Hope's Peak (Harper and Lane #1)(19)

“Well, thank you anyway,” Harper says.

She heads for her car and glances back up at the porch. Ida is watching her, an unreadable expression on her face. Harper starts the engine and begins to drive away, not entirely sure what just happened but knowing it does nothing for her case.

When she looks back in the mirror, Ida is still there, watching her.



Ida watches the detective’s car kick up a trail of dust in its wake and can’t help but feel a pang of regret at the way she responded to her questions.

But it had to be done—she’s spent her whole life reliving the past, waking from the same nightmare over and over.

Her grandmother once told her she was touched by a wonderful gift, that she was put on this earth to help others.

I was tainted by my ability. If I was destined to do anything, it certainly wasn’t to help people. It was to live in misery.

She watches the detective’s car merge with the haze on the horizon and remembers finding her grandfather hanging from the rope.

His eyes are wide open, staring straight into her. The rope still creaks—he hasn’t been dead for long. Legs completely straight, arms by his sides. Face dark purple, rope cutting in under his chin.

But those eyes!

They bulge from the sockets, bright red, every vein filled with hardening blood. Looking right at her, into her, past her. Ida wants to run, wants to scream, but can’t. All she can do is watch as he swings, back and forth, back and forth. Only her grandmammy’s hand on her shoulder from behind snaps her back. The old woman’s wail as she hugs Ida to her and steers her away from him.

He’ll always be swinging, just as her mother will forever be falling. The rope will creak in the gray moment between wakefulness and sleep.

Ida snaps to, aware that her cheeks are wet. The memory came back strong—it does sometimes, when she least expects it. She wipes the tears on the back of her hand, goes inside, snatches her keys from the sideboard, and rushes to her truck.



Harper hears the pickup before she sees it. It rushes up from behind, engine roaring, driver waving one brown arm from the open window, signaling for her to pull over. She slows, bringing the car to a halt, the truck doing the same behind her.

She is confident that Ida Lane is not some nutcase, driven mad by misfortune, intent on doing her harm. Still, Harper watches in her side mirror and unclips the top of her holster as Ida gets out of her truck.

Just in case.

She gets out of the car. “I have colleagues who would probably consider that reckless driving.”

“Sorry. I needed to get you to stop,” Ida says breathlessly. “I was rude back there.”

“You were a little abrupt, I’ll give you that,” Harper says. “Have you had a change of heart?”

Ida looks away. There are endless rows of soybean crops on either side of the road, several feet high. “Have you ever lost someone?” she asks.

The question throws Harper for a second. “Not like you, no.”

“I believe we all got ghosts, Detective. People we lost, people we let down. I think I been haunted by mine for too long. I feel their weight, right here round my throat, like my grandfather’s rope,” Ida says. She looks at her. “If this man is killing these women . . . and if he killed my mother . . . I want to help.”

Harper nods. “I’m glad to hear that. Shall we go back to your house and talk?”

“Yeah.”

On the drive back to Ida’s, the truck now traveling at a relative crawl considering the speed she’d driven at earlier, Harper has time to wonder just what it was that changed Ida’s mind.



The inside of the house isn’t nearly as hot as Ida said it would be. Harper has a digital recorder on the table between them. Much handier than a notepad and pen, with the added boon that she can play it back through the car stereo. Often, she will leave an interview or meeting and listen back through what’s just taken place, in the hope of finding new meaning or insight.

“I know it’s hard, but I’d like you to think back to your mother. Did she ever have male friends hanging around? Boyfriends?”

Ida shakes her head. “Not that I remember. There was Daddy, but she never saw him since the day she said she was pregnant. To this day, I ain’t met the man. Don’t even know his name.”

“Can you remember if she ever had friends from work? Anyone she would hang out with?”

“Again, it’s all a bit of a blank, I’m afraid.”

“Doesn’t matter. You can’t force these things. They either come or they don’t.”

Ida lights a cigarette. “I do remember my mother, though,” she says, the suggestion of a smile crossing her features. “I think about her all the time.”

“What was she like?” Harper asks.

“Very beautiful. No-nonsense hair. Pulled back tight, out of the way ’cause of the heat. Always there for me, always around. She was a good mom.”

“I understand.”

Ida draws on the cigarette, rolling the milky-blue smoke around before blowing it out the side of her mouth. Lost in thought, lost in memory.

I believe we all got ghosts.

“She was young, but she knew what she was doing. Always did right by me, I remember that,” Ida says, smiling now at the memory. “Sometimes at night when I had trouble sleeping, she’d sit on the bed. It’d be dark, maybe just the light from the hall. Made her a silhouette to look at. She’d just sit there and sing in that soft voice of hers. I think sometimes maybe that’s what I miss the most, that sweet, sweet singing . . .”