Bitterroot Lake

He reddened and held out his hands. “Mom told you. I know, I should have sat you down, explained, but you’ve had so much on your mind, and we needed that land to continue expanding our production—”

“Connor, stop. I don’t care that you bought land from George Hoyt and didn’t tell me. Well, I do care.” But that could wait. She needed to know who G.T. Hoyt was, his role in the company a century ago, and whether he was H.

Get a grip. He’s not gonna know all that.

“Come into my office,” Connor said, away from Steph’s curiosity. He closed the door and gestured to an oak chair, his own chair new and sturdy, the only modern touch in the room other than his phone and computer. A wall-mounted shelf held books and memorabilia, and the autographed baseball on its heavy metal stand. So that’s where it had gone. Good.

Where should she start?

“Sit. You’re making me nervous.”

She was too nervous to sit. She kept her words slow and deliberate as she tried to separate the lines of connection swimming before her eyes. “The photograph in the showroom. The caption says the men with our great-grandfather were Frank Lacey and G.T. Hoyt, and refers to ‘their lumberyard.’ Were they business partners? What do you know about that?”

“Not much. Lacey managed the sawmill the Great Northern built to supply ties to the railroad. You know, the one downriver that became the Superfund site. They bought timber from McCaskill, and I think Lacey invested in the company for a while.”

“What about Hoyt?” she asked. “What did he have to do with McCaskill Land and Lumber?”

“Not sure I ever knew.” He opened a desk drawer. “A volunteer with the historical society put together a history of the company when we donated the old mill and other equipment, and a bunch of photographs and papers. I’ve got it here somewhere.”

As he flipped through the hanging files, a metallic glint in the bottom of the drawer caught her eye. A revolver. Their dad’s old .38? Connor slammed the drawer shut. Crossed the room to a green three-drawer metal cabinet. Opened and closed the first two drawers, then crouched to flip through the lower drawer.

“Con bought Lacey out at some point,” he said. “Obviously. And if Hoyt was an investor, that was short-lived, too. Why does it matter now?”

“It matters,” she said. “When matters.” She alternately clenched her fists and flexed her fingers. Finally, Connor plucked out a file. Sarah stood next to him as he laid the file on his desk and opened it to the typed summary of the company’s history. So much she didn’t know.

She needed to know.

She also needed reading glasses. The print was too old, too indistinct, the onion skin paper brittle.

Connor dragged a finger down the page. “Here. ‘In the 1920s, Cornelius McCaskill consolidated his ownership, renaming the company McCaskill Land and Lumber.’ That’s all it says. Nothing about Hoyt or Lacey.”

“Do you have the sale documents? I need to know when he bought them out.” She already knew, from Caro’s journal, that Lacey cashed out and the family left the area because of Ellen’s distress over Anja’s death. If Hoyt sold his interest to Con near the time Caro wrote about their debate over how to deal with H, then she could safely conclude that H stood for G.T. Hoyt.

Then what? Would that knowledge alone satisfy the ghost of Anja Sundstrom? What good would come of telling George that his ancestor had been a predator who drove a young immigrant girl to her death a century ago?

She’d figure out what to do about that later. She’d lay it out for the family and they’d decide together. No more secrets.

“Yes. They’re all here.” Connor closed the file and laid his big hand on the cover. “Sarah, I am so sorry. It was the only way to save the company. If we didn’t get that land, we wouldn’t be able to compete. We’d be forced to sell out to one of the international conglomerates and let control of the company leave not just the family but the valley. I know, the way Deer Park’s grown, not everyone thinks the lumber company matters anymore. But I do. Tourism is great, and I love a good microbrew as much as the next guy, but jobs making burgers and beer will never pay what working in the woods or the mill does. We want this valley to keep growing, we need this company to keep growing so families can afford to stay here. It’s my responsibility. Jeremy understood that. I don’t know why you think the date we gave the Hoyts Porcupine Ridge has any relevance to buying it back, but—”

“What are you talking about? What does Jeremy have to do with any of this?”

“I had to do it.” Connor swiveled his chair toward her and leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, pleading with his hands. “I hated the subterfuge, but Hoyt wouldn’t do business with us directly, and we needed that land. If Lucas hadn’t set things up the way he did—”

“Lucas?”

“Oh, God.” Connor raised his hands. “I told him he should tell you, but he said you’d never agree.”

Somehow, Sarah got to the old oak chair. Somehow, she managed to listen without screaming as her brother told her what he and her husband—her dead, sainted husband—had done. How George Hoyt had asked Lucas to find him a buyer for Porcupine Ridge. How Lucas suggested that the obvious buyer was McCaskill, but Hoyt said no; the McCaskill family cheated his a hundred years ago, leaving them land-rich and cash-poor and refusing to buy Hoyt timber, then forced them out of the business altogether a few decades back, and he’d be damned before he did business with the McCaskills.

“That is prime timber land,” she interjected. “Yes, it’s in poor shape, but that’s on George. He could never be bothered to manage the timber. He let blowdown rot. When fire blackened Lynx Mountain, he could have harvested, then restored the land and planted seedlings, but he did nothing. Dad and Grandpa bought that mill to save George, not to punish him.”

“I know.” Connor stood. “I know. Lucas came to me and said Hoyt wanted to sell, but not to me. I was terrified that one of the internationals would snap it up. Not only would we lose out on the land, we’d be giving a major competitor a foothold in our back yard. Literally, right next to the family’s main holdings.”

“Connor, no. You didn’t put the lodge up as collateral on a loan to buy the Hoyt land.” One of the questions she had come here to ask.

“No, I—”

“And what about Jeremy?”