Murder on the Mountain

Standing in the hallway outside the bedroom, she allowed herself to accept his comforting embrace, leaning her head into the crook of his neck. Her arms wrapped around his huge torso. He was so big and solid.

Though his touch was in no way inappropriate and he patted her shoulders in an almost impersonal manner, she felt a surge of erotic tension. Her breasts rubbed against his chest. She inhaled his masculine scent. Gazing up, she noticed that his chin was marked with morning stubble. Though he was in his deputy uniform, he had to have come here immediately without even stopping to shave.

He was anxious to help, and she repaid him with lies, using him for her own purposes. Julia stepped away from his embrace. There was a depth of meaning in her voice when she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“No need for you to be sorry. This isn’t your fault.”

If only he knew what she’d done. In his warm brown eyes, she saw the glow of kindness. She didn’t merit his friendship. “What happens next?”

“I’ll call the sheriff. He’s not going to be happy. Two fatalities in two days.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Not for a city,” Paul said. “But we’re a fairly quiet little county.”

“I hate to bring this up,” she said, “but there will be media attention. General Naylor was well known. He did commentary on a lot of news programs.”

“Which means the sheriff is going to be talking to the press,” Paul said. “He can handle it.”

She envisioned television trucks with satellite dishes and reporters with microphones. A nightmare! “I really don’t want my lodge to be the backdrop for those interviews.”

“No problem. We’ll evacuate the body to the hos-pital before autopsy. The sheriff can make his statement to the press from that location.”

For that, she was endlessly grateful. The last thing she needed was a mob of curious interviewers crawling all over the safehouse.

“Yesterday,” Paul said, “the general reacted strangely when you mentioned his television commentaries. What did he say? Something about not believing everything you hear. It was like he thought he was being unfairly criticized.”

“Paranoid,” she said. “That fits with suicide, doesn’t it?”

“Did you notice anything else unusual about his state of mind?”

“Other than shooting at rabbits off the deck behind the lodge?”

“Strange behavior,” he said.

“But not typical. The general kept to himself. He got here a day ahead of the others and spent most of that time in his room.”

Paul glanced down at his boots, then looked up at her again. “How much do you know about makeup? You know, lipstick and stuff.”

That question came out of the blue. “On occasion, I’ve been known to use cosmetics.”

“You don’t need that stuff,” he said quickly. “I like the way you look. Healthy. And your eyes…well, your blue eyes are beautiful.”

His gruff compliment took her off guard. Had he really said that she was beautiful? Her eyes were beautiful? Self-consciously, she glanced away. “Thank you.”

“This is about my two daughters. They have an ice-skating performance tonight at the rink near Vail, and they need to put on makeup. That happens to be a topic I don’t know much about.”

She peeked up at him. Though he was trying to scowl, the dimples in his cheeks deepened. Adorable. “I’d like to help you, Paul.”

He waved his hand back and forth as if to erase his words. “Forget it. You have enough to worry about.”

“Tell you what. I’ll put together a little makeup kit for you to take with you.”

“Thanks a lot, Julia.”

His gratitude was utterly sincere. The sheepish expression on his face almost brought her to tears. For the first time in her life, Julia had purposely done wrong. She was lying to this terrific guy, and it was tearing her apart.

Unable to look in Paul’s trusting eyes for one more second, she pivoted and headed down the staircase.

In the kitchen, they found Craig Lennox, the other FBI agent who worked with her at the safehouse. Craig, a computer expert, was nearly as concerned as Julia about the true purpose of the safehouse being discovered. The office on the basement floor—filled with high-tech surveillance and computer equip-ment—was his domain, and he didn’t want anybody touching anything.

His dark eyes darted nervously in his thin face. He nodded to Paul, who he’d met yesterday. “Is there anything I should be doing?”

“Sit tight,” Julia said. “The police will be here soon.”

He held up a videocassette. “I made copies of the surveillance tapes that show the hallway outside the general’s room.”

“For all night?” Paul asked.

“From eleven o’clock when the general went to bed until this morning when Julia opened his door.”

“Nobody entered the room?”

“Nobody,” Craig said. “These tapes are time coded on the bottom. There’s not one second missing.”

Paul took a cell phone from his utility belt and punched in a number on his cell phone. “Jurisdiction can be complicated up here, but your resort is well outside Vail’s city limits so the Eagle County sheriff will be handling this incident. There’s no need to call in the state investigators for a suicide.”

A suicide. Paul seemed convinced. She could only hope that the other county officials would also be satisfied by that explanation.

Chapter Four

That evening at half past five o’clock when Paul herded everybody out of the house, the girls were wearing their sparkly costumes under their parkas. Their black hair was done up in curly ponytails, and their makeup was perfect thanks to makeup kits assembled by Julia and expert help from Abby Nelson. Abby was an FBI agent recently assigned to the Denver office so she could be near Mac Granger, a homicide detective, who was one of Paul’s oldest and best friends.

Earlier today, Paul had called Mac and asked if he and Abby would drive up to Redding for the performance that night. “It would mean a lot to Jennifer and Lily.”

“Count on us,” Mac said.

Though it wasn’t the same as having their mother attend, Paul knew the girls would be pleased to have a decent-sized cheering section in the audience.

Another good friend, Jess Isler, was also coming along. Jess had been staying with Paul while recuperating from a serious injury. Being with Jess—a ladies’man—usually meant there were several adoring females in the vicinity. Jess was on the Vail ski patrol and was so ridiculously handsome that he regularly dated the supermodels and movie stars who showed up on the slopes. Right now, however, Jess seemed to be spending a lot of one-on-one time with a nurse from the hospital who had promised to meet them at the rink.

Paul looked over the entourage. “We should take two cars.”

Jennifer batted her eyelashes. “Me and Lily want to ride with Abby.”

Teasing, Jess clutched his heart. “You don’t want to ride with me? I’m hurt.”

“We see you every day.” Jennifer had already linked her hand with Abby’s. “Mac and Abby drove all the way up here from Denver to watch us skate.”