canyon. “How in the world are we supposed to get down there?”
Lucas looked at her. “Climb. If you want to get down there, you’ll have to follow me.”
She paused for only a moment and then nodded.
Lucas placed his bag on the ground and walked to the place where a tree grew from the side of the cliff, its root buried deep inside the rock. He grabbed hold of it and swung down easily, a move he’d done many times, in every season. He went down the sloped rock, finding the places his foot could rest and leaving room for Harper to follow him. When he tipped his head to see her, she looked nervous, but only paused for a heartbeat before following behind him, doing the same thing he’d just done.
He moved slowly, far more slowly than he would have if he’d been on his own, but . . . he thought she did good. Like a baby racoon following its mother up a tree for the first time. Slow. Careful. But natural.
With each movement, her breath came faster like she might be having trouble catching it. But she hadn’t gotten breathless once during the walk, and he wondered about it but didn’t ask. Her parents were at the bottom, and he thought that was probably the reason why she couldn’t catch her breath.
His feet touched the ground first, cracking through the icy-topped snow and meeting the frozen ground below. It was colder down there—darker—hidden from the sun, and her breath made tiny clouds as she stepped down to meet him. The world around them shushed.
Their eyes met and Harper seemed different . . . scared, or heavier, or . . . something, her eyes jumping all over the area behind him. He moved toward where he knew the vehicle was. He brushed some snow aside, showing naked branches that covered the blue of the car with leaves during the other three seasons.
A bit of the blue paint was showing, light hitting the metal and shining off it. Harper took off one of her gloves and reached out slowly, touching it like she didn’t believe it was real. She pulled her hand back, and Lucas cleared some more branches, using his arm to brush the snow from the cracked and dirty car.
The skeletons were the same as when he’d first found them—one turned toward the back seat, and the other bent forward. His heart felt heavy. These people belonged to her.
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.