Desperate Measures (An Aspen Falls Novel) Page 12
The sleepy smile he offered buckled her knees. “Morning.”
She held out her mug. “Did you make the coffee?”
He shuffled slowly toward her, nodding. “Hope you don’t mind. I was awake so I thought I’d start it.” His grin widened. “But then I went back to the bedroom to wait for it to brew and must have drifted off.”
“So I guess you slept well, then,” Cam said. She got another mug out of the cupboard and filled it for him.
His steps were still measured, but he seemed to be moving even better than he was the night before. “Not at all,” he said lightly. “That was the first time I fell asleep, actually.”
Cam felt her eyes widen.
He noticed. “Let me guess. You, too?” he asked as he accepted the mug she held out to him.
Cam bit back a smile. Maybe they should have just stayed up and tried to hatch a plan. He’d been adamant that he didn’t want her to get involved, that he already felt like he’d dragged her too far into this mess. But if they’d stayed up talking, Cam wondered if she could have managed to wear him down.
She didn’t know, but she knew one thing.
She could start right back up again.
Starting now.
There was just one problem, though.
It was Monday, and she was due in at the station in a couple of hours. Not only did she not feel comfortable leaving Alex on his own for any length of time, but she also knew that the limited morning hours she had available before heading into work weren’t going to be enough to do what she wanted to do.
But first things first.
“You hungry?” she asked.
He nodded.
She opened the freezer and pulled out a box of frozen waffles. “How many?”
“How many do you have?”
She smiled. “It’s a full box.”
Alex eased himself into a chair at the table. “Two is good.”
She ripped open the box and tore the plastic wrapper. Two waffles dropped into the toaster and she pushed the lever down.
“So if you didn’t sleep, what did you do?” she asked.
He gave a little shrug, wincing as he did so.
“How are you feeling today?” she asked.
“Sore.” He gingerly touched his ribs. “But better.”
“Did you take any meds?”
He shook his head. “I told you. I’m done with those. I don’t need them.”
She thought about arguing with him but decided against it.
The waffles popped up and she dropped them onto a plate. “Butter? Syrup?”
“Plain is fine.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Really?”
As if to demonstrate, he picked up a waffle and bit off an end.
“Suit yourself.” She put two more in the toaster, this time for her.
Alex had finished his first one when she sat down with her plate.
She knew she needed to tread lightly if she wanted to make progress with him. Ask questions that he wouldn’t immediately shoot down.
She poured a generous dollop of syrup over her waffles. She forked off a bite.
“Tell me about Necco,” she said.
Alex looked up from his plate. “Why?”
“I’m just curious,” she said, shrugging. “You said he reminded you of Juan. Did he look like him?”
“Not really.”
Cam tried not to frown. She should have known he wasn’t going to make it easy to get info.
“So no round cheeks? No big dimples?”
A pained expression crossed his face and Cam felt a pang of guilt. Shit. She should have known it would be hard for him to talk about his little brother. His dead little brother.
“Necco does not have dimples,” Alex said. “Or if he does, I’ve never seen them. But considering his face is almost always hidden by a Magic hat, I guess maybe he could…”
Cam seized on this small clue. “A Magic hat?”
“Orlando Magic,” Alex said. “Loves that team.”
Cam filed that information away.
“Is he in school?” she asked. “Or does he spend most of his time on the street?”
Alex drank his coffee. “No idea. School just went back last week, so I’m not sure what his plans are this year.”
“He’s young, though, right?”
Alex nodded. “Thirteen, I think. But that doesn’t mean he’s gonna go. You know how it is. If you don’t have parents harping on you to stay in school, what’s the incentive? Especially when the rest of your crew is off doing…other stuff.”
She knew what ‘other stuff’ was code for. Selling. Maybe using. Patrolling. And, when necessary, defending territory.
She stole a glance at him. He was staring at his empty plate, but his profile told her everything: his mouth was taut, the muscles in his neck strained. He was fighting back emotion: anger, frustration, fear. Cam didn’t know exactly what, but she thought he might be feeling a little defeated, a little vulnerable.
Which meant it might be the perfect time to make her move.
“I’d like to talk to him.”
His head snapped up. “What? No.”
“He was there,” Cam said. “He’s a witness. He can testify—”
“No.” Alex’s voice was firm. “I’m not putting him in danger. Not him, not anyone.”
“Alex, you need help. You can’t solve this alone.”
He narrowed his eyes. “And I can’t bring anyone else in on it, either. Not when I have three different enemies, all who’d jump at the chance to pull the trigger of a gun aimed at my head. So where does that leave me?”
“You can bring someone else in,” she argued. “Me. Nate. My whole department. We’re neutral. We don’t have a stake in this. Let me look into it, see what I can find out—”
His fist smashed into the table. “No!”
She startled, then wanted to kick herself for reacting like that. She needed to project strength, not cringe every time she heard a loud noise.
She changed tactics. “What about the other officers who were there? I can talk to them, approach them about something else and then bring up the case.”
Alex’s look was murderous. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
She blanched at the fury in his words.
“This isn’t some little case to solve, Cam,” he said. “This is corruption, pure and simple. You think you can just waltz in there and ask some questions and then wrap everything up in a neat little case file?”
His words stung. “No, of course not,” she snapped. “But you’re jumping to some awfully big conclusions. You don’t know that anyone else in your department is involved in wanting to cover this up.”
“Their silence that night told me everything I need to know,” he said bitterly.
Cam flinched. It was a hard statement to argue with. If other members of his unit had been there and had witnessed what happened, why hadn’t they stepped in? She didn’t have a good answer, but she also knew they couldn’t just write everyone off as being complicit.
“So what do we do, then?” she asked. “If talking to people isn’t an option?”
“I lie low until I can figure out what to do,” he said. His choice of pronouns wasn’t lost on her. He’d purposely removed her from the equation. “Maybe go to BCA. The feds. I’m not sure yet.”
She heard the hesitation in his voice, and she knew why he felt that way. If there was internal information about him that contradicted his version of events—and if multiple people backed it—he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on with those other agencies. He needed hard evidence that his story was the accurate one. And right now he didn’t have that.
Except he did, Cam reminded herself. He had Necco. The kid had seen what went down. Had helped him out. If she could just find him and talk to him, somehow convince him to come forward and share his story, then they would be on their way to clearing Alex’s name and finding a way to keep him safe.
She just needed to figure out a way to co
nvince the man sitting across from her that this was their only option.
And the only way she was going to do that was if she could dedicate some time to it. Which meant going into work clearly was not an option.
She stood up from the table, grabbing her plate as she did so. She’d only eaten half a waffle.
“Where are you going?” Alex asked.
She didn’t answer. She knew they weren’t done talking, that she was leaving the conversation unfinished, but there was something she needed to do sooner rather than later.
As soon as Cam was alone in her room, she pulled out her phone and punched in a number.
Sarah, one of the receptionists at AFPD, answered the private line at the station.
“Hey, Sarah, this is Camila.” She cleared her throat. “Listen, I’m not feeling great this morning.”
“Oh, no.” Sarah’s sweet voice was filled with concern. “I hope you’re not getting that virus going around. Sore throat? Headache?”
“Yep, all of those,” Cam said, guilt settling over her like a thick cloud. She hated lying.
Sarah clucked her tongue. “That’s what I was afraid of. Ollie’s out sick today, too. If I were you, I’d get some tea and chicken noodle soup. And plenty of ibuprofen.”
Cam almost smiled. Sarah was an empty nester who’d worked at the station for years. Cam wasn’t sure, but she thought the older woman might be the most senior employee there.
“I’ll do that,” she told the receptionist.
“Good.” Sarah paused. “And don’t hurry back. No sense passing it along to everyone else at the station if you can help it.”
This time, Cam did smile. Sarah was a bit of a hypochondriac, to the point that the running gag during Christmas was for everyone at the station to gift her with a bottle of hand sanitizer. She’d end up with over a dozen bottles every year—and she’d use them all.
Cam ended the call and tossed her phone onto her bed. She’d cleared the first hurdle: she’d called in sick so there was nothing else competing for her time and attention. But she still didn’t know what her next step was going to be. Alex wasn’t on board at all with tracking witnesses down, and even she knew she couldn’t just march into Bentley and start randomly questioning people.
Her phone buzzed and she picked it up.
“What’s going on?”
It was Nate.
“Hello to you, too,” she replied.
He snorted. “Why did you call in?”
“Why are you at the office already? It’s barely six o’clock.”
“I had some work to catch up on,” he said. “Now tell me why you called in.”
“Because I’m sick?”
“You don’t sound sick.”
“Oh? I wasn’t aware that being sick had a specific sound,” she said. “You want me to start puking in your ear or something?”
“Something’s up with you,” Nate said.
“Yeah. I’m sick.”
“No, something else,” he countered. “Sally noticed it, too. Yesterday, when you were here.”
Cam sucked in a breath but said nothing.
“So what is it?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’m sick,” she told him. “That’s what was up with me.”
“You looked like you saw a ghost,” he said. “Those were Sally’s words. She noticed, not me. When I was telling you about the BOLO.”
Cam swallowed.
“You gonna tell me now, or do I need to come over and sort it out with you?”
“Dammit, Nate. I told you I’m fine.”
“No, you didn’t. You said you’re sick.”
He was twisting her words—like any good detective would do when they wanted answers. When they wanted the truth.
“Can we not do this?” she asked wearily. “Not now.”
“So something is wrong.” There was a note of triumph in his voice, but she heard something else, too.
Concern.
She glanced at the closed bedroom door. Alex was somewhere beyond it, probably still ticked off at her for pressing the issue of looking into his case. Her pulse ratcheted up a notch. He couldn’t be objective about it, couldn’t distance himself enough to recognize that doing nothing was the worst possible way to approach the situation, especially when he had someone—Cam—willing to get out there and dig for the truth.
No, he couldn’t be objective.
But Cam could.
And she knew that if she involved Nate, if she filled him in on what was going on, that he could be, too.
“What are you doing this morning?” she asked.
“Working.” His answer was a terse reminder that his day involved something she was supposed to be doing, too.
She thought quickly. The last thing she wanted was for him to come to the house. She wasn’t ready for him to meet Alex. She wasn’t sure if she was even ready to tell him he was there.
“Can you meet me for coffee?”
“Where?”
“Lulu’s.”
He was quiet for a minute. “When?”
“Eight o’clock?”
“You’re on.”
She nodded. There was no walking it back now.
“Oh, and Cam?”
“Yeah?”
He snickered. “Glad to hear you’ve made such a speedy recovery.”
“Shut up.” Her tone was more exasperated than angry. “Just be there, alright?”
She ended the call.
But someone else spoke up.
“Just be where?”
22
Monday, September 10th
7:45 am
“Where are you going?”
Cam bristled at the question. “Out.”
Alex knew what he’d overheard. “You’re meeting someone. It’s your partner, isn’t it?”
“I don’t have a partner,” she said coolly.
He frowned. “You know what I mean. That Nate guy. You’re meeting up with him.”
She didn’t deny it.
His frown deepened. “You can’t,” he said flatly. “No one can know about this.”
She tried to move past him but he blocked the doorway, keeping her from leaving her bedroom.
“I’m not fucking around,” he said. “This isn’t something for you to solve. I told you because I wanted to be honest with you. For once in my life, I wanted to be honest about something.”
The words were weighted. She had no idea what it had been like to live with so many lies. And they’d all started with her, the day he’d lied to her about not loving her anymore.
She blinked, and he could tell he’d thrown her off balance.
“I need to figure this out,” he said firmly. “Not you. Me.”
Something flashed in her eyes. “And I told you, I want to help.”
“You can’t.”
Her lips thinned. “Watch me.”
She tried to slip past him, but he braced his arms against the doorframe, blocking her in. And yeah, it hurt like hell to stretch his arms that way. The muscles in his chest screamed as they stretched across his sore ribcage, but he held firm.
“Let me go,” she ordered.
His eyes raked over her. “No.”
“I know where you hurt,” she said. “One punch to your chest and you’ll be on your knees.”
He stood firm. “Do it.”
They were playing chicken with each other. He knew it, and he was pretty sure she did, too. He couldn’t be 100 percent sure that she wouldn’t level him with a well-placed punch, but he knew he’d cave to her. Eventually.
“If I had my handcuffs, I’d slap them on you so fast you wouldn’t know what hit you.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Handcuffs?”
Her eyes shot sparks as she nodded.
Handcuffs. His body immediately responded, and not in fear.
“I can think of a few ways I’d like to use handcuffs,” he murmured, his gaze dropping to her hands. He could immediately picture locking the metal around her
wrists, attaching them to a bedpost. Taking his time kissing her, touching her, making her writhe with pleasure.
She froze. “What?”
His gaze returned to hers. Shock registered on her face, but he saw something else hidden in her eyes.
Desire.
She swallowed thickly. “What did you just say?”
He thought about repeating the words he’d just mumbled out loud. He wanted to say it louder, see her cheeks bloom with color, watch her chest rise and fall as she processed his words…and their implied meaning.
Her phone was still clutched in her hands and she held it up. “I can make a call right now. Make a call that ends all of this.”
Whatever he thought he’d seen in her eyes was gone. The anger, the resolve, was back.
She wasn’t messing around.
“You’d do that?” he asked. “Turn me in after everything I’ve told you?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “If I have to, I will.” She paused. “But what I want to do is leave for a little bit. Explore a couple of options.”
“What kind of options?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But right now we have exactly zero, so I figure if I make any progress, it’ll be better than where we’re currently sitting. Right?”
He didn’t respond.
“I won’t do anything without telling you first,” she said.
He looked at her with narrowed eyes. “But you’re going to talk to someone. To Nate.”
She didn’t deny it.
“Cam, no one else can know.”
“I won’t tell him,” she promised.
“So why are you going?”
She opened her mouth to respond, then shook her head. “I just… I need to go.”
He didn’t know that he believed her. But he didn’t really have a choice.
“Remember when you told me that I needed to trust you?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Well, guess what? You need to trust me, too.”
23
Monday, September 10th
8:00 am
Cam got to Lulu’s first. The little coffee shop was bustling with customers, and the line to order was at least eight deep. Rosie Sweet, an employee at the shop and Blaine’s girlfriend, was busy restocking the bakery section, sliding muffins and scones and chocolate-filled croissants onto the display trays.