Sounds Of Silence. Elizabeth White

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      And, oh, how happy she and Rico had been! Isabel had quickly adjusted to the desertlike climate and learned to laugh at the idea of landscaping with cactus, mesquite and rocks. They’d found a little evangelical church that suited both their backgrounds and gave Rico an outlet for his love of music. Rico’s partner, Jack Torres, had been a tough nut to crack, but eventually even he couldn’t resist Rico’s insouciant conviction that Christ was the answer to every need. Jack became a believer and literally spent most waking moments in Isabel’s living room, learning to be a disciple.

      Now, watching Eli disappear into the dispatch room, Isabel twisted her wedding rings and tried to remember those good times. It wasn’t healthy to dwell on the tragedy that had mown her down like a freight train.

      The train had also run over Eli, whose father had been the one responsible for the events that affected all their lives. But he didn’t let it send him into depression. From what she could tell, Eli plowed right on, never looking back. Isabel often wondered what it would take to shake him up.

      “Isabel, I want you to meet somebody.” Eli was standing in the doorway looking at her.

      She jumped, afraid in a crazy sort of way that he’d been reading her thoughts. How silly. “Okay.” She smiled and tried to see around him. Maybe he had a new partner, although why he’d have Isabel come all the way over here for that—

      “Come here, Susie-Q,” Eli said, reaching behind his back. He tugged a small child into view and held her by the hand—a little girl with long, black braids and big, dark brown eyes, appearing to be about six or seven. Hispanic, judging by the golden-brown skin, and so beautiful it made Isabel’s eyes sting.

      Isabel looked at Eli for explanation.

      He cleared his throat. “She’s deaf and doesn’t speak, Isabel. We can’t get her to tell us her name or where she came from or anything. She showed up at the orphanage yesterday with nothing but the clothes on her back and one shoe. And this.” He lifted his other hand to show her a sealed plastic bag containing a closed switchblade knife.

      Isabel took a sharp breath. “Benny didn’t know her?”

      Eli shook his head. “Owen and I took some food over there for Cinco de Mayo, and stayed to play for a bit.” He smiled down at the little girl, who was staring at her feet. Apparently somebody had given her a pair of sandals. They were too big, and had rubbed a blister on one foot. Eli jiggled her hand until she looked up at him with sober trust. “When I caught her hanging around, she like to’ve spitted me with the knife. Didn’t you, Little Bit?”

      Isabel watched the little girl’s lips curl upward ever so slightly. She seemed to understand she was being teased. There was extreme intelligence behind those dark chocolate eyes. “So what’s she doing here? She’s Mexican, I presume.”

      “Kind of a convoluted story.” Eli leaned against the door frame. “I left her there with Benny, but I took the knife. This morning, Bryan Hatcher’s body was found on the riverbank.”

      Isabel gasped. “Pam and Rand’s son?” Pam was a member of their church, her husband a well-to-do rancher with friends in the state legislature. Both were well-respected in the community.

      “Yep.” Eli showed Isabel the knife’s beautiful pearl handle. It had a raised gold initial “H” near one end. “Here’s where things get weird. This is Bryan’s knife, and it’s got his blood on it. But it had been handled so much, the only distinguishable fingerprints on it were his and Mercedes. Coroner says he couldn’t have killed himself.” Eli grimaced. “The biggest question, though, is how this little lady got hold of it.”

      “Oh, Eli.” Swallowing, Isabel looked at the little girl, whose downcast eyes fanned long black lashes onto cheeks the color of damask roses. Instantly her heart ached to hold this little one who’d no doubt been exposed to some terrifying events.

      “Yeah.” Eli’s jaw worked as he gently squeezed the girl’s hand. “Hatcher’s been suspected of smuggling activity, and we’ve been watching him. We’re working with DEA, Mexican police and Del Rio Homicide. I’ve been put in charge of protecting her, because we think she may be a witness. If she is, the murderer’s looking for her. My supervisor pulled some strings with our immigration guys, and on the Mexican side, too, so I could bring her across the border.”

      Eli paused after having made possibly the longest speech Isabel had ever heard him make. Something in the way he held her eyes, the protective clasp of his big hand around the little girl’s tiny one—

      Isabel frowned. “What does all this have to do with me?”

      “Sh-she needs a p-place to stay.”

      Isabel’s gaze flew to the little girl, who let go of Eli’s hand to crouch down and study the pink silk pansies on Isabel’s sandals with such innocent pleasure that Isabel closed her eyes.

      But the image wouldn’t fade. In that moment, her life underwent one of the irreversible changes she’d experienced only three times before. The first had been the Vacation Bible School when she’d given her heart to Jesus. The second, the night Rico asked her to marry him; the third, Danilo’s birth.

      She had to force herself not to run from the room. “Eli, why me?”

      Chapter Two

      Mortified that under pressure he’d relapsed into his childhood speech impediment, Eli tried to come up with an answer to Isabel’s question. One that wouldn’t make him sound crazy.

      The Holy Spirit told me it should be you.

      And, if he were gut-level honest, one big reason was the excuse to see Isabel every day.

      “We can’t spare an agent to stay with her twenty-four/seven,” he finally said. “But there’s a little stipend in the budget, and I thought you could use the money—”

      “Eli, I’m trying to sell my house,” Isabel said, as if she were explaining something to her son. “Danilo and I could be leaving Del Rio any day now. Then you’d be right back where you started.”

      Eli tried to gauge the depth of her protest. Her expression was troubled, but he could tell she was distracted by the child’s fascination with the flowers on her shoes.

      See, that was the thing. A little girl needed a woman to care for her. A woman with an innate sense of beauty. A woman of grace and tact and spiritual wholeness, even when life crushed her.

      “Okay, that’s a good point,” he said. “But maybe we’ll nail Bryan’s murderer soon, and we won’t have to deal with that.”

      Isabel sighed. “There’s another problem. I speak Spanish, but I don’t know any sign language.”

      “She reads lips pretty well.” Eli bent down to rest his hand on the little girl’s head. When she looked up at him, he said carefully, “¿Flores?”

      She gave him a wide smile and reverently touched one of the flowers on Isabel’s shoes.

      Eli winked at Isabel. “See?”

      Isabel’s smooth brow knit. “If she can do that, why can’t she communicate with you? What happened when you asked her name?”

      “Try СКАЧАТЬ