by Rita Herron
“Wait a minute.” Clayton held up a hand to stop her. “First you heard the voices at the hospital, then at home? How close do you live to the hospital?”
A shadow passed over her eyes. “About ten miles.”
Adam thumbed his hair from his face, impatience flaring at himself for being attracted to her. This woman was some kind of psycho, wasting their time. Clayton shot him a sideways grin as if he had read his mind and agreed.
“Were you sleeping when you heard them?” Clayton asked in a soft tone.
“Yes, but I woke up with this strange piercing sound in my ear. Then I heard the man and woman arguing. The man was forcing her to go somewhere with him.”
“And these were the same people you heard at the hospital?” Clayton asked.
She nodded.
“Did you recognize the voices?”
She glared at Clayton. “I told you I just got my hearing back, so, no, I hadn’t heard the voices before.”
Adam almost smiled at her small show of spunk. “Listen, ma’am, it’s a stretch to think you heard something strange go down at the hospital,” Clayton said, “but to hear those same voices again miles away from the hospital at your house, that’s impossible. Have you ever heard voices in your head before?”
The woman sounded schizophrenic, Adam decided.
She shook her head no again, and those vibrant blue eyes swung Adam’s way to see his reaction. Bizarre as it sounded, he found himself trying to make some sense of her story. Could her hearing implant somehow work like a radio transmitter?
She hesitated as if she had a moment of sanity and realized how crazy she sounded, then gave him a pleading look. “I received an experimental type of hearing implant at the research center. The doctor said my hearing might be warbled at times, more acute at others, and in the beginning it might sometimes be delayed.”
“Delayed hearing? A special hearing implant that allows you to hear through walls?” She was a candidate for the nuthouse. Adam pointed to himself, then Clayton. “Could you hear everyone else on the street talking? How about us—did you hear us talking from your house, too? Is that why you came here?” He stood, annoyed at himself for being suckered in and wanting to believe her when he should be looking for Denise.
“Are you saying you have some kind of bionic ear?” Clayton asked.
She stood this time and closed her eyes briefly as if to regain control. When she opened her eyes, her expression bordered on panic. She knew her story sounded crazy yet she’d come anyway. Why?
And she was looking at Adam, all sad-eyed and sincere and fiercely determined to make him believe her. She had so much depth there—it was almost as if she could see inside him, smell the cold distance he put between himself and everyone else in the world. The distance he had to keep in order to survive.
Shaken, he looked away and stared at the window, purposely raised his chin so he wouldn’t have to look into those soulful eyes. So he wouldn’t have to see the slight tremble in her hands, the quiver of that bottom lip. So his body wouldn’t stir at the soft vulnerability in her feminine form.
So he wouldn’t reach out and touch her.
This was the wrong damn woman to even think about jumping in bed with. She needed psychotherapy instead of a detective. He turned and opened his mouth to tell her that but his partner cut him off.
“How did you lose your hearing, Ms. Cutter?” Clayton propped one leg on the battered table between them and leaned forward, his tone sympathetic.
A moment of anguish glittered in her eyes. Adam watched her fold her delicate hands, noticed the way she’d chewed her nails down to stubs, saw the scars along her palms and saw another one at the edge of her hairline, and all his protective instincts kicked in. What exactly had happened to her? Had she been in an accident? The scars looked faded and old, but she immediately dragged a strand of that ebony hair over the spot as if to hide it. Had she been victimized recently or early in her life?
“That isn’t important,” she replied. “What’s important is that I heard a woman in trouble and you need to find her.”
Clayton lowered his voice to a placating tone, “Look, I can understand your concern, but you have to give us more to go on than this. If a woman was in danger at the hospital, don’t you think someone on staff would have heard, too?”
She shrugged as if she had no answers, only questions.
Stupid questions and a crazy story that no one would believe.
Denise’s face flashed through Adam’s mind, and he glanced at the clock, worry knotting his stomach. He had time for no one but Denise and his job. “Why don’t you wait outside and we’ll discuss this?”
She snatched her Palm Pilot and stalked from the office, her head held high.
Adam shook his head in pity as he watched her go, dismissing the sexual draw that made him itch to go after her.
Still, he couldn’t help himself—when she closed the door, he found himself wondering what her voice would sound like.
SARAH FOUGHT for a steadying breath as she leaned against the closed door. Several police officers and one seedy prisoner in a vulgar T-shirt handcuffed to a chair stared at her.
The detectives obviously hadn’t believed her.
In fact, she could hear them laughing through the door.
She supposed she couldn’t blame them—her story did sound bizarre. But it had happened. And those men, even her godfather, couldn’t convince her otherwise. Sol. She’d thought he of all people would have supported her. But he’d reiterated the doctor’s warnings about her brain having trouble interpreting sounds at first, the delayed translation between the sound and her interpretation, then his theory about the effects of anesthesia. He’d even suggested the surgery had resurrected repressed memories of the explosion that had caused her hearing loss and suggested she talk to a psychiatrist.
Another shudder passed through her as she heard Detective Black’s gruff voice. She’d never met a more masculine man, one who radiated such stark power. He’d watched her with an intensity that had burned straight to her core.
She’d never felt that kind of heat from a man before.
It was the very reason his laughter had hurt so much. She’d been ridiculed as a child. Without her hearing, she’d learned to read nonverbal facial and body gestures, little nuances that others never even noticed. The very reason she’d felt such a strong attraction toward him. The reason she’d avoided his gaze. The sultry heat charging the air between them had been too electric.
Why had he been irritated at her, though? Because he saw her as weak? ’t he realize she was trying to help save this poor woman?
“That broad must have come from the psych ward,” she heard the detective named Fox say through the door. “She was beautiful, but crazy.”
A curse word erupted from Detective Black’s mouth, burning her ears through the walls. She could almost see those wide cheekbones tighten, his naturally dark skin glisten with sweat as his anger mounted. “A sexy one, but you’re right, she needs medication. And what about that closed mouth? If she’d been able to hear until she was five, surely she had developed some speech.”
“Yeah, more than a little weird.”
She fought not to let the humiliation overwhelm her, but childhood memories of being taunted surfaced, clawing at her self-control again. Sol had been disappointed she hadn’t instantly regained her speech when her hearing returned. Another reason he wanted her in therapy.
She moved toward the front of the station house, ignoring the curious looks. A tall, lanky man wearing khakis and wire-rimmed glasses bent to drink from the water fountain. He looked faintly familiar, as if she’d seen him when she was in the hospital. No, it couldn’t have been. Yet, he watched her as she crossed the room and she did remember him. He was the reporter who’d confronted her outside the hospital wanting an interview about her hearing implant. He’d known about the explosion that had caused her hearing loss, and all about her father. So many ghosts to deal with…
Had he followed her here?
She squared her shoulders and ignored him, then strode toward the female officer’s desk. Sarah swallowed, angling herself so the reporter couldn’t see her.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked.
Sarah nodded, took a pen and paper from the officer’s desk, then scribbled a few lines. She hesitated, continued writing, then handed the note to the other woman.
The officer frowned at her message just as the two detectives emerged from the back. Sarah walked out the door, struggling not to reveal her emotions as their laughter boomed behind her down the hall.
Seconds later, she entered the darkened parking deck, shivering at the early-afternoon shadows hovering around the concrete structure. As usual, she hesitated, gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the dimness and scanned the interior for strangers, wielding her keys between her fingers in case someone tried to grab her. She wasn’t paranoid, but any female alone in the city had to play it safe, especially a deaf one. Her other senses had to make up for her lack of being able to hear someone approach.
The acrid smell of garbage seeped into her nostrils and the clattering of something—an aluminum can maybe—sent goose bumps up her arms. Another rattling sound broke the strained silence. Keys? Footsteps? Traffic noises, a hushed voice, a scrape. The different sounds bombarded her, disorienting her as to their proximity. She searched the darkness, found her car and headed straight toward it, almost running. Down two aisles, over beside the far wall. Only two more rows to go.
Her breath caught in her throat when she spotted a dark van parked beside her Jetta. She’d heard a news report say vans were the primary vehicle used for abduction heard a clickety-clack sound and froze, then resumed walking and realized the sound had come from her own heels. Deciding she’d let the past few days rattle her, she slowed her steps. But a shadow caught her eye. Something had moved. A cat maybe? Somebody lurking behind one of the boulders?
She glanced to her left, quickly cutting a path around the van, her gaze scanning the area around it in case someone was hiding there. Laughter echoed off the concrete walls behind her and she tensed. The sound reminded her of the detective’s harsh laughter. His mocking words ran through her mind, distracting her momentarily, and she stumbled over the drain and dropped her keys. Cursing, she knelt to grab them when a shuffling noise reverberated behind her. Then a pair of black shoes suddenly appeared, and a man’s hand reached out for her.
Chapter Two
A tall lanky man rushed out the door behind Sarah Cutter. The skinny guy had been eyeballing her from the corner, but Adam hadn’t thought much of it at the time. After all, oddballs drifted in and out of the precinct at all hours, reporting crimes, claiming to be victims, sometimes admitting to crimes they hadn’t committed just to get attention. Was the man following Sarah Cutter?
Bernstein handed Clay a note. Clay studied it while Adam retrieved his gun to go to Denise’s. Just as he made it to the door, his partner caught him.
“Hey, Black, what’s your sister’s married name?”
“Harley, why?”
Clayton held out his hand, a note tucked between his fingers. “Maybe you’d better take a look at this.”
Adam glanced at the hastily scribbled message: “Check to see if a doctor named Hardy or Harper, something like that, works at the Coastal Island Research Park on Catcall Island. Make sure she’s okay. Tell the other detectives the weird broad from the psych ward doesn’t need medication. She’s trying to save a woman’s life.”
Adam’s breath caught in his lungs. How had the woman heard their conversation through the closed door? He reread the note. Hardy, Harper—Harley? Was it possible? Could Sarah Cutter have been talking about his sister?
Sarah opened her mouth to scream but the only sound that emerged was a low gurgle. Her heart pounding, she twirled around and pushed at the man’s hand, ready to raise a knee to his groin.
The scrawny reporter stood in the shadows, surveying her with his beady eyes as if she were his prey. He swiped her keys from the ground and held them by his side. “Wait, Ms. Cutter, I’m Robey Burgess from the Savannah Times.”
She pursed her lips, fury welling inside. How dare he scare her like that? For once in her life, she wished she could make her voice work just so she could give him a piece of her mind. She opened her mouth again to do that when she heard her own thick, almost childlike squeak.
“I—I just want an interview,” he stammered. “I’ve been trying to reach you for days. Why don’t we go someplace and talk?”
His nasally voice sounded unpleasant, and the look of avid curiosity in his eyes reminded her of all the taunting she’d received as a child. This man knew about her past, about her father. He wanted to write about her in the paper as if she were some sideshow freak in a circus.
She shook her head and mouthed “Go Away,” yanked the keys from his hand, then spun around and crossed the distance to her car. She was sliding inside when he caught her, wedged a hand in between her and the door, and stopped her from shutting it.
“I’m going to find out everything I can about you and what’s going on at that research center,” he said, “so you might as well talk to me.”
She glared at him, her chest constricting. What did he mean? What was going on at the research center?
She held up a hand as if to ask him to wait a second, grabbed her Palm Pilot and wrote, “If you want to talk about the Coastal Island Research Park, talk to my godfather, Sol Santenelli. He’s the director. Leave me alone.”
“No. You know something’s going on. That’s the reason you went to the police.” A nasty sneer covered his face. “Since they didn’t believe you, maybe you should try me. I might take your story more seriously than the cops did. And I know all about Cutter’s Crossing.”
Sarah flinched. The term had been coined by the local scientific community after her father to symbolize the point where a doctor or scientist crossed the line between noble, ethical practices and unethical ones.
She didn’t like this man, didn’t trust him, and refused to have herself and Sol, the only family she had left, dragged through the papers. “I asked you to leave me alone,” she wrote. “If you don’t let go of that door right now, I’ll hit my panic alarm.”
His irritated gaze flickered over her, sending an uneasy feeling up her spine, but he released the door. “This isn’t over, Ms. Cutter,” he said in a low growl.
She slammed the door, tore out of the parking spot and wound through the parking deck on screeching tires, checking over her shoulder to see if he followed her.
ADAM RACED OUTSIDE to the parking lot. He had to talk to that Cutter woman again. But just as he reached the first row of cars, a red Jetta flew round the corner on two wheels. A swirl of black hair flashed in his eyes and he realized the driver was Sarah Cutter. She was tearing from the lot as if death rode on her heels.
Knowing he couldn’t catch her, he memorized her license plate, then headed to his car and radioed back inside to find out where she lived. While he waited for her address, he’d swing by the research center.
Although it was past five, his sister never adhered to a nine-to-five schedule. Maybe he’d find Denise there now, totally immersed in test tubes and cultures, obsessed with a new discovery or near breakthrough. Then he could breathe easily again. And forget about Sarah Cutter’s bizarre story. And those bewitching eyes…
He crossed the bridge to Catcall Island, inhaling the salty air and pungent odor of the marshland Catcall Island was the main hub of CIRP, the Coastal Island Research Park. The island had been given its name because locals claimed the sea oats were so thick in the marsh that when a wind came through, it sounded like a cat’s low cry. On the map, Catcall resembled the shape of an old woman’s shoe. The Institute of Oceanography and main campus were located near the tip of the island with some mountainous parts farther north, the toe of the shoe, with residential areas in the middle, and the marshland at the base. A smaller group of facilities
had been housed on the neighboring Whistlestop Island, with future development planned there.
He frowned at the name—Whistlestop had garnered its name from an old ghost tale about a sea captain who lost his bride to a pirate during the turn of the century. Legend claimed the sea captain rode the coastal waters for years, grieving for her, whistling her favorite love ballad as he searched. Locals said she was his one true love, that he vowed not to stop whistling until he found her. Some still insist that they’d heard him whistling late at night when they’d been on the water.
A bunch of romantic gibberish.
A few miles to the south of Whistlestop lay the third island, Nighthawk Island, a smaller piece of land shrouded with such thick mist and fog that it appeared dark and eerie, almost twilight twenty-four hours a day. An ancient legend told about an unusual breed of dark-red legged hawks that inhabited the island; the nighthawks preyed on weaker animals, and had also been known to attack people. Supposedly, secret government-funded projects were conducted there. The island was guarded by a strict private agency called Seaside Securities—an innocuous name that seemed deceptive in view of the classified research projects conducted under its realm.
Three years ago the Savannah Economic Development Group had joined forces with several environmental agencies, universities and the governor, and pushed to grow the economy by plotting a research park similar to the Research Triangle Park in the Raleigh-Durham area in North Carolina. Since then, several pharmaceutical and medical research companies as well as microbiologists and marine biologists had relocated on Catcall, along with some government and university funded research projects. Some were affiliated with university projects and Savannah Hospital. Adam didn’t know what type of research his sister was working on at the moment, but it had something to do with neurology.
Rain drizzled from the sky as he parked in front of Denise’s building and hurried inside. A thin young brunette with a severe eyebrow line and a brown knot of hair on top of her head turned from her computer. “May I help you?”
