Chapter Fourteen

Zach was at his desk at the mine when he received a text from Eagle Mountain Search and Rescue. Injured hiker Cascade Trail near falls. The choice between continuing to transcribe the most recent assay figures or hiking a beautiful mountain trail to help someone wasn't a difficult one to make. Zach shut down his computer and walked down the hall to his supervisor's office. "I got a page about an injured hiker," he said. "I don't have anything pressing going on right now."

"Go." Devlin Shaw, chief metallurgical engineer, waved toward the door. "And be careful."

Zach wasn't surprised to see Eldon jogging across the parking lot ahead of him. Zach waved and followed Eldon's Jeep out of the lot to Search and Rescue headquarters.

"Danny's stuck at work," Ryan informed them when they, along with Caleb, Anna and Christine, assembled at headquarters. "I talked to Hannah. EMS has been in phone contact with the hiker, a sixty-year-old woman, Lynette Marx. She slipped on loose rock, and it sounds like she broke her ankle. We need to take a wheeled litter up the trail and get her down to the ambulance."

This kind of rescue wasn't as exciting or potentially dangerous as evacuating someone off the side of the mountain, but it still required the team to work together to make sure they had all the equipment they needed to get the patient to medical help safely. "There are some steep, rocky sections on that trail," Eldon said as he and Zach loaded the collapsible litter onto the team's rescue vehicle, dubbed the Beast. "It will take some muscle to get the loaded litter over those."

"Everybody watch your step," Ryan advised as he added a pack with medical supplies to the load. "The last thing we want is to have to evacuate one of you because you broke a bone, too."

Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at the Cascade trailhead to find a waiting ambulance and a handful of onlookers. Most appeared to be fellow hikers, identifiable by their daypacks and hiking boots. But a flash of blond hair made Zach do a double take. The woman had her back to him, but she was tall, and he was almost sure it was Janie. But that couldn't be right. Shelby had said the local deputies hadn't been able to locate her to question her after Zach's apartment was broken into.

"What's she doing here?" Eldon spoke over Zach's shoulder. He was also staring at the woman, who was walking away now. Almost as if she hadn't seen them.

"I don't know." Zach wanted to go after her, but he couldn't leave the team. Instead, he crouched to slide the straps of a pack onto his shoulders, then carefully straightened. One-half of the litter was strapped to Zach's pack. Caleb already had the pack with the other half of the litter, while Eldon would carry the mounting bracket and single wheel that would help them get the loaded litter down the trail. The rest of the team carried braces, splints, helmets and other medical and safety gear.

Hannah Richards, a Rayford County paramedic, waited for them at the trailhead. She would be in charge of the medical assessment and delivering any pain medication the patient might need. Ryan looked back over the assembled group. "All right," he said. "Let's go."

As Zach headed out, he took a last look at the hikers milling about the parking area. No sign of the blonde. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him. Janie wouldn't have ignored him—although maybe she was upset that he had turned down her advances the other night. And Eldon had thought it was her, too.

He stumbled and Anna put out a hand to steady him. "Thanks," he muttered, and focused on the trail. The hike was a steep one, switchbacking up the side of the mountain on a path that was supposedly once used by mule teams to transport ore from the now defunct Simpson mine. The mine ruins were a popular draw for hikers, as was the view from the top of the trail into a wildflower-filled basin. Zach was soon breathing hard, but keeping up with the others. No one spoke much, focused on moving as quickly as possible toward a woman who was probably in pain.

Lynette Marx was pale but cheerful when they reached her. "I am so glad to see you all," she said as the volunteers surrounded her. She lay on the ground in a stand of aspen trees beside the trail, one foot, stripped of its hiking boot, propped on a fallen tree, her pack beneath her head. A young couple who had been hiking behind her had seen her slip and stopped to help, and the man had run down the trail until he had enough phone signal to call for help. Then he had returned to stay with Lynette and his wife until rescuers arrived.

While Eldon, Caleb and Zach assembled the litter, Hannah assessed Lynette's injuries, administered a painkiller and fitted her with a splint. "That feels better already," Lynette said as they prepared to load her onto the litter. Once she was tucked in securely, the team members arranged themselves around the litter and prepared for the trip down the mountain.

A little over an hour later, they were back at the trailhead, and Lynette was being loaded into the waiting ambulance. A few curious onlookers had gathered, but no tall blonde woman was among them. Zach helped pack up their gear and rode back to headquarters. "Good job, everybody," Ryan said. "It couldn't have gone any smoother."

At headquarters, they unloaded the Beast. Zach checked his watch, then decided to head back to the mine to finish his report. But first, he pulled out his phone.

"Hello?" Shelby answered right away.

"I was just on a Search and Rescue call near Cascade Falls," Zach said. "There was a woman in the crowd who might have been Janie. Her back was to me, so maybe I'm wrong, but Eldon was there, and he thought it was her, too. She moved away before I had a chance to speak to her."

"Did you see where she went?"

"No. I was busy with the rescue and couldn't keep an eye on her."

"Where is Cascade Falls?" she asked.

He gave her directions. "There were a lot of people there," he said. "It's a popular hiking area. It might not even have been her."

"If you and Eldon both recognized her, it was probably Janie," she said. "I'll see what I can find out."

Zach wondered if he should be more worried. But he couldn't see the overly flirtatious blonde as a real threat, no matter what Shelby said. Janie was just a woman who had a crush on him. Harmless.

Back at work, he realized the break had done him good—the figures weren't quite so boring, and by six he was happy with the job he had done.

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 her little brother. 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?"

Zach sat once more. "Apparently the real reason he's been following me around isn't because he's grateful Search and Rescue saved his bacon when he wrecked his ATV on the Jeep trails, but because he wants to interview me about Camille."

"Then why not come right out and ask you to talk to him?"

"Maybe because he knew I'd turn him down flat."

"What else did he say?"

"I asked him if he was the man seen at Camille's campsite before she was killed, and he got pretty excited," Zach said. "He swears he didn't know Camille was at the campground, or even that she was alive. For what it's worth, I believe him."

She sat in the chair across from him. Putting distance between them, he thought. Making sure there was no repeat of the other night. She didn't have to worry. He had gotten the message. No more kissing the fed. "Did you get your tires fixed?" he asked.

"Yes. But we have no idea who shot them. No one saw anything. I always thought small towns were full of nosy people, and that anyone who is a stranger would stand out."

"Word has probably gotten around that you work for the FBI."

"I'm not here undercover. But people don't need to worry about me. They need to pay more attention to everyone else." She hugged her arms across her chest. "Did Todd say where he's staying now that he's checked out of the Nugget Inn?"

"No. I didn't ask. Guess I wasted your time, even calling to tell you he was here."

"No, you didn't waste my time." She moved to sit next to him on the sofa. Her floral scent distracted him, so he almost didn't hear her next words. "I'm frustrated. But that's not your fault. And I was planning on stopping by to see you this afternoon, anyway."

"Checking up on me?"

She didn't really have the face for fierceness, no matter how much she tried to pull it off. "I let my boss know about the man you saw outside the pub the night Judge Hennessey was murdered. I informed the sheriff, too. The FBI artist will be here tomorrow. You need to come into the sheriff's department and give your statement, then work with the artist to come up with a sketch of the man you saw the night Judge Hennessey was killed."

"I have a job," he said.

"This is more important."

"I already took off half of today to go on a Search and Rescue call. I can't take off again tomorrow."

"Come after work, then."

He didn't say anything, merely took another drink of beer. She was wearing a blazer over her blouse, but he could see the silky black fabric of the top stretching over her breasts. He remembered how soft she had felt against him. How lithe and strong her body was. He didn't want to think about her that way, but he couldn't seem to stop himself.

"What was the Search and Rescue call?" she asked.

"A hiker broke her ankle. We had to hike up and bring her down on a litter."

"Was that hard?"

"Not really. Harder on her, I'm sure. As rescues go, it was pretty easy."

"What would she have done without you?"

"I'm not sure. It would have been about impossible to navigate that trail with a messed-up ankle."

She was looking at him differently now. That look made him uncomfortable "Do people realize how lucky they are to have volunteers like you who will drop everything and run to help them?" she asked.

"I'm not doing it to be anybody's hero," he said.

"There's no rule that says there's only one per family." She stood. "I'm starved. Have you eaten yet?"

What had she meant by the one-per-family remark? "My search and rescue work isn't about Camille," he said.

"Of course not. What do you have to eat?"

He followed her into the kitchen, where she opened the refrigerator and began pulling out produce and cheese. "If you have pasta, I can make a primavera," she said.

He opened a cabinet and took out a package of spaghetti. "Perfect."

He leaned back against the counter and watched as she set water to boil and pulled out a cutting board. "You like to cook," he said.

"Don't sound so surprised. My guilty pleasure is watching cooking shows."

"I don't think I have a guilty pleasure."

"No guilt, or no pleasure?"

Funny how one lift of her eyebrow could send heat curling through him. "No comment," he said and turned away, before he risked finding out how much pleasure—and guilt—she could offer him.