ampbell was wearing pajamas. Fuzzy ones. To say
that she wasn’t pleased to see me would have been an understatement.

“What do you want?” Campbell turned the porch light on. She looked younger than she had earlier in the day—and more likely to bite.

“I want,” I said, emphasizing the word, “to tell your brother the truth.”

“And you think I don’t?”

I stared holes in her. “If you wanted to, you could have.”

“Right.” Campbell offered me a biting smile. “Because it’s that simple.”

“Hi, Walker,” I said, by way of suggestion, “you’re not the one responsible for that hit and run, and also, I’m a horrible person. Seems simple enough.”

Campbell stared right back at me. “You’ve got everything figured out.”

I shrugged. “You’re not exactly an enigma.”

“And you’re not a member of this family.” The words left her mouth like the crack of a whip. “So you can stop pretending you know anything about what it’s like to be an Ames.”

I hadn’t been expecting a family reunion. I’d come into the search for my biological father knowing that I wasn’t likely to be welcomed with open arms. Campbell’s statement about being an Ames shouldn’t have stung.

“How could you do that to Walker?” I didn’t let myself dwell on her attack. “How could you—”

“He’s my brother.” Campbell stared daggers at me, daring me to even think about claiming that he was mine, too. “Walker is the one person in this world who loves me, no matter what.”

“So that gives you the right to screw with him like this?” I asked sharply. “Lucky him. And what about Nick?” I took a step toward her. “Did you know who he was when he started working at the club? Did you pursue him on purpose?”

Campbell’s response lagged, just by a breath. “I’m a coldhearted bitch,” she said flatly. “What else would I have done, right?”

For the first time, I could hear in her voice a shade of the self-loathing that sometimes colored Walker’s.

“You don’t get to feel sorry for yourself,” I said. “You framed Nick—”

“Keep your voice down.” Campbell lowered her own.

I refused to do the same. If someone overheard us, so be it. “You framed Nick for stealing the necklace, and you let Walker think—”

“I’m not framing Nick.” Campbell stepped off the porch, toward me. She stopped when she hit the grass, but only for a moment.

I was about to argue that she clearly had framed Nick when I processed exactly what she’d said. “Framing,” I repeated. “Present tense.”

She hadn’t denied that she’d framed Nick. She’d very clearly said framing. As in ongoing.

As in, whatever game she was playing—it wasn’t over.

“Haven’t you done enough?” I said incredulously.

Campbell stopped walking once she’d stepped clearly into my personal space. Her face was just inches from mine. “Nick,” she said, enunciating the name, “is not the one I’m framing.”

What was that supposed to mean?

“Go home, Sawyer.”

A muscle in my jaw clenched. “You made me a part of this the night of the scavenger hunt.”

Campbell closed her eyes. “Why can’t anyone just trust me?”

I let out a single bark of laughter, which William Faulkner seemed to find fairly exciting.

“Did that question seriously just leave your mouth?” In true Taft woman fashion, I rendered my own question almost immediately rhetorical. “You let Walker tear himself up over something you did. And Nick—”

“I’m doing this for Nick,” Campbell said vehemently. “For Walker.”

I nodded. “Right. And you blackmailed Lily for her own good.”

William Faulkner padded forward, just enough to nudge ­Campbell’s hand with her massive head. I expected Campbell to jerk her hand back or ignore the dog, but instead, she knelt and stroked William Faulkner’s head. “I just need a few more weeks,” Campbell said quietly. “After that, you can do whatever you want.”

Kneeling, the formidable, heartless Campbell Ames was smaller than the dog.

“A few more weeks for what?” I didn’t want to be asking. For all I knew, I was playing right into her hand, but nothing about this confrontation had gone the way I thought it would.

I still hadn’t broken out the duct tape.

“You want me to trust you?” I told Campbell. “Give me a reason.”

She stood, but she kept her gaze focused on the dog as she said, “I wasn’t the one driving the car.”

I had to strain to hear her, and when I worked out the words, my first instinct was to lash back. I was tired of playing her games. Right before she’d locked me out of the sauna and left me to prance around in the altogether, she’d insisted that this was her fault—not Walker’s.

“If you weren’t driving,” I said pointedly, “and Walker wasn’t, who was?”

She waited so long to reply that I wasn’t sure a response was coming. And then it did. “Our father.”