Shadow
My mystery sleuth was back. This morning, when I logged in, I began working on the background check that Rage had asked me to do.
I hadn’t been able to focus on it before this because of work at the scrapyard.
I was going back to everything I’d found on Brae the first time.
I was searching for any link that could help me figure out who Cam was.
And from there, I’d unravel their identity and determine if they were a threat to Braelyn.
So far, I haven’t found anything. I admit, I felt a bit uneasy sifting through Brae’s life.
When it was someone you didn’t know yet, it wasn’t as weird.
But she was an old lady in another club and had been part of our family for years.
I felt sort of like a Peeping Tom. However, I kept going.
I started at the point she joined the DA’s office as an assistant.
Nothing. After exhausting that, I moved backward, filtering through the years before the DA until she graduated from college—still nothing.
I took a break for about an hour, then I came back. Surely, if there was a link to this person, I should’ve found it. But I would go back to the point when she graduated from high school. If I found nothing, I’d have to let Rage know. I highly doubted it was someone from high school.
I caught myself yawning and skimming. I tried to skip any mentions of Brae’s prior boyfriends, except for verifying that their names didn’t include Cam. I was at the start of college. There was no mention of a Cam.
I decided to browse through online photos of her freshman year’s yearbook. I was curious to see what she looked like then. While scanning the images, I paid more attention to the photos than to the names. Because of that, I almost missed it.
I came to a stop on one of the pages. That sensation I felt in my gut when I was onto something came to life.
I started at the top, carefully reading each name.
When my eyes landed on the name Cambria Mulally, I froze.
Cambria could easily be shortened to Cam, but I wasn’t sure why you would do that to such a pretty name.
It was unusual and rolled off the tongue. I shifted my gaze to the photo.
All of them were in color. I found myself studying the picture and liking what I saw. Hell, I was loving it, and the need to see her in person, even if she wasn’t Cam, hit me. I couldn’t get an indication of her height or body, but everything from the shoulders up was beautiful.
Her hair reached her shoulders and was a gorgeous copper-red.
It made me think of summer sunsets. I wondered whether it was her natural color or if it came from a bottle.
Her face was a pale oval, the color of peaches and cream, with delicate arched eyebrows, a slight upturned nose, full peach-colored lips, and long lashes that framed her eyes.
Those large eyes were a gray-green color that drew you in. I felt like I was falling.
I wanted to touch her face to see if her skin was as satiny as it appeared and to taste those lips.
Would they taste like peaches? My heart beat faster.
Could this be Brae’s Cam? My tiredness disappeared, and I was energized.
I quickly scanned the other names in the freshman year.
Not finding any others that met the criteria, I decided I’d check into Cambria.
Could I be so lucky—and was she the one?
As I delved deeper, I discovered that she had been very studious in college.
She wasn’t in clubs, she wasn’t photographed, except for the yearly one for the book.
My excitement grew when I discovered she had shared a few classes with Brae.
They were the general education courses that everyone took—English, Math, and Science.
My heartbeat increased when I found her major.
She was in the computer network architect program.
Someone with that background could easily find the information Brae needed.
And if she were bright, she would learn ways to conceal her online presence and do many other things online.
God, this had to be Cam. Moving forward, it was noted that she graduated at the top of her class, with honors.
And from there, she’d gone to work for a variety of companies as a freelancer. She was her own boss. Everything fits.
However, my curiosity extended beyond her professional side.
I wanted to know the personal stuff, so I went mining for data on boyfriends and lovers.
Not finding much, I went further back, into her high school years.
That’s when I discovered that Cambria Mulally was a fake.
Oh, there was a shell with the typical data you’d expect to find on someone, but as someone who’d helped with building those when needed for the club, I knew a fake when I saw one.
If you knew how to delve into them, you could find that they were nothing but lies.
Someone had given her a fabricated background. The question was why?
Jesus Christ, who was Cambria, and why was she working with Brae?
What risk did she pose? The background was a good one and held up under the amount of scrutiny most would give it.
Too bad, I wasn’t most. Could it be a government-fabricated life?
Was she in Witness Protection? Not everyone in that program was a good guy.
But what could she have done as a minor to get herself put into the program? It had to relate to a parent.
Further and further I spiraled. I lost track of time.
I didn’t eat or sleep. The day flew by. It was dark outside, and I was still going.
My eyes were dry and scratchy, but I was on the cusp of a huge discovery.
I could feel it in my gut. I’d followed tiny footprints into unbelievable places.
Around the next turn, I’d get to the truth.
Suddenly, there it was staring back at me.
My breath left my body, and my brain froze.
I blinked and tried to change what I was seeing or to comprehend and process it.
As I sat there, I knew I’d opened up a box that should’ve never been opened.
But it was too late, and all that could be done was live with the fallout.