Page 27 of Hiding Hollywood

She stood and set her phone in the chair. Her hip jutted out, and she gave him that fake smile. “Did you catch any fish?”

He rolled his eyes. What the hell had made her act like that again?

“Is Lacy doing okay?”

He shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets with his disappointment. “Yeah. She’s in the truck.”

Her eyes snapped up, her eyebrows tilted down. “What? Where? I don’t see her.”

“I didn’t know how you’d react, so I left her there. I’ll go get her.” Cameron went to the passenger side. Lacy had snuggled down deep in his sweatshirt he’d worn this morning on his run. It didn’t make any sense to him, but she seemed to like it. “C’mon girl.”

Lacy bounded down from the truck. The fake look melted off Addie’s face. “She’s a dog?”

“I’m not exactly a cat person.”

“But I,” she started, running a hand through her hair. “I thought she was your girlfriend.”

“You thought I had a girlfriend?” And after the interaction they’d had together the other night? He might forget that she had a boyfriend by the way she acted most of the time, but he’d never touch another woman while having a girlfriend.

“Yes.” She squatted down as Lacy jumped up the steps. She rubbed her behind the ears. “She’s so adorable.”

TheotherAddie had vanished almost as quickly as she’d appeared. What made her turn it on and off? She looked like the same woman, today dressed in leggings the color of wine and a gray shirt that gripped her hips but was loose everywhere else.

“Cameron, I offered to your dad for me to talk to Kevin if you want. I can see if he will give over the video.” His mom continued to rock. He was a little amazed considering the angry look his dad shot in his direction.

“You still don’t have the video you need?” Addie rose from Lacy, her face uncommonly serious.

“No. We have to wait a stupid amount of time to get a judge to sign off on a declaration making Kevin hand it over. Big companies like that have almost everyone in their back pocket.” Cameron picked up Addie’s hand without permission, needing to feel her skin again. “Have you taken care of this?”

Her eyes stayed glued to his thumb, gliding back and forth across the bandage on her hand. “Do you know how the video is made? If they’ve updated the system in the past five years, they probably switched to digital and recorded on a server, right?”

Why did she care? She looked a little spaced out watching their hands linked, but he didn’t want to stop touching her. “I don’t think it’s like an old VHS or anything. The lumberyard is a remote plant, part of a million-dollar business. I think the footage is linked all the way up. They installed those cameras not too long ago.”

“If they’re linked, it’d probably be through a network.”

He didn’t know anything about that sort of thing. “I guess.”

She gently tugged her hand away. “Have someone go in there and get the video.”

“We can’t. It wouldn’t be allowed as evidence, and we’d be charged with breaking and entering into the plant.”

“I meant to go into their system.” Her eyes centered on a point over his shoulder, her voice low, almost a whisper.

“That doesn’t change anything. We’d be the ones that were developing a case against him. We can’t get evidence illegally. The judge would throw it out.”

“What if someone else got the evidence?” Her eyes came back to his. The slight fear in her voice highlighted the seriousness of her statement even more.

“What do you mean, Addie?” His dad took a step forward. “Who else could gather that kind of information and not do it with the direction of the Sheriff’s office?”

Her lips pressed together, and her eyebrows drew tight together.

“Don’t you dare clam up now.” Cameron set a hand on her shoulder. He leaned down to force her eyes to meet his. “We need this video, Addie. Do you know of another way to get it that wouldn’t implicate us?”

She twisted her fingers together. He covered them with his own, careful of her burn. He’d never wanted to kiss a woman so desperately before in his life. To take away whatever fear she felt. The uncertainty. Something had put that heartache look in her eyes. Dealing with Addie when she acted fake was easier than witnessing this insecurity. At fifteen, she’d looked more confident than she did now.

“I know someone that can get the video for you,” she whispered.

He stepped a little closer. “We wouldn’t have to pay them? Give them directions? No one would find out?”

---