Still, she didn’t need him to understand everything, she needed him to help.
‘This is going to sound weird,’ she said slowly. ‘But I need to reassure myself about something. Literally, I need two seconds in that house.’
Miles still looked perplexed.
‘Harper, don’t be ridiculous. Every cop in the city is in that house.’
It was true. Four patrol cops stood out front, guarding the door. Two more were on the crime tape, stopping anyone from getting in.
After Smith and the girl had gone, Blazer and several detectives had gone back inside, along with the coroner – whose van was parked in the middle of the street.
She thought for a minute, studying the neighborhood. There had to be some way to at least see what had happened in there.
She’d grown up on a street a lot like this one, with houses lined up, backyard to backyard. Her street had been more modest, but the layout was more or less the same.
‘I only need to see in a window,’ she said, thinking aloud. ‘That would do it. I don’t have to actually go inside.’
The look Miles gave her told her he still thought she’d lost her mind.
‘What the hell is this about?’
She hesitated. She had to tell him something, but this wasn’t the time for long explanations.
‘Look,’ she said finally. ‘I have a hunch. I think I’ve seen a crime scene a lot like this one a few years ago. A mother dead. A girl coming home after school. I’m probably wrong. It’s probably nothing. But that killer was never caught. If I’m right …’
She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to. She’d already seen the light dawn in his eyes.
‘We could be dealing with the same killer,’ he said slowly.
Their eyes locked. Neither of them had ever covered a serial killer before.
‘You sure about this?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘Not at all. In fact, I’d be willing to bet if I take a look at the crime scene, it’ll be completely different. And I’ll come back here feeling like a fool.’
‘Why is this so important, then?’ Miles asked. ‘Why not call Smith and ask what he thinks?’
It was a good question. Smith had been at both crime scenes. He would certainly know.
But this time that wasn’t enough. She had to see for herself. To know for certain whether there was any connection at all between this crime scene and the one on that day, fifteen years ago, when her childhood ended.
Because no one ever caught that murderer.
That little girl never got justice.
‘Please, Miles,’ she pleaded. ‘I just … I have to do this. I need two seconds looking through a window.’
He held her gaze, his expression a complex mix of doubt and worry.
Harper thought he’d refuse. His relationship with the police was important to him. Ever since he’d been laid off he’d had to tread a fine line with the newspaper, the police and his work. He did not want her to mess that up.
But then, shaking his head, he held up his hands in surrender.
‘Tell me this before we throw our careers away. How do you propose to illegally cross that police line and get into that house without the cops and detectives and their merry band promptly arresting you?’
Harper pointed at the houses peeking out through the trees behind the crime house.
‘Through the backyard.’
Chapter Nine
Here’s a thing about crime scenes most people don’t know: they’re boring.
The vast majority of any reporter’s time at a crime scene is spent waiting around. First you wait for the detectives, then you wait for the forensics team, then you wait for the coroner. Sometimes, hours will pass before you’re even told what you’re waiting for.
At a crime scene this high profile, Harper knew she had time to burn. The forensics unit had just begun putting on their white moon suits when she stepped away from the crime tape. Nothing would be announced until they’d had a chance to examine the house.
As she hurried down the street, nobody noticed her departure. Everyone was still focused on the yellow house.
Around the corner, away from the gawkers and journalists, the neighborhood seemed calm and peaceful. But Harper wasn’t.
Despite her bravura performance with Miles, she was so nervous her stomach burned. She had to force her hands to unclench. She’d always pushed the limits but she’d never done anything like this before.
For one thing it was wildly, profoundly illegal.
If she got caught, the police would undoubtedly arrest her. The newspaper would be unlikely to bail her out because breaking the law was not part of her job description. Not overtly, anyway. Oh, they were happy to take advantage of it when she broke the rules and got a good story, but if she were ever truly busted for it, they’d let her hang.
And yet, she didn’t stop. She had to know.
In her mind, she kept seeing that girl in her school clothes, standing dazed and shocked in a protective phalanx of police.
She looked so small. So vulnerable.
Was that how she’d looked that day?
And Smith – what was he doing there? A single homicide, even in a neighborhood like this, ordinarily merited his oversight from a distance but not his physical presence. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him at a crime scene. Certainly not since he was promoted to lieutenant four years ago.
‘I’m a paper-pusher now,’ he’d told her at the time, pride in his voice. ‘I’m off the street at last. Got a chair that cost as much as I make in a week and a great big office, and by God, I’m going to use them.’
He’d been true to his word. Until now.
What if he was here because he had seen this once before?
The next street along was a perfect mirror image of Constance Street. The same brightly painted, over-priced houses with lush gardens behind low fences.
The blue paint on Number 3691 was perfect and its front garden was lavish. Fat, pink roses spilled over the glossy black bars of the wrought-iron fence in a fragrant tumble.
It was directly behind the murder scene.
If she stood on her toes, Harper could see the yellow house from the sidewalk.
Given the well-maintained look of the house, odds were ten to one the lawyer or banker who lived here was at work and the place was empty.
Or a trophy wife could be inside, watching cable and doing her nails.
There was only one way to find out.
Setting her jaw, Harper lifted the cool metal latch on the heavy gate and walked with purpose to the door. When she knocked, the sound echoed in the quiet street like a gunshot.
For a moment, she stood still, summoning an excuse, waiting for footsteps.
None came.
Just to be sure, she knocked again.
Still, nothing.
Pulling her phone from her pocket she called Miles.
He answered immediately.
‘I’m in,’ she said, hurrying down the steps toward the side of the house. ‘Do it now.’
There was a long silence.
‘You sure you want to do this?’ he asked.
‘I’m already doing it.’
Without waiting for his reply she hung up, setting the phone to silent before she shoved it into her pocket.
Back on Constance Street, Miles should now be going up to the officer standing guard and demanding to talk to a senior detective. He’d complain about the slow pace and lack of information. He’d get Natalie and Josh involved – it was never very hard to get them riled up about deadlines.
Hopefully, this would keep everyone busy out front, ensuring nobody wandered around to the back while she was there.
That was the plan, anyway.
The really terrible plan.
There was no gate between the front and back garden of number 3691. A narrow walkway led past a ginger hedge on the side of the house to the perfectly manicured back garden.
A patio table surrounded by six wicker chairs sat near the back door. A curving stone path led through lush daisies and climbing bougainvillea to where two pear trees bookended the yard right in front of the back fence.
Ducking behind one of the trees, Harper peered into the backyard of the murder house.
The garden across the fence wasn’t at all like the one in which she now stood. The lawn was neat, but unimaginative.
A purple bicycle leaned against the wall of the house near a rusted barbecue grill that looked like it hadn’t been used in quite a while.
This was the house of a single mom too busy to worry about gardening.
From here, Harper could see the murder house had big windows lining the rear wall and a back door with three steps leading down to the patio.
The fence between the two houses was about four-feet tall and chain link. That was normal around here – the summer humidity and heavy winter rains destroyed wood so quickly most people didn’t bother with it. Harper could make it over the fence easily.
The only problem was, now that she was here, all she could see was that she was about twenty long steps from getting arrested. There was no place to hide in that yard. And the hot sun reflected off the windows, making it impossible to see inside. There could have been fifty police looking out at her and she’d never know.
Biting her lip, she stood staring across the expanse of green grass.
She could turn around. Tell Miles she changed her mind. Go back to the crime tape and do her job.
But then she remembered that girl again – her achingly familiar look of despair.
She had to know what was in that house.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped on the raised roots of the nearest tree for a bit of height then, grasping the top of the fence, warm from the sun, she stuck the toe of one shoe into a chink in the fence and hoisted herself up, swinging a leg over the top and dropping down on the other side.
The jangle of the metal against the support poles seemed absolutely deafening. As soon as she landed, she crouched low and froze, eyes on the house, waiting to see if she’d been noticed.
There was no cover here. If she was going to be caught it would happen now.
Nothing moved. Nobody opened the back door. No one yelled a command.
Adrenaline gave her heart a kick. She had to run.
Keeping low, she sped across the grass.
It was no more than forty feet from the back of the garden to the house, but it seemed to take forever until she made it, pressing against the warm yellow siding between the door and the window.
There, she paused, breathing heavily.
It was strangely quiet. All the sounds of a normal afternoon were missing. No children laughed. No dogs barked. No cars rumbled by. She could hear her heart pounding, and her own rasping breaths.
It took a minute to steady her nerves enough to move again. Gritting her teeth, Harper inched along the wall to the window and stopped.
If this house was like the ones she knew, the kitchen would be here. All she needed to do was look into that window and she would know the truth. One way or another. If there was nothing there – if the murder scene were in the bedroom, or the living room – she was done here.
Steeling herself, she turned and took a sliding, sideways step to her left until she could see through the bottom sliver of window.
A uniformed policeman stood directly in front of her.
Harper jerked back, her heart pounding in her throat.
On the verge of panic, she stood stiffly, forehead pressing against the wall, nails digging into the yellow paint, breathing in the smell of dust and heat and her own fear.
It’s OK, she promised herself. It’s OK.
The cop’s back had been to her. There was no way he saw her.
Still, every muscle in her body tensed as she strained to hear what was happening.
There were no sounds of movement or alarm from inside the yellow house. Only the faint murmur of official voices, words too soft for her to make out.
Harper bit her lip hard, trying to decide what to do. A cop was right in front of the window. She was now at one hundred percent risk of getting caught.
But in that brief flashing view, she’d seen the kitchen. And something on the floor.
She couldn’t leave now. Not without knowing.
She took a strangled breath, hands clenching into fists against the sun-soaked wall. It took everything in her to slide back to the window and look again.
The policeman had shifted to the left. He was leaning back, his uniform dark against the glass. Harper could see past him on the right-hand side.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust from the bright sunlight to the shadowy interior.
It was a more modern kitchen than the one she’d grown up with, but not dissimilar – square and spacious. Cupboards – modern and expensive. A designer range, as big and glossy as a Land Rover.
Automatically, she noted indications of a struggle – chairs had been knocked over and the kitchen table had been shoved at an odd angle.
A cluster of men and women in white forensic suits stood over something on the floor. Harper recognized the chief coroner’s distinctive short, prematurely gray hair. She was studying something through a magnifying device and talking quietly to Detective Blazer, who crouched beside her, looking where she indicated, a notepad in one hand.
It was only when the coroner straightened to reach for another tool that Harper saw the body.
Her heart stopped beating.
It was her mother’s body.
The woman was naked, lying face down on the tile floor in a dark, viscous pool of blood. Against her paper-white skin, the wounds on her back and arms seemed lurid. Harper counted three stab wounds but, with all that blood, she knew there would be more on the other side.
One pale hand was flung out defensively to the side, delicate fingers reaching for something they would never touch. Her nails were painted pale pink.
Harper couldn’t tear her eyes away. She knew how cold that skin would feel if she touched it.
The woman’s wavy hair had been soaked in blood, making it hard to determine the color. It looked like red with streaks of gold.
The same as her mother’s hair.
Harper heard herself make a whimpering noise deep in her throat.
Instantly, the policeman on the other side of the window shifted. Shuffling his feet, he began to turn around.
Panicking, Harper yanked back, flattening herself against the wall next to the window.
Her ribs closed around her lungs.
She closed her eyes against the blinding sun, and images of that day so long ago flooded back. Sliding in the blood. Hands ice-cold and slippery.
Mom? Mommy?
It felt like her chest was going to explode. She had to breathe. She had to get out of here.
Blindly, she stumbled across the back garden, her feet clumsy where earlier they’d been so swift. She was certain everyone on the block could hear her hammering heart. Her choking breaths.
When she reached the back fence she didn’t even slow down. Using her forward velocity to propel her, she leaped up, grabbing the bar at the top and vaulting over. The sharp points of metal were blades digging into the palms of her hands and she let go too early, landing badly in the pretty backyard on the other side. Her ankle twisted with a worrying crunch, sending her sprawling into the petunias.
For a moment, she lay there amid the colorful blooms, clutching her leg and breathing in sobbing gasps.
That body. That hand, reaching out.
This was no coincidence. That murder scene looked exactly like her mother’s murder in every way.
How was that possible?
Chapter Ten
When Harper limped back to the crime tape a few minutes later, the news crews were leaning against their vans, drinking coffee from cardboard cups.
Spotting her, Natalie’s eyebrows shot up. ‘What the hell happened to you?�
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Harper had brushed as much of the dirt from her clothes as she could, but her ankle had begun to swell. She was hot and sweaty, her clothes clung to her back.
‘I tripped on a broken curb. Twisted my ankle.’ She made a vague gesture that she hoped said would-you-believe-it-what-a-day, and limped over to where Miles stood some distance away, watching this exchange without expression.
‘I assume that went as well as could be expected.’ His tone was dry.
‘It went fine,’ she said shortly. ‘How about at this end?’
He gave a one-shoulder shrug.
‘The TV crews are now very exercised about the lack of information.’ He gestured at her disheveled appearance. ‘What the hell happened back there? You look like you walked through a snake’s nest.’
‘I fell,’ she said, ‘coming back over the fence. That’s all.’
He stepped closer to her.
‘You got in the crime scene?’ His voice was barely above a whisper.
‘I got a look,’ she said. ‘I didn’t go in.’
He looked at her with reluctant curiosity.
‘What’d you see in there?’
In her mind Harper saw the pale body. The spreading pool of deep red. Her mother’s kitchen.
But she made herself think like a reporter.
‘The victim’s in the kitchen,’ she said evenly. ‘Looks like it’s the mother, as we thought. Seems to be only one victim – the coroner and Blazer were both in the room with her. The forensics unit is examining the body now.’
Miles knew her well enough to know she wasn’t telling him everything.
But when he spoke, all he said was, ‘She shot?’
‘Stabbed. Repeatedly.’
A flare of interest in his eyes.
‘Stabbing’s a personal crime,’ he mused, rubbing his jaw. ‘Crime of passion. They’ll be looking at the husband.’
‘I don’t think there is one.’
‘An ex-husband then. Or a boyfriend.’ He met her eyes. ‘You said this scene reminded you of another crime. Is it the same?’
Harper had promised him an explanation but now wasn’t the time to get into everything.
‘Looks a lot like it,’ she said. ‘Before I can be sure, though, I need to do some research.’ She paused. ‘The other crime … It’s an old one, Miles.’
The Echo Killing Page 7
