Page 22 of K-9 in Pursuit

She looked at him, and the intimacy of the moment crowded around them. Alone in the lift shack, her shoulder so slight and fine-boned beneath his hand, her eyes so dark as she met his gaze. His breathing quickened, and he moved his hand away and stepped back.

“Maybe not,” she said. “I could have tried to be stricter with her, but knowing Sharee, she would have ignored me and done what she wanted anyway. That’s pretty much how she behaved her whole life. And mostly, she got away with it with no consequences.”

“It’s a horrible situation,” he said. “I’m so sorry for all of you. Let me know if you think of anything else I can do.”

“Thanks.”

He followed her out of the lift shack. She stepped into her skis once more, then glided away. Brian returned to shoveling. He admired Chloe trying to do something to help in the midst of her own grief. And he appreciated she hadn’t taken the sheriff’s word as final when it came to his own guilt.

His thoughts drifted to the teacher Sharee had fixated on. The man was close to Brian’s age. Why had Sharee fixated on someone so much older? Whatever the reason, it shouldn’t have gotten her killed. Had she found another man in town to focus on—someone he and Chloe hadn’t yet heard about? Or was Sharee’s death merely a horrible accident, an awful thing that had happened for which there could be no logical explanation?

He flashed back to a moment in his childhood—the funeral of a teenager who had drowned on a summer afternoon at the beach. He hadn’t known the family, but they had asked his father to conduct the funeral service. He remembered his father coming home after the service and hugging him so tightly Brian couldn’t breathe. “It’s days like this that remind me how random life can be,” his father said. “One minute you’re fine and the next your life will never be the same.”

Brian hadn’t fully understood what his father had meant then, but he knew now. For Sharee’s parents and sister, for her friends, and even for him, who hadn’t known her well—their lives were changed because of her death. Knowing who killed her wouldn’t bring her back, but might bring some small bit of comfort to those who grieved her.

And it could mean the difference between his freedom and going to prison for something he didn’t do.

CHLOE RETURNED TO her apartment after five hours at the ski resort—cold, aching and discouraged. No one she had talked to had told her anything that linked Sharee to a potential killer. She told herself she had done everything she could today to help her sister. She took a shower, made a cup of hot tea and prepared to settle on the sofa to watch something mindless on television.

But she couldn’t relax or focus, and within minutes she made her way down the hall to Sharee’s room. It seemed even colder and emptier today, the scent of Sharee’s perfume fainter. She opened the closet. The scents of hair gel and baby powder and the vanilla-and-sandalwood lotion Sharee had favored brought tears to her eyes and a knot to her throat. She closed her eyes, and it was almost as if Sharee were just out of sight—maybe in the bathroom across the hall, primping.

She opened her eyes again and found only the closet, so crammed with clothes they hung crookedly, the hangers tangled as if battling for space. Boxes, boots, purses and stuffed plastic bags filled the shelf above the clothing. For someone who had lived here such a short time, Sharee had staked her claim, filling the room with books and shoes and jewelry, art supplies and electronics and sports equipment—everything that made up a life.

Chloe looked up at the full shelf, then retrieved a step stool from the kitchen and began taking down items. The deputies apparently hadn’t found much of interest in the bins of shoes, paperback books and out-of-season clothing that crowded this shelf. Chloe pulled down a shoebox of letters and her heart jumped with excitement. Then she realized the most recent letter dated back six years, from a summer camp Sharee had attended.

She started to put the box back, but something else blocked it from sliding neatly back onto the shelf. On tiptoe, Chloe felt farther back on the shelf. She pulled out a heart-shaped box—the kind that usually held Valentine’s Day chocolates, complete with a frill of white lace and an extravagant red satin bow.

Holding the box, Chloe stepped down off the stool and carried her find to the bed. She slipped the lid off and stared down at half a dozen photographs—the wide white margins and somewhat murky colors in the photos made Chloe think of the old instant-develop photos that had been popular when their parents were young. Polaroids?

She sat on the edge of the bed and took out one of the photos. She studied the image of a woman in her late twenties or early thirties, dressed in shorts and a dark-colored T-shirt. She had dark blond hair pulled back in a ponytail and smiled down at a toddler beside her. The toddler—a little girl, judging by her pink overalls and the ribbons in her hair—sat astride a pink pedal toy with big white wheels. The two were in a grassy area—maybe a yard or a park.

Chloe turned the photo over, hoping for a name or a date, but found nothing. She set the photo aside and picked up another one. Her heart beat harder as she stared into the smiling face of a handsome dark-haired man. Cameron Douglas.

Chapter Seven

If anything, Cameron Douglas was more striking in the photographs stashed in Sharee’s closet than in the professional pictures Chloe had found after searching online. In this shot he wore only swim trunks, and had the flat stomach and muscled biceps of a man who regularly visited the gym. Again, there was no writing on the back of the picture.

In all, she found six photos—of the woman with the children, the man with the children, and the four together. This must be Cameron Douglas’s family. Had he given these photos to Sharee? Why would he do that? She studied them again. They had been taken from quite far away. Across the street, maybe. Had Sharee been spying on the man and his family, and made these images for some perverse reason?

Before she could overthink this, she pulled out her phone and dialed her father. “Hey, honey,” her dad said. “I was going to text you later to let you know we got back okay.”

“Thanks, Dad. How was the flight?”

“It was okay. Darinda explained our situation and got us upgraded to first class. The flight attendants were very thoughtful.”

“That’s nice.”

“We’re both pretty tired, so was there something you needed?” her dad asked.

“I have kind of a weird question for you.”

“What’s that, honey?”

“Did Sharee ever have one of those Polaroid cameras? You know, the kind with the special film where the picture develops while you watch?”

“Funny you should remember that. We got her one for Christmas last year. Apparently one of her friends had one and it fascinated Sharee. Christmas morning she used up two packages of film taking pictures of everything. Why do you ask?”

“I, uh, I thought she said something about it and wondered if I was remembering right. You know how the mind throws up such odd things at times like this.”