Page 31 of The Saint

“You found my sister—” Bile churned into her throat. “She’s dead?”

“Anything you say can and will be used against you…”

The officer holding Amelia on her feet managed to turn her around. The cold snap of a handcuff bit her wrist.

They were arresting her. She didn’t know what reason they had to be in her condo or what they had found. She’d told them everything—more than that, she knew she hadn’t done anything to hurt her family. Questions tornadoed through her mind. The second handcuff secured her other wrist.

Tears poured down her cheeks. “You found Hailey?”

“Do you understand these rights?”

Amelia understood nothing, neither the words they were saying nor their line of questioning throughout the investigation. They hadn’t specified that Hailey had been found. No one said Hailey wasn’t alive. But they’d saidmurder.

Agent Fitzgerald took a pair of shoes from the pile of abandoned footwear by her front door and dropped them at her feet. “Slip these on.”

Amelia obeyed and awkwardly shoved her feet into them like sandals.

Then Fitzgerald nodded to the officer at Amelia’s side. “Grab her a coat.”

After a moment, one was draped over her shoulders. They tugged her along. She was like a zombie. Amelia moved as though she weren’t in control of her body, as if she were watching herself in a movie. They shuffled her toward an oversized unmarked Suburban in a parking lot filled with spectators and flashing lights. Her stomach sloshed with every step. Bile teased the back of her throat as though she would retch.

“Watch your head,” the officer said, all but lifting Amelia into the back of the blacked-out vehicle that swallowed her whole.

The back seat of her idling prison was warm and new-car scented. Heat wrapped around her as she lost control, sobbing as the officer buckled her into place, hands caught behind her back.

She needed to ask for a lawyer. She needed to make a phone call. But the words wouldn’t come out of her mouth. She wanted to talk to Camden. Did anyone here know him? Could she call him? He wasn’t a lawyer. All she needed to do was demand a lawyer—they would sort out this nightmare—but when she opened her mouth, the only thing that came out was, “Is Hailey really dead?”

CHAPTER TEN

After the Hay-Adams brunch meeting with Beth, Camden spent the afternoon debriefing with Parker, though he didn’t think there was all that much to discuss. Afterward, Camden met up with a few of the guys he knew on Titan’s US team. They went out for beers, but Amelia never left his mind. The next day, she was still there as he stepped off the metro at Union Station.

They didn’t have a reason to meet. For all intents and purposes, he was finished with this job. Camden’s only responsibility was to wait for Jared and the CIA to decide nothing was left to discuss—though Beth had thought he should meet one of the Dumonts’ points of contact. Still, that didn’t have anything to do with Amelia—and Amelia was the person he wanted to meet with.

But that would be strange. He couldn’t just ask a random person he’d spoken to on a phone call to meet up. However, it wasn’t just one phone call, and she wasn’t a random person, at least not anymore.

After overthinking the situation, Camden decided the only meeting he needed to have was with his family. New Jersey was a short couple of hours away if he jumped on Amtrak. Surprising his brothers would be exactly what he needed to clear his mind. That was the plan.

With a train ticket purchased and half an hour to kill, Camden mixed in with the morning commuter crowd and searched for a coffee shop. He found a deli that served breakfast and no-fuss coffee. The smell of cheesy, melty breakfast sandwiches made his mouth water.

He got in line and took his phone out. He could text Amelia. Or he could delete her number and never talk to her again. Camden scrubbed a hand over his face. This wasn’t like him. He never doubted himself, especially when it came to women.

Was this a woman thing? She’d certainly piqued his interest.

The problem was they’d never met. He didn’t even know what she looked like. That had been a purposeful decision. It was like a built-in barrier to avoid a complication. Somehow, someway, he liked Amelia a lot—insomuch as a person could like anothera lotafter a few short although somewhat life-changing conversations.

The line hadn’t moved. A dull grumble of complaints surrounded Camden as he cleared his mind of Amelia.

“We don’t have fifty everything bagels,” the cashier told the man in front of Camden. By the sound of it, that wasn’t the first time it had been said. “I have about a dozen left. That’s it. Take it or leave it.”

Camden had totally zoned out and now glanced at the time. He still had plenty of room to spare before his train departed, but a big order from the guy in front of him might screw up his schedule.

“Look, I don’t think you understand.” The man in front of Camden leaned onto the counter. “The bagels are forvery importantpeople, and if I don’t show up on the Hill with them,very importantpeople are going to be upset. So, can you find them or defrost them or whatever you have to do so I can pay and be on my way?”

The exasperated cashier blinked slowly. “We. Don’t. Have. Them.”

“I heard what you said.” The guy pulled out his wallet and extracted a wad of cash. “But there’s a really solid tip—”

“I’m going on break,” the cashier announced.

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