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“Yes,” I said simply, then I pulled the door open. Uncle Curtis stumbled forward. I smiled at that because the asshole clearly hadn’t realized how much stronger than him I actually was.
Or that I was done not using that fact to my advantage. “You have something else you want to say to me?” I asked. I was eager to get to Cam, but I also wanted to savor this moment. It wasn’t often that I got to see Uncle Curtis looking like he was going to shit his pants.
He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. He hitched his pants up and then waved his hand at me. “You all can burn in hell together,” he muttered as he walked away.
“Make sure and leave the door open for us,” I shot back before getting into my car.
I was hitting speed dial on my cell phone before I even got my car going, but Cam didn’t pick up. I called the sanctuary next to see if he was there. He’d taken Riley there the last couple of mornings when the boy had fallen in love with the place after he’d gone to introduce him to everyone and show him around. Cam hadn’t figured out how to tell Riley the truth about his parents not wanting him back, so he’d been trying to keep him busy until he decided what to do next.
Cam had told me all about what Riley had gone through the morning after the boy had shown up at Cam’s house. My heart ached for the teen, but I suspected he’d been dealing with his parents’ rejection long before he’d been kicked out of the house. The fact that he’d sought love with an older man who’d preyed upon him hadn’t surprised me in the least. It could have just as easily happened to me if a man had decided to use my vulnerabilities against me.
“Is Cam there?” I asked Isaac the second he picked up the phone.
“No, he isn’t,” Isaac said. “Is everything all right, Ford?” he asked, his voice filling with concern.
“Um, yes… no, I don’t know,” I admitted. “Is Riley still with you?”
“Yes, he and Newt are helping Dallas and Maddox with the chores.”
“If Cam calls or comes to pick Riley up, can you tell him to call me right away? It’s really important.”
“Yeah, sure. Of course.”
“I’m sorry, Isaac, I need to go,” I said as I hit the gas on my car. “I promise I’ll call back as soon as I can and explain everything.”
“Okay,” Isaac responded. “Just… take care of yourself, okay?”
“I will,” I said, then hung up the phone and tried Cam again. “Answer,” I whispered. But his phone once again went to voicemail. I broke pretty much every traffic law in Pelican Bay to get to the police station, including leaving my car double-parked in front of the place. I practically fell through the front doors in my hurry to find Cam.
His receptionist looked up in surprise. When she saw me, her face fell. I was used to that reaction. She hadn’t been one of Uncle Curtis’s fans… he and my mother had always talked down to her like she was nothing more than a peon and my mother and her friends had made fun of the slightly overweight Sally-Ann’s appearance.
“Is he here?” I asked as I scanned the station. But Sally-Ann was the only one there.
“I’m afraid that Sheriff Wells is busy at the moment.”
The fact that she knew I was asking about Cam and not Alex spoke volumes. I wondered if that meant she knew about us.
It was clear she knew something was up and was clearly siding with Cam.
“Please, Sally-Ann, I know you probably hate me and my family… and rightly so. But I’m not… I’m not like them. I’m not like my mom or Jimmy or Uncle Curtis. I know you don’t believe that but…”
Her face pulled into a frown, which was proof that she did put me in the same boat as my family.
I stepped closer to her desk. “Do you remember the night Cam was shot?” I asked. “I called here. Several times. I didn’t say it was me, but I called you like every fifteen minutes.”
I saw her eyes light up a little.
She remembered.
Thank fuck.
I chanced moving closer to the woman.
“I’m in love with him, Sally-Ann. I love him so much it fucking hurts and I’m worried about him and I need to tell him something so he’ll know what’s going on and be ready for it.”
To say Sally-Ann was caught off guard by my comments was an understatement like no other.
“Oh,” she whispered.
Then she smiled.
But it didn’t last long. “He’s at City Hall. The town council called an emergency meeting and insisted he be there.”
“No,” I whispered. There was only one reason they’d call a meeting like that. “Thank you,” I blurted before I ran out of the station. I left my car where it was because it would be faster to cross the town square than drive around the block to get to City Hall. My breath felt like it was caught in my lungs for the couple of minutes it took to sprint the short distance on the slippery footpaths through the little park at the town’s center. I was relieved to see Cam’s SUV sitting in the parking lot of City Hall, but it was a short-lived feeling.
