Читать книгу Silent Weapon - Debra Webb - Страница 11

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 trees 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—

The bob of a flashlight abruptly caught my attention. He’d walked deep into the woods. I hesitated just long enough to consider that at this time of year there could be snakes or any number of other critters roaming around. Then I contemplated whether or not I actually needed to see what he was doing out there. I knew the location. I could always come back in the daylight.

Deeming that the best course of action, I backed into the tree line on the other side of his car, just far enough to be hidden when he returned. The warm, mossy smell of the forest settled over me but did nothing to soothe my jangling nerves.

At least thirty minutes passed before Sawyer emerged from the woods. My legs had grown cramped and the phone in my pocket had vibrated again. I saw the jog of the flashlight he carried seconds before he came up behind his vehicle. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness to the point that I could vaguely make out his form.

He popped open the trunk; the light inside blinked to life and cast a dim glow over him. My eyes widened as my brain assimilated what I saw. I clamped my hand over my mouth and swallowed the cry that rocketed into my throat.

It wasn’t until Sawyer had dumped the load he was carrying into the trunk and something had fallen to the ground that I truly understood what he’d gone into those woods to get.

The body—or what was left of it.

The object that had fallen, in the brief instant I’d seen it, looked roundish…kind of white in color. My throat closed on a scream.

The load had looked like a big old filthy sheet, bundled up in such a way as to keep whatever it contained from falling out of either end, but it hadn’t worked. I shuddered violently.

He reached down and picked up the part he’d dropped. Bile burned at the back of my mouth as I watched him toss the skull into the trunk of his sedan. He dusted at the dirt on his shirt, then slammed the trunk closed on his cargo.

He’d gotten into his car and backed halfway down to the intersecting road before my trembling legs responded to my brain’s command. I had to move. Had to get to my car. I couldn’t lose him now.

I traveled through the woods at a dead run, ignoring the slap of knee-deep undergrowth and the occasional jar of slamming into a small tree or large bush. I no longer cared about the snakes or other night creatures that might be there. I couldn’t fail. I had to do this. Get to my car…follow him. My future depended upon my accomplishing this mission every bit as much as justice was counting on me.

He backed out onto the road, right where my car would have been had I not moved it, and started forward. With him out of the way I stumbled into the clearing the narrow road made and ran harder still. I reached my car and scrambled behind the wheel at the same time that his taillights disappeared around the bend. He was headed back to the main road.

I twisted the ignition and shoved my foot onto the gas pedal. When I had executed a three-point turn I barreled after him. Headlights off, I slowed enough to approach the bend cautiously…just in case. Moved through the curve just as he pulled out onto the paved highway.

Muscle-quivering relief surged through me. All I had to do now was stay on his tail until he reached his destination, where his ten o’clock appointment would surely be waiting.

Sawyer drove back to Nashville.

It wasn’t until he made the turn onto a street I recognized that I understood where he was going.

The Green Hills area.

When he continued on this street I knew exactly where he was going. The construction site of a new shopping mall.

The image of the man he’d met earlier this evening suddenly morphed into recognition. That’s why he’d looked familiar to me. He was Reginald Carlyle, the man who owned or had developed almost every mall in this town, among others. What did he have to do with Sawyer and the murder?

Then it hit me.

Sawyer had bought up several old buildings. Nothing one would consider a big deal. Definitely not anything worth killing for, though he clearly had done just that. When I thought about where the properties he’d purchase were located, it all made sense. If Sawyer was doing business with this big developer, a mall or some other huge venture was planned for the properties he had acquired. Maybe would have been built already had they not been waiting for the stench of a murder charge to settle.

I parked my car behind a massive Dumpster loaded with discarded pieces of lumber and got out, then moved as close as I dared to where Sawyer had parked his car. Close enough to see that Carlyle had not arrived. Sawyer got out of the sedan and retrieved his damning cargo. He carried the remains to a spot about fifteen feet from his car and dumped it. I couldn’t make out the significance of his choosing that spot. At least not until he’d strode across the parking lot and climbed into a dump truck. Wait…not a dump truck…a cement truck.

Oh, no.

I fished out my phone. Should have done this already. I punched in Barlow’s number. My nerves twisted with trepidation as I waited through ring after ring. Damn him! I’d told him not to leave the phone. His home number was the only one I knew. When he’d spoken his name in greeting and it appeared on the screen I whispered my location and told him if he wanted that body to come as fast as he could. I closed the phone and shoved it back into my pocket.

Sawyer had backed the truck to the location where he’d dumped the body. The drum or whatever it was called on the back of the truck was turning, keeping the cement properly mixed. Jesus Christ. Even I knew what that meant. Someone had delivered that load of cement to him tonight. Had left the truck ready for his use. The only way the cement would have remained usable was if it were fairly fresh and the drum kept turning.

I surveyed what I could see of the construction site from my position just to make sure whoever had brought the truck wasn’t still hanging around. I prayed Barlow would get here soon. From his home he should be able to make the trip in twenty minutes if he drove really fast.

Please let him drive fast.

I didn’t know if he would bother calling in any uniforms since he wasn’t sure about me and what I was up to.

Just then, another sedan parked next to Sawyer’s, jerking my attention back there. I suddenly prayed as hard as I could that Barlow had called for backup. Maybe I should…my thought process halted abruptly as a figure exited the second car.

Carlyle.

A feeling of determination settled over me. I couldn’t let these two get away with murder.

Sawyer and Carlyle stood next to the cement truck for a bit. It looked as if they were arguing. The lights that had been added for site security provided enough illumination that I could see Carlyle’s frantic waves of exasperation or anger. Sawyer pointed a finger at his companion and shook it, his face contorted with fury. Nope, these two definitely weren’t happy campers.

My fingers tightened around my phone and I wondered if I should just go ahead and call 911.

There really wasn’t any choice. I couldn’t risk that Barlow wouldn’t get here in time. My fingers tightened on my phone.

Harsh fingers suddenly clasped around my mouth and I was hauled up against an unyielding body. My chest constricted with terror as the reality meshed fully in my mind. My phone slipped from my fingers. The cold steel barrel of a pistol bored into my temple. I could feel lips moving against my ear as whoever held me uttered words I could not hear.

I wondered briefly if I should bother fighting him—and it was definitely a him. I could feel the hard male contours of his body. I braced myself for making a move for his weak spot, but he suddenly released me.

I bolted but he manacled my arm with brute strength before I could get out of his reach. I whipped around to look into the face of my captor.

Barlow.

“What the hell are you doing?” I whispered, feeling that the sound was hoarse, with my heart straining against my throat as it was.

He frowned. I…stay quiet. Backup…on…way.

I struggled to catch his words, but in the dark and with him glancing around I missed parts. I managed to draw in a much-needed breath. Told myself to calm down. I considered what I’d gotten of his words and decided he wanted me to be quiet and that backup was on its way. I nodded, then pointed to the two men still arguing in the distance. “Sawyer dumped the body down there. I think he’s—”

I get the idea.

Barlow had moved closer, giving me a better view of his face. I felt glad for that, but at the same time uneasy with his nearness. I managed a nod of understanding. Obviously he’d been here long enough to figure out what was going on. But how was that possible? How could he have gotten here so quickly?

“How long have you been here?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I kept my voice as quiet as I should have. Obviously I didn’t since he held a finger to his mouth.

I put out an APB on your car. A cruiser spotted you thirty minutes ago and gave me your location. He followed you until I got into position.

Just something else I hadn’t planned for. Damn. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this work after all.

He moved closer still. I just have to know one thing. How the hell did a file clerk…

Reading his lips wasn’t difficult this close, but he turned his head to check on our two suspects and I missed that last part.

I tapped his shoulder and he turned back to me. “You have to look directly at me when you speak,” I told him.

Another of those weary frowns furrowed his brow. What?

“I’m deaf, Detective. I have to be able to see what you’re saying.”

For three fierce beats he simply stared at me.

You’re kidding me, right?