“I was put in the foster care system.” She looked down, picking at her nails for a moment. “My dad was quite a bit older than my mom, and by the time of the accident, my paternal grandparents lived in an assisted living facility. They’ve since passed. My mother was estranged from her family, so I never knew them. They didn’t step forward to claim me when she died.” Harper paused. “My mom had a brother, but he wasn’t willing or able to take me in. So . . .” There was a lot hanging on that little two-letter word, but she didn’t want to get into the six moves, the bouncing from one foster home to another, the loneliness, the fear, the way the door had creaked open some nights in that first house, the way she’d pretended to be asleep and prayed to God he’d leave. The way she’d withdrawn completely and struggled to communicate for several years. The way no one took the time or made the effort to break through her walls and bond with her. The way it was books, not people, that had finally allowed her to step outside of her own mind enough to process her grief and come out of her shell. No, there was too much there she didn’t want to go into, much less ponder. Especially then.
“There was no one in town who could take you in?”
Harper shook her head, and Agent Gallagher paused for several beats. “That’s . . . unfortunate.”
She fingered the locket now hanging around her own neck, visualizing the picture inside, the happy family that had once been hers. “Yes, it’s just the way it was.” She shook her head. She couldn’t stay in this funk. “Thank you for organizing my battery being jumped, too, by the way. I hope my going to ask Lucas about the necklace didn’t . . . impede your investigation in some way.”
“No, no. My investigation is a separate matter. It was a good hunch on your part, and I’m glad he was able and willing to help you.” He smiled kindly. “What’s your impression of Lucas now that you’ve spent more time with him?”
Harper met his eyes, considering his question. Lucas. Confusing. Reserved. Silent. Resilient. Safe. “I never felt threatened by him.” She paused. “In fact, he seems . . . well, caring. He was concerned about the baby foxes I practically ran over.” She glanced at Agent Gallagher, the embarrassment over her careless behavior sweeping through her again. “Accidentally. And . . . he never came across as threatening. I was prepared had that not been the case,” she added, wanting to grimace at what she must have looked like to Lucas, showing up on his doorstep practically holding a rifle on him and demanding answers. “His language is . . . simple, I suppose but he’s obviously intelligent. He seems confused by certain terms . . . he gets this look on his face . . . but he doesn’t admit when he doesn’t know a word. You can literally see him working it out. It’s . . . Anyway, he’s wary, but funny sometimes. I mean, on purpose. And . . . why are you looking at me that way?”
Agent Gallagher smiled. “You like him.”
Harper laughed. “Like him? No. I mean, sure. He’s . . . interesting.” She felt her cheeks heat and wanted to bring her hands to them but resisted.
Agent Gallagher’s smile faded and a look of concern came into his eyes. Fatherly. It made Harper’s chest squeeze. “Just be cautious. We really don’t know anything about him yet. And at this point, he’s our only person of interest in this murder investigation.”
“I will. I mean, I have no reason to interact with him anymore anyway.”
“It seems serendipitous that you were called in to help on the Driscoll case, and that a person brought in to answer questions, ended up being able to help solve the mystery of where your parents’ car has been all these years.”
“I didn’t think law enforcement agents typically believed in serendipity,” she said, giving Agent Gallagher her first genuine smile since sobbing her heart out in that canyon.
Agent Gallagher chuckled. “We don’t, as a general rule. It’s our job to find explanations that go beyond fate.” His smile grew. “But in this case, it seems like it’s purely a stroke of luck.”
Stroke of luck. Hadn’t Lucas said something similar when she’d told him about being found by the lost hikers? She’d always considered herself unlucky. Perhaps one of the unluckiest people she knew. But maybe she’d been looking at it from the wrong angle. Yes, it had been a terrible tragedy that her parents had been taken from her when she’d been so young—a tragedy that had shaped her life in innumerable negative ways. But . . . but she’d also experienced incredible strokes of . . . yes, luck. And maybe she could learn to find the positive in her life now too if she looked hard enough.
“I know it’s been a long, hard few days, but can I ask a quick question about something related to the crime at the Larkspur?”
Harper rubbed at her eye, happy to turn her mind to something else for a few minutes. “Yes, of course.”
Agent Gallagher took out a photo from his notebook and handed it to her. It was a pile of books on what looked to be a bedside table. “You can see the titles on the spines. They’re all young adult books. What I’m wondering about is the stickers that were obviously peeled off. They were still sticky in some spots, as though it’d been done recently.”
Harper brought the picture closer, her gaze moving to the places on the spines that looked as tho
ugh stickers had been scraped off with someone’s fingernail.
“I thought they might be from a used bookstore in town, or something like that, but there isn’t one in Helena Springs. I thought about the library, but the Helena Springs library uses white stickers for the book’s location.”
“Yes,” Harper agreed. “So does the Missoula library. But the library in Missoula also uses yellow stickers on some of their books,” Harper said. “I was there recently. That could be a portion of the yellow sticker. The bottom one tells the location of the book, and the top one tells how many days it’s available to check out.” Harper handed the picture back.
Agent Gallagher frowned. “I wonder why someone would peel stickers off books she’d borrowed.”
Harper shrugged. “Maybe she wasn’t planning on taking them back.”
“Yeah. Maybe. Thanks, Harper, that’s helpful. I’ll give you a lift home,” he said, standing. “You must be exhausted.” He turned, meeting her eyes, that same empathy she’d seen a few moments before, back in his gaze. “I hope being able to bury your parents, to have a place to visit them, will help you find some closure.”
“I hope so too,” she said quietly. “I hope so too.” Because she’d always yearned for a place to take her grief and loss. A place to say goodbye.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jak hadn’t eaten in three days. His belly ached, gnawed at itself, hunger making him feel weak, sleepy. But he couldn’t sleep, not if he wanted to live. Live! Pup had gone out over and over during the long hours, but even he, a natural hunter, hadn’t had any luck. The weather was miserable outside, the animals hidden away in their dens, covered by snow or blocked by ice. Many of them would die there before the winter was over. He wondered if he’d die too.
Jak’s heart seemed to slow, like it was getting ready to stop. Thump, thump. Maybe it would. And who would care? No one. No one would even know.
He had had enough food to last him through four days of the storm that was still blowing, but no more. He’d run out a week ago.
Jak had tried to catch a fish but couldn’t break through the thick ice even after hammering at it with a sharp rock for hours. He’d waited by the water, hoping a deer would come out for a drink, but the cold grew so painful Pup had started whining, a low sound of hurting that Jak understood even better than his fur-covered friend. He’d had no choice but to go back inside, starving and empty-handed.