That poor thing.
Orphan.
“Depends. Might be three days, might be three months. There’s no way to say at this point in the investigation. I’m here to do my very best to find justice for the two victims. Or at least, answers.” He paused, studying her in that way that made her feel slightly itchy. “If you agree to help, you’ll need to keep any information quiet. Like I said, I’ll need your help canvassing some of the area, and I may have a question or two pertaining to the case, and so you’ll be privy to things I’d prefer aren’t discussed openly.”
Harper nodded. “Of course. I understand. I’m a vault.”
Agent Gallagher chuckled. “Okay, good. Then what do you say?”
What do you say? Why did she have this feeling in her gut that getting involved—even as a glorified chauffer—was going to matter in some way she couldn’t possibly know right then? The picture of the man with the fiery eyes sitting one room over flashed in her mind, as did the terrain she’d be driving this stranger in front of her into. This man who seemed capable, yes, but was used to sunny skies and sandy beaches, not frigid canyons and frozen rivers.
She wasn’t out there as much herself during the cold sea
son. For one, there were fewer clients who wanted to venture into the wild tundra to freeze their asses off, and two, it would be foolish to carry on her personal search during the snowy months when what she was looking for would be piled under a mound of icy white. She paused for another brief second, resolve filling her. “I’ll do it.”
Agent Gallagher’s lips tipped. “Great. Can you start now? I need to get out to that second crime scene, Harper. If I may call you Harper?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I need to take a few minutes to ask the man in the next room some questions. I’ll be quick. I imagine he’s ready to get home.”
She nodded, and Agent Gallagher left the room, headed toward the “wild man.” No, Lucas. His name is Lucas. And his home is in the middle of nowhere.
CHAPTER SIX
Unhappy smells. Old sweat, tears, fear. The stink of human urine. And over that, something sharp and strong that Lucas could not name. Unnatural.
He hadn’t been paying enough attention, his thoughts flying like the whipping snowflakes all around him. And then there had been the truck where a truck had never been before. The big machine that roared and rumbled and left deep tracks in the snow. But he hadn’t run. Hadn’t fought. Because he’d wanted to see the man who drove it. Up close. Wanted to know if he might be a friend, or if he was an enemy.
Were there really still enemies? Or had Driscoll been the only enemy? He still didn’t know. He was trying to figure it out.
The man in the truck had steered off the road when he saw Lucas and then taken out his gun and pointed it at him. His hand had been shaking and Lucas had smelled his fear, knew he could overtake the man, steal his gun if he wanted, but he didn’t. The man had asked him to come in to town and answer questions. Lucas didn’t want to answer any of his questions. He could have darted away like a fox. Too quick to catch. But he had needed to know more about what was out there.
So he’d let the man drive him into town and the man had put him here, in the cell that unhappy people had sat in before him. Sweating. Crying. Peeing on the floor? Why? He couldn’t make sense of that. Even animals peed far away from where they slept.
Driscoll had talked about a cell. With bars. A cage. This must be what he meant. But the men who told him to sit there had also said he could go home after they asked him questions. But maybe they were lying.
He looked at the camera in the corner. He knew what a camera was. The redheaded woman had told him what to look for, and he’d remembered. Remembered from the long-ago world, the one he’d lived in. Before. The life where there had been cameras and cars, and food in cans, and boxes, even bottles of sweet orange-colored drinks with little bubbles that’d popped on his tongue.
Some of it he could remember the names for, some of it he could not. The tastes though . . . the tastes had already left his memory.
He looked up and a red light on the camera flashed. On. Off. On. Off. Like the slow blink of a red-eyed owl. They were watching him. Taking pictures. Why?
If they didn’t have guns, he could fight them all. He was bigger, stronger than both men, the one who had driven him there in the truck, and the other one who asked him questions and then put him in the cage.
That man was in the room next door, he could smell him, his scent both strange and familiar. Like pine trees only . . . too much. Too . . . everything. The smell made Lucas picture pine trees as tall as the sky and as wide as a mountain. Bright blinding green with pine cones huge like boulders. Lucas wasn’t sure what to think about that. His smell was just very.
But suddenly, underneath that, there was something else . . . he leaned his head back, closing his eyes and trying to pick up the scent beneath all the other ones. It was faint, very faint but he caught it and held on. A faraway wildflower field after a rainstorm. Clean. Earthy.
A woman.
Her smell . . . soothed him.
Confused him.
Her scent made the whispers stir up inside. They weren’t whispers, that was the wrong word, but the only one he knew to use. The feelings he got when everything else disappeared, except for his instincts. They were always quiet, but sometimes he understood them, and sometimes he did not.
He pulled in another breath. The scent of her was new and old, something that was not known and already a part of him. Deep down. Deep, deep down. Something came alive like a spark, rising up to greet its match, a singing in his blood that was like the wind that showed up on a cold winter morning telling the forest that springtime was in the close faraway.