CHAPTER Five
“Hey!” he hollered. Ross saw her distress as she tried to get everything out of her car. He grabbed the pizza before it ended up on the ground. “Good to see you.”
Camille thought she could get used to a greeting like that. Seeing Ross rushing to her aid with a big smile just made her day.
“Please don’t tell me you got a veggie pizza or something lame like that,” Ross said. “I’m starving.”
Camille smiled and told him exactly what he wanted to hear. “How’s meat lovers?”
“Fucking awesome!” Ross was thrilled. It had been a long time since he had eaten pizza, and he was so excited that he caught himself almost hugging Camille. But he stopped and smiled, which made her melt.
“Veggie pizza? Are you serious? I’m not that girl who counts every calorie and obsesses about what she eats. If we spend much time together, you’ll see that,” Camille admitted.
Ross watched the passion in her eyes and heard that sexy grit in her voice that made him smile.
He hadn’t known her for very long, but he already loved those things about her.
Ross could hardly recognize himself. He wondered why everything about Camille Hargrove was just so damn fascinating.
And then he saw those big, brown eyes smiling at him again, and he knew.
“I like that in a woman. I’m not gonna lie. I like that!” Ross said as he flipped open the pizza box and grabbed a slice.
Seeing how hungry Ross was, Camille felt horrible for not being back sooner.
“I’m sorry if I’m late,” she offered. “I thought I would do all I needed to do before I came back out. It’s kind of a drive.”
“I get it.” Ross was talking with his mouth full, but he didn’t care. “It’s just that I haven’t had this for a long time, and I’ve been looking forward to it all afternoon.”
Watching him scarf down the pizza, Camille realized that Ross’s life was nothing like the life he used to have.
She was sad thinking about how lies and speculation could ruin people.
She hated that Ross was going through this, and more than ever, she was committed to helping him clear his name.
But she decided to forget all that and enjoy the pizza as much as Ross.
“Where’s that cooler with the beer?” she asked.
“I got it,” Ross replied.
Ross reached into the cooler and grabbed one of Camille’s Miller Lites and handed it to her, but that simple gesture created a moment neither of them expected.
They were just eating pizza and drinking beer, after all.
But when Ross put the beer in her hand, he held onto the can a little longer than he normally would have, leaving both of them standing there holding the can, looking into each other’s eyes.
Ross loved the way Camille’s disheveled ponytail was a little windblown and not at all perfect.
Her hair up that way exposed her delicate neck, and Ross couldn’t quit staring.
And he had been trying to ignore the way her breasts pulled tightly on her blouse buttons.
But he realized that was a losing battle.
Camille loved the way Ross’s muscles and veins popped out of his forearm as he handed her the can. And his hands—even his hands had muscles. They were the sexiest hands she’d ever seen.
But the tension eventually cleared, and Camille shook off all the naughty thoughts racing through her head when she cracked open her beer and took a healthy swig.
She knew she had to get through the details of the case, so she got her mind right, finished her pizza, and pulled out the copies she had made to share with Ross.
Ross was actually very impressed that Camille was all business and so prepared. Yes, he was wildly attracted to her, but she held his freedom in her hands. That had to be his focus for now. He wanted more than anything for this information to clear him in the public eye once and for all.
There was a lot to discuss, and for a long time, Ross listened to the facts.
This was important shit, and he knew it.
But after a while, his mind wandered. Camille possessed so many distractions, and he wasn’t sure which one he liked the most. At first, he thought he would have been attracted to any woman who came down that lane with information about his case.
Isolation and loneliness had taken a toll.
But now, he watched every subtle move Camille made as she talked, ate, and even drank her beer.
He was so perfectly intrigued. She was special.
He didn’t know her well yet, but he could tell Camille Hargrove was one of a kind.
“Okay,” Camille began, taking a long drink of her beer. “Those are the basic facts. Now, I need to know what evidence the authorities had to arrest you in the first place,” Camille asked.
“They had a murder weapon. That’s it, as far as I know.”
“Do you know what that weapon was?”
“It was a large crescent wrench. It had Kelcee’s blood on it, and they said they found it in my garage.”
Camille thought for a moment. “Do you lock your garage?”
“Well, the actual garage door needs a passcode, but there’s a backdoor that I didn’t always remember to lock,” Ross admitted.
Camille nodded. She heard exactly what she expected.
“So, we have to assume whoever framed you got the weapon into the garage through that back door. But my question is, why you? Out of all the people in the town, why you?” Camille had a way of presenting this question to invoke thought—deep thought.
She had a theory, but she needed Ross to be ready to handle it.
Ross thought for a moment.
“I don’t have an answer for that.”
This was it. She was laying it on the line.
“Well, from my experience, it has to be someone who knows you. It’s improbable that a person would just randomly pick someone to frame. Plus, it was probably someone who knew the back garage door would be open.”
Ross paused, trying to absorb everything Camille was suggesting, and when he didn’t offer any answers to her probing, she pushed further.
“I have to ask, who would know that information and want you framed and punished for that crime?”
“I have no idea,” Ross admitted.
Camille was walking on thin ice, and she hated to pose a topic that would dredge up old memories, but this was her job. She had to ask the tough questions if she hoped to help him.
“Tell me about your relationship with your wife.”
Ross immediately went on the defensive. “This has nothing to do with her,” Ross said quickly.
Camille paused for a moment. She had hit a nerve. She could tell Ross wasn’t quite over all that had happened between them, but she forged on.
“Listen, don’t get mad, but from what I know, your wife was having an affair. Was that going on before you were arrested?”
Camille knew the answer, but she needed Ross to say it out loud—to hear the truth from his own mouth. She could tell Ross was uncomfortable, but once they got through this first step, she hoped moving forward would be a lot easier.
“Yes, I was unaware, apparently.” Ross lowered his head. Again, she could tell he still wasn’t right with the whole ordeal, so she paused again to let what she was hinting sink in.
“Do you think your wife would be capable of helping someone frame you? Because, according to my informant, the killer was a man in a red truck.”
Ross looked up. His eyes were wide, and he was at a loss for words at first.
“Red truck!” His head was reeling. “I didn’t say anything earlier because I thought it was a weird coincidence.
But when my wife returned to pick up a few things one night, a red truck sat in the drive waiting for her.
I assumed it was her … new man.” Ross seemed embarrassed to admit this detail, but Camille had taken him exactly where she needed him to be. Now they were getting somewhere.
“This is crazy,” Ross said, “and a little too far-fetched. I find it hard to believe my life could be a Dateline episode.”
“You can see how this looks to someone on the outside, right?”
“You don’t know Janelle. She would never do something like this.”
Camille let the tension in the air settle for a minute, and then it was time to speak the hard truth.
“I think I can see the situation clearly because I don’t know her.
” She had allowed Ross to make a connection and had even given him the courtesy of a little time to wrap his mind around it.
Now, she was filling in the blanks, whether he liked it or not.
“I think you can see why I get red flags all over the place on this one.” Now she waited to see his reaction.
There was a painfully long silence, and then Ross finally spoke.
“You actually think Janelle had something to do with all this?” he asked.
She could tell he wasn’t convinced.
“Yes. It’s usually the spouse. This case is no exception. I think all the evidence points in that direction.”
When Ross didn’t respond, Camille remained silent and let him have time to think. Her patience allowed him to open up eventually, and Camille felt as if he was finally getting some things off his chest. He spoke about how much they had been through, and how much they were once in love.
“I never doubted the fact that we were meant for one another … but my family was skeptical. They can be a little judgy.”
Camille wasn’t sure what his point was, but it didn’t matter. She just let him talk.
“I just don’t know why she couldn’t tell me she wasn’t happy—tell me she didn’t love me anymore. If she thought she was sparing my feelings, she was so fucking far off base.”
Now, Camille thought of her own situation with Ike.
They had been each other’s world at one time, and now they fought miserably.
After hearing Ross’s heartfelt disclosure, Camille realized that neither she nor Ike deserved such misery.
She had obviously learned something about her own relationship that night.
She just needed to respectfully and completely end it for good and stop putting band-aids on bullet holes.
She deserved such peace, and Ike deserved the truth.