What Echoes Render Read online

  “So if it was Aaron that hit his father and then set off the bomb, he’s probably responsible for his father’s death either way,” David said.

  “But if he hit his father and tried to defuse the bomb, he was likely acting in some form of self-defense,” Ian countered.

  David had to admit that, even though he would track the evidence where it took him, the idea of Aaron Greene being involved in this debacle as a hero rather than a killer appealed to him. He knew it was possible for a kid to be cold-blooded, to build bombs and set fires that killed people. But he preferred to give the young man the benefit of the doubt. And though everyone he’d met so far at Riverside had maintained professional detachment and no one had raved about Aaron being innocent, it was clear from how they talked about him, how they talked about the situation, that everyone was having a hard time buying he was the bad guy in all this.

  CHAPTER 2

  PERCHED ON THE BLEACHERS with the other parents, Jesse watched Matt and Danielle stretch and warm up on the inner ring of the track. Matt must have said something funny because Danielle threw her head back and laughed. Jesse smiled. Looking at the two of them, it was hard for her to believe that at their age she had already met and become engaged to Mark, Matt’s father.

  And within a year of that, she’d had Matt. It hadn’t been easy being married so young, and with a baby to boot, but Mark had been quite a bit older and, at least for the first several years of their marriage, loving and supportive of her.

  Resting her elbows on her knees, she gazed at the two kids warming up as she reflected on her own journey from teenager to adult. Mark had been adamant that she continue college as she’d planned. And despite having Matt, and a little more than two years later, James, she’d finished in four years and then gone on to graduate school.

  She’d started working at Riverside shortly after that, and when the boys were seven and five, they’d bought a house in Windsor. With two young kids, a marriage, and a full-time job, most of those first ten years or so seemed a blur.

  Then, suddenly, the boys were riding their bikes into town, going to school dances, and in just a few short months, Matt would be off to college. When she was living it, her own path hadn’t seemed so strange, but watching her son now, she wished him, and Danielle, many more carefree years as young adults.

  “Thinking this will all be over soon?” Abigail sat down next to her, offering to share a blanket she’d brought. It was a warm spring night, but Abigail was constantly cold.

  Jesse smiled. “Actually, I was thinking that I hope they don’t lose their carefree ways for many years to come,” she said, feeling Abigail’s eyes on her.

  “You did start young,” Abigail conceded.

  Jesse gave an unladylike snort. “You can say that again. And while I don’t regret it—how could I?” she said with a nod to Matt. “I wouldn’t wish it on them. I’m going to miss him, but I’m glad he’s going off to college this fall. I just hope he takes advantage of it all.”

  Abigail gave her a little bump of support. “You’re a great mom. He’s a good kid. He’ll do great. And speaking of great kids,” Abigail’s voice trailed off as James, Jesse’s younger son, came jogging up.

  “Mom,” he said, stopping in front of the two women.

  “Hi, honey. How was your physics test today?” she asked.

  Like a typical fifteen-year-old, James rolled his eyes. “Easy, cakewalk,” he answered.

  The scary thing was, it probably was a cakewalk for him. Her younger son was a bit of a science and math savant. Something he probably inherited from his dad.

  “Coach wants us to warm up with the varsity team,” he continued. “But then Cameron and I want to head into town and grab something to eat. Can you pick me up there after the meet?” As a freshman, his main track season had ended a few weeks earlier, but like his brother, James was a runner at heart, and with a few off-season meets still left in the school year, the chance to run and socialize wasn’t one James would pass up. It also didn’t hurt that his current love interest had joined the team.

  “Sure, bring your phone though, so I can reach you if I need to. Do you need any money?” Jesse asked.

  “Nah, I got it. You’re the best,” he answered, then jogged off.

  Jesse watched him join a group of kids. Both her boys looked a lot like their dad, she mused. Olive skin, dark-brown hair, and lanky forms. But they both had her eyes. And not that it mattered, but she secretly liked that fact. They were good-looking boys, but most importantly, to her especially, they were generally good kids.

  “Like I was saying, you know you’re doing something right when your fifteen-year-old tells you you’re the best,” Abigail pointed out.

  Jesse laughed. “It’s not like we don’t have our days, but you’re right, I think we’re all lucky to have each other. Oh, look.” She spotted Vivi walking toward them and waved her over.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the little vixen,” Vivi said, smiling coyly as she sat down beside them.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jesse answered. But of course she did, and both Vivi and Abigail snickered.

  “What are you doing here? I thought we were going to meet later. Isn’t Ian all up in arms about you having been on your feet all day today?” Jesse asked, trying to change the subject.

  “That sounds like a nice change—I’ve been sitting on my ass all day.” All three women looked up at the sound of a fourth voice to find their friend Matty Brooks walking toward them. She eyed the empty bleacher seat beside Vivi, looked to be debating whether or not to stand, then sat.

  “Plugging away on your next book?” Jesse asked.

  Matty was a renowned author of political thrillers. Having spent most of her life inside the DC beltway, she was a fairly recent transplant to Windsor, as was Vivi. But still, Jesse and Abigail, who’d lived there their whole lives, had become fast friends with both women. It didn’t hurt that she and, though to lesser extent given the age difference, Abigail had grown up with Vivi and Matty’s husbands.

  Matty let out a dramatic sigh. “My deadline is in a month. I know I shouldn’t be freaking out about it yet, but I’ve reached the point where I can’t stand my characters anymore,” she answered.

  “But that’s a good thing, right?” Abigail asked. “Doesn’t that usually happen when you’re almost done?”

  “A coping mechanism because you’re about to have to let them go?” Vivi added with a grin.

  “Don’t shrink me, doctor lady,” Matty shot back with her own smile. Not only was Vivi a medical doctor, she also had a PhD in psychology.

  “When is your next book out?” Jesse asked.

  “End of June. We’ll have to have a launch party,” Matty added in a tone that suggested the party might be the only thing that could incentivize her to finish.

  “It will be a month of parties, with all the graduations, too,” Jesse mused. It was still a little hard to believe that her baby was graduating from high school in less than a month. Her baby whose six-foot-three frame was about to start his first race of the meet. By unspoken agreement, all four women fell silent as they watched Matt lap the track four times and easily finish in the first position. Jesse glanced at the time clock. He’d be happy he won but not with his time.

  “So, what are you both doing here?” Jesse asked, returning her attention to Vivi and Matty.

  “Ian is helping Meghan serve ice cream out front,” Vivi answered. Meghan Conners owned a local ice cream shop. A young, single mom who’d not only had a really rough childhood, but she’d also been tortured and nearly killed by a crazy man around the time Vivi had come to town the year before. Meghan had proven to be a fighter, for both herself and her young son, and had recovered from the ordeal; however, Vivi and Ian tended to take special care of her. She was working hard to grow her ice cream business and it wasn’t a surprise Ian was there to help.

  “I wanted to help, too, but Ian insisted I sit down. The overbearing beast,�
�� Vivi added with a grin.

  “Oh, you love it when he’s overbearing,” Matty shot back. Vivi’s grin turned into a smile.

  “And what about you, Matty?” Abigail asked.

  “Kristen Harwick joined the JV team this year,” Matty explained. “Of course her father, the bastard, hasn’t been to a single one of her meets, so Dash and I are here,” Matty said, referring to her husband.

  “Kristen’s dad is a very busy man,” Abigail offered.

  “Kristen’s father is an ass. But at least she has us. Dash is just getting us some food.”

  Before Dash had married Matty and moved into her house, Kristen had been his neighbor. Matty had met the young girl last fall when she’d gone with Dash, a veterinarian, to care for Kristen’s horse, Bogey—the only living thing that had truly seemed to care for Kristen at the time. Having known what it was like to have an absentee father, Matty and the girl had become quick friends. Matty, a city girl at heart, had even allowed Kristen to teach her how to ride.

  Jesse turned her gaze away from her son and glanced at her friends, all of them happily married, and for more than two decades in Abigail’s case since she’d married Joe Martinez right out of college. For a moment, she wished Carly and Kit were there, her two good friends who were single, like her. She and Mark had had a good run, but the fact was, she was alone now. And while she liked it most of the time, liked it enough not to want to change it, sometimes the affection and familiarity she heard in her friends’ voices when they talked about their husbands caused a little pang in her heart.

  “So, tell me about the hottie,” Vivi said, returning to the topic Jesse had hoped they would drop. Especially now that she was sitting amongst the married set.

  “The state sent an arson investigator down to look into what happened this morning at the Greenes’ place,” Vivi filled Matty in. “And he’s definitely some serious eye candy.”

  “And he was making serious eyes at Jesse today,” Abigail added.

  Jesse rolled her eyes. “We were talking, of course he was looking at me.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize your ass could talk ’cause that’s where I saw him looking,” Vivi interjected, making her other two friends hoot. Jesse tried to keep a straight face but failed in the face of so much laughter.

  “Oh look, Danielle’s race is starting.” Her attempt to redirect her friends wasn’t fooling anyone. But this was exactly why she didn’t date. She loved her friends, but dating someone, or even showing an interest in someone, would lead to questions about dates, and then questions about more dates, and then questions about where it was all leading, and all the things she just wasn’t interested in talking about. Not that having a hot night with David Hathaway wasn’t appealing—who was she kidding, of course it was appealing—but it wasn’t worth the complications if people found out. Maybe, when she was older and the kids were out of the house and she was beyond the age where everyone still considered marriage as par for the course, she might start dating. But at the age of thirty-six, with a group of married friends, mostly newly married friends, and some even expecting children, that age was a long way off.

  Mercifully, her friends let her off the hook after that. They spent the rest of the meet cheering the kids on while chatting off and on about nothing of substance. And beyond general sounds of sympathy, no one seemed inclined to talk about the fire that had claimed a life and left a young man in the hospital. But then again, no one other than Vivi, Abigail, Ian, and Jesse knew it was more than a fire. It would come out eventually. David’s investigation would become public. But for now, she was thankful people were still sympathizing with Aaron rather than speculating about his character.

  The meet came to a close and Matt stopped by to let her know he was going into town with his teammates for pizza. After making arrangements for Matt to pick up James, Jesse spent a few more minutes saying good-bye to her friends then made her way out to her car to head home, having opted to skip dinner with Vivi and Ian. It had been a long day, starting with work at seven a.m. Now, twelve hours later, she was ready to head home, pour a glass of wine, and sit on her porch.

  Or not.

  “Crud,” she grumbled as she reached her car. It was sitting so lopsided in the parking lot there was no missing the two flat tires. At a loss for a moment, she just stared. The tires were fairly new; the whole car was only two years old. That she would have two flat tires didn’t seem logical and her mind was having a hard time accepting it.

  A car door slammed shut somewhere in the parking lot behind her and the wind picked up, bringing with it the smell of freshly cut grass, the sound of kids laughing, and the pinch of reality biting her on the butt. Mumbling a curse, she slipped her keys back into her purse and grabbed her phone.

  “There a problem?” came Ian’s voice as he and Vivi pulled up beside her.

  “You could say that,” Jesse said, motioning to her tires even as she kept the phone to her ear. “I’m trying to get a hold of Richie to have him give me a tow. Or bring some tires out to replace these.”

  Ian parked, and he and Vivi both slid out of their car and approached Jesse. Richie, the town’s auto mechanic, wasn’t answering his phone at the moment, so she hung up and stood with her friends, gazing at her car. Beside her, Ian contemplated her little Subaru for a moment before going down on his haunches beside her rear tire. He stayed there for a minute or two before moving to examine the front tire.

  Standing back up, he frowned. “Someone slashed them.”

  “What?” she stuttered. It wasn’t unheard of to have petty vandalism in Windsor. It had just never happened to her.

  Vivi went through the same motions her husband just had. “I can see it. Here,” she said, pointing to a small slice in the rear tire. “And here,” she said pointing to an identical one in the front tire.

  Jesse hadn’t seen the cuts when she’d first noticed the tires. She’d been so surprised to see them flat in the first place that she hadn’t looked further. But now that it had been pointed out to her, it was obvious it hadn’t been an accident or something she’d driven over that had caused the problem.

  “Anyone been bothering you lately?” Ian asked, reaching for his phone. He didn’t say a thing but she had known Ian long enough to know he was calling some of his fellow law enforcement.

  Jesse shook her head. “This is city jurisdiction, not county,” she pointed out, knowing full well that Ian, the county sheriff, would ignore her. But still she tried and added, “You don’t have to call anything in. I’m sure it was just kids messing around.”

  Ian responded with a flat look. “All the more reason to see if we can figure out who might have done this. If it’s kids, we might have a chance of stopping them from choosing a life of crime,” he said.

  She rolled her eyes at his overdramatization of the situation. His lips twitched as he started speaking into his phone.

  “Your husband is overreacting just a tad, don’t you think?” Jesse asked, turning to Vivi.

  Vivi shrugged. “Probably. It’s what he does when he thinks someone he cares about might be in harm’s way. But it can’t hurt to get a police report. It will help with getting insurance to cover the cost of new tires,” her friend answered practically.

  It was a good reason to at least have a report taken—one she hadn’t thought of. Whether she would actually report it to her insurance or not remained to be seen. It would probably be easier just to pay for the things herself than to go through all the paperwork it would take to get reimbursed.

  “Vivienne, why don’t you take Jesse home? Carly and Marcus are going to come along. I can take it from here and they can give me a ride home,” Ian said, still holding the phone to his ear.

  Vivi looked to her for input. For a moment, Jesse thought about staying. It would hardly be a hardship to answer a few questions and then arrange for her car to be towed. But then again, Ian liked to take care of people. It was part of who he was. And at the moment, having someone take care of her, just
a little bit, didn’t sound so bad.

  “Thank you, Ian. I’d appreciate that, if it won’t be too much trouble?”

  He shook his head in response and began filling Carly and Marcus, two of Windsor’s police officers, in on the plan. She grabbed her computer from the trunk of her car then climbed into Ian’s truck with Vivi behind the wheel. Ian came to the window and after Jesse agreed to touch base with him later to get the details about where to pick up her car in the morning, she and Vivi drove out of the parking lot and headed north through town. She was thinking of the glass of wine on her porch again when Vivi spoke with a grin.

  “So, tell me about this arson investigator.”

  Jesse groaned.

  CHAPTER 3

  “DAVID, THIS IS JESSE BAKER at Riverside Hospital. You asked me to call you when Aaron Greene was awake.” Jesse tapped her pencil on her desk as she spoke.

  “How long ago?” he asked.

  He had a nice voice, she realized as she listened to it on the other end of the line. Not too eager, but not cautious either. It had the practical and confident quality of a man who knew his job well.

  “About twenty minutes. Dr. Martinez has been in with him, but I wanted to let you know,” she answered.

  “Has anyone else been in there?”

  She paused before answering. She didn’t think she’d done anything wrong but wasn’t sure.

  “I have.”

  He didn’t speak for a moment, but she could hear the sound of him closing a car door.

  “I’m on my way, and please don’t let anyone else other than the doctor in with him,” he said.

  “Fair enough, if you agree to meet with me before you go in,” Jesse said. She knew she had no right to make such a request, but an urge to protect Aaron had made her say it anyway.

  David said nothing for a moment; over the phone she heard the rumble of a car engine starting in the background.