Chapter Twenty-Three
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
...of course the Empath Initiative has jurisdiction over the empaths, but the FBI needs to stay in the loop. If for any reason they need more manpower, we can back them up.
And since Stone Solutions is so deeply intertwined with EI, I just think it just makes sense for me us to stay close with Stone Solutions too...
—EXCERPT FROM INTERNAL FBI MEMORANDUM, SIGNED BY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR JACOBS
Before heading into Stone Solutions Canada’s high-rise, Grayson made them stop at a coffee shop across the street, where he ordered nine drinks, a baker’s dozen of pastries, and eight sandwiches.
“How hungry are you?” Reece asked, as they stood to one side and waited for Grayson’s order.
“It’s not for me,” Grayson said. “We gotta walk into a high-rise like we belong there. Guards are less likely to think we’re suspicious if we look like the office interns who got sent on a coffee run.”
“Right, right,” Reece said skeptically. “Because you look so much like an office intern, standing six foot five with endless shoulders.”
“I’ll hunch,” Grayson said.
“Doesn’t fix your gorgeous face and perfect hair. Have you considered that going undercover might mean you need to be a little less hot?”
In the end, they got their bags of food and their drinks slotted into cardboard trays, and with Grayson hunched over, his hat pulled to his eyebrows and the drinks in front of his face, Reece could grudgingly concede people might not pay him too much attention.
He, on the other hand, felt wildly conspicuous as he stepped through the automatic doors into the ground floor of the high-rise. He clutched the bags of food tightly in his bare hands and followed Grayson a little more closely than he probably should have, considering that if Grayson stopped suddenly, there was a chance Reece would bump into him, and their clothes might not be enough to keep him from passing out.
The lobby was generically fancy, with clusters of modern furniture set along the two-story glass windows that framed the thick traffic along the street. A large sign on the wall by the elevator bank read All visitors must check in with security.
Reece glanced out of the corner of his eye at the end of the lobby, where there was a security desk with a trio of guards behind it.
Just walk on in like you belong here. Why his thoughts had to take on a Southern accent when he was taking Grayson’s advice, Reece was sure he didn’t know, but he kept his eyes on Grayson’s back and followed him to the bank of elevators to wait with a cluster of people in business casual attire, most of them carrying winter coats.
They stepped into the elevator, and Reece watched Grayson’s eyes go to a woman in a cardigan, who’d just pressed the button for the twenty-fourth floor. When the elevator stopped at twenty-four, Grayson cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but could you get the door for us?” Grayson said, as they followed Cardigan out of the elevator and into a small waiting area. This definitely wasn’t the main floor of Stone Solutions, because the door had only a small sign and a card scanner. “We got a delivery from a happy client.”
She glanced at Grayson. And then her gaze lingered, because Reece was right—he could try and hunch all he wanted, but he was still stupidly attractive. It worked in their favor this time, though, because Cardigan smiled and said, “Sure!”
A moment later, she’d scanned her card. Despite his full hands, Grayson somehow managed to gracefully twist in to hold the door for her with his shoulder. “Appreciate it,” he said to her.
“Anytime,” she said, with a little too much sincerity. “Do you work here? I don’t think I’ve seen you around.”
Because I would have fucking noticed someone as hot as you , Reece could practically hear her finish.
“Does running errands all day count as working here?” Grayson said, dodging the question as gracefully as he’d gotten the door. “You should come by the staff kitchen in a few minutes; one of these might have your name on it.”
“Yeah, cool,” she said, her gaze still on him, and boy, it was a good thing an empath like Reece was way too emotionally evolved for a caveman feeling like possessiveness over someone who wasn’t even his boyfriend and he couldn’t even touch.
Way too emotionally evolved.
Yes he was.
Cardigan turned down a hall, and Reece followed Grayson as they continued straight. “You know where you’re going?” Reece said quietly.
Grayson nodded. “I’ve been here before. Anyone asks, we’re office services.”
“If your office serves up catwalks, sure,” Reece muttered.
As they moved down the hall, they picked up a line of workers that followed them into the kitchen like they were white-collar Pied Pipers. “From a happy client,” Grayson lied again, as they set their stash on a round Formica table, and no one asked further questions as they descended to claim free food.
Reece carefully twisted around the crowd so he wouldn’t make contact with anyone as he and Grayson slipped out of the staff kitchen.
“Marist has an office on the twenty-sixth floor,” Grayson said quietly, as they stood against the wall.
“And how do we get up to her office?”
Grayson held up a key card.
“Wait,” Reece said. “Did you steal that?”
Grayson jerked a hand toward the office kitchen. “No one was looking past the lattes in there.”
Reece frowned.
Grayson gestured with the card. “Don’t act like you’ve never swiped one of these yourself.”
Reece sighed and followed Grayson down the hall.
From the Polaris lobby, Aisha rode down to the second level beneath the ground, nearly the mine’s lowest save for sublevel three, which was only for storage and the morgue. She stepped out into the hall, immediately chilled. The air was colder down here, and there was nothing but artificial light, the kind that made time meaningless. It wasn’t a long hall, and Aisha could see a security guard at the far end. He straightened up as he saw her.
“Dr. Easterby, with the Stone Solutions Seattle office,” she said, as he stood. “I’m here on behalf of Agent Grayson.”
The man flinched. “Understood, doctor. If I could just...”
Aisha didn’t hear him. Her gaze had gone past him, to the room he was guarding. The room held a single bed, which held Cora. She looked exactly like her pictures, pretty enough to make people look twice, except now her big brown eyes were closed, long brown hair spread out on the pillowcase around her. An IV on a stand was connected to her wrist while a monitor beeped softly.
Aisha knew, logically, that Cora had been behind more than a dozen deaths in Seattle in November. But looking at her, all she could feel was sympathy for the sunshiny therapist who’d been kidnapped and lost the love of her life in the most horrific and traumatizing way.
“Is she being sedated ?” Aisha demanded.
“She’s a mass murderer with emotion-control powers,” the guard said back sharply.
“That’s literally the entire reason this place was built in an old mine full of empathy-dampening metal residue,” Aisha said, even sharper. “I’m going in.”
“Doctor—”
“It wasn’t a request ,” Aisha said.
“If you’re opening that door, I have to lock down the whole floor.”
“Then lock it down,” Aisha said. “Go get a coffee or something and leave me and her alone.”
The guard threw up his hands, muttering something Aisha ignored as he finally turned, heading away down the hall toward the elevator.
Aisha swiped the access card Higgins had passed her, and a moment later, the door was sliding open, letting her in and then closing behind her.
Cora didn’t react. Her chest rose and fell with slow breaths as the heart monitor beeped at a concerningly sluggish speed. Aisha distractedly registered the whir of the blood pressure cuff tightening, then relaxing as she stepped to Cora’s bedside and picked up her chart.
Her mouth tightened. Sedating a corrupted empath did take a large dose and was tricky to maintain; their jacked-up corrupted empathy would burn through invasive medication like a wildfire. But there weren’t any studies about the long-term effects of sedation on empaths, and Cora was being pumped full of sedatives at a dosage better suited to a horse.
Aisha glanced back at Cora. She wasn’t just sedated; she was cuffed to the rails of the bed with padded medical cuffs. This deep in the mine, there were metals in the very walls. It wouldn’t block Cora’s strongest powers, like hearing lies, and Aisha’s safety wasn’t guaranteed, but the room itself was almost like an empath glove, and Cora would be groggy and disoriented and unable to touch her.
Aisha stepped close and carefully worked the IV out of Cora’s wrist. Then she stepped back and waited.
It didn’t take long for Cora’s eyelashes to start fluttering. Aisha cleared her throat. “My name is John Doe. I’m a middle-aged white man from Chicago.”
Cora slowly turned her head toward Aisha, blinking.
“You could hear that lie, right?” Aisha said. “Despite the location and the drugs? Sorry, I know this is a surprise and you don’t know me, but I don’t know how long we have and I just want to be sure you know I’m being completely honest with you.”
She stepped closer. “My actual name is Aisha Easterby. I’m a doctor, I live in Seattle, and I work with the Dead Man. I understand if that puts you off, but again, I want to be honest.”
Cora studied her for a moment, through half-open eyes. When she spoke, it came out as a hoarse whisper. “What do you want?”
“To check on you,” Aisha said.
Cora managed to look skeptical even through the drug haze. “Thirteen dead. From me . Check on them.”
“Oh, I know you were behind all those deaths, and I’m sorry for many of them,” Aisha said. “But some of them deserved what they got for what they did to you.”
Cora stared at her for a long moment. “Dr. Harleen Quinzel and the Joker,” she finally muttered.
Aisha’s lips twitched slightly at the reference. Cora had been a therapist and psychologist; of course she was familiar with that particular origin story. “That depends on whether you like pigtails,” Aisha said, before she meant to.
That drew a soft huff from Cora, like that had surprised her. “You don’t belong in this place, Harley Quinn.” She was beginning to sound more alert, likely the corrupted empathy working quickly to rid the sedative from her system.
Aisha gestured around them. “You don’t belong in this place. You’re not supposed to be in medical unless you need the care, and you’re sure as fuck not supposed to be cuffed to a bed and sedated.”
“Think worse shit is happening here,” Cora murmured, arching her neck a bit as she looked up at the ceiling.
Aisha frowned. “What do you mean, worse shit ?”
“Just a feeling.” Cora made a small gesture toward herself with the fingers of her cuffed hand. “Empath intuition. Whatever.”
“Not whatever,” said Aisha. “What do you think is happening here?”
“Why would you care?” Cora muttered.
Aisha frowned. “You think I don’t care what’s happening to the empaths here?” She began unwinding the scarf from her neck. “Obviously you can see this scar. It’s not my only one, and I bet an empath like you is already starting to guess how I got them.”
Cora turned her head back in Aisha’s direction, her gaze flicking over her with something like new recognition.
Aisha took a breath through her nose, keeping her voice steady. “Once upon a time, some very bad scientists thought it would be an interesting experiment to find out what my pain would do to my empath boyfriend.”
Cora seemed to still.
“Peter didn’t take it well. At all,” Aisha went on, hoarse herself now. “And he didn’t survive the transformation. So when I say that I know you’re a victim too, that what was done to you was more monstrous than anything you did, and that I care whether or not you’re okay, you can hear that I believe it’s the truth.”
Cora’s gaze was now on Aisha’s face. Finally, she said, “I’ve felt people, in my sleep, their emotions so strong they burn through this place. Some are new. Some are gone.” She tilted her head. “And the freak who runs this place is a sadist.” She met Aisha’s eyes. “I would know.”
Shit. “Okay,” Aisha said, as she rewound her scarf around her neck. “I’m going to look. And I’m going to get you out of this fucking basement,” she promised. “I’ll be back.”
She could feel Cora watching her as she left.
Reece followed Grayson down a couple halls until they found the office supply room, where they grabbed a couple empty laptop bags and loaded them with miscellaneous cords. There was a set of fire stairs nearby, and they took those up two flights and then used the key card to unlock the door at the twenty-sixth floor.
They poked their heads out, looking up and down a door-lined hall. At the far end was a door with large interior windows on either side. It looked like the office behind them took up the entire side of the building. Through the glass, Reece could see a desk with what looked like Marist’s personal receptionist behind it.
“So are we still office services?” Reece whispered.
“No,” said Grayson. “Now we’re from the Help Desk.”
Reece gave him a searching look. “We’re IT support?”
“That’s right.”
“Evan,” Reece said patiently. “I can pass for an intern on a coffee run or office services picking up the mail. I cannot pass for IT. I can barely work my phone. I am the reason help desks are necessary.”
“You got a better excuse for us to go poking around Ms. Marist’s office?”
Reece sighed.
He once again let Grayson lead the way as he knocked courteously on Marist’s door and then inched it open. “Excuse me, ma’am?” he said to the secretary. “IT got a call to service Ms. Marist’s printer while she’s in Seattle?”
The secretary had a harried look on her face as she glanced their way, confused. “You did?”
“We sure did.” Reece met her eyes, hoping his own looked innocent and sympathetic. “You must be so busy trying to deal with everything while she’s gone. We’ll try to be quiet and stay out of your way.”
The secretary’s face smoothed out. “Thanks, I am busy,” she agreed. “Do whatever you need to.”
Reece followed Grayson through the wooden door to the secretary’s right and into an office that was decorated almost aggressively professionally. Diplomas hung on the walls, along with tastefully bland art and a handful of framed photos. One wall was taken up by an enormous screen, which was currently dark.
“I don’t think I’d have pegged the president of Stone Solutions Canada to need a giant television in her office,” Reece said, keeping his voice barely a whisper as he and Grayson crouched down by the printer. “Doesn’t really fit with the rest of the decor.”
“It’s not a television, it’s the empath map,” said Grayson. “Mr. Stone had them installed in every office.”
“Empath...map?”
“It shows where all the empath trackers currently are.”
Reece narrowed his eyes. “Oh, it’s Stalker TV , how cute,” he said bitingly. He turned his gaze to the framed photos. “And are these the stalkers?” He straightened and stepped closer to the photos. “I recognize Cedrick Stone.”
Grayson joined him at the wall. “If by stalkers you mean all the directors of the various empath organizations, then yeah.” Grayson pointed to the center photo, of a pretty, polished blonde woman with a perfect smile standing on a dizzyingly high suspension bridge next to a handsome Black man. “That’s Vivian Marist herself, with Assistant Director Jacobs. He’s the Empath Initiative’s liaison with the FBI.”
“And they’re fucking,” said Reece.
Grayson blinked. “What?”
“Those two.” Reece tapped the picture of Marist and Jacobs. “Secret relationship that they’re hiding from their work colleagues. You can’t tell? It’s written all over them, even in a still picture, how they’re leaning into each other like they can’t help themselves. Not to mention it’s Marist’s only casual picture and she’s put it in the nicest frame, right at what’s probably her eye level. I bet she’s in love.”
“I did not know any of this,” Grayson muttered to himself.
“What about this one?” Reece gestured at a different photo, the largest one on the wall. It was a professional, posed shot, with the Seattle skyline behind them. A caption at the bottom read Dedicated to Keeping You Safe . “Who are these two assholes with Marist and Cedrick Stone?”
“The big man next to Cedrick Stone is Director Traynor.”
Reece raised an eyebrow. “Why is the director of an empath organization built like you?”
“Ex-military,” Grayson said. “Used to be a general. If I work for anyone, it’s him; the role of the Dead Man was his idea.”
“Was it.” Reece sized up Traynor in the picture. Unlike the poised, corporate smiles of Stone and Marist, Traynor’s face was carefully blank. “Who’s the guy next to Marist and what does he run?”
“Director Nichols,” said Grayson. “He runs a—research facility.”
“I see.” Reece narrowed his eyes at the man in the picture, who had brown hair and pale eyes. Something about his expression gave Reece the creeps. “And what kind of research facility is dedicated to making people safe but also makes the Dead Man stumble over telling an empath about it?”
“It’s—I mean—”
“Back on the rooftop of the Seattle Stone Solutions, Cedrick Stone mentioned they were going to send Cora to a place where they did research.” Reece’s eyes narrowed further. “He said it was here, in BC. Does this creep run that place?”
“Reece, stop,” Grayson said, more quietly. “Your empathy is trying to discover secrets the people of Seattle and Vancouver can’t afford for you to know. There might be a day when it’s not safe for them that you know. Understand?”
Reece took a breath, trying to calm his blood pressure. “Was your brother sent to that place too?”
He hadn’t realized he was going to ask that question until it had already spilled from his lips.
For a moment, the only sound was the hum of the fluorescent lights above and the clicking of computer keys as Marist’s secretary typed in the next room.
“No,” Grayson finally said. “Everything that happened with Alex happened in Texas.”
I know where you’re trying to lead this conversation, detective , Grayson had said on the phone at the car show, to Jamey. Except there’s no chance. He’s dead.
Grayson had paused to listen, then added, I’m completely sure. And I can be completely sure because I was there. If you take my meaning.
You were where? Reece had asked.
Texas.
“Your brother died in Texas.” Reece jerked his head to look over his shoulder, back at Grayson. “Is that what you were talking about earlier, with Jamey?”
“Reece—”
“You’re certain your brother is dead because you were there ?”
Grayson didn’t answer for a moment, standing in the middle of the office, framed by the window’s gray skies and mountain landscape. “Alex was the most dangerous corrupted empath I’ve ever met,” he finally said. “And the Dead Man always does what he has to do to save people. I wasn’t safe for my brother and I’ll never be safe for any empath, including you. You gotta remember that. Always.”
Reece stared at him.
He could read between those lines just fine, read the neon sign Grayson was unsubtly flashing for both him and Jamey.
He expected them to take his words to mean that Evan Grayson had caused Alex Grayson’s death.
And someone else, even Jamey, might actually believe it.
But Grayson might as well expect Reece to add one plus one and get three.
“Evan,” Reece said again, his voice a little lower. “What happened to you and your brother?”
Grayson’s gaze flicked over his face, like he was trying to confirm if Reece had swallowed the lie he’d just tried to tell.
“I’m not gonna give an empath details they shouldn’t be hearing, you know that,” he said. “I don’t have feelings about what happened, so it’s not worth dragging into the light. You want to help, keep an eye on the secretary so I can dig in Ms. Marist’s files and see if they’ve started making and mailing out extra-large empath gloves here, like the ones that turned up at the airsoft course. Then I might need to get back to Seattle and go looking for Officer Stensby—wherever the Dead Man is needed.”
Reece watched him walk over to the desk, bending his tall frame to open a drawer. His gaze went to the picture on the wall, of Stone and Marist, of Traynor and Nichols. These were the leaders in empathy defense. People who claimed to be protecting innocents from empaths, but when they had learned of the horror that happened to the Grayson brothers, they’d taken advantage, descended on Evan like vultures, treating him like he wasn’t a person anymore, just a weapon, until even Grayson believed it.
Reece slipped a hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out his phone. Keeping an eye on Grayson, he opened his messages—but not his texts with Jamey.
Instead, he opened the last message he’d gotten from Stensby, about a bakery in Everett, and sent a new text.
I’m not sure who has this phone now.
But I think I want to talk to you.