Reece stared at his phone in shock. A picture of Vanessa Whitman was on-screen, her wide eyes shot through with far too much red.
Cora’s message was below.
Orca’s Gate Marina dry dock. 30 minutes. Come alone.
The crowd stampeded down the stairs like spooked cattle. Jamey pushed in the opposite direction of the flow, her eyes on the far end of the room.
There was no sign of Grayson—or Cora, and when did an empath become a worse thought than the Dead Man?—but at the back of the room, where ropes and a curtain marked off the VIP area, the door to the VIP room was cracked.
With Grayson’s Magnum at the ready, Jamey shouldered it open.
A gasp of surprise escaped her. Officer Josh Taylor stood in the center of the room, flanked by two men in security guard uniforms. All three of them were holding their bodies unnaturally still, their dead gazes fixed forward—on Jamey.
On the floor were the tiny fake empath in bunny ears and the man in office attire, their bodies crumpled in poses too broken to be alive.
“Josh.” Jamey’s gaze darted from the bodies back to her officer. “What’s going on?”
Taylor didn’t answer. He only blinked, too slowly. And then he moved.
Jamey and Taylor had worked together for three years. Taylor was formidable for most crooks, keeping himself in great shape. He’d been brave enough to spar with her once at the gym, and she knew exactly what the man was physically capable of.
So she was completely unprepared when his boot connected with the gun in her hand faster and harder than he’d ever been able to move.
The gun careened to the wall, and then she had to duck as his fist came flying at her face. She grabbed his arm and used his momentum to spin him toward the bricks, but he turned it into a dive, and when he rolled back up to his feet, the Magnum was in his hands.
He wiped at his eye in an automatic sort of way, gaze never leaving her. And when his hand came away, his cheek was bloody.
And he lunged for Jamey again, just as the two security guards did the same.
Reece stared at the picture of Whitman on his phone’s screen.
Outside the door of Frodo’s office, he could still hear the panicked crowd tearing through the warehouse. Was Cora responsible for Egner’s dead body in the server room too? Based on the terror on Whitman’s face, it seemed possible.
If Reece had the chance to find Cora and stop her—saveher—he had to try.
He looked up and around the office, from the heavy desk in the middle of the room with its stacked tablecloths, to the floor-to-ceiling windows, to Grayson’s coat resting on a nearby chair.
His mind offered a truly terrible plan.
But it wasn’t like he had another choice.
Reece grabbed the coat and dashed to the desk. As fast as he could, he tied tablecloths together with weaver’s knots, then secured one end of the makeshift rope to one of the legs of the desk.
He glanced out the window to the street below. Everyone running away from the building, nobody milling in front of it. It was as safe as he was going to get.
He picked up Frodo’sWorld’s Greatest Bosstrophy. It was heavier than it looked, maybe actual bronze. He hefted it in both hands and, with a silent apology to Seattle’s historians, swung it through the air and let go.
The original window of the nineteenth century warehouse shattered on impact, the trophy smashing on the ground a story below, thankfully without hitting anyone. Reece kicked out persistent shards with his sneaker, then fished Grayson’s keys out of his coat pocket and grabbed the end of his tablecloth rope.
He paused at the window frame, looked back at the heavy desk, and held his breath as he climbed through the window.
It held his weight. He let out the breath, braced his feet against the old brick wall, and began to climb down.
No one paid any attention to him as he picked his way down the bricks as fast as he could. He jumped the last couple feet down and was instantly lost to the crowd, just another escapee.
He sprinted down the block, keys clutched tightly in one sweaty fist, weaving and dodging to avoid touching anyone until he made it to Grayson’s truck.
Reece unlocked the truck and clambered up into the driver’s seat. “Come on,come on,” he said through clenched teeth as he had to move the slow electronic seat forward to reach the pedals. He shoved the paltry MPGs from his thoughts; getting all the way to the marina in his remaining minutes would mean speeding anyway.
