They should have worked it out by now. Why hadn’t they? It made no sense that they hadn’t. Too many years had slipped by. Vienna’s mother had had cancer once already. Vienna was a nurse. She knew how quickly one could lose loved ones in accidents or to illness. She knew how often cancer returned.
“Have you tried to talk to your mother since that night about what was said, Vienna?” Stella asked, her voice as gentle as she could make it.
Vienna nodded. “I think that’s why she gets uncomfortable when she does see me. She’s so terrified I’ll bring it up. She doesn’t want to answer any questions. I tell myself I won’t ask, but then, do I want to take a chance on losing her and never knowing where I came from if she really isn’t my mother?” She made a face. “Even saying that out loud in front of my closest friends sounds ridiculous. Of course, she’s my mother. We’re so much alike. Maybe not in looks, but in every other way. I don’t want anyone else to be my mother.”
“No one else is,” Raine said. “She raised you. She was there for you every step of the way. That makes her your mother whether or not she gave birth to you. I’m with Stella on this, Vienna, you need to find a way to resolve it. Maybe invite the two of them here for a special dinner at Shabina’s with all of us. That way the conversation won’t turn to anything that personal. We could all help with dinner.”
“Actually, that’s not a bad idea, Vienna,” Stella said. “Do you think they’d come? We could gift them with a room at the hotel in town.”
Vienna was silent, struggling not to cry. “All of you are the absolute best. I’ll consider it, but I might want to wait until after we catch this serial killer. I don’t want Stella to suddenly see him lurking in the hotel hallway while my mother is there.”
Stella nodded. “Now that you mention that, it might be a better plan to wait.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Mommy, Daddy’s doing the bad thing again.
The early morning sun tried to shine through drifting clouds. Dirt, rock and overgrown yellow and brown grass covered with mostly small debris that had drifted on the wind lay on the ground. Twigs. Leaves. Pine needles. The trail wasn’t well used or well marked, but still, as Stella observed it through the narrow lens, something about it seemed familiar.
Two people walked along that path of uneven dirt and overgrown grass. She caught glimpses of shadows on the ground. Two men, both tall with what could have been backpacks, making them appear misshapen.
She felt the mood of each of them because they were both broadcasting so strongly. Both were excited. Both anticipating. They were talking, laughing. Friendly. Knew each other. She strained to listen. To hear what they were saying. At least catch the sound of their voices. She knew they were laughing and talking yet she couldn’t make out the words. Laughter? Could she identify them through laughter? There was a strange thudding in her ears interfering with her ability to hear. Her own heartbeat pounded like a drum so loud she was afraid the two men might hear her.
While both seemed to share the same emotions for the day’s climb, one felt more. One felt pure elation, a smug rush of sly glee, of absolute power. Instinctively she knew the killer was anticipating taking his time with this “accident.” He not only knew his victim but also was friends with him. This was new. She did her best to stay calm and tried to adjust the lens of the camera in an effort to open it wider. It didn’t work, only frustrated her that she couldn’t ferret out additional clues on the shadows of the men or see more than the ground they covered at the fast pace the two set.
The lens began to close, that narrow opening shuttering, leaving her staring at a black screen.
* * *
—
Stella sat up, heart pounding, scrubbing her hands down her face over and over, trying to wipe away the child’s fear and face the nightmare as a grown-up. “I know them,” she whispered and looked up, confident Sam would be there.
They’d gone to bed together, his arms around her, but when she had her nightmares, he always did the same thing—he gave her space. Instinctively, he seemed to know she needed it. He sat right across the room from her, directly in her line of vision, so all she had to do was look up and she’d find him. Just knowing he was there settled the terrible twisting knots in her stomach and allowed her to breathe when her lungs felt raw and burning.
Sam looked back at her, his dark eyes on her. She could see the love there and it warmed her. Sometimes it shocked her. They didn’t say words like love between them. They were new. Two years might not be new, and they’d been together that long even if they never acknowledged it, but their feelings for each other had definitely been growing during that time.
She attempted a smile. It was shaky, but it was there. “He definitely has escalated his timetable, hasn’t he? He wasn’t very satisfied with his last kill to act so fast. One day? I don’t know if I can keep doing this. Maybe we should talk to the FBI.”
“You’re exhausted, Stella.” Sam’s voice was gentle. “You’re not getting much sleep, and after the attack on Bailey, you sleep for an hour or two and wake up. You and I both know the FBI can’t catch him because there isn’t any evidence. He’s not leaving anything behind. The most we have on him that even says he exists are the broken fingers. Even the ME would say that’s thin. There’s an explanation for every broken bone.”
“I know.” Stella got out of bed and went to him, breaking pattern. She couldn’t help it. “Sam.” She crawled into his lap, putting her arms around his neck, allowing him to comfort her. “I know both of them. I know I do. There was something about them that was so familiar to me but I just couldn’t pin it down.”
She buried her face against his chest. He felt invincible. His heartbeat strong. His chest like iron. His arms surrounding her, a secure fortress. She just wanted to stay there for a little while and hide. Be safe. Not have to think about losing this round to the serial killer. Not have to think that she might uncover a friend and know that all along he’d been a vicious murderer, capable of walking with someone he knew, knowing he was going to kill him.
Sam’s palm shaped the back of her head and then stroked caresses down her hair. “It’s all right to grieve for him, sweetheart. For the loss of a friend. Whoever he is, he was lost to us the moment he went down this path. He isn’t that same person anymore and we can’t think of him that way. That means, Stella, we already lost a friend.”
“I don’t want to lose two of them.” She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. “I’ve failed so many times now. I can’t fail this time. I know the victim. There was something about the voices. The laughter. I can’t say what it was. The lens didn’t stay open long enough, but I know I should be able to identify both of them. And the place they were going to climb.”
She frowned, biting down on her lower lip, trying to remember.
“You need to do what you always do, sweetheart. Draw it. The details come to you. Once you draw it, you can see if anything rings a bell. I’ll look at it as well and then you run it by your posse. They all climb.”
Stella slid rather reluctantly off his lap. He was always warm, and the loss of his heat made her shiver. Or maybe it was just the idea of knowing the serial killer was spiraling out of control. “He seemed so gleeful, Sam. So smug. I hated knowing that he was talking and laughing with a friend of his and all the while he was plotting to kill him. He was taking pleasure in knowing that.”
She slipped back into bed and retrieved her sketchpad, journal and pencils from the safe built into the wall. “He isn’t here tonight. No one is watching us. Or at least I can’t feel him.”
“I can’t either. I did nose around a bit up along the side of the ridge above the bend in the lake, almost directly across from us. I figured if anyone really wanted a vantage point and they knew the property, that would be the most likely place to build a camp. They could stay there indefinitely with the right supplies, rain, shine or even snow, and
be somewhat protected.”
“Great. I thought you’d already discovered his hiding place after Bailey was attacked.”
“That was too easy. I considered how intelligent this killer is and factored that in along with the idea that he was obsessed with you.”
Stella shuddered. “I’d rather not think about him being fixated on me, Sam.”
“I know it sucks, but when you considered the timing of your first nightmare, it really was around the time we started cementing our relationship. It is possible the killer saw us together and didn’t like the way we were looking at each other. Or the way I was looking at you, at least. Sometimes I don’t hide my feelings for you as well as I should.”
She had pulled the covers over her legs, but at his last statement, she fisted the blankets and blinked at him. “Man.” There was a lump in her throat she was afraid she might choke on.
“Woman.” His voice was so velvet soft it caressed her skin.
“You don’t look at me openly like you’re wild about me. You hide your feelings very well. It’s me that gets a little crazy when I’m drinking. I . . . say things.”
His smile started slow and her stomach did a little somersault. Then the smile actually lit up his eyes and she melted inside. He did that to her so easily now.
“I do recall there was one night when I poured you and your friends into the 4Runner and drove you home. You did say I was gorgeous. And hot is another word you used, I believe.”
“Did I say it in the bar?”
He nodded. “Several times. Straddling my lap. You kissed me twice. That was about the time I decided you’d had enough and I was taking you home. I could only take so much. Don’t get me wrong, sweetheart, I was enjoying every second of it, but things were getting out of control.”
She closed her eyes. “I was really hoping all the things I thought about doing to you, I didn’t actually try doing to you.” She opened her eyes. “I did, didn’t I?”
“I just picked you up and hauled your ass to the rig. Believe me, sweetheart, the only one suffering that night was me.”
“And then you nearly got killed the next morning.” She frowned and stroked her fingers over the sketchpad. “Do you remember what happened the weekend before? What we were doing? The nightmares started earlier. If the catalyst really was seeing you and me getting together, then we had to have been showing signs of that earlier in the week, Sam.”
Her stomach muscles knotted. She didn’t want her memory to be the same as the one he might name. She had kept this one sacred moment close to her, something special, when she had so few. She didn’t want to think a serial killer had started murdering because he may have witnessed that “private” intimacy between them.
His expression softened. Sam was hard edges. Hard angles and planes. When he looked at her with that particular look, the one he didn’t give to anyone else, she knew he was hers and he made her feel safe and wanted.
“Stella, we’ve been together for over two years. We go into town together all the time. We buy supplies for the resort. We stand close when we’re looking at your list that is written in some kind of gibberish no one can possibly understand but you. I’ve got my hand on your shoulder or around your waist. You’ve got your hand on my arm when we’re walking. We’re comfortable with each other. We eat together every meal in town unless you’re meeting one of your posse, and half the time I’m sitting at the table three feet from you looking out for you. Everyone knows how I feel about you. Everyone. I make it clear.”
She nodded because everything he said was true. They did go into town together. Sometime over the last couple of years that had just evolved. It still didn’t explain what would have been different enough to trigger someone into becoming a serial killer. But she was afraid she knew. She hoped not, but she was afraid it was their first kiss—the kiss she had initiated.
“How do you make it clear that you feel something for me? No one can read your expression, Sam.” She put it off one more time, struggling to make the killer have other reasons to stalk her.
“Men can read me loud and clear when it comes to you, Stella. There’s a big stay away sign. Haven’t you noticed the lack of males asking you out?”
“I put off vibes that say I’m not interested in dating.”
“Did that stop them three years ago?”
She frowned. “Maybe not. I don’t know. But if you were giving males the warning to stay away in some mysterious bro code that I missed completely for two years, why didn’t the obsessed serial killer start his murder spree back then?”
“Because you were still closed off, sweetheart. You were slowly letting me in, but no one could see it but me. At first he thought we worked together and had to spend a lot of time together. Then we were friends. You have a lot of friends, and quite a few are males. You didn’t seem to treat me much different than you did the others. At first. I suppose our relationship changed over time so slowly that he got used to it, just like you did.”
Her frown deepened. “I don’t understand.”
“A lot of careful planning went into those two years. Looking over your shoulder to read your list, for instance. I’m taller, so I had to bend down. That required putting my hand on your shoulder to steady myself.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You never lose your balance. Not in any situation.”
For the first time ever, he actually grinned at her, and her heart reacted by nearly skipping a beat.
“No, I don’t typically lose my balance, but I suppose it could happen.”
“You were getting me used to you touching me.”
He raised an eyebrow without a hint of remorse. “It worked. What do they say? All is fair in love and war. Courting you was a little of both.”
She sat in the middle of her bed, back to the headboard, and contemplated the difference Sam had made in her life. She was no longer shaking and crying. No longer rocking back and forth. He was a rock to lean on, yet he didn’t take over and fix things for her. He waited to talk things out when she was ready. And he’d taken his time, had the patience to “court” her differently, to gently insert himself into her life and make himself part of it, indispensable. She was both flattered and amused.
“You’re a little bit scary.”
He nodded. “The kind of man your best friends warn you about.”
She laughed. “They certainly did.” The smile faded. “If you were consistent, Sam, and we’re going with the theory that the killer is obsessed with me, then something I did had to have triggered him, right?” Don’t let it be our first kiss. At least give me that.
“It could have been a combination of things, Stella. Don’t look for blame, that’s a slippery road.”
“I’m actually not. I’m trying to remember what I might have done differently, how I might have acted toward you right before the nightmares started. That would give us an idea of who was around then.”
She already knew, but she wanted it to be something else, not that precise moment in time when she had been so certain she had made a complete and utter fool of herself. She had hoped no one saw her and Sam didn’t remember, but of course he did. She’d done her best not to think about it, when she’d thought about it every night until the nightmares started.
“You were on the street with Bailey and me, trying to decide whether to go shopping right then or have lunch with Raine. We didn’t have a lot of time because we had to get back and meet with the inspector. You hadn’t seen Raine in over a week. No one had, and you were worried about her. I told you I’d get the chores done and take care of Bailey, to just text Raine to meet you at Shabina’s café. You did and she immediately said she could meet you. You threw your arms around me and kissed me. Right there on the street in front of everyone.”
She felt a fiery red creep up her skin from her neck to her face. “I did not.” But she had. She remembered th
at kiss very vividly. It had started out very chaste. A thank-you. She meant to just kind of brush her lips against his. But then she tasted him. It should have stopped right there. He should have stiffened up or pushed her away.
Sam wasn’t the kind of man who invited women to drape themselves all over him. At least if he was, she didn’t know about it. His arm had come around her like an iron bar, locking her to him, and one hand bunched in her hair and then . . . well . . . she just was lost. There was nothing but feeling and fire, and she forgot where she was. She melted into him. He had to steady her, putting his hands on her hips, holding her away from him while she blinked up at him like a complete idiot, wondering what had just happened. Then she nearly went right to the sidewalk because her legs turned to jelly. Seriously, it had been that ridiculously bad. She closed the door on her behavior.
“I’m fairly certain, Sam, you kissed me.”
“Anyone watching us would have seen that you initiated the action, Satine. I may have taken advantage of the situation, but you definitely initiated.”
“Do you think anyone really paid any attention?”
His eyebrow lifted. “Sweetheart. Really? We were right in the middle of town, out in the open. You’re royalty. You’re out on the street, everyone is looking. Then you almost walked out into the middle of traffic and I had to stop you. You nearly made me laugh. That probably got a little reaction out of anyone watching. I walked you to the café just to make sure you made it because you were in a daze.”
“I was not.” She had been.
“Woman.”
“He saw me kiss you.”
“Most likely.”
“You knew all along.”
“I considered the possibility when he kept watching you. He either knew who you were, or he was obsessed with you. If he knew who you were and that you would know he was a killer, he would expect you to contact the authorities. You didn’t. He didn’t try to kill you. I don’t believe he knows who you really are, so that means he either isn’t the killer and is a stalker, or he’s one and the same man.”
Murder at Sunrise Lake Page 33
