by Nicole Helm
There weren’t any socks, or anything to pull her hair back with. She’d have to ask Cam for some. It lodged something a lot more uncomfortable in her gut than that swooping feeling from looking at Cam. She didn’t want to have to ask for things.
You take care of yourself, Hilly. Don’t trust anyone to take care of anything for you. You are your only real friend.
She should have understood that every time Dad said that, he didn’t mean they were a team. She’d thought they were in it together against the world. She should have realized long before now what he meant was she was alone.
Period.
Now she was alone without her father, without a home, without anything. It was horrifying, but it meant... It meant she had to trust herself. Her words. Not Dad’s. He’d disappeared on her.
She only had herself now.
She marched over to the door and jerked it open. “I need socks,” she stated.
Cam was waiting in the hallway and he certainly looked surprised by her unnecessarily loud statement, but he nodded. “Follow me. I’ll get you some of mine.”
She followed him down the hallway to a room at the end. He stepped in and immediately went for a dresser.
The room was big. Almost bigger than the cabin.
Your no-longer-existing cabin.
But everything had a careful neatness that made it feel way less lived-in than her cluttered room, and her ramshackle home.
Gone. All gone.
She swallowed down the lump in her throat. She wouldn’t cry. Not now. There was too much to do, and Dad always said...
To hell with what Dad said.
Cam pressed a pair of socks into her palm as he enclosed her hands and the socks in his. He squeezed gently. “Laurel’s coming over. She said she listened to the recording my phone took. Maybe she has some leads.”
Hilly nodded, which was when she realized a few tears had escaped because they trickled down her cheeks. She took a deep, shaky breath. She should feel embarrassed, but she didn’t. Cam was offering her comfort and focus, and that was nice.
“You need food. We both do.”
It was then she realized he’d showered, too. He was wearing different clothes and though she could still smell the faint smell of smoke on both of them, there was something piney and clean on top of it now.
This place had two showers with endless hot water and endless rooms, and how on earth had she landed here?
She followed him back down the endless halls and huge staircase, and even Free at her side didn’t make her feel safe. She thought the house might swallow her up if she let it. So, she focused on Cam. On how broad his shoulders were compared to hers. On how most of his hair seemed dry, but there was a little wet patch in the very center of the back of his head making his brown hair darker there.
When he walked her back into the kitchen, which now smelled like something foreign but delicious, not only was Jen there, but so was Laurel.
She still wore her uniform, and she looked strong. Jen was soft and like...like a woman. Laurel was strong and was a kind of woman Hilly understood a little better, but then the uniform went and undercut any camaraderie Hilly might have felt.
“Anything on the file?” Cam asked, looking over Jen’s shoulder at what she was cooking until she slapped him away.
Cam grinned. Laurel rolled her eyes.
Hilly felt like running far, far away. She’d never been in a room with three other people before. Unless she counted dogs as people.
“We didn’t get much,” Laurel said, answering Cam’s question as she leaned against the kitchen counter behind her. “But there were two names mentioned. Ethan was one, and it wasn’t clear if it was a first or last name, but he was one of the men there.”
All eyes turned to Hilly, but she didn’t know anyone by that name. She didn’t like three pairs of eyes on her. Panic clawed at her throat and she just stood there, immobile.
“What was the other name?” Cam asked, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked very formidable. She was glad he was on her side.
Are you sure he’s on your side?
But he moved forward, and then let his arms fall. He pulled a chair back from the table and nudged her into it. Free laid her head on Hilly’s leg in someone else’s clothes, but the dog looking at her hoping for a pet eased something.
“At first we thought they were saying Hilly,” Laurel said. Her expression was blank as she continued. “But the syllables weren’t right. They were talking about a woman named Hillary.”
Something cold and sharp skittered up Hilly’s spine. Laurel and Cam’s similar dark eyes watching her with speculation didn’t help the feeling any.
“Is that your full name?”
Hilly shook her head, but her vision had gone topsy-turvy and her stomach felt upended. “No. Hilly. Just Hilly. Always Hilly.”
But she could hear someone’s low, calm voice saying Hillary. It ached, that voice. She didn’t know why. It was all in her head, but she could hear it. Like a memory, but too foggy for that. A bad dream. A bad dream was all.
“Hilly,” Cam said, his voice low and forceful. She clung to that force.
Never trust an outsider, Hilly. They’ll only hurt you.
“Are you sure your full name isn’t Hillary?”
But she wasn’t. She wasn’t sure about anything anymore.
Chapter Seven
Cam hated the way Hilly’s determined strength would randomly desert her, and all that fear and uncertainty radiated in wide eyes. Free must have sensed it, too, because she whimpered a little and licked Hilly’s hand.
It seemed to center Hilly back on what they were talking about. She scratched the dog behind the ears, keeping her gaze on the dog’s head. “I can’t prove that to you. But I only ever remember being called Hilly.”
“There are a lot of holes in your stories,” Laurel said.
Cam shot her a silencing look, but she paid him no mind. She was in cop mode.
“Not holes so much as things I don’t know, I’d say,” Hilly replied, steel in her tone.
Cam felt an odd swelling of pride at the fact she wouldn’t back down to Laurel’s too-hard questioning.
“Well, we’ll do a search on Hillary Adams, unless you have any other aliases you’d like to tell us about?”
“Laurel. Enough.”
“It’s fine, Cam,” Hilly said, but it was clearly not fine as she’d stopped petting Free and instead had white-knuckled hands fisted in her lap. “It’s just like you said to me. She has no reason to trust me. It doesn’t make anything I’ve said a lie. Or an omission.”
“So, as far as you know, your name is Hilly Adams?”
Hilly took a deep breath, but her eyes blazed with fury, just like when she’d pointed the gun at him earlier today. “Yes.”
“And your birthday is?”
“July 4.”
“How long have you been living in the cabin?”
“I was five or six when we moved there, so almost twenty years. We’d lived in a town before that, but I can’t remember much except bits and pieces about the house.”
“You asked her all these questions before,” Cam said through gritted teeth.
“She’s checking to make sure I can keep my stories straight,” Hilly said loftily. “I might have been isolated, but I’m not stupid.”
“This would go a lot easier if you both stopped treating me like I’m the enemy,” Laurel said. “I’m trying to find a lead here, and Hilly’s right about a few things. Namely, we have no reason to trust each other. No hard feelings. I’m collecting facts.”
Cam knew it was Laurel’s job and all, but it didn’t help with his irritation. He wasn’t sure it helped with Hilly’s either, but she smoothed out her features.
“I don’t have anything to confess,” Hilly said calmly, concisely.
“I don’t know of anything my father would have to confess. We live off the grid. We have for almost as long as I can remember. If there’s no record of him, I can’t help you. I assume if there’s no record of me, it’s for the same reason.”
“A distrust of government?”
Hilly’s eyebrows drew together. “I’m not sure. I suppose you could say that. He told me not to trust anyone outside our clearing. It wasn’t government focused.”
“And you never left that cabin or clearing?”
“No. We foraged or hunted in the woods sometimes, but I was never allowed to go far. The police station was the first time I’d been out of that clearing in almost twenty years.”
She said that so calmly, as if it was perfectly normal. Cam supposed if you’d been conditioned to think so for twenty years, you would believe that. Still, it ate away at him, that people could just be secreted away right under all their noses.
“What about school?” Laurel asked.
“I was homeschooled. I don’t have a certificate or anything because Dad didn’t want any record, but we did everything up through a high school diploma.”
“Doctor?”
Hilly shook her head. “We didn’t get sick or injured often, but we just patched each other up when we did. Dad had all sorts of books and medical supplies.”
When it dawned on her everything she’d lost, her shoulders slumped. Over and over again. What amazed Cam was that she just kept straightening them back up.
“You don’t know of anyone, I mean anyone, who would have had any contact with your father?”
“I told you. All his interaction with the outside world was done far away from me. No one came to our cabin. He always left to do whatever business he did. I thought it was trading pelts or meat for supplies.”
“But it wasn’t?”
Hilly looked helplessly at Laurel. “I don’t know. I don’t know. It just seems like maybe there was more to it now, but at the time?” She glanced at Cam, that helplessness still there.
He was about to order Laurel away, demand she give Hilly some breathing room, when Laurel pushed away from the counter. “All right. Well, we’ll look into the names on the tape. See what we can come up with. I’ll undoubtedly have more questions for you.”
“Great,” Hilly muttered.
“Cam?” Laurel nodded toward the door where she was headed. He followed her to the entryway before she spoke.
“The fire department will handle the fire investigation and cooperate with us on ours. But I can’t do much on that end until the fire inspector goes through the debris. He’s on his way, but I doubt he’ll get much done in the dark. Like I told Hilly, we’ll search the names, get her drawing out there and I’ll cross check Adams with some of the militia groups around here.”
“You’re still thinking antigovernment?”
“It looks that way.” Laurel rubbed a hand over her jaw, some of that calm cop mask slipping so he could see the frustration underneath. “Doesn’t make much sense, all this, and that’s grating. Because by all accounts it’s just the two of them, not some organized group. But a Fourth of July birthday. The Adams last name that might be fake. A dog named Free—Dad’ll hate that dog in here, by the way. That’s a lot of patriotism stuff. But he could be a very lone wolf, and any groups could be a very dead end.”
“That could be where he goes. Group meetings or whatever. Maybe he wanted to keep her out of it and that’s why she didn’t think he had any specific animosity toward the government.”
“Possible. She might be connected to this, though, even if she doesn’t know it. What kind of parent keeps their child completely hidden away? No school, no records. No doctor. She could be the thing he was trying to hide.”
Confess. Cam was sure that spray-painted word had to do with Hilly’s father, but people used children to get to their parents all the time. She could be the thing they were after, especially if Laurel was right and she was the thing being hidden. “We need to take some precautions. They could be after her for any reason.”
“I’ll assign someone to the house.”
“You know as well as I do one deputy isn’t going to keep this big spread safe.”
“And you know as well as I do Bent County can’t afford more.” Laurel sighed, and he knew that fact weighed on her even if she tried to keep her cop mask firmly in place. “Especially without more information.”
Information. It gave Cam an idea. An idea his sister would really hate, so he didn’t plan on sharing it with her. “Don’t bother with the one deputy then. I was a former Marine. I’m supposed to be starting a security business. I’ll handle it.”
Laurel frowned. “You’re up to something.”
“Just some supersneaky security business that’s likely not quite on your up-and-up. I’ll spare you the details for your professional integrity.”
She scowled at him, but she didn’t prod. “I’ll likely be back tomorrow with questions. If you could both be less antagonistic, that’d be great.”
“Sure thing, sis.”
She rolled her eyes and strode out the front door. Cam locked it behind her and smiled. Her questions wouldn’t make him antagonistic tomorrow, because he and Hilly would be gone tomorrow.
If Laurel needed information, the best way to find it was to go after it.
* * *
HILLY HAD NEVER had a meal that tasted so good. She considered herself a fair cook, but what she made for her and Dad never turned out like this. It might have something to do with the ingredients, but she figured Jen had a talent for it, as well.
She preferred to focus on the food rather than the fact she was at the table with three other people. Cam, Jen and their brother Dylan, whose palpable intensity might have unnerved her if it didn’t remind her so much of Cam.
The three of them chatted, and Hilly could barely follow it all. Dad didn’t talk much, and when he did it wasn’t so much of a conversation. Usually he was instructing her. She’d never thought of that as a negative, as a lack of something, but there was such a warmth between these three.
It didn’t make any sense to her, and it set her even more on edge than she was. She didn’t belong here. She didn’t belong anywhere now that the cabin was gone.
She surreptitiously looked at Cam to find his dark, steady gaze on her. It made her stomach jitter and her cheeks feel hot. It made her want to run away.
But she felt rooted to the spot.
“You’ve had a long day,” he said, somehow sounding casual despite that foreign intensity in his gaze. “We should get a good night’s sleep.”
“I’ll clean up,” Jen said, smiling comfortingly at Hilly. “And if you need anything, just let me know.” Jen looked down at Free. “You, too, puppy.”
Hilly didn’t know what to do with all this kindness. She attempted a smile and muttered a thanks before Cam was ushering her back up to the room he’d shown her earlier, Free at their heels.
“I don’t understand all this,” she muttered.
“All what exactly?”
“Why you’re all so nice.”
Cam shrugged. “We don’t exactly have a reason to be mean. I know Laurel was rough on you, but she wants to do good. Help people. It’s a kind of ingrained Delaney trait, let’s say.”
“Is Dylan in the military, too?” It would make sense. He held himself almost identically to Cam, even if he had a slightly slicker polish to him.
“Oh, no. He’s a bank manager, but there’s a code. A code that comes with being a Delaney in Bent,” Cam explained, walking into the room that would be hers while he and his siblings were helping people. “You do the right thing. You help people when you can. Well, as long as they aren’t Carson people.”
“Who are Carson people?”
“It’s complicated. Basically Bent was built by two families. The Delaneys, law-abiding and
wanting to do right, and the Carsons. Who were usually thieving outlaws.”
Hilly didn’t know what to do with that. “What does your dad do?” she asked. She couldn’t picture this big, broad, intense man having parents to boss him around.
Cam stopped moving because he was standing in the middle of the room, but there was a tenseness that crept into his muscles that she didn’t understand.
“I’ll take Free out, then come back with some things,” he announced.
Which was odd. Free probably did need to go out, but why hadn’t he suggested that when they’d been downstairs? “I can take her out.”
Cam shook his head. “I want you to stay put. Fact of the matter is, those men who burned down your place might have been looking for you.”
“Clearly they didn’t know I was there.”
“That doesn’t mean they don’t know you exist. Or didn’t see us escaping. We just don’t know. So we’ll play it safe.”
“Then why do you get to go?”
His mouth curved, and the thing that fluttered in her stomach was too strong to be butterflies. It was like tiny jabs from a miniature boxer. “I’ve got a little more experience in protecting myself.”
“I shot you.”
“Yes, you did. But you didn’t mean to, and you barely hurt me. I’m just fine now.” He slapped his palm to his thigh. “Come on, Free.”
Her dog—her dog—happily trotted after Cam as he strode away.
Hilly frowned and surveyed the room. Everything about it made her uncomfortable. The floors gleamed. The bedsheets were a blinding, feminine white. The curtains were lace. She felt like she’d dirty anything just by touching it.
On a sigh, she slowly lowered herself onto the edge of the bed. She nearly moaned. Everything was soft, reminding her that the heavy feeling dogging her limbs was probably exhaustion—physical and emotional.
She eyed the pillows at the top of the bed. Faint pink flowers dotted the fabric. Not faint after years of use and hard washing, but a purposeful light color that matched the walls.