Chapter Ten

Shelby paced back and forth in the small space between the bed and the door in her hotel room. She had handled this evening with Zach all wrong. When she had spotted the message on Camille's laptop, she had been so anxious to figure out what it meant that she had contacted him right away. But his phone had gone to voicemail, and he hadn't answered her texts. She had started to drive to his townhouse, but when she passed Mo's Pub, she saw his truck parked at the curb and decided to go inside.

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 in CMONKEY1016 , 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."

"The night that changed her life," he said. "Still, I probably wouldn't have figured out her password."

"The two of us spent a lot of time together. I knew how she thought." About some things, anyway. She hadn't realized Camille planned to leave WITSEC and head to Colorado until it was too late.

She opened a file labeled MeOhMy. "This was the first thing that caught my attention." She angled the computer so Zach could read the screen. "She's keeping kind of a journal here. This first entry explains her intentions. Read it, then I'll take you to the entry I need your help with."

She reread the entry along with Zach: I'm starting this journal as a place to write down my thoughts and maybe make sense of some things. I figure it's better to put it here than on paper. If I write for long, my hand cramps, and if I need to, I can easily erase this file and even destroy the whole computer. Phillip showed me how to do that, in a way that no data can be discovered.

"Who's Phillip?" Zach asked.

"He was the marshal she was involved with. None of the entries are dated, but move to the third entry."

He scrolled down to the entry in question: I watched an interview online with Charlie Chalk. It was an old one, filmed not long after his and Christopher's trial ended, but I had never seen it before. Something he said made my blood freeze. He said, "There were other people involved that night, and they're the ones who will pay."

I kept running the video back to replay that part. Maybe he was trying to imply that someone else—a third person—killed Judge Hennessey. That's what his defense team said all along. But Charlie knows that isn't true. So maybe he meant someone else was there that night. And the Chalk brothers are the ones who will make that person pay.

Claude, are you safe? Do you even know how to be safe? I've learned so much in the past four years. Mostly what I've learned is how naive I was before. I thought I had taken care of everything, but maybe I was wrong.

"Who is Claude?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I don't know."

But he wouldn't meet her gaze, and his face had lost most of its color. She carefully set the laptop aside and angled toward him. "Don't lie to me, Zach. I'm being honest with you. I didn't have to share any of this with you, but I did. All I ask is the same consideration in turn."

He stood, everything in his body language telling her he wanted to flee. "She didn't have any friends or coworkers named Claude." He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and stared at the floor.

"There are other entries in here where the names have obviously been changed," Shelby said. She struggled to keep her voice even, though she wanted to shout at him that she wasn't oblivious—and that he was a terrible liar. "I think Claude is a code name, or maybe a nickname. And I think you know who she's talking about. Whose safety is she so worried about, and why?"

He stiffened, hands knotted in fists, jaw tightening, doing battle with himself. She waited, silently willing him to trust her with the truth. After a long, tense moment, he blew out a breath. "She called me Claude sometimes," he said. "There's a bear at the Houston Zoo with that name, and she teased me that I looked like him. But I don't know why she was worried about me."

"That's a sweet story, not an embarrassing one," she said. "Thank you for telling me."

He still looked miserable. Out of proportion for what had been a pretty innocuous revelation. "What about the other stuff she wrote?" he asked. "Do the Chalk brothers think someone else was at the restaurant the night Judge Hennessey was killed? Are they telling the truth about a third man who was the actual murderer?"

"We've looked into the theory and found nothing to support it." She stood and went to face him. She needed to ask the question she should have asked long before now. "We know Shelby's car was in the shop for repairs the night Judge Hennessey was murdered," she said. "One of her coworkers said that you sometimes picked her up from work when her car wasn't available."

"She took the bus," he said. "She told you that."

"That's what she told us, but is it true? Did you pick her up from Britannia that night? Were you there? Did you see what happened? Is that why Camille was so worried about you? She heard the Chalk brothers were saying someone else was there that night and vowing to make that person pay? Were you that person?"

He grimaced as if in physical pain. "I didn't see the murder," he said. "I was waiting for her outside."

Some part of her had known this would be his answer. "All those times Camille insisted that she was alone at Britannia that night never rang all the way true for me," she said. "She put such emphasis on that one fact—she was by herself, she was alone, she was the only one to hear that gunshot—it was too much. But at the time of the initial investigation, before my time with the Bureau, no one ever doubted her or bothered to collect evidence to prove or disprove her assertion."

"She insisted that since hers was the only testimony needed to prove the Chalk brothers had murdered Judge Hennessey, there was no point putting myself in danger," he said. "She said our parents didn't need two children involved in that kind of danger. And...and I guess it was easier for me to agree with her." He looked away. "She was the brave one. I was a coward, letting her face that alone."

His pain pierced her. She took hold of his arm. "Camille wanted to do it alone," she said. "She may have wanted to protect you and her parents, too, but I think at least part of her didn't want to share the attention."

His gaze met hers, and the gratitude that burned there washed over her. "You really did know her, didn't you?"

"Yes." She told herself she ought to let go of him, but the physical connection between them felt too good to relinquish. "Camille liked the attention and praise she got for testifying against the Chalk brothers. I don't blame her for that. What she did was important and good. But I don't think she wanted to share that spotlight."

"Would it have made any difference if I had testified that I sat outside in my truck and waited for her?" he asked.

"I don't think so."

He put his hand over hers on his arm. He touched her hand, but she felt the sensation all through her body, warming her. Making her feel more alive. The contact only lasted a second but seemed much longer as she stared into his eyes.

Then he lifted her hand away and stepped back, breaking the contact. "I'd better go," he said.

She nodded. She didn't want him to leave, but he was right. Nothing good would come of him staying. "Thank you for telling me the truth," she said.

"I'm sorry I didn't say something before. Maybe if I had, Camille would still be alive."

"You can't know that. She liked taking risks. Maybe she was growing bored in WITSEC. If she hadn't decided to leave protection to see you, she might have found some other excuse. She wouldn't be the first person to take that kind of risk simply for the thrill. When you've been at the center of such intense excitement for years, a normal life must seem very dull."

She couldn't tell from his expression whether he believed her or not. "Good night," he said, and walked out.

She locked the door behind him, then pressed her forehead to the cool metal of the door. Her hand was still warm where he had touched her. That one moment of intense chemistry had been such a rush. She shouldn't have let it happen, but she could never regret it. Camille wasn't the only person in this mess who liked to live dangerously.

Four years ago

"W E FIND THE defendants not guilty."

Zach didn't hear the next words. Not because the crowd erupted into shouts, the judge slamming down his gavel to restore order. Zach didn't hear because the white noise of confusion filled his head. How could this be happening? Camille had been inside the Britannia Pub the night Judge Andrew Hennessey was murdered. She had heard the shot and looked into the dining room to see Charlie and Christopher Chalk standing over the dying man. She had testified to everything she had seen, not wavering when the Chalk brothers' lawyer tried to bully her and practically accused her of lying.

He had never been more proud than he had been when seeing his sister seated in the witness box, head up and back straight, telling her story with no sign of fear, though the dark eyes of the Chalk brothers bored into her.

But something had gone wrong. The Chalk brothers weren't going to prison for the rest of their lives. They were going to walk away from the courthouse as free men.

"What went wrong?" He lunged forward and grabbed the arm of the lead prosecutor as the man turned to leave the courtroom.

The man glared and shook him off. "No comment," he said, and walked away.

Zach looked around the room for his parents, from whom he had become separated in the chaos after the verdict was announced. He spotted the back of his father's head amid a sea of reporters wielding microphones and cameras, and bulled his way through the crowd to him. "How do you feel, knowing your daughter risked her life for nothing?" a man in a stylish blue suit and dark glasses asked as he thrust a microphone in Zach's mother's face.

Zach leaned forward and shoved the microphone away, then put his arm around his mother. "Come on, Mom," he said. "Let's get out of here."

The surrounding reporters raised their voices, firing more questions. "No comment!" Zach all but shouted, then steered his parents away.

Two FBI agents emerged out of nowhere and herded Zach and his parents into an elevator and upstairs. "Where are you taking us?" Zach's mother asked, but neither of the feds answered—two men in identical dark blue suits, with identical grim expressions.

They led the way to a door and opened it. Zach filed in after his parents, and Camille embraced them. She was pale, her eyes swollen and reddened, as if she had been crying. The prosecutor was there, too, looking less grim than before.

"What happened?" The question came from Zach's dad now. His father, who was only fifty, was looking ten years older, his shoulders stooped, his hair thinning at the back.

"The defense team planted enough doubt that the jury failed to convict," the prosecutor—a man named Zable—said.

"But I was there," Camille said. "I saw the Chalk brothers standing over the judge's body seconds after that gunshot."

"But you didn't see the gun or see them pull the trigger."

Zach had heard the defense team make the argument that because Camille hadn't witnessed the moment the bullet was fired, the jury couldn't say with 100 percent certainty that the Chalk brothers had killed the judge. Their contention was that someone else had run in and fired that fatal shot while the Chalk brothers were meeting with the judge. Zach hadn't thought anyone would believe that theory.

"Can you appeal?" he asked. "Ask for a new trial?"

"Not on a murder charge," the prosecutor said. "Once a person is declared not guilty of murder, they can't be tried again. Our constitution prohibits double jeopardy."

Zach's dad stood with his arm around his daughter. "What happens now?" he asked.

The prosecutor and the two agents looked at Camille. She eased away from her father. "It's going to be okay, Dad," she said. "I'm going to have police protection for a little while longer, just to make sure I'm okay."

"Is she going to be okay?" His father addressed the agents. "These men are killers. Thugs. They know who Camille is and that she testified against them. What's to keep them from going after her?"

"We have a lot of experience protecting witnesses," one of the agents—the one with the grayer hair—said. "You don't need to worry." He turned to Camille. "You need to say goodbye so that we can leave."

She blinked rapidly, as if fighting tears, then moved over to Zach and hugged him tightly. "Don't say anything to anyone," she whispered. "Promise me."

"I already promised," he said.

"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.

Z ACH DROVE WITH the 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.