Cameron pulled back and gave him the strangest look. “What? Oh, come on, give me a little credit, Jack. It’s a bridesmaid’s dress. I’m upset because I was supposed to wear it to my friend Amy’s wedding. It’s this weekend, in Michigan. With all the chaos today, I completely forgot about it.” She sighed. “You’re going to tell me I can’t go, aren’t you?”
Jack thought this over. “Where in Michigan?”
“At a hotel in Traverse City. Amy used to vacation there with her family when she was a kid. She’s planned this wedding for years—it means a lot to her.” Cameron forced a smile. “Looks like Collin’s going to have to step in as maid of honor after all. He’s going to be so pissed.”
Jack saw right through the smile. It was impossible not to notice how close she was with her friends.
Traverse City was a good couple hundred miles from their Detroit office, but he could probably get Davis to call in a few favors. Everybody owed Davis favors.
“I can get you to the wedding,” he said.
“Really? You think it will be safe?”
“Assuming we can send a few agents over from the Detroit office as backup, yes. Actually, this works out well. This is a big house—a lot of space to be watching over you. I planned to have a security system installed—silent alarm, motion detectors, the works. Now one of our tech teams can put that in over the weekend, and when you and I get back from the wedding we’ll be good to go.”
She exhaled, seemingly both surprised and relieved. “Great. Okay. That, uh . . . was easier than I thought.”
Jack cocked his head. Wait a second . . . He couldn’t decide if he was pissed or really impressed. He hooked a finger into the waistband of the workout pants she’d changed into and pulled her closer. “Did you fake me out with those tears, Cameron?”
She peered up at him defiantly, seemingly outraged by the suggestion. “Are you kidding? What, after the day I’ve had, I’m not entitled to a few tears? Sheesh.”
Jack waited.
“This wedding is very important to me—I can’t believe you’re even doubting me. Honestly, Jack, the tears were real.”
He waited some more. She would talk eventually. They always did.
Cameron shifted under the weight of his stare. “Okay, fine. Some of the tears were real.” She looked him over, annoyed. “You are really good at that.”
He grinned. “I know.” He picked the wineglass off the floor and handed it to her. She followed him down the stairs and saw the bags of food on the counter.
“Why don’t you take a seat while I set everything up,” Jack said. “I wouldn’t want you to tire yourself out in your emotionally fragile condition.”
She watched as he took the white cartons out of the bags and set them on the counter in front of her. She looked up when he stopped.
“That’s . . . pretty much it with the setup,” Jack said.
Cameron laughed. “Wow—you sure pull out all the stops for a girl.” She grabbed some chopsticks and the carton nearest her, not looking particularly bothered by the lack of presentation.
At first, they discussed the Robards investigation as they ate. Then as they began cleaning up, Cameron steered the conversation toward the three years he’d spent in Nebraska—previously a taboo subject for them. Aware of the potential pitfalls of the conversation, Jack decided to tell her about one of his last assignments there—catching a bank robber the local media had named the “Butt Bandit” because of the perp’s fondness for leaving Vaseline imprints of his nether regions on the windows next to the ATMs he robbed at night.
Cameron tried not to laugh as she threw away the empty cartons. She failed miserably. “Sorry. I’m sure it was a very important case. How did you catch the guy?” She started laughing again. “Did you have the suspects drop their pants and do a lineup?”
“Ha, ha,” Jack said, reaching around her to throw away the rest of the garbage. “No, we caught the guy because he got Vaseline on his hands while smearing it on his ass during one of the jobs. He left some fingerprints behind and we found a match—he’d been in jail before for robbing a convenience store.”
“I wish I could’ve seen you making that arrest,” Cameron said, leaning against the counter and taking a sip of her wine.
“It was the highlight of my career,” Jack said dryly, putting the leftovers she’d dished into Tupperware in the refrigerator. He shut the door and saw her watching him with a sudden serious expression.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I have something to tell you,” she said. “About what happened three years ago. . . I’m not the one who had you transferred to Nebraska.”
Jack ran his hand over his mouth as this sank in.
“Talk.”
Twenty-one
JACK PACED THE room while she talked.
Cameron began first with the Martino case, thinking she might as well start at the beginning. She told him about Silas’s decision not to prosecute, and his directive that she not speak to the FBI, or anyone, about his decision.
“I was new to the office back then—I didn’t want to rock the boat,” she said. “Things would be a lot different if he and I had that conversation now.”
Then she told him everything else: Silas’s attempts to get him fired, her contact at the DOJ, her meeting with Davis to fill him in on the situation, even her response to Davis when he’d asked why she wanted to help out Jack.