Hope's Peak (Harper and Lane #1)(46)

Harper looks at the stubs. There are indeed four of them, with the ticket price, the time, and screen in the top corner. She gets up to let Esmerelda return to her son’s side and watches as she throws her arm around him.

“Oh, Hugo . . . ,” she whispers, kissing the top of his head as if he is a child again.

Harper turns to Albie. “Hey, uh, go tell those two they can head off now. Why don’t you go wait by the car. I won’t be a minute.”

“Sure.”

“Listen, Hugo . . . there may be further questions at some point. But for now, your alibi checks out. Look, I can tell you cared for Gertie. And I want you to know I’m doing everything I can to get to the bottom of this.”

Hugo looks up, eyes red. “Will that bring her back?”

Harper is stuck for what to say. His face, his words, the pain—they hit her right in the chest.

“No it won’t. But it might let her rest,” she says, excusing herself and stepping outside. It’s a bright, hot day. Once more she finds herself missing the Bay Area, the cool mist, the smell of the salt water. She can still smell the ocean in Hope’s Peak, but it doesn’t compare with what she could smell in San Francisco. Harper slips her shades on and walks to the car.

She drops Albie back at his complex so that he can collect his car and warns him not to tell anyone other than Morelli.

“Of course. I’m on your side, remember, boss?”

Harper watches him go, then hits the road. For a moment, she considers calling Stu, but decides against it. She wants to be alone right now. To drive her car in solitude, except for maybe her thoughts.

And they are not quiet.



It’s ten in the morning and music pours from Ida’s house. Harper knocks on the door frame, but gets no answer.

“Ida?” she calls, easing the screen door open. There’s a Jimi Hendrix LP on the turntable, its sleeve propped next to it. “Ida?”

Ida appears in the kitchen doorway, apron on, flour on her hands. “Harper? You gave me a scare.”

“Sorry. I got no answer at the door.”

“It’s okay. I like it loud. Here, come in the kitchen,” Ida tells her. “Do you want tea? I was about to have some.”

“Yes, please,” Harper says.

The kitchen is old, but clean. Lived in, some would say. Harper takes a seat at a little table with two chairs. There’s a ficus tree in the middle—perhaps the biggest she’s ever seen.

Ida nods in her direction. “Was my grandmammy’s. She had it from a little girl.”

“Really? It’s very big.”

“She lost it once. Grew it for ages, and lost it. All she had left was a single leaf,” Ida tells her, filling the kettle and putting it on the stove to heat. “But you know, if you plant that one leaf in soil, it’ll grow. Like the old saying. From small things, big things someday come.”

Ida sets a ceramic teapot on the counter, puts three teabags inside, then rinses out a pair of cups.

“So this whole plant is from that leaf,” Harper says. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

“Milk and sugar?”

“Just as it is, please,” Harper says. “And from now on, how about just Jane?”

“Okay, Jane.” Ida hands her a cup. “Is that alright?”

“Perfect.” Harper listens to the music. “Have you always been into music?”

Ida sits opposite her. “Since getting out of the hospital. My mother would always play her records when she finished work. It’s one of the clearest memories I have of her. Diana Ross, Gladys Knight, Nina Simone, you know, all those old names. When she passed, and I ended up in the hospital, I missed hearing those songs.”

“You were in there for what, four years?”

“Yes. It was after finding my grandfather the way I did. I came out just in time for my grandmammy to leave as well.”

“That must’ve been awful.”

Ida looks at her tea. “It was. Still is. But I moved on. She wanted to die at home, but they wouldn’t let her, so they put her in the hospice.”

“Sorry to ask, but what did she die from?”

“They said it was cancer of the stomach,” Ida tells her. “But by the end, it was everywhere.”

Harper lifts her tea, takes a sip. “I’ll bet that was hard to deal with.”

“No, actually,” Ida says, smiling lightly. “It was beautiful.”

“I don’t follow,” Harper says, frowning.

Ida takes a deep breath. “She fell into a coma near the end, and I’d sit up at that hospice holding her hand. The whole time, all I got from her was good things. Memories, moments. Sunny days. All the light of her life, do you know what I mean, Jane?”

“I think so.”

“Then, toward the end, that’s all there was—light.” She looks up, eyes glistening. “That’s what awaits most of us, Jane. Warm sunlight from that other place. It just gets brighter and brighter until there’s nothing else.”

“You’ve seen this?” Harper asks, her voice barely a whisper.

Ida nods slowly. “I’ve never forgotten it. The kiss of that sun is like nothing I’ve ever felt.”

“What about bad people, Ida? What’s in store for them?”