Thief River Falls

by Brian Freeman

  “I understand.”

  “She talked to me about Canada while we were there, too. She talked about it a lot. She said that’s where she grew up. She never told me that before. I don’t think her parents were very nice to her. She said her dad did some bad things, and after that, she ran away and never went back. But she said she missed Canada. She talked about how pretty it was in the snow. She wanted me to see it someday.”

  “It’s a beautiful place,” Lisa said. “We’re pretty close to Canada here, you know.”

  The boy said nothing.

  “What happened next?” she asked.

  “They came and took her away. Mom was crying. She was holding my hand and saying how much she loved me and that she would see me soon. Then she was gone. She was gone a long time. Everybody kept coming up and asking how I was, which was really stupid. I was fine. My mom was the one who was sick. They wanted to play games with me, and get stuff for me to eat and drink, and put on videos for me, but I just wanted my mom back.”

  Lisa had no trouble imagining this calm, serious boy at the center of a whirlwind as all the nurses fussed over him. Nothing was worse in a hospital than a child who was alone.

  She didn’t want to ask the next question, because she already suspected what the answer was. “Did your mom come back?”

  Purdue shook his head. “No. I told you, Lisa: people die in hospitals.”

  Somehow he managed to fight off his own tears, but Lisa surrendered to hers. She pulled his little body close and hugged him, and she cried silently. It felt strange, as if he were the one comforting her.

  “I’m so sorry, Purdue.”

  “A man and a woman came and told me that Mom died. They said the doctors tried and tried and did everything they could, but Mom’s heart stopped in the middle of what they were doing, and it wouldn’t start again. They acted like I didn’t even know what that meant. Then they started asking me all sorts of questions.”

  Lisa nodded. “I bet they did.”

  “They asked about where I lived, and where my dad was, and what family I had, and stuff like that.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “I lied. I said my dad was on his way, and he’d take me home. I said we lived in a really big house and had lots of money. They didn’t believe me. I knew what was going to happen. They were going to take me away and put me with strangers somewhere. That’s what they do with kids who don’t have anybody.”

  “What did you do?” Lisa asked.

  “I said I was hungry. And I was. So they took me to the cafeteria and got dinner for me, and I put another sandwich and some cookies in my pocket when they weren’t looking. Then I said I had to go to the bathroom. But I didn’t. I ran down the hallway and out of the hospital.”

  Lisa shook her head. She thought about this brave, foolish kid, going off on his own in the minutes after his mother had died. She could imagine the panic he’d left behind at the hospital. It wouldn’t be hard to find out where this had all happened, but even when she did, she realized she would be sending him back to nothing. He was right. They would give him to strangers. And it still didn’t explain how he’d found himself in the middle of a murder scene, with people who wanted him dead.

  “Where did you go?”

  He pointed out the window. “There were train tracks near the hospital. A train was stopped there, and some guys were hanging out. I asked them where the train was going.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Canada. They said the train was going to Canada. I thought, that’s what my mom wanted. She wanted me to see Canada. I figured she was telling me what to do. Like she’d sent the train for me. So I decided to get on.”

  “What were you planning to do when you got there?”

  “I don’t know. Mom made it sound really pretty, and I just wanted to see it. So I walked next to the train until I found a car that was open, and I climbed inside. The train started up again right after that. As we left, I could see lots of people outside the hospital. Doctors. Nurses. Police. I figured they were looking for me, so I hid, and nobody saw me. I stayed on the train, and it started going faster. It was great. Way better than being in a car.”

  “How long were you on the train?”

  “All day.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Oh, lots of things! Lots of cows and sheep. We went over a lot of rivers, too. We stopped in some towns. Not big towns. Not like a city. We kept going and going, but eventually it got dark, and it started to get colder. And it started raining outside, too. Pouring. Then we stopped again. I kept waiting for the train to start, but it didn’t. It just sat there. I figured maybe we were there, you know? I figured we were in Canada. So I got off the train. I saw a couple men hanging around, and I thought about asking them where I was, but I figured they’d start asking me questions, and then they’d send me back. I didn’t want that.”

  “You stayed here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember what you saw near the train? Do you remember where you were?”

  “I saw a plane,” Purdue said. “A plane landed right over my head. I thought it was going to land on top of me.”

  “You were near the airport,” Lisa murmured. “There are railroad tracks just east of there. Where did you go then?”

  “I walked. I don’t know for how long. I started across some fields, and after a while, I got to a river. I couldn’t get across, so I walked next to the water. It was still raining, and I was soaked. I was getting pretty cold and tired, and I was scared. And I missed my mom, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “I found a little house,” Purdue went on.

  “Like a cabin?”

  “I guess.”

  “Where was it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know where I was, but I was still right near the water. I thought I could hide in there for a while, but somebody was inside. A man. He must have heard me, because he came outside, so I hid in the weeds on the riverbank.”

  “What did this man look like?”

  “I told you before—he was big, like a football player.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He looked around and then he went back inside. I was going to keep going, but that’s when I heard the other men. They were coming through the woods and whispering to each other. I thought they would see me, but they didn’t. There were four of them, the man with the red hair and the two policemen. And the old man. They went right up to the door of the little house, and they went inside. I heard a big fight, and then they dragged the other man out. That’s when everything happened. They tied him up and gagged him and then they—they started doing things to him.”

  “Oh, Purdue.” She knew so much more now, and yet she also knew nothing at all. “You told me before that the men found you. They hurt you. How did you get away from them? How did you escape and find your way to me?”

  The boy shook his head. “I don’t remember. Really, Lisa, I’m telling the truth. I don’t remember. It’s like one minute I was in the woods while they were killing that man, and then the next minute I was hiding in the truck. And then I was looking up and seeing you in the window of your house. In between, it’s all just fuzzy.”

  “That’s okay. You’ve given me a lot, Purdue. This will help me solve the mystery. I just want you to remember one more thing for me.”

  “What is it?”

  She smiled at him. “Your name. What’s your name? I’d like to call you by your real name.”

  The boy was quiet for a while. This was an easy one, compared to everything else he’d told her. She expected to see his face break into a broad grin, like a child reaching out his hand and seeing a butterfly land on it. But it never did. Instead, his head snapped sideways so that he didn’t have to look at her.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

  “Really? Are you sure?”

  “I don’t remember my name,” he insisted.

  “That’s okay. Don’t wor
ry. You’ll stay Purdue for a little while longer.”

  Lisa squeezed his shoulder to make him feel better, so that he knew she didn’t blame him. And she didn’t. The trouble was, it was painfully obvious that he was lying to her. His shame was written all over his face. This was more than just keeping a secret. This was an out-and-out, pants-on-fire lie.

  He did know his name, and he didn’t want to tell her what it was.

  Why would he hide something like that?

  24

  Lisa showed Purdue the secret hiding place in the basement. It wasn’t much more than a crawl space, a gap above the foundation and underneath the floorboards where Madeleine had stored her handmade Christmas decorations. The boxes were still there, labeled in her mother’s spidery handwriting. Behind the boxes, there was just enough room to slither in and hide, which was what Lisa and Noah had done as kids.

  “If you see anyone outside, you run downstairs and crawl in here,” she told him. “I’ll be back real soon.”

  “Okay.”

  She felt a twinge of concern at leaving him behind, but she knew he would be safer at home than with her. She grabbed her mother’s old winter coat from the hall closet, and she ventured out into a white world. The snow continued to fall, with the wind swirling it into a tornado. The blizzard was blinding, but that helped her stay concealed. If she couldn’t see ten feet in front of her, then neither could anyone else. Including the people who were looking for her.

  The weather was keeping most of the town inside. She didn’t see anyone as she hurried into the wind toward the end of the street, where the Camaro was hidden in her neighbor’s yard. Before she took the car out, she wandered across the grass to the railroad tracks and stared as far as she could in both directions, which was like staring into a dense fog. If she followed those tracks for several miles, she would pass east of the airport, which was where Purdue told her he’d gotten off the train.

  Under her feet, she could still feel the vibration of the train that had passed a few minutes earlier. Like a restless teenager, she stood in the middle of the tracks and then walked south, all alone in the storm’s cocoon. She knew that one of the town’s many cemeteries was to her right, but she couldn’t see it. On the left were trees and open land, all invisible. It was easy to let her imagination run wild, and that was what it did.

  She heard a voice in her head. Noah’s voice.

  Lis, what happened? Tell me what’s wrong.

  She almost turned around to see if he was behind her, but she knew he wasn’t. He was two hours away in Fargo, if Laurel had been telling her the truth. But it didn’t matter where he was. The only reason he was here in her head was because she’d spent the last two hours in the house where they’d grown up together. As far as she was concerned, she didn’t have a brother anymore.

  Lisa kept walking. She wasn’t sure how far she went, not with the snow playing tricks on her eyes. When the wind briefly subsided, she could see a trailer park on the other side of a dirt road, but then swirls of snow rose up again and scrubbed it away. The real world only seemed to exist for a few seconds before she lost track of it again. It was time to go back. She turned around, but she realized she’d lost all sense of direction. She started walking again and stopped. She could feel the railroad ties under her feet; she was still on the tracks. But she had no sense of whether she was going north or south.

  White, white, white. Everything was white. It had felt that way in her head for more than a day, but now it was getting worse. Thief River Falls felt like a frozen alien planet. The snow clung to her eyelids and made her blink and squint. Wind howled, throwing an icy mist in her face and cold razor blades through her clothes. A finger of panic crept up her spine.

  An unwelcome thought sprang of its own accord into her mind: Noah, I need help.

  Then she shoved that thought away before it was even fully formed. She didn’t need him or anyone. Alone was fine. She could do this alone. As if to prove she was right, the wind offered up a last whistling gust and then took a break. The snow kept on, but she could see the corner of Annie Street not far away and the neighbor’s yard where the Camaro was hidden. With a little laugh at herself, she headed that way.

  When she reached the Camaro, she didn’t get into the car immediately. Instead, she opened the trunk and stared down at Shyla’s guns inside. Part of her wanted to remove them. Get rid of them. But she couldn’t do that, not now, not yet. She didn’t know how any of this would end and what would be required of her before it did.

  Staring at the weapons in the Camaro, it occurred to Lisa for the first time that all of this might end badly.

  That sometimes in a thriller, the hero died.

  She’d written about death, she’d felt the grief of death, but she’d never faced the idea of dying herself. And yet it didn’t scare her. If she had to give up her own life to save Purdue, that was a sacrifice she would willingly make. If she and a gun were the only things standing between that boy and safety, then she would do what she had to do to protect him.

  Lisa slammed the trunk shut, got in the car, and backed out into the whiteness of the town.

  If there was one person in Thief River Falls who had an ear for the town’s secrets, it was Judith Reichl. She was the senior librarian, a job she had held for nearly all Lisa’s life. Lisa had known her since she was five years old and got her first library card, which to a bookish little girl was like a religious experience. All these years later, she was still Mrs. Reichl to Lisa, never Judith.

  The library building was located on the west side of the Red Lake River, which meant Lisa needed to cross one of the handful of town bridges to get there. It was a choke point for traffic that left her feeling exposed in the Camaro, but she didn’t spot anyone watching the bridge. She crossed to the other side of town and parked in the library parking lot, and then she got out and walked beside the one-story redbrick building, with an eye on the cars that came and went.

  She was in the belly of the beast here, but it couldn’t be helped. The headquarters of the county sheriff’s department was immediately across the street. If anyone took a close look out the side window, they’d see her.

  No one did. She made it inside the library without being spotted.

  This place was like a second home to Lisa. She’d done the very first reading from her first book in this library, with Mrs. Reichl beaming proudly from the back of the meeting room. She’d done similar events here with every other book, except for Thief River Falls, where the size of the hometown crowd forced them to reserve the auditorium space at the high school. She still remembered the joyful, terrifying experience of speaking to that crowd, with her entire family cheering for her in the front row.

  Lisa knew she had no hope of remaining anonymous here at the library. Every person on the staff knew her. Nearly all the patrons did, too. There was a huge display case near the checkout desk dedicated to her and her books, again thanks to Mrs. Reichl. When the people in the library spotted her, they immediately rushed over to greet her. She was never sure how to extricate herself politely, but Mrs. Reichl spotted her from her office and provided a smooth rescue. The librarian steered her away with an arm around her waist. Lisa breathed a little sigh of thanks into her ear.

  The two of them went into her modest office. With a single glance at Lisa’s face, Mrs. Reichl obviously spotted that something was wrong, and she closed the door to give them privacy. She pulled two chairs together where they could sit next to each other.

  “Well, well, Lisa Power. How are you?”

  “I’m all right, Mrs. Reichl.”

  “Are you really? You don’t look so good. You don’t need to sugarcoat anything with me.”

  “Let’s just say I’m as good as I can be.”

  “Of course. Can I get you anything? Some coffee?”

  Lisa shook her head. “No, thank you.”

  “How long has it been? A year? I can’t remember the last time you’ve been in here. Your absence has been duly note
d. I know you moved to Lake Bronson, and I’m sure writing has been keeping you busy, but it also left me wondering if you were okay. When I don’t see one of my favorite people for so long, I get concerned.”

  Mrs. Reichl had a honey-sweet voice that never let you realize you were being interrogated. She was slim and small, always neatly put together in a dark wool suit, with her gray hair in a stylish bob. She wore glasses (every librarian Lisa had ever met wore glasses), and she purchased a new style of frame every year. It was one of Mrs. Reichl’s few vanities. This year, the glasses had a retro cat’s-eye look, with a brown tortoiseshell color. Behind her glasses, she had smart, twinkling eyes, with eyebrows that could arch like the gables of a house when she suspected you were fibbing. Teenagers sneaking books into their backpacks didn’t last ten seconds before confessing.

  “It’s just been a busy year for me,” Lisa told her. “That’s all.”

  Mrs. Reichl’s eyebrows indicated that she’d failed the polygraph. “I see. And what about Noah? He hasn’t been in here in a long time, either.”

  “Actually, Noah left the area. I think he’s in Fargo now.”

  “You think?”

  “Well, he and I haven’t talked in a while. We had a falling-out.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that,” Mrs. Reichl said. “I don’t think I ever saw closer siblings than you two. I suppose that’s the way it is with twins.”

  “People change.”

  Mrs. Reichl tugged on the temples of her glasses. “Eyeglasses change, Lisa. You? You are the same girl I knew when you were five years old. Strong willed, smart, an extraordinary imagination. And also stubbornly independent, never needing another soul.”

  Lisa smiled. “Not true. I’ve always needed you.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s the kind of smooth deflection I’d expect from a writer,” the woman replied with another expressive arch of her eyebrows.

  “I’m serious,” Lisa assured her. Then she went on quickly before the librarian could keep digging into her personal life. “In fact, that’s why I’m here. I could use your help about something.”