Never mind all that, I told myself. Get back to it.
As I worked, I grew damp from exertion. The upstairs of this house had always been warm in the summer. Still, it didn’t take me but thirty minutes to finish the closet. Soon, everything had been emptied and put in either a box or the trash. Rickety and unstable, the shelving unit was something my dad must have put together. After forty years of neglect, who could blame it for giving in to decay? I felt this way some days. Too old and worn out to keep on going.
Last night my mother had asked if I would start dating again. It had been two years since my divorce from Max.
I’d dismissed the idea. Dating? At my age? Forty-six and faced with the prospect of showing my naked body to a man seemed impossible. When I’d married Max I would never have guessed that twenty years later I’d be out there again. Did I even want someone? After living with Max, picking up after him, cooking his meals, coddling his ego, I wasn’t sure I wanted a repeat.
I’d thought Max was a good man. Or at least an honest one with flaws. I could deal with flaws. The dishonesty, the deception—that’s what I couldn’t look past. The betrayal had sliced through me like a dull blade through my middle. When I’d lectured in front of my class, I’d wondered if they could see the hole he’d left.
Anyway, that was all in the past. Now I had the opportunity to reinvent myself. I had enough money to live for years without working. I might not go back to the university. Maybe I would stay here in Logan Bend and grow tomatoes. I could never get a darn tomato to ripen in Seattle’s cool climate. But here? Here I could have oodles and oodles of juicy red tomatoes.
These were my thoughts as I emptied the rest of the room. Beth’s desk had been emptied at some point, so there was nothing much to do. Under the bed was also clear. I went back in for one last look in the closet to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, kneeling once more in front of the shelves. That’s when I saw a crack in the bottom shelf. The shelving unit had a false bottom, covered by the decorative front. I looked more closely. Actually, it wasn’t a crack but a rectangular incision in the board. A secret hiding place? I needed something like a knife to lift it.
The butter knife. Had she actually kept it up here to open this hiding place? Not peanut butter after all? I grabbed the knife from where I’d set it on the bed, then used it to pry the part from the rest of the shelf.
I gasped at what I saw. Beth’s journal. The one with butterflies on the cover. She’d gotten it as a gift when we were in middle school from an elderly aunt. I’d never seen her write in it when we were small.
She’d hidden it, which meant she must have been writing in it when we were in high school and didn’t want me or Mom to find it. Our mother wasn’t above snooping. I lifted the journal from its coffin.
I opened to the first page. My heart beat fast as I looked at the date of the first entry, which was roughly six months before she was murdered.
I can’t let anyone see this. Not ever. But today we did it for the first time. I won’t say his name, not even in here. I’m in love. I feel really guilty about Luke, but I can’t seem to stop myself. I’m sick with love. And now I’ve done the thing I can’t even tell Carlie about. Sex. It wasn’t good, like I hoped, but he assures me it gets better with time. We’re planning to meet in our secret place again tomorrow.
I’m playing with fire. I know that. But he’s too irresistible. There’s no one like him. Luke seems like a child compared to him.
I stared at the page, unable to comprehend what I was reading. Beth had a boyfriend other than Luke. A boyfriend she couldn’t tell even me about? And she’d had sex with him. How could this be?
Shivers ran up my spine. This was a lead. After all these years, something to go on. Information the police hadn’t had at the time. There had been another boy in Beth’s life. She’d had a secret. One that she kept from even me. But why? Why not just break up with Luke and go out with whoever this was? Had she sensed he was dangerous? Had instincts told her to keep us in the dark so we wouldn’t see him for who he was and make her break it off with him? She’d always said I was scared of everything and that Dad was overprotective. I’d been right to be scared. My dad had been right too. Neither of us had the power to stop whoever it was that took Beth from us.
Would this journal hold answers? Was it possible that Mom and I could finally have closure? We were the only two left of what had been a happy family of four. The Websters. Two beautiful blonde daughters. A bank manager and a beloved teacher. Native sons and daughters of Logan Bend. The rivers and mountains of Idaho ran through our blood. We were Logan Bend. Until we were not.
2
Cole
Summer mornings started early in Logan Bend. The moment the sun rose in the east, my rooster, Willie Nelson, crowed to make sure I wakened. He wasn’t the type to let a man sleep in. Not that I wanted to. Since I’d moved back to Logan Bend and the property where I’d spent part of my youth, I leaped into each
