Silent Storm. Amanda Stevens

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