He settled more deeply into his stiff, uncomfortable foldout chair and kicked his legs onto the coffee table. All eyes were on him. For once, he’d acted like a polite host and given his comfortable furniture to his guests. Fine, they’d beaten him to them. “I’ll play the message again.” He reached out and pressed the series of buttons needed to start his voice mail.
“I only have a minute.” Jaxon’s deep voice echoed through the room. “She’s in the shower. I’m fine. Recovering. My abductors are dead. Something more is going down, though. Until I find out what, I’m staying put. If any human females are captured and placed in lockup, do not allow agents inside their cells.” Pause. “Spray’s off. Shit. Talk again soon.”
Another round of silence.
“She?” Mia finally asked. “Shit? Since when does Jaxon cuss?”
“Where’d you trace the call to?” Lucius asked, unconcerned by Mia’s irrelevant questions.
Dallas shrugged. “Signal was rerouted through New China and what remains of Singapore. Look, here’s what I’ve been able to discover so far.” He explained about the abduction, about the blue Delensean skin cells found at Jaxon’s house, and about the mysterious case Jaxon had been assigned a week before his disappearance.
“Jack didn’t give details about the case?” Mia asked.
“Only that Jaxon’s unique skills were needed.”
“Unique skills.” Mia tapped a nail on her chin. “So he had to interrogate someone.”
Dallas shrugged. “Or several someones.”
“And Jaxon didn’t talk about the case with either of you?” Eden asked.
“No,” they answered in unison.
Jaxon’s secretiveness was highly unusual. Since Jaxon and Dallas were close as brothers, they helped each other out; they had each other’s backs. So, to Dallas’s mind, there was only one reason Jaxon would have kept quiet: the knowledge would have put Dallas in danger.
“I did a little investigating on my own,” Dallas admitted. He’d broken into Jack’s office. “Have any of you heard of a race called the Schön?”
Lucius groaned. “Your man’s in trouble if that’s the case he’s working. Definitely explains his desire to keep agents away from captured female humans.”
“Why?” Mia straightened. “Who the hell are they and what are you talking about?”
“You want to explain or should I?” Lucius asked Eden as he massaged her neck.
“I will.” Expression grim, Eden swept her golden gaze over the room’s occupants. “I was raised on Earth, but I had a Rakan tutor who taught me about my planet, my people, and their history. According to him, Raka was a peace-loving planet ruled by one man. One of his rules was that aliens were not allowed to enter and citizens were not allowed to leave. That didn’t stop a few from trying, however.”
“Uh, do I really need the history lesson?” A sense of urgency was rushing through Dallas. Eden had answers. He wanted them, not tutoring.
Lucius’s black eyes narrowed on him. “You better watch your tone.”
“And yeah,” Eden told him. “You do.”
“Fine. Sorry.” He waved his hand through the air. “Continue.”
She settled against Lucius’s chest. “A few weeks ago, several Rakans crossed the wormhole from their planet to ours. This happened in New Dallas. They saw my picture on the news. Since I was at an alien rights gala and obviously integrated into society, they hunted me down, wanting to do the same. They told me of war and disease.”
Dallas’s stomach clenched. “And?”
“They asked for my help. The Schön had suddenly appeared on Raka, infected its women and some of its men with disease, and then left as suddenly as they’d appeared. There were few survivors.”
Great. “What kind of disease? What was their purpose?”
“The men couldn’t tell me much about the disease. They’d never been exposed to sickness before and had no way of handling it. No doctors, no hospitals, no medication. What they could tell me was that the Schön seemed to need their women. As the females died off, the Schön weakened.”
The otherworlders were here for survival, then. Dallas wondered why Jaxon would keep that from him. When it came to aliens, survival was the standard reason for their move here and better than the usual alternative: world domination.
Had to be something more. Something they were missing.
“I reported all of this to my boss,” Eden continued, “and was told to leave it alone and forget it. Speaking of bosses, who’s been in touch with yours? Who’s been feeding him information about the abducted agent’s rescue and recovery?”
“Senator Kevin Estap.”
She paled, golden skin bleaching to an ashen yellow.
“What?” Dallas demanded, straightening. “Do you know him?”
A nod. “He runs special operations. Dangerous missions no one else will take.”
“Jaxon might be in more danger than we thought,” Kyrin said, speaking up for the first time.
Lucius fingered one of his eyebrow piercings. “Was he hooked into the isotope tracking system before his abduction?”
Dallas and Mia looked at each other, then the paid killer. “What’s that?” he asked.
Eden and Lucius shared a look, too. “They really keep you guys in the dark about some things, don’t they?” the male agent muttered.
Mia threw her arms in the air. “Just tell us, for God’s sake.”
Amusement sparkled in Lucius’s dark eyes. “You and Eden should mud wrestle.”
Eden slapped his arm. “Someone would have injected a glowing red liquid into Jaxon’s bloodstream, and you would have been able to monitor his whereabouts for a few months, pinning his location every minute of every day. Since neither of you know what I’m talking about, I think it’s safe to say he wasn’t injected.”
“Listen,” Lucius interjected. “If Senator Estap is involved, your friend has been in contact with Mishka Le’Ace. She is Estap’s right hand.”
“Well, that explains the she.” Mia uttered a stream of curses. “Le’Ace. Damn. Jaxon’s in big trouble.”
Eden’s attention whipped to Mia. “You know her?”
Fury skirted over Mia’s pretty features. “Yeah. She was my instructor once, and we’ve taught at the same A.I.R. training camp.” There was so much hate in Mia’s tone, Dallas felt sorry for the woman. Mia’s enemies always died painfully. “You?”