Trail of Echoes

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Trail of Echoes Page 32

by Rachel Howzell Hall


  Blue sky. A hawk flying in circles, riding the current, free …

  My breathing … tight, quick … I blinked.

  My face felt crunchy, loose like gravel. I swallowed. Metallic, goopy thickness. Crunchiness in my mouth.

  I saw … the totaled SUV … air bag still inflated … blood …

  Crumpled orange pickup truck … hood crushed like an accordion.

  A man’s … legs … arm … blood.

  Your name?

  “What?” I croaked.

  “What is your name?” a deep voice asked.

  I closed my eyes, then opened them again.

  Now, I stood near trail 5 and the park bench on the bluff.

  Chanita Lords crouched before me with her camera capturing the cloudless blue sky.

  Allayna Mitchell, bag slung over her shoulder, pirouetted in the field of golden poppies.

  All around me, girls that I didn’t know, girls of every shape and shade sat in clumps, smiling, laughing. All free. They were so beautiful.

  * * *

  I don’t remember everything after that collision on the park road. The ride to the hospital. Doctors. X-rays or plaster slopped over my broken left wrist. Don’t remember any of that.

  Colin held my hand in a room somewhere—I remember that. Luke with his hand on Pepe’s shoulder—I remember that, and I remember smiling.

  Colin told me that Taylor LaSalle, the girl in the Toyota, had survived, that he and Pepe had found the hidden space in the large backyard where Zach Fletcher had kept the girls. He told me the blond girlfriend had no clue girls had been kidnapped and stowed in that underground septic tank. No clue that the bushes near the back fence, the ones with the beautiful purple flowers, were poisonous deadly nightshade. And he told me that the other predator, Payton Bishop, had plea-bargained for a reduced sentence.

  I remember … pills. Sips of water. Sips of soup. Sleep. Mom. Sitting in a living room—not my living room in Playa Vista. Not Syeeda’s living room. Brittle. Numb. Shadows lengthening on the hardwood floor. The sound of waves. Lena’s house. Ocean. Sam. Pills.

  Sam stood in the doorway of the bedroom. Mouth a thin line. Eyes dark. Arms crossed, fingers gripping his elbows.

  I blinked.

  Open french doors. The scent of salt and sea. Lena and Syeeda.

  Sam lay beside me. Arms open. Arms around me.

  The television screen. Richard Dreyfuss. UFOs. My mother sitting at the end of the bed. Soup. Pills. Greg standing in the corner of the bedroom. Zach Fletcher beside me in bed, then standing over me.

  Fully awake but unable to move. Crying.

  “Is he dead?” I asked Lena one of those times she rescued me from a nightmare.

  “Yeah.”

  “He was here,” I whispered.

  “No, sweetie,” she said. “You stopped him. Rest now.”

  The light dimmed, then brightened. Strange aches bloomed in the middle of my head.

  I swallowed, and it hurt to swallow. “Am I here?”

  “You’re here,” Sam answered. “I’m here, too.” And then he kissed me.

  I remember his kiss and feeling his heartbeat on his lips. How I slept without bad dreams.

  “You’re here,” he said.

  And then he held me until the bedroom fell into shadow.

  FORGE BOOKS BY RACHEL HOWZELL HALL

  Land of Shadows

  Skies of Ash

  About the Author

  Rachel Howzell Hall is the author of the acclaimed Lou Norton series, including Land of Shadows, Skies of Ash, and Trail of Echoes. She is on the board of directors for Mystery Writers of America. Rachel Howzell Hall lives in Los Angeles. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Wednesday, March 19

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Thursday, March 20

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Friday, March 21

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Saturday, March 22

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Sunday, March 23

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Monday, March 24

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Forge Books by Rachel Howzell Hall

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  TRAIL OF ECHOES

  Copyright © 2016 by Rachel Howzell Hall

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Stephen Youll

  Cover design by Jamie S. Warren

  A Forge Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-0-7653-8117-0 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4668-7803-7 (e-book)

  e-ISBN 9781466878037

  Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].

  First Edition: May 2016

 

 

 


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