Trail of Echoes Read Online Free PDF

anyway.”
    â€œDon’t know who she is. But at least she’s been found.” I peered past the center’s iron-grated windows. No Vanessa. No Smokey Robinson the Ranger.
    â€œThis park seemed so safe,” he said, shaking his head. “And it’s always crowded. Somebody must’ve seen what happened.”
    I held out my healthy right hand and we shook. “Thank you for offering free medical advice that will go unheeded until it’s too late.”
    â€œAnytime. So if I have anything to add to your investigation—?”
    â€œYou know something?”
    He smiled, then said, “How would I reach you, Detective…?”
    â€œNorton. And you’re…?”
    â€œZach. Is there a law against making shit up just to see a pretty detective again?”
    I tapped the puddle beneath my boot. “False reporting. A misdemeanor. Look, I really—”
    â€œWhat if I wanted to ask the pretty detective out for coffee and conversation? You do like coffee and conversation, right?”
    My left arm tingled, and I glanced back at the crumbling hill where my team huddled over a dead girl. Getting picked up a half mile away seemed like laughing at a funeral. Yes, life continued, but damn, could Jane Doe get a moment? And could Vanessa freakin’ call me?
    â€œThank you for the offer,” I said, “but I really don’t have—”
    â€œDetective Norton!” Amber Andersen had snuck beneath the yellow tape and was now standing a few feet away. “Detective, could I have a moment?”
    I frowned, then said to Zach, “Thanks, again.”
    â€œHow do I get in touch with you?” he asked. “Seriously: in the clinics, I hear all kinds of random neighborhood gossip.”
    I reached into my pocket for a business card. “If you hear anything.”
    He studied the card as I tromped back to the trail.
    â€œGood luck,” he shouted.
    I gave him a thumbs-up—I’d need all the luck in the world.

 
    7
    At almost six o’clock, my team and I had worked the scene for five hours, and our mood matched the weather: cold, wet, and bitter. The rain had stopped, but another storm front still charged toward us.
    â€œWhat the hell’s taking so long?” Pepe groused as he lit his third cigarette in twenty minutes. He stood with Luke and me at the lip of the bluff, waiting for deputy medical examiner Dr. Spencer Brooks to finish with the girl.
    We scowled at Brooks’s team.
    They scowled back at us.
    Zucca and his crew had drawn the shortest stick—they had to wait until after Brooks moved Jane Doe to gather any evidence hidden beneath her.
    My feet and wrist hurt, and my body ached from wearing a miniholster stuffed with a G42, a ballistics vest beneath a muddy sweater, and a drenched trench coat.
    Brooks didn’t care about my aching feet or Pepe’s chain-smoking. He had a job to do, and as an old friend of mine at the coroner’s office said: it’s the best of jobs, it’s the worst of jobs, and it’s the most important job.
    Important job or not, a storm was still barreling upon us, and each inch of rain hampered our ability to see the toes of our shoes. A bank of halogen lamps bathed the trail and hillside with pure light and kept the darkness at bay. Those yellow evidence flags noting the girl’s descent onto the trail barely stood upright in the mud and grass.
    â€œWe need to get her out of here,” I muttered, still glaring at Brooks’s team.
    â€œI tried scowling. Doesn’t work.” Luke opened a packet of saladitos, then offered me one. “The doc ain’t comin’ out, not now, not ever.”
    I popped a salted apricot in my mouth, then checked my phone—nothing from Vanessa.
    â€œI wonder who she is,” Pepe said. “And why the hell is she here?”
    â€œI wanna see that duffel bag.” I reached again into Luke’s packet of saladitos.