Stone Solutions response had already arrived, the unmarked cars forming a line along the downtown street. An unmarked Stone Solutions ambulance was also on scene, parked just to the side of the building’s entrance. Rubberneckers were slowing, both on the sidewalk and in passing cars, all of them watching curiously.
A blank-faced woman with short hair and intelligent brown eyes was waiting for him in the lobby. She introduced herself as Director Lowe. “I was told to expect you,” she said to Grayson. She didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic, but then, she was director of response operations at Stone Solutions—theteam that responded to suspected empath crimes. Her past few weeks wouldn’t’ve been good ones.
They entered the elevator, and Lowe pressed the button for floor sixteen. As they rode up, she handed Grayson a pair of medium-sized latex gloves that were gonna fit tight as sausage casings on his hands. Grayson awkwardly rolled them on as they stepped off the elevator into AMI’s luxurious lobby. At least twelve others were already at the scene, some taking pictures, some dusting for fingerprints.
“Over here,” Lowe said grimly.
Grayson could have followed the blood trail for himself. Beau and Adele Macy were on the floor, slumped against the reception desk. They were both dressed in winter coats and accessories.
“Office services found the bodies when they came in to clean and water the plants,” Lowe said as Grayson crouched down next to the bodies. “We intercepted the 911 call. Obviously we’re still waiting on the official report, but by the looks of it, they were both bludgeoned to death by someone strong enough to shatter bone.”
“What’s the suspected weapon?”
Lowe pointed just past the desk, where a bloody golf club was lying on the rug. “Beau Macy kept a set in his office.”
That would explain the blood. And the amount of it. Grayson touched Adele Macy’s hair with one gloved finger, pulling it slightly out of the way. “Diamonds,” he observed. “And those are real nice heels for a slushy winter night.”
“They’re both dressed up,” Lowe confirmed. “They must have been heading somewhere after this. They hadn’t even been here long enough to take off their coats.”
Grayson’s gaze went to the bodies again. Beau in a thick black coat and a scarf, Adele in a long tan coat with a stole. “Has their daughter, Gretel, been told?”
“Officers have been dispatched to her apartment,” Lowe said. “Of course, the daughter will not be getting details.”
That was procedure. This was a suspected empath crime. Stone Solutions would pack the bodies away to their own lab and spin a story. Gretel would never be told the real cause of death.
Grayson looked up from the bodies. The blood trail continued on from Beau and Adele Macy, heading down the hall toward the offices. “Who tracked that blood?”
“The perp.” Lowe’s tone had gone even more grim. “And you need to see this.”
Grayson straightened up and followed Lowe. The blood was still red against the white flooring, a partial outline of a footprint here and there—bare feet, not shoe prints.
The trail led into the third door. “Office supply room,” Lowe said, standing to the side so Grayson could go in.
He stepped to the threshold. The office supply room had three large copy machines, boxes stacked like Legos, and shelving along the walls that held a selection of pens, highlighters, dry erase markers and notepads of all types and sizes.
And there, in the middle of it all, was the unmoving corpse of Vanessa Whitman, Stone Solutions’ former director of research and development.
Grayson stared at Whitman’s body. “Dr. Whitman killed the Macys?”
“Well,” Lowe said dryly, “she was the weapon holding the weapon, at least.”
Because an empath was suspected of thralling and controlling Whitman.Reecewas suspected of it. “Dr. Whitman was being treated at the Kirkland hospital,” Grayson pointed out. “I was there myself yesterday. How did she get here?”
“We have no idea,” Lowe admitted.
Grayson stepped fully into the room, kneeling next toWhitman’s body. She was dressed in a hospital gown, her legs and feet bare and streaked with blood. In fact, the only part of her not splattered with blood appeared to be her hands, which were perfectly clean partway up her arms like something had covered them. “Was she wearinggloves?”
“She was, actually,” Lowe said. “We took them into evidence.”
If Whitman had been wearing gloves, that didn’t mean anything good. “I need to see them.”
A couple of minutes later, Grayson was holding a plastic bag that held a pair of black empath gloves, spotted all over with the rusty reddish-brown of dried blood.
“We took the serial number from the gloves,” Lowe said. “It was sent to Vivian Marist.”
All empath gloves were printed with a serial number, which Stone Solutions used to keep track of which empath had which gloves. The database with that information was limited to senior leadership. Marist had access. “I need to make a call,” Grayson said.
Lowe nodded and gracefully stepped out of the room, giving him privacy. Grayson called Vivian Marist’s cell phone.
