Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 128307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
“No. None,” I parrot, my tone as low as my brows.
Cameron moves around the island and switches on the coffee pot. “So Macy’s child isn’t…”
She leaves her question open for me to answer how I see fit. Or did jealousy silence her? I’m having a hard time reading her, so I am genuinely unsure.
“No.” I pfft as if the idea is preposterous, like Macy’s rounded stomach and glowing face weren’t the first images that popped into my head when she asked if I had kids. “We’re friends.” You don’t need a polygraph to register my lie. It is as evident as the moon in the sky.
Suddenly, it dawns on me. Cameron said Macy’s real name. Not her alias. Her real name.
Cameron halfheartedly smiles before proving she still knows how to read me. It is just a sluggish skill she’ll only use when necessary. “She dropped by yesterday. We talked.” I can’t tell if it is anger or hope that slips over her face like a mask when she adds, “She really cares about you.”
“As I do her,” I reply before I can stop myself.
Following an uncomfortable stretch of silence—our tenth for today—I move our conversation in the direction it needs to go. “Does your family know?”
“Know?”
I wish she’d quit the daft act. It’s cute but also irritating.
It’s an effort to keep my frustration out of my tone. “That you’re pregnant.”
They know she’s alive. Macy didn’t leave that part out. She put all her cards on the table, including how she begged Cameron to tell me the truth, and how Cameron denied every opportunity to make this a little easier for me.
After pouring a dash of milk into a mug, Cameron returns the carton to the fridge. Then she finally answers me. “No. I haven’t told anyone.” Shame blazes through her eyes. “It is embarrassing admitting you’re doing it by yourself, so I’d rather them not know.”
“Why?” I ask, shocked. Macy is going it alone, and she’s brave as fuck.
I realize the shame in Cameron’s eyes is more in disgust than anything when she says, “Because there’s meant to be someone to share it with. If we were meant to procreate without a partner, we wouldn’t need both parts of a man and woman to achieve that.”
“Procreate?” Please tell me she didn’t say that. It makes me wonder if a cult staged her kidnapping, instead of the man I blocked earlier today after denying his fifth call in under an hour. “If someone wants a child, and there’s a way to achieve that without procreation”—I give Macy’s air quotes a whirl during my last word—“then why shouldn’t they use it?”
Even if Macy’s pregnancy wasn’t from a failed sting, I’d still support her—one hundred percent.
“Just because you want something doesn’t mean you can have it.” Cameron’s pitch displays nothing but pure, unbridled snarkiness. “You should know that better than anyone.” Before I can display my shock, much less act on it, she ends any chance of a fair debate. “It’s late. I’m exhausted. You should probably head off.”
When she adds to her claims of exhaustion by rubbing circular patterns on her barely there stomach, Macy’s suggestion that I take some of the burden off her uterus pops into my head.
I consider her idea for scarcely a second before I remove it from my head. Another forced interaction is the last thing we need. It would feel wrong. Unnatural. It would make it seem like I were playing a part in a poorly miscast movie, directed by a filmmaker no longer in the know.
Cameron heads for the door to open it for me. “Thanks for today. I know it was a little weird, but I’m glad we did it.”
“Yeah… me too,” I lie. When I lean in to kiss her cheek, she doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t lean in either. She seems disgusted at the idea of me touching her, shelving Macy’s suggestion further. “Goodnight, Cameron.”
She grimaces like I called her a slur before she slowly closes the door with her on one side and me on the other. I stand frozen for a moment as the weight of the past twenty-four hours presses down on me, before I use her apparent tiredness as an excuse to put the unease swamping my veins to rest for the day.
The drive home is a blur. My head is a mess of confusion, and it doesn’t all revolve around Cameron. I keep recalling parts of my exchange with Macy and Crew this morning, and how the changeup with Cameron’s “abduction” will cast doubt on the cases we’ve yet to solve.
I barely know Crew, but I’m certain he’d never contemplate Kendall not being held against her will but rather hiding from him. I would have fought anyone who had insinuated the same to me about Cameron, even with that being precisely what she’s done the past seventeen years.