Cami knew he intended to make her life as miserable as he could. If camping out in the morgue was what it took to make her quit, he’d probably try and force her do it.
Who was this man, anyway? What right did he have to criticize her personally when he knew nothing about her? He hadn’t even bothered to ask. At least Fraser had intuited that she had a personal history and a reason for thinking the way she did. Connor clearly didn’t care. Well, if he could criticize her personally, she could do the same.
She took out her phone and stared down at it.
Connor. What was his first name? Here he was. Drew Connor. This had to be him.
Doing a quick search, Cami raised her eyebrows.
“Marriage didn’t work out? Divorce finalized two years ago, I see.”
The car swerved sharply. Cami gripped her phone as Connor got it back under control.
“You seeing anyone else? Oh, wait. Yes, you are. As of six months ago. Nice. She’s an interior designer. Brianna Leach. How’s that going? I see you booked into Figaro’s restaurant recently. How was the food? I can probably find out what you ordered if you give me a bit more time.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Connor spat out. “How are you accessing this?”
“Just looking you up,” Cami said innocently. “I have my ways. I thought I’d better get to know you. Build up the relationship, seeing you are so keen to break it down, and you think I’m immature anyway, so if you want to resort to playground tactics, I’m ready to play that game.”
“Get out of my personal information,” Connor seethed.
“I’m only searching the public domain. So far,” Cami said. “I wouldn’t dream of doing any other searches on my partner. Seeing we’re working together and all.”
She thought her threat had gotten through to him. At any rate, his jaw was clenched tight enough that she thought it might snap. If she was going to have her life made a misery, then she was going to give as good as she got. She was not a pushover, and she was not going to be bullied by this angry technophobe.
There was a tense silence for the remaining mile of the drive. Cami felt a queasy mixture of triumph and expectation.
She thought she’d won this battle, but she was very sure she hadn’t won the war. And in fact, she’d intensified the conflict. Probably that hadn’t been a good idea, even though she’d wanted to give as good as she was getting. Now she’d have to wait to see what the fallout would be.
Connor pulled up outside the pathologist’s office. Cami stared at the imposing, square building shielded by a steel-barred fence.
She’d seen it before, driven past without really thinking about the fact that it had dead bodies stored inside, and that this was where people with masks and scalpels probed the secrets hidden in the evidence of violent crimes. She’d never really explored that line of thinking.
Connor parked outside, showed his badge to security at the main gate, and walked in with Cami, now feeling slightly lightheaded from stress, hurrying behind.
The building felt oppressive. The smell of disinfectant was pervasive, and it stung her nostrils from the moment she entered. People in white coats and PPE were walking purposefully down corridors. She heard the murmur of voices in the background and the rattle of stretcher wheels.
“FBI,” Connor said. “We’re here to speak to Dr. Minnett. She handled the autopsies of Liz Hughes and Adriana Knight.”
“Dr. Minnett. She’s in examination room five,” the receptionist said, pointing down the corridor. “She’s wrapping up an autopsy, so she should be able to speak to you.”
Connor veered to a cupboard at the corner of the room.
“Mask, gloves. Put them on,” he said, taking the items out of the cupboard and handing them to her.
Without a word, Cami put on the mask and pulled on the gloves.
She felt glad, in a way, that the mask concealed her face. She breathed in deeply, trying to quell the surge of nausea.
This was like all her deepest fears come to life, because in this place, the harsh truth of her sister’s disappearance seemed to be driven home to her in full, stark detail. She could have been lying in a place like this. Might have been. An unidentified body. That fear erupted in Cami’s worst, most vivid nightmares.
Suddenly, she knew she couldn’t go through with this. Not with the thoughts of Jenna now crowding her mind.
But she had to. She couldn’t show weakness in front of Connor, but there might be no choice there. As she followed him into the autopsy room, forcing her wobbly legs to move, Cami knew that there was no way she was going to get through this without blacking out or throwing up.
There was no evidence of any compassion in Connor’s face as he marched forward. And why should there be, she realized. He didn’t know her background. He didn’t know why she was afraid, genuinely scared, of going into that mortuary room.
She hesitated at the door, feeling blindsided by a wave of nausea.
His expression was like stone as he turned to her.
“You have to follow me in,” he said. “Where I go, you go. I’m not letting you stay out here on your own. I don’t trust you. And whatever is inside there, prison will be worse. A lot worse,” he said meaningfully. “This role can end, for you, at any moment. Fraser might have taken you on against my will. But he will listen to me if I tell him that you are not cutting it. If you need to be fired.”
He indicated the door. “You first.”