“Agreed. Thank you. While you make that call, I’m going to head to Flutterfly Gardens right now,” Rex said. “Just to cover all the bases. Will you call me right away if you hear from her? You have my number now.”
“Of course. Yes,” Mr. Cortlandt said. “We’ll find her.”
“Yes, we will. Thank you, sir.”
Rex hung up, and despite his words of encouragement to Cami’s father, his unease was growing by the moment. Rex did a U-turn in the middle of the street and began heading to Cami’s work, trusting that Mr. Cortlandt was currently dialing the police. The authorities would take Cami’s father’s call seriously, considering their current, ongoing involvement in Cyrus’s kidnapping case. They’d likely go to her apartment again, and maybe even put out an APB right away, despite the fact that the protocol was to wait longer than an hour. But what more could they do than that?
Especially when she’dwillinglygone to meet someone.
A woman.
Could it be Seraphina Arnoult? The woman he’d just been researching? The woman who’d experienced a crime similar to the one Cami’s family survived, who might have a motive to want to hurt Cami? The one now inexplicably engaged to Hollis Barclay? There was too much crossover happening here for any of it to be a coincidence.
He’d considered asking Mr. Cortlandt about Louis Swift, but decided against it in the interest of time. Rex knew what he needed to know about that situation, and so the retired judge’s memory or lack thereof wasn’t really pertinent.
Cami speaks of you like the hero you are.
He pressed on the gas, ever more desperate to find Cami, to be there if she needed him. A few minutes later a text came through from Rand Cortlandt saying the police had put out an APB on Cami’s car. That was good, and what he’d expected, but not enough. He responded to Mr. Cortlandt’s message and then dialed Erik’s number. “Hey, man, I’m sorry to do this. I know you’re headed out, and I wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t an emergency, but I need two unlisted cell numbers.”
“Is that all? Hell, I can get you that while I’m driving to the base.”
Rex managed a chuckle, even if it came out choked.
“Text me the info, and I’ll get right back to you. I hope it helps because then I’ve gotta go dark.”
“Thank you. I mean it.”
He hung up and texted Erik and then continued on to the address on his GPS where Cami had built her business. When he arrived at Flutterfly twenty minutes later, however, the front gate was locked. There were a few hazy lights coming from the butterfly garden in the distance, but the shop was dark.
Rex considered climbing the fence and checking the property—Flutterfly’s security was obviously lax. But there was no indication anyone was there, and he had this sick feeling that—especially now—running all over town was only going to waste time.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Cami stared at Seraphina, the words she’d just said repeating in her head. She knew? She knew who had meant great harm, even potential death, to an innocent little boy? “Who?” Her voice already sounded stronger, less slurred, even if her muscles were still heavy and partially numb. “If you or Hollis didn’t arrange Cyrus’s kidnapping, then who did?”
“Hollis’s mother,” Seraphina said.
Cami blinked, the vision of the haughty society maven blooming in her mind. “Felicia Barclay? She ...” Her body seemed to sink even deeper into the plush leather of her seat.
“It was my doing, really.” Seraphina’s smooth brow wrinkled momentarily as if she was conflicted about that. But in what way, Cami couldn’t guess. “I printed that email for both Hollis and Mrs. Barclay. She asks that we cc her on everything, and it’s just habit. There’s nothing she’s not involved in.” She looked away. “Or maybe I included her because I didn’t trust Hollis to take any action whatsoever if that note turned out to be true. I printed it because I wanted to hand it to them myself and not wonder if it got lost in their personal inbox.”
“Meaning what?” What kind of action was Seraphina hoping Hollis took?
But Seraphina seemed to have zoned out slightly, like she was considering something she wasn’t sharing with Cami. “I knew Felicia was ambitious on Hollis’s behalf. I’d seen her use the weight of her legal team on those who challenged her. I knew she was driven andcalculating. But I didn’t truly understand at that point the extreme lengths she’d go to to retain power and achieve more. I guess you could say I practically signed that little boy’s death warrant.” She smiled, a wry expression as though there was something ironic in what she’d said. And Cami could only take in the information because it was too much to try to organize, much less understand.
She knew Hollis had always been close to his mother. She had no idea if he’d ever shared what Cami had told Hollis about him being her child’s father. The Barclays never said a word to her or reached out in any way, so she figured either they’d done as Hollis had done and convinced themselves that the baby was not his, or they just preferred to leave it all behind.
Regardless of whether Mrs. Barclay had believed Hollis was Cyrus’s father, once Cami put him up for adoption, she must have believed he was gone for good. A closed adoption to another state. No connection to Hollis, at least none that had ever been recorded. No way for Cami herself to contact their son even if she’d wanted to.
He’d been gone. Unproblematic. Until he wasn’t.
Wasthatwhat Seraphina was telling her?
“She was willing to have Cyrus murdered rather than risk him coming forward as Hollis’s son?” The words slithered over her after she’d spoken them. If that was true, the woman was pure evil. And so was Seraphina if she was hand-delivering Cami to Hollis and Mrs. Barclay to do with as they would.
Seraphina hummed. “I’ve thought about why Felicia decided Cyrus needed to be taken care of. After all, I’m extremely well acquainted with the interest the media took in your story. The news of your son would be a new chapter. A reinvigoration of a media sensation that garnered the nation’s attention. Can you imagine? The press would have a field day. The baby Camille Cortlandt put up for adoption was Hollis Barclay’s all along. And if it came out that he knew it, well, I have to believe Hollis would be cast in a less-than-flattering light this time.”
Deservedly so.
