Trail of Echoes (42 page)
Authors: Rachel Howzell Hall
I watched the girl's reflection in the rearview mirror until the tears in my eyes blurred my vision.
I'm the ninth Muse.
“Let's go,” the monster said. “We don't have a lot of time.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, then eased the RAV4 past the muddy tractors.
“Those storms created a few landslides,” he said. “I couldn't get up here as much as I needed. Guess they're cleaning up now. Our tax dollars at work. Oh, what wondrous prizes they'll find.”
A tear slipped down my cheek. Syeeda: we hadn't made up. Sam: we hadn't talked about us. Mom: I hadn't told her about my talk with Victor Starr. Greg: the real estate agent.
Shit.
I hadn't resolved so many things in my life, and now â¦
Would they miss me?
Yes, they would. But then they'd move on. Mom had lost a daughter, lost a husband. The worst of the worst she'd survived ⦠and she had still moved on.
A sob pushed against my chest, but I tamped it down. Still, it burned and bubbled there, gaining mass and heat.
“Why are you upset?” Zach Fletcher asked. “I kept my promise. And now you're a hero. Maybe you'll get a Purple Heart after the dust clears. A six-gun salute or whatever it's called. A junior high school named after you.”
He placed his mouth against my ear, and his breath warmed my neck. “I was planning to leave you alone, especially after our coffee date on Saturday, even though you're it for me. The Muse that avenges the deaths of all God's children. A true goddess.” He slowly exhaled. “But you tried to stop me from doing the thing I love the most.”
I tapped the gas pedal just ⦠so ⦠then considered his reflection in the rearview mirror. “You can stop this.”
He grinned and met my eyes in the mirror. “But I don't want to. Not anymore. I like it here. In the dark. And I'm not sure there's a cure for my ⦠habit.”
The Motorola radio pinched my sweaty side, and I prayed that the line had remained open, that Colin could hear this conversation, thatâ
“There will always be dead girls, Detective Elouise Norton,” Zach Fletcher said. “There will always be lost girls. Good and bad. Rich and poor. Smart and ⦠You can't save all of them.”
My stomach twisted. “I know that.”
“I'm leaving Los Angeles. Finding a new spring, new Muses. They're everywhere. Maybe I'll go to the suburbs. Maybeâ”
Swerving came out of nowhereâpart of a hillside had tumbled onto the narrow road.
“Shit.” He hung on to the back of the driver's headrest.
I came out of the curve and avoided veering off the road and down the steep hillside.
He jammed the gun at my neck. “Do it again.”
Less than a mile ahead, I spotted another herd of machinery and orange pickup trucks. “Why this park?” I asked. “Eight in one parkâthat's a lot.”
He chuckled. “You mean nine. And I'm not worried. You're tall, but you won't take up much space.”
I pressed the gas pedal.
The RAV4 accelerated.
“Slow down, Elouise,” he warned. “You'll crash and die. Do you want to meet your end on a park road and not in a beautiful glen that's been chosen just for you?”
Lightness came over me. “Streets of gold. Pearly gates. A
crown
?” I met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “I'm ready to be where someone loves me best of all. Are you?”
He lifted the gun. “Louâ”
“Checkmate, you sick son of aâ” I stomped the gas pedal, and the Toyota's motor roared. I jerked the wheel to the left. At sixty miles per hour, I raced toward the orange pickup that sat on the side of the road.
Zach Fletcher screamed, “Stop!”
I couldn't stop. I wouldn't stop.
Metal smashed against metal.
Glass exploded all around the cabin.
I smelled baby powder ⦠rubber â¦
And then I saw ⦠blackness.
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White light pulled me from darkness.
Light in one pupil.
Light in the other pupil.
Darkness again.
The chatter of walkie-talkies ⦠bursts of static â¦
I opened my eyes as far as they could open.
Blue sky. A hawk flying in circles, riding the current, free â¦
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 â¦
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.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
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 somewhereâI remember that. Luke with his hand on Pepe's shoulderâI 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 roomânot 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.
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FORGE BOOKS BY
RACHEL HOWZELL HALL
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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
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