Marta Perry - Sound Of Fear

The firm was Alter and Glassman. Obviously news spread fast here. “Trey?” she questioned.

“Theodore James Alter.” Esther’s smile widened. “His father and grandfather had the same name, so everyone calls him Trey.”

Amanda stowed that information away. Obviously Alter was well-known here. Whether that would help her or not, she didn’t know.

“I had some business with the office. I don’t know Mr. Alter socially.” And the idea of having him along when she went to the falls didn’t appeal. “I saw a painting of the falls once,” she added. If Esther knew everything that went on in town, she might have been aware of Juliet’s visit, although there didn’t seem much chance she’d remember it after all these years.

“A painting. Think of that, now. I’ve seen lots of photographs of the falls, but never a painting.” She shrugged. “Funny, that is, but people have kind of odd feelings about the falls.”

“Odd?” Amanda had her own reasons for mixed emotions about the falls, but...

“Lots of superstitions, you know.” Esther seemed vaguely uneasy. “I don’t put much stock in those old stories myself.”

“What kind of old stories?” She asked the question around a spoonful of vegetable soup, rich with tender beef chunks.

Esther frowned, brushing her palms down the front of her white apron. “Ach, old Indian tales and the like.” She hesitated. “There’s one that says you should never climb up the trail by the falls alone. Seems if you do...”

The pause might have been for effect, but Amanda suspected the woman’s hesitation was genuine enough. “Yes?”

“They say if you do, you’ll hear something following you. Coming after you. All you can hear is the rushing water and the footsteps behind you.”

Esther’s rosy face had lost some of its color. She wasn’t putting this on to entertain the tourist. Suddenly she flicked her apron, as if shaking something off it.

“Ach, that’s all nonsense, probably made up to keep kids away. I don’t believe a word of it.”

Amanda didn’t, either, of course. She was far too sensible to be frightened by ghost stories.

But the words lingered in her mind like a cobweb clinging to her fingers, impossible to shake away.

* * *

“SO HOW DID the appointment with the new client go?” Jason Glassman, Trey’s law partner, tossed some mail on Trey’s desk. “Anything there?”

Trey shrugged. “Doubtful.” He and Jason had spent plenty of hours trying to rebuild the firm in the past few months, and he didn’t think Amanda Curtiss’s wild-goose chase was going to help them.

“Don’t tell me your big-shot Boston friend sent you someone who doesn’t have a case.”

“Worse.” He frowned. “At least, I think it’s worse. It’s either going to be time wasted on nothing at all, or it’s going to be something...”

“What?”

“I’m not sure.” He couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that if there was any substance to Amanda’s story, it would lead to a messy situation that wouldn’t do the firm or himself any good.

Jason was waiting patiently for an answer, something that showed how much he’d changed since he’d arrived in Echo Falls last spring. Then, patience hadn’t been part of his vocabulary. Credit his recent engagement for that, Trey supposed.

“It’s too soon to say whether there’s anything to it or not. I’ll let you know once...” The sentence trailed off as he glanced out the window. There, on the opposite side of the street, was Amanda Curtiss, apparently having a heart-to-heart with Esther Beiler in front of the coffee shop.

If Amanda was looking for town gossip, she’d somehow landed right in the spot where the latest news was shared, embellished and passed on. Even as he watched, Esther pointed at the ridge, clearly showing Amanda the location of the falls.

“I’ll catch you up on it later,” he said, and hurried for the door.

Trey dodged an older model pickup coming down the street at a snail’s pace and reached the sidewalk to find Esther Beiler beaming at him.

“Ach, Trey, you’re chust in time. I was telling your friend that she’d best have you go with her up to the falls, ain’t so?”

His friend? He’d have to let that go with Esther’s curious gaze fixed on him. “Sure thing. I’d be glad to take her.”

He turned to Amanda, trying to keep a smile on his face. “If you’re ready, I’ll walk back to the car with you. We’ll set up a time to go.”

Amanda evaded his glance. Thanking Esther, she stepped off the curb. But any plans she might have to avoid talking to him were foiled as she had to pause for an Amish buggy to roll slowly past.

Trey raised his hand to Eli Miller and his oldest boy, probably headed to the hardware store, and then touched Amanda’s elbow to guide her across the street as if she were his elderly grandmother.

She glared at him, shaking her arm free. “I can walk across the street on my own, thank you. And there’s no need to take me to the falls. Esther gave me very good directions.”

“I’ll bet.” His lips quirked. “I’ve heard Esther’s idea of directions. ‘Go down the Pauley Road until you come to where Stoltzfus’s barn used to be before they built the new one...’”

Amanda preserved the glare for another second before her lips curved in a smile that showed a dimple at the upper corner. “They were something like that, I have to say. But really, there’s no need for me to take you away from your work. Just tell me something I can put into the GPS.”

“I doubt if there is an address it would recognize.” Besides, keeping an eye on Amanda Curtiss seemed like a good idea, if not a full-time job. “Tell you what. I’ll meet you tomorrow and take you up there. Okay?”

“Why not now?” Her eyebrows lifted.

“First, because you’re not dressed for a hike.” He nodded toward her suede boots and light wool slacks. “And neither am I. Second, because that will give me a chance to look for some of the answers you want.”

She studied him, as if wondering whether he was stalling. “You think you’ll be able to find something that quickly?”

“If there was a death that was somehow connected to the falls in 1989, I’m sure my dad would know about it. And he can be trusted not to spread your story all over town.”

“That’s really worrying you, isn’t it? I don’t see why.”

They’d reached the car by then, and he put a hand on the door when she would have opened it. In an instant the dog had sprung to the window, baring a formidable set of teeth.

“Nice to know you’re so well-protected,” he commented, moving his hand away from the glass. “This is a small town.”

“You said that before,” she pointed out. “I still don’t see why anyone would be interested in why I’m here.”

“You don’t know a town like this. Esther will be talking about you to the next person who comes into the café. Not maliciously, you understand. Just sharing. And that person will mention you to someone else.”

Amanda’s firm jaw set stubbornly. “I’m not hiding anything.”

“Then you’re not thinking it through.” He resisted the urge to raise his voice and glanced around, but no one was within earshot. “From what you told me, you obviously think there’s a good chance your birth mother was connected with Echo Falls. People here are old-fashioned. Do you think they’ll welcome someone stirring up what might have been an old scandal? Or sharing their private family secrets with the world?”

Her clear blue eyes seemed to darken. “You think I’m an illegitimate child no one will want to claim.”

“That’s not what I think. I think you’re building too much on something that probably has no relationship to your parentage. I get it, really. It must have been an enormous shock to be faced with that news so soon after your mother’s death.”