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

More former high school runners. Sarah and Jeremy had met them last fall at parents’ weekend, slender, leggy colts like their daughter. “I gotta go, Mom. They’re getting away from me. I’ll text you later.”

“Bye, honey,” Sarah called into the silence.

Nothing was wrong.

Nothing was wrong.

“Ohmygosh, bacon,” she said a few minutes later, the kitchen’s linoleum floor chilly on her bare feet. “Second time this week. And coffee cake?”

“I am the Cake Lady,” Janine said.

“Great name for a bakery. If you ever wanted to open your own.” Sarah filled a heavy white mug with fresh coffee, then lifted it to her face. “Mmm. Cinnamon?”

“Now you sound like Holly,” Janine said, her tone wary. “Talking about me opening my own business. Are you two conspiring?”

“Great minds think alike?”

“I don’t have any money. I took this week off to stay up here and solve this problem, but I’ve got to get back to work. And if I have to pay a lawyer—”

“Janine, if you need money—”

“I don’t want yours. Thank you, I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but I don’t want people feeling sorry for me.” Her voice quivered.

Tread lightly.

“Where’s Nic?” Sarah asked, glancing around reflexively the way you do when you mention someone, as if they might be hiding underneath a chair or behind the breadbox. Or might walk in any moment.

“She drove up to the highway to call Kim. To check in, and warn her to be on the lookout for a letter.”

Her brain frazzled by the nightmare, Sarah had almost forgotten about the letter from Lucas tucked in with the condolence cards, and their speculation about why he hadn’t sent one to Nic. If he hadn’t.

“Then she was planning to go into town,” Janine continued. “To take your letter to Leo’s office and snoop around. Absolutely refused to let me go along. Said she wanted to track down people willing to talk freely about Lucas and she could find out a lot more without me. I get it, but that left me stewing in my own juices. So—coffee cake. You can’t worry when you’re baking.”

“She doesn’t know Deer Park like we do. Or like we think we do. She might see it more clearly.” Sarah cut a piece and sat, Janine across from her. She took the first bite. “This is so good. No wonder your license plate says Cake Lady.”

“Thanks. Zak gave me that.”

“Sounds like a great kid. Sitting here with you, in my grandmother’s kitchen, eating off the dishes with the mountains and the pink bitterroots—it’s like you said. Magic.”

She took another bite, then set her fork down. “Nic and Kim okay?”

“Yeah. But Nic’s work puts her in the spotlight in a way that isn’t always comfortable.”

“Every marriage has its trade-offs and tensions. Comes with the territory.”

Janine looked up sharply. “Not you two. Not you and Jeremy.”

“Oh, yes, even us.” She picked up her coffee. Although their trade-offs hadn’t resulted in vandalism. “Especially when he was building the business and I was focused on the kids. The usual stuff. We worked through it.”

“Of course you did. No big deal,” Holly said. Sarah hadn’t heard her sister come in. “The perfect couple. You even managed to go through a rough patch perfectly.”

Sarah put the mug down heavily. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You want us all to be such great friends again, who confide in each other and help each other out.” Holly took a mug, twin to Sarah’s, off the drying rack and poured herself coffee. Leaned against the counter, crossed one foot in front of the other, and took a sip.

Sarah glanced at Janine, watching the sisters warily, then turned her attention back to Holly. Not that she hadn’t felt the silent stings of her sister’s jealousy plenty of times, but why this, why now?

“Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed—or the wrong bed, since you were in mine—and decide to take it out on me?”

“You,” Holly shot back. “You act like the lodge is yours, and resent me for being here. You don’t know what’s going on in our lives. What worries Nic. That Janine doesn’t want to be bought off with guilt money, even if her legal fees would be pocket change to you, like the pennies your perfect husband leaves.”

A slow burn crept up Sarah’s spine.

The refrigerator hummed and the clock ticked.

“Ever since we’ve been here,” she said slowly, “I’ve had the distinct impression that each of you had some secret you weren’t telling me. I tried to convince myself you didn’t want to add to my troubles. Since my perfect husband—who was pretty darned great—is dead. I knew I should appreciate your thoughtfulness, but instead it felt like you were pushing me away. Excluding me. Because apparently you think that I think I’m too good—too perfect—for you.” She pushed her chair away from the table and stood. “Well, maybe I am.”

Plop. Sarah crouched on the gravel beach below the lodge, rubbing two stones between her fingers. The beach at the wildlife refuge had the best skipping stones. These just plopped in the water and sank.

She heard soft footfalls on the gravel but didn’t turn. Janine crouched beside her.

“I’m not going to tell you not to be angry,” Janine said. “She was pretty nasty.”

“She’s right, though. You three talk, you keep up. I’m the one who pulled away.”

“Yeah, well. She’s got a lot on her mind. You know.”

She shot Janine a sharp glance. “No, I don’t know. How am I supposed to know? She doesn’t tell me anything. She never came out when Jeremy was sick, not once.”

“Did you invite her?”

“She knew she was welcome.”

“That’s not the same.”

“She came out for the funeral and stayed at a hotel. We had room, even with both kids home, and Mom and Connor and his family there. Plenty of room, in my big, perfect house.” Sarah dropped one of the stones into her left palm and threw the other into the lake. Plop.

“She lost her job a couple of months ago,” Janine said.