But . . . there’s something about him . . . God, it’s hard to explain. He’s this combination of wild and, I don’t know, innocent? No, that’s not right. Thoughtful?” She shook her head, frustrated that she couldn’t describe him accurately, or do him justice. “Sensitive.”
“Your eyes are all funny right now,” Rylee noted and when Harper looked at her, she saw that her friend was watching her with an expression that was half-puzzled and half-amused.
Harper rolled her eyes. “All right. He’s an enigma.”
“Well yeah, of course he’s an enigma. He grew up on dirt and snow and class notes on The Count of Monte Cristo. He’s probably confused as hell.”
Despite that it felt slightly mean, Harper laughed. “Who wouldn’t be?” she asked, attempting to defend him, though she knew Rylee was mostly kidding. “Can you even imagine, Rylee? The loneliness he must have lived with all these years? I don’t know if I could have survived.”
“Of course you could have. You’re the strongest person I know.”
Harper gave Rylee a small smile. She appreciated the vote of confidence, but she wondered if anyone was strong enough to survive that without some major lasting effects. “Anyway”—she stood, taking the few steps around the chair and giving her friend another hug—“I’ve gotta run, but thank you for this,” she said, pointing to the trim she hadn’t really needed but that had allowed her to visit with her friend under the watchful eye of the salon owner.
“Stay warm,” she said as Harper handed her the money for the cut and a tip, folding it into her hand so she didn’t try to give the tip back like she always did. “And let me know what I can do to help with arrangements for your parents.”
“I will.” Harper waved goodbye to the other stylists she knew, the bell over the door tinkling as she left.
She’d only made it a block down the street when her phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket, and when she saw who it was, her heart picked up speed. She stopped, stepping close to the side of a building, so she wasn’t in the middle of the sidewalk. “Hello?”
“Hi, Harper. I was calling . . . well, are you sitting down?”
Harper’s breath caught and she leaned against the wood siding of the hardware store. Agent Gallagher sounded . . . off somehow. “Yes.”
“The coroner called me. Harper, there’s evidence that your parents were shot.”
“Shot?” For a moment the word didn’t make sense, as though he’d spoken in a foreign language she couldn’t comprehend. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either, but their case is now being treated as a homicide.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Drip. Plunk. Ping.
Winter was melting all around him, falling from the forest. The ground drank it up, taking it deep down where the life of the trees and the plants and the flowers waited to live again. Jak stepped on the soft ground, his eyes looking for some mushrooms, or something else to fill his empty belly. Soon there would be enough food again, and that thought brought a faraway gladness, though the heavy feeling that had weighed him down since Pup died, felt like it was crushing all happiness, making it smaller, not important. The heavy feeling was bigger, shadowing everything.
Pup.
A lump moved up Jak’s throat and he swallowed it down, his steps slowing.
The wind moved, a terrible smell making his nose wrinkle, his attention turning right before he heard a low grunt. Something moved in the brush to his left. A boar. He went into a slow crouch, waited for the fear to come, but it did not. That heaviness inside him made that small too.
Pig is going for lots of money in town. Bring me one, and I’ll give you a bow and arrow. It had been a long, hard winter without Pup. He’d gone hungry often. Scared. Alone. His ribs could be seen easily under his skin. He needed the bigger weapon now if he was going to live. Not only to have meat, but to kill animals big enough for the furs he needed to survive the freezing cold. And if he wasn’t going to live, then why wait for starvation to take him, slowly and hurting? Why not let the pig do it with one angry, squealing stab to his gut? Wouldn’t that be better anyway? Quicker?
He knelt down next to a mossy tree trunk, going still and waiting for the pig to come out of the brush. He let his breath out