“You don’t want it.”
“You’re right, I don’t. I have my life, and this place doesn’t factor into it. I would have deeded it to Mary, if she’d wanted it, or sold it and donated the proceeds to a battered women’s or queer teen shelter.”
“You will do no such thing with your inheritance.”
Nic pushed off the counter, meeting his father in the middle of the room. “I don’t want any of your damn money. I keep telling you and your fucking creditors that. And besides, what’s even left?”
His father angled his face away, chin and nose held high, as if those alone could keep his bloated pride afloat.
“Whatever you’ve been hiding in that offshore account?” Nic said. Blue eyes, the same icy shade as his, darted back to him, alarmed. “If I can find it,” Nic said. “So can Duncan Vaughn.”
“You leave that account alone.”
“What’s it for?”
“Not you,” his father spat.
Nic barely avoided the flying spittle, bending over to pick up Curtis’s coat so Mary wouldn’t have to later. “I didn’t expect it was,” he said, folding the coat over the back of a chair. “Don’t know if you know this, but Vaughn’s taken out an insurance policy on this place for twenty million dollars. That’s twice its value. I don’t want Mary to die in a fire because he’s decided to collect.” Nic stepped closer, forcing his father to look up at him. “So if you have to tap that not-so-secret slush fund of yours, you better damn well tap it.”
“Go be a hero,” his father said, defiant and prideful to a fault. “I don’t need you to save me.”
“It’s not you I’m trying to save.”
Thirteen
Soda cans spilled out of the recycling bin, candy wrappers overflowed the half dozen coffee mugs lying around, and a new color folder had been added to the rainbow files overnight—everything he and Jamie could gather, legitimately and otherwise, on Shannon Murphy and Officer William Murphy. They’d gone over the missing persons report with a fine-tooth comb, read and reread through the family statements and those of the last people to see Shannon, and hung another poster sheet with three columns for Shannon’s case: Timeline, Suspects, and Notes.
The middle column was blank.
Cam didn’t think it would stay that way for long—the guilt would eventually get to Billy if he and Jamie didn’t get to the truth first. There was an equal chance the kidnapping had nothing to do with whatever had Billy torn up, just like Erin’s kidnapping maybe had nothing to do with Cam and Bobby’s activities that day—wrong place, wrong time. But if he’d somehow had a hand in that, like Cam had in Erin’s disappearance, not being there when she needed him, then Cam hoped that would lead Billy to give them the full story. A detail in the full picture, no matter how small, could be the clue they needed to bring Shannon home.
Maybe also to learn what really happened to Erin. Sooner rather than later would be good. His mom was stable through the night, but she now had a second surgery scheduled for tomorrow. Another chance for things to go wrong. He wanted to give her answers before then, if at all possible. To put her mind and the rest of his family’s at peace, if not ease.
Straightening from where he was bent over the long desk reviewing case files, he grabbed his and Jamie’s breakfast bowls and took them to the kitchenette’s sink. Jamie had made biscuits and sausage gravy before heading off to meet with his former graduate adviser at MIT. He’d offered to cancel but Cam had insisted he go. He never knew when they might need that connection or those skills that had been passed down to Jamie. And honestly, he’d needed some time to himself to process information and the general state of things before starting another marathon day.
Which was scheduled to kick off in twenty minutes or so with a lift from Quinn to the hospital. Their mother’s doctors wanted to go over the details of tomorrow’s surgery, and Cam wanted to give her a status update. Then he’d head to the station for a joint task force meeting with his old partner from the local FBI field office and Murphy and Smith, and Di’s BPD team. Nic, scheduled to arrive at one, would meet them there. Cam needed more hours to get all the shit done and yet the hours couldn’t pass by fast enough.
A knock sounded on the door, and Cam glanced at the wall clock.
Nope, no fast-forward button. He hadn’t just sped up the space-time continuum or lost twenty minutes sleepwalking. “You’re early, Q,” he shouted at the door. “Give me a minute.” He finished rinsing the dishes and was halfway to grabbing the coffee mugs when the knock sounded again. “All right, all right, I’m coming.”
God help him if Quinn had forgotten the Dunkin’ cause he had to binge that shit while he could. He yanked open the door. “I hope you didn’t?—”
“Didn’t what?” Nic grinned. “Catch a direct flight and get here early?”
Speechless, Cam stood holding the door open, eyes feasting on the perfectly put-together man in front of him. The tailored gray suit, crisp white dress shirt, and another light blue tie that matched his eyes. Every brown and gray hair in place. A smile that was relaxed and gorgeous. No one would ever guess Nic had just come off a commercial red-eye if not for the sprinkling of overnight scruff and the rolling suitcase behind him.
“I hope you don’t mind I’m early,” he said. “I came straight here.”
Cam shook his head and stepped back, opening the door wider. He was still struggling for words, not so much from surprise any longer as from the different directions his insides were tugging him. Head telling him that Quinn would be here any minute; he should catch Nic up on the case. Heart telling him that the person he’d wanted, needed, most the past four days—hell, the past five weeks—was right in front of him. Every muscle unknotting because Nic was here, then knotting right back up because Nic was here. All of his blood racing south because Nic was here looking like that, and Cam’s dick wanted more than the quick and dirty reunion they’d shared at his place.
So did his heart.
“My room won’t be ready until this afternoon so if I can?—”
Heart and dick on the same page for once, they teamed up and drowned out the rest, including Nic’s words. Cam spun and pushed him up against the closed door, shoving a knee between Nic’s legs and running his fingers under the lapels of his jacket and up his chiseled torso. “Did you wear this suit for me?”
“Yes.” No hesitation, a truckload of gravel in that one word.
