Chapter 15
Molly Shannon leaned over Harmony’s desk and examined the computer screen. “Whatcha doin’?”
“I’m doing some research on the Kerr family.”
Molly squinted. She couldn’t see her hand in front of her face without her glasses on. “Scotia Kerr. I don’t know that name. Who is she?”
“You don’t know the name because she’s dead. She’s one of the older generation, and she killed herself back in 1993. She left a suicide note, but her body was never found.”
Molly leaned closer. “She looks like you.”
“That’s why I’m researching her. She’s Laird Kerr’s sister, and he wondered why I looked so much like her.”
“So what have you found out?”
“Nothing. Zilch. Bupkiss, if you want to know the truth. There’s no record of her after her family found her note. I guess she really is dead somewhere.”
“So what does that mean? She’s dead and gone. She has nothing to do with your investigation.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Molly studied Harmony. “Are you okay? You haven’t been your usual sparkly self since you came back from the mountain.”
Harmony made a face. “You don’t have to be sarcastic about it.”
“I’m not being sarcastic. You’re not the same.”
“I meant that wise crack you just made about me being sparkly. I know I’m not sparkly. You don’t have to rub it in.”
“What makes you think you’re not sparkly? You’re the most sparkly person I know.”
“Put a sock in it. If you’re trying to cheer me up, you’re just making it worse.”
“I’m not being sarcastic, Harmony. You are sparkly.”
Harmony swallowed hard. “Then how come no one wants to be near me? How come no one wants to have anything to do with me? How come all the guys I try to date wind up running for the hills? How come....”
Molly waited. “How come what?”
Molly slammed her computer closed. “Nothing. Just leave me alone. If you’re telling the truth and I was sparkly before, I don’t want to be sparkly ever again. I want to be dark and drab and depressed. Maybe then I won’t get hurt.”
Molly whistled through her teeth. “Man, you got it bad. Did some bloke break your heart or something? I can fix that with a few highballs at the local watering hole. We’ll meet after work and I’ll....”
Harmony rocketed out of her chair. “I can’t listen to this. Thanks for trying to cheer me up. I gotta go. I’ve got five more families to investigate.”
Harmony raced out of the building. She couldn’t face Molly. She couldn’t face anybody. She ran out to her car and jumped behind the wheel, but she didn’t fire up the engine. She sat there with both hands gripping the steering wheel. She stared through the windshield with a fixed, glassy expression.
What in blazes was wrong with her? Molly wasn’t the only person who noticed a change in her since she came back from the Dunlaps. Dunlaps! She hated that name, but she couldn’t erase the image of Aiken turning into a bear—that bear!—right in front of her eyes.
What was he? He was a bear one minute and a man the next. He switched back and forth between the two in the blink of an eye. They must all be like that. His brother and family laughed at him scaring Bain.
What were they? They must be some kind of hybrid species, and not just them. Everything everybody said, from the first moment she set foot inside the Kerrs’ house, fit together like puzzle pieces. That’s why they didn’t mix with outsiders. That’s why they forbade their young people mating with the locals. They couldn’t mate with them. They weren’t the same species.
And Aiken was one of them. Underneath his handsome, rugged, sexy exterior, he was a bear. He was wild, savage, untamed, brutal. The thought sent electric shocks of adrenaline burning through her guts.
That bear touched her hand and body with his face and neck. He rubbed up against her and let her stroke him. That was Aiken. That was the man who said he loved her.
In her private moments, when she looked deep into her heart for answers, she loved that bear far more than she ever loved Aiken the man. She wanted to be with him, to know him and touch him and win his trust.
He nuzzled her and caressed her. He brought out the aching longing in her heart to belong to his world. She wanted nothing but to be near him, to share the untarnished woods that he called home.
That could never happen now. Now she knew the devastation Aiken suffered all these nights since he fell for her. They could never be together. She could never have that bear. She could never touch him again the way she wanted to, let alone share his life. She was human. He was....something else.
Why, oh why did he ever tell her he loved her? Why did he kiss her and hold her in his arms? Why couldn’t he leave her alone? She was so much better off before she ever met him. She would rather die than face the rest of her life like this, shattered by lost love.
She’d lost so much more than a man. She’d lost Bruins’ Peak and everything on it. She lost the Kerrs, the bear, the Dunlaps, the forest, the hope—she lost it all in one moment. She never really had it.
Nothing remained for her but the job she had to do. Nothing remained but a lifeless life of dull days and tearful nights. She would dream about Aiken for the rest of her life. She would revisit that dell and touch her bear in her dreams, and wake in the morning to a hollow shell of a life. Nothing could ever take its place.
She picked up a file folder from the passenger seat. She read the words printed on the front cover in bold red letters: Iron Bark Social Services-Child Protection Division. The words Dodd Family darkened the outer the tab.
The first two inches of the folder contained the usual complaints and reports by neighbors and local busy-bodies. She flipped past them to the case histories buried underneath them.
Her eye fell on a name: Addison Dodd. That was Celia’s brother, the younger brother of Vaughn Dodd who died in the round-up. That gave Harmony an idea, but it didn’t have anything to do with her investigation—at least, not the official investigation.
She pulled out her phone and opened the Social Service mainframe. She typed Penelope McGillis into the search window. A bunch of medical record listings came up, along with one blurry photo taken at the local medical clinic.
The young woman in the photo reminded Harmony looked at herself in the mirror of those wretched mornings after she let Molly drag her to the watering hole for some distraction from her failed love life. Dark circles pooled under the eyes, and the hair stuck out at odd angles. When did the medial clinic take this picture?
Still, Harmony couldn’t ignore the reality staring her in the face. She’d seen this picture before, but it meant something different, now that she’d seen a picture of Scotia Kerr. Harmony looked exactly like her mother. She looked exactly like....
She didn’t let herself finish that sentence. She fumbled with her key in an insane hurry to jam it into the ignition. She gunned the motor and screeched out of the parking lot.
The medical clinic stood just behind the Social Services building. She could have walked there faster, but she wasn’t thinking. She had to find out. She had to uncover the reason that picture looked so similar to the other one, the one she’d seen in Laird Kerr’s battered old album. Her mother, her poor dead mother, looked exactly like Scotia Kerr. They could have been the same person. All three of them—Harmony, her mother, and Scotia Kerr—they all could have been the same person. That’s how closely they resembled each other.
Harmony burst into the clinic and accosted the receptionist. “I’m looking for Doctor Wayland Otsprenk.”
“Doctor Otsprenk is with a patient at the moment, and he has a full schedule for the rest of the day. Would you like to make an appointment?”
Harmony took a firm grip on herself. Now was no time to lose it completely, and this dumpy lady sitting behind a computer screen didn’t know apples from oranges. It wouldn’t pay to flip out, right here in the reception area in front of a bunch of kids with chicken pox.
She leaned her two fists on the desk and chose her words with care. “I’m not a patient. I’m an investigator with the Social Service Child Protection Unit. I want to question Doctor Otsprenk about a child that was placed in foster care. The child’s mother died under Doctor Otsprenk’s care, and there’s some question about the circumstances surrounding the case.”
That did the trick. The blood drained from the receptionist’s face. “Wait here.”
A few minutes later, she came back. “Doctor Otsprenk will see you now.”
Harmony fought to breathe. “Thank you.”
She found the good doctor sitting at his desk in a back office. He smiled when she walked in. “What can I do for you? I guessed it was you when the receptionist told me what this was about.”
Harmony stopped in front of the desk. “Do you know who I am?”
“Of course I know who you are. I’ll never forget you. You’re Harmony McGillis. I took care of your mother before she died, and I’m the one who handed you over to Social Services to place you in foster care.”
Harmony sank into a chair opposite him. “Then you know why I’m here.”
He nodded. His eyes looked tired, almost as tired as Harmony herself. “I’ve been expecting you for years. I knew one of these days you would walk through that door and want all your questions answered. I’ll do my best for you, but I don’t have all the answers myself.”
“What can you tell me about my mother?”
“If you’re sitting here, you must have used your position at Social Services to research her. If that’s the case, you know as much as I do.”
“I don’t know how she wound up in the clinic in the first place.”
“She was brought in with multiple fractures and some very dangerous head injuries. She was three months pregnant at the time, so we couldn’t perform all the major operations we wanted to. We worried her body would abort the pregnancy if we operated, so we put it off until the swelling on her brain would go down. In the meantime, we had to call her something, so we called her Penelope. Did you know I gave her that name? I gave you the name Harmony, too.”
Harmony did her best to return his smile. “Where did you get the names?”
“I opened the phone book, closed my eyes, and pointed. That’s also how I came up with the name McGillis. Not very creative, I know.”
“Don’t worry. It’s done the job perfectly well all these years, and I don’t plan to change it. Do you know how she got injured?”
“She was found by hikers in the mountains outside town.”
Harmony sat up straight. “Which mountains? Do you know where she was found?”
“She was found near Bruins’ Peak, at the base of the cliffs on the north side.” Harmony’s teeth chattered in her head, but the doctor didn’t notice. “They found her battered body, and she was already barely conscious when she came in. She only got worse, and she couldn’t tell us anything about herself, not even her name. She lingered in a semi-coma for months before she got the infection that killed her. I had to perform an emergency Caesarian section to save you.”
“Are you absolutely certain she was found under Bruins’ Peak? There’s no mistake about that, is there?”
“Of course not. Well, after you were born, what could we do with you? My wife and I considered adopting you, but we were already old then and wouldn’t have been much good to you. We thought you would have a better chance with a younger family, so we gave you up. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make.”
Harmony laid her hand over his. “Thank you. I’m sure you would have been wonderful parents.”
“Just tell me this. Were you happy growing up? Did you find what you needed from your foster family?”
She took her hand away and stood up. “I didn’t find it from my foster family, but I think I’ve found it now. You couldn’t have given me what I needed, either. No one in Iron Bark could, but I’m on my way to get it, now that I know where to look.”
The doctor nodded. “I’m glad. I only wanted you to be happy and well cared for.”
“Don’t worry. I will be.”