by Mia Sheridan
“Animals will do what they have to do to survive. Yes. But in general, no, deer don’t eat fish.”
“Okay, I wanted to double-check with you. I’m still making my way through this thing but it’s . . . odd. It almost appears as if Driscoll was watching one specific possum, one specific deer, and one specific wolf.”
“Why would he do that? And how would he know it was the same one?”
“I have no idea. If anything comes to you, will you let me know?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks, Harper.”
“You’re welcome.” She paused for a moment. “Any news yet?” she asked, knowing she didn’t have to specify what she was asking about.
“Not yet. They’re a little bit backed up, but I’m hoping for something by tomorrow morning. Then they’ll be able to release the bodies so you can make arrangements.”
Harper was quiet for a moment as she digested that. It was what she’d hoped for, for so long—the ability to lay her parents to rest—but the impending reality caused a lump to form in her throat. She needed to start thinking about burial or cremation, and how she’d pay for whichever she chose. She needed to begin making calls and arrangements, but all she wanted to do was stay buried under a blanket on her bed, drinking tea she didn’t like.
“Harper? You there?”
“Yes, sorry. Um, I was also wondering if anything was found in the car or in the trunk? Specifically, a turquoise backpack? It was my mother’s, and she always threw it in her trunk after classes were out.” They’d taken her mother’s SUV that night because the roads were icy and her mother’s vehicle had brand-new tires. Harper remembered that because she liked riding in the take-home sheriff’s car her dad drove and had complained that they weren’t in it that evening. The last car ride she’d ever take with her parents and she’d whined and sulked about everything that evening. She remembered that. To her great regret and shame.
“No. There was nothing in the trunk except a disintegrated blanket.”
Harper frowned. It was possible her mother had left her backpack somewhere else, but that damn quote kept pricking at her mind.
“Okay, thanks.” She paused for a moment. “Agent Gallagher, can I ask if there’s an update on the forensics on that bow and arrow taken from Lucas? If you can’t tell me, I understand—”
“Traces of blood were found on all the arrows that belong to him, but it’s all animal blood. No human matter at all. And none of his DNA is on either arrow used in the murders.”
Harper let out a slow breath. She felt a little odd about the sudden rush of relief, but she couldn’t deny it. Something inside of her was rooting for him. Not only that, but she couldn’t see him as a murderer. He’d practically pushed her out of the way to provide assistance to a den of baby foxes, for God’s sake. She’d never once felt afraid, and he hadn’t taken advantage of her even though she’d slept so hard under his roof that she barely knew her own name when she’d woken up. Oh, and there had been drool . . . Please, God, don’t let him have seen the drool.
“There also doesn’t appear to be any of Lucas’s DNA at the bed and breakfast crime scene either. A few prints at Driscoll’s belong to him, but that was expected since he’d been there over the years. None were found in the bedroom where the murder occurred.”
Harper released another slow breath. “So, he’s no longer a person of interest?”
“I wouldn’t exactly say that. But . . . we have nothing to tie him to either crime at this point.”
“Have you found out anything about his background?”
“No, but I have to be honest, I don’t have anything to go on. Lucas doesn’t appear to want to find out anything about his background, and solving the murders has to be my first priority. I’m going to dig more once I have the chance, but for now, finding out about Driscoll’s background comes first.”
Harper had stood as he’d answered her question and now she paced once in front of her bed. “The thing is,” she said, turning and pacing in the other direction, “I’ve been wondering what Lucas is doing on his own now that Driscoll is dead, and he doesn’t have any access to the outside world.”
“That’s not entirely true. He has legs. He could walk to town if he chose to. Hell, he could move if he chose to. In fact, if Driscoll didn’t have a will that left that house to Lucas, then he might be forced to do so.”
“Walk to town? In the snow and ice?” Harper asked, the barest bit of outrage seeping into her tone.
“I have a feeling Lucas is used to the snow and ice.”
She couldn’t disagree with that. “Okay, but there’s no way he can have any money. He traded with Driscoll using fish and animal skins. What if I at least took him some provisions until he gets his bow and arrow back and . . . and . . . things are clearer as far as his living situation?”
“Harper . . . listen, I’m not your father”—there was a strange catch in his voice and a slight pause before he cleared his throat and continued—“but you don’t know Lucas. And to go out to his house alone doesn’t seem like the wisest choice for a woman on her own. I understand why you did it once, but maybe repeating it should be avoided.”
Harper stopped pacing, sitting back down on the bed. “Okay.”
“Why do I sense that your okay doesn’t mean what I think it means?”
Despite herself, Harper blew out a small laugh. “I appreciate you keeping me updated on the case. Any idea when you might want to look for those map markers?”
“The sooner the better, but the weather forecast doesn’t look promising. They’re saying a storm’s moving in.”
“Just let me know then, okay?”
“I will. And Harper, please take my words under advisement.”
“I will. I promise.”
They said goodbye and Harper hung up, tossing her phone next to her on the bed. They’re saying a storm’s moving in . . .
She did take Agent Gallagher’s words under advisement. She respected him. She liked him. She appreciated that he’d shared information he didn’t have to with her, and that he cared about helping her with her situation too—a situation that wasn’t even part of the reason he was in Helena Springs. He obviously cared about her safety, and after a lifetime of not having a father figure, his concern was a balm to her soul. But . . . but . . . he hadn’t spent a night and a day with Lucas. He hadn’t had time to develop a sense of the man’s . . . goodness.
She wished she could call Lucas and thank him for what he’d done for her—not only led her to her parents’ car, but helped her find the closure she’d been searching for since that snowy night when she was a child. She wished she could call and ask him if he needed anything now that he was totally alone—a ride to town, some food or water . . . matches . . . She wished she had some way to repay the favor he’d done for her, but she couldn’t ask him without going in person.
Harper glanced outside her window at the darkening clouds. I understand why you did it once, but maybe repeating it should be avoided. She understood Mark’s logic, but she needed to answer her heart’s call. If she was going to gather some items and make the drive to Lucas’s, she didn’t have a lot of time to stand around waffling.
She hesitated only another moment before grabbing her coat, hat, and gloves, pulling on her boots, and heading for the door.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Morning sun touched Jak’s naked shoulders. Warm. Soft. Good. An invisible hand tossed glitter all over the surface of the river. Jak laughed as Pup splashed through the water, his tongue hanging out and making it look like he was grinning. He came to Jak, his limp less now. He had gotten better from his injury, but it had taken the whole winter, and the limp still stayed. Pup would never be the hunter he was before. Jak was responsible for him now. That was okay. Pup had taken care of him for a time, but now it was Jak’s turn and he was up to the job. “I won’t let you down, boy,” he told Pup, as much as himself. Saying it aloud, saying it so another pair of ears heard too, felt like
the most important promise of all, one he would never break.
Pup was his best friend. And best friends kept promises to each other. That was all.
Pup let out a chuff noise, and Jak smiled, knowing that Pup had understood him and knew he was not alone out there, even if he didn’t have a true pack. “I’m your pack and you’re mine,” Jak said, scooping up a handful of water and throwing it at Pup. Pup shook off the water, throwing droplets right back, and Jak laughed as he turned his head away.
It was a good day. The sun was warm. Spring was waking up the earth. He had enough food, and soon the forest would give him more. And he had a friend he loved. War fighting might be going on somewhere in the near faraway, but there, for that moment, he was safe.
He looked to where the mountains became the sky, a shiver rolling through him. Winter always waited. It might seem far away for now, but it would be back before he was ready. It would come back to steal his hope—of survival, of rescue, of having a family or people to love him.
Maybe no one could ever love him now anyway. Not after the things he’d done.
The rushing sound of the water brought him from his dark thoughts and he tried his best to shake off the feeling of . . . aloneness. His sad feelings inside were all different, though he didn’t have names for all of them. But the word that seemed to fit each one was alone.
He reached down and brought a handful of water to his chest, using his hand to wash under his arms and then along his shoulders. It felt good to be clean, good to feel the cold drops sliding down his skin, reminding him he was alive. Not like the boy he’d killed and left lying in the snow.
Thinking about that boy still caused a dark hole to open in the pit of his stomach, something that felt like it would always be empty. Hollow. Sometimes when he thought about that boy, he remembered the picture he’d seen in Isaac Driscoll’s house, the one of the men fighting the bloody battle with spears and arrows. He wondered if pits opened inside of them each time they took a life, and thought that if they did, those men must feel like walking darkness.
At the first thaw, Jak had gone back for the blond boy’s bones, planning to bury them on the hillside where an old bent tree grew with a hundred million wildflowers all around that, from the close faraway, looked like rainbows touched the earth. There was a lake at the bottom of the hill where pairs of white swans—mates for life—floated, even in the winter when the water was icy and mostly frozen. He’d thought about it and decided that if someone was going to bury him, that’s the place he would hope they’d pick. But the blond boy’s bones had been gone, carried off by animals, scattered through the wilderness.
He dreamed of him sometimes, his body-less head talking to him from the ground, asking Jak to give back the rest of him. He woke up screaming, Pup whining next to him.
Jak picked up a stick and tossed it to Pup, who splashed through the water, taking the piece of wood in his mouth and bringing it back to Jak. He did this a few more times as Jak kept washing his body, looking with interest at all the places hair was sprouting, prickly like the late summer grass. His skin was rough and scarred, and he could feel the way his muscles had grown as he ran his hands over his bare skin. He’d grown so much taller since last winter that his pants were now way too short, and his shirt had ripped across his shoulders. He’d have to see what Driscoll would take for a few new pieces of clothing, though summer was coming, and new clothes could wait. He would rip the too-small pants into shorts and go shirtless for a while. He never looked forward to seeing Driscoll, so he’d live with what he had, and handmake anything he could.
How old am I now? Time was a cloudy, wavy line he couldn’t quite hold on to. He had no idea if it was Monday or Sunday, February, or March. Only the winters stood out to him—those dark, miserably cold days, when even the sun left early. Even though he had shelter now, and warmth when he could get matches from Driscoll, he still had to go outside to find food, and he and Pup were still alone when the wind screamed and howled and the roof shook, and it felt like the world was ending.
Sixteen, he thought, counting in his mind. I think I’m sixteen. He’d lived alone for ten winters.
Jak started making his way to the shore, whistling for Pup, who hadn’t come back with the stick Jak had tossed into the trees a while ago. Damn wolf had probably seen a squirrel and gone after it. Well, good for him if there were still a few things he wasn’t too limpy to hunt.
Jak used his shirt to towel off, shaking his shoulder-length hair like Pup did, water drops flying out around him. The back of his neck tickled and he raised his head, squinting into the forest. He felt . . . watched. He sensed it sometimes, like today. The tiny hairs on the back of his neck would stand up, and he’d feel sure someone was looking at him through the trees.
He whistled again, that feeling of being watched staying with him. Jak had learned to trust his instincts, to count on them for his survival, so he did not brush away the feeling. He wondered if the enemy sent spies into the forest to see who lived there and find out why. Or maybe others—like the blond boy—were living close by and watched Jak to find out if he was good or bad.
Jak pulled on his jeans, running his hand over the pocket to feel the hard bump of the pocketknife there and then grabbed the knife that had belonged to the blond boy, tying it to his waistband with an old piece of cloth from clothes he’d gotten too big for. He tossed the damp shirt over his shoulder and headed for the woods to find Pup.
It got cooler as soon as he stepped into the trees, splinters of light coming through the gaps at the tops of the old giants of the forest. He talked to them sometimes when Pup was out hunting, or when Jak had left him sleeping in front of the fire. Sometimes he got so lonely—needed another person so much—that he pretended the trees were wise old men who had answers to his millions of questions, and if he just listened hard enough, they’d whisper what they knew. The way they whispered to each other deep under the ground.
The same, only different, as the whispers inside of him.
Maybe he shouldn’t hope the trees would share their whispers. Maybe if they did, he’d know he’d started to lose his mind.
Maybe the forest made everyone who lived there go crazy finally, because Driscoll didn’t seem right in the head either.
“Pup,” he called, pushing a branch aside. Where is he?
Jak stilled when he heard what he thought was a whimper, turning toward the sound and moving faster through the shrubs just sprouting pale green leaves. That’s when he saw him, lying on the forest floor in a pool of spreading blood.
“Pup!” he yelled, running to him, and falling to his knees at his side. There was a long wooden arrow sticking from Pup’s neck, blood flowing from the wound. Jak’s heart pounded with fear and sickness. “It’s okay, boy. It’s okay,” he choked as he pulled on the arrow and Pup made an awful, high-pitched screaming noise and more blood poured from the wound. Jak let out a sob, not knowing what to do. He put his hands around the arrow, trying so hard to stop the rushing blood. He met Pup’s half-closed gaze and the wolf held eye contact for a few moments, his tongue poking out to lick Jak’s wrist, his blood pumping between Jak’s fingers.
Jak sobbed again as Pup’s body went still, the blood slowing into a trickle. Tears flowed down Jak’s cheeks as he took his hands from around the arrow and picked up Pup’s large body, rocking the giant animal in his arms. My friend. My friend. My friend. He cried, his sobs mixing with the wind as it blew through the branches of the trees who stood on, watching, whispering to each other, but only ever that.
“I thought he was wild. I didn’t know.”
Jak whipped his head around and Driscoll was standing close by, a bow in his hand, arrows strapped to his waist. Jak’s gaze moved slowly from Driscoll’s face to the weapon he held and back again. The man had killed Pup. Rage, hotter than the sun, went through Jak and slowly, he lowered Pup’s body to the ground, coming to his full height, the feel of Pup’s blood warm on his bare chest. He lowered his head and growled
, low in his throat.
Driscoll’s eyes went wide as he looked at him, and though he looked scared, there was something else shining from his eyes. That look that had shined from Baka’s eyes when Jak did something good. That weird excitement that had been on his face when he was showing Jak the picture in his bedroom.
“I’m going to kill you,” Jak growled. Meaning it. He was going to tear his throat out.
Driscoll nodded, backing away as he raised his hand. Jak went forward, sadness and anger making him feel dizzy like the forest had started to spin around him. No, he wouldn’t tear his throat out. He was going to grab that bow and arrow from Driscoll before he could raise it and bury one of those arrows in his neck. His heart. Jak’s back teeth scraped against each other.
“I understand how you feel, but listen. Listen,” Driscoll said, his voice shaking. “I can get you one of these if you want.” He held up the bow and nodded down to the arrows at his side.
Driscoll raised his hand again. “If you harm me, they’ll come looking. My friend in town will know something’s wrong if I don’t show up for supplies. And they’ll come out here and find you. Do you want that?”
They’re killing the children.
Only, Jak wasn’t a child anymore.
But he wasn’t yet a man either.
He stopped, that old terror swimming in his veins, mixing with the horrible swirling sadness of Pup dead behind him. He all of a sudden felt so tired he wanted to drop to his knees. He ached inside. “I can get you one of these,” Driscoll repeated again. “Pig meat is going for lots of money in town. If you can kill one, I’ll bring you your own bow and arrow.” When Jak stayed silent, Driscoll added, “I’ll throw in another box of matches too.”
Jak looked back at Pup’s body, his heart crying out with loss. What good would it do to kill Driscoll now? It wouldn’t bring Pup back . . . and the bow and arrow would help him survive, especially now that Pup was gone. The hurt inside swelled. He hung his head. A pig. One of those wild hogs with the razor-sharp tusks. He avoided those pigs like they were the devil’s children. Even Pup—