“Sam?” His name came out wobbly. She glanced up, toward the roof of the bar. There was movement. Someone was watching them. They’d seen Jason and Denver as well.
“Keep looking at me, sweetheart. No one else is here but us. I clocked them the minute I came out.”
“What is going on? Why is everyone we know acting so weird? Do you know who is on the roof?”
“Bale and Sean are on the roof. Edward is on the other side of the street, a block up in a parked car. I don’t know why they were watching the bar. They know Search and Rescue always comes to the Grill to talk things over and process. Sometimes they even come in and listen, even if they don’t participate. Bale stayed inside until you left. He went out the back and Denver followed him. He must have climbed up the fire escape ladder to get on the roof to join Sean.”
“How do you see all that? I came out here and didn’t see anything. Jason startled me when he came up behind me. He told me to warn Shabina not to go off by herself bird watching. She goes into the forest all the time. Someone must be following her, Sam. He said it wasn’t safe. He whispered it to me, as if he knew we were being watched.”
“He probably knew his friends were watching. He took a chance warning you. I don’t think Sean would be very happy with him. Shabina should be careful. I think Sean’s fixated on her.”
Stella sighed. “All this time I thought my little piece of paradise was as perfect as it could get, but there are all these ugly things going on that I didn’t know about.”
He put his arm around her and turned her back toward the bar. “Do you want to go home?”
She did. Talking with the others about James Marley only made her feel guiltier that she hadn’t considered the killer would murder another victim knowing the sheriff would realize the death wasn’t an accident.
Sam walked her to the 4Runner and opened the door for her. Stella got in and put on her seatbelt automatically, a frown on her face as she tried to puzzle it out. “Sam, why wouldn’t the killer care that the sheriff knows he murdered Marley? I guess I presumed, since he went to the trouble of making it look like an accident, that he wouldn’t want anyone to know it was murder, but maybe I’m wrong.”
Sam glanced at her as he started them on the way back to the resort. “Not necessarily. He’s smart. What difference does it make if Griffen knows or anyone knows, but can’t prove it? If he kills several other people but there’s no evidence, if every other murder looks like an accident and no one is the wiser, he’s still in the clear. He can still thumb his nose at everyone.”
“Do you think he’s local?” Stella asked in a low voice. She held her breath, afraid of the answer. “I mean he could be someone who comes up here on a regular basis, right?”
“I thought that would be likely. Someone who came to fish or hunt or both. Maybe does climbing and fishing. The Sierras offer all kinds of activities. He might have been coming here for some time,” Sam said. “Something triggered him to kill and he’s started here, or maybe he was already doing it someplace else and is now bringing it here.”
Stella wanted it to be that, but it didn’t feel right to her. “Do you think he killed before this?”
Sam drove in silence for nearly half a mile. “He laid out his plan meticulously, Stella. I can’t imagine that it was his first time.”
“Don’t you think he panicked when he saw me underwater trying to save you? Would a seasoned killer panic?”
“Was he panicked or did he just want you away from him because you weren’t his chosen victim?” Sam asked. “We don’t know if he chooses victims yet. Maybe he doesn’t kill women. Or beautiful women. Or ones with curves. Or blonde hair and blue eyes. We have no idea.”
That was all true. They had no way of knowing. Stella sighed. They just had to wait. She knew there wasn’t going to be a way for the DA to make a case for murder no matter how diligently the sheriff investigated. What did they have to prove that James Marley had been murdered? It really did appear as if he’d slipped on a rock and hit his head and drowned. They had the killer’s earlier attack on Sam, but that could have been entirely unrelated. Not likely, but it could be argued. There was no evidence left behind to point to any person.
As always, they would have to wait until the killer decided to strike again.