Something About You

by Julie James

  That pretty much covered it. As Jack stood there on the street, the elegant house rose grandly before him, three stories above the ground. There was an arched portico framed by columns that flanked the entranceway. Sprawling ivy adorned much of the house, and a garden wrapped around the right side and stretched all the way back to the garage. He guessed the place had to be sitting on at least a city lot and a half.

  The first question that popped into his head was how a government-salaried prosecutor could ever afford a house like that.

  Wilkins appeared to be of a similar mindset. He leaned over the seat and peered through the passenger-side window. “What do you think? Rich husband?”

  Jack considered this. There was a rich somebody, because she certainly couldn’t afford that kind of house on her own. Either that, or he hadn’t been that far out of line when he’d made the crack three years ago about her being on Martino’s payroll.

  Wilkins read his mind. “Don’t even go there. That’s exactly the kind of crap that got you in trouble last time.”

  Jack pointed to Cameron, still conked out in the backseat. “The only place I’m ‘going’ is back to the office, as soon as we fix this situation here.” He grabbed the handle and opened her door. “Let’s go, Ms. Lynde,” he said in a commanding tone.

  No response.

  “She’s still alive, right?” Wilkins asked, turning around to look.

  Jack leaned into the backseat. He lowered his face toward Cameron’s and listened for sounds of breathing. “She’s alive.” He nudged her shoulder. “Come on. Wake up.”

  Still no response.

  “Maybe you should kiss her.” Seeing Jack’s glare, Wilkins grinned slyly. “Hey—it worked for that one dude.”

  Jack turned back to Cameron and considered his options. He could poke her a few times. Tempting. Douse her with ice-cold water. Extremely tempting. But then knowing her, she’d slap him with a battery charge and he’d be back in Nebraska by sundown. Which left him with only one option.

  He reached past Cameron and tossed her purse over the seat. “See if you can find her keys,” he told Wilkins.

  “Are you kidding? What if she wakes up and sees me rummaging around in there? You don’t touch the purse. The purse is sacrosanct.”

  “Either find the keys or get back here and carry her yourself.”

  Wilkins eyed the purse for a moment, then reached in. “It’s worth it. I gotta see you try this. Ten bucks says she wakes up and clocks you before you hit the front steps.”

  Jack gave that about seventy/thirty odds as well. He told Wilkins to pop the trunk, then grabbed her suitcase and ran it up to the front door. When he got back to the car, he took the purse and set it on Cameron’s lap. He got the keys from Wilkins and put them in his own pocket. Without further ado, he scooped her up into his arms and eased her out of the car.

  She settled against him, still sleeping, and her head fell against his shoulder. He carried her to the house, thinking that out of all the possible scenarios he had envisioned if he ever again ran into Cameron Lynde, this definitely had not been among them. He wondered what her neighbors must be thinking at the sight of him carrying her up the front steps in broad daylight—if any of them had the friggin’ telescope they’d need to see across her little urban estate, that is.

  Jack glanced down. She looked so peaceful right then, and for a split second, he found himself sympathizing over the long night she must have had. She’d held up amazingly well, all things considered.

  With one hand, he opened the wrought iron gate and carried her up the stairs to the front door. Because of the size of the house, he thought it was a pretty safe bet that she lived with someone, and he wondered if that someone was about to come rushing out, all concerned, and scoop her away from him.

  It didn’t happen.

  Jack reached into his pocket, pulled out her keys and opened the front door. Still no half-crazed-with-worry boyfriend/husband/lover. He looked down at Cameron, snuggled up against his chest. Not that he cared, but whoever the guy was, he was kind of an asshole for not noticing that she’d been out of contact for the last ten hours.

  “Cameron, wake up.” His voice sounded oddly soft. He cleared his throat. “You’re home.”

  She stirred this time, and Jack set her down on the stoop, quick to put space between them. She stood there for a moment, groggy and uncertain, and peered up as if seeing him for the first time.

  “You.”

  “Me.”

  She blinked, then threw an arm into the air, slurring her words tiredly. “Go. Pish off.”

  Now Jack was more than happy to pish off, but first he needed to make sure she was safe. She was his key witness, after all. He tossed her the purse, which she barely caught, and set her suitcase inside the front door.

  “Your keys are in the lock—don’t forget them. Are you alone here?” He asked this last question solely out of professional responsibility. “You’ve had a strange night—you might not want to be by yourself.”

  He watched as she pulled her keys out of the lock and put them back in, then pushed on the door and stared in confusion when she found it already open.

  “Yeah . . . now I’m thinking you really shouldn’t be here by yourself,” Jack said.

  Despite being out of it, she had no problem managing to throw a dirty look his way. “I’ll call Collin,” she mumbled. Then she stepped inside her house and slammed the door in his face.

  So.

  There was a Collin.

  Jack did a quick check to make sure the house looked secure. Then he headed back to the car and climbed in.

  Wilkins held out his hands. “Well?”

  “We’re good to go,” Jack said.

  “You sure we should just leave her here alone?”

  “She’s going to call Collin.”

  “Oh, that’s a relief. Who’s Collin?”

  Jack shrugged. “No clue. All I know is that she’s his problem now, not mine.”

  “Ouch. That’s a little harsh.”

  “Actually, I was going for a lot harsh, but I might be off my game,” Jack said. “Been a long night. Don’t forget the coffee on the way back into the office.”

  Wilkins grinned as he threw the car into drive. “You know, I think I’m gonna learn a lot from you, Jack.”

  Jack wasn’t exactly sure where that was coming from. But of course it was very true. “Thank you.”

  “You’re a man who speaks his mind—I respect that. And I bet you respect that in others, too.”

  Ah. . . . now he saw where this was going. “Just spit it out if there’s something you want to say, Wilkins.”

  Wilkins stopped the car at a four-way intersection. “Your problems with her are your business. I just need to hear you say that those problems aren’t going to affect the way we handle this case.”

  “They won’t.”

  “Good. And for my own personal edification—do you plan to be grumpy and taciturn every time her name comes up?”

  Jack studied his partner silently.

  Wilkins smiled. “I pushed it with that one, didn’t I?”

  “Common rookie mistake. The one question too many.”

  “I’ll work on that.”

  “See that you do.” Jack turned back and looked out the window, enjoying the familiar view of all the sights he hadn’t seen since leaving Chicago three years ago. After a few moments, he broke the silence. “And another thing: you’re not supposed to actually tell witnesses about the glowering thing. It ruins the effect.”

  “So you do that intentionally?”

  “Oh, I’ve been working on my glowering skills for years.”

  Wilkins looked away from the road in surprise. “Was that actually a joke there?”

  “No. And keep your eyes on the road, rookie. Because I’ll be really pissed if you crash this car before I get my coffee.”

  Five

  “I STILL CAN’T believe you didn’t call either of us from the hotel.”

&nbs
p; Cameron could tell from the tone in Collin’s voice that he was vacillating between being concerned about her in light of the events of the night before, and pissed that this was the first he’d heard about them.

  In her defense, after Jack and Wilkins had dropped her off at home, her first plan had been to call both Collin and Amy. The three of them had been friends since college, and normally she told them everything. But then she’d remembered that it was Saturday, which meant that Collin would be working and Amy would be knee-deep in wedding-related tasks, especially since her big day was only two weeks away. So instead, Cameron had shot each of them a text message asking if they wanted to meet for dinner at Frasca that night. Then she’d crawled into bed and passed out for the next six hours.

  At the restaurant, as soon as the hostess had seated them, Cameron began to tell Collin and Amy about the occurrences of the night before—omitting any mention of Senator Hodges’s involvement, since the FBI was keeping that under wraps. From across the table, she’d watched as Collin grew more and more agitated as her story progressed. And a few minutes ago, he’d run his hand through his sandy brown hair and folded his arms across his chest—his usual gesture when working through something that bothered him.

  To Cameron’s left was Amy, who looked as sophisticated as always in her tailored brown shirt-dress and shoulder-length blonde hair cut in an angled bob. She was more diplomatic in her response than Collin. “It sounds like you had a pretty intense night, Cameron. You shouldn’t have had to go through all that alone.”

  “I would have called”—Cameron said pointedly to Collin—“if the FBI hadn’t restricted my calls.” She turned to her left. “And yes, it was an extremely intense night. Thank you for your concern, Amy.” She started to go for her wineglass, but Collin reached across the table and grabbed her hand.

  “Stop—you know I’m concerned, too.”

  Cameron glared at him but didn’t pull her hand away. “Then stop complaining about the fact that I didn’t call you.”

  He gave her one of his trademark but-I’m-so-innocent smiles. She’d seen that smile many times over the last twelve years, and yet it still worked on her. Usually.

  “I apologize,” Collin said. “I freaked out hearing your story and inappropriately expressed my emotions through anger. It’s a guy thing.” He squeezed her hand. “I don’t like that you were one room away from a murder, Cam. Strange noises, watching a mysterious, hooded man through a peephole—this whole thing is far too Hitchcockian for me.”

  “And I haven’t even told you the twist,” Cameron said. “Jack Pallas is one of the agents handling the case for the FBI.”

  It took Amy a moment to place the name. “Wait—Agent Hottie?”

  “Agent Asshole,” Cameron corrected her. “Agent Hottie” had been her former nickname for Jack, one long since dropped. Ever since he accused her of taking bribes from Roberto Martino.

  “That is a twist. How is Agent Asshole these days?” Collin asked dryly. As Cameron’s best friend, he was de facto required to exhibit animosity toward Jack Pallas as well.

  “More important, how was it seeing him after all this time?” Amy asked.

  “We traded sarcastic barbs and insults the whole time. It was nice, catching up like that.”

  “But is he still just as hot?” Amy exchanged a look with Collin. “Well, one of us had to ask.”

  “That’s kind of irrelevant, don’t you think?” Cameron managed a coolly disdainful look as she took a sip of her wine. Then she swallowed too fast, nearly choked, and coughed while gasping for air.

  Amy smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Cameron dabbed her watering eyes with a napkin and turned to Collin for help.

  “Don’t look at me—I’m staying out of this one,” he said.

  “I would like to remind both of you that the jerk embarrassed me on national television.”

  “No, the jerk embarrassed himself on national television,” Amy said.

  Cameron sniffed, partially mollified by this. “And I’d also like to point out that because of him, virtually every FBI agent in the Chicago area has carried a grudge against me for the past three years. Which has made things tons of fun, considering I work with the FBI on a near-daily basis.”

  “You don’t have to see him again, do you?” Collin asked.

  “If there is a god, no.” Cameron thought about this more seriously. “I don’t know, maybe if there are some follow-up questions they need to ask. But I’ll tell you this: if I do see Jack Pallas again, it will be on my terms. He may have caught me off guard last night, but next time I’ll be prepared. And at least I’ll be dressed appropriately for the occasion.”

  “What was wrong with the way you were dressed?” Amy asked.

  “I was wearing yoga pants and gym shoes.” Cameron scoffed. “I might as well have been naked.”

  “Certainly would’ve made for a more interesting interrogation.”

  Collin sat back in his chair, all haughty manlike. “You and your high heels. You’re lucky you weren’t still in your underwear. Between that and being interrogated in your gym shoes, which would you prefer?”

  Cameron thought about this. “Do I still get to wear high heels in the underwear scenario?”

  “That was supposed to be a rhetorical question. You have a problem,” Collin said.

  Cameron smiled. “So I like to vertically enhance . . . I’m a five-foot-three-inch trial lawyer. Cut me some slack.”

  AMY LEFT APOLOGETICALLY as soon as dinner was over, saying that she needed to get up early the following morning to meet with her florist. Cameron and Collin stayed at the restaurant for another round of drinks, then walked the five blocks to her house.

  It was a crisp October evening. Cameron pulled her jacket closed, belting it at her waist. “I’m not sure Amy’s going to make it to the wedding without having a nervous breakdown. I keep telling her to let me help out more.”

  “You know how she is—she’s been planning this since she was five,” Collin said. “Speaking of planning, how’s the bachelorette party coming along?”

  “Her cousins think we need a stripper,” Cameron said, referring to the other two bridesmaids. “But Amy practically made me swear an oath in blood: no strippers, no tacky wedding veil, and absolutely no penis paraphernalia. So I’m doing a wine tasting and desserts at my house, and then we’ll go to a bar afterward. I hope she likes it. If she fires me as maid of honor, you have to take on the job, you know.”

  Collin threw his arm around her shoulders. “Not in a million years, babe.”

  Cameron smiled and leaned against him, taking comfort in the firm solidness of his chest. In turn, Collin pulled her tighter, turning serious. “You know we were just kidding around at the restaurant, don’t you?”

  “I know.”

  “Because we’re very both worried about you.”

  “I know that, too.”

  They came to a stop in front of her house. Collin faced her, and she could see the worry in his hazel eyes. “Seriously, Cam—you were an eyewitness, earwitness, whatever you want to call it, to a murder. And you saw the killer leave. I hate to go down this road but . . . is there any chance he knew you were watching?”

  Cameron had asked herself this very question several times over the course of the last twelve hours. “I was behind the door the whole time. And even if he heard me or somehow otherwise suspected I was watching, there’s no way he’d know my identity. The FBI and CPD have kept my name confidential.”

  “Not exactly a good night for you, was it?”

  “That’s putting it mildly.”

  Collin cocked his head in the direction of her house. “So, then . . . would you like some company tonight?”

  Cameron thought about it. After the bizarre occurrences of the night before, the idea of spending the night alone in that big house was not particularly appealing. But she knew that if Collin stayed, there would be problems. “Thanks for offering. But Richard already thinks you s
pend too much time with me. I’ll be okay by myself.”

  There was a flicker of emotion in Collin’s eyes. “Actually, Richard and I decided to take a break.”

  Cameron was shocked. She knew they’d been having problems—personally she blamed Richard; he’d always been a little arrogant and strangely unappreciative of Collin, whom half the male population in Chicago practically worshipped—but the two of them had been together for three years and she just assumed they’d work things out.

  “When did this happen?” she asked.

  “Last night. He said he changed his mind about going to Amy’s wedding. He used the old ‘But-I’ll-be-uncomfortable’ excuse, but really he just didn’t want to sacrifice a whole weekend in Michigan.” Collin emphasized this last part in mock horror. “I told him that the wedding is at a nice hotel, but you know him—if it’s not a Four Seasons, he thinks he’s roughing it. Anyway, we argued about that, and then we argued about a lot of things, and now . . . well, here we are.”

  “Do you think there’s any chance it’ll all blow over in a few days?” Cameron asked gently.

  Collin shook his head. “If he can’t do this for me, then no. He knows what this wedding means to me, and I think that’s the problem. It’s all part of his stupid competition with you and Amy. So he’s moving his stuff out of the condo tonight. Probably right at this very moment.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie.” Cameron hugged him. “So I guess the real question is: do you want some company tonight?”

  “Yes.” Collin held open the gate for her. “But you have to promise to get me very drunk.”

  Cameron walked up the steps. “As long as you promise to still make breakfast in the morning.”

  “Babe, I always make breakfast. You can’t even warm an Eggo.”

  “That was one time.” Their senior year, and Collin had never let her live it down. “The stupid box said one to two cycles—I did two cycles. How the toaster caught on fire is just as big a mystery to me.”

  SITTING IN THEIR unmarked car across the street, Officers Phelps and Kamin watched as the couple headed up the front steps of the house.