Bitterroot Lake by Alicia Beckman (best books for 20 year olds txt) 📗

asking questions about the murder. Holly went along to see what she could dig up in the old records that might help us identify Anja and what happened to her.”

“I thought all those files were online these days.”

Sarah held out her hands. “No phone, no internet.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Those nincompoops haven’t come out to fix the line yet? Well, come in and use my Wi-Fi if you need to.”

As long as she didn’t set foot in the studio.

“And how are the loans related to this Anja’s death?” Peggy asked.

“Not sure they are, except that Caro was involved in both. They might have pooled their money to send the girl’s body to her family and that got them started. We don’t know.”

“Her body.”

“If we’ve put it together right, she drowned in the lake.” Sarah took the rolled-up photo from the coffee table. “We found this photo of a house party the Laceys threw during the Christmas season of 1921. Some of the names are written on the back—by Mrs. Lacey, we presume—though they’re pretty faint. Con and Caro were at the party, but it isn’t Caro’s handwriting. This is Anja.” She pointed at the ghostly blonde in the somber uniform, with the wild eyes and the coronet of braids, then glanced at her mother.

Who had gone as pale as the ivory linen envelope in her hand.

“You knew her,” Sarah said a few minutes later, trying not to hover as Peggy settled into a chair outside on the deck. “You recognized her.”

Peggy spoke with her eyes closed, her face lifted to the sun. “After your father died, three years ago, I came out here for a few days’ respite. In all the years I’ve been a McCaskill, I don’t think I’d ever spent a night alone in the lodge until then.” She opened her eyes and accepted the frosty glass of hibiscus iced tea Janine handed her. Janine took the chair next to Sarah’s.

“That’s when I saw her,” Peggy continued. “Anja, though I didn’t know her name until today. But it was her face. And those blond braids—so distinctive.” She paused for a sip. “The first night, I got a vague sense of someone. It didn’t mean anything. The second night, it was more unsettling, but still unclear. I didn’t get the real sense that she was coming to me for a reason until the third night.”

“Three nights?” Sarah’s voice cracked. Her mother had just described the same sequence she’d experienced earlier this week, from a vague image to a tug to a compulsion. From an unsettled sensation to a full-blown nightmare. Way back when, she’d only seen Anja once. Had she been too oblivious? Was the danger closer now? Why was Anja, if it was her, getting more insistent?

“What aren’t you telling me, Sarah?”

She told her mother about her own dreams. “At the time, twenty-five years ago, I was certain the girl in the nightmare was Janine, because Lucas had been pestering her all weekend, and he was clearly bent on trouble. Now I’m convinced that the girl I saw then is the same girl I saw this week. And the same girl you saw.”

Peggy reached for her hand, fingers cool from the iced tea. “When I went back to town, the dreams stopped. The only person I told was Pam Holtz. She’s so sensible. She assured me I was just overwrought, worn out by those last few weeks with your father.”

What Sarah had thought, too, at first. But it was more than that. Both the nightmare this week and the nightmare twenty-five years ago were demanding something. She’d ignored the message back then. She couldn’t ignore it now. But first, she had to figure out what she was being asked to do.

“Makes sense,” Janine said from the chair next to Sarah’s. “Anja worked for the Laceys, and we think this is where she died. She had no connection to the house in town.”

“When I got back from Seattle,” Peggy said, “after Jeremy’s funeral, I came out for a couple of days, intending to start cleaning so we could use the lodge this summer. You and the kids.”

Peggy’s eyes drifted shut and Sarah had almost decided she’d fallen asleep when she opened them.

“She came to me again.” Peggy’s voice was soft and distant. “Different this time. Not the nightmare you had, though I knew it was the same girl I saw after your father died. This time, she let me see her face. She wanted me to see her face.” She tightened her grip on Sarah’s fingers. “I never imagined she would terrify you like that. If I’d had any idea, darling, I never would have suggested you come to the lodge.”

“You couldn’t have known. You knew about the attack, but not the dream. You had no reason to think she—Anja—had appeared to anyone besides you.”

“All this is why I haven’t let you girls into my studio. I’ve been trying to paint what I saw. That’s why I went back to town after only one night, so I could paint her. Why I’ve spent every minute I can working. These pieces”—Peggy hesitated—“aren’t like anything else I’ve done. You’ll think I’m nuts. Or nuttier than ever.”

“Mom, you know I think your work is terrific.” Over the years, she’d booked several shows for her mother in an upscale gallery on Seattle’s Eastside and sold pieces to friends.

“Your show in Missoula practically sold out opening night,” Janine said.

“The point of a landscape, for me, is to capture the light and movement in a way that gives people an emotional connection to the place. Similarly, in portraiture, I want the viewer to see something essential about the subject and connect to it emotionally. But these paintings …” Peggy paused. “They go a step beyond. It’s not me providing emotional content for the viewer. It’s my emotional connection to what no one else can see. Does that make any sense?”

“Yes,” Janine said.

Not one bit, Sarah thought. Not one bit.

But then, neither had anything else