Page 38 of Fatal Conspiracy

“Good, I’m starving,” she said, rubbing her belly. “I normally eat six times a day, which hasn’t been possible here.”

He rubbed her back and then leaned in to tease her lips in a gentle kiss. “Part of that is my fault, but I promise to make it up to you. Let me steal you away for a few days when this is over. I’ll feed you good food, we can drink expensive wine and get to know each other better.”

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she stared him down for several seconds before responding. “I’d love that more than anything, but it may not be a good idea, Derek.”

“Because I deserve to be with someone who looks different than you? A woman who’s ‘normal?’” he asked, using air quotes. It was her sad nod that broke him.

“And a woman who can give you children. I’ve learned that men want to pass their name and DNA down for generations. The buck stops with me.”

“This is the perfect example of why we should spend that time getting to know each other better,” he said with a smile as he trailed a finger down her cheek. “For instance, I don’t know who my father is. My mother does, but she’s never told me, and honestly, since he’s never had anything to do with me, it doesn’t matter. My stepfather adopted me when I was four, and he was the only father I’d ever known until he passed away five years ago. Passing my DNA down means nothing to me. As for sharing my last name, any child I love, whether through surrogacy or adoption, would still bear my name. Family is family, no matter how it’s made. Seems like you’ve already learned that being adopted as a child and now working for Secure Watch.”

“Fair,” she agreed with a small smile.

“And any guy who made you feel less than for something outside of your control is not a guy you’d want to share alife with anyway, in my opinion. You deserve so much more than that, sweetheart.”

Then he gathered her into his arms and held her, praying that she understood he could be the one to offer her everything.

Chapter Twenty-One

Alayah clicked her way through the video feed as she searched for Josh in the hotel. According to Derek, neither he nor Hugo had seen him before he’d left for the cabin, but that didn’t mean that Hugo hadn’t seen him before he died. Derek swore that wasn’t possible, but her line of work had taught her that anything was possible.

The remnants of their breakfast sat off to the side, but she continued to pick at the fruit as she worked. She’d learned to be a grazer, so you rarely saw her at work without food beside her. The team at Secure Watch had started grabbing her a snack and leaving it on her desk as they walked past. It reminded her of something Derek had said earlier about found family and how DNA mattered less than love. While he wasn’t wrong, in her case, DNA did matter. It mattered because it made her life difficult, so why would she ask someone else to deal with those same frustrations and pain when they didn’t have to?

Because sharing it with someone else can make the burden easier to bear.

She forced herself not to roll her eyes at the thought. It was nice in theory, but not so nice when the theory didn’t work out, breaking her heart in the process. “What’s that?” She paused the recording and pointed to the screen.

Derek leaned in and squinted. “I don’t see anything.” She backed it up again and slowed it down, pausing it again as she pointed to a shadow at the back of the stage. “It’s probably one of the convention employees helping connect his mic.”

They kept their eyes glued to the screen, hoping whoever was in the shadows would step out and be caught by the camera. Her finger darted out. “Look. Hugo is talking to the person, and his body language says he’s not happy.”

“Still doesn’t mean it’s Josh,” Derek said. “Hugo is always a hot mess before speeches. You should have seen him before his TED Talk. I wasn’t sure he would make it onstage, much less give the speech.”

She punched a few buttons, and the screen went blank.

“What happened?” he asked, glancing at her in surprise.

“I’m changing to a different camera angle,” she explained, waiting for the one to spool up to the time stamp she’d typed. “If we can see them from a different angle, we might be able to see what Hugo is saying.”

When her screen loaded, it was too dark to see anything. “So much for that,” she groaned, switching it back to the other camera. “We may not see who it is, but we know he interacted with someone before the speech.”

They kept watching, surprised when the exchange heated even more, and the mystery person stepped forward.

Derek gasped. “That’s Josh!”

Without thinking, she froze the frame. “You’re sure?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “He’s all pretty-boy elite all the time. That fancy suit vest paired with a T-shirt and chinos is his signature look. I’d know him anywhere. You didn’t see this the first time you played the video?”

“No,” she said, grabbing her pen. “I never went this far. My job was to follow the water bottle, not Hugo. When Itracked you, I followed you through the hotel to backstage. Then, when you left Hugo, I followed you out of the convention center to the parking lot. Of note, I was working the comms when Hugo was having this discussion with Josh. We didn’t hear any of this interaction.”

She clicked the mouse again, and the video continued to play. Hugo and Josh gesticulated wildly for thirty more seconds before Josh disappeared and Hugo turned, his face masked with anger. After several calming breaths, he fiddled with something attached to his belt.

“There,” Derek said. “He’d shut his mic off.”

“That explains why we didn’t hear them. Unfortunately, we can see their interaction but not hear it, which doesn’t help us much.”

“Other than knowing they fought about something. That’s not new, though. They were oil and water, so it could have been about whether the sky was blue. They were basically children.”