A Silent Terror (17 page)

She turned back to the battling duo and stepped forward, terror racing through her veins, making her shake. She held the cast-iron handle with a death grip and prayed out loud, “Lord, help me, please.”

When she focused on the man trying to beat Ethan to a pulp, she had a flash of recognition. She’d seen him somewhere before.

Then the knife caught her full attention.

Ethan reached for his gun but didn’t have time to grab it because he had to defend himself against the attacker’s rush, knife held out in front of him. Ethan stepped away. The man jabbed again, slicing through shirt and forearm. She saw Ethan grimace, the blood rushing down his arm. He ignored it and set his feet to brace himself for the next attack.

Both men seemed to have forgotten her presence.

As the attacker rushed past her, she brought the flying pan up as hard as she could, aiming for his face, but her blow was off, instead catching the outstretched hand carrying the knife.

Where was his backup? Adrenaline flowed as Ethan scrambled after the perp. His arm throbbed mercilessly. Then a solid thud echoed in his ears, followed by a crunching sound, a scream of pain and the knife spinning through the air to land some thirty feet behind him.

He scrambled for his gun, then realized he didn’t have to. Six officers had their weapons trained on the perp, who lay on the ground, grasping his broken wrist, screeching in agony. The ball cap

had flown off in the attack, revealing a face Ethan recognized in an instant.

Panting, Ethan made his way over to the man and pulled both arms, wounded or not, behind his back. The groaning and screaming increased, but Ethan was more worried about the damage the man might still be able to inflict than a broken wrist. Especially if he was high on some drug, although the fact that the guy was feeling pain indicated there were no mind-altering substances flowing through his veins.

Except maybe alcohol. He only now just got a whiff. The man reeked of the stuff. Ethan motioned for his backup to haul Gerald off to the squad car, where they’ d wait for an ambulance to come. Even bad guys got medical attention before they had to go to jail. Through gritted teeth, Ethan read him his Miranda rights: “You have the right to remain silent. If you choose to give up that right…”

One of the officers took over, pulling the guy to the waiting paramedics. As for himself, he’d get his arm taken care of, then head down the station to question Gerald. He had so many questions burning through his brain that he needed the space to organize them.

“Ethan, are you all right?” Marianna’s worried voice cut through the haze of pain coming from his arm.

He grimaced. “Yeah.” He gestured toward the man. “That’s Gerald Chambers.”

A puzzled frown crossed her face as she studied the man, then she shook her head, turning her focus back on Ethan. “You need to get that patched up. Come on, I’ll drive you to the hospital.”

One of the other officers walked up, and the annoyed expression on the man’s face put Ethan on guard. When the cop turned to Marianna, Ethan paid attention. “Nice job with the flying pan, ma’am, but we were right there with our guns drawn. Should have let us do our job.”

Marianna bit her lower lip and swallowed hard. “I didn’t know you were there.”

Disbelief cut across the policeman’s face. “I hollered at you to move. You were in the line of fire.”

Ethan stepped up. “She’s deaf, Joel. Lay off.”

Marianna felt slightly sick. Wanting nothing more than to go home and pull the covers up over head and hibernate for the next twenty-four hours, she gathered her courage, her nerves…and her independence.

Coolly, she glared at the two men standing before her. To the cop she said, “Don’t worry about it. You couldn’t have known.” To Ethan she said, “And you didn’t need to pipe in and tell the man I’m deaf.

I’m perfectly capable of explaining that myself.”

When Ethan’s jaw dropped at her dressing-down, it didn’t make her feel better necessarily, but she had to make him understand she didn’t need a keeper. Sure, she knew she needed help in this whole mess, but some things she could – and would – handle herself. “Now, would you like a ride to the emergency room?”

His jaw snapped shut. “Yeah.”

As they walked out of the alley and onto the sidewalk, they passed the ambulance where Gerald sat receiving medical treatment for his wrist. She stopped, stared at him, read his lips almost absentmindedly as he whined his innocence, complaining he’d been attacked and wanted to file a police report.

Marianna bit her lip and chewed for a moment until a warm, if dusty, linger pulled it from between her teeth. Startled, she looked at Ethan, who stared at her with a warm look in his eyes. “Thanks for coming to my rescue.”

Previous irritation melted, as did her heart. “If I’d known those policemen were behind me, I’d have moved out of the way and cowered in the corner instead.”

He laughed. “I doubt you would have cowered, but the fact that you were willing to jump in and help…well, that says a lot. Thanks.”

“Sure.” The pitter-patter of her heart and the mushy sensation settling in the pit of her stomach goaded her to action. With both hands, she reached up and cupped Ethan’s face. His eyes flared in surprise then turned smoky as he realized what she was going to do. He met her halfway and his lips landed on hers with sweet intent. Marianna reveled in the sensations sweeping through her. Then she pulled back and smiled. “Now we can go to the hospital.” She turned back to the man who’d tried to do her bodily harm – again. And she studied him.

Ethan nudged her. “Hey, I’m ready for that ride and I might need another kiss.”

She grinned at him and blushed, then narrowed her eyes and said, “I know him.”

“What?”

“I think I know that man. Or at least I’ve seen him somewhere before.”

“Where?”

“At Mr. and Mrs. Luck’s house. He was in one of her pictures sitting on the sofa table. I remember picking it up to admire it.” Confusion tagged her. “So what’s the connection between Roland

Luck, a dead man, and Gerald Chambers, a man who tried to kill me?”

Ethan thought about Marianna’s question the entire time he was being stitched up. She’d insisted on waiting for him to be discharged, quietly staying out of the way, but her ever-moving eyes told him she didn’t miss a thing going on.

Such as the fact that he refused a painkiller. She frowned as if she wanted to say something, but resisted. He appreciated her restraint.

There was no way he was going to cloud his thinking when he still had to interrogate a suspect.

Leaving the hospital, he asked, “Do you feel like going to the station with me? Or do you want me to take you home?”

“Is he there already?”

“Yeah, released from the hospital and transported ten minutes ago. He’s on his way to being booked, but I asked the arresting officers if they’ d put him in an interrogation room so I could have a go at him.”

“I’ll go with you. I want to know what he says.”

“If you stand behind the two-way mirror, you should be able to see enough of the conversation as it happens.”

Her eyes lit up. “You’d let me do that?”

“Sure, you’re the one he’s after. Seems only right to me.”

Ethan let her drive and breathed a sigh of relief when they arrived.

Every bump jarred his wound, causing it to be one throbbing mass of pain by the time the station came into sight. It wasn’t Marianna’s fault; she’d tried to drive smoothly. Pulling himself from the car, he placed his good hand on her back and led her into his second home.

Her warmth radiated up his arm and he remembered the feel of her sweet lips on his. He swallowed hard at the intense emotions she roused in him. Wishing he had time to examine them, he instead put them aside for later retrieval and study.

Shrugging off well-wishing and congratulations on his collar, Ethan stayed the course and honed in on the last interrogation room on the left. Spotting a female officer, he asked, “Sarah, would you take Marianna up to the viewing room?”

“Sure.”

He turned to Marianna. “Just follow her. Stay there until I come get you, okay?”

Marianna nodded and Ethan watched them disappear down the hall then around the corner. Placing his hand on the knob, he drew in a deep breath, steeled himself against the pain in his arm and opened the door.

Marianna followed the officer to a small room not too far from the door Ethan had stopped in front of. When she entered, two other officers stood there. She recognized them as the arresting officers.

Ethan had taken a seat at the lone table across from the man she now knew as Gerald Chambers.

“Anything you want to say before your lawyer gets here?”

The man’s eyes flicked contempt at Ethan before he looked back at the table in front of him. His arm in the cast lay across his belly; his good arm relaxed in his lap.

Marianna could read body language as well as the next person.

Probably better. This guy was not going to talk to anyone. He didn’t seem the least bit worried he’d just been charged with attempted murder of a police officer, resisting arrest and assault.

Ethan tried again. “Why are you after Marianna?”

The man sighed, shifted, and shut his eyes as though Ethan annoyed him.

Marianna winced. If Ethan clenched his jaw any tighter, he’d need dental work. While the man’s eyes were closed, she watched Ethan struggle to let go of his anger, his tension, to let his muscles relax. He didn’t drop his guard, but he did gain better control.

His next question was a common interrogation tactic, ask questions you already knew the answer to, to get the perp’s reaction.

“What’s your connection with Roland Luck?”

That got Gerald’s attention. His head snapped up, eyes locked on Ethan. Then he smirked. “Who?”

“Roland Luck.” Ethan said the name slowly as though speaking to someone who didn’t quite have all his marbles.

“Never heard of him.”

Ethan slapped the table in front of him, causing the prisoner to jump. He wasn’t quite as relaxed as he wanted Ethan to believe. Good

“Everybody who’s interested in politics has heard of him. Don’t give me that.”

At this point, Gerald’s attorney bustled in, a short older woman named Helen Zanislowski, with eyes like steel. Sharp, intelligent. And highly paid. “Okay, zip it up, Gerald.” She zeroed in on Ethan. “You have no right to question my client without me here.”

“I was just – talking out loud to myself, so to speak.”

She snorted.

Ethan filled her in on the things he’d talked about thus far. “I was just asking him about his connection to Roland Luck – who he claims not to know.”

Gerald widened his eyes as though recognition had just hit him, and he spoke before his attorney could say anything. “Oh, yeah, that guy who died in the car accident. Had something to do with the governor’s campaign. Right.” He spread his hands, or at least tried to hampered only a bit by the cast, innocence personified. “What’s that got to do with me?”

“That’s what I want to know.”

“Gerald, be quiet, don’t say another word.”

Chambers ignored his attorney. “And why would you think I even know this dude?”

Ethan leaned forward. Should he play this card now or keep it close to his chest? That was the thing about interrogations. Sometimes you just had to go with your gut. So he did.

“Because Roland Luck’s mother had a picture of you, your father and Roland, all dressed in your army fatigues, sitting on an end table in her living room. Not to mention the fact that your DNA was found in Marianna’s house. And, you’re working with the same campaign.

Come on, man. Get real.” He leaned forward. “You’re not doing this alone. Who’s pulling your strings?”

Gerald’s jaw nearly hit the table; he was clearly shocked that Ethan had so much on him. This time his glance to his attorney was pleading, bravado draining away in the face of Ethan’s statement.

She held up a hand. “Oh please, Ethan. There are so many people involved in the campaign that it wouldn’t surprise me that Gerald doesn’t know everyone. We’ll discuss the photo later. I need to talk to my client. If you have any more questions, we’ll have to set up a time.” Ethan gave a snort of disgust. “You do that. In the meantime, I’ll be gathering the rest of the evidence against your client.”

Marianna let out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

She’d gotten most of the conversation. Speech reading definitely wasn’t a perfected art, and she was better at it than most, but she still missed a word here and there, depending on the shape of the mouth, whether the person talked through gritted teeth or rubbed a hand across his mouth; or maybe as a stranger, she just wasn’t used to the way he or she talked. Things like that could mess her up, but for the most part, she’d understood Gerald amazingly well.

And she’d understood that Gerald wasn’t talking. What could his connection be with Josh’s family? The picture in Mrs. Luck’s house gave a good indication that the relationship was more than merely one among acquaintances. It suggested friendship.

Marianna decided that a phone call to Mrs. Luck was in order just as soon as Ethan could make it for her. Oh, she could always use the TTY, but Ethan would speed the process along, get the information faster.

She watched the lawyer leave. The police used special cuffs on Gerald in order to accommodate his cast as they returned him to his holding cell. The charges against him were strong; she just hoped his family’ s influence wasn’t stronger.

Ethan exited soon after, and Marianna turned toward the door so she would be able to see him as soon as he opened it.

Within a minute, the door swung inward. He filled out the entry, broad shoulders nearly reaching from one side to the other. Would he be different? Would he be able to accept her as she was? Hearing deficiency and all? Would he be able to handle her crazy family, including her juvenile delinquent of a brother?

And why was she even going down this road of thought? He was a cop. A professional. Yeah, and one who spoke her language.