Quickly she replaced the snapshot in the book and closed it. “What are you doing here?”
His gaze seemed to darken as he watched her. As if he knew she was hiding something from him. “I saw you leave the station.”
“And you followed me?” Her tone grew indignant, but as much out of guilt as genuine outrage.
“I thought you could use my help.” Slowly, he walked into the room and glanced around.
“With what?”
“Your investigation.” His tone seemed to challenge her. “You’re here looking for clues, aren’t you? Some evidence that will point you to the killer?” His gaze dropped to the book she still held in her hand, and Marly wondered suddenly if he could do more than just control thoughts. Could he also read minds?
“I’m looking for the truth,” she said, placing the book back on the nightstand.
“The truth?”
“About David and Amber. I think we may have jumped to conclusions regarding their suicides,” she admitted. Reluctantly she told him about her visit from Amber’s cousin. “If we were wrong about the motivation in that case, if it was something other than a teenage suicide pact, then I can’t help wondering what else we might have gotten wrong. Maybe we missed some clues that could help us figure out what’s going on around here.”
“And you think this older man Amber was interested in might have something to do with her death?”
Marly hesitated. “I don’t know. But something Lisa told me has been bothering me. She went to Navarro with the same information she gave me, and he told her to just forget about it. It wouldn’t make any difference. The case was closed, and talk about Amber and an older man would only hurt Amber’s family.”
Deacon was still walking slowly around the room. “Sounds logical.”
“Not if you know Navarro. He’s a meticulous investigator. I can’t imagine him sweeping any kind of information or evidence under a rug just to spare someone’s feelings. I can’t help thinking…”
When she didn’t finish her thought, Deacon turned. “What?”
Marly pushed her hair behind her ears. “I guess I can’t help wondering if he could have been the older man Amber was infatuated with. If that’s the reason he wanted to keep Lisa Potter silent.”
Something glinted in Deacon’s eyes. “You think it’s possible Amber was involved with Navarro?”
Marly shrugged. “It’s not inconceivable. Every female over the age of twelve has had a crush on Navarro since he came to town.”
“Including you?” Deacon had his back to her now. Marly couldn’t see his expression, but there was something in his voice…
If she didn’t know better, she’d swear he was jealous.
But that didn’t make sense. There was nothing between them. They were still virtually strangers.
And yet from the moment she’d first met Deacon, Marly hadn’t been able to get him out of her head. Even after the insane things he’d told her about mind control and psychokinesis, even after he’d practically accused her brother of being a killer, she still hadn’t been able to resist his kiss last night.
He was standing in front of the dresser, and their gazes met in the mirror. His stare raked over her body, reminding her all too vividly that in one very intimate way, they were no longer strangers.
“What’s this?” he murmured, reaching up to pluck something off the mirror.
Marly walked over to join him. He held a tiny paper eye in his palm, one with rays of light emanating from the iris.
“That’s a symbol used by the Glorious Way Church,” Marly said. “Joshua’s church.”
Deacon glanced up. “She had it taped to the mirror. What do you suppose that means?”
“Maybe it was a reminder that a higher power constantly watched over her.” Or that Joshua did. Marly shivered. “Her stepfather seems to think that there may have been something going on between Amber and Joshua.”
Deacon pressed the eye to the mirror with his thumb. “What do you think about that?”
“I think anything is possible where Joshua Rush is concerned.”
“Even murder?”
Marly glanced away. “I don’t know. I know I don’t trust him.”
Her answer seemed to satisfy Deacon for the moment. He moved across the room and studied the same bulletin board she’d examined earlier. And she knew he would see exactly what she’d seen.
After a moment, he turned. “Sam was Amber’s teacher, wasn’t he?”
“So?” Marly knew exactly where the conversation was leading. She hadn’t liked his accusations last night, and she liked them even less this morning. She wanted to tell him again that her brother wasn’t a killer. She wanted to scream it at the top of her lungs. Instead she folded her arms and watched him.
He came back over to where she stood next to the bed. “You say you want to find the truth?” Reaching around her, he picked up the copy of The Scarlet Letter from the nightstand and placed it in her hands. “Then don’t ignore the clues, Marly. Start listening to your instincts. No matter what they tell you.”
DORIS KEATING PEERED anxiously out her window before drawing back her door. She was a tiny woman, less than five feet tall and weighing no more than ninety pounds, Marly was certain. She’d known the woman for years. Marly’s parents lived just down the street, and when Marly was younger, Mrs. Keating had been her piano teacher.
“Come in, Marly.” The older woman stood back for her to enter. “My goodness, you got here fast. I didn’t expect you until much later.”
Marly carefully wiped her damp feet on the welcome mat before she stepped inside Mrs. Keating’s fastidious home. “I happened to be in the area so I decided to come on by.”
“Are you on your way to see your mother?” the woman inquired politely.
“No, ma’am. I’m still on duty.”
“Oh, dear.” Mrs. Keating’s gaze took in Marly’s uniform. “There hasn’t been another death, has there?”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” Marly said gently. “Like I told you on the phone, I need to take a look inside Miss Gracie’s house. It’s purely routine. I just need to check out something for our files, and I figured since you lived next door to her for so long, you probably had a key to each other’s houses.”
“Well, you’re right about that. I do have a key to Gracie’s house. She and I weren’t just neighbors, you know. We were dear, dear friends.” While she rambled on, she crossed the room and fished a key out of one of the ceramic shoes she kept grouped together in a walnut curio cabinet. She brought the key back over to Marly.
“Now as soon as you’re finished, you bring that right back to me, hear? I know Gracie’s never going to need it again, but she gave it to me for safekeeping. I wouldn’t feel right letting just any Tom, Dick or Harry traipse through her home.”
“I understand. I’ll bring it back.” Marly started for the door, then turned. “Have you seen anyone coming in or out of Miss Gracie’s house in the last few days?”
“No. Well, just that nice young man from the school.”
Marly’s heart skipped a beat. “What nice young man?”
“The scholarly looking gentleman. Mr. Perry.”
Marly came back into the room. “Max Perry?”
Mrs. Keating nodded. “He’s interested in buying Gracie’s house, and he wondered if I knew who he should contact about it. I told him that as far as I knew Gracie’s niece in San Antonio would oversee the sale. I gave him her number and he seemed very appreciative. We had a most enjoyable visit. He’s quite the conversationalist and so beautifully mannered. Oh, and such gorgeous hands.” She sighed. “I certainly wouldn’t mind having him for a neighbor.”
“Did Mr. Perry ask to borrow your key?” Marly asked.
“Oh, no. That was my idea. I didn’t think it would do any harm for him to have a quick look around.” She bit her lip. “I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?”
“No, of course not.” Marly gave her a reassuring smile. “I�
�ll bring the key back when I’m finished.”
“See that you do, dear.”
The door closed behind her, and Marly crossed the yard in the cold drizzle to Gracie Abbott’s house. Letting herself in through the front door, she took a moment to acquaint herself with the layout, then hurried down the hallway to the kitchen. A door in the laundry room connected to the garage, and as Marly stepped inside, she automatically reached for the light switch. When the light didn’t come on, she wondered if the electricity had already been disconnected.
Two small windows looked out on the backyard, but the overcast day didn’t provide much illumination. Marly got out her flashlight and switched it on.
The garage was spacious enough to accommodate Miss Gracie’s ten-year-old sedan, as well as her gardening tools and the usual accumulation of odds and ends. Picking her way across the concrete floor, Marly approached the car with a growing sense of unease. She found it more than a little creepy being in the same room where someone had died so recently. That was an aspect of her job she didn’t think she’d ever get used to.
Opening the car door on the driver’s side, she angled the flashlight beam around the interior. Leaning inside, she checked the radio dial. It was set to KBRT, the local station. If Miss Gracie had had her radio turned on when she drove home from church the day she died, she would have been listening to “Gloomy Sunday” as she pulled into the garage.
Was it possible she’d called in and requested the song herself? Did she know about the legend associated with “Gloomy Sunday?” Had she planned even that small detail of her suicide?
Or was there something more subtle at work here? Something more sinister? Was a killer using that song to send Marly a message?
“You say you want to find the truth? Then don’t ignore the clues, Marly. Start listening to your instincts. No matter what they tell you.”
But Marly didn’t want to listen to her instincts. She didn’t want to dwell on the possibility that the song really was a clue because it could only mean one thing. It had been left by someone close to her.
Her heart pounding, she backed out of the car and as she straightened, she caught a glimpse of something at the window. A shadow was there one moment and gone so quickly the next that Marly wondered if her overwrought imagination had conjured it. Like seeing her grandmother’s ghost in her bedroom window after waking from a nightmare.
And it was almost just as spooky, Marly decided, as she hurried across the garage and let herself back into Miss Gracie’s house. She retraced her route through the kitchen and was halfway down the hallway when she heard a tiny noise, like the creak of a stair beneath someone’s foot.
Marly halted in her tracks, listening for another telltale sound. But she heard nothing. Not even a ticking clock or a passing car. There was nothing but silence. The same unnatural quiet she’d noticed at Ricky Morales house the day she’d found his body.
The hair on the back of her neck rose as she remained frozen in place. There was still no sound, nothing to give away an intruder, but she knew she wasn’t alone. She could sense another presence, just as she had the night before in her apartment. But this time, the intruder was physically there, hiding somewhere in Gracie Abbott’s house.
As quietly as she could, Marly drew her weapon. Sliding off the safety, she clutched the gun in both hands as she eased down the hall toward the foyer.
The front door was ajar, as if to make her think he’d gone back out, but Marly knew that wasn’t the case. He was still there. Still waiting.
And then she felt him.
Inside her mind.
It was a sensation like nothing she’d ever experienced before. Cold. Black. Slithering. Like an icy tentacle entwining itself in her brain.
Then slowly, without will, Marly lifted the gun to her temple.
And squeezed the trigger.
Chapter Thirteen
The frantic knock on Deacon’s door in the middle of the day startled him. The apparent urgency of whoever stood on the other side would have been more suited to a midnight visit, he thought as he drew back the door and received his second surprise.
Marly stood shivering on the landing, her hair and clothing drenched from the rain. But what stopped Deacon’s heart was the look of terror in her eyes.
He took her arm and drew her inside the apartment. She came without resistance.
“What’s the matter?” he asked anxiously. “What’s happened?”
Her teeth were chattering so badly she couldn’t speak. Deacon left her for a moment to fetch towels from the bathroom. When he came back, he gently helped her out of her jacket, then wrapped a towel around her shoulders and handed her another for her hair.
She went through the motions, blotting her hair and clothing as best she could, and by the time she was finished, she was able to speak. She still trembled, but the color had slowly returned to her face.
“Tell…me,” she said.
“Tell you what?”
She closed her eyes briefly. “Tell me how to stop him.”
“You believe me then.” Deacon didn’t know whether to be relieved or more worried than ever. What had finally convinced her? “What happened, Marly?”
She clutched the towel so tightly around her shoulders, her knuckles whitened. “He tried to kill me.”
Her words sent a chill up Deacon’s spine. Everything inside him went still with shock. Then rage. “When? Where?”
“Just a few minutes ago. I went over to Gracie Abbott’s house to…check out something. A hunch. While I was there, someone came into her house.” Marly turned from Deacon’s gaze. “It sounds so crazy. I’m not even sure I can say it. But it happened.” She ran a shaking hand through her hair. “I drew my weapon. The next thing I knew, the barrel was against my head. I could feel myself squeezing the trigger, but I couldn’t stop,” she whispered in horror. “That’s how it must have been for all the others. They knew…they knew…but they couldn’t stop it from happening.”
She shuddered violently, and Deacon wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms and hold her close, protect her from the evil that lurked somewhere outside his apartment. But his arms alone wouldn’t shield her from the killer. Nothing would keep her safe except her own strength. And strength came from knowledge. From acceptance.
“Somehow I was able to let go of the gun. I don’t know how or why. But I do know this.” She lifted her desperate gaze to his. “It wasn’t Sam.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I would have known,” she said stubbornly. “I would have felt some kind of connection. And besides.” Her eyes glittered with defiance, which Deacon took as a good sign. She was ready to fight back. “My brother would never hurt me.”
You weren’t hurt, Deacon started to remind her, but he held back. She’d been through enough. There would be time enough to hash out the suspects once he’d heard her whole story.
She drew a long breath. “Whoever he is, we have to find him. We have to stop him.” She glanced up suddenly. “Can he be stopped?”
“He’s human, if that’s what you mean. He can be…neutralized,” Deacon said.
“And that’s where you come in.” Her gaze faltered.
“Yes.”
“Because…you’re like him.”
“Yes.”
She clung to the towel. “You could kill me, right here and now and never lay a finger on me.”
“I would never hurt you, Marly.”
She didn’t look altogether convinced on that point. “Just answer one question. Last night…was that you…did you make me—”
“I think you already know the answer to that question.”
Turning, she walked over to the window to stare out. “How is any of this possible?”
“You want the long or short version?” he asked grimly.
She glanced over her shoulder. “Whatever it takes to make me understand.”
He paused, searching for the right place to begin. “Do yo
u know anything about quantum physics?”
“Only what I’ve seen on television.” She shrugged. “I used to watch Quantum Leap when I was a kid.”
“This goes way beyond a TV show,” he said. “It even goes beyond mind control and psychokinesis. What I’ve told you so far is just the tip of the iceberg. The technology dates back to the end of the Second World War, when the experiments first went underground. Scientists and physicists connected to the project have been conducting experiments for years in psychotronics, particle beam technology, black hole simulation.”
Marly turned. “What is psychotronics?”
“The interfacing of man and machine.”
She put a hand to her mouth. “And black hole simulation? Particle beam technology?
“Time travel,” he said. “Interdimensional phasing.”
Her face had gone pale again. “My God. Do you have any idea how this sounds? How insane I feel just listening to you? You’re spitting out terminology that I’ve never heard used outside of a science fiction movie.”
“This isn’t fiction, Marly.” He walked over to her. “It’s reality. It’s here and now, and we have to deal with it.”
“How? I’m just a small-town cop. I grew up in Mission Creek. I’ve barely even been out of the state of Texas. What you’re telling me…is beyond my comprehension. How am I supposed to deal with something like that?”
He took her arm and drew her over to the sofa. When she was seated, he knelt in front of her. “You deal with it by hearing me out. By keeping an open mind. Knowledge is power.”
She moistened her lips. “I still don’t know if I even trust you.”
“Then why did you come here?”
She glanced away. “Where else could I go?”
The anguish in her voice tore at Deacon’s heart. He put a hand to her chin and gently turned her back to face him. “You can trust me, Marly. I’m one of the good guys.” Now.
A myriad of emotions flashed across her features. “What are you?” she finally asked. “Some kind of quantum cop?”
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