Enjoy their company.
And open doors? What doors?
Harper was chewing at her lip, a small wrinkle between her eyes. “You don’t think I should move in with them, Harper?”
Her eyes met his. “What? No. I mean . . . I think Agent Gallagher is right. I . . . I know what it’s like to move into a house with strangers, that’s all. But Jak, you’re an adult, and Agent Gallagher is right. If you don’t like it there, you can leave.”
He felt sad for her. When she was a little girl, Harper had to move i
nto a house of people she didn’t know. She had been scared. But she was a little girl. Like I was a little boy when I lost my baka. That reminded him of how scared he’d been. He wanted to go back in time and protect her. He wanted to rip the throat out of the man who had done bad things to her. If you don’t like it there, you can leave. Harper hadn’t been able to leave.
There were so many words he hadn’t understood from Agent Gallagher, and his heart felt like it was beating too fast. He needed air. To see the sky. He wanted to watch as the sun went behind the mountains and the stars came out, one by two, by ten, by a hundred, then a thousand, and an endless number he could never count to even if he learned them all. He wanted to empty his mind and figure out what might be waiting for him out in the world. A family, his heart whispered. Your own pack. No, people to call my own. Could he learn how to trust them? Could he learn how to be one of them? Would they want him to?
“Jak, listen, you take tonight to think about it. I’ve laid a lot at your feet, and you’ve given me some more leads I need to follow up on. However, I recommend that you take your grandfather up on his offer.” He glanced at Harper. “Were you planning on staying or—”
“No.” She shook her head. “I need to get back. I can give you a ride. I think the ice has melted enough that it’s safe to drive. She looked at Jak, her cheeks going pink. “How about I come back first thing in the morning and we can drive to Helena Springs? I can show you around. Maybe you’ll have made a decision and we can call Agent Gallagher.”
Jak nodded. He didn’t want her to go but he needed time alone. He needed to think. He needed to decide. About his life. A life he had never known was possible for him.
“There’s one more thing,” Harper said, and then she told him about the helicopters, about Jak seeing them the morning after he’d been dropped off on the cliff.
Agent Gallagher frowned, looking confused. “That can’t be a coincidence,” he murmured. “Two mysteries beginning on the same night? In the same wilderness?”
“Well,” Harper said, standing up and getting the map she’d marked up with Jak, “they occurred quite a ways from each other, but, yes.” She set the map in front of him and he looked at it for a few minutes. “Can I take this with me?”
Harper nodded. “Of course. I drew it up hoping it’d be helpful.”
“It is,” he said, “if for no other reason that it helps me picture where everything occurred. Thank you.”
Agent Gallagher looked between them for a minute, and then put his hands on the table in front of him, his eyes on Jak. “Is there anything else you need to tell me? Anything that might help with the investigation?”
Jak’s heart quickened. He looked away, shaking his head. There were things he couldn’t . . . wouldn’t tell. If he did, who would ever want him as part of their family? Part of society? They’d lock him up. They’d call him an animal. A beast. And maybe he was. Or at least, he could be. And that had to be his secret. That was all.
The agent nodded. “All right. All of this, it’s a lot,” he said. “Are you okay?”
Okay? Right then he was. “Yes. I’m okay.”
Agent Gallagher smiled. “Good. Think about all of this and then we’ll talk.” He looked between Jak and Harper again. “By the way, what are you two doing for Christmas?”
Harper glanced at Jak. “Christmas?” he whispered.
“Do you remember Christmas, Jak?” Harper asked softly.
He shook his head. “I don’t know Christmas.”
Something sad came into Harper’s gaze. Christmas must be very good. Lots of things must be very good that he’d never known about before. “It’s the holiday of Jesus’s birth.”
“Jesus?”
Both Harper and Agent Gallagher laughed, but their laughter was the nice kind, Harper’s eyes dancing. Jak smiled too. “Never mind that for now.” She looked at Agent Gallagher again. “I usually go to my friend Rylee’s house. But it’s her first Christmas with her new husband’s family . . . so I don’t have any plans.”
“Well then, it’s settled,” Agent Gallagher said, standing. “You’ll spend it with me and my wife. I insist.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The old woman peeked through the crack in the door, peering at Mark, eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“Hello, ma’am. Almina Kavazovic?”