Inside the Echo

by Jen Blood

  The sun was shining, the air unseasonably warm, and the parking lot of Inn at the Rostay had already thinned out now that the missing had been found. Phantom hobbled along beside me, the wave of her tail enough to let me know she was happy to be out.

  I nodded toward the dining hall just down the way. “We could grab a cup of coffee…”

  “That would be good,” he agreed.

  Inside, the hall was now empty. A carafe of old, lukewarm coffee and a box of stale Dunkin Donuts were all that remained for any stragglers left behind. I snagged a cup for Jack and one for myself, and we took a table at the back. Phantom lay at my feet without being prompted and closed her eyes, immediately at ease.

  Jack made a face at the first taste of coffee, and set it aside.

  “Sorry,” I said. “At it’s best, that stuff wasn’t great. It’s not the kind of thing that gets better with age.”

  “True.”

  Awkward silence descended for only a few seconds before Jack finally cleared his throat, and began. “I wanted to let you know that I called my landlord this morning, and gave notice that I’d be moving out. I’ve had a month-to-month lease anyway, so he was fine with it. But it’s seemed like I’ve just been spinning my wheels there.”

  “Really?” I said. I couldn’t hide my surprise, but immediately started calculating. “We have a couple of rooms that are almost finished out on the island. I was assuming you’d be headed out there soon, so I’ve been pushing to get those done. There are—”

  He held up his hand, his face coloring slightly. “I, uh… I wasn’t planning on moving out to the island, actually. Not right now, at least. I’m thinking about setting up shop in Rockland.”

  My confusion must have shown, because he rushed to continue. “You’ve been incredibly patient with me over the past year, while I’ve been trying to figure out what my next step is. I’m not sure how I would have survived without that safety net. But, I think I’ve finally made a decision about what comes next.”

  “That being?”

  “Last week, I passed the Maine Professional Investigators Exam – I’d applied a couple of months ago, but there’ve been a few hiccups with my background check. That’s been resolved now, though.”

  “You’re going to be a PI?” I said.

  I tried to make it sound supportive, but I was still trying to figure out what this meant for my own business. If Carl was leaving and Jack wasn’t actually working for me, that meant I really needed to get on the stick about hiring someone else. Bear would be leaving for school in a year, and I had no idea what the future held for Ren. What did any of that mean for Flint K-9?

  “I am,” Jack said. “But I know this puts you in an awkward spot, since I’ve been so unclear with you about what I wanted to do or what my role would be with Flint K-9. I’m happy to keep working with you as long as you need me.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said. I took another sip of horrible coffee, and set the cup aside. Jack remained where he was, waiting for my reaction. I weighed my words carefully before I said anything. “I think this could actually be a really good thing for you. I can see you working for yourself and doing quite well, and God knows you have the experience necessary to make a go of this.”

  “But…”

  “No buts,” I said. “Really – I think this is good.” I met his eye, studying him frankly for a few seconds as the air warmed between us. “But…why don’t you want to work for me?”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to,” he said immediately. “At all. I just feel like this is a better fit for me, given my background. I’m hoping we’ll still be able to work together sometimes, though. I could definitely use your services with the dogs on some of my cases, I’m sure.”

  “Sure,” I agreed. “Just let me know.”

  I stood abruptly, nodding toward the window. Phantom got up more slowly than usual, and somewhere in the back of my mind I noted that she was favoring her left foreleg more than I’d realized.

  “We should get going. Carl’s got a lot on his plate, out on the island taking care of everything on his own.”

  “Wait a second,” Jack said. “I wasn’t done.”

  “It’s a long drive back. I appreciate you letting me know where you are with things, though.” I shrugged my coat back on and grabbed the still-half-full mug of coffee to take back to the counter.

  Before I was halfway there, Jack caught me by the arm. I turned to face him, and was surprised at the intensity in his eyes when I did.

  “You were right before,” he said.

  “Which time?”

  “A minute ago, when you asked why I don’t want to work for you.” He scratched the back of his neck, dropping his other hand from my arm. “You’re right about that, in a way.”

  I frowned. “If you have a problem working for a woman—”

  “I don’t. I’ve worked for lots of women before. Some of my best, most effective bosses have been women.”

  “Is it because of the whole vision thing? That dream I had about saving your life?”

  “No.” He hesitated. “Or maybe it is – a little. But that’s not the real issue.”

  I sighed. We really did have a long drive back, and if I now needed to find replacements for both Jack and Carl, I had to get started. “Okay. Well, Jack, either spill it or let’s just forget it. It’s done now, anyway. You’ve got your next move figured out.”

  “Not completely,” he said, half under his breath. Something in his voice made me stop. I stilled, waiting for him to continue. He wet his lips, and I was caught for a split second by the move. Jack had great lips.

  “You don’t date the men who work for you,” he finally said. “That’s a policy, isn’t it?”

  For a second, I had a hard time breathing. Jack studied me, bolder than I had expected. It took more time than it should have for me to find my voice. “It is. Dating my employees would make things too complicated. Ultimately, it isn’t fair to them.”

  “Well, then…” Jack began. He paused. I was drawn to his eyes, darkened pools that I suddenly couldn’t look away from. “It isn’t that I don’t want to work for Flint K-9. But if it means closing a door I’d rather keep open, I’ll find another job.”

  “Oh,” was the best I could manage, which made him smile. He took a step closer. The dining room was relatively dark. Completely deserted. Jack raised a hand to my face, and ran his knuckles along my cheekbone. There were other things I should be saying, a million reasons this wasn’t the right choice for me. Or were there? I couldn’t think straight. At the moment, all I could seem to focus on was the feel of his hand on my skin.

  Phantom bumped up against my thigh, and I settled my hand on her head. Jack’s smile widened as he continued reading my face. “We should go,” he said, his hand still light on my cheek.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Bear and Ren are probably wondering where we are.”

  He dropped his hand, but he held my eye all the same. My cheeks were burning when he opened the door for me and I stepped outside once more, into clear skies and bright sun. Jack walked beside me on one side, Phantom on the other. I would need to make some phone calls, place a few ads, to round out my team on the island. Jack’s hand brushed mine and, for a split second, our pinkies caught. And held.

  I decided I could deal with one less employee.

  Turn the page for a free sample of All the Blue-Eyed Angels, the first novel in the bestselling, now-complete Erin Solomon Pentalogy. There, you’ll get more background on Special Agent Jack Juarez and K-9 search and rescue handler Jamie Flint, who makes her first appearance in the Erin Solomon series in book two, Sins of the Father.

  Jonestown. The Solar Temple. Heaven’s Gate. In the summer of 1990, the Payson Church of Tomorrow joins the ranks of those infamous cult suicides when thirty-four members burn to death on a small island off the coast of Maine. At ten years old, Payson member Erin Solomon watches helplessly as the church and its congregation are reduced to ash and embers.


  More than twenty years later, Erin is an accomplished investigative journalist when she receives word that she has inherited Payson Isle... and all its ghosts. She returns to Maine to learn the truth behind the tragedy that has haunted her since childhood, aided by the rakish mentor who’s stood by her side since she was a teenager, her trusty mutt Einstein, and a mysterious stranger with his own dark past.

  Soon, Erin is enmeshed in a decades-old conspiracy rooted in lust, delusion, and betrayal, as she fights to unearth the secrets of the Payson Church of Tomorrow—secrets someone will kill to keep buried.

  Prologue

  AUGUST 22, 1990

  On my tenth birthday, I am baptized by fire.

  I race through a forest of smoke, ignoring the sting of blackberry brambles and pine branches on sensitive cheeks and bare arms. Up ahead, I catch a glimpse of my father’s shirt, drenched and muddy, as he races through the woods. I follow blindly, too terrified to scream, too panicked to stop.

  A figure in black chases us, gaining on me fast. At ten years old, raised in the church, I am certain that it is the devil himself. He wears a hooded cloak; I imagine him taking flight at my heels, reaching for me with gnarled fingers. I run faster, my breath high in my chest, trees speeding past. The air gets thicker and harder to breathe the closer we get to the fire, but I don’t stop.

  The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

  I can hear him behind me, three or four steps back at most, his breath coming hard and his hands getting closer.

  I skid into the clearing certain that I’m safe now—I’ve reached the church. The church is always safe.

  But today, nothing is safe. Flames climb the blackened walls of the chapel, firemen circling with hoses to keep the surrounding forest from burning. My father has arrived ahead of me—I find him kneeling in front of a pile of rubble just feet from the flames. His shoulders shake as he cries.

  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters.

  I go to him because I know no one else will, and wrap my arms around his neck. When I scan the tree line, the man I felt behind me just moments before is gone. Now, there is no one but the firemen, the local constable, and my mother with her doctor’s bag and no survivors to heal.

  I pray in my father’s ear, whispering words of comfort the way he always has for me. There is a smell that sticks in my throat and turns my stomach, but only when my mother comes for me, trying to pull me away, do I realize what that smell is.

  He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me on a path of righteousness for His name’s sake.

  A coal black, claw-like hand reaches from beneath the pile of burned debris where my father weeps. A few feet beyond, I see a flash of soot-stained white feathers, china-blue eyes, and a painted smile that seems suddenly cruel. I stay there, fixated on the doll, until my mother takes me in her arms and forces me away.

  She sets me on the wet grass and places a mask over my face so that I can breathe. The oxygen tastes like cold water after a long drought. I sit still while the rain washes over me and my father cries and the church burns to the ground.

  I’m just beginning to calm down when I feel a presence like warm breath at the back of my neck, and I turn once more toward the trees.

  The cloaked man stands at the edge of the woods, his hood down around his shoulders. Rain plasters dark hair against his head. Water drips down high cheekbones and a thin, sharp nose.

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

  The words of my favorite Psalm stutter in my head—Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

  The man in black turns his head, his dark eyes fixing on mine.

  My cup runneth over.

  He puts a finger to his thin lips and whispers to me through the chaos.

  “Sshhh.”

  More than twenty years will pass before I pray again.

  Chapter 1

  I returned to my hometown of Littlehope, Maine, on a wet afternoon when the town was locked in fog. A cold rain filled the potholes and pooled on the shoulder of coastal Route 1, ensuring that I hydroplaned most of the drive up from Boston. I hadn’t set foot in Littlehope since my high school graduation, when I left the town behind in a beaten-to-hell Honda Civic with the vow that I would never return.

  That was fifteen years ago.

  Littlehope is a fishing village at the end of a peninsula on Penobscot Bay, about two hours from Portland. It’s known for Bennett’s Lobster Shanty, the Ladies Auxiliary Quilting League, and a small but determined band of drug runners who rule the harbor. Littlehope also happens to be ten miles as the crow flies from the island where thirty-four members of the Payson Church of Tomorrow burned to death and where, a decade later, my father hanged himself in their honor.

  They say you can’t go home again. In my case, it seems more apt to ask why the hell you’d ever want to.

  I walked through the front door of the Downeast Daily Tribune just after eleven o’clock that Wednesday morning. The Trib has delivered the news to three counties in the Midcoast for over fifty years, from an ugly concrete block of a building on Littlehope’s main drag. Across the road, you’ll find the Episcopal Church, the local medical clinic, and the only bar in town. My mother used to joke that the layout was intentional—locals could get plastered and beat the crap out of each other Saturday night, stumble next door to get patched up, and stop in to see the neighborhood preacher for redemption on Sunday morning.

  The first job I ever had was as Girl Friday at the Trib, fetching coffee and making copies for the local newshounds, occasionally typing up copy when no one else was around or they were too lazy to do it themselves. Walking through the familiar halls that morning, I soaked in the smells of fresh ink and old newspapers, amazed at the things people are usually amazed at when they come home after a lifetime away: how small the building was, how outdated the décor, how it paled in comparison to my golden memories.

  My comrade-in-arms, Einstein—part terrier, part Muppet, and so-named not for any propensity toward genius but rather for his unruly white curls—padded along beside me, ears and tail up, his nails clicking on the faded gray linoleum floor. Plaques and photos decorated the concrete walls, some dating back to my teenage days with the paper. I passed two closed doors before I reached the newsroom—the last door on the right, with yellowed Peanuts comics taped to the window and the sound of a BBC newscast coming from within. Einstein’s tail started wagging, his body shimmying with the motion, the second he caught scent of the company we were about to keep.

  “Settle, buddy,” I said, my hand on the doorknob—though in fairness the words were probably more for me than him. The dog glanced up at me and whined.

  I opened the door and had only a second to get my bearings before I was spotted; it’s hard to be stealthy when a bullet of fur precedes you into the room. Daniel Diggins—aka Diggs to almost everyone on the planet—greeted my mutt with more enthusiasm than I knew I would get, crouching low to fondle dogged ears and dodge a few canine kisses while I took stock of the old homestead.

  The computers had been updated since I’d been there last, but were still out of date. The desks were the same, though: six hulking metal things with jagged edges and scratched surfaces, buried under the detritus of the newspaper biz—piles of paperwork, oversized computer monitors, and half-eaten bags of junk food. A couple of overweight, graying reporter-types were on cell phones on one side of the room, while Diggs and another man stood at a desk that had once been mine. Behind them, a wall-mounted TV was tuned to MSNBC.

  Before Diggs straightened to say hello, the other half of the duo locked eyes with me. Though we’d never met face to face, it was clear from the man’s pointed glare who he was—and that, unlike me, he had not been looking forward to this meeting.

  “Are you planning on saying hello to me at all, or is this visit gonna be all about the dog?” I asked Diggs, if only to break the sudden tension in the room.

  “It�
��s always all about the dog,” Diggs said. “You should know that by now.” He stood and enveloped me in a warm hug. I held on tight, lost in a smell of wool and comfort that would forever be associated with the best parts of my youth.

  “How’re you doing, kiddo?” he asked. The words were quiet, warm in my ear—a question between just the two of us before I got started. I stepped out of his embrace with what I hoped was a businesslike nod.

  “Good. I’m good.”

  “Good,” he said. “And the drive was…?”

  “The drive was fine, Diggs.”

  He smiled—a slow grin that’s been charming women around the globe for as long as I can remember. Though I hadn’t visited Littlehope in over a decade, Diggs and I never lost touch. Our latest visit had been a few months before, but he looked no different than he always does: curly hair stylishly unkempt, his five o’clock shadow edging closer to a beard than I’d seen it in some time. He was toying with me now. Diggs likes that kind of thing.

  When it became clear that I wasn’t playing along, he nodded toward the other man at the desk.

  “Noel,” Diggs said. “This is Erin Solomon. Erin, Noel Hammond.”

  Hammond extended his hand to me like someone had a gun at his back, and we shook.

  “Nice to finally meet you, Noel. Thanks for coming.”

  “Diggs didn’t give me much choice.”

  So, Diggs had come through again—this time by delivering a much-needed source at my feet. “Yeah, well, he knew he’d have to put up with my bitching otherwise. It won’t take long.”

  “This is about your book, then?” he asked.

  I glanced at Diggs, making no effort to conceal my displeasure. “You heard about that?”

  “The whole town’s heard about that,” Hammond said. “It was the lead story in the paper about a month back. The book deal, you inheriting Payson Isle… Everybody knows about it.”