Hope's Peak (Harper and Lane #1)(21)

Harper forces herself to remain nonchalant. She holds back from saying anything other than “Go on.”

“Two holes for eyes,” Ida says. “And I think a belt around his neck, holding it in place.”

Harper clears her throat. “How do you know this?”

“Saw it, like I told you. It’s really vivid, like I’m actually there. I see him as she saw him, hood and all. Walking toward her, looking like something out of a horror movie. But when she calls his name I can’t hear it. It’s muffled, as if I’m not meant to know.”

Harper nods, listening, not quite able to believe her ears.

Eyes narrowed, Ida is doing her best to try to remember. “Either she couldn’t find her voice, or I’m not listening hard enough. But it’s not there. She calls him, turns around, sees him coming for her . . .” Ida’s voice cracks and she casts her eyes away in shame. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Harper says.

When Ida looks up, there are tears streaming down her face. “I didn’t talk about what I saw until years after my mother passed. I felt silly, as if I were lying to myself. But I knew deep down, it really did happen. I connected with her in some way, and experienced what had happened to her. I never really came to terms with my gift until after I’d spent time in the hospital, sorting my head out. Getting straight with myself.”

“Have you had other experiences?”

“Yes. My grandpappy. When he died . . . I found him hanging, you know. After the ambulance took him away, I got up on a chair and took the rope down. When my hands touched it, I saw him looping it around his neck, weeping. He’d never gotten over my mother’s death. It ate away at him until he couldn’t take it any longer. I watched him prepare the noose, get everything ready. He kicked a stool out from under him and the rope bit in, as if it were a set of jaws. I’ll never forget his eyes looking straight at me when I found him. Looking into me, as he knew I would be looking into him.”

“It’s not that I doubt what you’re saying—” Harper starts to say.

“Stop.” Ida looks Harper straight in the eyes. “Give me your hands.”

“What—”

Ida’s face says it all. Her cheeks clear of tears now. Eyes bright, and burning with an inner fire. Harper places her hands in Ida’s, feeling completely out of her element. Out of control. She has surrendered herself to a woman she’s only just met, and it goes against every fiber of her being, every instinct instilled in her through her training.

Ida’s eyes roll back into her head as they close. She squeezes Harper’s fingers. Harper is acutely aware of the air in the house, the jingle of a wind chime out on the porch, Ida’s chest rising and falling steadily as she inhales, exhales, inhales, exhales. Again, the air in the house seems to grow warmer, thicker, and the light dimmer.

“Your partner has matching scars on his chest and back, where a bullet went straight through, narrowly missing his left lung and a crisscross of vital arteries. He calls it his miracle bullet and wears it on a silver chain. You asked him about it the first time you slept together.”

Harper pulls her hands away, simultaneously repulsed by the way Ida has read her and disgusted with herself for acting as if Ida has done something wrong. She gets up, ready to run out of there, make her escape. But she can’t—she’s moved by what Ida revealed to her. The better part of her tells her she has to stay. She is confused.

“Sorry to scare you, sugar,” Ida whispers. “But that’s how it is.”

Harper runs a hand over her face, feeling lost. “Can I use your bathroom?”

“Sure. Upstairs, first door on the right.”

Harper runs up the stairs, goes in, and locks the door behind her. There’s a mirrored sun catcher hanging in front of the window, splintering the daylight and sending it shimmering around the room. She takes a good, long look at herself in the mirror over the sink. Ida couldn’t have known about Stu. How they’d talked about the bullet hanging around his neck.

“The miracle bullet,” Harper whispers, thinking: There has to be a reason she came chasing after me, got me back here. She said everyone’s got ghosts. These girls are hers and they’ll never be put to rest while the killer’s still out there, doing what he wants. She’ll always wake up in the middle of the night, picturing his hooded face coming toward her, seen through her mother’s eyes . . .

Harper heads back downstairs.

Ida turns around to look at her, face expectant. “Well?”

“Okay,” Harper sighs.



Ida closes Harper’s car door, then leans on the frame. “Whatever I can do to help, I want to do it. I’ve spent a lot of years out here on my own, going to bed early. Jumping at shadows. Hoping a foul wind don’t blow. I think I’ve kept out of the way for long enough.”

Harper nods, just the once. “That old phone I saw in there work?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’ll call to let you know what’s happening.” She starts the engine, starts to leave, then stops. “Can I ask you something, Ida?”

“Sure.”

“You ever wondered about him coming after you the way he did your mom?”

Ida’s face grows heavy as stone. “All my life, sugar. All my life.”