Page 29 of Broken Wheels

“I’ve spent a few hours poring over everything I could pull together, and there’s a pattern there. Cliff pinged everywhere he went. It’s like leaving a trail of digital breadcrumbs. He said he was in trouble. Maybe this was his way of letting someone know in case he ever disappeared.”

Dixon shrugged. “That sounds logical. Where did he last ping from?”

“Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That was all I needed to conduct a deeper search. Public records show that six months ago, Cliff purchased an abandoned property just outside the city limits.” Josh frowned. “What’s odd is that this is the location of the last ping.” He steeled himself for the head-butting to come. “I’m going there.”

“Uh, no, you’re not,” Dixon replied in a firm tone. Before Josh could protest, he added, “We’ll be going there together.”

“Wait—what?” He’d expected more of a battle.

Dixon chuckled. “I’m not stupid, Doc. If I say you can’t go, you’ll only figure out a way to do it when no one is looking.” He smiled. “If this is what it takes to help you find some measure of peace, then that’s what we’ll do.” He narrowed his gaze. “But we includes the four agents who’ll accompany us.” Josh opened his mouth, but Dixon held his hand up. “That part is non-negotiable.”

The man was infuriating, but Josh couldn’t argue, not when Dixon was allowing him to do what he believed was needed. “Fine. I’ll get onto the airline site and book us some tickets.”

Dixon shook his head. “No, we’ll take the CrossBow jet. I’m not about to have you on a commercial flight and have it be blown out of the sky.” He smirked. “Of course, after you dropped your bomb about the money, I’m kinda surprised you don’t have a jet of your own.”

Josh squirmed in his seat. “I… I do have one.”

Dixon’s brow furrowed. “Then why would you want to take a regular flight?”

He shrugged. “I don’t like to throw money around. I see how it makes people like Christopher act, and I want nothing to do with that.” His stomach churned. “And the truth is… I lost it.”

“Lost what?”

He swallowed. “My jet.”

Dixon’s eyes widened. “How can you lose a jet? I mean, it can’t exactly slip down the back of the couch, right? Why not just ask the pilot?”

Josh sighed. “They arranged for us to use a small, private hangar. It was nice, because it meant we wouldn’t need to deal with the big airport runways. I was so certain I remembered where it was, but my stupid head, as always, failed me.” Tears pricked his eyes. “You don’t know what it’s like. Forever being the butt of the joke. I know it shouldn’t bother me, but it still hurts. It’s why I won’t ask the pilot where we’d left it. I want to figure it out on my own. To prove to them I’m not an idiot.”

“Doc….”

“In the morning, I told him we were taking a commercial flight back. He wasn’t my personal pilot, so I was never going to see him again. I know the plane is out there somewhere, and one day I fully expect to remember. Until then, it’s my secret, so you don’t say anything.”

Dixon shook his head. “You are entirely too much, Doc.” He put a hand on Josh’s arm. “FYI? I was bullied a lot as a kid. I was skinny, gawky as hell. Couldn’t throw a ball, which in the South amounts to sacrilege. I had to work extra hard to rise above everyone else’s expectations. But after I hit the gym and got big? I realized I hadn’t done it for me—I’d done it for them. And you know what? It wasn’t worth it. The results were awesome for me, sure, but my reasons for doing it? Not so much.” He looked Josh in the eye. “Who gives a fuck what others think? You’re Doctor Josh Malone, and they’re not. What else do you need?”

Josh studied Dixon’s earnest expression. He liked Dixon’s way of talking to him. And there lay the main difference between Christopher and Dixon. Christopher was always talking at Josh, mostly down to him. Dixon wasn’t anything like that. Josh had never told anyone the whole truth about the plane incident, but he was sure Dixon would understand.

At least he hoped he would.

“Dixon?”

“Yeah?”

Josh found his courage. “I haven’t been completely honest with you. My whole life, I was the screwup. Busted for going beyond my reach by the government. Nothing but a way to make money for my parents. I was never just Josh—I was Wheels. I was… I was whatever someone wanted me to be, because it was easier than being who I was.” He took a deep breath. “When Grandma died and her lawyer told me I was in charge of everything? I told him to sell it all and donate the money because I knew, deep down, I wasn’t worthy of it.” Another pause. “Her lawyer, a personal friend of hers, told me Grandma was proud of me. She said no one else in the family deserved it. Then her lawyer reminded me that there are almost no cases of a self-made person. Everyone needs a hand now and then. So I tried. I really and truly did. But that meant making decisions.” He snorted. “Why do you think all my lab coats are the same color? Because that way I don’t have to make a choice—I just reach in and grab one. In the end, I turned over the business to the lawyer, who said Grandma had told him I’d do it.” Josh smiled. “Out of everyone in my family, everyone connected to me in some way, she knew me. Knew what I could and couldn’t do.” He sighed. “Anyway, the plane was hers. I hadn’t even had time to take stock of everything, and then suddenly it was, Hey, you need to go to this symposium and deliver the speech your grandmother intended giving. The reason I didn’t want to stay in the hotel was because I’d heard how they talked about me. How disappointed Grandma would be if she knew who or what I was.” He scraped his fingers through his hair. “I don’t even remember talking at the thing. I just needed to get out, because I was too freaked to be around people. My anxiety was through the roof. The plane not being where I thought it was? That made it a hundred times worse, because that just hammered home all the reasons I wasn’t worthy of Grandma’s legacy.”

“She obviously disagreed.” Dixon’s voice was soft.

“Yeah, well, shows what she knows. That plane? I had to hire someone to find it. When they did, I didn’t want it again. Every time I looked at it, all I saw was my failures. I like to say I don’t know where it is, because the truth reminds me how forgetful and stupid I can be.”

“Doc, that’s a common issue. Go look at my desk. I have a shit-ton of notes every day to remind me what I need to be doing at any given time.”

“Why not just set up the schedule on your pad? It’s what we have them for.”

Dixon’s cheeks pinked. “Technology and I aren’t the best of buddies. I… I can’t figure out how to use some of the features you built into it.” He brightened. “And now you know you’re not alone in not wanting people to think you’re stupid. I would hate for you to look at me that way.”

“I could never think of you as stupid,” Josh replied, doing his best to smile.

Dixon glanced toward the door. “Okay, I have to get back downstairs. I’ll set up the jet for tomorrow morning.”