CHAPTER TWENTY
“No. I don’t trust you.”
Connor’s words were a bombshell, and as he spoke, Cami felt tears flood her eyes. She couldn’t believe it. Nothing she could do, no efforts she could make, would break through this man’s distrust and dislike of her. Was he seriously going to put lives in jeopardy by blocking her from doing something that could help?
“It needs to be done! It can help the case! That’s what I am focused on. The case! I have no interest in hacking your damned systems right now!”
Seething, Cami could see she still was not getting through to him. He either didn’t believe she was telling the truth, or else he felt she’d bent the rules enough today already.
Spinning away, she stormed to the door.
“Do you want me to quit? Is that what you’re trying to force me to do? Do the women’s lives mean nothing?” she shouted.
She didn’t care if jail awaited. She was going to fight for this, until he fired her, or she was forced to quit.
“That’s not the situation,” Connor countered. “Now calm down.”
“Why?” Cami asked him, blinking the tears away, feeling angry he’d seen her moment of weakness. “How can I calm down when this investigation is at such a critical time? This can help us. It truly can.”
Connor was silent.
He looked at her with a small bit of surprise, as if he hadn’t expected to see her angry, as if he didn’t expect her to be saying these things.
“You’re not going to stay on the team for long if you continue this way,” Connor said, his voice low and level.“If you quit, you’re going straight to jail. It’s your choice, but I’m not putting up with this juvenile acting out.”
Cami stared at him. She had never felt so angry in her life. She wanted to grab the file from off of the shelf by the door and throw it at him.
“Juvenile?” Cami said, her voice rising. “What do you know about me?You only know the picture you have in your own mind. Is that how you think? That you can’t even change your mind? No matter what I do? And this is what I’m doing now. I’m trying to make more of a difference. To help this case!” Cami felt her face flush. She didn’t know who these words were coming from, only that they had seemed to rise up from the back of her mind and from the center of her soul.
“You don’t respect our protocols. You can’t even have a mature discussion on the subject. You think you have to have everything your own way,” Connor shot back.
Cami was breathing hard. “You’ve always had these ideas about me. And you’ve never even tried to understand me. I’ve tried to do right by you, and this is the way you act? You’re so arrogant! You think you’re the only person in the world who knows how to do things!”
Cami felt like she was being railroaded. He was using his authority to bully her, to force her to obey. Flashbacks of her father’s treatment surged in her mind, triggering her anger even more strongly.
“You’ve been assisting the FBI for less than twenty-four hours!” Connor argued. “You also need to prove yourself to earn other people’s trust!”
“I am trying to prove myself by saving lives. And I’ve told you exactly how we can do it, and what I need to do to test this theory.”
“You’ve requested unrestricted access to a very secure and privileged database. Maybe if you approached this in a different way, you would get a different result!”
“I don’t know how to approach it any other way. I asked, and you said no. All you can do is say yes. If you won’t say yes, then there’s nothing further I can do. This is not a difficult choice! If you don’t let me do what I need to do to save these women, I don’t see how we can work together any longer! I don’t want to work in a situation where I can’t do what I need to do to help. Even if it means jail. I don’t care. If you’re not going to let me work, what else can I do? I have no option. I quit!”
In her frustration and passion, she was now blinded by tears. She hated this unfairness. She was getting flashbacks to her father’s bullying. The sense of powerlessness was exactly the same.
Turning, she rushed out of the doorway, scrubbing her hands over her eyes as she headed along the corridor.
Seeing a restroom, Cami veered in and slammed the door. Turning on the tap in the small sink, she splashed her face.
This was so important to her now. More women might die. She recoiled from the thought of how someone could be innocently gaming, only to have a killer’s hands roughly close around their neck.
She knew she shouldn’t get so emotional, but she found it so difficult now that her heart was involved with the case.
Deep down, she knew that overreacting didn’t help Connor. It didn’t help solve the case. She guessed that it wasn’t just about the confrontation between her and Connor. It was about her long-standing grudge with the FBI, her missing sister, her father’s treatment, and the loneliness and rejection she had already experienced, too often, in life.
Cami turned away from the mirror, as memories of her father surged. His bullying ways. The domineering force he’d exerted over her. Jenna, her older sister by two years, had been the rebel who had stood up to him. She’d been the one who had tried to protect Cami from him, and mostly succeeded.
But then, Jenna had disappeared. Cami was certain she hadn’t run away. She wouldn’t have done that. No way would she have abandoned her younger sister that way. Something had happened, and rage surged in her all over again as she thought of her dad’s token efforts to find her. He hadn’t tried. Yes, he’d told her the FBI had gotten involved, but she’d never heard more. It seemed there was no more to be heard. They hadn’t tried hard enough, either.