Silent Storm

“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.”