Craft Brew

by Layla Reyne

  Nic raged internally, at the abuser and the enablers. All too common a scenario he saw in his work and in his own past.

  “After two years,” Becca said. “I was done.”

  “How’d you get out?”

  “I was already into some shit. Friend of a friend introduced me to their crew. They took me in.”

  “Just like that?”

  “I’d already been told I was a slut. An abomination. I did what I had to.”

  “I was told I was weak.” Self-esteem trampled by his father, would Nic have done the same, if he hadn’t already known the love of a good man? Of a good woman who’d put herself on the line for him? If he hadn’t passed that enlistment office every day?

  “So you ran off and became Captain America?”

  He chuckled at the too-apt description, and at the memory from the other night that flitted through his mind, of Cam in a Captain America T-shirt.

  “Coming out to a big family like mine,” Becca said, “did not go well.”

  “Mine was small, but I ran away too.” He wasn’t given a choice to return home. Not that Becca should have, given the toxic environment she described. That toxicity had rooted itself deep, affecting her relationships. “The way you treated your girlfriend—”

  “Was wrong,” she acknowledged. “I fell into the trap, of the abused becoming the abuser. Betrayal and jail have made me see that clearly. And I regret it, more than she’ll ever know.”

  “I’ll see what I can do about moving you somewhere more comfortable, if you give me the names of the crew members who took you in.”

  “I already told you I wasn’t kidnapped.”

  He gave her a significant glance, one outcast to another. “You’d be surprised the connections we find sometimes.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Di was right about it being all hands on deck at the D-4 station house. From the conference room where he sat with Jamie, Cam watched the flurry of bullpen activity. There was also a Sox game tonight, and with Fenway being in District 4, they’d be coordinating police presence.

  His phone on the table buzzed. Picking it up, he read the text from Nic.

  No luck with Becca.

  “Shit, Becca’s a dead end.”

  “Then we better pray this one isn’t,” Jamie said with a nod to the door.

  Following his line of sight, Cam tracked a wrecked-looking Billy Murphy and his captain, Bo Smith, through the bullpen on their way to the conference room.

  “You think they’ll play ball?” Jamie asked.

  “If he loves his daughter, he will.” Cam stood, Jamie rising beside him, as Smith entered the room, Murphy on his heels.

  The officer, however, stalled over the threshold. “Cap, I thought you said we could keep the feds out of this.”

  “We’re here in an unofficial capacity,” Cam said.

  “You’re Keith Byrne’s brother, right?” Murphy asked.

  “That’s right,” Cam said. “He was a year behind you. I knew your brother Randy. I’m not going to do anything to hurt your family. I want to help.”

  “Give ’em a chance, Billy,” Smith said. “Cam’s one of the best agents I’ve worked with. He’ll bring Shannon home.”

  Cam fought back a retort. He hated making promises like that—he knew, after a decade of this work, that cases did not always end well—and the fact that Shannon was already missing over twenty-four hours wasn’t a good sign. But he couldn’t say any of that without upsetting Murphy more and without jeopardizing his own case.

  He gestured toward the table. “Hear us out, please.”

  Murphy stepped the rest of the way inside, and Smith shut the door behind him as Jamie introduced himself.

  Once they were all seated around the table, Cam started in easy, asking Murphy, “How long have you been on the force?”

  The officer picked at the cuffs of his sleeves. “Just over two years.”

  “Last case I had with you guys was, what?” he asked the captain. He knew the answer—he unfortunately never forgot a case—but that’s not what the question was about. He needed Murphy to see and believe the rapport Cam had with the department and with his captain.

  “About three years ago,” Smith replied. “Nikka Wallace. Missing almost a week. You brought her home.”

  “I can find Shannon myself,” Murphy said to Smith. “We can. We don’t need the feds.”

  “The FBI has more resources,” Jamie countered.

  Murphy’s dark gaze whipped back to them. “Thought you said you were here in an unofficial capacity.”

  “Unofficial yes, but not without resources.” Cam pulled the folder he’d laid in the middle of the table closer and withdrew the top picture. “This is my sister, Erin. She disappeared twenty years ago, on the way home from the library. She was twelve.” He pushed the picture across the table to Murphy.

  “I remember that,” he mumbled, drawing the photo closer. “She looks—”

  “A lot like your daughter.” Cam spread the remaining photos on the table. “So do these other girls who have gone missing over the past twenty years.”

  Murphy’s dark eyes widened. “But I thought—”

  “Thought what?”

  Jamie leaned forward, taking on the role of bad cop, though still soft playing it, relatively. “There’s a reason you don’t want the feds involved, isn’t there?”

  It was the perfect setup for Cam to swoop in and save the day. “Do you remember me and Bobby, when we were teens?” He pointed at himself, smile self-deprecating. “Not exactly law-abiding citizens.”

  Murphy hung his head, tugging at his sleeve again. “She’s into some shit. I thought that’s why...”

  “It still may be,” Smith interjected. “But if it’s not, if it’s got something to do with these other disappearances, don’t you want the best helping us find her?”

  “We can handle this delicately,” Cam said. “I’ve got skin in this game too. I want to find out what happened to my sister, and I want to help find your daughter.”

  “But if there are charges against her. Or—”

  He cut himself off, and Cam sensed there was a “me” about to follow. It wasn’t only Shannon that was in some shit. Shit that could very well be unconnected to Erin or the other disappearances, but it was the best lead they had. And a girl was missing, regardless.

  Cam needed his best people on it, needed a certain one here who’d handled a similarly delicate matter before. Maybe Nic could maneuver the local federal prosecutors from San Francisco, but if Cam knew him, and he did by now, Nic wouldn’t abide sitting on the sidelines. Cam had already asked that of him enough, and this was not a case where there was a threat to his life. He’d want to be in the middle of this, helping. He’d jumped at the chance to interview Becca and now here was a chance for him to be directly involved, if Cam just asked.

  Except every part of that ask was dangerous, especially the part that would bring Nic to Boston. That would throw his family into further turmoil. Because as untethered as he was beginning to feel, Cam would grab hold of Nic the second he walked through the door and not let go. A big part of him wanted Nic here. There’d be no hiding, assuming Nic didn’t turn his back when he found out Cam had been the one hiding all along.

  But could Cam afford not to make the ask? He was a kidnap-and-rescue agent. He had to use every lever he had at his disposal to rescue Shannon Murphy, even if throwing that lever turned his own world upside down. And hell, he’d done that already, reopening his sister’s case. If helping Shannon could lead to finding out what happened to Erin, didn’t he owe his mother and family that too?

  “I need to make a call,” he said, pushing back from the table. “There may be someone who can help us.”

  He slipped out of the conference room and into Di’s office, shutting the door behind him as he dialed
Nic’s number.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t have better news for you,” Nic answered after the first ring, jumping straight into conversation as was their way. As much as Cam loved hearing his voice, he hated hearing the disappointment in it.

  “It was a long shot. Which was why we didn’t identify a lead there the first time. She was a runaway, plain and simple.”

  “Still, I wished I could have helped you somehow.”

  Cam slumped back against the door, loosening his tie and the words trapped in his throat. “There may be another way.”

  “Anything, Boston.”

  “A cop’s daughter has disappeared.”

  “It’s connected to your sister’s case?”

  “Maybe, but there are complications. The daughter’s into some shit. The dad too. That’s probably why she was taken—”

  “Sounds like last spring,” Nic said, putting it together.

  Now Cam just had to make the ask. “Which is why I’m calling you. I need you to work your legal magic.”

  “That the only magic you need from me?”

  Not by a long shot. He needed that magic voice live and in person, the magic taste that went along with them, and the very magic that somehow had made Nic the person who grounded him best. But with his family on edge already, Nic’s professional magic was all he could ask for.

  “You’re the best federal prosecutor I know.” Cam took Nic’s silence for understanding, of all the things he’d said and not said. “I need the best on this case, Dominic.” Cam said what he could, urging Nic for this favor.

  It was enough, thank God. “I’ll be there tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Nic slurped another spoonful of Mary’s homemade cioppino, cursing himself for staying away for so long. He’d had his reasons for avoiding his childhood home—namely his father—but that’d come at the price of missing Mary’s cooking. The native San Franciscan was not easily outmatched in the kitchen. He’d stayed in touch, visiting with her at least once a year, but these sorts of home-cooked meals were sorely missed.

  As was the woman herself, the last of his father’s household staff.

  She sat across from him, making sure he ate every bite. Motherly as always. He’d only planned to swing by on his way to the airport to make sure Mary had all his contact numbers in case the worst of any variety should happen, and to issue a behave warning to his father. The last thing he needed was for his father to incite an incident with Vaughn while he was clear across the country. But his father wasn’t home yet and Mary had insisted on feeding him while he waited.

  “Tell me about him.”

  Nic almost sent a clam flying across the kitchen. “Him?” he said, bobbling the shell and dunking it back in the seafood stew.

  “Whoever you’re flying off to Boston for.”

  “It’s a case.” He pretended to focus all his attention on wrenching the morsel loose from its shell. Not on the excitement that was trilling through him at the certainty of seeing Cam again tomorrow.

  He’d been disappointed to deliver bad news to Cam earlier, but that disappointment had vanished with the opportunity to help more tangibly, and in person. He’d jumped at the chance, even if there was still something niggling in the back of his mind. Cam hadn’t let him be there for him personally, but he’d let him be there professionally. Cam had been the one pushing for more, and then he hadn’t. Was he giving Nic the space he’d asked for? Or was there another reason he hadn’t initially wanted Nic in Boston?

  He hoped it wasn’t guilt or embarrassment that had made Cam push him away. He had plenty of that of his own, and he’d bared those scars, memorialized in ink, to Cam. He hadn’t told him the full story, but Cam knew he wasn’t perfect. Nic didn’t expect him to be either. In fact, he craved those imperfections, along with every other part of the man he—

  He gulped down another spoonful of stew, forgetting to blow on it and scalding the roof of his mouth.

  Mary snickered. “See, that’s what you get. Now, tell me about him.”

  He looked into her knowing green eyes, which had always had the power to make him spill it, even as an adult it seemed. “He’s an FBI agent.”

  “Ooh. Handsome?”

  He nodded. “And funny. Smart, very by the rules, but he’ll bend them, if it’s for someone he cares about. We have...friends in common.” Family had been on the tip of his tongue, but he still struggled with the concept.

  “You like him,” Mary said with a smile, and Nic had to set down his spoon. He hadn’t admitted this to anyone, not fully at least. Hell, he was only just admitting it to himself.

  “I haven’t felt like this about someone since...”

  He couldn’t finish, name and words stuck in his throat. He cast his gaze outside, to the cypress trees in the backyard, the sight of which only made the words harder to come by. Made the branches on his back seem like they were extending and wrapping around his throat, strangling him.

  They receded a little when Mary laid a hand on his forearm. “You can’t let what happened almost thirty years ago hold you back from love again.”

  Love.

  That emotion, that connection, that trouble that Nic didn’t want to attribute to what had been brewing between him and Cam.

  “Look what love got me, and the people I cared about, last time.”

  He’d loved, as true and deep as his eighteen-year-old heart could go. He’d loved a boy he shouldn’t. A boy who would have become his stepbrother, his mother engaged to Curtis. Garrett had become his best friend and shared this house with him for three years. The best three years of his life. In part because Garrett’s mom, Victoria, with Mary’s help, and with Nic’s father frequently away on business, had made this awful cavernous estate house seem like a home.

  Until Curtis had come back from a trip early one day and found Nic and Garrett twined beneath the cypress trees, arms around each other, lips locked as they shared a dance in the warm spring afternoon.

  Things had gone downhill from there. Victoria had taken the blame, because God forbid Curtis Price’s son have been the one who seduced the boy. Who loved Garrett. She’d taken a hit intended for Nic, taken the slurs and the emotional abuse and blame Curtis heaped on her, and when Curtis had moved to hit her again on Nic’s graduation day—because she’d packed their bags, including Nic’s, daringly intending to take him with her—Nic had taken the hit instead. He’d stood between them and Curtis, shouting at his father that he was gay, had always been gay, and would always be gay. He’d threatened that if Curtis laid another hand on them, Nic would kill him.

  His stand against Curtis, together with Mary’s threat to call the cops, had been enough to allow Victoria and Garrett to escape.

  To disappear.

  Having been fleeced by his prior wife, Curtis was happy to have dodged a potential bullet. He hadn’t even looked for them. If he had, he wouldn’t have found them. Victoria and Garrett Scott had ceased to exist. Nic could find no legal record of the woman who’d almost become his stepmother or of her son. Nic’s first and only love.

  Until Cam.

  “You got them out,” Mary said, squeezing his arm. “You saved them.”

  “After I put them in a position where they had to leave. I shouldn’t have gotten attached to Victoria, I shouldn’t have gotten involved with Garrett, and I sure as hell shouldn’t have been fooling around with him here, where we could be caught. Where Dad did catch us. But I couldn’t help myself. I loved them too much.”

  “No such thing, Dominic.” She shook her head, smiling sadly. “I didn’t know your mother, but she’d be proud of you. For what it’s worth, so am I.”

  He covered her hand, working the knot back down his throat. “It’s worth more than you know.” He finished his stew, and she moved to take the bowl. He stood instead, taking it to the sink and washing it out himself. He turned an
d rested back against the counter, looking at one of the three women who’d raised him. “Who saved you, Mary? Why did you stay?”

  “For you.” Said simply, like a truth he didn’t deserve.

  He’d expected as much, but he hung his head, humbled. Grateful. “I can’t thank you enough for that, but I’ve been gone twenty-seven years.”

  “Same answer, for you.” She spread her knobby hands over the wood table, then lifted them, indicating the roof over their head. “To save this, for you. And to save him, for you. Otherwise, you’d feel guilty.”

  “But how, when he’s run everyone else off? I’m worried, with him becoming more desperate...”

  “He won’t hurt me,” she said, correctly reading his fears. “He tried, once, and then my husband laid him out.” Nic’s jaw hit the floor. Laughing, she stood and crossed over to him, grabbing a hand towel to dry the dishes. “You remember that spur-of-the-moment retreat he took to Palm Springs when you were ten? He was having the bones in his arm reset.”

  The backs of his eyes stung, and he didn’t dare look outside. Not at the cypresses. Not when his father could walk in at any minute. “You didn’t have to stay for me.”

  Mary finished drying the dishes, tossed the towel aside, and wrapped him in her arms, her head barely reaching his shoulder. “I love you like my own, Dominic. I’d do anything for you.” She pulled back smiling and patted his cheek. “And working for your father paid for three of my own kids to go to college. One’s a teacher, one’s a doctor, and the other’s a software engineer. Plus, I almost have enough saved up for me and my husband to retire someplace warmer.”

  He clutched her arms, not too tight but serious enough to make his point. “Please hear me, Mary. One, I’m not sure how much longer he can pay you. Two, more importantly, I’m worried for your safety, and I don’t just mean from my father. He’s not made the best decisions lately, and the people he’s pissed off won’t care who’s in their way.”