Bitterroot Lake

Sarah matched the woman’s wry smile and stepped inside. A pleasant space, despite the dingy exterior and the mingled smells of paper dust and bleach. A curved counter hid the reception desk. In the small waiting area, chocolate brown leather chairs faced a couch that sat beneath a giant topo map of the lake. To the right, a door stood open, but the space beyond was empty. The ex-partner’s office, she presumed.

What had Janine said about the body? On the floor near the entry. She instinctively shuffled her feet and looked down. Had she been standing where a man died?

“Farther back,” Renee said, answering her unspoken question. “Before you get to the conference room.”

“I’m so terribly sorry,” Sarah said, surprised to find that it was true. She wasn’t ready to give up being angry with Lucas for what he’d done to Janine, Michael, and Jeremy. To all of them. But her anger felt almost extraneous at the moment. Like a burden she’d carried for so long that suddenly meant nothing.

“Sheriff took most of our equipment.” Renee gestured toward her desk, where a monitor and cords sat, untethered, and an empty space on the back counter appeared to have held a printer. “Why, I have no idea.”

Sarah tightened her lips.

“He left the files,” Renee continued, “but I’m not allowed to return them to the clients yet. Not until they’ve combed them for clues, I guess. Although I can make copies if the client needs anything.”

“I’ll let my brother know,” Sarah said.

“At least they let me reconstruct a client list, so I could help Dan notify people. Daniel Fleming.” The secretary gestured to the front window, the black-and-gold letters backwards from this angle. “They dissolved the partnership a couple of months ago, but we hadn’t changed the sign yet.”

“Oh.” Sarah wanted to ask how the two men had gotten along, why they broke up the partnership, whether Lucas had seriously been considering a run for office, and a million other things a casual acquaintance from college should not be asking the secretary of a murdered man.

The woman’s skin paled, her jaw tightening. Anger, or fear? Her hands went to her face. “I can’t believe this. I cannot believe this.”

Renee Harper’s response was hard to read. Had she been in love with her boss? If not that, then something equally problematic. Or just struggling with the horror of it all.

“You found him. That must have been dreadful.” Sarah’s mind’s eye flashed on Jeremy, lying in their bed, his lifeless hand in hers.

“I’d gone to the post office,” Renee said. “I ran into Becca Smalley. Chattiest woman in town.”

Except when you’re newly widowed and she can’t wait to get away because death might be contagious.

“She’s always going on about nothing,” Renee continued. “If I hadn’t been gone so long, maybe I could have …”

“Or maybe you’d have been hurt, too.”

“The moment I got back, I knew right away something was wrong. I could smell it.” She shuddered. “Now all I can smell is the bleach or whatever it is they used to clean up. The place reeks.”

“It stings the nostrils, for sure. Why don’t we get out of here—grab some coffee at the Spruce?”

“No. No, thanks,” Renee said. “I just came in to get some personal things.”

“Then I won’t keep you,” Sarah said. “Unless you could use some help.”

The secretary’s brow wrinkled and she lowered her chin, then replied, her voice husky. “Thanks. That’s very kind of you.”

Renee directed her to the storage room by the back door for a box, and on her way down the hall, Sarah tried to open herself to the space. To sense what it held. Conflict, beyond the murder? Hard to tell. Hard surfaces, like the conference room’s glass wall and the porcelain tile floors, didn’t pick up emotion the way rugs and carpet did. Bookcases filled with law books lined the hallway. Wasn’t most legal research done online these days? But she knew from her design work that people often held on to the things that symbolized their trade and their past, especially if they’d invested a lot of time or money acquiring them.

Across the hall sat the classic lawyer’s office. A large desk, stained a dark cherry and highly polished, dominated the room. A brass lamp with a creamy white pleated shade sat on one corner, a matching credenza behind it. A black leather desk chair and two client chairs. A Persian rug. No computer, as Renee had said. A wall full of diplomas and certificates interspersed with photos. Age aside, Lucas had looked much the same as the young man she remembered. One of those men whose features were too strong to be considered handsome, the jaw too firm, the eyes too intense, but he had been—what? Not imposing. That suggested a big man, and he wasn’t that—he stood several inches shorter than the man he was shaking hands with in the first photo, the current governor. Other photos showed Lucas in small groups of smiling men and women in suits. He stood out. Compelling. That was the word.

And then she spotted the snapshot behind the desk, at the end of a row of family photos, school portraits, shots of two boys in sports uniforms. She had never seen this picture before, but knew it in an instant. He’d handed her his camera and she’d taken the picture of Michael, Jeremy, and Lucas on the lawn below the lodge, the lake sparkling behind them, the day before everything changed.

She turned and fled.

At the end of the hallway, she found the restroom. Shut herself inside and leaned against the door until her breath steadied. Had he kept that photo to remind himself of what had happened? Of what he’d done?

Had she misjudged the man?

The tissue box was empty. She opened the cabinet beneath the sink and found a fresh box. Blew her nose and fluffed her hair, then grabbed two empty bankers’ boxes from the storeroom. Glanced o

ut the rear door, then faced the hallway. Took a step forward, then another. The front and back doors were offset, but once a person got about five feet inside, he or she could have seen someone come in the front.