Reece ignored Nolan. “Cora didn’t kill Hathaway.”Lie. “It was someone else.”Lie. “It wasn’t her!”Lie.
Reece clapped a hand over his mouth, breath coming hard and fast. He’d seen Corayesterday. She’d listened to him talk about his nightmares. She’d read him and he’d go to his grave swearing she was pure kindness, pure sunshine.
He steeled his spine and whispered against his glove, “Empaths can’t turn into murderers overnight.”
Lie.
“You have the right to remain silent—”
Reece screwed his eyes shut.
Lies were intentional. He wouldn’t hear his own words as lies unless some part of himbelievedhe was telling a lie. Butwhatpart of him? What part of Reece believed Cora was a killer and he was a monster?
Chills broke out over his skin.
That morning, in the ambulance, he’d heard himself lie when he saidempathy can’t hurt anyone. But that wasbeforehe’d been at the police station—before Jamey and Grayson had told him how Senator Hathaway died.
Before he’d learned the killer was an empath, some part of Reece had already believed that empathy could hurt people.
Had he been lying to himself, hiding the truth, all the years he’d claimed to be harmless?
But how? How the hell could he keep a secret fromhimself?
Distantly, Nolan was starting up Miranda rights, but the ringing in Reece’s ears was loud enough to drown it out. Pressure was building in his skull, like he was in a plane descending too fast—and suddenly Reece was in his memories of Stone Solutions, reliving his encounter with the doctor, Vanessa Whitman, and her surge of fear.
“No!” Whitman’s shout is deeply panicked, cracking her mask—
Nolan’s voice came from far away. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law—”
Her eyes are wide, wide enough to show the whites around the irises—
“You have the right to an attorney—”
She yanks Reece away from the box too hard, her movements fueled by her adrenaline—
She’s scared of more than Reece having a panic attack.
She knows something Reece doesn’t.
Nausea rushed him, turning his stomach inside out as Reece hit the ground in his memories and again in the present.
“—if you can’t afford—fucking hell!”
Nolan’s curse echoed off the bathroom walls. He was scrambling to the side and Reece numbly realized he’d just puked all over Nolan’s shoes.
“Son of a bitch—” Nolan started.
Reece shot to his feet. He darted past Nolan, out the door of the bathroom, and staggered down the hall to burst through the swinging staff door into the kitchen.
The cooks and servers turned in shock and Reece froze, not knowing where to go—
“That way.” Ohayashi pointed toward the back of the kitchen and what looked like a delivery door.
Reece ran for it, stomach still churning, putting his trust in every kind line on the man’s face. He burst out into an empty alley, and his sneakers splashed in puddles of icy water as he sprinted for his car.
He’d just launched himself inside and slammed his driver’s door shut when he heard the shout.
“Freeze!”
