Bitterroot Lake, Alicia Beckman [good books to read for 12 year olds .TXT] 📗

windows and no visible damage to the log walls or the twelve-foot tongue-and-groove ceiling.

Upstairs, in the master bedroom, she scanned the walls, then knelt to inspect the chinking on the lower logs. Were those cracks new? Impossible to tell. She dusted off her knees and opened one of the French doors leading to the balcony. A-okay.

The oak door connecting the bedroom to the sewing room stood open. At some point, probably in the 1950s, a small closet between the rooms had been converted to a bathroom, though the white porcelain fixtures and hex floor tiles were a good match for the other baths. Nothing amiss.

But in the sewing room, everything was amiss. The exterior door had popped open, though the glass hadn’t broken, and cones and needles lay strewn across the Persian rug. She picked her way through the debris and peered outside. The spruce she’d seen from below lay across the broken railing, the top branches snagged on the eave, the soffit and fascia splintered. A strong woodland must stung her nostrils. Whitetail Lodge was a treasure, and not just to her family. If George was right and there were more pretenders these days than real craftsmen, would they be able to get the damage repaired?

Every time she pushed the door shut, it resisted. What could she find to hold it? Chair, no. Table, no. What about the oak bookcase, only thirty inches high but heavy? First she had to clear a few things. A ceramic meadowlark, the state bird. A lopsided clay cup, the name “Connor” scratched in the bottom. She set them on the library table her grandmother had used for cutting fabric. Stacked the framed photos she’d dusted yesterday and put them on the table, too.

She took hold of the end of the bookcase and began wiggling backwards, toward the damaged door. The bookcase barely moved, so she grabbed a few fat, heavy volumes from the bottom shelf. As she tugged, one slipped from her grasp and slid to the floor, flopping open. She groaned, hoping she hadn’t damaged the fragile spine.

“Oh, my gosh. I haven’t seen this in ages.” A scrapbook from the construction of the lodge, filled with photos and newspaper clippings. It could be useful to her inventory. She set it aside.

Relieved of the extra weight, the bookcase moved more easily, and a few minutes later she had it in position. Not perfect—daylight leaked in through a narrow gap between door and frame. But it would do for now.

She picked up the top photo in the stack on the table. An eight-by-ten in a gold-toned frame showed Mary McGinty in front of the altar at Sacred Heart Church, the train of her long white dress draped artfully down the steps. She’d been young, only twenty, in 1946 when she married Tom McCaskill, ten years older and probably ten inches taller—what would have been called a fresh-faced girl, with freckles and reddish-brown hair, though that was Sarah’s memory coloring the black-and-white photo. In her arms lay a bouquet of roses and ferns. Sarah had been married in that same church, and her own wedding album held a similar photo, though she’d had no veil or train. She’d loved her dress, creamy white satin with a wide sweetheart neckline, beaded bodice, and flowing skirt. Still in a box in her closet in Seattle.

Next, in a matching frame, was a photo of her great-grandparents, Cornelius and Caroline McCaskill, who’d bought Whitetail Lodge not long after it was built. Caro wore a lovely tea-length dress with a draped neckline. She’d been a handsome woman with full lips and an impressive head of hair. Sarah had always been told she had the McCaskill eyes—kind eyes, people said. This was where they had come from. Though she was not looking at the world kindly these days. Con had been a tall, broad-shouldered man in a dark suit. McCaskill men were tall—her father, Leo, and her brother, Con’s namesake. Noah, too, though he had Jeremy’s features.

“I’ll get it fixed,” she promised. “As soon as I can. But the place needs—”

“Sarah? Where are you?” Her sister’s voice interrupted her. “Oh, my God. What happened?”

She explained. “I’ll clean up in here, then go call Mom. She’s going to be sick about this, but—” Holly chimed in and they repeated Peggy’s mantra. “It could have been worse.”

“Where is the woman, anyway? I thought for sure she’d be here at the crack of dawn, chasing us around with a broom and a vacuum.”

“No clue,” Holly said. “I came up to tell you we’re headed into town. I’ll swing by the house and let Mom know about the damage.”

“Ask her to call the insurance agent, would you? I don’t even know who it is.”

“Sure. After I give Leo the letter from Lucas.”

“Do you think …” She couldn’t finish the question, the thought too awful, but her sister’s face said she knew what Sarah couldn’t say.

“That Janine killed him? No. That they might try to pin it on her? Yes. And it’s our job to be there for her if they do.” Holly turned and bounded down the stairs. Sarah followed slowly, her hand on the railing.

George had seen a white SUV in their driveway, but Sunday, not Monday. Janine drove a white van. George could have mistaken the vehicle, but not the day. If he’d been meeting his granddaughter at the Spruce every Sunday for twenty-five years, then he darned well knew what day it had been.

But Janine had had no reason to come up to Deer Park until she got the letter, on Monday. And she’d still been wearing her work clothes when Sarah found her.

No. Both George and Janine could be telling the truth. George had seen someone else in a white SUV, driving down the road to the lodge. Who?

No matter. It didn’t mean anything.

By the time she’d changed out of her pajamas and went to find the broom to sweep upstairs, Holly and Janine were in the kitchen, ready to