Traynor shrugged. “You made a persuasive argument,” he said. “And you’re right; we can’t keep it quiet forever. AMI is going to find out anyway, and it hurts nothing if we’re the ones who tell Beau Macy.”
Marist nodded. A murdered empath risked stirring up public sympathy, and AMI and Stone Solutions both would need to be ready to counter that. “It hurts nothing,andit keeps AMI friendly toward EI,” Marist said. “AMI has got quite a lot of sway in Seattle, you know.”
“Believe me, I know,” Traynor said dryly. “And it’s only gotten stronger since what happened to Cedrick and Senator Hathaway.”
On her left, Nichols tapped away at his phone. “I still don’t understand what happened in this city last month.”
Traynor snorted. “And you don’t like anything you don’t understand.”
“If that was the case, Victor wouldn’t like empaths,” Marist pointed out.
“You said it, not me,” Nichols muttered.
She laughed. “Beau was just telling me they’ve had more police officers enroll in AMI since November. I sent Victor here the list.” The air pressure was building; Marist reached for her purse. “Quite good news, isn’t it? How nice it would be to have more allies of the, shall we say,alphapersuasion? Law enforcement, military, special agents, that kind of thing.”
On her left, Nichols looked up. “Too many scientists at our meetings for your tastes?” His tone had a sarcastic edge; the man was a scientist himself, after all.
“Jacobs has been with us this week, he’s FBI,” Traynor pointed out.
“Perhaps we include him more often,” Marist said, trying to bury the eagerness in her voice. She withdrew a small pack of gum from her bag. “I’m simply saying we could use morerealmuscle, to protect people from empathy. You were a general, Holt; I’m sure you agree.”
She wouldn’t have said that around a public roundtable and Traynor wouldn’t have publicly agreed. In the privacy of the jet, however, over the last of his whiskey and crème brûlée, he smiled wryly. “I don’t disagree by any means,” he admitted, drawing a side-eye from Nichols. “Though you’re not going to get much morealphathan the Dead Man.”
“Untenably so,” Nichols said. “Fascinating, how much he’s been altered by empaths, and yet unlike others, he continues to survive.”
Marist schooled her distaste off her face, but it was one thing to talk about the empaths like science experiments gone wrong. Agent Grayson, however, had been a normal child, changed against his will by his own sibling.
Marist held out the gum to Nichols, who straightened and took a piece. When she offered it to Traynor, he shook his head. “Landings don’t bother me.”
He’d also picked one of the rear-facing seats at their table, seemingly unbothered by motion sickness. Perhaps in his army days, he’d spent time in planes of all sorts.
“Speaking of Seattle and empaths and Evan...” Marist hesitated. This was going to be a delicate question. “Do we really agree the wisest course of action is to ignore a potential threat posed by Reece Davies?”
“It would be the height of foolishness to ignore any potential threat,” Traynor said flatly. “Evan is entitled to his opinions and of course EI gives those opinions a lot of weight, but he and I have diverged on this issue.”
“And does he know that?” Nichols said.
“He’ll figure it out,” Traynor said.
He’d finished three glasses of top-shelf whiskey with his dinner and seemed to be in an honest mood. Maybe it was a good time for another, even more delicate conversation. “Evan makes a lot of people nervous,” Marist said casually. “Never you, though.”
“He’s unsettling, I can admit that,” Traynor said. “But it’s hard to be afraid of someone you knew back when he was just a college student who felt EI needed tomind their own businesswhen it came to his little brother. Victor, you remember Evan before he became the Dead Man, don’t you?”
Nichols grunted. He’d drunk nothing but sparkling water and a cup of black coffee, which was still half-full and sitting on the table in front of him. “I remember a lot of people the way they used to be.” He folded his arms. “My entire job is, after all, running a facility for empaths who aren’t quite themselves anymore.”
“Evan was different then,” Traynor mused, almost to himself, as if he hadn’t heard Nichols. “A good kid, even if he had no respect for the authority of the Empath Initiative.”
“Prototypical empath sibling, from the metamorphosis to the attitude,” Nichols said. “Thatlittle brotherhe was so protective of was a parasite.”
“That’s still technically just one theory,” Traynor said.
“Is it, though?” Nichols said. “When you consider Agent Grayson’s prior behavior, the way he insisted on defending his brother?”
“Evan might have done so. The Dead Man certainly didn’t,” Traynor said, with an edge.
“Whatever the cause, some people do feel Evan’s inclination to protect the empaths hasn’t changed,” Marist said carefully. “Look at this mess in Seattle, the way he’s making conditions around Reece Davies—”
“No.” Traynor abruptly and firmly shook his head. “When push comes to shove, Evan will dowhateverit takes to save people from corrupted empaths. We all know what he’s willing to sacrifice and how far he’ll go.”
