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

was twelve thirty when the article was finally sent to layout. Miles’ stark photo of the three suspects, one with a bandanna disguising his face, gun pointed right at the camera, dominated the front page beneath the headline, Suspected killers arrested in dramatic shootout.

      Baxter stretched her arms up, loosening the kinks from her shoulders.

      ‘Why can’t criminals be more thoughtful about our deadlines?’ she asked.

      ‘Because they’re assholes?’ Harper suggested.

      Barking a laugh, Baxter headed towards the copy room.

      ‘Go home, Harper. You’ve caused enough trouble for one night.’

      When she was gone, Harper switched off her computer and tucked her scanner in her bag. But she didn’t get up. She sat in her chair, staring at the computer’s dark screen.

      She kept seeing those blank-faced young men pointing their guns at her. Hearing Luke’s voice in her head: ‘One of these days you’re going to get yourself killed.’

      On some level, she knew he was right. She liked getting close to danger. It drew her.

      Tonight she’d been too close. Other people could have been hurt.

      She and Miles always took risks but tonight she’d pushed it. Tonight she’d tried to be a hero.

      At the other end of the room, Baxter bustled in, interrupting her thoughts.

      ‘Are you moving in?’ the editor barked. ‘Go home, already.’

      Harper straightened.

      ‘I’m going,’ she said, reaching for the phone. ‘I need to make a call first.’

      She waited for Baxter to pick up her bag and head out the door. Then she dialed a familiar number.

      ‘LIBRARY,’ a voice shouted impatiently.

      In the background Harper could hear the normal Tuesday-night chaos at the bar – loud voices, guitars, clattering glasses, laughter.

      ‘Hey, Bonnie.’ Harper leaned back in her chair.

      ‘Harpelicious! Where are you? Why isn’t your gorgeous ass making my bar prettier right this very instant?’

      Bonnie’s always husky voice was rougher than usual after a night of shouting to be heard above the din.

      ‘I’m still at work,’ Harper said. ‘I was thinking of coming down.’

      ‘Come. I’ll make you a mai tai. With extra cherries.’

      Harper laughed. Mai tais had been her favorite drink when they were teenagers, sneaking into bars with fake IDs. She hadn’t knowingly consumed one in years.

      All of a sudden it sounded wonderful.

      ‘I’m on my way.’

       Chapter Five

      It was nearly one as Harper pulled her car into an empty spot beneath the wide-spreading branches of an oak tree in front of her house. Spanish moss hung so low it brushed the top of the car, soft as cat paws.

      Miles wasn’t the only one who liked a muscle car. But while his was sleek and new, hers was a fifteen-year-old Camaro. It had 103,000 miles on the clock, but the engine purred. She wasn’t about to park it anywhere near a bar, especially in June. Summer tourists had begun pouring into town a few weeks ago, a river-over-the-banks flood of them, and they were all drunk on that intoxicating mixture of vacation, warm sun and three-for-one happy-hour specials.

      She could walk from here.

      She was preparing to climb out when she caught a good glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror. Her face was a freckled, shiny oval. Mascara had left a black smudge under one wide hazel eye. Her skin was blotchy beneath a tangle of auburn hair.

      How long had she looked like that?

      With a sigh, she slid back into her seat.

      ‘Great, Harper,’ she muttered, rummaging in her bag for a brush. ‘You fail at being a grown-up, again.’

      She fixed her hair hurriedly and, in a burst of inspiration, applied a coating of the red MAC lipstick Bonnie had given to her for her birthday.

      ‘All I ask,’ Bonnie said at the time, ‘is that once in a while you actually wear it.’

      When she was satisfied that she looked less of a mess, she got out of the car and stood for a moment, gazing up at the house across the street.

      For the last five years she’d been renting the garden-level apartment in a converted two-story Victorian on East Jones Street not far from the art college. Her landlord was a jolly, self-made redneck named Billy Dupre. He mowed the lawn and fixed things when they broke and never raised her rent. In return, she kept an eye on the grad students who rented the upstairs apartment and did a bit of painting now and then.

      It was a good arrangement.

      The blue house had a high, peaked roof and a stained-glass attic window that glowed amber and green on a sunny day.

      All the windows were dark tonight, save for one light which shone reassuringly in the entrance hall. The door was solid. She’d had the locks changed to a high-security brand shortly after moving in.

      It was safe. She’d made sure of that.

      Satisfied that all was well, she threw her bag over her shoulder and headed out on foot.

      The houses lining Jones Street were not the grandest in town but they had their charms. During the day, their tall windows overlooked tourist buses and students carrying portfolio bags as they hustled to the art school. At night, though, it was a quiet lane, plucked from history. Cast-iron streetlights cast dancing shadows through the graceful arching oak tree branches.

      The moon had disappeared now, and the clouds were thickening. It was still uncomfortably warm and the humidity hung in the air so thick she could almost see it.

      As Harper turned left at the first corner the sky vibrated with a threatening, low rumble of thunder.

      Nervously, she quickened her pace, casting a quick glance over her shoulder at the empty street behind her.

      The shooting had thrown her off-kilter. A spiky remnant of adrenaline still coursed through her body. She kept having the same feeling she’d had at the shooting scene – the feeling she was being watched. But whenever she turned around, there was no one there.

      By the time she reached busy Drayton Street she was glad of the lights.

      Here, even at one in the morning, the atmosphere was buzzing. As usual, Eric’s 24-Hour Diner – with its vivid, 1950s neon sign promising: ‘Fresh burgers and frozen shakes’ – smelled tantalizingly of fried things.

      As Harper threaded her way through the crowds, the first fat drops of what looked to be a fearsome storm began to fall.

      Half-running, she turned off the main drag. She could hear The Library before she reached it – music and laughter poured out the open door through the crowd of smokers. Harper inhaled the spicy scent of clove cigarettes as she hurried inside.

      ‘Hey, Harper,’ the bouncer said. ‘Back from another successful night fighting crime?’

      Well over six feet tall, he had a scraggly beard, a huge beer belly and the unlikely nickname of Junior. Harper had once seen him haul three men out of the bar at the same time, without breaking a sweat.

      ‘It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it,’ she said, holding up her fist for him to bump.

      When he smiled, Junior revealed an array of teeth so mismatched he might have stolen them from other people.

      ‘Bonnie’s