He took a long ragged breath. “I know you’re not feeling well, so I’ll try to keep this
short.” He looked like he was talking to the carpet. “I have no excuse to make for what you
heard me say to Manny, except that you weren’t supposed to hear or see any of that. It was very
dangerous what you did … for you to be there. I don’t know what I would have done … if anyone
of them had seen you, found you there …” He shook his head in despair and recouped.
“I know you don’t believe anything I say, so there’s no point in me trying to defend myself
to you anymore, even if it kills me to see you so disgusted with me. But there’s one thing I do
need you to know: I love you Emmy. I’ve loved you for a very long time.” He turned his eyes to
me for the briefest of moments, and I felt a crack in my newly erected armor. “To have you
here, with me … I guess in some sick way, for a while, I thought that this thing between us
could work. Hurting you was the last thing I wanted to do, but looks like I managed to do that
anyway.” Cameron took another breath. “This place is where I have to be, but it’s not a place
where you can or should be. There’s nothing that I can do to change that. I won’t put this
life on you.”
He looked at me, like he was awaiting some kind of response. But I wasn’t lucid enough to be
able to come up with any response to what he had just hit me with.
With no reaction from me, Cameron sighed and continued his conversation with the carpet. “I’m
leaving for work in a couple days. I’ll speak to Spider and make arrangements while I’m in the
city to have an armed guard watch over you from your house instead of here. When I get back, we
’ll plan for you to go back home. I’ll make sure to stay out of your way until I leave.”
He got up and hesitated over me.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
He kissed my burning forehead before walking out of the room.
I wanted to cry. I fell asleep instead, my thoughts in a state of shock.
In the night I heard Meatball whining at my door … Cameron shouted for him to come downstairs
… but ended up having to come to the door to drag Meatball away by the collar when the dog
defied him. Sadly, in my battle with Cameron, I had also lost my bedfellow.
I fell asleep again. Cameron’s face cruelly filled my dreams. But the monster never came back.
Chapter Nineteen:
Expecting the Expected
Over the next few days, Cameron didn’t have to put much effort into trying to avoid me, because
I didn’t leave the room or the bed. Rocco came to visit regularly, but he would quickly get
bored of me just lying there. He’d drop on the bed next to me and then venture to the couch to
watch TV or leave altogether. Carly continued to sourly bring me my meals, and I slowly got
stronger as the days wore on.
By the third day, I was able to walk around my room without feeling like I was going to vomit or
pass out, and I took a long-overdue shower. After I got dressed, I went to the opened patio door
to feel the fresh air on my face. There were voices down on the deck below. I peeked around the
curtain to see Spider and Carly lounged on patio chairs while Cameron was slouched over the
rail, facing away from them.
“Carly and I can’t keep this up for much longer,” Spider said.
“Carly and you? Did you really just admit that out loud?” Cameron’s voice was very bitter.
“We know that you’re tired, but we need a decision to be made on this before things get too
out of hand,” Carly added in an almost whisper.
“I have enough to deal with right now without having to think about that,” Cameron barked in
reply.
Spider raised his voice. “We’ve waited long enough. All this time and things keep getting
worse. She sneaks around here like she owns the place. She gets the guards on her side and they
tell her whatever she wants to hear. I can’t control them when she’s around.”
“Why can’t we just order her to stay away from here, away from us?” Cameron offered as an
alternative.
“She knows too much already, Cameron. Besides, we all know that she won’t follow any orders
you or anybody else gives her. She’s proven that already.”
Cameron spun around and glared. There were deep lines carved into his forehead and his eyes were
coal black. “What about Bill? Have you thought about what this would do to him if he heard us
talking about her in this way?”
“Bill is dead.” Spider’s voice was cold and to the point. “We’re in this far because of
him.”
Cameron turned away from them. “You’re letting your resentment for Bill affect your
perspective on this.”
Carly got up and put her hand on Cameron’s shoulder. “Spider’s right. Bill has been gone for
a long time, and we have to protect ourselves now. We can’t let someone who has this much
information run loose like that. If it had been anyone one else, she would have been dead by
now. We’ve waited long enough to try to make this work, but it hasn’t. It’s time to get rid
of her for good.”
Cameron stood silently and watched over the grounds. After a while, he let his head drop and
sighed. “Fine. Just take care of it. I don’t want to know anything about it.”
Spider stood.