Silent Weapon Read online

  The building that housed Sawyer’s offices stood only four stories but looked as new as any of the others. According to the directory posted outside the main entrance, the lobby and a conference room were on the first floor. The entire top floor housed Sawyer’s suite of offices, and the floors in between, his worker bees. I didn’t know how long he would work tonight, but I needed to be prepared to move when the time came for him to make his appointment. I couldn’t let anything sidetrack me.

  As if he’d picked up on the presence of unfriendly forces in the area, Sawyer exited the main entrance and strolled over to his SUV, which he’d parked in the small lot that fronted his building. His was the only building on the block that had its own private parking lot. That lot stood empty save for Sawyer’s SUV. He opened the driver’s-side door and rummaged around inside but his movements lacked real purpose. He seemed to be buying time. He closed the door and moved around the vehicle as if inspecting the exterior in the fading light. My heart rate kicked into a faster rhythm. What the hell was he doing? His gaze abruptly cut to the vehicles lining the curb on the far side of the street…including mine.

  I slid down in my seat until I could scarcely see through the very bottom of the car window where it met the upholstery of the door. My breath stalled in my lungs as I waited to see what he would do next.

  I didn’t have to wait long. He started across the lot, headed straight for this side of the street. What if he walked up to my car? Demanded to know who I was and what I was doing?

  Not for a second did I dare take my eyes off him. Above the dash I saw him pause at one of the cars parked farther up, four vehicles past my position. Every mistake I had made in my calculations of how this little operation would go down flashed before my eyes. I hadn’t considered that he might have extra security, though I hadn’t seen hide or hair of anyone as of yet. Or that Barlow would give me any grief when I told him I’d solved his case for him. I also hadn’t given any thought to what I would do if a moment like this transpired.

  If Sawyer moved toward my vehicle…what would I do?

  My fingers itched to reach toward the ignition and turn the key. With nothing parked behind me, I could throw the transmission into Reverse and barrel all the way down the block before executing a quick turn to get the hell out of here. But if I did that, he would know. The whole operation would be blown and then my efforts would be for nothing.

  And Barlow would know what I had done. Not to mention that Sawyer would likely get my license plate number as I rushed away and he would not rest until he tracked me down. My new career, such as it is, would be over, but far worse, my life likely would be as well.

  So, I forced myself to remain perfectly still. To keep my breathing slow and steady. To stay as calm as anyone could in this situation.

  The top of his head disappeared from my line of vision and I felt my insides go cold. Was he moving toward my car now? Keeping low so I wouldn’t see him? I balled my fingers into fists and fought the need to run.

  I resisted the near overwhelming urge to close my eyes and wait for death to descend. Good thing, too, because a gray sedan suddenly drove past my position. Sawyer was behind the wheel. He didn’t even look in my direction.

  Profound relief washed over me. As difficult as it was, I waited three more seconds before I eased back up in the seat and started my car. By the time I backed up and turned around he had stopped at the end of the block to wait for the traffic signal to change. In my peripheral vision I noted that one of the parked cars was missing. Why did he keep a car parked on the street when he had a lot in front of his building?

  The answer was simple, I realized. He, unlike me, had contingency plans.

  Though it was dark now I didn’t turn on my headlights. I rolled slowly forward, giving the signal time to change so that he would be focused on moving through the intersection rather than on what came up behind him. As he pulled out onto the main street, I followed. He merged into traffic on the cross street, which facilitated my ability to tail him and allowed me to turn on my headlights. This new vehicle he drove was a late model, four doors. Much harder to keep in sight since it blended in with the other vehicles rather than rising above them as the SUV had done.

  I felt damned proud that I’d managed to keep my head about me during that last minute or so. If I’d ducked down too far in my seat or closed my eyes, I would never have seen him leave. I would still be parked on that street in front of his office wondering where he’d disappeared to. I prayed my good luck and my nerve would hold out for another hour and forty-five minutes.

  Steven Barlow had worked murder cases for too long to talk about. He shook his head as he allowed his mind to traverse the files and faces of his professional past. That was never a good idea. Too many ugly reminders of the evil that men and women alike could do.

  With hard work he managed to bring the killer to justice most of the time. Hardly ever failed, to be quite honest. But three years ago, he had. Failed, that is.

  Brett Sawyer had gotten away with murder and Steven knew in his gut the man was guilty as sin. But he hadn’t been able to prove it. Whether Sawyer was that smart or just damned lucky, he still couldn’t say. And it really didn’t matter. All that mattered was that the bastard had gotten away with it.

  Steven plowed his fingers through his hair and stared at the phone on the table next to his couch. What the hell was Merrilee Walters doing? How did she think she could pull this off? Not that Steven considered himself infallible, but at least he had the gold shield that gave him license to track down killers. This woman was a file clerk, for Christ’s sake!

  Worry gnawed at his gut. Did the woman have a death wish? He put in a call to dispatch and had all calls to his home forwarded to his cell phone in the event he had to leave the house any minute now. Then he requested a trace on Merrilee’s cellular. Just to be sure he got her, he put out a silent APB on her car. He didn’t want her name going out over the airwaves just in case anyone who owed Sawyer was listening and…

  “Just in case she’s nuts,” he muttered.

  After the initial call it had taken a moment, but he’d remembered the woman. She worked in the archives. Cute. Flaming red hair. Pretty green eyes. Shy.

  She’d never spoken to him, nor had he to her.

  But then, his social life pretty much sucked. He stared at the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table that he’d been devouring before her call. Hell, it was Saturday night, and since he wasn’t hot on the trail of some killer, he sat at home, alone, watching a made-for-television movie.

  Refusing to be disgusted with his own choices, Steven hauled himself up from the couch and followed his instincts. Might as well get dressed for business.

  That old sixth sense—cop sense—was telling him to get ready. Merrilee Walters had gotten herself into a whole shitload of trouble, and if he didn’t do something about it she would most likely end up dead.

  No way in hell was he going to let Sawyer get away with murder again. Even if the victim had brought it on herself.

  Steven shook his head again. What the hell was this little file clerk up to?

  Chapter 3

  That’s the problem with being deaf. You can’t hear a damned thing. My impairment is commonly called profound loss. You don’t hear anything at all. I hadn’t heard Sawyer open the car door or slam it shut. Hadn’t heard the engine start or anything else.

  I’ve learned to live with the lack of that crucial sense. What else could I do? But it had been devastating at first. Even now a slice of pain went through me at the memory. A few months before my twenty-eighth birthday I’d suffered a typical sinus infection. Nothing major, the usual nuisance. But the infection wasn’t just any old bug, it was a rare strain that would evolve and spread and do serious damage before the doctors, including the best ENT to be found in the whole state, could recognize and stop it. In the end, I survived, but my hearing was gone. A mixed hearing loss, functional as well as neurological.

  What on earth did a
twenty-seven-year-old woman do when she suddenly found herself deaf? Who wanted an elementary school teacher who didn’t know how to be deaf? One who no longer knew how to teach without the ability to hear? Needless to say, the school board did the only thing they could, they gave me a disability pension. And my fiancé, the very one I was supposed to wed in a mere three months, walked away from our relationship with no real explanation. I could only deduce that, as a songwriter, he felt that the woman with whom he would share the rest of his life needed to be able to hear and appreciate his music.

  So, here I was, two years later, venturing out on my very first unsafe limb. Diving into my very first adventure as a handicapped woman.

  I hated the term, but I couldn’t deny its accuracy.

  I moved into the right lane, two cars behind Sawyer. That was another thing, I could still drive. Deaf people are actually very good drivers. According to statistics, deaf people have fewer accidents than those who can hear. Maybe because we become more visually observant. Makes sense to me.

  Speaking of visual observance, I had no idea where Sawyer was headed. It seemed to be a little early for getting into position for his ten o’clock rendezvous.

  Oh, hell. Something else I hadn’t considered. If the location was out of town, that would increase the time necessary for Barlow to arrive once I made the call. Definitely not a good thing.

  I bit down on my bottom lip and toyed with the idea of getting Barlow back on the horn and telling him the entire truth right that second. But what if I did and Sawyer had connections in the police department? I hoped that wasn’t the case, but I couldn’t take the risk. I had to let this play out and hope Barlow would come through for me.

  Whether or not this operation worked was in large part up to me. Just me. For the first time in two years I felt like I might actually accomplish something meaningful. I couldn’t give up too soon…couldn’t screw up, either. I had to make this happen. Had to prove I could do more with my life again than sit around waiting for a disability check to arrive or simply filing papers.

  I shook off the old, familiar panic that attempted to creep up my spine. I would not let fear hold me back. I’d almost done that two years ago. I refused to go backward.

  My family had rallied around me. Would have taken care of me the rest of my life with no questions asked. But merely existing was not enough for me. I needed more. I needed to do something that mattered. Something beneficial to society as a whole. I’d had that as an elementary teacher. I loved my teaching work…loved the children. Not a single day passed in my former career that I didn’t feel as if my small part genuinely mattered in the grander scheme of things. Sitting at home as a deaf, disabled woman almost drove me crazy at first, before I’d convinced my family I had to contribute to society somehow.

  One year later, after intensive counseling and training, I felt ready to face the world again. The counseling had helped me get past feeling sorry for myself. Unfortunately, even I wasn’t above that pathetic pitfall. The training had taught me how to function without one of my senses.

  I could sign, but it wasn’t my favorite way to communicate. I was well into my twenty-eighth year by then. Speaking had been my primary means of communication for far too long to change. I could still speak, I just couldn’t hear. One of the instructors at the academy for the hearing impaired had offered a solution I could live with. Lip reading. So I started to study the art. It’s more than merely watching the lips…the whole face is involved, and like science, it is by no means exact.

  I grew very good at it. Very, very good. Within months I could read lips and respond in a conversation with scarcely a delay. Most strangers I encountered these days didn’t even realize I was deaf. So far, being deaf hasn’t affected the way I speak. I did have to study new ways to modulate my speech. I learned the difference in how it feels to speak in a normal tone versus a raised voice or shouting. I paid particular attention to the tension in my throat muscles and to the reaction of others. Once you started to pay attention and respond more to your visual world, it was amazing how much you could read on a person’s face. Like most things in life, everything was in the details.

  Likewise, I could tell the tone in which a person was speaking by the expressions on his or her face and other subtle mannerisms. Once in a great while I meet the proverbial poker face. Then I have no choice but to interpret his tone by his words. I don’t like the loss of control that comes with those rare situations. That was just another reason I hated talking on the phone. For one thing, I had no way of knowing who was speaking. I could assume, based on the number I dialed, who might answer, but I couldn’t know for sure. Caller ID helped, at least I knew the name that went along with the number from which a call is made to me. Having no power over that aspect of my life was disturbing when I let myself dwell upon it—which wasn’t often.

  Sawyer took a left too quickly for me to react. I had no choice but to drive to the next turn and hope I could catch up with him on the first cross street.

  I didn’t draw in another breath until I saw his car move beneath a streetlight halfway up the next block. I followed.

  “Thank God,” I muttered.

  With less traffic on this side street there was only one car between us, which made me a little nervous. He slowed for a turn. That turn, a right, left nothing between us. I managed to click off my headlights in the nick of time. No way was I taking the risk of being spotted. He would be watching for a tail. He couldn’t be so stupid as to go forward with this plan and not be aware of his surroundings. He would be on the lookout for trouble.

  Ten more minutes passed before Sawyer made another turn, again to the right. I recognized the area. Residential. Low rent. My heart pounded with anticipation, my palms were sweating. I kept swiping one or the other on my jeans to keep a firm grip on the steering wheel.

  Thirty minutes later, with a full hour to go until the appointed time, he had driven around and around, seemingly in circles, before moving back onto the street he’d originally turned onto. What was this guy doing? My phone had vibrated twice more since the last call from Barlow but I ignored it. Couldn’t take my eyes off my target.

  Sawyer took another right and picked up some speed. The addition of some light traffic allowed me to turn my headlights back on. We left the city limits behind, but there were still plenty of houses and the occasional convenience store. Still, the farther from Nashville proper we ventured the more worried I got. I should call Barlow. No, not yet. I didn’t even know where we were going…I couldn’t do that.

  Sawyer hooked a left. I turned off my headlights once more, praying I wouldn’t run over anyone or anything. I wasn’t familiar with this area. No streetlights. Wooded. One or two houses, then nothing. Once in a while a field would interrupt the expanse of forest. Without traffic for camouflage I had no choice but to remain dark.

  He turned right onto a road that disappeared into the trees. Talk about utterly lost. Maybe in the daylight I would have recognized the area. I waited a second or two before following the same route. His taillights disappeared around a bend in the road. Narrow, tree-lined. Gave new meaning to the term rural.

  My pulse skittered, but I’d come too far to back out now. I made the turn…this one the “no way back” kind, because this road was one lane at best. If Sawyer turned around or backed up I would be in serious trouble. I watched him make another left, his taillights bobbing, onto yet another road—a constricted path, actually, I decided when I reached it. I blinked in surprise when I saw the interior light of his car come on. He had stopped and was getting out fifty or sixty yards from the last turn he’d made. I saw this only by virtue of that interior light. He was too far away for me to see anything clearly.

  I didn’t dare move a muscle, though he was plenty far away enough not to hear the engine of my Jetta, which according to my brothers ran as smoothly and quietly as the salesman had insisted it did.

  Sawyer shoved his car door closed. The interior light went out. With the tree
s blocking the moon, it was black as pitch this deep in the woods. I had long ago turned off my headlights so there was no chance of him seeing me if he turned around…as long as he didn’t hear me. I prayed my brothers were right about the noiseless operation of my little four-cylinder.

  Okay. I had two choices. I could sit right here until he got back into his car and risk him seeing me when he started the engine, turned on his lights and began to back up, or I could roll forward, away from the road onto which he’d turned, and risk him hearing the sound of my tires bearing down on whatever lay beneath them. As best I could tell, it was a dirt road, but I had no way of anticipating if there was any gravel involved or how much racket would accompany my forward movement.

  The one thing I knew for certain was that I couldn’t just sit here. He was nearly two hundred feet away….

  Screw it. I had to do something. I relaxed my right foot from the brake pedal ever so slightly and allowed the Jetta to roll forward away from the intersecting road where he’d turned off. I had to conceal my position before he’d accomplished whatever he’d come here to do. Might as well be now. Since I couldn’t turn on my lights and no longer had his to follow, I had to assume the road before me continued on. I couldn’t be sure any more than I could be about the one he’d taken. For all I knew that road could take him back to the main drag we’d left some minutes ago. Too many variables. Something else I should have thought of.

  I parked about twenty yards away and shut off the engine, then took a deep, bolstering breath and got out. I eased the door closed and walked back to the road he’d taken. Moving cautiously to ensure I didn’t give away my presence and because I couldn’t see a damned thing, I slowly maneuvered closer to where he’d left his sedan. I looked around in hopes of spotting him. Nothing. Just blackness.

  Damn. If he—