Page 1 of Cold Case Murder Mystery

Chapter One

Brooke Campbell knew she was being followed.

Okay, scratch that. She didn’tknowit. There was no clear, incontrovertible proof. And there were certainly times when she was deep in a case and her paranoia got the best of her.

Maybe she was imagining things. Her current case was deep and disturbing. She’d originally been brought to Sunrise, Wyoming, to study the found human remains of two bodies, but when that assignment had ended with two police officers being held captive in a cave, it had led to the discovery of evenmoreremains.

Brooke’s latest count was up to twenty different corpses discovered deep in the cave system of a local nature preserve. As a forensic anthropologist, she had excavated and studied many human remains, but never so many in one place.

Brooke loved her work, but some cases were... more affecting. Especially since the police thought they had the perpetrator locked up and... Brooke wasn’t so sure.

Still, it was possible the fact that this same silver sedan had been tailing her every day for the past three days was a coincidence.

She really wanted it to be. When she turned into the parking lot of the little diner, a deviation from the past two days, and the car didn’t follow, she breathed a sigh of relief.

Her relief lasted only about ten minutes. She was seated in a booth by the window, sipping her coffee and waiting for her food, when out of the corner of her eye, she saw a familiar silver sedan pull into the parking lot across the way.

It parked. No one got out.

She could keep ignoring it. Pretend it wasn’t happening. No one had tried to approach her. There’d been no threat of or attempt at violence toward her, so who knew what it might be about. If itwasn’ta coincidence, then it might not be nefarious. She likely shouldn’t worry about it.

But the last thing she wanted to do was to return to her pretty and cozy andisolatedrental cabin all by herself for the night knowing that someonemightbe following her. Camped out across the streetwatchingher.

She could call the police. She knew quite a few Bent County deputies and detectives now, as well as some deputies and the sheriff from the Sunrise—and her rental cabin was technicallyinSunrise so these would all be reasonable people to reach out to. But...

If she was going to tell them, she would have done it already. And shehadn’ttold them for a number of reasons. But it came back to a simple one.

She wanted to crack this case. She was so close. It would be the biggest of her career—not just because of the unfathomable body count, but for how long the skeletal remains had been hidden.

Brooke had solved a lot of crimes as a forensic anthropologist, but this one would point to more than just the current suspect. It would, hopefully, allow the police to find another murderer. Worst of all, Brooke still hadn’t reached the end of remains—which meant there were more bodies to analyze and hopefully identify. Maybe another person could do it, but she didn’twantthat.

Maybe she wasn’t the best forensic anthropologist in the world, but she knew she was good, with a unique set of skills. She couldn’t risk being taken off the case.

She was afraid any threat to her—real or only perceived—would have her lifted from it. Granted, isolated Wyoming wasn’t thick on the ground with forensic anthropologists, butstill.She had to protect her ability to keep working.

She sat with that feeling for another ten minutes. Excavating it. Because she did have an alternative to telling the police. But she needed to know, for sure, that she wasn’t making excuses so she wouldhaveto take the alternative.

Zeke Daniels. Oh, he’d been such a mistake. She still couldn’t believe she was back in his orbit after all this time, but his friends had needed a forensic anthropologist and he knew one of those.

Or had. Very well. Very,verywell. Back when they’d both been members of a secret group that had first organized to take down a dangerous and powerful biker gang in South Dakota. After they’d succeeded in that mission, they’d taken on others until the entire organization had disbanded about three years ago.

And in between those two things, she had fallen in love with Zeke Daniels and he’d let her think he’d loved her too. Then he’d broken her heart, crushed it into teeny-tiny pieces. Maybe she’d been naïve enough to deserve it, and maybe it hadn’t even beenallhis fault.

Brooke scowled into her coffee. No, she didn’twantto see Zeke. Maybe she was curious about how he’d fared, but she didn’t want to risk getting caught up inhimagain.

So, she supposed, that was her answer. She didn’twanthis help but kind of needed it.

She pulled out her cell phone, still watching the car across the road through her peripheral vision. She brought up the email he’d last sent her that had included his phone number in case she “needed anything” while in Sunrise. Brooke typed the number into her phone, doing her best to never fully take her gaze off the car.

It rang once, then a deep voice answered.

“Brooke?”

Did he have her number programmed into his phone?Wow, Brooke, that means absolutely nothing.Unfortunately the wholebodyreaction to his voice meant more than she’d like.

“Hi, Zeke.”

“Everything all right?”

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