Sound Of Fear

“You see?” He kept his voice light. “Esther knows all and tells all.”

He opened the door for her, and at a word, the dog lay down in the back seat.

“I’ll see you at ten, then.”

She closed the door, and Trey stood where he was to watch her drive down the street. Not toward the highway and her motel, he noticed. That was too much to hope for.

He’d warned her. That was all he could do. Whatever waves she made now were unavoidable.

* * *

BY THE TIME he left the office for the day, Trey had stopped trying to dismiss Amanda Curtiss and her troubles from his mind. He couldn’t do it. His mother would say he was conscientious, like his father, but he knew better. It was apprehension, caused by the sense that Amanda was going to cause problems for anyone who became involved in her hunt for answers.

Stubborn, that was the word for her—just like a lot of the hardheaded Pennsylvania Dutch he’d grown up with. Once they’d made up their minds, a person might as well save his breath and prepare either to get out of the way or to pick up the pieces.

He’d headed automatically for his own place, but a sudden impulse made him turn at the corner of Oak Street and make for his parents’ house instead. He had to pick his father’s brain on the subject of Amanda’s search, so he might as well do it now.

A few minutes later he pulled into the driveway at the comfortable old Queen Anne house where he’d grown up. In his mind’s eye, he could still see a bicycle leaning against the mammoth oak tree that Dad threatened periodically to have cut down before it fell on the house. And a skateboard abandoned on the porch steps, providing the material for a fatherly lecture on the proper care of one’s belongings.

When he got out, the October sun slanted through the branches of the oak tree, picking out bronze and gold in the leaves. The lawn could use a raking, but Dad was forbidden to do that sort of thing since his heart attack in the spring. Trey would have to take the initiative and either do the fall cleanup himself or hire someone.

Scuffing through the leaves that had already fallen, he headed for the side door that led into the kitchen. “Mom? Dad? You home?” Since the car was in the garage and the door unlocked, that was a safe assumption.

“Trey!” His mother looked as delighted as if she hadn’t seen him in three months instead of three days. “How nice. You’ll stay for supper.”

He grinned, giving her a quick hug. “Now, how did you know that was on my mind?” Nothing pleased his mother more than having her cooking appreciated.

“You don’t eat enough, cooking for yourself,” she chided.

“Where’s Dad?” he interrupted, before she could tell him he ought to get married so he’d have someone to take care of him. There was never any use telling her that none of the women he dated cared any more for cooking than he did.

“In the study. You go and chat with him while I add a few more potatoes to the pot. Go on. Pork chops tonight, and luckily I got extra.”

She always had extra, of course. Dad claimed she’d never gotten past the years when as often as not Trey would bring a friend or two home for supper at the last minute.

Dad put his newspaper aside when Trey entered the round room that took up the first floor of the typically Victorian turret. Upstairs, this area was a sunroom off the master bedroom, and here it was his father’s domain. The golden oak desk still sat in front of a bank of windows, although it wasn’t littered with a slew of papers as it had been during his father’s working years.

“About time you were coming by,” he said. “Your mother convince you to stay for supper?”

Trey grinned. “You should know I never take much convincing.” Concern lurked behind the smile as he pulled up a rocking chair next to his father’s recliner. Dad was still looking too pale, too drawn, since the scare he’d put them through a few months ago.

His father seemed to see past Trey’s casual manner. “Something on your mind?”

“As a matter of fact, something has come up I’d like your advice on.” Maybe it would do his father good to be involved in the business of the firm he’d spent his life building. “I had a new client come in today—a woman who was referred by a Boston attorney I met a couple of years ago. She had a rather odd story to tell.”

“I’m retired, remember?” But he was leaning forward, obviously interested.

Trey reached in his pocket, pulled out a couple of ones and put them on the lamp table. “There. Consider yourself a consultant.”

“Right. So what am I consulting on? You can surely handle whatever it is.”

“My memories don’t go back far enough to be helpful, and I figure yours do. And you won’t go blabbing it around town.”

“Thanks for the compliment. So tell me.” In spite of the sarcastic words, he looked pleased.

But as the story unfolded, Trey saw his father’s expression change. He seemed to freeze up as he looked into the past, as if he’d seen something he’d rather not look at.

Trey faltered to a stop. His mother had been on a campaign to keep anything worrisome away from Dad, and he seemed to have tripped right into it.

His father leaned back in the chair, his mouth tight. It took a few minutes for him to speak. “If I were you, I’d tell the woman you can’t help her.”

“That was my first instinct,” Trey admitted. “But she struck me as the kind of person who doesn’t give up easily. If I don’t help her, she’ll go around town asking questions on her own. It seemed to me...”

Dad waved a hand tiredly. “No, you’re right. That would be worse.” He mused for another moment. “If you’re looking for a death in 1989 that is related to the falls, there’s only one I can think of that fits. Elizabeth Winthrop’s granddaughter was found dead at the base of the falls sometime in the spring.”

“Winthrop,” Trey repeated. It was like saying “Rockefeller” by Echo Falls standards. The Winthrop family had established the town, lumbered the surrounding hillsides, built up a thriving business that still provided employment to half the town.

“Exactly.” Dad’s eyes met his. “The story was hushed up, of course. If people knew, they were generally sensible enough not to talk about it, but word got around, of course.”

“So what was it? Suicide?” That was the first thought that came to mind. Elizabeth Winthrop was an elderly autocrat who would find it unthinkable that such a thing could touch her family.

“It was ruled accidental, of course. Still, not even the Winthrops could eliminate all the speculation, especially since Melanie Winthrop had left town suddenly some months earlier. She’d have been about seventeen at the time, I suppose.”

“Pregnant or an addict?” Those were the obvious answers.

“Pregnant,” his father said reluctantly. “She was sent off to have the baby and put it up for adoption.”

“So that may be Amanda Curtiss’s answer. There must be records...”

“It’s not as simple as that. Melanie didn’t go through with the plans. She disappeared, and as far as I know, she wasn’t seen or heard from until the day she was found lying on the rocks at Echo Falls.”

He leaned back in the chair, breathing as if he’d been running, his face gray. Alarmed, Trey clasped his wrist. “Dad...”

“Now that’s enough talk.” Trey hadn’t realized his mother was standing at the doorway until she hurried to his father. “Ted, you know you shouldn’t tire yourself that way.” She picked up a glass of water and held it to his lips.

“I’m sorry.” Guilt had a stranglehold on Trey’s throat. “I shouldn’t have kept him talking so long.”

“Nonsense.” His father pushed the glass away fretfully. “Don’t fuss, Claire. I’m fine.”

“Supper will be ready in five minutes. Trey, you can set the table.” She shooed Trey out of the room ahead of her.

“I didn’t mean...” he began, but his mother shook her head.

“You couldn’t have known it would affect him that much.” She didn’t bother to deny she’d been listening. “But he wouldn’t want you to keep it from him.”

“I don’t get it. Why should it upset him that much? It’s not as if you were close friends with the Winthrops.”

“Your father was the family’s attorney in those days.” His mother stirred gravy vigorously with an air of not knowing what she was doing. “They fell out over this business of Melanie’s pregnancy. He thought they were making a mistake to handle it that way, disregarding the girl’s wishes. That was the last thing he did for them, and I remember that his partner was furious that he gave up such a lucrative client. But when it comes to principles, your father is a stubborn man.”

Trey wasn’t sure what to say. “I didn’t know he’d ever represented them.”

His mother handed him a pot of mashed potatoes. “Put that in a bowl.” She gave him a half smile. “I’m sure your father never regretted losing them.” She hesitated. “I’d like to tell you to drop the whole thing, but I know better. You’re just as stubborn and principled as your father. You’re going to help this woman, aren’t you?”

He paused, but there really was only one answer. “Yes. I guess I am.”

CHAPTER THREE

AMANDA WASN’T QUITE sure how she’d let Trey Alter talk her into changing the plans she’d made. She had no particular reason to trust him. Just because Robert had recommended him, that didn’t mean she should let him dictate what she did.

But after telling herself all that, here she was, getting into Trey’s car in front of his office the next day.

“Somehow I thought this was the kind of car you’d have.” She snapped her seat belt.

Trey sent her a startled glance. “What’s wrong with my car?”

“Nothing. Nice, conservative sedan, tan, sedate—just the thing for a family lawyer to drive.”

Instead of taking offense, he grinned. “Stodgy, in other words. If it’ll make you feel any better about me, I also own a beat-up, four-wheel drive pickup. Red.”

“With a gun rack behind the seat?” she inquired.

“You bet. Now you don’t know whether I’m a good ole boy or a stuffy lawyer.”

She couldn’t deny that he’d intrigued her. “So which is it?”

“Both. Or neither, depending on your point of view.”

“Sorry. I guess I shouldn’t succumb to stereotypes.”

He shrugged. “No problem. We all do it sometimes.”

“Yes.”

People had thought that because Juliet was an artist, she couldn’t possibly have been a typical soccer mom. Maybe she wasn’t, but she’d been there for every single event in Amanda’s life, including being a room mother and chaperoning school trips.

They hadn’t gone more than a mile out of town, and she hadn’t managed to ask him what, if anything, he’d found out, when he turned off the main road onto a farm lane.

The car hit a pothole, and he winced. “Sorry. Guess I should have made you ride in the pickup. The milk tankers really tear up this road.”

Amanda glanced across a cornfield, stalks yellow and ready for cutting, to a tidy white farmhouse. “No power lines,” she commented. “I assume it’s Amish?”

He nodded. “How did a Boston vet become able to identify an Amish farm at a glance?”

“My graduate degree is from the University of Pennsylvania. A lot of their large animal work is carried out in the Lancaster County area. And I had a practice there for a time.”

“So you know enough not to gawk when you see a bonnet, or try to take a photograph of an Amish person?”

“At least that much,” she said gravely. “Look, shall we stop evading the point and get to it? Did you find out anything?”

“I’m not sure how much...” The car hit a rut, and he broke off abruptly. “How about I concentrate on getting us there without ruining my shocks? Then I’ll tell you what I’ve been able to find out so far.”

“Fair enough.” She gripped the armrest. “Are the falls on private land?”

“No, but this is the shortest access to the bottom of the falls, and Eli never minds folks driving up his lane as long as they don’t make a mess. You can take a township road to the state lands, but it’s out of the way.”

She subsided, letting him concentrate on the road, if she could dignify it by calling it that. She had been so taken up with her own problems the previous day that she hadn’t really noticed him. Now she had time for a closer look.

Not bad. Nice, even features in a strong face, brown hair with just a hint of bronze when the light hit it, a pair of level brows and a strong, stubborn jaw. He was in is early thirties, and she wondered what he found to do for fun in a town like Echo Falls.

Of course, he could be married with a couple of kids, but she didn’t think so. She hadn’t seen any family photos or childish artwork in his office, and he didn’t wear a ring.

Not that it mattered in the least what his marital status was, she assured herself.

“There are a few hunting cabins out that way.” He waved a hand toward a road that cut off around the curve of the hillside. “When the state took over the falls, they didn’t buy up much of the surrounding land. Probably thinking the less accessible it was, the better.”

He reached a slightly wider place in the road and pulled to the side, turning off the ignition. Ahead of them, the road seemed to peter out to a mere track. “We’ll park here and go the rest of the way on foot. You don’t mind a walk in the woods, do you?”

“No, and Barney will enjoy it.” She got out and opened the back door for Barney to jump down from the seat. He stood for a moment, nose raised to the unfamiliar scents.

“This way.”

Trey slung on a small backpack and gestured to a path. No sign. As he’d said, the state didn’t care to make it easy for tourists.

They headed along a path that slanted slightly upward. Barney, happy to be released, scampered along, dodging from one side of the trail to the other to explore.

Trey eyed him. “He’s not going to run off chasing a deer, is he?”

“I won’t say he wouldn’t be tempted, but he’s well trained.” She smiled. “Although he was actually a dropout from a service dog organization I’m involved with.”

“What did he do? Flunk his final?” Trey gave her a quizzical look.

“Not exactly. He could master the techniques, all right, but he didn’t have that extra edge of concentration and empathy that’s needed for a service dog. So he came home with me, and we’re both happy.”

“Your mother was a dog person, then?”

“Let’s say she and Barney tolerated each other. He’s a good watchdog, though. Did I tell you about the burglar he thwarted?”

“No.” He frowned. “Was this recently?”

“Within the last couple of weeks.” It seemed longer, given all that had happened since then. “The police seemed to think it was just a random act.”

He must have caught the hesitation in her voice. “You didn’t agree?”

“Whoever he was, he came in through the window in the den. There were some expensive electronics there, but the only thing disturbed was the painting of Echo Falls. I found that odd.” She shrugged. “He may have been interrupted by Barney before he could get any farther, but still, it was strange that he’d go for the painting first.”

Trey, slightly ahead of her on the trail, glanced back to study her face. “Could it have been someone who knew the value of a Juliet Curtiss painting? Maybe the artwork was the goal all along.”

“Possibly. That was my first thought, but it seems strange that someone as sophisticated as an art thief wouldn’t have taken the elementary precaution of finding out that there was a guard dog. It looked as if he went back out the window faster than he’d come in.”

Trey looked at Barney with what seemed increased respect. “A good thing Barney was on the job. So the painting was the only thing disturbed. Damaged?”

“No, but the frame was broken. That’s how I found the inscription on it.” She could hear her own voice flatten at the reminder of why she was here. This wasn’t just a pleasant walk in the woods with an attractive guy. “The wording had been placed so that no one would have noticed it unless the painting was out of the frame.”

“Right.” He seemed to recognize that it was time to talk. The path widened out, the ground becoming more level, and they were able to walk side by side. “Like I said I would, I spoke to my father. He was able to identify a death that is likely the one your mother memorialized. A young woman named Melanie Winthrop.”

“M,” Amanda said, her heart pumping a little faster. “Who was she? How did she die?”

Trey frowned, giving her the impression that he was reluctant to talk about it. “You have to understand first that the Winthrop family is a big deal in Echo Falls. Owners of the mill, town founders, with a finger in just about every pie there is here.”

“Bad things hit rich families, too,” she said, impatient to get on with it. She was on the point of possibly learning the truth about her mother, and he wanted to chat about town history. Didn’t he understand that her stomach was roiling with emotions even she couldn’t sort out?

“True enough,” he said. “But that wasn’t quite my point. The matriarch, Elizabeth Winthrop...well, to hear people tell it, she rules the family. Has done for years. Melanie would have been the daughter of her only son, who died in a plane crash along with his wife, leaving Melanie to be raised by her grandmother, her aunt and uncle.”

She wasn’t particularly interested in all this family detail, not now. “How did Melanie die?”

“According to my dad, she had left town abruptly some months before her death.” Trey seemed to be choosing his words. “Apparently she was pregnant, only seventeen.”

Pregnant. The odds were growing that this girl had been her mother. “They kicked her out?” Anger cut through Amanda.

“No, nothing like that. They sent her away to have the baby and give it up for adoption. Then she was supposed to come home and pretend it hadn’t happened.”

That didn’t seem much better to Amanda. “That’s...barbaric.”

“Old-fashioned. Conservative. Proud. That’s the Winthrop family. Or Elizabeth, anyway.”

“I’m surprised Melanie ever wanted to see them again.” Focus. Don’t think of her as your mother, not yet, or you won’t be thinking straight.

Trey took her arm as she climbed over a tree trunk on the path. “Maybe she didn’t. According to my dad, she didn’t go through with their plans for her. She disappeared, and nothing more was heard of her until her body was found at the base of the falls.”

For several minutes, Amanda had been aware of a faint roaring noise, growing louder as they walked. Now they stepped into a cleared area as the path ended at a stream. And above them loomed the falls.

For a moment Amanda couldn’t speak. She’d lived with the painting for years, and she’d seen numerous photos since she’d identified the location. But nothing had prepared her for the overpowering force of the water rushing down the steep face of rock.

“She fell from up there?” She finally found her voice. “It must be close to a hundred feet.”

“Ninety-some,” he said. “I don’t think they know how high up she was when she fell. It wouldn’t have needed to be all the way to the top to be fatal.”

The story Esther had told her, that if you climbed up the trail by the falls alone, you’d hear something following you, coming after you, slid into Amanda’s mind like a snake. She chased it out again. The trail was a faint, almost impassable-looking line winding up along the right side of the rushing water.

Amanda gave herself a mental shake. There had been nothing eerie about what happened to the girl. Just tragic.

“What was she doing here, of all places? If she came back, it must have been to see her family, wasn’t it?”

“Apparently not,” Trey said. He was staring at the falls, too. “At least they claim to have heard nothing from her. I haven’t had a chance to talk with the police chief yet, but I will. Still, I’m not sure how forthcoming he’s going to be.”

Amanda registered his words without really taking them in. She felt drawn nearer the base of the falls, her eyes on the jagged rocks. The girl who might have been her mother died there.

She tried the words out, but they seemed meaningless. Juliet was still the person she pictured as her mother, and Juliet had died in a spate of meaningless gunfire on a city street.

“Are you okay?” Trey clasped her arm, his hand warm even through the sleeve of her shirt and the sweater she wore.

“Yes.” She clipped off the word. “Can you actually get to the top from here? It looks impossible.”

“It’s actually not that bad.” He pointed to the small opening between two boulders. “Look, there’s a path that winds up through the rocks. Once you get started, it’s pretty easy to follow, but the rocks are slippery, especially when it’s windy and the spray is carried onto the path.”

“I see.” The safe thing would be to stand back and feel...whatever it was she’d thought she’d feel when she came here. But she felt compelled to see what it was like to climb up.

Would Juliet have climbed to the top when she was here? Maybe not—the painting had been done from the bottom. But the unknown Melanie might have.

Amanda clambered over the intervening rocks and took the first few steps up before Trey reached her.

“Hey, wait a second.” He caught her arm. “Always take a buddy with you when you climb. That’s what our scoutmaster told us.”

“I won’t go far. I just want to see...” That quickly, she hit a wet patch on the rock, and her foot slid.

Trey grabbed her in an instant, holding her steady against his solid body. “Take it easy. You don’t want to add to the accident count.”

She tilted her head back so she could see his face and nearly lost track of what she was going to say. He was so close she could see the small scar at the corner of his eyebrow, close enough to smell the faint, clean scent of him.

“I couldn’t kill myself falling from here,” she said, annoyed with herself for sounding breathless.

“No, but you could easily break an ankle on the rocks.” He looked away, as if he found their closeness uncomfortable.

She had to ask the question that had filled her mind. “Was it really an accident? How could they know if no one saw it?”

“You mean it might have been suicide?” His eyes narrowed, considering. “I don’t know how the police came to that decision. The police chief may have some ideas about it, if he’s willing to talk to me.”

“If I ask him...” she began.

“He’d freeze you out at the first implication that the police hadn’t done their job properly, especially where the Winthrop family is concerned.”

She suddenly needed to distance herself from him. She stepped down, then down again, well aware of his steadying hand on her arm. When they reached the bottom, Barney stopped running back and forth in agitation and nuzzled her hand. She patted him and then turned to face Trey as he jumped lightly down the last step.

“Are you saying the Winthrop family owns the police force as well as everything else in this town?”

“No.” Trey’s face darkened, and he seemed to make an effort to speak evenly. “I mean that a man in the chief’s position isn’t going to speak to an outsider about a police case to begin with. And if there was any question about whether Melanie’s death was accident or suicide, the kindest thing would be to opt for accident and spare the family that added pain.”

She thought of the seventeen-year-old, sent away at what had probably been the most difficult time of her life. “Maybe they deserved it.”

“That wouldn’t be for the police to judge. Or you either, for that matter, at least not without knowing more than you do now.”

She had a sneaking suspicion he was right about that, but she wasn’t about to admit it. Trey Alter had too self-satisfied an opinion of himself already.

“If the police chief won’t talk to me, what makes you think he’ll talk to you?” She recognized an edge to her voice. He probably heard it as well, but he didn’t react.

“Well, for one thing, he’s known me all my life. And for another, I’m an officer of the court, which gives me some status with him.” Trey took a few steps past her. “Let’s get away from the falls so we can hear ourselves think.”