Chapter 7
Chapter 7: A Brother’s Guilt.
Cameron’s POV
I stared at my phone for a full minute after Sedona’s call ended, my hand shaking slightly as I lowered it gently to my desk as I exhaled taking a deep breath and closed my eyes trying to process the bomb that I just received this night.
It had been five years. Five years of searching, of hiring private investigators, of lying awake at night wondering if my little sister was alive or dead. And not getting anything, whatever happened to Sedona, I hadn’t been able to discover it and now, just like that, she’d called.
She was sick. Dying.
The words kept repeating in my mind even after the call, I wanted to ask Sedona if this was a cruel joke, but I knew she would never lie about something serious such as cancer.
And her timeline she was given was barely three months. My brilliant, stubborn, beautiful little sister who used to follow me around the tennis courts when we were kids, who’d been destined for greatness before she’d thrown it all away to run from a marriage she didn’t want.
And I’d let her go. We all had. We didn’t want to force her to do anything that she didn’t want to.
“Cameron?” Jennifer’s voice pulled me from my thoughts as I jerked back, taken unaware, when had she gotten in here. I looked up to find my mother standing in the doorway of my office, her styled hair catching the late afternoon light. At fifty two, Jennifer Preston was still a remarkable woman, never to be taken for granted, someone who commanded both authority and power no matter where she was, though the years of searching for Sedona had added lines to her face, that no amount of skincare could hide.
“Darling, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s wrong p>
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. How did I tell her? How did I explain that Sedona was alive but dying, that we’d found her only to the possibility that we might lose her again?
“Cameron.” My mother’s voice got harder as she stepped into my office, closing the door behind her sealing off the background voice as she focused her gaze on me, her eyes searching my face trying to pick out what could possibly make me this worried.
“You’re frightening me. What’s happened p>
“It’s Sedona,” I said finally, my voice rough. “She called p>
The color drained from my mother’s face. She gripped the back of the chair across from my desk, her knuckles turning white as she held on tight, not letting go. “Is she… is she alive p>
“Yes. She’s in Chicago. She’s been there the whole time, apparently.” The words tasted bitter. Chicago. We’d searched everywhere-Europe, Asia, South America. Hell we even searched freaking Africa, thinking she was hiding there. But it had never occurred to us that she might be hiding in plain sight, just a few states away. The best hiding places were as always, the one nearest to us, because we wouldn’t assume she would hide so near and yet so..so far.
13