Echo Falls squatted in northwestern Massachusetts, east of Highway 91, north of Route 2. A town lost in time, tucked in its own little world. Settlers had followed the law of least effort, taking advantage of the natural fall of water from Holbrook Pond to Bitter Lake, which then emptied into the Prosper River and into the Connecticut River. To make up for the falls’ lack of grandeur, the founding family had somewhere along the road built a spectacular granite arch bridge over the fast-moving river.
Originally water powered the wool mills; now it was electricity. The surviving mill buildings still stood on their original site, reflecting on the pond on sunny days. Built in 1774, Holbrook House still faced south, overlooking the river. As the family grew, more estates were built on Holbrook land. Five grand brick homes once lorded over the lower village where the peons lived in boardinghouses on Peanut Row. In the late 1800s, that constituted enough political power to divert a railway to this nothing town.
The train had long ago stopped coming and the tracks turned into nature trails. Modern gabled capes, contemporaries and colonials mixed in with the old brick homes, Victorians and farmhouses. Posh homes still cropped up in the small upper village. Working stiffs still lived paycheck to paycheck in the larger lower village. Of course, Holbrooks didn’t own all the fancy homes now, only the original house on Mill Road.
As Gray crested over the last hill, he let out a breath he wasn’t aware he’d held. Orange construction barricades closed off the old bridge and redirected traffic through the lower village. Great. He’d hoped to avoid meandering through the center of town.
At least the rain watered down the hard edges. He didn’t really want to see the old hometown and all the bitter memories that stagnated there. The plan was to talk to his sister, get a lead on Abbie and get out of this hellhole as fast as possible. Take it in like a reporter, Gray. Or a travel writer. Notice, don’t feel.
He gritted his teeth as he passed the middle school. Even through the slosh of rain and the tint of his sunglasses every ugly detail glared at him. His grip tightened on the steering wheel and he pretended not to see the redbrick building. Voices from the past crowded in, making his skin shrink too tightly around him. Cry-baby. Loser. Wimp. You can’t do anything right. Run, you coward, run.
Coward.
He rolled his shoulders, trying to dislodge the old taunts that had been the steady staple of his school years.
To his left, the high school’s mustard-brick facade smeared between swipes of his wipers. There he was voted most likely to fail and end up in jail. This in spite of being ranked ninth in a class of one hundred and three, lettering in three sports and working twenty-five hours a week. Ironic really that his job was putting scumbags back behind bars where they belonged. Including, once, a former classmate. The all-grown-up Mr. Soccer Star still liked to pick on boys who were smaller than he was.
Who’s laughing now?
It was all in the past. He was no longer the runt who had to play class clown or run to save his hide. He no longer had to fight his sister for the last scrap of food on the table. He could stand up straight and be proud of who he was and what he’d become. He was good enough for anyone—including Abbie.
Yeah, right. Her old man would still have found fault with him.
At Peanut Row he slowed. The old weight of doom he’d dragged around like a ball and chain fitted itself around his neck. He loosened his tie. You’re not that kid anymore.
Spinners’ Tavern still stood on the corner. Still had a steady clientele even at eleven in the morning. His mother had probably spent more time on the second bar stool from the right than she had at home. Like a stick of peppermint gum was going to mask the booze and fool them into thinking she’d actually gone to work for a change.
The last house on this dead-end street looked better than the last time he’d seen it. The door and shutters wore a fresh coat of lipstick-red paint. But not even the bright color could erase the tired slouch of the roofline or the defeat of the sagging siding. The wipers taunted him, coward, coward, coward.
Now that he was here, he wasn’t quite sure what to do. The last time he’d talked to Brynna, she’d screamed at him to never call her again and had slammed down the phone. All of his calls after that were screened through a voice box, and she hadn’t returned any. But then Bryn had never played by anyone’s rules; she’d made up her own. That’s what got her kicked out of the police academy. Last he’d heard she’d gotten a P.I. license. He couldn’t imagine that business was booming for her here.
Maybe she was right. Maybe he was a coward for not pushing the issue. Maybe he had run from his responsibility to her. But only an idiot went where he wasn’t wanted.
Rain drummed impatiently on the ragtop of his Corvette, reminding him of his mother’s red nails clicking against the cracked kitchen table. Are you just going to sit there? Her shrill voice taunted. For heaven’s sake, Grayson, grow a spine. Do you want to end up like your father?
Don’t know. That might be a good thing.
The imagined smack of his mother’s slap stung his cheek.
He twisted off the ignition and, rounding his shoulders against the pelt of rain, trotted across the street to the red door. For a second his hand hovered above the glossy red paint, then he knocked.
A volley of small yips answered him. “Quiet, Queenie!”
Bryn. Yet not Bryn. Something was off in her voice. “Bryn, it’s Gray. Open up.”
The silence on the other side of the door was so deep, it seemed to suck the breath right out of his lungs “Bryn. Please.”
“Go away.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a decade too late.”
“Open the door, Bryn.”
“I can’t.” The broken tone of her voice tore him apart. What on earth had happened to her? Why was her hatred of him so deep? He was the one who had been all but driven out of town. What could she possibly hold against him?
Something slid down the other side of the door, rattling the wood on its hinges. “You left me, Gray. You left me with her.” Her voice, low on the other side of the door, hardened. “You left me with them.”
Gray swore silently and slid down the front side of the door. They sat back to back with the door between them. “I couldn’t take you to basic training. You know that.”
“You left me, Gray.”
Rain blitzed his face, soaked his suit and sank into the Italian leather of his shoes. “You liked it here. Mom always took your side. Mama’s baby never had to do anything. You and Abbie, you were the toast of the town. Queen of this. Princess of that. Brynna Reed and Abrielle Holbrook. Everybody’s friends. Why would you want to leave that?”
“Things change.”
Hands draped over his knees, he closed his eyes and leaned his head against the hard wood. “Talk to me.”
“It doesn’t matter. You should leave now.”
He thought he heard tears in her voice. What the hell was he supposed to do with that when she wouldn’t talk? “This isn’t about me, Bryn. It’s about Abbie.”
“Abbie’s safe wherever she is.”
“No she isn’t. Someone within WITSEC is selling her out. If I don’t find her, she could die.”
Silence, except for the sting of rain spiking against the concrete stoop and rattling against the siding.
“She’s already lost so much,” Gray said. Noncriminals paid a higher price than criminals in WITSEC. Loss of identity, self, dignity. Abbie was a woman of her world. She belonged here in the same way he never had. Losing her father, her life, her world, he couldn’t imagine how she’d survived it all.