Nichols and Marist both looked to Traynor.
“Evan’s right,” Traynor said, and he didn’t sound happy but he did sound firm. “Yes, we monitor empaths, but EI policy is not to interfere unless there’s a reason we should.”
“All of them are eventually going to give us a reason,” Nichols muttered. “It’s just a matter of time.”
There was a murmur through the room.
“Funny, the way I see it, the empaths themselves will never give us a reason to worry,” Grayson said. “I keep my eyes on the folks who can’t stop messing with them.”
The room went silent.
Grayson leaned back against the wall again, arms folded. Everything he’d said was the truth. Reece himself hadn’t given anyone a reason to worry. He was another victim in the whole mess, targeted by unethical people who had wanted to see if they could use a stranger’s pain to corrupt him. Completely innocent.
Well. Except for two tiny snags that none of these directors knew about.
For a couple minutes on the roof, Reece had taken full control of Stone’s emotions.
And Reece could hear lies.
“Look,” Traynor said, addressing the table. “If there was any chance the empath could be dangerous, Agent Grayson would have taken him down. He is the best defense we’ve ever had against empathy, and there’s no one we can trust to make a rational, unemotional decision more than the Dead Man. If Agent Grayson says we need to leave Reece Davies alone, then we will.”
The Dead Man wasn’t supposed to hide things from the empath agencies, especially not secrets about empaths. But empaths had never before been known to develop an ability like hearing lies without also becoming corrupted. Reece had somehow managed it; was caught in some kind of liminal state where he had some of the enhanced abilities that made corrupted empaths so dangerous, but with all the pacifism of an uncorrupted empath.
It was supposed to be impossible. Reece’s existence disproved countless papers out there. Every scientist at EI and Stone Solutions would want to know how it had happened.
Might want to know if it could happen again. Might be willing to chance making more corrupted empaths—or finishing the job with Reece—to make it happen.
Grayson had seen firsthand in November that not everyone in the empathy defense circles could be trusted, and so he wasn’t going to trust anyone else with the truth about Reece.
Was Reece at risk of becoming actually corrupted? Absolutely. Was Grayson going to keep an eye on him and make sure that wasn’t happening? Obviously.
Was the Dead Man going to step in and stop Reece if corruption did set in?
Without question.
Grayson’s watch buzzed.
Reece: Jamey and Liam went to find more boxes, it’s too quiet. What were we listening to in your truck a couple weeks ago, while you were flagrantly violating all of my city’s traffic laws? The one in Spanish, I want to play that.
But unless Reece became an actual threat, Grayson would see to it that he was left alone to bitch behind the wheel in peace.
He texted Reece the name of the Puerto Rican artist as the meeting broke up around him. But as Grayson pushed off the wall, Director Traynor called his name. “Evan! A moment?”
This was going to be the real reason Traynor had wanted him at the meeting. Marist was also lingering as Grayson strode over.
Traynor gestured at one of the vacated chairs. “Have a seat.”
Grayson had flown too much and driven too many rentals in the three weeks since he’d left Seattle. Hours crammed into plane cabins made his body restless, and his six-foot-five-inch frame was too tall to drive most cars without his knees constantly banging the steering wheel. He’d had the driver’s seat adjusted in his truck, but he’d left that back at the Seattle airport. “I’ll stand.”
“Suit yourself.” Traynor reached down to grab a laptop bag from the floor and extracted an accordion file. “Here.”
Grayson took it. “What’s this?”
“Everything EI and Stone Solutions have been able to learn about the empath found murdered in Burlington this morning.”
Grayson’s gaze snapped to the folder. He reached in and pulled out the first picture. White woman dressed for winter, maybe late twenties or early thirties, her face bruised and cut. She was lying on ice-frosted grass, brown eyes staring into space and bloodstains soaking the snow under her head. Her gloved hands were crossed on her chest.
He set the picture down on the table between Traynor and Marist. “I don’t recognize her.”
