Page 4 of Just Hide

"Please, don't cry."

How could she help it? Cami couldn't control her sobs. Kieran reached out his hand and lightly touched her shoulder.

"It's okay," he said softly. "It's okay."

Cami realized that he was comforting her. That he was actually trying to make her feel better.

It was too much. She burst into tears again, and Kieran pulled her into a hug.

The tears that had been pent up inside Cami spilled out, along with her guilt and sadness. Kieran just held her, not saying anything, until she had cried herself out.

Finally, she disentangled herself from him and wiped her eyes.

"Please, don't cry again," he said. "If you do, you'll make me cry, too, and I haven't come here to do that."

Cami dug her teeth into the inside of her cheek. It hurt like hell biting down, but at least it distracted her from her grief.

"What … what have you come here for?" she asked in a hoarse, hiccupping voice.

"I've come here—I guess—to make sure you're okay." Kieran was looking at her with a slight frown. Cami felt her eyes filling with tears again. Kieran was worried? He had come here to make sure she was okay? She hadn't expected that and didn’t deserve it. It was the kindness of a stranger who was in more pain than she was, and it was too much.

“I guess the police have spoken to you?” he asked.

“Yes. Yes, they have. They’re looking into the crime, together with the FBI. But I haven’t been updated on whether they’ve caught the killer, so I guess they haven’t.”

“They keep telling us they’re working on it and hope to get results soon, but I haven’t heard about any results. I’ve been feeling very worried about you.”

"Why?" Why should he care about her? Cami wondered. He should hate her! She hated herself right now for what she'd done.

"Ethan told me a bit about you. That's how I know how to find you," he said.

"He did?" The tears started flowing again, and Cami quickly wiped them away.

"Yes, he did. He told me he liked you a lot, and how he thought you were a cool girl and a person who was probably going to change the world one day."

Cami couldn't believe what she was hearing. Ethan had thought enough of her to tell his brother his feelings about her?She wanted to ask more questions, but her throat was closing up.

“He also said you were a kind person, someone who cared about others and wanted to help them. He said you were smart, and that's why he wanted to go out with you. You were different from other girls, he said." Kieran's voice was soft, with a distinct edge of sorrow beneath it. Cami listened, her heart breaking all over again.

"I'm sorry," she choked out.

But Kieran didn’t stop talking. "I'm the younger brother," he said. "I was always the one who felt I was following in his footsteps. That he was leading the way. He was so smart, so focused. He was top of his class at college, and he aced the FBI academy. Me? I was the one who gave my parents headaches, who flunked first year engineering because I had the idea that I'd be in a rock band. I was the problem child, and he was the hero."

Kieran's voice cracked, and Cami felt her heart breaking all over again.

"So, I wanted to say—I wanted to make sure you're okay. And more than that." He stared at her, and now there was a strange intensity in his eyes that made her frown.

"What do you mean?"

"You need to be careful," he said, and Cami suddenly felt as if someone had shoveled ice down her spine.

"What … what are you saying?"

"I don't know how much Ethan told you," he said.

"Told me? What are you talking about? What was he supposed to tell me? I mean, he told me that your uncle got shot years ago when he was going to be a state witness after working with someone who was arrested for money laundering. He told me that’s what planted the seed for him to join the FBI. But that was years ago, and he said the bad guys are still in jail."

He’d told her about his background one night when they were walking back from a rock concert at a local bar. Was that what Kieran meant?

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