Page 41 of Mile High Mystery

Sheriff Walker nodded.

Zach left, Shelby on his heels. “You don’t have to babysit me,” he said. “I got the locks changed, and I promise to dial 911 if anything at all unusual happens.”

“By then it could be too late.”

“Look, if Janie or Todd really wanted me dead, wouldn’t they have killed me by now? They’ve had plenty of opportunities. You don’t think Camille had days and days of warnings, do you?”

She probably wouldn’t appreciate it if he told her she looked cute when she frowned like that. Something about her intensity really got to him. “You shouldn’t be alone,” she said.

“You can’t stay with me,” he said.

“Why not?”

“You’re too distracting.” He met and held her gaze. The faintest blush of pink colored her cheeks.

“I... I’m sure we can get past that,” she stammered.

Did he really want to “get past” his feelings for her? He shook his head. “I’ll stay in touch.”

She let him walk away, though he felt the effort it took. Once he was in his truck, he looked back. She was still frowning at him, lips pressed tightly together. What did it say about him that in spite of everything else, all he wanted to do was kiss her?

Chapter Twelve

“There’s been a new development.” Shelby sat up straight and kept her expression neutral, just as if she was seated across from Special Agent in Charge Lester, instead of speaking to him on the phone. “A threat has been made against Camille Gregory’s brother, and I’ve identified two suspects in her murder. I need to stay in Eagle Mountain a little longer.”

“Who are the suspects?” Lester asked.

“A man calling himself Todd Arniston and a woman named Janie. Both names could be aliases. They were known to be in the same area as Camille at the time of her murder, and they have both shown an unusual interest in Zach Gregory. His townhouse was broken into the other night after his house key was taken, and both of them had the opportunity to take the key.”

“Have the local authorities brought them in for questioning?”

“After the break-in at Zach’s, they’ve disappeared, though I believe they are still in the area.” She had no proof of this, merely a strong hunch.

“How was Gregory threatened?”

She explained about the mutilated bear. “Camille often referred to her brother as a ‘bear of a man’ or a ‘teddy bear of a man,’” she added.

“This doesn’t sound like the Chalk brothers,” Lester said. “They don’t play games with the people they kill. They assassinate them, and they don’t leave evidence behind.”

“If Todd or Janie are working for the Chalk brothers, they haven’t shown up on our radar before,” she admitted. “But Camille definitely believed her brother was in danger. I think that’s why she came to Eagle Mountain.”

“If she believed that, she should have shared her fears with the Marshals Service and the FBI and allowed us to investigate,” Lester said.

“Yes, sir.” Shelby thought she knew why Camille hadn’t done so. She hadn’t trusted law enforcement to act on her suspicions. Or she hadn’t believed they would act in time. Testimony at the Chalk brothers trial had shown that the FBI was aware of the threat to Judge Hennessey weeks before he was murdered, and they had failed to act. Camille hadn’t wanted to take a chance that her brother would meet the same fate.

“We have the DNA results on the hair you sent from Camille’s campsite,” Lester said. “There’s no match in any database we’ve consulted.”

“So this could be someone the Chalks haven’t used before.”

“Or someone unrelated to the Chalk brothers. Camille was a single woman, camping alone. She could have been killed by someone random who saw her and decided to kill her, or because she refused someone’s advances, or because they wanted her campsite. As much as we’d like to prove the Chalk brothers are guilty of some crime, not everything necessarily relates back to them.”

“Yes, sir. But we need to prove that before we move on. I’d like to stay a little longer and continue to look for Todd and Janie. Questioning them might clear up everything.”

“All right. We’ll take it day by day.”

She ended the call and stood. She might not have much time left in town, so she needed to get to work.

She started at the front desk of the Ranch Motel. No registration for anyone who fit Janie’s description. She moved on to the Nugget Inn, a sprawling new property in the center of town. The sheriff’s department had said Arniston was registered here, but the clerk confirmed that he had checked out the previous afternoon.

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