She was in bed with Alex.

Alex Castillo.

Cam stared at the ceiling and wondered how the hell she’d gotten herself into this mess.

She knew, of course. Everything that had happened in the last seventy-two hours was still crystal clear in her memory. Well, everything except the conversation at Nate’s.

But how had she let Alex talk her into sharing a bed with him? In what universe did that decision make any kind of sense?

It didn’t. It defied logic.

She should have been adamant in her refusal and planted herself on the crappy love seat. It wasn’t as if he was going to go all caveman on her and drag her into the bed. He’d wanted her to take the bed because it was the gentlemanly thing to do. And when it became clear that the couch wasn’t going to be conducive to anyone sleeping on it, he’d suggested they share the bed.

For practical reasons.

Except Cam wasn’t being practical. She couldn’t be, not with Alex lying next to her. She could feel the heat emanating from his body, could smell the lingering scent of soap on his skin, could smell her own shampoo in his hair. If she let her mind wander, she could remember—and imagine—a lot of other things, too…

She shifted to the edge of the bed.

There was no way in hell she was going to sleep.

She might as well just move to the couch so she could distance herself from the distraction lying next to her.

He shifted from his side to his back. “Can’t sleep?” he murmured.

His voice startled her. They’d turned the light off at least an hour ago, and she thought he was already asleep.

“No,” she admitted.

“What are you thinking about?”

You.

She chose a far safer response. “Everything.”

“Me, too.” He pulled the sheet up to his chest. “I’m running a million scenarios in my head, trying to figure out what to do next.”

Cam didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. She’d been unable to fall asleep because she’d been consumed by his physical presence. Alex had stayed awake because he was plotting his next move.

“What did you come up with?” she asked.

“Nothing good.”

“I still think Necco—”

He cut her off. “No. He’s off-limits.”

She knew arguing her point would be worthless. “Can I ask you a question?”

He shifted so he was more on his side, facing her. Her heart skipped a beat, seeing him horizontal next to her, the ambient light in the room reflecting in his eyes.

“What?” he asked cautiously.

After talking with Nate at Lulu’s, she’d come up with a few new questions for Alex, questions that she hadn’t had the opportunity to ask. They’d been on the run from Marco and his thug friend, and then they’d been holed up with Grandma, which hadn’t been conducive to discussing details about the case.

“We know your sergeant is doing some shady things,” she said. “And we know that whoever responded with him that night didn’t voice any concerns about what went down.”

Alex’s jaw tightened and he nodded.

“But that doesn’t mean everyone is on his side,” Cam pointed out. “Maybe there are some guys who would speak up if given the chance.”

“Maybe.” His voice sounded doubtful. “But there’s no way of knowing who to even start with. I told you, no one is safe to contact.”

“You don’t have a single person on the force who you trust?” Cam asked.

It was such a foreign concept to her. None of the officers on the AFPD were what she would consider close friends, but they were her colleagues. She would lay down her life for them, and she had no doubt they would do the same for her.

“No. Not anymore.”

She looked at him. “What do you mean, not anymore?”

“There was someone,” Alex told her. “But they left months ago.”

She was almost afraid to ask. “Who was it?” She had a sneaking suspicion it was a woman.

A faint smile appeared on his lips. “Travis.”

She hated the relief that flooded her. “Did he work undercover with you?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “But he was part of the gang unit task force.”

“And…what happened to him?” She was almost afraid to ask.

The smile disappeared. “He resigned last year.”

“Resigned? Why?”

“You want the official story or the real one?”

“How about both?”

“Official story is that he harassed another officer. A woman.”

Cam nodded. Those kinds of stories were becoming more common, especially as women became more comfortable about speaking up regarding the harassment they’d suffered over the years. She counted herself lucky that nothing had happened to her with the Aspen Falls police department, but she vividly remembered some of the comments she’d received from fellow officers in her first job. They had been demoralizing, and there had been some days that made her question whether or not joining the force was akin to inserting oneself into a ‘good old boys’ club.

“What’s the real story?” she asked.

His lips thinned. “Sarge ran him out. Invented a story.”

“About harassment? How?”

“Told a female officer to report him.”

Cam was dumbfounded. “And she did?”

He nodded.

“But why?”

“No idea. Why do people do any of the shitty things they do?”

Cam was still trying to put the pieces of the story together. “So your sergeant asked this officer to lie about being harassed and the department believed her? Did your friend fight it?”

“Of course,” Alex said. “But it was his word against the woman’s, and Sarge backed her. Internal Affairs opened an investigation, and they found her story credible. He resigned almost immediately.”

“So you think your friend knew something he wasn’t supposed to know about,” Cam said. “Or wasn’t willing to go along with something.”

Alex nodded.

“What was it?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do you not know? Didn’t this Travis guy talk to you about it?”

Alex was quiet for a minute. “The bulk of this went down when I was pretty deep undercover,” he said quietly. “I was living with a couple of the guys from La Gente. We went down to Nogales for a while. I…I couldn’t be there for him.”

Cam could hear the regret in his voice.

“So you haven’t talked to him about it?”

He shook his head.

She had so many more questions she wanted to ask, but she stopped herself from blurting them out.

For one, she knew Alex didn’t have much more to tell her, at least not in relation to what had happened with Travis’s harassment charge and subsequent resignation.

But there was another reason she kept quiet. She didn’t want to arouse his suspicions.

He’d just given her a clue she could potentially work with, whether he’d intended to or not.

Alex had given her a name. A name she hadn’t had before.

A name she might be able to do something with.

An opportunity to make some headway on figuring out just what to do next.

And she’d be damned if she was going to waste it.