Hope's Peak (Harper and Lane #1)(4)

“Jeez.” Albie peers over her shoulder at the drawing. “Looks the part, huh?”



Harper walks through the parking lot, keys in hand, the sun turning the blue sky white with heat. She inhales deeply to clear her lungs and take in the fragrance of the coast. It smells different here, not quite the same as San Francisco. She wonders briefly if it’s the climate or the Atlantic Ocean versus the Pacific.

“We’ve gotta stop meetin’ this way,” Stu says, headed toward her. “People will talk.”

Harper laughs at that. She shouldn’t, but there’s no helping it. “Let them.”

“How’d it go with the witness?”

“Good. We got some useful info. I’ve told the trucker to keep himself handy. We’ll be calling him at some point, I’m sure,” she says. “Norma drew this.”

Harper hands Stu a photocopy of the picture Nate Filch described for them.

“Christ,” he says, handing it back. “Looks like something out of a fucking horror movie. Are you thinking KKK connection?”

“I’ve got Albie looking into it, yeah. I’m heading over to the medical examiner’s office now. They’re going to try and ID the girl.”

“Right,” Stu says. “I questioned the owner of the land. Just as I thought, it went nowhere.”

Harper brushes the hair out of her eyes. “You saw the girl earlier.”

“Yeah,” Stu says, looking down.

She instinctively steps in close, slides a hand inside his suit jacket and around his waist. They lock eyes and for a moment, a heartbeat, it is just the two of them. “You okay?” she asks him.

Stu looks back up. “No, there’s something I need to tell you. It’s not about the case.”

“Go on.”

“Karen’s been in touch with me. She thinks gettin’ partnered with you split us up. She thinks we had an affair.”

Harper takes a step back. “Christ . . . did you tell her that wasn’t the case?”

“I tried to, but she wasn’t having any of it.”

“Why?” Harper asks.

Stu looks away, jaw suddenly tight. “’Cause she’s a fucking bitch, that’s why.”

Harper reaches out, turns his face back to her. “Hey. It’s gonna be alright.”

“Sure about that? Karen just won’t give it up. What’ve I gotta do?”

Harper doesn’t say anything.

“I’d better get going . . .” Stu sighs.

Harper nods, tries to say something, but thinks better of it. Stu turns on his heel and heads for the station. Harper watches him go, a sudden tightening in her chest at the way they’ve parted—she hates leaving things unsaid.

Stu turns around at the last second and makes the phone me sign.

Harper manages a smile, returns the gesture, then goes to her car.

Dead girls wait for no one.





2


Hope’s Peak is a modest tourist town on the coast of North Carolina. It has its bay, its beaches. The tourist shops line their pockets in the summer months, then take what they can get when winter hits. Boats run out of the dock every hour—fishing trips, tours of the coastline, diving charters, even a glass-bottomed boat when the weather is good and the sea is calm.

More inland, Hope’s Peak is quaint, old-school. Life there appears to be lazy, laid-back, each day passing by in a haze of “who gives a fuck?” whimsy. The town becomes more condensed, more congested before it gives way to endless field and pastures. Miles of green and yellow. Corn crops and soybeans and all manner of things. There are a few parishes that have prospered quietly at the edges of Hope’s Peak, but they get little of its trade.

The visitors bring the money. Their money pays for the trash to get picked up, for the hedges to be trimmed. They pay the salaries of the council members.

They are important—they are a bloodline.



Harper is left with her own thoughts for company, navigating the afternoon traffic, the air conditioner keeping the inside of the car ice-cold compared to the sticky heat outside.

Six months after Harper arrived in Hope’s Peak, she got partnered with Stu Raley. Around the same time, his marriage came to an end. Nearly a year later, she and Stu went for drinks after work, and one thing led to another. There’d been no subterfuge, no affair, but Stu’s psycho ex-wife doesn’t see it like that.

Harper thinks back to leaving San Francisco, getting as far away as she could, a failed marriage in her wake. North Carolina seemed as good a choice as any. Hope’s Peak had charm and character, a world apart from the busy city streets she’d been accustomed to.

The day after she’d slept with Stu the first time, he tried to convince her they couldn’t continue with it, that it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Harper shut him up, pressing her mouth against his. When she’d pulled away, she told him that it didn’t need to be complicated. They’d both served their time in failed relationships. For the first time in ages, she didn’t want to have to feel something. The breakdown of her own marriage back in San Francisco—the way it ended—had left her feeling cold toward anything approaching an emotional involvement.

She’d told Stu it wasn’t selfish to want something just for the enjoyment of it. They didn’t have to feel guilty or bring anything heavy to the proceedings.