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“Bullet was deflected by the ribs. Broken rib, bullet passed out the side,” Chase was muttering as Cam caught Jaci’s arm, pulling her back to him.
“Don’t. ” She shook her head, her voice hoarse as she stared up at him. “I have to do something. ”
His eyes were icy. They had been icy, cold, without emotion from the moment she had glimpsed them when he threw himself into the room.
He nodded sharply and let her move slowly away from him.
“She wasn’t a b-bad kid,” Annalee whispered brokenly. “Even as a b-baby. E-even then, she was so fragile. ” She smoothed back the long, silky hair from Moriah’s face. “Her mother is my stepsister. Margaret is a good woman. This will break her. ”
Annalee’s shoulders heaved as Jaci slowly, hesitantly wrapped her arms around her. Surprisingly, Annalee let her comfort her, and Jaci couldn’t explain why she tried, or why the other woman would care. But as she sobbed in Jaci’s arms, Jaci had to admit that part of this was her own fault. She had to take the blame for it. She should have told Cam everything. She should have stood her ground, but allowed him to help.
“All secrets are safe here. ” Annalee lifted her face, her features somehow softer, move vulnerable than they had ever been. “No matter what happens, you’ll suffer no more by our hands. ” She turned back to Moriah and convulsed in sobs again. “This was my fault. Sweet God. So much my fault. ” She leaned over the girl then, pulling herself from Jaci’s arms as she embraced Moriah and sobbed in grief.
“Come on. ” Cam knelt beside her, watching the other two women with those cold, cold eyes of his. “I’m slipping you out of here. Detective Allen will confer with Roberts before the journalists get here. We don’t need to be here. ”
She shook her head as he drew her to her feet. “But her parents . . . ”
“Don’t need to know you were here. Now, Jaci. We go now. ”
He pulled her to her feet and moved quickly to the door of the apartment.
Chase was waiting outside and gave an abrupt nod as they moved to the door.
“Take her down the back stairs. Matthew is waiting for you at the back door. Get the hell out of here. ”
Jaci moved on autopilot. She could feel the tears still running from her eyes, her body shuddering with shock, disbelief, and so many fears.
She couldn’t seem to grasp everything she had heard, everything she had seen. It had happened too fast. It was still happening too fast. Cam’s a
rm was around her waist, pulling her down the stairs to the back entrance and into the limo waiting patiently in the alley.
Matthew was pulling away from the building even before Cam closed the door behind himself. He sat back in the seat and stared across the short distance to her. His face was still hard. His eyes still icy.
Jaci wrapped her arms around her stomach and bent forward, sobs tearing from her. She couldn’t handle it. She couldn’t imagine ever being the same again, and the terror wouldn’t abate.
“Come here, baby. ” Cam’s voice softened, but only marginally.
But his arms wrapped around her and he was drawing her to his lap, wrapping her in his warmth, enclosing her in the protection of his arms.
And all she could do was cry harder. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was, how she had never known Moriah was Annalee’s niece. No one she had known had seemed to know. She hadn’t heard so much as a breath of that information. She hadn’t known.
“You couldn’t have known. ” He sighed against her hair, as she realized she must have been sobbing her thoughts. “Very few people did know, Jaci. Stepsisters. It’s not information either family discusses. ”
There were too many secrets in this world. Too many ghosts in too many closets, and now a young woman was dead; and she could tell, in those few desperate minutes, Cam’s world had been changed forever as well.
“I don’t know what to do,” she cried, her fingers fisting in his shirt as she pressed her head tighter to his chest. “Oh God, Cam, I don’t know what to do. ”
“Don’t do anything. ” He kissed her brow and held her tighter. “Don’t do anything Jaci, just let me hold you. For right now, just let me hold you. ”
27
Chase moved back into the study and watched as Congressman Roberts was loaded onto a gurney and investigators moved around the room, securing it.
He was sure that all traces of Cam, Jaci, and Ian had been cleared from the apartment. He and Carl Allen had made certain of it. And if anything showed up? Well, it would disappear just as easily. Allen was a member of the club, and in this case at least, it was a case of the old boys’ club. Not exactly legal, but there was no reason to complicate the situation with the lies and half truths they would have to tell.
“Moriah was never stable,” Annalee told another investigator from where she sat on the low couch across the room. “She blamed Richard because we wouldn’t let her move into our home. She was very dependent on me. ” Annalee’s face twisted in grief as more tears flowed from her swollen eyes. “She was like my child. I loved her. ”
Chase wiped his hand over his face and turned back to the sight he didn’t want to see.
