Murder at Sunrise Lake

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Raine O’Mallory shook her head, frowning at the series of pictures Stella had sketched. “Babe, I don’t think this is the main trail. I think they camped at upper Guitar Lake and set out from there. It’s hard to tell because you’re only seeing tiny glimpses, but I think they’re coming up Mount Whitney from the other side. If you’re right, and she’s not as experienced, it’s much shorter for her. They’ll hike to Trail Crest and drop their backpacks with their bear cannisters and just take a day pack to summit.”

Stella frowned. “They still have their regular backpacks on.”

“You have tonight. If they have them on tonight, I’m wrong, but some of this beginning terrain looks much more like they started out near upper Guitar Lake to me. He’s a seasoned hiker, Stella. Would he take an inexperienced backpacker up Whitney and then hike the JMT this time of year? He wouldn’t. The answer is no.”

There was that. Stella knew Raine was right. It wasn’t snowing— yet. But it would eventually, and once it did, the female wasn’t dressed appropriately at all.

“He knows weather can turn up there fast. The wind can be a real bitch. You know what it’s like in lightning storms. He started her out super early in the morning. It wasn’t until night four that you heard others around them. He’s done this hike before, probably more than once, and wants to make sure she makes it without a problem. You said they’re hiking at her pace. He isn’t trying to make her go too fast. I’m just guessing that he took the easiest route to show her the Sierras he loves without her taking on too much.”

“I’m so glad I showed these to you. I really thought the switchbacks. The granite.”

Raine turned the last sketch to several different angles. “I believe you’re right they’re trying to summit Mount Whitney. You said you heard others.”

“I couldn’t see anyone, just heard them.”

“If they drop their backpacks at Trail Crest and keep going with day packs to the summit, you know there’s a very dangerous place, narrow, drop-offs on both sides. They could be shoved off there. There’s one more switchback. It wouldn’t be hard, even with others around. Feigning an accident. Trying to help if she got altitude sickness. So many things can go wrong up there.”

Stella dropped her head in her hands. “Sam’s trying to find out who can help with figuring out who has a permit, but I told him the couple has one for the main trail.” She texted him. “I don’t know if it’s even possible for him to do that.”

“I might be able to,” Raine said. “I can hack almost anything. I’ll do my best to track them down.” She put the sketches on the table and leaned back in her chair. “So, how are you doing? This is rough. Really rough.”

“Let’s just say I’m not getting much sleep. I don’t want to lose them. I can feel him. He’s right there and I can’t call out to them and warn them, but there’s a feeling.” She gave a little shudder. “The first couple of nights he wasn’t there, but last night he was close to them.”

Raine jumped up. She wasn’t very tall, but she had a powerful, forceful energy that could take command of a room— or a conversation— when she chose. Stella had seen her go from a quiet almost-shadow in a corner of a room to a formidable explosion of energy, her brilliant mind suddenly on display, razor-sharp, challenging someone, most often a man, who put down someone else with a pompous display of superiority on some subject he thought he was familiar with. She would start out softly, but she could annihilate her opponent the moment they underestimated her— and they always did.

Raine looked young, with her strawberry-blonde hair that fell as straight as a board nearly to her waist. She was always careless with it, pulling it back in a ponytail or braid to get the silky mass out of her face. With her slate-blue eyes, golden lashes, dusting of freckles across her nose, and lips defined and curving upward, many people, on meeting her, made the mistake of thinking she looked like a pixie or cute little fairy, due to her size. Anyone who knew her laughed at that description. She was a fighter, an Amazon.

Stella looked around Raine’s single-story house on the outskirts of town. She had an acre of land surrounding the house, with neat little gardens and a greenhouse because she liked to grow her own food year-round. She also loved to get her hands in the dirt.

Her property reflected who she was. The three-bedroom home was always neat but overrun with workout gear. She had some kind of gear in every room, including her office. The office was huge, with state-of-the-art computers in it, and banks of screens, but also a treadmill with a TrekDesk. Raine actually did walk on her treadmill while she worked. Stella had tried it and it was no joke even walking at the lowest possible setting.