Everything grew silent around them, even the birds had stopped their morning chitter-chatter. But suddenly Harper fell forward, her sob shattering the air. She grabbed at him, and Lucas caught her. He startled and then stilled, taking her in his arms and pulling her against his chest as she cried, her sadness bouncing off the walls of the canyon and disappearing into the forest high above.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Harper rubbed at her eyes, still swollen and itchy days after finding her parents. Of course, she’d cried herself to sleep the night before, the vision of their skeletons filling her mind’s eye and piercing her heart. Now she felt so incredibly drained. The door opened and Agent Gallagher entered the room and placed a paper cup in front of her, reaching into his pocket and taking out several packets of creamer and sugar. He placed those, along with a stirrer next to the cup. “I figured you could use some.”
Harper wrapped her hands around the hot cup, the pleasure of the heat causing her shoulders to relax at least infinitesimally. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
It had taken a couple of days to organize the extraction, but the car, confirmed to have belonged to Harper’s parents, had been hauled from the bottom of the canyon hours before and transported to Missoula. A team of investigators would attempt to determine whether the vehicle had failed in some way and that was what caused the accident.
Her parents’ remains had been transferred to the medical examiner in Missoula, though Harper didn’t think—based on what she’d seen—there was anything to examine except bones. She shivered at the memory of what was left of the two people she’d loved most in the world.
She appreciated the effort that had been expended, and the care with which she knew her parents’ remains would be treated. Of course, her father had been a well-respected sheriff and community member, and she knew the town as a whole would want to put him to rest properly.
As for Harper, she still wasn’t sure how she felt. She’d expected to feel relieved, and she did, but she’d also expected to feel some sense of closure, some sense that she could finally begin her life. She felt neither of those things, but they had only been found forty-eight hours ago. Only forty-eight hours since Lucas had held her in that dim, cold canyon. Only forty-eight hours since they’d trekked the long, mostly quiet walk back to Driscoll’s where she’d phoned Agent Gallagher. It would take time, she figured. A week . . . maybe two, until she’d be able to finally put the tragedy behind her and accept that they’d never return.
I’m alone in this world.
It wasn’t that she’d dreamed or hoped they were coming back. She hadn’t fooled herself into believing they weren’t actually dead and gone. It was just . . . not having proof of their deaths—of the fact that she hadn’t simply imagined the accident, the cold, the falling, that had taken them from her—had kept her from being able to move forward emotionally.
Saying the words to Lucas a couple of days before, admitting she was stuck, was an important revelation for her. The hunt for her parents’ wreckage had kept her from moving forward. All these years, it’d kept her trapped in a way—emotionally immobile. Looking into his eyes, answering his perceptive question honestly, it had suddenly become crystal clear. Now though, she’d found her family. She didn’t have to remain lost in time. Now . . . now she could figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. She’d want to, she was sure of it. Just . . . not that day.
“I wish you would have told me before you went to Lucas’s place. I would have come with you.”
She snapped back to the present, considering what Agent Gallagher had said as he’d taken a seat across from her.
“I’m sorry. I thought about calling you but . . . I thought I was being crazy. That locket . . . it’d been so long since I’d seen it. I thought maybe I was imagining things.”
Agent Gallagher regarded her for a moment. “So, Lucas found your parents’ wreck at some point and took the necklace from there?”
Harper nodded. “He said he found it years ago.”
“Did he say why he wore it?”
Harper shrugged. “I didn’t ask. I figured it was just something interesting to him. I don’t know.” Maybe he liked the picture of a family inside it. Something he didn’t have. She thought about the way he’d held her as she’d cried, gently but stiffly, as though he didn’t know exactly how to hold another person. She wondered if anyone had ever held him, and her heart ached when she thought the answer was probably no. Or at least . . . not for a very long time.
“The car was found about nine miles from Lucas’s house. And nowhere near the highway between Missoula and Helena Springs. Can you think of a reason your parents might have turned off the highway onto dirt back roads? Why they would have been so far from the highway?”
Harper shook her head slowly. “No. My dad had driven from Missoula to Helena Springs hundreds of times. He knew the route like the back of his hand.” Harper searched her mind for anything about that ride home, anything that might shed light on this new information. But as always, when it came to the accident, there was nothing. Nothing except the feeling of the car falling and then the bone-shattering landing at the bottom of the canyon. Then . . . darkness. “It makes sense why the search party didn’
t find the car,” she murmured aloud. They’d looked for it for weeks before giving up. No wonder her own search had never yielded results. She’d been looking miles and miles from where the accident had actually happened. She’d been—
“Do you have any memory of climbing out of that canyon?”
Harper frowned. “Not . . . really.” Brief flashes maybe. Her hands reaching, gripping. Then . . . nothing. “And that’s the weird part,” she continued. “After surviving a near-fatal accident in freezing weather, I have no idea how I made it out of that hole. I must have climbed, but . . .” She shook her head, her frown deepening. “Maybe the adrenalin . . . I don’t know. I was in a coma for weeks afterward and my memory is just so—” She massaged her temples as though she could fix her brain that way, help it recapture those lost hours.
“Maybe it’s better that you don’t,” Agent Gallagher said softly. He tilted his head. “Is it possible you were thrown from the car, Harper? Before it went over the edge of that canyon?”
“Yes. I guess. I would have been wearing my seatbelt of course. But, it could have malfunctioned? Maybe they’ll find something in Missoula.” She shook her head. “I just can’t remember. But I was bruised and battered and had broken bones and internal injuries. I’ve just always assumed my injuries came from inside the car. But, I guess if I was thrown from it before it rolled into that canyon, I might have sustained those injuries then.” Might have managed to get up and walk . . . to wander to where the hikers found me.
Agent Gallagher nodded. “I think it’s more probable.” Her fall had been from the car then, rather than in it. Which must have meant she’d known it was going to crash—or one of her parents did and had warned her . . . She massaged her temples again. She’d never have the answers to those questions. There was no way to ever know the exact sequence of events.
She’d been found hours later, wandering in the snow, soaking wet and on the verge of hypothermia. Thank God the lost hikers had found her and had the wherewithal to get her dry and back to civilization quickly enough that she didn’t freeze to death. Weeks later, she’d woken up to a new world—one she hadn’t recognized, and she’d been trying to navigate it ever since.
“Harper,” Agent Gallagher began, stopping and seeming to consider his words, “I know what it’s like to have the rug ripped out from under you. I can’t imagine it happening when you were only a child, with limited coping skills.”
She looked at him, took in the set of his mouth, the way his gaze was filled with empathy. Understanding. He did know. She wondered what proverbial rug had been ripped from beneath his feet. Wondered if there were coping skills for the loss of your entire world, whether you were seven, or seventy. “Thank you,” she said, and she meant it.
“Can I ask who raised you after you lost your parents?”