Liar City

Book 1: Sugar & Vice

by Allie Therin

Genres: Paranormal Romance; Mystery; Paranormal

Synopsis

A 2023 AUDIOFILE EARPHONES AWARD WINNER

A murder has Seattle on edge, and it falls to a pacifist empath—and a notorious empath hunter—to find the killer before it's too late

It’s the middle of the night when part-time police consultant and full-time empath Reece gets an anonymous call warning him that his detective sister needs his help. At an out-of-the-way Seattle marina, he discovers that three people have been butchered—including the author of the country’s strictest anti-empathy bill, which is just days from being passed into law.

Soon, Reece’s caller arrives: a shadowy government agent known as The Dead Man, who is rumored to deal exclusively in cases involving empathy. He immediately takes over the investigation, locking out both local PD and the FBI, but, strangely, keeps Reece by his side. 

As the two track an ever-growing trail of violence and destruction across Seattle, Reece must navigate a scared and angry city, an irritating attraction to his mysterious agent companion, and a rising fear that perhaps empaths like him aren’t all flight and no fight after all…

"Readers will be yearning for more the minute they finish the final page." —Library Journal, starred review, on Starcrossed

Sugar & Vice

Release date: February 28, 2023

Publisher: Carina Press

Print pages: 397

Sample

Chapter One

The question everyone asks, of course, is what do we know about the empath mutation? We know the correlating empathic abilities threaten our privacy and the sanctity of our minds. We know the empaths cannot be allowed to freely use this empathy, because no amount of so-called pacifism gives them the right to use their abilities to discover emotions we do not consent to share.

But there is a far more important question they ought to be asking: what don’t we know about the empaths?

—C. Stone, confidential funding memo to the Empath Initiative

Reece supposed if he’d been a look on the bright side kind of empath, he might have had a platitude ready, something pithy about how insomnia’s single perk was being awake no matter what time someone called.

But platitudes and perks and so-called bright sides were for people who could still lie to themselves, and no one had been able to lie to Reece since March. So when his chirpy ringtone shattered the silence of the diner, he instead jerked in surprise and dropped his cup, which crashed to the Formica table and sent orange juice flooding right off the edge onto his jeans.

He cursed and scrambled out of the booth. Under the hard stare of the lone waitress, he snatched the phone up in gloved hands and fumbled to silence it. Ducking his head so he wouldn’t have to meet her suspicious eyes, he squinted at the screen.

Unknown caller.

“Great,” he muttered. This was obviously going to be good news, an unknown caller at four a.m. on a Tuesday. He put the phone to his ear. “Who is this?”

“We’ve never been properly introduced.”

The man on the other side of the phone had a deep voice and a sugar-sweet Southern accent, and that was the extent of what Reece could read. Even before March, he’d despised how electronics stripped a voice, replacing a symphony with a cheap music box. Now it grated on him to no end to have to flounder blindly with a stranger. “How did you get this number?”

“Seattle’s only got two empaths. I’d wager everyone has your number.”

Reece narrowed his eyes. “Not my new one. And that wasn’t an answer.”

His thigh was already growing cold and sticky. He balanced the phone in the crook of his neck as he grabbed a cheap napkin from the dispenser and scrubbed at his jeans. The napkin shredded against the fabric without soaking up any juice.

There was a noise in the caller’s background, a rushing sound, as the man said, “Maybe Detective St. James gave it to me.”

Please. Jamey would eat her own badge first. “Maybe you be straight with me or I hang up.”

“Aren’t you awful prickly for an empath?”

“I don’t like phone calls.” Were those cars Reece was hearing? A highway, perhaps?

The deep drawl rolled through the phone like a lazy river. “I’m Evan Grayson.”

The hairs on the back of Reece’s neck rose. He knew that name from somewhere, like the echo of a dream that had vanished in the daylight. “Should I care?”

“You—”

“More importantly: are you driving right now?”

There was a pause.

“I knew it,” said Reece. “You shouldn’t talk on the phone when you’re behind the wheel. It’s dangerous for you and everyone else on the road.”

“That’s not more important than my name.”

“Yes it is. Cell phones cause one out of every four car crashes in the US.”

“You’ve got no idea who I am,” Grayson said, “and the empath priorities of a Care Bear.”

“Just doing my part to keep the streets safer. Somebody should and it’s obviously not going to be you.” Reece sat back down on the dry side of the booth. He was still being watched by the waitress, but then, she’d had eyes on him since he came in. More specifically, she’d had eyes on his gloves, and it wasn’t the stare of someone wanting a phone number from the short, skinny guy covered in juice. He lowered his voice. “So, Evan Grayson, what do you want?”

“Are you sitting down?”

“Dancing, actually. I can’t contain my joy that I’m party to your four a.m. reckless endangerment—”

“Tell me you’re sitting.”

Sittin’. Reece glanced out the droplet-streaked window at the dark street beyond, where a liquor store’s neon signs illuminated the flecks of sleet in the falling rain. Even stripped by the phone, the out-of-place accent was a shot of unexpected warmth against the freezing November night, and Reece’s defenses were apparently cold traitors because he found himself answering instead of hanging up. “Yes, I’m sitting.”

“There’s been a murder.”

Reece fumbled the phone. He seized it in both hands before it could fall. He clutched it too tightly, clenching his teeth.

Grayson’s voice floated up from the speaker, tinny and distant. “Did you drop your phone?”

Reece put it back to his ear. “No,” he lied.

“Now you know why you needed to sit. I’m used to empath pacifism. Most of y’all don’t even like that word.”

Reece took a hard breath. Blew it out. He couldn’t make out a single emotion in that drawl and had no idea if he was being mocked. “So why tell me about it?” he said tightly, trying to shove away encroaching thoughts of human cruelty, of pain and suffering beyond his help.

“Because this murder is gonna be the biggest case of Detective St. James’ career and she’s got nothing.”

Reece’s stomach dropped. “Nothing?”

“No leads. No theories. No clues. The city’s not gonna take her failure well. You might know what an unhappy press is like.”

He swallowed hard. He knew exactly how unforgiving the press could be, and the thought that the news might drag Jamey through that same mud—but no, she wasn’t a fool who ran her mouth like him, and there was no better person to solve a major crime. “If there’s something to find, she’ll find it.”

“Unless finding it would take an ability she doesn’t have. An ability only a handful of folks with delicate ears have. Pretty sure you know where I’m going with this.”

“What I know,” Reece said, free hand balling into a gloved fist, “is that Jamey would call me if she needed an empath.”

“For a petty theft? Sure. Grand larceny, even, assuming no one got scratched. But the way I hear it, Detective St. James would take a bullet before she called her precious baby brother to a homicide.”

Reece tightened his jaw. “I would help her with anything.”

“That’s why I called. She’s at the Orca’s Gate Marina.”

And Grayson hung up.

Reece stared at his phone in disbelief, then slapped it down on the table with a huff. He didn’t know Evan Grayson from the president. He could be a bully wanting to ridicule the empath aversion to violence. He could be another anti-empathy activist who’d dreamed up a new conspiracy. He could be simply lying; thanks to the phone, Reece wouldn’t know.

He bit at one gloved thumb and worried it between his teeth. He’d noticed Jamey’s car was gone at three a.m. when he’d given up on falling back asleep and gotten off her couch for a drive. But he hadn’t thought anything of it. Jamey didn’t need much sleep and sometimes she was out at night. It didn’t mean she was on a case. It didn’t mean Grayson was telling the truth. And it certainly didn’t mean his sister could use his help.

He found himself dialing her number anyway.

Four rings, then voicemail. He dropped his phone to the table again and buried his face in his hands, his pulse too loud in his ears. Was he really considering going to the scene of a—

He cut off the thought before the word formed, but he was already on his feet. If there was even a chance Jamey needed him, he would be there.

As he approached the register at the end of the bar counter, the waitress came over with dragging steps and stopped a few feet away. She pointed at his hands. “You never took off your gloves.”

His fingers automatically flexed inside the stiff material. “Of course I didn’t—”

“I thought you were just cold when you came in. But you’re an empath, aren’t you?”

Great, another place to cross off his list of insomnia haunts. “I’m also a Pisces, but no one ever asks about that.” Under her relentless stare, he reached for his wallet, pointing back to the booth with his other hand. “If you have a rag, I can—”

She recoiled. “How did you know I was pissed about having to clean up?”

“There’s juice everywhere, anyone would be—”

“Are you reading my mind?”

“Emotions aren’t—”

“I thought the gloves keep us safe from empathy!”

Reece bit his lip, then said, “They do.”

He knew it would be a lie before he said it. And sure enough, the sound rang sour in his ears, like hearing himself sing off-key.

The gloves did block his empathy, that part was true, but it would take only a second to yank them off and get bare hands on her bare skin. Only a second for the touch of his hands to shred every mask and expose her true emotions to him, clear as words on a page, whether she wanted to share them or not.

And she was still safe. He’d never read her without consent. No empath would. It was a lie to say the gloves kept people safe because what kept people safe was the empaths themselves.

But he wanted to drive the fear from her eyes, so he chose the lie she and the rest of the public needed to believe.

No one knows the gloves can’t stop you from hearing those lies now—

Reece quickly shoved the thought away. He put half of his meager cash on the counter, enough to cover the juice, tax, tip and extra for the cleanup. “Sorry about the mess.” At least it wasn’t another lie.

He pulled his hood over his dark hair as he pushed out the doors of the diner, the bell jingling too brightly behind him as he darted through the sleet to his car.

---

It was closing on five a.m. by the time Reece arrived at the marina north of the city, and his clothes were still damp with rain and juice despite blasting the heat the entire drive. He slowed his car as he approached the turn-in, his pulse speeding up. There was a police perimeter set up at the entrance, and what looked like most of the force in the parking lot beyond, whirling red and blue lights bright against the night’s tenacious darkness. Mixed in with the cruisers was an ambulance, a black Explorer—and the unmarked navy blue Charger the Seattle Police Department had given Jamey.

Reece gritted his teeth. He’d wanted Grayson to be wrong.

He pulled up to the barricade and an officer in a puffy coat tapped on the driver’s window, which was luckily the one that still worked. The previous owner had not been kind to the car, but that’s why it had been in Reece’s budget. He managed to roll the window halfway down with only a grunt of effort.

The officer shone his flashlight into the car, making Reece’s eyes water. “This is a crime scene. You should be in bed, kid.”

Cold rain peppered Reece’s face as he held up his consultant ID card, a recent gift from the SPD’s public relations front man, Liam Lee.

Your big mouth might make me less work if the press knows you’re officially part of the team, Liam had said, when he’d

created the card for him.

Your big sister is worth putting up with her wreck of a brother, more like, but Reece would grudgingly admit the card came in useful.

“Oh!” The officer glanced at the card, but he was more interested in the gloves. “You’re the detective’s brother. I’ve heard about you. Did she call you in?”

“Why else would I have come?” Reece said, because no was the wrong answer.

The officer jerked his head toward the chaos beyond. “Go on in. I’ll tell her you’re here.”

Reece drove down to the lot and parked his Smart car next to Jamey’s navy blue Charger. He killed the engine but sat in the car, fingers clenched tight around the steering wheel. The tiny space seemed claustrophobic and overheated as he tried to pretend his rapid breaths weren’t loud enough to drown out the rain dotting his roof.

This Grayson guy had been right about where Jamey was. Based on the slew of officers on scene, he was likely also right about why. And as much as Reece wanted to turn around and drive anywhere else, Grayson might also be right about Jamey needing his help.

He stared at the whirling red and blue lights as he tried to slow his breathing. The police would let him help, even on a case like this. Especially on a case like this. No matter how much buzz the empathy bans were getting, they weren’t in place yet, and most law enforcement were still happy to exploit empathy if it got the results they wanted.

A shock of freezing wet air swirled in as the driver’s door of his Smart car was yanked open.

“What are you doing here?”

Jamey had found him, her tall figure bundled in a thick coat and a hat tugged over her dark curls. There were stress lines at the corners of her deep brown eyes, but the sight of her was still steadying enough to slow Reece’s heart to something close to normal.

He tried for a smile and managed a grimace. “Possibly having a panic attack?”

She huffed and moved to shield his open door from the worst of the rain. “You don’t want to be here.”

“I really don’t.”

“How did you find this place?” She wrinkled her nose. “And why do you smell like oranges?”

Ugh, her nose was too good. “I got a call that you needed my help.”

She frowned. “Who?”

“Some guy with this outrageous Southern accent. Said his name was Evan Grayson.”

Jamey blanched.

Reece’s heartbeat promptly rocketed right back up. “Funny,” he said, gaze locked on the fear on her face, “he seemed to think I should know his name too. Who—”

“Out of the car.” Reece started to twist out of his seat, but Jamey, as always, was faster. She grabbed him by the arm and extracted him with one easy tug. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?” he asked, as she steered him through the rain and the parking lot, past a barrier set up around a Ford Transit with a smashed headlight and toward a plastic tent stamped Property of Seattle Police Department.

“Somewhere I can keep an eye on you.”

“Who’s Evan Grayson?”

Jamey shook her head. “Not right now,” she said. “This is a homicide scene and you’re three seconds from a panic attack. We’re not talking about Grayson too.”

“But how could Grayson make it worse?”

“Not now. You’re already a mess.”

“When am I ever anything else?” he muttered bitterly.

“Stop,” she said. “I know better than anyone that your compassion’s a strength.”

She tugged his arm. He sighed and tried to make his legs move faster.

The tent was at the end of the parking lot, right before the edge of the tarmac and a sharp drop-off to the ocean beyond. Past the tent was an arched sign that read Orca’s Gate Marina, adorned with a smiling killer whale that seemed inappropriately cheerful, given the circumstances. Beneath the sign, a well-lit wooden ramp led to a collection of pristine yachts and private sailboats moored at the docks.

When they reached the tent, Jamey abruptly paused, one hand on the plastic flap. “Put your hands in your pockets.”

Hide his gloves? He drew back. “Since when do I embarrass you?”

She gave him a funny look. “Since never?”

He folded his arms over his chest, but that had been unfair of him. She’d looked out for him his whole life. Whatever her reason, it would never be shame.

The icy rain dampened his hair as she bent to his eye level. “I know what you think—that if you show you’re willing to hide, it will make people more nervous about empaths,” she said. “But just this once. Trust me.”

He sighed. “You know I do.”

She was studying his face. “You were sleeping when I left. I guess that didn’t last much longer.”

“I look that bad, huh?”

“Don’t be a jerk,” she said. “I do notice your insomnia.”

“Yeah, well, nightmares will do that to you.”

“They’ll stop soon.” Her promise was twisted into discordance and he cringed. Her shoulders dropped an inch. “Sorry,” she said. “I wish I really believed that. You used to sleep like a baby.”

He blew out a breath. “You used to be able to lie to me. A lot’s changed.”

She gestured pointedly around the marina. “I would like to have changed you running mindlessly toward anywhere there are people in pain or you think you can help. This is the last place you should be right now.”

There was a strained edge to her voice, a tense set to her shoulders. He tried for a lighter tone, even if only for a moment. “Careful with that concern. People will wonder which one of us is the empath.”

She made a face. “No they won’t. The touchy-feely shtick is your thing, just like I don’t call you for a spot at the gym.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“Exactly.”

As she pushed the plastic tent flap aside, he jammed his hands deep in the pockets of his hoodie and said, “Grayson’s name put fear on your face.”

She hesitated. “It was—”

“Don’t tell me it was my imagination. I’m an empath. It’s never my imagination.” He kept his gaze on her. “Nothing scares you. Why does Grayson?”

He watched subtle emotions dance across her face as she tried to decide what to tell him. Finally, she said, “Because I think this is his kind of crime.”

The hairs on the back of Reece’s neck rose. “You’re afraid Grayson might be behind this?”

“No.” She ducked into the tent, her words barely reaching his ears. “I’m afraid he might show up.” 

Chapter Two

...while acknowledging SB 1437 would impose the strictest limits on empathy yet, bill sponsor Senator Hathaway said, “We simply cannot have empaths in government jobs. If one can know another’s emotions, it would be too easy to manipulate them, and we have only the empaths’ word for it that they would never. Our citizens must be able to trust that their elected officials operate with autonomy.”

When asked for her response to critics who point out the bill will impact even nonpolitical agencies, Hathaway replied, “To those who call the act fearmongering or overreach, I say it is only the start of the protections we need.”

—excerpt from the Emerald City Tribune,
“Proposed bill would limit empath involvement in government, politics”

Inside the police tent, a space heater ran on a generator, and while it didn’t make things warm, it was better than outside. More than a dozen officers were packed into the tent, mostly clustered around a folding table set with cardboard carafes of coffee. Two officers were hunched over a second folding table, concentrating on a laptop.

Several heads turned in Reece and Jamey’s direction as they entered, but most saw Jamey and went right back to their business. The few interested looks that persisted were on her, not Reece, and people being interested in Jamey certainly wasn’t new.

She pulled Reece against the plastic wall at the far side of the tent, officers shifting to give them a patch of space. “Stay here and keep a low profile until—”

“Low profile?” Reece matched her whisper. “If you need an empath’s help—”

“We can’t have it.” And before Reece could ask why the hell not, she said, “I’m getting you out of Seattle.”

Reece’s eyes widened. “I think you better tell me who Evan Grayson—”

But she touched a finger to her lips, so he clamped his mouth shut. A moment later, he heard the voice too.

“—of course, of course.” A sleepy-eyed police officer, probably in his early thirties like Jamey, was pushing out from the crowd, a phone glued to the side of his face. His gaze zeroed in on Jamey. “Detective St. James would be happy to go back to the yacht—”

“Little busy here, Taylor,” said Jamey.

“—and I’m sure she can answer your questions,” Officer Taylor said into the phone. “I’m looking for her right now.” Taylor covered the phone with one hand and mouthed please.

“I’ll drive the kid home,” he whispered, jerking his head toward Reece. “How’d he wander into this mess?”

“I’m twenty-six,” Reece said. “She’s just tall.”

“He’s my brother,” said Jamey.

Taylor’s gaze darted between Jamey’s light brown skin and Reece’s paleness. “Half brother,” Reece clarified, like he usually had to.

Taylor jammed his hand tighter over the phone’s speaker. “Your empath half brother?” he hissed at Jamey. “Here? I am all for it, but if Parson finds out, aren’t you gonna get sacked?”

“What?” Reece said sharply.

“I’m trying to get him out of here,” Jamey said, ignoring Reece. “If it was up to me, I’d hide all the empaths in the Pacific Northwest.”

“What a mess,” Taylor bit out. “You know the FBI prick is already asking about the senator’s anti-empathy bill? And he’s trying to get Stensby to stop working on the list of pulp mills you wanted—”

“No, we need that,” she said. “The van’s tires reeked of sulfur.”

“I believe you,” Taylor said quietly, “but that prick doesn’t because the rest of us can’t smell it.”

“Maybe the rest of you should—smell harder,” Reece interjected, with a quick glance at Jamey. She was usually so careful about hiding things like that. If this case was bad enough to have her slipping up—

Maybe he wouldn’t think about that.

There was conflict in Jamey’s eyes as she looked from Reece to the wooden ramp that led to the moored yachts. “Fine, I’ll talk to Agent Nolan, but quick,” she said to Taylor. “Please stay with Reece.”

“I don’t need a babysitter!” Reece snapped, as Taylor flashed her a thumbs-up.

But she’d already disappeared.

Reece sighed. He looked over at his new companion, who was now thumbing through the phone. He opened his mouth, but before he could ask Taylor why Reece showing up could get Jamey fired, his own phone vibrated in his pocket.

With a frown, Reece pulled it out.

Stay where your sister tells you

Don’t wander off

Goose bumps broke out over his skin. Like with the call, there was no phone number to see, but it had to be Grayson—Reece could count on one hand the number of people with his new number and have fingers left over.

But why would Grayson send a text like that? Reece was here to help Jamey. Where would he possibly wander off to at a crime scene?

He jammed the phone back into his pocket. He glanced at Taylor again, at his open, guileless face. High time someone gave him some information tonight. “So.” He bit his lip. “Some case, huh?”

“No kidding,” Taylor agreed. “Stensby wanted to call you and Jamey shut him down. I thought we weren’t going to even talk about bringing an empath here, but I guess the case is crazy enough to make her risk it.”

Reece coughed awkwardly. “Guess so.”

“Stensby said Jamey won’t call you at all anymore if anyone is so much as bruised. The last few months, the rule’s been no violence, or else no empath consultant.”

Reece tried to shrug it off. “It’s been complicated.” Hey, I’m not even lying.

“Ah.” Taylor nodded knowingly. “Girlfriend.” At Reece’s scoff, he shrugged. “Boyfriend?”

“There’s no one,” said Reece. “Who wants an empath around?”

“I do,” said Taylor, which wasn’t a lie and which Reece found reassuring right up until Taylor added, “And none of the officers are going to rat you out for showing up. A senator murdered on a billionaire CEO’s yacht—this story’s going to be big enough. Can you imagine what the press would say if they knew we’d added an empath to this horror show?”

Horror show. Cold sweat broke out on Reece’s brow. He curled his fists tightly in his pocket and tried to focus on Jamey. Grayson had said she needed his help. The dead didn’t have feelings; they wouldn’t need an empath for those already lost. “Any leads?”

“Just the witness we can’t reach.”

“Can’t reach?”

Pity softened Taylor’s eyes. “Hard to talk when you’re catatonic.”

Oh.

“The theory is he actually saw the killer. But there’s no reaching him, unless—” Sudden hope lit Taylor’s face. “Is that why you’re here?”

Don’t wander off, Grayson’s text had said.

But this wasn’t wandering off. Grayson didn’t know about the witness—or maybe the witness was how Reece could help. And whoever Grayson was, he didn’t get to tell Reece what to do.

Reece adopted the most casual voice he had. “Remind me: where was the witness?”

---

It was easy enough to ask Taylor to grab him a cup of coffee, then slip out of the tent without anyone noticing. Reece pulled his hood up again against the rain and tried to dodge the worst of the ice-edged puddles as he scurried across the dark parking lot to the ambulance tucked in among the cruisers.

He knocked on the vehicle’s door, and an EMT with a blue uniform and bloodshot eyes poked her head out. He held up his hands, making the gloves obvious. “Can I see the witness?”

Relief crossed her face, and she moved to let him enter, warmth washing over him as he climbed the two steps up into the cramped ambulance interior.

His gaze went straight to the middle-aged man on the gurney, propped in a sitting position and wired to unfamiliar machines. The man was staring blankly into space, a small spot of red

blooming on the gauze beneath his nose. At least the poor man didn’t seem to be in any pain.

“He’s still catatonic?” Reece asked, as he pulled his damp hood back.

The EMT nodded. “I thought there was no way we were getting an empath on scene. Who called you in?”

“Detective St. James is my sister.” Not actually an answer, but it was good enough to smooth the concern from the EMT’s face. He gestured at the man. “Do we know his name?”

“Vincent Braker, marine mechanic who services motors in the dry dock here at the marina. His time card puts him off-shift at eleven. We think he hit the bar down the street then came back for his car.”

“People shouldn’t do that,” Reece said, before he could stop himself. “Drunk driving kills thousands every year.”

She shot him an unimpressed look. “Is this really the time?”

He winced. “Sorry.” He gestured at himself with gloved hands. “Empath. Sometimes my feelings just kind of come out of my mouth before I can stop them.”

“Aren’t you guys supposed to be all sweetness and rainbows and pacifism?”

“Pacifist and polite aren’t actually synonyms,” he said weakly. “And I’m really sorry he’s hurt. What happened to him?”

The EMT ran a finger down her chart. “Well, his blood alcohol level was .07, so that part of the story checks out.”

The EMT’s forehead was wrinkled, like she was worried about more than Braker’s drinking. “What part doesn’t check out?” he asked.

She hesitated. “Nothing.”

Lie. “It’s a little more than nothing, isn’t it?”

The EMT startled, her gaze going to his gloves again, and he could have kicked himself. People were jumpy enough with what they knew empaths could do. No one needed to know an empath was walking around capable of more.

But then the EMT relaxed. “Of course I can tell you. Detective St. James was the one to ask for the tests. She said to keep it private, but if she knew you were coming, she must have intended you to know.”

“She must have,” Reece said, a little weakly.

“His catecholamines are way above normal.” His confusion must have shown on his face, because she clarified, “Adrenal hormones. He’s got blood work like I’d expect from the Hulk—well, if the Hulk was catatonic.”

Why would Jamey have wanted to test a catatonic man’s adrenal hormones? Reece took a seat on the bench opposite Braker and stuck the tip of his gloved thumb between his teeth. “If he’s catatonic, what makes everyone think he’s a witness?”

“He’s the one on the 911 call.” He glanced at her, confused again, but she nodded. “On the call, he says he thought he heard screaming, then suddenly starts screaming himself and the call is cut. We were first response and found him curled in a ball on the dock.” She gestured at the gurney. “Already gone.”

Reece’s chest twisted.

“I don’t know much about empaths.” She snorted. “Guess no one really does, though, right? That’s why you have to wear those gloves, why Stone Solutions has all those ads.” She mimicked a man’s deep voice. “Stone Solutions, Defending American Minds.”

“I’ve seen the commercials,” Reece said flatly.

“I guess you would have,” the EMT said awkwardly. “All I meant was, can you help him?”

“In theory,” Reece said.

He hadn’t done a read of his own on anyone since March, since the one he emphatically did not think about. But empathy might be able to help now, and he’d do it if it could save Braker.

Except getting through Braker’s catatonic state would take surgical precision, the kind Reece had never learned. And since March his empathy felt about as controlled as an angry bear on a fraying leash. “Maybe we should call a stronger empath. Cora Falcon, at the Seattle Veterans Medical Complex, is—”

“We tried her already. She’s not answering her phone.”

He frowned. That was unlike Cora. “Did you try the hospital? She works first shift, maybe she got there early.”

“We tried that too. I know it’d be controversial, getting an empath involved in this murder, but—” The EMT let out a frustrated huff. “Nothing we try helps.”

Reece couldn’t care about controversy, not when more red was blooming on the gauze beneath Braker’s nose. “Why haven’t you moved him to the ER?”

“We were about to and then we got the orders.”

“Orders?”

“Staff already on-site can care for him but no new doctors.” She gestured at Braker again. “And no hospital.”

That didn’t make sense. “Who could give an order like that? Why would you give an order like that?”

“I have no idea,” she admitted.

Reece was in no state to use empathy—hadn’t been in months. But Braker was in a worse state that he was. “He can’t consent to my read,” Reece pointed out, but he was already moving to sit on the edge of Braker’s gurney. “And evidence obtained with empathy is inadmissible in court. The defense might move for everything he says to be thrown out because an empath woke him up.”

“I don’t care about legal hypotheticals,” she said impatiently. “I care about his life.”

Reece did too. He stared at the man’s blank eyes, ...