Half an hour later, Sarah clutched a mug of hot tea and stared across the kitchen table. Her mother may have started cleaning the lodge—a bucket and sponge had been left in the deep white farmhouse sink—but she hadn’t gotten very far. Sarah had wiped down the chrome-trimmed Formica table and chrome chairs, their red vinyl seats showing wear at the corners, while the kettle heated. The tea was old, Twinings in bags, the sugar clumped with damp. She’d picked up a few things in a market not far from the train station, but tea and sugar weren’t among them—she’d make a full grocery run in a day or two, if she decided to stay.
But tea wasn’t the point.
“Tell me again,” Sarah told the woman she’d known since the seventh grade but hadn’t seen in years. “Start from the beginning.”
Janine spread her hands across the wrinkled letter that lay between them, smoothing the white paper. Capable hands, the fingers strong and supple. No rings, not worth the trouble of scrubbing them clean of flour and sugar, let alone keeping a shine. Despite their strength, the baker’s hands could not iron out the angry marks she’d made when she’d crumpled up the page and thrown it at the unseen, anonymous writer.
But the folds and furrows in the paper did not obscure the words, typed in a standard font, undated, unsigned.
“Only you know the truth of what happened twenty-five years ago,” the letter read. “Only you can decide what to do.”
“Did you bring the envelope?” Sarah asked. The cat—compact, its fur dark chocolate, coffee-tinged at the ears and paws—finished its circuit of the room and jumped into her lap. Her hands instinctively steadied the creature, and she added cat food to her unwritten shopping list.
Janine’s dark, wiry curls swung back and forth. “No return address.” Sarah had lent her a clean shirt, Janine’s bloodied T-shirt now draped over the back of a chair.
“The postmark?”
“Missoula.”
Montana’s second-largest city, home to the University of Montana. One hundred and fifty miles south. A long drive, simply to confront a man.
Nothing simple about it.
“But he lives here, in Deer Park. Why would you think he sent it?”
“Post office closed the sorting facility years ago. All the mail in western Montana goes through Missoula now. Unless it’s local, from one Deer Park address to another. And he might have gone down there, for court or legal business.” Janine drew her tea closer. “But it has to have come from him, doesn’t it? No one else …”
Her voice trailed off, not saying what didn’t need to be said. Twenty-five years ago this month, Sarah had graduated from the university, along with their friend Nicole. The new grads and Sarah’s sister Holly, a year younger, had come to the lodge to celebrate, Janine in tow. For a week, the four friends and roommates had been the only ones here—swimming, hiking, laughing, drinking too much wine, and falling asleep in the sun. Enjoying their last carefree days before time and plans separated them.
Then Lucas and his buddies showed up. And everything changed.
“Oh, God, Sally, it was awful. It was hideous. I wanted to throw up.” Janine bent over, clutching her elbows. Then she stood and began to pace between the ancient white enamel range and the equally ancient refrigerator.
No one had called Sarah “Sally” in decades, except occasionally when someone in the family slipped. Or a friend from way back.
“He wanted to make sure I kept my mouth shut. Rumor is he intends”—Janine paused—“intended to run for office.”
“Political office?” As if there were another kind. But Lucas?
“Congress, I heard. He might have lacked political experience, but he never lacked confidence.”
Why not Lucas? He’d been smart and ambitious. Lawyers often leaned toward politics. And officially, he had no criminal record.
“Lucas?” she repeated, this time out loud. The cat shifted in her lap.
“I thought—I thought—” Janine stopped, then grabbed her chair and rocked it backward. “He always blamed me for the wreck. Because I said no, because I wouldn’t sleep with him—”
“He attacked you. He all but raped you.” Sarah didn’t bother stemming her anger as the memory spilled out of her. “I saw you, we all saw you, racing out of the cabin, your shirt ripped, your shorts half off. Running barefoot down the gravel driveway to get away from him.”
“Instead, he jumped in Jeremy’s car and tried to leave.”
“I remember,” Sarah said, her voice breaking. She would never forget. Jeremy had left the keys in it. He and Michael ran after Lucas. Somehow, both young men—boys, really, barely older than her son was now—had ended up in the car, too. Trying to get Lucas to stop, to figure out what had happened, to keep him from careening up the road and down the winding, two-lane North Shore Road in a blind, foolish rage. Holly had jumped in their father’s old Jeep and raced after them. She’d seen Lucas picking up speed on the blacktop, weaving across the center line and back again. Seen Jeremy trying to wrench control of the car. Seen the moose amble up out of the borrow pit and straight into their path.
Sarah could see it all as if she’d been there. She could hear the squeal of rubber, the rip of metal on asphalt, the wild bellowing. The terrible sounds had rolled down the slope to where the other three had stood, clinging to each other, in front of the lodge. Nic—Nicole, always the sensible one—had run inside to call for help while Sarah and Janine rushed up the hill, terrified of what they would find but too terrified to stay put.
“Lucas may have blamed you,” she said quietly, “but Jeremy never did. He knew what Lucas had done. Even though you’d told him no over and over, all weekend, Lucas boasted that he could get you into bed, one way or another. Michael and Jeremy told him to shut up, to let it go. He always knew it wasn’t your fault.”
Janine collapsed onto the chair and buried her face in her hands. Careful of the cat in her lap and the years between her and her friend, Sarah touched Janine’s arm, then scooted closer and slid her hand onto her old friend’s back.
Jeremy had been raced to the hospital in Whitefish, then flown to the trauma center in Seattle. He’d been in one hospital or another for the better part of the summer. And when Sarah had gone to visit him, they’d begun building a serious relationship. His parents hadn’t welcomed her, not at first. Not until they saw that their only son was determined to keep her close.
And no one ever said that Jeremy Carter lacked determination.
Lucas’s injuries had been minor. So minor that people assumed he was drunk, the way it often seemed to happen—the passengers or the innocent occupants of the other vehicle bore the worst of the trauma while the drunk driver walked away with barely a scratch.
But he hadn’t been drunk, except maybe on anger and pride, and there had been no other vehicle. Just Jeremy’s little red sports car, a graduation gift from his parents, flipped on its top, Jeremy seriously injured and Michael Brown, sweet, playful Michael Brown, thrown across the highway and killed.
And the big cow moose dead, her calf standing beside her, bawling. A neighbor, George Hoyt, had taken charge of the calf until state wildlife officers could come for it.
Janine straightened, letting Sarah’s hand fall away, and sniffed back her tears. “What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to call the sheriff,” Sarah replied. “Like you should have. I still don’t get why you didn’t.”
Janine turned to face her, her words urgent. “Lucas was dead, and I didn’t see the gun. I was covered in blood, and I was not going to be the next person shot.” Her shoulders slumped. “Besides, the cops don’t believe women like me.”
Her simple statement was a gut punch. An echo of the past.
Maybe Montana hadn’t changed so much after all.
“The sheriff is my cousin, Leo,” Sarah said. “I’ll make him believe you.”
Janine lifted her chin a few degrees, then nodded. She’d moved to Deer Park in seventh grade with her mother, a waitress at the Blue Spruce. Town was small enough that rumors flew, and the kids all heard their parents talk about Sue Nielsen and her errant ways. Sarah and Holly had thrown a Halloween party at the house in town that year and Peggy McCaskill suggested Sarah invite Janine, saying “that girl needs a friend.” Becca Smalley and her beady-eyed buddies said if Janine came, they would stay home. “Too bad, so sad,” Sarah replied—they’d miss out on the fortune teller, the games, and her mother’s popcorn balls. After that, she and Janine had become fast friends. Janine had stayed in Deer Park for a few months after high school, then moved to Missoula herself, picking up restaurant work. The next year, they got an apartment together. Leo had been a couple of years ahead, but Sarah bet he’d remember Janine, too striking not to notice.
She pulled out her phone. “Cross your fingers for reception.”
“Mine’s dead,” Janine said, laying her phone on the table, the screen shattered. “It cracked when I dropped it, when I thought …”
“Thought what?”
“When I thought the killer saw me. I ran for the door, I tripped, it went flying. I grabbed it and got out of there, fast as I could.”
“Did they see you?”
“I don’t know. I think so. I don’t know.”
Sarah pushed a few buttons, but nothing happened. Her mother had said the landline was shut off, but hadn’t mentioned trouble with cell reception. Of course, her mother regularly ignored her cell phone, often for days. Sarah eased the cat onto the floor and stood. “Why don’t you hunt up some quilts or blankets while I try outside? It’s clear enough, I might get a signal without having to drive up to the highway. We’ll sleep on the couches tonight.”
“Sarah,” Janine said. “About Jeremy. I’m so sorry. I meant to call, or write, but …”
Sarah swallowed, her eyes stinging. When would her eyes stop stinging?
“He didn’t deserve to die so young,” Janine continued.
“No one does,” Sarah snapped. “Cancer doesn’t care how old you are or what you deserve.”
Two minutes later, she stood outside, her twill jacket with the belt and too many pockets zipped tight. She’d spoken too harshly, she knew. Part of the fallout of losing your husband at forty-seven. The therapist had said she might feel anger at the wrong things, say something she hadn’t intended to say. Might yearn for alone time, though she’d always welcomed company.
That’s why she was here. Where the unexpected presence of an old friend in need had changed her plans yet again.
“Focus,” she muttered, staring at her phone. Leo and his wife had come to Seattle for Jeremy’s funeral—the McCaskill clan had outnumbered the Carters—and he’d enveloped her in a hug meant to say that everything would be just fine. Even though she knew nothing would ever be fine. Leo had always been that way.
She trusted him. But that didn’t mean Janine would.
Two bars. She scrolled through her contacts, then punched CALL. “Go through, go through.” The body must have been found by now, by a secretary or partner. By a client, coming for an appointment. Or his wife, wondering where he was and why he didn’t answer his phone. Did Lucas Erickson have a wife?
If anyone else had been in the building, anyone besides the killer, he or she would have called it in. If he, or she, had seen Janine, there would be a lookout for her—what did they call it? All-points bulletin—APB? BOLO—be on the alert? Despite her cousin’s job, all she knew about law enforcement came from TV or the paper.
The line rang on the other end. “Pick up, pick up.” Maybe Leo was still at the scene, his personal cell on mute. Should she call 911? But this wasn’t an emergency, was it? Surely the body had been found.
A voice began speaking. “Leo, it’s Sarah,” she managed before realizing she’d gotten voice mail. She started over, more slowly. “Leo, it’s Sarah. I’m at the lodge. Call me when you get this. It’s urgent. I’m okay, I’m not in trouble, I’m not in danger, but—call me.”
The stars shone down on her. The scent of the woods enveloped her. She gripped her phone tightly and wrapped her arms around herself.
Only a few weeks ago, she and Jeremy had talked about the crash. He’d been growing weaker and they’d had to admit it was time for hospice. Hospice was for the elderly, she’d always assumed—decades away, until it wasn’t. He’d still been coherent, his usual calm self—she was the angry one—replaying his life. They talked about Michael Brown, imagining his future had he lived. Michael’s quirky smile was easy to recall, the dimples in his dark brown cheeks. Tall, six-six or seven. Not good enough for the major college teams in Southern California, his home, but plenty good for UM.
And they’d talked about Lucas. She’d heard he’d taken up the life of a small-town lawyer, but when Jeremy had told her Lucas lived in Deer Park, she’d been sure he was confused. Mixing up the present and the past. But he’d been insistent, and he’d been right.
Had it been prescience, that the subject had come up? They say the dying are in touch with the other world, the world where unseen connections become visible, and Jeremy had at times seemed to be slipping beyond her grasp. But then he would return to her, giving her that smile that always made her tingle, even when she knew the end was near.
Until that Saturday night seventeen days ago. Both kids had flown home for a visit. He’d told them all he loved them, they were the light of his life, and closed his eyes one last time.
“Oh, Jeremy,” she said out loud, her voice cracking and squeaking, her hand flying to her mouth. “What am I going to do without you?”
But there was no answer. She glanced at the phone. No answer there, either. No call, no message, no signal.
She was on her own. She and Janine and the cat. So much for her plan to sit on the deck with a glass of wine and watch the stars blink twice—once in the sky and again reflected in the dark, glassy lake.
This day wasn’t turning out at all like she’d expected. Her life wasn’t turning out like she expected.
“Deal with it, Sarah,” she muttered, then slipped the phone into her pocket and went inside.