Chapter 29

Dix groanedas he sat up. Lord, he ached. Moving all the things from Doc's place to their new one, plus lugging his stuff from his old apartment, provided a stark reminder that he wasn't a kid anymore. Still, at least they'd gotten everything, and he now had a warm, sexy man in his bed as reward for his efforts.

Except he didn't. The spot Doc should have been occupying was empty and cold.

Dix got out of bed and strode naked into the living room. Doc sat at the table, surrounded by stacks of papers, two laptops, and one vociferous cat demanding attention.

Her latest mewl brought a chuckle from Doc, who scritched behind her ears. "I need you to be patient, Coby. I'm gonna find out who the hell these people are, so that you and me can live here with Dixon and be a family."

Dix swallowed the lump in his throat. Doc had said the words. So what if he'd said them to their cat? He'd still said them.

"How can I help?" Dix asked from the doorway.

Doc jerked his head in Dix's direction, and for a split second, his gaze was on Dix's cock, which had also woken up. Then he gave Dix a beseeching glance. "Coffee, please," he said in a plaintive voice. "And put some clothes on. Having you walking around like that when I can't take advantage of you is just cruel."

He had a point.

Dix went back into the bedroom and pulled on a pair of shorts, not that they did much to hide his burgeoning erection. He glanced down. "Go back to sleep," he whispered. "Nothing to see here." Then he headed to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. Once it was dripping, he leaned against the door jamb, his arms folded. "What time did you get up? Or should I ask if you've even slept?"

Doc rolled his eyes. "Duh. Why do you think I need coffee?"

"Doc—"

That earned him a hard stare. "No, Dixon. This isn't open for discussion. These people have already killed so many others, they shot me, and we have no idea what they're planning next."

As much as Dix wanted to drag Doc back to bed and insist he sleep, he couldn't. Not yet.

"You're right." He kissed the top of Doc's head. "Sorry."

Doc tilted his head upward and smiled. "No, don't be. I can't tell you how much I love that you want to take care of me, but I need to be sure you're safe too." He winced. "Can I have a couple of painkillers with my coffee?"

Dix fixed him with a narrowed look. "Is it bad?"

"It's just there, and I don't want it to get worse. Pain makes thinking more difficult."

He returned to the bedroom and picked up the bottle of pills. His phone rang, and he glanced at the time. It wasn't even five yet. This wasn't going to be good news, and it sure as hell wasn't gonna be someone offering Girl Scout cookies.

No one ever offered Girl Scout cookies anymore.

When he saw Chalmers's name, he groaned. Fuck, now what?

He answered with a growl. "What happened?"

"How do you know something has?"

"You're calling me at too-goddamn-early o'clock. So spill."

Chalmers let out a sigh. "You don't have to worry about Mordaunt coming after Josh again."

Dix froze. "What? How? He was in solitary confinement, for fuck's sake."

"They delivered his dinner last night. He took a mouthful, then grasped his throat. Less than twenty seconds later, he was dead."

Someone sure didn't want Mordaunt talking to anyone.

"It gets worse," Chalmers added.

Dix let out another groan. "I don't see how it can."

"A jogger found the body of a young man along the Oxbow trail."

He did the math. "The real Allen Bennett." Poor kid. Dix had seen Chalmer's report. Bennett was too damn young to die.

"Yessir. His throat had been slit. We told Mordaunt we'd found him, and to give him his due, he did seem regretful. We had hoped it would get him to talk to us." Chalmers huffed. "Apparently someone else worried about the same thing."

"But how could they get to him?" Dix demanded. "You're telling me they got through your security?"

"The meal was poisoned. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make sure Mordaunt couldn't talk." He cleared his throat. "There's something else. My boss? The one who allegedly sent me after Josh? He's disappeared."

"What the fuck?" This situation was getting out of hand.

"Thirty years as a fed, and he just up and… vanishes."

"What are you doing about it?"

"We've pulled phone and bank records. We've checked the footage of his security cameras. I've been looking at his most recent meetings." There was a pause. "His wife is beside herself. She says this isn't like him at all. He missed their daughter's graduation."

They were quiet for a moment. "You think he's dead, don't you?" Dix had to admit, everything pointed in that direction.

Chalmers sighed. "I don't know. Probably. I should have been suspicious of the mails. Yeah, Carson and I did a lot of things by mail, but he's never sent me on a mission like that. I checked with our forensics people, and the mails came from Carson, but they were… I dunno, off? I should have caught it, and I'm sorry."

"Don't," Dixon said. "Don't beat yourself up over this. Someone is playing us all, and honestly, I'm sick of it."

Chalmers rubbed a hand over his neck. "Man, this whole thing is so fucked up. Who stands to benefit?"

Dix gritted his teeth. He didn't want to tell Chalmers anything, but now he was embroiled in this whole mess too. Dix told him to hang on, then went into the living room where Doc was staring at his laptop. He pressed Mute so they could talk without Chalmers hearing until Dix was given the okay.

"Doc?"

He looked up, his eyes unfocused. "Yeah?"

Dix quickly went through what Chalmers had told him. "I want to fill in the gaps. All the gaps. Everything from the beginning. Are you okay with that?"

Doc smirked. "See, you two can play nice together." The smirk morphed into a grin. "Give it some time and you'll be besties forever."

"Fuck off," Dix groused, which had Doc laughing until he got a pained look. "Doc, you okay?"

Doc winced, then gave a wry chuckle. "So I guess that's what they mean by only when I laugh. Yeah, tell him."

"You sure?"

"This is getting way too big for CrossBow. It goes into places we can't get access to, so we might need more help than we can get on our own. Tell him."

So Dix did, starting with the suspicious mail Doc had gotten from his former coworker, Cliff Tanner.

Josh removedhis glasses and rubbed his eyes, which felt as though they were falling out of their sockets.

I'm so tired.

He knew he should be taking things easier, but returning to CrossBow had lit a fire under him. He had no idea whether someone else would come after him, but he didn't rate their chances of getting past Gary's defenses.

He brought his attention back to the main computer screen of the three he'd set up on the dining room table, grateful for its size. Clearly Dixon had planned for guests at some point. The letters and numbers were still swimming for him, however, so there was nothing else to do but take a break. For a moment, he wished Dixon hadn't gotten the call from his office, but then he regretted the thought. I need to get used to it. As the operations manager, Dixon's time wasn't really his own. At least I'll have Coby for company when Dixon isn't around. The kitty seemed to adore Josh, although he thought that had less to do with Josh's affinity for animals, and more because he kept plying her with treats when Dixon wasn't looking.

Coby mewled, and he stroked her ears. "You know, before you showed up, I was useless at taking time to relax. You're going to change that, aren't you?" He smiled to himself. "But then, I was a different man before Dixon walked into my life."

Before….

Why did that one word resonate inside his head?

Josh sat still, trying to focus, to follow the threads and pull them all together.

Kingsman, Georgia…. All those people who died…. What if that wasn't their first attempt, but simply the most successful? What if they did it before?

He put Coby on the couch, much to the kitten's dismay, revealed in her rather indignant grumbles, and rushed back to the computer where he typed in "mass poisonings in the US." When the links appeared, the scale of what he was seeing staggered his mind. Entry upon entry, mostly from town newspapers talking about how residents had eaten or breathed or come into contact with something that poisoned them. None of the episodes were lethal, but many people were very sick for months afterward.

Josh bookmarked the sites, his heartbeat racing.

Please, let there be some kind of common denominator.Because there had to be.

He scanned the pages, and one name caught his eye again and again. In each place, after each disaster, the Systech Corporation—a company he hadn't heard of—seemed to have organized several humanitarian efforts to help those afflicted. They'd gone in with fresh water, food, clothing, and more. They'd helped clean up the issues that left so many debilitated. Josh read comment after comment from people affected by the devastating and unexplained events, and a common theme emerged—the swiftness of Systech's response compared to that of the government, dismissed as useless. There were testimonials, pages of them, singing the praises of Aaron Spencer, the CEO and owner of the company.

The more Josh read, the more he liked Spencer. Wherever there was a natural disaster, Spencer had put people on the ground within hours, working with the residents. He'd spent vast amounts of time and money doing what the government would have taken months to accomplish, assuming they could agree on things long enough to work together. It was surprisingly altruistic.

Who is this guy?

Josh was intrigued enough to do more research into Spencer's life, and found himself tumbling down the rabbit hole. At thirty-six, he was the only child of Maria and John Spencer. He was rather good-looking—nowhere near as good as Dixon, of course—with dirty blond hair, deep blue eyes, and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache.

Josh grinned. He's a PR person's wet dream. Then the alarm went off on his pad. And just what are you supposed to be doing? Checking out handsome philanthropists? Aaron Spencer was nothing but a distraction. He turned back to the table?—

And froze.

Aaron Spencer. Whose company kept cropping up. Aaron….

Have I just discovered the identity of the mysterious AS?

Josh sloughed off his fatigue and went back to the articles he'd bookmarked, his excitement building. He found links to several videos of Spencer winning awards for his humanitarian efforts. Many of them were from the smaller communities that had been hard hit by storms, but threaded among them were also ones of people whose towns had been struck by mysterious poisonings. Each time, Spencer and his people had swooped in and cleaned up.

Josh frowned. How come no one asked how they could mobilize a coordinated response like that so quickly? Maybe it was possible, with the right mix of people.

Maybe.

Josh went back to the first video, aware of something roiling deep in his stomach. Spencer stood at a podium, his cornfed good looks on display as he got a local award, his first one ever, he said. The people were appreciative of the work he'd done to clean out the poisoned water system that had sickened dozens of residents, especially the very young and the aged.

He sounds so confident.

Spencer answered questions from the audience, and one response stood out in Josh's mind. Someone asked why he'd decided to help, and Spencer smiled.

"Because Americans will always do what is necessary to come out on top."

Okay, what does that mean?

The next one appeared similar: Spencer on a stage, microphone in hand, thanking the people of Tulbanks, Arkansas for the award, and how proud he'd been to step in and help with the poisoned ground that had contaminated the food grown in the town. Josh did a bit of digging. The report was a few years old, but as far as he could ascertain, there hadn't been any sicknesses prior to that, which he would have expected if the problem lay in the ground. What was also strange? The government had stepped aside and ceded the cleanup to Spencer. Josh dug a little deeper, but there'd been no response from any other agency that he could find. It was as if they knew Spencer would take care of it and let him get on with it. All of this added up to what amounted to a pile of stinky baby diapers.

Something—or someone—was full of shit.

Josh clicked on more links. Over the course of the next few years, Spencer appeared more frequently to garner greater accolades. What had initially been small towns had grown to bigger cities, with Spencer and company stepping in and taking care of whatever problems cropped up. It didn't surprise Josh that eventually someone asked Spencer the question that had been burning in Josh's mind.

Based on your popularity, Mr. Spencer, are you considering running for office?

Spencer said no. In fact, he said it over and over again. He had no interest in politics, he swore. He only wanted to help people. Josh understood that. His lawyer paid out about a hundred million dollars every year to various charities, more if they'd had a good year. Josh didn't believe in making profits. He wanted to fulfill his Grandma's dreams of taking care of people.

Maybe I'm looking at this all wrong. Maybe Spencer isn't AS after all. Maybe he's nothing more than a really good man. Josh clicked on one more video link, resolved that this would be the last. But as he listened, cold inched its way through his veins, spreading to all his extremities.

The national award ceremony had taken place earlier that year. Spencer had been named "Humanitarian of the Decade" for all of his charity work. He got on stage, giving everyone an "oh shucks" look, but Josh wasn't looking at Spencer's body language.

He was looking at his eyes, and hoping to God he was reading them wrong.

Once he'd listened all the way through, Josh went back to the start, still cold, still shaken. Spencer gripped the mic and stared at the clutch of reporters gathered in front of him.

I thank you for this award. It means more to me than I can say, but I'm not accepting it on my behalf. No. This is for everyone who's been involved in trying to make the country better, one community at a time. And as I stand before you now, I recall the question someone asked a couple of years back. "When are you going to run for office?" At the time, I blew it off. I had no interest. We were doing good work, without the regulations that would stifle us.

And then, late one night while watching the news, I had an epiphany. Very few people in politics—local, state, or national—are actually working for the people. They bicker like children, while Americans suffer poverty, hunger, homelessness. The ones in control would rather quibble over things any logical person would know were meaningless, instead of tackling the big issues. And we see this repeated everywhere. Why? Because too many members of both parties are compromised. They're in the pockets of special interest groups, being paid to present their corporate masters' lies and make them respectable. Palatable, even. I don't need those people. I can do this on my own, with one clear, concise line of thinking, plus the goals and the means to achieve them. Now, while I would rather we do it together, it can be done without anyone's help if we have to. But it's got to be something people want. Real, legitimate change. Growth for all, not just the one percent. And I honestly believe that I'm the person to do that.

At first there was a hush, then a swell of noise rose as the audience screamed his name. Through it all, Josh noted Spencer's smug expression, as though he was about to be handed the keys to the empire. Cold swiftly gave way to ice.

That's what Spencer's been doing all along.

Building up his credibility with people, showing them he was good and benevolent, and now, in that final video, the mask came off, revealing who—what—he really was.

A snake, waiting to strike.