Chapter Twelve #2
He didn’t want to deliver bad news. Part of him hated that she still held out hope.
Part of him admired her tenacious, albeit semi-delusional, faith that Hailey was waiting for rescue.
After all, a majority of his assignments involved rescuing people whose chances of survival were low to nonexistent.
Without question, he would find Hailey for Amelia.
He just wished he had some idea how to do that.
“Not that I know of.”
She nodded and sank in on herself. The inside of the vehicle felt dark and lonely as she processed that.
Finally, Amelia picked up her sub and took another bite.
They polished off their subs without talking.
The engine and heater lowly hummed. The rain blurred the outside world.
He didn’t know what else to say and broke the quiet by turning the windshield wipers back on.
“Do you care if I doze off while you drive?” she asked.
“Of course not.” Camden balled up his trash and took a long drink of his Coke before pulling back onto the road. Two minutes later, Amelia was asleep, breathing softly as he cruised down the highway.
An hour later, they arrived at her condominium complex. He was happy to see they hadn’t plastered her door with crime-scene tape. Camden parked in the spot closest to her place.
Amelia slowly woke up. “We’re here?” She wiped her eyes and glanced out the window. “You’re parked in my spot… Which means my car is…?” She checked the other windows. “Not here.”
“Five bucks and another sub says it’ll be here by morning.”
She laughed quietly, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “You’re optimistic.” Her face fell. “I don’t have my house keys.”
“I’ll get us in without hurting your door if they locked it.”
“You don’t think they did?”
He shrugged, not trusting anything that had happened to that point. “They probably secured it somehow.” Camden pulled out his wallet. “Give me a minute.”
“I don’t think a credit card in the doorjamb will work on my deadbolt.”
He winked. “Probably not.”
A minute later, pocketing a key-picking set, he returned to the SUV. “Your palace awaits.”
“Really?” She blinked. “Just like that?”
He nudged his head toward her door. “Go see for yourself.”
She studied the front of her condo and pulled her lower lip into her mouth, nervously biting it. “Will you go inside with me? Unless you have someplace else to be.”
That was the least he could do. “Sure. I’m all yours. Whatever will make you feel safe.”
Amelia wasn’t sure what to expect. They walked in the rain toward the front door.
Each step closer became heavier. Nothing seemed out of place.
Even the front porch light was on. But uncertainty danced in her stomach.
Rain slogged over her. When she could almost touch her front door, she stopped abruptly.
Her heart raced. Grief roared in her chest. Panic paralyzed her legs.
She couldn’t move. She felt like walking inside would be a reminder of the domino fall of events that had ruined her life.
Camden rested his strong hands on her shoulders.
Like a powerful, protective force of nature, he remained behind her, not pushing her on or promising life would return to normal when she walked inside.
He simply stood there to support her. Rain dripped down her cheeks and plastered her hair to her head.
He squeezed the tense muscles under his long fingers. “Do you want to leave?”
Embarrassment and anxiety curled together and wound up her spine. “This is so stupid.”
“It’s not. You’ve been through hell.”
She turned and lifted her chin. His hands ran down her arms and fell away. Rain poured over them, soaking through her coat. “Why is this so hard?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head like life wasn’t fair. Like he didn’t have an explanation. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
But she had nowhere and no one. She didn’t want to see anyone and couldn’t imagine where she might ask him to take her.
Floundering in the middle of a rainstorm made her feel like a fool.
She wiped the water off her cheeks and shook her head, determined to push through her reluctance. “No, I can do this.”
Without giving herself a chance to overthink the situation, she opened the front door and let them in. “Oh God.”
“Holy crap,” he muttered.
She hadn’t imagined they’d trashed her place, but all her belongings had been strewn everywhere.
Amelia inched inside as though walking through a minefield.
Her stomach turned. She held out a hand to block Camden from viewing the disaster zone that used to be her cute condo.
“It did not look like this when they arrested me.”
He let out a long whistle. “They absolutely wrecked your place. What the fuck?”
Tears sprang into her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She didn’t want him to think she was superficial enough to cry over tossed drawers and disheveled cushions.
“Let me look around before you go any farther.” He sidestepped her position by the door. “I’ll do a quick assessment.”
What did it matter? She could see the damage that had been done.
Amelia trailed her fingers along a wall.
They’d taken her pictures down. The frames were partially stacked on a side table.
They’d opened her mail and left unorganized stacks next to the picture frames.
On the floor, someone had piled the books from the shelves.
“They really didn’t have to do this,” she told him as he returned from her bedroom.
“You have no idea,” he muttered. “Prepare yourself. It’s a mess.”
Amelia walked into her bedroom. The mattress lay against the wall.
The box frame lay over one of the two windows.
The blinds were up, and the lights had been left on.
Her neighbors would have plenty to gossip about.
Her pillows had even been removed from their cases.
She picked up a discarded pillow sham and held it out as if it might be contaminated.
“What was I hiding in my pillows? National secrets?”
Camden’s gaze swept through the room. “They were looking for something. That’s for sure.”
“I can’t stay here.”
“Yeah. I get that.” He eyed her drawers hanging out of the dresser and the pile of clothes mounded on the floor. Some items had been scattered as though people had walked over her clothing and kicked away anything that had caught on their shoes. “Why don’t you pack a bag?”
“Yeah. I’ll stay at…” At Hailey’s popped to mind first. Amelia cringed.
When would her mind stop jumping to Hailey as though her sister were an option?
She squeezed her eyes shut and turned to Camden.
“When will I stop thinking my sister is a phone call away? That I can just drive over to her house and stay in her guest room like I have a hundred times before?”
He avoided stepping on her clothes and moved to her side. Again, he squeezed her shoulder. Her chin dropped. Her wet hair clung to her cheeks. She couldn’t hide the tears anymore. They burned on her cheeks. She missed her sister, missed her life. “When will it stop hurting?”
His thick, muscled arms encircled her, and she folded into him.
His hold was so safe. He was so warm. The steady beat of his heart was all the answer he offered.
This guy wasn’t the type to tell her to shake it off or to say the cliché bullshit that time would heal. For that, she was eternally grateful.
Finally, her tears stopped. But she wasn’t ready to pull away from the safe cocoon of his protective hold. “Maybe I’ll stay here and hide from the real world.”
Laughter rumbled in his chest. Her smile curved against his sternum. She drew in a deep breath. He smelled peppery and masculine—which reminded her that she smelled like prison soap. Amelia jumped back, flustered and blushing. “Sorry. I need a shower in the worst way.”
He cracked a handsome grin that made his eyes shine with amusement. “I didn’t notice.”
She looked toward her bathroom, longing for a hot shower but terrified that they’d done as much damage in there as they had throughout her condo.
He seemed to read her mind. “You want to jump in the shower before we do anything else? How much could they do to your bathroom?”
Probably a lot. “If they dumped my soaps, I’ll lose it. That’ll be the straw that breaks me.”
“If they did, we’ll handle it.”
“You’re one of those can-do people, aren’t you?”
“Maybe I am.” He sauntered over to the bathroom and flipped the light on. “It looks like the rest of the place.”
A dejected groan caught in her throat. “Really? What the hell?” She tipped her head back, trying to channel his can-do attitude, but remembered she’d recently been talked into a new shampoo and conditioner set that was supposed to be otherworldly.
It had come with a price tag to match. “What about my shampoos?”
He craned his neck but shrugged. “Can’t see them.
All right. This is the plan: You shower and pack a bag.
They’ve put me up in a safe house not far from here.
It has only one bedroom, but I’m sure the couch is a pullout, and even if it’s not, the couch is huge.
I’ve fallen asleep on it almost every night I’ve been here.
And there’s two bathrooms. You can have one all to yourself.
” He studied her face. “You can trust me. I give you my word.”
He was about the only person on earth she trusted. But his offer was more generous than she had any right to hope for. He kept doing things for her—rescuing her from prison and then from her tossed condo. She wasn’t a taker and didn’t want to leech. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’s an inconvenience for you.”