Page 13 of Just Now

“No,” Cami replied, standing her ground.

“I need to leave.”

“Only after my boss has finished asking you some questions.”

Cami glanced at the window, where Connor was now physically hauling Maxwell back inside, to the accompaniment of thumps and struggling sounds.

“Get out of my way.” The brunette woman, eyes flashing, stepped forward and shoved Cami’s shoulder.

Cami gasped as she was flung back against the door with a thudding sound. She didn’t have a weapon on her; she didn’t even have any real authority to stop the woman. And if it came to a struggle, this bigger, taller woman was going to win the day.

But there was one thing she could do to keep her at bay. One way she could prevent her from leaving while Connor wrestled with Maxwell.

Cami scrambled to regain her footing, standing squarely in front of the door again. Then she took her phone out of her pocket, quickly swiping it on.

“You go ahead then,” she said. “Come at me. Try your best to get me out of the way. But if I press this button, then I’m going to start livestreaming what happens onto my social media, set to public, and then I’m going to share it on all the groups I can find, while explaining what I saw in here while we arrived. What work do you do? Would your workplace want this published? What about your family?”

The threat, though breathless and uttered in a squeaky voice, proved effective. The woman flinched away, looking horrified.

“Don’t you dare press that button,” she hissed, making a grab for Cami’s arm, but this time, Cami was too quick. She leaped out of her way, still clutching the phone.

“I’m filming unless you sit down,” Cami said. “Footage starting in three… two… one…”

At the word “one,” the woman turned, flounced over to the couch, and angrily seated herself on it, keeping her face turned away from Cami’s phone.

The struggle at the window was abating. Connor had hauled Maxwell back inside. Now he clipped a set of handcuffs onto his wrist, affixing the other end to the arm of the visitor’s chair.

“Sit,” Connor commanded, and Maxwell thudded down into the chair.

Now that his escape attempt had been curbed, he was going for affronted innocence, Cami saw.

“What’s going on here?” he asked in breathless tones, staring at Connor and then at Cami with an incredulous expression in his pale blue eyes. “How can you just—just barge in like this? Abuse me? Handcuff me?”

“We have questions for you,” Connor said sternly. “Is this your client? What’s your relationship with this woman?”

Seeing the woman’s lips pressed together, Cami thought she might be regretting her life decisions. Particularly the last few recent ones. But to Cami, she didn’t look as if she was here against her will. She couldn’t see any evidence of that. The woman looked embarrassed, but not traumatized. And the way she’d tried to leave had been bossy and entitled, but not as if she was scared and needing to flee the area.

“My client,” Maxwell said, reddening.

“Are you here of your own volition?” Connor demanded of the woman.

She nodded, still not speaking.

“What are you doing here, exactly?” Connor pressed.

Maxwell shifted from foot to foot, looking guilty. “Just consulting, you know. Nutritional advice. That kind of thing.”

Well, that was the first lie out of the way, Cami thought. Even with a wealth of evidence to the contrary, Maxwell was doggedly pursuing the story of innocence. But where there was one lie, there might be others. A man sleeping with clients in his consulting office—after a strange name change somewhere in his past—might be committing serious crimes on the side.

“Ma’am, give me your ID,” Connor commanded.

“Why?” the woman asked defensively, her first word to Connor so far.

“I need to check it,” Connor said.

She stared at him mutinously. Then she picked up her purse from the floor, rummaged inside it, and handed him her driver’s license.

Connor photographed it with his phone.

---