Page 54 of Mile High Mystery

He fell back on the bed and pulled her on top of him. He caressed her hip and smiled. “I was beginning to think this was never going to happen.”

“Oh?” She straddled him, palms flat on his chest. “Have you been fantasizing about me?”

“All the time.” He pulled her down and kissed her mouth, then began to work his way down her body.

She sighed again. “Do you like that?” he asked as he traced his tongue beneath her breasts.

“I do. And this.” She moved his hand to cover her nipple.

“What about this?” she asked a few moments later, as she shifted against him.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, and tucked her more securely against him. “And I like this view.”

The men she had been with before hadn’t talked much in bed. It wasn’t that they ignored what she wanted—most were considerate lovers. But none took the time to check in with her the way Zach did. It surprised her, considering how quiet he was in everyday life. And it added another layer of connection she hadn’t experienced before.

By the time he rolled on the condom and she welcomed him inside her, she felt tied to him more than physically. He held her gaze as the tension between them built, and when she felt herself on the edge, he kissed her with such tenderness tears stung her eyes, even as her body shuddered with passion. Then she felt his own release, moving through her, too.

Afterward, they lay curled together, silent, as if they had said everything that needed saying. She fought sleep, wanting this intense closeness to last as long as possible. But she must have drifted off anyway because the next thing she knew, Zach was shaking her. “Your phone is ringing,” he said. “Do you need to answer it?”

She groaned, then sank back onto the pillows when the phone stopped ringing. But the message alert sounded almost immediately. “I’d better check,” she said and struggled to a sitting position. She wrapped the sheet around her and made her way into the front room and retrieved her phone from her purse and carried it with her back into the bedroom.

Zach was sitting up now, too, blankets around his hips. She stared for a moment, struck by the thought that she would never get tired of looking at this man naked. “Who called?” he asked.

She came out of her daze and looked at the phone. “The sheriff.” Her heart sped up as she tapped in the code to access her voicemail.

As usual, Sheriff Walker didn’t mince words. “Call me,” he said.

She returned his call and waited while the phone rang once, twice...on the third ring, he picked up. “Where are you?” he asked.

“Why do you need to know that?”

“We just found Todd Arniston.”

“Where did you find him?” And why did she care? Hadn’t the sheriff already dismissed Todd as a suspect?

“We found him in a car parked on the road near the Piñon Creek campground. He was shot in the back of the head. He’s dead.”

She gasped, and Zach leaned toward her. “What is it?” he asked.

“I’ll be right there,” she said to the sheriff.

“There’s something else you should know,” Walker said. “We just got a report on the fingerprints we sent in. Todd Arniston wasn’t his real name. His real name was Thomas Chalk.”

Chapter Sixteen

Zach insisted on going with Shelby to the sheriff’s department. The sheriff, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, met them at the back of the dark building. He frowned at Zach, but didn’t say anything and allowed him to follow Shelby to a cramped office. Zach settled into one of the two chairs facing the desk. Walker sat behind the desk and tapped the keyboard to wake up his computer.

“Thomas Chalk is Charlie and Christopher Chalk’s nephew, is that right?” Shelby asked. “I remember the name from our files, but I can’t recall anything about him.”

“Great nephew,” Walker said. “He’s the grandson of their older brother, Carter Chalk.”

“Carter isn’t involved in the family businesses,” Shelby said. She turned to Zach. “Carter made a point of cutting himself off from the rest of the family as soon as he was out of college. He operates a ranch in Wyoming and, as far as we’ve been able to determine, has no involvement with any of their affairs.”

“There’s more,” Walker said. “Thomas has an older brother, Martin.” He angled the computer screen toward them to show a photograph of a dark-haired young man with a prominent nose.

Gooseflesh rose on Zach’s arms. “That’s the man I saw outside the Britannia Pub the night the judge was killed,” he said.

“You’re sure?” Walker asked.

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