Murder at Sunrise Lake

by Christine Feehan

  “Go to sleep now, sweetheart,” he murmured, and kissed her temple.

  The heat of Sam’s body, the natural sounds of the night, the drone of the insects and the lapping of the waves against the shore lulled her to sleep.

  Mommy, Daddy’s doing the bad thing again.

  Stella was prepared this time for the couple on the trail. It was light. Early morning, grayish light. Almost foggy. The couple moved at the same steady speed, dictated by the female. Was there snow, or just the promise of it?

  No more trees. Just rock. The rock towered above the couple as they hiked along the narrow trail that would widen in spots and then suddenly narrow again. What kind of rock? Granite. Definitely granite. The fog seemed to move around the couple like steam—or breath. To Stella, it seemed alive.

  The fog gave her a creepy feeling but then she realized it was because she was feeling him—the killer. They weren’t alone on the trail. The killer was right there. She could almost smell him. He was definitely stalking them. She tried to figure out where he was just by holding very still and turning her head this way and that like a divining rod to see if any direction produced a stronger chill.

  Stella had hiked the John Muir Trail alone, had spent nearly a month in the wilderness. She wasn’t someone who spooked that easily, but everything about this morning on the trail felt ominous to her. She heard muffled footfalls. Muffled voices. Wait. What? Were there others close? Could she hear people? The murmur of other voices? Was someone coming down the trail toward the couple? Others walking up it? There were others on the trail. Maybe Stella could see and sketch the other people and identify them. Surely the killer couldn’t murder two people with witnesses so close, could he? Was he one of those people?

  Heart pounding, Stella tried to widen the lens just a little. Cooperate, you piece-of-junk camera. Why was she so inept that she couldn’t make it move? She could gladly go hike the trail and confront the killer but she couldn’t move a knob? She kept watching each new detail any light revealed, recording it in her mind to sketch later, but it was the killer she was trying to get impressions of as well as the trail.

  What had Harlow said? In her dream, maybe Harlow was photographing the trail, and Stella was just watching. If Harlow was behind the camera, could she widen the lens? Stella put Harlow behind the lens in her dream. That was easy enough to do. If Harlow was around, she was always taking pictures of something. It would be odd to see Harlow without her taking pictures, mostly with her cell phone when she was with them on their camping trips.

  To her astonishment, Stella began to see a slightly wider picture. Granted, it wasn’t much, but triumph swept through her. It was a little bit of a victory. She could record so much more of the trail and it was definitely recognizable to her. She would sketch it and show it to Raine first thing. Now, if she could just get an image of anyone else as well. Even a shadow. In the early morning fog, she doubted that would happen. Abruptly the lens snapped closed and her dream ended.

  * * *

  —

  Stella’s eyes opened and her mind was instantly clear. “Sam. Sam, are you awake?” She turned, realizing he wasn’t there. Wasn’t in bed with her. She should have known. Sam didn’t sleep long.

  “Waiting on you, Satine. I can see you’ve got something.”

  “They’re on the main trail of Mount Whitney. I’ve hiked that twice with Raine. She’s been on it more than I have. It has ninety-nine switchbacks and they’re on the switchbacks heading for the summit. People are lost up there quite often, more than you think. Raine might be able to pinpoint more precisely where the killer plans to hit them.”

  “I’m part of Search and Rescue in Mono County, sweetheart. I’m well aware. Most of them really are just lost and thankfully aren’t dead.”

  More and more inexperienced hikers were attempting the climb without knowing what they were doing, and hiking without the proper gear. The death toll was rising.

  “Only so many permits are issued,” Stella said. “It’s possible we can find them that way and stop them before they even start the climb, although they’ll think we’re nuts telling them a serial killer intends to murder them.”

  “We could offer them an insane amount of money for their permit,” Sam suggested, “and I could take his place.”

  “You mean we could take their places.”

  He was already shaking his head. “Not happening, Stella. You’re not putting yourself in danger.”

  “He’s stalking them. He would know the moment you changed places,” she pointed out. “It wouldn’t work. We need to find them and get them to leave.”

  “He’d choose someone else. We have to offer someone in their place.”

  She hated that he was right. “Let’s find them, Sam. While we’re looking, we can decide what we’re going to do.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Raine O’Mallory shook her head, frowning at the series of pictures Stella had sketched. “Babe, I don’t think this is the main trail. I think they camped at upper Guitar Lake and set out from there. It’s hard to tell because you’re only seeing tiny glimpses, but I think they’re coming up Mount Whitney from the other side. If you’re right, and she’s not as experienced, it’s much shorter for her. They’ll hike to Trail Crest and drop their backpacks with their bear cannisters and just take a day pack to summit.”

  Stella frowned. “They still have their regular backpacks on.”

  “You have tonight. If they have them on tonight, I’m wrong, but some of this beginning terrain looks much more like they started out near upper Guitar Lake to me. He’s a seasoned hiker, Stella. Would he take an inexperienced backpacker up Whitney and then hike the JMT this time of year? He wouldn’t. The answer is no.”

  There was that. Stella knew Raine was right. It wasn’t snowing—yet. But it would eventually, and once it did, the female wasn’t dressed appropriately at all.

  “He knows weather can turn up there fast. The wind can be a real bitch. You know what it’s like in lightning storms. He started her out super early in the morning. It wasn’t until night four that you heard others around them. He’s done this hike before, probably more than once, and wants to make sure she makes it without a problem. You said they’re hiking at her pace. He isn’t trying to make her go too fast. I’m just guessing that he took the easiest route to show her the Sierras he loves without her taking on too much.”

  “I’m so glad I showed these to you. I really thought the switchbacks. The granite.”

  Raine turned the last sketch to several different angles. “I believe you’re right they’re trying to summit Mount Whitney. You said you heard others.”

  “I couldn’t see anyone, just heard them.”

  “If they drop their backpacks at Trail Crest and keep going with day packs to the summit, you know there’s a very dangerous place, narrow, drop-offs on both sides. They could be shoved off there. There’s one more switchback. It wouldn’t be hard, even with others around. Feigning an accident. Trying to help if she got altitude sickness. So many things can go wrong up there.”

  Stella dropped her head in her hands. “Sam’s trying to find out who can help with figuring out who has a permit, but I told him the couple has one for the main trail.” She texted him. “I don’t know if it’s even possible for him to do that.”

  “I might be able to,” Raine said. “I can hack almost anything. I’ll do my best to track them down.” She put the sketches on the table and leaned back in her chair. “So, how are you doing? This is rough. Really rough.”

  “Let’s just say I’m not getting much sleep. I don’t want to lose them. I can feel him. He’s right there and I can’t call out to them and warn them, but there’s a feeling.” She gave a little shudder. “The first couple of nights he wasn’t there, but last night he was close to them.”

  Raine jumped up. She wasn’t very tall, but she had a powerful, forceful en
ergy that could take command of a room—or a conversation—when she chose. Stella had seen her go from a quiet almost-shadow in a corner of a room to a formidable explosion of energy, her brilliant mind suddenly on display, razor-sharp, challenging someone, most often a man, who put down someone else with a pompous display of superiority on some subject he thought he was familiar with. She would start out softly, but she could annihilate her opponent the moment they underestimated her—and they always did.

  Raine looked young, with her strawberry-blonde hair that fell as straight as a board nearly to her waist. She was always careless with it, pulling it back in a ponytail or braid to get the silky mass out of her face. With her slate-blue eyes, golden lashes, dusting of freckles across her nose, and lips defined and curving upward, many people, on meeting her, made the mistake of thinking she looked like a pixie or cute little fairy, due to her size. Anyone who knew her laughed at that description. She was a fighter, an Amazon.

  Stella looked around Raine’s single-story house on the outskirts of town. She had an acre of land surrounding the house, with neat little gardens and a greenhouse because she liked to grow her own food year-round. She also loved to get her hands in the dirt.

  Her property reflected who she was. The three-bedroom home was always neat but overrun with workout gear. She had some kind of gear in every room, including her office. The office was huge, with state-of-the-art computers in it, and banks of screens, but also a treadmill with a TrekDesk. Raine actually did walk on her treadmill while she worked. Stella had tried it and it was no joke even walking at the lowest possible setting.

  Raine liked to mountain bike as well as backpack. Like Stella, she wasn’t into running and she didn’t do peak bagging, but she bouldered and trad climbed when pushed. She was a problem solver, so bouldering afforded her, like Stella, that continual occupation of the mind she needed.

  The thing that Raine really loved about her house other than the acreage that allowed her gardens was her secret indoor pool. She loved to swim. She joked that when she was younger, she had permanently green hair from constantly swimming in chlorinated pools until she could figure out how to take care of her hair and swim without damage. The pool was heated too, so in the winter Raine’s house was the place to go when the friends wanted to get together. Stella had to admit, she’d grown fond of that pool.

  Bailey’s very best friend in the entire world was Daisy, Raine’s Jack Russell. The little female went everywhere with Raine as a rule, even when helicopters came and picked her up and took her off to work, or she hiked hundreds of miles. Sometimes, it was true, Daisy rode in Raine’s backpack, but the energetic dog usually ran circles around them all when they went hiking or camping together. When Daisy couldn’t go with Raine, she usually stayed with Stella and Bailey at the resort. Right now, Daisy was running around the yard with Bailey, occasionally giving a yip of pure joy as the two animals dashed together in one direction then the next, discovering every little insect and lizard that dared take up residence in Daisy’s territory.

  Stella couldn’t help but smile. “Those two out there, they are so cute together. I love their friendship. They live life without all the complications. Sam seems to do that too. He doesn’t worry about things that haven’t happened yet. This thing that’s happening, Raine, it’s really shaken me. I’ve built a good life here. It isn’t just that for the first time I’ve actually found friends I love, and that’s true. I’ve never had that before. It’s that I’ve found peace up in the Sierras. There’s something about that country that calls to me.”

  Raine nodded slowly. “I do understand because I feel it too. That’s why I settled here. I could work from anywhere, but this is my happy place. There’s a reason I backpack so much. Being in the forest and hiking along the trails at ten thousand feet, taking in the ever-changing nature, is an incredible experience. I feel more alive than I do anywhere else, but like you, that same peace. This is a glitch, Stella. The Sierras have been here for thousands of years. We’re like little ants crawling around on it. This killer is nothing. He’s come and you’ll eventually catch him. The Sierras will remain, and so will their beauty. You can count on that and the peace they bring to you because that will never change. He can’t change that. Nothing can.”

  Stella kept her gaze on the two dogs now rolling around on the golden grass, legs in the air, kicking wildly. Bailey looked like a bear next to the petite Jack Russell, and rather silly too, with his giant legs in the air. She laughed at the two dogs. They certainly weren’t concerned with a serial killer.

  “You went to UC Berkeley, right? After finishing high school, you were accepted straight into the university.”

  Stella turned to face Raine, hearing the speculation in her voice. “Yes, why?”

  “Do you realize there was a serial killer at work in the area near the university at the time you went to school there?”

  Stella nodded slowly, wrapping her arms around her middle, her stomach dropping. She suddenly wished Sam was there. Her mind shied away from where she knew Raine was going. Sam let her get away with it; Raine wasn’t going to.

  “Yes, of course, it was all over the news. He had a particular type. He went after mothers of children playing sports. The mothers who stay home, take care of their children, drive them to practices and all of their games. He followed them home, tied the child or children to chairs and made them watch while he tortured and then killed the mother. He left the children alive, but very traumatized. How could anyone forget that?”

  “But you didn’t have nightmares. You weren’t in any way involved, yet it was close to you, right in the same city.”

  “It’s a big city.”

  “Stella.” Raine’s voice was gentle. Low. She shook her head, those gray-blue eyes compassionate but steady. “Not so big. He struck close several times. The killer was one of the security guards right there on campus.”

  Now Stella’s heart was beating too fast. Galloping wildly like a runaway horse. Don’t say it. Don’t think it. Don’t say it. If Raine said aloud what Stella was pushing out of her mind so it could never be true, then Raine might make it true. She opened her mouth to tell Raine it was a big campus, but her throat closed, threatening to choke her.

  “Why would you have nightmares when you were such a little girl, a five-, six- and seven-year-old? Then again when you were a teenager? You were a teen when you began having those same nightmares again, Stella. You were in a foster home, in high school, getting good grades, powering through school, and suddenly it was happening all over again. You knew there was a serial killer before anyone else. The nightmares started when you were fifteen, but no one believed you but your foster mother. She took you straight to the cops.”

  “She was pretty cool. I don’t know what I would have done without her. My world had spun completely out of control when my birth mother committed suicide and I was put in foster care. She was the emergency home, but she ended up keeping me permanently. I don’t know why I was such a mess.”

  Stella hadn’t thought about those early days ever. She never let herself go back to the time when, at nine, she’d found her mother dead from a mixture of alcohol and pills. Anne Fernandez was wearing her best dress, her makeup and hair perfect. She even had on her favorite pair of silver heels and the jewelry she loved most.

  “My foster mother, Elizabeth Donaldson, had a dog, a great big bear of a dog, and she let him sleep in my room every night. She was the most amazing woman. By that time I didn’t trust anyone, especially adults, but she didn’t seem to mind when I refused to talk or give anything of myself to her. When I did start opening up, little by little, she always listened. She stopped whatever she was doing and acted like it was the most important thing in the world to hear me out. She never dismissed a single thing I said. Eventually, we had discussions. I didn’t know what a discussion was until she so very patiently taught me. So, to answer your question, when I told her about the
nightmares, she believed me and took me to the cops. They didn’t believe me.”

  “Even though they knew who you were?”

  “Especially because of who I was. I was a girl in high school who wanted attention. What a perfect way to get it, right? Because what girl wanted to bring that kind of attention to herself?” Stella tightened her arms around herself. “I detest looking into my past. Others might have bright, happy memories, but mine suck.”

  “Not all of them,” Raine pointed out. “You had Elizabeth Donaldson as a foster parent. She sounds like she was a lovely woman.”

  Stella had to concede that point. She was guilty of trying to block those memories in order to close the door on her previous life, the life of Stella Fernandez. She had started her life in college as Stella Harrison and just moved forward from there. She hadn’t meant to leave Elizabeth behind. She’d only changed her name and used her trust fund after Elizabeth died from breast cancer. She’d stayed with her until the very end. It had been Elizabeth who had discussed the possibilities of legally changing her name. She owed everything to her foster mother and yet she’d left her behind.

  “I did have Elizabeth and have so many memories of her. Even when she was so sick, she was sick with such dignity and grace. I was terrified of losing her.” Stella blinked back the sudden tears. “Thank you for reminding me, Raine. I don’t want to lose any of the memories I have of her. She taught me so much.”

  Raine nodded. “I’m glad you had her, Stella.” She took a visible breath. “She faced life head-on and I see that in you. She gave that strength to you, didn’t she?” Her voice was very gentle, compassionate even, but there was no hiding from her observations.