The Echo Killing: A gripping debut crime thriller you won’t be able to put down!. Christi Daugherty
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Название: The Echo Killing: A gripping debut crime thriller you won’t be able to put down!
Автор: Christi Daugherty
Издательство: HarperCollins
isbn: 9780008238803
isbn:
It was true. Four patrol cops stood out front, guarding the door. Two more were on the crime tape, stopping anyone from getting in.
After Smith and the girl had gone, Blazer and several detectives had gone back inside, along with the coroner – whose van was parked in the middle of the street.
She thought for a minute, studying the neighborhood. There had to be some way to at least see what had happened in there.
She’d grown up on a street a lot like this one, with houses lined up, backyard to backyard. Her street had been more modest, but the layout was more or less the same.
‘I only need to see in a window,’ she said, thinking aloud. ‘That would do it. I don’t have to actually go inside.’
The look Miles gave her told her he still thought she’d lost her mind.
‘What the hell is this about?’
She hesitated. She had to tell him something, but this wasn’t the time for long explanations.
‘Look,’ she said finally. ‘I have a hunch. I think I’ve seen a crime scene a lot like this one a few years ago. A mother dead. A girl coming home after school. I’m probably wrong. It’s probably nothing. But that killer was never caught. If I’m right …’
She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to. She’d already seen the light dawn in his eyes.
‘We could be dealing with the same killer,’ he said slowly.
Their eyes locked. Neither of them had ever covered a serial killer before.
‘You sure about this?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘Not at all. In fact, I’d be willing to bet if I take a look at the crime scene, it’ll be completely different. And I’ll come back here feeling like a fool.’
‘Why is this so important, then?’ Miles asked. ‘Why not call Smith and ask what he thinks?’
It was a good question. Smith had been at both crime scenes. He would certainly know.
But this time that wasn’t enough. She had to see for herself. To know for certain whether there was any connection at all between this crime scene and the one on that day, fifteen years ago, when her childhood ended.
Because no one ever caught that murderer.
That little girl never got justice.
‘Please, Miles,’ she pleaded. ‘I just … I have to do this. I need two seconds looking through a window.’
He held her gaze, his expression a complex mix of doubt and worry.
Harper thought he’d refuse. His relationship with the police was important to him. Ever since he’d been laid off he’d had to tread a fine line with the newspaper, the police and his work. He did not want her to mess that up.
But then, shaking his head, he held up his hands in surrender.
‘Tell me this before we throw our careers away. How do you propose to illegally cross that police line and get into that house without the cops and detectives and their merry band promptly arresting you?’
Harper pointed at the houses peeking out through the trees behind the crime house.
‘Through the backyard.’
Here’s a thing about crime scenes most people don’t know: they’re boring.
The vast majority of any reporter’s time at a crime scene is spent waiting around. First you wait for the detectives, then you wait for the forensics team, then you wait for the coroner. Sometimes, hours will pass before you’re even told what you’re waiting for.
At a crime scene this high profile, Harper knew she had time to burn. The forensics unit had just begun putting on their white moon suits when she stepped away from the crime tape. Nothing would be announced until they’d had a chance to examine the house.
As she hurried down the street, nobody noticed her departure. Everyone was still focused on the yellow house.
Around the corner, away from the gawkers and journalists, the neighborhood seemed calm and peaceful. But Harper wasn’t.
Despite her bravura performance with Miles, she was so nervous her stomach burned. She had to force her hands to unclench. She’d always pushed the limits but she’d never done anything like this before.
For one thing it was wildly, profoundly illegal.
If she got caught, the police would undoubtedly arrest her. The newspaper would be unlikely to bail her out because breaking the law was not part of her job description. Not overtly, anyway. Oh, they were happy to take advantage of it when she broke the rules and got a good story, but if she were ever truly busted for it, they’d let her hang.
And yet, she didn’t stop. She had to know.
In her mind, she kept seeing that girl in her school clothes, standing dazed and shocked in a protective phalanx of police.
She looked so small. So vulnerable.
Was that how she’d looked that day?
And Smith – what was he doing there? A single homicide, even in a neighborhood like this, ordinarily merited his oversight from a distance but not his physical presence. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him at a crime scene. Certainly not since he was promoted to lieutenant four years ago.
‘I’m a paper-pusher now,’ he’d told her at the time, pride in his voice. ‘I’m off the street at last. Got a chair that cost as much as I make in a week and a great big office, and by God, I’m going to use them.’
He’d been true to his word. Until now.
What if he was here because he had seen this once before?
The next street along was a perfect mirror image of Constance Street. The same brightly painted, over-priced houses with lush gardens behind low fences.
The blue paint on Number 3691 was perfect and its front garden was lavish. Fat, pink roses spilled over the glossy black bars of the wrought-iron fence in a fragrant tumble.
It was directly behind the murder scene.
If she stood on her toes, Harper could see the yellow house from the sidewalk.
Given the well-maintained look of the house, odds were ten to one the lawyer or banker who lived here was at work and the place was empty.
Or a trophy wife could be inside, watching cable and doing her nails.
There was only one way to find out.
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