Deadly Silence (Silence Jones Action Thrillers Series) by Erik Carter (the best books to read TXT) 📕

Silence looked behind him to Adriana’s house. Drapes and blinds shielded the windows, and every window was alight, as he’d requested.

He started toward the restaurant.

Chapter Three

Bobbie Sue’s Family Restaurant was as brightly lit on the inside as it was on the outside. Sears Portrait Studio bright.

It wasn’t the sort of chain restaurant with whacky memorabilia and askew license plates hanging on the walls, but its ambience was still on the loud side with its shiny brass handrailing, preponderance of houseplants, especially ferns, and the ubiquitous robin’s egg blue paint.

Silence sat at a booth. The seat was upholstered vinyl—also robin’s egg blue—and while it was well constructed, ample usage was beginning to make the underlying springs apparent. A grimy, laminated menu was in Silence’s hands. A potted fern hovered inches above his head, mounted via chains hanging from the ceiling. A smiling waitress crowded the edge of his table.

Her plastic name tag sat straight on her white button-down shirt, but the sticker placed on the tag—which read, VAL—was crooked, a manager’s slapdash application, surely. The label-maker that printed the name had apparently been running low on ink, as the letters were grayish with a stratified fade.

Val’s eyes were slightly bloodshot, and the lower lids had a faint blue hue, subtle strains on a smooth, porcelain face. But while she had an eleventh-hour appearance, she spoke with bubbly, first-hour enthusiasm.  “We’re running a special on our Eggsplosion. $2.99, limited time. That’s three eggs, Colby jack, sautéed onions, hashbrowns, all scrambled together, with a side of your choice of fruit medley or—”

Silence shook his head.

Val smiled and shimmied her shoulders. “Okay, how about Willy’s Waffles? That’s three Belgian waffles, served our way, which means— No? Then how about Pennsylvania Pancakes? Rib-Stickin’ Breakfast Chicken? No?”

Silence continued to shake his head to each of her suggestions, getting more insistent and perhaps a bit more frustrated each time.

“Well, you’re no fun, are you? What can I get you?”

“Eggs.”

She froze for a moment, just as Adriana Ramirez had twenty minutes earlier. Lips slightly parted, looking at him with stunned wonder. And while Val’s reaction was subtler than Adriana’s and she concealed it quicker, it was just another variation of the same one Silence received every time someone first heard his voice.

She gave him a small, awkward smile. Looked away. And then it was back to business.

She grabbed the menu from him, ran her finger along the side. “All right, you want eggs. We have Eggs On the Run or our six different Outrageous Omelets.”

Ugh, this could take forever. He didn’t have time to explain his condition, to tell her that he was practically, but not entirely, mute. That every word he uttered was painful, a demonic hand in his neck, armed with claws that scraped at him when he spoke. He was hungry, confused about the Ramirez assignment, and uncomfortable in the brightly corporate revelry.

“If you like ’em runny, we can get you Cheesy Over Easy, which is—”

“Shitload of eggs.”

He didn’t want to cut her off. But he had to. He didn’t have time for this.

One of Val’s eyebrows raised. She looked at him for a moment. Then she dropped the menu on the table, retreated a step, and brought her order pad to chest height, pen poised.

She looked at the pad, not him. Smile gone. Her dark brown eyes slightly narrowed.

“And how would you like these eggs?”

“Scrambled.”

“Okie-dokie.” She scribbled his order on her pad. “One ‘shitload’ of scrambled eggs, coming right up.” And as she whipped around and headed to the kitchen, she spoke again, ostensibly under her breath but loud enough for him to hear. “Asshole.”

Silence watched her leave then glanced out the window beside him. He’d requested this booth to give him the perfect visual, straight down the side street to Adriana’s house two blocks away. All the windows were still alight. Her silhouette cut across one of them.

He took his notebook from his pocket. It was a NedNotes brand PenPal. Five by three and a half inches. At a hundred pages, it was just thick enough for the spiral binding to hold a pencil or pen, hence the name. The plastic covers came in a variety of bold colors. This one was lime green.

He took the mechanical pencil from the binding, flipped the notebook open, then bounced the eraser on the first fresh page. Something about this assignment had been bothering him. Something he didn’t want to face but knew he had to for the assignment’s sake.

For the sake of Adriana and Benny Ramirez.

When he’d been in Adriana’s house a few minutes prior, listening to the details of her situation with Rupert Lowry and his gang, Silence had been struck by an odd feeling of familiarity. It had taken him only a moment to understand what it was.

Years ago, in his previous life, before he became Silence, before he was Asset 23 for the Watchers, he had been a police officer. An undercover assignment that embedded him within a crime family in Pensacola, Florida, had triggered the series of events that led to his destruction and rebirth as Silence Jones.

And those events started with a trip to New Orleans.

Silence hated thinking about that time. In fact, he rarely did. But he had to now.

Begin.

He pulled the mechanical pencil from the notebook’s spiral binding and turned the cover to a crisp, blank first page. He began each assignment with a new notebook. Note-taking was something to which he was quite accustomed in his previous life, where he had not only been a police officer but prior to that a college instructor. As Silence, notebooks also served as a means of communication with others should his near-muteness prove too large of an issue. But most importantly, they gave him a place to jot his mind maps.

C.C. had always told him that his mind was chaos, and as such she’d suggested several methods to organize the mayhem. The one that resonated the most with him was that of mind mapping,