Burnt River Read Online Free Page B

face.
    “I can’t make sense of it. If he is dead, how could he send me a message?”
    Jessie pictured Annie ten years younger and forty pounds heavier. The woman sitting in front of her was an imposter. Too tired to play their usual game, Jessie changed her tone. The smile was gone.
    “It must be some sort of a joke.”
    “John was the serious one in the family. He wouldn’t have joked about something like this.”
    “Quit talking about him in the past tense.”
    Annie inspected her reflection in the mirror above the dresser. She ran her fingers through her hair and frowned. “I can’t count how many times I imagined him dying. Every time the doorbell rang I thought it would be soldiers coming to tell us he was gone. It got so bad I ripped it out of the wall.”
    “Nobody blames you. We were all worried.” Jessie reached for the phone. “Let me see the message.”
    Annie snatched it away and pressed it to her chest. “How do I know you won’t read my other messages? They’re private. I don’t want you seeing them.”
    “I promise that I’ll just read the one John sent.”
    “John is dead. He couldn’t have sent it.”
    “Can I have the phone?”
    “You’ve lied to me before.”
    “I’ve never lied to you.”
    “Now I know you’re lying.”
    “Mom, I’m trying to help. I don’t want you to be upset. I’m sure John is asleep at his place.”
    “His bed’s not been slept in. He never came home last night.”
    John lived in a mobile home out near the stables. Jessie checked the time again. It was just coming up to six thirty. As a rule, her mother wasn’t supposed to leave the main house. They worried she’d wander off and get lost in the deep canyons that bordered the ranch, or worse, head for the Flathead River. She’d succeeded in getting out twice. Both times they found her contemplating the drop at Bridger Falls.
    “He probably stayed at Tyler’s place. Did you speak to Dad?”
    “Jeremy’s not here either.” Her long fingers fluttered through the air before landing on her chin. “Probably out with that woman. I told you it would happen eventually. Give Jeremy time and he’ll tire of me. I hear him whispering to my doctor. I know he’s going to have me put in an institution.”
    “I promise not to read the other messages. I just want to see the one you received from John.”
    “Maybe he’d still be alive if I heard it ring, but I’ve been sleeping so soundly. It’s all those pills the doctor makes me take. I’m surprised I can still dream.”
    “Mom, the phone.”
    “You’ll give it right back?”
    “Of course I will.”
    She started to hand it over. “You realize he’s gone now. Nothing you do will change that.”
    “Stop saying he’s dead. You’re scaring me.”
    Annie dropped the phone on Jessie’s lap and turned to the window. “You should be scared.”
    The phone was warm from being held so tightly in her mother’s hands. Jessie turned it over and read what was on the screen.
    I’m sorry, Annie. John gave me no choice. He had to die.
    Jessie reread the words to herself several times before whispering them aloud. In the otherwise silent room they sounded like a prayer. Annie slapped at the air in front of her, trying to catch a mosquito. Everyone in Wilmington Creek knew Annie was unwell. She’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder in her teens and had been living on a changing cocktail of medication ever since. But it was the early onset of dementia that took everyone by surprise. Not that anything could have been done if they had realized what was going on. In an attempt to hold on to reality, Annie began to obsess over writing down every thought that came into her head. Jessie remembered the look on her father’s face when he came across the stacks of notebooks hidden in the back of the cupboard under the stairs. They’d pored through them together while Annie pounded at the locked office door. She remembered events from more than fifty years earlier