The Next Right Thing (Harlequin Superromance) (20 page)

“I’ll have to ask her about it when she’s back...with her mom.”

A pain sliced through Cammie as she realized how soon the three of them would be scattered hundreds of miles from each other.

“I’ll miss her,” she said.

“Me, too.”

“I’ll miss you, too.”

“We’ll have to talk about that.”

She got his message as surely as if he’d waved a sign. What had transpired between them these past twenty-four hours was a building block to the next stage of their relationship.

“Yes,” she agreed, “we’ll have to talk about that.”

Before they said their goodbyes, they made plans to get together later that night. Dinner, then spend the night together at her uncle’s place.

After that, she found a radio station that played classic rock. She sang along with “Take It Easy,” an old Eagles tune, feeling good and happy and, caution be damned, wallowing in being
in love
. Screw that “I’m not sure I love you anymore” speech she’d given on the beach.

The ghost of Cammie Past wasn’t going to be hanging around much longer.

* * *

A
N
HOUR
OUTSIDE
V
EGAS
, Cammie’s cell phone rang. Delilah’s name displayed on the caller ID.

“Hey, Delilah,” Cammie answered.

“Hello, dear,” Delilah said, her voice barely audible.

“Let me turn down the radio. I can hardly hear you. Okay, what’s up?”

“I’m keeping my voice low, dear, because I don’t want Emily to overhear. Right now she’s playing with Trazy in the back room.”

“Is there a problem?”

“Yes.” Cammie thought she heard a sniffling sound. “I feel bad tattling, but this is serious. I tried calling Marc several times, but he doesn’t answer, and I don’t feel comfortable leaving this message on his voice mail.”

Cammie stared through the bug-splattered windshield at the stretch of Interstate 15 in front of her, trying to grasp what the older woman was talking about.

“Delilah, for God’s sake, what is it? Did you find drugs? Is she drinking? Unprotected sex,
what?
”

“Worse!” Delilah, who cooed and kissed and blissfully knitted her way through life, cracked. “She’s going to jail! My Lord almighty, our little Emily will be tossed like a piece of fresh meat into a holding cell with prostitutes, drug dealers and other political activists!” She released a weighty sob. “She’s just learned how to use a cable needle, and now she’ll be with junkies who stick real needles up their...”

While Delilah proceeded to describe in graphic detail something she’d seen in a prison documentary, Cammie put her phone on speaker and set it on her thigh.

Two words in particular had stood out.

“Political activists?” Cammie repeated, interrupting Delilah’s description of a prison gang fight between the Aryan Brotherhood and La Nuestra.

“What, dear?”

“You said there’d be political activists in the jail—” A light went on. “This has something to do with the Eco-Glitter rally.”

“Yes! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I overheard Emily talking on her cell phone with somebody named Dylan or Daven—”

“Daearen.”

“Yes! That’s it. At first they were talking about some kind of glitter show, which sounded lovely, and then I heard things about diminishing natural resources and sabotaging the political machine and—” she blew her nose loudly “—and then Cammie said she’d be
proud
to be arrested in order to bring attention to the rape of planet earth.”

“Which she’s planning on doing at today’s rally.”

“Yes!”

“Do you know where, exactly, this is occurring?”

“She mentioned a Green Planet gathering. Sounded as though they sold gecko glitter jewelry there.”

“Eco glitter.”

“What—
Oh!
I’m looking out the window and her father just picked her up. They’re driving away! I’d hoped to talk to him before they left and now—”

“I’ll be in Vegas in less than an hour,” Cammie said, jamming her foot on the gas. “Emily wanted to see some band first, so she won’t be arrested right away.” Ah, the priorities of youth. “I’ll head straight to the rally and find this Green Planet group.”

“I’ll go, too.”

“No.”

“But...I want to help.”

Thoughts of cleavage and eco-radicalism were swirling with Aryan Brotherhood and La Nuestra gang warfare. “You can help by staying close to your phone. In cases like this,” she said, fumbling for a good reason for Delilah to stay put, “it’s critical that there’s a go-to person available by phone at all times.”

After a beat, Delilah said, “Yes, I’m happy to be that person. And one more thing.”

Cammie waited. “Yes?”

“Did you know the world is ending in 2016?”

* * *

T
HIRTY
-
SEVEN
MINUTES
LATER
, Cammie parked her car near the Lloyd George U.S. Courthouse in downtown Las Vegas, in front of which the Eco-Glitter rally was taking place. In the parking lot, a lone protestor—an uptight-looking woman with fire-engine-red hair and perfect makeup—carried a bright pink sign that read Everything’s Fine, Keep Shopping.

The notorious Vegas winds had decided to lie low for a change, offering no respite from the afternoon sun. Cammie guessed temps were in the low eighties. Had to be broiling inside the dark police uniforms that were everywhere on foot, bike, even horseback. Cruisers were parked at both ends of Clark and Bridger Avenues on Las Vegas Boulevard, which had been blocked off for the event. Reporters and videographers were camped out at different areas at the rally, vultures waiting for their feedings.

Moving through the crowd, she caught scents of pineapple and apples from a Grow Local open-air booth. A guy in a G-string wandered through the crowd, playing “With a Little Help from My Friends” on a flute. A series of stalls labeled The Organic Free Trade People’s Market advertised such items as lavender deodorant, recycled-textile jewelry and eco-friendly lingerie.

It was as if a corner of Woodstock had merged with Sin City.

It wasn’t difficult to find the Green Planet activists. At least thirty of them, looking righteously solemn and wearing bright green armbands decorated with glittery emblems of the planet earth, had congregated in the middle of the courthouse steps.

A distant incantation drew Cammie’s attention.

“Spare the earth. Spare the earth.”

Five or six people, wearing Planet Earth armbands, marched solemnly in front of a small tractor rolling down a cleared area of Las Vegas Boulevard. Several waved American flags. A thirtysomething man with bushy black hair, apparently the leader, was yelling slogans into a bullhorn.

A line of cops in riot gear approached from the opposite end of Las Vegas Boulevard.

The media pushed through the crowds, vying with spectators for primo spots to witness the upcoming showdown.

“Cammie!”

Marc jogged toward her, his face lined with worry. Reaching her, he grabbed her shoulders and yelled over the growing buzz of the crowd.

“Em...I’ve lost her!”

Cammie scanned the courthouse steps, looking in vain for a flash of strawberry-blond hair.

“We were watching the band,” he continued, “and next I knew, she was gone.” Frantic, he scoured the crowd. “A mess is brewing and I want her out of here.”

She glanced at the rolling tractor. The bushy-haired leader, walking alongside it, held up something. People started clapping, others yelling, fists raised high.

“What are they doing?” she said absently.

The leader bellowed into the bullhorn, “Death to the Machine! Death to the Machine!”

“Marc,” Cammie said, tugging on his sleeve, “he’s holding a Molotov cocktail!”

“Take off the gas cap!” the leader yelled into the bullhorn.

The tractor slowed as several Planet Green types began fiddling with the cap.

Marc looked anxiously through the crowd. “Damn fools, they’re going to set fire to the tractor! Where’s Emily?”

The line of riot-geared cops marched forward, one of them barking orders through a louder, badder bullhorn.

“Cease! Move away! Disperse! Now!”

Two cops in blue jackets with
Police
in bright yellow letters on their backs burst from the crowd and tackled the leader, forcing him to the ground. A third officer cuffed the leader’s hands behind his back as he continued screaming orders, indicating his bullhorn that lay in the street.

A blonde in jeans and a Make Love, Not Trash T-shirt, wearing a Green Planet armband, darted into the street and picked up the bullhorn. It was Emily. The bullhorn looked huge in her hand. Cammie silently prayed that she would have the good sense to drop it and step away.

No such luck.

She saw Emily lift the bullhorn to her mouth. It was like watching a train wreck in slo-mo. Smart, pretty, well-meaning Emily was about to take a giant step in the wrong direction.

“Brute force can’t subdue the earth,” she said through the microphone.

People roared and raised their fists.

“Emily!” Marc pushed and shoved his way through the crowd.

“We stand with Mother Earth,” Emily yelled. “Witness this brutality! Raise the voices of the people!”

“Emily!” Marc shouted, pushing past a reporter.

Cammie, jogging behind him, saw one of the cops in a blue jacket running toward Emily like a bull elephant about to trample Bambi.

She raised a defiant fist. “Deny the ruling-class pigs their brutal moment in the sun—”

The cop snatched her bullhorn, yelling, “You’re interfering with a felony investigation and you will be arrested—”

“Stop!” Marc yelled. “She has a right to free speech.”

A burly guy holding a video camera blocked Cammie.

“She doesn’t have a right to help people blow up tractors, buddy,” the cop yelled at Marc, pointing a finger for emphasis. “If you don’t move away immediately, I’ll charge you with obstruction of jus—”

Which was the last thing Marc needed. Not now, when his career, his father’s freedom, was at stake.

Cammie jabbed her elbow into the fat guy. With a curse, he jumped aside, and Cammie ran as fast as she could across the asphalt, watching Marc argue with the officer, who was waving over reinforcements, directing them to Emily, who stood nearby, looking terrified and frightened.

Cammie knew what she had to do, and she had to act fast.

Stumbling to a stop between Emily and the cop, heaving breaths, she pressed both hands, palms down, on the chest of his uniform.

“Turn the brutality...away from the child,” she said, keeping her hands on the officer’s chest. “You won’t...get past me...to this child.”

She was vaguely aware of Marc yelling, Emily crying out, while one undercover cop grabbed Cammie’s hands, and another shoved her to the ground. Her cheek against the hot, gritty street, she felt the zip-tie handcuffs tighten around her wrists. Overwhelmed with the stench of asphalt and oil, she did her best to remain calm despite people screaming, cops barking orders, even a reporter who got down on her hands and knees and shoved an iPhone in the vicinity of Cammie’s face.

In a surreal moment of inconsequential thoughts, Cammie realized she and the reporter used the same recorder app.

The thought burst as cops hoisted her to a standing position and led her away, one on each side.

She glanced at Marc, who looked worried and furious, his arm around a distraught Emily, who kept mouthing
I’m sorry
to Cammie.

A few minutes later, the cops leaned her against a patrol car and began patting her down. The hot metal stung her hands. Her hair hung in her eyes. Another fugly day in paradise.

“I don’t usually ask this of men who have their hands on my thighs,” she said in her best casual voice, “but besides my inadvertently touching you, Officer, is something wrong?”

He snorted the word
inadvertently
under his breath. “You’re being charged with obstruction of justice, assault on a police officer, disobeying an official order and, just because you really pissed me off, lady, conspiracy to commit arson.”

The last one treaded into felony territory.

“Hey,” she said lightly, “I’ll plead to interference with a police officer and obstruction if you’ll forget about the conspiracy to commit arson.”

“What do you think this is,” he barked, “a poker game?”

As he read the Miranda rights, she realized that’s what she’d end up doing, dealing poker again, because she’d just lost her ability to ever be licensed as a P.I.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“T
HE
C
LARK
C
OUNTY
Detention Center is
not
the Waldorf Astoria.”

As Cammie sat in the crowded jail facility with the other new female inmates, all of them waiting for their cell assignments at the Clark County Detention Center, she thought about the judge’s infamous warning several years ago to heiress Paris Hilton. That judge had been lenient with the heiress, who had been charged with drug possession and lying to a Las Vegas police officer, by giving her a suspended sentence. Supposedly by explaining that the jail cells weren’t a five-star hotel helped clarify just how bad incarceration could be for a pampered trust-fund baby.

With three misdemeanor charges, and one felony, Cammie doubted any judge would be as lenient with her.

A woman sat next to her. Her narrow, white face seemed to lack flesh, like a skull topped with a reddish-brown wig.

“Saw you on the news,” she said in a barely audible monotone.

No hello or how ya doing? One of those people who cut the chatter and got down to what they wanted to say. Probably shaved a good five, ten minutes a year off boring conversations.

“Saw it, too.” Four times at least. Clark County had not one, but two television sets in this holding area. Soap operas played on one, a local news station on the other. After repeatedly seeing footage of her hands on the police officer, telling him to turn his brutality away from the child, followed by the lovely shot of her face pressed into the asphalt, it was hard to tell which TV was airing the soaps and which the news.

“What’d they get you for?”

“Obstruction. Assault. Disobeying an official order. Conspiracy to commit arson.” She’d had three hours to think about every single one of those charges, could probably rattle them off in her sleep.

The woman made a harrumph sound while her gaze darted around the room. “You musta pissed off them laws.”

Cammie knew from the girls at Dignity House that
them laws
meant the police. “I believe I did, yes.”

“Me, soliciting.”

One measly charge? Cammie almost felt jealous.

After sitting in silence for several minutes, the woman droned, “Got a lawyer?”

“Maybe.” Marc wasn’t licensed as an attorney in Nevada, but he could give her friendly advice, although after today, she wasn’t real sure how friendly their terms would be. Although her intention at the rally had been to protect Emily, Cammie being charged with a string of misdemeanors, and that one nasty felony meant her credibility as an upcoming witness was potentially tainted.

“I got a good one. Give you his number if you’d like.”

“That’s okay. I have a backup if mine doesn’t work out.”

The woman slid her a look. “Backup?”

“Local defense attorney...” Frankie’s lawyer pal who got her out of the GPS mess, which he did for nothing because he owed a favor to her uncle. She doubted the lawyer would be a no-charge again, though, which meant she’d be paying off lawyers’ fees for the next millennium.

“He’s helped you out?”

“Pleaded down a felony to a misdemeanor.”

She gave an approving nod. “What for?”

“Federal wiretapping charge.” Cammie gave her new pal a can-you-believe-it look. “For attaching a GPS. I mean, really, if you want to split straws, placing any type of apparatus on a vehicle, be it on the side, the hood or underneath, can be deemed in plain view, and if an object is in plain view, it’s legally there.”

The woman arched an eyebrow. “You been giving it a lot of thought.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re smart.”

Considering where they both were sitting, Cammie didn’t have a response to that.

“What’s a GPS?”

Over on the soap-opera TV, a middle-aged actress with a facelift so tight it was a miracle she could speak her lines, pointed a gun at a man. The dozen or so women watching it looked unfazed.

“It’s a device that uses satellite signals to pinpoint people’s locations,” Cammie answered.

The woman seemed to give it some thought. “Can one of them devices be dropped in someone’s pocket?”

“Yes.”

“I could use me one of those.”

A corrections officer, wearing a sneer like Frau Farbissina in the Austin Powers movies, stepped into the room. Cammie half expected her to yell, “Bring in the Fembots!”

Instead, she called out, “Camilla Copello?”

Cammie raised her hand. “Here.”

“Come with me,” the officer said. “Your bail’s been posted.”

* * *

T
WENTY
MINUTES
LATER
, Cammie, dressed again in her sneakers, pants and T-shirt, entered the lobby of the detention center. Marc and Emily rose from their chairs.

Emily ran across the room and hugged her tight. “Cammie,” the girl said, her voice breaking, “you were awesome.”

Cammie wrapped her arms around the girl, not sure how to respond. She looked at Marc over Emily’s head. He stood there, his arms crossed, the same look of fury on his face that she remembered when the cops had led her away.

“Let’s go,” he snapped, heading for the doors.

The three of them walked down Lewis Avenue in silence, Marc in the lead, moving as though he had a rod up his spine. Emily held Cammie’s hand, occasionally squeezing it and giving her meaningful looks, trying to signal that everything would be okay.

Incoming clouds were breaking up the heat of the day. The temperatures had dropped from a disagreeable static heat to a breezy chill while she’d been in the jail. The palm trees swayed with the currents, which carried the faint smell of exhaust fumes and the metallic scent of impending rain. When they reached the parking lot, Marc turned abruptly.

“Phil’s parked one row over,” he said to Cammie, retrieving the car key from his pocket. “Delilah and Frankie helped me return your rental and get Phil here. Your purse is locked in the trunk.”

She cringed inside, thinking how worried her uncle and Delilah must be after witnessing her arrest on TV. Delilah would be beside herself imaging what might have happened to Cammie in the jail.

“Thanks,” she said, accepting the key. “They’re probably anxious about me, so I’ll go home and—”

“No.” The single word was strained with ill temper. “We have a few things to discuss. Emily—” he handed her another key “—you know where the Prius is parked. Lock the doors after you get in and wait for me.”

“No,” she said, leaving no doubt she’d gotten her father’s obstinate gene. “I want to talk to her, too.”

“Emily.” His voice held a warning.

“Daddy, I’m not some child you can order around. This might be my last chance to tell her in person...how much she means to me.”

A pained look shuttled across his face, but he didn’t put up an argument.

Emily turned to Cammie. “I’m grateful for what you did,” she said in a low voice, “although I’m sorry that there will be problems because of it.” She darted a look at Marc, back to Cammie.

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” Cammie said.

The girl’s eyes filled with emotion. Stepping forward, she took Cammie’s hands in hers. “‘There is no greatness,’” she said in a quivering voice, “‘where there is not simplicity, goodness and truth.’”

“Tolstoy?”

Emily nodded.

“Do you memorize his quotes whenever you have a spare minute?”

A laugh bubbled out the girl’s mouth. “I looked that one up earlier. I wanted something that, you know, was special for you.”

“I’m afraid I’m not always truthful.” She glanced at Marc, who was pacing, his head bent. “I promised your father something, and I broke my word.”

Emily grew serious. “I don’t know what you promised him, but I do know you acted unselfishly to protect me. Plus you drew attention to the cause.”

“I have to be truthful here, Emily...I didn’t do it for any cause. But you’re right in that I’m a pretty simple person. When I care for someone, I care with all my heart.”

Winds gusted past, ruffling their hair.

“Emily,” Marc called out, “time’s up. I need to talk to Cammie.
Alone.
”

Emily released her hands and started walking away, backward, not taking her eyes from Cammie. “We never got to see a true-crime show.”

Cammie smiled. “We’ll watch one virtually. The way you did with your pals the other night.”

“Promise?”

Cammie started to speak, but the thought of never seeing Emily again lodged like a rock in her throat.
Promise,
she mouthed, making a crisscross over her heart.

Emily stopped. “I wish that you were my mother,” she said fervently.

It was the last thing Cammie expected to hear. Fighting a well of emotion, she watched Emily jog across the lot. A moment later, a car door slammed.

Marc walked up to Cammie, stopping right in front of her. He looked at her, his eyes glistening with rage.

Undaunted, she stared back, wanting to see past the anger, wanting to catch a glimmer of understanding or compassion.

“Marc,” she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“I had the situation under control,” he said tightly, ignoring her apology. “You didn’t need to barge in there and create a situation that none of us—you, me, my father, Emily—will ever recover from.”

The world suddenly felt too light. The sun filtered eerily through the gathering clouds, which glowed like polished gunmetal. Across the lot, a woman and her child, holding hands, leaned forward against the gusty wind as they walked.

“I—” Her voice came out strangled, thin. “I was protecting Emily...and you—”

“Emily and
me?
” He barked a laugh. “I had my rights to speak up on behalf of my daughter, who also, by the way, was exercising her right to free speech. Granted, it was a heated moment, but a manageable one. Then you decided to go all...
Philip Marlowe
and insert yourself into the middle of things.”

“That’s ridic—”

“You didn’t just wade into this gray area, Cammie, you stomped. And it’s not as though you didn’t know the consequences. You
knew,
damn it, and you did it anyway. You placed your hands on a police officer,
knowing
you’d be charged with obstruction of justice
at the very least.
” His lips clamped in a thin line and he squeezed shut his eyes, as though fighting to maintain control over his volatile emotions.

She’d never seen him like this. On edge, ready to explode.

“Marc, please hear me out. If you’d been arrested—”

“And how would that have happened? I was
talking
to the officer, not
assaulting
him—”

“I wasn’t assaulting—”

“You know the law as well as I do,” he snapped. “Even laying a
finger
on an officer will get you arrested, and in a volatile situation, it easily results in an assault charge. Anyway, to hell with your excuses. Face it, you have a thing for breaking the law. Makes you no better than a common criminal—”

“Stop it!” She turned away, pressing her hands over her ears.

He grabbed her hands and held them midair as he glared into her face. “Stop what? The
truth?
The reason you were working at the Shamrock Palace was because your investigator’s license was
suspended
after you broke the law. But this time, Cammie,
my
license will be suspended.”

They stood like a tableau, their bodies tense, their muscles coiled.

A red Mitsubishi Evo cruised into the lot. The fiftysomething driver nodded her coiffed head to the blasting strains of Lou Reed’s “A Perfect Day.” As the car rolled past, Cammie caught the license plate. CUINCRT.

If she wasn’t so pissed, she might have laughed.

Turning her attention to Marc, she said with as much calm as she could muster, “Let go of me.”

“Gladly,” he responded, dropping her hands with a dramatic flourish.

She crossed her arms and glowered at him. “Look, Laura McDonald has been served. When is that deposition?”

“Five days.”

“Attorney Disciplinary Agency will be there, no D.A., right?”

“Yes, it’s set up for the ADA to hear and see how deeply Laura was involved in this crime.”

“Well, she must show up for that deposition or be in contempt of court, and I don’t think she’s real keen on having a warrant for her arrest issued, so she’ll be there.”

He leaned forward, his jaw muscles dancing. “But my main witness,
you,
can’t provide testimony at the depo, which sabotages my ability to exonerate myself. As we talked about before, I
need
your testimony about your investigative efforts that proved Laura was actively hiding after her theft. But with your
multiple
pending charges, and possibility of conviction on each, the ADA will view you as some kind of fringe protester nutcase, which damages
my
credibility. This kicks open the door for the agency to proceed with suspending my law license. No license, no ability to represent my father, whose parole hearing, as you know, is June 6. A month and a half away.”

She felt as though her world was caving in, making it difficult to breathe, to think. “Can’t he find another lawyer to represent him?”

He gave her an incredulous look. “You worked in legal investigations long enough to know that frantic clients scrambling to hire new lawyers at the last minute is often the death knell to a case. Besides, my father doesn’t have the money to hire anyone, and nobody will do it
pro bono
because they either don’t want to be associated with him and they think he should rot in jail for his crime, or they just don’t care.” Marc’s jaw twitched. “I was doing it because—” his voice cracked “—I’m his
son.
”

* * *

F
OR
SEVERAL
LONG
, excruciating moments, Marc didn’t talk. Couldn’t talk. It felt as though the world had tilted at a sickening angle. Blood roared in his ears, mimicking the distant clamor of thunder.

“And I’m Emily’s
father,
” he continued, unable to hold back the words, the pain, as they tumbled from his mouth, “but the only time she’s said the word
Daddy
this trip...it was in anger.”