Chapter Ten
Harlow spent hours going through the photos she’d taken of the barn, looking for the perfect shot that matched what she had but included the black widow spiderwebs.
She was fairly certain she’d found a couple that might be ideal, but she needed to blow them up and view them in the right lighting.
She was so lost in her work she didn’t hear anyone enter the studio, and Misha didn’t react at first.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when a hand fell on her shoulder. She whirled around, throwing her arms up to protect herself. Wilder stood there looking even healthier than he had when she’d left for the studio in the early morning hours. Rainier wasn’t far behind him.
“You have to stop sneaking up on me like that,” she reprimanded them. “Wear a bell around your neck or something.”
Wilder gave her a small grin in acknowledgment of her humor, but Rainier didn’t smile. “Great, your non-expressions bode ill. Really, you two? Can’t we get through a week without a crisis of some kind?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Rainier said. “You women are trouble magnets.”
She waved her hand toward the lounge area. “We may as well get comfortable. Do either of you want anything to drink?”
Both men declined, and she sat in her favorite chair, facing the two of them. “What’s up?”
Rainier steepled his fingers and looked at her over the top of them. “I’m certain you know Chelsey Sarten.” He made it a statement.
“Of course I do. She worked at the Sunrise Café and then started working for the local hotel. She’s been dating Sonny Leven.
He’s a security guard at Stella’s resort.
A local and very well thought of, although a bit of a prankster.
It was such a surprise that they started dating because all of us thought he had a huge crush on Nellie.
” When she was nervous, she tended to either chatter or go completely silent.
In this case, she was extremely concerned for Chelsey. Why would they bring her up?
“Tom and Judy rent out the little two-bedroom house in the back. They’d been renting to Janine Hale, but recently she moved in with Edward, and Chelsey took over the house,” Rainier said.
Harlow pressed her lips together tightly and glanced at Wilder.
Yeah, whatever they were about to tell her wasn’t good news.
It felt as if every single day something terrible was happening.
That storm she sensed weeks earlier had arrived in full force.
She sent up a silent prayer that nothing had happened to Chelsey, but she didn’t insist they get to the details fast. She was reluctant to know.
“Sonny invited Chelsey to go with him on a vacation somewhere in Oregon. She was very excited and agreed to go. In the meantime, Judy and Tom asked if a friend of theirs, who traveled from San Francisco, could stay in the tiny house that’s right next to the house they rent out.
The tiny house shares a small garden and patio with the guesthouse. Chelsey agreed,” Rainier continued.
“Are Chelsey and Sonny all right?” She had to ask. It was both of them. Two of her friends. She might not be super close to them, but she knew and liked them.
“Yes, both are fine. Chelsey called Judy to ask if she would water her roses, which were in pots on the back porch. Judy’s friend Edith Shumaker volunteered to do the watering.
She told Judy and Tom she liked to sit outside in the early morning and enjoy her tea and would be happy to water the roses on Chelsey’s porch,” Rainier continued.
Harlow took a deep breath, her gaze clinging to Wilder’s. He didn’t look away, allowing her to use him to steady herself.
“Ms. Shumaker was found unconscious in the garden by the stairs leading up to the porch where the roses grew. She exhibited the same symptoms as Lawyer had, but whatever got her took her much faster. She never regained consciousness and died within three hours of being brought to the hospital.”
“Why wasn’t I called? They should have called me,” Harlow said, jumping out of her chair to pace the room. “I’m a trauma nurse. I work the ER. They should have called me.”
“What could you have done that Vienna and the others couldn’t do?” Rainier asked.
She tried not to resent his calm logic as her mind was going crazy the way it always did, trying to fit pieces of a puzzle together when there were still too many fragments missing.
“I don’t know, Rainier,” she answered, backing away from him to stare out the large bay windows of her studio.
“Something. Maybe if I saw her, I could figure out what is killing these people. That could have been Chelsey, Judy or Tom. One or two deaths, we can put down to something random, but four?” She turned around to face the two men.
“Four? Do you think that’s just some coincidence? ”
“Baby.” Wilder’s voice was gentle. Too gentle.
If he didn’t stop, she would end up in tears.
Crying wasn’t productive in the least. He just couldn’t be nice to her, or she was going to go to pieces.
What was wrong with her lately? She had always kept her emotions strictly under control.
Her therapist had told her that it wasn’t good for her.
Right now, the woman would be very happy that Harlow had turned into a weeping ninny.
“No, do you? Do either of you think it’s a coincidence that four people have died, all with similar symptoms, but we don’t know what killed them? Does that make sense to you?”
She made it a challenge. She knew something was wrong. Gut level, she knew. The trouble with being emotional and acting hysterical is that you won’t be taken seriously. She wanted someone to listen to her. “Raine,” she murmured aloud. “She’d hear me.”
“We both hear you, Harlow,” Rainier said. “But you haven’t told us what your theory is. It is obvious you have one, and it’s distressing to you.”
She glared at him, hands on her hips. “I know darn well Shabina tells you just about everything we talk about.” She didn’t want to give voice to the serial killer theory. What if that made it real? What if they agreed with her?
“Including your extremely inventive plans to break Raine out of the medical facility.” There was the slightest trace of humor in Rainier’s voice.
Wilder raised his eyebrow. “Am I going to have to have a separate account for bail money?”
“It would be a good idea. I tried to tell you what you’re getting into and to think long and hard before you take on a woman in their little circle, because you’re taking on all of them if you claim one. Poor Sam has gray hair already.”
Harlow rolled her eyes. “Poor Sam has no trouble getting all of us in line when he wants to. He has this steely look he gives us…” She broke off laughing.
“Okay, you’re right. Sam has been putting up with us for years.
We aren’t easy, especially when we go out for a girls’ night and he has to be the sober driver. ”
“Your idea of experiments with snakes is actually a good start,” Rainier said, returning to the original topic. “I discussed it with Raine, and she’s doing a deep search, hoping to uncover that possibility.”
She took a deep breath, her gaze clinging to Wilder’s.
“Could it be a serial killer, Rainier? Someone using a syringe to inject poison into whoever he or she wants dead? They might be covering their tracks, making it look random when it’s not.
” She chewed on her lower lip. “Or maybe it really is random and he doesn’t care who his victims are.
Maybe he’s in it for the thrill of the kill, of getting away with it. ”
She half expected—half hoped—they would make fun of her wild imagination. She wouldn’t have even voiced the idea, but there was Stella with her nightmares and Alek with the original idea.
“That’s an interesting theory,” Wilder ventured, his tone thoughtful. “I wouldn’t have gone there. In fact, it wouldn’t have occurred to me.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time someone was killing and making them look like accidents,” Rainier said. “Knightly and Yosemite have so many possibilities with the trails and lakes, as well as the higher elevations. This area does present a unique opportunity.”
“I think I was hoping you would tell me I’m having flights of fantasy and there was no possible way,” Harlow said.
“Are there links between the victims? Although I don’t see how a woman from out of town matches the others,” Wilder said.
“Unless she wasn’t the intended victim,” Harlow pointed out before she could stop herself. “It’s more likely that Chelsey, Tom or Judy was the target, and the killer, if there is one, was surprised by Edith Shumaker, so he killed her.”
“There is a bit of a problem with Helen McKay’s death fitting into the theory that it’s a serial killer,” Wilder said. “She had all those dogs. How could anyone get close enough to her to harm her when she had a pack of very protective dogs surrounding her?”
It was a good question. Harlow had considered that as well. “Gwen, her alpha female, appeared to have been poisoned, or injected with something. She’d clearly been in a few fights with predators. She must have gone down hard around the same time Helen did.”
“If Helen knew the killer and perhaps expected him,” Wilder said, “she might have told the dogs to stand down.”
“It’s possible,” Harlow agreed. “Helen mentored Zahra when Zahra wanted help training her puppy, Misty. She introduced the dogs to Zahra and let her visit often to observe her training techniques.” She hesitated and then stated what she feared the most. “Helen was very careful around most people. She would never have just allowed anyone onto her property, and she would have kept the dogs on alert with most people, even if she knew them.”