Page 33 of Mile High Mystery

That was wrong move number one. Number two was marching up to the booth where he sat with the big Hawaiian dude from Search and Rescue and that blonde beauty queen who practically had blue fire shooting out of her eyes when Shelby had dared to talk to Zach. Where had she come from? Though Zach had never answered her question about whether or not he was involved with someone, her own discreet checking had indicated he was still pretty much a loner. And though he and the blonde—Janie—had been sitting very close together, she had sensed that Zach wasn’t all that happy about it. But maybe she had been reading him wrong, and what he was really unhappy about was her intruding on his evening.

Mistake number three was giving Zach the chance to say anything about Camille or the laptop in public. She would have been smarter to wait until he returned her call or text and arrange a meeting at a later date and time. Now she just felt foolish and out of sorts.

Who was that woman? There was nothing in Zach’s file about anyone named Janie. He said he had met her at the campground the day Camille died, but was that true? And now she was back in Eagle Mountain, cozying up to him in that booth at Mo’s.

As soon as Camille had mentioned she was worried about her brother, Shelby had begun gathering as much information as possible about Zach, and she hadn’t run into any mention of Janie or any other woman in his life. She had told herself she was doing it in order to reassure Camille that he was safe, but as weeks passed, Shelby had to admit she became more and more interested in the “big bear,” as Camille referred to him. The information she had been able to glean had formed a picture of a quiet, intelligent, hurting man who was struggling to recover from the trauma of losing his sister and rebuild his life.

He was struggling, but he was winning the struggle, she had told Camille. Some people never got over tragedy in their lives, but Zach was stronger than most, physically as well as mentally. Shelby had found herself silently rooting for him when she realized he was staying put in Eagle Mountain longer than any other place he had lived in the past four years. He was part of a community here. He had friends. He was going to be all right.

She ought to be happy he was dating again. Camille would have been. But seeing him with that woman, who was crowding him in the booth as if she wanted to keep him from running away, had unsettled her. Why?

A knock on the door startled her. She froze. Who would be knocking on her door this time of night? The knock came again. “Shelby, are you in there? It’s me, Zach.”

She let out a breath, then checked the security peep. Zach stood in front of the door, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a boxer in the ring before the bell sounded. She unfastened the chain and the dead bolt and opened the door. “How did you know which room was mine?” she asked.

“I didn’t. I knocked on all the doors on this floor until a guy told me you were in this room.”

So much for security. She opened the door wider and let him in. “You didn’t have to break off your date,” she said. “This could have waited until morning.”

“It wasn’t a date,” he said.

“Oh?”

“Eldon and I went climbing and stopped by Mo’s for a beer and ran into Janie. You remember, I told you she was one of the people we helped evacuate from the flood last week.” He froze, then swore. “She was at the campground with Camille. I should have asked her if she saw Camille. Maybe she spoke to her. Or maybe she saw someone with her...”

“The sheriff’s deputies interviewed all the other campers,” Shelby said. “Camille kept to herself and didn’t speak to any of them except one man who made a point of speaking to her. He was the only one who saw anyone near her camp.”

He still looked stricken. “Still, I should have asked. I was so taken aback by the way she was coming on to me.” He flushed.

“She was coming on to you?” Shelby’s conscience told her this was none of her business, but this information—and Zach’s obvious distress—intrigued her.

“She was just...really grateful,” he said.

“Does that happen very often?” she asked. “Grateful women throwing themselves at you?”

He laughed, though there was no mirth in the sound. “Never. And Eldon says it’s never happened to him.”

“She was very pretty.”In an overdone kind of way, Shelby silently added. Was that catty of her? Maybe.

“I don’t even know her.” He straightened his shoulders. “I guess I prefer it if a woman lets me do at least a little pursuing. Or at least if the attraction leads to something mutual.”

“You’re not one for a one-night stand?”

Again the flush. It made him look boyish. “Let’s just say I like to know a woman longer than ten minutes before we decide to go home together.”

“I shouldn’t have interrupted you,” she said. “I apologize.”

“No. It’s okay. What did you need to talk to me about?”

She looked around for somewhere for them both to sit. The room contained only one chair and a table so small they would have difficulty both sitting at it. She settled for the end of the bed. She sat and indicated the spot beside her. “I want you to take a look at something on Camille’s laptop.”

The mattress dipped beneath his weight as he settled beside her, and she braced one foot on the floor to keep from sliding into him. Why did the fact that they were sitting on a bed and not a sofa feel so much more intimate? She pushed aside the thought and booted up the laptop.

“Our forensic experts will take a look at this more closely when I send it in,” she said. “I’m just doing a quick scan to see if there’s anything that seems significant right away. What I’m going to show you caught my attention, but I don’t know if it means anything.” The password screen opened, and she typed inCMONKEY1016, and the home screen loaded.

“How did you know her password?” he asked.

“The background of her password screen is of sea monkeys,” she said. “October 16 is the night Judge Hennessey was murdered.”

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