Deadly Silence

by Mary Stone

  24

  All Linc heard was the breaking of glass and Kylie’s high-pitched shriek.

  Then the phone went dead.

  “Shit.” He tried calling back but there was no answer.

  He looked up at Jacob, who was eying him with concern. “What’s up, man?”

  Linc didn’t say a word, just headed toward the door. The only thing on his mind was getting to his wife. “I don’t know. There was screaming, and now the line’s dead. I’ve got to get there.”

  Jacob grabbed his arm, hauling him to a stop. “What happened?”

  In a blink, Faith was at Jacob’s side, her cousin practically on her hip. “What’s wrong?”

  Linc yanked his arm away. “I’ve got to go. Something bad—”

  Jacob pulled out his keys. “Come on, let’s take my truck.” He looked at his fiancée, giving her a sorry smile, but she waved him away.

  Beside her, Sky said, “I’m going with you!”

  Faith pulled at the girl’s arm. “No, you’re not.”

  “But—”

  “No!”

  They were still arguing as Linc slammed into the door with both hands and rushed out into the night. Jacob’s truck was parked close to the entrance, and as he climbed into the passenger seat, Linc was glad to have his best friend at his side. His hands shook as he kept dialing Kylie’s number as Jacob turned on the sirens and lights of the unmarked vehicle.

  “Still not answering?” he asked as they slid around a curve.

  “No. Right to voicemail. Fuck.” Linc’s breathing was out of control as he fisted his hands on his lap, willing the car to go faster. Jacob was already breaching ninety in a sixty, but even that didn’t seem fast enough.

  “Okay. Calm down, bro. What exactly was she saying to you?”

  He let out a bitter, ironic laugh. “She was telling me what she always tells me. That I was overreacting and going overboard with concern.” He raked his hands through his hair. “And then I heard the sound of glass breaking and shrieking and the dogs going crazy. Then it cut out.”

  “All right, well…” This was the part of the conversation where Jacob would offer some reasonable explanation. But there was no reasonable explanation for what he’d just heard. And why wasn’t she answering her phone? “Just take it easy. She’ll be okay.”

  But Jacob didn’t know the half of it. It wasn’t just Kylie he was worried about. “Kylie’s pregnant,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Jacob glanced his way. “What? Are you serious, man?”

  “She’s on bed rest. That’s why she couldn’t come to the engagement party. She’s pregnant with twins, and she almost had a miscarriage, which is why my concern is in overdrive.”

  “Jesus. Well…now I guess that explains a lot of things,” he said, upshifting. “Don’t worry, man. We’ll get there and they’ll be all right. Storm and Vader are there too, aren’t they?”

  Linc nodded.

  “They’ll take care of her.”

  “Yeah,” he muttered, knowing that Jacob was just trying to make him feel better.

  Yeah, the dogs would stay with her. They’d comfort her if she was hurting. They’d even go after an asshole who attacked her. But there wasn’t much more that they could do. If she was bleeding, they couldn’t give her medical attention. She was in trouble. She needed him.

  “Let me ask you. Do you think that whoever killed Allison might be after Kylie too?”

  Jacob was quiet for a moment. “You think Kylie might be getting too close to something they don’t want her to get close to?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Could be. All the more reason for her to be careful. She should let us handle it.”

  Linc knew that. That’s exactly what he’d told her, again and again. Let someone else handle it. But he knew Kylie too well. “Since when did she ever listen to that kind of reason?”

  Jacob nodded. “Shit. Now that I think about that Allison woman, it’s kind of sad. Yeah, she was on meds for her bipolar episodes, but there was something else about her. She was adamant that someone had taken her baby. We thought it was just trauma, and she was holding on to those last threads of hope. Even when we showed her the death certificate, she insisted that something sinister had happened. She called it a mother’s intuition.”

  Linc leaned his head back against the headrest as the car barreled up the hill, lights flashing. Maybe Kylie was having that same intuition herself. “And…?”

  “And well.” He cursed a long string of foul words. “A police officer’s life is full of regrets. If only I’d gotten there sooner. If only I’d known that that was going to happen.” He shot another quick look at Linc. “Man, I don’t want to be regretting this one.”

  Linc understood. If they’d taken Allison a little more seriously, the woman might not be dead. And maybe Kylie wouldn’t be in trouble right now.

  The tires squealed as Jacob took a hard turn into the farmhouse’s gravel drive, nearly colliding with the mailbox. He surged up the hill, through the trees, until the farmhouse came in sight. The porch light was on, as well as another interior light, but all seemed just as he’d left it.

  He threw off his seat belt and jumped out of the car before it even came to a full stop. Taking the stairs two at a time, he reached the door and tried to push it open. Finding it locked, he rummaged for the keys in his pockets and finally managed to explode inside to a chaos of dogs barking and crowding around him.

  The first thing he saw was the glass shattered on the kitchen floor. Moving closer, he found her phone amidst the rubble near the sink. But no Kylie.

  “Kylie!” he shouted as the dogs began barking again.

  Storm approached him, giving him an urgent look.

  He crouched down. “Where is she, girl?”

  The German Shepherd whimpered and led him up the stairs. Wishing he had his gun, he climbed, following the dog, holding his breath the entire way. He was afraid of what he’d find. Storm stopped and planted herself in front of the bedroom door, wagging her tail.

  Linc threw open the door and stepped inside, scanning the room for his wife. “Kylie?”

  A second later, a pale hand peeked out from under the bed. “Did you find him?”

  Find who? Unfortunately, Linc had been so focused on finding her that the sky could’ve been turning rainbow colors and he wouldn’t have noticed.

  “No, but you’re safe. I’m here. You can come out now.” He crouched down and she crawled out from under there, her face red, her hair crackling with static. When she looked up, a vacant expression on her face, he noticed the blood. “What happened?”

  “Someone…someone shot at me,” she said. “Through the window. Just like you said.”

  He shook his head as he piled her into his arms, taking her face into his hands. Other than the small, bloody scratches on her face which must’ve been from the glass, she looked all right. Stunned, but it could’ve been so much worse. “I didn’t know this would happen.”

  “But you did,” she said, her voice breathy and faraway. “You warned me, and as usual, you were right.”

  He hugged her to his broad chest. “But you’re all right? Nothing hurts?”

  “No. I guess I’m fine. I was just making tea. When the window shattered, I was so scared that I ran upstairs and hid under the bed.” She tucked a renegade strand of hair behind her ear and flinched a moment later when Jacob came rushing into the room.

  “Everything okay?”

  Linc nodded. “Someone shot out the kitchen window, I think.”

  Jacob nodded. “I just came from out there. Saw a bunch of cigarette butts but that’s about it. Whoever he was, he’s gone now.”

  “He’s probably the same person who’s been following Elise.”

  “Wait.” Linc closed his eyes. “Someone’s been following Elise? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I just found out about it tonight. She told me some man’s been hanging outside the diner, watching her.”

  Lin
c glanced at Jacob, who was already on his phone. He lifted his mouth from the receiver and said, “We’re looking into it.”

  Linc helped Kylie to her feet and sat her down on the bed. Her skin was covered in perspiration and she was still trembling. “Just lay here and relax, all right?”

  She glanced at the open windows. “Can you close those?”

  He went over to them, slid them shut, and closed the curtains tight. “Better?”

  She nodded.

  He kissed her forehead. “I’m going to go talk to Jacob. I think if they’re looking into it, that’s good. But I think we need to reconsider your involvement in this case too.”

  She shook her head, gripping onto his pillow with white knuckles. “I don’t need to reconsider anything. I’m calling Elise tomorrow and telling her I can’t continue with the case,” she said, her voice hollow.

  He almost asked her to repeat herself. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. It’s not worth it.”

  He’d thought for sure they’d end up fighting on this point. He hadn’t expected her to capitulate quite so easily. In fact, she hadn’t even capitulated. It was like she’d laid down, dead. Like she’d given up completely.

  That wasn’t like Kylie. She wasn’t one to turn her back on a case like this.

  But then again, Kylie had never been pregnant before. And maybe now she saw that some risks really weren’t worth the price.

  25

  Kylie made a little knot, snipped the threads, and set down her knitting needles, gazing at her creation proudly. “Yes…yes…yes,” she said, turning it over in her hands.

  Linc walked into the bedroom and gave her a look. “Hey. You going to get ready?”

  “And you said it couldn’t be done.” She slammed her green yarn creation on the quilt in front of her. “BAM! Done!”

  He picked it up and studied it. “First of all, I never said you couldn’t do it. Second of all…impressive. That actually almost looks like something one would put on a baby’s foot.”

  She lifted it and admired it some more. Sure, there were some missed stitches and weird knots all over the place, but it actually resembled a bootie now. She’d finally buckled down and made that Knitting for Idiots YouTuber her bitch. “I bet I can finish the match in another month. Then, two more to go. Then I bet I can do a blanket!”

  He held up his hands. “Whoa. Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself?”

  She agreed, she probably was. A blanket was probably a big undertaking. But as dull as it had been, she’d eventually gotten into a kind of groove. The more she did it, the more relaxing she found it to be, especially since the stress could sometimes have things slipping her mind. When she knitted, she didn’t really have to worry. She could just sit there and let her baby-brain wander and find her zen.

  It’d been a month since the shooting. Since then, she’d totally forfeited all of her files and research over to Jacob and his men. Jacob had also put two officers at her house to guard her. She’d called Elise and apologized for leaving the case, but explained that, after what happened, she needed to take it easy. She’d tried not to pay attention to it, but she’d overheard Linc asking Jacob about it. Supposedly, the leads from the file went nowhere, and they were never able to find the man who stalked Elise, ran down Allison, or shot at Kylie.

  And yes, sometimes Kylie felt bad. She’d had to have been close, or else she wouldn’t have been in danger. She realized that the man had probably wanted to scare her into suspending her investigation, and she’d played right into his hands. But every time she got that urge to dig again, she reminded herself how close she’d been to getting shot. She’d almost had her babies killed, because of her snooping.

  And she was determined not to ever put them in danger like that again.

  Even though she was trying to take it easy, she did still have the business to think of, though she’d made a concentrated effort to decline anything that sounded too difficult. So, the majority of her work had been Impact Insurance surveillance.

  It worked well while she was on bed rest. Linc would go out and assemble the footage, and Kylie would compile his chicken scratch into a legible report. They’d done so well that Impact had been praising them at their monthly check-in meetings and funneling them even more work.

  Nice. Stable. Well-paying.

  And yes, boring as hell.

  But she’d learned to grin and bear it. After all, she’d finished her financials for the last month, and they’d actually turned a profit. Nothing that would allow them to buy a villa in France, but enough that she could actually think of starting a 529 for the kids’ education. That was what mattered. The company was doing well, the babies were doing well, and Linc was happy she wasn’t out killing herself.

  “I can do it,” she told him with a gleam in her eye. “I want to knit new blankets for both of them. I am going to be a knittin’ fool.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed, near her feet, and slipped on his hiking boots. “How about this? How about you get your ass up and get ready for your doctor appointment?”

  “Right!”

  She jumped out of bed. She was excited for this appointment. For the first time, Linc would be going with her, and he’d get a chance to meet the little nuggets. Plus, since she was now in her second trimester, she was hoping the doc would give her the green light to go off bed rest.

  She was feeling much better too—more energetic, and the morning sickness had definitely tapered off. She’d read in the What to Expect When You’re Expecting Linc had bought that this was the honeymoon trimester of pregnancy, and it definitely felt like one. She and Linc were getting along a lot better too.

  After she showered, she put on her new maternity shorts. She didn’t truly need them, but they were more comfortable on her slightly protruding belly. She topped that off with a flowy pink maternity blouse she’d ordered online.

  With her new outfit, she felt officially pregnant.

  Linc grinned when he saw her and patted her stomach. He kept telling her it was the cutest, sexiest thing. She was embracing pregnancy now, like he always wanted. Of course he was thrilled.

  She was thrilled too.

  As long as she didn’t think too much about the things she was giving up, she was fine. This was good. Perfect. Better than ever.

  They got into the truck and drove as Kylie went on and on, babbling about the last ultrasound and what they might be able to see this time. She read him a little passage from the baby book, telling him that the babies were the size of a peach and that they might be able to suck their thumbs. Linc listened, rapt.

  “After we get the all-clear today, you think we can make the official announcement?” he asked.

  “I just hope we get the all-clear. But if we do, yes,” Kylie said. “I’ll post it on Facebook.”

  Up until now, it’d been on a need-to-know basis. Most people who were close to them had already found out, so the announcement was really a formality. Linc’s family was thrilled, but no one was more excited than Rhonda, who kept bringing gifts for the nursery over each week. The nursery was now more packed with stuff than it had been when it was a storage room.

  “You know people are going to want to know the sex.”

  She looked at him. “Do you want to know?”

  He shrugged. “Not unless you do. It doesn’t matter to me.”

  “Yeah. That’s the way I feel. Though it would be helpful with picking a name,” she sighed. “You really think Corin is a contender? The first time I saw it, I thought it was Corn. I’m not going to name my baby after a vegetable.”

  “Well, it’s Cor for short.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I did like Aravis, if it’s a girl. What do you think of a boy named Donovan?”

  “Uh. No. I don’t like Don for short.”

  “Hmm. Eric?”

  He shook his head.

  “Cole?”

  “Nah.”

  She sighed. Naming ten puppies had been way easier th
an this. They’d just picked words out of thin air and assigned them to the pups randomly. “This might be awful. But what about Trey? When I was growing up, I had an imaginary boyfriend named Trey.”

  He shrugged. “Could work.”

  “Wow. That’s the first name I suggested that you didn’t shoot down completely. What’s wrong with you today?”

  He reached over and grabbed her hand, kissing her knuckles. “I’m just in a good mood. Also, I have a feeling they’re girls, so I might as well not argue, because it won’t matter.”

  She nudged him. “Oh, you’re so funny. I actually think they’re boys.”

  “Fine. If they’re boys, we name them Trey and Donovan. If they’re girls, Aravis and Maggie. Done.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Maggie?”

  “Short for Margaret. My grandmother. No?”

  She rolled it over in her mind, then smiled. “Actually, I like it. Put it on the short list.”

  It was actually one of Kylie’s favorite things about now—planning for the future of their babies, now that she felt they’d have a future. And the farther she stepped away from the hopelessness of never having a juicy case again, the more hopeful for the future she became.

  But she also wondered…once the babies were born and all the excitement of becoming new parents died down, would she be able to handle working on those boring surveillance cases for the rest of her life. Or would she always be yearning for more?

  She forced herself not to think about that. Negative thoughts were bad for the babies. And she needed to get off bed rest. As she rode in the passenger’s seat, she crossed her fingers at her side and prayed that the docs would say everything was okay.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked her suddenly, dipping his sunglasses.

  She smiled and patted the little pooch under her seat belt. “Nothing. Why?”

  “You just looked a little worried there for a moment. You thinking about whether the doc will give you a pass?”

  “I’m not nervous,” she said, looking out the window. It was more like uncertainty, not straight-up nervousness. “Everything’s fine.”