Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 122440 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122440 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
“Why in the world would anyone target you over Lawyer’s death?” Stella asked. She sounded outraged. “You and Lawyer were good friends.”
Harlow sighed and rubbed at her temple. “He asked me out a couple of times.”
Raine’s delicate eyebrow arched. “A couple of times? Everyone in town knew he had a thing for you, Harlow.”
“I feel a little guilty that I couldn’t reciprocate his feelings,” she admitted. She hadn’t left his side, trying everything possible to save him. At the very least, she felt she had brought some peace to him.
“I still find it difficult to believe he’s gone,” Vienna admitted. “But if you stayed with him and worked hard to save him, who would be upset with you that you didn’t?”
“Lawyer had a lot of friends. He was very well-liked and with good reason. He was a very good man,” Harlow said.
“That tells us nothing,” Vienna pointed out. “Do you have any idea who threatened you because Lawyer died?”
“The letter was in my mailbox. The usual idiotic threatening words cut from magazines. It sounded like the person was a close friend of his and blamed me for not doing my job.”
She had been upset that anyone would think she wouldn’t give her best to any patient, let alone one she cared so much about. She knew who had sent the letters, but she wasn’t going to open that particular can of worms. Maybe another time.
“But you didn’t tell Rainier,” Raine protested.
“He would make a huge deal of it. In any case, I just found that one in my mailbox yesterday. It isn’t the first, and won’t be the last.”
“You’re so used to death threats,” Raine said, “you don’t even get alarmed at them. You know that’s not normal, don’t you?”
“It’s normal for me. And not all of them are death threats. Just hate mail.”
Stella, who had been uncharacteristically silent, drummed her fingers on the table and then cleared her throat.
“I’ve been having strange nightmares,” Stella announced.
Instant alarm skittered down Harlow’s spine. Stella had a gift, or curse, however one wanted to look at it. She had, more than once, identified serial killers. Nightmares tended to precede murders. It had been established that Stella didn’t feel a killer near unless she had come into physical contact with him—or her.
Raine looked up sharply and Vienna gasped. “Serial-killer-type nightmares?” Vienna asked.
Stella frowned. “That’s just it, I don’t know. It isn’t like I can see someone actually killing. The dreams are vague and disjointed, but it feels the same.”
“When did you start having them?” Raine asked. She was always practical. Logical. Calm. She opened her laptop.
“The first series started about two months ago, but I didn’t see anyone die. I had the nightmares several days in a row, just the way I normally do, but then I stopped having them. Sam did some investigating to see if anyone had died under suspicious circumstances in that time frame, and there wasn’t anyone.” Stella’s gaze jumped to Raine. “About a week ago I began having the nightmares again. Nothing concrete. No people. Just heavy breathing. Shadowy images of a man, but I couldn’t see him. I just felt how evil he was. I woke up every night for a week, sweating and terrified, but when Sam asked me questions, I couldn’t give him any answers. The dream was so abstract I couldn’t make sense of it.”
There was a long silence. Raine’s fingers flew over the keyboard. She frowned and shook her head. “I’m with Sam, Stella. We haven’t had any violent, unexplained deaths in the last two months.”
“What about accidents?” Harlow asked. “Denver made every one of his kills appear to be an accident. Could someone be copying him?” She looked at Raine. “Isn’t that something that happens?”
Large knots formed in Harlow’s stomach. Dr. Denver Dawson, a very likable man, one they had all considered a close friend, had turned out to be a serial killer. He was extremely clever. Yosemite was a vast playground for him. When he killed each victim, he made it appear as if they died in an accident. Each accident was very different from the one before. Without Stella’s nightmares pointing them in the right direction, he might have gotten away with murder for years. So if Stella was having nightmares again, no matter how vague, Harlow feared someone was either already killing or about to start.
“I don’t know about a lot of copycats, but it does happen,” Raine agreed. “What do you think, Stella? You have good instincts. You need to trust them.”
“That’s what Sam says.” Stella drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “Usually, I can draw what I see in my nightmares. I end up getting quite a few more details when I do that. And I always keep a journal, writing down everything I see, but these nightmares aren’t presenting the way they always have.”