Page 4 of Silent Deception
“Trevor didn’thireanyone behind your back, Dad. He and Garrett asked me to come home for a while and pitch in.” Ryan gentled his voice to a lethal, dead-calm tone. “I know I have no stake in this place anymore, and I can see you resent having your oldest son show up. Believe me, I wouldn’t have come back if I hadn’t felt I owed it to my brothers to make sure their legacy was secure.”
* * * *
OVER THE YEARS HE’Dcaptured infiltrators. Rescued team members from impossible situations. Tracked, caught, and interrogated enemies who would have welcomed death and the chance to take him right along with them.
Convincing his arrogant and irritable father to getinto his truck the next morning and driving him to town—winning a ten-dollar bet with Trevor in the process—had been one of the greatest challenges of all.
Glancing at the sign over the door of the small clinic, Ryan stepped out onto the street and pocketed the car keys. “I’m sure this Dr. Hernandez is competent, Dad. We were lucky to get you in this morning.”
Clint climbed stiffly out of the car and straightened to his full six-foot-one height, his hand still on the open door of the truck. From his thick white hair to the tips of his custom-made Lucchese boots, he exuded an imperious air of power—the Texas kind, an unshakable belief that he controlled everything in his part of the world.
The tense silence in the car on the way to town had proved that nothing in the rocky relationship between them had changed over the passing years...and never would.
“Doc Grady died five years ago, and there hasn’t been a doctor here since. What does that tell you?” Clint leveled a glare at Ryan. “This guy probably couldn’t get a job in a real town—or got chased out of the one he was at. If he’s any good, why would he come to a town like this?”
Excellent point. Ryan looked down the deserted sidewalk, taking in the boarded-up storefronts and empty parking spaces. The only signs of life were a couple of old gents dozing on benches in front of the massive, yellow stone courthouse across the street, and a handful of dusty pickups nosed up to the local diner.
The Homestead, Texas, city limits sign still claimed a population of 2,504, but he’d bet most had long since fled the area for better jobs and a brighter future.
“You’re not having heart surgery here—just a quick checkup and some lab work,” Ryan said dryly. He opened the door of the clinic and jingled the car keys in his pocket. “I’m sure this guy can handle that much. Get it over with, and we can go home. Unless you want to drive clear into San Antonio, fight traffic and sit in a busy waiting room all day for the same thing.”
Clint brushed past Ryan as he went inside and sat in a chair, muttering under his breath. He thrust an impatient hand toward the empty receptionist’s desk. “See? No one’s here.”
“But the door was open and the lights are on. Adelfa called and talked to someone here just an hour ago.”
The decor was nearly the same as it had been back when Ryan used to come here. Curling brown linoleum. Faded Western prints on the walls. He eyed the same hard wooden chairs he’d sat on as a kid, knowing that after a few minutes in one of them, he’d have trouble walking.
An inexplicable, eerie sensation prickled at the back of Ryan’s neck as he walked farther into the room. He spun back to look at the open front door. There was nobody there.
Then he heard soft footsteps come down the hallway leading to the exam rooms. A rustle of papers.
“Hi, can I help you two?”
The quiet voice slid through him like a bayonet.
As if from miles away, he heard his father swear under his breath...
And then he felt the earth shift beneath his feet.
