Echoes
(A Harp Security Novel)
March
17, 2015
Blurb:
A single photo of herself as an infant on a
beach, taken before the date on her birth certificate, throws everything
Calliope Pearson knows about herself into question. Hoping to find answers, she
takes advantage of her job as a travel writer to make a reservation at the
Caribbean island resort in the picture.
Resort security chief Mac Brody distrusts Callie on sight. After all, she looks
exactly like his deceitful missing wife, Nikki, who owns half the resort. But
when Nikki’s found dead, Mac's facing murder charges, and he’s sure that Callie
must hold the key to proving his innocence.
The deeper Callie and Mac dive into the mystery of her past, the more bodies
surface. And they’ll have to learn to trust each other, or become victims of a
dark danger neither could've imagined…
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23534347-echoes
Buy links:
Amazon
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Echoes-Security-Novel-Laura-Curtis-ebook/dp/B00NGZOH6O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426134384&sr=8-1&keywords=laura+curtis+echoes
B&N
Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/echoes-laura-k-curtis/1120687530?ean=9780698194748
iTunes/iBooks:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/echoes/id917816532?mt=11&uo=4
Google
Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Laura_K_Curtis_Echoes?id=mLOFBAAAQBAJ
Kobo:
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/echoes-67
Excerpt :
The slap of her flip-flops echoed as she
descended the winding, bowered path to the beach, sending a little shiver up
her spine. She felt like a character in a Twilight Zone episode,
wandering a strange and deserted land, alone, surrounded by oppressive beauty.
The stone pavers of the path gave way abruptly
to sand, and the front of Callie’s shoe caught, sending her sprawling. She
checked reflexively to be sure no one had noticed the embarrassing slip, then
shook her head at her own foolishness. Who could have seen her? Plucking off
her sandals, she curled her toes in the sand, which had gone slightly cool
despite the warmth remaining in the air. She meandered along the water’s edge,
letting the tiny waves lap over her feet, occasionally glancing back to judge
her distance from the Paradis, until she considered herself positioned in much
the same spot where her mother stood in the mystery photograph.
She plunked herself down on the sand and drew
her knees up beneath her chin. What had Sharon Pearson been thinking that day?
Callie didn’t have much experience with children, but if she’d had to choose an
adjective to describe the baby in her mother’s arms, she would have chosen
“new.” Tiny, wrinkled fingers grasped the edge of the blanket wrapping her, and
her face, equally wrinkled, was blotchy and red. A dozen times, Callie had
tried to see herself in that baby. A dozen times, she had failed.
“I’d expect you to be asleep.”
Callie’s heart stuttered and her muscles froze
before she recognized the honeyed drawl with its sandpaper edge.
“I needed to unwind. I didn’t realize having my
things stolen had affected me so much.”
Uninvited, Mac settled beside her, close enough
that the heat radiating off his body caressed her skin. “You handled it well.
Better, as John mentioned, than most of our guests would.”
Distracted by his nearness, it took her a minute
to interpret the comment. “Is there a question in there somewhere, Mr. Brody?”
“Mac. And, yeah, it occurred to me you might
have expected something similar, and it might not have come as such a
surprise.”
“I assure you, I expected nothing of the kind.
If, as you claim, my shock didn’t show, it’s because I’m a tad less sheltered
than your standard clientele.”
“You’re not exactly poverty-stricken.”
She should have realized he’d pry into her
background, but the sense of violation the simple comment engendered was as
strong as that from the burglary. Her response sounded stilted and prudish, but
she couldn’t soften it.
“I’ve lived all over the world, including places
where money attracts undesirable attention.”
“You traveled with your father?”
“Yes.”
“According to the press, he was a businessman.”
Another question couched as a statement. It seemed Brody’s preferred method of
interrogation. She would go with it, at least for the moment. Nothing about her
father’s life could hurt her, and perhaps talking about him might spark
hitherto hidden memories.
“Half businessman. The other half diplomat.”
“Diplomat.” The word rolled across Mac’s tongue.
“Another word for ‘spy’?”
Callie laughed, her first spontaneous outburst
since her arrival. “For a while, in my early teens, I imagined him as James
Bond. But no, he wasn’t some undercover hero. I meant ‘diplomat’ in the most
literal sense. Let’s say you owned a big corporation”—Mac snorted—“and you
wanted to open an overseas branch. You’d hire my father and he’d go first to
find all the contacts you’d need. He’d pave the way with individuals and
government entities, find you security personnel, work on community relations,
and clean up messes your predecessors might have left behind. Sometimes, the
trips we took were short. Not much in Europe, for example, took very long to
arrange. A couple of months here, a couple of months there. But we spent a year
in Greece when one of his employers got tangled up with some unsavory types,
and two in Indonesia while he tried to mediate between various factions in and
out of government.”
“Sounds like quite a life for a child.”
“It was. And it prepared me for upheavals, for
things like having my belongings taken.” Wow. She’d just revealed more about
her childhood to Mac than she had to anyone else in the ten years since she’d
moved out of her father’s house. Time to turn the tables.
“And you? Where did you grow up?”
“In the slums in Atlanta.”
“I never thought about Atlanta having slums. It
seems so clean and pretty.”
He chuckled, a low rumble of sound that heated
her blood despite the soft breeze off the ocean.
“The board of tourism would be happy to hear it.
But in reality, Atlanta’s just like any other city.”
“How did you get out?”
“The same way as any other kid in my
neighborhood with an iota of ambition. I joined the Army straight out of high
school. Learned a lot about the world and myself in my six years in, one thing
being I have little talent for—and less patience with—politics. And I’m not
good with rules. So I left. Came home and joined the Atlanta PD.” Callie could
hear the warning: he knew how to investigate.
About the
Author:
Laura K. Curtis does everything backwards. As a
child, she was extremely serious, so now that she’s chronologically an adult,
she feels perfectly justified in acting the fool. She started teaching at age
fifteen, then decided to go back to school herself at thirty.
Laura has taught middle school social studies, high
school literature, and college-level rhetoric, all with relative success. She’s
also a full-on Mac geek who spent years as a consultant and running an academic
computing lab. The only thing she completely failed at in the field of
education was attempting to teach obedience to her pack of Irish Terriers.
Currently, she lives in Westchester, NY, with her husband and two insane Irish
Terriers who have taught her how easily love can coincide with the desire to
kill.
To date, she has two romantic suspense novels
(Twisted, 2013 & Lost, 2014) and one contemporary romance (Toying With His
Affections, 2014), none of which her mother thinks are as good as The Speshel
Dog.
Webpage: http://www.laurakcurtis.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laurakcurtisauthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurakcurtis
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5349205.Laura_K_Curtis
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