“Thank you.” Were the simple words enough? She hoped so. “I’m staying at the lodge.”
“Ahh,” Pam Holtz said. She picked up her basket. “I wondered. We just rode out to Granite Chapel and back and when we passed the lodge, I had the sense of it coming to life.”
“Pam, do you know”—it felt like betrayal to ask, but she had to. “Is my mother sick? Ill? I can understand her not telling me so soon after, but …”
“No, she’s not. And yes, she would tell me, and yes, I would tell you. My guess is she’s got a painting stuck in her head. You can count on it.”
She was counting on it. Desperately.
A movement caught the older woman’s attention and she gave a small smile, one hand raised. Renee Harper returned the greeting and turned her cart down the closest aisle.
“Another former student,” she said. “Renee Taunton. Harper, I think, now. Smart as a whip. But then there was that business over the scholarship.” She shook her head, remembering.
“I met her this afternoon,” Sarah said, not mentioning the encounter in the woods. “At Lucas Erickson’s office. I didn’t realize she was a local girl.” What scholarship business? There had been no diploma in the frames she packed up this afternoon.
“Came home a couple of years ago to take care of her mother. Judith Taunton would try the patience of a saint under any circumstances, and now …” Pam shook her head. “I’ve gotta run. Ted had a few more miles in him, so he rode out to the cemetery. He’ll be waiting for me on our deck with a cheese plate and a glass of chardonnay. As soon as I get there, with the cheese and wine.” She laughed, then touched her fingertips to Sarah’s arm. “Let’s make time for a real catch-up while you’re here. You and your mother and I can take a nice, long walk.”
“It’s a date,” Sarah said, and leaned in to kiss the air next to her old teacher’s cheek.
Though the entire conversation had lasted three minutes, five tops, Sarah realized as she watched Pam Holtz click-clack her way to the express lane that it was the first time in the two days she’d been back in Deer Park that she’d actually felt welcome here.
* * *
They were good for wine, thanks to the case Holly had bought, but Pam Holtz had inspired a cheese binge. Not quite the selection Sarah was used to, but she’d made some tasty finds. Cheese, light bulbs, and cat treats safely stashed in the back seat, she punched in her brother’s cell number.
“Sis!” the deep voice said a moment later. “You’re back in God’s Country.”
“And hoping to see you. I’m in town—can I swing by the mill?”
He made a grunting sound. “I’m still in the woods. I’m gonna miss soccer practice, for sure. Just hope I get home in time for pizza night with the kids.”
Cleaning up storm damage. She should have known. “Oh. Right. Sure. Mom said you wanted to talk to me.”
A heavy silence. “Another time. In person.”
“Okay, sure,” she repeated. What that was about, she couldn’t imagine. “Maybe when you come out to the lodge. Give Brooke and the kids my love.” Call over, she headed out of town, thinking not of Connor but of Pam Holtz. The ride to Granite Chapel and back had to be twenty-two miles. She couldn’t do that at forty-seven, let alone seventy-whatever.
Dang. She should have asked Pam about the roadside memorial. The woman knew everyone and everything going on in Deer Park.
Was Pam right and Peggy was just preoccupied with her art?
Would she ever find something she cared about that much?
She glanced in her rearview mirror. The same white car had been behind her since she’d left town. Was it following her?
“Oh, give up the paranoia, Sarah. The world does not revolve around you.”
The car was close now—close enough to glimpse the driver’s face. The Black woman she’d seen in the Blue Spruce.
She passed a few roads and driveways—the houses were closer together this close to town. The names on the mailboxes were unfamiliar.
As she neared the memorial, she slowed, debating whether to stop. Was it selfish to drive on, promising to stop another day? Her therapist would say no, that she had to take care of herself first. Only then could she take care of anyone else.
She wanted to be home. In Seattle, in the sanctuary she’d created for her family. But the place had felt so big, so empty, after Jeremy’s death. After the visitors left and the kids went back to school. Tragedy affected a house. That made sense. If you could change the mood in a room by swapping a vibrant but faded plum on the walls for a calming sage, by switching out the flooring or the artwork, why wouldn’t death change the place, too? Wasn’t a house meant to hold the full range of a life, to contain and support the people it held? You lived inside the space, you changed it, it changed you.
She wasn’t ready for all this change.
When she slowed to turn onto McCaskill Lane, the white car was no longer behind her. The woman must live out here, but where? Next chance, she’d introduce herself. If she stuck around.