Grayson:Is that really how you’re going to play this?
“Playwhat?” Reece ground out, like Grayson could hear him. “Why do you never explain yourself—”
“Hey.”
Reece looked up at Cora’s voice.
She was standing in his doorway, her long braid rumpled where it lay over one shoulder, like she’d slept on it, and her expression grim. “You better come see this.”
She sounded uncharacteristically urgent. He shoved his phone in his pocket and threw back the covers, grabbing one of his old hoodies off the floor and pulling it over his T-shirt as he followed her out into the kitchen.
Alex was already there, at the table. They’d kept Eton’s and Pelham’s cell phones for information, and now he held one of them out to Reece, who stepped close and took it.
On-screen was an email chain involving several people with Stone Solutions email addresses. The subject line was short but shouty.
Smith dead??
Reece stared at the email, as uncomprehending as he’d been with Grayson’s and Jamey’s texts. “What the hell is this?”
“Stone Solutions’ head of security, Wayne Smith, was found dead in a storage closet this morning.” Alex’s own anger was simmering under his voice. “The last time he was seen was around 2:00 a.m. Staff was told it was a heart attack, but one of the guards on the email chain is swearing he heard Smith had blood tracks under his eyes.”
Cora took the seat next to Alex. “So either there’s another corrupted empath out there that we somehow haven’t met conveniently killing the head of security that we wanted to thrall...”
“...or, more likely, someone wants it tolooklike this guard was a victim of a corrupted empath killing to people in the know,” Alex finished for her. “The guard we wanted, who also conveniently has a history with you in particular, Reece. I bet the storage closet he was found in was the same one he once locked you in.”
The understanding sank in. “I’m beingframed?” Reece tore his gaze away from the phone. “At 2:00 a.m., I was buying doughnuts in Tacoma; they’re right there on the counter. You can both hear I’m telling the truth. I didn’t do this.”
“No, you didn’t,” Alex said a little more dangerously. “And I want to know who did.”
“He’s taking this personally,” Cora said to Reece. “Like a master vampire who’s pissed that his coven was attacked.”
“People could at least do us the courtesy of blaming us for therightdeaths,” Alex said. “After all, if they want us to murder our way through Stone Solutions, we can certainly oblige.”
Reece blew out a long, hard breath. His stomach was roiling with every kind of anger and the deep desire for vengeance, to fucking wellobligeanyone who wanted him to stack up bodies.
But deep, deep down, buried under the fury, he could sense another feeling he didn’t want to have: the painful ache of loss for Smith.
It made him even angrier. Why the hell should he be sorry Smith was gone?
Alex was getting to his feet, turning to Cora. “Someone took out Smith before we could get those codes for the materials storage, but you’ve got the list from Eton and Pelham and some good leads on piers. I say we find a new way to send a message to Stone Solutions.”
Reece viciously stomped down on the grief before Alex or Cora could sense it. “Let’s go, then.”
“You can’t,” Alex said sharply.
“Your sister was a detective,” Cora added. “You know that even if the cops weren’t told the reason, they’ve sure as hell been told to look for you.”
The mention of Jamey threw Reece’s morning texts into stark relief.
I know you’re too chickenshit to respond to me but listen asshole: I will find who really did this. I am telling everyone it wasn’t you. And I better be right.
Someone was trying to frame him, but Jamey hadn’t fallen for it. His brilliant sister, so full of faith—Jamey knew the murderer wasn’t him.
But Grayson, on the other hand.
Message received. Don’t bother coming over. I’ll find you.
Grayson believed he had.
