Every Silent Thing

Book 1

Genre: Crime Fiction

Shy and deaf, twenty-three-year-old Claire Deveraux has worked hard to land her dream job as a foreign service officer at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. Yet her idyllic life is shattered when she finds a woman lying on the restroom floor dying from a gunshot wound. The dying woman utters three words to Claire and conceals a thumb drive in Claire’s pocket. The items are keys to the location of proceeds from a bank robbery. The killer, certain Claire now has sole possession of those items, must find her, recover the code words and the drive, then kill her before she can solve the puzzle and recover the money. Knowing he is determined to find and kill her, Claire must do whatever she can to keep her heart beating.

Excerpt

Claire stood there, watching her brother head toward Terminal 2F and his flight to Amsterdam, hoping he would find Megan and bring her back to Paris. When he returned, hopefully with Megan, Claire would meet them at the train station.

Claire rode the train and walked the rest of the way home. She had only gotten three steps inside her apartment when she realized he was there. The color drained from her face when she saw the gun. Her father had told her once that what goes around comes around. Right here, right now, it had come around for her. A sickening cold wrapped around her like a blanket as she waited for him to end her life in the same room where he had ended Barbara’s.

Everything she ever wanted to do, every place she ever wanted to visit and photograph, flashed before her eyes. She thought about Megan and Boyd and hoped he’d find her and be able to keep her safe. She thought about her parents and wished she could’ve told them she loved them one more time. Same for Boyd and Megan. Claire wondered if she’d see her father on the other side. She wondered if Heaven was as beautiful as they say.

Claire thought about all the things she’d failed to do—things she probably won’t be forgiven for, those she’d let down, and things she wished she could do over. If only she had time to go back and square things up with all of them to make things right. Her mother might cry the whole way over when she came to claim her body. But this guy wasn’t going to see her cry or beg.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle Deveraux. We meet again.”

Claire looked around her living room, hoping to spot a weapon or anything she could use to defend herself. She backed up past the coffee table, quickly glanced toward the bedroom, and then back at him.

She was able to lip-read most of what he said.

“Fate has its changing moments,” he said to her. “I’m here now to let you know this is that moment for you.”

He pointed at her purse, then dragged his finger to point at a spot on the sofa closest to him.

Claire figured he was afraid she’d throw it at him like she did with the patisserie stuff. She would’ve if he weren’t pointing that gun at her. Claire gave her purse a gentle toss across to the sofa. She watched him remove her cell phone. Why he did that made no sense. He was there to kill her, so why was her cell phone so important? In fact, why bother having her toss her purse away? Why didn’t he just shoot her and get it over with? She assumed he wanted to drag it out so she’d break down and cry and plead. That was how he got off.

“Sit,” he told her.

That puzzled her. Was he some psycho who got off by shooting women while they sat on the sofa? He didn’t make Barbara sit when he killed her. He killed her in the middle of the living room floor. Then it hit her. He couldn’t kill her. He wanted the thumb drive and those three words first.

He grabbed a chair from the dining table, carried it over, and then straddled it, his gaze fixed on her. Then he held out the palm of his hand and made a writing gesture.

Never Say a Word

Book 2

A political storm erupts when Claire Deveraux, a deaf employee of the U.S. Embassy in France, is abducted at a conference in Rome. The kidnapper, Franco Lazzari, is a wealthy pharmacist who has been scouring Italy for the perfect wife. Unable to hear, and with time against her, Claire must use all of her wits to escape Lazzari’s remote home in the Italian countryside. Yet neither Claire nor the police know the actual danger she is in. Lazzari is in league with a senior official at the U.S. embassy—a man who is willing to leverage all of his clout to stop Claire being found.

Excerpt

A man using the name Franco Lazzari folded and refolded his copy of Il Tempo four times after reading the feature story about the deaf American woman. Claire Deveraux. She was the one he wanted. The one he had to have. It took him only two hours of deliberative thought and two phone calls to devise a plan. During that time, he reread the article three more times.

“The picture doesn’t do you justice,” he said, running his fingers over the photograph beneath the headline. “You are a bella signorina. You are far prettier in person.”

He kissed her picture four times then, while gazing adoringly at it, said, “Mia tesora, my darling, I count myself the luckiest man in all of Italy, for soon I will have you and will never let you go. Not ever.”

She hadn’t been his first choice only because he hadn’t been aware she was even on the list. He could have found a local Italian girl or even a prostitute but he didn’t want one of them. He wanted a foreign woman. With the conference having any number of foreigners, he scouted out the list of presenters given to him a week before, thanks to a lucrative payment he made to an associate in the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs who was hosting the convention. Lazzari had known him since their days as university roommates.

After seeing her walk up on the stage, he switched his plans from the blonde-haired Commissioner of Innovation, Research, Culture, Education, and Youth from the European Commission to the pretty young American. Poised and beautiful she had taken his breath away. She was the perfect choice—foreign, and even better, American.

His next step was to contact a certain hotel employee in the hotel maintenance department to have him fulfill his end of their agreement. The employee had already helped with a couple of essential matters, starting with a diagram of the hotel’s interior and its exits, all for two thousand euros, half now and half when the job was done, plus a quantity of fentanyl.

By eight o’clock that night, he had scrubbed out the back of his van. While its floor dried, Lazzari inflated a camping mattress. Later that night, he tucked a lavender-scented sheet over the bed and set a pillow on one end of it. Next, he laid a roll of duct tape and a batch of zip ties on the passenger seat. He followed that with the placement of four lavender-scented room fresheners in the slots along the van’s walls.

With that part of his plan finished, he drew a dose of a sedative into an insulin syringe, capped it, and set it in a small ice chest. Before dinner, he rechecked the guest bathroom to ensure it had all the amenities she would require. He laid out freshly laundered bedclothes and a robe along with a pair of slippers. Aware that she was deaf, he set a yellow writing pad and a pen on the table in the guest room.

After a dinner of fettuccine con le rigaglie di pollo, he browsed the selection of suits hanging in his bedroom closet, deciding on the navy blue one. After all, in the feature story, the young woman stated that blue was her favorite color. Besides, a navy-blue suit was what every discerning gentleman wore on a first date. He then sifted through an assortment of ties before choosing the silk burgundy one. He held it up next to the suit and gave an approving nod. It was the perfect complement. As for a shirt, although he liked the blue one, the white would be a better pairing. For his shoe choice, he selected a pair of black patent leather Oxfords.

He took a good hot shower then lay in bed, rereading the feature story and gazing at her picture. The next morning, he would return to the conference at the Marriott Hotel, where he would study the young American.

Soon she’d be his. Of course, it would take some time, maybe three or four months, for her to adjust to her new life entirely, but he felt confident she’d come to appreciate all he had to offer her.

Breaking Silence

Book 3

Silence is like trust: easily broken.

The first time Claire and Megan Deveraux receive a cryptic text from the anonymous “AMZ”, they decide it’s a sophisticated scam. But when further evidence of a long-lost sibling starts to add up, Claire begins to wonder whether there is merit to AMZ’s wild claims...or just photoshop and dumb luck?

As the sisters weigh up the risks of pursuing a ruthless blackmailer’s trail, another victim is scrambling to keep his secret safe, whatever the cost. Because no amount of money can make a man bulletproof...

From the streets of Paris to Texan suburbia, Breaking Silence cracks open a nail-biting mystery that spans decades — and the globe.

Excerpt

April 12th

Claire read the text and dropped the phone like it was hot lava. Looking out on the Paris skyline, she sighed. Deaf from birth, she couldn’t hear the traffic humming by or the church bells and people that gave the city its own song. But she could smell the bakery half a block down, feel the softness of the air, and see her neighbors going about their business. After the horrors of the past five years, she felt she was owed the ordinariness of her life in her beloved adopted city, and now this text:

You and your sister are two of a set of quadruplets. Yes, you have two brothers. Soon, I will reveal your second brother’s name and his address. Reply to this text acknowledging receipt. AMZ.

She wondered, not for the first time if she had a target on her back. When her twin, Megan, became involved with some horrible people, and their brother, Boyd, paid with his life, that should have been enough. Her kidnapping and that outcome left her with a small appetite for drama. Claire knew who she was—one of a set of triplets who were now only two. So what the hell was this AMZ trying to do?

Sipping from the mug, Claire gazed across the room at a framed photograph of her late brother Boyd, her twin sister Megan, and herself. The triplets. Same blonde hair. They have the same blue eyes. Same height. Same round face. She and Megan were identical twins. Of the three, only she was deaf.

Annika and Sidney Deveraux, their parents by adoption, stood behind them. It was the only photograph of all five of them together. He would’ve been in that photograph if they had a fourth sibling. With Boyd, Annika, and Sidney gone, Megan was the only family Claire had left.

Claire’s gaze was broken when the door swung open.

“Hey you,” Megan said. “Hope your day was better than mine.”

Claire communicated with sign language, rarely ever speaking. Not too bad, Claire signed. What happened?

I must’ve set a record screening Visa requests, Megan signed as she marched to the refrigerator. What are you drinking?

“Panaché,” Claire said in a husky tone.

A moment of silence passed while Megan poured herself a glass of Panaché. Is your boyfriend coming in this weekend? Megan signed, dropping into the chair next to Claire.

Don’t know yet. Claire sipped more of her drink. I got a weird text. Did you know we are a set of quadruplets? One side of her mouth rose into a smirk.

Megan shook her head as she sipped her drink. “I saw that. He didn’t spare me.”

Yeah. Can you believe that ass? Quadruplets. The garbage some people will spin.

Megan nodded. I assume yours was from AMZ also?

Yes. I deleted it.

Megan downed the rest of her drink. What are we cooking for dinner or would you prefer that French place up the street?

French. Let’s go.

* * *

The 55-year-old man with graying temples and a gray mustache opened the text message in his home office near Fort Worth, Texas. The first one read: Hello Henry Burrell. William David Burrell is not your son. You and I both know how you acquired him. Unless you want me to expose your crime to the police, you will pay me the sum of $50,000 in cash. Reply to this text. AMZ.

Henry froze. His mind flashed back to an incident he’d witnessed when he was a teenager. When the police questioned him about it, he lied and believed he got away with it. Ever since then, every time he saw a police officer, he cringed, fearing they could be targeting him at any time. AMZ’s reference to police fanned the flames of one of Henry’s worst fears.

Hoping he’d read it wrong, Henry went through it again. The words ‘not your son’ spiraled his mind back 28 years when his wife Sarah fell into a severe postpartum depression after losing her baby and was told she’d never be able to conceive again.

Henry always felt that Sarah was too good for him. To keep this beautiful woman with him, he was more than willing to do whatever it took. Wandering the halls of the hospital, desperate to find a way to wipe Sarah’s tears away and make her happy, he saw Dr. Spellman, Sarah’s ob/gyn doctor, gazing at a set of quadruplets through the nursery window. Henry looked at the wealth of babies and whispered, “I only wanted one . . . just one.”

When Spellman uttered, “Those poor parents don’t need to feed four at once,” a deal was struck between the two men.

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About the Author

Alan Brenham is the pen name of Alan Behr. He worked as a Texas law enforcement officer for over twenty years and as a criminal prosecutor and later criminal defense attorney for over twenty-five years. Today he lives in Texas with his wife, Lillian, where he's working on his eleventh novel.

His first crime novel, Price of Justice, won several awards including best in police/crime fiction. It also became a top 100 international bestseller. A second novel, Cornered, was released on July 13, 2014. Rampage, a sequel to Price of Justice, was released on July 4, 2015. His fourth book, Game Piece, was released in October 2018. A fifth novel, Hidden Intentions, was released on December 3, 2020. His sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth novels have now been published.

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