and exhaled, frowning. Beneath his mustache, he frowned. “Looks like suicide. She could’ve slung the rope around her neck and jumped.”
Not something Brooke wanted to think about. She suppressed a shudder.
“But I’m not so sure,” McGraw said. “For one thing, she didn’t leave a note. For another, there’s your statement.You said you might have seen a man outside the sliding glass doors.”
“He didn’t speak.” On that point, she was clear. “Did you find footprints on the deck?”
“Sorry, Brooke. This snow is half mush and half ice. If we’d had a nice coat of new snow, we would have had a better shot at corroborating your story. Tell me about the guy again.”
“He seemed to be wearing black. I thought he started to open the sliding glass doors.” She hated to think of herself so caught up in a delusion that she’d threatened the air with an axe. “I wish I could give you a better description. I was scared.”
“You must have been relieved when Detective Shaw turned up. He seems like a decent guy.”
“Has he told you about the serial killer?”
The deputy nodded. “Heck of a thing.”
It seemed that Deputy McGraw believed Michael’s story. Of course, he would. Lawmen always stuck together as a matter of professional courtesy. When she’d taken out a restraining order against her ex-husband—a district attorney—the police didn’t believe her. They stood behind Thomas in a solid blue wall and made her feel like a nutcase.
Irritated, she said, “I thought the FBI handled serial killer investigations.”
“That’s right. I put in a call to the Denver office.”
“Why?”
“We need to consider all the possibilities. Let’s just suppose that Michael’s theory is right on target. A killer coming after you might have mistakenly attacked Sally. You two gals look enough alike to be sisters.”
Brooke closed her eyes. Had Sally died in her place? Was Sally’s death her fault? Her shoulders slumped, weighed down beneath a mantle of guilt.
“Are you okay?” McGraw asked.
No. I’ll never be okay again. She couldn’t allow herself to believe that she was responsible for Sally’s death. She had to stay in control. In a small voice, she said, “I’m fine.”
“You’ve been through a lot tonight. Suicide is bad enough. But murder?” He shook his head. “Heck of a thing.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“We’re treating this investigation like a homicide. That’s why there’s a swarm of officers up here, taking fingerprints and photos, marking off anything that might be evidence.”
She looked through the windshield at the officers, all busy with different tasks. She imagined them upstairs in her bedroom, pawing through her drawers, looking over her personal things. “When can I get back into my house?”
“Not tonight,” he said. “Is there somebody you can stay with? You work for Hannah Lewis, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe you can stay with Hannah. I’m sure she’s got an extra room.”
“I’ll be fine.” Brooke suddenly felt desperate to get away from all the flashing lights and crackling radios. “Is it all right if I leave now?”
“I’ll have one of my men bring your backpack. Is there anything else you want from the house?”
Everything. An outfit to wear tomorrow. A nightgown. My lotion. But she couldn’t stand the idea of strangers retrieving her belongings for her. “I’m okay.”
“I’ll need to get in touch with you tomorrow, Brooke.”
“It’s a work day.” During the many traumatic twists and turns that marked the long months of her separation from Thomas and her devastating divorce, she’d always found solace in returning to her job, in keeping busy. “I’ll be at the boutique.”
A few minutes later, she was behind the steering wheel of her car with her backpack on the passenger seat beside her. It took some maneuvering for all the police and emergency vehicles to clear a path, but she managed to get past them. She made the tight turn onto the snow-packed road that led down the side of the cliff.
She was glad to leave it all behind her, but she couldn’t relax. Her lungs were still clenched. Tension gripped the muscles in her back and neck.
The fear that she’d fought so hard to control returned to haunt her. She hated feeling like a coward—it made her feel weak and out of control.
Usually, the cool silence of the night would have soothed her. In the few months that she’d been in Colorado, she’d reveled in peaceful solitude.
But that was before danger had found her. The tension inside her built. Her gloved fingers tightened on the steering wheel. She couldn’t get the image of Sally out of her mind. “It’s wrong. So wrong,” she muttered.
She pulled up at the stop sign at the bottom of the hill. She needed to vent—to express her fear and, in so doing, loosen its hold.
Keeping her hands on the steering wheel, she yelled in protest. It was a battle cry—loud and guttural, wrenched from deep inside her. Then she yelled again. Screaming in the car was something that psychos did, but she had to let it out, had to find release in her fight against the invisible demon of fear. “I am a good person. I deserve a normal, quiet life. Is that too much to ask? Is it?”
The night answered her with overwhelming silence. For a moment, her fear seemed almost insignificant as she looked through the windshield at the massive mountains and the moonlight glistening on the snow. The pine trees watched like sentinels.
Her breath began to come more easily.
Turning left, she drove cautiously on the curving road that bordered Squirrel Creek as she considered the practical problem of where to stay tonight. During ski season, even the cheapest accommodations in Aspen were too expensive for her budget, and just about every place was fully booked anyway. She glanced down to check her gas gauge. She had enough to drive to Glenwood Springs, where it was likely she’d find an affordable place to stay.
She actually didn’t want to be in Aspen. The last thing she needed was to run into someone she knew—or worse, someone who knew Sally. Though Aspen was a worldclass resort, there was a small-town feeling among the local merchants, hotel staff and those who worked in the ski industry. Everybody was into everybody else’s business.
She turned left onto the shortcut to Glenwood, a twolane road with snow piled up on both sides. The clock on her dashboard showed that it was after ten o’clock. Most people were either home in bed or propped up on a bar stool in their favorite tavern.
Headlights in her rearview mirror caught her attention. They seemed to be approaching too fast. The bright high beams came closer. Like two shining eyes, glaring.
The muscles in
