Page 20 of Mile High Mystery

“That helps me,” she said. “Knowing what motivated her. Can I come talk to you again about her?”

“Yeah. Sure.” His eyes met hers, and the depth of that gaze, the openness, made her unsteady. “It would help me, too,” he said. “Talking about her, to someone else who knew her.”

“Then it’s a deal.” She got into her car before she did something wildly inappropriate like throw her arms around him. He looked like he needed a hug, but she probably wasn’t the right person to give it. She was already in trouble with her supervisors for getting too personally involved with witnesses in her cases. She was well aware that they hadn’t sent her to Eagle Mountain because they expected actual results. They thought exiling her to this remote mountain town for a week or two might teach her a lesson about what it took to get ahead in the Bureau. They didn’t seem to understand that for her, getting ahead wasn’t nearly as important as getting the job right.

Chapter Seven

Four and a half years ago

Zach stood at the window of his childhood bedroom and peered through the blinds at the reporters lined up on the sidewalk in front of his parents’ house. News vans, white satellite dishes angled toward the sky, crowded curbs and blocked the neighbors’ driveways. Ever since someone had leaked Camille’s name to the media as the key witness in the upcoming Chalk brothers trial, it had been like this. Zach and his parents had to run a gauntlet every time they left the house.

Zach had moved back home shortly after Camille had been relocated to a safe house to await the trial. At first, it hadn’t been so bad. His parents were shaken, but they were strong people, and they were proud of their daughter for taking this stand.

But then the media attention had focused on them. Unwilling to allow his parents to face the constant presence of the reporters alone, Zach had asked for leave from his job. When that had been refused, he had resigned. At least he was big enough to intimidate all but the most forward reporters when he went out to buy groceries or run other errands.

A flash winked—someone taking yet another picture of their house. He stepped back from the window, and his cell phone vibrated. He didn’t recognize the number. This was probably a reporter, too, so he silenced the call. Seconds later, his voicemail alert chirped. Bracing himself for yet another appeal to “just answer a few questions” he called into his mailbox.

“Zach, it’s me! I have a new number.” Camille’s excitement carried through the phone. He pictured her pacing, the way she often did when she was on a call, as if she had too much energy to remain still. “Top secret and super secure and all that. Call me.”

He hit the call back button, and she answered right away. “What do you think you’re doing, ignoring me, you goof?” she demanded.

“I thought you were a reporter,” he said. “Those are the only calls I get these days. That, and the occasional stranger who wants to share his conspiracy theory related to the Chalk brothers.”

“I’m sorry about that. The feds are still trying to figure out who leaked my name to the press. But I don’t think it matters, really. I mean, my name was bound to get out there when I testify at the trial next week.”

“How are you doing?” he asked.Where are you? When can I see you?But he had learned not to ask those questions since that information, too, was top-secret. He accepted this was for her protection, but he hated not being able to see her. This was the longest they had been apart in their lives. Even when they had each gone away to college, they had come home for holidays and had visited each other’s schools.

“I’m great,” she said. “Everyone has been so nice, and this place where I’m staying is super posh. Some rich guy must be lending it to the government. Anything I want, they’re bending over backward to give me. I feel like some pampered celebrity. I guess the cops have worked so long to try to get something on the Chalk brothers, and I’m giving it to them, so they can’t do enough for me.”

“Are you nervous about the trial?” He certainly was.

“No. I’ve been working with the prosecution on my testimony. They want to prepare me so the defense team doesn’t rattle me. I feel really prepared, and I’m excited, really.”

“Why is that?” Why be excited about facing a couple of murderers who probably wanted her dead? His stomach turned at the thought.

“I feel so strong!” Camille said. “Ever since Laney died, I’ve been trying to figure out what I should do with my life. I mean, we were identical twins. Exactly alike, except that she got sick and I didn’t. Why was I spared, unless it was to do something important? I think this is it.”

“I don’t know if I believe life works like that,” he said.

“I never went back to work after I left for the night before,” she said. “Yet that one night—the night Judge Hennessey was murdered—I left my wallet and had to go back. If that hadn’t happened—something that had never happened before—I wouldn’t have been there and heard that shot and seen the Chalk brothers standing over him. And I wouldn’t be here now.”

No. She would be home with the rest of them. Safe. “I was there, too,” he said.

“Don’t say that. You weren’t there. You didn’t see anything.”

He wanted to argue, but he didn’t. Presumably, she was talking on a phone supplied to her by the FBI. They might have the phone bugged. Maybe they were listening in right now. “I want to do whatever I can to help,” he said.

“You’re doing it by staying with Mom and Dad. How are they?”

“Okay. They’re really proud of you.”

“I’m trying to make them proud. I was talking to a couple of the agents, and I think after the trial I might enroll in the law enforcement academy. Either that or law school. I haven’t decided. But I really think I’m meant to help bring bad people to justice.”

“When you were thirteen, you thought your destiny was to open an animal sanctuary.” She had been raising a litter of abandoned puppies at the time.

“I’m an adult now. And this is serious. I could never do this—give up my job and my friends and you and Mom and Dad—if I didn’t believe this was really important.”

“I know. But we miss you.”

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