Reece rubbed his cheek. Now that he was aware of the bruise, he couldn’t stop poking it. “You never bring anyone with you to stalk me.”
“That’s not it,” she said impatiently.
“Why are you surprised I know the truth? You think I can do all sorts of crazy things, like mind-control pumpkins.”
“I don’t think you mind-control the—ugh.” She huffed. “This is different.”
Oh. “Because it’s aboutyou.” He rolled his eyes. “Why does no one care until things are about them?”
“Everyone in this city thinks I’m nothing but an ornament while my dad does the work. Everyone except you.” Her mouth was pinched. “Did you use empathy on me?”
“No,”he said, drawing the word out. “I’m just not a dick.”Lie.Reece pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look. Your problem isn’t that some empath you hate believes how smart you are and how hard you work. It’s that everyone you care about doesn’t.”
She pursed her lips. The conference room was silent for a long moment, and then she said, “Do you want to give your side of the story?”
“Not if you were the last blogger on earth,” said Reece. “I ran my stupid mouth and you put it all over the news.”
“I didn’t—”
The guard tapped on the glass window and made a frantic gesture. She muttered a curse. “I didn’t release my footage to the news,” she said hurriedly, and it wasn’t a lie. “My dad did that, without asking me first. Your sister is amazing. I want her looking for Hathaway’s killer, not suspended.”
Reece froze. “What?”
“You don’t know?” She glanced out the glass at the panicking guard, then darted forward and hit something on the remote. “You better watch,” she said, over the suddenly unmuted TV. “And if you change your mind about giving your story, call me.”
“But what did you say about Jamey?” he demanded, over a loud commercial for a mattress. But she’d already slipped through the conference room door and was hurrying away down the hallway.
“—Reece Davies, an empath, is in custody tonight after allegedly breaking and entering into Stone Solutions, makers of anti-empathy defenses—”
Reece looked over at the TV in horror.
The local news was back, and rolling grainy security camera footage of Reece from tonight, as he entered the front doors of Stone Solutions in Grayson’s hat, Liam’s glasses and blazer, and with his bare hands where everyone could see.
“Davies is the half brother of Detective Briony St. James of our own Seattle Police Department. An investigation has already been opened into Detective St. James’ record, with the public and now the mayor calling for her job as Davies’ crime tonight opens up new allegations of his unnatural influence on his sister and the SPD.”
Reece covered his mouth with his hands.
The footage switched back to a reporter in a plastic poncho, dotted with rain as they stood just outside the building Reece himself was in, in front of the Stone Solutions sign at the campus’s entrance.“The SPD has yet to release a statement, but sources tell us Detective St. James has been indefinitely suspended from the force. Stay tuned for more on this story.”
Diesel watched as the black SUV pulled up to the yellow curb directly in front of McFeely’s. The driver’s door opened, and a woman with a ponytail and glasses came around the back, rocking the brainy look. Very cute.
“Dominique Lane?” she asked, eyeing his shoulders and arms.
He nodded. “Are you Dr. Easterby?”
“Yup.” The neon lights of the café next door caught her throat, which was mapped with a twisting scar. Brainy,toughchick. But who didn’t have scars of their own? She reached for the tailgate of her SUV as she added, “Agent Grayson said you’d be expecting me.”
He was. Grayson had sent him a polite but unchallengeable text, and Diesel wasn’t going to ask how he’d got his number. This wasn’t Diesel’s first rodeo with tough guys, but Grayson obviously wasn’t a typical cowboy.
“The club’s got a break room we can secure, ground floor, behind the stairs. It’s all his.” Diesel reached in his pocket for a set of keys and held them up. “Can I help?”
“If you don’t mind.” Easterby opened the hatch of the SUV, revealing an unconscious man in a suit, handcuffed with duct tape over his mouth.
Diesel glanced back at her. “I’m better off not knowing the details, aren’t I?”
She gave him an approving look, not just for his shoulders this time. “You really are.”
The night was busy but more or less back to routine when a police cruiser pulled up in front of the club, just as Easterby had. A thirtysomething white man in uniform climbed out of the driver’s seat and fixed Diesel with a strangely blank stare.
