deep breaths, attempting to calm herself as she glanced at the clock. 4:13 p.m. She’d managed six hours of sleep at least.
The hardwood floor was cold beneath her feet as she padded to the bathroom, brushing her teeth and rinsing her face with cold water and then patting it dry with the towel hung on a hook by the sink. She took a few seconds to look at herself in the mirror, her chest still rising and falling too quickly with her increased heart rate.
Her brown hair lay matted around her face in sweaty tangles, any rat’s dream home, and there were dark smudges under her brown eyes, which were already too big in her face, making her look like a tired owl. Lovely. No amount of concealer would be enough today.
Coffee beckoned. A shower—and some cucumber slices on her eyes?—could wait. As she stood at her kitchen sink, the delicious scent of dark roast beginning to fill the room and clear her foggy brain, she stared out the window, going over everything that had happened two days before. She still couldn’t believe she’d been asked to help out with a murder investigation. Or more specifically, she’d been asked to drive an investigator around and guide him through some wilderness areas. But he’d asked her opinion on a few aspects of the case that he didn’t necessarily have to, and he’d listened to what she’d said and appreciated her input, and it’d made her feel . . . useful. Good.
She wondered if he’d share the things he ended up uncovering about Lucas, if there was anything to uncover at all. Which, there had to be. Right? The picture of Lucas in the holding cell, and then the way his eyes had caught hers right before he’d gotten into Deputy Brighton’s SUV, ran through her mind.
The machine beeped and she poured herself a cup of coffee, added a splash of milk, and took a grateful sip, as her mind moved again to the strange yet intriguing man. And that locket around his neck. Had she seen it before?
Her memories of her parents were clouded. She’d been so young when they’d died—only seven years old. But standing in her kitchen, the last of the afternoon sunlight streaming through the window, as she sipped the life-giving brew, that darn necklace was niggling at her mind again. Or at least, something very much like it. Her mother had had something similar with . . . hearts maybe? Three hearts . . . the words were tickling at the edges of her mind. Something . . . entwined. She released a whoosh of breath, massaging her left temple. It was there but too far away to grasp, skating just outside her memory, taunting her.
What if . . . she placed her empty mug in the sink and returned to her living/bedroom area, removing the box from the top of her closet shelf and sitting on the bed to open it. Her parents’ belongings—furniture and household items—had been put into a storage locker, which had gone delinquent thanks to an irresponsible “advocate” with a too-big case load, and subsequently been auctioned off. But Harper had a few photo albums and keepsakes that she’d been allowed to collect before being placed in her first foster home. Inside the box were not only photos, but a few cards, memories that she hadn’t looked through in a long time. She put the cards aside, not daring to peek inside. Today, seeing her parents’ handwriting felt like too much, and she couldn’t do it, not after the dream that had left her feeling so raw. What was it about someone’s handwriting that brought them back to life with a single glance? A blessing. And a curse.
She flipped through the two photo albums, one of her parents’ wedding, and another of her as a baby and toddler. She didn’t find anything in either one and so she put those aside, pulling out the loose photos and putting them into a pile. She began going through them one by one, interested only in the ones of her mother. There weren’t many. Most of the photos her parents had had were presumably in a digital format somewhere that she had no way to access.
She didn’t linger on their smiling faces, not today, attempting to keep her emotions as objective as possible. She would put her roaming thoughts to rest and let it go. Let her questions go. Let him go. Him . .