“What are you doing here?” Jason demanded.
“Stella doesn’t like heights,” Sam said easily. “I’m going to belay her while she practices getting comfortable out here where no one is around. What are you doing here?”
Sam sounded cheery. Easygoing. As if nothing was wrong and he talked to serial killers every single day.
“I’ve been working on this project for months,” Jason admitted. “I’ve been telling Denver about it and how slow it’s been going for a while now. He offered to come out with me and belay me today. It will be so much easier without having to use a top rope.”
Stella heard Jason as if from far away. She’d already taken a step away from Denver so she could look into Jason’s face. She wanted to see his expression when he answered Sam. She did her best to process Jason’s statement. To make it fit with the facts.
This couldn’t be his project. It had to be Denver’s project. Jason had to be the one to volunteer to belay Denver. None of this was making any sense. She looked up at the boulder and then again at Jason’s face. Then to Sam. As always, his features were set in an expressionless mask. No help there at all.
Had she heard right? Again, she tried to twist Jason’s statement around to fit with what she was certain were the facts, but no matter how many times she replayed the audio, it came out the same. This was Jason’s project and Denver had volunteered to belay him. Which meant . . .
She turned back to her beloved friend, heart sinking, lashes lifting, and her eyes met his.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mommy, Daddy’s doing the bad thing again.
The camera lens focused on a dark room. The room appeared to be rectangular. Stella did her best within the narrow vision she had to take in as many details as she could, but it was dark. The only light came from what appeared to be a penlight that was being flashed around the room, and that was even shielded, as if the person holding the light feared it would be seen. She caught a quick glimpse of the edge of a crash pad. Just the tip, but she was certain it was a crash pad. The lens was already closing down. Just as it was, she saw the light flash across the pair of hiking boots in the corner. The lens snapped closed.
* * *
—
Stella sat up, fighting her way out from under the covers, kicking at them, scissoring her legs in desperation to get blankets and sheets off, her breath coming in painful gasps. She leapt up, trying to get out from under the remnants of the nightmare, uncaring that she’d gone to bed in practically nothing and it was very cold this time of year. Sam was a furnace at night and he took any clothes off her anyway.
“Sweetheart.”
Sam was in the chair across from the bed like always when she had her nightmares, but she didn’t even look at him. Truthfully, she didn’t even see him. She didn’t notice the freezing floor under the bare soles of her feet, or that Bailey scrambled to a standing position in his crate. She just ran from the room, heart thundering wildly in her ears. The back of the house was dark and she hadn’t thought to bring a light. She stood in front of the back door leading to her mudroom—the same room someone had tried to break into the night Bailey had been attacked.
“Stella. Talk to me.” Sam came up behind her.
She stood in front of the door shivering, but not because of the cold. She was numb—unable to feel anything in that moment. She just stared at the closed door. She didn’t want to turn on the overhead lights. If she did, and the killer was watching, he would know she was onto him. She bit her lip. She still couldn’t bring herself to say his name. To let herself think it was him. Her friend. One of her best friends. Why? Why would he start killing? It didn’t even make sense.
She put her hand on the doorknob and started to twist it open. Sam placed his palm above her head and leaned, preventing the heavy door from moving.
“Talk to me, Stella.”
“You knew it was him, didn’t you?” She was afraid it came out an accusation.
“I had no way of knowing, but I became suspicious when Bailey was stabbed four times so viciously and not killed. It took nerves to do what the attacker did. Nerves. Strength. Knowledge of anatomy. And then, it was a small thing, but Denver had suddenly taken an internship with the ME. He claimed he was restless. And because of your nightmares, Vienna pointed out the strange coincidence of the broken fingers to the sheriff and the ME. Denver lost interest after that. I think he wanted to be the one to point it out and get the glory. It nagged at me. He was already into so many things, so why go there? And then to just kind of drop it.”
“You didn’t say anything,” she persisted.
“I had no real proof and I didn’t want the killer to be Denver. I don’t have many friends, Stella. Denver matters to me. So, no, I didn’t know, but he had all the right abilities and he was in the right place at the right times.”
He sighed again. “And then there were the times the watcher wasn’t present. Vienna was exhausted the other day. She mentioned that there was an accident two nights in a row and the third night she’d just slept. I realized that if she was in surgery, they would need an anesthesiologist, and that meant Denver. If he was at the hospital, he couldn’t be here. I checked. He was there. I checked back on the other days in town when you said no one had been watching, and again, out here, and he was at the hospital every single time.”
“He came to the vet’s the night Bailey was attacked.”
“He came late, and none of us saw the condition of his arm,” Sam pointed out.
“You never said anything to me.” She held herself away from him, whispering, and this time it was an accusation. “Why not, Sam?”
“Yesterday, when we went out to the Twin Devils and Jason and Denver were climbing together, you thought at first that Jason was the killer, didn’t you?” he countered, stepping closer. Not answering her. Sam. Her heart hurt for him. For both of them.
Stella could feel him radiating heat against her back. She nodded but didn’t look at him. She kept her eyes on the door to the mudroom. Kept looking at Sam’s hand, fingers splayed wide, holding the door closed. Pandora’s box. If she opened it . . .
“Yes,” she whispered. “Then Jason started talking about how he had been working on the project for months and Denver offered to belay him, and I looked at Denver. Into his eyes. I knew. He went out there to kill Jason. He was going to kill him and make it look as though Jason had gone out there to work his project alone with just a fixed rope. We got there and he didn’t have his chance.”
Sam very gently wrapped his palm around the nape of her neck. “You didn’t want to talk to me about it last night.”
He had left early in the evening for several hours, and when he came back, he hadn’t said a word and she hadn’t asked him any questions. She was terrified of what he might have done, but now, after her nightmare, she knew Denver was still alive.
“You were quiet all the way home, and every time I tried, you just shook your head. I had to give you your space to grieve, Stella.”
His voice was so gentle. Too gentle. Too compassionate. She couldn’t take it right then. She couldn’t fall apart more than she already had. Sam was too important. Her Sam. She had to think clearly, carefully go over every move she made before she made it. She took a deep breath and turned to face him, deliberately turning her back to the mudroom door and pressing her weight against it.
She couldn’t run through her house in a panic and Sam couldn’t go into that room with her or see her sketches or talk about her nightmare. Not this one. He would take matters into his own hands, she knew he would. He would feel it was his responsibility to bring justice to Denver. He had already indicated he thought he should. But it was Denver, and he loved Denver whether he could say it out loud or not. She knew he was grieving just as she was.
“This is so terrible for both of us. For all of us. We’re going to have to tell the others, Sam. I still don�
��t know how we’re going to tell them, but we have to. Jason could still be in danger.”
“I talked him out of going there again for a little while,” Sam assured her. “But that isn’t going to save another climber from Denver retaliating. We have to talk about it, Stella, and we don’t have time to wait. I need to know what spooked you tonight.”
“It was a nightmare.”
“I’m well aware it was a nightmare, sweetheart. I see you have them all the time.”
“No.” She looked away from him, unable to meet his eyes when she was lying. “It was just an ordinary nightmare, not a serial killer nightmare.”
There was a long silence. She could feel his gaze on her face and she couldn’t help squirming under the intensity. His fingers were very gentle as he cupped her chin and forced her head up until she found herself looking at him.
“I think we both are going to have to confess, sweetheart, because you are possibly the worst liar on the face of the planet and I don’t like keeping anything from you, especially things you won’t like.”
She knew instantly what he’d done. “You went to see Denver.”
“He’s in the wind. We have to talk to Griffen, Stella. We have to put everyone on alert. If we don’t, anyone he hurts, you know that’s on us.”
“I agree.” She didn’t want Sam hunting Denver. She took his hand and tugged, trying to get him to head back toward the bedroom.
Sam didn’t budge. “What don’t you want me to see in the mudroom?”
She sighed. “Let’s go talk in the bedroom. I just panicked.”
“Sweetheart. Don’t make me resort to throwing around the L word and freak you out. Just tell me.”
“He knew. Yesterday at the boulders, when I realized it wasn’t Denver’s project and I looked at him, there must have been something in the way I looked at him that made him realize I knew what he was planning. The nightmare showed a mudroom. Gear. But the last thing was hiking boots. I swear, Sam, they’re my old hiking boots. I leave them in the corner of the mudroom. He’s coming after me.”
“Why didn’t you want me to know?” He stroked his hand down her hair.
“I don’t want you to hunt him. He’s your friend. I didn’t want that for you anyway, but it seems so much worse now. I knew if you thought he was coming after me, that nothing would stop you from hunting him.”
His hands framed her face, one thumb stroking a caress down her skin. “Nothing was ever going to stop me, Stella. He has to be stopped. But you’re right. The fact that he would try to kill you makes him even more of a priority. We have to warn all of your friends and the sheriff.”
“Denver could live off the land indefinitely. He could be anywhere. He hunts, fishes, he knows every cave and old hunting cabin on properties most people have forgotten,” Stella said.
“He could very well be staying on this property, in the fishing camp, some of the older cabins,” Sam ventured. “The ones we had designated to fix up. Denver certainly knows about them. He went with me several times when I was working on the floors. He even helped me with the sinks and electricity.”
“I don’t want Sonny or Patrick anywhere near those cabins,” Stella said hastily.
“If Denver had taken off, that would be one thing,” Sam said, “but the fact that you had that nightmare, and you know he’s coming after you, means he’s sticking around here. He really is obsessed with you, Stella.” There was a note of worry in his voice.
“He doesn’t know about me, though,” she whispered. “He still has no idea that I was that little girl who saw serial killers in my dreams. If we alert him, we take the chance of him getting away. Do we trust Griffen and his boss, Paul Rafferty, to not go immediately to the FBI with this? We can’t, but we have to tell them something so they warn everyone.”
Sam followed her down the hall to the bedroom. “Have to get those privacy screens up on the windows. We special ordered them and I paid a fortune to ensure they got here fast.”
“You did?”
“I think in terms of snipers, Satine.”
She slipped back into bed and reached for her sketchpad and journal. She definitely didn’t have the feeling Denver was watching. If he was out there, he wasn’t close. He had a healthy respect for Sam and wasn’t taking any chances.
“Since Denver doesn’t know about your abilities, we can set a trap for him. In the meantime, I will be hunting him. I’m not going to lie to you about that, sweetheart. I want your girls to know. Shabina can’t be running around in the forest for a while.”
“They’re going to be so upset.”
“I know they will,” Sam agreed. “I’m going to ask for a meeting with Griffen and Paul first thing in the morning. I’m not going to say anything about your nightmares, but I am going to say that we’ve been worried about Denver and he’s said things that have led us to believe he’s unstable and possibly committing these crimes.”
Stella sighed. She knew there was no getting around talking with law enforcement. It had to be done. They had no proof, but Griffen would vouch for them with his boss. The ME had already expressed her concern to the sheriff once. Perhaps Sam was right and talking about her nightmares would just muddy the waters.
“What can they do? They can’t accuse Denver, there’s no proof of any crime.”
“The sheriff’s office can put a missing person’s report out on Denver and spin it any way they see fit, that he’s mentally unstable and not to approach him, but let law enforcement know immediately. Something along those lines.”
Stella was already sketching the details the lens of the camera had shown her. The glimpse of the mudroom and what contents she could make out. She drew each item she saw with meticulous care, including corners of the cabinet, the flooring and her hiking boots.
“I hate this for you, Stella,” Sam said softly. He reached down and wiped just under her eye as a tear dropped on the sketchpad.
“It’s just as bad for you, Sam,” she whispered, aching for all of them.
* * *
—
There was a stunned silence. Stella was the only one standing in Shabina’s beautiful great room with its high ceiling and gorgeous stone fireplace.
Vienna’s hand went to her throat protectively. “That can’t be, Stella. There has to be a mistake. You’ve made a terrible mistake. Denver is . . .”
“Family,” Harlow finished for her. “One of us. Part of us.”
“He saves lives,” Vienna added. “Do you know how many lives he’s saved? I’ve seen him fight for people. Risk his own life over and over to save a complete stranger. No, you’re wrong, you have to be wrong.”
Silence fell on the room again. A kind of hopeless despair as each of them tried to process what Stella had told them.
“You’re certain he’s going to try to kill you next?” Raine asked eventually.
“I haven’t seen the victim,” Stella admitted. “But it’s definitely my mudroom. Those were my hiking boots. He could be after Sam. Maybe both of us. That seems more likely. I’ll know more tonight. Sam went to meet with Griffen and Paul Rafferty.”
“Have you talked to Jason to make certain Denver doesn’t circle around and go after him again?” Shabina asked. “If Denver is ill enough to want to kill you and Sam, then he would have no problem carrying out his original plan to kill Jason.”
“Sam warned him. I don’t know what he said, but yes, he should know to be cautious, although most people in Knightly are going to have a difficult time believing anything is wrong with Denver,” Stella said.
“Are you absolutely positive, Stella?” Zahra asked.
“Unfortunately, there’s no question. He’s in hiding. He hasn’t left the area, and he’s definitely hunting me. Or Sam and me.” She looked down at her hands. “I don’t know why. We spent the day out at the boulders with them. Sam did most of the talking
with Denver. I was on the rock. I couldn’t talk.”
“How did Denver know you were aware he was going to kill Jason?” Raine asked in her quiet way. She sat beside Vienna, keeping one hand on her friend’s knee in sympathy.
“When Jason said he had been working on the project for months and Denver had offered to belay him, I kept trying to turn it around, but that didn’t work. I remember this horrible chill went down my spine and I looked up at Denver. I must have looked at him with accusing eyes. With knowledge. He looked back at me. He was smiling. The smile faded and I saw him. The killer. He saw me. It was just for a moment and then he was Denver again. I turned to Sam and buried my face in his chest and he wrapped his arms around me, and I just stayed that way until I could get control.”
“He must wonder how you knew,” Raine mused.
“A while back, Denver told me Sam was a ghost. We were at the Grill before all this happened and Denver told me his father and uncle had died and he’d inherited a lot of money. He also told me Sam was a ghost and not to get involved with him because it was too dangerous. He thinks Sam knows everything. Denver would come to my property all the time and watch us. Or me. I’m not certain which. Maybe Sam. He said men like Sam aren’t seen. He was very intrigued by him. Sam thought Denver was fixated on me, but I’m beginning to be afraid he was fixated on Sam. Not in a sexual way, but in the way of pitting his skills against Sam’s.”
She turned to face Raine. “He was really the only friend Sam let close to him, and that was mainly because Denver pushed the friendship. You know how Denver is. He just would invite himself along or persist in inviting you. He did that with Sam. Showed him the fishing spots. The best hunting areas. Would go help when Sam had too much work. Denver would talk. Sam rarely talked, but he was a good listener and he liked Denver.”
“Everyone likes Denver,” Harlow said.
“What exactly did he say to you about Sam being a ghost?” Raine asked. “Can you remember his wording? You asked me about it, but I don’t recall what you told me Denver said.”
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