Page 19 of So Silent

Tate lifted his hands and let them drop again. “Sure. Why not? Might as well get this cleared up.”

He stood and headed for the door, the three agents close behind. They opened the door and nearly bowled over Allie, who, apparently, had been listening at the door.

She turned beet red. “Um… You guys don’t have to check the security cameras. He was with me.”

Tate looked like he’d rather be anywhere but with her right now. “I’m sorry, Allie,” he said quietly.

“It’s okay,” she said, laying a hand on his arm. Damn it, the poor kid actually liked him. She turned to the agents and said again, “If you have to check to prove he’s innocent, then do so, but I’ll be willing to testify in court that Gregory was with me the night of Rebecca Wells’ murder.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Tate said quickly. “They’ll just look at the tapes.”

“That’s fine, Mr. Tate,” Faith said, trying to hide her disappointment. “Thank you for the time.”

Allie’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank you, agents. I really hope you find whoever did this. With all the boldness of youth, she grabbed Tate’s face and planted a kiss on his lips that he had no choice but to endure.

“You two have a pleasant evening,” Michael said drily.

Both of them were disappointed as they walked to the car. Just once, it would be nice if they could confront the first suspect and instantly close the case.

She reminded herself that the bulk of investigative work was just the process of elimination. Suspects. Weapons. Motives. The point was to eliminate them one by one and bring themselves closer to the killer.

But how many more victims would be eliminated before they landed on the right suspect?

Chapter Nine

Emily pressed her hands to her ears and released a cry of frustration. The level of irritation produced by that sound seemed impossible to adequately express. Nails on a chalkboard didn’t even come close.

She hated dog whistles. She hated them passionately, and she particularly hated that nobody else heard them but dogs. She didn’t often feel out of place because of her hearing. Most of the time, it was an interesting and brag-worthy quality, something she could share on a first date or use as an icebreaker when she gave the occasional lecture.

Now, though, she was the only person walking around behaving oddly. The fact that it was night didn’t make her feel any less watched. How many people were staring through their windows at her and wondering if they should call the police? Maybe someone had. And what would she tell them? Hey, can you hear that damned dog whistle? Tell that asshole to stop blowing it.

Well, if they couldn’t hear the whistle, they’d hear the dogs. The dogs in the neighborhood barked loudly. Those she saw through gaps in their fences ran in circles or shook their heads, whining and howling with discomfort. She knew how they felt. Of course, that sympathy wasn’t enough to make her ears hurt any less. In fact, the howling and barking on top of the fucking whistle was impossible to handle. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes.

She’d become adept at tuning out excess noise. It was an essential aspect of living with her accelerated hearing. Accelerated. That’s what the pediatrician had called it. That was what her mother still called it. Someone with accelerated hearing had to filter noise because they heard it so clearly. Ordinarily, Emily could force noises to the background. She could ignore the phone conversation one room over so she could clearly hear the conversation in front of her.

But this was too much. She couldn’t focus on anything but the noise. It reverberated in her ears, pounded in her head, rippled through her chest and drove her to a frenzy. Damn it, if she figured out who was blowing that whistle, she would stab them through the fucking neck!

“Hello.”

She was so surprised that she could hear that word over the sound assaulting her skull that she didn’t see the knife that came from her right side to stab her through the neck. If she’d been able to focus on anything but the whistle still echoing in her ears, she might have acknowledge the irony of her last thought.

But the only thing she was aware of was sound. Then nothing replaced it.

Chapter Ten

“There’s not a damned thing we can do right now,” Michael said, “and you’re getting grumpy, so…”

“Screw you.”

“So, let’s get some rest. It’s late, anyway. There’s not anything we’re going to be able to do until tomorrow morning but research.”

They were at their hotel. After interviewing Tate, they had gotten some dinner and returned to the hotel to brainstorm. Dinner was grilled salmon from the hotel’s restaurant and was worth every second. Brainstorming was an hour of swearing and griping and was worth not a single second spent so far.

But Faith wasn’t ready for sleep. “So let’s research,” she said.

"We will. But we'll do it in shifts. You're the cranky one this time, so you sleep first. I'll keep wrestling with this while you sleep." He nodded at Turk. "The big guy should get some shuteye too. I'll wake you in a while, and you can wrestle with the case while I nap."

“Define a while,” Faith said.

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