“Hi.” Lucas tried to be positive in return, but he couldn’t help being on the defensive. He wasn’t in the mood for company, but clearly this chick hadn’t taken a hint on her previous visit.
“So . . .” She cleared her throat and peeked around his shoulder. Her long brown hair swept across the folds of her billowy poet’s shirt. She ducked her head in an almost coy sort of way. “Is it safe to talk, or is your daughter . . . ?”
“She’s upstairs,” Lucas said. “And honestly, I’m not in the mood—”
“Okay,” she said, cutting him off. “Sure, I understand. But I have something for you.” She lifted the box and shook it enticingly.
“What’s this?” He nodded to the box.
“Consider it a favor.” She casually sidestepped him and slipped inside, then slid her Birkenstocks off her feet and left them neatly beside the front door.
Lucas opened his mouth to protest. Hey, man, just because you’ve come bearing gifts . . .
He wasn’t sure he wanted this stranger inside the house. She was an oddball. Who knew what kind of shit she was into, living way out here on her own. But before he could ask her to leave, she twisted where she stood and gave him a knowing look.
“You’re going to flip when you see this stuff,” she said. “Do you have a place we can sit down for a minute?”
He furrowed his brow but motioned to his study anyway, his gaze not wavering from the box held against her chest.
Echo followed him and stepped into his study. She pulled open the box top, slid the carton across the desk, and pulled her hair back with her hands. Her attention slithered along each of the walls. The slowness in which her gaze traveled across the room was disconcerting, as though she was seeing a completely different room from the one they were standing in. He didn’t like the way she was looking at his things. It almost felt as though she was putting the space to memory, as if she was planning on sneaking in through a window when he and Jeanie were sleeping and didn’t want to trip over a piece of furniture while robbing the place. As though I’ve got something to steal, he thought, giving her a moment to soak the place in despite his own misgivings. Finally, he took a swig of his beer and issued a reality check by clearing his throat. Her attention snapped back to him.
“Sorry, zoned out.” You don’t say. She turned to the box as if about to dig through it, then clasped her hands together, looking back at him. Her temporary embarrassment had dissipated beneath the tight line of her lips. “There are different types of people in this world,” she began. “Leaders, muses, healers. I’m a helper.”
Lucas gave her a questioning look. “A helper,” he repeated, hoping like hell this wasn’t about to turn into some mumbo-jumbo lesson in new age philosophy.
“Yes.” She squared her shoulders. “Like my mother.”
Echo looked almost prideful at the statement, and he could only assume that she and her mother had been close. But it didn’t leave him with much to work with, so he nodded and encouraged her to go on with a plain “Okay . . . ?”
“I’ve been really contemplating this, and I know you’ve been thinking about taking off. You’ve been having a hard time with the writing, yeah?”
Lucas canted his head to the side, not sure whether to admit that he’d been toying with the idea of surrender or to take offense to her astute observation. She was nosy, assertive. She made him feel on edge.
“Like I said before, I’m not here to make trouble,” she told him. “But I can’t help but think that what you’re doing is great. I looked you up.” Her half smile made his skin prickle with nerves. A phantom buzzer went off inside his head. Warning! Was this chick a stalker or what? “That sounds weird,” she said. “I’m not crazy, I swear. I just wanted to see what kind of stuff you wrote. I bought one of your books.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yep.” Here it comes. “Bloodthirsty Times, the one about the Night Stalker. It’s great. You’ve got real talent.”
“Thanks.”
“Anyway . . .” She took a step away from the box and motioned to it with an open palm, imploring him to take a look inside.
Still unsure, Lucas watched her carefully before stepping farther into the room. The wood-paneled walls and green carpet usually gave the place a man-cave sort of feel, especially with his big old desk dominating the center. But it suddenly felt smaller, as if the walls had lost a square foot during the split second he had blinked his eyes.
He sidled up to the desk, placed his half-drained bottle of Deschutes onto the coaster he used for his coffee cup, and peered into the box.
He didn’t know what he expected to see—maybe a quintet of severed fingers despite Echo’s peace-and-love vibe. Some of the world’s most vicious killers came out of the sixties. They slashed throats and dismembered their victims while everyone had their eyes focused on DC, FDR, Vietnam. The most notorious were the ones you’d never suspect. Maybe Echo was an ax murderer moonlighting as a Washington coast hippie. The cops would never think to look for bodies in her vegetable patch.
There were no human remains, but there was a yellowed envelope marked “DO NOT BEND” in black Sharpie. Lucas reached in to retrieve it. A small stack of photographs was tucked inside.
The first picture was of a tall, overly serious dark-haired girl standing next to a guy smoking a cigarette. The man wore a cowboy hat and matching boots. There were pine trees behind them. The pair in the photo hung off each other like siblings. The second photo had those same two people in it, but they were now joined by a cute blonde with a crooked haircut, and who looked to be little more than a child. She couldn’t have been much older than Jeanie. By the third photo, Lucas had lost his breath. He knew these kids, knew them from the countless pictures he’d seen on the Internet and in old articles. Except these were nothing he’d ever be able to match in an image search. These were someone’s personal items, photos they had taken of Halcomb and his brood.
“Holy shit,” he whispered, his throat suddenly dry. His eyes darted to Echo’s face, and the moment their eyes met, her mouth curled up in a satisfied smile. “Where did you get these?” He went back to the photos in his hands, afraid that if he looked away for too long they’d disappear, too good to be real. What he was holding was true-crime gold. If Lucas could publish them in his book, John would push for a blockbuster, one-day laydown release. Screw the writing—people would buy the damn thing just to get an eyeful of these never-before-seen pictures. But the real question wasn’t where Echo had obtained such items; it was how she had known to time her arrival so perfectly. It was strange, as though she hadn’t just googled him but had been peering through the window of his study, waiting for the precise moment to introduce him to his own salvation.
“My family has owned the house down the road for a long time,” she said. “My mom lived there in the early eighties.”
“Your mom? You mean . . .”
Echo nodded. “She knew them. She and Audra Snow were best friends.”
Lucas’s stomach flipped. “You’re kidding me.” Was this really luck? Could serendipity truly be this fortuitous?
She shook her head with a little laugh. “I swear I’m not joking.”
Setting the photos aside, he reached into the box once more and drew out a stack of brittle newspaper clippings, most of which he’d read before. But that didn’t matter. If Echo’s mother knew Audra, really knew her, it was another lead.
“Why are you showing me this?” He shot her a look, unable to keep his suspicions at bay. “We don’t even know each other. You realize this stuff . . .”
Echo held up a hand, assuring him that he didn’t have to finish his statement. She knew. The contents of this box would change everything. It would, perhaps, even change his life.
“I told you, I’m a helper. I feel like it’s what I’m supposed to do, at least to pay homage to Audra in my mother’s name.”