Murder at Sunrise Lake

Sam nodded. “That wouldn’t be difficult. I park in the same place all the time. If he was watching before you came home, he would have seen you drive up alone. Until this is over, we’d better stick together. Especially since we don’t have Bailey right now.”

Stella’s stomach dropped. She put the burrito down and took a sip of coffee. “There was so much blood, Sam. I didn’t think it was possible to save him.”

“But he’s alive. Amelia’s a really good veterinarian. The town is lucky she decided she wanted to live here.”

Stella nodded. “We were actively looking for a vet after Fiddleson retired and he couldn’t get anyone to take his place. It’s so beautiful here and the clinic was so successful we thought it would be a piece of cake, but evidently, there are reasons people don’t want to raise families here. And long hours don’t appeal to everyone. Also, there seems to be this idea that not everyone can find a partner here.”

Sam flashed a small smile at her. “You do have quite a few female friends, all rather good-looking with great jobs, who don’t have partners, Stella.”

“By choice, Sam. Not everyone wants to settle down with a man.”

“You certainly didn’t. I had to go very carefully, never let you see I had my sights on you. You would have run like a little rabbit.”

“You didn’t have your sights on me.”

“From the first time I ever spotted you. You were wearing your favorite pair of jeans, which, by the way, you still wear. You had on a little black-and-white sweater with squares all over it. Your hair was up in some kind of messy knot that kept falling out and you’d put it back up every now and then. You wore black boots and you had Bailey with you. You were standing across from the jobsite where I was working and you were talking with Zahra and Shabina. You kept laughing. You have the most beautiful laugh.”

Stella was shocked that he remembered what she was wearing and that she’d been with two of her beautiful friends and he’d looked at her instead of them.

“I made it my business to find out about you. Wasn’t that hard. Everyone in town knows about you. You’re royalty. You’ve helped so many businesses. I just had to listen. It was clear you didn’t date anyone and you didn’t have a partner. I just kept to the background and observed you, trying to figure out why and what you needed.”

“Did you figure it out?”

“You need a patient man.”

Stella found herself laughing, and that astonished her. Right in the middle of the worst time, with Bailey in the hospital, she could sit at the breakfast table and laugh. “I suppose that’s true. I can’t believe you remember what I was wearing.” She took another sip of coffee. “How did things go with your father?”

“Better than I expected. Marco is complicated. He’s used to being the complete authority. Everyone is supposed to fall in line the moment he decrees something. He has it in his head that we’re going to have a relationship, which is fine, but he wants it on his terms. He’s had time to think about how it’s all going to play out. He doesn’t know me at all. The last he saw of me, I was young and impulsive. He still thinks of me that way.”

“Surely after meeting you again he has to know you’re nothing like that, Sam.”

“Marco doesn’t let go of his authority easily. I let him talk. The more someone talks, the easier it is to understand them and hear lies. He’s good at mixing truth with deceit.”

“Is he doing that?”

“He always does it. He’s had to do it in order to stay alive. In his business, you can’t trust too many people. Modern-day business is much more under the radar than it used to be, but there is always somebody who wants to take away what he has. He told me about his heart. I could tell he wasn’t lying about that. He seems to really want to retire. That’s always a scary proposition. Sometimes you can in that business, other times you don’t get to. He knows that.”

“Why?”

“He knows everyone’s business. Secrets. Things that can put others behind bars. He’s always been notorious for being close-mouthed.”

“What about Lucio Vitale? Is he really his bodyguard?”

“I don’t think so, although he would protect him. I think he’s much higher than a mere bodyguard. Still, Vitale could very well take out a gun and put a bullet in Marco’s head. That entire business is twisted when it comes to loyalties, although I believe Vitale is loyal to Marco for whatever reason. And if he isn’t, having met me, he would think twice before killing my father.”

“Do you think Marco will really retire and settle here?”