Alien in the House

with him so he didn’t die alone. And thank God Eugene took that bullet instead of you. He was a cold-blooded murderer. You’re not.” Reader hugged me. “You’re a protector. We all are. That does make it harder to deal when we feel like we’ve failed to actually protect.”
    “Like I have tonight.”
    “Like we all have tonight. But you haven’t failed.”
    “Feels like it. Feels like I have no idea of what’s going on anywhere, either. You all have private jokes—” Stopped myself before I sounded like a jealous, whiney baby.
    Reader hugged me again. “I know you feel left out. But your job is to ensure the Diplomatic Corps functions as it’s supposed to. Keeping our Diplomatic Corps protected is part of my job now.”
    “What about keeping Jeff safe? If Vance is right, he’s now a target.”
    “
If
Vance is right. Look, I’m willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt based on you telling me he’s been hiding that he has a functioning brain, but right now, it’s just another crackpot theory tossed out. But regardless, of course we’re going to be protecting Jeff.”
    “Tell me how you’re going to do that on the House floor. I’m dying to know.”
    Reader sighed. “We’ll find a way, Kitty. I promise. When you and Jeff and Christopher were in charge you always found a way. Give the rest of us the credit of believing we’re close to as good as you guys were.”
    Felt bad and like I’d hurt his feelings. “That’s not what I’m trying to say and you know it.”
    “Yeah? Well, two people were murdered, basically in front of me, Tim, and Serene, and we weren’t able to stop either death from happening. We had a tip that there was going to be a problem and still couldn’t stop it.”
    I jerked. “Wait a minute. A tip from where or whom?”
    “No one we know.”
    “No one I know, no one you know, or no one anyone knows?”
    “It wasn’t a straight tip, more of an assumption based on a lot of information. Intel came from Camilla, derived from the work she’s been doing for Reynolds. I know we can’t tell if we should trust her or not, based on the word of someone who might be the missing Colonel Hamlin, might be an android pretending to be Hamlin, or might be someone else who either lied to Buchanan or was in league with him.”
    “Why would Malcolm knock himself out the way he’s knocked out?”
    “In-fighting? No honor among thieves? There’s really no one main Mastermind? I can keep going. We don’t have enough to believe anyone right now, Hamlin or Vance or Camilla. But precedent says that Camilla’s brought us real, actionable intel. The other two are unknown quantities.”
    “And Camilla was right,” Jeff said. “Something bad happened, and if Hamlin is the real deal, a ‘captain’ from the invasion did show up.”
    An idea formed. But it was small and somewhat vague and I was tired. Decided to sleep on said idea before I forwarded it, in part because I had a feeling only Vance would take it seriously. That I was connecting with someone I still thought of half the time as an asinine twit wasn’t comforting.
    “Okay, I’ll stop worrying for right now.”
    Reader chuckled. “I don’t believe that. But just remember that we’re here to help and protect you, not to be avoided because we’re going to get in the way or cramp your style.” He hugged me again. Realized he was hugging me and I hadn’t been hugging him back. Rectified that situation and felt Reader relax a little.
    “You don’t cramp our style, James.”
    He chuckled. “Right. I know you miss being an active part of Alpha Team. But you’re doing your job as Head of Recruitment really well.”
    “So you claim.”
    “So I know. Now, get a good night’s sleep, what’s left of it, and I’ll see the two of you in the morning.”
    Jeff walked Reader to the door. Heard them talking quietly, but not for too long. Then Jeff was back. “Ready for bed, baby?”
    “What did you and James talk about where I couldn’t hear?”
    “I told him that I wasn’t going to let you go anywhere alone, and reassured him that where we were both going was straight to bed.” His eyes closed a little and he got the “jungle cat about to eat me” look on his face. “We might even go straight to sleep.”
    “God, I hope not.”



CHAPTER 44
    W E STARTED GETTING UNDRESSED, rather slowly. Not doing sexy undressing so much as helping each other get our clothes off in a relaxed manner.
    I could have