Except getting through Braker’s catatonic state would take surgical precision, the kind Reece had never learned. And since March his empathy felt about as controlled as an angry bear on a fraying leash. “Maybe we should call a stronger empath. Cora Falcon, at the Seattle Veterans Medical Complex, is—”
“We tried her already. She’s not answering her phone.”
He frowned. That was unlike Cora. “Did you try the hospital? She works first shift, maybe she got there early.”
“We tried that too. I know it’d be controversial, getting an empath involved in this murder, but—” The EMT let out a frustrated huff. “Nothing we try helps.”
Reece couldn’t care about controversy, not when more red was blooming on the gauze beneath Braker’s nose. “Why haven’t you moved him to the ER?”
“We were about to and then we got the orders.”
“Orders?”
“Staff already on-site can care for him but no new doctors.” She gestured at Braker again. “And no hospital.”
That didn’t make sense. “Who could give an order like that?Whywould you give an order like that?”
“I have no idea,” she admitted.
Reece was in no state to use empathy—hadn’t been in months. But Braker was in a worse state that he was. “He can’t consent to my read,” Reece pointed out, but he was already moving to sit on the edge of Braker’s gurney. “And evidence obtained with empathy is inadmissible in court. The defense might move for everything he says to be thrown out because an empath woke him up.”
“I don’t care about legal hypotheticals,” she said impatiently. “I care about his life.”
Reece did too. He stared at the man’s blank eyes, his too-slow blinks. “I don’t know if I can help him.”
“No reason not to try, though, right? Procedural and privacy issues aside, they said in basic that empathy itself is safe as snuggles.”
Reece huffed a half laugh at the ridiculous metaphor. “It is. Empathy can’t hurt anyone.”
Lie.
He stilled.
Lie?
Reece touched gloved fingers to his lips. How? Lies wereintentional; the speaker had to believe they were lying. He’d been telling the truth.
“See?” she said. “If it can’t hurt, you should try.”
“I, uh. Right.” He tried to push his confusion to the side. There was a catatonic man who needed help, and there was no part of Reece that actually believed empathy could hurt anyone. “I—”
In his pocket, his phone vibrated again.
Oh no. No, Reece wasn’t going to look at that—except he’d snuck away to the ambulance, and his stupid guilty empath conscience was already pulling the phone out of his pocket.
Another text, from an unknown number, and this one made Reece’s heart stutter.
Don’t touch the witness
Chapter Three
Austin; Phoenix; Los Angeles; San Francisco. Four crime scenes; four dead empaths. Four stories skipped by all news outlets; four police reports redacted to the point of uselessness.
This is some bullshit.
—Detective Briony St. James’ personal notes
The wooden dock shifted under Jamey’s feet as she strode quickly past rows of rain-slick moored yachts pearlescent against the blackness of the choppy sea.
