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
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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
Trail of Echoes Page 32