Nic shook his head.“I don’t think so.He was kitted out in a mask and helmet at the condo raid.I don’t think he took them off until after Becca fled.”He craned his neck to glance at Lauren again.“Anywhere else I’m forgetting?”
“The arraignment maybe?”she said.
“Negative.”He turned back to Aidan.“Becca wasn’t in the courtroom, and I don’t remember seeing her anywhere around the courthouse yesterday.We can check security footage to confirm, but I’d be willing to bet Percy was the only one there.And when we cornered him, he recognized me but he had no idea who Cam was.”
“She still could have had eyes on him,” Bowers said, as the door swung open.
“I won’t look the same to those eyes,” Cam countered, stopping at the foot of the bed next to Aidan.
Fuming, Jamie stalked back to his spot beside Lauren, and Nic could tell it was all the former agent could do not to make a remark.
Nic wanted—needed—to know what was up, for the sake of the mission if not his sanity.But he wouldn’t ask Cam in front of Bowers.“Are you sure about this?”Nic said instead.“Your call, Boston.”
“It’s the quickest, surest way to infiltrate, to find out who Becca is working for, and to rescue Abby.This is my job.This is what I’m good at.”
Nic sank back into the pillows.No use arguing.Cam’s mind was set, and if his best friend couldn’t change it, Nic wouldn’t be able to either.
“All right, Boston, it’s your rescue.”
Cam kicked down the volume on his headset before the screeches of “Uncle Cam!”blew out his eardrums.“Bobby,” he tried again, hoping his older brother could hear him over the kids.“I just need five fucking minutes of your attention.”
“You try sparing five minutes with three kids always hanging off you,” Bobby replied, weary but laughing.“They miss their favorite uncle.”
Truth be told, Cam missed them too, more than a little.He slumped on the end of his bed next to his go-bag stuffed with the rattiest clothes he still owned.Torn jeans, threadbare T-shirts, ribbed tank tops, an old BC hoodie, and his ancient army surplus camo jacket.He held the coat to his nose, inhaling the lingering scents of shop grease and pot smoke.Two decades later, any smells should have been long gone—maybe they were and it was all in his head—but this jacket would always smell that way to him.Remind him of that part of his life—a mix of bitter and sweet.Vestiges of a life left behind even before he’d moved here.
He was lucky he’d kept this stuff.Luckier still that he’d brought it out with him to California.Then again, he’d had to make the moving trailer worth it.A bed frame and mattress, treadmill and weight bench, and a couple suitcases of clothes barely filled half the trailer.So the shit in the back of his old closet had moved cross-country to the back of his new closet.Would unearthing it all now unearth his old life too?A life he and his brother had vowed never to revisit.
“Say a few words to them?”Bobby said, snapping Cam back to the present.“Ma’s on her way over to babysit while Josie and I go out.”
Cam set the coat aside.“Yeah, I’d like that.”
A little comfort from home was due, especially after the past few days.A raid gone wrong.A kidnapping on his watch.Seeing Nic’s body tossed across the hood of a car.He’d thought his imagination was bad before when it kept showing him Nic bleeding out in the street.Now he didn’t need his imagination.He had the real thing to go on, sans the blood.Nic’s unconscious form lying motionless in the middle of the road was there every time he closed his eyes.That sight was a big part of the reason he’d volunteered to take point infiltrating Becca’s crew.He’d be damned if Nic walked into the line of fire again on this case.
Going undercover would also require him to play his full accent.Nothing like the unchecked Southie drawls of his nieces and nephews to help bring back his own.Full strength, not the watered-down version his friends here thought was thick but sounded pitifully thin to his ears.A call wouldn’t be as good as being back there but every minute on the phone helped.
He asked each of them how they were doing in school.How his nephew was doing on the Pop Warner football team.How far his niece could kick the same football, determined to play with her twin brother.Cam held out hope the youngest of Bobby’s kids would follow his uncle’s footsteps onto the court—Cam had even put a tiny basketball in little Jack’s hands at Christmas—but with the way he worshipped his older siblings, Jack would probably go the way of the pigskin too.
He’d have to hold out hope for his own someday.
Just as Bella finished telling him about their field trip to Salem, a door slammed and Cam’s mother called out, “I’m here.With cannoli!”
Shouts of “Nonna” and “I get first pick” rang out as they all abandoned him for his mother and pastries.
Laughing, Bobby came back on the line.“Now you know where you rank.”
Cam couldn’t blame them, his own mouth watering.“Everything ranks below cannoli.”
“We are the worst Irish family ever.”
“Yeah, us and half the Irish families in Boston.”
Bobby laughed out loud.“Only half?”
“Truth, brother, truth.”
Standing, Cam grabbed the straps of his bag and started to lift only to be swatted by a clawed paw.Green eyes in a white-and-orange tabby face glared at him from inside his open bag.“Shoo, furball,” he said, patting the cat’s rump until it vacated his bag and room with an angrymeow.
Slinging the bag over his shoulder, Cam carried it down the short hallway to the front bedroom he’d set up as a home office and gym.No way he could afford the gym memberships here.Not that it ever got cold enough he couldn’t run outside.No snow and relatively little rain to contend with either.He should ditch the equipment and rent the room out.Bring in some spare cash.Buy an extra suit or two with it.
