The Echo Killing: A gripping debut crime thriller you won’t be able to put down!. Christi Daugherty

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      She seemed chatty. Harper inched closer to her.

      ‘Do you know if she worked?’

      The woman lowered her voice confidentially. ‘She worked down at the university. I don’t know what she did there, though. She wasn’t a teacher, I don’t think.’

      ‘And there’s a daughter?’ Harper asked.

      The woman nodded so hard her gray hair bounced.

      ‘Camille is how old now? Maybe eleven or twelve years old?’ The woman glanced at the others for affirmation. ‘But she should be at school today. She’s doing that special program this summer.’

      ‘Not now,’ floral dress reminded her. ‘It’s nearly three.’

      The realization sent a shiver through the group like a breeze.

      ‘Oh, it’s horrible,’ cardigan woman said, pulling her sweater more tightly across her plump shoulders.

      ‘Did anyone hear anything at all?’ Harper tried to refocus them. ‘Or see anything?’

      ‘I thought I heard a sound.’ The voice came from the back of the group. Everyone shifted until Harper saw a woman, thin and pale, her hair cotton white. ‘At first, I thought it was a scream but it was so brief. I decided it was a crow.’ Her shoulders drooped and she looked around for forgiveness. ‘I truly thought it was a crow.’

      ‘No one can blame you,’ cane man said gruffly. ‘Nothing like this ever happens around here. We all would have thought the same.’

      Harper asked a few more questions, then, pulling out her notebook, convinced a couple of people to give her their names. As she’d suspected, this put an end to the discussion.

      She was jotting down notes from the conversation when Miles appeared at her side.

      ‘I got a name from the neighbors,’ Harper told him. ‘Marie Whitney. You got anything?’

      ‘All I know is she was code four when the police arrived.’ Glancing around to make sure no one could hear him, he whispered, ‘A patrol cop I know told me it’s a bloodbath in there.’

      ‘Do they have a suspect?’ she asked. ‘Neighbors say there’s an ex-husband.’

      He didn’t get a chance to respond. At the other end of the crime tape, the news teams had swung into motion, lenses focused on something happening further down the street.

      In tandem, Harper and Miles rushed forward, leaning across the tape to get a better look as the front door of the house opened and a group emerged.

      Miles raised his camera and focused, firing off a round of shots.

      Harper saw Blazer first – his smoothly carved face and cold eyes were impossible to miss. Nearby, Ledbetter and Daltrey stood at the edge of the group, talking somberly – no mocking smiles today.

      A familiar tall figure stood behind them.

      Harper’s brow creased.

      ‘What’s Lieutenant Smith doing here?’

      If he heard the question, Miles was too busy shooting to respond.

      As Harper watched, the group stepped slowly out of the yellow house. When they reached the street, the cluster parted enough for her to see who was at the center.

      It was a girl, about twelve years old. Her thick, dark hair had been plaited into a long glossy braid. Her small fingers held tightly to Smith’s big hand. With her free hand, she wiped tears from her cheeks. She stumbled towards a parked car, the stunned look on her face clear even from a distance.

      Harper couldn’t hear the breeze in the trees anymore. Or the low murmur of the crowd behind her. All she was aware of in that instant was her.

      This scene was torn from her own tormented childhood. She’d been that girl once, standing in front of her house with Smith holding her hand.

      The pen dropped from her nerveless fingers. She took a slow-motion step forward, bowing the crime tape. An official voice barked a complaint at her but she barely noticed.

      The girl, her attention caught by the angry words, looked up. For an electrifying instant, their eyes met.

      Harper stared at her own twelve-year-old self – pale freckled face surrounded by tangled russet hair, hazel eyes filled with tears.

      Then she blinked and the dark-haired girl returned.

      Leaning over, Smith said something and the girl turned to climb into the car. Harper knew how it felt to do that – hands so numb it was hard to feel the rough fabric of the seat. Small body moving clumsily, knees suddenly forgetting how to bend.

      The lieutenant closed the door behind her.

      Seconds later, he and Daltrey got into the car with her, before it sped to the other end of the lane and disappeared around the corner.

      Harper let out a long breath.

      In the aftermath of this incident, the gathered gawkers were hushed enough for Harper to hear Natalie whisper to her camera operator, ‘You get that?’

      ‘What a tragedy,’ Miles said, flipping his camera over to look at his shots. ‘I hate to see kids at these things.’

      Harper, still studying the yellow house, didn’t reply.

      Miles glanced up at her. Seeing the look on her face, his eyes sharpened.

      ‘Something wrong?’

      ‘It’s nothing.’ She kept her gaze fixed on that front door. Seeing that girl’s eyes.

      This was too familiar. The house. The girl. The time of day. The time of year. A woman alone. Murdered.

      Something was coming together in her mind. Something unthinkable.

      ‘Miles, I need to get inside that house.’

      He stared at her, incredulous.

      ‘Oh sure,’ he said. ‘The cops won’t mind if you step into the middle of their homicide scene. As long as you make it quick.’

      Harper opened her mouth and then closed it again.

      This was going to be hard to explain.

      As far as she knew, Miles wasn’t aware of what had happened to her mother. Few people were. It wasn’t something she ever discussed. Miles had only lived in Savannah seven years – he wasn’t here back then to read about it in the paper, or see smiling pictures of her mother on the TV news.

      Still, she didn’t need him to understand everything, she needed him to help.

      ‘This is going to sound weird,’ she said slowly. ‘But I need to reassure myself about something. Literally, I need two seconds in that house.’

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