“Law school.”
Cam laughed mid-slurp of stew, and Bird pounced on the spray, licking it up off the floor.
Nic smiled, amused and more content than he had any right to be. “You didn’t have to do this.”
Dark eyes, dimmer now, slid his way. “My apologies for presuming.”
Nic lowered his spoon and forced down the bite that lodged in his throat. “I’m the one who owes you an apology. Thought we established that.”
“Confession,” Cam started, and Nic whipped his gaze back up, not sure where Cam was headed with that lead-in. “This is also me softening you up. I’m Irish,” he said, gesturing with his spoon at the clover on his Celtics T-shirt. “We attack through the belly.”
“Go on.”
Dropping his spoon in his empty bowl, Cam leaned forward and set it on the round leather ottoman. He stopped halfway back, elbows resting on his knees. “It’s about your father.”
“What’d you find?” Nic set his bowl next to Cam’s for Bird to lick clean. Cam had said he was going to keep digging, but had he found out more than Mel? And had he tipped off Vaughn doing so? “Were you quiet?”
Cam nodded. “We didn’t approach. Just dug into financials and legal records.”
“This is what you were softening me up for?”
“No, I was softening you up for what we found. You’re not gonna be happy when I tell you what your father’s done.”
Meaning they’d gotten at least as far as Mel had. “The mortgage on the house,” he said, grimacing.
“You knew?”
“Mel gave me a lift back from San Diego. Brought me up to speed.”
“Do you know who holds that loan?” Cam’s tone clearly indicated he did.
But first . . . “We didn’t approach?”
“Lauren.”
Nic had guessed as much; he’d already drawn her in himself last spring.
Ultimately, though, she answered to Cam, and her ace hacking skills, together with Cam’s investigative prowess, had led them to the same discovery Mel had made. “Duncan Vaughn.”
“He’s a gangster, Nic.” Cam raked a hand through his hair, dark brown made black by the lingering dampness. “He must be the one behind the attacks last April. He’s come at you three times already.”
Two snipers and a hit-and-run. Plus one Cam didn’t know about.
“Four times. Five, maybe, if that fire in the unit above mine tonight was arson. Which is why I’ve tried to keep you out of this.”
Cam’s eyes grew wide, swirling with worry and smarting from betrayal. “Four or five? And how long have you known it’s Vaughn?”
Nic put a hand on Cam’s knee to keep him from bolting upright. He left it there as he filled Cam in on his first run-in with Vaughn’s goons. The two bruisers had tried and failed to jump him in Gravity’s parking lot a week before a sniper had pinned him and Cam down there.
“You’ve known it’s been Vaughn this entire time?”
Standing, Nic grabbed his wallet off the table, took out the card the goons had given him, and handed it to Cam. “They were clear about who they worked for.”
Cam turned the card over in his hand, running a thumb over the embossed lettering. VAUGHN INVESTMENTS. He glanced back up, the betrayal in his eyes eclipsed by the worry. “Fuck, Nic. This is serious. We need to report this.”
“I can take care of myself, Boston.”
Cam shot up off the couch, standing nose-to-nose with him. “Don’t be fooled by that lie I told earlier. I’m the LEO here.”
