Hope's Peak (Harper and Lane #1)(17)

The way he always does when he falls in love at first sight.



The supplejack vine grows at the edge of an abandoned property a few miles down the road, where the woods start. Lester collects whole lengths of it, snapping them off and holding them in a bunch. He picks them for girth, for uniformity.

Back home, he sits in his shed carefully interlacing the vines, tugging at them to make them hold together, but not so tight that they might snap as they dry. He does so around a broken cookie jar his mama used to keep—it gives the perfect circumference to create a crown.

Decades before, he spent hours weaving such a crown for Ruby Lane. He didn’t know what she would think of it, or if she’d understand the hobby of a lonely boy with time on his hands. She put it on and Lester told her how pretty she looked as she circled in front of him, looking every bit the princess he thought her to be . . .

A crow caws outside.

Sweat drips from Lester’s nose and hits the vine. He holds it up. The crown is perfect. It might be the best he’s done yet. He pictures Ida’s mother standing before him once more, the crown on her head; then he pictures it on the new girl. Lester smiles at the thought of how beautiful she will look when the crown—his work—sits atop her head.



Harper pats her pocket for the key to the filing cabinet. She has already stowed the files back in there, then double-checked that it was locked.

But what will I do if I lose the key?

With that thought, Harper takes it out of her pocket, hooks it on to her car keys. She starts the car and lets it run for a moment as she puts her cell in its dock on the dash. Almost immediately, the screen flashes the first few words of a new text message. She swipes the screen.

It’s from Stu:



Call me when U R done today. Let me know how it goes.—SR



Harper smiles, tapping a quick reply onto the phone’s on-screen keyboard.



Ok. Any developments YOU call ME Btw I put the files back. I will give you the key or we can make a copy.



The land is flat, brown, and green. Every shade of nature you can imagine, all of it subdued, laid-back. A haze settles permanently upon the horizon. Dust thrown up off the roads looks like muddy smoke.

Harper crosses the railway track that borders Chalmer. An old Dean Martin number comes on the radio: “Powder Your Face with Sunshine.”

It makes her think of her childhood, something she’d rather forget. To that end, she switches the radio off and drives the rest of the way in silence. The main street feeds the rest of the little town like a major artery pumping blood to every extremity. Chalmer branches off of Hope’s Peak in such a way that Harper finds it hard to understand why it’s a separate entity from its bigger counterpart.

She parks outside the sheriff’s office.

“Hey,” Harper says to the officer at the front counter. She removes her sunglasses and sets them down before producing her ID. “I’m looking for a bit of info on one of your residents.”

“That so?”

“Yes. Ida Lane. I think she lives out on the—”

The deputy raises a hand to stop her. “I know Ida. She in trouble or somethin’?”

“No, no. I just want to ask her a few questions relating to a case I’m working.”

“Aha. I see. You want something . . . unofficial,” he says.

Harper glances left and right—she’s the only one in there. “Why the games? Can you tell me something or not?”

“Afraid not.”

Harper grabs her glasses, and starts to leave. She gets as far as the door.

“If you want to know about Ida Lane, you need to talk to Hank Partman.”

She turns back. “Partman?”

“Outside, turn left. He owns the little store down there, Past Times. Sells collectibles and such. Talk to him,” the deputy says, returning to whatever he was writing before she walked in. Harper opens the door and walks out, frowning back into the quiet sheriff’s office.

She gets the feeling this is very much one of those towns. Not that there’s something fundamentally wrong here—just that it’s slightly off-kilter. Like the deputy on the desk.

In her two years living in Hope’s Peak, she’s never had cause to visit Chalmer, and there’s a flavor of the weird that’s hard to miss.

Past Times is a dusty place, with a bell on the door, crammed full of merchandise. A withered old man comes out from behind a counter with a cash register on top.

“Afternoon,” Hank says, flashing a set of perfectly straight false teeth. “Can I help you with anything?”

She shows him her ID. The smile fades, just a little. “I’m looking for some info.”

“Information on what, exactly?”

“On whom. I’m told you’re a man in the know when it comes to local matters,” Harper says.

Hank Partman leans against the counter, his ego stroked. “I’ve been known to be quite knowledgeable, yes. To whom are you referring then?”

“Ida Lane?”

“Oh,” Partman says, looking down, smile nothing but a distant memory now. “I doubt there’s much I’ll be able to tell you that you don’t already know . . .”

“Really? That’s a shame,” Harper says, unconvinced. She decides to turn on the charm, put her feminine wiles to good use. “I bet there’s quite a bit a man like you could tell me. A respected member of the parish, and all that.”