Heated Conspiracies

by Aiden Bates

  I glanced over to the ditch along the side of the road. It was deep enough and overgrown enough, I could easily just chuck the vial into it. The stolen keys along with it. Disappear like Adrian was planning to. Leave the country, this conspiracy, and Bicroft Pharmaceuticals behind.

  Except that I couldn’t, because I was a big fucking idiot and doing the right thing was apparently more important than saving my own skin now.

  Fuck.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose between my finger and my thumb, feeling a stress headache already on the horizon. “Let’s hear it, then.”

  “Harper King. Fort Greene, South Carolina. I’ll text you the address—then I’m burning this number.”

  “Harper King? As in…”

  “As in Josh’s big, bad older brother, yes. He’s just about as stupid as you are for sticking with this, so you two should get along just fine.”

  “Josh has a brother?” I blinked, surprised. I hadn’t known Josh for long enough to get to know his family history, but if his genes ran as strong as I suspected they did, this Harper wasn’t anyone to be fucked with. Which was good for me—because I was about to have all of Bicroft Pharma’s firepower raining down on me as soon as they figured out what I’d done.

  “Bunch of them, apparently. Each dumber than the last.” Adrian paused to laugh—he’d always had a bit of a superiority complex. In hindsight, it was entirely unsurprising that he was getting out of this now—while he still had the chance. “Don’t be an idiot about getting there, though. Take the long way around. Take out as much cash as you can, then don’t touch your cards. Ditch this phone. Buy a burner. Sell your car. Buy a junker. Get rid of it when you get there and be ready to bug out if the heat turns up. Okay?”

  I groaned. “Okay. Okay. I get it. But what about you? Where will you go now?”

  “That’s on a need-to know basis—and you don’t need to know.” Adrian cleared his throat, his tone dipping into something more serious—if that was even possible. “The most important thing is, you’ve gotta—”

  I waited a beat, then checked my phone. The line was dead. When I called it back, it only rang and rang.

  Fuck.

  I was in too deep in this and I knew it. And now that Adrian was out—gone, or maybe even dead too—I was in too deep, and I was alone.

  But I had the sample. I had copies of the Adrian’s files. And more importantly…

  More importantly, I had a cause.

  Josh King had died trying to protect Omegas everywhere. If I didn’t do my part, even more Omegas would be hurt by the shit that Bicroft was pulling. It would be selfish to back out now. And if Harper King was willing to help…

  My phone buzzed with a text. Dead, disappeared, or just playing a sick prank on me, at least Adrian had been true to his word. I had an address, and I had a name.

  I plugged it into my GPS and put my car into gear, heading east. The hot Reno sun beat down on the back of my neck through my car’s skylight as I pulled back onto the open road. Forty hours to Fort Greene—and that was the short way around. Adrian had suggested the scenic route, and I was in no position not to take his word for it.

  Not now that he might be dead, too.

  One thing was for sure…it was going to be a long drive.

  2

  Kaleb

  I sat in the spare room of my brother and his Omega’s home as Derek Stillwell told me his tale, my jaw clenched as I wondered whether I should believe any of it or not.

  “Took you a long time to get here,” I pointed out, my voice low and sharp. “Way you’re telling it, all of that happened…what? More than two weeks ago, from the sounds of things.”

  Derek’s pale gold eyelashes shuttered twice as he blinked at me, obviously annoyed. “Like I said—Adrian told me to take the long way around. I had to do all the driving myself. Couldn’t chance flashing my ID through airport security to catch a flight. I came from the Bicroft research facility in Reno, popped up through Colorado, zigzagged across the country. Didn’t know if I had people tailing me or not. Figured I was better off safe than sorry. All things considered…” He raised an eyebrow challengingly. “I’d say I made pretty good time.”

  I stared him down, trying to read his face. I’d been in law enforcement ever since I graduated from high school. Academy to detective in DC in just two years—speaking of making good time. Now, at thirty-nine, I had the benefit of two decades’ worth of police know-how to back up my ability to sniff out a lie.

  But Derek’s face, handsome as it was, was nearly impossible to read. He was defiant—I could see that much in the glinting of his sea-green eyes. Almost daring me not to believe him, after all he’d been through. He had a nose like a Hollywood playboy, slender along the bridge and slightly upturned at the pointed tip. Pillowy lips drawn out into a firm line. His brow was set, two dark gold eyebrows a couple shades deeper than the sun-kissed highlights of his hair.

  He was the kind of man who was probably used to getting his way based on good looks alone. The kind of man who other people wanted to trust. Whatever story he was selling, I had no doubt he didn’t usually have to struggle to get people to buy it.

  But in my line of work, I knew better than to trust a man based on a pretty face and a chiseled jawline. That little cleft in his chin might have scored him his position at Bicroft Pharmaceuticals, but in my experience, pretty mouths like his often told a lot of pretty lies, too. And with my brother still recovering from three near-fatal gunshot wounds in the bedroom down the hall…

  I glanced at the doorway behind Derek, seeing a shadow pass across the crack in the door from outside. Ernesto Alvarez, trying to overhear some of Derek’s story, if I had to guess. I’d sent my brother’s Omega, Nick, back into the master bedroom to brief Harper on this new lead. Asked Ernesto and his King Private Security boys to let me hear Derek’s story alone in the spare room—and for good reason. The more people a man like Derek had around to charm, the more likely it was that he’d be able to pull one over on us. If his story was true, we had an even bigger mess on our hands than I’d previously thought.

  And if it was false…

  Then we had a Bicroft Pharma man inside our ranks, ready to stab us in the back at any minute.

  “So you took your time getting here. That car outside—that yours?”

  “Technically.” Derek held my gaze, steady and firm. “Sold my Lexus when I hit Denver. Picked up the one I showed up in from a guy off Craigslist. Haven’t had time to register it yet, but I’ve got the title, if that’s what you’re asking…” He stalled for a moment. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I got your name.”

  “Kaleb.” I cleared my throat, avoiding getting lost in those pretty eyes of his, and corrected myself quickly. “Detective Kaleb King.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Fort Greene PD? I don’t think…”

  “I was born here. Left a long time ago. I’m out of state now.” He was careful. Clever. Someone—either Josh or this Adrian Wells person he was tangled up with—had obviously warned him that the Fort Greene police couldn’t be trusted on this. If he wasn’t a Bicroft plant, he was doing better than most civilians on the run. “You use any credit cards on the way here? Anything that could lead your people to track you to where we are?”

  “They’re not my people,” he said immediately. “I burned that bridge the second I stole this vial.” Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew a little baggie. A tiny glass test tube sparkled within it. “But no—no credit. No cell phone either—just my burner. I stayed in a different cheap motel every night. Some of them, just Mom and Pop places. Some a little more questionable. No chains, nothing corporate, though. Gave them fake names. Paid in cash. Unless you think that Bicroft’s people are trying to track Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Charlie Daniels and Johnny Cash…”

  I couldn’t help myself. I chuckled. “Good taste.”

  “I’m aware.” Derek’s cheek dimpled as he gave me a tight-lipped half-smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “So, to ans
wer your question—no. I don’t think Bicroft can track me here.”

  “The vial, then.” I nodded to the baggie in his hand. “What is it?”

  Derek’s smile disappeared. “That’s…ah. A harder question to answer. I’ll need access to some lab equipment to be sure.”

  “You said you were in distribution,” I pointed out. “Shouldn’t you know what you’re distributing?”

  He shook his head. “Normally, yes. But this…this is pre-market. Hasn’t even hit the ad team yet. Not listed on our inventory sheets—so I grabbed it. If my hunch is right…” He sighed. “I’d say this is the compound that made the botched pills in those sample birth control packs do what they did.”

  “Heat frenzy in a bottle?”

  Derek nodded. “Sounds like.”

  I gave him a serious look. “You’re an Omega, aren’t you?”

  This time, when his smile cracked, it was a genuine one. “We’re not all tiny, delicate, five-foot-eight men with no muscle mass, Detective King.”

  Gently, I returned his smile. He had a point. He was shorter than me by two or three inches, sure, but Derek was tall for an Omega. Easily pushing six-foot, with a whole mess of muscle mass to boot. Could’ve passed for an Alpha in certain circles if he wanted to—but if his hunch was right, as an Omega, handling that vial was just as dangerous as playing tackle football with a grenade.

  “Best keep that someplace safe then,” I grunted.

  “I intend to,” he assured me, a pale blush rising on his cheeks.

  I knew what must have been running through his mind. If that vial shattered, or if some of it managed to get into his system, he’d be in the same hot water that Bicroft had put thousands of Omegas all up and down the eastern US in. He was an Omega. I was an Alpha. Didn’t take a chemist to know what a sudden, hyper-intense heat would do to the two of us if we were exposed to something like that while we were shut here in the same room.

  I looked Derek up and down again, from his rumpled white dress shirt down to his scuffed Italian leather shoes. Suddenly, Derek wasn’t the only one who was a little bit flushed.

  Dammit. It’d be easier to suss out whether he was lying to me or not if he wasn’t so entirely my type.

  “So. You need a lab,” I said, forcing myself to look away. “Bad news for you there. As you can imagine, we don’t exactly have access to that kind of equipment here in Fort Greene.”

  “But if we could get hold of it, I’d be able to identify it. Maybe even hunt down a patent somewhere. Prove what it does—and that Bicroft is responsible for it.”

  “We’ll see what we can do about that.” It was a long shot, but if he was telling the truth…it could be a shot worth taking. Now that Derek’s story was out of the way, though, there were other shots that we needed to be discussing. Shots of a deadlier kind. “You said you know who killed my brother. Josh. Same people who put three bullets into Harper as well, presumably.”

  “If Harper was following up on Josh’s leads…I can’t imagine that it’d be anyone else. But…” Derek winced, running his fingers through the thick waves of his hair and cocking his head to the side. “It’s not so cut and dry as that. I don’t know who stabbed Josh or who pulled the trigger on Harper, but I know who’s responsible for it.”

  “What’s his name, then?”

  “Not one name,” Derek corrected me. “Three. One, Garrison Bicroft is Bicroft Pharmaceuticals’ CEO. If this vial is what I think it is, he would’ve had to sign off on it. And he’s, ah…not exactly the kind of man who’d want something like this in the press.”

  “That’s motive, at least,” I agreed. “The others?”

  “Jakob Harling. He runs American Families First—it’s a super PAC that’s—”

  I grunted, nodding. “I know AFF. My beat is in Washington DC—AFF’s preferred stomping ground. Bunch of loonies who prefer their Omegas in the kitchen, the bedroom and the delivery room, right?”

  “The very same.”

  “And the third name?” I braced myself for impact. With the leader of the biggest Omega reproductive pharma company in the States and the top man of the craziest super PAC in the nation allegedly in bed together on this, I wasn’t looking forward to staring down the maw of this Cerberus’ third head.

  But Derek only shrugged, shaking his head. “Not sure. When Josh was killed, Adrian Wells and I were trying to put together the third connection, but…”

  “But Adrian’s flown the coop,” I supplied, recalling what Derek had told me when he first showed up that day.

  “Or they’ve put his head to the chopping block too,” Derek added, looking more grim than ever. But as he raised his eyes to me, there was a glimmer of hope in them. “You believe me though, don’t you? With Adrian gone and Josh dead… I’m all alone in this now, Detective King.”

  I leaned back in the rocking chair that Ernesto’s men had brought into the spare room. It had been meant for Nick once his baby was born—and Harper too, now that it seemed like my brother was taking on daddy duties for the man that he loved. Not for interrogating handsome Omegas who’d either just made the bravest move of their life—or the dumbest one.

  “These are serious accusations, Mr. Stillwell.”

  “Derek,” he said, a small tremble in his lips once they’d moved together again.

  “Derek, then.” I blinked, mulling it over. Either he was a hell of an actor, a liar, and a storyteller to boot—or he was scared for his life. But regardless, I was a detective—and to do my job right, I needed proof. “You have any more evidence to back up these claims?”

  “Well…” Finally, he looked away from me. Now, his cheeks were flushed pink for a whole new reason. “Not exactly. At least, not the kind someone like you would need.”

  “Someone like me?”

  Derek rolled his eyes. “You’re police, Detective. You’re used to having to hold your side of the story up in court. And right now—no, there’s not a lawyer alive who would so much as touch this thing. I know that.”

  “Then why come? Why expect me to believe you?”

  Derek laughed. “That’s the thing—you don’t believe me, do you? I can see it in your eyes—you think I’m either full of shit, trying to pull a fast one on you, or both. But if you’d seen what I’ve seen—if you’d been through what I’ve been through just to get here…”

  I shifted forward in the chair, placing my elbows on my knees and folding my hands together. “What is it that you’ve seen, then?”

  “The same things that Joshua King saw, Detective. Your brother believed that the tampering in those birth control pills was intentional. That it happened under Bicroft’s roof. And now, here I am—with a stolen vial of hormones from Bicroft Pharmaceuticals themselves. There’s no reason that this would be unlisted if there wasn’t a cover-up going on. There’s no way it could have landed in those bad pills unless someone put it there on purpose.”

  I felt for the man. Really, I did. He’d taken a risk to get here, and despite my reservations on his wild-ass story…I had one brother dead for following this story. Another still recovering from his wounds for the same. But there were too many maybes involved here still. Too many possibilities—and I was a man of cold, hard evidence when I could get it.

  “Okay. Say that is the chemical that Bicroft used in the pills. Say you test it and can prove it for sure. Who’s to say that it wasn’t an accident? Some intern making the wrong calculations—an incorrect shipment of supplies, a clerical error, a processing mistake—”

  “Bicroft doesn’t make mistakes.” Derek’s gaze was steely. “The production process is too tightly controlled. The chemists too careful. The inventory sheets too thorough. And the chain of deaths, disappearances and timely accidents that follow this story…”

  I nodded. “Too convenient.”

  “Exactly!” Derek paused, drawing back and raising an eyebrow. “So you believe me?”

  “I…” I glanced down at the vial in his hand. “It’s too shaky to say for sur
e, Derek. You’ve got a hell of a story here. Not a lot of hard proof to back it up.”

  “Help me then.” His eyes were pleading. “Help me get the equipment I need to test this and I’ll give you all the proof you need. If I can’t see this through… If they get to me before I can get to them…” His voice broke for a moment. Sent a pang through my heart as it did. But then he swallowed, composed himself, and continued. “Even if I do survive, my career is over. My entire life is over. By now, they know this vial is missing. They’ll have checked the security cameras and figured out it was me who took it, too. You don’t piss off people like Garrison Bicroft and Jakob Harling without suffering for it, Detective.”

  It was a Hail Mary of a thing, this chemical testing business. Everything about Derek Stillwell’s story added up to a point, but there’d be a lot of moving and shaking that would need to happen before we could get a hard, trustworthy sum. Still, with Harper on the mend yet and Josh’s investigation in my hands now…

  Any lead was better than nothing. If I wanted to make headway on this thing and get justice for Harper, Josh, and the Omegas who’d been affected by this birth control crisis, I’d have to trust Derek.

  At least, until he gave me reason not to.

  “Everything you’ve told me…I agree, it reeks of something rotten. But it’s not proof of intent to murder, or even a connection that could open up into a conspiracy. But…”

  “But?” Derek straightened, seafoam eyes gleaming.

  “But it’s a place to start looking,” I said with a nod.

  “So you’ll get me what I need.”

  “Depends.” On an enforcement level, this case was out of my jurisdiction. On a legal level, I wasn’t even supposed to be in Fort Greene to begin with. But if the local cops were as crooked as Harper said they were, leaving this in official hands wasn’t an option. And on an unofficial level, whether I liked it or not, this was my ballgame now. “What do you need?”

  “I’ve, ah…” Derek reached into the pocket of his slacks and pulled out a neatly folded bit of paper. He handed it to me. “I made a list.”