Murder at Sunrise Lake

“He can’t be from around here,” Stella said. “None of our guys would do that.”

“No, I can’t imagine that they would.”

Shabina arranged the next two sketches with the lower part of the tree stand, boots and partial hem of the camouflage pants next to the first two drawings. Even with the pictures beside each other, there was nothing extraordinary to make the area stand out. And there wouldn’t be. The wilderness surrounding Horseshoe Lake was massive. How were they going to find one tree? One hunter?

They both stared down at the drawings for a long time, knowing it truly was an impossible task to find a single hunter in the Inyo National Forest. It didn’t matter how many trees and varieties Stella drew, there was no way to identify a single area by looking at them.

“I played various recordings of birds singing to you, and the ones you heard were from the area in the D7 zone closest to Horseshoe Lake. Those are migratory birds. I would say this is definitely the place, but the area is huge, Stella.”

Stella bit down on her lip. “I just don’t understand why he targeted this particular hunter. Why him? What is it about these random strangers that sets him off?”

“Does he need to be set off?” Shabina shook her head. “I studied those men who took me. At first, I wanted to think they had kidnapped me for some higher cause. At least an act of revenge. Then the money. But they were just vile, disgusting men getting off on a power trip. There was no real reasoning behind any of it. Some were worse than others.”

“Did they have other prisoners?”

Shabina nodded. “Occasionally. Those prisoners never lasted long. Over time, I learned that the least little thing could send one off into terrible violence while another might still have a shred of decency left in him. I knew that wouldn’t last long being around the others, but it was interesting watching the process as they took a new recruit down their path of complete and utter depravity. I suppose one might call them serial killers. Certainly, they were murderers and rapists.”

Stella shook her head and paced across the room, suddenly restless. “I have a very bad feeling about this one. Right from the beginning, I felt like I didn’t really have much of a chance of saving this victim. I don’t see how the killer is onto me, but given what happened to Bailey, it’s possible. Ever since the night we were camping together, I felt as if someone was watching me. If he knows who I am, it could be that he’s playing some vicious game with me.”

She went over to the window and stared out into Shabina’s beautiful gardens. Even in October, the grounds were filled with a riot of color. In spring, the various shades of green were amazing. Stella hadn’t known there were so many colors of green. Now it was golds and reds.

“When I was a child, I remember thinking if I could be good enough, then my father would stop doing those bad things. If I obeyed the rules. If I didn’t get dirt on my new shoes. If I didn’t spill anything on my dress. If I didn’t cry when I fell down and it hurt. I would go to bed without protesting. I made all kinds of promises to myself to be better. I’d be so good so Daddy wouldn’t have to do those bad things.”

Bailey. She needed that dog. She put her hand out and it wasn’t Bailey who pushed his head under her palm but one of Shabina’s Dobies. “There’s my boy. You always know when I’m feeling blue, don’t you, Sharif?” She scratched his ears just as she did Bailey’s, grateful Sharif had always included her in his circle. All three of Shabina’s dogs did, but Sharif in particular liked her.

“It is funny what we take on ourselves as kids,” Shabina said, coming over to stand beside her. “After I escaped and they found me, they were really angry. I was beaten severely and thrown into this awful pit. Every single day they would beat me. The nights were worse and then it would be that pit. There were rats and bugs. But it got so I believed I deserved it. I wasn’t worth anything. I wasn’t grateful enough for the things they’d provided for me, the way they had treated me before, which, by the way, hadn’t been much better. Most of all, I deserved it because I was responsible for forcing my father to work the way he did, in those countries.”

Stella half turned from the gardens. That sounded insane, but children did think the strangest things. She stayed quiet, letting her friend tell her how her teenage self came to those conclusions.