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

“I think so. I hope so. This has all been quite the revelation.”

“Mom, why didn’t you tell me Holly lost her job?”

“She asked me not to. Said you had enough on your mind,” Peggy replied. “I think she was embarrassed. Afraid you might think she’s a flake who can’t hold a job.”

“I would never think that,” Sarah protested. “Museum work is cutthroat. You’d think the art world would be genteel, but I’ve been on boards. I’ve watched her over the years. I know better.”

“She worries about what you’ll think of her. Whether she’ll meet your standards.”

Ouch.

“So, what will you do with the paintings?” Sarah asked. “Will you show them? Our theories about Anja’s death aside, they are really striking.”

“I haven’t decided. I’m hoping Anja will tell me.”

Sarah stood to leave. Peggy gripped her shoulders tightly, then kissed her cheek. “It’s good to have you girls home. And with Connor feeling less pressure, now that he’s bought the land below Porcupine Ridge, I hope the three of you can spend some time together.”

“He bought the land? I thought—” She tried to remember the conversation between Connor and Leo, in the office. Connor had said George had sold the land on Lynx Mountain, below the ridge. To whom, he hadn’t said, though he had rushed out with Leo, as if avoiding the subject. As if he wasn’t sure she would trust his judgment. “Is that what’s behind this expansion of the company? Got to be a lot of board feet up there. Anyway, doesn’t matter. See you tomorrow.”

In the car, she sat, hands on the wheel. The news of the land purchase was curious, but her mind was still on the mystery of the Swedish housemaid. Peggy had said—how had she put it? That Anja wanted Peggy to see her. Now that she’d been seen and heard, Peggy thought, the girl could rest in peace.

The rest of them—Sarah, most of all—had interpreted the nightmares as a sign of physical danger, as when Anja appeared to Ellen Lacey before her death, and when she came to warn Caro that Sarah Beth was sicker than they thought.

And when, twenty-five years ago, she’d wanted Sarah to protect Janine from a man with trouble on his mind.

If Anja had been satisfied with being painted, why come to Sarah now? Why had the latest nightmare been so vivid, so demanding?

What were they missing?

Sarah turned the key in the ignition. The only way to find out what Anja wanted was to ask her.

The wind had picked up by the time Sarah reached Valley View Cemetery on the southeast edge of Deer Park. She didn’t remember when she’d last been here.

Her phone buzzed with a text from Abby. The Paper Place offered me my old job for the summer!!!!!!!

That’s great, honey, she texted back. Just saw your grandmother’s new paintings—stunning!

Cool! Love you, Mom!

The screen went dark. She stared out the window at the branches shivering in the cold wind. The sky had turned a hard gray. It wasn’t going to snow, was it?

The place was deserted. She zipped up her jacket, cinched the belt, and stepped out, bracing herself against the hard wind. The cemetery dated back to homestead and railroad days. In the older section, granite crosses and statuary were common, gradually giving way to a mix of styles and materials—granite, marble, bronze, every grave a story.

She found the McCaskill plot easily, the small stone markers for Tom and Mary Mac, the gray-and-white marble monument for Con and Caro, the stone lamb for Sarah Beth. She crouched, fingertips grazing the smooth white marble. What had it been like, losing the much-loved little girl? Caro had responded by making the lodge and her family her refuge.

“Is that what all this is about, Caro?” she said. “The dreams, the discovery of the old trunk. Are you telling me, as your daughter’s namesake, that I’m the one to continue the legacy of Whitetail Lodge?”

But the stones kept their tongues.

She stood, aware that she wasn’t quite as steady as she ought to be. Breathe in, breathe out. Where to begin? Swedish housemaids got no grand markers, no stone angels. She wandered past familiar names—Holtz, Hoyt, Smalley.

Holtz. Hoyt. H.

Then, as if a hand beckoned, she wound her way toward a section where simple graves marked by small flat stones lay beneath the outstretched arms of a weeping birch.

There it was. Anja Sundstrom, 1900–1922. God has called His Angel home.

The tears surprised her, and she blinked them back. “What happened, Anja? What happened to you? And what do you need from me?” She brushed away a few of last year’s dried birch leaves. “If you want us to tell your story, we can do that.”

She could persuade her mother to display the paintings at a local gallery. At the wine bar, or whatever shape the restaurant took, if she and Holly convinced Janine to let them help her pursue her dream. As investors, or advisors. Who knew what else they’d find in the old trunks? Holly could track down the Lacey family and see what details the descendants could provide. They could tell the story of the girl with the crown of yellow braids, and of the Lakeside Ladies’ Aid Society, dedicated to making a woman’s lot a little less rough, a little less lonely.

Was that it? Was that all Anja wanted?

Sarah wasn’t sure. She had more questions to ask, questions that might make the story a little more complicated.

A lot more complicated.

She bowed her head and made a promise to the girl, the young woman, in the simple grave.

 28

“He’s on the phone, Mrs. Carter,” Steph, the lumber company desk clerk, told Sarah, and she could see her brother through the window between the front desk and the office. Connor held up two fingers, an inch apart, signaling that he’d just be a minute.

Not telling her the daily details of the business she understood, but they’d been talking about expansion and land and George Hoyt and he