Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
Readers are always hungry for any kind of news about the Dead Man, and here at Eyes on Empaths , we deliver like no one else!
WHAT WE KNOW: Agent Evan Miguel Grayson is from Texas. He’s TALL. And he’s HOT.
WHAT WE DON’T: How did he become the Dead Man anyway?
Rest assured Eyes on Empaths is always hunting for the story behind the Dead Man. WHO or WHAT could have transformed a tall, hot Southern gentleman into a shadow agent and defender of the world?
For in-depth coverage of my three-minute LIVE encounter with Agent Grayson, read November’s four-thousand-word feature story with its EXCLUSIVE photo. (Please give the page time to load; there are a lot of comments.)
—GRETEL MACY, BLOGGING FOR EYES ON EMPATHS
Gretel sat in the back row of the cavernous conference room on the ground floor of Stone Solutions, attention mostly on her phone as her dad addressed the full crowd of American Minds Intact members.
“We have been dealt the deepest of wounds,” Beau Macy was saying. Every chair was full, with spillover guests lounging against the walls. “Losing so many of our champions in barely more than a day.”
A notification lit Gretel’s phone screen; a new comment on the blog.
You write the best Dead Man stories!
A tiny smile curled on Gretel’s lips, disappearing as her gaze went back to her draft for the day’s blog post. Her dad’s monologuing made for pretty dry copy.
“An unthinkable tragedy,” said Beau. “A critical blow.”
She tilted her head back, gaze skimming the crowd. The new cop was here again, one Officer Stensby from the Seattle Police Department. He’d been coming to most of their meetings the past three weeks, since Senator Hathaway’s murder. He was usually with one of the regulars, a big, blond ex-military type who still wore camo everywhere, but tonight Stensby was alone.
“A grievous setback.” Beau leaned forward on the podium. “An almost insurmountable barrier.”
Nothing new to add to the post, and nothing but increasingly dramatic ways to say we need to regroup . Not much here to interest Eyes on Empaths readers; they liked speculation and theories, going especially wild for anything about the Dead Man.
The most popular post of all time was, of course, the picture she’d taken of the Dead Man pinning a handcuffed empath, Reece Davies, over the hood of a Smart car outside of Senator Hathaway’s building. It was hard to see the Dead Man’s face, bent as he was over Reece. But it was still a hell of a shot.
And yes, a small but enthusiastic group of her readers thought the picture was hot. Which was not the point of the picture; the point was to show the Dead Man in action, righteously defending the world against the empath threat. But try telling that to the person who had written fanfiction and shared it in the comments.
“An effort to bury us—” Beau enunciated each word into the microphone “—the likes of which we’ve never seen before.”
To be fair, Gretel wasn’t sure what to make of Reece anymore. It was true that he’d thrown on a disguise, taken off his gloves, and snuck into Stone Solutions. She’d seen it with her own eyes.
But she’d also seen that he hadn’t fought back against the guards who’d caught him, even when they’d gotten rough. So yes, maybe he had dangerous powers, but the pacifism was real too.
“But even though we face unimaginable adversity...” Beau paused for effect. “AMI will not be defeated.”
A cheer rose up in the room, the audience breaking into applause around her.
Gretel sighed.
She sat through another thirty minutes of her dad’s speeches before the meeting finally adjourned. Gretel polished off her last sentence and posted the article to Eyes on Empaths —she’d definitely written better, but this meeting didn’t deserve better anyway—then stood, smoothing her pencil skirt and picking up her bag.
She made her way toward the door, where Beau was standing in a knot of people, shaking hands and exchanging serious nods. Paying absolutely no attention to her. Perfect.
But as she passed, he turned his head in her direction. “Gretel!” he called. “Come say hi!”
Gretel paused, plastering a smile to her lips. “Hi,” she said to the group of various men and women, giving a polite wave.
Beau had his company smile on, as fake as hers. “We were just talking about the privacy conference—”
“At Rainier University on Monday and Tuesday, the one AMI is sponsoring,” Gretel finished for him. “Vivian Marist, president of Stone Solutions Canada, is presenting the keynote in place of Cedrick Stone. The Empath Initiative just released a statement half an hour ago backing her oversight of the US side of Stone Solutions while Stone’s condition remains uncertain. She’s been your friend since her staffer days for Senator Hathaway, right, Dad?”
Beau looked pained at her interruption, as he always did when Gretel accidentally overshared about her special interests and endangered her ability to pass as normal in public. “Gretel is a very thorough researcher,” he said quickly to the group. “She runs a little side project for AMI all by herself, you know.”
The smile abruptly left Gretel’s face.
“In fact...” Beau shifted closer. “Did you get an article about tonight up already?”
Ah. He hadn’t stopped her to introduce her to his colleagues; this was all he wanted. “Of course,” she said coolly.
“Great. Make sure that gets sent out to all of our AMI listserv subscribers.” Beau turned right back to his circle, giving her no chance to explain that Eyes on Empaths wasn’t part of AMI.
She gritted her teeth and stepped out through the doors, pulling her phone back out as she did so. She stopped by the wall for a moment and opened her email app, navigating to her dad’s email.
Sure, she’d send out the article and make him look good. She’d also take a quick glance through Beau’s mail for anything that would make a more interesting blog post than that speech.
Her eyes scanned the subject lines in his inbox, then paused.
Empath found murdered in Vermont
It had come from someone with an empathinitiative.gov email address. Gretel’s eyebrows flew up.
“Gretel Macy? From Eyes on Empaths ?”
She turned in surprise to see a good-looking guy coming her way. He was probably a few years younger than she was, early twenties maybe, with blond-brown hair, hazel eyes behind glasses, and an apologetic smile.
“I’m so sorry to bother you, you must get swarmed everywhere you go,” he said, stopping a couple feet away. He had a trace of an accent, like he’d grown up in the South, and he still wore his winter coat, hat, scarf, and a pair of black gloves, like he’d just walked into the building from the cold evening. “Everyone probably wants to ask how you run something as big and important as Eyes on Empaths by yourself.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Gretel hurried to say, as she quickly stuffed her phone back into her purse. She straightened, which in her heels made her taller than he was. She was going to read that email, but most of AMI thought she was nothing but a useless and entitled daddy’s girl. This guy had her complete attention. “That’s very kind, thank you.”
“No, thank you ,” he said. “I can’t believe I get to meet you.”
There was something familiar about him. It took her a moment to place it, but then it came to her. “I think I’ve seen you before,” she said. “You were here a couple weeks ago, weren’t you? The night that empath broke in?”
“Oh, you remember me?” He looked surprised and pleased. “I wanted to say hi that night, but things got a bit out of control, didn’t they? I was covering the conference for my blog. It’s a small one,” he added. “Nothing like Eyes on Empaths . You’re number one in the Pacific Northwest for a good reason; the gold standard for empath blogs.”
“You run an empath blog too?” No way she was leaving without this guy’s number. Gretel had a real smile for him as she shifted her bag to her shoulder so she could hold out her hand. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I caught your name.”
He took her hand with his own gloved one. “I’m Alex.”
Burlington was even colder than DC, the snowflakes smaller and icier. The wind had an almost glacial bite, like a front had come to Vermont by way of the Arctic, stinging Grayson’s face the instant the airport’s automatic doors opened and he stepped outside. He ignored it and crossed the street, the keys to his rental in his pants pocket.
The parking lot was brightly lit against the dark night sky, and as he came up on his SUV, he caught his reflection in the window. His new hat wasn’t particularly flattering; like most things designed to fit average-height people, it was too small, stretched too tightly over his head. But it was all they’d had available in the shop in Dulles.
An image rose in his mind and he let it fully form: Reece, caught on the Stone Solutions security footage, wearing Grayson’s old hat with its stains from the spilled caramel almond milk steamer. Reece’s eyes had been wide and frightened behind the borrowed glasses as three angry guards got off the elevator.
Obviously an empath wasn’t supposed to be breaking and entering into the nation’s number one empath defense facility. It had shocked almost everyone, because most folks thought empaths were unwaveringly law-abiding. But that was bullshit; empaths followed laws, sure, but they were truly driven by their own moral compasses. If the law and their morals were ever in conflict, they immediately and unapologetically shifted into pint-size pacifist vigilantes.
Reece had been in Stone Solutions because he wanted to help, wanted to find answers to explain how his friend became a sadistic murderer overnight. But the guards who caught him had been needlessly rough, and Grayson had found Reece bruised and bleeding. Empaths made easy targets, after all—unwilling to chance hurting others and completely unable to defend themselves.
But that’s when the Dead Man stepped in. Grayson could hit back.
He stuffed his duffel in the backseat and then slipped into the driver’s seat. As he let the engine idle and warm, he sent a pair of texts.
Grayson: I don’t put my keys in my coat pockets anymore.
Grayson: Guess whose fault that is.
He pulled the SUV out of the rental lot and onto the road. A few miles passed as he cranked up the heat and found the rental’s high beams, and then the reply came in.
Reece: I don’t know. Someone who’s a better driver than you?
Grayson should have known that was coming. Most people had too much survival instinct to taunt the Dead Man, but Reece was basically a sarcastic lemming.
Grayson: You’re the one who commits grand theft auto—of MY truck—but I’m the one getting sassed again?
Reece: Are you texting from behind the wheel right now?
Grayson’s gaze jerked from the phone screen to the road.
Maybe he wouldn’t reply to that one.
Thirty minutes later, Grayson was pulling into a small parking lot at the far end of the park along Lake Champlain, where the body had been found. Unlikely to be much left at the crime scene, especially after a day of snow, but there certainly wouldn’t be clues at the hotel.
He stepped out of the SUV and down to the parking lot. The snow was slowing but the wind was even colder here, coming off Lake Champlain with bits of ice in it. He zipped his coat all the way up to his chin and walked into the park. The trails were buried by snow and the moon was only a sliver, the night dark enough that Grayson flicked on the tiny flashlight he kept on his key chain.
His watch buzzed.
Reece: Since you dodged my question, I know I was right about you texting while driving. Did your plane land already? Are you out on a hot date or something?
Grayson glanced up. The park was dark and silent, empty besides him. The flashlight’s bluish glow illuminated a sea of spindly trees, their bare branches casting twisted shadows on the untouched snow blanketing the grass. A messy rectangle of yellow police tape was woven through the trunks up ahead, marking off where the body had been found. There was nothing to hear but his footsteps crunching ice or the occasional car in the distance. Even the edges of the lake were frozen, no waves lapping at the shore.
Grayson: Not exactly. Are you?
Seattle was full of waterlogged numbskulls if no one was taking Reece out on a Friday night. It’d be good for Reece, of course—he was an empath who’d feel better around other people, would probably be downright delighted if he got to read someone.
But happy as Reece would be, anyone crawling into an empath’s bed was going to leave a thousand times happier. Empaths read emotions, not physical bodies, but they could figure out what a body liked by following the feelings, and you’d end up with an empath drunk on their partner’s pleasure and a blissed-out partner who’d just had the best night of their life.
At least, for most people. Obviously not Grayson. But it wasn’t like that mattered; no empaths were looking to get in bed with the Dead Man and he couldn’t have touched any of them anyway.
The response came in.
Reece: Yeah right.
Clearly Reece lived in Soggy Idiot Town .
Grayson: You ought to have plans tonight besides complaining about my driving.
Reece: We don’t all have a line of people hoping to get in our pants.
Grayson: You think I do?
Reece: I bet the traffic to your dating profile could crash a server.
Grayson stopped at the edge of the yellow tape to tap out a response.
Grayson: What dating site do you imagine the Dead Man would use?
Reece: Corpse Match? Single Brain-Eaters? Plenty of Zombies in the Graveyard?
Grayson: I should not have given you that opening. Rookie mistake.
Grayson shined his flashlight’s beam on the ground. The body had been found that morning, but according to the day’s weather report, it had been snowing intermittently ever since. There was nothing to see now, not even an impression of the corpse left behind. Hopefully local PD had taken pictures and samples before it all got covered up.
He straightened, shining his flashlight around the trees. Bare branches stretched in every direction, their shadows distorted, falling in unexpected patterns. Someone had murdered an empath and left her body in this park. It wasn’t a huge park, and it wasn’t immediately within the city, but people had to come and go. As hiding places went, this one sucked.
Not hiding the body, then. The killer wanted it to be found? Wanted people to know they’d killed an empath—might be looking to kill another one?
He spent a few more minutes walking around the scene, but there was nothing to see, hear, or smell beyond fresh snow. Nothing he could do here tonight; might as well hit the hotel after all, maybe get a few hours’ sleep.
He headed back to his car. As he reached the door, he got another text.
Reece: I mean, you do date or whatever, right?
Grayson raised an eyebrow as he opened the door. He climbed into the car, turning the engine on and the heat up.
Grayson: Think that depends on what you mean by “whatever.”
Reece: Empath here. I can tell you that biological drives and emotions aren’t the same thing. Some people want feelings before sex, some people want sex without feelings, some people don’t want sex OR feelings, and so on. I don’t know where you fit in, but if sex IS on the table, why wouldn’t you have a dating profile?
Grayson leaned back against the driver’s seat as he responded.
Grayson: I’m still stuck on who exactly you think the Dead Man is gonna date.
Reece: Well, if zombies aren’t your type, who is?
Memories teased at the back of Grayson’s mind: a girl in a cheerleading uniform, grinning as she hit a pike on the sidelines of a college football field; a boy in sunglasses and a damp T-shirt, basking under the Hill Country sun on a reddish-brown rock at the edge of a giant lake.
Grayson blinked and the memories vanished.
Except now he was remembering Reece, overgrown dark hair and giant brown eyes, lectures and grudging smiles from behind the wheel of the Smart car.
Grayson ran his thumb along the edge of the phone and then typed out his text.
Grayson: Backseat drivers.
He pulled out of the parking lot as the response came in.
Reece: You think you’re funny, don’t you?
Grayson: The bossier the better.
Reece: Yeah, well, I hope you don’t fuck as bad as you drive.
Grayson: Keep talking dirty to me, sugar.