Page 6 of Just Now

“Sure,” she said, and saw his face instantly warm.

“Good. That’s great. I’m—I’m looking forward to it.”

“Yeah, me too. But let’s get over these other hurdles first,” she warned.

“Let’s do that. Whatever I can do to help, I will. Okay?”

“Okay. Stay safe, and I’ll let you know.”

He squeezed her hand briefly. Cami squeezed his in turn.

Cami felt a mix of emotions as she walked away. She was relieved to have an ally, and she felt a deepening of her connection with Kieran. She didn’t know where this would lead, but she wasn’t going to turn away from it. At the same time, though, she was scared to involve someone else in this dangerous game. Whoever had shot Ethan hadn’t just disappeared off the face of the earth. The opposite was true. They were now going to be watchful, making their plans just as she was doing. That person, or more than one person, was still there, lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce. She had to be vigilant, and she had to be careful.

And then, to complicate matters, there was the unexpected spark of emotion she felt toward Kieran, which made a place in her heart, a place that had felt frozen, warm up again.

Now, how to contact Liam discreetly?

The best way would be through his smart home command console, she decided. She was pretty sure that if she chose the right way of doing this, then only he would be able to get the message.

She’d hacked into his alarm system previously. But maybe an even better way would be to simply text him a message on the console.

Cami pulled out her phone and opened the hacking app, carefully selecting the right codes to bypass Liam’s security measures. After a few moments of typing, she was inside his smart home system.It wasn’t difficult because she’d done it before. And weirdly, he hadn’t updated his passwords. Cami thought about that for a while.

Perhaps he’d left them unchanged purposely, and that meant he was open to communication with her and wasn’t locking her out. At any rate, that was what she read into it.

She navigated through the menus until she found the console, then composed a message.

“I want to meet with u. Regarding J. And E. Time, place?”

She thought that was vague enough that if anyone did see it they wouldn’t connect the dots, but that Liam would know instantly.

Taking a deep breath, Cami pressed Send.

Now the message would be visible on his command console, and she’d need to look into it again to see if he’d replied. He might take hours to do that. Days. It depended on how his alerts were set up.

She swallowed, hoping he would see it soon, knowing she was in uncharted waters here and that whoever these people were, they were playing for keeps. She was scared, too, and now she’d gotten a taste of exactly how scared Liam must be, the fear he’d been living with.

And then her phone rang again. Quickly, she took the call, seeing that it was her boss, Connor, from the FBI on the line.

Cami knew what that meant.

Another serious crime had been committed, and they needed her tech expertise on board to try to solve it.

CHAPTER THREE

“Hello, Connor,” Cami said. She did her best to sound normal. She didn’t want to alert Connor that anything was wrong in her life. Otherwise he’d ask about it, and right now, she was scared to talk.

Luckily, he sounded distracted.

“Cami. You got a free day today?” he asked. As he spoke, she visualized him in her mind. She’d perceived him at first as a resented father figure, with his strong-jawed, serious face and his short dark hair, threaded with gray. It was only after a few fireworks between them that she’d acknowledged his wisdom, that he was a valuable mentor with a wealth of experience that backed up and complemented her tech expertise.

“Yes. I’ve been studying since five this morning, so I’m up to date, and my next exam’s not until next week,” she said.

“We’ve got an issue here that I’d like your help with.”

“Sure. Gladly,” she said. “What is it?”

As she spoke, Cami felt amazed by how far she’d come. When this “arrangement” to be on call to the FBI for tech-related cases had started, she’d been filled with anger and rebellion. Her grudge toward the FBI had originated with her sister’s disappearance, when she felt they hadn’t done enough to find Jenna. Being forced to help with tech-related cases for a year, as an alternative to a jail term for hacking their site, hadn’t made her like them any better.

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