by Marta Perry
In the sweet subtle wind of a Pennsylvania Dutch town, a lost woman and a man of duty will risk their lives to uncover her true identity
The foundation of Amanda Curtis’s very existence cracks the moment she discovers the woman she thought was her mother has never given birth. Where she belongs is a question she can’t put to rest. But when the clues lead her to a charming yet chilling small town, the threat against her begins to unfold.
Trey Addison is a fixture in Echo Falls. The town and the people are his to protect. He was born to take his place in the family legal firm, but now that a stranger desperate to unlock her past is depending on him, he’s forced to make an impossible choice. If Trey doesn’t protect Amanda, she’ll walk straight into a deadly trap. If he helps her expose the secrets that haunt her, the truth could shatter them both.
Praise for Marta Perry
“Abundant details turn this Amish romantic thriller series launch into a work of art.”
—Publishers Weekly on Where Secrets Sleeps (starred review)
“Crisp writing and distinctive characters make up Perry’s latest novel. Where Secrets Sleep is a truly entertaining read.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Perry’s story hooks you immediately. Her uncanny ability to seamlessly blend the mystery element with contemporary themes makes this one intriguing read.”
—RT Book Reviews on Home by Dark
“Perry skillfully continues her chilling, deceptively charming romantic suspense series with a dark, puzzling mystery that features a sweet romance and a nice sprinkling of Amish culture.”
—Library Journal on Vanish in Plain Sight
“Leah’s Choice, by Marta Perry, is a knowing and careful look into Amish culture and faith. A truly enjoyable reading experience.”
—Angela Hunt, New York Times bestselling author of Let Darkness Come
“Leah’s Choice is a story of grace and servitude as well as a story of difficult choices and heartbreaking realities. It touched my heart. I think the world of Amish fiction has found a new champion.”
—Lenora Worth, New York Times bestselling author of Code of Honor
Also available from Marta Perry
and HQN Books
Echo of Danger
How Secrets Die
When Secrets Strike
Where Secrets Sleep
Abandon the Dark
Search the Dark
Home by Dark
Danger in Plain Sight
Vanish in Plain Sight
Murder in Plain Sight
MARTA PERRY
Sound of Fear
Dear Reader,
I’m so excited to introduce you to the second book in my Echo Falls series. I had such a good time visiting Echo Falls again for a new adventure, and I hope you enjoy it, as well.
Welcome to Echo Falls, Pennsylvania. This small, isolated Amish and English community seems like a haven of peace and security. But dark secrets lurk here, as elsewhere, and events are coming that will crash through the serene, pastoral landscape. All the strength and compassion the community can muster will be necessary as never before to meet these challenges.
Echo Falls is based on several small towns north of us here in central Pennsylvania, and I hope I’ve captured their charm in my writing. Most of my story ideas begin with a place, and this series of stories is no exception. The falls themselves are based on the falls at Ricketts Glen State Park, and I’ve actually climbed those trails and felt the spray in my face.
Please let me know if you enjoy my story. You can reach me via my website, www.martaperry.com, on my Facebook page, www.Facebook.com/martaperrybooks, and via email at [email protected]. I’d be happy to reply and to send you a signed bookmark and my brochure of Pennsylvania Dutch recipes.
All the best,
This story is dedicated to my husband, Brian, with much love.
Every man must live with the man he makes of himself.
—Amish proverb
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
EXCERPT FROM ECHO OF DANGER BY MARTA PERRY
CHAPTER ONE
AMANDA CURTISS HAD hoped that going back to work would distract her from the grief that threatened to drown her. It didn’t work. Every person at the veterinary practice felt they had to commiserate with her on her loss.
“So very, very sorry about your mother’s death. So shocking to have one of Boston’s most noted artists taken away by a random street crime.” Alicia Farber’s prominent blue eyes, so like those of her pampered Pekingese, welled with tears. “Pookie is sorry, too. Aren’t you, Pookie?”
Pookie’s expression exhibited its usual disdain for lesser beings. The sight of Amanda’s white lab coat always brought out the worst in him, and he bared his teeth.
“Let’s just see what’s going on with Pookie, shall we?” Amanda lifted the small dog to the exam table with gentle hands, careful to stay out of the way of his needle-sharp teeth.
“He’s been barely eating a bite of his food.” Alicia hovered anxiously. “I just knew you’d want to see him. Tell me the worst. I can take it.”
To do her justice, Alicia was genuinely apprehensive. They all were—all the owners of the pampered pets that came through the doors of one of Boston’s most successful veterinary services. Amanda’s job, one of the lowest rungs of the ladder, was to reassure the owners while treating their pets. And to refrain from pointing out that both pets and owners would benefit from more exercise and less rich food. No one took that kind of advice well.
By the time Amanda was ushering Alicia and her pet out of the exam room, her head was throbbing and her throat was tight, as it had been since the police officers had come to the door with their grim news.
Gracie, the receptionist, caught her as she passed. “Dr. Curtiss, there’s someone here to see you.” Lowering her voice, she added, “He said it was personal business, so I put him in an empty exam room. Number 4.”
“Thanks, Gracie.” Brushing any stray Peke hairs from her lab coat, Amanda headed for the exam room, her stomach clenching. Personal business had taken on an ominous meaning lately, since it invariably had to do with her mother’s death.
But when she opened the door, her face relaxed into a smile. Robert McKinley was not only her mother’s attorney but a longtime family friend, as well... Uncle Robert until she’d felt she was too old for the term.
“Robert. I didn’t expect you...” She stopped, her brain catching up with her tongue. Robert wouldn’t come to her workplace on anything routine. “What’s wrong?”
“Why should anything be wrong?” He kissed her cheek, and she smelled the faint aroma of musk that always advertised his presence. “Are you sure you should have come back to work so soon? It wasn’t necessary.”
Maybe not financially, but it was for her mental health. “I’d rather be busy. I need something to occupy my mind.�
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“If you’re sure.” He didn’t sound convinced, and Amanda read the uneasiness behind his warmth.
“You wouldn’t come here unless something had happened. Out with it.” Amanda fought to keep her voice steady. “Whatever it is, it can’t be worse than what’s already happened.”
Nothing could be worse than losing her mother in such a brutal way...never again to see her forehead wrinkle in absorption over a new painting, never to feel the warmth of her hug, never to hear the laughter in her voice...
Robert frowned, taking a step away. “I know.” His voice wasn’t entirely steady, either. He’d adored Juliet in his own staid way. “It may be nothing, but one of the detectives dropped by with the coroner’s report. It had raised some questions in his mind.”
“Questions?” Her mind shied away from imagining a coroner’s report.
“Perhaps I’m making too much of this. You might already know.” He shook his head slightly, as if to clear it. “The autopsy confirmed something that seemed...odd.” He held up a hand to silence her when she would have burst out with a demand to hear it, whatever it was. “It seems that Juliet Curtiss, your mother, never had a child.”
Amanda froze, staring at him. The words were in English, all right, but they didn’t make any sense. “What do you mean? Of course she had a child. I’m standing right here.”
“Juliet never bore a child,” he repeated. “There isn’t any doubt, Amanda. I read the report for myself, and then I called the coroner for confirmation. Juliet never gave birth.”
Her sluggish wits started to work. “You mean I’m adopted? But why on earth wouldn’t she have told me?”
Robert shrugged, seeming relieved that the worst of his news-breaking was over. “I believe specialists do recommend that the child be told, but it could be that Juliet couldn’t bear the idea that your feelings about her would change if you knew she wasn’t your biological mother.”
At some level she wanted to laugh at that, because it was so ridiculous to think of Juliet in those terms. But if she started to laugh, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to control her emotions.
“Be serious, Robert. Juliet wasn’t a clinging mama. That wasn’t the sort of relationship we had.”
Amanda paused to consider what she’d just said. She and her mother had certainly been close, but Juliet didn’t dote. It hadn’t been in her nature. True, Amanda had lived at home since her practice and her life had fallen apart in Pennsylvania, but they’d lived very independent lives. Juliet had her work, and Amanda had hers.
“You never thought...” Robert began, stepping delicately in what no doubt seemed like a minefield to him.
“Never,” she said flatly.
“You see the problem,” he said, frowning again. She thought he held back impatience when she looked at him blankly. “Legally,” he explained, “your mother... Juliet...must have adopted you prior to the time I met her. You’d have been about eight, I think, when she bought the brownstone. That was the first bit of business I did for her.”
Obviously Robert expected her to concentrate on the problem. She tried to rein in her wandering thoughts. Focus, she ordered herself. “Yes, I’d have been eight when we moved uptown. She’d had her first really successful show, and our lives changed.”
Not that she’d minded the life they’d had before that. The tiny apartment in one of Boston’s many ethnic neighborhoods had been home. But Juliet had wanted more...for herself, but certainly for her daughter.
“If you don’t remember any other life, Juliet must have adopted you when you were quite small.” Robert wore his worried look. “There surely are papers to that effect somewhere.”
“Aren’t all her legal documents at your office? She always said she didn’t have the talent or the energy to deal with things like that. Her work...”
“She was an artist, of course. But that’s no excuse for not having your affairs in order.” That was as close as Amanda had ever heard him come to sounding critical of Juliet. “You can see the quandary that leaves us in now. We must establish your legal position in regard to your mother’s estate.”
“But she had a will. You showed it to me, remember?”
“At my insistence, she did.” He sounded grim. “It leaves everything she possessed at the time of her death to her daughter, Amanda Elizabeth Curtiss.”
“Well, then...”
“Come, Amanda. Concentrate. You’ve always been the practical one. If you’re not her biological daughter, the language becomes ambiguous.”
“You mean our home might not be mine?” That possibility did penetrate the fog in which she groped. The brownstone was home. It might be lonely without Juliet, but every inch of it was filled with memories.
“If someone contested the will on the grounds that you are not Juliet’s daughter, that might well happen.” Robert clasped her hands in a firm grip.
“Someone must be aware of the circumstances. What about her brother, George? They’d been estranged for a long time, but he did come to the funeral. Surely he’d know...” Know where I came from. She finished the sentence in her mind.
This was crazy. It was like spinning on ice in an out-of-control car. Every anchor she reached for slid from her grasp.
“George Curtiss is the last person I’d confide in at this point. Don’t you see, Amanda? He can’t know there’s any question, or you can be sure he’d have brought it up.” Robert’s frown deepened. “There were good reasons for the breach between him and your mother. If half of what she said about him is true, he’d be contesting the will in an instant if he even suspected.”
“Then what should I do? How can we find out?” If her uncle didn’t know...but he wasn’t her uncle, it seemed, any more than Juliet had been her mother.
“First of all, it’s essential that we find any documents relating to you. You’d better have a good search throughout the house for papers. You must have a birth certificate, at least. We may want to hire a firm of private investigators to look into it. And whatever you do, don’t talk about this to anyone but me.”
She blinked at that. “But my closest friends...”
“Not your friends, not anyone. Not until we have a better handle on your identity than we do now.”
Her identity. Amanda had always known who she was and where she belonged. Now it seemed she didn’t know at all. Who was she?
* * *
AMANDA WALKED THE four blocks home, glad to be outside even in the chill dampness of the mid-October afternoon. The wind was strong enough to wipe away some of the fog from her thoughts.
But that didn’t help much. It served only to expose how much she didn’t know. She’d always been able to talk to her mother about everything. Amanda couldn’t begin to come up with an answer for her silence on this crucial subject. Why didn’t you tell me?
She rounded the corner and the brownstone came into view—a three-story building sandwiched between two taller ones, looking squat in comparison. Someone was just coming down the three stairs from the glossy black door.
In another step Amanda had identified him. Bertram Berkley, Juliet’s agent. She wondered, as she always did, if that could possibly be his real name, or if he’d taken it to fit his persona—the sleek, successful artists’ representative whose sponsorship, according to him, ensured entrée to people of influence in Boston’s art world.
He spotted her and swooped down on her, kissing her ceremoniously on each cheek. “Amanda, my dear. You poor child. I just came by to see how you are. You surely haven’t been out already.” He made it sound as if she’d breached some unwritten rule of mourning.
“I went back to work today.” Bertram’s extravagant manner always made her feel even more intensely grounded than she already was. “I have a job, remember?”
“Surely they didn’t expect you to be back a scant tw
o weeks after your mother’s tragic demise.” He linked arms with her and marched her up the steps to the door. Obviously he intended to come in.
She detached her arm. “I wanted to go back, but I have to admit, I’m wiped out. I appreciate your stopping by.”
His face stiffened for an instant before his dark eyes grew mournful. “Won’t you let me take you out to dinner?” He turned persuasive. “We can have a nice long talk.”
“Not tonight. Another time.” She put her key in the lock and heard the usual answering bark from Barney, her yellow Lab, greeting her.
“But I wanted to talk to you. We really must plan a show of your mother’s work, just as quickly as possible.” His voice became urgent. “A tribute show, you see. I’ve already looked into arrangements, and there’s considerable enthusiasm for it. A retrospective, including all her work, even the private pieces you have that aren’t for sale. If I could just take a quick look at what’s here...”
“Not tonight,” she repeated, putting a bit more emphasis on the words. Maybe she was being unfair, but she suspected that his eagerness stemmed at least in part from a desire to cash in on the publicity that had surrounded Juliet’s death. “We’ll talk soon,” she added, then slipped inside and closed the door before he could come up with an argument.
For a moment she just stood, leaning back against the door, relief sweeping over her. Home. It felt like a refuge at the moment. As long as she didn’t let her mind stray to the possibility that it might not be hers.
Barney was pressing up against her, whining for her attention. She ruffled his ears. If only she could talk this over with someone. Her friend Kara would be ideal—she knew how to listen without trying to solve your problems for you. But Robert had said to tell no one.
No sense in paying an attorney if you don’t take his advice. Her mother had said that when she’d been brought, reluctantly, to making out a will. Had she realized the will could be contested? Obviously not, or she’d have told Robert the truth.