Thief River Falls (26 page)

“How are you going to find out where I was?”

“Well, actually, I’m pretty sure I already know. Denis owns a cabin by the river. Danny and I used to sneak in there all the time. I’m sure Fiona knew about it, too, and if she did, then so did Nick Loudon. I’m betting that’s where he went.”

Purdue nodded, but his voice was sad. “Okay.”

“I won’t be long. I promise.”

“Okay,” he said again.

“It’s almost dark. Are you scared of the dark?”

“No. I’m not scared.”

“Good. Remember the plan, okay? If you hear anything outside, you go back down to the crawl space in the basement. Stay there. Wait until I get back. I
will
come back for you. Nothing will keep me away. You got that?”

“Okay,” he said one more time, but his voice had the strange artifice of a robot, the way it had in the very beginning. He sounded detached now. He was separating himself from the fear of what was going on, digging a hole for himself.

Lisa hugged him tightly. “Thank you, Purdue.”

“For what?”

“For showing up at my house. You may not understand this, but I needed you every bit as much as you needed me. Sometimes things happen for a reason. I really believe that. It’s not an accident that we found each other.”

She turned for the back door, but the boy called after her.

“Lisa?”

“What is it?”

“If I’m not here when you get back, it’s okay. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Really.”

“Purdue, do
not
leave this house. Understand? You stay right here.” She went back and knelt in front of him. “Are we clear about that? I don’t want you getting any foolish ideas in your head, like hopping on a train and leaving me behind. Got it? You don’t need to protect me. That’s not what this is about. Adults protect kids, not the other way around.”

“Not always.”

“Well, maybe not always, but this time, that’s the way it has to be. I’ll be back as soon as I can, and everything will be okay. The only thing you need to do is not go anywhere. If you disappear on me, I’m going to be very upset. We’re in this together, you and me.”

“You and me,” Purdue agreed.

Lisa kissed the top of his head. She framed the boy’s face in her memory, just in case he was right, just in case something happened to her and all her promises were made of sand. Then she grabbed Madeleine’s coat and headed for the backyard.

Keri McDonnell had read
Thief River Falls
.

Actually, she’d read it twice. First she’d read it for herself, and then her book club had read it, too. It was probably her favorite book ever. So when she’d found out that the house she and her husband were renting was the same house in which Lisa Power had actually written
Thief River Falls
, she thought it was the coolest thing ever.

She remembered an interview in which Lisa had talked about writing the book out in the backyard next to the kiddie pool and the jungle gym. Whenever she was sitting out back with her seven-year-old daughter, she thought about Lisa in this same place, typing words into her laptop. It made her feel as if there was a connection between them.

Keri knew that Lisa’s parents had died, and she knew that Lisa still owned the house next door, although it had remained empty for the past year. Sooner or later she assumed that Lisa would show up, if only to start getting the place ready for sale. She wanted to be there when she did, so she could talk to her. It wasn’t that Keri was a creepy fan, but
Thief River Falls
was a mother’s book, and Keri was a mother, too. She wanted the chance to tell Lisa how much it had meant to her.

The women in her book club thought she was crazy, but most of them had already met Lisa at the library. Keri worked evenings and weekends as an EMT, so she was rarely able to go to events.

Today, she’d kept a close eye on the house next door. She had a feeling, she just had a feeling, that someone was there. Once, when she glanced at the windows, she thought she’d seen the blinds moving. And outside, in the back, there were footprints in the snow. That didn’t mean anything, because kids were always sneaking around the neighborhood yards playing games, but Keri was paying extraspecial attention to the house anyway.

Her kitchen smelled of chocolate chip cookies. She’d been baking for two hours, because her daughter, Emma, had a party at school the next day. Emma had been helping with the baking process, but her help usually consisted of sneaking spoonfuls of cookie dough when Keri
wasn’t looking. Now her daughter was in the family room, dancing with Elmo and running around on a sugar rush.

Keri checked her watch. One last batch of cookies was in the oven, but she needed to hurry. Her shift would be starting soon, and she still needed to shower. As she waited for the timer to ding, she grabbed one of the cookies off the cooling rack and munched it while gazing through the window at the neighboring house. She felt sad for empty houses. Houses were supposed to be lived in. They were supposed to have kids. She wished that Emma had a next-door neighbor she could play with.

Keri’s eyes narrowed as she watched the house.

Was that a shadow? Was that someone moving around inside? She leaned over the sink and took a closer look, but she decided that her eyes were playing tricks on her. It was getting dark, and the wind kept throwing sheets of snow across the glass that made it hard to see.

Ding
.

The cookies were done. She took them from the oven and moved them to the cooling rack, and then she washed her hands and switched into high gear. She didn’t have much time. She flew into the family room, where her daughter was playing, took a few seconds to do a little dance with her and Elmo, and then said, “I have to take a shower, okay?”

“Okay!” Emma said.

“We need to go soon. I’ll drop you off at Mrs. Allen’s, and Daddy will pick you up when he’s done with work. Are you ready to go? Do you have everything in your backpack?”

“Okay!” Emma said again, which meant she wasn’t listening at all.

“Emma? Are you ready to go to Mrs. Allen’s?”

“I’m ready!”

No, her daughter wasn’t ready, but Keri just shook her head. Some battles weren’t worth fighting. She headed for the bedroom at the back of the house and took the world’s fastest shower. When she was done, she blow-dried her blond hair and shivered as she found fresh
underwear in her dresser. Her uniform was laid out on the bed. She was half-dressed when Emma strolled in, carrying Elmo.

“Can Elmo come with me to Mrs. Allen’s?” she asked.

“Sure,” Keri said.
Sorry, Mrs. Allen.

“Can I have a hot dog for dinner?”

“You can have whatever Mrs. Allen makes.”

“I want a hot dog,” Emma said.

“Well, I’ll make hot dogs tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Emma said. “Oh, you missed that woman.”

Keri stared at her daughter. “What?”

“The woman next door. The one you want to meet. She came out of the house while you were in the shower. I saw her.”

Keri’s blouse was half-buttoned. She ran to the bedroom window and peered outside, but no one was in the yard. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“How long ago?”

“I don’t know. A couple of minutes.”

“I can’t believe it!”

Keri ran for the front of the house, where she shoved her bare feet into her husband’s oversize boots. She opened the door and stomped awkwardly out into the yard. A leafy oak tree blocked her view of the street, but she hiked through the snow to the end of the sidewalk. Halfway down the block, she could see someone hurrying away on foot. Even at that distance, she recognized Lisa Power. She thought about shouting after her, but Lisa was already too far away. And she really didn’t want to be a creepy fan.

Disappointed, Keri went back inside and kicked off the wet boots. Emma was waiting for her in the kitchen, eating another cookie.

“Did you talk to her?” Emma asked.

“No, I missed her.”

“Maybe she’ll come back.”

“Maybe,” Keri said. “Anyway, I need to get to work, and you need to load up your backpack.”

Keri returned to her bedroom to finish getting ready. She saw her phone sitting on the nightstand, and on impulse, she grabbed it and dialed one of the women in her book club.

“Hey, it’s Keri,” she said when her friend answered. “You’ll never believe it. I just missed Lisa Power. All year I’ve been trying to meet her, and I take a five-minute shower and blow my chance.”

There was a long pause on the phone.

“You just saw Lisa?” her friend asked.

“Yeah, she was back at her parents’ house. Emma spotted her.”

“Was she coming or going?”

“Going. I know you two are friends. Do you know if she’s back here for a while? I thought maybe I could leave her a note and see if I can bring over some cookies and coffee tomorrow.”

“I really don’t know,” Laurel March replied. “I’ve been trying to find Lisa myself.”

31

Lisa heard her phone ringing as she walked down Conley Avenue toward where the Camaro was parked. She’d meant to turn it off, in case they tried to track her through the cell towers. She grabbed the phone from her pocket to power it down, but when she did, she spotted a name on the caller ID that she hadn’t seen in a long time.

Noah.

Her brother was calling.

She stopped dead on the street, listening to the phone ring, feeling it vibrate in her hand. She made no move to answer it. When the call went away, she couldn’t even bring herself to push the button to shut the phone down. She stayed where she was. A minute later, she was still standing there, and the phone rang again.

Again, it was Noah.

Part of her wanted to take the call and ask him for help. Part of her wanted to take the call and scream at him. She didn’t do either. She simply stared at his name on the screen and then waited until it disappeared. Not long after, a bell chimed, telling her that she had voice mail.

She didn’t listen to it.

Lisa shoved the phone back in her pocket and continued to the end of the street to find the Camaro. It was dark now, and she didn’t worry about being seen. Lights had come on in the houses around the neighborhood, but if anyone looked outside, she was nothing but a
shadow. She got in the car and drove, but she could feel the weight of the phone in her pocket, reminding her that Noah had left a message.

The next band of snow arrived with the cold evening, falling in heavy wet flakes and gathering on the ground. She headed for the river, taking a roundabout route to avoid the main roads. She went east and south and then cut back toward the water on a rural highway. No other cars passed her coming or going. She thumped over railroad tracks and knew she was close to the point where Purdue would have climbed off the train in the pouring rain. Her headlights lit up the barren terrain he would have crossed. It must have been a long walk for a boy who had just lost his mother and had nowhere to go.

A long, miserable walk that ended at the bank of the Red Lake River.

Lisa knew the road she was trying to find. It was called Riverbend Trail, and she’d been there countless times, but she still had to keep her eyes wide open in the dark. She knew she was close when the pavement ended and turned to rough gravel under her tires, but even so, she almost missed the turn. There were no lights or landmarks out here; everything looked the same. She spotted a Dead End sign ahead of her, and she braked hard, turning right onto a cross street and driving through an inch of white slush. Fall trees loomed on both sides of the dirt road, and long driveways led toward riverside homes that were built a comfortable distance from their neighbors. She couldn’t see the water, but it was close by. In the summertime, you could smell it from here, a little dank, alive with the whine of mosquitoes. She drove until the road curved like a horseshoe, and that was where she stopped. She turned off the Camaro’s engine.

On her right was a long stretch of open fields under a dark sky. If she got out and followed it, she’d eventually wind up back at the railroad tracks. Without the fresh coating of snow, she probably would have seen Purdue’s footprints in the deep mud. He’d come right past here. She was sure of it.

On her left was wooded land that led to the riverbank. The land belonged to Denis Farrell.

It was time to go back to the past.

Lisa opened the car door, but she hesitated before getting out. Her phone still felt like a lead weight, keeping her where she was. She took it out of her pocket again, and her thumb caressed the screen as she tried to decide what to do. Ignore the message. Delete the message. Listen to it.

What did Noah have to say to her?

What could he possibly say after all this time?

She put the phone on speaker, and she played the message. His voice filled the car, the oh-so-familiar voice in which she could hear echoes of Madeleine and her father and her brothers and herself. His words were halting and slow.

“Lis, it’s me. Look, I know you’re not answering, and I know you hate me. I don’t blame you. I could make excuses for what I did, but none of them matter, so I won’t bother trying. Not that you care, but things are different for me now. I’m living with a girl. Her name’s Janie. We’re good together. Ever since I met her, I’ve been thinking about coming home and trying to make things right with you, but I wasn’t sure that I had anything to come home to. I don’t know if I have a sister anymore. And I know that’s my fault, not yours.”