Hope's Peak (Harper and Lane #1)(34)

“Workf hard,” Lester notes.

“Sure does. Not that I see any of the money,” Ceeli says, shaking her head.

Lester can hear someone walking on the flattened dry grass around the side of the house; then he sees Ceeli’s neighbor cross the window. The back door is already open, but Julie knocks on the frame. “Yoo-hoo!”

“Ah, hi ya Julie honey,” Ceeli says. “Want a coffee?”

“No thanks, Ceeli, I’ve gotta run.” Her gaze falls to Lester, and for the briefest moment, she is unable to contain her expression, to keep the mask up. Revulsion flashes across her features; then it’s gone, buried behind an exterior of mock acceptance. “Hey, Lester.”

“Hello Julie.”

“You headed out somewhere?” Ceeli asks her.

“Oh, yeah, heading into town. Wanted to know if you needed somethin’.”

Ceeli shakes her head. “Don’t think so.”

“Well, alright then. You got my cell, you need anythin’,” Julie says.

“I got your cell.”

Julie nods at Lester. “Bye to you.”

He smiles because he knows it repulses her. “Have a nife day!”

When Julie has gone, Ceeli breathes a sigh of relief and sags against the kitchen counter. “God, that woman gives me a headache. There’s no getting rid of her.”

She makes the coffee and tells Lester to go to the living room. Ceeli sets the cups on the coffee table as Lester throws himself down on the sofa.

She stands over him, pushes his head back, her finger under his chin so that he looks up at her. “You’re the only joy I got in this world right now, Lester.”

He swallows.

Ceeli straddles him, her big legs on either side of his, and kisses him. He can taste her bad breath, her cigarettes and coffee. The sleep that has covered her teeth in a gritty film she has yet to brush away. Pulling away from him, she sucks on his deformed top lip.

She reaches down, feels his limp dick through his jeans. She moves to the floor, kneeling before him, and sets about freeing his flaccid penis. His work bottoms gather at his feet.

“Honey,” she says, her hands on his thighs, bending forward to lick his genitals, then the end of his prick. She stops and looks up at him. “Somethin’ the matter baby?”

“Put it in your mouth.”

“Soft like that?”

He stares at her, silent. Demanding. Ceeli holds his floppy dick and puts it in her mouth. Lester sits back, one hand on the table, the other on Ceeli’s head, moving his fingers in her wiry black hair. He closes his eyes, thinks of the girl. In the field, in the rain. He was soaked through afterward, covered in mud. When he arranged her body, he’d wiped away the water that had collected in her eye sockets. Just thinking about her, about how he’d taken her among the rows of wet soybeans, is enough to get him hard. His cock throbs in Ceeli’s mouth, and she instinctively works on it. Her tongue slides around his shaft, the tip of his dick. Lester pictures the girls, sees them in his mind, and it’s enough to push him near the edge. He takes a handful of Ceeli’s hair and forces her to take him farther down her throat. Thinking of the young woman in the rain. On top of her, between her legs, his hands around her throat as she looks at him, big bright eyes pleading with him.

Ceeli gags as Lester thrusts his hips forward, mercilessly fucking her mouth. All the while, his eyes are closed.

There is the girl, the smell of the damp earth, the rain coming down around them in the dark. Cold water running down his back, dripping off his twisted face. After, he went back to the car for his Polaroid and the crown, then returned to her. He placed the crown on her head and took pictures. Polaroids are like printing your own postcards, your own mementos of something you want to hold in your heart forever.

Lester opens his eyes.

The girls are still there.



The Hope and Ruin Coffee Bar is busy as usual, everyone jostling to keep their place in line. Harper’s phone vibrates in her pocket. She checks it.

“Morelli,” she tells Stu.

“Answer it, I’ll get these.”

“Thanks,” she says, heading for the door to take the call outside. “Caramel latte.”

Stu waves her off. “I know, kiddo.”

Outside the heat is already cloying, the sultry air sticking to her skin. She swipes the phone and holds it to her ear. “Harper.”

“Detective. Where you at?”

“I’m going to check in with Albie, see how he’s doing with the dead girl’s phone. We’re still going through the files you gave me, trying to get what we can from them.”

“Well, I have some good news. We’ve got a name to put with the girl,” Morelli says.

“Really?”

“Yes. Gertie Wilson. Parents had her listed as missing last night. They went and identified her at the morgue a half hour ago. I’ve got Dudley bringing them in as we speak.”

“Okay. Do you want us to come to the station?”

“No, you do what you’re doing, and check in later. If you’re okay with Dudley interviewing the parents, that is.”

Harper grimaces. “I’ve got no issue. So long as he’s tactful, sir.”

“I’ll have Clara O’Hare join him. You know Clara. She’ll make sure he doesn’t go too far.”