Heated Conspiracies

by Aiden Bates

  What I knew Kaleb was going to be asking for made my ex’s awkward requests for loans seem like chump change by comparison.

  “The break-up was mutual,” was all that Kaleb had to say on the matter. “He’ll see us. And if we’re lucky, he’ll want to help, too.”

  We stood around for about five minutes before the doors to the labs opened again. The man who came out of them was gorgeous—there was no denying it. I wasn’t even usually into Omegas and I could see it. He had a straight, masculine nose and dirty blond hair, icy blue eyes and well-muscled forearms emerging from beneath the sleeves of his lab coat, rolled up to his elbows. The name tag on his coat’s pocket said Justin Carlisle and the look on his face said, Kaleb King, what the hell are you doing back in Fort Greene?

  As if things weren’t already uncomfortable enough, there was an added layer of awkwardness as his eyes slid over me. He probably couldn’t see it, with my face so covered by my ball cap and sunglasses, but I sure as hell could.

  He might’ve been blonder and more blue-eyed, but the resemblance was still there. Kaleb’s ex looked a hell of a lot like yours truly. Not like looking in the mirror exactly. More like meeting a long lost brother I’d never known. And the way Kaleb’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he followed Justin’s gaze told me that Kaleb knew it, too.

  “So,” Justin finally said, breaking a silence so tense I could practically hear it snap. “I guess you need a favor, huh?”

  “Looks that way,” Kaleb grunted with a little nod.

  For a moment, I thought Justin was going to send us packing immediately. He certainly looked like he wanted to. But in the next second, he sighed and tilted his head back toward the lab doors.

  “Come on, then. My office is empty—we can talk in there.”

  Justin Carlisle’s office wasn’t all that dissimilar to the one I’d occupied back at Bicroft either, I realized as we stepped into it. Neat, orderly, minimalistic. His stacks of paperwork were probably lab charts and test results, whereas mine had all been spreadsheets and shipping orders, but apart from that, it was almost uncanny. He even had the same English ivy plant sitting on his shelf that I’d had on the corner of my desk.

  “He’s not pregnant, is he?” Justin asked abruptly, nodding to me but addressing Kaleb. I might as well not have even been there. “You know you don’t need a lab for that kind of thing—you can pick up a pregnancy test at Kroger that will do the exact same thing.”

  “God, no,” Kaleb said abruptly. “We’re not—”

  “We’re not together,” I cut in. Awkward as this whole thing was, I didn’t like being treated like some random piece of Omega arm candy who couldn’t speak for himself. “This is, ah, a professional visit. We appreciate you seeing us on such short notice.”

  “No notice, in fact.” Justin’s blue eyes focused on me again, like he was trying to stare through the sunglasses and suss me out on looks alone. “All right, then. Professionally—how can I help you?”

  “It’s…not an easy ask,” Kaleb admitted.

  Justin laughed. “Asking an ex for favors? Never is.”

  “We need…well, we need lab space, Justin. Access to some of your equipment and a corner to work in would do it.” Kaleb rubbed the back of his neck, drawing in a sharp breath. “And, ah…if we could do it privately, you know. On the downlow. It’d be a plus.”

  Justin’s eyes narrowed. “Not just a hard ask, then. A big one, too.”

  Kaleb’s gaze was sober and sincere in return. “Wouldn’t be askin’ if it wasn’t important.”

  “So you need to run some tests.” He turned to me. “What for?”

  I cleared my throat. “Well, it’s a long story, but—”

  Kaleb cut me off with a gentle touch to my elbow and a shake of his head. “A very long story. One that you’re safer if you don’t hear, actually.”

  Another laugh from Justin—this one even sharper than before. “You’re a piece of work, Kaleb King. Showing up here after all this time, an Omega on your arm and a request for clandestine access to my lab on your lips? Come on—you know that’s not going to fly. Hospital could can me for this. Think I at least deserve to know what you’re planning on doing here.”

  “Trust me, Justin—”

  “That’s a completely separate favor, isn’t it?”

  Kaleb scowled. “The less you know of this, the better.”

  Justin leaned back in his chair, tapping a ballpoint pen against his desktop. “And that—that sounds like you’re up to something illegal is what that sounds like. You’re the cop here, Kaleb. Why not use the DC labs? You never had trouble staying busy up north before.”

  Kaleb’s scowl only deepened. “Jesus, Justin, are you really going to—”

  “It’s for this,” I cut in, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the little blue vial. Kaleb glared daggers at me for breaking rank, but the way I figured it, we weren’t getting anywhere with Justin unless we came clean. “It’s…well. You’ve heard about these bad tester packages of birth control pills turning up, haven’t you?”

  “Who hasn’t?” Justin’s gaze sharpened as I passed him the vial. He turned it over in his fingers, studying it with care. “Heard that Joshua King was investigating it too. Before…”

  “Yeah.” Kaleb leaned forward, clasping his hands together and resting his elbows on his knees. “This is about Josh. About the people who killed him, too.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry for dragging you into it, Justin… there just wasn’t anywhere else for us to go.”

  Just like that, Justin softened. “I was sorry to hear about your brother, Kaleb. Still am. But what you’re asking…”

  “It’s not just about Josh, though,” Kaleb was quick to add. “This birth control thing goes deep, Justin. If we don’t finish what Josh started on…it’s already affected so many lives. We want to stop this before it touches anymore.”

  There was another long silence then, but within it, I could almost hear the wheels in Justin’s head turning. Mechanical and methodical. Like clockwork.

  “I don’t know that you’ve got any favors left to ask of me, Kaleb. You know that,” Justin said finally, passing the vial back to me. “But…Christ. You know I always liked Josh. And this birth control thing…” He turned to me. “You think you can get to the bottom of it?”

  “With your lab, I do,” I confirmed.

  Justin drew in a sharp breath, glanced around the room as if he’d like to race out of it for a moment, then finally, sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “Yeah. Okay. But it’ll have to wait until tonight after the lab closes. Meet me back here then and we’ll see what we can do.”

  “Thank you,” Kaleb said, genuine gratitude in his voice. “And Justin…”

  “Another favor?”

  Kaleb nodded. “I need you to keep this to yourself. For your sake as much as ours. The wrong person finds out about this…”

  Justin leaned on his desk, pinching the bridge of his nose between his index finger and his thumb. But again, he trained his eyes on me instead of Kaleb. “You know, wherever the King boys go, trouble always follows.”

  I laughed humorlessly. “Yeah. I’m beginning to realize that.”

  “Tonight, then?” Kaleb asked, reaching across the desk to offer Justin his hand.

  “Tonight.” Justin took Kaleb’s hand in his, shaking it once—then holding it steady. “But after this, Kaleb… No more favors.”

  “No more favors,” Kaleb agreed with another shake of Justin’s hand.

  As we headed for the door, there was something warm in my chest. Something like hope. We’d have the lab equipment we needed, which meant we were just a few steps away from the next break in this case. A few steps closer to answers. Maybe to justice, even.

  “Wait,” Justin called out after us as I followed Kaleb out the door.

  I turned, raising my eyebrows as Justin rose and offered me his hand as well.

  “Didn’t catch your name.” His eyes narrowed again as I stared
back at him through the dark tint of my shades. “Have I…seen you somewhere before? Around town or something, maybe? Hard to tell with the sunglasses, but…you look familiar, somehow.”

  I almost laughed, fighting back the urge to ask him if he’d looked in the mirror lately. But instead, I merely took his hand as I grasped for a fake name to give him instead of my own.

  I knew the real place he’d probably seen me before—on the news, being blamed for all of Bicroft’s dirty deeds.

  “Chase,” I told him, feeling a little awkward about taking on my own ex’s name as I shook hands with Kaleb’s. “Chase Connor.”

  “Well then, Chase Connor…I suppose I’ll see you later tonight.”

  As we headed back out to Kaleb’s car, there was a tension in his shoulders beneath his jacket—and I had a pretty good idea of what had put it there, too.

  “Mutual break-up, huh?” I laughed, rolling my eyes as I went around the passenger side door. Kaleb beat me there by a jog, opening it for me and giving me a stern look as he helped me in.

  “Yeah. Well, it was.”

  “Was it?”

  Kaleb shrugged. “Once we broke up, anyway. Before that…” He sighed. “Yeah, okay. Might’ve been my fault. I’m shit at relationships. I’d say it’s not my fault, but…”

  “Aren’t we all?” I gave him a tense smile that he almost returned as he closed the door.

  But as we drove away, I made sure to make a note of that. Bad at relationships—just another reason why I needed to keep whatever feelings I was having about Kaleb King restricted solely to the professional kind.

  Especially, I reminded myself, now that I knew I was exactly his type.

  6

  Kaleb

  Part of me had expected that seeing Justin again would hurt. Maybe, in a way, it did. The feelings that had drawn me to him in the first place all those years ago weren’t there anymore—the chemistry, the attraction, the way he’d laughed at my jokes—but in their place, there was guilt.

  I should have called first, I knew. Should have warned him. Given him time to prepare. But if I had, now I knew there was a good chance he would have told me to fuck off completely. Maybe refused to see me at all.

  What I’d been telling myself was a comfortable, albeit distant, friendship between former lovers was apparently something a little more uncomfortable than I’d hoped. I didn’t think I’d broken Justin’s heart, but I’d obviously bruised it. Now that I’d seen him face to face, I could appreciate how generous he was being in helping me at all.

  Or, helping us. As shitty as I felt for dragging Justin into this mess, I felt just as bad for hauling the evidence of my failed love life before Derek’s uninitiated eyes.

  At least one thing was for sure: any chance of anything happening between Derek and I was out the window. Probably for the best, too. Derek might’ve been as good-looking as they came, but every time I caught myself staring at him, I had to remind myself what a bad idea acting on that particular attraction would be. Investigation was already messy enough. Getting involved with our latest lead would only make things messier. And now that he knew that I was a bastard when it came to romance, even if I did lose my fucking mind and make a move on him, he knew better than to take me up on it.

  “You hungry?” I pointed down the road as we turned into the King’s Place neighborhood, the bright red sign of the Royale Diner up ahead. The white backing of the sign was rusted through and one of its Es was crooked, but neither of us had bothered with the disaster of a breakfast we’d whipped up together. “It’s a hole in the wall, but they make the best barbecue pork sandwich in town.”

  “You sure that’s smart? Parading me around town while I’m a wanted man and all?”

  I smirked as, despite his hesitance, I heard Derek’s stomach growl. I’d take that for an affirmative—if we wanted to get anything done today, we’d need lunch first.

  “We’ll sit in the back,” I told him as I pulled in to the Royale’s parking lot.

  Ten minutes later, we were both sitting in a booth with twin plates of pork sandwiches, rice, hash and slaw.

  “God—you weren’t kidding.” Derek grabbed a napkin from the dispenser on the table and wiped his lips clean. “This sandwich is incredible.”

  “South Carolina sauce,” I said, feeling a little flicker of pride. “Spicy, sweet, sour—that’s the mustard in it.”

  “Can see why you were willing to come all the way from DC for this.” Derek took another massive bite, rolling his shoulders back and moaning softly. “Yeah, okay. This is worth being out in public over.”

  “Bet your Alpha in Reno’s going to be jealous,” I teased. “You’ll have to bring him back a doggie bag when you head back home.”

  Derek shook his head. “Don’t have an Alpha back home. Or a back home anymore either.” He wiped his fingers and tapped the back of his burner phone. “I checked the news report when you were ordering. FBI has ransacked my house. Found suspicious files, apparently.”

  “Bicroft plant them there, you think?”

  Derek shrugged. “They’re not beyond it. Only way anything suspicious would’ve gotten in there anyway. I don’t, ah…my house is pretty barren, truth be told. Didn’t spend a lot of time there to begin with.”

  “Ah. Workaholic?”

  He laughed. “My mom and dad are both doctors. Set a precedence for long hours. Even back in high school, I was in so many AP classes and sports that I didn’t have a lot of time for lazing around the house either. Took double loads of classes in my undergrad, lived and breathed my Master’s degree after that. Home is just…whatever. A place to sleep at night before the next day’s work starts.”

  I thought of my own apartment in DC—I’d had it for more than a decade now and I still hadn’t even bought a television for it yet. “Suppose I understand that. Followed in my Alpha dad’s footsteps too, in a way. He was military, then he started King Private Security.”

  “Ernesto’s business, right?”

  “He bought it out from Dad when Dad decided to retire,” I confirmed. “But before that, Dad trained us all in the hopes that we’d be just like him. I guess, in our own ways, most of us succeeded.”

  “You’re a cop, Harper’s a PI, Josh was in investigative journalism…But you’ve got a third brother too, right?”

  “Rusty.” I chuckled. “He’s kind of a wild card.”

  “Circus clown?”

  I laughed again. “MMA fighter. He bounces between Vegas and LA mostly these days. He inherited the worst of Dad’s temper—but at least he’s on his feet now. We used to worry about him when he was younger, though. All those self-defense lessons Dad gave us, and Rusty only used most of them to get into bar brawls for a while there.”

  “Hard to imagine any brother of Josh’s getting into bar brawls.”

  “You knew him pretty well, then.” I was careful not to insinuate that they’d been an item again—I’d already made that mistake once. But still, I was curious exactly what Derek knew of my youngest brother. After we’d all gotten wrapped up in our careers, it wasn’t a stretch to say that we’d fallen out of touch.

  “Nothing too personal,” Derek reminded me. “He and Adrian approached me because I worked for Bicroft. We had lunch a few times. But as Josh’s investigation got more stressful, that turned into drinks whenever he was in Reno. Not dates, though. Just…friendly chats, you know. He had several, ah…unsuccessful relationships, you could say.”

  “Runs in the family, I guess.”

  “Harper and Nick seem to do okay, don’t they?”

  I smiled softly, pushing my cole slaw around my plate with the back of my fork. “Harper and Nick are something special. The rest of us, though…doesn’t surprise me that Josh wasn’t exactly on the fast track to marriage.”

  “You King boys all kind of gravitate toward your work too, huh?”

  My smile widened. “Guess you’ve already got us all pinned.”

  “It was how Josh was, anyway. Loved his wor
k more than anything—but he wasn’t all up his own ass about it the way some journalists are. Took what he was doing really seriously. Didn’t pretend that it was anything glamorous—he just wanted his work to mean something. Always wanted to help people with it.”

  “Our Alpha dad had a hand in that, I reckon.” If I thought hard, I could still remember the seriousness in his eyes on the first day of school each year. “Used to give us pep talks. ‘You boys are lucky, but not everyone else got such easy breaks. You see a bully, you show ‘em what it means to pick on someone their own size.’”

  Derek laughed, flashing a row of straight white teeth. “That was Josh in a nutshell, yeah. He was a good listener, too. He’d get a couple drinks in me and suddenly, I’d be bitching about everything from my family to my own failed love life.”

  “Guess we King boys aren’t the only ones who can’t hold down a relationship.”

  Derek glanced at me for a second over the tops of the aviators I’d given him, a flash of seafoam before he pushed them back up to cover his eyes. “I’m just bad at choosing men. Which Josh was more than happy to tell me every time I brought it up.”

  “He sounds like he was a good friend to you,” I said, my voice soft.

  Derek swallowed, putting what was left of his sandwich down for a moment and biting his lip. “Yeah. He was.”

  Hearing all of this felt like a little peek into the life that my youngest brother had carved out for himself before Bicroft or Carver Media or American Families First—or maybe all three—had put an end to him.

  It also made me proud. Proud of Josh for the mark he’d made, not just on a journalistic level, but on the lives of others.

  Proud that we were continuing his work—and this time, we’d see it through to the end.

  “He was, ah, always reading books, back when we were kids. Total nerd.”

  Derek smiled. “Guess some things never change. The week before he headed back here for the last time… He, ah, left me a copy of the last thing he’d been reading. Wild and Free. You heard of it?”