Hope's Peak (Harper and Lane #1)(14)

“What’s that?” Raley asks.

Harper scoops the files out of the cabinet and kicks the drawer closed with her foot. “This could be our big break. Let’s go to my apartment, away from prying eyes. You can drive.”



“This is gonna give me a fucking ulcer,” Stu complains when they get through the door to her apartment. “This whole case is a nightmare.”

Harper sets the files down on her kitchen counter and proceeds to cut the twine with a pair of scissors. She recounts how Captain Morelli handed her the key. “It was like ‘and this is your responsibility now,’ you know?”

“Damn,” Raley says, pulling out a chair from her dining room table and sitting down. “So they’re the files Claymore was talking about.”

“Yeah. Now remember this has to stay between us, at least until we catch this guy.”

“I get that; I’m not dense. Just the two of us.” Stu takes a deep breath. “Okay, so where do we begin?”

Harper hands him the file off the top. “We read.”

It’s late by the time they’ve read through all the files to establish a broad sweep of events. The files are arranged chronologically.

Ruby Lane, 1985. Followed by Odetta Draw in early 1987. They go on like that, one every couple of years, with a quiet period of five years when there were no mysterious deaths at all . . . until Magnolia Remy and Alma Buford, that is.

Harper rubs her eyes. “Assuming they were all committed by the same guy, that’s a total of ten victims.”

Black girls. Raped. Strangled. Body fluids left at the scene. Most of them exhibiting other signs of violence, and puncture marks from hypodermic needles—no toxicology reports because, of course, that would arouse suspicion and make the cover-up impossible.

“There’s definite evidence of serial activity. The killer does the same thing, over and over. And after what looks like a brief hiatus, he is increasing his activities. Like someone who smokes ten cigarettes a day moving to twenty, then forty . . . the killer’s turned it up a notch,” Stu says.

The recent bodies—Magnolia Remy, Alma Buford—will cause a stir in the news, of that Harper has no doubt. “Ten girls, and more to come.”

“We’ll get him.”

“Let’s hope so.” Harper pats the files. They’re so much more than sheets of paper. They are an inconvenient truth, each folder detailing the end of a life. “I really don’t want to have to add to this pile.”

“Me neither. So what’s the next play?” Stu asks.

“Cross-reference these with what we have at the station. See if there’s anything from these files that’s actually helpful. In the meantime, I’ll catch up with Albie, see how he’s doing with Alma Buford’s friends. They might remember something odd going on.”

“Right,” Stu says, getting up. “I might grab a few files now. Something to read tonight.”

She shakes her head. “Hey, Stu? Don’t do that. Let’s both get a good night’s rest and attack it fresh tomorrow, huh?”

“Sure,” he says. “You wanna go grab something quick to eat? I feel like I haven’t spent a lot of time with you.”

Harper looks at her watch. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll just have a shower and go to bed. I’m bushed.”

“Miss Sensible.”

“Ha! I wish.”

“You can come stay at my place tonight if you want.”

“Thanks, but not tonight. Not with Karen on the warpath,” Harper says, seeing the instant disapproval. “I’m in no mood for somebody else’s bullshit, you know?”

Not that I give two hoots what she thinks.

“Okay, okay,” Stu says and walks to the door. He turns back, hand on the knob. “You won’t change your mind?”

She smiles. “Night, Stu.”



Two hours later, Harper pads through the apartment fresh from the shower, one big towel wrapped around her body, another containing her wet hair.

In the kitchen, she makes a cup of tea—made the proper way, with leaves, stewed in a good pot—no milk, no sugar. Usually she’s a latte girl, but there’s something about tea that is so calming. She holds the cup in both hands, sipping it as she looks at the board on the wall—the only bit of decorating she’s done in there, screwing the thing to the plaster.

A map shows their little corner of North Carolina. While they were reading the files, Harper scribbled the name of each victim on a scrap of paper. Each red pin stuck into the board holds one of those names.

Over two decades of unsolved murders.

She knows that Morelli is still one of the good guys, or he wouldn’t have given her the key. But, had Magnolia Remy and Alma Buford not died, Harper doubts he would have thought to let the truth out. Like his predecessors, he would’ve let it sit in that filing cabinet, closing his eyes and grateful the responsibility never fell on him to do otherwise. Except, now it had.

Trouble is his hands were dirty before his first day in the office.

When it all comes out, Harper’s not so sure Morelli will be able to deny any knowledge of the cover-up. She got his point, though, about protecting the town. The people around Hope’s Peak are farmers and planters. Some of them in the fishing industry, but for the most part, their profession involves working the Carolina soil with their own hands. In the town, the trade’s whatever blows in on the breeze—the tourists and sightseers who keep Hope’s Peak afloat.