Reece looked up.
Nolan was standing in front of his hood, gun up again. “Out of the car.”
Reece jammed his key in the ignition. The electric engine started with a soft whine.
Nolan’s nostrils flared. “Last warning.”
Reece almost wanted to laugh.Hysteria, his mind helpfully provided. He held Nolan’s gaze and deliberately fastened his seat belt.
The vein in Nolan’s neck pulsed. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Move out of the way,” said Reece.
But Nolan stood his ground, a wall between Reece and the road. “Reece Davies, you’re under arrest.”
“You’re stealing Grayson’s lines.”
And with a twist of the steering wheel and a stab of the gas, Reece took his car right up onto the sidewalk and sped away, leaving Nolan, the sushi house, and Grayson behind.
Chapter Nineteen
Subject behaved exactly as predicted in running toward potential trigger without gloves. Contact was made; however, no changes have been observed other than normal trauma response—withdrawal and isolation, depression, acute anxiety. A connection between subjects and triggers may be required; strongest connections are being identified for all subjects.
—unsigned case notes from March
The rain-slick pavement shone and the downtown lights glittered as Reece tore up the ramp onto I-5 under the silver-clouded night. He kept his eyes glued to the road as he did ten miles under the speed limit in the middle lane. The hand still wrapped around the steering wheel was trembling as he fumbled for his phone.
Jamey answered on the second ring. “I’m on my way to HQ. Is Grayson—”
“Cora might have killed Hathaway.”
Jamey cursed. “Reece—listen—”
There was no surprise in her voice. “Youknew,” he said in shock. “You alreadyknewit was her. Why didn’t youtellme?”
“I was trying to protect you from exactly the nervous breakdown you’re having!”
Oh no. Jamey believed it was Cora. Jamey must have hadreasonsto believe it was Cora. “How can it be her? I will swear on my empath grave that when I saw her yesterday, she wasn’t capable of this.”
“Yesterday?” Jamey’s voice cracked. “You saw heryesterday?”
“Yeah,” said Reece. “About my nightmares. She read me and passed out.”
“Nightmares.” There were so many emotions in Jamey’s voice, Reece couldn’t pick them apart over the phone. “You were at the same hospital as Hathaway yesterday and you didn’t think you should tell me?”
“I didn’t think it mattered! I didn’t for one second think Cora was involved in the mur—in Hathaway’s mur—”
“Don’t try to say it.”
He laughed, and yes, that was definitely hysteria in it. “At least now I know why Cora hasn’t called me back.”
“Reece, you’vegotto calm down,” she said, and Reece tried to find his sister’s steadiness somewhere in the phone’s circuits, the voice he’d relied on all his life. “I don’t think Grayson would have told you about Cora. Are you alone? Where is he?”
“Having sushi? Right behind me? Who the hell knows—”
Someone honked behind him, sending Reece’s heart into his throat. A second later, a car darted out from behind him into the left lane and blew past him.
“Did I just hear ahonk?” Jamey said in shock.
