Murder at Sunrise Lake Page 19

  Sam took another long drink of water and rubbed Bailey’s fur while Stella thought about the tense way everyone had acted when his father had gestured toward the house. Had he threatened her? What had Sam been close to doing? Surely he wouldn’t have attacked his own father.

  “What went wrong between you and your father, Sam?” she asked.

  Sam screwed the cap onto the bottle and then pressed the bottle to his forehead. “My family owns quite a few strip clubs, and my father saw no reason not to partake in the joys of the back rooms there. He did so often. My mother was sweet, Stella. The best. Loved big gatherings with lots of friends and food. She cooked meals herself. We had money obviously, but she did everything herself. She poured love into everything she did. And she loved him. She made everything in that house perfect for him.”

  Stella couldn’t help noticing that he spoke of his mother in past tense. Her heart hurt for him. He looked alone and too far away from her. She suspected that, like her, he’d spent most of his life alone.

  “She asked him to stop so many times or let her divorce him. He told her it wasn’t her business, there was no divorce, that he gave her a nice home and he came home at night. That should be enough. I tried talking to him when I was really worried about her, but he had a couple of his men beat the hell out of me for interfering in what wasn’t my business. He said I didn’t have any right when I was often at the clubs, and that was true enough. I was doing a lot of business for him at that time. Too much. Doing things that I look back on now and realize how easy it was to become what he shaped me into because as a kid I admired him and wanted to be like him.”

  Stella knew what it was like to want a parent to love you, to seek their approval. She had done so time and again. It was natural.

  Sam shook his head. “They had a terrible fight one evening. He was going to the club after she’d made a special dinner. It turned out it was her birthday. She wanted him to stay home with her, but he said no. There was some new girl at the club he wanted to try out. He didn’t tell her that, but he refused to stay and Mom got very upset. The fight turned physical, at least she slapped him and he slapped her back. I interfered and he left.”

  Stella pressed her lips together to keep from giving him sympathy. He needed her to listen, not talk.

  “I held her while she cried and then she got very quiet. She told me she was tired. So tired. She told me to please never treat a woman like he treated her—that if I found a girl, to make certain I really loved her enough to stay with her and only her or don’t bother. I made her that promise. She told me she loved me and then she went upstairs.”

  Stella felt her heart start to accelerate. She had a bad, bad feeling.

  “My father didn’t come home for the first time that I could ever remember until that next morning. I had just gone upstairs to call Mom when I heard him come in. I knocked on her door and she didn’t answer. I pushed open the door and I could see her sitting in her favorite place by the window. It was a window seat overlooking the garden. She was slumped over and still in the clothes she’d been wearing the night before. There was blood on the bench and cushions as well as pooled on the floor. It looked like it was everywhere.

  “I ran to her, even knowing it was too late. She’d sat there and quietly bled out after cutting her wrists. I picked her up and held her to me, rocking her, and when he came in and tried to take her, I wanted to kill him. I told him it was his fault. He had done that to her as surely as if he had made those cuts himself. I left right after her funeral, joined the service and made it into the Rangers. After that I was offered a job that was high risk, lucrative, but much more satisfying if you were looking for redemption, which I was. It also kept me impossible to find, even with my father’s resources. Once I got out, I drifted, mostly needing to figure out how much of me was him. I’ve done so many things, Stella, things that I can never take back. I don’t want to be anything like him.”

  “Come lie on the bed with me, Sam. We might not get any sleep, but at least we’ll be close. Tonight, for the rest of the night, we need close. At least I need it.”

  “I told him to stay the hell away from you.” He bent to remove his shoes.

  Stella scooted under the covers but left the comforter for him. When he lay beside her, one arm around her, she put her head on his shoulder. “Why was he so upset?”

  “He found out about the killer trying to drag me underwater. He wanted me to come home.”

  She was silent, thinking that over. “He must care for you, Sam, or he wouldn’t have come in person to try to persuade you.”

  “I have no doubt that he cares for me. He cared for my mother. He can sit down to a meal with you and your friends, Stella, and then go home and order one or all of you tortured to demonstrate that it isn’t a good idea to fuck with our family. The worst part is, I’m totally capable of doing the same thing.”

  His arm tightened around her. “I came here to find a different way of life, to be a different person. Not the way I grew up, and not the person I’d been for our government. I found this place and you.”

  “No one is going to take that away from you, Sam.” Stella said it fiercely, determined she spoke the truth.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Harlow Frye had flaming-red hair and jade-green eyes. Freckles dusted her nose and high cheekbones, scattered across her shoulders and arms generously, adding to her beauty. She was tall with long legs and generous curves. By turns she could look elegant, a temptress or girl next door, depending on what she wore and how she did her hair and makeup. Even with all the varying looks she had, she always appeared to be a fiery flame. There was no getting around that, not with her hair.

  Today she wore her thick mane of red hair up in a simple ponytail. She had little makeup on, jeans rolled up and a golden sweater buttoned with tiny pearl buttons. Her boots came up to her calves, a soft golden leather that matched her sweater. Stella could never figure out where she found her clothes or boots.

  Harlow studied the sketch that didn’t really show much of anything while she digested what Stella had revealed to her of her true identity. Beneath the artist’s table in Harlow’s studio, Stella pressed her fingernails deep into her own thigh through her jeans. She’d told Sam she wanted to talk to Harlow alone, so after a curt nod that clearly conveyed his displeasure over her decision, he had stayed at the resort to ensure the last of the guests renting the cabins had left without mishap. They were officially closed for the season, a true relief. Tonight there would be a party for her longtime employees. They certainly deserved their break, and then she and Sam would have time off as well. Hopefully they would have time to develop their relationship and catch a serial killer.

  “When you have these nightmares, Stella, you’re aware that you’re dreaming? Are you an active participant in the dream?” Harlow asked, still studying the sketch. She was frowning in concentration.

  “I’ve never been before,” she admitted. “I was always terrified, but I was a little child the first time and a teen the second. The first series of nightmares was so unexpected, about the fisherman, I was just concentrating on trying to find the place around the lake where it might be. Zahra suggested I might be able to widen the lens. I never thought of that. I never even considered looking at the lens itself.”

  “Have you ever changed a dream?”

  “I’ve woken myself up by telling myself I was dreaming, but I never changed anything significant. When I liked a dream, before I went to bed, I told myself I wanted to dream that particular dream again and I did,” she admitted.

  “I’m sorry about your father, Stella.” Harlow looked up for the first time, meeting her eyes, looking sincere. “We can’t choose our parents, can we? Thankfully, they don’t necessarily have to reflect who we are.” She looked down again at the sketch. “This doesn’t really give me a lot to work with, but you could try experimenting. I know you’re not a camera person.
” She glanced back up at Stella, who shuddered and made a face. Harlow burst out laughing in spite of the seriousness of their conversation.

  Stella covered her face with her hands and peeked out between her fingers. “You’re going to make me touch a camera, aren’t you?”

  Harlow studied her. “Why do you have such an aversion to them? Do you think it was because you grew up surrounded by the media after they found out about your father?”

  Stella took her hands down, considering Harlow’s question. “No, there were always reporters around. My mother was involved in multiple charities and sat on several boards for opera, ballet and theater houses. She was big in the arts. That translated to numerous articles in newspapers and magazines. At the time, my father was considered quite the handsome philanthropist. They were quite a couple and made a splash everywhere they went, always camera ready. I had to be as well if I went outside the house.”

  Harlow nodded in understanding. “I know what that’s like as a child. My father was always in politics as far back as I can remember.” She made a little face. “God forbid you get dirt on your shoes or scuff them up in the garden in case someone needs a family photo. That’s one of the reasons I don’t do portraits.”

  Stella knew Harlow rarely took photographs of people. When she did, the pictures were private ones, only of her friends and their activities. It was her landscapes that were considered breathtaking and captured so much attention.

  “That was definitely my childhood and then some. My mother had very strict rules in place for what I could wear and what I couldn’t. That’s probably why I wear jeans all the time and little makeup now. She had a camera my father had given her for Christmas one year. It was the latest thing and all her friends had cameras. She didn’t use it, she liked to keep up with whatever they had.”

  Stella couldn’t just sit at the long worktable. She had to get up and walk around. There were so many beautiful things in Harlow’s studio to see. Harlow was an extremely creative woman. It always amazed Stella how she could make such beautiful pottery and take exquisite photographs that looked as if they were so real you were right there too. Stella had one framed, a beautiful picture taken from above the lake, early morning just as the sun was coming up and the colors were extending out over the water. It was gorgeous. Stella wouldn’t give it up for any amount of money. She could never quite equate the creative side of Harlow with the pure practical side, the nurse who worked in the hospital and didn’t blink when sewing up wounds.

  Harlow was a strong climber. Like Stella, she preferred bouldering, but she did trad climbing with her friends, which Stella could do but didn’t enjoy that much. Harlow’s dog, Misha, a beagle, lay curled up in a doggy bed beside the door leading to the yard that opened to the canal, where Harlow walked her every couple of hours. Misha seemed to know the schedule and didn’t let Harlow forget it. Right now, she watched Stella wandering around the studio.

  “Misha and Bailey are good friends, Harlow, but she’s looking at me very suspiciously, like I might try to make off with one of your art pieces any minute,” Stella couldn’t help but point out. “No treats for you, Misha, thinking I might be an art thief.”

  Misha wagged her tail, thumping it against her dog bed at the sound of her name and the word treats.

  “Misha eyes everyone suspiciously in here,” Harlow agreed. “Her idea is to drive us out so she can do her favorite thing, which, as you know, rain or shine, is to go for a W.A.L.K. In her case, R.U.N.”

  Stella laughed. “That dog is too smart. She’s going to learn how to spell.”

  “She’s only smart when she wants to be. Stop stalling and tell me about the camera your mother had. She didn’t use it, but something happened to it.”

  The smile faded from Stella’s mouth. Reliving old memories wasn’t fun. How had this serial killer brought so many things back? She hadn’t even thought of them in the months of therapy she’d gone through as a teen. Nor had she when she had gone to therapy while she’d been in college. Suddenly, now she was remembering her childhood, things she had deliberately put in a room and locked the door on. Some things should just stay that way, behind doors one barricaded.

  “I’m remembering so many things I deliberately locked away, Harlow. I don’t want to remember these things about my mother, let alone my father. She started drinking too much as a way to compensate once I started telling her my nightmares. At first, she was just trying to cope with a child having terrible nightmares, but then she realized what they were. Maybe she suspected all along, I don’t know.”

  Harlow stood up as well and crossed to the window. “We think in terms of our lives, the way we are now, but women weren’t nearly as independent. My mother reminded me it was a different time when our parents were young. Our mothers were raised differently and there wasn’t as much help for women as there is now. Some of their parents believed that if you brought children into the world, you had the right to do anything you wanted to them.”

  Stella had to agree. “The camera always sat on her dresser. It was beautiful to me and one day I just couldn’t resist. I always sat in her room when she was getting ready to go out. I liked to watch her put on her makeup and jewelry. I asked her if I could take her picture.”

  Harlow turned around very fast to face her. “Was this before your nightmares started or after, Stella?”

  “I was so young.” Stella frowned, rubbing her forehead, trying to think back. She looked out the window toward the canal, wishing she was outside. She felt closed in. Felt as if someone was watching her again. She was driving herself crazy. “I don’t know. I remember being happy with my mother in her room when she was getting ready to go out with my father, at least some of the time. And then it wasn’t good anymore.”

  “You started having the nightmares when you were four? And then they really started when you were five. That’s a fact. When he was caught, that came out in the story. He wasn’t caught until you were older, but the nightmares started when you were that young.” Harlow went across the room to one of the shelves and started looking at the cameras she had on display there.

  Stella’s heart dropped. She deliberately stayed where she was, close to the window on the opposite side of the room. “Yes, I was five.”

  “So, you could have been as young as four when you wanted to take your mother’s picture. You might even have memories as young as three of going to the theater with your mother. Of the ballet. Your mother would have taken you. You would have heard talk, gossip, all the time to reinforce memories of your mother being on boards for various arts. I’ve noticed you retain almost everything. It seems to be a gift you have.”

  “It’s a curse,” Stella muttered. “This entire thing is a curse.”

  “Not if you can catch him and save lives.”

  “I didn’t catch my father, or Miller when I was a teen.”

  “You did eventually,” Harlow pointed out. “You couldn’t expect to right away. And you can’t now. You’re going to have to understand that none of these deaths are your fault. He’s out there, and if you didn’t know about him, he would be killing without anyone to stop him. As a nurse, I know I’m not going to save everyone. I’m not. Not even my favorite patients, no matter how hard I try. No matter what effort I put into it. Every police officer has to come to terms with that same thing at some point. Every man or woman in the military.”

  “Death just feels . . . unacceptable to me. I almost feel like I’m being taunted and I fail these people, these very human people with families who love them.”

  “I feel the same way. I’m certain most doctors feel the same way. These nightmares you have are simply clues, a way to catch him. He doesn’t know who you are and that you’re already looking for him. Hopefully he doesn’t find out until we have him. That’s the big thing, Stella. Be careful of who you bring into the circle. I know you’re going to be tempted to bring law enforcement in, b
ut if you do it too soon, he’ll disappear. Just fade away. This place is made for that. You have to know who he is before you inform them.”

  “I don’t want to be my mother, Harlow. I don’t want to trade my peace of mind for lives.”

  “Telling law enforcement too soon would be doing just that, Stella. Think about it. If you tell them, the FBI shows up, the serial killer fades away and you get your world back. He goes somewhere else and kills. No one is the wiser because he has a new playground, making every kill look like an accident, and you aren’t there to tell them any different. He would never stay here. Why should he? Especially if he’s a temporary visitor.”

  Stella crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the long bank of curved floor-to-ceiling windows. Of all the arguments to keep from telling Griffen, this was the best because Harlow was right. Stella felt it.

  “You’re making sense, Harlow, but then you usually do. Sam doesn’t think I should say anything yet. Zahra feels the same way. I haven’t talked to anyone else about it. I’m considering what to say when I do. I’m going to talk to Raine about the backpacking trails and campsites. She goes all the time with me. She knows the trails even better than I do.”

  “I’ve got a couple of cameras that were popular when your mom was young, Stella. I’m going to look in a catalogue and see if there were any knobs on them that look anything like you sketched.”

  Naturally, Harlow would do that for her. She was observant and knew exactly how much Stella disliked taking pictures, let alone touching an actual camera. “My mother gave me permission to take her picture. Of course, I had no idea how and she didn’t show me. I just probably played with it, looking at her and telling her how beautiful she was. She smiled at me over and over and then held out her hand for the camera. I gave it to her. Later, when she put me to bed, she kissed me several times and told me she wasn’t angry with me for breaking her camera. I told her I didn’t break it. She said, Remember, you dropped it? And then she kissed me again and told me accidents happen. My father was standing in the doorway and had a frown on his face. She told him not to be so angry, that I was just a little girl. She even flung her arms around his neck and kissed him.”