Page 36 of Mile High Mystery

“Promise me again.”

He said nothing. “What’s going on? What’s really going to happen?”

“I have to lie low for a little bit, that’s all.” She forced a smile, but her eyes were bleak. She stepped back. “I’ll be okay. You look after Mom and Dad and remember what we talked about.”

You weren’t there. You didn’t see anything.Except he had. He agreed with Camille that what he had seen probably didn’t mean anything and wouldn’t have made a difference in the outcome of the trial. But he hated that he had let her talk him into silence. She thought she knew what was best, but what if she was wrong?

“We have to go,” someone said.

Camille straightened her shoulders and fixed her smile more firmly in place. “I love you all,” she said. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

The door opened, and she left the room, though Zach could scarcely see her in the crowd of men who surrounded her. He caught a glimpse of pink from the dress she wore, showing in the midst of a wall of dark suits.

He didn’t know that would be the last time he would see his sister alive. Or that four years later, what had happened at the Britannia Pub would still be tearing at him.

ZACHDROVEWITHthe windows open, letting the cool night air help clear his muddled thinking. Shelby had thanked him for telling her the truth, but he hadn’t told her everything. He hadn’t mentioned the man who ran into the street shortly before Camille exited the building. He knew he should have said something, but so many years of keeping secrets made it hard to get the words out. It was almost as if he thought he would be dishonoring his sister by revealing what he had promised to keep secret. The Chalk brothers wanted Judge Hennessey dead. They had killed him. Whoever that third man was, he didn’t have anything to do with the crime. He was probably some street person, running from the sound of gunfire.

At least Shelby knew part of his secret. She knew he had been waiting for Camille the night of the murder. Even revealing that bit of truth had felt good, like letting off the pressure of a too tight tourniquet. That had to explain his response to her, that moment of electricity when he had fought not to pull her close.

The intensity of the moment had caught him off-guard, though he had been aware of a sexual tension between them from the moment he walked into her hotel room. He had put it down to the aftereffects of Janie’s attempted seduction. Shelby was an attractive woman, but she was also an FBI agent who was investigating his sister’s murder. She wasn’t interested in Zach as a man. Still, he had spent the hour or so he was in that room breathing in the soft floral scent of her perfume, noticing the way her hair curled around her cheek and the softness of her arm as she brushed against him as she typed on the keyboard.

And then she took hold of his arm, and he felt the connection. He had wanted that touch and more. Whether it was frustration or relief or simple loneliness, it had taken everything in him to turn away from her.

He pulled into his parking spot and headed toward his townhouse, but when he dug in his pocket for the door key, he couldn’t find it. He checked his other pockets, then retraced his steps to his car, thinking he might have dropped the key. But it was gone. Had he left it at Shelby’s hotel room? Frustrated, he grabbed the door knob, wondering if he could force the door open. To his surprise, it turned easily in his hand.

Goose bumps rose along his arm as he stared into the front room. “Hello?” he called, then felt foolish. If someone was inside, were they really going to answer him?

He reached inside and flipped on the light. The room looked undisturbed. Exactly as he left it. He stepped inside. Nothing was out of place. Had he simply forgotten to lock the door when he left for work this morning? He had never done that before, but he had a lot on his mind right now. He went to the bedroom and took his wallet from his pocket and set it on the dresser and checked again for the house key. No, it definitely wasn’t in any of his pockets.

He started to unbutton his shirt and turned toward the bathroom and froze. He stared at the small stuffed bear nestled between the pillows at the head of his bed. The kind of thing someone might buy for a child. What was it doing here?

Frowning, he moved closer. The bear, about ten inches tall, stared back at him with amber glass eyes. Was this someone’s idea of a joke? Angry now, he leaned forward and snatched up the bear. The head lolled to one side, stuffing spilling from the neck opening. Zach stared, cold all over. Someone had sliced through the neck so that the bear’s head hung by a thread.

Chapter Eleven

Shelby reread the last entry in Camille’s online journal, trying to find some clue she had missed before about Camille’s intentions. But the brief paragraph of an unspecified day’s activities was innocuous.Ran three miles this morning, rewarded myself with an iced mocha. Flirted with Dave, but neither of us is serious about it. Sasha was late again. Sushi for dinner, third time this week. I might be addicted!

Had she written about such mundane matters to throw Shelby and others like her off the track? There was nothing in the entry about threats or being followed or any suspicion that she might be in danger. That led Shelby to believe that whoever had killed Camille must have picked up her trail after she left her new life in Maryland. Had the Chalk brothers sent someone to watch for any activity near Zach or her parents? Or had they discovered her new identity and merely waited until she was alone and unprotected to strike?

Her phone rang, and she grabbed it up and stared at the screen. “Zach?” She glanced at the clock beside the bed. He had left the motel thirty minutes ago.

He cleared his throat. “Did I happen to leave my house key in your room?” he asked. “I got home and can’t find it.”

“I haven’t seen it. Let me look.” Still holding the phone, she stood and scanned the carpet between the bed and the door, then looked all around the furniture. “I don’t see it,” she said. “Do you think it could be at Mo’s?”

“Maybe.”

Something in his voice alarmed her. “Is everything okay? You sound...upset.”

A long silence. “Zach?”

“The thing is, when I tried the door, it was unlocked,” he said. “I never forget to lock the door.”

“Is everything inside okay? Do you want me to come over?”

“Everything is okay. Except...”

That silence again. It felt weighted. And wrong. “Zach, what is it?”

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