one had been watching.

Okay, maybe that was a little on the melodramatic side, Deacon allowed as he glanced at the piece of paper where he’d scribbled an address. Not to mention apocalyptical. But it was hard not to take the weather as a sign given that the rain hadn’t let up for weeks.

No wonder there was such a dark, oppressive feel to the town. Deacon had arrived only yesterday and already the weather was getting under his skin.

Spotting his turn just ahead, he slowed, automatically glancing in the rearview mirror before he changed lanes. But there was no one on the wet street behind him. No one around for miles, it seemed. He might have been driving through a ghost town for all the signs of life he saw.

He had the radio turned to a local station, and the newscaster was talking about the suicides. That was all anyone talked about. The suicides and the rain.

Deacon listened for a moment, but there was nothing new in any of the cases. The autopsy reports showed that David Shelley and Amber Tyson, both honor students at Mission Creek High School, had taken lethal doses of a prescription sleeping medication containing benzodiazepine. Their bodies had been found the next morning on a remote road near an abandoned army base.

According to family and close friends, David and Amber were normal teenagers. They weren’t loners. They weren’t misfits. They didn’t have a history of drug use nor were they from broken or abusive homes. By all appearances, they had everything going for them, had bright futures ahead of them. So why had these two “normal” kids suddenly decided to take their own lives?

Why had Gracie Abbott, a seventy-three-year-old retired schoolteacher, who had been planning a trip to Greece in the fall with a favorite niece, driven her car into her garage one gloomy Sunday afternoon, rolled up the windows, and decided to end it all right then and there?

The actions made no sense to those who had known the victims best, but local law enforcement officials maintained that forensic evidence at both crime scenes was consistent with suicide. There was no reason to suspect foul play. After all, some of the highest suicide rates in the country were among the elderly and it was the third leading cause of death in teenagers.

So maybe Deacon was wrong about a connection. About a motive. About everything. He prayed that he was wrong.

But he didn’t think that he was.

He’d known the moment he crossed the city limits three days ago that something dark and sinister was at work here. A killer was on the prowl, a murderer so cunning that no one in town yet had a clue what they were up against.

But Deacon knew. He knew only too well.

And that was why he was here. The road to redemption led through Mission Creek—and straight to the killer.

“I’m coming for you,” he muttered into the silence.

As he made the turn into Buena Vista, a clap of thunder rumbled in the distance, deepening the chill inside his soul.

THE HAND TIGHTENED ON MARLEY’S shoulder, and she whipped around so fast, the person behind her jumped back. The woman lost her footing on the wet porch and would have tumbled down the steps if Marly hadn’t grabbed her in the nick of time.

Nona Ferris glared at her accusingly. “What the hell, Marly? You almost knocked me down those steps, girl.”

“Sorry. I didn’t hear you come up.” Marly reached around Nona and rescued the woman’s dripping umbrella from the steps, then propped it against the porch wall.

“You sure took your sweet time getting out here,” Nona complained. “I called the cops two hours ago.”