Page 3 of Just Now

There he was, walking toward her, holding two cups. He was so similar to Ethan. Same clean-cut, handsome features, same dark hair, same height and rangy breadth of his shoulders. And weirdly, she felt the same lift of her spirits on seeing him that she always had when she’d been around Ethan.

“You okay?” He gave her a cup.

“Some days are better than others. Are you?” she replied.

“Getting there,” he admitted.

Then he surprised her by giving her an awkward hug, even clumsier than it might otherwise have been because they were both holding coffees. But the hug was surprisingly warming. His strong arm around her felt good. Maybe it did to him, too. She’d lost a boyfriend she’d known for a couple of months and who’d meant the world to her, but Kieran had lost a brother who’d been part of his whole life.

“Shall we walk?” she asked, feeling restless, and also like she wanted to be far away from anyone while they talked. Plus, she’d been cooped up in her tiny room since the early hours, studying for her final exam.

“Sure,” he said.

They set off, heading through the campus, to the sports fields beyond. Cami took a swallow of her coffee as they walked.

“I was going through everything in my head,” she told him. “Trying to make sense of it all and make sure I have all the details correct. Right from the start of all of this. Up until the part you still don’t know.”

He glanced at her. “And? What have you figured out? And what don’t I know?”

They headed down to the campus football field, treading along the perimeter of the mowed grass, which at this time of the day was still crisp with frost. Cami took another gulp of coffee, grateful for the warmth.

“This all started when my sister Jenna disappeared,” she said, recapping for him. “That was six years ago. The FBI was called in and they didn’t get anywhere. My dad, who’s a cop, believed Jenna was a runaway, because she was a rebel.”

“She was?” Kieran asked, emphasizing the word “she” as he glanced at Cami.

Cami was surprised to find herself grinning briefly at that. She liked Kieran’s humor. “I guess we both were. Anyway, my dad didn’t seem to think it was a problem that she’d gone. I knew she’d never have left. Not my big sis. Not without saying goodbye. I didn’t know what was happening in her life, but I knew she wouldn’t do that.”

“So the FBI got nowhere?”

“Correct,” Cami said. “But then we fast-forward six years to when I got brought in to help the FBI with cases, after they caught me hacking their site.”

“You know, Ethan told me about that,” Kieran said, interrupting her story. “He came home and said he’d met this really pretty, rebellious woman who’d hacked the FBI’s website, and everyone was mad about it, but that they’d given you a plea bargain because they were so short of IT talent in the Bureau. With agents getting lured away to work for startups.”

“I’m glad he told you about it.” Cami smiled, even though the pain of Ethan’s loss still burned.

“Go on. I’m sorry, I thought I’d better mention it. In case you didn’t know.”

“Well, when I was able to access the FBI’s databases, I looked up Jenna’s file, and I discovered someone had put tracking software into Jenna’s case file and deleted most of it.”

“That’s very significant,” Kieran said. “That someone would have done that.”

Cami nodded. “Anyway, I then found Liam Treverton had been in charge of the case, but he’d left the FBI under a cloud a few years ago. I managed to find out where he lived and get hold of his laptop.”

Kieran gave her a sideways look, but didn’t say anything.

“The laptop needed a voice recording to open it, so I worked out where Liam went in the evenings, and found out he sometimes visited this dodgy bar. When Ethan and I went to that bar, to get the voice recording to open his laptop, that’s when the worst happened. We left, and someone followed us. Someone shot Ethan.”

She glanced somberly at Kieran, who nodded, his face now grim.

“But then I found out from you that there had been trouble earlier. That someone had shot at Ethan before, out on the street near where you lived.”

“Correct,” Kieran said. “We thought it was some crazy guy terrorizing the neighborhood, or a criminal making a getaway. I had no idea it was anyone targeting Ethan. Not until this happened.”

Cami nodded. They turned along the bottom of the field. Now, weak winter sunshine glowed, filtering down onto the frosty grass, making the icy crystals sparkle.

“So I am guessing that Ethan was also digging. He must have found out something was wrong. Maybe he’d stumbled across something that had raised red flags.”

“Maybe,” Kieran said.

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