The Reunited

FOURTEEN





BACK to the warehouse.

That was where Joss found himself on his first full day working as a slaver. Broker. Whatever the PC term was for somebody who kidnapped women and girls and arranged for them to be sold to the highest bidder.

Ideally, he figured he could be out looking for his “mark” except there wasn’t going to be a blind mark.

He already knew how this would play out.

All he had to do was wait for Jones to get in contact with him and then he’d lay things out.

First, though . . . back here. Back to where he’d had that crushing weight of grief.

Now that he had Dez’s unique ability to gab with ghosts, he could find whoever was lingering here and maybe help them along.

Plenty of voices were screaming at him, but he ignored all of them, pushing through the cold weight of their presence to get back to the one spot where he’d felt all that grief. All that anguish.

And it was there . . .

Just there.

He could feel all the grief.

All that pain and anguish . . . bracing himself for her presence, he waited.

And he waited. But whoever he was waiting for, she never showed up.

* * *

“WE’RE going home today.”

Jillian stared at Cullen, her blue eyes unreadable. But the pout on her face was unmistakable.

“I don’t want to go home,” she said, slumping in her chair and glaring at him over the breakfast table.

“Too bad,” he replied, keeping his attention half focused on the closed door.

Taige hadn’t come out of there all morning.

If she thought she could hide all day—

“She’s not hiding.”

Cullen jolted, caught off guard by Jillian’s comment. Sighing, he passed a hand over his face, and then he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the table. “Jilly, you know better than that. Thoughts are private.”

“I know.” She shrugged. “But I hardly ever hear yours and well . . .” She shrugged again. “Mom’s not in the room. She’s gone to talk to Taylor. She thinks he’ll need her for the case.” Something drifted through her eyes and her mouth turned down. “He’s going to.”

Cullen all but bit his tongue off to keep from swearing.

“Dad.”

Looking up, he saw Jillian staring at him, her eyes somber. “Do you love me?”

“Jilly . . .” Unsure where that had come from, he shoved the chair back from the table and moved around to stand by her, kneeling down so that their faces were level. She looked so much like her mother, his first wife. Cullen’s memories of her were dim—they hadn’t really known each other, but he’d married her when they discovered she was pregnant. The marriage had been short-lived; she’d died during childbirth and Cullen had been on his own from day one.

Up until Taige came into their lives . . . into Jillian’s life, back into his. He’d known Taige since he’d been a kid, just a few years older than Jillian was now. He’d known her then, loved her then. And because he’d been a short-sighted fool, he’d lost her. He pushed those dark thoughts aside and focused on his daughter . . . their daughter.

“Baby, you know I love you. You’re everything.”

“Would you try to change me?” She watched him with eyes that were far too old, far too wise, for a fourteen-year-old child.

This was boggy ground here, he realized. Blowing out a breath, he weighed his words carefully. Jillian might not be able to read him the way she could read others, but she’d know a lie. “Change who you are? Not in a million years. But if there was something I could do to make life easier on you? I’d almost sell my soul to do it.”

“Mama’s told you a hundred times over . . . some of us just aren’t made for easy.” She reached over and caught his hand, linked their fingers. “I’m not made for easy. Neither is Mama. Regretting and wishing she wouldn’t do what she has to do hurts her, Dad. You can’t keep doing this to her.”

Old eyes. Old soul. “You’re too young to be this smart,” he said, sighing. “I’m supposed to be the one giving you advice. How did you get to be so smart?”

“That’s easy. You gave me a good mom.” Her nose wrinkled as she grinned at him. Then she bit her lip. “Dad . . . I want to go home. But Mom needs you here. Maybe Grandpa can come get me.”

Cullen grimaced. He wasn’t really quite ready to be away from his daughter. Not after how much she’d been hurting.

He knew his dad would take good care of her, but still.

“You think you’d be okay for a little while if I went to go talk to her?” he asked softly.

“I’m fourteen, you know.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m not a baby.”

* * *

TAIGE stared at a picture of a young woman.

If Taige had guessed right, the woman in the image was in her mid-twenties. Absolutely beautiful, with big, blue eyes, big breasts, tiny waist, round hips. She looked like a living Barbie doll. But there was something in her eyes that made her look . . . well, sweet.

Too sweet. Oddly innocent. It bothered her to think of somebody innocent and sweet caught in this mess. Well, it bothered her to think of anybody caught in this, but still . . . innocence wasn’t exactly a common commodity in this world anymore.

“Who is she?” Taige asked, careful not to touch the picture.

“She was one of my prime’s suspect’s girlfriends,” Taylor said without even bothering to look at the picture. “They broke up about eighteen months ago, and a few weeks later, she went on a trip to Europe. Disappeared. Hasn’t been seen since. Naturally, he has nothing to do with her disappearance and is very distraught by it all.”

“Girlfriend . . .”

“Rumors of an engagement were surfacing but not official.”

“Hmmm.” She bent closer to the picture, as though the girl could whisper to her, if she just got closer. If she kept the contact to a minimum, she could keep from going on a little psychic stroll, she thought. And there was one waiting to happen here. She could feel it. The edges of the gray hovered around her, just waiting to suck her up.

She just couldn’t do it yet. She hadn’t yet talked to Jones about hanging around to help out with the case. Over the past few years, she’d been cutting back on the work she did for him and she was torn now, torn between taking care of Jillian and staying here. The guilty ache in her heart demanded she take Jillian home, mother her, baby her, stroke her and soothe her and pat her . . . which would drive Jillian nuts.

The other part of her, the fighter, the psychic, that part of her was being tugged in the other direction. She was needed here. Taige didn’t know why. Joss was the one most capable to handle this. The last thing she needed to do was plant her ass in the middle of a situation she wasn’t equipped to handle and she knew it.

Sighing, she shifted her focus to another picture, using a pencil to draw it closer so she wouldn’t have to touch. This was a girl, maybe twenty. Light-skinned black girl. Biracial, maybe, Taige thought, her skin the same coffee and cream as her own. Short hair, cut a little longer in the front. A pretty smile, just a little wicked. And all sorts of attitude and cockiness in her smile.

According to the info she had, her name was Daylin. She’d been missing for six months. Still officially listed as missing, but in her gut, Taige knew the girl was dead. And it was something awful . . . she could feel the horror lurking as the gray tried to wrap ever closer around her.

Carefully, she pushed it over to the look-at-later pile, again using a pencil so she wouldn’t have to touch it. The ones she’d look at once she decided she had to get involved, she told herself. Although she already knew she was involved in this.

If you weren’t supposed to be involved, you wouldn’t feel like you need to be here. Talk to Jones. He’ll let you know if he wants you in or not, a quiet voice in the back of her mind whispered.

Yeah, and that would go over well. She and her husband were already having a rough time. She’d slept in Jillian’s room because she couldn’t handle being around Cullen last night. But although she was mad at him, she didn’t want to f*ck up her marriage and Cullen had so much anger—

A knock at the door had her straightening in her chair.

“I’ll get it,” Dez said, rising from the couch. She slid Taige a grim look and added, “I’m not good for much else on this trip.”

Taige didn’t respond. Hunching her shoulders, she went back to staring at the picture she’d just pushed away. Her fingers trembled as she reached out, hovering just a breath away from the picture.

“You’ve been here for forty-five mintues, Taige,” Taylor said quietly.

Looking up, she met the steel blue of his eyes.

“Is that your polite way of telling me to leave?” she asked. Vaguely, she heard the voices at the door.

He shook his head. “If I wanted you to leave, I would tell you to leave. But you’ve been here, avoiding a connection you know is there all this time . . . for some reason. And now you’re going to do it, because of a knock at the door.”

Curling her lip at him, she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back.

As Cullen came through the doorway to the dining room, Taylor gave her a brief smile.

She barely resisted the urge to flip him off.

* * *

IT was a quick meet.

Joss could tell by the look on Jones’s face that they weren’t going to be chitchatting much. They hadn’t chatted much the previous night either when Joss had dumped Hennegan’s unresisting body into Jones’s lap. No telling what Jones had done, but the man didn’t look any worse for wear, although Joss knew he’d slept even less than Joss had.

“Here,” Jones said, his voice terse as he passed on a black duffel. His voice made it clear he wasn’t in the mood to talk.

That was fine with him. He had managed to mostly settle his new gift back into place, but he still needed some time to solidify those shields and get a grip. He’d done this too soon, and he knew it—now he was left trying to patch a busted flood wall.

Studying the black duffel, he hefted it, tested the weight. He had a rough idea what was inside it, although he’d take a better look once he didn’t have so many people around him. “Gee, boss, you shouldn’t have. I didn’t bring you anything,” he drawled.

Taylor gave him a withering stare. “How is your head?”

“Feels like it’s about to split into a million pieces.” Joss shrugged. “Dez, I can handle her talent. It’s creepy sometimes. I can feel these whispers, even in my sleep if I’m not careful. But I can handle that one. The girl, though . . .” He snapped his mouth shut, staring off into nothing. He could still feel the echo of her terror, rooted deep inside him, and it was a raw, twisting ache. He could hear the echo of screams, and unlike Dez’s ghosts, these women were still alive. He knew it—this unreal, uncanny insight that he couldn’t even define. He could feel the echo of their pain, and the knowledge of what awaited them . . .

Now he just had to figure out how to save them. How to stop the monster behind this. Sometimes, this job really sucked.

“It was getting to be too much for her,” he finally said, slanting a look at Jones. “You know that?”

Jones lifted a brow. “I suspected. Once I saw her. She was . . . fragile. Jillian’s been through hell. Kids tends to be fairly resilient anyway, and she’s even more so. But I suspected she was too close to an edge this time.”

“Suspected?” Joss studied his friend’s face. He knew Jones didn’t categorize himself as psychic, but there was something there. Jones had a knack for finding people like Joss. Taige. Dez had sought the unit out, but most of the psychics had joined after Jones had ferreted them out. He also had a way of knowing who was the right one for the job, who needed to take a break. Who was walking a line. “Or knew?”

Taylor shrugged. “Semantics. She’s a child who saw something nobody should have to see. It’s no surprise it’s hurting her.”

“That’s why you used her.” The power of Jillian’s gift was twisting through him, too much and too strong. Joss knew it would come in handy. But there were others who could get him through this. A telepath could have connected with Jillian and gotten the information Joss needed. An extra step, they both knew, but it would have left Joss a little less keyed up. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing. “You’re trying to find a way to let her exorcise this demon.”

Taylor’s lids drooped, shielding the unreadable blue of his eyes. “Save the armchair psychology for somebody else, Crawford. Her abilities will be useful, and she came to me. I didn’t seek her out.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He nudged Jones in the shoulder. “You just don’t want anybody to know you’ve got a heart inside there.”

Once more, that withering stare returned. “Do you have any idea how you’re going to go about making contact?”

As the job reared its ugly, ever-present head, Joss sighed. “Now that . . . is already done. The rest of it will be hard.” Turning around, he headed back to his car. Jones followed along behind him, the two of them doing another casual look around. There were people everywhere. The Waffle House was packed, people inside chowing down on a good old American breakfast. Eggs. Bacon. Waffles. His belly growled just thinking about it. Joss was going to head in there shortly and do what he could to clog his arteries. He’d invite Taylor, but Taylor wasn’t going to be interested.

Resting the bag on the hood of the car, he glanced inside. At first look, all he saw was a neat jumble of electronics. It was too heavy for that to be all, though. Slipping Joss a quick look, he arched a brow.

Taylor leaned in and tapped the bottom.

Joss smiled.

“I need to think this through for a while before I talk it over,” he said in reply to Taylor’s question. “But I made contact last night. Give me some time to think everything through, okay?”

Under his breath, Taylor grumbled. Joss grinned.

There weren’t a lot of people who could get by with that—think it through. Taylor was a control freak and wanted, almost needed, to be involved every step of the way.

“How much time?”

“A few hours, a day maybe.” He sighed and shrugged, looking out across the parking lot. “Too much shit crammed into my head. Got to let it all settle and then see what pops up out of the madness. Once that happens, I’ll know if I’m working this the right way.”

Taylor reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “See what pops up? I don’t like the pop-up approach, Crawford.”

Joss waited a beat. “That’s gotta suck for Dez. Spontaneity is the spice of life.”

For a second Taylor just stared at him. Then, a faint smile came and went. “Go f*ck yourself, Crawford.” Passing a hand over his face, Taylor sighed. “This is going to be one of those cases, isn’t it? The kind that has me scrambling to cover everybody’s asses, my own included.”

“Probably.” Zipping the bag closed, he pointed out, “You’re already scrambling. You cussed twice in one breath. That’s not typical for you.”

“Again, go f*ck yourself.” Taylor glanced at the restaurant. “Are you really going to eat in there?”

“Yep.” Tugging the bag down, Joss patted his belly. “I finally hit a corner last night and got some peace in my head. Crashed and slept for eighteen hours and now I’m starving.”

“We could find someplace a little less heart attack inducing.” Taylor smoothed his tie down.

“We?” Joss cocked his head. “You’re joining me?”

“Yes.” Blowing out a breath, he said, “Taige and her husband are pissed off at each other. They’ve decided to have it out in my room, probably so they don’t do it in front of Jilly. I tried to get Dez to come with me so she didn’t get caught in the line of fire, but she wanted to stay. Her weird idea of entertainment.”

“And you’re chickening out . . . staying here.”

This time, when Taylor smiled, it wasn’t a faint smile. It was a full-blown, all-out grin. “Damn straight.”

* * *

PART of Dez felt bad for loitering in the hotel room.

It was pretty damn clear those two needed to talk.

But when she got up and shot Taige a look, Taige had pinned her with a direct stare.

If you leave, I’m kicking your ass.

Dez rolled her eyes and mouthed, p-ssy.

Taige just curled her lip and went back to gingerly poking through some of the files Taylor had left behind.

Okay. So Taige wasn’t ready to talk to Cullen yet?

What was the deal there?

Sighing, she flopped back onto the couch and pulled her pillow to her chest, staring at the TV. She was stuck watching TV for the duration because she couldn’t get involved in this case. As much as she wanted to help, this was too big for her and she’d just cause more problems than she’d solve.

Of course, she wouldn’t mind if she had a ghost of her own whispering to her, but that just wasn’t happening.

The silence in the room was so heavy, she practically came out of her skin when Cullen broke it.

“Taige, can we maybe go get a bite to eat?”

“I already ate, thanks.” Nice. So nice and polite.

“A cup of coffee?”

From the corner of her eye, Dez saw Taige point to the coffeepot in the kitchen.

“Shit. Okay, screw subtle. I need to talk to you. Alone.”

Dez groaned and shot Taige another look, lifting a brow. Taige shook her head. “Too bad, sweetheart,” Taige replied. “I’m working.”

He snorted and pushed at the pages she’d been messing with for the past little while. “You look like you’re trying to keep busy, if you ask me.”

“You’re right. I’m keeping busy ignoring you for the time being,” she said, leaning back and staring at him. “I don’t want to talk to you right now. You don’t get that. Fine. But I still don’t want to talk to you . . . not yet.”

A muscle jerked in his jaw.

Dez almost felt sorry for him.

“Fine.” He headed for the door. Halfway there, he stopped and turned back to face his wife. “I think I’m going to call my dad to come and get Jilly.”

“You should just go home with her,” Taige said quietly. “I think I’m going to be needed here.”

Cullen closed the distance between them once more, curled his hand around the back of her neck. “I’m not leaving. Not with what’s going on . . . not with this between us unresolved.”

* * *

TAIGE waited until the door shut before she dropped her head onto the table.

“You can’t ignore him forever.”

“I don’t plan on it. But I don’t want to listen to him rail at me about how I put his precious baby in a bad situation, either,” she said, her voice thick with anger. And hurt. It was still lodged in her chest, turning her heart to ashes.

“She’s your baby, too.”

“You can’t tell by the way he’s been acting.” A sigh shuddered out of her, and she lifted her hands to her face. “Damn it, life would have been easier if we’d gone to New York the way Jillian wanted.”

A few seconds later, there was a soft sound and she looked up, watched as Dez hauled a chair so they were sitting side by side. “Easier. Maybe. But if this is as big as Taylor thinks it is . . .”

They both looked at the table, then at the board placed by the window. It was covered with small images of deceased victims. The missing women they thought were connected to this . . . they’d need a good ten boards to even make a dent. “Do we even have a victim count yet?” Dez asked quietly.

“No.” Taige shook her head.

“You picking up anything?”

Taige stared at one neat pile of images. It was growing. Every time she saw something that made her instincts scream, she’d made Taylor handle it. She couldn’t get lost in the gray yet. Not yet. She didn’t know why she was holding off, but she couldn’t go yet.

“Yes,” she said woodenly.

Dez followed her line of sight, and when she saw the stack of images, a soft hiss escaped her. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”