subtitle: Minokee Mysteries, Book Two. This is the sequel to Finding Miranda, which is book one in the Minokee Mysteries series.
Shep and Miranda canoe downriver from Minokee, to view a new sinkhole that has opened up on Tom Rigby's farm. A profes...
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In Chapter 25, the mysterious "Shadow" helped Shep and Miranda break into David Zhang's Cloud storage documents. Now they believe they have information that could lead to finding the missing grad student. They are about to share it with Professor Clarkson. Enjoy Chapter 26 of The Mammoth Murders.
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Friday morning
The three people meeting in Win Clarkson's office had not slept much for two nights in a row. Shepard, Miranda, and Win had each stayed up until early pre-dawn hours, going over the documents uncovered by Shep's hacker friend on Thursday afternoon. Miranda took another personal day off from the library, after a second night with no sleep.
When they gathered at an agreed time Friday morning, they consumed cup after cup of coffee from the pot on the professor's credenza. The caffeine may have been superfluous, however; their nervous worries alone probably would have kept them awake and alert.
Shepard recounted for Win the events of Shep's arrest and incarceration as a murder suspect, and the false evidence someone had planted using David Zhang's cellphone.
"That is absolutely unbelievable!" said Clarkson. "Who would go to all that trouble to incriminate you, of all people? They had to know their scheme would fall apart in the long run. The Montgomery-Krausse lawyers would guarantee it, even if the evidence weren't so flimsy."
"I'm glad it didn't get as far as my mother's lawyers, but I agree the attempt to frame me for abduction or murder is an extreme measure. I'm sorry to say it, Win, but it really makes me think David is dead. Especially after what happened to Tom Rigby."
Clarkson shook his head slowly. He removed his glasses and wiped his eyes with a tissue from the box on the corner of his desk. "I'm not ready to believe that yet. There's still hope we'll find David alive somehow."
Shep said, "I think we can all agree he is not on some short-notice university dig in China."
"What do you mean? What university dig?" Clarkson said, replacing his glasses and leaning forward.
"The one he mentioned in his email," Shep answered.
"You got an email from David?"
"I didn't; you did. Felicia wrote me about it. I'll play it for you." Shep's laptop was already open on the edge of Win's desk, and in moments Shep had located his archived message from Felicia Harper. After a series of voice commands from Shep, his computer read the message aloud.
The voice told Win and Miranda the same story it had initially told Shepard: David wrote that he was leaving in a hurry to accept a position with a dig in China, time was short, sorry to leave, thanks for everything, goodbye.
"I never got a message like that!" Clarkson almost shouted. "I never got any message at all from David himself. All I ever got was that email from his mother, saying that she was worried about him because neither she nor his fiancée had heard from him. He'd even missed a Skype date, and that almost never happened. I had Felicia forward it to you, remember?"
