“I could say the same about you,” she told me. Camille put her phone down on the end of the table and came to sit down with me. I poured her a glass of wine and pushed the glass over to her.
She sipped at it, her eyes closing for a moment to relish the taste before she put the glass down on the table.
“What is it?” I asked her, sensing she wanted to tell me something.
“I had a visitor at work today,” she told me.
“Oh?”
“Detective Kane Garrick,” she replied and the wine I’d already consumed began to burn in my belly. Just his name could render me nauseous. He could, quite possibly, best me if I allowed it. I’d never had to go this underground before.
“What?”
“He seems to genuinely care about you,” she said, leading me to scoff in response.
“He would see me in chains with a needle in my arm.”
Camille sipped at her wine again. “I don’t think so. He asked me to get you to stop.”
“Why would he come to you?” I asked her, my mind whirling with anger. “Doesn’t he understand you have nothing to do with this?”
I stood up, pacing the living area, trying to walk off my anger.
“He’s doing his job,” Camille said, finishing her wine and heading into her kitchen. “He’s put it together that I was your daughter and came to see me. I don’t know why you’re in such a bother about it.”
“He pushed a boundary with me.”
“And you didn’t with him when you tried to burn him alive?”
“That was…different.”
Camille rolled her eyes. “Admit it, you like him. He’s actually gotten under your skin, and you don’t know what to do about it.”
I didn’t like that she could read me so easily. It was true. I had let Kane in somehow and I was struggling to understand why. No one had made me feel this way, and I was worried it would impact what I still had to do.
“Why don’t you stop … even if it’s just for a while? Get him off your case. He said if you stop, they could rule it a cold case.”
Camille was always trying to get me to stop, but it was my mission now. I couldn’t stop…not until I got to him.
I needed to get to my original tormentor, the one who sold me to every man, and after they were done, he’d beat me and use my body for his own pleasure, upset that I was giving attention to other men, even if it was he who had given me to them.
He was the head of the ring, I was sure of it, and until I got to him…I wouldn’t stop.
“I can’t do that,” I told her. “I’m sorry for being such a disappointing mother, but you had a great mom who raised you, and she did an amazing job.”
“I may love her for raising me, and yes she is my mom, but so are you. You’ve taught me a lot about this world and continue to teach me every day. I am proud of what you’re doing, even if it’s not legal, it’s what is right. I just don’t want to lose you.”
A silent tear rolled down her sweet face that looked so much like my own when I was her age. I moved over to her, wiping her tears from her face with my thumb.
“Mon amour, we all lose those we love,” I told her, giving her a quick kiss on her forehead before I moved away. I couldn’t let my love for her distract me.
I was still angry with Kane, but he could wait. For now, I wanted to enjoy some time with her. I knew with what I had planned, I wouldn’t see her for a while, if ever again.
“What are you cooking?” I asked her.
“Nothing, I forgot to get the shopping done. Pizza?”
“Oh, Cami, you are thirty years old,” I chided her, as I took my seat again, pouring another glass of wine. “You should have a family by now, a loving husband and children running around, but you insist on working over twenty hours a day and eating take out.”
