Around the halfway point of the drive, they finally got around to a subject Jack was very curious about. He’d been trying to figure out a way to subtly back into the conversation, when she beat him to it.
“Why did you ask if I used to be married?”
Jack chose his words carefully. “Your house seems big for one person. I thought maybe someone used to live there with you.”
She stretched her legs out in front of her, getting more comfortable. Jack kept his eyes on the road and not on the naughty boots. Mostly.
“You’re dying to know how I afford it, aren’t you?” Cameron asked, amused.
“Given that I accused you of accepting bribes the last time we talked about finances, you’ve certainly earned the right to tell me it’s none of my business. But if you are inclined to share that particular information, I would be happy to listen.”
Cameron laughed. “You could be a lawyer, with an answer like that. It’s nothing scandalous. I inherited it. My grandmother lived in the house for years—it was the house my dad grew up in, in fact. My dad was an only child, so when my grandmother died, the house would’ve gone to him. But he died before her, and since my parents had gotten divorced years before that, the house went to me, as my father’s only child. I thought about selling it at first, but it didn’t feel right. My grandmother’s death was somewhat unexpected . . . she just sort of gave up after my father was killed. After losing her and my father back-to-back like that, I couldn’t stomach the thought of giving up the house. I think they’d both be happy that I kept it.”
Jack glanced over, trying to decide if they were at a point in their relationship where he could ask the next obvious question. Given everything that had happened over the last twenty-four hours, he thought they were. “How did your father die?”
Cameron paused, and at first he thought she wasn’t going to answer. “He was a cop here in Chicago. Four years ago he was killed in the line of duty. He and his partner responded to a domestic disturbance call at an apartment building—another tenant had called to complain. No one answered the door, but they could hear a woman yelling inside, so my father and his partner got the landlord and had him unlock the door. Once they got inside, they found drugs everywhere and realized it wasn’t a domestic disturbance, but a doped-out woman screaming that the dealers were trying to cheat her. As soon as the dealers—there were two of them sitting at the kitchen table—saw my dad and his partner, they started shooting. My dad’s partner was hit in the leg, and the landlord took a bullet in the shoulder. My dad followed one of the perps into the bedroom where a third guy was trying to escape through the window. He panicked and shot my dad in the chest and stomach.”
Jack could only imagine how much pain that must’ve caused her. “Fuck, Cameron . . . I’m sorry.” He did the math in his head and quickly put things together. “Four years ago. That’s when you joined the U.S. attorney’s office.”
“I wish I could tell you that the first thing I did as a prosecutor was put away the scumbag who killed my dad. Not that I ever would’ve been allowed to try that case.”
“Did they catch the guy?”
She nodded. “He pled guilty to manslaughter in state court. It was quick, uneventful. Very . . . unsatisfying.”
“But now you put other scumbags away for a living.”
“That part is more satisfying.”
They drove in silence for a moment. “You amaze me, Cameron.”
That got a slight smile out of her. “High praise, coming from someone who knows how to kill people with paper clips and everything.”
Jack looked over in surprise. “You know about the paper clips?” He stroked his chin. “Hmm. Now that was good. Even for me.”
Cameron stared at him, stupefied.
He laughed. “I’m just kidding.” Mostly. Staples maybe, but never paper clips. “Speaking of your job—and mine—there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about, something that came up in the meeting in Davis’s office. You mentioned that Silas knows about your connection to the Robards case.”
“Davis seemed interested in that, too.”
“I keep thinking about how Silas told you to back off the Martino case three years ago. It was one thing when I thought you, the prosecutor who had reviewed all the investigation files, made the decision that there wasn’t enough evidence to try the case. But now that I know Silas pressured you into not filing charges, the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t trust him.”
Cameron thought about this. Jack could see she was running through the possibilities in her head.
“We need to be very careful here,” she said. “Silas is the U.S. attorney. We can’t start making accusations against him merely because of bad feelings. You know better than anyone how vindictive he can be.”
“It’s just something I want you to think about. You need to be careful around Silas. And the fact that I’ll be going to work with you on Monday is perfect—it’ll give me a chance to keep an eye on the son of a bitch. If he so much as looks at you the wrong way, I might have to try out that paper clip idea of yours.”
Cameron turned her head in his direction. “That was very ominous of you.”
“Now that I know he’s the one who screwed me over three years ago, my feelings toward him, to use your words, are a lot less pleasant.”
“I hope you can control yourself around him, for both our sakes.”
Jack took his eyes off the road and looked her over. “In all my years with the army and the FBI, there’s only been one person I’ve ever had any problems controlling myself around.”
She smiled at that, but said nothing. She reclined in the seat, crossing one naughty-booted leg over the other, in his direction. Jack fought hard against the images of her straddling him that assaulted his mind.
“You do realize you’re driving on the shoulder, don’t you?”
“Thanks for pointing that out, Cameron.”
Twenty-three
PER JACK’S ORDERS, they entered the Grand Traverse Resort through a back entrance and were immediately escorted to the manager’s office. Cameron had never stayed at the resort before but quickly saw why Amy had been so impressed by it: with luxurious décor, over six hundred rooms, gorgeous beach and fairway views, and a full-service spa, the property was indeed grand in every sense of the word. Even Jack, who’d said he would move her to a different hotel if he wasn’t one hundred percent comfortable with the security aspects of the resort, seemed to find it acceptable.
“It’ll do,” he said in response to her silent question as they walked through the white marble and cherrywood hallway.
Jack had spoken to the manager on the phone and had explained the situation in general terms, revealing no details. In the office, he requested a map of the hotel grounds, which he kept, and emphasized one basic point: no one outside the three of them was to know the location of Cameron’s room. He asked for a private conference room where he could meet with the hotel’s head of security, one that he and the two agents coming in from Detroit would also use as a working space throughout the weekend.
Then he asked the manager whether the wedding guests had been assigned a particular block of rooms.
“Yes, the bride reserved a block in the hotel itself,” the manager said. “The wedding guests will all be staying here.”
“Perfect. Delete Cameron’s reservation, and book us a new room under the name David Warner. Put us in the Tower,” Jack said, referring to the seventeen-story building located adjacent to the hotel.
“David Warner?” Cameron asked after the manager left to get their room keys.
“An old alias of mine,” Jack said.
“Ooh . . . an alias. Who does that make me?”
“For this weekend, I suppose it makes you Mrs. David Warner.”
“Hmm. I’m not sure I’m the type to take my husband’s name. I’m on the fence about it.”
“For the next two days, you can be the type.”
“B
oy, Mr. David Warner sure seems a little bossy.”
The manager poked his head into the office. “Sorry—I forgot to mention: the Tower accommodations are all standard rooms, not suites. I’m guessing you would prefer two queen beds instead of one king?”
Cameron and Jack looked at each other. Neither spoke.
The manager shifted in the doorway. “I could always switch you back to the hotel, if you require larger accommodations.”
Jack shook his head. “No. I want to be kept apart from the rest of the wedding guests. And the high-rise is a safer location. No balconies, no windows accessible from the outside, only one way into the room.”
“We’ll take two queen beds,” Cameron told the manager, thinking that was the safest thing to say.
He nodded. “Excellent.” He took off again.
Twenty minutes later, as they began to get settled in, Cameron realized that the one-versus-two-beds decision really didn’t matter. Bottom line: she and Jack were sharing a hotel room. And here she’d thought living together in a five thousand square foot house had seemed intimate.
She watched from the doorway as Jack checked out the closet and bathroom. When finished, he headed over. “So? Which bed will it be?”
“Excuse me?”
He laughed at her expression. “Which one do you want? I’ll put your suitcase on it so you can unpack.”
“Oh. I’ll take the bed farther from the door.”
“Good answer.”
She watched as Jack lifted her suitcase onto the bed, then threw his duffel bag onto the one closer to the door. She suddenly felt . . . jittery. Up until now, every time she and Jack had gotten physical, it had been under crazy, impulsive circumstances. But staring at those two beds, she now found herself consciously thinking about all those things a single woman in her thirties tended to think about when sharing a hotel room with a man she was really attracted to, and who appeared to be really attracted to her, who she hadn’t yet slept with.
Despite all her sass and bravado, she was falling for Jack. Just yesterday—God, was it really only yesterday?—she’d told Collin that all she and Jack had between them was a physical connection. True, she’d been lying to herself. And a lot had happened since then. But she’d never found herself wanting to be wrong about something as much as she did right then.
She trusted Jack with her life. The next question, she supposed, was whether she could trust him with her heart.
She watched as Jack threw some rolled-up socks into one of the drawers in his nightstand. He’d taken off his blazer, so his gun harness was exposed and he was looking extra Special Agent Danger-ish right then. But that single act—putting socks in a drawer—made him momentarily seem like any other guy.
“You okay?” he asked, seeing her still standing by the door.
She smiled. “Yeah, sure.” She headed over and stood between the two beds, surveying the scene. “Makes me think of the Walls of Jericho.”
“From . . . the Bible story?”
Cameron laughed. “No, It Happened One Night.”
“Still not following you there. What happened one night?”
“You know, the movie, It Happened One Night.” She saw him shake his head. “Really? You should check it out—it’s a classic. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert are on the run and they stop to spend the night at a motel. They’re not married, but they have to pretend they are, so for propriety’s sake Clark Gable strings a clothesline down the middle of the room and hangs a blanket over it. He calls it the ‘Walls of Jericho.’ ”
Jack stretched out on the bed, tucking his hands behind his head. Of course, being a man, he was already done unpacking and she had barely begun. “So in the movie, after he builds the Walls of Jericho, what happens next?” he asked.
“Things get pret-ty steamy from there. Clark Gable asks Claudette Colbert if she’s interested in learning how a man undresses. And then he takes his clothes off in front of her.”
“Sounds like a chick-flick. I bet Wilkins has seen it ten times.”
“And good for him. I think most men could learn a thing or two from so-called ‘chick-flicks.’ ”
“Like what?”
“Like how women think. What turns them on.”
“If I want to know what a woman’s thinking, I’ll just ask her.” The corners of Jack’s mouth lifted in a sly grin. “And if I want to know what turns her on, well, I’ll just ask her that, too.”
“Hmm.” Cameron grumbled her way into the bathroom. Impossible man—being all reasonable and everything. She unpacked her toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo, and conditioner. She set them off to the side on the marble vanity, as if to suggest they were the only four products she would need the entire weekend. Hey—he was a man, he didn’t need to know there was a whole routine involved behind the curtain. And about fourteen other bottles in her suitcase.
When she came out of the bathroom, she saw Jack standing by the windows that spanned the length of the room. He gestured. “Come over here for a minute.”
She went over. He surprised her by pulling her into his arms, her back against his chest so that she looked out the window with him. Their room overlooked vibrant autumn-colored rolling hills and orchards, and the East Grand Traverse Bay.
“I like this view,” he said, his voice husky against her ear.
Cameron leaned her head against his chest—it was rare to have such a quiet moment with Jack in contrast to the chaos that had overshadowed their lives for the last couple of weeks. She pulled his arms tighter around her.
“Me, too.”
FOR THE DINNER that followed the rehearsal, Amy had reserved the entire space at Aerie Lounge, which was located on the sixteenth floor of the Tower. A convenient short elevator ride from Cameron and Jack’s room. Not so convenient for Cameron, however, was the fact that the cousins had cornered her by the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the bay, wanting to play Twenty Questions about Jack. Having recognized him from the bachelorette party, they’d been on her case ever since she’d walked into the rehearsal with him.
Cameron was relieved when she felt a hand at her elbow and heard a familiar voice to the left of her.
“Sorry to interrupt, ladies. I need to borrow Cameron for a few minutes.”
“Please make it more than a few,” she whispered as Collin led her to the opposite side of the room.
She kissed his cheek in an official hello. Since Amy had asked Collin to be a reader at the wedding, he had been at the rehearsal, too. But she’d been running around with various maid of honor tasks and hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to him there.
“I meant to tell you at the rehearsal: you look very dashing tonight. Love the navy sport coat and tie,” she said, gently tugging it.
“Richard gave it to me last Christmas,” Collin said.
Cameron saw the hurt in his eyes and knew how rare it was for him to show that. “Are you doing okay?”
He nodded. “Just . . . working through some things. Gay man in his thirties, dateless, the fifth wheel at his friend’s wedding. That kind of stuff.” His eyes held hers. “And aside from all that, I miss him.”
“Richard is a fool,” Cameron said. “And you’re not a fifth wheel. Technically, I only have a fake date to this wedding.”
Collin scoffed at this. “Looking like that, that won’t be the case for long.” He checked out her caramel-colored cocktail dress and heels. Her shoulder had begun bothering her midway through straightening her hair, so she’d pulled it back in a chignon and focused on smoky-eyed makeup instead. “I’m surprised Pallas let you out of the room like that,” he said. “At least without being a good hour late to the rehearsal.”
“And risk Amy’s wrath? No way—that woman scares even me,” Jack said from behind them.
As Jack joined them, he momentarily rested his hand on the small of Cameron’s back. She faced the party, so no one saw, but her body went warm just at the brief contact.
“I thought you could use a drink.” He han
ded her a glass of red wine.
Cameron smiled—partially because she’d been meaning to make it over to the bar for twenty minutes before being cornered by the cousins, and partially because she couldn’t get over how sexy Jack looked in his gray blazer and open-necked black shirt.
“Thank you,” she said.
Jack leaned in, and for a second Cameron thought he was going to kiss her. “You didn’t tell me this wedding was outside,” he said quietly.
“I didn’t think about it. From everything Amy’s told me about the setup, I barely consider it an outdoor wedding. Will that be a problem?” The last thing she wanted to do was make his job even harder.
“I promised I’d get you to this wedding. I’ll handle it.” With his back to the other guests so none of them could see, Jack laced his fingers with hers and pulled her closer, speaking low enough so only she could hear. “Collin is right, you know. You’re living very dangerously looking the way you do tonight, Cameron Lynde.” He brushed his thumb over hers before leaving.
Cameron watched as Jack headed over to a bar table by the door where the two FBI agents from the Detroit office sat. She sipped her wine and took her time simply enjoying the view of him.
He’d brought her a drink and complimented the way she looked. This fake date of hers was starting to seem more real every minute.
She turned to Collin. “It means that I’m the stupidest person in the world, right? That I’m actually excited and happy despite having a psycho killer stalking me?”
Collin peered down at her. “I think you know what it means.”
He clinked his glass to hers.
LATER THAT EVENING, Jack sat in bed, the pillow propped behind his back, while he talked on his cell phone. He’d called Wilkins to see if there had been any developments in the investigation, hoping that something had panned out with one of the Chicago cops his partner had spoken to. So far, unfortunately, none of them appeared to have leaked any information about Cameron’s involvement in the case.