Bitterroot Lake by Alicia Beckman (i read a book .TXT) 📕

She turned toward town. Her destination was her mother’s house, her mission—what? No family was perfect. No one got everything they wanted from the people closest to them. But was it expecting too much to think that after inviting her home, only nineteen days after her husband’s death, that her mother would be eager to help her at the lodge? To comfort and console her?

No, it was not too much. And her mother’s absence was unlike her. So what was going on?

In town, she turned left off Lake Street. Passed the post office and made a right. The crime scene tape that had surrounded the law office was down, and a woman stood in the entrance, about to open the door.

Sarah parked and quickly crossed the sidewalk. “Hello,” she called. “I was hoping to catch someone here. I’m so sorry—”

“The office is closed,” the woman said, glancing over her shoulder, then stopping, her mouth open.

Sarah was equally startled. It was the woman she’d seen yesterday, searching for wildflowers.

The other woman recovered first. “Are you here for the files?”

Sarah’s turn to be puzzled.

“For the lumber company,” the woman added. “You are a McCaskill, aren’t you?”

How did she know who Sarah was? And what files? Did Lucas do legal work for the company? No reason Connor shouldn’t have hired him, and no reason she should have known. But the thought didn’t sit well.

“No,” she said. “I mean, yes, that’s my family. I’m Sarah McCaskill Carter. My brother runs the business. I—I went to college with Lucas, and I stopped by to offer my condolences.”

The door was open now and the woman held it, stepping back for Sarah to enter.

“I’m Renee Harper.” Now that they were face-to-face, Sarah could see that the other woman appeared to be a few years older, sharp-eyed, hair colored a shade of red that didn’t match her skin tone. And too thin, her black-and-white striped blouse loose on her frame, the skin around her eyes drawn. “Secretary, bookkeeper, mail clerk. You name it.”

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