“Well, inthatcase.” Cora glanced Alex’s way. “I might have an idea for that shipment, then.”
St. James’s messages were still on Alex’s phone screen. He tapped out a quick text and hit Send.
Alex:Find out where you can get vegan doughnuts in Tacoma at 2 a.m.
“Lead the way.” He pocketed his phone. “Let’s go have a word with those nice sailors.”
Grayson figured that if Reece had been trying to send a message with the guard’s murder in Stone Solutions, there was a chance he’d left more messages at other familiar places. He’d spent the afternoon looking, checking the airsoft course in Tacoma, the café where they’d shared a midnight meal, the shady bar in Renton, the sushi house downtown.
Nothing. No more crimes; no signs of Reece, or of Alex or Cora.
Finally, as the pale day gave way to a deep gray winter twilight, he gave up, and was driving on I-5 when his phone rang.
“Did you see the news?” St. James said when he answered.
Grayson accelerated, the Hayabusa engine screeching as he passed an eighteen-wheeler. “What news?”
“Stone Solutions apparently made adonationthis afternoon.”
He could practically taste the air quotes she’d used around the word. “Do I want to know what they donated?”
“A small fortune in heavy metals and rare earth elements,” she said, “given to a renewable energy start-up for their windmills.”
Grayson blinked.
“The ship transporting the materials docked in Seattle today, then immediately pulled back out of the pier and set sail for California,” St. James added. “The ship’s captain sent a press release to every shareholder and news station about the donation.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Stone Solutions I know.”
“No it does not,” St. James said. “Those materials were earmarked for empath gloves. The move is being wildly praised by environmental groups, but Stone Solutions is getting a lot of shit for not staying in its lane and keeping the materials for the gloves. Xenophobia trumps helping the climate.”
Grayson was definitely going to hear about this from Marist. “We think the empaths are actually behind this?”
“What, you think they’re capable of murder but not sabotage?” St. James said dryly. “Liam and I are flying up to check on the safe house tonight. I called to tell you to meet me for dinner first.”
“I don’t have time to eat.”
“Make time,” she shot back. “We need to talk.”
He could guess what she wanted to talk about: She was gonna want to build a case for Reece’s innocence. It wasn’t worth it. Reece had finally crossed the line and become a murderer, just like Grayson had always known he would.
“You sure it’s worth your time to talk to me?” he said honestly. “With respect, ma’am, you know I’m not gonna be swayed by emotion.”
“Oh no,” St. James said, deadpan. “And here I spent all my detective years building cases for the DA based on feelings. Idon’t know anything about hard evidence; we took criminals to court to learn the magic of friendship.”
That cemented the suspicion that Reece had learned sarcasm from his big sister, even if Grayson had probably deserved it. But still, this was her brother they were talking about. “It’s different when it’s family.”
“It is,” she acknowledged. “But you’re also being very stubborn about this.”
Obviously the Dead Man wasn’t beingstubborn. But he bit those words back; he’d failed her when he let Reece become corrupted, just like he’d failed his parents and Alex before. Least he could do now was listen to whatever she wanted to say.
“Fine,” he said instead. “Tell me where and when to meet you.”
Gretel hadn’t had much luck finding Alex’s empathy blog the day before. In fact, searching the internet forAlexandempathshad been surprisingly devoid of results; surely there was at least one empath out there with that name?
ButEyes on Empathswas the number one empathy awareness blog in the Pacific Northwest because Gretel didn’t quit. Sometimes people went byAlexin English when their heritage was something else—maybe Alex was actually Alejandro, or Alexandre, or Alessandro, or another version of the name. Maybe he wrote his blog under a different name altogether, or under his last name, and she just needed to find out what that was.
When they’d met, Alex had mentioned that he’d been at the AMI meeting that had been happening when Reece broke into Stone Solutions. Gretel didn’t have a copy of the sign-in sheets, but her dad would. Beau Macy had a small army of AMI interns whose job it was to save everything and make sure it was neatly categorized. They would have scanned the sheets and reviewed the attendees, adding everyone to the mailing list and looking for potential new donors.
