Page 16 of Silent Ridge

“Oh. Is her daughter involved in the victims’ advocacy group?”

Shut up, please, I think.

“We won’t know until we talk to her,” I say.

I highly doubt Monique would ever mix her only daughter up in that group.

“Turn left here,” Ronnie says. “It’s two blocks and then a right.”

I don’t say anything but I know exactly where I’m going. I lived in Port Orchard once.

I can’t tell Ronnie that. In fact, I can’t tell anyone.

Fourteen

I drive and Ronnie rides shotgun with a phone glued to her hand. It would be okay, but the phone case is Hello Kitty. Last month it was unicorns and rainbows. I follow Ronnie’s GPS directions to a modest one-story house. All the homes on this block are fronted by a narrow ditch with thick shrubs and greenery with only a walkway separating each property. So much for privacy. This one is covered with vines and hidden in shrubs, except for a set of concrete steps leading to the front door with no porch, just a concrete pad. Only the front entrance and top half of three windows are visible from the street.

“Doesn’t look occupied,” Ronnie says.

She’s right. The windows don’t have curtains or blinds. But we’re here now.

Ronnie follows me across a wooden footbridge that leads to a sloping walk made of crushed red brick. I stop in the tiny front yard and listen and smell. Nothing but a pleasant scent of earth and honeysuckle that has climbed the right side of the house to the gutters.

Then I smellit.

Ronnie crinkles her freckled nose. She does too.

“Go back to the car,” I say as I draw my .45 from the shoulder holster. A nauseating odor of decay wafts over me and I fight back the gorge rising in my throat. I think, but don’t say,dead body. Ronnie hasn’t moved except to draw her own weapon. I waste one second thinking of the sheriff’s orders and then say, “Can you go to the back?”

She nods and heads around the right side where there is more room to maneuver.

“And don’t get hurt, Ronnie.”

She doesn’t listen to me, but that should cover me with the sheriff.

I crouch and make my way beneath the windows. I’m not tall enough to look in them. I duckwalk to the front entrance. The concrete steps have a black metal railing leading up to the tiny square pad.

I give Ronnie another half minute to get in position at the rear of the house and then I go up the steps. When I reach the pad, a voice yells from behind the door.

“I’ve called the police. I’m armed.”

So am I.

I take out my badge case, flip it open and yell, “Sheriff’s Office. Don’t shoot.” Of course, I don’t have any police authority in this county, but hopefully it will mean something.

Ronnie comes running around the side of the house just as the door opens and a woman who looks just like Leanne Delmont peeks out. My heart is thrumming. For a moment I think I’m seeing a dead woman.

“Mrs. Delmont?”

“Gabrielle. It’s Gabrielle. Can I see your badge?”

I hand her my badge but she doesn’t look at it. “I saw someone in the backyard. Are they with you?”

I motion for Ronnie to come up on the steps. She does but can’t reach her credentials and hold her weapon at the same time because of her injured wrist. I say to Ronnie, “You can put the gun away.” She does and then fumbles for her badge case, almost drops it. I see her hands are shaking. I don’t blame Ronnie after the month we’ve had.

“I’m Detective Carpenter. This is Detective Marsh,” I say, and hand her Ronnie’s badge case.

The woman examines our badges and then us—carefully. “She’s not a detective. This says she a reserve deputy. And you’re not from here.”

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