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Navarro had once told her that she had what it took to be a good cop. She had all the right instincts, he’d said. But did she have the guts?
It was a good question, and one Marly still wasn’t sure she could answer. Especially now, when her instincts were telling her something she didn’t want to hear.
Something bad was happening in Mission Creek. Something…evil.
And Marly didn’t have a clue how to fight it.
WHEN DEPUTY JESSOP FINALLY emerged from the house, she hurried down the porch steps without even a glance in Deacon’s direction. For a moment, it looked as if she were fleeing from the devil himself, and Deacon wondered if he should follow her. Find out what the hell was going on. But then one of the police officers who’d arrived on the scene just after the medical examiner called out to her and she paused. She turned and—reluctantly it seemed to Deacon—walked over to consult with her colleague.
Deacon studied her carefully, noting the flicker of emotions across her face, the almost convulsive movement of her hands. He remembered what Nona had said about her earlier, that she wasn’t cut out to be a cop. She was too much of a goody-goody. She let people push her around.
Maybe.
But in the few moments they’d stood talking in the hallway, Deacon had glimpsed something that made him think there was more to Marly Jessop than met the eye. She possessed the kind of innate courage that had allowed her to stand her ground even in the face of what she had obviously perceived as grave danger. That courage was buried deep, he suspected, but it was there, nonetheless. And if he was right about the nature of these recent deaths, she would need every ounce she could muster in the coming days. They both would.
As if sensing his scrutiny, Marly glanced up and their gazes met across the yard before she quickly looked away. But in that moment, something passed between them. Attraction—at least on Deacon’s part—but something else, too. A flash of understanding or perhaps even precognition that their paths had crossed for a reason.
Lifting a hand to the back of her neck, Marly continued to speak with the other officer. After a moment, he returned to his squad car and drove off while she sloshed back over to the porch.
Nona, who had been smoking quietly as she observed the exchange in the yard, tossed her cigarette over the rail. “You gonna finally tell us what happened to Ricky or what?”
Marly climbed the steps slowly. “I’m sorry, Nona. Ricky’s dead.”
“I already know that.” Nona’s tone was hard as nails, but her eyes glittered with emotion. “I want to know how it happened.”
Marly’s gaze slid to Deacon’s. “Nona, would you mind waiting for me at your house? I need to have a word with Mr. Cage here.” When the woman started to protest, Marly laid a hand on her sleeve. “I’ll come over as soon as I’m finished and tell you what I can.”
Nona sighed. “All right, but don’t leave me hanging, okay? Ricky and I go way back. We may’ve had our differences, but I’ve got a right to know what happened to him.”
Marly waited until Nona had exited the porch before she turned back to Deacon. She tilted her head to gaze up at him, and Deacon realized suddenly how tiny she was. How young she looked with her dark blond hair chopped off short and plastered to her head. She wore no makeup, and the freckles that dotted the bridge of her nose gave her a wholesome, girl-next-door look. But her eyes—an odd shade of gold—reflected a hint of bitterness that made Deacon wonder about her past.
Something tightened inside him, and not for the first time, he wished he was someone—or something—other than who he was. He wished he was the type of man who could have a woman like Marly Jessop.
He could have her. He had the power to make her his. All he had to do was look deeply into those golden eyes and make her want him. Make her believe that she couldn’t live without him, that she would do anything in the world to have him. And just like that, she would be his.
For a little while. Until she learned the truth about him.
Then she would hate him. And she would have every right.
Reluctantly he broke eye contact and turned his gaze to the rain. Beside him, Marly stirred restlessly, as if sensing more than he wanted her to.
“Why’d you come back?” he asked softly.
She glanced at him in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”
He nodded toward the street. “You were leaving, weren’t you? Running away? What made you come back?”
Anger flashed in her eyes. “You don’t know me, Mr. Cage, so don’t presume you understand anything about me. Besides, I’m here to ask the questions.”
He gave a brief nod. “Go ahead then.”
“What are you doing in Mission Creek? What’s your business here?”
“I’m just passing through.”
“On your way to…?”
He shrugged. “West.”
One brow lifted. “West of Mission Creek? West of Texas? West encompasses a lot of territory.”
“I’m not exactly sure what my plans are. But I do know that I’m not breaking any laws by being here.”
Her features tightened. “You’re always quick to point that out, aren’t you? If I were the suspicious type, I might think you have a guilty conscience.”
“Am I under suspicion for something?” he asked bluntly.
Her gaze faltered, but she still didn’t look away. “No. I am a little curious about the way you turned up here, though.”
“I explained all that. Morales’s boss sent me over here to check up on him.”
“Why you?”
He shrugged. “I stopped by the construction site to inquire about work. I’d heard around town they were hiring.”
Marly frowned. “You’re looking for work here? Sounds like you intend to stay awhile.”
“As I said, I don’t have any firm plans at the moment. But I can always use the extra cash.” Her eyes were very expressive, Deacon thought. And very beautiful. Like pools of liquid gold.
Her scowl deepened. “So you stopped by the job site to ask about work, and the foreman sent you over here to check up on Ricky. Just out of the blue?”
“He mentioned that Morales hadn’t been showing up for work. He was worried about him, but he couldn’t take the time to come over here himself.”
“So you volunteered.”
Deacon stared down at her. “Never hurts to get in good with the boss, right?”
Something flickered in her eyes, a tiny embarrassment that made Deacon remember how she’d looked when Navarro had first arrived on the scene. Nervous. Disconcerted. Her voice had been breathless when she’d called out to him. Was there something going on between them?
Not that it would matter in the long run. But it might make what Deacon had to do a little more difficult if she was involved with someone.
Marly’s gaze turned suddenly defiant, as if she’d somehow sensed what he was up to. “I don’t know who you are or why you’re here,” she muttered. “But something tells me I’m not getting the whole truth out of you yet.”
“Does it matter why I’m here?” He looked into her eyes. Tried to peer all the way into her soul. “You have more important things to worry about, don’t you? There’ve been four suicides in your town in a ten-day period. I’d say you’ve got bigger problems than me, Deputy.”
“You think I don’t know that?” she snapped. “But I never said Ricky Morales committed suicide.”
“You didn’t have to.” Deacon watched her for a moment. “I can help you, Marly.”
“What are you talking about? Help me how?” Her tone was indignant.
“You and I both know these suicides aren’t what they seem.”
A shadow flickered in her eyes, and for a moment, she looked as if she was on the verge of agreeing with him. Then her rational side took over and her resolve hardened. “There’s no reason to suspect foul play. Forensic evidence at every one of the scenes—”
“Is consistent with suicide. Yes, I know. I’m not suggesting these people didn’t die by their own hand. I have no doubt that Gracie Abbott drove her car into her garage, rolled up all the windows and let the carbon monoxide do its job. I’m certain those two kids purposely took overdoses and Ricky Morales pulled that trigger. What I am suggesting is that they were somehow compelled to do it.”
Marly gave him an incredulous look. “Compelled? How on earth do you compel someone to commit suicide?”
“It’s been done before,” Deacon said. “A man named Jim Jones led more than nine hundred of his followers to their deaths at Jonestown, Guyana, by drinking a cyanide-laced punch. Thirty-nine Heaven’s Gate devotees were found dead in a mansion near San Diego, California. I could go on, but I think you get my point.”
A myriad of emotions flashed across Marly’s features. Revulsion. Horror. Disbelief. But she didn’t turn away. She didn’t send him packing. She was listening whether she wanted to or not. “You’re not suggesting something like that is going on here, are you?”
“I’m suggesting you need to keep an open mind if you want to stop this.”
She tore her gaze from his and stared across the yard where a small crowd had gathered on the sidewalk. A breeze whispered through the orange trees in the front yard, and overhead, the rain beat a steady staccato on the porch roof.
It was a long time before she spoke. And even then, she avoided his gaze, as if sensing eye contact with him could be a dangerous thing. She watched the rain with a brooding frown. “In those cases you cited, the bodies were all found together. It’s happening one at a time here. And the incidents appear unrelated. An elderly woman. Two teenagers. A construction worker. Where’s the connection?”
“That’s what we have to find out,” Deacon said.
“We?”
“Like I said, I can help you.”
He saw her shiver at the prospect. “If you have information regarding any of these deaths, you should take it to Chief Navarro. He’s heading up the investigations.”
“I’m telling you, Marly. Because you know something bad is happening is this town. You know something’s not right about these deaths. I can see it in your eyes.” His gaze challenged hers. “And whether you want to admit it or not, you may be the only one who can stop it.”
DEACON FIDDLED WITH THE RADIO dial in his truck as he kept an eye on the front porch of Ricky Morales’s house. After his conversation with Marly, he’d left the scene at her rather adamant insistence, circled the block a couple of times, then pulled his truck to the curb a few houses down where he could unobtrusively observe the comings and goings of the authorities.
A hearse from a local funeral home had arrived on the scene just after Deacon had left which meant they would soon bring out the body. Onlookers mingled on the sidewalk, and Deacon knew that word would soon be all over town about Morales’s death. In a day or two, the autopsy would confirm suicide, and the case would be closed. There would be lingering speculation, of course, but no one in Mission Creek would seriously suspect homicide. No one except Deacon…and now Marly Jessop.
She was still standing on the front porch, speaking to another deputy. Deacon couldn’t see her features through the rain, but he remembered all too vividly the nuances of her face—those golden eyes, those lips that were neither thin nor full but lush, nonetheless, and pliant, he somehow knew. He imagined running his thumb along that mouth, then tasting her with his tongue, teasing and coaxing until she opened like a flower beneath him.
Did she have any idea how attractive she was? How sensual? Deacon knew instinctively that she was a complicated woman, and he wondered if any man had ever taken the time to really know her. If any man had taken the time to nurture her latent passion into full bloom.
Because she was a passionate woman, he thought. Beneath her cool, almost nondescript façade he’d glimpsed an ember, a tiny, ardent flame just waiting to be stoked, by a patient hand, into a raging inferno of needs and desires.
He rubbed a hand across his eyes, trying to erase the vision of an aroused Marly Jessop. That kind of thinking was dangerous because it could make him lose sight of the mission. He was here for one reason only. To stop a killer, and to do so, he needed Marly’s help. Beyond that, his feelings for her couldn’t be allowed to matter.
But what if she refused to help him? What if he couldn’t make her accept the truth?
He had ways of gaining her cooperation, of course. Ways of convincing her. But afterward, she would never trust him again.
Well, so be it, he decided grimly.
The cell phone on the truck seat rang and he lifted it to his ear. “Cage.”
“Deacon, it’s Camille.”
At the sound of his colleague’s voice, Deacon tensed. “What’s wrong?”
“Grandfather—”
“He’s worse?” Deacon’s hand tightened on the phone.
“No, no, it’s not that,” Camille rushed to assure him. “He just wanted to make sure you’re okay. He has a bad feeling about this job, Deacon.”
Deacon let out a breath of relief. “He has a bad feeling about every job.”
“I know. It’s because…he feels we’re running out of time.”
Deacon sometimes felt that way, too. There were so many of them out there. A secret army of soldiers who had been trained and programmed to kill…and couldn’t stop.
And Deacon had once been one of them.
He didn’t like to contemplate what his life might have been like if Dr. Nicholas Kessler, a renowned quantum physicist, and his granddaughter hadn’t found him when they had. Hadn’t recruited him to the good side as Camille liked to tease him.
“As much as it pains me to admit it, Grandfather isn’t going to be around forever,” she said. “He’ll be eighty-nine his next birthday.”
“And still as sharp as ever,” Deacon reminded her.
“His mind, yes, but his body is failing him, Deacon. You know how frail he is. I can’t help worrying what will happen to our work when he’s gone.”
Deacon shrugged. “We’ll carry on as we have been.”
“You’ll take over the organization when the time comes?” she asked anxiously.
“You’re more qualified to run it than I am,” he said with a frown. “Besides, I like being in the field.”
“I know you do. And that’s what worries me because one of these days…”
“One of these days, what?”
She hesitated. “One of these days you may meet your match out there.”
“That’s not going to happen.” But Deacon knew it could easily happen because on every mission the killer always had the advantage. He was on his home turf, and the only way for Deacon to even the odds was to recruit someone locally to help him. Someone like Marly Jessop.
He said none of that to Camille, however, because she tended to be a worrier and she had too much on her plate as it was. She was right. Her grandfather might not last much longer, and when the time came, Nicholas’s death would hit her hard. She’d lost her only child not so long ago, and though she put up a brave front, Deacon knew she hadn’t recovered from the blow. Her grandfather and her work were all she had left.
And at that, she had a damn sight more than Deacon.
“So how are things going down there?” she asked, and Deacon could tell she was deliberately changing the subject.
“There’s been another death,” he said, his gaze riveted to the front of Ricky Morales’s house. They were bringing out the body. He watched as they hauled the stretcher down the steps and across the soggy yard to the hearse. Marly was talking to Navarro now, and Deacon frowned. There was something about her body language…something about the way she looked up at her superior…
“Deacon?”
