“Thank you, Dom.”
Nic answered him in the same cool tone.“Don’t thank me yet.”
Vaughn smiled wider, then headed up the walkway to his niece.
Ducking back under the tape, Cam followed Nic to the opening of the garage.“What was that about?”he asked when Nic turned around.
“That was me pulling up that mask you mentioned earlier.And also...”He pointed at the eaves overhanging the garage.
Eyes widening, Cam spotted the small home security camera there.“Ten to one,” Nic said, lowering his voice, “there’s one of those on the patio too, right by the front door.”
Right where Vaughn and Beth were sitting.“You want to see what he says,” Cam said.
“I also want to know if this is the first time tonight he’s been here.”Cam looked back at him.“You think the computer’s in the safe?”
“If I saw my gangster relation on the front porch the day after I’d discovered a body and papers were served on him, I’d be hiding evidence too.”
“Sounds like I’ve got a safe to crack.”
“Only if you can.”Nic skimmed a hand over his lower back, out of sight of the swarming officers but exactly the grounding Cam needed.
“You’re here.I’m tethered.I can do it.”
Cam entered the conference room with a pink, brown, and orange box in each hand, skirting past Nic who held the door open for him.“We come bearing doughnuts.”
Despite his vow in Boston to never eat Dunkin’ again, once Cam had learned there was a new one on their way from the house to the office, all bets were off.His colleagues had reaped the rewards ever since, as Lauren did today, looking up from her computer with a tired smile.
“My heroes.”She took one of the boxes from Cam and dug right in.“You’re lucky he didn’t eat them all on the way here,” Nic said as Cam slid the other box onto the table.
With his free hand, Cam shot Nic the bird.“Well, if someone hadn’t kept me up all night.”
Lauren clapped her hands over her ears.“Earmuffs!”
Cam laughed around a bite of blueberry-glazed doughnut.
“It was nothing that fun,” Nic said, headed for the coffeemaker.“He pretended to be Vaughn, and I grilled him for hours.”
“Waste of a night.You’re ready.”Cam reached for a second doughnut, and Nic shoved a cup of coffee in his hand instead.
“That’s four already, and as for last night, I want to be prepared.”
“I think I can help with that,” Lauren said, losing the battle with a powdered one, her navy blazer from yesterday taking a sugar beating.
“You cracked Harris’s computer?”Cam asked.
The slim MacBook had been locked away in a wall safe, hidden behind the framed alphabet poster in the nursery.When Lauren had carried it out last night, Vaughn’s eyes had flashed with what looked like fear, the first crack Cam had seen in his shiny, too-cool veneer.
“I did,” she said.
“Then what am I here for?”came a familiar voice behind them, the drawl unmistakably Southern.
Cam twisted to see his best friend entering the conference room ahead of Aidan.He was half out of his chair when Jamie pulled him the rest of the way up and into a back-slapping hug.“Brother,” Cam said, feeling like the missing piece of the team, of his support system was back where it belonged.
Jamie drew Nic into a hug next.“Whatever you need.”
“Thank you,” Nic replied.
They’d gotten close while working the case with Cam in Boston, and Cam was relieved the two most important men in his life were now friends.
