Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
Cam stared at Nic’s slowly seeping head wound, the blood a thin trickle that Nic wiped away every few minutes.
Right then, it was the only thing holding Cam together.
Worrying about something small, an incidental injury easily cared for, not life-threatening or life-shattering, was easier than thinking about the injury that couldn’t be fixed.
And the news of it he had to deliver to his family.
The hospital elevator continued to climb, and when next Nic lifted his hand, Cam intercepted it, slipping free the wad of tissues and cleaning the wound himself. “We should’ve gone by the ER to get you checked out.”
“It’s just a scratch.” Nic wrapped a hand around his, lowering it and prying the tissue from his fingers. “And you need to tell your mother while there’s still time.”
He was right of course. They’d called Bobby from the field, and while his mother’s condition hadn’t worsened, she hadn’t woken up either. Every minute her coma stretched on, the less likely she would wake. But if some part of her was still in there, still here with them, she needed to know.
He’d promised.
“Thank you,” he said, then glanced across the cab to his best friend. “Both of you.”
“Sometimes the answers hurt,” Jamie said. “But it’s better than the not knowing. Your family will see that now.”
“I hope so.” He took Erin’s necklace out of his jacket pocket. It would be as sure a sign as any to his family if they hadn’t already realized why he’d had Bobby call them all here.
The doors opened, and Cam claimed Nic’s hand again. “No hiding,” he said, repeating his pledge from last night. “More than that, I need you.”
Nic’s blue gaze didn’t waver. “Then I’m here.”
After that, his hold didn’t waver either.
Not when Jamie came to Cam’s other side, hand clasping his shoulder.
Not when the three of them turned the corner and found all of Cam’s family gathered in the hallway outside his mother’s room.
And not when their eyes darted first to his and Nic’s clasped hands, then to the topaz medallion hanging from his other.
The reactions were varied and each one pummeled Cam.
Bobby’s “Oh God,” as his wife Josie gathered him into her arms.
Quinn’s dark eyes glassy with tears, before he buried his face in his wife Elena’s hair, their teenage kids hugging him from the other side.
His dad lumbered toward him. “You found her?”
Cam nodded, and the next instant his father crashed into him, heaving.
Hands wrenched apart, Nic stepped back beside Jamie but still close enough Cam felt his presence. Knew they were both there for him.
But it was Keith that Cam needed to be there for most.
Over his father’s shoulder, his younger brother stood shell-shocked, unmoving and pale. “She’s not coming back?” Voice thin, trembling, he sounded closer to eleven, the age he’d been when Erin disappeared, than the thirty-one-year-old Marine he was today.
Cam untangled from his father, handing Ken off to a waiting Jamie, and moved to stand in front of Keith, lightly grasping his biceps. He vibrated in Cam’s hold, wrought thin by emotion, a glass on the edge of breaking.
Cam understood. A little of him had died today too when they’d opened the grave Nic had found and saw the tiny skeleton clutching the familiar medallion.
The last shred of hope that maybe Erin was out there somewhere had vanished.
And that same little bit of Keith, though a bigger piece for all that his big sister had meant to him, was dying too, right here in the hallway.
“I’m so sorry, brother.”
The trembling became full-on quakes, and Cam drew his brother all the way into his arms. Cam felt every hiccuping breath, every tear, every shudder, right down to his soul, which was shattering too, but he had to hold it together.
He’d been the one to bring this down on them.
He had to be the strong one as he delivered the news he’d so relentlessly pursued.
Including to the person who’d set him on this path, if he wasn’t too late.
Later, after he took care of his family, he’d fall apart in the arms of the man he trusted to hold him together.
Eventually, Keith’s tremors subsided and he quieted, breaths evening out. He pulled back, blue eyes damp, but without the daggers of long-held resentment. “I know I didn’t make it easy on you,” he said. “But thank you for finding her.”
“Thank Nic,” Cam said, taking another step back and extending an arm toward the man with his chin ducked, clearly not wanting to draw attention to himself.
But he deserved it, deserved all their gratitude for bringing peace where it had been missing for so long.
“He risked his own life to go with the culprit and find where Erin was buried.”
“Why would you do that?” Ken asked.
Nic glanced up, looking first at Ken, then at Cam, a question in his eyes that Cam answered with a nod and an outstretched hand.
No more hiding.
Nic stepped to his side, tangling their fingers together. “Because I’m in love with your son.”
There were some surprised faces, at least one very happy face, several realization-dawning faces, and then there was Bobby’s face. Smug, no other word for it.
“Something to say?” Cam asked him.
“I’ve been telling ’em this since April.”
“Our phone call about the case?”
“When you told me about Nic working with you, there was something more in your voice. More than when you talked about your FBI partner. Or anyone else for that matter.”
He glanced around again at his family. None of the faces were angry, disgusted, or what he’d feared the most, disappointed.
“He obviously loves you,” Quinn said. “And you him. As long as you’re happy, brother, that’s all we care about.”
“And Mom got to meet him too,” Keith added.
“I wish I’d told her though,” Cam said quietly, echoing his sentiment from last night.
“She’s still here.” Bobby stepped forward and wrapped him in another hug. “Go tell her. Tell her to stay. To be here to see you get married.”
Nic’s hand spasmed in his, and Cam swallowed his half chortle, half choke behind a “Whoa now.”
Laughter improbably rippled through the group until his dad approached again, hand patting his cheek. His eyes were misty, and there was resignation there, mixed in with peace and hope. “And tell her if she needs to go, Erin’s waiting for her.”
Cam swallowed down the lump in his throat and blinked away the threatening tears.
Just a little bit longer. With Nic by his side, he entered his mom’s room, no longer shocked by her condition but terrified in a whole new way.
He’d promised her this truth, and if she needed to move on, he had to let her, as his father had said, but he hoped to God that what he was about to tell her wouldn’t push her that direction.
“I’ll be right here,” Nic said, leaving him at the side of the bed. He took a seat in the chair, giving Cam a moment with his mother but not leaving him alone. His presence filled the room, wrapped around him like a blanket as the chill of the truth settled on his shoulders and in his gut.
As he put words to that truth and had the hardest conversation he ever had with his mother.
Completely one-sided.
“I found her, Mom,” he started, then told her everything. She’d want to know. Would need to know, if she were to find Erin waiting for her. It ended on a high note, however, Cam also telling her about Nic, who stood and wrapped an arm lightly around his waist.
When he was done, goodbye and I love you said in case God forbid the worst did happen, exhaustion began to creep in and fill the void dogged determination and two decades’ worth of guilt had left behind. He leaned heavily against Nic. “I’m ready to go.”
Nic kissed his temple, then reached out a hand, lightly grasping his mother’s forearm. “I promise to take care of him, Edye.”
Tucked beneath Nic’s arm, they were halfway to the door when the heart monitor beeped off rhythm. Cam turned, expecting the worst, and found the best.
His mother’s dark eyes were open, and she was smiling at the both of them. “’Bout time you caught a good one.”