She answered right away. “You’re at the scene?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Grayson’s gaze darted to Whitman’s body. “I’d like you to confirm how you know this was Reece Davies’s crime.”
“You were shown the empath gloves, yes?” Marist’s voice was tight and high. She might have been holding back tears. “Obviously I ran them through the database. Those gloves were given to Reece Davies.”
Grayson’s eyes went back to the plastic bag and the bloody gloves. “When?”
“This year, on schedule.”
Grayson nodded slowly. “And is there any other evidence that this crime was Davies?”
“What other evidence do you need?” Marist snapped. “He put his own gloves on Vanessa Whitman to send a message.”
Maybe.
But Reece still had his bear hat, the same one that had supposedly been found next to Wayne Smith. When Smith had locked himself in a storage closet in Bellevue, Reece had been buying doughnuts in Tacoma. And when Vanessa Whitman had been turned loose on the Macys, Reece had been sending selfies to Grayson.
Grayson cleared his throat. “How did Mr. Davies get Dr. Whitman out of the Kirkland hospital?”
Marist huffed. “I’m sure we’ll figure it out. I’m completely shaken that an empath somehow got in.”
“Allegedly got in.” Grayson looked at the bloody gloves again. “And you’re completely sure Stone Solutions isn’t missing any inventory?”
“What are you trying to imply?” Marist said sharply. “Jesus, Evan. Perhaps you don’t have feelings, but these were my friends. Beau and I have worked on countless projects and events together. Adele and I have brunch when I’m in town. And Vanessa—” He heard her swallow. “Vanessa deserved so much better.”
“She did,” Grayson acknowledged. “And I know you’re probably feeling a lot of horror and grief because this happened to your friends. But sometimes Stone Solutions forgets that this is how the pacifist empaths feel when violence is done toanyone, anywhere in the world.”
Marist was silent for a long moment. Then she made an impatient noise. “Is there anything else?”
“No, ma’am,” Grayson said.
He finished up at the scene and then took the elevator back down to the ground level. He slipped out of the building,calling St. James as he walked along the dark street back to the Smart car.
She’d just landed up at the Salt Spring safe house, and he filled her in as soon as she answered.
“What a fucking horror show.” St. James sounded angry and shaky, even worse than Marist. “This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. The empaths have done their share of crime, but these murders are frame jobs, and I—”
“I think you’re right,” he said as he reached the Smart car.
St. James paused. “What?”
“You’re right.” Grayson opened the car door. “The American empaths get their new gloves every year, and they can turn in the old ones to be upcycled. Does Reece do that?”
“Always,” St. James said. “There are rare metals in the gloves that have to be mined by human workers. Even with all the worker and wage protections that the empaths fought for, Reece wouldn’t waste the materials.”
“So he doesn’t have any old gloves lying around?”
“Definitely not,” she said. “It’s not easy to get extra gloves. Between public scrutiny and their trade secret paranoia, Stone Solutions tracks every pair. And the pacifist empaths care so much about not scaring people that they willingly follow the rules: They don’t share or lose their gloves, and turn them in for new ones on schedule. Why?”
Grayson dropped into the driver’s seat. “The night in November, the first time Reece broke into Stone Solutions, he took off his gloves and stuck them in the glove box of his Smart car. They were still in there when his car was towed to Tacoma.”
“That’s right,” St. James said. “One of the Vanguards sent some new gloves for Reece, a prototype to beta test. Reece liked them better; I don’t think he wore the old ones again.But the gloves they took off Whitman weren’t the prototypes, were they?”
“Definitely not.” Grayson said it with certainty; he wasveryfamiliar with the prototype, thanks to a certain incident in the back seat of a truck. “But Reece still would have saved his old Stone Solutions gloves to upcycle at some point, right?”
“Absolutely. And with the move from my house to Liam’s studio, he would have been extra careful to keep his old gloves somewhere he could find them again. In fact, just to be safe, he probably left them in the—” She inhaled sharply. “Are you still driving the Smart car?”
“I sure am.” Grayson opened the glove box and reached in, his hand closing around familiar material. “And guess what I just found in the glove box.”
