Hope's Peak (Harper and Lane #1)(48)

Harper thinks for a moment, takes her phone back out, and types a reply to Stu’s last text:



I can’t think about us until this case is over. That’s not me saying no to us. That’s me saying let’s wait. I hope you understand. X



“Here you go.” Ida hands her a cold beer.

“Cheers.” Harper clinks her bottle against Ida’s and takes a long, hearty swallow. “Ah, that’s good.”

“So, how goes the investigation in general? Are you any closer to catching him?” Ida asks her.

Harper shakes her head. “No. We have DNA, but nothing to match it to. We have a description of his car, but that’s a dead end. Everything we’ve tried has come to nothing.”

“Because the truth has been buried so long,” Ida offers.

“That, and the cases weren’t investigated properly back in the day. Any details that might have helped us aren’t there any longer.”

Ida swallows some beer. “I remember there was a very nice detective working the case in the beginning. He came to my mother’s funeral.”

“I know him. We spoke to him. He directed me to you,” Harper tells her. “I actually intended on calling him. He might be able to tell me something else.”

She finds the number for the retirement home on her phone. She calls it, holding the phone to her ear. “Hello . . . Yes, I know it’s a long shot . . . I’m a detective with the Hope’s Peak PD . . . Yes, that’s the one . . . uh-huh . . . The patient is Lloyd Claymore . . . Yes, I can wait . . .” She looks at Ida, feels her heart sink as she listens to the person on the other end. “Oh. No, no, no, I understand . . . Yes I will . . . Thank you for your help.”

“Jane?”

Harper puts her phone away. “He’s gone. Passed away two nights ago.”

Ida clamps a hand to her mouth. “My God. Natural causes?”

“Yes.”

“That’s so sad. He was a lovely man,” Ida says. “Tried his best to get to the bottom of my mother’s murder.”

All that Harper can think is, He’ll never answer for the crimes he covered up. And I’ll never truly know if he regrets it.

Ida hoists the beer in front of her. “To Detective Lloyd Claymore.”

And unsolved cases, Harper thinks.





11


The chicken was roasted with lemon and sprigs of thyme from Ida’s herb garden. She sautéed potatoes and served them with steamed greens. Of course, Ida let a giant knob of butter melt over the greens, and of course, the pair of them had one too many beers to wash it all down.

Now Jane Harper is asleep on Ida’s sofa, snoring steadily. There came a point when Ida knew Jane would end up staying the night—there was no way she could’ve driven home safely. Ida fetches a thick blanket, knowing how cold the house gets at night sometimes, even when the days are so hot. She covers Harper over and turns off the TV, but puts a small lamp on in its place—that way the detective will remember where she is, instead of waking in the dark in a strange house. As she begins to leave, Ida rests her palm on Harper’s head.

“There you are, sugar. You rest easy now.”

The lamp flickers and the room warms slightly.

The white mist rises, the connection is made, and Ida sees something take shape in her mind’s eye, a memory, a dream, something from Harper’s subconscious: removing her wedding ring and setting it down on a dresser. Looking around a house as if she’ll never see it again. Licking the edge of an envelope before sealing the letter inside. Setting the envelope next to the abandoned wedding ring.

And then: Harper driving away from the house, belongings in boxes in her car. Looking back in the mirror and not feeling deflated, or sad, but liberated. Leaving, walking away from hard situations comes easily. It’s a comfort to her, not being rooted in any one spot.

Ida removes her hand, breaking the tenuous connection.

“But rooted is what you want, ain’t it, sugar?”

She thinks of Bob Dylan singing “Like A Rolling Stone.” That’s Harper, a stone without a home, rolling from place to place. On her own.

Ida goes to bed, leaving Harper to dream her dreams in private, hoping that with enough rest her visitor might find some peace. But for Ida there will be none. That night, sleep finds her.

And, in her dreams, so does he.



“Oh thank Christ you’re here, Lester!” Ceeli lets him in, closing the door behind them. She leads him into the living room and they sit on the sofa. There are a few lights on in the house, and darkness beyond the windows. “I’ve been worried sick. I didn’t know what was happening.”

She can see Lester’s shock at her appearance. Her eyes have nearly closed up, the bruising has come out fully. She is talking funny because her jaw doesn’t want to work.

“What’d he do to you?” he asks her.

“Beat me. I thought he was gonna kill me when he found out about us,” she says. “What happened when he got to your house? You haven’t been answering your phone.”

“Difconnected it.”

“Oh.” Ceeli studies his face. “So . . . what happened?”

Lester licks his top lip, the one that’s twisted up in the center, revealing his teeth and gums. “Nothin’. He didn’t fhow.”