Silent Storm

He gritted his teeth and glanced away. “Yeah, I’m still here. I’m at the scene now.”

“Is it…a suicide?”

“There’s suicide and there’s suicide,” he said.

“Yes, I know.” Deacon could picture her seated behind her computer, dark hair pulled back and fastened primly at her nape as she scowled at her screen. Her full lips would be pursed in concentration, her violet eyes shadowed with a grief that had only deepened in the months since her son’s death. “Do you have any leads?”

“Nothing concrete. I have a couple of names I’d like you to run through the usual databases, though. I don’t expect anything to turn up, but you never know. The first one is Tony Navarro. He’s the chief of police down here.”

“Any particular reason you’re interested in him?”

Deacon’s gaze went back to the couple on the porch. “Just a gut instinct.”

“You really think the chief of police could be one of them?” Camille persisted. She must have sensed something in his voice. Sometimes her instincts were uncanny.

“One of us, you mean?” Deacon countered.

She hesitated. “You know I don’t think of you that way. Besides, not everyone who went through Montauk was or is a killer. Some of the men have even gone back to their normal lives.”

“Yeah,” Deacon said. “And some of them are in psychiatric wards. Some of them are living on the streets.” And some of them had continued to kill.

“You said there were two names,” Camille prompted.

“The other is Sam Jessop. I haven’t met him yet, but from everything I’ve learned, he matches the profile. He was in the army, and he comes from a military family.”

“Okay. I’ll check them out and get back to you. Anything else?”

“There’s an abandoned army base not far from here. See what you can dig up about it.”

He heard her catch her breath. “You don’t think it was part of Montauk, do you?”

“We know they expanded the operation,” Deacon said. “And we’ve never discovered the other locations. It’s worth checking out.”

“That should keep me busy for a day or two,” Camille said. “In the meantime, keep in touch, okay? Grandfather worries about you. So do I,” she added reluctantly.

Deacon’s features tightened. “I wish you wouldn’t. I don’t deserve it.”

Camille sighed. “You’re never going to get past it, are you?”

A muscle began to pulse in Deacon’s jaw. “Get past who I am? What I did?”

“You were following orders,” Camille said. “You were programmed to—”

“Kill people.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“Face it, Camille. Just because I can’t remember doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I was an assassin. You don’t move on from something like that. There’s no redemption for what I did.”

“There might be,” she said softly. “If you could somehow find it in your heart to forgive yourself.”

Chapter Four

Nona had left her front door open, and as Marly climbed the porch steps a few minutes later, she could hear the woman banging around inside.

She walked up to the door and called through the screen. “Nona?”

“It’s open!”

Marly glanced around as she stepped inside. The layout of the house was almost identical to the one across the street. The front door opened directly into a small, cramped living area decorated in country blue. Perky gingham curtains with crisp sashes hung from the windows while an army of bonneted geese marched in single file across a ceiling border.

The homey décor surprised Marly although she’d really had no idea what to expect. Nona’s mother had once worked for her family, but Marly was ashamed to admit that she’d never really taken the time to know Nona or Mrs. Ferris.

But it wasn’t because she was a snob. Far from it. Truth be told, Marly had always been a little intimidated by Nona’s brassy good-looks and her rather disconcerting habit of speaking her mind without regard to the consequences.

She’d been one of the bad girls in high school, running with a crowd that had voraciously smoked, drank, or popped whatever drug they could get their hands on at the moment. They’d gone to raves every weekend, skipped school every Monday, and generally didn’t give a damn what anyone in town thought of them. Marly had envied their freedom.

Even now, with the evidence of all that hard living etched poignantly in Nona’s face, Marly suspected the woman still managed to live life on her own terms. She might not be particularly happy with the hand she’d been dealt, but she accepted it and made no excuses or apologies for it.

And Marly still envied her.

“Well?” Nona demanded from the kitchen. “Are you going to stand there all damn day or are you going to tell me about Ricky?”

Marly walked over to the bar and pulled out a stool. “Sorry. I was just admiring your house.”

Nona gave a derisive snort. “Yeah, right.”

“No, seriously.” Marly glanced around. “It’s really warm and cozy. I like it.”

Nona shrugged. “Well, thanks. But it’s hardly in the same league as your house.”

“I don’t have a house,” Marly said. “I live in an apartment.”

“I meant your parents’ place.”

Cozy and warm were not adjectives Marly would ever use to describe the house where she’d grown up. The split-level ranch, decorated so meticulously and beautifully by her mother, had always seemed cold and unwelcoming. Oppressive.

“You want some coffee?” Nona grabbed two cups from the dish drainer by the sink and placed them on the counter.

Marly shook her head. “No, thanks.”

“You sure? It’s fresh. I just made it,” Nona said as she poured herself a cup.

“I’m not much of a coffee drinker,” Marly told her.

“A Coke then? Some juice?”

“I’m fine.” Marly’s gaze fastened on a flyer that had been tossed on the counter. Even before she scanned the text advertising an old-fashioned revival meeting at a local church, she knew the leaflet had come from the Glorious Way on Sixth Street. Joshua Rush’s church. The emblem on the front was unmistakable. The rays of light emanating from an eye symbolized enlightenment—or so Joshua had once told her.