Sound Of Fear. Marta Perry

difficulty in getting her out.

      Amanda couldn’t do it. She couldn’t live her life cautious and afraid. It would have been a betrayal of the way Juliet had raised her. Juliet Curtiss had taken her own course all her life, and she’d taught Amanda to do the same.

      Robert had been sympathetic, but he hadn’t understood. As for the attorney he’d sent her to...well, Alter didn’t understand, either. He clearly wanted her to do nothing except, possibly, go away.

      Had he been right about the people here and their attitude toward outsiders? So far as she could tell, Echo Falls inhabitants appeared friendly. Instead of the usual eyes averted posture of a busy city, most people she passed here gave her a pleasant smile or a nod.

      The main street of Echo Falls was lined on either side by small shops and offices. A gift shop, a bank, a bookstore...she checked them off as she passed. Ahead of her was the town square, with a small plot of grass, a fountain and a memorial to someone or other. The redbrick buildings around it looked solidly turn of the century. Another bank anchored one corner, while the town hall and the public library accounted for two more. The last was occupied by the local newspaper.

      A library and a newspaper office were two of the first places she’d thought to check for information. It was tempting to go in now, but Barney probably wouldn’t be welcome, and her stomach informed her it was long past lunchtime.

      With a longing glance at the library, Amanda turned back the way she’d come. Noticing a bakery-café across the street, she put Barney in the car, cracked the window a couple of inches and headed in search of lunch.

      Several people were coming out of Beiler’s Café as she reached it. Judging by the quiet interior, she must have missed the lunch rush, if there was such a thing in a town this size.

      The pleasant-faced woman behind the counter waved her to a table. “Wilkom. Will you have coffee?”

      “Yes, please.” The fact that the woman was Amish surprised her. She’d grown accustomed to seeing the Amish when she’d done her veterinary training in Pennsylvania, but somehow she hadn’t expected to find an Amish settlement this far north in the state.

      A steaming mug appeared first, followed quickly by a menu. “Lunch, or maybe a cruller to go with the coffee?” The woman’s smile widened. “I’m Esther... Esther Beiler. And you are a visitor, ain’t so?”

      Amanda relaxed, whatever tension she’d held on to evaporating at the woman’s friendliness. “That’s right. I haven’t been to this part of Pennsylvania before. You have such a pretty downtown area.” True enough, and it occurred to her that she should seize the opportunity to chat when offered.

      “Ach, it’s not so bad,” Esther acknowledged. “I think the valley is at its best in the fall, when the ridges have so much color. It’s already close to the peak, I think. We get a fair number of tourists coming through on weekends.”

      Nodding, Amanda scanned the menu. “What do you recommend?”

      “Chicken potpie is most popular. I have homemade vegetable beef soup, too, and it’s not so bad.”

      Deciding that “not so bad” was high praise, Amanda opted for the vegetable beef soup. As the woman headed back toward the kitchen, Amanda noticed tourist brochures on a rack inside the door. She picked up one to look at while waiting. Her preliminary research had told her that the actual falls for which the community was named was a couple of miles away. She was eyeing a sketch map in the brochure doubtfully when Esther returned with the soup and a basket of rolls that smelled fresh from the oven.

      “You’re interested in the falls, yah?” Esther seemed to have no inhibitions about looking over Amanda’s shoulder.

      “I’d like to see them, yes.” She couldn’t expect that looking at the falls would tell her anything about why her mother had painted them, but somehow she had to see for herself. “But this map...”

      “That’s for pretty, not for finding your way.” Esther dismissed the tourist brochure. “Best if you have someone take you there the first time. It’s not an easy walk.”

      “Walk?”

      “Yah. You can park not too far away, but you’ll need to walk through the woods.” Esther gestured toward the street. “I saw you coming out of the law office. Trey could take you. Or was it Jason Glassman you came to see?”

      The firm was Alter and Glassman. Obviously news spread fast here. “Trey?” she questioned.

      “Theodore James Alter.” Esther’s smile widened. “His father and grandfather had the same name, so everyone calls him Trey.”

      Amanda stowed that information away. Obviously Alter was well-known here. Whether that would help her or not, she didn’t know.

      “I had some business with the office. I don’t know Mr. Alter socially.” And the idea of having him along when she went to the falls didn’t appeal. “I saw a painting of the falls once,” she added. If Esther knew everything that went on in town, she might have been aware of Juliet’s visit, although there didn’t seem much chance she’d remember it after all these years.

      “A painting. Think of that, now. I’ve seen lots of photographs of the falls, but never a painting.” She shrugged. “Funny, that is, but people have kind of odd feelings about the falls.”

      “Odd?” Amanda had her own reasons for mixed emotions about the falls, but...

      “Lots of superstitions, you know.” Esther seemed vaguely uneasy. “I don’t put much stock in those old stories myself.”

      “What kind of old stories?” She asked the question around a spoonful of vegetable soup, rich with tender beef chunks.

      Esther frowned, brushing her palms down the front of her white apron. “Ach, old Indian tales and the like.” She hesitated. “There’s one that says you should never climb up the trail by the falls alone. Seems if you do...”

      The pause might have been for effect, but Amanda suspected the woman’s hesitation was genuine enough. “Yes?”

      “They say if you do, you’ll hear something following you. Coming after you. All you can hear is the rushing water and the footsteps behind you.”

      Esther’s rosy face had lost some of its color. She wasn’t putting this on to entertain the tourist. Suddenly she flicked her apron, as if shaking something off it.

      “Ach, that’s all nonsense, probably made up to keep kids away. I don’t believe a word of it.”

      Amanda didn’t, either, of course. She was far too sensible to be frightened by ghost stories.

      But the words lingered in her mind like a cobweb clinging to her fingers, impossible to shake away.

      * * *

      “SO HOW DID the appointment with the new client go?” Jason Glassman, Trey’s law partner, tossed some mail on Trey’s desk. “Anything there?”

      Trey shrugged. “Doubtful.” He and Jason had spent plenty of hours trying to rebuild the firm in the past few months, and he didn’t think Amanda Curtiss’s wild-goose chase was going to help them.

      “Don’t tell me your big-shot Boston friend sent you someone who doesn’t have a case.”

      “Worse.” He frowned. “At least, I think it’s worse. It’s either going to be time wasted on nothing at all, or it’s going to be something...”

      “What?”

      “I’m not sure.” He couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that if there was any substance to Amanda’s story, it would lead to a messy situation that wouldn’t do the firm or himself any good.

      Jason was waiting patiently for an answer, something that showed how much he’d changed since he’d arrived in Echo Falls last spring. Then, patience hadn’t been part of his vocabulary. Credit his recent