He took off for the garage at a sprint, snatching the keys off the hook on his way.
He could lay low in the truck again, somewhere far away from other people.
Chapter Ten
... and as if the infamous hypothesis that empath are modern-day “Incubus” wasn’t enough, that team has sent in yet another request for an unspeakably large grant, this time for a new study entitled “My Brother’s Keeper: The Spicy Secret Lives of Empath Siblings.”
Can someone please explain to Ted that EI funds are for serious research, not clickbait?
—Internal memorandum at the Empath Initiative
Grayson had gone to Kirkland and the private Stone Solutions hospital, only to be stopped short by the morgue supervisor.
“I’m sorry, Agent Grayson,” she said, “but there’s no body for you to look at. Mr. Smith has already been cremated.”
Grayson blinked. “Mr. Smith was a murder victim,” he said. “Why would he have been cremated already?”
“National security,” the supervisor said, like that should have been obvious. “The instructions I received were quite clear.”
“Were they.” Looked like Grayson would be stopping by Stone Solutions to have some words with Vivian Marist after all.
He checked on the patients before he left. Vanessa Whitman, the former research and development director, was in the nicestcorner room, her catatonic state unchanged since she’d been thralled by Cora Falcon in November. There were half a dozen thralls in other rooms at the hospital now too, all heavily sedated: Officer Stensby and Keith Waller, along with two others rescued from Polaris, and the Stone Solutions security guards they’d found in the AMI dressing room, Eton and Pelham.
Far as Grayson knew, they’d never kept thralls in this state before. It was dangerous; if any of them ever woke, they’d be violent and deadly again, likely to die themselves within a few hours but with the added risk of taking more innocents down with them. Something else to ask Marist about.
Grayson arrived in Bellevue not long later, pulling the Smart car into his reserved parking spot as the volume of his engine drew stares from the three smokers huddled under a nearby awning.
But as he started to open the driver’s door, the sliding glass doors of Stone Solutions opened, and Beau Macy, the American Minds Intact president, came storming out.
Vivian Marist was right behind him. “Beau, wait—”
“I will not be placated, Vivian! This is a travesty—a sheer mockery of the American political system! I will not be made a fool.”
The three smokers were now watching Beau and Marist with great interest. Grayson hunched back into the car.
“Beau, please.” Marist was having to take quick, mincing steps in her pencil skirt and very high heels. “I know Adele and Lucien have a—er, ahistory—but it was just the one weekend on Cedrick’s yacht—perhaps a mere handful of other weekends—”
“Unacceptable!” Beau paused to point at her. “I will not stand for this.AMIwill not stand for this. If Stone Solutions backs that piece of shit as our new senator, we’re finished.Finished.AMI will find another company to support. You hear me?”
He turned around and stormed towards a Mercedes. Maristthrew up her hands. “Beau!” She chased after him. “Beau, be reasonable—”
Grayson eased his driver’s door shut. On second thought, his conversation with Marist could wait.
Alex lingered in the back seat of Kosler’s police cruiser, door open, gaze on the text messages from Detective St. James.
You helped me save Reece once before. Help me again now.
I am not your enemy.
“Aren’t you clever,” he finally said to the phone.
“Who are you talking to?”
Alex looked up. Cora was waiting for him to get out of the car. “Reece’s sister got in touch,” he said as he held up his phone.
Cora’s eyes widened. “Alex, no,” she said. “No, no, no. You do not want a piece of Briony St. James. No disrespect, but she is too dangerous, even for you.”
Alex’s eyebrow went up. “That wasn’t a lie.”
