Lisa thought, Oh, Danny, I’m so sorry. I should have told you. I never should have let you go to fight that fire. I could have stopped you. Two words, and you would have stayed at my side. Two words would have changed everything.
“I’m pregnant.”
The boy said it again. “What’s my name? Tell me my name. You can do it.”
Lisa broke apart, like ice breaking into sharp little diamonds. She struggled for breath. Her shoulders shook with the pain. Her head was in a vise, the pressure threatening to crack through bone. She didn’t want to say it, but she had to say it. The name flew from her chest like a bird freed from a cage.
“Harlan.”
“That’s right. I’m Harlan.”
“Oh my God. Oh, no, no, no, no. You’re my boy. My baby.”
“And what happened to me, Mom?”
Lisa shook her head. She couldn’t face it. She couldn’t go back to the hospital, with her arms around her child, feeling his body go slack as she held him. There was a monster here in the church, folding her into darkness. The strange whiteness of the past two days had fled, but what it left behind was pitch black. “No.”
“You have to say it, Mom. You have to say it.”
“I can’t.”
“It’s okay,” Harlan told her. “Say it. It’s okay.”
“You died.”
“Yeah. That’s right. I’m really sorry.”
“Sorry? No, no, Harlan, you can’t be sorry. It was my fault. I failed you. I should have been able to save you.”
“You couldn’t. No one could. Not the doctors. Not anybody. It’s not your fault, Mom. But I have to go now.”
Lisa felt it all coming back. All the memories, all the agony, all the tears, everything she had put in a box and hidden away for two days. Harlan was in her arms again as she carried him out of the hospital, still and somehow weightless. She remembered the rain as she dug down into the wet ground to bring her boy to his father. Danny was the only one who could protect him now, not Lisa.
And since then—nothing. Since then, she’d lived a different life. She’d disappeared into a world she’d created. She’d lived out the story of Thief River Falls.
Lisa clamped her eyes shut. The afterimage of Harlan’s face shone in her head like a photograph. Her son, alive, standing in front of her, the way he never would again. Her son, saying goodbye.
She opened her eyes.
Harlan was gone. She was alone. She’d been alone for two days.
“No,” she wailed, drawing out the word in all its finality.
The book was done. Purdue was back inside its pages. All that remained was her grief, which was a wide, deep canyon, sinking so far down she couldn’t see the bottom. The only thing she could think to do was jump. She cared about nothing, least of all herself. Harlan was gone, and she had no purpose left in life. There was no one to save anymore. No one to rescue.
This was the Dark Star in full eclipse.
Lisa walked toward the church doors in a daze. She still had the rifle in her arms. She wrenched open the doors and was immediately bathed in the glow of spotlights. She was at the center of a whirlwind. Dozens of police cars. Dozens of people. Dozens of guns pointed at her.
And one man standing in the snow, apart from all the others. She held up a hand and squinted into the bright lights, trying to see who it was. Then she knew.
Noah.
“Lis, put down the gun,” he said.
She was paralyzed. There was a hush over the scene, chaos freezing into complete silence. No one spoke. No one moved. The snow had stopped falling, and even the wind held its breath.
“Lis, it’s me. It’s Noah. I know about Harlan. Laurel told me everything. I know your heart is broken. I know your whole world is broken. But we’ll get through it. We’ll put everything back together. You and me, like when we were kids. Just put down the gun.”
Noah.
Noah, who’d run away. Noah, who’d left her alone. Noah, who’d abandoned her. She hated him. She hated her brother. Most of all, she hated that she could see herself reflecting in his eyes. It was like staring into a wretched mirror of all her own weaknesses.
Lisa raised the AR-15 and pointed it at her brother’s chest. All she had to do was pull the trigger.
Noah screamed at the police. “Nobody shoot, nobody shoot, hold your fire, do not hurt her!”
And then to his sister: “It’s okay, Lis. You want to shoot me? Shoot me. I ran out on you. Both of you. I wasn’t there for you or for Harlan. But I’m here now.”
Noah.
Noah, who’d grown up in the bed next to hers. Noah, who could read her mind and whose thoughts she could hear when she lay awake at night. She’d never admitted it to him. She’d never told him he was right. He was always with her. Noah, who’d introduced her to Danny. Noah, who’d been with her in the delivery room when Harlan was born.
Noah.
“If you’d stayed, you’d be dead, too,” Lisa murmured.
“What?”
“Last year. You were going to kill yourself.”
“I didn’t think you knew that.”
“I felt it,” Lisa said. “I felt you put the gun in your mouth. I thought, I’m going to come home and find your body on the floor. I knew it. Instead, I came home and you were gone. I was glad, Noah. I was glad you ran away. I hated you for it, but I didn’t want you to die like the others.”
“I’m home, Lis. I’ll never run away again.”
He walked toward her through the snow. She watched him come. He climbed the wooden steps of the church and stood there with the barrel of her gun jabbing into his stomach. Gently, not rushing, he reached for her hand and peeled away her finger from the trigger and took the rifle from her. She let it go. She let everything go. He put the gun down next to him where it would harm no one, and as he did, she could hear the silence break into the thunder of footsteps as people ran toward them, the eruption of cheers, the blessings to God. Noah put his arms around her and held on, and she put her arms around him, at first stiffly, then as tightly as she’d ever held anyone in her life.
They stood there together like that for a long, long time.
Far away, from the railroad tracks behind the church, she heard a mournful whistle and felt the earth tremble as a train lumbered toward the heart of town on its way to Canada. And then, when the whistle went away, there was only silence.
42
Sunlight streamed through the window into the hospital room, which was brightly colored by bouquets of flowers. They’d come from around the world. So had cards, e-mails, and messages online. Thousands of strangers had sent prayers and condolences to her. It was easy to forget sometimes that a book went out into the world and touched people’s lives, and Lisa was overwhelmed by the many readers who had reached back to her in the past week. They were like her family.
She sat patiently as Laurel checked her blood pressure and her pulse and listened to the beat of her heart. Everything was normal. She was on antianxiety medication and would be for a while, but the psychosis had receded. She was back in the real world, dealing with the loss of her son. There was a hole in her heart that would never be filled, but she had learned something in these days that she’d never understood before. She wasn’t alone.
“It’s odd,” Lisa murmured. “I almost miss them.”
“Who?” Laurel asked.
“All the characters from Thief River Falls. People like Mrs. Lancaster. Tom Doggett. Even a terrible person like Liam. They’re all back in the book, but for a little while, they were real to me. They were alive. They’d been in my head for years, and suddenly they were actually there in front of me.”
“It’s a strange kind of gift.”
“Everything got mixed up in ways I don’t understand. The real world and my fantasies.”
“How so?”
“Well, Fiona Farrell was just a character in the book. She doesn’t exist. And yet in my head, she was Danny’s sister, even though Danny was an onl
y child. I don’t know why my mind put it together like that.”
Laurel smiled. “I guess you can probably thank Denis for that. He was a part of both worlds. He’s real, but you put him in your book, too. So your brain blended reality and delusion.”
“I guess so.” Lisa was quiet, and then she added, “I kept seeing white.”
Laurel’s brow crinkled with puzzlement. “What?”
“Everything my head made up had something white in it. That was what made it different from the things that were really there. After a while, it seemed like everything became white as I went deeper and deeper. I wonder why.”
Laurel tugged on the shoulder of her coat. “Lab coats would be my guess. Masks. I suspect that to your brain, white became the color of doctors. You began to associate white with the hospital. This is where you lost Harlan. Everything your mind invented was taking you right back here.”
“The brain is a scary thing.”
“It can be.”
Lisa calmed herself with a slow breath. “Did you tell Curtis I was sorry for whacking him?”
“I did,” Laurel replied with a grin. “He’s fine now. I think he actually enjoyed being a bad guy. You may have to write him into your next book.”
“I can do that.”
“Me, too, in fact. I wouldn’t mind seeing the name Laurel March in one of your novels.”
“Okay, but no villains for you,” Lisa said. “Maybe a slinky, sexy spy or something like that.”
“Deal.”
Laurel squeezed her shoulder. She headed for the doorway of the hospital room, and as she left, she had to make way for Noah, who was burdened down with more flowers and a bag stuffed with cards. Noah gave Lisa a smile, and she could see Madeleine in the curl of his lips and the twinkle in his eyes. And her father. And their brothers. And Harlan. Everyone who was gone was really still here.
“Hey, Lis,” Noah said, his chirpy voice sounding like when they were kids. “More fan mail. You want me to write back to some of these people for you? You’re going to need some help.”
Lisa shook her head. “No, I’ll do it myself.”
“That’s a lot of letters.”
“That’s okay. I want to do every one.”
Noah dropped down onto the window bench next to her. “Sorry I was late getting here today. Janie and I are getting settled in at the old house. Whenever you’re ready to blow this place, you can stay there, too. I mean, unless you want to go back to your house in Lake Bronson.”
Lisa shook her head firmly. “No. If I learned anything, it’s that I belong in Thief River Falls.”
“Well, who says you can’t go home again?” Noah replied. “Hey, by the way, I passed Denis and Gillian Farrell on my way in. Did they really come to see you?”
“They did. Little miracles are everywhere this week.”
“How was it?”
“Honestly, we all cried together. We cried for Danny, and we cried for Harlan. It was good. Not only that, prepare yourself for the fact that we are actually invited to Thanksgiving dinner in the Farrell household this year. You, me, Janie.”
“Get out.”
“It’s true. Denis apologized for shutting us out all these years. I don’t know if Gillian made him say that, but it sounded sincere. He even admitted that he thought it was rather badass of me to turn him into a homicidal maniac in Thief River Falls. He asked if there was going to be a sequel.”
“And is there?” Noah asked.
Lisa rolled her eyes. “Oh, no. That book was a stand-alone, believe me. After this week, I may start writing romance novels.”
Noah looked away toward the door. He saw something in the hallway that Lisa couldn’t see from where she was, and his face flushed. “Janie’s here,” he told her. “She can’t wait to meet you.”
“I can’t wait to meet her, too,” Lisa replied. “I love the idea of you getting married, you know. It’s a new beginning, and that’s what we need.”
“Well, we sort of have a surprise, too. I didn’t want to tell you before now. I wanted to wait to make sure it would be okay.”
“Is it a good thing?”
“It’s a very good thing.”
“Okay, what is it?”
Noah waved at his fiancée outside the hospital room. Janie came in—carrying more flowers balanced in both arms—and Lisa understood the surprise immediately. She found her eyes drawn to Janie’s swollen belly. Lisa didn’t hear much of anything else after that. She was vaguely aware of Janie talking to her and telling her how much she loved her books and how much she loved her brother. But Lisa just kept staring at Janie and thinking about the baby inside her, and finally, Noah and Janie both noticed that tears had begun to fall down Lisa’s cheeks.
“Hey,” Noah said, reaching out to grab her hand. “Hey, are you okay?”
Lisa nodded. She was crying, but this wasn’t sadness. This was something she hadn’t felt in forever. Joy. She was overjoyed.
“I’m so happy for you two,” she managed to say.
Noah beamed. “Thanks, Lis.”
“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?” she asked.
Janie glanced at Noah and then smiled at Lisa to give her the news. “A boy.”
“And actually,” Noah went on, “we already have a name picked out. He’s going to be Danny.”
Lisa just kept crying. It felt wonderful. “Danny,” she said.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Thanks for reading Thief River Falls. I hope you enjoyed this very emotional novel as much as I enjoyed writing it for you.
If you liked this book, be sure to check out all my other thrillers, too. Visit my website at bfreemanbooks.com to join my mailing list, get book club discussion questions, and find out more about me and my books.
Finally, if you enjoy my books, I hope you’ll post your reviews online at sites like Amazon, Goodreads, Audible, and other sites for booklovers—and spread the word to your reader friends, too. Thanks!
You can write to me with your feedback at [email protected]. I love to get e-mails from listeners and readers around the world, and yes, I reply personally. You can also “like” my official fan page on Facebook at facebook.com/bfreemanfans or follow me on Twitter or Instagram using the handle bfreemanbooks. For a look at the fun side of the author’s life, you can also “like” the Facebook page of my wife, Marcia, at facebook.com/theauthorswife.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Every novel is the product of work by a team of talented people. I’m fortunate to work with some of the best in the business.
My editor at Thomas & Mercer, Jessica Tribble, has been a wonderful guide on the creative side of my books for several years, and she is also the efficient hand leading the entire publication process. I worked with a superb developmental editor on this novel, David Downing, whose advice was extremely helpful in getting us to the final draft. Copyeditors Susan Stokes and Laura Barrett caught all the little things that authors tend to miss, and they patiently put up with my jokes in the comments, too. The entire team at T&M are amazing professionals in putting first-rate books in the hands of readers, and it’s a privilege to work with them.
My first reader on every book is my wife, Marcia. She is wonderful at challenging my preconceived notions, and she makes sure that my vision for the book makes it onto the page. My other advance reader is Ann Sullivan, who adds her own extremely helpful perspective on the first draft. Marcia and Ann both play a huge role in shaping the books, and given the uniqueness of Thief River Falls as a story, I relied heavily on their help and advice in making sure this novel achieved what I wanted.
My agent in New York, Deborah Schneider, has been my ally and advocate for more than fifteen years. I’m incredibly grateful to her and her colleagues at Gelfman Schneider, ICM, and Curtis Brown for helping me build relationships with publishers around the world.
Of course, I am especially grateful to YOU, the readers, for coming along with me on this ride and for taking my characters into your hearts.
Thank you!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Malyssa Woodward
Brian Freeman is an Amazon Charts bestselling author of psychological thrillers, including the Frost Easton and Jonathan Stride series. His books have been sold in forty-six countries and translated into twenty-two languages. His stand-alone thriller Spilled Blood was named Best Hardcover Novel in the International Thriller Writers Awards, and his novel The Burying Place was a finalist for the same honor. The Night Bird, the first book in the Frost Easton series, was one of the top twenty Kindle bestsellers of 2017. Brian is widely acclaimed for his vivid “you are there” settings, from San Francisco to the Midwest, and for his complex, engaging characters and twist-filled plots.
Brian lives in Minnesota with his wife, Marcia. For more information on the author and his books, visit http://bfreemanbooks.com.
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