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?"

"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…" Her frown deepened. "Maybe the adrenaline…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 seat belt, 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?"

"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 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 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. 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 are 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 though 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 its 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.