Echo Falls by Jaime McDougall

voice.
    “Don’t tell me you forgot,” Elle said to Aidan. Then she looked at Mia. “Phoebe was attacked on the night of the last murder. She and Aidan are working together on the case.”
    Mia arched her eyebrow and studied Phoebe. “You poor thing. Maybe I can -”
    “I think Aidan and Phoebe can handle it on their own,” Elle said.
    Elle and Aidan looked at Phoebe.
    Phoebe swallowed and looked at Mia, wishing she could disappear at will. “Yes. The case. We need to talk. I need to talk to Aidan.”
    “Aidan found her,” Elle said, moving to put herself between Mia and Aidan. “We should let them get on with it. The sooner the murderer is caught, the better.”
    “Elle, dear, it can wait for another -”
    Elle didn’t speak, growl or even move toward Mia. She simply stared. Phoebe looked between the two, suddenly feeling like a pawn in a game of human chess. Mia looked about to protest, but Elle narrowed her eyes a fraction. Mia lowered her eyes and then looked at Aidan.
    “We’ll have to catch up later.” She winked at him and then looked at Phoebe.
    Without a word, she left.
    Elle gave Phoebe a hug and a reassuring smile. She then hugged Aidan, who gave her a kiss on the cheek before she left. Phoebe watched her new friend walk down the street and thought that maybe facing Mia hadn’t been so bad after all. She glanced around and caught Aidan looking at her.
    Well, hello awkward silence. Nice meeting you here, she thought, not meeting his eyes.
    He cleared his throat. “I apologize for Mia. She can be…” He frowned. “Elle and Mia…”
    She smiled softly. “It’s okay. I get it.”
    “You do.” He didn’t sound as if he believed her.
    “I do. Call it female intuition.”
    He held up his hands. “Call it whatever you want as long as you keep it far away from me.”
    She laughed and they began walking down the street. She couldn’t help but sneak a few looks at him as they wandered. He looked like he had a lot on his mind. What are you thinking about, Aidan O’Bryan?
    “So who is River, besides Charlotte’s babysitter?” she asked.
    “River? She dropped out of school when she was fifteen. She’d gotten…” He looked at the people passing by. “She’d been hanging out with a guy who ‘changed’ her. She didn’t handle the change well and the guy left. Elle and Will took her in.”
    She tried to look casually around at the crowd. “They took in someone who had been ‘changed’? They know?”
    He cleared his throat and looked around. “We should go somewhere a little more private to talk.”
    She looked at him, tempted to do just that. Somewhere private to talk, just the two of them. A few months ago, she would have happily taken up the offer. Well, maybe not a few months ago when she’d been content and happy with her now ex-boyfriend. But that didn’t change the fact that the prospect of being alone with Aidan made her think about more interesting things than pleasant conversation. The kind of things that she shouldn’t have been thinking about.
    “I…” She licked her lips. “I have a lot of things I need to do.”
    He smiled. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
    “I don’t know what you mean,” she said, squeezing the tip of her thumb.
    “You push and push, but I told you: I’m here whether you like it or not. You can trust me.” He paused and then said casually, “Unless the problem is that you don’t trust yourself alone with me.”
    She felt a blush rush across her cheeks as her eyes widened. “Don’t you have more important things to do?”
    All the humor vanished from his expression. “My pack and their concerns are always the most important things to me. Right now, you are one of those concerns. One of my concerns. You are an attractive, smart woman. You have the strength to be on your own, come back from violence, and to start a business. So why do you keep running?”
    “I have to,” she whispered, her eyes welling up with tears. Damn him!