She had his first name and a topic. Was that enough to find his blog?
Gretel set her still-cold coffee on the desk and got back in the chair.
Grayson’s first call outside the AMI high-rise was to Diesel at the Salt Spring Island safe house, where he was recovering with Dr. Easterby.
“Hey, Blondie.” Diesel sounded a little rough when he answered the phone, but then, spending days as a mad scientist’s prisoner did a number on you. Grayson would know. “What can I do for you?”
On a night not long ago, but somehow a million years gone by, Grayson had hopped an emergency flight from Burlington, Vermont, back to Seattle and found Reece fleeing the fake empath club, McFeely’s, and brakeless on I-5 thanks to an act of sabotage. When they’d finally gotten Reece’s Smart car safely stopped, Grayson had sent it to Diesel’s cousin’s auto body shop for repairs. But since Reece was driving around in Grayson’s stolen truck, his car was still waiting at the shop.
“You think your cousin might be open to some extra work on Mr. Davies’s Smart car this afternoon?” Grayson asked. “It’d be hell of a rush job, but I’d pay like it.”
“I bet he would. Andre loves a challenge,” Diesel said. “What did you have in mind?”
St. James arrived on-scene just as Grayson was hanging up with Diesel. They stood together on the sidewalk, watching the chaos still surrounding the AMI store as an unmarked Stone Solutions ambulance that looked like a plain delivery van pulled up outside the building.
Grayson nodded at the ambulance. “That’s for the thralls they found in the dressing room. They’ll be taken to Stone Solutions’ private hospital in Kirkland—heavily sedated and on life support, obviously.”
“And no question this time that they were thralls.” St. James frowned. “Who do you think barricaded them in a dressing room? They probably saved a lot of lives.”
“One of the store patrons, maybe,” Grayson said. “Could’ve been one smart, brave soul in the crowd.”
“Hmm.” St. James didn’t look convinced. “We don’t know which empath made the thralls.”
Grayson tried to keep his voice on the nicer side of flat. “Considering my texts, I think Reece is the obvious answer.”
“Not necessarily,” she countered. “Mr. Eton and Mr. Pelham are Stone Solutions security who didn’t report to work today. They could have been thralled last night by any of the three empaths.”
It was a stretch, but Grayson let it go. He had something else he wanted to ask for from her.
He told her his idea, and she agreed and left to make it happen. He then spent the next few hours cleaning up the mess Reece had left behind at the AMI store, to the unenviable soundtrack of Vivian Marist, Beau Macy, and the entire Stone Solutions board of directors ranting about public image. Beau had, of course, immediately brought up the possibility of an empath conspiracy, and even if he fortunately still had no idea what kind of empaths were actually behind this particular event, there were still gonna be some messy media clips that weren’t gonna help the public view of empaths.
Finally, though, he’d had the Prius towed and called a ride to Andre Lane’s auto body shop to pick up the Smart car. Now he drove—carefully—through downtown, finding the entrance to the parking garage for Liam’s building off one of the less-trafficked streets. In the garage, he followed memory up the ramp to the spot Reece had once directed him to park in, back when they’d arrived together in the truck, that night in Seattle a few days and a million years away.
He inched the Smart car into the spot assigned to the studio. The upgrades Andre had put in were exactly what Grayson hadasked for—and not quiet. By the time he’d parked, four people were watching him, their eyebrows up as he unfolded himself from the driver’s seat and awkwardly got out of the tiny vehicle. Admittedly, even alone, at his size he probably still looked like an entire circus exiting a clown car.
As he stood, he could see over the edge of the parking garage and down to the street below. The coffee shop where Keith Waller had once stalked Reece was closed for the night, but Grayson could hear a bar nearby, voices spilling out into the night. The other tenants had already disappeared through the glass doors into the elevator bay as he came around to the back of the car and popped the hatch. He held up his phone, making sure a full view of the engine was visible in the frame. He didn’t want Reece to miss it.
“We’re gonna see how you like someone helping themselves toyourwheels,” he muttered as he snapped a picture.
He locked the car and, instead of following in the others’ footsteps, found the fire escape and stairs to the lobby’s office, where St. James had left Liam’s key with the office manager. He took the elevator from the lobby up to the fourth floor. As it rose, he caught his reflection, the dark circles beneath bloodshot eyes, the three days of stubble on his jaw, the grease in his limp hair. The past few days sure hadn’t done him any favors.
He found the apartment number, unlocked the door and stepped inside, gaze darting around the studio. They’d gotten ahold of the building’s security footage from the garage and elevator cameras, but there hadn’t been any leads that way, and in the chaos of the last few days, St. James had only had time to peek in the apartment itself and confirm Reece wasn’t staying there.
Grayson moved through the small space, taking the time now to do a deeper search.Someonehad obviously been through the apartment at some point. The furniture had been left behind, including the television on the wall and the screen thatpartitioned off the bed, but the drawers and closet had all been emptied. The dishes remained in the cabinet, the top shelves still empty like he’d ribbed Reece about, and the pantry held a handful of staples like dried noodles, sugary vegan cereal and shelf-stable plant milk.
But Grayson had spent a night here too. And when he and Reece had left together for the airsoft course the next morning, his duffel bag had still been on the coffee table, the comforter and pillow folded on the couch he’d slept on and his toiletries in the bathroom. Now the comforter and pillow were on the floor, his bag was gone, and the bathroom had been emptied of everything, even his products—a crying shame when Grayson’s hair was in desperate need of deep conditioning.
He almost could’ve imagined his night here with Reece—until he searched the messy unmade bed and found something familiar wedged into the crack between the mattress and the wall: the University of Texas hoodie he’d given Reece.
He tugged it loose and held up the wrinkled garment, the memories rising with it. Reece had slept in the hoodie the night they’d spent here together. Had Reece somehow snuck past the cameras and cleaned everything out, leaving the hoodie on purpose? Or had the empaths sent thralls, who probably wouldn’t even have seen the hoodie tangled in the sheets?
Grayson set the sweatshirt to the side. Didn’t matter. Either way, nothing surprising about finding the sweatshirt left behind; probably more surprising he hadn’t found it in the dumpster. Looking for any sign of the old Reece in this new Reece was for St. James and Dr. Easterby. For people still capable of feeling hope.
Not the Dead Man.
Grayson sat on the edge of the bed. Someone with a typical sense of smell wouldn’t have caught it, but a familiar scent still lingered on pillowcases.
In the airsoft course’s parking lot, their bare hands touch, Reece’sskin warm against his own. But Grayson is the Dead Man, and so he has to scramble to catch the suddenly unconscious empath before Reece tumbles off the truck’s tailgate and crashes to the gravel. He gets Reece in his arms just in time and holds him upright against his chest, the same subtle scent of his hair directly under Grayson’s nose—
