Murder at Sunrise Lake

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.”