Murder at Sunrise Lake Read online

  TITLES BY CHRISTINE FEEHAN

  THE GHOSTWALKER NOVELS

  Lightning Game

  Lethal Game

  Toxic Game

  Covert Game

  Power Game

  Spider Game

  Viper Game

  Samurai Game

  Ruthless Game

  Street Game

  Murder Game

  Predatory Game

  Deadly Game

  Conspiracy Game

  Night Game

  Mind Game

  Shadow Game

  THE DRAKE SISTERS NOVELS

  Hidden Currents

  Turbulent Sea

  Safe Harbor

  Dangerous Tides

  Oceans of Fire

  THE LEOPARD NOVELS

  Leopard’s Rage

  Leopard’s Wrath

  Leopard’s Run

  Leopard’s Blood

  Leopard’s Fury

  Wild Cat

  Cat’s Lair

  Leopard’s Prey

  Savage Nature

  Wild Fire

  Burning Wild

  Wild Rain

  THE SEA HAVEN/SISTERS OF THE HEART NOVELS

  Bound Together

  Fire Bound

  Earth Bound

  Air Bound

  Spirit Bound

  Water Bound

  THE SHADOW RIDERS NOVELS

  Shadow Storm

  Shadow Flight

  Shadow Warrior

  Shadow Keeper

  Shadow Reaper

  Shadow Rider

  THE TORPEDO INK NOVELS

  Reckless Road

  Desolation Road

  Vendetta Road

  Vengeance Road

  Judgment Road

  THE CARPATHIAN NOVELS

  Dark Song

  Dark Illusion

  Dark Sentinel

  Dark Legacy

  Dark Carousel

  Dark Promises

  Dark Ghost

  Dark Blood

  Dark Wolf

  Dark Lycan

  Dark Storm

  Dark Predator

  Dark Peril

  Dark Slayer

  Dark Curse

  Dark Hunger

  Dark Possession

  Dark Celebration

  Dark Demon

  Dark Secret

  Dark Destiny

  Dark Melody

  Dark Symphony

  Dark Guardian

  Dark Legend

  Dark Fire

  Dark Challenge

  Dark Magic

  Dark Gold

  Dark Desire

  Dark Prince

  ANTHOLOGIES

  Edge of Darkness

  (with Maggie Shayne and Lori Herter)

  Darkest at Dawn

  (includes Dark Hunger and Dark Secret)

  Sea Storm

  (includes Magic in the Wind and Oceans of Fire)

  Fever

  (includes The Awakening and Wild Rain)

  Fantasy

  (with Emma Holly, Sabrina Jeffries, and Elda Minger)

  Lover Beware

  (with Fiona Brand, Katherine Sutcliffe, and Eileen Wilks)

  Hot Blooded

  (with Maggie Shayne, Emma Holly, and Angela Knight)

  SPECIALS

  Dark Crime

  The Awakening

  Dark Hunger

  Magic in the Wind

  Murder at Sunrise Lake

  BERKLEY

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2021 by Christine Feehan

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Feehan, Christine, author.

  Title: Murder at Sunrise Lake / Christine Feehan.

  Description: New York : Berkley, [2021]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2021006574 (print) | LCCN 2021006575 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593333143 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593333167 (ebook)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Mystery fiction. | Suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3606.E36 M85 2021 (print) | LCC PS3606.E36 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021006574

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021006575

  Cover design by Judith Lagerman

  Cover image © Magdalena Russocka / Trevillion Images

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  pid_prh_5.7.1_c0_r0

  For Abbie Thomason, a true inspiration for this story.

  Happy Birthday!

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Titles by Christine Feehan

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  About the Author

  FOR MY READERS

  Be sure to go to christinefeehan.com/members/ to sign up for my PRIVATE book announcement list and download the free ebook of Dark Desserts, a collection of yummy desserts. Join my community and get firsthand news, enter the book discussions, ask your questions and chat with me. Please feel free to email me at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As with any book, there are so many people to thank. Brian, for competing with me during power hours. Domini, for always editing, no matter how many times I ask her to go over the same book before we send it for additional editing. Thank you to Mehriban (Mary) Schulz for your help, invaluable information and inspiration in this story as well. Denise, for staying up nights and letting me write while she does the brunt of the business I never want to do. Thanks to Denise and Abbie for all the additional information I needed for the locations, and the sheriff and deputies who were willing to talk to me about various crimes scenes. I can’t thank all of you enough.

  I combined
real and fictional locations in this book. There is no town of Knightly or Twin Devils to climb. I also need to thank Mr. Knightly, the courageous rooster who guards his ladies night and day from all predators, for the inspiration for the name of my town.

  I have a great love of the Eastern Sierras. It’s a beautiful place unlike any other.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Mommy, Daddy’s doing the bad thing again.

  The child’s voice very clearly said the words she’d said to her mother when she was four years old. When she was five. When she was seven.

  Stella Harrison knew she was dreaming, but she still couldn’t fight her way to the surface. This was the fifth night in a row she’d had the dream, and the camera had widened the lens just a little more, as it had every night, so she saw additional pieces of the hideous nightmare she couldn’t stop. The man fishing. He wore denim bibbed overalls tucked into high olive-colored waders. A blue cap was pulled low over his eyes so she couldn’t see his face. There were boulders among the heavy reeds and plants that grew thick along the shore, creeping out into the lake. He’d made his way through the boulders to get out from under the shade of several trees.

  She tried to warn him. Yelling. Calling out. Don’t cast. Don’t do it. Every night she saw his line go into the same spot. That little darker area that rippled in rings like a little round pool, so inviting. The fisherman always did the same exact thing, like a programmed robot. Stepping forward, casting, the lure hitting perfectly, sinking into the middle of that inky spot, dropping beneath the water into the depths below.

  The camera switched then and she could see beneath the water. It should have been tranquil. Peaceful. Fish swimming. Not the man in the wet suit, waiting for that hook, waiting to tug and enter into some kind of terrible game with the fisherman above the surface. The fight for the fish became a real life-and-death battle, with the fisherman lured farther and farther from the safety of the shore and into the reeds and rocks—closer to the threat that lurked beneath the water.

  The mythical fish appeared to be fighting. He seemed big, and well worth the exhausting battle. The fisherman paid less and less attention to his surroundings as he reeled the fish nearer to him and realized he was close to winning his prize.

  Without warning, the killer beneath the water rose up right in front of the unsuspecting fisherman, slamming him backward so that his waders couldn’t find traction on the muddy floor of the lake. The fisherman hit his head hard on the boulder behind him and went down. Immediately the killer caught his legs and yanked hard, dragging him under the water and holding him there while the fisherman thrashed and fought, weak from the vicious blow to his head from the boulder.

  Stella could only watch, horrified, as the killer calmly finished the scene by dragging the body to the surface for just a few moments so he could pull the bottom of the wader along a boulder. The killer then pulled the fisherman back into the water and tangled him in his own fishing line just below the waterline in the reeds and plants close to the shore. The killer calmly swam off as if nothing had happened.

  The lens of the camera snapped shut and everything went black.

  * * *

  —

  Stella woke fighting a tangle of sheets, sweat dripping, hair damp. She sat up abruptly, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes. Rubbing, scrubbing her palms down her face over and over. Trying to erase the nightmare. Not again. It had been years. Years. She’d made a new life for herself. New friends. A place. A home.

  Now the nightmare was back and recurring. This was the fifth time she’d had it. Five times in a row. It wasn’t like she lived in a big city. Usually if murder was happening, everyone would know, especially in a small town. But this killer was brilliant. He was absolutely brilliant and that was why he was going to get away with it—unless she brought attention to the murders. Even then, she wasn’t certain he would get caught.

  She hadn’t realized she was rocking herself back and forth, trying to self-soothe. She forced herself to stop. She hadn’t done that in years either. All those terrible habits she had developed as a child, that came back as a teen, she’d managed to overcome. Now she found they were sneaking back into her life.

  There was no going back to sleep even though it was still dark outside. She’d planned to sleep in. She had few days off even though the season was winding down. She owned the Sunrise Lake Resort and had for several years, turning it around from a dismal, failing business to one that not only made large profits but helped out the local businesses as well. She loved the resort, loved everything about it, even the hard work. Especially that. She thrived on solving problems, and those problems changed hourly, keeping her mind constantly active. She needed that, and first managing, and then owning, Sunrise Lake provided it.

  When the owner had decided it was time to retire four years earlier, he sold the resort to her. They’d kept the transaction quiet and he continued to stay the first year as if he owned it. Over time, his visits became less and less frequent. She renovated the main house but kept a special cabin for him so he had a place whenever he came back.

  The property was beautiful, high in the mountains surrounding a good portion of Sunrise Lake. Knightly, the nearest town, was located an hour’s drive below on a fairly winding highway. The town was small, but that just made the community close-knit.

  Stella had made good friends there. She liked living in the backcountry. She felt grounded, connected, alive there. There were all kinds of things to do, from skiing to backpacking to climbing. She fit there. She wasn’t throwing it all away on a few nightmares. That would be so foolish. It was just that the nightmares were so vivid, and now they were recurring, becoming more detailed.

  It wasn’t like there was even a body—yet. She shivered. There was going to be. She knew it. She just knew there would be. Somewhere, a fisherman was going to be murdered in the next two days. There would be no way to prove that he was murdered. She had to stop thinking about it or she was going to go insane.

  She rolled out of bed and headed straight for her shower. She had overseen the renovations to the main house herself, paying particular attention to the bathroom and kitchen. She loved to cook, and more than anything, after a long day of work, she wanted to know she had plenty of hot water for showers and baths. Her spacious bathroom was a work of art.

  The standalone tub was deep, and the shower larger. She liked space in her shower and lots of jets coming at her from all sides since she was often sore from the work she did, or from climbing, skiing, backpacking or any of the other outdoor activities she chose to do. Even dancing with her friends sometimes went on all night. Her shower was perfect for her.

  She’d designed the renovations of the main house for two people, although she didn’t believe she would ever have a significant other in her life. She was too closed off. She didn’t share her past with anyone, not even her closest friends. She didn’t really date. The minute anyone started to get too close, she backed off.

  The hot water poured over her as she washed her thick blonde hair. Her hair was the one thing she was a little vain about. She didn’t wear it down often, but it was almost silver in color, thanks to her Finnish grandparents on her mother’s side. She had inherited that light, light hair color from them, along with her crystal-blue eyes. The thickness of her hair and the darker lashes were a gift from her father’s side of the family. He was originally from Argentina. Her mother had met him in college in San Diego, where both had attended school. Her father was from a wealthy Argentinian family. Between her two parents, she had been lucky to get amazing genetics.

  The hot water helped to dispel the last of the nightmare and the bile in her stomach. Unfortunately, uneasiness persisted. She just wasn’t certain what to do. She’d had those dreams only twice before, and both times reality had ended up being worse than her nightmares. Sighing, she squeezed as much water out of her hair as possible before winding a towel around the
mass, and then dried her body off slowly with a warm towel.

  Dressing in her favorite pair of jeans and a comfortable tee, she pulled on a sweater and her boots before braiding her hair. She didn’t dry it if she could help it, and since she rarely wore makeup or dressed up when she actually had a day off, she was ready to go in minutes.

  “Bailey, I can’t believe you’re still sleeping. Get up, you lazy animal.” She put her hands on her hips and tried to look stern as she regarded the large Airedale still curled up in his dog bed right beside her bed.

  Bailey’s eyes opened and he looked at her and then around the room, noting the darkness, as if to say she was out of her mind for getting up so early. Heaving a sigh, the dog got to his feet and followed her through the spacious house to the front door. On the porch, she hesitated at the door. She had stopped locking her door or setting the alarm some time ago, but lately, that crawling feeling down her spine was back. The churning in her stomach started all over again. Bailey waited patiently for her to make up her mind.

  Stella knew it was ridiculous to stand in front of her door like a loon. She made decisions all the time. It was just that giving in to her fears was like going backward, and she’d promised herself she would never do that. She stood there indecisively, staring at the thick, carved door for another full minute before making up her mind.

  Locking the door, she set the alarm, furious with herself that she’d given in to the nightmares and unrelenting terror that could consume her when she was asleep. Fear crept up on her unawares, and slowly but surely took over until she was caught up in things best left alone. If she was going to actually acknowledge that a murder was going to take place in her beloved Sierras, no one was going to help with investigations this time. The killer would make it look like an accident. She didn’t have dreams unless the murderer was a serial killer, which meant he would kill again. Accidents happened all the time in the Sierras.

  There would be no gossip, no whispers or rumors. Before, she’d hated that, the way everywhere she went, murder had been the topic of conversation. Now, if she wanted to stop a killer, she would have to ask the right questions herself. Several of her friends were involved with Search and Rescue. She knew the medical examiner. Maybe she could figure out a reason to ask questions that would make sense and at the same time raise suspicion that the death wasn’t an accident.