Bitterroot Lake

But what struck her was that these older women—the other two had to be past eighty, nearly a decade older than Peggy—were not afraid to acknowledge that Sarah’s husband had died. Unlike the women her own age, all perfectly polite, but on edge. Afraid of the future she represented.

The door burst open and her niece and nephew rushed in, their parents behind them. The women slid over to make room, while Connor grabbed a chair from the nearest table. Olivia appeared no worse for the encounter with the Erickson boy, but Sarah wondered what Connor would have to say about it.

Deb delivered more coffee and postgame ice cream floats, and Sarah felt herself surrounded by a bubble of life going on, happy to drift to the edge and watch. Connor did look more relaxed. Because of the deal Lucas had worked out, using Jeremy’s money, or because he’d told her? How would it change her relationship to McCaskill Land and Lumber, now that she was both family and the largest creditor? She’d happily ignored the business for years. No longer.

When the pie plates and ice cream glasses were empty and the young bottoms were growing restless, they headed for the door, Sarah and Connor at the rear of the clan. She heard her brother swear under his breath and looked up to see a girl and an old man. George Hoyt and his great-granddaughter, in her team uniform.

It’s only George, she told herself. The neighbor she’d known all her life. Who just this week had stopped by to check on the lodge after the storm.

The man staring into her brother’s face with a look that sent a shiver down her spine.

* * *

In the upstairs studio, the McCaskill women stared at the paintings. Since Sarah had first seen them, Peggy had set all three on easels, and laid her sketches and studies out on the work table.

“When this is over,” Holly said, “you have to show them and tell the story.”

“Isn’t it over?” Peggy said. “You two found the notebook and letters and the link to the past. But if I show these pieces, everyone in town will think I’m nuts.”

“I think,” Sarah said slowly, “that the dreams asked each of us to do something only we could do. For Ellen and for me, twenty-five years ago, they were warnings that women, not much more than girls, were in danger. I’m not sure whether Caro’s dream was telling her that Sarah Beth was really sick, or whether it was a call to take action to protect women in trouble in the community. Or both. For you,” she said to her mother, “they were a request. Anja wanted you to tell her story, in the way only you could.”

And what about now? Anja had come back after they’d found the papers in the trunk, but before they’d put the story together. Why frighten her? Was danger still lurking? Where and from whom? To whom? She suppressed a shudder.

“So the paintings are kinda weird,” Holly was saying. “So some people will think you’re nuts. Screw ’em.”

Sarah left the room, phone in hand, to try Abby again. Their spat had rattled her, and the specter of more danger looming terrified her.

Turned out her sweet princess of a daughter had beat her to it, texting an apology. I miss him. I miss you. I’m so sad, her note ended.

Abby picked up on the first ring. “I just want everything to be the way it was, but it’s not, is it?”

“No, honey. It’s not. We have to make a new normal and stick together. It’s what your dad wanted.”

A long silence. “Mom, you’re not going to stay there, are you? You are coming back to Seattle, right? To our house?”

“Yes, of course. I just don’t know when,” Sarah replied. “Right now, I need to be here. And I want the two of you to come help me scatter Dad’s ashes on the lake.” And listen to the family stories, so they’d be safe for another generation.

Oh, God. Would she be putting her daughter in danger by bringing her here?

Or was the danger Anja was warning her about to her daughter’s heart, and to her own?

“I’m listening, Anja,” she told the long-dead Swedish housemaid after the call ended. “I’m not sure I understand, but I’m listening.”

33

“You wanta drive?” Holly held up the keys. “It is your car.”

“What? No,” Sarah said. Wherever her mind was at the moment, it would not be on the road.

They drove through town in silence. As they crossed the old steel bridge, Sarah reflexively glanced downriver to the mill that had dominated both town and her family for so long. High above the river’s edge, in a tall cottonwood, a bald eagle surveyed his kingdom.

Good day for fishing, she silently told the bird. He turned his big white head and she swore he was looking right at them. At her.

Her mother wasn’t the only wacky McCaskill.

At the roadside memorial, Holly pulled over. “You know, I don’t think I ever stopped at one of these in my whole life, and this week, I’ve lost count.”

A few minutes later, Sarah suggested they detour down to the old homestead and ice house. It was time to tell Holly one more thing, one last reason she’d felt guilty all these years over what Lucas had done to Janine. Back then, hearing that she and Jeremy had been hooking up in the rickety shack instead of keeping an eye on Lucas would have devastated Janine, and she still wasn’t sure how to tell her. But she was tired of keeping secrets from her sister.