“Can you do me a favor,” Dad asked me.
“What?” I was suddenly tired. His voice had that tone to it.
“Prove it. If Echo is really in there, tell me something only she would know—anything that I can verify without any other option other than she is actually in your body.”
I took a deep breath and was about to argue the point when the memory slammed back into my mind so vivid and clear that it almost overwhelmed me. It was the look I’d seen on Gram's face when she’d learned Echo was pregnant with me. So rather than going through the whole story, I just recited her words in the exact same tone with the same emotion she had said them with eighteen years ago.
“No—not my baby girl…”
A look of shock crossed Dad’s face and was then replaced by a bittersweet smile. “In the bathroom, when Echora told me she was pregnant. Mom had just gotten home and walked in on our conversation. It’s what she said after she’d snatched the test from my hand…”
“… and saw that the result was positive,” I finished for him.
His smile brightened and broadened.
“Echo told you that she didn’t know how it happened, and you told her that SOMEBODY wasn't careful.”
Dad looked like he might cry, even with the smile splitting his face, but then his features distorted and turned deadly serious again. I thought I’d said something or done something wrong. When Drew took hold of my hand under the table, I glanced at him, and he nodded toward Dad.
I’d seen Dad mad before, but that just wasn’t a strong enough term for the expression on his face as he picked up the photograph in front of him and flipped it around for me to see. It was one of the many photos of Danny.
“If what Drew tells me is right, this is your father—your biological father.”
I felt like I’d just been dipped in hot water then thrown into a bank of snow, and wished my body would make up its mind, hot flashes or chills. Dad tapped the photo with so much force that it put a dent in the glossy finish. I felt Echo shrink so far into my conscious that she almost disappeared, like a child who just got caught stealing money out of their mother’s purse.
“I don’t know why I didn’t see it before! Your damn eyes should have been a dead giveaway. I can’t believe I didn’t connect the dots. I know this guy—we were friends. His name is Daniel Vaughn. He was two years ahead of me in school and almost four years older. That son of a bitch! I trusted him around my baby sister!”
“Dad, why is that so bad? That kind of thing happens, you know older brother’s friend dating the little sister?”
“Eden, for one he was almost eight years older than Echo and secondly—he was her teacher! I am going to track him down when I go to the office in the morning. He’s gonna get more than just a piece of my mind. I can’t believe this shit!”
I’d never heard my dad swear so much in my entire life. I was just about to tell Dad that Danny was there when Echo was murdered, but she rampaged to the forefront of my thoughts and did something I never thought she’d ever do. She’d reduced herself to the desperation begging.
“Please, Eden, if any part of you cares about me—please don’t. I won’t hold back any more information, please, just don’t tell Daryl that Danny was there when I died.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Porter’s Field
By the time Friday rolled around, we were no closer to tracking down Danny. It was like he’d disappeared into thin air just a few weeks after Echo’s murder. I didn’t need to tell Dad about Danny being there when Echo was murdered, which I had opted not to—for now, to have the coincidence in timing throw up a red flag for him.
“It is mighty suspicious if you ask me. Even knowing what I know now, I just can’t see Daniel killing someone, let alone a pregnant woman—especially one he loves. But the fact that he fell off the face of the earth right after—well, that's pretty damning.”
Dad shook his head as he tried to wrap his mind around why Danny would feel the need to bail town and fly completely undetected under the radar. My cereal had turned to mush in its bowl because I’d lost my appetite. Thinking about how we were still coming up empty-handed irritated me to no end. I’d been so sure that finding my biological father was going to be a snap now that we actually knew who he was. The last couple nights had been restless ones now that Echo’s deepest darkest secret had been brought to light. Every wall she’d built to protect it had come crumbling down, and my nights were overwhelmed with the dreams and memory sequences that wall had kept hidden from me. I’d learned more about Echo in those two nights than I cared to admit and was dreading when the time came to go to sleep again. The doorbell chiming tore me from my thoughts and snapped me back to present reality.
“Drew’s here to pick me up, Dad.”
I was surprised when I answered the door and Tony was standing there with Drew and Sara. To say that it was odd would have been putting it mildly. When I just stood there and stared at the three of them, both
