“It certainly does,” Beau said, chest puffed out.
Alex tilted his head, like he’d heard a sound no one else had. “I heard their only security used to be access cards. But after November’s break-in, they must have realized that cards are too easily stolen, right?”
“Absolutely,” Beau said. “They’ve gone to biometric security everywhere. After November, it was top priority to upgrade everything.”
Alex nodded slowly, head still tilted like he could hear something more than Beau’s voice. “What did they do for Mr. Stone’s office? I heard he was hospitalized somewhere secret; did they still get his fingerprints or retina scan?”
Beau cleared his throat. “Of course they did.” His gaze went past them, to another knot of people. “AMI has our conference coming up on Monday and I see our marketing head. Excuse me.”
“But, Dad—” Gretel started.
“It’s okay,” Alex said, under his breath. “I got what I needed.”
“You sure?” she said, also quiet.
“Definitely.” Alex’s lips curled in a tiny smile. “Your dad should work on his poker face, though. Those lies were probably obvious to the whole room.”
Gretel hadn’t picked up on any lies. Alex was so perceptive. “To great stories, in that case,” she said, clinking her champagne flute against his soda.
“Hey, aren’t you Mr. Macy’s daughter? The one who runsEyes on Empathsfor him?”
Gretel looked over to see Officer Stensby approaching, holding his whiskey, several inches taller than both her and Alex. “Notforhim,” she said coolly.
“That’s Gretel’s blog,” Alex said, just as coolly.
Stensby looked down his nose at him. “I didn’t catch your name.”
“I’m Gretel’s date,” Alex said. “Mr. Date, if you’re the formal type,” he added, which made Gretel snort behind her champagne. He gestured to an unimpressed Stensby’s glass. “Guess you’re not on duty tonight.”
“It’s nonalcoholic,” said Stensby, with a note of defensiveness.
Please. Gretel could smell the whiskey from here.
Alex had tilted his head again, in that listening way. “So what are you doing here then?”
“Police business isn’t exactly your business, is it?” Stensby said, more sharply.
“If you say so.” Alex seemed completely unintimidated by the much bigger Stensby. “We should talk more later tonight.”
For some reason, the tone of Alex’s voice made Gretel shiver.
It was fully dark when Reece finally made it to the southern end of Seattle and took an exit for Kent.
After Stensby had bailed from the doughnut shop, Reece had taken the rest of his bagel back to the car and checked his phone to discover he’d missed three calls and four texts from Grayson.
Can you talk right now?
A little later:
Call me when you get this.
Later still:
I need you to trust me: go straight to McFeely’s as soon as you see this. Once you get there, STAY there. I’m sending you their temporary address. Mr. Lane is expecting you.
And, sugar, if I ever get your auto-response when I’m trying to reach you again, I’m gonna give Eyes on Empaths an exclusive interview and tell everyone you’re an unsafe driver.
That was frankly diabolical. But it would be nice to see Dominique “Diesel” Lane, the gentle giant bouncer at McFeely’s, and Reece did trust Grayson—maybeonlyGrayson, these days, because as much as he loved Jamey, he didn’t trust her to stop him if it became necessary, not the way he trusted Grayson would. And so Reece followed the request and headed to the address Grayson had given him for the temporary location of McFeely’s.
