* * *
—
Stella sat up quickly and kicked off the covers. The room was surprisingly warm, a fire going in the fireplace she rarely used. Sam sat in the chair across from the bed, his dark eyes on her, waiting to give her whatever she needed. That expressionless mask was becoming a little more readable to her and he looked—wary.
She took several deep breaths and shoved both hands into her hair. She’d braided it to keep it away from her face, but she felt as if she’d sweated and it was all over the place. “He’s accelerating, not taking any time between his kills.”
“He’s got a taste for it now, or whatever triggered him has made him so unstable he’s getting out of control. If that’s the case, he’ll make mistakes.”
The killer didn’t appear to be making too many mistakes, not as far as she could see. There had been other backpackers around on Mount Whitney, yet he’d calmly faked altitude sickness and murdered two people.
Stella wrapped her arms around her middle and rocked back and forth. “Thank you for the fire. I don’t even know when I’m cold anymore.”
“It’s getting cold up here. It will start snowing soon,” Sam said.
She was grateful that he stayed in the chair across from her, where she could see his reassuring presence, but didn’t touch her. He always seemed to know what she needed. When she first woke up after one of her nightmares, even though she was handling them better, she was close to panicking—too close. She needed to allow herself the time to breathe. To admit she was afraid. That she detested she was able to connect with a serial killer, even if it meant catching him and preventing him from killing more people.
Sam let her be who she was. He didn’t “fix” her. He didn’t ask her if she was all right. He knew she wasn’t. He just simply let her work through the nightmare the way she had to, and he was there for her, staying silent until she needed to bounce her ideas off him. If she wanted to talk about it, he’d talk about it. If she wanted to divert attention to something else, he would go along with it. That was Sam, exactly what she needed. She was coming to see, more and more, just why they fit together.
She missed Bailey pushing his head into her lap. She missed being able to scratch his ears, giving her something else to concentrate on while she processed. He made her feel safe. He had always given her companionship when she’d lived alone for those years.
“When I first took on the resort as manager, it was really run-down. I lived in the big cabin, which was a wreck, by the way. I got Bailey from a rescue place. He’s a mix, mostly Airedale, but the breeders were upset because another male had gotten in that wasn’t all Airedale, so they gave the pups to the rescue place. He was the sweetest little puppy. I didn’t go anywhere without him. This little bundle of curly fur.”
She rubbed her thigh where Bailey usually positioned his head when he was trying to comfort her. “I called Amelia a dozen times today and she assured me he was doing so much better. She didn’t want me to visit him because she said I’d get him too excited and she’d never get him to calm down again. I just wanted to bring him home. He has to be there several days and needs to be very quiet.”
She knew Sam was well aware she’d argued with Amelia over visiting with Bailey, but in the end complied with the vet’s wishes. She was babbling and Sam just let her, the way he always did. She sighed and forced herself to get to the main topic.
“I didn’t get much at all. I’ll sketch what I did, but I had no idea what I was looking at. You might know. As for the part of the forest, there was no identifying path or trail that I could see. I could hear all kinds of birds. Shabina knows so much about birds, particularly in our area. If she has recordings of birds, if I listened to them, I might be able to tell her which ones they sounded like. She could maybe identify them and also the area for us.”
“That’s a good idea.”
She scrubbed her palm over her face as if she could erase the sinister feeling that always came when she had the nightmare. A little shiver went down her spine. She found herself looking around, wanting to get her gun out of the safe where she kept it and just have it on the bed beside her. She took another cautious look out the bank of windows.
“Do you think he’s out there again, Sam?”
“Yes. He’s keeping his distance. While you were sleeping, I took a walk around the property, inside the gates and all around the cabins.”
“Sam,” she protested. “After what he did to Sonny and Bailey, you can’t take chances like that. I don’t care what you did in the military. This person is really scary. There’s something wrong with him. People like that are . . .” She stopped herself from saying invincible.
Sam’s dark gaze was fixed on her face. “Sweetheart.”
The way he said that single endearment turned her heart over, but it didn’t change the truth. Whoever was out there was playing for keeps. He had a knife and he’d plunged the blade four times into Bailey. He might have done so to Sonny had not Bailey attacked. Stella was certain he wanted Sam dead. She didn’t know why she was absolutely convinced of it, but she was. That brought her up short.
“Sam, if this man is the serial killer and he’s after you or even me, why hasn’t he targeted either one of us recently? You just said it yourself. You went walking by yourself at night on the property. He could set you up, draw you out. He hasn’t done that. He could make your death look like an accident if that’s his thing. You go out every night, sometimes several times a night.”
Sam hesitated.
“Just say it.”
“Lately, I’ve had Bailey with me. Now, Bailey’s incapacitated. We might see that change. The killer might target me now.”
She dropped her face into her hands. “This gets worse and worse.”
“No, it really doesn’t, Stella. We still have only a couple of things we’re dealing with and we take them one thing at a time. You do your sketch and journal like normal. See if Shabina has any recordings of birds and can help identify where the next murder is taking place. As for this watcher we have, he’s been around now for a little while. We’re both getting a feel for him.”
Stella had to admit Sam was right about that. Sometimes even when she went into town, the hairs on the back of her neck would stand up as if she felt the watcher close.
Sam continued. “He’s got some vantage point. In the morning I’m going to scout around and see if I can find his tracks. He’s got to be up high across from us. There are only a few places that would give him a good view of the house. He’s good at hiding his tracks when he wants to, but he might not think about it when he thinks he’s safe.”
“Could he be on a boat?”
“I thought of that, but he would be too low to see much if he was on the water. I would imagine it would be too frustrating.”
“We’d see the boat, even if he didn’t have running lights, most likely,” she agreed.
“I think he’s a good distance away. He might not think I’ll go looking across the narrow part of the lake up on the slope. That’s where I think he’s established himself. If I’m lucky, he’s sloppy there. Has a nice little blind set up for himself where he feels safe. Brings food and water. If he’s left anything behind, I might be able to get something with fingerprints on it.”
She looked up quickly, hope blossoming. “Do you think that’s possible?”
“Anything is possible, Stella. No one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. He stabbed Bailey four times, and those stab wounds were deep. When you use a knife like that, often you can get cut yourself. He may have been bleeding. He might have retreated to his ‘safe’ place in order to see when everyone left so he’d have access to the house. If he cut himself, there might be blood and anything he used to clean up with.”
“I never thought of that.” But of course, Sam did. He was like that. He seemed to think of those little details that would never occur to
her. “It’s hard to believe he’d have the guts to return after what he did last night,” she added, trying not to revert to rocking back and forth. It was such a bad habit. “You’d think he’d want to at least take a night off.”
“Apparently, serial killers and assholes don’t ever get tired,” Sam said.
To her utter astonishment, Stella burst out laughing. “Apparently not. Do I get hot chocolate while I’m sketching and journaling?”
“I suppose you deserve it.” He got up, came to the side of the bed, leaned over and brushed a kiss to her temple as he trailed a finger down the side of her cheek to her chin.
His touch was barely there, like a whisper, but she felt it all the way through her body, the way she always did whenever Sam touched her. Abruptly he turned and stalked out, moving with his silent grace, reminding her of a panther. She watched him go, nearly mesmerized, until he was out of sight. Even before they were in a relationship, he’d always managed to catch her attention when he moved like that. He would go from being perfectly still to looking as if he were flowing across the ground. He really did disappear into shadows.
Stella leaned down and pulled open the drawer in the nightstand containing her sketchpad and journal. She switched the bedside lamp on dim and began to meticulously recall as much detail as possible from the dream. As always, when she first started, it never felt like she could get enough from the tiny portion the lens of the camera showed her, but when she actually began to draw, and the picture took shape, there was more than she thought.
The grass was long and textured, blues, greens, yellows and reds. It was thick as it ran up a slope and into the trees. The trunks of the trees were round and heavy with saplings struggling to grow in between the larger ones, most faltering, choked out by the heavy brush and towering trees around them. She only had the impression of tall trees; she couldn’t actually see the tops of them. Leaves and needles lay on the ground, and some of the branches she could see were clearly losing the fight with the wind.
It was the strange metal frame she wasn’t familiar with, jutting out from the tree with the grid on it, the two boots resting on it, with just the very edge of camouflage pants showing, that baffled her. She would have to look that up on the internet if Sam didn’t know what she was looking at.
As soon as she finished sketching, she switched to the journal and wrote down as many of the details as she could remember, specifically the birds and insects she heard. Every sound counted. She really hoped Shabina could identify that for her.
Sam placed the hot chocolate on her nightstand. “Gave you whipped cream tonight.”
She picked up the mug. “And chocolate sprinkles.” She flashed him a smile. He was staring down at the drawing. “Do you have any idea what that is?”
“Sure. Hunters use them. They sit up in a tree and wait for deer to come to them. Deer. Elk. Whatever they’re going after. It’s called a tree stand.”
She frowned. “How come I haven’t heard of them?”
“You’re not a hunter.”
“But nearly everyone around here hunts for their food, Sam. They don’t talk about tree stands. How high up are they put in the tree?”
“Anywhere from twelve to thirty feet, maybe. It depends on the amount of cover there is. This time of year might be more difficult to find good cover because the branches are dropping leaves.”
“How does one climb into the tree stand?”
“Hunters use all different methods. Climbing sticks are very popular.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll show you on the internet. That would be the easiest, but just from the little that you’ve picked up, it looks like he’s definitely going after a hunter.”
“Sam, practically everyone we know is a hunter. That’s how most people get through the winter. You hunt. Denver hunts.” She put her mug down and pressed her hands to her temples, wanting to scream in frustration. “Sonny hunts. Even Griffen. Mary does. Without hunting they can’t feed their families.”
“Those boots look too big to be a woman’s boots,” he replied, calm as always. “We can rule out the women we know who hunt. We can rule out any hunters who aren’t sitting up in a tree stand.”
“How do we know who hunts from tree stands?” Stella wrapped her arms around her middle again, rocking herself back and forth.
“Sweetheart, there’s no reason to get upset this early. We have to outthink him. We have to think of this like a puzzle we’re solving and you’ve already got pieces he doesn’t know we have. He believes he’s clever and no one could possibly be onto him.” Sam retrieved the mug of chocolate and held it out to her. “Drink your chocolate. It always helps you think.”
Stella took the mug from him. “If the person watching us is the same as the one doing the killing, don’t you think he’s watching because he already knows who I am?” She looked up at Sam, the knots in her stomach tightening. “It’s possible I was his trigger. He found out who I was and wanted to pit himself against me.”
Sam sat down on the edge of the bed. Stella tried not to think that Bailey was usually on that side of the bed, shoving his big head against her. To keep from acting like a baby, she sipped at the chocolate and forced herself to keep her gaze steady on Sam’s. He was a man who told the truth no matter the consequences. She might not always be able to read his expression, but she could count on knowing he would answer her when she asked him his real opinion.
Sam’s eyes darkened until they looked almost like black velvet. He reached over and switched off the lamp. “There’s no need to help him see anything. Let’s put your drawings and the journal in the safe. When you lean down, I’ll shield you with my body so it’s impossible for him to see what you’re doing even if he has night vision.”
Stella leaned over to put her mug of chocolate on the nightstand. At the same time, she scooped up her sketches and journal. Sam shifted to block her body from the sight of anyone watching from the window as she pressed her fingerprint to open the door built into the wall.
“That’s an interesting theory, Stella, that finding out your identity might have been the trigger for a serial killer. It would fit with someone watching you, trying to discover what your next move might be.” Sam sounded thoughtful but pragmatic, the way he always did, as if the idea might have some merit but it didn’t in any way get under his skin.
Stella wondered what it would take to get him riled up. Not that she ever wanted to see him angry or upset, but the idea that she might have triggered a serial killer into murdering random people sickened her. How Sam could be so calm about it shocked her. She stuffed the sketchpad and journal in the safe on the shelf below her gun and closed the door before straightening, trying to look composed.
“Does anything ever get to you?” She tried to keep the challenge out of her voice.
Sam gently tucked stray tendrils of flyaway hair that had come loose from her braid behind her ear. “You get to me. Anything upsetting you gets to me. A man stabbing Bailey gets to me. I learned a long time ago that thinking things through requires a calm mind. Anger gets in the way and clouds judgment. In order for me to stay alive, I had to learn to always keep my mind clear.”
“That’s a lot easier said than done, isn’t it?” She sipped the chocolate. That was always her calming go-to formula. That, Bailey, and now this man she was learning to love.
“My body was turned into a weapon. I learned to use all kinds of various weapons, but do you know what the greatest weapon we have is, Stella? Our brain. We all have one. The trick is to actually use it. We can’t panic. We can’t freeze. We have to be able to use our brain in a crisis. More often than not, that’s what keeps someone alive when others die.”
Stella knew that to be true. She had taken enough self-defense classes to have had instructors drill that into her over and over. Her brain was her greatest weapon. Use it. She also was taught to be obser
vant. Don’t be looking down. Don’t look at her phone as she walked or ran. Look around. Pay attention to her surroundings. She had always followed those instructions.
“It’s difficult to stay calm when I know that horrible killer might have started murdering people because of me. But you’re right, and I know you are.”
“I don’t believe he’s aware of who you are, Stella. If this watcher is the serial killer, he’s here for another reason.”
There was something in his tone Stella didn’t quite understand. Speculation? An underlying darkness? A hint of a threat? “What would that be, Sam?” It would be interesting to hear what he had to say, especially since she had the feeling he wouldn’t want to tell her. “Why do you think he would come around then, if he doesn’t know who I am?”
He sighed and moved off the bed. It was the first time ever that she’d seen Sam act uncomfortable. “I think we need to get privacy screens to black out the windows, at least in the bedroom, Stella.” He paced across the room. “If he had a sniper rifle, we’d be sitting ducks.”
She leaned back against the headboard. The weird feeling of being watched had slowly begun to fade. “I think he’s leaving. Or he left.”
“We still need to get screens. I don’t like the idea of having someone watching us if I’m touching you, sweetheart.”
A little shudder went through her. That idea hadn’t occurred to her and it should have. She was a very private person. “I think you’re right. I’ll order them tomorrow morning.”
She waited. He kept pacing, reminding her of a tiger locked in a too-small cage. “Man.”
His eyes locked on to her. Like a target. It should have been uncomfortable, but that gaze only held a deep emotion that set her heart pounding. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Woman.”
Murder at Sunrise Lake Page 28
