Heated Conspiracies

by Aiden Bates

  “You mind?” I asked, taking the phone into my hand. Derek released it softly, letting it slide into my big, broad palm.

  I’d never been great with smart phones. Rusty was the only one of us King boys who’d ever seemed to master the art of the shirtless bathroom selfie or casual thirst trap picture, as evidenced by his Instagram following. But while my fingers might have been elegant and well-practiced when it came to flicking open a pair of handcuffs or pulling a trigger, when it came to delicate little electronics, I usually turned out to be all clumsy sausage fingers.

  Handling the phone with care, I studied the angle that Josh had taken the picture from. It was a weird one—almost like he’d gone all sausage fingers too. Snapped the picture by accident, maybe. The AC unit was out of focus, off to one side. Not of any real interest. The camera had focused in on the background instead. A big, old brownstone towering up three stories against the dusky evening sky. There was a light on in one of its windows, but the curtains were drawn, obscuring anything that might have been moving around within.

  “This is King’s Place, isn’t it?” I asked, going around the table to show Harper the picture.

  Harper nodded. “I’d bet my boots on it.”

  “Good work,” I told Derek, earning me a coy little smile from his handsome lips. “It might be nothing, but if we head over, maybe we can figure out why he took this picture in particular. Worth a look, right?”

  “I’ll ride shotgun.” Derek clapped my shoulder as he moved past me toward the door—and as he passed, out of Harper and Nick’s line of sight, he patted me on the ass, too.

  If nothing else, it was promising to be another interesting night.

  15

  Kaleb

  There was no evidence left, of course. The police had swept in when Josh’s body was found. They’d taped off the area, taken their pictures, drawn the outline of my brother’s body around the pool of his blood. In the months since, the rain had washed it all away.

  I stared at the dark stain on the pavement of the alleyway, the place where Joshua King had drawn his last breaths, and felt my sinuses burn hot with saline.

  He was gone. Completely gone. Dead. Buried. And with only a dark stain on the pavement and a spider’s web of unanswered questions to show for it.

  It was almost like he’d never been there at all.

  “You okay?” Derek placed his hand on my shoulder, squeezing it gently over my jacket.

  “Yeah. Of course.” I clenched my jaw and turned my eyes away. This was no time to be focusing on my own idiot emotions. If I wanted to give Josh the legacy he deserved, there was only one way to do it.

  We had to finish this. Once and for all.

  “I’ve sent us both a copy of the picture.” Derek held up his phone, a bright light in the darkness of the evening. The AC unit and the building that Josh had photographed glowed up from the screen. “Let’s do a walk-around. See if we can find a match.”

  We set off from the mouth of the alleyway, cutting across side streets and in front of crunchy, leaf-covered lawns. The last vestiges of summer were long gone now. Soon, the trees would just be skeletons against the night sky, uncovered and bare. We peered through their branches, checking every window of every building in the hopes that one of them would be the one we were looking for.

  If we were lucky, we’d find the AC unit from Josh’s photo or the building in the background. If we were less lucky…

  I scowled. This clue might have come too late. The hot summer days that left everyone in King’s Place blasting their AC to try to keep cool had long since passed. Several houses and apartment complexes we passed had already started winterproofing their old, drafty windows, sealing them up with thick plastic in preparation for the cold that would set in once November came around.

  As we walked, I could almost imagine myself in Josh’s shoes. My feet could be tracing his footsteps even now. Was he scared, I wondered? Did he know he was being followed?

  “Let’s cut through there.” I spotted an alleyway and pointed to it. Narrow enough that someone who didn’t know the area would see it as a good opportunity to corner Josh. But Josh had known King’s Place as well as I did. We’d run these streets as kids, playing tag. Cops and robbers. Blind man’s bluff. The alleyway branched off into two directions, funneling out into a network of messy side streets. Easy to see if someone was following you down them. Even easier to shake them off your trail if you knew your way.

  The feeling of Josh’s presence intensified as we entered the mouth of the alley. He’d been through here. I could feel it in my bones. My heart raced with adrenaline—if he’d known that he had someone on his tail, he would have kept moving. Wouldn’t have given up. And that blurry picture of the AC unit…

  Insurance. It must have been. Blurry because he’d known he couldn’t stop to get a clear shot. Blurry because, if the Fort Greene PD had ended up with it, they wouldn’t have given a stupid mistake of a picture like that so much as a second look.

  As we took a turn into one of the forks of the side alleys, a warmth roared through my chest. Pride. I was proud of Josh for everything he’d done before he’d taken on this behemoth of a story. Even more proud as we came out the other end of the alley…

  And there it was. A few blocks away from where Josh had been murdered, up toward Arlington Circle. The AC unit was still jutting out from the window it had been wedged into. Behind it, the building in the background was just as it was in the picture. One light on.

  “That’s it, then.” Derek picked his way across the crumbling pavement beneath the unit with care, barely even making a sound. “Is it the air conditioner, or the apartment in the background that we should be checking out?”

  “First one, then the other, I guess.”

  I followed Derek’s path, feeling the gravel of future potholes rolling beneath the soles of my boots. I shot off a quick message to Harper—We’ve found it—before walking a half moon around the AC unit, looking for anything that might’ve been of interest.

  Nothing. Or at least, nothing yet.

  “That’s weird.” Derek had crouched down to peer up at the air conditioner from below. “There’s a little space here underneath. Is anyone looking?”

  I peered around us, checking for anyone who might’ve been lurking in the darkness. But the only movement was the leaves across the sidewalk, being swept away by the wind. “Doesn’t look like it. I think we’re alone.”

  Derek reached out underneath the unit, but I pulled him back by the collar of his jacket.

  “We’ve gotta be careful,” I warned him. “These buildings are old. Might’ve settled weirdly. The space could just be some brace wedged in for the AC. If it comes crashing down on anyone—”

  Derek rolled his eyes. “Okay. You take the damage then, Detective.”

  I held my breath as I took Derek’s place, slipping my fingers into the space beneath the unit and—

  “Gotcha.” My fingers brushed against something rough and thick. The pages of a book. Or, to be more exact…

  A journal. Josh’s journal. As I pulled it out and flipped through the pages, dust billowed up, leaving Derek coughing.

  “Christ. It’s been there for months now.” He drew away, clearing his throat as I shook it clean.

  “Here. You’ll be better at putting the words together,” I told him, knowing that they’d only shift around for me on the page. “I’ll hold my phone up for a light.”

  “Josh has the messiest handwriting,” Derek grumbled, shaking his head. “Besides, we probably shouldn’t be out here for any longer than we need to be. Never know who might be watching us.”

  I nodded, wrapping my arm around him as I led him back to the car. Derek folded his arms over his chest, hugging Josh’s journal tight.

  Back at Nick and Harper’s place, I shook my head and let out a frustrated grunt before pushing the book back to Harper again.

  “Never could read Josh’s handwriting. Scribbles McGee here has left us with a
mess.”

  “It’s…an acquired talent,” Harper said sagely, nodding and squinting at the pages. “This has been outside for a good long while. Humidity has made the ink all splotchy too. That’s certainly not helping.”

  “You two are ridiculous.” Leaning over Harper’s shoulder, Nick plucked the journal up into his hands. “It’s easy. These here are names, addresses, emails, phone numbers—they’re the Omegas that I found on social media for Josh to interview. Look, he’s even done tracked statuses on each.”

  Nick laid the journal out on the table between Harper and I, pointing to each item as he explained it.

  “What’s that say, though? Constipated…playboy?”

  Nick swatted at Harper. “Confirmed pregnant. That’s most of them—but look at this one. Possible ovarian damage. Or this—confirmed infertile after ingesting pills.”

  “Now you know why I’m so tentative about taking those heat suppressants,” Derek said, scooting his chair closer to me.

  I almost smiled at that, even though it was far from the time for it. Derek had every reason to avoid taking chemicals that might fuck with his hormones presently…but that didn’t seem to stop him from reveling in the way his heat was drawing us together, either.

  “This is new, though. Josh must have picked this up while he was on the road.” Nick pointed to a line much deeper in the journal, next to a strange little outline that looked like a fucked-up railway map. “Gravidia. Huh.”

  “That’s Latin,” Derek piped up. “Pretty sure, anyway.”

  “You know Latin?”

  Derek shrugged. “Just bits and pieces. It was useful when I was studying chemistry. Gravidia is like pregnant, but a little more…colloquial, I guess. Burdened might be a better translation for it. The outline next to it looks like a molecular structure drawing. Not labeled, but I’d put money on Gravidia being a chemical of some sort.”

  “Doesn’t get much more thinly veiled than that,” Harper grunted. “Might as well have called it Knock-me-up Whether I Want it or Not Cough Drops.”

  “Shit,” Nick swore, flipping to the back pages of the journal. “Oh, fuck—this is huge, though.”

  “More chemical stuff?” I asked, feeling my head start to ache at the mere thought of more scientific mumbo jumbo.

  “No—this is about the Fort Greene PD.” Nick tapped on the page, where Josh had scrawled something so quickly, even Nick took a minute to make it out. “I think it says, Chief Sorenson, FGPD meets…” Nick swallowed hard, backing away. “Governor Delaney, August 22nd.”

  “Barely a week before Josh was murdered.” Harper held my gaze, rage darkening his eyes.

  “There’s a receipt with it. Cireno’s. Josh bought a coffee there that day.” I grabbed the journal, turning over to the very last page and pushing it toward Nick again. “This one. What’s this say?”

  Nick licked his lips nervously, sadness in his eyes as he peered at the final note. “Sorenson on the take,” he read. “Can’t trust him. Can’t trust Delaney. Look for Derek Stillwell. Keep him safe. He’ll have proof. Love you.”

  I felt my throat tighten, a lump in it rising and falling down into my stomach. It settled there, cold and metallic and hard.

  “Welp. Keep him safe—that’s you, sunshine,” I finally rasped, reaching over to take Derek’s hand in mine.

  And even though Harper and Nick could see it, neither of them said anything. As for Derek, he squeezed my fingers tight.

  He didn’t pull away.

  16

  Derek

  Nick broke out a loud, jaw-aching yawn as Harper finished up the dishes. He reached up, wrapping his arms around Harper’s neck and tilting his head back to stare up at his Alpha with a sleepy smile. “I’m spent, babe. Wanna call it a night, head to bed?”

  “We’ll pick back up with this tomorrow.” Harper gave Kaleb and I both a nod, his gaze lingering on us for a moment with a smirk on his lips like he was about to make a crass joke. Apparently thinking better of it, he let Nick drag him off to bed. “G’night, you two. Don’t stay up too late.”

  After Harper and Nick had disappeared into their bedroom, part of me felt like I should have been excited. Late nights alone with Kaleb King were beginning to feel like a special kind of prize for me. A reward from the universe for doing the big, dumb, brave thing that had simultaneously given Kaleb a breakthrough lead in his investigation…and ended me up on an FBI Most Wanted list.

  There was just one problem—one thing I needed to mention to Kaleb if we were going to keep enjoying these late nights together.

  Unfortunately, Kaleb’s attention was still focused on that last line in Josh’s journal. Love you, Josh had written in it. And as much as I was aching to say my piece, it didn’t seem right to tear Kaleb away from his brother’s last words to him.

  “It’s like he somehow knew that you and I were…” Kaleb finally said, but before he could finish his sentence, a pink tinge appeared around his ears. “I mean—not that I think this is, ah…”

  I squeezed his hand a little tighter. Ever since he’d reached for me, I hadn’t let go. It felt too nice, doing something so simple as holding hands with Kaleb. His calluses were rough against my soft palms, his fingers warm and perfectly fitted for the spaces between my own. It was incredible, in a way. I’d had him inside me, for fuck’s sake. Only a few days after meeting him, I’d spent a morning coming all over his chest. But this tiny gesture, the weight of his hand on my knee, his palm pressed against mine…it was simultaneously more wholesome than sex, and somehow more intimate, too. Sex was one thing. So easily written off as just blowing off steam. Holding hands like this…

  I sighed, hating to break the comfort of the moment and knowing that I had to anyway.

  “My heat’s over,” I said softly. “I think it started petering out this morning.”

  Kaleb’s eyes locked on mine, a flash of worry shooting through the enchanting swirl of blue and green and dark gold. “Is that normal? Or…”

  I shrugged. “It might be nothing. I was expecting it to ease off by now anyway. But given our, ah…lax attitude toward condoms… It could mean our little romp in the hotel was a bigger deal than we realized at the time.”

  Half of me expected him to panic. The one time that Chase and I had been the victims of a broken condom, he’d about lost his damn mind over it. I could still hear Chase’s normally deep voice shoot up an entire octave in my mind. Oh, fuck! Oh, shit! I can’t be a dad, dude. I’m not ready for this—we’re not ready! Oh shit, oh fuck, oh shit…

  But Kaleb King wasn’t Chase Connor. Thankfully, I was no longer sleeping with a man who referred to the person he was sleeping with as dude, either.

  “Well, we’re both adults. Heat of the moment might’ve gotten the better of us…but we both knew that it was a possibility, right?”

  I swallowed hard, nodding. “You’re not mad, then?”

  Kaleb frowned. “Why the hell would I be mad? Wasn’t like it was your fault. I could’ve rolled you over and pulled out if I wanted to.”

  “And I could have pulled off of you,” I admitted. “But…I don’t know, Kaleb. Sometimes Alphas tend to, ah…put the responsibility of not getting pregnant on the Omega’s plate, I guess.”

  “Idiot Alphas, then. I’m not mad, Derek. I don’t regret it either.” Kaleb stared down at our clasped hands for a moment, then held my gaze. “Do you?”

  I shook my head immediately. “No. No, of course not. Anyway, it’ll be a couple of weeks before a pregnancy test will show positive or negative either way. I’ll take one then. Like I said, there’s no immediate reason to be worried. My heat’s never lasted all that long before. Could be nothing. Not worth worrying about right now, at least.”

  Shuffling a little closer to me in his chair, Kaleb slipped a knee between mine and used his grip on my hand to pull me against his chest. “Should’ve been more careful,” he whispered into my ear. “I’m sorry, Derek. Even if it’s nothing—last thing you need right now is a pregn
ancy scare to worry about.”

  “Stop it,” I told him, relishing the warmth of his neck against my cheek. Kaleb’s arms were strong and steady. Wrapped up in him like this, it was impossible to worry about pretty much anything. Kaleb King had a special way of making me feel entirely safe. Completely at ease. “We just agreed that we had equal parts in this. You warned me you were going to come. I was just, ah…”

  Kaleb chuckled, stroking the back of my head. “Heat-crazed. I know. So was I. Wanted to come inside you so bad…”

  “I wanted it too,” I whispered. “I wanted it too.”

  I pulled away slowly, tracking the expression of Kaleb’s face with care. He didn’t exactly look upset by the possibility that we’d royally fucked up here, but I could see him mentally kicking himself still. Trust a man like Kaleb King to hear the words, We’re both to blame here, and still decide that it was entirely his own fault.

  “You wanna go to bed?” Kaleb asked, reaching up to cup my cheek in his hand. “This note from Josh…I think it’s hit me pretty hard.”

  I laughed. “And then I dropped a bomb on you right after. I’m really sorry, Kaleb. I just…didn’t want any secrets between us, I guess. You’ve trusted me so much in this so far. Didn’t seem right, holding this back from you after everything you’ve done for me.”

  Kaleb returned my smile, moving his thumb across my cheekbone. “Don’t apologize. Can I ask you a favor, though?”

  “Of course. Anything.”

  Rising, Kaleb pulled me to my feet as well, drawing me against him and pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Was thinking maybe it might be nice if we cracked into that book that Josh left you. Wild and Free…seems like as good a time as any.”

  I laughed again. Wild and Free—that was a hell of a title to dig into now that the possibility of a baby was hanging over both our heads. “Together, you mean? Not to burst your bubble, honey, but it’s going to be awkward to try to read the same book at once.”