Chapter Twenty
CHAPTER TWENTY
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The dark highway soon turned to city outskirts, and then the busy traffic and streets of the southern suburbs. Grayson found his way to a store that sold outdoorsy clothes and gear, a brand he’d seen other empaths wear, and pulled into the parking lot. “We’ve got eighteen minutes until they close.”
Reece hesitated. “I should put on my—”
“Undercover,” Grayson reminded him. “There are not enough empaths in this area for you to go running around broadcasting it to the world.”
“But—”
“We’re down to seventeen minutes and we both gotta grab what we need. Come on.”
Reece frowned. “But I know this store. This is really quality stuff. As in, too nice for my budget.”
“This store offsets its carbon footprint, only sells fair trade products, and I’m gonna expense it all to Stone Solutions. Either you pick out clothes or I will, and if it’s me, everything is gonna have bears on it.”
“Well played,” Reece muttered, opening the truck door.
Inside, Reece immediately disappeared into the hoodie racks. Grayson browsed the camping gear, picking up a pair of travel grooming kits—whether Reece would ever use the comb or brush remained to be seen—as well as a pair of backpacks. They had an expansive selection of winter hats, and he got a new one for himself that would actually fit his head, along with a scarf and a hat for Reece that he hid at the bottom of the stack and hopefully wouldn’t get noticed until it was too late and had already been bought.
Fourteen minutes later they met in the middle of the store. Reece’s face was barely visible behind his stack of fleece and flannel, his cheeks more flushed than usual and his hair sticking up, like he’d tried on something with a hood. He was smiling almost shyly. “The fabrics in here feel really nice.”
Because he always wore his gloves, so he never got to touch things.
Just like he never got to touch people.
Grayson stood still for a moment, gaze on that shy smile, the messy hair. Then he blinked. “You get everything you need?”
Reece nodded, then jerked his head toward the register. “Come on. That cashier has probably been on her feet for eight hours and is desperately hoping we’re going to check out in the next two minutes so she can close up on time.”
The cashier was probably around thirty, a short woman with a soft, curvy build and glasses. She didn’t look annoyed with them, though; in fact, she was smiling as Reece put his stuff on her register counter. “We’re getting out of your hair, I promise,” he said to her.
“You’re fine,” she said, still smiling as she began to ring clothes up. Her gaze kept going to Reece, like a magnet. “How is your night going?”
Reece began chatting with her. Grayson pulled the backpacks over, ostensibly packing their new stuff but subtly watching the two of them.
Reece’s shoulders were relaxed, his smile bright, gesturing unselfconsciously as he talked. He looked happy.
And so did the cashier, as she went on enthusiastically about the fabrics in one of the hoodies, how it was made with 100 percent recycled materials, her motions animated and her eyes still going to Reece as much as possible.
Could Reece be projecting again? It obviously wouldn’t have any effect whatsoever on Grayson and he wasn’t able to tell. Before Reece, Grayson’s experience with empath projection was with corrupted empaths purposefully influencing others with things like rage or fear.
He hadn’t extrapolated the possibilities of an uncorrupted empath accidentally projecting an emotion like contentment or happiness.
Before he could decide what, if anything, he should do, Reece had turned to him, holding up a tightly packed, oval-shaped bag, hunter green with a drawstring. “This is for you.”
Grayson blinked. “Is that a...sleeping bag?”
“An extra-long, Big and Tall sleeping bag.” Reece pointed at him. “I didn’t see so much as a blanket in your truck. I bet you’ve spent a lot of cold nights alone on the side of the road, and maybe I can’t get you a house but I can get you this. So no arguing.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Grayson muttered, but he didn’t argue.
The cashier took Grayson’s credit card as he took both backpacks, and a couple minutes later, they were back at the truck. Grayson got the passenger door first, so Reece could climb in, then moved to open the back door and set the sleeping bag and both of their new bags on the backseat.
His gaze lingered on their bags together. A memory rose up: an older truck, loading it up with a tent and gear, the man in the University of Texas T-shirt tossing in a travel hammock.
“They had kayaks in there.” In the passenger seat, Reece still sounded enthusiastic, his normal Grumpy Bear attitude gone for the moment. “Have you ever gone? Jamey and I go sometimes in the summer; my arms are pretty useless, but it’s so great to get out on the water.”
Grayson blinked and the memory vanished.
But Reece was still there, looking over his shoulder at Grayson and smiling brightly. “With the right straps and the tailgate down, you might be able to fit a kayak in the bed of this truck, if you were camping.”
“I used to love camping.”
The sentence slipped out. Grayson blinked at himself. His body apparently continued not to need his brain’s permission to notice that Reece reminded him of so many things he’d once liked.
“Oh yeah?” Reece tilted his head. “Did you used to go with, like, a girlfriend or something?” His eyes were lit only by the truck’s interior glow, not quite enough for Grayson to make out whatever he might be thinking or feeling.
“Just friend-friends, in college,” Grayson said. “I did have a crush for a time on one of them, but I was pretty sure he was straight, and I would never have crossed that line.”
“You seem to have a lot of lines you don’t let yourself cross,” Reece said.
Grayson shut the backseat door instead of answering.
Not long later, they were pulling into the parking lot of a small hotel, the kind that had advertised to business travelers and extended stays. Grayson had booked it from the road while Reece had been solidly unconscious, and he never needed to know it had happened behind the wheel.
Reece glanced at it. “You didn’t pick some downtown luxury place?”
“One, I told you we’re undercover. Two, when I’m undercover, no one valets my truck. Three, we’re undercover , and I know I already said that but seems like you’re missing the point—”
“All right, all right.” Reece opened the glove box and pulled out his gloves. “I learned my lesson about leaving these in a glove box, though. I’m bringing them in.”
He unbuckled his seat belt, twisting halfway in the passenger seat to reach into the backseat. “Just sticking them in—oh, you’ve got to be kidding. How’d you sneak this past me?”
“Did you find your hat?”
“This has bear ears .”
“Practically had your name on it. And now you’ll be all set for your next felony and won’t have to steal mine.”
Reece twisted back around, turning the hat over in his hands, a surprisingly big smile on his face. “You think you’re so funny, but you know what?” he said, as he leaned over, closer to Grayson. “I’m into it. I’m going to wear the shit out of this hat.”
Grayson side-eyed him. “You didn’t flinch.”
“Because I wasn’t lying.” Reece pulled the hat on. “You like it?”
Well, damn. It somehow suited Reece, managing to be charming instead of ridiculous, and Grayson really hadn’t needed more reasons to be slapped in the face with how cute Reece was right before they shared a hotel room.
Grayson could hear the unhappy crying of an overtired toddler from the parking lot. And sure enough, as the front doors slid open, there was a young man in the lobby, a fussy toddler in pajamas in his arms as he walked back and forth in front of the decorative gas fireplace.
As Reece walked in, the toddler abruptly stopped crying. She turned toward Reece with big eyes.
“Aww, it’s a baby!” Reece waved at her. “Hi, sweetie!”
The toddler blinked and then broke into a smile. She rested her head on her dad’s shoulder and waved back at Reece.
The young dad mouthed thank you at Grayson. He was also smiling, his tired strain from moments before vanished.
Oh, Reece was definitely projecting.
Grayson had no protocol for this. Did he need to interfere? Get Reece away from other people immediately?
But projection wasn’t anything like thralling. The effect was transient, and maybe projecting rage or fear was dangerous, especially in a corrupted empath’s hands, but Reece wasn’t trying to manipulate anyone. Projecting a good feeling wouldn’t be any more harmful than playing a song someone really liked and momentarily cheering them up.
And if Reece knew he was projecting, he’d be crushed. All his happiness would be gone. Maybe he’d stop projecting, or maybe he’d start projecting sadness instead, but none of it was worth stealing away his happiness. Reece wasn’t hurting anyone; Grayson would leave it alone.
Funny, though. Of all the situations that could make an empath happy enough to influence other people, Grayson would never, ever have thought running away undercover to Canada with the Dead Man could make that list.
They checked in at the front desk under León Collins’ credentials. Like the cashier at the store, the front desk clerk also seemed bright and cheerful, as if having Reece in the lobby was the best thing that could have happened to his night.
“Third floor or higher, please,” Grayson requested.
“And a king bed,” Reece added.
Grayson side-eyed him. “I got us two doubles.”
Reece waved it off. “You won’t fit on a double. Your long legs will hang off. I’ll sleep on the sofa bed.”
Grayson was being bossed around by an empath half his size wearing a backpack and a bear hat. “I know you like your bad decisions—”
“You’re the one trying to make a bad decision,” Reece said, and he didn’t flinch, so he honestly believed that outrageous sentence. “You just flew in from East Coast time and then drove for hours. You got bad sleep on my couch last night, you’ve been sleeping badly for who knows how long, sometimes in your truck . Tonight you’re sleeping on a decent bed that fits your ridiculously huge body.”
“I don’t think you’re going to win this argument, Mr. Collins,” the front desk clerk said, as he slid the keys across the counter. He added, to Reece, “I like your hat.”
“He likes my hat,” Reece said to Grayson.
Lord help him. Grayson was making bad decisions.
Their studio room on the third floor looked like countless others Grayson had slept in, with a kitchenette, a small living area, and a king bed just past the couch. Though the empath in bear ears curiously examining the instant apple cider packets by the coffee maker was, admittedly, new.
“We’re up high so no one can come in the window, and now I need to be between you and the door,” Grayson said, as he locked the door behind him.
“You’re literally engaging all the locks right now and we can put a chair under the handle. Stop trying to find excuses and accept you have to be comfortable tonight.” Reece had already set his backpack on the couch and was heading for the thermostat. “Let me warm it up in here.”
Defeated by bear ears, Grayson crossed the room and set his own backpack on the bed. “I know you’re doing that for me.”
“Obviously,” Reece said. “I run hot as a furnace.”
Grayson knew that already. Having Reece in your bed was probably as cozy as having a heated blanket. A cuddly heated blanket that would be wrapped around you all night, seeking out all the touch he could get.
Except, of course, for the part where he’d pass out again the instant he touched Grayson. There would never be a warm and cuddly empath in Grayson’s bed, and he needed to remember that.
Grayson unzipped his backpack as Reece wandered into the bathroom. “Looks like all the soaps and shampoos are citrus-scented. Will that bother you? Jamey’s usually okay with that, but I don’t know about your nose.”
“These ones are fine.” Grayson had stayed at most hotel chains enough times to know which brands and scents of toiletries they carried. But this part was again different, having someone around so familiar with Grayson’s enhanced senses that they’d ask if he was okay with scents. “Are you actually going to take a shower? Do we need to put this on the news? Eyes on Empaths , maybe?”
Reece met his eyes in the bathroom mirror and flipped him off.
As the shower ran, Grayson changed into sweats and stripped down to his T-shirt. There was a for-purchase basket of overpriced snacks and sodas on the kitchen counter and he took all of it back to the king bed. He set the basket in the middle of the comforter, then sat on the side of the bed farthest from the couch and picked up the remote.
What am I doing? some part of his brain asked, as he flipped through channels. Am I expecting Reece is going to—what, exactly? Eat hotel snacks and watch television? On this bed? With me?
One of the stations was running a special from Canada’s best-known empath stand-up comic, and at least some of the snacks were vegan. And the bed was a king, wide as the truck cab, plenty of space for them to sit side by side without touching.
None of that is going to happen , the voice in his head said. You’re drawing from memory, that’s all it is, because Reece reminds you of things you liked in days long gone. But you don’t watch television. You’re not hungry. And most of all, you feel nothing. Put the food on the coffee table for Reece and go to sleep.
The bathroom door opened. “Hey, Evan?”
Grayson glanced over.
Oh. Shit.
Reece had one of the white hotel towels wrapped around his waist and not a stitch of other clothing on. His arms and chest were covered in beads of water and his damp hair was the darkest of browns, almost black. He seemed distracted by his thoughts, not even looking at Grayson, just chewing on his lip. “I’m not doing anything weird right now, am I?”
Empaths. So caught up in feelings they went oblivious to anything else.
“ Weird can mean a lot of things, sugar,” Grayson said, and admittedly it might have come out a little bit tense, because maybe Reece hadn’t clocked that he was almost naked in a bedroom, but every muscle in Grayson’s body sure had.
Reece huffed. “I mean, I’m not like, projecting again or anything, am I? I feel a little buzzy, but I’ve been such a mess for months that maybe I just forgot what good feels like.”
It wasn’t fair, that Reece had been put into this state where he couldn’t remember when he’d last felt good. It also didn’t seem fair that Reece couldn’t remember he had no clothes on when they had this giant bed right here, but Grayson would just keep on noticing for both of them, apparently.
“At some point, we probably ought to have another conversation about your lack of survival instinct, if you’re feeling good around the Dead Man,” said Grayson, trying to sound very casual and not at all like his body was clamoring to sweep Reece up into his arms and toss him down on the bed. “But even if you were projecting, it couldn’t affect me, so what would it matter?”
“Your consent and boundaries matter too—”
“Reece,” Grayson interrupted. “You can relax. Don’t worry about it. It’s just us.”
“I guess it is.” Reece’s same small, almost shy smile from the store was back, like he had any right to be even cuter. Then he suddenly frowned. “You okay?”
Oh, great. Grayson cleared his throat. “Obviously.”
“You seem tense,” Reece said. “It’s hard to tell because usually people’s emotions will show what their body is going through loud and clear, and I can pick those up in a million different ways. But with you I can’t just fall back on habit, I have to pay close attention to all the physical signs. And I think your shoulders look tighter, and your voice is a little higher, and you might have this little tick in your jaw—”
“Look, I found candy,” Grayson said, holding up the snack basket.
Reece lit up. “Be right there.”
He disappeared back into the bathroom, then emerged again a minute later, mercifully dressed this time in some of the new clothes they’d bought, flannel pants and a T-shirt.
His gaze went to the television, where the show with the empath comic was returning from a commercial break. “Oh, I love her.” He was already scrambling across the room. “I can’t believe you found her special. Is that licorice?”
They settled on the bed together, Grayson on one side under the covers, Reece lounging on top of the comforter on the other side. The snacks were in the two feet of no-man’s-land between them.
Reece was grinning at the comic as he worked his way through the candy. “I saw her live when she came to Seattle. A few other empaths came into town for it; we went to her show and then we had an epic game night. Such a great time.”
Because when empaths were left alone, they just lived their lives like anyone else. It was only when people like Cedrick Stone started fucking around that Grayson had to step in and stop sadistic killers.
Buzzy , Reece had said. So was he still projecting? Well, Grayson had meant what he said about it being a nonissue at the moment. Obviously Grayson wasn’t going to feel it, no matter how much happy contentment might be pouring off of Reece like the vibrations of a purring cat.
Grayson slipped another inch down under the covers, resting his head on the pillows. Reece was a little in front of him, legs up on the bed, leaning back on his arms. He turned to look back over his shoulder, his smile like sunshine. “You would not believe how long it’s been since I’ve just relaxed and watched television. Thanks for finding something I can handle.”
He turned back to the show. Grayson slid down farther, until he was horizontal and the covers were up to his shoulders. It was a decent mattress, a soft pillow top and big enough only his toes were off the end. A lot of scents, but good ones, clean sheets and citrusy shampoo and candy, and Reece had a soft, bright laugh to go with the scents. For once, Grayson was around an empath who was content and happy, and even if Grayson couldn’t feel any of it—not Reece’s projections, nothing of his own—his body could still sense things like safety and peace.
He let himself close his eyes.
Stensby leaned forward as Alex drove the Hellcat past the front doors of Stone Solutions and pulled into the closest parking spot, one with a big sign that read Reserved .
“Keith and I were here a couple days ago,” Stensby said, as Alex cut the engine. “There’s a decent amount of security at night: cameras, patrolling guards, that kind of thing.”
“We can take care of that,” Alex said, looking over his shoulder at Stensby. “And thanks to our friend Mr. Macy, I know the security around Mr. Stone’s office hasn’t had the grand finish they’ve promised the public. Keeping a CEO in a secret hospital is all well and good until you need his fingerprints and retina scan to finish your security upgrade.”
He looked back to Keith. “If you two could go in and handle the cameras first, I’d be mighty appreciative. Let Officer Stensby take the lead; in that police uniform, he’s as good as a Trojan horse. Night shift security will let him right in.”
Stensby led the way to the building. He’d read a detailed report on Reece Davies’ arrest at Stone Solutions the night he’d broken in. According to the report, Stone Solutions’ security control room was on the first floor, full of monitors and all the hardware that ran the system. He’d noticed the room for himself just the other night at the AMI meeting.
They only had to wait at the main sliding glass doors for about three minutes before a security guard came hurrying over. A moment later, the doors were sliding open for them.
“Hello, officer,” the security guard started. “Can I help—”
Stensby headbutted him full in the face.
The man staggered backward. He stumbled into the lobby and crashed into one of the chairs, falling to the ground in a heap. Keith was on him as he fell, grabbing the nightstick from his belt.
“What—” the guard started, garbled through his mouthful of blood.
Stensby grabbed his own nightstick, heavy and deadly. This would handle both the guard and the security equipment nicely.
A few minutes later, Stensby returned to the car. Alex was leaning against it, phone in hand. “Welcome back,” he said, pocketing the phone as Stensby hurried toward him. “Are we cleared for entry?”
“Yes, sir.” Stensby held up a security card. “We took care of the first guard and I lifted this. Keith’s gone hunting for the others.”
“Excellent,” Alex said, taking the card and pocketing it.
Stensby would do anything for him.
They crossed through the lobby, Alex calmly stepping over the crumpled body of the guard on the way to the elevators.
They rode up to twenty-two. Stensby had only been on the first floor until now, and his eyes widened as the elevator door opened into a suite that took up the entire level. The front area was set up for entertaining, with a living room set, a fully stocked bar, and an endless view of Bellevue city lights. There were doors around the walls that might have led to a private office and bathroom, maybe private elevator to the roof’s helipad, and even a panic room, if Stensby had to guess.
Alex tried one of the doors. “Locked.”
How dare a locked door get in Alex’s way. “I got it.” Stensby drew back his foot in sudden rage and kicked the door. It flew open so hard it bounced off the wall, hanging precariously on its hinges.
“Appreciated, I’m sure,” Alex said.
Stensby followed Alex into the office and waited as he surveyed the giant desk, the endless bookshelves, the art on the walls.
Alex tilted his head, staring at the giant flatscreen that took up a sizable chunk of the right wall. It displayed a map of North America, with blue circles dotted all over the United States.
“And what do we have here?” Alex muttered, stepping forward. “Oh, isn’t this quaint. They track the empaths.”
Stensby stared at the map. Some of the dots on the map were moving very slowly, like a flight map on an airplane. Alex stepped forward, reaching out so his finger hovered over the Seattle area.
“Just one of us in Seattle now, although somehow I very much doubt that Reece Davies is actually chilling in the shoulder of I-5.”
“We used to have a second empath,” Stensby said. “Cora Falcon was her name. She was a therapist at the veterans’ hospital, but she disappeared the same night Senator Hathaway was killed.”
Alex’s gaze flicked up, from Seattle to Alaska and then back down as he traced a finger up along the British Columbia coastline, where there were four red dots. “And what do we have here?”
He made a flicking motion, spreading his fingers, and the touch screen zoomed in on a green space quite far north of Vancouver. “What are four empaths doing on an island off the North Coast?”
“I know that island, I’ve gone fishing up there,” Stensby said. “Used to be a Gold Rush hub, but now there’s nothing there, just a ghost town and some empty mines. I can’t think of a reason empaths would be there.”
Alex zoomed in even closer and then touched one of the circles. A profile popped up: a pretty woman of maybe thirty, dressed in pink scrubs, with long brown hair and big brown eyes. Cora Falcon , the tag read.
“Well, that’s a weird coincidence,” said Stensby.
Alex was looking at Cora’s image. Was it Stensby’s imagination, or did he feel prickles of anger against his skin? “Go get Keith.”
“Of course,” Stensby said excitedly. There was nothing he wanted more than to do things for Alex.
Alex glanced over his shoulder. “And then we’re going to need a ride.”