“No.” Reece said it quietly, but firmly. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt for me.”
“I’m going to deal with Grayson,” Jamey said to Liam. “Will you wait for me?”
Liam nodded. “Whatever you need,” he said. “I trust you.”
Not a lie, Reece vaguely realized, and then Jamey was pulling him deeper into the station.
She took him past security and into one of the small rooms where they interviewed witnesses, closing the door behind them. Reece dropped into one of the plastic chairs while she remained standing at the glass door, staring through the blinds. His mouth still tasted like vomit. With her nose, poor Jamey could probably smell it.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She shook her head. “Not your fault.”
Not a lie, but that just meantshebelieved it, not that it was objectively true. He watched his sister watch the police station outside their room. “Grayson wanted me to tell you to cancel the trip to Alaska.”
She glanced at him. “You talked to him again?”
“The dick threatened to have some jogger’s car thrown in the ocean if I didn’t.”
“The car? But not the jogger?”
“So what?”
“It’s a threat that’s effective on an empath, but without any violence. Not what I expected from the Dead Man, that’s all.” Jamey pulled something from her pocket and tossed it on the table. “Alaska’s not an option anymore anyway; Liam’s dad’s plane is busted. All I have is this.”
Reece picked the driver’s license up. “My detective sister got me a fake ID. Normal people would make some kind of joke about missed opportunities for underage drinking.”
She scoffed. “Us.Normal.”
Reece pocketed the license. “But if not Alaska, then where? What are we going to do now? Grayson’s already here.”
“He is,” she said, tenser than usual. “Did he tell you what he wants?”
Reece shrugged helplessly. “He’s not really an explanations kind of guy.”
“You would know. Because apparently now you get personal calls from the Dead Man.” She turned back to the blinds, her jacket moving enough to reveal her holster.
Reece quickly averted his eyes from the gun. He was enough of a mess as it was. “What if he knows, Jamey? What if he knows I hear lies?”
“That’s not why he’s here.” Before he could ask how she could say that with such certainty, she twitched, and he knew she was hearing something he wasn’t. “Speak of the devil.” She frowned. “The unexpectedly handsome devil.”
Reece followed her gaze out through the blinds. Grayson was cutting a line through the station, the tallest one in the room but moving with graceful strength just like Jamey did. Heads turned as he passed, and Reece could plainly see the emotions play out on their faces: curiosity, envy, suspicion. Attraction.
But from Grayson himself, he got nothing, not one single emotion. It gave Reece the creeps. “Who’s afraid of the big, bad Dead Man?” he muttered.
“You are,” said Jamey.
That wasn’t a lie either.
“There’s nothing I can do, Damian.”
Agent Nolan sat back against the driver’s seat of his Explorer, mouth in a tight line. This was the third time Assistant Director Jacobs had given him this useless response.
The marina was empty now, devoid of both press and police after Grayson had cleared the scene. Grayson, who had listened to Nolan spill everything he’d seen in the ambulance and then let him go without a backward glance, driving off without threats or adon’t tell anyonewarning.
And now Nolan knew why. “He assaulted me.”
“You said he pushed you against his truck. Did you assume he was some useless piece of teen girl eye candy and pick a fight, only to get your ass handed to you? You wouldn’t be the first.”
