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  Cam searched for answers in his light blue eyes. “Did I cause my own more pain doing so?”

  “Right now, that doesn’t matter. Being here for your family does.”

  Cam closed his eyes and rested his forehead against Nic’s shoulder. “I feel like I’m coming untethered.”

  A feeling that intensified when Nic let go of his hands. But then those long, strong arms wrapped around him, holding him together. “I’ve got the rope,” Nic whispered in his ear.

  Standing by him, even after he’d run hot and cold the past few days. After he’d pushed him away in favor of keeping what little peace was left with his family. “I don’t deserve—”

  A hand ran up his back and into his hair, holding him close. Cheek to cheek, Nic’s warm breath fanned the side of his face. “I will not let go.”

  Cam’s heart and lungs stuttered. “Please don’t.”

  Nic angled his face in, brushing their lips together. It was a different sort of kiss for them. Not the rough, can’t-get-enough-of-you claiming of mouths. Or the just-shut-up lip smash they were both so fond of. It was slow, gentle, full of silent words—I trust you, I’ve got you, I’m here—and every bit as claiming as all their other kisses. Maybe more so. And it was by far the most convincing argument Nic had ever made, without saying a word.

  The elevator dinged, arriving at their floor, and Cam didn’t want to leave the safety of Nic’s arms. Nic, however, was wise enough to step back in the nick of time, Bobby waiting for them in the hallway. They were still close enough for the dark brows above Bobby’s narrowed eyes to snap together.

  “Cam, what—”

  “How is she?” Cam asked, as he and Nic stepped out of the elevator. Bobby looked like he wanted to get back to his unfinished question, so Cam came at him with another request. “Tell me what happened, Bobby.”

  Conceding, his brother fell in step beside them. “She made it through the surgery and was in recovery.”

  That’d been the last Cam had heard too. “I talked to Quinn this evening, before we went dark for an operation.” They turned the corner to the ICU hallway. “He said she was waking up.”

  “She did wake up, around midnight. Ate a little too, and then—”

  “This is your fault!” Keith came barreling toward him, pointing an accusatory finger. “She had the TV on and they cut to a report about the blast in South End. You just can’t quit, can you?”

  “Is that what the doctor said caused it?” Cam asked Bobby, horrified and being towed under by a cresting wave of guilt.

  His older brother shook his head. “Blood clot, like they warned us.”

  “She was fine, then she wasn’t!” Keith hollered in his face. “Because of you!” He reared back an arm, hand fisted, and before Cam could blink, Nic was between them, palm in Keith’s chest, shoving him up against the wall.

  “That’s enough, Sergeant.”

  “Why are you even here?” Keith spat, eyes hard and angry. “This is a family matter.”

  “And Boston’s mine.”

  Cam’s heart skipped a beat, then lurched into his throat. He moved to break up the stare-down, but Jamie’s hand around his biceps stopped him.

  “I didn’t have much of one growing up,” Nic went on. “But your brother and his friends took me in. That’s why I’m here, for my family, which by extension is your family. So, stand the fuck down. None of us needs this right now, least of all your mother.”

  “What’s going on?” Everyone’s attention swung the opposite direction. Quinn stood in the doorway of Edye’s room, arm around their tearful father.

  Cam’s heart plummeted, all the way to the floor, the roller coaster making him nauseated. Keith looked equally green, raising his hands, and when Nic dropped his, Cam reached for his brother. Keith came to his one side, Bobby to his other. A hand coasted across his lower back, giving him the courage to ask, “How’s Mom?” even as he feared the answer.

  “No change.”

  The brothers sagged against one another. Cam broke first, going to his father and pulling him into a hug.

  “Tell me,” he said to Quinn over Ken’s shoulder.

  “They may need to operate again. She’s on blood thinners now, to try and dissolve the clot less invasively.”

  “And the clot was an effect of the surgery,” Bobby said behind them. “Nothing else.”

  “I’m sorry,” Keith mumbled.

  Cam dragged him into the hug too. “It’s okay. We’re all on edge.”

  “You should go see her, Cam,” Quinn said after a moment.

  Cam nodded, handing Keith and his father off to each other. He glanced back at Jamie and Nic standing beside each other. The latter nodded. “Go,” he said. “We’ll be here.”

  Taking a deep breath, he entered the dim room. And realized he hadn’t inhaled nearly enough. Because all of the oxygen vanished, whooshing out of him like he’d been punched in the gut.

  Last he’d seen her, his mom had been frail but awake and sharp. Now, she was laid flat out, unconscious, and breathing with the help of a ventilator. Knees going weak, he caught himself on the bed’s foot rail, shaking the bed and drawing the notice of the nurse in the room.

  He smiled gently, not seeming the least bit surprised. “Talk to her,” he said. “There’s still brain activity. She needs to know you’re here.”

  The nurse slipped out, and once Cam got his legs back under him, he moved to the chair at the side of her bed. He wanted to hold her hand, and the nurse had helpfully made a path for him through the IVs and wires. Her hand was warm, which was a small comfort, but the way it didn’t move, didn’t curl around his, wiped the comfort away.

  He squeezed for both of them. “I need you to hang on, Ma. I’m getting closer. We found where the kidnapped girl was held. Maybe Erin too.” He swallowed down the bile that rose up just thinking about Erin in that room and focused on his mother instead. “I’m going to find out what happened to her, I promise, but I need you to fight, Ma. I need you to fight like you fought for me.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nic sat at the table in Cam and Jamie’s suite, dress sleeves rolled up, going over again the documents in the rainbow-colored file folders and on the poster sheets hanging on the wall. Real estate for additional notes on the latter had become sparse, three different sets of handwriting adding bits and pieces as connections and observations struck.

  But for all their efforts, as the sun rose on Thursday morning, they were still no closer to finding Shannon, or Erin. And the sleeping man on the couch was near to breaking, no matter how tightly Nic held on to the rope.

  There was a click across the room, and Jamie’s bedroom door swung open. Spying Nic, he started to say something, but Nic held a finger to his lips, shushing him. He nodded at Cam asleep on the sofa, and Jamie smiled, keeping quiet as he made his way to Nic. “How long’s he been out?”

  Nic checked the phone Cam had left on the table. “Couple of hours.”

  Jamie, in sweats and a T-shirt, slid onto the stool beside him, looking him up and down. Nic knew what he was seeing. Same dress slacks from last night, wrinkled. Same dress shirt as well, likewise wrinkled. Scruff filling in as he approached three days without a shave. Not his usual look. “No, I haven’t slept any,” he answered before Jamie could ask. “And I already got the lecture from your husband—” he waved a hand “—so just no.”

  Jamie chuckled, until his smile turned contemplative. “I heard what you said last night, at the hospital.”

  “Walker.”

  “We’ve been telling you for months that you’re family. Glad you’re starting to believe us.”

  Nic rested his forearms on the table, gaze aimed out the window at the rising sun over the water. “Like I told Keith, I didn’t exactly have a functional one growing up. It’s hard to know what to do with one now.”

 
“You think we’re functional?” He slapped a hand over his mouth, trying and failing to contain his laughter. “Pssh.”

  Nic couldn’t hold back his own laugh.

  Seemed Jamie couldn’t hold back his coaching-moment either. “You protect, Price. You’ve been doing that for our family for a while now, and you’re doing it for Cam’s now, even if they don’t fully appreciate it.”

  He gestured at the folders and documents on the table. “I wish I could do more, somehow mold this into a case, but we have so little to go on.”

  “Or maybe not,” Jamie said, eyes locked on the sheet of paper Nic had clipped to one of the folders. “What’s this?” he asked.

  Cam’s torso popped up, hanging over the back of the couch. “What’s what?”

  “Sorry,” Jamie said. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “How long have I been out?”

  “Just a couple hours,” Nic replied. “You needed it.”

  Standing, Cam ran a hand through his hair, making it a bigger mess than it was already. “What were you asking about?” he said, coming to stand beside Nic.

  “The list Becca made.” Nic nudged the paper toward him. “Names from the crew she used to run with here, after she left home.”

  Cam tapped at the third name down. “This one looks familiar. I’ve seen it. I’m just not sure where.”

  “Laptop’s in my room.” Jamie stood and grabbed the list. “I’m gonna go run these again.”

  “And I’m going to make coffee. Maybe it’ll jog the memory.” Cam glided a hand over Nic’s shoulders as he crossed behind him. The casual touch felt good, right again after not having the closeness when they’d needed it most.

  Nic wanted more of it, and with Jamie out of the room... Though hadn’t Cam wanted to tell their friends about them, if not his family? And hadn’t Nic effectively shown his hand to Jamie the night Bobby had called about their mother? Or last night, in the van? At the hospital? No way the former investigator hadn’t figured it out. Nic was tired of hiding, if he didn’t have to, especially when Cam needed every bit of support he could offer. He slid off his stool and followed him into the kitchenette. “How you feeling?”

  Cam popped in a single-serve capsule, locked down the lid, and hit the start button. Coffee brewing, he rotated and rested back against the counter. Nic was sure he was going to tell him to piss off. “I feel like this might just be the second worst week of my life,” he admitted instead.

  Nic didn’t need to ask which week was Cam’s worst. It was the very reason they were here, buried in old case files that led nowhere. Stretching out an arm, he circled Cam’s shoulders and tugged him into his body. He was stiff at first, but then relaxed into the hold. Nic dropped a kiss on his head. “We’re going to solve it.”

  Relaxation vanished, however, when Cam’s phone vibrated on the table. Stiff as a board one second, darting over to the table the next, Cam either didn’t notice Jamie standing in his bedroom doorway or didn’t care that his best friend had seen them embracing. Nic hoped the latter, that he’d made the right call. Jamie’s slight nod to him said as much, but Cam hadn’t noticed their exchange, reading a text on his phone instead.

  “It’s Di,” he told them. “She said to call in.”

  “So call in.” Jamie crossed the room, setting his laptop on the table, while Nic moved to stand beside Cam.

  Di answered Cam’s call right away. “Morning, sugar.”

  “Need a good one, Di. Tell me what you’ve got.”

  “A burner phone, just like the one Officer Murphy received. Only this one was dropped off at the station, with your name on it.”

  “My name?” He stumbled back, into Nic’s waiting hand.

  “A copy of your South Boston library card was attached.”

  A stunned shockwave rolled through him—Nic felt it in his hand—but then his spine straightened with determination. “We’ll be there in twenty,” Cam told her and hung up.

  Nic’s gaze shot over to the timeline of Erin’s case. “That’s the same library Erin was at, the day she disappeared.”

  Cam nodded. “And I haven’t set foot in that library since. This has to mean something. The cases have to be connected.”

  * * *

  The station was bustling, triple the usual force crowding the bullpen, as Di’s team waited with the D-4 cops and Matt’s agents for a joint task force briefing. No arguing, as far as Cam could see, which was a good sign. With a cop’s kid on the line, everyone seemed to understand they were on the same team. Well, everyone except Murphy and Smith, who’d wasted a day trying to handle this themselves. But he and Nic had brought them in line, and with the truth about his sister possibly on the line too, Cam needed everyone on the same page, now more than ever.

  Di, spotting them, broke off her conversation with Matt and met them at the front counter. “You look like hell,” she said to Cam.

  “Love you too, sweetheart,” he teased back with a smile.

  Shifting from worried to mama-bear protective, she glared at Nic and Jamie. “You two were supposed to take care of him.”

  “Don’t blame them, Di. With everything yesterday, and then Ma taking a turn for the worse last night, it was hard getting much sleep.”

  “She gonna pull through?”

  He swallowed hard, forcing out the truth. “I’m not as sure as I was earlier in the week.”

  “Oh, sugar.”

  “Need to keep busy,” he said, shaking off the threatening break. “And we need to find Shannon.”

  Di followed his lead. “We’re all set up in the big briefing room. Just need to usher everyone back there.”

  “I’d like to listen to the message first, without an audience.”

  “I’ve got the phone in my office.” She led them around the outside of the bullpen to her office.

  Cam followed her in, Nic and Jamie on his heels, which almost caused a four-body pile-up when Di suddenly hit the brakes.

  “What’s wrong?” Cam asked.

  She tilted her head, eyeing her desk. “I had the phone right here.”

  She went one direction, Cam the other, searching all around the desk. She opened and closed drawers, Cam got on his hands and knees and peered under it, and Nic and Jamie were scouring the rest of the office.

  They all came up empty-handed. “It’s gone,” Cam said.

  “That’s impossible.” Brow knitted, Di marched to the door. “Hey, Owens,” she called to the uniform at the desk right outside her office. “There was an evidence bag on my desk. Did you see anyone take it?”

  “Smith from South End. Said you wanted it for the briefing.”

  Murphy’s captain.

  “Fuck!” Cam shot past Di into the bullpen. No Smith or Murphy there. He hung a right and sprinted down the hall to the briefing room.

  Just some other D-4 officers lingering around, waiting to get started. “Where’s Smith?” Cam demanded.

  “On his way here,” one replied right away. “He’s bringing Murphy from the hospital.”

  He reversed course, hightailing it to surveillance, where Di was already directing the duty officer to pull up the security footage. As Owens said, Smith approached Di’s office, told him that he was taking the phone to the briefing, then walked right past the briefing room and out the back door.

  “You got outside cameras?” Nic asked.

  A couple clicks later, a view of the back door and lot appeared onscreen. The duty officer rewound the tape, and sure enough, Smith snuck out and into a cruiser with Murphy, who was identifiable by the stabilizing sling around his arm. Once they hit the street, they turned on the lights and sirens and sped away.

  “They’re trying to handle it themselves,” Di said.

  “How long ago was this?” Jamie asked.

  The duty officer toggled down, popping up the time stamp
. “Ten minutes.”

  “Fuck!” Cam just stopped himself from ramming a fist into the wall, frustration and lack of sleep almost getting the better of him. Nic moved to contain him, and Cam’s gaze snapped to his. He was causing a scene, but better here than out in the bullpen. He needed to rail, and Nic, seeming to understand, nodded, making himself the target. “My name was on the fucking phone!” Cam shouted. “That was our best shot at finding Shannon.” And it might have been his only shot at finding his sister.

  “We can ping the GPS on the cruiser,” Di said.

  Jamie slid into the chair next to the duty officer, opening his laptop. “Did your techs make a recording of what was on the phone?” The officer nodded. “Drop it to me. I’ll be on your network in less than a minute.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t ask,” Nic said, then to Cam, “Better?”

  “Depends what’s on that recording.”

  “Boston.”

  Cam took a deep breath, forcing himself calm. “I’m good. Thank you.” Nic stepped aside, and Cam moved behind Jamie, telling him to hit Play when a voicemail window popped up.

  “Hey, Twenty-four, I got something you want. Let’s make a deal. Meet—” The recording cut out, fading into static.

  “Fucking hell!” Cam roared.

  Before he could grab something to throw or ball his fists, Nic clasped his biceps from behind. “Breathe, Boston.”

  He vibrated in the other man’s hold. “He knows me.”

  Jamie twisted in his chair. “The nickname?”

  “My jersey number in high school.”

  “If you wore it at BC too...” Nic said, but Cam was already shaking his head.

  Jamie answered for him. “He wore twelve at BC, same as me at Carolina.”

  “You recognize the voice?” Nic asked, still holding him, only lighter now.

  He was the only thing keeping Cam grounded. Keeping him from flying off in a million directions. “No, but it was a big fucking high school.”

  “Can you—” Nic started.

  “School rosters, got it,” Jamie said before he even finished, whipping back around, fingers flying over his keyboard.