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

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.’

      Miles still looked perplexed.

      ‘Harper, don’t be ridiculous. Every cop in the city is in that house.’

      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.