Jonathon Marcel delivers another riveting, action-packed noir with his fans’ favorite character, Kelly Reed. Whispers That Kill is a page-turner that will keep you on edge, guessing at every moment.

A young mother has mysteriously disappeared and no one knows why. Whispers on the street say she was a snitch, a thief, a mule, she knew too much. An unscrupulous narcotics officer is suspected of putting her in danger. A local drug dealer is suspected of murdering her. Her family wants her found, but the police aren’t working the case.

After a long and successful career battling the cartels, Kelly Reed has resigned from the DEA to live life as a private investigator. Her sudden fame from taking down the Russian mob and rescuing several kidnapped girls, to the recent capture of a high profile fugitive has kept her in the media spotlight. But life for Kelly isn’t so glamorous. After being pressured to take on a missing persons case, Kelly ends up in the crosshairs of the Mexican Mafia. And when the case crosses into a bombing investigation, she finds herself under the watchful eye of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division. Kelly is now on the clock to find a woman some people don’t want found, and time is running out.

Chapter 1

THE LAST TIME Kelly Reed lit a candle in church, people died—vengeance for the only man she ever loved. It cost Kelly her badge. Lighting a candle today was just part of the scene for the play she was about to act out.

She kneeled in her favorite pair of vintage Levis and slid the action back on her Glock .40 caliber to chamber a round, then discretely tucked it back in her waistband. Her long dark ponytail hung over the back collar of her nylon jacket. A pale-blue diamond ring dangled from a delicate gold chain around her neck.

It had been six months since Kelly resigned from the DEA, and several people throughout the Justice Department still wanted her head for what she had done.

But a gal still has to make a living, even more now that she has two little girls to raise. So far, Kelly had found steady work as a private investigator and security consultant. Her current assignment brought her north of the border to capture a fugitive.

Convicted child molester Jerry Reynolds had been on the run from Colorado for over two years without a single trace to his whereabouts. It took Kelly only four months to track him to the Canadian province of Quebec.

She had followed his virtual footprints to New York then Niagara Falls, across to Toronto, and up to Quebec City. Then the trail went cold. Kelly was about to call it quits and head home, but then her good friend and partner, Lori Bishop, met a French couple in Upper Town who positively identified Reynolds from photos—or rather Jean LeMay, the devout Catholic who prayed and confessed weekly at the Notre-Dame de Québec Basilica-Cathedral.

Kelly stared up at a golden canopy supported by six golden angels covering the altar. Stained glass windows and several more golden sculptures lined the chancel walls.

“This place is incredible. Look how the baldachin seems to float on top of the angels.”

“Hey, stay focused,” Lori said, pretending to be praying to the Virgin Mary.

A light-gray satin shawl covered Lori’s platinum blonde head, draping over her shoulders and down her back, hiding her mike and earwig. Her bright raspberry lipstick contrasted with her alluring milky-white complexion. Black and gray tattoos on her arms and chest dared to show themselves from under the sleeves and collar of a black polo embossed with the letters KRI across the left breast.

Lori had quit the DEA immediately after Kelly, and had followed her to Colorado to help raise her recently adopted daughters, Olivia and Emma—the daughters of slain DEA Agent Paul Garner and his ex-wife, Sara.

“Do you see him?” Lori asked.

“Front right pew, waiting to confess he’s been twiddling little kids.” Kelly couldn’t figure out Reynolds. He didn’t look the part, but molesters did come in all shapes and sizes. “Maybe we should just bury his creep ass down in the crypt.”

“Quit smacking your gum in church.” Lori stood then walked around the back of the cathedral and down the center aisle. She stopped three rows from the altar and kneeled. After making the sign of the cross, she slid into the pew and sat.

Jerry Reynolds wasn’t as portly as Kelly thought he’d be judging from old photos. He was lucky if he was five-nine, but looked like he knew how to carry himself despite the gut, and was far from unattractive. He was dressed in Italian slacks and a Ralph Lauren top. A pair of Perry Ellis eyeglasses rested atop his soft, tanned face.

Kelly was nonplused why an attractive man like Reynolds would be into little kids when so many women would throw themselves at him, especially since he had money.

An old woman exited the confessional booth.

Jerry Reynolds rose and entered the confessional, pulling the curtain closed behind him.

“I should just run in there and snatch his child-loving ass right now.”

Lori adjusted her earwig with her finger and whispered into her mike, “Stick to your plan, and show some respect. We’re on holy ground.”

Kelly released a deep growl: “Holy ground, Highlander!” She chuckled as soon as she said it, not realizing how loud she had been. She thought it was a good imitation of the Kurgan from the movie Highlander.

Several people appeared horrified by her sudden outburst.

Lori gasped. “I cannot believe you just did that.”

“Relax. I’ll be out front.” Kelly stood from the display of votive candles, stamping out with her palm all the ones she didn’t light and pray over. She didn’t want other people’s prayers interfering with her direct line to God—a trick she had taught herself as a child at her grandmother’s funeral. “Tell me when he’s leaving.”

Dealing with child molesters was not Kelly’s forte. Sure, she had rescued several teenage girls who were forced to be sex slaves for a Russian mob, but it hadn’t been her objective. Nor had she expected to find Olivia and Emma alive.

Was finding them alive luck or grace of God?

Whatever it was, it led the Colorado Department of Justice to her doorstep asking for help in capturing Jerry Reynolds.

Consider the irony. Kelly had never wanted to be a mom. She only ever wanted to be with Paul. But God’s twisted humor took Paul from her and made her the mother she feared to be. She cursed Him for taking Paul, for letting her love someone, then ripping her heart out. He obviously knew more of her heart and fears than she did, because now you couldn’t pry those little girls away from her.

“Get ready, he’s coming out.”

Kelly stood twenty feet outside the cathedral doors in a pair of ASICS running shoes, and drew her Glock. She crossed her hands in front of her and stared straight at the entrance, licking her lips.

Lori fell in step behind Reynolds and followed him out from ten feet back. “He looks tired of running.”

“Well, he’s about to get all the rest prison can provide.”

“At the door. Visible in three, two, one.”

Jerry Reynolds had a peaceful look on his face when he pushed open the large wooden doors to exit the cathedral. The sunlight struck his face instantly, glinting off his eyeglasses. About to step off the church stoop onto the city walk, he stopped suddenly.

Passersby either froze in their tracks or turned and scurried away.

Reynolds locked eyes with the beautiful woman in front of him. The intensity of her gaze dared him to run, but the gun pointed at him screamed, “freeze!”

He swallowed hard. “I don’t suppose there’s any possibility you’ll let me go.”

“Not a chance. Get on your knees, hands behind your head.”

He held his hands out to his side and remained standing. “How did you find me?”

“Does it matter?”

He heard that distinct sound of steel clicking behind him. Handcuffs! She wasn’t alone.

Kelly’s jaw tightened. “Get on the ground. Now!”

He flashed a devious smile.

Kelly’s eyes widened. “Shit!”

Reynolds bolted to his right across the stoop and hurdled the black wrought-iron fence. He landed in the city street and took off through the crowd of pedestrians.

“Yeah, he’s tired of running alright. Good call, Lori.” Kelly chased after him, shouting into her mike. “Circle around the next street and cut him off.” She chased him through the oldest city in the province with residents looking on. Reynolds was fast and it was pissing her off.

There were steps everywhere—short and narrow, long and wide, straight, split. Reynolds took them two and three at a time.

At the bottom of a long set of split stairs, Kelly lost him. The street, paved with crooked cobblestones, began to narrow. The smell of maple syrup from a nearby sugar shack filled her nostrils. She shook her head and puffed to discard the sweet distraction from her mind.

Around the corner, she came upon a turreted hotel with a green roof. The sign on the front drive read “Chateau Frontenae.” She crossed her arms to hide her gun and walked methodically up the hotel’s front drive, scanning the crowd for Reynolds.

“Eyes on,” Lori said.

Kelly touched her earwig. “Where are you?”

“Just above the bluff by some trendy shops and an art gallery.”

“Don’t lose him. I’m on my way.”

Kelly hurried back out through the densely packed streets. Rounding the corner of a sidewalk café, she spotted Reynolds concealing himself among tourists atop a flight of steps that led down to the bluff, trying to be inconspicuous while spying for his pursuers.

She raised her gun and charged him from behind.

A woman screamed.

Reynolds spun around.

Kelly jumped and placed a flying kick square into Reynolds’ chest, toppling him down the stone steps.

Onlookers circled around in astonishment. Several of them pulled out their cameras and started recording the action. It wouldn’t be ten minutes before their scrap went viral.

Kelly kicked him again and loomed over him with her gun pointed directly down at him.

Lori dashed in with handcuffs ready. “Rollover, Mr. Reynolds.”

“How did you find me?” His nose and mouth bloody.

“What difference does it make?” Kelly asked. “You’re caught. You’re going back.”

When Lori had him restrained, Kelly pulled out her cellphone and dialed.

“We got him. Get your extradition papers ready.”

Chapter 2

KELLY WAS RACING the sun to the west side of the mountains. From out her window, she could still see the red star miles ahead of her, always on the horizon. Never had she been able to catch it, and never had she been able to outrun it.

The flight into Denver’s airport brought back memories of Paul. Flying was the perfect time for losing herself in thought—high in the clouds, staring out the window, catching glimpses of the world below.

When she exited the terminal gate, Olivia and Emma ducked under the security rope and rushed her. “Kelly!”

“I swear, every time I leave and come back the two of you have grown a foot.” She held Emma’s chin and smiled down at her. “You’re way too big for me to be carrying.”

Emma spun like a dancer. “Did you bring us anything?”

“Of course.” Kelly reached into the side pocket of her travel bag and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. “Here you go, sport.”

“Kelly Ann!” Lori dropped her bags and took the cuffs from Emma. “Here, you two.” She handed Emma a blue and white Maple Leafs hockey jersey, and tossed a gray and blue Edmonton Oilers’ jersey to Olivia. The girls pulled their jerseys on right there in the terminal.

“Don’t go running off and lose your little sister,” Kelly said.

“I won’t.” Olivia grabbed the cuffs back from Lori and cuffed her right wrist. “Emma, give me your arm.”

Emma stuck out her left arm and giggled uncontrollably. They scampered into the crowd.

Lori slung her garment bag over her right shoulder and picked up her carryon. “Thanks for watching the girls, Maggie. I usually don’t go with Kelly on jobs.”

“Not a problem. I’ve been sitting those two hellions since the day they were born. I would have been offended if you hadn’t called.” The white-haired, square-jawed woman peered through her bifocals and over the top of the crowd. “Don’t worry about them getting lost. One of the benefits of being extremely tall is I’m always able to keep an eye on a mischievous child. I just hope you have the key to those cuffs.”

Kelly looked up in awe at the sixty-year-old woman who towered over her. She enjoyed watching Maggie, the gentle giant with mega hips and watermelon breasts bulldoze like a juggernaut through a crowd.

The woman didn’t break stride for anything. Everyone around her it seemed got the hell out of her way.

“The two of you and that Reynolds character have been all over the news and Internet.”

Kelly closed her eyes and tilted her head back, and took two long slow strides. “I should have known not to manhandle him in a town square full of tourists.”

“I loved it when you kicked that sonofabitch down the steps, and sweet little Ms. Do-right slapped the cuffs on him.”

Lori beamed. “Maggie, you didn’t have to drive out here to pick us up. We would’ve taken a cab.”

“Olivia was getting anxious for your return, and I got uncomfortable after a strange woman kept coming around the cabin looking for Kelly. Two days now, she’s been driving by knocking and calling. She very upset.”

Kelly took hold of Maggie’s arm.

Maggie planted her feet; her upper body rocked gently forward with momentum. “Kelly, I didn’t feel the girls were safe at the cabin with the two of you gone. This woman—”

“What woman, Maggie?”

“I don’t know. I tried to get her name when she first came by the cabin, but she stormed off. She won’t leave a message when she calls, just hangs up. The longer you were gone and the more she called or came by, the more upset she got.”

Kelly racked her brain for all the women from her past that might come looking for her. None of them knew where the cabin was, although the media coverage of Paul’s murder and the rescue of the girls had inferred she was living in Boulder.

“You don’t think it’s Zasha Bicherova, do you?” Lori asked.

“Can’t imagine why she’d be upset with me after I did her bidding.”

Kelly recalled the one time she met Zasha in a hotel elevator in Columbus, Ohio. She and her team had just rescued Olivia and Emma from the Russian mob. Zasha was bold to have approached Kelly the way she did, but her intentions proved honorable, for lack of a better word.

“Maggie, did the woman have an eastern European accent? Did she sound Russian?”

“Not at all. She’s a Rocky Mountain gal, just like me. I’m telling you, Kelly, this woman isn’t going to stop looking for you. She means to confront you about something, and she means to do it soon.”