The One I Need

“Think if it was your sister who was dead. Your mother who still suffered.” She leaned toward him, hazel eyes blazing. “Wouldn’t you do whatever you could to see that the person responsible was caught and punished?”

Her voice trembled with emotion, and her eyes held a sheen.

Cameron forced himself to take a step back and consider the situation from her perspective. He thought of Nyla and Eve. If something like that had happened to them, he’d absolutely want the person responsible punished.

“I definitely would.” His quiet tone held an edge of steel. “But that doesn’t negate the fact that you should have been honest with me from the start.”

“I know.” Juin met his accusing gaze with a steady one of her own before her eyes dropped to her tightly clenched hands. “It’s just that we were having so much fun.”

Even as the silence between them stretched and extended, her wistful tone softened his irritation, just a little.

“Have you considered for one second that the person who hit your sister may not have come from the party?”

“Yes, but the list is all I have to go on.” Juin expelled a weary breath. “My mother is suffering horribly, Cameron. With the ten-year anniversary of Aubrey’s death approaching, I have to do whatever I can to give her some peace.”

“Have you discovered anything of value?”

She shook her head, and her shoulders slumped. “Not really.”

“I wish you luck in your quest.” Cameron sat back in his seat. He didn’t say more. There wasn’t anything more to say.

Juin pushed open the car door.

Cameron remained where he was, not bothering to step from the vehicle.

“Good-bye, Cameron.” She leaned over the open door. “I’m sorry if my questions screwed things up between us, but I had to ask.”

“Good-bye, Juin.”

* * *

June stood on the stoop of her apartment building and watched him drive away. It struck her that she hadn’t gotten around to telling him about her relationship with his grandmother.

One more thing to push them apart.

She hadn’t known how Cameron would react to the inquisition. With anger? With recriminations? With threats? While she couldn’t imagine the man that she’d begun to know reacting in any of those ways, they were still very much strangers.

If she’d learned anything over the past year, it was that no one liked being interrogated. She’d learned to ease into the topic, to gain sympathy first before probing too deeply.

She’d read books and watched videos on interrogation techniques used by law enforcement. Had honed her skills in that area.

Then, what had she done with Cameron? She’d ignored everything she’d learned and gone with honesty. Pure and simple truth.

At this moment, she wasn’t sure why she’d gone that route. Other than with those blue eyes fixed on her and his warm hand blanketing hers, she hadn’t wanted any lies between them.

The crazy thing was, she believed him. Believed that he hadn’t come upon the scene until after the rescue vehicles had arrived. Believed him when he’d said he had nothing to do with her sister’s death.

Even when her heart had told her it couldn’t be him, she’d forced herself to ask the questions. She hadn’t wanted her feelings for him to blind her to the truth.

Now, she would go up to her apartment and add the information he’d given her to her database, knowing that whatever she’d learned tonight hadn’t been worth losing Cameron Driskill’s friendship.

* * *

On the drive home, Cameron let his conversation with Juin—or maybe he should think of her by her American name now that he knew it—circle in his head. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d thought of those early years in Denver.

While he now loved everything the Mile High City had to offer, the transition from small-town life in Silver Creek to Denver had been a rocky one. Other than Anson, who’d lived in the same Cherry Creek neighborhood and attended the same school, Cameron had had difficulty making friends.

Oh, he’d had plenty of acquaintances, boys with pockets full of cash and unlimited access to their parents’ credit cards who loved to party.