Jesus. Braker was dead, just like Egner, and Taylor, and the businessman and the fake empath from the bar, and all the rest. A giant stack of empathy-connected deaths in a span of hours. This was the nightmare the Dead Man was up against.
Grayson leaned over enough to see behind the bar, then shook his head. “I don’t understand why there were only three.”
“Onlythree?” said Jamey.
“Ms. Falcon is an empath who’s been reading veterans for years. She wouldn’t march to battle with only three soldiers.”
That was a good point. “So where are the others?”
Grayson’s gaze darted around the club. “Hiding?” he said slowly, then his eyes snapped to hers. “Or—”
“Or this wasn’t a real battle,” she realized in the same moment. “They were never meant to stop us. They were meant to distract us.”
But as she spoke, she heard the roar of a souped-up engine out on the street beneath the chaos. And then the screech of tires.
A second later, Grayson and Jamey were both sprinting for Frodo’s office.
Diesel was still there, leaning on the wall next to the door. He held up his hands, the Shirley Temple glass now empty on the floor. “No one’s been in or out. And I promise I didn’t open it, just like you asked, even when I heard the crash—”
Jamey pulled him aside as Grayson kicked the chair away and yanked open the door.
The office was empty, one giant window broken and a rope made of tablecloths still dangling through it. Grayson’s coat was tossed on the floor nearby.
Jamey and Grayson were shoulder to shoulder at the window a second later, staring down at the last of the fleeing clubgoers and a street now devoid of cars except her Charger.
“Your brother stole my truck,” said Grayson.
Escape? Sure. Butstealing? “He wouldn’t,” she protested, even though Reece obviously had.
“He’s in big trouble.”
“Oh, come on,” she said. “He’s a great driver, he won’t even ding it.”
“Not that,” said Grayson. “He stole my truck to runawayfrom a crowd of terrified people in danger. I can only think of two reasons an empath might’ve done that, and I’m betting it’s because he found a bigger danger to run to.” He shook his head. “But what?”
Reece’s words suddenly came back to Jamey, too high and too breathy as he fought a panic attack behind the wheel.
At least now I know why Cora hasn’t called me back.
Oh no. “I have to go.” She turned away.
Grayson got in front of her, blocking her path. “Do you have some idea?”
“I’m not sharing it with you, empath hunter.” She twisted around him.
But he was back in her way.
“I’m not hunting your brother. I’m trying to save Seattle. And I’m trying to savehim.” Grayson held her eyes. “It’s like standing at a cliff’s edge and wrangling a lemming in a hoodie. But I’m trying. So please: tell me what bigger danger could have found him while he was locked in Mr. Frazier’s office.”
She hesitated. Thought of handcuffs and bobby pins. Of safe houses bought that day. Of Aisha Easterby’s words,Grayson’s not your enemy.
She pressed her lips together, then said, “Reece tried to call Cora this morning. They’re friends. She has his phone number.”
Grayson’s gaze went past her, back to the broken window. Then he darted around her, ducked under the window frame, and jumped.
Jamey blinked. She stuck her head out the window frame and saw Grayson unhurt on the sidewalk below.
He looked up at her. “You coming?” he called.
