Chapter 13
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.
Cam coasted his hands over Nic’s shoulders and then up his neck to his cheeks, dragging his thumbs over the reddish-brown scruff flecked with gray. “But you didn’t shave?”
Nic angled his jaw, nuzzling against his hand. “Because you like it.”
No argument there. Cam stepped closer, tasting it, lips on the prickly skin as he pressed every other inch of their bodies together. “Can I kiss you?” He needed to ask, not just take, because he was already asking so much of Nic. But fuck, he needed . . .
“Fuck—”
“Please say yes.”
Nic’s hands shot up, mirroring Cam’s hold, the tips of his fingers tickling the nape of Cam’s neck. Cam met his eyes, twin pools of scalding ice blue. “Will you let me finish?” he ground out, then ground down on Cam’s thigh, rocking his hips and showing off how much he needed him too. “Fuck. Yes.”
Cam fell into him. Into the kiss he’d missed.
Into the arms that held on tight and kept him from shattering.
Into love, more and more each day with this man.
Slumping back against the door, Nic wound his arms around him, one hand diving into his hair, the other down his back, hauling him further in, kiss by kiss, breath by breath.
Each swipe of the tongue another inch, each groan another mile.
Cam ran with him, mouths and hips grinding, wanting to sprint to the finish but wanting the marathon reunion they’d denied themselves back in San Francisco.
Back in San Francisco. Not here in Boston. Where there was more than one race and where there was more than just his dick and heart involved.
Head kicking in, he knew that if they kept going like this, they’d both be naked in less than five minutes and Quinn would be here in ten.
Fuck if they were going to be robbed of another reunion.
As much as that potential reunion felt like Cam’s whole world right then, it wasn’t.
There was a case, another girl missing, and possibly answers to the disappearance that had haunted his family for decades.
A family that didn’t know he was bisexual, and his lover had just come on the scene.
Would Nic even still want that, want him, when he learned Cam hadn’t told his family?
He’d been doggedly forcing Nic out of hiding while keeping a part of himself hidden from the other most important people of his life.
Conversations needed to be had, several of them, and priorities reordered before their reunion became the top one.
He reluctantly broke the kiss but not the embrace, resting his forehead on Nic’s shoulder while he caught his breath and his bearings.
As if sensing his distress, Nic shifted his hold from desire to comfort, the tips of his fingers carding through his hair as he wrapped his other arm around him tighter. “I’ve got you, Boston. Just breathe.”
And he did, easy for the first time since he’d been here.
After another minute, he stepped back and smoothed down Nic’s dress shirt. “Thank you for coming.”
Peeling off the door, Nic did the same for him, or tried, fluffing the hair he’d mussed. “I told you, you call, I’ll be here. Whatever you need.” He flourished his fingers in an abracadabra motion and Cam chuckled on his way to the kitchenette.
“Coffee?”
“Always.”
He started the single-serve machine brewing, the strongest of the pods for Nic, who sidled up beside him, hand on his lower back. Cam wanted to purr like Bird.
“Are you sleeping?” Nic asked.
Cam side-eyed him. “Are you?”
Nic stepped closer, nuzzling his temple. “It’s not a bed problem. It’s a who’s-missing-from-the-bed problem.”
Head falling back, Cam’s eyes slipped closed, reveling in the warmth and affection. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“I’m trying to tell you I missed you.” Nic dropped a kiss on the hinge of his jaw, and Cam’s knees were like putty, a fitting match to his insides.
The assault on which Nic thankfully paused after another kiss, swiping his cup as the drip finished.
He trailed his hand over Cam’s hip as he stepped away. “Now, catch me up on this new lead.”
He brewed himself a cup and launched into a debrief, filling in the gaps of what he’d already told Nic and what they’d learned since yesterday.
Their cups were empty by the time he finished.
Cam added them to the collection by the sink.
“I can bring this into the FBI’s purview.
We need to for resources, and the officer involved is from my old neighborhood.
I can get him to trust me. I need you to rep the USAO so I can keep it contained. ”
“You don’t anticipate any trouble with the local field office?”
“Not likely. One, it’s my old office, and two, the SAC has a soft spot for missing children cases.”