Dissonance (22 page)

“Yes.” Cam forced a smile. He’d felt so anxious the past week, he’d try anything to learn to relax. He couldn’t go on like this much longer, and he knew Galen wouldn’t always be there to sleep beside him.

“It’ll work out, Cam. You’ll get through this.” Galen’s brilliant smile made Cam’s heart feel like bursting. How was it possible that a smile could do that?

It can when it’s meant for you and no one else.
Nobody had ever smiled at him like that before, as if he were the center of the universe. Not that he thought he was, but Galen made him feel that way, and that was good enough.

He leaned in and kissed Galen. “I like doing that,” he said. “Kissing you.”

“I like it too.”

“But?” There was always a “but,” wasn’t there?

“But nothing. When you’re ready for more than kissing, you’ll know.”

“You think the fact that we’ve only kissed is
my
fault,” Cam joked as the realization dawned that, at least for the past few days, he
had
been the one to leave things between them at the just-kissing stage. Things inside his head felt so bloody confused right now, between his rediscovered memories, thoughts of boarding school, and Aiden.

“No blame here.” Galen’s fierce gaze caused Cam’s heart to beat faster.

Cam’s cheeks heated and he forced himself not to look away. “Thank you,” he said after a moment’s pause. “For understanding.”

“So what will you do?” Galen asked. “About meeting Dan, I mean?” Galen swallowed, his cheeks flushed, and Cam knew he felt embarrassed that Cam might have misunderstood.

“I’ll meet him on Monday. See what he has to say. But I’ll be careful.”

C
AM
WALKED
into Grand Central Station an hour before he’d promised to meet Dan. He leaned against a wall and gazed out at the cavernous room with ticket booths, shops, and Monday morning commuters hustling to their destinations.

At Galen’s suggestion, Cam had insisted they meet here, in an open public space, rather than the hotel lobby Dan originally suggested. Still, he knew a risky venture when he saw one. If this worked, if Dan had the evidence he said he did, Cam might be able to go back to his old life. Back to his comfortable existence. Sleep in his own bed. Wake to Luisa’s coffee and omelets. Fly home to London and meet friends at the club.

Three weeks before, all of these things would have been wonderful to anticipate. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Going back to London meant facing Duncan and his past. He’d need to decide what to do about Duncan and what to say to him. Going home meant facing the empty house where he’d spent so much time with Aiden, and knowing Aiden would never come home to him again. The board would still be holding the purse strings and controlling his life. He’d still be a loser. Someone who’d never amount to anything more than his money and his title.

You’re trying to convince yourself it’s not worth the risk.
He knew the game. He’d played it with himself for years. Stick with the comfortable things you know and life will remain pleasant and predictable. Step out of the box and you’ll get trod on. And yet it hadn’t worked that way this time, had it? He’d been playing it safe, and here he was, sweaty palms and pounding heart, fearful that he might end up in prison, willing to put it all on the line.
For what?
Why did he even bother?

He shrugged off the maudlin thoughts. Whatever he’d done to deserve the bollocks the universe had decided to dump all over him, he had no intention of sitting back and doing nothing.

He nervously fingered the bracelet Galen had given him the night before. They’d been about to get into bed when Galen had taken it off his wrist and handed it to Cam. “I want you to have this,” Galen had said. “It’s kind of like a good luck charm—at least it has been for me. A reminder that you’re not alone in this, even if I’m not standing next to you.”

Cam hadn’t known what to say to that. He’d taken the bracelet, a braided leather band with a silver clasp and three silver charms that read
Hope. Healing. Love.
He’d been tempted to tell Galen he couldn’t take anything more from him—that Galen had already given him so much—but he managed a mumbled thanks instead. Cam understood that Galen needed him to take the bracelet without question.

“I’ve collected a few of these over the years,” Galen had said, undeterred by Cam’s lack of coherent response. “Most of them my students gave me. But this one…. This one is different. This was the first.”

Cam had kissed Galen, then put the bracelet on. He hadn’t been prepared for the strange sensation of warmth in his chest as he’d settled next to Galen afterward. Like floating in a pool, or the way he felt when he’d dreamed he could fly. He didn’t worry about what it meant; he just let himself
feel.
And that night he’d slept better than he had in years, even knowing what might happen the next day.

Now, he half wished Galen was here with him. Not that Galen hadn’t offered to come—Cam said no, firmly—but Galen had become his rock. His port in the storm. Not even two weeks, and he’d come to rely on Galen.

Another reason to do this on your own.

He glanced around him again, then shoved a hand in his jeans pocket and pulled out his mobile. Galen had managed to find him a charger, and he figured in a crowd like this, even if the FBI had a way to track him using the device, he could easily hide.

I’m near the southwest corner by the Au Bon Pain
, he texted.

On my way
read the quick response.

Breathe. Relax. Focus.
He’d spent nearly an hour that morning with Galen, working on meditation. He’d begun to think it really
did
help. Not like alcohol, but he needed his wits about him.

Breathe. Relax. Focus.

He spotted Dan coming from the entrance about a hundred feet away from him. Dan, wearing a pair of polyester trousers and a sweater a size too small that hugged his rather large gut, looked nervous and slightly out of breath. He spotted Cam a moment later and shot him a tense smile.

“Good to see you, Lord Sherrington,” Dan said as he reached Cam. He breathed heavily and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.

“Cam would be fine, Dan.” No point to pretense in a situation such as this.

“Cam.”

“I hate to be rude,” Cam said, eyeing the closest exit over Dan’s shoulder, “but I’m in a bit of a hurry. Can you show me what you found?”

“Oh, right.” Dan flushed to his balding scalp and nodded, then pulled some papers from his pocket and handed them to Cam.

“Thank you,” Cam said as he began to leaf through the documents—spreadsheets with columns and figures. It took Cam a moment and a few deep breaths to focus on the numbers. He scanned them from right to left, trying to make sense of them. He frowned, then looked up at Dan and said, “I’ve seen these before.”

Dan scratched his head and glanced somewhere over Cam’s shoulder. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then did something awkward with his left hand, rubbing his neck and simultaneously flicking something nonexistent off like one might get rid of an insect.

A signal.

Cam turned just in time to see several men approaching from behind him. He might have mistaken them for commuters but for the fact that they weren’t wearing jackets or coats.

Bollocks.

Cam threw the papers at Dan, who stood there blinking as they fluttered to the ground. Cam pushed Dan toward the men—not hard enough to make him fall, but putting Dan squarely between himself and them.

Cam ran toward the stairs that led to the subway, doing his best to avoid the crowd of commuters who had just emerged from one of the Metro-North tracks. A few people shouted at him to stop running. He ignored them and kept going, reaching the stairs a few seconds later and taking them three at a time. Thank God he’d borrowed a pair of Galen’s trainers. If he’d worn his own leather-soled shoes, he’d have slipped and fallen already.

A woman shouted at Cam as he jumped the turnstile and nearly collided with her. He looked up to see three men barreling toward the entrance.
Shit.
He hesitated just a second, until he knew they saw him, then took off down the stairs to the Uptown platform.

As he ran, he mulled over his decision. He’d thought about it before, whether to turn himself in if Dan’s offer was really a setup. But he figured if the evidence was so strong that the authorities would bother to lure him in using Dan, he had no bloody way to prove his innocence. And if he was locked in a cell, what could he do to get to the bottom of things?

A train pulled into the station just as he reached the platform. He boarded just as the three agents made it down the stairs. Through the window, he saw them look up and down the platform. Then one of them gestured to the train. Two of them boarded one of the forward cars before the doors closed.

One stop for them to get to the end of the train. Good enough. Cam pushed past a woman with a small wheeled cart filled with grocery bags, and squeezed between one of the floor-to-ceiling poles, several people seated on the slippery orange molded seats, and toward the door between cars. He pulled on the door handle, but nothing happened.

Bloody hell!

With both hands this time, he shoved the handle downward using every bit of his strength. He felt the click of the latch as it opened, and stepped through the door to the place between the cars. The whoosh of the air by his head, the knowledge that the only thing keeping him from falling onto the tracks was the narrow metal platform beneath his feet and the metal chain at waist height—all of this felt exhilarating. He straddled the place where the two cars met, feeling the platforms move against each other like tiny tectonic plates shifting during an earthquake, allowed his body to absorb the vibrations, knowing that if he just leaned forward he might tumble and everything would disappear. No more pain, no more nervous dread, no more memories.

He smiled and placed his foot firmly on the next car.
Not now.
Not ever, he knew. He didn’t want to die. Living meant he’d have to face demons, but he could handle that. He’d handle it. Whatever “it” was.

He opened the door to the next car just as the train pulled into the 33rd Street station. He charged up the steps directly in front of him—he knew this station well—and scrambled toward the stairs to the Uptown platform, then descended. He made sure the men following him saw him board the Uptown train, then ducked down low enough that they wouldn’t see him exit. He saw them board the train just as he hopped off the front of the platform onto the tracks. He walked a few feet before pressing his body into the indentation in the tunnel.

The train picked up speed as it passed him. He nearly shouted in excitement at the pressure of the air and the slick surface of the cars only a foot away from his nose. He felt like he had when he was young and he’d first ridden the trains. His heart pounded in his ears, barely audible over the squealing of the wheels against the tracks.

He waited a minute after the train left, then peered out of the alcove. One of the men following him paced the platform. Cam quickly returned to his hiding place. He’d wait here as long as he needed, and then he’d head back. The disappointment he’d felt at knowing that Dan had nothing to offer him except a one-way ticket to a jail cell faded with each train that traveled past him down the tunnels.

G
ALEN
PLAYED
the last two measures of “Day In, Day Out.” He’d tried to focus on the music but with little success. He pulled his cell from his pocket and checked the time. Where the hell was Cam? Nearly 6:00 p.m., and Cam was supposed to have met him at the 42nd Street station two hours before. Something had gone wrong.

“Don’t worry. If I get the sense that it’s a setup, I’ll leave,” Cam had said after Galen had quizzed him for the umpteenth time since he’d decided to meet Dan Bryce.