3

Abby was dead right, I didn’t see any guilt lines in the man. Granted, I was somewhat far away, but still, this was a max security prison with a wing that housed psychic prisoners. No one was guiltless in this place. He should be throwing off something like a neon light.

Not good. Super not good. We had an innocent man in here, and I was damned if I’d leave him.

I did an about-face and went right back in. To hell with whatever we had on schedule after this, it didn’t take precedence over the poor man.

At the front desk, Marge looked surprised to see us again. “Hi, Jon. Forget something?”

“We’ve got a problem,” I told her grimly. “I need the warden.”

“Uh. Oh dear, guards too?”

“Not yet.”

Donovan pitched in over my shoulder, “Nothing of imminent danger, just something problematic.”

Somewhat reassured, she lifted her phone, calling the warden. I bounced impatiently in place while she convinced him to come down. It wasn’t like she could hand me her phone, I’d kill it, so he had to come down in person.

Warden Lopez appeared in a minute flat, an impressive feat considering the size of the prison. His breathing sounded short from speed walking the distance, his heavy gut bouncing with each stride.

“Bane,” Lopez greeted, anxiety running in sparks along his lines. “What the hell?”

I’d known this man for years and had never called for him like this, so he was right to be worried. “Warden, you’ve got a problem. There’s an innocent man in your yard right now. A psychic.”

For a second, both Lopez and Marge stared at me, like they were waiting on the punchline or a “Gotcha!” I could see the confusion swirling in their lines, then the understanding, then the oh shit realization.

“Which one?” Lopez demanded.

Dammit, it wasn’t like I’d gotten a name. I hadn’t even read the man’s number properly—

Donovan lifted his phone. “This guy.”

See? This was why I had a Donovan. He did brilliant things like taking pictures of people for me. I had no idea when he’d shot it, he’d been so smooth, but he was getting a kiss for it later, regardless.

“Dwayne Evans.”

I was surprised Lopez knew the man off the top of his head. “You know him?”

“His case stands out, since it was disturbing.” Lopez shook his head. “Of course, now I know it was all misjudgment. Dammit, this is going to be hell to undo.”

He wasn’t wrong there. “I want to interview him first.”

“Head to the interview room,” Lopez said, already turning. “I’ll fetch him and meet you there.”

“Okay.”

We had to quickly sign back in, then we retraced our steps through the main floor toward the interview rooms. Abby stayed by my side the entire walk, asking questions.

“What happens? Can we get him out today?”

“No, sadly, we can’t. A psychic’s word is invaluable during an investigation, but it’s not treated like hard evidence. It can’t be. Psychics are human too; we can lie or bend the truth to suit our wants. The law’s smart about that. But what we can do is learn about the case directly from the man himself and then ask him to take us on as PIs. We’ll have to work the case pro bono or something, but until I have his clearance, we can’t touch this.”

Abby looked like she was taking mental notes. “So we have to convince him. I don’t think that’ll be hard. Surely he wants out.”

“You’re likely right.” Although people could be stupid and stubborn about things in the weirdest ways sometimes.

Lopez was true to his word. We barely got into the room when the door opened behind us and Dwayne Evans walked in. A very tall, extremely thin man, I could tell he didn’t work out at all and was one of those people who forgot to eat. His hands were shackled in front of him, confusion and something akin to alarm running through him. Then again, likely nothing had been explained to him, so his reaction made sense. His lines showed he was a very gifted psychic, twenty-six, had lived in the Nashville area all his life, and he was cut off from his anchor. Ouch. From what I could see, this man had been through hell recently.

Then he spotted me and stopped dead, dark brown eyes flaring wide. I got that reaction from psychics a lot. I was far, far too bright for their vision and they had to adapt to me.

Abby beat me to the punch, going straight to him and grabbing both of his hands. It brought his gaze sharply down to her, and I did mean down—he could have been a pro basketball player with his height.

“I’m Abby Moore.” She looked earnestly up into his eyes as she introduced herself. “I can see you’re innocent, and I want to help you get out of here.”

Welp. That was one way to introduce yourself, I guess.

Shell-shocked, he stood there staring at her for several seconds. Then, interestingly enough, his head lifted and he looked at Donovan. Dwayne’s voice rasped as he said, “One Black man to another, can I trust what she’s saying?”

Ah. Considering the prejudices he’s faced, I could see why he’d want another man of color to verify things.

“You can,” Donovan said. “Abby is a Reader. Do you know what that is?”

Dwayne did. His eyes filled with tears, although none of them fell, and his hands grasped Abby’s in return.

“Then you can see,” he choked out. “You can see I didn’t kill my sister.”

Ouuuuuch. That was what he’d been locked up for? Okay, that was just wrong.

His eyes came up to mine and he said more than asked, “You’re just like her, but stronger.”

“He’s my teacher!” Abby beamed at him. “He’s Jonathan Bane.”

My name meant something to him. His lines flared nearly neon yellow-green with…relief? Like he’d been anxious to meet me. Then again, word around the prison labeled me as an annoying know-it-all, so he’d likely heard some kind of account about how I could see guilt. Maybe he thought a lucky meeting with me would get him out of here.

He wasn’t wrong.

Or at least, I’d do my damndest to get him free from a sentence he didn’t deserve.

I came in closer, nudging Abby out of the way, and shook hands with him. “Sir. Far as I can tell, you’ve never even had a parking ticket.”

He laughed, the sound garbled with emotion. “Correct. I kept praying I’d run into you somehow, and here you are. You came to me.”

“You can thank Abby. She spotted you first.”

Dwayne shot her the widest smile I’d ever seen. “Thank you.”

She grinned back, pleased with herself. “I do try. Here, sit, tell me the whole story. We want to be your PIs and help prove your innocence.”

Her offer sounded good to him, but as he let go of my hand, his worry nudged back in. “I can’t pay you right now.”

“Don’t worry about it, we can work payment out afterward. Right now, let’s focus on getting you out of here. Warden Lopez, can you act as a witness for this interview?”

“I most certainly can. Uh, I’ll record it on my phone.”

It would preserve the chain of evidence better that way, so using his phone was fine. “Sure. Donovan?”

“Taking notes, you’re good,” he assured me.

Seriously, best anchor ever. “Then let’s sit and start.”

The room only had one table and four chairs, so Warden Lopez stayed standing. Abby parked herself right next to Dwayne, like she was moral support. I could tell she liked him, but then, he was a good man. For Readers like us, being around the Dwayne Evanses of the world was soothing. Criminals and the like made me distinctly uneasy, and I couldn’t relax around them.

He didn’t seem to know what to do with this teenage girl acting so friendly with him, but he wasn’t unhappy about it, either. He sat, and I think it was only then he took a full breath, like he could finally breathe now that someone believed him. I rattled off my name and license number, and the names of the others for the camera, then looked at Dwayne.

“I don’t know where to start,” he admitted.

Abby was quick to ask, “What kind of psychic are you?”

Good job, Abby. I was curious myself.

“I’m a Coder,” he answered easily. “Technically, a xenoglossist for coding.”

I pursed my lips in a soundless whistle. As unique as Readers were, Coders were about the same. They had the ability to read and write any programming code without needing to learn it first. They were highly sought after in the programming field and earned an insane amount of money.

All right, this gave us a starting point. “So you were working where?”

“Government worker, actually.”

So his clearance had to be higher than God’s. Got it. “Start us off on the day everything went down.”

Dwayne took a breath, looking tired, and I knew he’d rehashed this a thousand times already, but he gamely did it again. “I honestly don’t know what happened. I was at work, and about ten a.m. the police showed up and arrested me. My sister was missing, presumed dead, and they were certain I had done it.”

It was one of those cases. I hated those cases.

A very foreboding feeling washed over me. “By any chance, was the detective in charge of your case named Solomon?”

Dwayne’s head jerked back. “Yeah, that’s the guy. You know him?”

“Know him, hate him, would love to bury an axe in his face.” It fucking figured Solomon was involved in this somehow. “Okay, so I have a very good idea of how this went sideways if he was managing things. Why your sister?”

“I don’t know.” Dwayne crumpled, upset and livid all over again. “That’s the hell of it. Even during the trial, when they were unveiling all the evidence against me, no one ever suggested a motive. There is no motive, I love my sister to pieces! She is—was—my anchor.”

Oh shit. Now that complicated things. I had seen a broken bond within him, something over a year old, but had thought it was because of him being in prison and his anchor cutting ties. But if his sister was his bonded, and the bond had broken, then odds were very good she was dead. Shiiiiit.

He huffed out something, a dark laugh. “I can tell from that horrified expression on your face. Your eyes are incredible. You picked all that up by looking at me, didn’t you? How my bond with my sister is dead, and so is she.”

“I am so sorry.” The words felt wholly inadequate. “I know how painful that is. I watched my mother go through it. I promise, a therapist will work with you after today. I’ll throw a fit until it happens.”

He gave me a slight nod and smile. “Thank you. I could use a therapist for sure. But let me get back to that day. I really don’t know what happened to Tylesia. She took a half day—she had errands to run—and nothing was out of the ordinary. We lived together, I would have known if something was off. She normally worked with me. Tye was a good coder in her own right, so we liked to bounce ideas off each other, and we worked really well together. I expected her back at work after lunch. Actually, I expected her to bring me lunch, which was the plan. Next thing I know, I’m being accused as her murderer and thrown into a jail cell to await a hearing.”

“Fuckers,” Abby muttered under her breath.

“You’ve got that right.” I sighed, rubbing my eyes. “Abby, if you ever run into Solomon, steer clear. He’s got a nasty habit of doing shit like this.”

“Got it.”

I could see why Dwayne hadn’t been able to muster up a good defense at trial. He didn’t know enough of what had happened to even formulate a defense. He’d gone from thinking it was a normal day to shit hitting the fan.

Well. This should make the cold case more interesting, to say the least.

Dwayne’s grief came back full force. “The hell of it was, I argued for a good six hours she was alive still. I felt her bond, knew she wasn’t dead. Then, while sitting in that damn prison cell, I felt our bond go dormant and…”

Abby gave him a hug. I could tell she was hurting and mad on his behalf. I was too. The police massively screwed up on this. His sister might still be alive if they’d listened to him and chased after her.

“It’s…a lot, I know.” Dwayne grimaced. “I wish I could help more, but I literally have no idea what happened to her or if anyone wished her harm.”

“Was she dating anyone?” Donovan asked, pausing in his writing. “An ex, maybe?”

“Tye was asexual and aromantic. She never had an interest in dating.”

Well, that knocked the possibility right out.

At this point, it was better to grab his case files and start poring over them. Dwayne had told us all he could.

“Donovan, you got a client intake form on you?”

“You know I do.”

I figured. Man carried absolutely everything in either his pockets or messenger bag. The Havilis took the motto “be prepared” to a whole other level.

Donovan whipped out the paperwork, handing it and a pen to Dwayne. “Fill this out, sign it, and we’re officially on your case.”

“Sounds perfect.” Dwayne set to scribbling.

Now, first step was calling Borrowman. I needed those case files and he could get them for me. It was late enough I figured most of the Psy office had quit for the day, but I could catch them up and start in on files tomorrow.

Dwayne signed, gave the form back to Donovan, he and I both signed as well, then paperwork went back into the bag. I reached across the table to shake Dwayne’s hand.

“It might be slow going, nothing about the law is fast, but I promise you I’ll stick with this case.”

His handshake was firm in return. “Thank you.”

Lopez stopped recording, putting his phone away and promising, “I’ll email this over to Sho tonight.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

Dwayne reluctantly got up and Lopez escorted him out. I understood the reluctance—he was finally with people who believed him—but I couldn’t help him by staying here with him. Getting him out took priority.

It had to be hard, too, trusting strangers he barely knew. In his shoes, I’d be worried as hell. All I could do was reassure him.

“Donovan, can you make a note to update him regularly?” The waiting would be hell on him; I didn’t want that.

Donovan snorted like I was being funny. “Like you’re not going to call him daily with a check-in.”

“You do know me so well. All right, for now, let’s go home. Donovan, Borrowman?”

“Yup. Soon as we’re out.”

Abby followed us out of the room, asking as we walked, “Who’s Borrowman?”

“Detective Harry Borrowman is a very dear friend at the precinct and someone we rely upon when there’s trouble. He also hates Solomon’s guts.”

“Okay, but can I get the full story on this Solomon guy on the way back to my car?”

I slid past the first security door, shooting her a pitying look. “Oh, kiddo. Solomon is not something you can explain in one short car ride. But I’ll give you the condensed version.”

Could someone please accidentally on purpose run the man over? Solomon’s death could only be viewed as a gift to humanity.