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

no charges were filed, my parents were devastated. I remember Dad saying ‘It’s 1996 and there’s no justice for a young Black man in a white state.’”

“I can’t say that race wasn’t a factor,” Nic said, “but Michael was a star. People all around the state loved him. I’d like to think the highway patrol investigators honestly did see it as a tragic accident. They didn’t know about the assault, either.”

“And the assault?” Vonda asked. “‘Boys will be boys’? I’m the mother of two sons. Boys don’t attack girls.”

Janine kissed the top of her head. “This girl’s got dinner almost ready. You’re staying.”

Being tired of secrets, Sarah told herself, didn’t mean she had to blurt out everything all at once. There was no need to tell Vonda about her nightmares. And she wasn’t ready to tell her sister and her friends, old and new, about the deal Connor, Jeremy, and Lucas had worked out. Later, after she’d worked out what it all meant for her.

“So here’s what we found,” Holly said, leading Sarah to the table where she’d been sorting the letters. “It’s the link between Anja and the Ladies’ Aid Society.”

“Darn it, I never did get reading glasses,” Sarah said.

Vonda dug a pair out of her handbag and held them out. Leopard print. Figured.

“December 1, 1923,” Sarah read.

My dear Caroline,

Forgive me the long delay in thanking you for your kindness during those dark, difficult times last year. You could not have been a better friend to me and my family. I trust Con received Frank’s check for our dear Anja’s burial plot and gravestone.

“So the Laceys paid for it,” she said, glancing up.

You are the perfect custodian of my beloved Whitetail Lodge. I know that you will love it as much as I did, and make it the best home in the world for your family.

We are finally settled here in St. Paul, in a large home on Summit Avenue near my brother. The children love to regale their friends and cousins with tales of life in the wilderness. I am sure their parents think we lived among the savages.

Sarah made a face, then continued.

I have one more great favor to ask. Had I paid more attention to the well-being of our household staff and not dismissed my premonitions, Anja would still be with us. Her final days would not have been plagued by unwanted attentions, and worse. I know there are many women in difficult situations who cannot afford to leave them, even to save their lives. I am enclosing a check for one hundred dollars and ask that you use the funds at your discretion to benefit those in need. Women who are unable to seek help or whom others are unwilling to help.

“Oh my God. This makes so much sense. When was the first loan made? Caro mentioned it in her journal.”

“The loan to Hulda Amundsen,” Holly said. “In February 1924. I think that hundred would be around a thousand today.”

“Guilt money,” Janine said.

“Maybe at first,” Sarah said, “but it’s obvious they loaned out far more than Ellen sent. And they did it for years.”

They were solving all the mysteries. Except the one that had brought them all together.

Who killed Lucas Erickson?

And was it one of us?

 SATURDAY

Twenty-Two Days

 31

“Still no luck.” Sarah dropped the rusty needle-nose pliers on the kitchen counter, along with the coil of old phone wire she’d snared from the mill’s tool room on her way out Friday afternoon. “I guess I do need glasses.”

“And no chance the tech guys make house calls on Saturday,” Holly said. She was dressed casually, in leggings and an oversized T-shirt, and purple running shoes with no socks. “You ready to go?”

“Five minutes,” Sarah said, and raced upstairs to change. She’d meant to scrub her once-white shoes before the games, but there wasn’t time. Despite her fears that they’d roused the ghosts of the lodge, she’d slept soundly and woke to clear blue skies and a calm lake. She’d taken her coffee down to the shore, away from the others, to have a little talk with Jeremy—or rather, the part of him that lived in her mind. Then she’d tried unsuccessfully to splice the wires in the phone box.

“You sleeping on the job?” she asked her dead husband. “I could use some help here.”

No reply. Which was probably a good sign, all things considered.

Now they drove toward town, Holly at the wheel so Sarah could text the kids. The balloon she and Vonda had tied to Michael Brown’s cross bobbed lightly above the wild grasses.

They passed power company crews working on downed lines and road department crews slinging branches into a giant chipper.

“It could be years before all this storm damage is cleaned up,” Holly said, pointing at a fallen spruce, its root ball the size of a Volkswagen bug. “So many owners don’t live here. Not that they don’t care, but they’re not eyes-on. And it’s hard to make all the arrangements long-distance.”

“Becca’s real estate agency does property management too. They have more work than they can handle.”

For all that she hated the finagling, Connor, Lucas, and Jeremy had saved Porcupine Ridge, but there were still a few other large holdings in the area. What would happen to them in the long run? And then there were the residential properties. The Hoyt place, with its lake house, two smaller houses, and outbuildings, would be safe in her family’s hands. As Becca had said yesterday, some of these old homesteads would be cherished for what they were, but others were ripe for trophy homes and overdevelopment.

Everyone here is excited to see you! Sarah texted her daughter. We need to make plans! The plan had been that the kids would come here with her to sprinkle some of Jeremy’s ashes on Bitterroot Lake. Now she understood, more than ever, why he’d been so insistent that she bring a bit of him back to Montana.

Dot, dot, dot, her far-off daughter replying.

What? No! I promised I’d start my summer job