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

She didn’t wait to hear the rest. Pulling a wad of cash from her wallet, she dropped some bills on the table and hurried to the door. It jangled cheerfully as she opened it.

‘How many vics?’ she asked, stepping out of the ice-cold air conditioning into the bright sunlight.

‘Unclear,’ Miles said. ‘Can’t get a word with the detectives. They’re all inside. And I do mean all – there must be six of them in there.’

Harper gave a low whistle.

Two detectives were standard on a normal homicide. Six was unprecedented.

A wall of heat hit her as she opened the door of the Camaro. She dumped her bag unceremoniously on the passenger seat and stuck the scanner in the dashboard holder. Switching her phone to speaker, she started the engine and cranked up the air conditioning.

Hot air hit her face like a punch.

‘What’s it look like to you?’ she asked, putting the car in reverse and glancing over her shoulder.

She’d turned the volume up high – Miles’ voice soared above the rumble of the engine.

‘It looks like page one.’

When Harper arrived, Constance Street was blocked by crime tape and a uniformed officer waved her away. The TV news crews were already there and their satellite trucks took up most of the available spaces.

Just outside the historic district, this neighborhood had once been affordable. But lately the big lawns and Arts and Crafts houses had been discovered and prices had skyrocketed. The schools were good around here and parents would claw each other’s eyes out to get their kids in one of them.

Harper could already see what Miles had observed – this was not the usual place for a homicide.

She backed hurriedly into an empty space around the corner and ran toward the crime tape, straight into the TV reporters, who were blocking the way with the forest of tripods and boom microphones that followed them everywhere.

‘Hey, Harper.’ Josh Leonard, Channel 5’s blow-dried but not entirely offensive news correspondent flashed a blinding smile as she approached the crime tape. ‘We were wondering when you’d show up.’

‘I can’t believe you beat me,’ Harper said absently, her eyes on the police activity beyond the crime tape. ‘I guess there’s a first time for everything.’

‘The first time was that car racing accident, actually.’ Josh straightened his cuffs. ‘But who’s counting?’

She raised one eyebrow. ‘You are, apparently.’

‘Five times.’ He held up his right hand, fingers splayed. ‘Five times – and I can list each one – I’ve got there first.’

‘Give up, Josh. This is not a fight you’re going to win.’ Natalie Swanson, the anchor from Channel 12 stalked up to them. In a pristine blue suit and four-inch heels, she looked impossibly regal as she hooked a tiny microphone to her lapel. The sun made her glossy helmet of blonde hair glimmer.

Harper blew her a kiss. ‘Looking hot as ever, Natalie.’

The other woman smiled serenely. ‘Compliments will get you everywhere.’

‘Now, see,’ Josh told his cameraman, ‘I’d never get away with saying that.’

‘Try it. See what happens.’ Natalie’s voice dripped pleasant malice.

Harper looked down to where police were bustling in and out of a yellow house with a high peaked roof.

‘What do we know?’ she asked, glancing from Josh to Natalie.

‘All I’ve been told is the victim is a woman in her early thirties.’ Natalie lowered her voice. ‘The cops are being weird about this one. My producer talked to the information officer and he wouldn’t tell her a thing. Never got that before. Anyone got anything else?’

Josh shook his head. ‘Everyone’s keeping schtum.’

‘Miles might have more.’ Harper stood on her toes, trying to see through the growing crowd of gawkers, cops and TV cameras. ‘I better find him.’

Grabbing her phone, she typed a quick message:

Where are you? I’m here.

When she’d walked as far as the tape allowed, she paused beside a handful of residents gathered in a worried huddle. Most of them were elderly.

That made sense. Everyone else would be at work at this hour.

While pretending to look at her notepad, Harper studied them carefully. Their clothing was perfectly serviceable, but nothing fancy. There was no indication that they could afford to pay half a million dollars for a three-bedroom. They must have bought before the bankers moved in.

This was good. Bankers would know better than to talk to her.

Sticking her notebook back in her pocket, she made her way to the center of the group. She moved slowly, a sympathetic look softening her expression.

‘I hate to bother y’all,’ she said, thickening her native Georgia accent and keeping her voice hushed.

As one, they turned to glance at her.

‘I’m from the Daily News. Can anyone tell me what’s going on?’

‘Oh Lord,’ a sixty-something woman in a floral dress said mournfully. ‘The newspaper’s here, too. Someone’s dead for sure.’

A dark-skinned, gray-haired man with a glossy black cane took a step towards her. ‘I wish you could tell us. All we know is the police are in Marie’s house. They won’t tell us anything. Is she dead?’

‘It can’t be Marie, can it?’ The first woman shook her head. ‘Or her little girl? Sweet Jesus, not that.’

Gradually, Harper moved closer to their tightly knit circle, making herself one of them. She kept her expression curious but also open and unthreatening.

‘Tell me about Marie,’ she said, all sympathy. ‘Who is she?’

‘Marie Whitney,’ the first man said. ‘She lives in that house.’ He pointed his cane at the yellow house. ‘Where the police are.’

‘She lived there long?’ she asked.

The neighbors conferred.

‘Was it two years?’ someone said.

‘It was after the tree fell on the Landry’s place,’ the first man reminded everyone.

‘About three years, I think,’ a woman said, after a second.

Harper did a quick mental calculation. Three years ago, prices were already rising. Whoever bought that place had money.

She needed to tell Baxter to hold the front page.

‘Is she married?’ she asked easily.

‘Divorced,’ a small woman in a blue cardigan informed her, a hint of excitement underlying her tone. ‘Ex-husband lives out of town somewhere.’

She seemed chatty. Harper inched closer to her.

‘Do you know if she worked?’

The woman lowered her voice confidentially. ‘She worked down at the university. I don’t know what she did there, though. She wasn’t a teacher, I don’t think.’

‘And there’s a daughter?’ Harper asked.

The woman nodded so hard her gray hair bounced.

‘Camille is how old now? Maybe eleven or twelve years old?’ The woman glanced at the others for affirmation. ‘But she should be at school today. She’s doing that special program this summer.’

‘Not now,’ floral dress reminded her. ‘It’s nearly three.’

The realization sent a shiver through the group like a breeze.

‘Oh, it’s horrible,’ cardigan 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. 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.’

Chapter Nine

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.

Setting her jaw, Harper lifted the cool metal latch on the heavy gate and walked with purpose to the door. When she knocked, the sound echoed in the quiet street like a gunshot.

For a moment, she stood still, summoning an excuse, waiting for footsteps.

None came.

Just to be sure, she knocked again.

Still, nothing.

Pulling her phone from her pocket she called Miles.

He answered immediately.

‘I’m in,’ she said, hurrying down the steps toward the side of the house. ‘Do it now.’

There was a long silence.

‘You sure you want to do this?’ he asked.

‘I’m already doing it.’

Without waiting for his reply she hung up, setting the phone to silent before she shoved it into her pocket.

Back on Constance Street, Miles should now be going up to the officer standing guard and demanding to talk to a senior detective. He’d complain about the slow pace and lack of information. He’d get Natalie and Josh involved – it was never very hard to get them riled up about deadlines.

Hopefully, this would keep everyone busy out front, ensuring nobody wandered around to the back while she was there.

That was the plan, anyway.

The really terrible plan.

There was no gate between the front and back garden of number 3691. A narrow walkway led past a ginger hedge on the side of the house to the perfectly manicured back garden.

A patio table surrounded by six wicker chairs sat near the back door. A curving stone path led through lush daisies and climbing bougainvillea to where two pear trees bookended the yard right in front of the back fence.

Ducking behind one of the trees, Harper peered into the backyard of the murder house.

The garden across the fence wasn’t at all like the one in which she now stood. The lawn was neat, but unimaginative.

A purple bicycle leaned against the wall of the house near a rusted barbecue grill that looked like it hadn’t been used in quite a while.

This was the house of a single mom too busy to worry about gardening.

From here, Harper could see the murder house had big windows lining the rear wall and a back door with three steps leading down to the patio.

The fence between the two houses was about four-feet tall and chain link. That was normal around here – the summer humidity and heavy winter rains destroyed wood so quickly most people didn’t bother with it. Harper could make it over the fence easily.

The only problem was, now that she was here, all she could see was that she was about twenty long steps from getting arrested. There was no place to hide in that yard. And the hot sun reflected off the windows, making it impossible to see inside. There could have been fifty police looking out at her and she’d never know.

Biting her lip, she stood staring across the expanse of green grass.

She could turn around. Tell Miles she changed her mind. Go back to the crime tape and do her job.

But then she remembered that girl again – her achingly familiar look of despair.

She had to know what was in that house.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped on the raised roots of the nearest tree for a bit of height then, grasping the top of the fence, warm from the sun, she stuck the toe of one shoe into a chink in the fence and hoisted herself up, swinging a leg over the top and dropping down on the other side.

The jangle of the metal against the support poles seemed absolutely deafening. As soon as she landed, she crouched low and froze, eyes on the house, waiting to see if she’d been noticed.

There was no cover here. If she was going to be caught it would happen now.

Nothing moved. Nobody opened the back door. No one yelled a command.

Adrenaline gave her heart a kick. She had to run.

Keeping low, she sped across the grass.

It was no more than forty feet from the back of the garden to the house, but it seemed to take forever until she made it, pressing against the warm yellow siding between the door and the window.

There, she paused, breathing heavily.

It was strangely quiet. All the sounds of a normal afternoon were missing. No children laughed. No dogs barked. No cars rumbled by. She could hear her heart pounding, and her own rasping breaths.

It took a minute to steady her nerves enough to move again. Gritting her teeth, Harper inched along the wall to the window and stopped.

If this house was like the ones she knew, the kitchen would be here. All she needed to do was look into that window and she would know the truth. One way or another. If there was nothing there – if the murder scene were in the bedroom, or the living room – she was done here.

Steeling herself, she turned and took a sliding, sideways step to her left until she could see through the bottom sliver of window.

A uniformed policeman stood directly in front of her.

Harper jerked back, her heart pounding in her throat.

On the verge of panic, she stood stiffly, forehead pressing against the wall, nails digging into the yellow paint, breathing in the smell of dust and heat and her own fear.

It’s OK, she promised herself. It’s OK.

The cop’s back had been to her. There was no way he saw her.

Still, every muscle in her body tensed as she strained to hear what was happening.

There were no sounds of movement or alarm from inside the yellow house. Only the faint murmur of official voices, words too soft for her to make out.