Chapter Nine
Why waste time asking “who signed what” or “who authorized what” for the experiments that took place on the Grayson brothers
in that Texas bunker? I don’t see why we need to investigate or drag any of that into the light.
We should instead consider the advantages of Evan Grayson’s new state. Evan has been improved. He is stronger and faster than
ever yet no longer has emotions or attachments to interfere with his work. He’s as dead inside as a corpse now—and in the
fight against empaths, that’s exactly what we need.
—Comment by H.T. on a Stone Solutions manual, Anatomy of a Dead Man
Jamey sat at the kitchen table, coffee in front of her and her headphones in her ears. On the other end of the phone line
was Aisha Easterby.
“So you think Reece is being framed?”
There was no skepticism in Aisha’s voice, just the compassion of a doctor and the open-mindedness of a scientist. Jamey wrapped her hands around her coffee mug. “Grayson thinks I’m being naive and emotional, even if he’s too polite to say it in those words.”
“Well, I think Grayson should remember you were already a detective when he was still partying in college,” Aisha said a little
more dryly, “and he should listen to you.”
Jamey snorted. “I don’t have proof either way,” she confessed. “But I’ve seen a lot of crimes. And I don’t think this was
Reece.” She watched the rain falling on the trees, trying to put a gut feeling into words. “There’s a body and a neat pile
of evidence implicating Reece. Too neat.”
“Like a magician’s sleight of hand? Someone wants your focus on their illusion so you don’t pay attention to the real trick?”
“Yes,” Jamey said. “Reece is a lot smarter and more competent than he lets people think. He wouldn’t have left evidence like this.”
“But what if he wanted you to know it was him?” Aisha said, careful and gentle.
“Then he would have done something more dramatic. Something Stone Solutions couldn’t have quickly hushed up, like they’ve
done here.” Jamey bit her lip. “Look, I know it sounds like I’m grasping at straws, that I’m just refusing to believe that
Reece is really corrupted and capable of murder—”
“Or maybe you’ve got killer detective instincts,” Aisha said firmly, “and you also know Reece better than anyone else does.
I agree with you. He didn’t do this. Let’s find proof and remind Evan that innocent until proven guilty still applies to corrupted empaths.”
Jamey let out a quiet sigh of relief. “Thanks,” she said gratefully. “How’s it going with the pacifist empaths?”
“Diesel and I split the list. All of them are present and accounted for, and most have safe places to lay low for a few days,” Aisha said. “But we’ve got ten that still need protection.” She coughed. “Good thing Grayson has a whole safe house here.”
“You’re not serious,” Jamey said, even as a grudging smile began to play on her lips.
“A house full of empathy and compassion? Why wouldn’t I be serious?” Jamey could hear Aisha’s smile in the words. “Diesel’s
into it too. And where are you going to get a safer place than a safe house with a former marine?”
Maybe not surprising that Aisha and Diesel were in sync now, considering everything they’d been through together. And maybe
combining ten empaths and two kind but traumatized sweethearts in a safe house wasn’t the worst idea.
“I don’t hate this plan,” Jamey admitted.
“Evan will back us, I know he will, and he’ll handle all the costs,” Aisha promised. “We’ll get them in the air tomorrow.
What’s the best airport?”
“I’ll check with Liam, but my first thought is Bellingham,” Jamey said. “We can fly them in from all over the country without
them coming into the lion’s den of Seattle, and then Liam could fly them up to Salt Spring from there.”
“That’s perfect,” Aisha said.
“We’ll have to make sure they all find and leave their Stone Solutions trackers at home, though,” Jamey added. “Last thing
we want is those assholes finding out we’re moving a whole group of empaths under their noses.”
“You got it.”
“And Liam and I will fly up tonight, check on you both and make sure the house is secure.”
“Absolutely.” Aisha sounded happier and more hopeful than she had since Jamey had pulled her out of Polaris. “We’re going
to make this happen, Jamey. Have hope.”
Jamey held her phone for a moment after they hung up, looking at her texts, her unanswered messages to Reece.
She wasn’t giving up. But Grayson couldn’t feel hope. He didn’t have any hope that he could save his own brother.
A memory played in her mind, a phone call from the SPD’s Officer Stensby, but the voice on the other side a stranger with
an accent like Evan Grayson’s.
Apparently Officer Stensby punctured the brake fluid in Reece’s car earlier today. It’s likely all drained out by now.
I have a personal interest in Reece’s safety, so if you could get in touch with some of the folks back in Seattle and see
if anyone can find Reece before his brakes fail, I’d be real appreciative.
I imagine you don’t want him to die either.
Jamey had seen Stensby two days later, with her own eyes, in a bloody fight with scientists at Polaris and almost certainly
under thrall himself.
Alex Grayson’s thrall.
She rolled the phone in her hand for a moment, then opened her text chain with Stensby and began to type.
Jamey: I think Alex Grayson has this phone now. And if I’m right, I have a message for you.
Jamey: I know Reece didn’t kill that security guard. Someone is framing him and I’m going to find proof.
Jamey: You helped me save Reece once before. Help me again now.
Jamey: I am not your enemy.
She sent the texts and then leaned back against the kitchen chair, exhaling.
Alex Grayson was the reason Evan Grayson couldn’t feel hope.
But Jamey could feel it for them.
Alex and Cora had gone, having the new thrall, Officer Kosler, drive them in his cruiser and leaving the F-150 in the garage.
The house was quiet in their wake, no emotions emanating from the sedated Traynor in the bedroom, just the endless patter
of partially frozen rain against the window. For the first time, Reece felt completely alone in the house, and the solitude
seemed to amplify the prickling on his skin, like the black lightning in his veins was now on the outside too.
He tried to shake it off, heading back into the kitchen and sliding into one of the booth seats at the table. The sky outside
the window was a silvery shade of white now, the clouds thick with the winter rain that speckled the surface of Lake Washington.
“All right, Reece,” he said to himself out loud, reaching for Grayson’s laptop where it lay on the table. “Time to be something
other than useless.”
As he pulled the laptop close, his phone chimed. He glanced down.
Grayson: Fine by me. Next time we meet, you’re gonna get the real Dead Man. The one that doesn’t play games.
That arrogance was not going to help Reece’s temper.
Reece: I’ve met the real Dead Man already.
Reece: He’s a dick.
The flash drive Reece had stolen from Stone Solutions Canada was also on the table.
He picked it up and inserted it into the laptop, then opened the drive.
He carefully avoided the spreadsheet. If he saw those extra columns again, the suggestions for how to make Jamey suffer in order to heighten Reece’s own paranormal abilities, he would absolutely lose his already tenuous grasp on his anger.
Instead, Reece opened another file, the one he had caught glimpses of in Vivian Marist’s Vancouver office.
It’s a broken instruction manual, more or less, Grayson had said that day. How to make a Dead Man.
Yesterday, the mere threat of Grayson’s presence had meant Reece couldn’t risk thralling Smith. And now Smith was dead, and
they’d been forced to think of new ways to interfere with the glove manufacturing.
Reece was going to make damn sure Grayson didn’t fuck up their plans again. Reece could fuck things up on his own just fine,
thank you very much.
The file opened, filling his screen. Reece took a picture of the cover page and attached it to a text.
Reece: Remember when you didn’t think your precious little Care Bear could handle what was in these big, scary files?
Reece: Can’t stop me now.
Reece began to click through the manual. The first few pages were biographical information on both Alex and Evan Grayson:
birth certificates, high school diplomas for both of them and a college diploma for Evan Grayson. Was Alex going to be thrilled
that Reece was going through his past? Well, if Reece could find a weakness in the Dead Man, it would be worth it.
And he’d just try very hard not to look at the comments he remembered had littered the margins, from the likes of Victor Nichols and Holt Traynor. No, he very definitely shouldn’t look at those.
His phone chimed again.
Grayson: You want my past, you go right ahead and dig. You could learn everything in that manual and more from Alex himself anyway.
Grayson: It was still worth protecting your pacifist side from seeing what’s in that file.
Reece’s eyes narrowed.
Reece: It was pointless. Everything you did, everything you tried, from hiding these files to that bullet scar on your shoulder.
POINTLESS.
Reece: You were never going to save me.
Shit. Reece hadn’t meant to text that much. He dropped his phone on the table with more force than necessary and went back
to the manual. He clicked on the next page.
And froze.
It was a picture of Alex, a little younger than he was now, a beaming ray of sunshine holding a box of canned goods in gloved
hands. He was standing next to a cheerful hand-lettered sign that read Food Drive! and flanked by two others of middle age, a woman with tan skin and hazel eyes and a pale man with blond-brown hair, both
of them waving at the camera with smiles of their own.
Alex and his parents, before they were murdered to corrupt him.
Distantly, Reece heard his phone go off again. He glanced down at the screen.
Grayson: I bought us time before corruption got you.
Grayson: So no. It wasn’t POINTLESS. And I’d take that bullet again for the pacifist version of you.
Grayson: But you’ve made it real clear that’s not who you are anymore.
Reece swallowed. His gaze lingered on Grayson’s words.
He believes you’re a murderer now, said the little voice in Reece’s head. Of course he doesn’t think you’re worth a bullet anymore.
Reece shoved the phone to the side without responding. He forced his eyes back to the manual and the older picture of Alex
with his parents in the days before corruption and the Dead Man.
Don’t click to the next page. Don’t do it.
Reece clicked down, too hard, even when he knew in his gut what he’d see.
And there it was: an old photo of Grayson, taken next to the same black F-150 Raptor that was now in Owens’s garage. In the
picture, the truck was parked in the dappled shade of a stately oak, the tailgate down and boxes of food donations stacked
in the bed. Grayson was casually dressed in shorts and a college T-shirt, crouching down to play with the oversized retriever
trying to lick his face.
And he was happy.
The sound of the rain had been lost to the pounding of Reece’s heart in his ears.
There was a golden summer hue to the picture, the sky a brilliant blue through the green-leaved tree branches stretching up above Grayson’s head.
His eyes were crinkled at the corners and his mouth was partially open, lips turned up like the photographer had captured him mid-laugh.
This was Evan before the Dead Man—the Evan in Texas who’d loved his parents, and his little brother, and apparently dogs.
And this picture was in a manual dedicated to his transformation, the upcoming pages a detailed recounting of exactly what
horror he’d been put through in an underground bunker as twisted scientists following orders attempted to make the corruption
in Alex even more powerful, and Alex had made him the Dead Man so they could escape.
I can’t undo it, and neither could you, Alex had said. For all intents and purposes, Evan’s transformation is permanent.
Reece yanked out the flash drive, the picture of Grayson disappearing from the laptop screen. He tossed the drive on the table,
slammed the laptop shut and ran both hands roughly through his hair.
Fuck figuring out Grayson’s weaknesses. He had a new plan: learn the names of every person responsible for what had been done
to the Grayson brothers.
And find them all.
He could start with Traynor—
Reece abruptly stilled.
He hadn’t realized he’d already gotten to his feet.
Distantly, he could hear voices outside, neighbors beginning to yell. He couldn’t let this happen; couldn’t deal with Traynor
on his own before they could question him, couldn’t let himself lose control and start a neighborhood brawl that could bring
the police.
He took off for the garage at a sprint, snatching the keys off the hook on his way.
He could lay low in the truck again, somewhere far away from other people.