“Guess so,” Gretel said as she added a tea bag to her mug. “Is, um. Is Reece around?”
“Um, no,” Jamey said awkwardly. “He’s... out. Sorry.”
“Probably busy mind-controlling pumpkins or whatever other crazy things bloggers are accusing him of these days.” Gretel’s tone was deeply self-deprecating. She sighed, resting her forehead in her hand, her nails ragged and bitten. “I’ve written so much shit about him and the others, and now here I am with my tragedy, wanting to see an empath and his sister.” She wiped at another tear. “I’m just one more fucking hypocrite.”
Jamey leaned in. “I told you, I’m glad you came,” she said, quiet and truthful. “Will you stay here tonight?”
If Charles Stone had any inkling that Gretel suspected he was involved, her life would probably be in danger. And on a personal level, Jamey understood loss too well to want to let Gretel go home alone.
It was a relief when Gretel nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, that’d be great,” she said with another shaky smile. “Thanks, Jamey.”
Chapter Eighteen
To: Marist, Vivian
From: Roger Spade
Subject: October’s 8-K
Cedrick is still in the hospital and I can’t get anywhere with Charles. Vivian, we need to talk about this filing. Some of us on the Board of Directors have questions that still haven’t been answered.
Reece stood under the triple spray of one of Jason Owens’s giant and elaborate showers, glaring at the plastic bottles sitting on the shower shelf.
He’d held it together for the afternoon, but talking to Traynor had left him even more on edge, like an oily film had settled on his skin. First chance he’d gotten, he ducked into a cold shower to ice his feelings down.
But the shower made it so much worse.
After their break-in at Stone Solutions Canada, Reece had left Vancouver in Grayson’s truck while Alex and Cora had gone ahead of him by yacht and arrived in Seattle first. Alexhad immediately sent thralls to Reece’s studio apartment to grab his personal things and bring them back to Jason Owens’s house.
But the studio had also still been full ofGrayson’sthings—clothes, toiletries, cologne.
The thralls had grabbed it all. And some of it now inhabited Reece’s shower.
It’s fucking shampoo, Reece snapped at himself, his freshly spiked temper refusing to cool even as he shivered under the cold spray.Are you really so fragile you can’t even handle Evan’s stupid shower arsenal?
No way he was going to be bested by Grayson’shair. He grabbed the closest bottle and poured some into his hand.
The scent hit like a gut-punch.
Evan, boxing him in on the truck’s tailgate, their bodies distractingly close together as Reece tries to hide his missing glove—
Evan, passing him in the studio’s kitchen, his T-shirt just sheer enough to show the muscles shifting underneath—
Evan, crouching in front of him in a Stone Solutions office, making himself a fortress between Reece and the box of torture books as he talks Reece down from a panic attack—
Reece slammed down on the memories, and forced himself through the coldest, fastest and possibly angriest hair wash of his life.
Hestillfucking smelled like Grayson as he went back to his room to dress, taking deep breaths as he tried to calm himself enough to handle a night in a house with an awake Traynor.
Evan wouldn’t have smelled like fancy shampoo in that bunker Traynor sent him to. He’d have smelled like sweat and fear, like pain and maybe blood—
Reece shoved those thoughts down too, quickly pulling on jeans and a T-shirt, and then went to grab his other hoodie from the truck in the garage.
As he opened the passenger door and leaned in to grab the hoodie off the seat, his phone went off.
Grayson:I need to see you.
Grayson:Meet me tonight. On your terms, anywhere you like. You name the time and the place.
