Page 49 of Mile High Mystery

He was less happy when he parked by his townhouse and saw a familiar figure waiting by the door to his home. “What are you doing here?” he demanded when Todd Arniston straightened at his approach. Todd wore jeans and a T-shirt and a messenger bag slung over one shoulder.

“I was hoping we could talk,” Todd said. “Just the two of us.”

Zach stopped several feet away, wary. This guy didn’t look like an assassin. Then again, what did an assassin look like? “I’m glad you weren’t badly hurt in your accident, and I was happy to help,” Zach said, “but I don’t think we have anything else to say to each other.” He needed to get inside and call Shelby. And maybe the sheriff, too. He tried to move past the other man to unlock his door, but Todd stepped in front of him.

“I want to be straight with you,” Todd said. “I’m not just a hapless tourist. I’m a writer. I’m working on a book about the Chalk brothers.”

Zach went very still. Was this guy telling the truth? “So you’re not just here on vacation?”

Todd’s face reddened. “I am, but I’m also here to see you. I’ve been researching this book ever since the Chalk brothers trial, and I’ve got lots of great material. I wanted to interview your sister, but she disappeared before I had a chance to talk to her. So I tracked you down to here and thought you could tell me about her. I mean, I really can’t tell this story without including Camille.”

Zach’s new house key bit into his palm where he gripped it so tightly. “Why didn’t you tell me you were at the Forest Service campground when it flooded?” he asked. “Were you following Camille? Were you the man someone saw around Camille’s campsite the day she was killed?”

Todd’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know Camille was there! I thought she was dead. Everyone did. I was there camping, like everyone else. I was trying to figure out how to contact you. I didn’t even know until later that you were part of the Search and Rescue team. I was too focused on getting out of there safely.”

His expression transformed from fear to excitement. “There was a man at her campsite before she died? Seriously? Do the cops think he killed her? What can you tell me about that?” He pulled a pad of paper and a pen from his messenger bag.

“I can’t tell you anything.” Zach took a step forward, forcing Todd to move out of the way, and inserted the key in the lock.

“You can tell me about Camille,” Todd said. “She’s such an important part of the story. What she did—testifying against the Chalk brothers—that took a lot of guts. I see her as the real heroine of the story, you know. But I need that personal touch—a glimpse of her personality. You can show me that.”

Zach turned away. His memories of Camille were personal and not something he cared to share with a stranger. Talking about her wouldn’t bring her back, and doing so wouldn’t help put the Chalk brothers behind bars. That was the worst thing about this whole sorry mess—Camille had given up everything, including her life, to try to bring justice to two killers who were never going to pay for their crimes. She could have still been alive, maybe with a partner and children, a career she loved, still with her friends and family. Instead, she was gone, and they had nothing.

“Talk to me, Zach,” Todd prompted.

“I don’t have anything to say.” He shoved open the door. When Todd tried to follow, Zach slammed the door in his face.

Todd pounded on the door. “Let me in,” he said. “I just want ten minutes.”

“Go away, or I’ll call the police.”

That shut him up. Zach went into the kitchen and pulled out his phone. “Todd Arniston was here,” he told Shelby as soon as she answered. “He says he’s writing a book about the Chalk brothers, and he wants to interview me about Camille.” He returned to the front window and watched Todd’s white sedan pull out of the parking lot. “He’s gone now.”

“Why didn’t you keep him there until the sheriff or I could get there?”

“Because I don’t want to talk to the guy. And it’s not like he threatened me or anything. Now you know for sure he’s still in town, so you should be able to find him. I have to go now.”

He sank onto the sofa, his good mood of earlier in the day vanished. Not for the first time, he told himself he never should have driven Camille to the police station the night the judge was killed. He should have taken her home and told her to keep her mouth shut. To stay safe.

Even as he thought this, a smile tugged at his mouth as he imagined Camille’s reaction to this ploy. She would have lectured him, probably about justice but also about how no one was going to tell her what to do with her life, especially not herlittlebrother. Never mind that Zach was almost a foot taller than her.

Then he should have gone into the police station with her and told his story about seeing a man running down the street near the pub right after the shots were fired.

Again, Camille’s reply came to him—her actual words this time. “They don’t need what you have to say.” Only much later had he realized the subtext behind that message. Camille wanted to be the star of this show. She didn’t want to share the spotlight with Zach, whose “evidence” probably didn’t mean anything anyway. Camille was the eyewitness. She was the one who mattered.

Zach believed that, too. Shelby talked about police artists and trying to find that running man, but that wasn’t going to convict the Chalk brothers. Whoever that guy was, he had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just like Zach.

The doorbell rang, and he blew out an exasperated breath, then heaved himself off the sofa and stalked to the door. “I told you to leave me alone!” he bellowed, and turned the dead bolt.

Shelby glared up at him. “You didn’t say anything about leaving you alone, and even if you did, I wouldn’t have listened,” she said, and pushed past him into the living room.

“Sorry.” He closed the door behind her. “I thought maybe Todd had come back.”

“I called the sheriff’s department after I talked to you, and they’re looking for him. It would help if you could tell us what he was driving.”

“A white sedan. Something small. A Chevy, I think. Probably a rental car.”

“What did he say to you?”

---