Murder at Sunrise Lake

Stella looked him over carefully. The waders were that same olive color that were in her nightmare. She told herself it didn’t mean anything. Many of the fishermen wore those same exact waders. It was just that the man in her nightmare wore bibbed denim overalls tucked into the waders. Denver had the waders on but not the overalls, which didn’t mean he didn’t own a pair. Neither man was wearing a hat, but it was early enough that the sun’s rays weren’t that strong yet.

“I’m kidding, Stella,” Bruce said. “Don’t look so upset.”

“I was about to tell him to go get another chair out of his truck. He has ten of them in there,” Denver said. “Really, Stella, he couldn’t care less.”

Was she looking upset again? Her nightmares had really thrown her. She’d promised herself she’d get a handle on her behavior. These were her friends. If she was going to save them, she needed to do better. Much better.

“Sorry, I was just thinking about spiders and fish families.” She waved one hand dismissively. “Don’t ask, Bruce. Denver already thinks I’m crazy. Were the fish biting this morning?”

Denver stood up and Bruce immediately sank into the vacated chair. Denver flipped him off but walked over to Bruce’s truck and yanked out another chair.

“Not really,” Bruce answered. “I didn’t really care if I caught anything this morning or not. I just wanted to come out here and relax. It gets hectic sometimes and my brain can’t take the chaos after a while. I need the reset.”

Stella thought it was interesting that he thought in the same terms she did. Every morning the sunrise “reset” her. “We all need that once in a while, don’t we?”

Bruce nodded. He looked around. “You came on your own?”

Stella kept a straight face. Denver set his chair across from them, looking at her with a little grin that told her he knew exactly what Bruce was fishing for.

“Who did you think was hiding in her rig, Bruce?” Denver asked.

Bruce glared at him. “You’re such a pain in the ass, Denver.”

Stella pushed out of the chair. “I’m going to look at the water and try to figure out the colors and what I’m doing wrong when I’m mixing my paints. I’ve been trying to get the colors right for so long and I just can’t seem to do it when I’m painting the lake. You two can argue without me.” Her art was her best cover, the best reason she had for examining the rocks and grasses so carefully.

She hurried down to the water’s edge, doing a careful sweep of the shoreline. She wanted to view it from every direction, the way the camera’s lens had done in her dreams each night. She’d gotten multiple views of the lake and the boulders and trees. She should be able to identify if this was the exact location of the upcoming murder. She doubted it. It would be far too much luck to have it be the very first secluded place she checked. This was remote, not known to outsiders, and only a few locals ever went here, which actually made it the perfect place for murder.

She was very glad she’d told Denver she painted, although only a few of her friends knew she did and she was much more comfortable with that. Having told him provided a good reason for her to be studying the shore and trees from every angle. She could commit every detail to memory. Her brain catalogued images for her. Sometimes that was a good thing, but not always. There were things in her past she wanted to forget.

She pushed all thoughts away and began to slowly study each individual section of the fishing area. It would stand to reason that a fisherman would drive in, park as Denver and Bruce had and walk to the area where both had chosen to fish. They wouldn’t go much farther. That meant she could concentrate her investigation where they had been fishing. She chose to inspect where Bruce had been first. He had waded the farthest out into the lake, and he’d been among the rocks and into the reeds and plants.

Stella made her way over to the area where Bruce had been fishing. Skirting around the large pile of rocks onshore, she went down to the water’s edge, where she could look back toward the ones jutting up out of the water. She told herself to keep breathing evenly. Slowly. It was strange how much trepidation she felt, even though she kept assuring herself there was no way this place would be the same one as the murder site in her nightmare. Still, there was just something in her that knew. She felt it.

The rocks were shaped exactly the same as the ones she’d sketched from her nightmare. The more she studied them from each angle, the more her heart beat faster. She looked at the reeds and plants rising out of the water, the way they grew around the egg-shaped rocks, some bent over, some rising toward the sky. There were thick patches and others where the water lapped against the granite rocks. It was like déjà vu.