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CHAPTER TWO
Cami hung up, adrenaline surging.
"Connor knows!" she said to Kieran.
"Did I hear him say five minutes?" he asked.
"Yes." Erupting from her position on the bed, Cami began dashing around the bedroom, pulling on her clothes, dragging a brush through the side of her black-dyed hair that wasn't shaved.
"What's this about? Does he need you on a case?" Kieran asked.
"I don't know if it's a case. I don't think so, from the way he sounded and what he said," she explained, shoving her laptop and phone into the bag. Case or not, she'd need them regardless, and she might need the FBI jacket that was hanging in the hallway, too. She didn't want to go unprepared, even though five minutes gave her no prep time at all.
She pulled on her Doc Martens, doing them up as best she could. Fastening the laces of her ankle boots were a time consuming chore. Maybe there'd be time, in the car, to tighten them properly. Even though Cami didn't think that 'in the car' was something she was going to be looking forward to.
"Good luck. Let me know, okay?" Kieran sounded as anxious as she felt.
She rushed over to him. She kissed him, felt his hand warm on her back for a moment, and then she grabbed her laptop bag, her jacket, and her phone and raced out of the apartment, worry flaring inside her, hoping that she didn't trip over her still-dangling laces as she raced for the elevator.
She had to wait for it to come down two floors, shifting impatiently from foot to foot. Inside the elevator, she put her bag down, quickly slipped her jacket on, and managed to tackle one of her laces before it reached the lobby. She burst out of the doors and onto the street, feeling a chilly wind tug at her hair - and then, there was Connor, rounding the corner and pulling up outside her apartment building.
Cami jumped in the car, feeling so choked up by anxiety and by the rushed preparation, that she was breathless for a moment.
"Morning, Cami," Connor said, filling the silence as she caught her breath and collected her thoughts. The words were innocuous enough, but his tone of voice was as hard as she'd ever heard it.
She glanced at him, but he was looking ahead, already pulling onto the road and joining the now-worsening traffic. His face looked stern, with its firm, hard jaw and its cropped brown hair, with a hint of gray at the temples.
"Morning," she finally got out.
She thought that Connor would talk to her, that he'd say something, that he'd explain what was happening. But he didn't. And, as he indicated and turned down a side road, she saw to her consternation that he was not taking the usual route to the FBI offices.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
He turned again, accelerating down a side road.
"We have work to do," he said.
Work? What work? Why wasn't he saying anything? It was exceedingly unlike Connor not to say anything.
Cami stayed quiet, biting her lip with anxiety, as Connor accelerated along a side street.
Worst case scenarios flooded her mind, chief among which was that Bill Oertel had gotten his side of the story in first, and been believed, and Cami was on her way to some kind of disciplinary hearing as a result. This was scary. Knowing you were up against somebody so powerful and so lethal, even though she'd taken such a tiny step, was scary.
And he'd seen her.
She remembered vividly what had happened before her meeting with the FBI agent, Jacinta, who was acting as her 'parole officer' during her cases. They'd walked into the boardroom, and he'd been there. She'd recognized his name, of course, when Jacenta had innocently introduced her boss's boss.
And worse still, he'd recognized hers.
That meeting hadn’t gone well. Cami had intended to finally tell Jacenta everything. But after seeing Oertel, she was unable to say a word. She’d sat in miserable silence for ten long minutes before saying she couldn't do it, getting up, and bursting out of the door. She'd left the FBI offices feeling like a hunted woman. She’d felt so ashamed to have broken her promise that she was going to talk and finally give the details of what had been going on.
But after seeing Oertel in that office, and discovering the bombshell that he was Jacenta’s boss’s boss, and that from her tone, Jacenta clearly respected him and didn't suspect him of any wrongdoing? Nope. She couldn't do it. She couldn't sit in that same office and explain to Jacenta that her boss’s boss was likely involved in some seedy and deadly business.
She might not be believed. And then what?
So she’d left. She hadn’t even answered the phone when her parole officer had tried to call her, and she hadn’t answered the messages Jacenta had left for her either. She’d been paralyzed with fear and uncertain of what to do.
She’d called the FBI offices two days later, from a friend’s phone – that was how paranoid she was already feeling – and asked to speak to Connor. But she’d been told that Connor was out of state. He’d flown to Atlanta to assist with another case and would only be back on Tuesday.
