Chapter Four
No matter how hard she pinched herself, Chloe couldn’t wake up from this nightmare.
Sharee was dead. The most alive person she had ever known was just…
gone. Chloe had had to identify her sister’s body.
Or, she had been asked to look at the body of someone who looked like Sharee, but who couldn’t possibly be her.
The body on that table wasn’t talking or singing or dancing or moving at all.
She wasn’t angry or joyful or pouting or teasing—all things Sharee had been.
But she had looked exactly like Sharee, down to the dragonfly tattoo on her left wrist. And now, instead of enrolling Sharee in the local high school, or bringing her on to work at the salon, Chloe was helping plan a funeral.
“The service has to be in Richmond.” Darinda—red-eyed and looking a decade older—clutched the hand of Chloe’s father, Ben, as they sat in a side parlor in the local funeral home.
“I don’t want anything to do with this awful place. ”
“Of course, dear.” Ben Anderson, his thick black hair streaked more heavily with gray than Chloe remembered, his jowls heavy, forehead deeply wrinkled, had repeated this phrase approximately every five minutes since the couple’s plane had landed.
Chloe had picked the couple up from the airport Sunday at noon and had driven them straight to the funeral home.
She had been shocked by the effect of grief on her father and stepmother.
They reminded Chloe of photos she had seen of people who had lost everything to a tornado—wide-eyed and pale, going through the motions of living, but seeing nothing around them.
“We never should have sent her here.” Darinda glared at Chloe when she said this.
Chloe wished with all her might they hadn’t. Maybe then Sharee would still be alive.
“What do we need to do to arrange for transportation of…of the body to our home in Richmond?” Ben asked the dark-suited woman who sat on the sofa across from them.
“As soon as the sheriff’s department releases your daughter, we’ll take care of everything,” the woman said. “If you’ll provide the name of your preferred funeral home in Richmond, we’ll coordinate with them.”
Darinda began sobbing once more, and the woman passed her a box of tissues. Chloe wanted to weep, too, but anger and confusion overwhelmed the impulse to tears. How could this have happened?
And the hits kept coming. A sheriff’s deputy waited by Chloe’s car when they emerged from the funeral home. Chloe had talked to law enforcement for what seemed like hours this morning, going over and over everything she knew of Sharee’s movements the past few days. Why was this deputy back now?
“Yes?” Ben said, and eyed the man in uniform warily.
Middle-aged and medium height, the man’s expression gave away nothing. “I’m Sergeant Lowry,” he said. “I need to ask you a few questions about your daughter.”
“I have questions for you,” Darinda said. She had transformed herself from grieving mother to avenging matriarch, shoulders back and head up, eyes blazing. “How did this happen? I thought this was a safe place.”
“It’s generally safe,” Lowry said. “We average less than one suspicious death a year.”
“What are you doing to find Sharee’s killer?” Darinda asked.
“We have a suspect in custody.”
The words jolted Chloe from her own stupor. “Who?” she asked.
“His name is Brian Weeks. He’s a ski instructor Sharee was known to have a crush on. Word was he wasn’t pleased with the attention.”
“He’s a ski patroller,” Chloe said. “Not a ski instructor.”
Darinda turned on her. “You know this person?”
“We’ve met.” She didn’t really know Brian, but she had spoken to him. How naive would it sound if she protested Brian hadn’t struck her as the murderous type? “You think Brian killed Sharee?” she asked the sergeant.
“Several of her friends mentioned Sharee’s crush and Weeks’s reaction to it. And he doesn’t have an alibi for her time of death.”
Neither did Chloe for that matter, but she certainly hadn’t killed her sister. “You have evidence Brian killed Chloe?” she asked.
The sergeant’s gaze aimed somewhere over her left shoulder. “I’m not at liberty to divulge that information.” He returned his focus to Darinda and Ben. “Did Sharee ever mention Brian Weeks to you?” he asked. “Did she mention anyone else she was involved with? Or someone she was afraid of?”
“No.” Ben looked at his wife. “I don’t think so.”
“Sharee had so many friends.” Darinda dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “Everyone who knew her loved her. And she was so beautiful. Men were always attracted to her.”
“Any men in particular?” the sergeant asked.
“Oh, none that I can recall,” Darinda said. “Not here in Colorado.”
“What about back home in Virginia?” Lowry asked.
“Oh. Well, there was a little trouble with a teacher,” Darinda said. “A man who completely misinterpreted Sharee’s innocent admiration of him.”
“What is his name?” the sergeant asked. “I’ll want to talk to him.”
“You can get that information from Sharee’s school.” Ben took Darinda’s arm. “We have to go now. We’re exhausted.” He opened the car door for his wife.
The sergeant turned to Chloe. “Sharee lived with you, is that right?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Why was that?”
How to explain the whole sad story? She looked back at the car.
“Let me give my keys to my dad so he and my stepmom can go back to my apartment and rest. Then you and I can sit down somewhere and I’ll tell you all about it.
” And maybe in turn he would tell her more about why Brian Weeks had supposedly murdered her sister.
WHEN brIAN WAS finally allowed to make a phone call, he contacted Connor.
He could have called his parents, but he would rather they never know about this.
His father pastored a medium-sized church in Brian’s home town in Oklahoma.
The town was small enough that news that a minister’s son had been arrested for murdering a teenager would make the local paper.
It might even result in his father losing his job.
Brian wanted to forestall that as long as possible.
And Connor could be of more immediate help. After a rushed explanation of where Brian was and why, he got to the real reason for his call. “Please go get Daisy. They made me leave her at my place by herself. I know she’s upset. You still have my key, right?”
“Sure. I’ll look after Daisy. But why do they think you killed Sharee?”
“They said…they said they found my ski glove with her body.”
“Your ski glove?”
“I guess it’s the one I lost. You remember—I was looking for it yesterday morning.”
“I remember. But how did it end up with Sharee’s body?”
“I don’t know.” He hated to ask for anything else, but desperate times called for begging. “Do you think Stacy could find out what’s going on?” Connor’s girlfriend, FBI Special Agent Stacy McRae, surely had some kind of influence with the local sheriff.
“I’ll talk to her,” Connor said. “And you need to find a lawyer.”
“They said they’d appoint one, but I haven’t heard anything.” He had no idea how long these things took, but he had already been here eight hours.
“Sit tight and I’ll find out what I can,” Connor said.
“I told the deputies about the harassment, and about the underwear Sharee gave me. They’re probably going to want to talk to you.”
“I’m not hard to find. Meanwhile, hang in there. We’ll help any way we can.”
But Brian’s first visitor, several hours later, wasn’t Connor or his girlfriend, or a lawyer. It was Chloe Anderson.
He stood as a deputy escorted Chloe into the small interview room, heart pounding. Had she come to berate him for her sister’s death?
She didn’t say anything until the deputy who escorted her in had left and the door closed behind him.
“Chloe, no matter what they told you, I swear I didn’t have anything to do with Sharee’s death,” Brian said. “I’m so sorry she’s gone.”
Chloe sat at the table. “I’ve been talking with Sergeant Lowry,” she said. “He let me in to see you because he thought you might tell me what happened.”
He lowered himself to the chair across from her. “I don’t know what happened,” he said. “I haven’t seen Sharee for days. I was home by myself last night.”
“He told me they…they found your glove. Right beside her body.”
“They told me that, too. But I swear I don’t know how it got there. I lost that glove two days ago. You can ask anyone in patrol. I was looking all over for it Friday morning.”
“When did you see her last?”
“Tuesday. The day she gave me her little gift.” He grimaced. When he had mentioned the underwear to the cops, they had alerted like hounds on the scent of a rabbit.
“And you haven’t talked to her since?” Chloe asked.
“No.” He leaned toward her. “I would never have hurt her. It took me forever to tell her she needed to leave me alone because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.”
“But you were upset with her,” Chloe said. “You were afraid she had made bogus complaints about you to the resort, and that might cost you your job.”
“I was annoyed. But no one took the complaints seriously. Not after the patrol captain spoke up for me.”
She studied him for a long moment—a cool, intense gaze that left him feeling stripped and vulnerable. “I want to believe you,” she said. “But if you didn’t kill Sharee, who did?”
“I don’t know. Did she have any enemies? Any real enemies? Could this have anything to do with whatever trouble she was in before she came here?”
The faint line between Chloe’s brows deepened. “I don’t see how. But the sheriff’s detective I spoke with told me they would look into all that.”
“Maybe what happened to her was an accident and the cops jumped to the wrong conclusion,” Brian said.
Chloe shook her head. “They didn’t tell you how she died?” she asked.
“They didn’t tell me anything. They asked me to tell them how she died. I think they were trying to trap me. I’d guess, and if I was right, they could use that as proof.”
“She was strangled,” Chloe said.
Nausea rolled through him. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“But your glove being there—that looks bad,” Chloe said. “How did it get there if you didn’t put it there?” She frowned. “And how did they identify the glove as yours so quickly?”
“My name is written inside the cuff,” he said. “The killer must have found it.” He swallowed hard. “Maybe they even planted it at the scene, to implicate me.”
“But why?” she asked. “Who hates you enough to frame you for murder?”
“I don’t know.” The words came out as a moan. “I don’t have any enemies.” At least, he hadn’t. Had he been naive to believe everyone liked him?
“Do you have a lawyer?” she asked.
He groaned. “They said they’d appoint someone to represent me, but I haven’t heard from anyone.”
The door opened and the deputy who had escorted Chloe stepped into the room. “You need to go now,” he told her.
She stood.
Brian rose also. “Thanks for coming to see me,” he said. “I mean, it was good to see you, even if the reason you’re here is horrible.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked. “Anyone you’d like me to call?”
“Could you call Connor Donaldson? He’s the head of ski patrol. I asked him to look after Daisy. I want to make sure she’s okay.”
“Daisy is your dog?”
“Yeah. It really upset her, seeing them take me away.” He swallowed a knot of emotion. The last time he had seen the friendly golden retriever, she was being held back by a deputy as she tried to follow Brian.
“Ms. Anderson,” the deputy prompted.
“Goodbye,” she said. “And good luck.”
The door closed and Brian waited, staring at the scuffed tabletop. He figured there were cameras on him, and devices recording every word said in this room. They were probably disappointed they hadn’t gotten a confession out of his conversation with Chloe.
As awful as this whole day had been, seeing her had made the weight of all that had happened less oppressive. She hadn’t accused him of murder. In fact, she seemed to be on his side.
The door opened again and the deputy entered, along with an attractive brunette in a dark pantsuit. “Stacy!” Brian jumped to his feet again, startled and relieved to see the FBI special agent.
“I’m here to take you home,” Stacy said. “They don’t have sufficient evidence to hold you, and your computer shows you were playing Fortnite at home at the time of Sharee’s death.”
The deputy silently removed the cuffs from Brian’s wrists. They stopped at the front desk to retrieve Brian’s phone, belt, shoes, and wallet, then he followed her to the parking lot, aware of the stares of everyone they passed.
Connor waited next to Stacy’s SUV, Daisy by his side. He released his hold on the dog and she raced to Brian, almost knocking him over with her boisterous greeting. He knelt on the pavement and hugged her as she licked his face, her tail furiously fanning the air.
When Brian made it to his feet again, Connor shook his hand. “You don’t look too worse for wear,” he said. Then he turned to Stacy. “I guess they didn’t give you any trouble.”
“I’m not their favorite person right now, but when I pointed out what I found on Brian’s computer after five minutes of searching, and that a glove lying in the street near the body was not exactly compelling evidence, and that he had opened the package containing Sharee’s underwear in front of witnesses and had immediately turned it over to you to return to Sharee or her sister, they paid more attention.
I mentioned that if they continued to hold Brian it would only make them look bad, especially once the press learned how flimsy a case they had built.
And I pointed out that while they were focused on him, the real killer was getting away with murder. ”
“All of which you would be happy to talk to the press about,” Connor said.
“Anonymously, of course.” She put a hand on Brian’s arm, her expression serious.
“My advice to you is to go home and not talk to anyone. Not the press. If the cops come back, don’t let them in, and keep repeating you won’t talk to them without your lawyer present.
I’ll give you the name of a lawyer I know who’s good. ”
He swallowed. “I can’t afford a lawyer.”
“You can’t afford not to hire a good one,” Stacy said. “Promise me you’ll talk to her.”
“I will. I promise.”
“You can take some more time off if you need to,” Connor said.
“No,” Brian said. “I want to work.” Being on the snow with his dog and the other members of the team would pull him back into some semblance of normal life. In that world his job was to protect and save people—not to stand accused of murder.