Silent Weapon

Praise for Debra Webb

“…a fast-moving, sensual blend of mystery and suspense, with multiple story lines, an unusual hero and heroine, and an ending that escapes the trap of being too pat. I thoroughly enjoyed it.”

—New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard on Striking Distance

“Debra Webb delivers page-turning, gripping suspense, and edgy, dark characters to keep readers hanging on.”

—Romantic Times on Her Hidden Truth

“…more daring than some authors would risk.”

—All About Romance on Striking Distance

“Debra Webb’s fast-paced thriller will make you shiver in passion and fear.”

—Romantic Times on Personal Protector

“…a hot hand with action, suspense, and last—but not least—a steamy relationship.”

—New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard on Safe By His Side

Dear Reader,

You’re about to read a Silhouette Bombshell novel and enter a world full of excitement, suspense and women who stand strong in the face of danger and do what it takes to triumph over the toughest adversaries. And don’t forget a touch of thrilling romance to sweeten the deal. Our bombshells always get their men, good and bad!

Debra Webb kicks off the month with Silent Weapon, the innovative story of Merri Walters, a deaf woman who goes undercover in a ruthless criminal’s mansion and reads his chilling plans right off his lips!

Hold on to your hats for Payback, by Harper Allen, the latest in the Athena Force continuity. Assassin Dawn O’Shaughnessy is out to take down the secret lab that created her and then betrayed her—but she’s got to complete one last mission for them, or her superhealing genes will self-destruct before she gets payback….

Step into the lush and dangerous world of The Orchid Hunter, by Sandra K. Moore. Think “botanist” and “excitement” don’t match? Think again, as this fearless heroine’s search for a rare orchid turns into a dangerous battle of wills in the steamy rain forest.

And don’t miss the twist and turns as a gutsy genius races to break a deadly code, trap a slippery terrorist and steal back the trust of her former CIA mentor, in Calculated Risk, by Stephanie Doyle!

Strong, sexy, suspenseful…that’s Silhouette Bombshell! Please send your comments to me, c/o Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.

Sincerely,

Natashya Wilson

Associate Senior Editor, Silhouette Bombshell

Silent Weapon
Debra Webb

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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DEBRA WEBB

was born in Scottsboro, Alabama, to parents who taught her that anything is possible if you want it bad enough. She began writing at age nine. Eventually, she met and married the man of her dreams and tried some other occupations, including selling vacuum cleaners, working in a factory, a day-care center, a hospital and a department store. When her husband joined the military, they moved to Berlin, Germany, and Debra became a secretary in the commanding general’s office. By 1985 they were back in the States, and finally moved to Tennessee, to a small town where everyone knows everyone else. With the support of her husband and two beautiful daughters, Debra took up writing again, looking to mystery and movies for inspiration. In 1998, her dream of writing for Harlequin came true. You can write to Debra with your comments at P.O. Box 64, Huntland, Tennessee 37345 or visit her Web site at www.debrawebb.com to find out exciting news about her next book.

This book is dedicated to a very special lady who has struggled hard to overcome her own physical impairments. Not once in her life has she allowed being physically challenged to prevent her from reaching for her goals. With all my love, respect and admiration, this one goes to Erica Nicole Webb Jeffrey, my oldest daughter. Never stop dreaming and keep reaching for those goals.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 1

Sometimes I think I hear the roar of the wind blowing, but I’ve figured out that it’s more likely the rush of blood in my ears when my heart pounds…like now.

I watched the two men hunkered over their beers. I could scarcely see the face of the new arrival at the table, but the other man’s—the man I’d followed to this Lower Broad Street honky-tonk—was quite clear even in the low lighting of the smoke-filled bar. He looked furious. But combined with that fury was something else…something like panic.

A smile curled the corners of my lips. It’s foolish, I know, but I couldn’t help feeling a little empowered by his trepidation. Imagine, me—Merri Walters—striking fear in the heart of a murderer.

My whole family would be absolutely horrified at the idea of my walking into a place like this alone. The slightly run-down bar, nestled in the midst of numerous other more prominent establishments like Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, was located in Nashville’s famous honky-tonk central, slap in the center of downtown. It just wasn’t considered proper for a young woman to be out and about in such places without an escort or a friend, at least to my mother’s old-fashioned way of thinking. But then, I’ve always been different.

How else could the only girl in a houseful of boys survive? Whatever obstacles life threw in my path, I always worked extra hard to overcome them. Not that I fancied myself some sort of martyr or heroine, but even I had to admit that I had proved my relentless determination in the past two years. Whether my family was prepared to admit it or not, there were things I wanted to do in life, and taking extreme measures was the only way I knew how to make the point clear.

That’s why I had to do this. Come here. To a bar not listed in the prestigious brochures offered by the Chamber of Commerce or among the suggested places to visit in Music City, tailing a man whose identity I’d discovered in a cold-case file in the Metro Police Department’s historical archives.

That’s what I do for a living now. I file the records of closed cases as well as cold cases deemed unsolvable by the powers that be. Each all-inclusive record is filed first by the date of the crime, then in alphabetical order by either the victim’s last name or the moniker used to refer to the case, like Church Street Strangler or Eastside Robberies. Occasionally I retrieve a complete record for a detective who has discovered new evidence and decided to reopen the case. But this isn’t one of those kinds of cases.

This is my case. I stumbled across it by accident. My predecessor had misfiled the record. According to the lady who trained me, the previous archivist had grown bored with her work years before she’d retired at age seventy. At first I’d been somewhat bored as well, until I decided to familiarize myself with the workings of Metro detectives. Just something to pass the time since my co-worker spent her every free moment studying for the bar exam. Conversation is seriously limited by a coworker that fiercely focused on her future.

At fifty-one Helen Golden had decided she wanted a new career. Seven years later she was ready to take the plunge. I loved working with her, had deep respect and admiration for what she was doing. Hey, the woman was facing the bar exam as well as turning sixty in only two years. Maybe her example had prompted my own decision as I sought to learn more about the investigators for whom I filed and protected records.

There were the meticulous, detail-oriented detectives whose reports were methodical to the point that I wanted to scream get on with it already. And then there were the guys who investigated by the seat-of-their-pants method and who utilized one primary tool—gut instinct. That was my preferred method, I decided after reading more than a dozen case files.

Forcing my errant attention back to the matter at hand, I surveyed the two men I’d followed into this saloon. The first, my primary suspect, stood tall—well over six feet—and was broad-shouldered. He had thinning hair about the color of the brown fur of a guinea pig I once owned. The beady eyes were dark brown or black as well. His square face with its perpetual glower and heavy lines made him look about fifty, though I knew from the file that he was only forty-one. He had a criminal record a mile long, petty stuff mostly except for two charges of felony assault. The one murder charge hadn’t stuck. That’s why I was here. After reading the file, I’d known, as had the detective in charge of the case, one Steven Barlow, that this guy was guilty, but the good detective hadn’t been able to prove it.

Proving it was, admittedly, the tricky part. Charges couldn’t be filed nor could juries be swayed by gut instinct alone. Unfortunately, in situations like this one, the police can only go so far. Their hands are tied to an extent by the civil rights of the suspect. A cop can’t listen in on a suspect or search his property without a warrant approved by a judge. A cop can’t lie or otherwise mislead a suspect beyond a certain point for fear of having the case thrown out on a technicality like coercion. In my unofficial research I had decided that it was vastly unfair to expect a cop to collar a slippery bad guy when he couldn’t do anything underhanded.

That’s the beauty of my plan. You see, I’m not a cop. I’m just an overzealous file clerk taking her week of paid vacation after her first full year on the job. There are no rules governing how I conduct my investigation. I’m limited only by the fact that I cannot arrest or shoot the slimeball. But I can set him up to get caught, which is exactly what I intend to do.

I watched intently as the two men spoke quietly but fiercely about what needed to be done. The first man, the one I’d followed, whose name is Brett Sawyer, used his hands occasionally as he spoke, making frantic gestures to punctuate his words. It hadn’t taken a psychology degree to figure out what buttons to push to set this guy off—though I’d taken a few psych courses in preparation for my former career.

Until two years ago I was an elementary school teacher. But that person no longer existed. I tuned out that line of thinking and zeroed in more fully on the two men under surveillance.

I have to move the body tonight, Sawyer growled. His mouth twisted savagely as he flung the words at the other man.

…mistake.

I only caught the last word Sawyer’s companion uttered. Dammit. I needed the entire conversation, but moving to a different table was out of the question. Sawyer had looked straight at me when I came in and sat down, but he hadn’t looked again. Not even when the waitress came by and took my order. I had to keep it that way. His suspicion was the dead last thing I wanted to arouse.

I’m telling you she knows too damned much to be yanking my chain! Sawyer muttered fiercely. Details. She knows frigging details no one else could know! The vein in his forehead throbbed viciously, as if it might pop at any moment.

My heart skipped a beat. I knew with complete certainty that the she he mentioned was me. But he didn’t know my identity…only my voice. My heart kicked into a faster rhythm. My ploy had worked. Sawyer thought I knew everything. And I did, to a degree. I had the case file, which included evidentiary information not released to the media, as well as Metro’s top homicide detective’s gut instincts and hunches.

I bit back a smile. No getting cocky just yet. Stay calm. Pay attention. I couldn’t get carried away with my own ingenuity right now. The two men seated only a few feet away had committed at least one heinous murder. If I screwed up—got caught—I could very well be their next victim. The thought made me shudder.

So, I sipped my beer and glanced at the newspaper in my hands. I had it propped so that I could look beyond the top of the pages while appearing to stare directly at the headlines. I’d gotten pretty good at this kind of maneuver. Maybe I’d finally found my niche. Good thing, too. With thirty looming only a couple of months away, I had begun to worry that I might never figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

This could be my new calling.

The unidentified companion said something else I didn’t get. Double damn.

I’m not taking the risk, Sawyer said. I’m moving the body tonight with or without your help. He chugged the last of his beer before slamming the mug down on the table hard enough to make the other man’s glass wobble.

The companion’s hands came up in a calming gesture. All right. All right. He glanced covertly from side to side. …time…

Desperation slid through my veins. I couldn’t afford to miss the time and place specifics. But I couldn’t get a fix on the second guy. Not good.

Ten, Sawyer said. We’ll meet there and do this thing. We should have taken care of this a year ago, then maybe someone wouldn’t be blackmailing me.

Your problem—the second man said as he glanced in my direction. Goose bumps poured over my skin—is that you slept with a player.

Shock rumbled through me on the heels of that statement. He thought…oh, God. Sawyer thought the female calling him was some woman he’d had a relationship with. Dread curdled in my stomach. Oh, Jesus. I hadn’t anticipated that. What if he hurt the woman? It would be my fault. Surely fate wouldn’t play that kind of cruel joke on me. I was trying to do something good here.

The companion pushed up from his chair, jerking my attention back to him. Six-one or -two, I estimated. Black hair, peppered with gray. Blue or gray eyes. Dressed expensively. I hadn’t seen his face in any of the pictures in the case file or newspaper clippings, making him an unknown factor. He paused to say something I missed completely and then walked away. Sawyer stared after him a moment before motioning for the waitress to bring him another beer.

My pulse rocketed into overdrive. What if the guy who’d left intended to take care of Sawyer’s old girlfriend? A cold, harsh reality sent the air rushing out of my lungs. I’d made a terrible mistake playing amateur sleuth. I’d unintentionally put someone’s life in jeopardy.

A new epiphany washed over me, obliterating all the self-confidence I’d walked in here brandishing like a shiny sword. I would never be able to do this alone.

I needed help.

I didn’t have the location for tonight. I only knew that the two men planned to meet at ten o’clock and move the body, which meant constant surveillance. I couldn’t risk letting Sawyer out of my sight from now until then. Not to mention that if he planned to harm the woman he suspected of blackmailing him, I had to watch every move he made in order to keep her safe. But what if his friend took care of her? I shuddered at the idea. But I couldn’t afford to borrow trouble.

Sawyer hadn’t mentioned the woman’s name. The guy in the fancy designer suit didn’t look like the type to do anybody’s dirty work. Those two facts made me feel a little better. Okay. There was nothing I could do about the other guy, anyway. My only recourse was to keep Sawyer in my sights and call for backup when the time came.

Another wave of uncertainty hit me, making my gut clench. How the hell was I going to persuade Metro PD to go along with my cockamamy plan? Even I recognized how seriously nonsensical it sounded.

I didn’t personally know the detective who had initially worked this one. I knew Barlow was the best, but that’s all. He would likely think I was some sort of weirdo with a major case of cop envy. But, it appeared that was a risk I would have to take.

Sawyer stood, then tossed a few bills onto the table.

My heart lunged into my throat. When he turned his back and took two steps toward the door, I shouldered out of my attention-drawing red sweater and left it on the back of my chair. I had already placed money on the table. I abandoned the newspaper and quickly looped my hair into a ponytail before exiting the joint. If Sawyer noticed me now he wouldn’t remember a woman with her hair pulled back—sunglasses, I quickly shoved them into place—and a navy T-shirt.

I got into my car, parked several spaces away from his in a side lot. Thankfully, another vehicle, a gray four-door Saab, pulled up behind his Ford SUV while he waited for an opportunity to merge into Broad Street traffic. At six o’clock the last of the evening rush-hour traffic had peaked and started to lighten almost imperceptibly. I idled up behind the sedan in my little compact Jetta and waited.

My cell phone vibrated and I answered it, my attention divided between the display and Sawyer’s big black SUV.

Merri, where are you? Did you forget about dinner tonight?

I read the words and cringed. “Sorry, Mom,” I said, hoping the traffic noise wouldn’t be picked up by the phone’s speaker. “I completely forgot.” I grappled for an acceptable excuse as the SUV took a left. The Saab made an easy right, but I still had to get out without causing an accident or incurring undue drama, like the blowing of horns. In the meantime I couldn’t lose sight of the SUV.

Where are you? appeared on the small screen.

Uh-oh. Overprotective mom radar had reared its head.

“I’m meeting friends for dinner. I’m really sorry. I hope you don’t mind.”

Now or never. I nosed out onto the street in hopes the herd slowing for the changing traffic signal would give me a break. To my supreme relief it worked. No one made a fuss about letting me out.

Well, I suppose that’s all right, spilled onto the screen next. I didn’t have to hear my mother’s voice to know that she was disappointed that I would be missing yet another family dinner. The Walters were big on get-togethers.

A new kind of relief surged through me. I had hoped the friends thing would work. My entire family worried that I didn’t get out enough. How could my mother fault me for doing what she constantly nagged me to do? Also, I had managed to get within four cars of the black SUV I feared I had already lost. Thank God.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I offered. “Maybe we can have lunch.” I needed my full attention on driving.

My patient mother agreed to the date and let the conversation go at that. I closed my phone and tucked it back into my pocket, all the while hoping I would still be breathing come tomorrow.

I stuffed all the uncertainty and fear back into a little compartment in some outer recess of my mind and focused on the street and my target. I could do this. I had to do this. I couldn’t pretend my inconsequential job—my insignificant life—was enough anymore.

I needed to do this.

Sawyer drove all the way across town, then left Nashville proper behind. I found it more and more difficult to keep a prudent distance between our vehicles. As many movies as I had watched with cops doing just this sort of thing, I hadn’t realized how hard it might actually be. When he turned into the entrance of Spring Hill Cemetery I almost panicked.

What was I supposed to do now?

Think!

Don’t stop. Keep going.

Somehow managing to hold it together, I drove on past the cemetery and parked on the side of the road near a copse of trees. It wouldn’t get dark for at least another hour. I told myself again that I could do this. Then I made my way through the woods to the cemetery fence. Easy enough. I could see him quite well from here, especially with the aid of my handy-dandy binoculars. I steadied myself and zoomed in on my prey.

Sawyer stopped and stood over a grave on the far side of the cemetery. The headstones in this area looked newer than the others. I concluded that the graves here represented the most recent burials, though all were old enough to have a nice green coat of grass blanketing them. If I remembered correctly, this cemetery was something of a historical landmark. I found it hard to imagine any of Sawyer’s friends being buried here.

Did you do this to me? Sawyer demanded. The perpetual glower he wore had morphed into a savage scowl and was directed at the grave at his feet. Since the back of the tombstone faced my position I couldn’t see anything but the surname, Bradshaw. Sawyer’s tendency to constantly survey his surroundings allowed me to follow his words. Celeste, you stupid, coldhearted bitch, I’ll hunt down every friend you had. Every freakin’ relative until I find out who you told. I’ll kill all of ’em. Do you hear me? He smirked. Maybe not. It’s probably hard to hear over all that cracklin’ in hell.

Celeste? Who was Celeste Bradshaw? Think. My heart pounding hard enough to jar my insides, I squatted amid the bushes near the fence I used for camouflage and tried my level best not to react to the words. The woman was dead, for God’s sake. How could he do this? I gave myself a mental shake. What was I saying? He was a murderer. Nothing he did should surprise me, but somehow it did. At least I didn’t have to worry about him trying to hurt the woman. She was already dead. Surely I could bring him down before he got around to her friends and relatives. A massive weight suddenly settled on my shoulders. I made a mental note as to the location of the grave for future reference, assuming I had a future.

I’d almost made a horrible mistake. I hadn’t even considered the possibility that he might blame someone for what he assumed was a leak of information. Maybe this cop business wasn’t for me after all. I hadn’t thought out all the variables.

Too late to be backing out now.

He snatched a gun from under his jacket and fired three times into the ground—into her grave. I jerked with each shot, imagining the accompanying explosions and the path of the piercing bullets plowing into the protective vault that entombed the dead woman’s coffin.

Casting one last sour look downward, Sawyer did an about-face and started to walk away, then hesitated abruptly.

My heart all but stalled in my chest.

I held my breath…held perfectly still as he scrutinized the shrubbery that concealed me. Reason told me that I was too far away and hidden too well for him to see me. But I couldn’t be certain. For what felt like an eternity, he stared directly at my position as if some sixth sense had warned him that I was there.

Please, God. Oh, please don’t let him find me.

Just when I thought my chest would burst from holding my breath, he walked away. Ten full seconds passed before I could move. I quickly retraced my steps and climbed into the relative safety of my Jetta.

Thank God. Thank God.

I watched in the rearview mirror as his SUV tore out onto the highway, and it took every ounce of courage I possessed to execute a U-turn and follow him.

I stayed as far back as possible while still keeping him in sight. As we moved back into the city limits, tailing him grew easier with other vehicles to use as camouflage, allowing me to get closer. If anything about this could be called easy. I suddenly felt ill-equipped all over again for the task I’d set out to accomplish. Where was all that confidence I’d woken up with this morning?

Sawyer returned to his office, presumably to resume the business of overseeing his numerous legitimate working assets. I waited in my car a safe distance away but well within sight of the exit and his SUV.

Three years ago he had purchased more than a dozen convenience stores for the sole purpose of cashing in on the lottery cow. He also owned a number of apartment buildings, which probably contributed to his motive for killing a man. The guy had stood in the way of a major deal and Sawyer had eliminated the problem, though no one, not even the detective assigned to his case, had been able to prove it.

First and foremost, no body had ever been recovered. That was the essential element of the defense’s entire case. Without the body, every meager speck of evidence the D.A.’s office had was circumstantial. The charges had ended up being dismissed when the state couldn’t come up with the body or irrefutable proof. Sawyer had walked away a free man. For more than two years he hadn’t made a single mistake. Probably never would have.

With my two psych classes under my belt and my innate sense of people, I had taken a shot in the dark. I’d used the oldest trick in the book. I’d pasted letters together on a plain white page of paper to form the words that would shake Sawyer’s carefully constructed little world. The message was simple: I know where you hid the body.

I had nothing to lose. If I was wrong about Sawyer, then he would simply get a good laugh out of my meaningless threats and that would be that. But, if he had murdered his competition and disposed of the body as I believed, he would worry, maybe just a little, as to whether or not I was telling the truth.

When I didn’t get the desired reaction immediately, I sent more letters. Gave the details only someone who knew what he’d done would know. Or, in my case, someone who’d reviewed the case file and, for instance, knew that he’d taken exactly $657 from the missing person’s middle desk drawer. The crime-scene report also reported that enough blood had been found on the carpet of the victim’s office that he couldn’t possibly have survived the attack, but there wasn’t a damned thing that indicated a murder weapon or anything else. No body, just a bunch of coagulated blood.

But Detective Steven Barlow had a theory. No letter opener had been found in the victim’s desk. None of his employees or associates could actually say whether or not he’d possessed one. When the pocketknife Sawyer carried was found clean of any sort of residue connected to the crime, Barlow had suggested that he’d used a letter opener. Barlow was convinced that Sawyer hadn’t gone to the victim’s office to kill him. The murder had transpired during the ensuing argument. None of which he could prove.

I, on the other hand, had nothing to lose by using Barlow’s conjecture as a ploy to prod a reaction out of Sawyer. So I sent more cut-and-paste letters. I mentioned tiny little facts no one should know. I also asked questions like, What’d you spend the $657 on? Where did you hide the letter opener? It was a shot in the dark. A play on Barlow’s hunch. But it had worked.

Sawyer was seriously worried.

Tonight at ten o’clock he intended to make a drastic move to protect himself.

I’d sent the first letter in time for Sawyer to receive it the day my vacation started. By Wednesday, when he hadn’t reacted, I sent another from the post office that delivered in his neighborhood. That way I could be sure it would be delivered the next morning. On Thursday I broke down and made a call from a phone booth. The whispered message was simple: I know what you did.

By Friday, I had my reaction.

After all, my vacation was only for one week.

Now all I had to do was stay on his tail until I had the location. Well, there was that one other little detail. I needed backup. Someone who could take him down when he made his move. Even I wasn’t fool enough to believe I could do that part alone.

With two brothers who are cops and two more who are firemen, I could call one or all of them, but that would be a mistake. Protecting me would be their one and only concern. I needed someone who could look at this objectively with an eye toward capturing a killer.

I knew exactly who to call.