Chapter 5 - The Man Cameron Buried
Richard West had been dead for eleven years.
Cameron had spent ten of those years trying not to become him.
His father had been brilliant, charming and merciless. He built businesses by finding desperate people and making their desperation profitable.
Cameron had rebuilt the company after Richard’s death.
Or believed he had.
Now Daniel Carter’s files suggested the rot had never disappeared.
It had simply learned to hide.
Emily sat opposite Cameron in the library.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
She watched him carefully.
“Did you suspect?”
“No.”
“Cameron.”
He slammed the laptop shut.
“No.”
Hope appeared in the doorway.
Both adults stopped.
“Are you fighting?”
Emily softened immediately.
“No, baby.”
Hope looked at Cameron.
“You look mad.”
“I am.”
“At Mom?”
Cameron looked at Emily.
“No.”
“Good.”
Hope disappeared again.
Emily exhaled.
“She likes you too much.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I keep noticing it.”
Cameron sat back.
“What happened to Hope’s father?”
Her expression closed.
“Why?”
“Because someone threatened you, and I need to know every person who could reach her.”
“He won’t.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Emily stood.
“His name is Aaron Blake. We dated for two years. When I became pregnant, he decided fatherhood wasn’t compatible with his plans.”
“He abandoned you?”
“He left.”
“Where is he?”
“California, last I heard.”
“Does he pay support?”
“No.”
Cameron’s jaw tightened.
“Stop doing that.”
“What?”
“Looking like you want to buy California and evict him.”
“I was considering something less expensive.”
Emily laughed despite herself.
Then Cameron’s phone rang.
His private attorney.
“Cameron, you need to see the news.”
Within minutes, every television network carried the same story.
WEST MERIDIAN CEO ABANDONS $40M DEAL AFTER AIRPORT INCIDENT.
That part was true.
The next headline was not.
MYSTERY WOMAN LINKED TO DISGRACED FORMER WEST EXECUTIVE.
Emily stared.
“How do they know who I am?”
Cameron already knew.
Nathan.
The story described Daniel Carter as an embezzler and implied Emily had approached Cameron deliberately.
Then came the photograph.
Cameron holding Hope’s hand outside Mercy General.
The caption called Emily an “alleged opportunist.”
Hope entered.
“Mom, you’re on TV.”
Emily grabbed the remote.
Too late.
Hope had seen it.
“Why did they call Grandpa a criminal?”
Emily went pale.
Cameron knelt.
“Because sometimes adults publish things before they understand the truth.”
“Was Grandpa bad?”
“No,” Emily said immediately.
Cameron looked at her.
Then at Hope.
“No,” he agreed. “I don’t think he was.”
Emily stared at him.
That evening, Cameron called an emergency board meeting by video.
Nathan appeared from West Meridian headquarters.
“You need to come back,” Nathan said. “Now.”
“No.”
“This woman is destroying your reputation.”
“Her name is Emily.”
“She is the daughter of a convicted—”
“He was never convicted.”
Nathan stopped.
Cameron continued.
“Daniel died before trial.”
“You’re splitting hairs.”
“No. I’m correcting a lie.”
Several directors shifted uncomfortably.
Nathan’s eyes narrowed.
“What exactly has she told you?”
There.
The question Cameron had been waiting for.
“Nothing useful.”
Nathan relaxed slightly.
Cameron saw it.
“So this is emotional?” Nathan asked.
“You threw away Tokyo because a pretty woman fainted?”
Emily stood behind the laptop, unseen by the camera.
Her eyebrows rose.
Cameron’s expression remained cold.
“I missed Tokyo because a human being needed help.”
“Forty thousand employees depend on your judgment.”
“And I’m exercising it.”
Nathan leaned toward the camera.
“Come home.”
“I am home.”
Cameron ended the call.
Emily stared.
“Did you just start a war with your board?”
“It was already a war.”
“You don’t even know whether the files are real.”
“I know Nathan is afraid I have them.”
“How?”
“Because he asked what you told me before he asked whether you were okay.”
Emily slowly sat.
At midnight, Hope was asleep upstairs.
Rain tapped against the windows.
Cameron found Emily in the kitchen drinking tea.
“You should sleep.”
“You should stop giving orders.”
“Unlikely.”
She smiled into the cup.
Then her expression softened.
“Why did you help us?”
“At the airport?”
“Yes.”
“You needed help.”
“That simple?”
“It should be.”
Emily looked at him for a long time.
“My father said something about you once.”
Cameron waited.
“He said you were either going to become your father or spend your entire life running from him.”
Cameron looked toward the dark window.
“Which one did he think?”
“He didn’t know.”
“And you?”
Emily stepped closer.
“I don’t know yet.”
He turned.
They stood inches apart.
“Then keep watching.”
Her breath caught.
Cameron lifted a hand but stopped before touching her face.
Emily closed the remaining distance herself.
The kiss was quiet.
Tentative.
Then suddenly not tentative at all.
Cameron’s hand moved to her waist.
Emily’s fingers caught his shirt.
For several seconds, the entire impossible week disappeared.
Then a crash sounded upstairs.
They separated.
Cameron ran first.
Hope’s bedroom window was broken.
Glass covered the floor.
Hope was sitting upright in bed, screaming.
A brick lay on the carpet.
A note was wrapped around it.
Cameron opened it.
Four words.
GIVE BACK THE DRIVE.
Emily grabbed Hope.
Cameron looked through the shattered window.
A dark vehicle was disappearing beyond the gates.
Then his phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
One photograph arrived.
It showed Cameron and Emily kissing in the kitchen minutes earlier.
The photograph had been taken from outside the house.
Beneath it was a message.
She’ll bury you like her father tried to.
Cameron stared into the darkness.
May you like
Someone had found them.
And whoever it was had been watching long enough to know exactly where to hurt.
