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

home. “Too bad, so sad,” Sarah replied—they’d miss out on the fortune teller, the games, and her mother’s popcorn balls. After that, she and Janine had become fast friends. Janine had stayed in Deer Park for a few months after high school, then moved to Missoula herself, picking up restaurant work. The next year, they got an apartment together. Leo had been a couple of years ahead, but Sarah bet he’d remember Janine, too striking not to notice.

She pulled out her phone. “Cross your fingers for reception.”

“Mine’s dead,” Janine said, laying her phone on the table, the screen shattered. “It cracked when I dropped it, when I thought …”

“Thought what?”

“When I thought the killer saw me. I ran for the door, I tripped, it went flying. I grabbed it and got out of there, fast as I could.”

“Did they see you?”

“I don’t know. I think so. I don’t know.”

Sarah pushed a few buttons, but nothing happened. Her mother had said the landline was shut off, but hadn’t mentioned trouble with cell reception. Of course, her mother regularly ignored her cell phone, often for days. Sarah eased the cat onto the floor and stood. “Why don’t you hunt up some quilts or blankets while I try outside? It’s clear enough, I might get a signal without having to drive up to the highway. We’ll sleep on the couches tonight.”

“Sarah,” Janine said. “About Jeremy. I’m so sorry. I meant to call, or write, but …”

Sarah swallowed, her eyes stinging. When would her eyes stop stinging?

“He didn’t deserve to die so young,” Janine continued.

“No one does,” Sarah snapped. “Cancer doesn’t care how old you are or what you deserve.”

Two minutes later, she stood outside, her twill jacket with the belt and too many pockets zipped tight. She’d spoken too harshly, she knew. Part of the fallout of losing your husband at forty-seven. The therapist had said she might feel anger at the wrong things, say something she hadn’t intended to say. Might yearn for alone time, though she’d always welcomed company.

That’s why she was here. Where the unexpected presence of an old friend in need had changed her plans yet again.

“Focus,” she muttered, staring at her phone. Leo and his wife had come to Seattle for Jeremy’s funeral—the McCaskill clan had outnumbered the Carters—and he’d enveloped her in a hug meant to say that everything would be just fine. Even though she knew nothing would ever be fine. Leo had always been that way.

She trusted him. But that didn’t mean Janine would.

Two bars. She scrolled through her contacts, then punched CALL. “Go through, go through.” The body must have been found by now, by a secretary or partner. By a client, coming for an appointment. Or his wife, wondering where he was and why he didn’t answer his phone. Did Lucas Erickson have a wife?

If anyone else had been in the building, anyone besides the killer, he or she would have called it in. If he, or she, had seen Janine, there would be a lookout for her—what did they call it? All-points bulletin—APB? BOLO—be on the alert? Despite her cousin’s job, all she knew about law enforcement came from TV or the paper.

The line rang on the other end. “Pick up, pick up.” Maybe Leo was still at the scene, his personal cell on mute. Should she call 911? But this wasn’t an emergency, was it? Surely the body had been found.

A voice began speaking. “Leo, it’s Sarah,” she managed before realizing she’d gotten voice mail. She started over, more slowly. “Leo, it’s Sarah. I’m at the lodge. Call me when you get this. It’s urgent. I’m okay, I’m not in trouble, I’m not in danger, but—call me.”

The stars shone down on her. The scent of the woods enveloped her. She gripped her phone tightly and wrapped her arms around herself.

Only a few weeks ago, she and Jeremy had talked about the crash. He’d been growing weaker and they’d had to admit it was time for hospice. Hospice was for the elderly, she’d always assumed—decades away, until it wasn’t. He’d still been coherent, his usual calm self—she was the angry one—replaying his life. They talked about Michael Brown, imagining his future had he lived. Michael’s quirky smile was easy to recall, the dimples in his dark brown cheeks. Tall, six-six or seven. Not good enough for the major college teams in Southern California, his home, but plenty good for UM.

And they’d talked about Lucas. She’d heard he’d taken up the life of a small-town lawyer, but when Jeremy had told her Lucas lived in Deer Park, she’d been sure he was confused. Mixing up the present and the past. But he’d been insistent, and he’d been right.

Had it been prescience, that the subject had come up? They say the dying are in touch with the other world, the world where unseen connections become visible, and Jeremy had at times seemed to be slipping beyond her grasp. But then he would return to her, giving her that smile that always made her tingle, even when she knew the end was near.

Until that Saturday night seventeen days ago. Both kids had flown home for a visit. He’d told them all he loved them, they were the light of his life, and closed his eyes one last time.

“Oh, Jeremy,” she said out loud, her voice cracking and squeaking, her hand flying to her mouth. “What am I going to do without you?”

But there was no answer. She glanced at the phone. No answer there, either. No call, no message, no signal.

She was on her own. She and Janine and the cat. So much for her plan to sit on the deck with a glass of wine and watch the stars blink twice—once in the sky and again reflected in the dark, glassy lake.

This day wasn’t turning out at all like she’d expected. Her life wasn’t turning out like she expected.

“Deal with it, Sarah,” she muttered, then slipped the phone into her pocket and went inside.

 TUESDAY

Eighteen