The Dying Breath: A Forensic Mystery

Everything is under control.”
    “Relax.” She snorted, then made another round through the ten-foot-square floor space, her hiking boots thudding against the worn wood. She’d changed out of her pajamas in the bathroom instead of her bedroom since there were so many strangers crowded around her desk. Her choice had been simple: the jeans she wore to school a few times a week, worn and faded at the knees, her hiking boots, a pair of cotton socks, a blue tee shirt. It was her top, plucked from a closet shelf, that had been out of character. For the first time she’d chosen her Mahoney clan sweater, the twin of her father’s, the one her mammaw had made. It had never been Cameryn’s style before that exact moment. But today, with so much of her life unraveling around her she wanted to wear the symbol for luck, the emblem of survival knitted into the Aran wool. It itched where it touched her bare skin, and the muslin-colored yarn had a faint, unique odor, as though it contained the barest trace of wet sand. She looked at the double row of knitted cables, fingering them as her father had on his own. Today she needed all the luck she could get. All of them did.
    She heard Justin’s chair squeak as he set his feet firmly on the floor. “Cammie, you need to calm down.”
    Glaring at him, she snapped, “I already told you I hate it when people tell me that!”
    “Oh, yeah. Right.” Justin had the grace to look sheepish.
    “There is so much adrenaline pouring through me right now I feel like I need to move. What I don’t understand is how you can just sit there. I mean, I just did something crazy.”
    “Could you be a little more specific?”
    She shot him a look.
    Justin rolled his eyes. “That was meant to be funny, by the way, and you didn’t even crack a grin. I must be losing my touch.”
    “No, I’m just losing my mind.” She looked at the phone and bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. “Why don’t they call?”
    “They will . Everything’s going to be fine.”
    “How much longer?”
    Justin looked at his watch and sighed. “Sixty seconds closer since the last time you asked, so . . . four minutes. More or less.”
    The office was too small to get in more than six good strides, so it took her only moments to complete a circle.
    “Don’t let him get into your head,” he told her softly.
    “That’s just the thing—I can’t get him out !” She shook herself as though she could dislodge the thoughts, but there was no way to loosen them because they were inside her. Kyle’s wrenching sobs reverberated through her mind like the echo from a bell.
    In the end, Kyle had agreed to turn himself in because of her.
    “Are you sure I should do this, Cammie? Give myself up?” he’d pleaded.
    “Yes,” she’d said, reading Andrew’s hastily written notes. “It’s for the best. You’ll get all the help you need. And I promise, no one will hurt you. Trust me.”
    That had been the point where Kyle had finally relented. He’d said yes to her while Andrew, pumping his fist in triumph, mouthed the words We’ve got him!
    “I’ll turn myself in,” Kyle finally told her. His voice was thick, and she heard him pause to catch his breath. “But you have to be there. Promise me, my anam cara .”
    Tell him yes, Andrew had written. Tell him anything he wants. We’ve located the ping. Keep him talking.
    And so she’d promised as though her life depended on it. She had wondered, listening to him weep, if there was still a spark of a soul inside him as he claimed. Had she really caused the flame of humanity to grow, or were those the soulless words of a madman? How would he feel when he learned she had lied to him? Did it even matter? From that thought she turned away.
    “Cammie, don’t think about it anymore.”
    Whirling around, she could feel her eyes go wide. “Like I’ve got some switch inside that I can turn on or off! You’re not the one who talked to him. You didn’t have to actually hear Kyle cry over the phone. I had to pretend I actually cared. I’m not an actress, Justin. I had to lie when he told me that I was his anam cara . That’s what Andrew told me to do and I did it. Lie and lie and lie.” She felt her stomach heave with her emotions, as if she were walking on the deck of a ship caught in roiling waves. “I feel horrible!”
    Justin sat up, and faster than she would have thought possible he was on his feet, pulling her close. “Shhh,” he said into her hair.