by Aiden Bates
“What is it?”
“Proof. Any questions you’re still wanting answered, they’re in here. At least, this is everything we know.”
Daniel’s eyes tracked the distance between us. Mud, puddles and trampled down grass. He must’ve also realized that I had no intention of coming to him.
He’d made me wait nearly an hour. For once, it only seemed right that he came to me.
Gingerly, Daniel picked his way toward me. “So this is everything you have connecting Bicroft, AFF and my father?”
“And then some,” I said with a nod. “We’ve connected the dots between Josh’s murder, Fort Green’s police chief, Sorenson, and that assassination scandal your father got swept up in, too.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed as he drew nearer. “The assassination thing is old news, Rusty. They caught the guy who was really behind it. Or did that not make its way in your notes?”
“It did, actually.” It was hard not to lord that one over Daniel. I fought back a smug grin. “Sorenson’s the guy who shot the suspected assassin. Couple that with Josh’s digging into this birth control thing, the timing of his murder, and the fact that Sorenson was in charge of the murder investigation…”
Mud squelched beneath Daniel’s feet as he came to stop an arm’s length away from me. Just close enough that he could take the journal from my hand.
Just close enough that I could smell his own cologne on the wind. Green and bright.
“That’s…concerning then, yes.” He flipped through Josh’s journal with slow, measured care. “But if the only other real connection here is money…your story’s still a little thin.”
“That’s why we need you to help us bulk it up. All signs point to Bicroft tampering with their pills intentionally.”
“Or did your friend Derek screw around with the pills behind Bicroft’s back?” It was Daniel’s turn to look smug. “The FBI seem to think so.”
His mention of Derek annoyed me. Did he really think that, or was he just trying to get under my skin?
“Yeah? You wanna meet my friend Derek and tell me that then?” I crossed my arms over my chest. My gaze was a challenge. “He’s pregnant with Kaleb’s kid. Gave us one of the key pieces of information we needed to pin Bicroft to this. You’d like him, actually. Reminds me of you in a lot of ways.” Let him stew on that. And then there was the kicker: “Lacks motive, too. Why the hell would one man up and decide that he’s going to fuck over the lives of all his fellow Omegas? My brother wouldn’t be all fuckin’ googly-eyed over someone like that.”
“And Bicroft doesn’t lack motive? Or do you think that they’re intentionally tanking their stock prices?”
“Maybe so. You know how these people work, Daniel. Their businesses, the people who work for them, their customers—they’re all nothin’ compared to the bigger picture. If Bicroft is in bed with AFF and your father, their CEO has something else to gain. If his business goes under, it’s no skin off his back. He’ll just start another.” Finally, I let a smile spread across my lips. “Maybe he’ll run for congress, too.”
“Something else to gain.” Derek scoffed. “Something like what?”
“That’s. What. We. Need. You. For.” Explaining all of this to him was getting on my nerves more than I wanted to admit. I was never the wheelin’ and dealin’ type. I wasn’t like his father. Didn’t have Kaleb’s patience or Harper’s charms, either. And Josh—I didn’t have any of the people skills that had made Josh a good journalist. When I came in, I came in swinging. Hard, rough and unrelenting. Handling Derek with kid gloves like this just felt wrong.
Once upon a time, he’d liked me for that.
“Look. You can keep the journal for as long as you like. Josh was better at all this than me. He tells a compelling story in those pages.” I nodded to the book in Daniel’s hands. “The lines he’s drawn are all ones that make sense. He didn’t even know about you, for fuck’s sake. None of my brothers did. We all stumbled into this bit by bit. This is just how the pieces came together. Now, we just need the evidence to present it in a way that would stand up in court.”
“Sure—but speaking of court.” Daniel snapped the journal shut. “Isn’t this the kind of thing that the FDA ought to be investigating? I’m sure your brothers are all excellent detectives, but it would make a lot more sense to step back and let the law do its job, don’t you think?”
Finally, I took a step toward him. My boots sank into the mud immediately, rooting me close enough I could feel his breath against my neck.
“We’d let the law do its job if the law had any interest in it.” I’d known that since back when I was a kid. When you’d spent as much time on the wrong side of the law as I had, you weren’t so surprised when they turned out to be as crooked as anyone else. “We’re up against people here who are the law, Daniel. Super PACs with more money than I’d even know what to do with. Heavy hitters with the kind of resources that, when they decide you’re bothering them…”
Daniel’s face went a shade paler. “They kill you. Right. I…I understand that, Rusty. Really, I do. I know that…that Joshua’s death seems like it was surrounded by some pretty suspicious circumstances. I know how this all looks on paper.”
“You do?” That admission nearly knocked me back a step. Probably would have, if I wasn’t already so deep in the mud at our feet.
Daniel’s eyebrow twitched with satisfaction. “You’re not the only one who’s done a little digging on this.”
“So you can see where we’re coming from,” I said slowly.
“I can. And if you really think the people behind this are killing off anyone who gets in their way…”
“They already have.”
He pressed his lips into a firm, thin line. “Then you’ll have to build your case like Joshua was trying to. Go public with it, the way Joshua would have as a journalist.”
“And we can’t do that without you. Not now that we suspect your dad might be pulling some of the strings.” I reached out to him, then hesitated. We both had our problems with our dads, sure. But now was probably not the right time to try and soothe Daniel’s by brushing my fingertips against his cheek. Old habit. One that was hard to fight back. “I know this has all been hard to hear. I know seeing me again…that’s something you didn’t want. For whatever reason.”
“Oh, I think you know exactly why—”
I blinked, taken aback by the venom in his voice just like I had been the other day. “I don’t, honestly.”
“Excuse me? You don’t—”
“But this ain’t about you and me.” I said the words firmly. Whatever he thought I’d done, digging into it now was going to take us down a road that I didn’t think either of us were ready to walk down. We had to stay focused. And for this to work…I had to stay detached. As best as I could, anyway. “This is about Bicroft, and AFF, and about my brother’s murder. Please, Daniel. Just…do me a solid and tell me what you can?”
He held my gaze for a moment. His brown eyes were the color of rust on old iron, layers and layers of it that not even I could get through to see how he really felt.
Then, he looked away.
“Sorenson.” He changed the subject with ease. “He killed the guy who killed Dad’s political opponent. That whole assassination thing, it was stressful for my dad. He raged about it nearly the whole year.”
I let out a sharp laugh. “Did he, now? Way I remember it, he was completely calm. At least, when the cameras were on, anyway.”
“Yes, well. He’s good at that.” Daniel flipped the pages of Josh’s journal open again, searching through the pages until he found the one where Josh had detailed Sorenson in profile. Daniel’s thumb pinned down a picture tucked between the pages, an old news clipping that showed Sorenson’s face. “He’s Fort Greene’s police chief now?”
“Yep. Gave Kaleb a sinister kind of talking-to while Kaleb was trying to do some investigation on the side. Kaleb’s DC police now. Thought it was a little off, that he’d have not
hing but piss and vinegar to say to one of his own.”
“I…I can’t be one hundred percent certain, but…I think I’ve seen this guy before.”
“On the news, after he shot the assassination guy?”
“No. No, before that. Back when Dad was governor, he had a chief of staff.” A little light flickered in Daniel’s eyes. “Guy by the name of Kelsey. Governor Kelsey now. You might’ve heard of him.”
“I’m not as politically savvy as you, Daniel, but I do read a paper from time to time.”
“Yes, I’m very impressed.” Either I was hallucinating, or there was a flash of a smile on Daniel’s lips. Even in that single, brief moment, it sent fireworks going off inside my chest. “Anyway. I’ve known Kelsey since I was a kid. Dad used to throw these awful, bourgeois events at our house—”
“Booj-what?”
Daniel rolled his eyes. “Champagne, little sandwiches. Fancy people bragging about all the fancy things they’ve done.”
“Right.” I tucked the word away for later. I might’ve read the news from time to time, but I’d skipped as many high school English classes as I could get away with.
“Governor Kelsey attended a lot of them. And once, maybe twice…” He shook his head. “I can’t be sure, but I think this Sorenson guy was there at Kelsey’s side for some of them. Could be wrong, though.”
“But let’s say you’re not. Let’s say you’re right.”
“If I’m right, it ties Sorenson to my father. It’s not much, but…it’s something.”
“Something’s better than nothing right now.” A glimpse of my little girl in the window. A gap-toothed smile at me before Daniel drew the curtains and hid her away.
“It’s all I can give you right now, anyway. I’m not sure what more I can realistically do. I’ve got a job now, a kid—” Our eyes met again, but Daniel wouldn’t hold my gaze. “And it’s not like my father’s just going to confess to something like this.”
“Not asking you to put yourself in harm’s way.”
“Of course not.”
“Not asking you to jeopardize the life you’ve built yourself, either.”
“I wouldn’t let you, Rusty. Not after—”
After what? I was dying to ask, but I couldn’t. Not right now, anyway. Not when I still needed Daniel as an insider on this thing. Bringing up our past only threatened to send him running away again. It was something I couldn’t risk.
“I get it. But if you can give me anything else—even if you think it’s nothing. We need something that we can act on. More leads like this possible connection between Governor Kelsey and the Chief. Money or favors—the way power flows for your dad and his people. Those are things that we don’t have access to.” I nodded in his direction. “Things that only you can give us.”
“Then I’ll keep my eyes open and my ears peeled. I can mention Kelsey to my father, maybe. See if he lets anything slip.” Daniel bit his lip. “I mentioned the rumor about a connection between him and Bicroft this morning. He brushed it off, but admitted that he and AFF have…strikingly similar feelings about birth control. If he hadn’t…I don’t know that I would’ve showed up here today.”
“And I appreciate that you did. Really.” I tucked that bit of information away too, right there with the Sorenson connection and boozh-wah.
“But this isn’t my area of expertise, Rusty. I need you to remember that. Politicking and interrogating…I’m not like my father. I don’t know how to do any of that.”
“It’s your world,” I pointed out. “Like you said. You keep your ear to the ground and your eyes to the keyholes. Give us a little glimpse into things and maybe we’ll be able to put something together. Something that can bring all these fuckers to their knees when we do.”
“Of course.” That earned me a smile. A real one. It sent the fireworks off in my chest again in full force. Daniel always had liked my thoughts about the establishment and exactly where they could shove it.
And I had even more of those opinions now than I had when we first met.
It was stupid. And it was a long shot. But since the business part of our meeting was over, and Daniel didn’t have anything else for me…
Hell. I had to ask.
“Our daughter…” I began, not really knowing where to go from there.
Daniel’s smile softened into something a little sadder. “Lissa. What about her?”
“Do you have any…pictures, or anything? Maybe it’s not my place to ask, but…”
Daniel paused, then nodded. He fished his phone out of his pocket and scrolled through it for a moment, then cocked his head for me to come his way.
The mud sucked against my boots as I moved for him, but I fought it off with ease. Coming around behind him, I peered over his shoulder at a photo album as he flipped through it.
Lissa. Little blonde-haired Lissa, riding on a carousel with a tentative, scared smile on her lips. Lissa’s hazel-green eyes, one hidden behind an eye patch with a pirate captain’s hat perched atop her head. Lissa frowning, fumbling with a fake hook as she tried to settle its cuff around her tiny fist.
“She likes pirates, huh?” Lissa. After all these years, it felt good just to know her name.
Daniel laughed. “Loves them, yeah. It’s been a minor obsession ever since she was about three or so. Dad hates it—he still doesn’t understand the difference between that Johnny Depp franchise, those Somali pirates who were taking those boats captive a while back, and downloading the new Avengers movie off of The Pirate Bay, but…”
“That’s cute.” Just that one bit of information was enough to make my heart expand to the point where I was pretty sure it’d explode here in a second or so. “That’s really fuckin’ cute.”
“Yeah. She has a copy of Treasure Island that she really likes. Another of Peter Pan. I have to keep reminding her that Captain Hook is the bad guy, but…”
I don’t know what came over me. Or, I did, but I wasn’t thinking when I did it. Whether I meant to or not, in that moment, there was no stopping me.
I wrapped my arms around him from behind, curling him up into a bear hug that wouldn’t quit. Even when his shoulder’s stiffened at my touch. Even though he didn’t move the entire time. Not until I let go and backed away again.
“Sorry. Just, um.” I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling like a jackass. Obviously, there’d been a boundary there. A boundary that I had barreled through without so much as a thought about how Daniel might feel as I broke it down. “Ah, fuck. I’m sorry, Daniel.”
“It’s…it’s okay.” Daniel’s voice was strained as he squared his shoulders and straightened his jacket.
“You…you must love her a lot.” It was true, of course. All too obvious for me to have pointed out. I just didn’t know what else to say.
“I do,” Daniel confirmed. He turned to me, offering a tense smile. “She’s a good kid, Rusty. Easy to love.”
I watched him walk away. Stood there like an idiot in the mist and mud and wind until his tail lights were out of sight.
I knew that I should be focusing on this connection between Chief Sorenson and Governor Kelsey. I knew I should be excited about it, even. Trying to figure out what to do with the lead, where to follow it now that it’d been placed in my hands.
But all I could think of in that moment was my daughter. She loved pirates. She had my eyes.
Her name was Lissa, and in the moment, that was the only thing that I could hold in my head.
10
Daniel
Three days later, I could still remember the feel of Rusty’s arms wrapped around me.
At first, it was uncomfortable, like wearing an itchy sweater in the wrong color that was one size too small for me. I felt it as I made coffee the next morning. The sudden flashback to that moment in the park when he’d hugged me made me jump so hard I dumped half a cup of sugar into my mug.
I felt it again that afternoon after I made a home visit. The Alpha and Omega I had to check up on were f
ormer opioid addicts. Both of them were veterans who’d sustained injuries overseas. When their doctors had prescribed painkillers instead of sending them to the more expensive option of physical therapy, they’d both spiraled out into addictive patterns of behavior. One overdose and several months of rehab later, they were readjusting to family life together with their twin daughters.
Unlike some of the families I saw, they were actually doing pretty well. I left feeling optimistic about their chances of getting their lives back on track. But it had made me feel sad, seeing how tired they both looked. They were struggling to find full-time work. They’d each had to miss a shift just so I could come around and make sure the house was clean and there was food in the fridge.
That time, when I felt Rusty’s hug, it was a little bit of a comfort. The warmth of his chest pressed up against my back, radiating even through the fabric of my coat. The strength in his arms. The safety I’d felt in them in that moment—however brief it had been.
It had been a long time since I’d been hugged by another adult, I realized. Lissa’s tiny enthusiastic hugs were usually enough to perk me up after a long day, but sometimes it was…kind of nice to be the little spoon.
Over the next few days, I indulged myself in the memory of that hug over and over again. I felt a little guilty about it at first, but it wasn’t like I was hurting anyone by just remembering it.
Rusty had hugged me, and maybe I’d even kind of liked it. Or at least, I’d liked the feeling of being held. That memory got me through a rough house visit on Wednesday and a huge stack of paperwork on Thursday.
As I was finishing up on Friday, I was handed a last-minute file for a new case. As soon as I opened it, my heart plummeted down into my stomach. I felt zero guilt at all when I found myself retreating back into the memory of that comfort I’d felt in Rusty King’s again.