The Innocent
Author: Shiloh Walker
Date: 2014-03-11 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Paranormal; Romance; Romantic Suspense; Contemporary; Paranormal Romance; Mystery; Contemporary Romance; Novella; Fantasy
Description: "For a woman he can t touch, he ll turn Hell inside out. " "FBI Psychics, Book 2" There s only one reason Jay Roberts would set foot in a middle-of-nowhere town like Hell, Georgia. She s got a bone to pick with her sort-of boyfriend. They only met online, but things got hot and heavy before their cyber link went silent. She s here to get in his face for an explanation. But no touching. Her psychic abilities make physical contact complicated. Yet something about this relationship made her think things would be different. She s not in Hell twenty minutes before bad vibes have her skin crawling.
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Rights: All Rights Reserved (c) 2014 Shiloh Walker

Dedication

As always, to my family, the greatest gift God could give me on this earth.

Thanks to Robyn, who bid for the chance to name a character in the Brenda Novak Auction for the Cure.

Thanks to Nic G. for all the help on banking/financial stuff. Any mistakes are mine.

Inspired by a little town in Michigan called Hell.

But since I’m going to do bad, bad things to this town, I decided to make up another small town called Hell…and put it in the South.

Chapter One

Jay Roberts never expected to fall in love with a man from Hell.

But she had.

And now he’d up and cut her off. Out of the blue.

She’d met Lincoln Dawson online and it hadn’t been at one of those hokey, online dating sites. She didn’t mess with those.

What was she supposed to put down?

Hello. I’m a security specialist who works for a think tank/security group/troubleshooter group known as the Oswald Group and I’m psychometric. It causes some issues with intimacy because when I touch people, I pick up on what they think and if you compare me to a former lover, I’m going to know. I’m five three, I hate walks in the rain, I kind of enjoy dirty movies, I love dirty books and I’m still a virgin. I’m kinky as hell and I’d love to find a way to get laid, but I don’t see that happening…

Yeah, it led to problems.

It had been pure accident that she met Linc.

She was online, incognito, naturally. Almost any time she went online, it was related to work. She had been investigating the disappearance of a teenager in Florida and he’d been smacking down somebody who had been preying on a couple of preteen girls.

Granted, the predator had acted like he was a girl. She had seen through it, just as Lincoln had.

It was a long and convoluted path, but they’d been talking online for almost a year. He’d asked more than once if they’d ever meet. She wanted to tell him yes, so badly; she’d been really, really close more than once.

Despite the fact that she’d been, well, misleading him from the beginning. Despite the fact she had been hiding some huge secrets.

She needed to come clean with him because if she didn’t, they had no chance at all.

And she had been this close.

Planned her entire vacation around coming down here too.

But then, nearly three months ago, he’d stopped talking to her. Stopped answering emails, cut off contact completely.

Sadly, one of her jobs had pushed her off the grid for nearly three weeks. She’d reached out to him as soon as it was over and he’d finally called her back, only she’d been in a meeting.

I don’t have time for this, Jay. It’s not working out. Good-bye.

When her boss, Oz, offered her another short-term, off-the-grid job, she took it. It lasted five weeks and when it was done, when she could think past the all-consuming urgency of that job, she’d known, in her gut, something had been wrong. With the way Linc had cut her off, the way he’d pushed her away. Wrong with everything.

Lo and behold, she was right.

Now she was here.

In Hell. Literally, and maybe even in the biblical sense of the word.

Jay had done a double take the first time she’d seen the name of the little town, and she’d asked Linc twice if he was joking. But as she’d driven by the little bank and saw the digital display of the temperature—a balmy ninety-six in June—she had to admit, Hell was aptly named. She’d spent the past ten years living in Texas. She was intimately acquainted with hot.

This place, though, took the idea of hot and cooked it up and deep-fried it for good measure.

But before she hunted down her man and asked how they’d gone from dirty little sexts in the middle of the night to the cold shoulder and I don’t have time for this, she needed gas. She needed a cold drink and maybe five minutes in the bathroom.

The A/C on her car was questionable at best, and she’d been slowly baking for the past hour. It was coming up on nine and still boiling hot outside. This place had to be pure torture come August.

The gas station looked like it hadn’t been updated any time this millennium. The gas pumps were slower than her great-grandmother had been on seniors’ day at Kroger back home in Louisville, and she was sweating by the time she finished. Pushing inside the store, she was greeted by a cool blast of air so welcome she wanted to cry.

She was damn glad she always traveled with some cash on hand because there was a sign taped to the door: Plastic is no good here. Cash only. Yeah, definitely stuck in the last century, because there was no ATM, either.

The guy behind the counter looked like he might be stuck in the nineties, maybe even the sixties, because he was staring at her like she was some alien life form. Jay was used to that. She actually kind of liked the odd attention she received over her pink- and blue-streaked hair and the little gold hoop that pierced her right eyebrow. The gloves tended to catch a lot of notice, but she’d give almost anything to not need them. Her physical appearance was weird enough that the gloves just went with everything else, but they were a necessity.

Everything else was just preference.

She’d go crazy without her gloves. She couldn’t function. Not for long, anyway. One touch against the wrong anything was enough to put her into a state of shock, something she knew from experience.

Those innocent little touches, the things people took for granted, were the very things that could drive her insane. A brush of a hand, even if she was shielded, could flood her with all a person’s fears, anxieties and secrets. If the person was having a bad day, it got even worse.

And if the person was in pain, physical or mental, the effects were so much worse.

Psychometry wasn’t picky when it decided to wreak havoc on her life. Her gift tied in to emotions, and she didn’t have to take off the gloves to know the guy behind the counter was a mess.

His thoughts were…dark.

She approached him with more than a little caution, wishing she’d thought to strap on her weapon, but it was a pain in the ass, even if she did have a concealed carry permit. Although, hey, she was kinda sorta involved with the sheriff.

Well, she thought she was.

Maybe.

It didn’t matter, though.

This kid was more involved in whatever was twisting up his mind than anything else.

She pulled her money out of her pocket and peeled off three twenties, putting them down on the counter.

The kid just stared, rocking back and forth on the stool, staring at nothing.

“Ah, hey. Can I get my change?”

His gaze skittered over to hers.

A chill raced up her back.

The lights aren’t exactly on. Nobody is home, she thought.

The door opened behind her and the kid went stiff, his gaze bouncing to the men behind her and she shifted, turning so she had them in her line of sight and could still see the kid.

Sweat beaded along his lip and, abruptly, his body relaxed and a sigh shuddered out of him.

He blinked and looked at her. “Ma’am, that will be fifty-seven dollars.”

She gestured to the counter, focused on the men who moved to fill the empty space between the counter and the door.

Rednecks, she thought. And not the hardworking kind she’d come from. Her daddy had been a redneck and he’d busted his ass from dawn to dusk to make sure she never wanted for anything.

These guys, though, weren’t rednecks in the nice sense of the word. Already, the one in the middle was eyeing her in that way that made her feel dirty. Trouble, trouble, trouble.

Some people just gave off a certain vibe. Most women eventually learned to pick up on that vibe. It was that vibe that had a woman crossing the road when she saw a certain sort of guy, the one that made her realize she didn’t want to be anywhere alone with him, the guy that set off every internal alarm she had. He was the guy who stood too close, stared too long, and generally just creeped her out.

There were three of them standing in front of her now, and the one in the middle was the worst.

The biggest problem of all was that he had a rough psychic skill.

In her line of work, she’d come to learn that psychic ability wasn’t as uncommon as some might think. It was estimated that one percent of the population had some sort of psychic ability—it sounded like a low number, but that added up to one in a hundred. With billions of people on the planet, that wasn’t as low as it seemed.

The abilities varied, though, and the typical “homegrown” psychic, like this guy, was weak. Most of them just had better than average instincts. Some were going to be sensitive to things—might feel really uncomfortable in a house where a lot of violence had happened, while another might be really good at guessing a winner at the Derby or occasionally picking four or five lottery numbers. The lucky sort of bastard.

He really had no idea what he was dealing with, either. Knowing her luck, he’d picked up something just odd enough about her to keep him intrigued, but he was too stupid to be scared.

She shifted her attention back to the boy and waited for her change, using the mirror mounted in the corner to watch the newcomers. If she was lucky, she could get out of here without messing with any of them, most especially that guy with the buzz of psychic energy.

When he whistled in her direction, Jay ignored it.

She was good at ignoring things.

All she had to do was get out of there and everything would be good.

She scooped up her change, careful not to make contact with the kid behind the counter, careful not to let him touch her, even with the gloves. Tucking her cash into her pocket, she turned to go and wasn’t surprised to see all three men blocking her way.

“Excuse me.”

“She looks like a piece of candy. Look at that pink hair.” It was the one with the mild psychic ability, and the leer in his eyes made her skin crawl. His gaze raked over her from head to toe and then zoomed in on her chest. She wore a tank with a fishnet top stretched over it. It fit close. Most of her clothing did. Once upon a time she’d hidden behind baggy clothing, cowered in her room, convinced she was going crazy. Her dad’s death, the emergence of her ability—it had all hit at once. Sanity had been a touch-and-go thing for a while.

She might be a little crazy but hiding hadn’t helped.

So she’d stopped hiding and she’d learned how to deal. With everything, just about. Including guys like this.

As he continued to stare at her tits, she said again, “Excuse me.”

A wide, unpleasant smile spread across his face.

She steadied herself and bolstered her shields. She could only keep everything locked out for short periods of time. More than ten or fifteen minutes and she felt like she was going through some sort of serious bout of sensory deprivation. That didn’t help her state of mind.

Touching thugs like this? That wasn’t going to help, either.

She’d have to touch one of them, probably several of them.

The ringleader stepped up and reached out.

She didn’t react as he trailed a finger down her cheek. “You lost there, sugar?” She felt nothing but the physical contact, his finger rough against her skin. She could almost imagine a slimy after-trail. Dirty—he was so dirty and he contaminated everything he touched.

“No.” She lied through her teeth and did it with a smile as she angled her head away, breaking contact. Keeping her shields up kept her from feeling too much, but she still caught enough—too much—lust and greed and a need to hurt. She wanted a shower. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go. I’m meeting somebody.”

“Why don’t you tell me where you’re heading? I can give you a hand.”

“I don’t need—”

The bell over the door rang.

She didn’t look away from the men in front of her.

“Lloyd. Why don’t you step away from the lady?”

A shiver raced down her spine. That voice. Familiar.

The man in front of her curled his lip, a slow, smirking sort of smile. It was the smile of a man she wouldn’t trust at her back. She didn’t even trust this man at her front. “Well, hey there, Sheriff… Oh, wait. You ain’t the sheriff no more. You know what? I think I’ll stay right here. I’m talking to this pretty little piece of candy here.”

Sheriff—

She tore her eyes away from him and stared at the man she’d come to find.

Sheriff Lincoln Dawson, the man she’d found herself falling head over heels in love with over the past year.

The man who, according to this thug, wasn’t the sheriff anymore.

Okay, that could wait.

“I think you’ll step away.” Lincoln’s voice came a little closer and she took a deep, steadying breath.

His eyes cut to hers.

She watched as his gaze passed over her and then immediately came right back.

Cocking her head, she said softly, “Hello, Lincoln.”

The very last person he’d expected to see in Hell was Jay Roberts.

As she turned around and gave him a slow smile, he was hard-pressed to do anything but stare for almost a minute. Her hair, a pale, almost white blonde, was colored in streaks of blue and pink here and there. It might have looked silly on some, but it suited her.

Halfway down her neck, he could see where her tattoos started and, just like the first time when he’d seen her—only in a picture, of course—he wanted to peel her clothes away and learn each and every one of those tattoos, each and every curve. Killer curves, deadly attitude.

And the attitude he’d sensed in their online communication, and picked up on even more in their phone and Skype sessions, was every bit as sharp as he’d suspected.

A slow smile curved her lips and he wanted to cross the floor, grab her and cover her mouth with his. Taste her, like he’d wanted for almost a year.

He’d waited that long to finally meet her.

Now his life was in shambles and Lloyd Pritchard was threatening to put his hands on her.

Lloyd was an idiot.

But then again, he always had been.

He might be an idiot without arms or legs if he touched Jay.

Linc’s heart, so bitter and broken over the past few months, gave a slow, ragged beat in his chest. Part of him wanted to go to his knees in front of her and wrap his arms around her waist, press his face to her belly. She would listen. She would talk him through this and he wouldn’t hear any of the false sympathy, the false hopes—there was no hope. He was a cop. He knew what was going on.

The other part of him just wanted to tell her to get her ass in the car and go back to her nice, safe little job in Dallas.

He had no place for her in his world now.

Although he had to admit, she didn’t exactly fit into the safe little picture he’d had in mind. She’d sent him a few pictures and they’d Skyped, but she didn’t quite fit the images. The blonde hair was right, but those pink and blue stripes didn’t fit. Her face was the same—heart-shaped with the most fuckable mouth ever—and he wanted to grab her up against him, lose himself in her.

The look in her eyes, somehow both wary and challenging, had him keeping his distance.

She was trouble in a pair of combat boots. He’d figured that out even as he’d caught his first glimpse of her through the plate glass window. He hadn’t recognized her from outside.

The soft, throaty voice—a little too rough, a little too raspy—stroked against his senses like a caress and he wanted to kick everybody out of the gas station and ask her why she was here.

Instead, he forced his mind away from the skin-skimming clothes and shifted his attention to Lloyd and his pack of ass-kissing hyenas.

She’d been about five seconds away from a whole world of trouble and he suspected she knew it. The new sheriff wouldn’t get off his ass to scratch it and city police force consisted of exactly two full-time cops and one part-time. None of them were worth the price of two postage stamps.

The best thing Linc could do was get her out of here. It seemed like the rest of the world had forsaken this town. Maybe God had too. He’d had a hard time during his tenure as sheriff, dealing not just with the assaults, but also with the disappearance of several local girls and a handful of unusual suicides. But he hadn’t let that deter him. He’d had a mission and he’d see it through.

Over the past two months, ever since his daughter’s disappearance, an even darker pall had settled itself over the place. Since the last night he’d seen DeeDee, a local hunter had gone missing, as well as a pretty high school junior and a kid from the basketball team.

He no longer cared. All he cared about was finding justice for his daughter.

The oppressive weight was just getting worse. This town was plagued by a dark curse.

This wasn’t any place he wanted Jay to be.

He didn’t want anybody here. If he could build a wall to keep everybody out, he’d do it.

That wasn’t an option, but one thing he could do? Beat the shit out of Lloyd if he so much as touched Jay.

Lloyd eased closer to her and Jay watched him impassively, her hands hanging at her sides, loose and ready.

Linc shot out a hand and grabbed the back of Lloyd’s thick neck. “You don’t want to go messing with her, son,” he said levelly.

Lloyd jerked away and swiveled, driving a fist into Linc’s gut. Or, that was the intention. Linc was already spinning away. From the corner of his eye, he saw Jay, and what he saw was such a distraction that Lloyd managed to sucker punch him. He didn’t get another hit in, though.

A wet, cracking sound filled the air and Lloyd screamed, going down after Linc took his leg out.

Linc turned just in time to see Jay balance her weight on the edge of the counter and drive her booted feet solidly into the skinny chest of one Johnny Hutchins.

Willy Lee was the last one standing and as he wheeled around, Linc smashed his fist into the bastard’s thick neck, watched as he went red. Gasping for air, he stumbled into a stand of chips and jerky and then crashed to the floor.

Jay looked back at him and the vivid, intense green of her eyes laid him low.

“Jay.”

She cocked her head at him. “Hello, Linc.”

He would have said something else, anything else, but Bryce Atkins came barreling around the counter, his face pale and strained, eyes wide. “I called the cops.”

Jay shifted her attention to him, her eyes a wide and vivid shade of green, focused on him.

Arching a brow, Linc said levelly, “I’m sure the lady appreciates it.”

Bryce blinked. “I called because of you. You broke his leg.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“He was hassling her.”

“She shouldn’t be dressed like that,” Bryce said, jerking his chin up.

Linc ran his tongue along his teeth and then closed the distance between them, eyeing him narrowly. “You might want to watch it, kid.”

Bryce’s eyes widened and then he jerked his gaze away, staring at the men on the floor. “Ya’ll tore up the store. The manager is going to kick my ass. You know how Dave is.”

“I do.” He shrugged and turned away. “You can tell Dave these guys were harassing a woman in here.” My woman.

His…

He sighed and dragged a hand down his face, then turned to look at Jay. Yeah, she still felt like his. Never mind that he had never actually laid eyes on her, in person, before today.

She felt like his, and if she’d come to him any time other than now…

Abruptly, anger surged inside him and he shoved past her, storming out the doors.

Why now?

Why couldn’t she have come to him back when he still had any sort of life left inside him?

Chapter Two

Well.

That went smashingly.

Brooding, Jay shoved a hand through her hair and then glanced at the thugs all around her. One was still a strange red color as he struggled to catch his breath. The one who had a busted knee was yowling.

And the one she’d kicked in the chest was crawling to his feet, eyeing her with ugly hate brewing in his eyes. She pulled her phone out and gave him a winning smile. “You ready to dance again, honey?”

He kept his distance.

She thumbed her phone, ready to put in a call to her boss. She was going to need a lawyer. Granted, this was her mess and not related to her job, but she could still make use of one of the lawyers Oz knew.

But there was a message waiting.

From Oz.

You have trouble coming. I’ve reached out to a freelancer the Bureau knows. I can’t be there personally for a few days—personal matters—but the freelancer can be there in a few hours. Keep your head down.

Jay grimaced and responded. Too late, boss.

She read the next text from Oz as she headed out the door. I know. Just keep your mouth shut and don’t say what doesn’t need to be said. I’m on my way.

The beauty of working for one kick-ass psychic bitch. She knew everything, it seemed, even before it happened.

Linc stood by her car, a sexy little Mustang convertible she’d bought after a particularly well-paying job two years ago. She’d only received thirty percent of the fees paid to the Oswald Group, but this fee had been hefty. A rather infamous porn star’s daughter had been kidnapped. About ninety-seven percent of the world hadn’t even realized he had a daughter. That narrowed the suspect pool quite a bit. But Trevorr Starr hadn’t wanted to go to the cops because he already knew who had her, and why, and he didn’t want to go public about his daughter. She had a nice, normal life and hadn’t realized what her father did for a living. He wanted it to stay that way so he’d turned to the Oswald Group and told them he’d pay any price, offering them one million dollars, but they’d have to sign confidentiality agreements.

Oz had said they could do it for half that and confidentiality agreements were standard for all jobs.

The child had been with Starr’s ex-girlfriend on a beach down in Mexico. The ex was now doing time in a jail almost too posh to be considered a jail. Jay had used her cut of the money to pay off quite a bit of debt, plus put down a heavy chunk of change on this car. Her baby.

Sometimes, though, when she sat inside it, she remembered how that little girl had looked up at her when Jay found her.

Are you going to take me back to my dad? I miss him.

Not all the jobs ended so easily.

Although she didn’t make a sound, Linc heard her and turned to face her, his face resolute, his eyes cold and unyielding. His gaze flicked over her before returning to meet hers. “Why are you here?”

“Wow, Linc. Such a nice greeting. It’s so nice to finally meet you too.”

His lashes swept down. “We talked about this…it’s not working out.”

There was a wail of sirens. He turned his head, a muscle pulsing in his jaw. Then he looked back at her. “You need to leave. Now. Don’t ask questions, just go. If you don’t—”

The black-and-white came screaming around the curb and his shoulders tightened.

“Too late,” he muttered. He took a step toward her. “Get inside the store. Lock yourself in the bathroom. If you know anybody important, for God’s sake, call them now.”

Something knotted in her gut at the intent look on his face.

His eyes flashed as he continued to stare at her. “Did you hear me? Call a lawyer. Fuck, if you know a senator, call them. Anybody who would care if you disappeared off the face of the earth, call them.”

She arched a brow. And then, because she was curious, she shrugged and turned around, headed back into the store.

She didn’t need to make a call, but she did wonder why he was so intent on it.

As the police cruiser came to a stop in front of him, Linc pretended boredom and leaned back against Jay’s car.

He’d been the one to break Lloyd’s knee.

He’d been the one to bust Jimmy Hutchins in the throat.

Right now, Jay was out of sight and maybe, if she stayed that way, the pussies running the police department would be more interested in Linc than her. He could even push them hard enough to get them that way. They wouldn’t make him disappear, that much was certain. They’d already attempted to go that route and it hadn’t gone well for them. All they’d do was make his life a living hell, and what more could they do that they hadn’t already done—

He cut that thought off as he thought of Jay, back there in the gas station, completely unaware of the backass town she’d walked into.

How had this happened?

How had everything gotten even more fucked up?

Five minutes. It had taken five minutes for everything to go straight to shit. The black-and-white came to a stop in front of him and Linc stretched out his legs, arms crossed negligently over his chest as a man by the name of Biff Stahley climbed out.

Biff. His mom must have just wanted the boy to be an asshole. Hadn’t she watched Back to the Future? Good ol’ Biff adjusted his uniform, keeping his hand on the weapon at his side as he approached Linc, his chest puffed out and his eyes, narrow and cruel, locked on Linc’s face.

Yeah, you dickhead. I see the gun. I’m not impressed.

“Lincoln. What’s the problem here?”

“Problem?” Lincoln rubbed his jaw and shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Bryce came boiling out of the station like his ass was on fire. “He broke poor Lloyd’s knee! This slutty bitch was in the store and Lloyd was just talking to her and then Dawson shows up and he starts causing trouble, then he broke Lloyd’s knee.”

Linc shoved off the car, glaring at Bryce. “Watch your mouth, son,” he said quietly.

Bryce went white, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “She’s dressed like a whore. What do you want me to say?” he asked, jerking his chin up in the air.

“Your sister has on less clothing than Ms. Roberts does when she goes up for the Miss Georgia pageant. Is she dressed like a whore?” Linc asked.

Bryce gaped, opening and closing his mouth like a fish before finally finding his voice. “Now you see here. You can’t—” He stopped, started all over again. “You don’t go calling my sister a whore.”

“I didn’t.” He crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head. “But you seem to think how a woman dresses decides how she gets to be treated. Your sister goes up and down a runway in a bikini that barely covers her. I figure you apply that method of reasoning to all females. For that matter, don’t you date Maribeth? She works over at Clive’s on the weekends and he makes the girls wear an outfit not too different from the ones the Hooters girls wear. Does that mean Maribeth is a whore?”

“You…” Bryce opened and closed his mouth, unable to find anything to say. He jabbed a finger at him. “I oughta tell Clive what you said. If he tells his girls what you think, ain’t none of them going to want to wait on you. And Maribeth’s daddy will hunt you down.”

“You’re the one applying that logic. I think it’s shit. A woman’s clothing doesn’t make her a whore—selling her body for sex does that.” He smiled thinly, watched as Bryce went red. Because they both knew Maribeth had actually been arrested for that out behind Clive’s. Twice. Then he shrugged and looked over at Biff. “Are we discussing this or would you like to call an ambulance for Lloyd? I think he could use one. His knee is probably busted.”

Biff jabbed a finger at him. “Don’t tell me how to do my job. You ain’t the law around here no more.”

Closing his eyes, Linc waited as Biff put out the call for an ambulance.

The bathroom smelled like a pigsty.

The rust stains on the toilet, the sink, were so thick she wondered when the place had last been cleaned.

She made herself tough it out for five minutes while she used her phone to do a quick search on a little place called Hell. And man, did Hell have its share of demons. That quick search didn’t yield much, but she did see a handful of suicides, several missing persons’ cases—a few of them recent. Her gut twisted and she muttered, “What is going on here?”

Rubbing her temple, a dark, ugly headache pressing down on her, she shut down the window and then went and cleared out the search so it wouldn’t show. Through the piss-poor excuse of a door, she heard the voices out in the store, heard somebody groaning and a guy swearing.

“He broke my knee, the fucker. I was just talking to that girl, and he broke it…”

She closed her eyes. Just talking. And she was just taking in the scenery here in Hell.

She tucked her phone away and shoved off the door. Even though she hadn’t touched anything in the bathroom, she washed her hands and used a paper towel to open the door. She really didn’t want to pick up any germs from that nasty room. They were probably mutated and feeding off each other at that point. Once out in the store, she found herself the focus of much attention.

The cop’s attention zoomed in on her.

As his gaze dropped to her tits, she suppressed a sigh.

Yeah, some classy material they had here in the fine town of Hell.

With a brittle smile, she said, “Wow. You frequently check out a girl’s rack like that, officer?”

Most guys would look away when they were called out like that. Many would blush.

This fucker just continued to stare another five seconds.

Behind him, Linc’s eyes shot daggers into his back.

She had a feeling if his hands hadn’t been cuffed behind his back, things might have gotten ugly fast.

She wished she could say she was surprised to see him cuffed.

But his little warning outside earlier had already told her that things weren’t the way they should be.

Then again, the town was called Hell.

Maybe everything was as it should be.

“I understand there’s been some trouble,” the officer said, once he finally dragged his eyes away from her tits.

Jay smiled. “Oh, you could say that.” She angled her chin toward the ambulance where the EMTs were loading up the guy who had started the whole mess. “That dickwad there didn’t seem to want to take no for an answer. I was trying to leave, he was in my way. Decided he could put his hands on me. Things…escalated.”

“Escalated.” The officer nodded. She checked his name, made a mental note. Officer Stahley crossed his arms over his chest, still studying her. “Things escalated and a man’s knee is broken. Did it ever occur to you to call the cops?”

“Well…” She pursed her lips. “I’m sure that would have occurred, except it went from him putting his hands on me to one of his friends trying to grab me, all in about thirty seconds flat. I reacted. Thought came later.”

The boy who’d been behind the counter spoke up then. “I called the cops.”

Officer Stahley said, “As you should have, Bryce. It’s appreciated. And all of this could have been avoided. Miss…?”

“Roberts.” She hooked her thumbs in her pockets and smiled coolly. She already knew where this was going, but she wasn’t going to make it easy.

“Miss Roberts. You’ll have to come with me. You can make a phone call once we get down to the station.”

Flicking a look at Linc, she shrugged. “Oh, I already made a phone call…or three. It will take some time for my lawyer to get here, though. I guess I’ll be spending the night.”

His eyes went tight. “You called a lawyer.”

“Yeah. I just had a weird feeling, I guess.” She shot a look at the kid. “Considering how I was the one those dickheads were hassling, but that punk is the one who thinks I’m to blame, I had a feeling it might be in my best interest to make some friends aware of the situation.”

The cop in front of her stood ramrod straight, his spine stiff, and she wouldn’t have been surprised to see smoke coming from his ears.

Linc, though, if she wasn’t mistaken, had a faint smile on his face and looked like he’d relaxed. Just a little.

The cop rubbed his chin, eyeing her narrowly. “Where did you say you were from, Miss Roberts?”

“I didn’t.” She gave him a winning smile. “I’m from Texas. I’ve got friends here, though. In Atlanta.”

He tugged on his lower lip as he watched her. “Just what brings you to Hell? We’re not exactly prime tourist material.”

“Oh, I was just driving through to visit Linc.” She flicked at her sleeve and then leveled a direct stare at the cop. “I’m on my way to Washington, D.C.”

A muscle pulsed in his jaw but he inclined his head. “That trip will be delayed a bit. Too bad you didn’t make that call to the cops.”

“Oh, that’s all right. My friends are aware of the delay. They’ll be in touch.”

In the cell next to hers, Linc leaned against the grimy gray wall and closed his eyes.

They’d been here for three hours and nobody had come in to speak with them.

Nobody had come to take their statements.

They hadn’t even been read their rights.

It was like this place was trapped in a bygone era, and not a good one.

Out in the main part of the station, Jay could hear the low murmur of voices, punctuated by the occasional burst of laughter, and the scent of pizza filled the air about two hours after they’d been locked back there.

She was thirsty.

She was also hungry.

She hadn’t eaten since about one that afternoon and it was pushing up on eleven.

Maybe these yahoos just didn’t see fit to offer food to the people in the cells.

She didn’t know. After all, they didn’t offer them phone calls.

She calculated the time and wondered how much longer it might be before that mysterious freelancer would arrive. Just who was it and where was he or she coming from?

Might have been nice to get that information.

Information…

There was more information she’d like to have.

Sighing, she sat with her back to the wall and slid down, eyeing the door, keeping Linc in her line of sight as well.

“You shouldn’t have come down here.”

Linc’s voice, pitched low, was barely loud enough for her to hear it. Turning her head, she studied him in the dim light. Skyping with him, the pictures, none of it had done him justice.

His skin was a deep, warm gold, the sort of tan that came from many, many hours spent under the sun, and his eyes were a rather amazing shade of blue. They practically glowed against his skin and when he looked at her, her heart all but stopped.

She’d known he was bald, but the word bald brought to mind something a little less appealing that what he was. His naked scalp had her wanting to press her lips to his skin, skim her hands along the lines of his finely molded skull and learn him by touch.

A neatly cropped goatee and mustache set off a mouth that just begged for kisses.

Well, she’d be happy to give him those kisses, except for her little problem with physical contact.

Right now, she really, really hated that problem.

He was massive. Jay hadn’t ever really liked big men, but she definitely liked him. He stood six five, something she’d known beforehand, because he’d told her, but seeing him in person told her just how big he was. He wasn’t just tall, either. His chest was a solid wall, one she’d like to lean against just then. Lean against, while he wrapped his arms around her and she listened to the cadence of his heart.

That was something she longed for. Simple contact. She craved it. And now, with him this close, she craved it that much more.

Maybe…

As though he sensed what she was feeling, he pushed off the wall and came to her, sinking down and sliding his hand through the bars. The jail was old, the cells looking like they’d been done sometime back in the 1800s, complete with iron bars. They might be that old, although they’d been updated at some point.

She stared at his hand, longing pulsing through her.

They’d made her take her gloves off. No reason to, other than to be assholes, but they’d made her remove her gloves and that skin-to-skin contact…

Slowly, she reached out, touched her fingers lightly to his. She could do light contact for short periods of time as long as her shields were up. There would be a press against her shields, though. But it shouldn’t be too taxing. She’d learned to handle light touches a long time ago and she could handle this, surely.

Bracing herself, she tucked her hand inside his—

And felt nothing.

A slight shock hit her.

Nothing.

Well. Not nothing. His touch sent an electric shock zinging through her and her nipples went tight, pressing against the material of her bra. Her blood, hot and molten, pulsed through her veins and she wanted to feel his hand stroking over her, something much more than just an innocent touch. Sucking in a slow, careful breath, she lifted her eyes and met his.

He stared at her, his gaze hooded. He had no idea how much this shattered her. Being able to enjoy such an innocent touch. Being desperate for so much more.

Some people were psychic nulls—they weren’t easily read by psychics and they gave off little or no psychic vibes. And somehow, she’d managed to find one. Not just find one, but fall for one.

Except he had up and dumped her, for no reason.

My ass, she thought.

If he was going to walk before they’d really had a chance to even start, she’d damn well know why.

Licking her lips, she twined her fingers with his, taking a moment to just enjoy that simple pleasure. His palm, work-roughened and warm, almost hot, against hers. She could actually enjoy this touch. She’d never been able to do that before. Hesitant, she lowered the first layer of shields and was amazed that she could do that and still pick up nothing from him.

There was the background noise she’d expect from the others, but that was nothing. She dealt with that all the time and would take it happily if it meant she could touch somebody.

Touch Linc—

Not now, Jay. Shaking herself mentally, she snapped herself back to attention.

She had more to do than just enjoy the fact that she could hold a man’s hand for the first time in her entire life. Still, she gave herself another few seconds to enjoy before she focused her eyes on his.

He was watching her from under his lashes and although he had a mask of boredom set firmly in place, she made a living off reading people. Not just their emotions, but body language, nuances, little shifts most people didn’t even realize they made. He was better than most—probably ninety-seven percent of the people she’d come across.

But she could still pick up on enough.

He was…worried. Had been even more worried, maybe even terrified, back at the gas station.

She wanted to know why.

“Just what is going on here, Linc?” she asked, rubbing her thumb against the back of his hand. “And I’m not just talking about that idiot boy in the gas station or the rednecks, or even the cop. There’s something really messed up going on here.”

To his credit, he didn’t pretend not to understand what she was talking about. He looked past her, staring at the bars as though that alone would summon somebody to open the doors.

“It’s nothing you can help with, Jay. Did you really call your lawyer?”

She studied his eyes. They were almost too beautiful for him, she decided. A beautiful, rich shade of blue, so blue they almost appeared violet. Against the dark, swarthy tan of his skin, they were just that much more breathtaking, framed by thick, heavy lashes. His face was all angles and harsh lines and if it wasn’t for those extraordinary eyes, he might be just too much. The eyes softened him, just a little.

Now, though, his eyes were cold, like an icy pond, freezing over under a twilight sky.

She smiled at him, flashing the dimple that she’d been told could sucker almost anybody in. It didn’t seem to sway him, but Linc didn’t come across as an easily swayed man. “You told me if I knew anybody important,” she said, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. “I got word to the most important person I possibly could. I’ll have somebody here soon. Now…I want answers.”

She held her breath, waiting.

Linc studied her face, framed by hair that should have looked silly. All he wanted to do was strip her naked. He wanted to see that pink- and blue-striped hair on his pillow, watch those pretty green eyes get foggy as he kissed his way across that peaches and cream skin, press his mouth to her core and listen as he made her come.

One night in heaven, he thought, before he lost himself in his personal hell.

She wanted answers, though, and he had none to offer her.

If he told her what was going on, she’d want to stay.

Stay…that was the absolute last thing she could do. He had to get her out of here.

She’d want to help him get through this, and there was no way to get him through this.

There was no getting through this.

There was no easy answer, no solution. No end in sight. And he wasn’t going to drag her down with him.

He thought of night after sleepless night, day after endless day of searching for answers.

Thought of the empty bedroom.

Thought of the accusing eyes of his daughter, the only person who’d loved him unconditionally, counted on him, needed him. The way she’d stared at him that night. Why can’t you just let me grow up, Dad?

Now, she’d never have the chance.

Unconsciously, he tightened his hand, all but crushing Jay’s softer, smaller one in his grasp. He jerked away and swore, looking down in horror as her hand went red. She never made a sound, just continued to stare at him, waiting.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice ragged.

“Are you going to tell me?” she asked.

There’s nothing to say. He opened his mouth to give her that empty lie.

Before he had a chance, the door opened.

Chapter Three

Biff Stahley came in, his eyes drawn low over his brows, his mouth an unsmiling line.

“You got yourself a visitor.”

Linc opened his mouth and Biff shot him a glare. “Not you, you fuck.” He jerked his chin toward Jay. “Her.”

Jay rose, a weird little smile on her face. She smoothed her hands down the sides of her tattered, tight jeans, jeans that cupped her round ass like a lover. Linc had a hard time tearing his eyes away from that excellent ass, but he managed, because the tension pounding in the air was a palpable thing.

She moved almost lazily toward the cell door and Linc came to his feet, eyeing Biff narrowly, curious.

“You going to let him have his phone call?” she asked, glancing back in Linc’s direction.

Don’t worry about me, sugar. He should have taken a few minutes to tell her that, but he had been too busy brooding. Too busy trying to figure a way out of this for her. Looked like she might already have a way out. Why the hell hadn’t he pulled his head out of his ass already?

Biff smacked his keys against the bars. “You ain’t needin’ to worry about him.”

“Yeah? Well, it might interest my…visitor,” she said, laughter underlying her voice. “Seeing as how neither of us got a fucking phone call.”

Biff leaned in, jamming his face close to the bars. “You watch your mouth.”

“I think I like my mouth as it is, Officer Stahley.” She rocked back on her heels. “Now, do I get to see my visitor or not?”

He crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at her.

Then, with his next words, he just about ripped the floor out from under Lincoln Dawson’s feet.

“Just how the fuck do you know an FBI agent?”

The town was called Hell. That alone would have warned her and she didn’t need to be psychic to figure it out.

But Taige Morgan was psychic and the longer they were inside the town’s miniscule limits, the more her skin crawled. She’d slammed up her shields nearly thirty minutes ago because something had just felt wrong. Her normal shields weren’t cutting it and now she felt like she’d wrapped herself in bubble wrap thanks to the extra shields she’d layered around her mind.

It still wasn’t enough.

Her skin crawled like she’d been thrown down into a nest of fire ants, and she didn’t really care for the sensation.

“I’m not going to like this job,” she said flatly, slipping her husband a sidelong look as they cooled their heels in the tiny little lobby of the police department of Hell. Around her neck, she wore her FBI ID. Part of her wished she hadn’t answered that call from the Oswald Group. But she knew Elise Oswald. Elise was an iron bitch, but she knew her shit and if she said there were problems, that only meant one thing.

Problems.

Cullen slid her a look and said, “You could have just not answered the phone.”

It hadn’t really been much of an option, though. Her gut had told her that.

They’d been driving back from a weekend away in Memphis when she’d received the call and just seeing Elise Oswald’s name on the caller ID had filled her with dread. On the way in, she’d used the time to research the little town of Hell, Georgia. Aptly named. Missing or dead kids, what she suspected were cover-ups for sexual assaults, several suicides, a missing hunter. Fun stuff.

Some bad shit going on.

The former sheriff, now vilified by the town. There were claims that he’d used his family name, his family’s money, to throw his weight around. She’d come across that type growing up and she knew it wasn’t unheard of. Rich white boys, used to having everything they wanted. But then she’d met and married her own rich white boy. Evil didn’t lie in the money or the skin.

It lay in the heart.

Her skin didn’t crawl when she looked at the images of the man who was searching for his missing daughter. She saw a man grieving.

She also saw all sorts of darkness hovering around him.

She had work ahead of her. The tug was strong here. The nebulous force that always led her to the cases she worked, either on her own or for the Bureau. She called it the gray, and it hovered at the edges of her subconscious despite the layers of shielding she’d slammed up.

When she went under for this, she’d come up broken and bloody. Bad shit had happened here.

She was in the thick of it now too.

With a morose sigh, she dropped down onto a hard-ass chair and stared at the deputy sitting behind his desk. Like a lot of small towns, the sheriff’s department and the police station utilized the same space. She’d bet they had maybe two or three full-time cops, and maybe one or two part-time officers. The sheriff’s department would run a little bit larger since this was the county seat and they covered a bigger area, the whole fucking armpit that made it Aldritch County. And it was an armpit. Or maybe a cesspool.

This town in particular seemed to be stuck in the fifties, or worse. It was entirely possible they were still a century behind the times. She’d been given the side eye the entire time she was in there. Taige was used to that. A biracial woman living in the South didn’t always get a fair shake.

But she sure as hell wasn’t in the mood for it now, and as the deputy shot her another dark look, she stretched out her legs. She wore a pair of sandals that Cullen had insisted on buying for her—they’d cost more than a county boy would make in two months and she made sure to display them at maximum advantage as she adjusted the ID around her neck.

Instead of being at home, kissing her daughter goodnight, she was in this forsaken hole in the ground, dealing with a racist bastard who kept thinking about how many men she’d fucked to land a job with the Feds—the deputy had a mind wide-open like a book.

Because she couldn’t keep listening to him without her temper ratcheting up, she shut him out and looked over at her husband. “Your dad knows we’re going to be delayed, right?” she asked, pitching her voice low.

He slid her a look from under his lashes and then went back to idly studying the deputy. Like he wanted to rearrange the deputy’s face. She should have known Cullen would pick up on the guy glaring at her. “Yeah, I texted him when we stopped for gas.”

Cullen had no psychic ability—he was practically a psychic null, something she completely adored. But he read people pretty well. He didn’t like what he was reading on that deputy’s face.

She reached over and laid a hand on his arm. The tension inside him was sky-high.

He looked over at her. She smiled, hoping to distract him.

It didn’t work.

“Any chance you’ll go join him and Jilly?”

“Not a snowball’s chance in hell.” He looked around the little station and grimaced. “That’s not much of a chance at all, sweetheart.”

“I figured.” Leaning back in her seat, she pulled out her phone and checked email. There was a short one from Jones. She’d tagged him as soon as the call came in from Oz. He didn’t have a lot of information on this place, other than what she’d already put together in her short search. But he did say that the minute he mentioned the place, one of his precogs had told him bad vibes.

That already told her more than enough.

Driving through the town had cemented that feeling.

She shot Jones a quick message.

I think one of Oz’s people is in trouble here. I’m not sure what I’m picking up on but there’s trouble. Be advised.

He sent her back another message.

I’m already digging. Let me know when you need me.

Not if. When.

A few seconds later, another message popped up. Stay in touch. If I don’t hear from you every day, I’m sending people down.

Then she stood and strode over to the counter. She was just about fed up with waiting in Hell.

Chapter Four

“Well?”

Biff jutted his chin up in the air and continued to glare at Jay.

Although he really hated the idea of Biff getting anything he wanted, Linc kind of wanted her to answer that question. Just how did she know any federal agents? She did online security consults. Maybe she’d met somebody through work?

A sly smile curved her lips as she rested her elbows against the bars, eyeing Biff. Her gaze was one of acute dislike, and disdain all but dripped from her words as she said, “You know, I don’t think I really have to answer that.”

Out in the main part of the station, voices rose.

Jay turned her head and that smile on her face turned into an outright grin.

Linc caught the tail end of the conversation.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you back there, Agent—”

Those words, clear as a bell, came from the front and Biff went quiet as a woman’s voice cut in.

“Yes, you can. And you will.”

Linc shot a look at Jay.

She had a lazy smile on her face and a glint in her eyes.

What. The. Hell.

Jay hated when she had to let another in her mind.

But she understood necessity.

When she felt the soft brush against her thoughts, she allowed it. “If there’s anything you can do to make this easier, do it. Right now, I don’t have a legal reason so help me out.”

The woman’s mental “voice” was smooth, controlled and unfamiliar, sliding through Jay’s mind, barely creating a ripple. The control relaxed her a little. Working with an unfamiliar psychic could be hell, but this woman had control and that made it easier.

Her ability to project was shit, but it wouldn’t matter. This woman would pick up, she could already tell. She just let herself think in actual words, the way she would if she were going to speak. The woman’s abilities would do the rest.

“I acted in self-defense—there couldn’t be a more clear-cut case, but they still brought me here. They never read me my rights. They gave me no legit reasons for keeping me here. I wasn’t given a phone call.

“They never gave me a chance to call my lawyer, although they were given the impression that I’d already called so they may dance around that.

“I don’t know if they plan on keeping me overnight or not, but I haven’t been offered so much as a glass of water and the sink in my cell is broken. I’ve been offered no meal.

“The guy I was brought in with? They never read him his rights. He wasn’t given a phone call.”

A few seconds of silence passed and then the woman spoke again. Her voice was tinged with heat as she replied, “Oh, I think I can work with that.”

“Was the prisoner given a chance to speak with her lawyer?” the woman demanded, her voice carrying down the hall. “Be very careful how you answer that question because I can and will find out that answer and heads will roll if you bullshit me.”

“Uh…”

“That’s not an answer. Was she read her rights? What reason did you give for detaining her overnight?”

Jay smiled.

Oz, I dunno who you sent but I like her already.

Two minutes later, the woman came striding down the hall.

Jay had the shock of her life.

She knew the woman, all right.

Almost every psychic even remotely affiliated with law enforcement knew this woman. Hell, plenty of people not affiliated with the Bureau or even law enforcement knew her name.

Taige Branch—no, it was Taige Morgan now. She was married. She had only been a teenager when her status as a legend was firmly cemented in this part of the country.

Unlike most of the psychics affiliated with the Bureau, it was no secret what Taige could do. There had been newspaper articles, even a TV show or two done on her. Not that she’d ever agreed to any of it. But she didn’t have to agree for people to talk about all the shit she’d done, the lives she’d saved.

Her abilities had emerged when she was very young, and she’d saved the lives of countless children.

Now she was here in Hell…with Jay.

Curling a hand around one of the bars, she eyed Taige narrowly. “Wow. I didn’t realize I was going to have a superstar ride to my rescue.”

“Shut the hell up,” Taige said, her face tight. She gave the man in the cell a dark look. “Did you get a phone call or did they ride roughshod over your civil rights too?”

Linc shrugged.

“Unless a phone call fairy snuck in here, he didn’t get a call, either.” Jay gave Taige a serene smile. “I don’t think civil rights exist in this town.”

Taige turned and stared at the deputy hanging on her heels, then she turned and looked at the officer who was glaring at every last one of them. “Are you the one who arrested them? Although whether or not it’s a legit arrest is yet to be seen. Did you read them their rights?”

He opened his mouth and Taige just continued. “Unless that is a simple yes or no, shut your fucking mouth. You don’t want to know the sort of shit I can bring down on you.”

He jerked up his chin. “The Feds have no jurisdiction over this. This was a simple public disturbance dispute. So you will keep a civil tongue or I’ll arrest you as well.”

Taige cocked out a hip and rested her hand on it. “Yeah? For cussing?” She started to laugh. “You do that, boy, and I’ll be calling every news station from here to Atlanta.” A sleepy smile curved her lips. “They’ll be camped out on your lawn from now to Labor Day. Small-town police department in violation of civil rights. Federal agent arrested for saying fuck. I might even accept one of those interviews to go on the Today Show. I’ll mention you. By name.” She flicked a glance at his badge and then looked back up at him. “Now, you want to discuss whether or not they were read their rights or do I start making phone calls? Trust me, if I don’t make a phone call within the next thirty minutes, you will be getting phone calls. And think big when you consider who’ll be calling. Think FBI Headquarters out of Washington.” She smiled serenely. “Are you getting the picture yet, officer?”

The deputy behind her started to shuffle his feet. “I think maybe it’s in our best interest to let them all out with a warning, Biff.”

Biff narrowed his eyes to slit. “I’ll be damned if I let them out just because some FBI cunt thinks she can scare me.” He dropped his hand to his weapon. “They’ve been arrested. They’ll fucking stay in jail.”

“And about that civil rights issue?” Taige asked softly, unconcerned with the way Biff stroked his gun.

“What civil rights issue?” Biff looked like he wanted to spit on her.

“Why the hell are you even wearing a badge?” She shook her head. “Were they read their rights? Given a chance to a phone call, a chance to speak with legal counsel? Is there a reason they are being detained or are you just fucking with them?”

The deputy moved up between them. “I think maybe we need to call the chief, Biff. He ain’t gonna be happy with this.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, jerking a look between Biff, the agent and Jay, then back to the cell. “I think maybe we’ve got a misunderstanding, Agent Morgan. What I’d like to do is call the chief, see if we can work this all out—”

“Like hell,” Biff growled. “A man’s leg was broke. There was damage caused. Federal agent or not, somebody is gonna pay for that.”

“I’ll be happy to,” Jay said, looking at Taige through the bars. “Of course, I’ll be bringing up charges of harassment, as well as charges of the violation of my civil liberties. I figure by the time I’m done, I’ll all but own this town, so I can easily pay for the damages done at the gas station.” She slid the officer a narrow smile. “What was the fine levied on that town the last time a cop failed to read a person their rights, Agent? Up in Marietta, remember that?”

Taige blinked, her lashes drooping low over her eyes. “I think it was something to the tune of over a million. So far, you’ve been denied a phone call, you’ve yet to be told just why you’re being held. Plus, there are two of you. Wow.” She cocked her head and looked over at Jay. “Just why are you here?”

“Some fine, upstanding citizen decided to put his hands on me. I defended myself and his leg was broken in the altercation. I’m the one who got hauled to jail. Not him, even though he is the one who started the whole fucking mess.”

Taige had pale gray eyes. Against the soft brown of her skin, they glittered like winter ice and she turned her head, stared at the cop. A muscle pulsed in his jaw and he slowly started to wither under that stare. “Do you understand how serious an offense it is to detain a woman over a matter like this? She defended herself and instead of dealing with the actual perpetrator, you violated her rights.” She gave Jay a serene smile. “It looks like you and I are going to hang around town for a while, Jay. We’ll need to contact a lawyer and see about getting all this straightened out.”

A new voice cut through the hall. “What in the fuck is going on here?”

It was, Linc decided, kind of sweet, watching as hell froze over.

That was what was happening too.

It hadn’t even been six weeks since he’d turned in his badge and that pissant had told him that if he hadn’t let his bastard girl run wild, maybe she wouldn’t be missing. A bad girl will come to a bad end, Steve Mays had told him when he’d tried to push the cops to investigate. He had been doing his own investigation, but there was only so much a man could do when every fucking door shut in his face.

When the town’s cops were practically laughing at you.

Linc had stood face to face with that man, the chief of police, a man who’d let his own son run wild, who’d golfed with the judges and talked his way out of all the tickets Linc had written for that boy. When his son had assaulted not one, but three high school girls, Mays had swept it all under the rug. Except one of the assault cases had happened outside city limits and when that happened, it fell into Linc’s lap and the small city’s police force couldn’t do shit about it.

He’d investigated, he’d worked with the county DA to build a case.

Then the girl’s family came and told him she was leaving the state. She didn’t want to prosecute. She was going to school up in New York and her life would be better if she could just let this go.

They didn’t even try to lie when he found out about the check that had been written to them.

Mays had bought their silence.

The day Linc had turned in his badge, he’d told Mays he’d find answers.

Mays had laughed at him. If you’d kept that little tramp under control, there wouldn’t be a problem.

He’d hit him and the days Linc had spent in jail had only hardened his resolve.

There would be hell to pay.

Sooner or later, he’d find answers.

And he’d see Mays suffer.

Maybe this wasn’t quite what he had in mind.

But as Mays looked from the FBI agent to Jay to Linc, Linc could almost see the fine little lines of strain fanning out from his eyes.

It’s the beginning of the end for you, old man.

It wasn’t a cold day here in Hell, but good ol’ Steve was about to be brought down. He just didn’t know it yet.

Jay… He ran his tongue across his teeth, trying to process what he was hearing. Jay had ties to the FBI. Jay. His girlfriend. Well, not exactly. Less than a week after his baby disappeared, he’d cut ties with her. He didn’t have room for her in his life. Room for anything or anybody.

But there had been a connection, yes. All online. They’d Skyped. Emailed. Texted. Plus, well, yeah, he had to be honest. Texting had led to some hot and heavy sexting that had him under a cold shower far more often than he cared to admit.

But they’d never met. He’d looked into her background. He was a cop—or had been. Of course he’d checked her out. Nothing had seemed out of place, so if she wasn’t a security specialist, whoever had built that fake background of hers had done a fucking-A job of it.

None of that changed the fact that she had ties to the FBI.

Taige Morgan.

She was the woo-woo nutbag almost every person affiliated with law enforcement in this part of the country knew about. Some people revered her. Others steered clear. Linc would just as soon not have anything to do with her. He didn’t know how she helped close so many cases but the psychic line was bullshit.

Now she was talking to Jay in a low, steady voice.

Jay had her arms hanging through the bars, a sneer in her voice as she answered.

“Do you all have dicks shoved in your ears or what?” Mays demanded, his eyes burning a hole in Jay’s skull. “I just asked what in the fuck is going on here and I want an answer.”

A slow smile came across Taige’s face as she turned to face him.

“I’d kind of like to know the answer to that myself. I take it you’re Chief Mays?”

Mays blinked, staring at her with dumb stupefaction rolling across his face. Then his expression went carefully blank.

Linc could have laughed. Mays must have recognized her too.

Yeah, son. You just realized you and your boys have a fuckload of problems here, didn’t you?

Taige glanced Linc’s way, oh so briefly, and if he wasn’t mistaken, her mouth twitched in a smile. Then she looked back at Chief Mays. She didn’t offer her hand. Instead she flashed him her ID. “Taige Morgan, FBI.”

“I know who you are, Agent Morgan.” He ran his thumb down his jaw and then flicked a look back into the cell. “Dawson, are you so desperate now that you’re hiring a psychic?”

He saw Jay’s shoulders tighten.

Closing his eyes, he braced himself for the questions. But she never turned to look at him.

Taige was the one who spoke up.

“Chief Mays.” She gave him a sharp-edged smile. “I wasn’t hired by anybody. I was just going to make a quick in and out, see what the hold-up was—Roberts was expected to check in recently and she didn’t. Now I understand why. Is there a reason she wasn’t given a phone call?”

Mays rocked back on his heels, his eyes narrowing. “Just why was Roberts in my town to begin with?”

“Hardly your concern. You’ll be apprised if need be.” Taige smiled. “This town is still part of the U.S., right?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“I think it is. I’m just trying to understand why your officer decided it was okay to run roughshod over their civil rights. No phone call. They weren’t Mirandized. They don’t even know why they are in jail.” She gave him a wide, brilliant smile. “Not to mention the fact that Ms. Roberts was being hassled by three men—that’s what set this whole incident off. She defended herself and instead of your officer addressing that fact, he went after her. So, is Hell a part of the United States, or not?”

Chief Mays stared at her, his expression stony. Then he looked over at his officer, who had been sullen and silent throughout the entire exchange. “I’m quite certain my officer would have read the prisoner her rights, Agent Morgan.”

“Hmmm. And the phone call?” This time, her smile wasn’t so brilliant. It was hard-edged, like broken glass under the winter sun. “We can always check on that.”

He stared at her. After fifteen seconds, she pulled out her phone, hit a number.

“This is Agent Morgan. I need to speak to SAC Taylor Jones.” She paused for a beat of two. “Jones, it’s Morgan. Yes, it most definitely is about that situation in Hell, Georgia. I’ll be detained. It might even be worth one of us poking around down here and seeing just what in the hell is going on. When do I need him? Well, yesterday…yeah. Roberts didn’t get a phone call, there’s some question as to whether she was read her rights and it sounds like the situation is the same with the other prisoner…”

She paused and smiled at the chief while he started to sputter. “I’ll be with you in a moment, Chief.”

“Sorry, sir,” she said, turning her attention back to the phone call. “No, I’ll still be able to continue looking for that information. I’m not sure just what the problem is here, but I’ll stay in touch.”

She was quiet a second. Then she nodded. “Hold on…” She focused her eyes on the sheriff. “Yes, sir… His name? The chief? Chief Mays, I didn’t catch the first name.”

Inside the cell, Linc closed his eyes and bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling as Steve Mays started to slowly steam. His eyes all but drilled holes in Taige and she blithely smiled back at him.

No matter how in the hell the rest of his life turned out, Linc was going to remember that moment. The moment fear bled into that cowardly, egotistical, evil son-of-a-bitch’s eyes.

A moment later Taige disconnected the call and gave Mays another one of those winning smiles. “My boss might be coming down for a quick visit,” she said. “Roberts. You can touch base with him then.”

“Just what is the fucking problem here?” Mays snarled.

“Oh, civil rights violations for one…that’s not the sort of thing he would take a look at. He handles other matters…normally.” She gave the sheriff a bright smile. “But you can imagine he’s going to be concerned with something that involves his people.”

She turned to Jay and crossed her arms. “I’m not sure how long it will take me to get you out. Are you going to be okay?”

It took Taige less than one hundred and twenty seconds to get Jay released from the cell after that point.

Not only did the oh-so-stupid Officer Biff Stahley release her from the cell, he also opened the door to Linc’s as well, after Mays jerked his chin toward it and snarled, “Him too.”

“But—”

“I am not dealing with a bunch of uppity, bleeding heart civil rights assholes all because you’re too fucking stupid to read them their rights,” Mays bit off as he turned on his heel and stormed to the front of the station.

Linc shoved off the wall and sauntered out, patted Biff on the shoulder. “One of these days, you might almost pass for a rent-a-cop, kid. It will be okay.”

Biff shoved him.

“Careful there,” Taige said, her voice mocking. “I’d hate to have to testify that you laid your hands on a prisoner… No, wait. I wouldn’t.”

“Fucking cunt,” Biff muttered under his breath. Then he jerked a thumb to the door. “Get the hell out of here so we can finish the paperwork up. I got shit to do.” He went to catch Jay’s arm but she sidled out of his reach, aligning herself with Taige.

Linc looked over at Jay, watched as Taige put herself between them. “I think we can trust her to behave herself,” Taige said levelly. “If you need to manhandle anybody, you can always escort the male prisoner.”

A muscle pulsed in Biff’s cheek but he spun on his heel and stormed out, leaving them to follow.

Taige’s brows arched over her eyes. “Wow.”

Linc thought about mentioning that this wasn’t even the tip of the iceberg. But he didn’t see the point.

Mays wanted to gut that bitch.

The problem was it just wasn’t an option. If she had just been some stupid piece of colored trash driving through his town, he could have dealt with her and nobody would have been the wiser.

The problem was that FBI attached to her name.

As he led her, the pink- and blue-haired punk bitch and Dawson out into the bullpen, he had to realign his thoughts and accept the facts.

The last thing he needed was to have the FBI messing around with his town. This was his town. Once that no-good, piece-of-shit Dawson had resigned himself to that fact and stepped aside, Mays had taken over and that was how things were. His town. He was in charge, ran it his way.

Maybe the Dawson family had more money than the Mays family did, but that didn’t mean shit. They had it because the fuckers had some high and mighty bastards who invented some gadgets, held a few patents. They thought that made them special.

The Mays family had been the real power in this town for a long time, and now he was finally doing just what they were meant to do.

Running things.

His father had been the sheriff until he died of a heart attack. Things had been just fine until then. The man who’d stepped into his shoes had been some dumbass who had wanted to modernize things and, for fuck’s sake, there had been a female cop. The chief then had been too fucking soft and then Dawson had come home from college with his fancy-ass degree in law enforcement. People on the town council had liked him, his parents. Too many soft-ass idiots who didn’t know dick about running a town.

An accident had left the one full-time officer in a wheelchair and Dawson had applied. He’d eventually taken over when the sheriff retired and people talked out their asses about what a good job he’d done during his time here. Fuck. A good job? He’d arrested Steve’s boy over bullshit charges. Sexual assault—a girl goes out dressed like a whore, she’ll get treated like one. The charges went nowhere, Steve had seen to that.

And he’d waited. Waited for his chance, but it had been a long time coming.

Dawson didn’t seem to do shit wrong. Kept his business in order, paid his taxes on time. Probably even washed his hands after he jacked off. If he knew how to jack off, that is.

But he’d landed his ass in Steve’s jail a time or two.

Make that three.

Steve might have laughed about it, except somehow this last time had come with an FBI agent.

Or two.

The bitch with the pink-and-blue hair was staring at him.

Her eyes, green as grass, all but glowed as their gazes connected, and his head went a little light. Images flashed through his mind and he slammed a hand against the counter to catch his balance. A cool hand brushed against his.

The girl…what was her name?

DeeDee. Missing.

How long now?

His thoughts got muddled and the air around him felt hotter. Tighter. He struggled to breathe and reached up, jerking at the collar of his shirt.

A hand touched her shoulder.

Jay brushed it off and deepened the connection.

Abruptly, she found herself spun around, staring up at Taige.

“Enough.”

The voice in her mind was clear as a bell and Jay fought the urge to scream at her.

“You don’t know. You didn’t see—”

“I did,” Taige countered, her voice cool. “I saw.”

Then she looked past Jay and stared at the cop. “We’re in it now, Roberts. We’re not leaving. We’ll figure this out.”

Yeah. Jay looked shot a look over her shoulder, stared at the old, dirty cop. Dirty. Like a piece of shit that clung to her boot. He gazed vacantly off into space, rattled by her careless search of his emotions. Emotions tied to very, very ugly memories.

Then she looked at the source of those memories.

One Lincoln Dawson.

Father of a girl who had been missing.

For two months.

The exact time when he’d broken up with her.

Chapter Five

Back at the station, Jay had turned her head and looked at him, just once. But it had been a soul-deep look that had made him feel like she could see clear through him, all the secrets, all the wounds. Everything he’d struggled to keep hidden for the past eight weeks.

It was as though she’d seen clear down to his soul.

He hated it and, because it was easier to focus on anything except the naked vulnerability that look teased to the surface, he decided to focus on other things.

As they headed down the street, he jammed his hands in his pockets, aware of Morgan and the man with her, who had yet to speak. He had a good eight-mile walk ahead of him. He’d point that out eventually, but for now? If they wanted a view of his back, fine.

“The FBI, Jay? I know a couple of people who do security consults, darlin’,” he said after about five minutes. “Can’t say any of them know any FBI agents who’d come running at the drop of a hat.”

“I didn’t drop a hat.” She shrugged. In the piss-poor light, her skin still managed to gleam like ivory. “I made a phone call.”

“For the record,” Morgan said from behind them. “I’m technically not an agent.”

Linc stopped, closed his eyes and lifted his face to the sky. After about ten seconds, he turned and faced Morgan and the man who really, really didn’t like to talk. Bluntly, he asked, “Who the fuck are you?”

That got him a faint smile. “Cullen Morgan. I’m just along for the ride. That phone call Miz Roberts made interrupted a weekend with my wife.”

Morgan…Cullen… “You’re that writer.”

The man inclined his head.

Linc drilled the heel of his hand against his right eyeball, hoping it might ease the headache that had started to pulse there quite some time ago. It didn’t do much. He hadn’t expected it to. After a few more seconds, he gave up trying and looked at Taige. “So you have an ID that reads FBI,” he said, pointedly staring at said badge for a second before shifting his attention back to her face, “but you’re not an agent.”

She dropped one lid in a quick wink. “Sugar, plenty of people work for the Bureau who aren’t agents. I freelance. Don’t worry. I’ve got all the authority I need to say everything I said back there in Dipshit, U.S.A.”

“Dipshit, U.S.A.” He looked around the night-dark town of Hell. “Dipshit doesn’t touch it. Hell suits this town. More than you can describe.”

“I can believe that.” As he slid his eyes over to look at Jay, Taige crossed her arms over her chest. “Why don’t you tell me about your daughter, Linc?”

He froze.

DeeDee…

Then he turned away, started to walk. He needed to get started on that eight miles so he could get home, get behind the solid wooden doors of his home and bury himself in a bottle of whiskey.

Jay let him get thirty feet away before she looked back at Taige and Cullen. “Why don’t you all find a place to stay for the night, then I’ll call you?”

Taige glanced at her husband, then nodded. “That works.” She pulled a card out of her wallet. “My number.”

Jay accepted, glad she’d managed to get her gloves back. Tucking it into her pocket, she looked up at Linc’s broad back, rapidly disappearing into the night. “You all might sleep more soundly if you found a place out of town.”

“Don’t I know it,” Taige said, her voice more than a little disgusted.

As they headed back down the street toward the bright lights of the police station, Jay turned and headed into the darkness. The farther she got, the darker it became, but she had the disturbing sensation that the farther she got from town, the safer she was.

There was some fucked-up shit going on here. The police weren’t the source of it, but they sure as hell weren’t the solution.

Those long legs of his covered ground fast and she had to jog to catch up.

He didn’t look at her.

It took him almost ten minutes to say anything.

When he did, they weren’t words of welcome.

“I live close to eight miles from here. Our vehicles were impounded. If you hurry, you can have your pal find you a place to stay.”

She slid him a sidelong look. “That’s why I caught up with you. After two years of talking, I figured you could hook me up with a bed for the night.” She risked it. Sliding her hand down his arm, twined their fingers. “I was kind of hoping it might be your bed, even though you did up and dump me.”

A harsh sigh escaped him. But he didn’t pull away. “You know about my daughter… Jay, I’m not in a good place right now. I’m sorry I was an ass, but I can’t handle a relationship when I’m…”

He stopped. Just stopped in the middle of the road and stared at nothing.

She eased herself in front of him and reached up, touched his cheek. Even with the gloves, she wouldn’t have risked this with most people. Accidental brushes of the skin, his chest bumping against hers. Or worse, he might lean in and kiss her, and those casual contacts were something she could never take for granted. She’d never been able to risk it.

So she’d thought. But she touched him. More, she let herself lean in, press her lips to his. That light contact stole the breath from her lungs, but not for the reasons she would have expected.

All she felt was a hot, hungry little buzz.

And grief.

Her own, not his.

He was hurting and it broke her heart.

“I never knew you had a daughter,” she said quietly.

“I never knew you were with the Feds,” he said sourly. “I guess we’re even.”

She laughed a little. “Maybe. Although I’m not with them anymore. I’m…well, sort of freelance. I am with a private security firm. It’s just not the kind you’d typically expect. I do troubleshooting, bodyguard detail, investigative work. Whatever is needed.”

His eyes searched her face. “But you were FBI.”

“I was.” She held her breath, wondered if he would ask. He’d recognized Taige. She was almost famous, in her own way. Would he connect those dots?

But all he did was reach up and push his fingers through her hair.

“You up for an eight-mile walk or you want to call them to pick us up?” he asked.

Nearly an hour later, she was tucked up inside a house that would have looked at home on some grand Hollywood production.

Well, at least in her mind.

But no, this was Linc’s home. He lived here.

If Scarlett O’Hara had swept out the door, her hand pressed to her breast as she cried out for her darling Ashley, Jay wouldn’t have been surprised. But as Linc had led them into the house, it remained silent. Despite the lateness of the hour, something about that silence disturbed Jay.

It was an almost haunting silence, and even now, she couldn’t help but think there was something wrong.

Every other place she’d been in town had felt…off. Dark, dismal. Unnaturally so.

This place felt muffled.

She wanted to talk to Taige and asked if she felt the same, but she didn’t have the chance.

Linc had guided the couple to a room, showed them a connecting bath and, to Jay’s wide-eyed surprise, a little kitchenette. Apparently the man was loaded. She’d suspected he had money, and despite the urge, she hadn’t done a background check on him. She might have, but her gut hadn’t given her any “off” vibes about him and she’d already been deceiving him. Why invade his privacy?

Now some part of her wished she’d poked around a little. She might have been a little more prepared for what was going on.

After he’d tucked Taige and Cullen into their rooms—their own rooms, geez—he’d taken Jay’s hand and led her to what she guessed she could call a different wing of the house.

She wasn’t sure what to expect.

Linc had been oddly silent since her call to Taige.

There was a feel to him that had her heart already silently weeping.

“I guess I should have told you about my daughter,” he said, his rough voice shattering the silence like a hammer against glass.

She lowered her lashes, staring down at her clasped hands. She’d donned her gloves, wished she could take them off, but doing that here would be suicide. The weird, muffled sensation bothered her even more than if she’d sensed the dying screams of a missing child. Fucked-up shit, there. “I guess I could have told you a little more about my job,” she finally said, shrugging and looking up to meet his eyes. Amazing eyes. Too pretty for a man, but damned if she didn’t like to look at him.

He was no longer looking at her, though.

While she’d been staring at her hands, he’d picked up a framed picture from the scuffed oak coffee table. He held it in his massive hands and, if she wasn’t mistaken, those hands trembled. Just a little.

Slowly, she rose and went to him, sitting down next to him.

He lifted his head and the awful expression in his eyes tore her heart right open. She wouldn’t be surprised to see it bleeding on the floor in front of her. Swallowing the knot that had lodged in her throat, she reached for the picture. Through those gloves, she felt the buzz.

Yeah, the house was muffled. But some of the things within the house were still throwing off echoes.

This one caught her by throat.

A girl had held this, stared at the picture, then thrown it on the floor, smashed it.

The glass was still broken. Jay could see the girl’s picture, but Linc’s face was obscured by the shattered glass. You could see his arm, slung around her shoulder, and the smile on the girl’s face was a happy one.

“She disappeared,” he said, his voice raw. “We had a fight…a bad one. There’s a—fuck, he’s a punk. Entitled little thug, thinks he can do whatever, have whatever. But he’s a charming bastard and girls love him. My daughter was having trouble at her school and my ex-wife thought maybe she’d do better in a small town. I didn’t want her to come. I love my daughter, but this town…”

Linc closed his eyes, shook his head. “Sometimes this place deserves its name. I told Shanelle it wasn’t a good move, but she had this big job offer going on too. Didn’t want to take DeeDee to Memphis—said she needed a slower pace of life, small town. Community. I don’t…” He pressed the tips of his fingers to his eyes and swore under his breath. “If it was any town other than this one, I would have agreed. It would have been a good move. I was the county sheriff, though. Surely I could keep my daughter safe. She’d been here nine months, was doing okay. Then she started hanging out with that fuck Blayne. She tried to leave for a date with him and I said no. Told her I’d lock her in her room if I had to. She snuck out of the house that night. I never saw her again.”

The buzz in the back of Jay’s brain grew louder. Inside her glove, her fingers itched. Burned.

Something was tugging at her.

She could help.

She didn’t know how.

She didn’t know what she was going to find.

But she could help.

“What…” She licked her lips, painfully aware of how heavy her heart had started to pound, how the blood was roaring in her veins. “What came up in the investigation?”

Linc curled his lip. “Not shit. Everywhere I turn, there’s a dead end, and she was last seen inside of town, but are the cops there investigating? Hell, no. One girl said she did see DeeDee with Blayne but the next day, when I went back to talk to her, she was lying, I know she was lying, but she says she was confused. She’d seen them on a different night. Then I traced the phone records and there are calls from the Mays household to her cellphone.”

“Mays.” Jay said it flatly, remembering the police chief, his name foul on her tongue.

“Yeah.” Linc shot her a dark look. “It’s his son.”

“She was last seen with the chief of police’s son.” She blinked, her expression coolly blank.

“Yes. And nobody has shit to say about it.”

Jay dragged her hands down her face, shaking her head. “I’m at a loss for words. Why aren’t you the sheriff anymore, Linc?”

“Because I quit.” Linc surged up out the seat and moved around the coffee table to pace the length of the room. “Shit came up that I was planting evidence, trying to implicate the chief’s son. All this crap that I was shooting for his job, never mind that I already had one. The only other officer I had on staff at the time went to the town council and claimed he’d seen me do it. The fucking coward apologized a month later, crying his heart out about how Mays had told him he’d tell his wife how he’d been cheating on her and it would ruin his marriage if he didn’t lie his ass off.” Linc started to laugh, an ugly raw sound that echoed through the room and tore ragged chunks out of Jay’s heart. “The bitch of it was…Leigh already knew. She filed for divorce two weeks after I quit.”

“You let them chase you out.”

He turned, his eyes flashing at her. “No. I walked out, because after all the time I put in, as much as I tried to make things better here, people folded for that scumbag. That boy he’s raising is suspected of three rapes, and I finally had one of the girls convinced they needed to press charges, but right before it went to trial, the girl’s parents balked. I had the evidence. It just disappears. The fucker sits there, ignores real crimes, and the two officers he has will haul people in because they defended themselves, but he’ll ignore it when a girl is getting raped over at the bar, or when my…” His voice broke.

Jay said nothing as he lapsed into silence, his chest rising and falling as he took a couple of slow, steady breaths.

She sat there, waiting until he was ready to speak again.

“He does nothing,” Linc finally said. “His son hurt three girls and he probably kidnapped my daughter, and nothing happens to that sick little fuck.”

“You’re certain he had something to do with her disappearance.”

“She was last seen with him. Her cellphone case was found in his bedroom. But all the evidence is gone, no fucking telling who took it or what was done with it, and nobody will talk.” Linc turned and stared out the window. “My little girl is gone.”

Jay stripped off her gloves.

That very moment, the door opened.

Taige stood there. “Jay, wait—”

But she’d already grabbed the picture.

Her skin prickled.

Heat washed over her and then a rush of cold, just seconds before darkness swarmed around and then it sucked her in. Time, space, everything fell away and then, she was elsewhere. She was somebody else.

Or that was how it felt. Seconds later, her conscious defenses kicked in and she shoved the connection off to the side. This wasn’t really happening.

She knew that.

It was something that was already done and over.

Over…but not finished.

It would never be finished, because the pain still lingered.

“You are not going out with that boy, am I understood?”

She spun around and swung out, hitting her father square in the nose—the exact way he’d taught her to hit. Blood spurted. But he didn’t let her go. Even when she shouted, “Let me go! I hate you. Do you hear me? I hate you.”

She had to be with Blayne. She had to. He was the only one who didn’t make her feel—

“—breathe, Jay. Come on. Breathe.”

That voice cut through the miasma of fear and worry and guilt and grief. It threatened to swamp her and she sucked in a breath, only to gag a little as bile rushed up her throat.

A rush of voices swarmed around her and that voice rose again. “Shit, would you get back? Give her some air?”

Taige, Jay thought dumbly.

That was Taige.

“What the hell is wrong with her?”

Hands touched her and she flinched away. “Don’t touch,” she slurred out, forcing the words through her dry throat. “Don’t…”

“It’s okay,” Taige said, her voice soft. “I’m locked down. My guy is a null. We need to get you on the couch. You hit the floor. Come on, Jay.”

Something wet ran down her face and she reached up.

A hand caught her wrist and she jerked back before she realized it was Taige. She felt nothing from the woman’s touch. Okay. That was safe. Inanely, she thought of elementary school. Good touch, bad touch. All touches were bad for her, it seemed. She felt too much—even the slightest one could bring agony. Very few brought anything pleasurable.

“You ready to move?”

Cracking one eye open, she found herself staring at Taige and then she nodded. She started to sit up and Taige helped her. The room spun around and she felt that sticky wet on her face, looked down, saw the red splattered all over her shirt. “I hit my head,” she said stupidly.

“Yeah. A gash about an inch long.”

Feeling the heavy pressure of somebody’s stare, she looked up, saw Linc standing just a few feet away and his eyes were a blank, careful mask. He looked at Taige, his eyes lingering on her before his gaze slid toward Jay.

Fuck.

She had a feeling he was piecing things together, and fast.

She also had a feeling he wasn’t one of those people who bought wholesale into the psychic business, either. But that was just too fucking bad.

As Taige helped her sit, Jay reached out a hand and closed it around Taige’s wrist and focused her thoughts. She wasn’t telepathic and her skills didn’t work the way Taige’s did. But Taige’s abilities were legendary and all she had to do was listen. If somebody thought directly at her, she’d pick it up.

“I think his daughter might still be alive.”

Chapter Six

The pieces of the puzzle fell into place, but Linc didn’t like the way they fit.

Taige Morgan. Freak, fraud or enigma, he didn’t know which, but the bottom line was, when she showed up on the scene, crazy crimes were solved. Sometimes with a happy ending, sometimes not, but they were solved.

She had a connection to Jay.

Jay had a connection to him.

It didn’t matter that he’d tried to cut that connection, because it was still there, a strong, unbreakable thread that even now tried to draw him to her.

But there were still secrets.

She sat there, pale as death, blood an ugly stain against her flesh, and her eyes locked on his. He saw the secrets in the back of her eyes. The picture of him with DeeDee had set this off. Taige had carefully put it back on the table and he’d noticed she’d taken a lot of effort not to look at it, not to touch it any more than necessary.

Unable to hold Jay’s gaze any longer, he turned on his heel and stormed out of his study, heading down the hall. She had blood on her. She’d want to clean up. He could get stuff for that, maybe a butterfly bandage for that cut, something. A clean shirt. And give his brain time to settle.

Why was she here?

His brain skittered away from that, unwilling to linger on that very long.

Because he couldn’t. He didn’t want to think about it.

Although once he hit the kitchen, he stumbled, hitting the wall and bringing up his hands, unable to think about anything else for the next couple of minutes. Shuddering, trying to hold back the agony, he slammed his head against the wall while screams boiled and raged in his gut.

DeeDee…

“Please, God.” He voiced that single prayer, unable to say anything else. He couldn’t even put his thoughts into words. He didn’t know if he was praying for closure, and he didn’t know if he was praying to find her safe—he was a fucking cop and he knew how unlikely it was at this point. He didn’t know what he prayed for, but as he lifted his eyes to the ceiling, he prayed to a God he’d stopped believing in. If the Man existed, Linc hoped, for his daughter’s sake, God would understand his desperate prayer better than he did.

He gave himself a few more minutes and then he shoved off the wall, moved to one of the cabinets and grabbed a bowl, filled it halfway with lukewarm water and found a couple of hand towels.

On the way back, he paused by the laundry and found a loose T-shirt. The skin-tight, long-sleeved shirt she wore was going to need washing.

She could probably use a shower.

Thoughts of a wet, naked Jay were a bit of a distraction, but not much. His gut was still a hot, nasty snarl, and when he strode back into the library, she gave him a lost look that made him want to howl.

She shouldn’t look lost.

Jay was attitude, killer curves and sexy ink and wicked smiles.

She shouldn’t ever look lost like that.

She caught sight of him and, like it had never existed, the look melted away, replaced by a careful, blank mask. Setting his jaw, he came into the room and strode to the table. Taige tried to block him but he ignored her as he dipped the rag into the water and set about cleaning the blood from her face. “Have you ever had a concussion?” he asked Jay as she tried to pull away from him.

“Yes.” She sighed as he ignored her attempts to pull back from him, finally turning her head so he could clean the blood from her face and neck.

“How is your head?”

“Sore. Not sore enough for a concussion, I don’t think. I’ll just have a headache for a while.” She winced as he started to clean the area near the wound.

“Bleeding is slowing down.” He grabbed the other towel, wished he’d thought to grab his first-aid kit, but his brain had been…elsewhere. It had been like that since DeeDee’s disappearance. “Head wounds bleed like a bitch, but they usually aren’t bad. Do you want to go to the ED? It’s a drive, though. About thirty minutes.”

She grimaced. “No.”

He nodded again and continued to apply pressure. Without taking his eyes from hers, he said, “Taige. I need to talk to Jay. Alone.”

Before she left, Taige had sent her a look.

Jay felt the quiet press on her mind but she just sent the other woman a swift shake of her head. “I’m good. Go.” A minute later, Taige and Cullen left. That man of hers didn’t talk much. He was…well, almost like her shadow. As the door shut behind them, she closed her eyes and braced herself, wondered just what she was in store for.

Deep inside, though, she already knew, and it had nothing to do with being a psychic and everything to do with being a woman.

Some secrets just weren’t good ones to keep, not when you were trying to build a relationship with a man.

Although how they could have brought this one out in the open, she just didn’t know.

A fine tremor shook her and she clenched her hands together to keep from reaching for him, to keep from letting him see how she was shaking.

This was going to be bad, she realized. Really, really bad.

“FBI, huh?”

She slid him a look from under her lashes and then looked away.

“I’m not with the FBI.” Then she shrugged and added, “Not anymore.”

“But you were?”

She sighed and brushed her hair back. “For a very brief time. Less than a year.” She couldn’t, and she wouldn’t, go into details about why she’d left, but that wasn’t the issue, not really.

Linc was a cop, and he’d understand if she had to keep certain issues quiet because of the job. The job mattered.

What he might have trouble with was…her.

Feeling the weight of his stare, she turned her head and met his gaze dead on. Rising from the couch, she slid her hands into her pockets and rocked back into her heels. Attitude and bravado had gotten her through a lot in life. If you can’t make it, fake it. Sooner or later, she’d get through.

“Why don’t you just ask me what it is you want to ask?” she suggested.

He lifted a brow.

Then, smoothing a hand back over the smooth surface of his scalp, he turned and moved across the room until he was standing on the far end. Like that distance between them just then was crucial.

It hurt, she thought. Seeing him put that space between them hurt. “Ask you what I want to ask,” he echoed, “but just where to begin?”

“The beginning is always a good place.”

His laugh was a rough, humorless grumble in the room, sending shivers down her spine. “You know much about Morgan there?”

Staring at the long, taut line of his back, she tried to follow his line of thinking, then scowled. Morgan. Taige. Jay was used to thinking of her as Taige Branch, although she’d been married for years. “Yeah, I know bits and pieces.”

“Bits and pieces. Ever seen anything about her in the news?”

“You believe everything you read about or hear about in the news?” Jay asked mockingly.

He shot her a dark look. “So you’re telling me it’s crap?”

She could tell him that. She could lie. She might even be able to make him believe her.

But it would be just that. A lie.

As the sour taste of bile and anger crawled up her throat, she looked away. “No. I can’t tell you it’s crap.”

His sigh echoed through the room, terribly loud. “And why am I not surprised?”

She closed her eyes.

“How do you know her, Jay?”

She slicked her palms down her jeans, felt the frayed and ripped holes, the warmth of her skin through them. Her palms felt icy by comparison. “You already know the answer, Linc.”

“Now…how would I know that?” His voice was a menacing whisper as he turned to stare at her. “I’m not the psychic in this room, am I?”

Jay looked at him.

He glared back at her, his face stark, almost savage with anger. “You going to tell me now?” he snarled, crossing the room to fist his hand in the front of her shirt. He jerked her close, bending down until he was nose to nose with her. “Or were you going to wait until one of you had to come to my door and tell me that my daughter was dead?”

“Linc…”

Her voice was soft, sad.

The sympathy in her eyes practically tore him open.

When she lifted a hand to touch his cheek, the very last thing he needed to do was stand there, let her touch him when he was feeling so raw.

Her fingers brushed his skin and he caught her wrist, twisted it behind her back and glared down at her. “Don’t,” he panted, pressing his brow to hers. “Don’t stand there and look at me like that if that’s why you’ve come.”

“It’s not.”

Her voice was steady, gentle as a soft summer rain, but the truth was stamped on her face. “I came down here to have it out with you, the way you went and dumped me, you big ass.” She shoved his shoulder with her free hand, then her hand curled into his shirt, her fingers kneading at him like a little cat. “I didn’t even know you had a daughter.”

The relief that hit him was almost devastating. Head swimming, he collapsed back against the windowsill, clutching her against him. “But you… Morgan…”

“My boss.” She rested her brow against his chest. “I had a feeling there was going to be trouble and she sent Taige here to help me cover my ass. Linc, there are some big-ass problems going on here and I need to know what’s going on with your daughter.”

He stared at her face, her eyes vivid and intent.

The tension, the fear that had been mounting in him for the past hour—more—felt like it abruptly drained out of him. A little pop practically sounded in his ear and he sagged, hauling her against him, uncaring of the blood that stained her shirt. It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered.

He had a reprieve.

He was a cop and he knew what the truth was, knew it waited for him.

But that wasn’t why Jay was here.

All that frustration and fear came out of him in a shaking sigh and he slowly lifted his head, stared into her eyes.

Then, focused on just one thing, he nodded. “That’s not why you came.”

She touched his cheek. “No.”

Eyes closed, he pressed his brow to hers. Everything else could wait. He drew her body against his, breathed in the warm, soft scent of her. Right now, this was all that mattered. He could have one night where he pushed everything to the side…right?

The shower was made of jet black and jade and gold and it was the last place she’d expected to be.

Her head spinning, off-balance from too little sleep, too much emotion and everything else that was going wrong in this bloody town, Jay reached up, rubbing her temple as Linc locked the door behind her.

“Why are we in here?” she asked, feeling a little stupid as he turned toward her and hunkered down at her feet. “We need to talk.”

“Morning.” That was the only thing he said.

“Morning?” Staring at the crown of his head, she tried to process that word.

Linc leaned in and pressed his lips to her thigh. He found one of those rips in her jeans, his mouth unerringly seeking her flesh. “Do you honestly have anything to tell me that is going to change anything that’s going on right now?” he asked, his voice raw. “Because I can’t think of a fucking thing that I can tell you that will change shit.”

Jay blinked, trying to process that question.

Did she have anything…?

Her brain was overloaded. Her senses were strained to the breaking point. Even if he tried to tell her jack and she tried to take it in, she had to have rest before she could do anything more. But they could talk—

His hands pulled her boots away, stroked up her calves. “I didn’t want to hear it,” he muttered, leaning in and pressing his lips to her hip. “I’ve read some of her cases, how she’s closed them and I know, in my gut, that too much time has passed and I didn’t want to hear it. I won’t hear it.” Then he slid up, his hands under her close-fitting shirt, and the shocking feel of his calloused palms on her skin sucked the air right out of her lungs. “I can’t… I just…don’t. If that’s what you are, what you had to tell me…I…fuck, I’m glad that’s not why you’re here.”

Abruptly, he stood up and yanked the shirt off. She blinked, startled. Head spinning, she braced her hands on the counter at her back and gaped at him as he caught his own shirt and all but tore it away. “Tell me you came for this,” he rasped, bending down and catching her face. “Tell me this matters.”

The words were trapped in her throat, but it didn’t matter because his mouth was on hers, his tongue stealing between her lips.

How could she tell him she’d come for this when she’d never been able to have this?

That the feel of hands skimming around her back and pulling her close, like he’d just done, was completely alien?

And completely delightful.

She whimpered as he pressed his mouth to the curve of her neck as his hand cradled the back of her head. “How do you feel?” he muttered, rubbing his lips across hers. “Should I stop?”

Stop?

If he stopped, she was going to cry.

As it was, the way she felt when he pushed his thigh between hers was almost more than she could bear and she arched against him, wiggling, ready to push him to his back and ride him like a cowgirl. She clutched at him, her fingers digging into his arms, her nails digging into his skin as the friction of his thigh dragging back and forth teased, taunted.

She dragged her nails down his chest, curled them over his waistband.

Now.

That was all she could think.

Now.

“Jay?”

He tugged harder on her head and she looked up at him, her eyes struggling to focus. “What?” It ripped out of her, half snarl, half sob and her entire body trembled as she struggled not to rock against him, not to ride and chase after the ache that threatened to drive her insane.

“Do I stop?” he muttered again, this time whispering the question against her mouth.

“Stop?” She glared at him. “If you stop, I’m going to hurt you.”

“You ought to rest.” He feathered his thumb over the shallow cut he’d bandaged. There was still a little blood that had dried in her hair and she could feel the dull ache of a headache, a vision that had hit her too hard, too fast. Not to mention the ominous weight of what was waiting for her. Behind the curtain, she thought, a shiver racing through her. It wasn’t ready for her to see yet, and even if she tried to push for more, it wouldn’t come out. Not until it was time.

Yes, she should rest.

Yes, they should talk.

But as she ran her hands up the wall of his chest and hooked them behind his neck, she knew once they did, this was over. This wouldn’t happen.

For once in her life, she wanted to feel. To know what it was like to have a man’s hands glide over her and experience nothing but the utter bliss of his touch, none of his emotions bleeding in, none of his thoughts, none of his doubts.

She wanted to know what it was like to feel a body pressing against hers and to know she was wanted.

Just once.

Maybe this chance would never come up again, but at least she had the chance now. Morning would come and the truth would come out and she’d have to face it. She’d deal with it then.

Rising onto her toes, she pressed her lips to his. “I can rest any time.” She could rest any other night other than now and she could be alone any other night other than now. “Right now, I just want to be with you.”

His hands came around her waist, pulled her up against him and her eyes closed at the utter bliss of it.

Even as her heart started to break.

If that’s what you are, what you had to tell me…I…fuck, I’m glad that’s not why you’re here.

Jay seemed to come alive under his hands and, if he hadn’t caught her hands, if he hadn’t slowed her down, he suspected she might have tried to pull him to her right there, with the counter against her hips and his jeans still around his ass.

If he were smart, he’d just stop this.

But for the first time in two months, there was something else in his head besides the grief and the ache and the misery. For one night, he could let that go, couldn’t he?

Tomorrow was time enough to go back to tearing this town apart, searching for answers.

Her fingers, cool as silk, closed around his cock and he groaned as she worked his jeans down with her free hand. “Slow down, darlin’,” he muttered, capturing her wrists and drawing them back. “Slow down.”

“I don’t want slow.”

He laughed hoarsely. “Slow isn’t going to happen. But we can do better than this.” He grimaced and looked around. The shower wasn’t a bad place, but fuck. “Damn it, I don’t know if I even have any condoms here.”

“I…” Her eyes darted away. “Stupid to even discuss this, I know. Grown adults should be smarter and all, but I’m on the pill. Necessary. I’m clear on everything else. We get physicals in my line of work pretty often.” She shrugged casually as she said it, her eyes moving down to watch as her hands roamed down his pectorals.

He shuddered as she scraped her nails over his nipples. “Yes. Grown adults should be smart. I don’t feel smart. It’s been close to three years since I was with anybody and I used a condom then—had a physical when I renewed my life insurance and we shouldn’t even be having this conversation.” He paused, stared into her vivid green eyes. “Are we going to be stupid?”

“Damn straight.”

She whimpered as he stroked his thumbs up to the V of her thighs. Through her jeans and panties, he could feel the heat of her and he wanted nothing more than to just strip her naked and fuck her, right there.

Instead, he freed the button of her jeans, tugged them down, along with her panties. When she went to touch him, he had to catch her hands again because if she touched him again, now that she was naked, he was going to just forget anything and everything but being inside her.

“Into the shower,” he said, pressing a kiss to her mouth, smiling as a long, slow shudder rocked her. She did that, a lot, like his touch was something that sent her very world quaking.

Dealing with his jeans, he urged her into the enclosure and turned on the jets. It was programmed to the temperature he preferred, and he watched as her eyes closed in bliss. He was going to enjoy this, slicking her down with his soap, washing her hair. As he slicked the shampoo through her pink- and blue-streaked hair, he was caught off-guard. The rainbow of color washed out and she smiled at him, a sleepy, sexy smile that turned his dick to stone and his heart to mush. “Hair chalk,” she said softly. “I don’t always have the sort of job that lets me walk around with pink and blue hair. Plus sometimes I want orange or green. Or orange and pink.”

“You’re into variety,” he murmured, rinsing the shampoo from strands made dark gold by the water.

He eased closer to the gash, checked the bandage. “Feel okay?” he asked, painfully aware of the rasp in his voice.

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “Just sore.”

He nodded, told himself he should finish this up, tuck her in bed.

He wouldn’t though, not unless that was what she wanted.

He turned her around, stroked his hands down her naked back. Pale skin, swirls of ink. “All these tattoos,” he muttered, pressing a kiss to the vining roses that climbed up her spine. “They drive me nuts. Why roses?”

Her breath skittered out of her on a sigh and she glanced back at him, her hair dripping in her eyes. “My grandmother…reminds me of her. Happy memories. There were roses that climbed up the wall to the window of the room where I stayed when I visited.”

There were a lot of roses.

And thorns. Many thorns. “And the thorns?”

“For the pain.” Her eyes clouded and she looked back at the wall. “A lot of it, growing up. I put a thorn for the really bad memories.”

He had counted nearly three dozen thorns.

“When did you start doing these?” He pressed his lips to the deep, deep red rose blooming over one shoulder.

“When I was twenty-five.”

He paused, his hands tightening on her hips. Just what could linger over from childhood that a woman of twenty-five would feel the need to mark her flesh like this? Over and over? “Are the thorns done?”

For a long, long moment, she was quiet, the only sound the water raining down around them. Then she sighed, pressing her brow to the wall in front of her. “No. I’ll never be done, Linc.”

She turned around then and slid her hands around his waist, plastering her wet, naked body to his. “I don’t want to talk about the roses, the thorns… I don’t want to talk at all. I want you. Just you.”

He hesitated. In the back of his mind he suspected this was a mistake. There were things he needed to do, things they needed to say. And he couldn’t help but think how he planned on dragging this fucking town down with him. Into the pits of a very real hell. Making everybody who’d turned their backs on his daughter suffer.

Jay’s hands came up, cupped his face. “One night,” she whispered. Her lips were cool, soft against his, and the water slicked their bodies together. “We can have one night.”

One night.

He banded his arm around her waist and hauled her against him.

With his free hand, he fumbled and managed to turn off the shower.

If they only had the one night, he’d have her in his bed.

Where he’d dreamed of just this.

He moved out of the shower and she almost made him forget his intentions, almost made him lose his mind as she slid against him, wet and slick, the folds of her sex parting around him as she arched and moved, wiggling almost desperately.

“Now,” she muttered, leaning in to sink her teeth into his lower lip.

“Bed.” He cupped her ass in his hands, let himself explore those plump, ripe curves as he moved through the bathroom into his bedroom. He knew the way in the dark. Many a night he had paced the floors of his home, although it hadn’t happened quite like this.

Determined to keep his thoughts off that, he focused on Jay.

Coming to the bed, he put her on the wide, unmade surface and shoved the sheets, the comforter back. Robyn, his housekeeper, had quit after almost thirty years of working in the Mont Oak. That had been three weeks ago and, since then, the place had developed dust piles upon dust piles, although he did manage get through the basics—his own laundry, cooking when he had to eat.

Making beds was a waste of time, though. Except right now, he wished he had made the bed. Seen her spread out on his comforter of navy, with all that bright hair fanned out to frame her face, her bold green eyes watching him as he kissed his way down her torso.

Her nails bit into his shoulders as he pressed a kiss to her naval, traced a line down to her hip. Down, down, down until he could part the neatly trimmed curls with his tongue.

She was hot and wet and when he licked her, she arched up against him with a broken cry.

He circled her clit with his tongue, listened as his name caught on her lips in a sigh. Stroking one hand up her leg, he speared two fingers together and pressed against her. She resisted at first then yielded, closing around him hot and tight. A sound, startled, hot and sweet, fell from her lips. The next sound was muffled and he shot a look up at her just in time to see her shoving her hand against her mouth to smother the cry.

It was too much.

After years of feeling next to nothing, of forcing herself to feel next to nothing, now she was feeling everything and it was more than she could stand. One big hand slid under her ass, arched her up. The other… She shivered as he pumped his wrist, stroking his fingers in and out. Each scrape of his fingers over sensitive tissues dragged her higher, pushed her closer to a precipice she wasn’t sure she’d survive.

Abruptly, he stopped and she caught her breath as he came over her, dragging her wrist away from her mouth and twining their fingers together. “I want to hear you,” he growled against her lips. “Every broken sound. Every moan. Every scream. Whatever you feel, I want to hear it.” He dipped his head and licked her lips. “Don’t hide it from me.”

Stripped bare, she stared up at him as he shifted and reached down between them, tucking the head of his cock against her.

Oh, shit.

Stunned, she stared up at him. Felt him pressing harder.

The burning started.

She caught her breath, tried to blank her features as the burning gave way to the promise of real pain.

His hand on hers tightened. “Relax, Jay…” He dipped his head, rubbed his lips against hers. “Fuck, you’re so tight. Has it been a while?”

She managed to suck in a breath, tried not to whimper as he pulled out and surged in, deeper this time and that promise of pain became real pain. “Yeah. A while,” she tried to say.

It died in her throat as a startled cry ripped out of her.

He stiffened, slowly rising up, his weight braced on one elbow as he stared down at her.

“Jay?”

Her breath came in harsh, ragged gasps.

She could feel the hot wall of his chest against hers, her hair, still damp from the shower, clinging to her skull, and worst of all—or maybe best of all—she could feel him, the thick, heavy column of his cock, pulsing inside her. She twisted against him as another slow pulse echoed between them, a delicious little tease and a hot little pain all at once.

Linc groaned and reached down, steadying her with one hand on her hip. “Stop it, Jay. Look at me.”

She focused on his eyes, even though his chest was moving in a ragged rhythm against her own and the sensation of it had her nipples drawing tight, her breasts aching.

“How long?” he asked, his voice tight.

She blinked, confused. “What?”

“How long has it been?”

“Ahhhh…” She licked her lips.

His gaze dropped to her mouth.

Oh…he could be distracted? She slid a hand up his chest, curved it over his neck and started to tug him down to meet her mouth. He started to comply but then he growled, tugging away.

That just sent him deeper and she whimpered, instinctively pressing her hips back into the mattress even as pleasure twisted through her.

“That’s it.” Linc caught her wrists, pinned them over her head.

She glared at him.

He glared back, but ruined it by dipping his head and tracing the line of her mouth with his tongue. “Tell me, Jay.” He circled his hips against her as he spoke and the soft, teasing little motions coaxed her into relaxing and she shuddered as he slid deeper.

“I…” Her breath caught in her lungs and then sighed, curling her captured hands into fists as he sank so far in, she could almost feel the heat of his pelvis pressing against her own. “Never, Linc.”

He tensed. Then, abruptly, he stilled, his weight braced on one trembling elbow as he pressed his brow to her chest.

Sliding one hand up his side, she held her breath. What was he going to do?

If he stopped—

His lips brushed against her skin, a silken caress.

“A better man might stop. If you waited this long, we should wait until we can do this right.” He withdrew his hips, lifting up, and waited until her eyes rose to his. Then, without waiting another breath, he surged deep, not stopping until he’d buried his length completely inside.

Her wail bounced off the walls.

Driving her heels into the mattress, she arched up, working to adjust to his invasion, tears trickling from the corners of her eyes.

He kissed them away. “I’m not a better man. I don’t care if my world is falling to shit and I don’t care if I’ll never have a better chance.” He pulled out, surged back inside, staring at her with naked, desperate need. “You came to me, damn it. You want this…say you want this.”

“I want this,” Jay said, her voice shaking. Her pussy was a silken virgin fist, clutching at his dick as he drove into her. He had little finesse and even less time for the gentleness she deserved.

But she arched up against him, her skin flushed, her breath coming harsh and fast and she strained in his imprisoning hold, the climax already rushing up on her. He could feel it, see it in her eyes.

He wanted to taste it on her as she came, but pulling away from her was impossible. Slowing down wasn’t going to happen.

Letting go of her wrists, he fisted one hand in her hair, tugged her head back. “Next time,” he said, refusing to think that there probably wouldn’t be a next time. She had to leave. He had to stay. “If there’s a next time, we’ll do this right.”

She started to speak, but he silenced her with a hungry kiss as he shifted higher on her body, moving so that he rode against her clit with each thrust.

She broke beneath him and he didn’t hold back another second, sinking into her with hard, driving thrusts.

It was a brief respite, the sweetest peace he’d had in far too long.

A peace that ended far too soon.

Chapter Seven

Even when she slept, Jay kept herself shielded. The low-level shields were minimal, enough to keep her safe, conscious shields she’d developed and maintained through years of experience.

Except she’d lowered them.

Under the bliss of being able to touch somebody and not take in every emotion, feel their every pain and pleasure, she’d lowered her shields and, now, battered by her own pleasure and the sensory shock of finally being able to revel in real physical contact, she slid into an exhausted sleep.

Without her shields.

It wouldn’t have mattered, maybe.

Except there was so much hell around her.

Linc was a solid, blank barrier, his arms wrapped around her, but less than an hour after he’d slid into sleep, her own restless dreams had her rolling away. Obligingly, he grunted something senseless and rolled away, sliding one hand down her back, a wordless reassurance that she was there.

Then he settled more deeply into sleep and she was left alone, curled into a tight ball as everything started to slam into her.

She locked herself down.

It was instinct, more than anything else, that kept her silent.

Perhaps, if she’d been louder with her dreams, he would have heard her when she slipped noiselessly from the bed.

She rarely sleepwalked.

At home, she had an alarm system that sounded if she tried to leave the house and normally, that worked.

His own exhaustion held him captive as she picked up a shirt from the end of the bed, pulling it on without buttoning it, the white cotton pale against her flesh.

The only sound in the room was the soft brush of her footsteps over the floor as she moved to the door, her gaze locked on it, although she saw nothing.

Even when she reached her destination, she saw nothing.

But there was nothing to see, really.

Everything had already happened.

She was just there for the memories.

He heard her moving, watched her slip out the door.

From under his lashes, he thought about going after her, but he needed a minute.

A virgin.

She’d been a virgin.

Yeah.

He needed a minute.

A million of them.

Otherwise, he was going to pull her against him, strip that white shirt away and sink inside her again.

His dick was hard just thinking about it, and thinking about her in any way left him feeling raw.

Under it all, his heart lay like a stone in his chest.

Today, he’d have to tell her to leave.

It didn’t matter if she liked it or not, and he suspected the desire, the affection he saw in her eyes, was going to change to something not far from hate or distrust once he forced her out.

But there was nothing to be done for it.

He’d set down this road not that long ago and he wasn’t going to turn from it.

The Dawson family had money.

He’d inherited everything upon the death of his parents. Not just the money and the house, but the businesses in town they owned and so many other things.

People had let his daughter’s disappearance go unpunished.

People looked at him as he walked down the street, and he saw the guilt in their eyes. That quiet acknowledgement that there were things that could have been done, should have been done, but they were too afraid. They didn’t want to step up, speak up. They feared the power that Steve Mays held.

Well, too fucking bad.

One by one, more and more were realizing Mays wasn’t the only one with power in this town.

That dickless wonder Stahley had been one of the first ones to realize it. He had been trying to buy one of the empty buildings on Main. There was no shortage of them, but only a few would have worked for what Stahley and his brother-in-law had in mind—a garage. Stahley had one particular love, in addition to being a dirty, dickless cop. He liked—and was actually pretty damn good at—rebuilding old cars. The town probably could have used such a business. Stahley’s brother-in-law had a rep for it but he couldn’t keep using that old, rundown place behind his house.

But as far as Linc was concerned, the more people who steered clear of Hell, the better. He was just lessening the fallout, really.

Not that he had to soothe his conscience. He’d bought the building out from under Stahley’s nose while Stahley was working to get his loan approved. Linc had the money and maybe he’d eventually go through with the bullshit plans he’d given when he’d gone to the bank about buying the place.

Assuming he lived to tell the tale.

That was just one of the lesser evils he’d done.

The other part-time cop who worked for Mays, Jeff Foster, a mean-ass bastard if ever Linc had met one, was now living with his dad. Before all of this had gone down, he’d lived in a rental home that had belonged to the Dawson family—they did have their fingers in a lot of pies—but Linc had “decided” he wanted to get out of the rental business and gave Jeff thirty days to decide if he wanted to buy the house—something that just wouldn’t happen because Jeff’s credit was shot.

When Jeff couldn’t buy, he was evicted.

Now the house was sitting empty, the price on it so high, it wasn’t ever going to sell.

He’d emptied out four other houses in the same, methodical fashion.

He still owned six other rental houses, but those, he’d leave alone. Unless the person had caused problems or turned a blind eye—and he knew in his gut who they were—he wasn’t going to make their lives any worse.

It was going to get bad enough once he was done.

He was going to drag this town straight down into a very real hell.

And that was why Jay had to leave.

She had to—

The alarm went off, the resounding peal bouncing off the walls.

He shot off the bed and grabbed his weapon, the Glock he’d bought for personal use back when he’d still been on the force.

As he ran down the steps, he caught a glimpse of Jay and it was enough to slow the erratic pace of his heart.

She’d gone outside, not realizing he had an alarm.

But even as he thought that, he wondered…why hadn’t she just stopped when she heard the alarm?

Robyn Bronwyn was a woman with a heavy heart.

An angry heart.

A tired one.

It had been three weeks since she’d quit working for Mr. Dawson, and it had been three weeks since she’d slept well. She’d worked for his family most of her life, but she didn’t think it was just missing her job as his housekeeper that had her so restless.

It was the nightmares. Three weeks of them, of awful dreams, of whispers and voices.

Three weeks of…her.

That voice in her sleep.

How could you… You left him.

Even now, at nearly three in the morning, after four hours of sleep, after another nightmare, she could still hear the voice.

And she was out of coffee.

“Out of sorts,” she muttered. She hadn’t been in her right mind ever since she’d quit Mont Oak, but she was frustrated. Her daughter Jeannie had told her what Linc had done and Robyn just couldn’t see the right of it.

No, she didn’t like Biff. She wasn’t precisely related to him, although there was a connection. Her daughter, Jeannie, was best friends with Anna Grace. Anna Grace was married to Joey Fletcher and Joey had been planning to open that old vacant building on Main, use it for that business they’d been trying to get off the ground for forever. If Joey’s partner wasn’t Biff Stahley, Joey would probably be working on that even now.

She knew what Linc had done. He hadn’t even lied about it, although he hadn’t outright admitted to it, either.

He wouldn’t lie.

She heard about all the people forced to leave their homes too. None of them had families—he hadn’t crossed that line yet, and so far, not one of the houses looked like it had a snowball’s chance in hell of selling.

“Fool man,” she muttered, reaching for the bottled Frappuccino she’d grabbed from the fridge before heading out of the house. She couldn’t stand another long night of pacing the floors. The longer she was there, the more it felt like the walls were closing in on her and the louder those whispers became, but she couldn’t stand being in Hell these days, either. Some people were starting to look at her strangely. Out of the corner of their eye, like she had something to do with what Linc Dawson was doing to some of the citizens of Hell. Others seemed to have the same sense of foreboding that she had, wondering…what else is he going to do…

Linc owned several businesses in town. Not just some rental homes, but important businesses. He owned Dawson Home Store, the odds and ends shop where you could grab oil for that oil change, seeds for your garden or a gallon of paint. It employed four people full-time and had more than a handful of part-time employees. He owned the Café on the Square and he owned two others there on the square too—a small clothing store and the bait and tackle shop. He had little to do with the day-to-day running of the businesses, but he did own them—the buildings, the land.

If he decided he wanted to shut them down, he could.

Only a few businesses were still fairly profitable and more than half of them belonged to him.

Nearing the bend in the road near Mont Oak, she glanced over, her mouth flattening out into a thin line. Her heart ached for DeeDee. She’d loved that girl. A troubled child, sure, but a good one.

She had no idea—

The pale figure drifting out of the house had Robyn’s heart stopping.

Slamming on the brakes, she stopped. Stared.

Silvery moonlight shone down on her and Robyn didn’t know if she was seeing an apparition or what.

But she was going to find out.

“I’m tired of you controlling my life. It’s my life, damn it.” She glared up at him, wishing he could just understand. He didn’t know what it was like. DeeDee couldn’t make him understand, because he’d think she was crazy.

Everybody else did.

Mom hadn’t told him. DeeDee knew that. Just like she knew too many other things that she shouldn’t know.

Their thoughts, the way they whispered when they thought she was too far away to hear. When she couldn’t hear, she heard. She didn’t know how to describe it, but there was no silence in her head.

Unless she was here, at Mont Oak, with her dad.

Or with Blayne. Why couldn’t he understand?

But she couldn’t explain it to him, because she didn’t want to see him watching her the way Mom had.

So she threw other excuses out there and watched as his face went hard.

“Watch how you speak to me, DeeDee. Do you understand? Maybe your mother doesn’t care if you speak that way around her, but I do and you’ll show respect for the adults in your life.”

“Would you stop?” Her voice broke as she shouted at him. Panic crowded in around her. Robyn was in there and she was about to drive DeeDee nuts. She was worrying about her husband—he hadn’t been able to get an erection, for fuck’s sake, and if DeeDee didn’t get some peace in her head, she might cut open a vein just to silence the noise. “You talk about respect, but you never respect me. I just want to go on a fucking date. Blayne is a cool guy and he’s nice to me. He likes me…” He had to like her. Her head was quiet when he touched her. Just like when her dad hugged her. She felt safe with him. That meant something, right?

Dashing away the tears that burned in her eyes, she glared at him. “He just wants to spend some time with me. What’s the problem with that?”

“You’re not here all the time, DeeDee. I can assure you that Blayne isn’t a cool guy. He gets in too much trouble and there have been three girls who’ve had problems with him—problems that went away after his rich daddy went and had a talk with them and paid their parents money so they wouldn’t talk. You’re not going to be the next girl he hurts, you understand me?”

“That’s bullshit!”

A hand closed over her arm. “You are not going out with that boy, am I understood?”

Oh. Oh, no… She stared at him as the blood started to flow. She’d hit her dad. She’d hit him.

“Let me go! I hate you. Do you hear me? I hate you.”

But she had to go. She had to—had to be with Blayne. He was the only one who didn’t make her feel—

A low moan rattled out of her throat.

Dimly, Jay realized she was waking up.

That she wasn’t alone any more and that the misery of somebody else was pressing in on her.

Dimly, she knew that.

Not so distantly, she was aware of a few things.

Her belly felt like it had been twisted into knots then shoved into a vise.

Her brain felt like it had been scraped out then shoved back into her skull.

And her heart didn’t even feel like a bit of pulp in her chest. Ashes, maybe. Just a bit of ashes, withering away.

Something brushed against the ground and she tried to gain control of her body, tried to turn her head and look, but it was so hard.

In the back of her head, she could still hear that girl’s desperate cries.

Linc had locked his daughter in her room.

Jay didn’t blame him a bit. The girl hadn’t seen it—through the innocence, or the desperation, of youth—she hadn’t seen what her father had, but that boy was nothing but trouble.

The woman standing a few feet away from her was older, maybe in her late fifties, but stress had easily added another decade to her.

She was thin, her clothes hanging on her like she’d lost weight, and her cheeks were hollow, shadows under her eyes.

She moved her mouth, but over the remnant cries, Jay didn’t hear anything.

A hand touched her shoulder and she jumped, trying hard not to scream as the sensation slammed into her.

Bolting forward, she turned, and then felt like a fool as Linc stood there staring at her.

His eyes dropped and she followed his gaze, staring at her partially exposed torso in bewilderment for a long moment.

She’d walked out of the house wearing nothing but a shirt, and she hadn’t even buttoned it. Nothing like letting your tits hang out to make a smashing impression, she thought, dazed.

She reached up, her hands awkward, stiff.

The buttons fought her.

“Let me.”

She looked up, watched Linc warily as he came up.

He touched her. A breath hissed out of her, but there was nothing, just that blissful, empty wall, like an untouched slate. A true psychic null. Now she understood why.

But the woman behind her was a different matter.

Her emotions were cranked up on high and as Linc looked at the older woman, the emotional turmoil only worsened.

“Robyn,” he said, his voice low and harsh. “It’s sort of late for visiting.”

The woman spoke, and as she did, Jay flinched. Each word brought more and more emotion. “Mr. Dawson…” Her voice trembled, then firmed. I can speak to him. I still love the boy. Cared for him since he was a child. Jay pressed her lips together and gripped Linc’s arms, struggling to rebuild her shields. “I…well, I saw the lady. You have visitors. Are…well, do you need any help?”

“No.” Linc’s voice was deliberately cool.

It was a smack against the woman’s pride, a blow against her heart.

Both Jay and Robyn wanted to reel from it.

Robyn did. Jay just breathed shallowly, painfully aware that she needed to get inside. “I…” She pried her fingers loose of his shirt, started to step away.

Linc’s eyes flashed to her.

“I need to go inside.” She glanced at her shirt, forced a smile. “I sleepwalk. Need to clean up, get a drink.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“Mr. Dawson.” Robyn’s voice was low, almost a whisper and full of entreaty.

Memories of Linc flashed through the woman’s mind, all tied to emotion and because it was, Jay saw them too. Emotion, her weakness. Her gift, her curse.

“If you could give me a minute,” she said, unaware of Jay’s plight.

Jay blocked them out. Didn’t hear Linc’s refusal. She took a step. The older woman looked away, cut deep by Linc’s coldness. If Jay hadn’t been so shaky, she might have glared at him.

As it was, she was having a hard time staying upright.

And then, she wasn’t doing it very well, at all.

She stumbled, fell against Linc as another strong jolt of emotion slammed into her. Her shields had protected her most of her life and now, when she needed them the most, she had let them down.

Linc caught her, looking down at her in alarm.

The pain in her head, the woman’s, the remnant pain from whatever had happened here, all of it raged inside her.

Worst of all, there was a gathering darkness, looming over her like a thunderstorm.

“Jay!” Linc wrapped his arm around her waist, using his body to steady hers as it seemed like all the bones in her body dissolved.

Her skin, already pale, turned milk white, and her eyes were too dark in her face.

Cupping her face, he stared down at her. “Jay!”

Behind him, he heard a shout.

Taige. He recognized the voice.

Recognized the panic.

But he didn’t see the problem.

Robyn moved closer, her lined face heavy with concern. “What’s wrong with her, Mr. Dawson?” she asked, reaching out a hand to touch Jay’s face.

As she did, Jay arched, her entire body spasming in one long, rigid line.

Then, a series of broken, desperate screams ripped out of her.

A split second later, Cullen grabbed Robyn, wrenching her back like she was something deadly, something toxic to Jay.

As the screams continued to rip out of her and Taige caught her face in her hands, Linc realized that maybe, just maybe there might be.

“Come on, Jay,” Taige said, her voice low and soothing. “It’s me. It’s me…listen to my voice. Come back to me now. Come back.”

Helpless, unable to do anything but stand there, he looked around, bewildered. His arms continued to support Jay’s lax body.

As his gaze caught Cullen’s, the words boiled through his throat.

“She’s like her.”

Cullen’s lids flickered.

“She really is psychic.”

He just inclined his head.

But it was answer enough.

Linc closed his eyes, looked away.

“She’s not coming out of it,” Taige said, her voice grim.

It had been nearly ten minutes and although the screams had stopped after a couple of minutes, Jay continued to sit there, her gaze fixed, and she was trapped inside herself.

Too much emotion had slammed into her when the woman had touched her.

Robyn, Taige thought. Her name was Robyn. She hadn’t meant any harm, but that was what they had here. Harm, and a lot of it.

Taige hadn’t felt any sign of Jay’s shielding, either. Bad time to let the shielding drop, but she had a feeling why the woman had done it. It was a nice thing, relaxing around a guy who wasn’t going to broadcast his every last thought—or couldn’t. She knew that from experience.

But for whatever reason, she hadn’t reshielded and now they had a mess.

A painful one, in Jay’s case.

“We need to get her inside,” she said finally. She hadn’t wanted to move her. Something had drawn her out here—Taige had been watching from the window and she’d seen Jay wander out here, almost in a daze, and Taige had been watching. But then everything had gone to crap. Too late to worry about severing whatever connection the girl had going now. She had to protect Jay and that started by getting some sort of basic shield up, even if it was passive.

Jay’s eyes remained blank, unseeing.

Linc just stood there, his face about as blank as Jay’s gaze.

She glared at him. “Either you get her inside or I’ll have Cullen put her in my car and we leave. Choose now. I don’t have time for your shit.”

Something raw and dark flashed in his eyes. But he picked her up effortlessly, Jay’s body looking small and helpless in his arms. As he turned to the house, Taige looked at the woman. “You’re coming.”

The woman blinked.

Since Taige didn’t know what had set Jay off yet, she wasn’t letting this woman leave.

She grabbed the ID she’d shoved in her pocket and pulled it out, flashed it.

The woman closed her eyes, then nodded.

There was nothing but chaos in Jay’s mind.

When Taige finally managed to erect a passive shield, the sun was creeping up on the horizon and both women were drenched in sweat.

Jay’s eyes, dazed and confused, connected with hers.

Her voice hoarse, she whispered, “What happened?”

Instead of trying to explain out loud, Taige established a mental link and did it silently. As she silently communicated, she filled the silence so nobody else would. “How do you feel?”

Jay touched her brow. “Lousy.”

She didn’t flinch as, mentally, Taige said, “You weren’t shielded. At all. What were you thinking?”

A dull flush crept across Jay’s cheeks and Taige resisted the urge to apologize. She knew exactly what Jay had been thinking, but it wasn’t an excuse and they both knew it. This could have been bad and, no matter what, Jay’s abilities had to be considered. Always.

“Why did you leave the house unshielded?”

Jay looked away. “I didn’t. Intentionally. I sleepwalk. Something tugged me out. It was an accident. I’ll be more careful in the future.”

Taige sighed and rubbed her neck, acutely aware they were being watched.

Two of the people watching them weren’t all that familiar with the strained, odd silences that happened between psychics.

Too tired for this shit, she forced herself to speak out loud, carrying on one conversation about Jay’s head, how she felt and whether she felt up to doing anything today, while mentally, she carried on a different discussion entirely.

“Do you remember anything?”

Her lids flickered and Jay looked away. “Very little. It’s there, but…”

Taige didn’t need anything else.

It was there for her too. She’d picked up on hazy images from Jay’s mind and they’d connected with the weird little blips she’d been seeing since they’d arrived here.

And now…

Now they just waited.

Like a page in a book, just waiting for her to look at it.

That was all she had to do.

Setting her jaw, she reached out and touched her hand to Jay’s arm, prepared herself, braced. She couldn’t entirely brace for the contact, though. Jay had been slowly rebuilding her shields, but under Taige’s touch, she eased them down and Taige felt herself caught in a whirlwind—a whirlwind of emotion and images and memory.

Jay saw in images. Emotion was tied into memory, events, words…things that happened in a person’s life, and all of that translated to very real, vivid pictures for Jay. Everything she picked up from another, she felt and if she felt it, she saw.

No empath experienced things the same way—psychic gifts were like snowflakes and fingerprints. No two were exactly the same.

But Taige hadn’t been prepared for just how deeply Jay felt what she saw.

It was more like Jay immersed herself in whatever she saw than anything else. Immersed herself, and lost herself, plunging head-deep into a pool that was made up of memory and pain and pleasure and laughter and tears.

If it was like this every time, no wonder she avoided touching anything, avoided being touched.

How terribly lonely that must be.

No wonder she’d grabbed onto a moment with that guy over there. She must have been starving for it.

Taige absorbed what Jay had experienced out on the rolling green lawn and her heart ached.

As she broke the connection, the gray—the nebulous darkness that would pull her in soon—swarmed closer and closer.

Sucking in a breath, she snapped her connection to Jay and shoved upright. The room spun around her. Blood roared in her ears. Was it her? Or did it seem like there were screams?

Cullen caught her arms. “Come on, baby,” he said, steadying her. Already he knew what was happening. He should. He’d been there, at her side, for this sort of thing a hundred times. A thousand. “Let’s get you off your feet.”

“Can’t…” Her tongue felt thick. A forgotten scream echoed in the back of her mind. And the girl… Her vision felt like it was no longer her own as a girl stared upward, where she could see nothing but an odd, oblong box of light, centered directly overhead. “I have to…”

“Sit.” Cullen started to walk her off to the side. “That’s what you have to do. It won’t be any use to do anything until this passes.”

Yeah. Maybe he was right.

She let him guide her off to a chair at the side in the room. As he eased her down, her belly rebelled and she thought she might be ill.

Whatever waited for her in the gray, it wasn’t going to be pretty.

Chapter Eight

A taut silence greeted her.

Her head was still muddled.

Her skin prickled.

But none of that mattered, because she was painfully aware of that silence.

The sting of anger against her shields. She didn’t know who was angry, and her gut told her that was important.

Her hands felt like stiff little blocks at the ends of her arms and it took two tries to finally shove her hair back from her face. When she finally succeeded, she managed to tip her head back and looked around.

The second her gaze landed on him, she knew what the problem was.

Sometimes when normals found out what she was, they would give her this weird look. There were variations of the look, everything from huh…that’s kind of cool to freak to fraud to let’s stick her under a microscope and study her.

Linc wasn’t doing any of that.

There was nothing on his face but pure, icy anger.

His eyes, that amazing midnight blue, were remote, arctic pools and his face could have been carved from stone.

His arms were crossed over his chest and everything about him said, stay away.

She understood.

She’d known this would be the reaction.

She wished she could make him understand.

But there was no explaining this.

Slowly, she sat up, keeping her expression blank as she took stock. Sometimes, when her gift came on like that, it hit her like a bad case of the flu. Other times, she was so energized, she felt like she’d mainlined a case of Monster. This was somewhere in between. She was both tired and exhilarated. Ready, but she wanted to rest.

She was going to go with ready, because something was painfully clear in her mind now.

Linc’s daughter, DeeDee, wasn’t dead.

Her muscles fought her as she stood, but she ignored it. Searching the room, she ignored the scathing look on Linc’s face. The tremors racking her stilled as she saw Taige sitting in a chair in the corner, but the way the other woman sat, the odd, passive expression on her face made her uneasiness oddly worse.

Her gut cramped, knotted, as she crossed over there and waited by Cullen’s side.

“Is this how it works for her?” she asked quietly.

Cullen sat, his blue-green eyes on his wife’s face, his elbows propped on his knees. He gave a single, short nod.

“Should I be quiet?”

He flicked her a glance, a half smile on his face. He shrugged. “No. It won’t matter to her. She’ll…” He paused then, leaning forward.

Taige’s mouth parted.

She gasped.

Then she blinked and her hands tightened on the arms of the chair.

A second later, her entire body shuddered.

Taige came out looking like death.

Linc saw her face, ashen under the smooth, warm brown of her skin, fine lines fanning out from the corner of her eyes.

I don’t believe this.

No. That wasn’t true.

He didn’t want to believe this.

Both of the women had spent the past few hours locked in an odd, almost-trance state.

A few months ago, he could have brushed it off. But there was a weird feel to the air. Part of him thought he should look for a massive, cold-mist vaporizer, something that would put a chill, damp feel to the air, but that wasn’t it.

As Taige surged up out of the chair, the chill and the damp was just gone, replaced by a static charge that left him feeling like there was a storm waiting to drop.

And it all had something to do with those two women.

He rubbed a hand down his jaw, debated on what to do, what to say.

She stared back at him.

Jay had moved to the window and was staring outside. If he had to guess, she was staring at the very spot where he’d found her earlier.

That one where everything had started to go to hell.

The familiar scents of bacon and biscuits and coffee filled the air. Robyn had retreated to familiar grounds and was working on breakfast, although he’d told her it wasn’t necessary. He wished she’d listen. He didn’t know how to handle having her here right now.

Familiar ground.

He curled one hand into a fist as Taige turned away.

He had a good idea of how to handle familiar ground, he thought.

Robyn appeared in the doorway, a wheeled tray in front of her. “I thought everybody could use some coffee,” she said, her voice bright, full of false cheer.

Taige opened her mouth. He could see her response, written on her pale, soft features. That warm, gentle brown, those pale gray eyes. Rising from his chair, he pinned Robyn with a look. “No.”

As their gazes cut to him, Robyn’s mouth fell open. “No,” he said again. “You can take it to the kitchen and serve them there. I need to speak with Ms. Roberts alone.”

So now I’m Ms. Roberts…

She fought the urge to sigh, fought the urge to rub a hand over the ache forming in her heart.

She’d known this was coming, ever since those stark words, right before he’d taken her into that sleek, sexy shower.

If that’s what you are, what you had to tell me…I…fuck, I’m glad that’s not why you’re here…

It was almost like he’d chosen to be deliberately obtuse, shutting what she was out of his head so he didn’t have to think about it. She understood. She’d done that sort of thing in her life, more than once.

She’d told him she hadn’t come for his daughter, and she hadn’t.

But now that she was here, his daughter was her focus. It had just taken a while to get her focus on, so to speak.

And now…whoa, was it on.

Her vision swayed in and out, the images from her inner eye superimposing on the here and now.

Dirt.

Pain.

Blood.

Daddy—

Jay fought those images aside, locked on Linc’s face. The poor girl was trapped, still thinking of him as Daddy.

That was the heartbreaking thing.

The troublesome thing was everything else she was doing.

And dear God.

Was she doing some serious shit.

A spray of blood washed across her mind’s eyes.

Why won’t you help! The girl’s tortured scream, into the mind of a boy who didn’t understand.

If Jay hadn’t recognized the boy’s face from that impromptu search she’d done on Hell, Georgia, she wouldn’t have thought much of it.

Another face flashed through her mind and his was familiar—he was one of the kids who’d shown up in her search, a boy missing now for seven weeks. He was one the girl knew. He’d held her wrists pinned by her head, and he’d laughed. Laughed and laughed, while another one tore at her clothes.

Linc… She stared at him, wished she could reach out and stroke the tension from him, wished she could make him understand.

But she didn’t even know what they were dealing with.

Until she did, she couldn’t even offer him any kind words.

There was, she thought, one crucial, clear image in her head.

Darkness. Dirt walls.

No.

Two.

A man, standing at the edge, staring down at her.

And those earthen walls.

She pushed it aside and moved to lean against the back of the couch, staring at him. “So,” she said, her voice edged with mockery. “I’m Ms. Roberts now, huh?”

Robyn, the housekeeper, had already left, taking that life-giving caffeine with her. Cullen had also left. But Taige lingered in the door, her hand on the edge. Her presence was a silent offer of strength, but just then, Jay didn’t know whether to accept it or not.

Blood rushed to her cheeks, suffusing her face with a wash of heat and shame settled in her belly. He’d decided to be blind, she knew.

But she could have set him straight.

No, she hadn’t come her because of his daughter. She’d come here about their relationship and she’d stumbled into a nightmare.

It wasn’t anything either of them had done wrong—her coming here, him unconsciously choosing not to acknowledge the truth. He’d needed to hide from it, she knew. She couldn’t blame him. It made sense, in a way.

But she’d messed up when she hadn’t told him about her abilities.

Swallowing the knot in her throat, she looked at Taige, waited until the woman’s pale gray eyes connected with hers.

“Go. I made this mess. I need to clean it up.”

Jay couldn’t communicate on a psychic level, not on her own.

But Taige didn’t need her to reach out. She only needed the words and she’d pick them up just fine.

For a moment, Taige didn’t do anything, then her shoulders rose and fell on a sigh and she gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. “We can’t leave. I’m filtering through what I have. It won’t take long. We’ve got a hunt ahead of us. You know that.”

Jay didn’t respond.

It wasn’t necessary.

As Taige left them alone, she looked back at Linc.

His eyes sliced into her like a blade. It was a miracle she wasn’t bleeding from it.

“You lied to me,” he said, his voice all but soundless.

“No.” She said that simple word, and she could say that much without lying.

“Don’t,” he snarled.

She didn’t let herself flinch, even managed to take a few steps forward, her eyes narrowing on his face. “I didn’t lie. You assumed after I said I hadn’t come down here for DeeDee that it meant I wasn’t psychic too. That’s your mistake, not mine. Yes, I should have addressed it, but…” She hesitated, floundering. She wasn’t going to explain that, not now. She’d stripped herself bare for him once. She wasn’t going to do it again. “I didn’t.”

“You didn’t.” He bit it off, his voice cold and harsh, a slap against nerves still raw from the past few hours. “My daughter is gone, and who knows what happened to her, who took her, what they did to her, where they left her. And that’s all you have to offer me. You know something. I can see it. I never believed in this shit, but I can see it in your eyes that you know something. You let me put my hands on you—”

His voice broke and he whirled away, driving the heels of his hands against his eyes as a raw, ugly sob left him.

“Linc.”

He didn’t seem to hear her.

Moving across the room, she put herself in front of him but he still didn’t hear her as she said his name again.

Reaching up, she caught his wrists, but he moved away, so sudden and fast it knocked her off balance.

She ended up tripping. Her exhausted body and heavy feet had her on her ass and she banged her hip on the coffee table as she went down, catching her weight on her right wrist and biting back a groan as pain jolted up her arm. Yeouch… She sat there a moment, taking stock.

It wasn’t until she felt his eyes on her that she looked up.

He watched her, his gaze remote.

Jay didn’t let it affect her as she climbed back up, ignoring the throb in her hip. Other than her wrist and hip, she was fine. “I don’t know what you think you know,” she said, her voice soft. “But I didn’t pick up on anything solid about DeeDee until this morning.”

His lip curled in a sneer.

Flexing her hand, then tightening it into a fist, she advanced on him. “If you look at me like that again, I just might knock that look off your face, tough guy. And I can do it. So keep it up,” she warned him. “You just admitted that you don’t know shit about psychics—that means you don’t know shit about psychic ability. You also don’t know shit about how I work, so you’ve got no room to cast judgment and, I can assure you, I wouldn’t have been fucking you if I’d had anything concrete about your child.”

“Nice to know a group of charlatans have a code of ethics,” he said.

She swung out.

He moved, but not fast enough. She hadn’t planned on hitting him with her right.

It was the upper cut with her left that caught him and she was more than a little satisfied to see him stagger a little.

Her hand throbbed and she flexed it as she glared at him. “I’m not a charlatan.”

“Yeah?” He rubbed his jaw. “What the fuck am I thinking then?”

“Oh, please. I’m not Miss Cleo.” She turned away from him and put the length of the room between them. “And I’m not telepathic. I’m an empath—that means I read emotions, Sherlock.” Her gut was hot, tight. It wasn’t everything going on here that did it, either. Too many years spent doing this warned her what it was. “Listen, we don’t have time, so I’m going to give you a crash course on psychic skill.”

She looked back at him, tried not to jump when she realized he’d closed the distance, stood less than three feet away. She sidestepped. He followed. “Some distance, if you would.”

“You didn’t want it last night,” he reminded her, his voice menacing, silky.

“Last night, you wanted to be on top of me. Today, you look like you want to wring my neck.” She stared at him pointedly. “It makes a difference.”

He didn’t give her any more room and she suspected he wouldn’t. But there was no time. “Crash course,” she muttered. “Empathy means I pick up on emotions.”

“Then tell me what I’m feeling.”

She could have done that just by looking at him but she wasn’t going to lie to him. “You’re a psychic null.”

“Is that what it sounds like?”

“Yeah.” She had her suspicions on why but she wasn’t going into that here. “You’re basically a closed book. You don’t give anything out.” If things were different, she’d tell him how wonderful that was, how restful. But they weren’t different.

He curled his lip. “How convenient.”

“Do you want to hear this or not?” She inclined her head.

“I want to know what the fuck is going on and whether it’s connected to DeeDee.” His blue eyes all but cut into her. “And I’m almost certain I never told you her name. What have you been doing, digging around for info? Is that how you…work?”

She bit back a sigh and turned away.

“I caught bits and pieces when I saw the picture,” she said, catching sight of it from the corner of her eye. He followed the direction of her stare and she saw his face go tight, watched as his gaze darkened. “You suspected then. You should have just asked. Asked…and been ready to hear the answers.”

Then last night wouldn’t have happened. She didn’t know whether she should be grateful it had or not. She was going to remember that night in vivid, painful detail. And she was going to regret, bitterly, that it would never happen again.

“You said you weren’t like her.”

“No.” She reached up, absently stroked the rose on her neck. It was time to add more thorns. One for Linc. One for the night they’d had. One for all the nights they’d never have. “I said I hadn’t come here for DeeDee. You chose the interpretation.”

That damned sense of urgency settled on her again. Hot and driving. Moving to the window, she stared outside at that one spot where everything had snapped into place. “I sleepwalk sometimes. I’ve done it since I was a kid. It’s not as common now—usually happens when there’s a hot case going on. The sleepwalking is tied to my abilities somehow. At least that’s what the specialists tell me. I set alarms on my house. Loud noises will wake me up. A loud noise, a bright light, a touch. Anything out of place will bring me out, but it will also disrupt the vision.”

Vision…

Linc wanted to laugh it off.

It would be easier if he could.

But she was staring at that spot again.

The place where he’d fought with DeeDee.

Where he’d found Jay earlier, when Robyn had touched her and she’d started to scream.

“What vision?” he asked, the question ripping out of him.

She opened her mouth to answer.

Before she could, Taige appeared in the door.

She’d dressed.

Her ID was around her neck, her weapon at her side. She tossed a bag at Jay’s feet. “It’s time.”

Jay moved slowly, almost like she was drugged.

But in seconds, she was up to speed, grabbing her bag, moving to the door.

“I’m not done,” he growled.

She stared at him and then abruptly, she reached up.

“I heard her…arguing with you,” she said. “She wanted to go out with a boy. Blayne. DeeDee was angry because you wouldn’t let her grow up. You worried because the boy was trouble. You made her go to her room, locked the door. You feel guilty over that—I can’t read that off you, but I see it in your eyes. Don’t feel guilty. She would have left anyway, at some point.”

Unaware he’d even moved, he closed his hand over her wrist, staring at her with stark eyes.

She…son of a bitch.

She knew.

She knew.

“Tell me you can find her,” he demanded. “I want to bring her home. I want to put her to rest.”

A sad smile curved her lips. “I plan on finding her. But Linc…it won’t be what you think. I don’t think she’s dead.”

She pulled on clean clothes in the pretty little restroom off the side of the main hall. It looked like one of those quaint little water closets from days gone by. Hand-painted wallpaper, towels too soft and so precisely folded, even if they were a little musty from lack of use. There was a fine layer of dust along the back of the toilet.

She suspected this restroom hadn’t been used in a while.

Focusing on the little details was a necessity.

It let her subconscious filter through everything.

By the time she was ready to actually approach it head on, she’d be ready for it.

He was coming with them.

If he wasn’t—or if he hadn’t been—in law enforcement, she’d probably cut him out. It might require physical restraint, or clever maneuvering to lose him on the roads, but Linc had been a sheriff. He knew what they were dealing with.

It wasn’t going to be easy and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

He was aware of that.

He didn’t entirely believe her, either.

That would make this easier, in some ways.

Opening the door, she met his eyes and then looked at Taige, standing by the door.

Cullen waited near the steps with Robyn.

“I’ll call with updates,” Taige told him.

He just gave a short nod.

Robyn, her hands linked at her waist, looked at them, confused. “Do—” she licked her lips and cleared her throat, “—you think you have information then? On DeeDee?”

Taige gave her a professional smile. “Following up leads, that’s all, Ms. Bronwyn.” She was good at handling potentially tricky questions. She’d been doing it for years.

A few minutes later, they were out of the house.

“We need a bigger vehicle,” Taige said, scowling at the sleek little bullet of a car that belonged to her husband and her. It was a Mercedes. Jay had recognized that much. Part of her wasn’t pleased with the idea of a bigger vehicle. She wanted to ask why, but she knew better.

Linc didn’t bat a lash, just headed to the right and circled around the sprawling manor of a house.

They arrived at what she assumed was a garage and he hit the lights. There were four cars, one a cute little VW Bug, and she watched as he passed by it, touched it with his hand. The gesture left an ache in her heart. Then he moved straight to a big, black Ford Explorer. “Big enough?” he asked, looking over at Taige.

“Perfect.”

They all climbed in and, without another word, drove off into the bright morning sunlight.

It was hot out, the sun blistering in the sky.

But Jay was cold, freezing right down to her bones.

Taige spoke little, in simple monotones as she gave directions.

It was his town, but she was calling the shots here.

Jay had worked with bloodhounds before. She knew how they worked.

Closing her eyes, she wondered how long this would take.

Her nerves were frayed already.

Relax. Breathe. Relax…

Under normal circumstances, even on a run-of-the-mill job, she could calm her mind simply through will alone. She had iron control over her emotions when she needed it.

This wasn’t the ideal time, it wasn’t the ideal day.

Everything was different on this job.

Never get personally invested, she’d been told.

By her boss, Oz.

By various people both from the company where she worked now and the Bureau. Getting personally invested was a recipe for disaster and there had never once been a time when it was an issue.

Not until now.

And now was a time when it was crucial to remain distant.

Since she couldn’t rein her emotions in the normal way, she resorted to meditation.

A cool, blue light, the sound of rushing water, all around her. She let it surround her, sank into it. It was sweet, a welcome relief against her frazzled nerves.

Peace.

There was nothing but peace.

There was—

“Son of a bitch!”

Only years behind the wheel, dealing with drivers far more dangerous than that fool, kept him from plowing into the dark red Jaguar that had pulled out in front of him. Even though he no longer carried a badge, he automatically cataloged everything he could about the car, the make, the model—and the tall, older blonde who’d just climbed out of it.

He reached for his weapon.

Taige, riding shotgun, reached over, laid a hand on his wrist. “Don’t. We know her.”

“I don’t.”

Jay sighed. Just the sound was enough to send a shiver down his spine and he damned himself. Damned her. He was still pissed, still angry. He believed her—he knew when he was being lied to, but it didn’t matter. His daughter was there. Lost, and it was time to bring her home, grieve, let her go—his chest knotted and he refused to think about what Jay had said. He couldn’t think about it.

If she was alive—

“She’s my boss,” Jay said.

The door behind him opened.

He shoved his open as well, went to grab Jay but she evaded him, moving like water out of his grasp. He swore, striding to catch up with her as she met the blonde woman in the middle of the road.

It was early and he lived in a rather out-of-the-way area but there were still cars coming.

He glared at Ed Zimmer as he laid on the horn. Zimmer caught sight of him, gulped, and then darted around the vehicles, his eyes firmly fixed on the road ahead of him.

“Oz,” Jay said.

Oz—

The blonde inclined her head.

She was a striking woman. In her fifties, Linc thought, if he was guessing right, and he usually did. Pale, almost ice-blue eyes, and skin that was porcelain. She was handsome rather than beautiful, her features almost square, unsoftened by even a bit of makeup. And her gaze…it was unsettling.

She looked at him with the most unflinching gaze he’d ever seen.

Goose bumps broke out over his skin and he had the weirdest urge to back up a few steps.

He’d seen that look before. It was the look of a—

She slid him a cool glance. Then she lifted her chin and smiled before looking at Jay. “You’re on the trail.”

“Well. Not me exactly.” She glanced back at the truck. Taige was already climbing out. “She is.”

Oz didn’t look away from Jay’s face. “You need to go back. Taige knows where to go—I need a few hours. Then you can find me.”

Linc tensed, ready to lunge for the blonde. “Go back?” he bit off.

Jay stepped between them, a hand on his arm. “Oz—”

She swept Linc a cool look. Dismissive. “I understand where you’re coming from, Mr. Dawson. But this is outside your area of expertise.”

“The fuck you understand. My daughter is missing. You got any idea what that is like?”

“I have a daughter, so yes. I can very well imagine.” Oz inclined her head. Then she slid a look at Jay, at Taige. “But trust me. This is far more complicated than you can understand, and trust me on this. If you insist on coming—and I don’t have the time to fight you—if you insist on coming, you’re going to see things you don’t want to see, learn things you can’t unlearn. You ready for that?”

“My daughter’s been missing for two fucking months. If it’s going to help me bring her home—” His voice broke and he looked away. When he thought he could speak again, he looked back at her. “I just want to bring her home.”

Troubled, she stared at him. Then she nodded slowly. “You will. But be prepared to pay a high price, Mr. Dawson. A very high one.”

Chapter Nine

They’d left the brilliant light of day behind.

It felt like they’d even left behind simple things like oxygen and humanity.

Jay couldn’t breathe.

Fear seemed to squeeze what little air she had left in her lungs right out of her body and her heartbeat hammered away somewhere in the vicinity of her throat. It almost made her feel sick as they plowed along through the trees, Oz directing Linc in a cool, emotionless voice. She seemed to know exactly where she was going, but every now and then, she’d falter. When she did, she would pause, look back at Taige and wait.

Taige would point and then they’d move along.

She’s acting weird, Jay thought, focusing her thoughts and staring at Taige, hoping only Taige would pick up on them, but having no guarantee. Oz had a strong but erratic gift.

There was no change in her expression, not even a twitch of her lashes.

But that didn’t mean anything.

Oz revealed emotion when and if she wanted, if she was in the mood. She was mercurial at times.

Right now, she was shut down and locked up tight.

That bothered Jay more than she wanted to acknowledge.

“She’s acting weirder than you probably realize,” Taige said, her mental voice tight, almost strange. “She keeps trying to shut me down.”

Jay closed her eyes.

Shut Taige down—

“I mean exactly what you think I mean.”

Aw, fuck.

Turning her head to look out the window, Jay began the tedious process of altering her shields. She had to keep the basic shields up. She’d learned that brutal bitch of a lesson last night, but there were layers to shields. She could have shields that allowed her to feel shit she didn’t like to feel, but there were things she had to feel so she could do her job. There were shields that allowed her to pick up on the subtle nuances as she handled objects and keyed in on a missing child, a kidnapped woman.

And there were shields that allowed her to skim, so to speak, surface emotions.

She kept most of her shields solid and in place.

But she shifted the outermost shields, the ones that normally kept her from picking up on all those random vibes—the listless, almost lost sadness a woman felt when her husband walked out the door without saying good-bye, the frustration a man experienced when he wanted to fix things, make everything broken better, but just didn’t know how, the hopelessness a young girl felt when she walked back home after school, knowing she’d be going back to a cold and broken home, knowing that nothing would ever get better, that nothing would change—until it did, but not the way she hoped.

Solid shields kept her from picking up those random vibes, just as solid shields kept her from picking up private things—the way a woman felt when she saw an attractive guy and felt that thrill of lust, or the way a guy felt when he saw a woman bending as she loaded groceries into the trunk.

Those shields, something she’d instinctively developed months before she’d walked in and found her mother dead of an overdose, had kept her sane.

Now, her gut told her she needed to lower them.

All she picked up was…resignation.

A cold shiver of dread drifted down her spine and she fought the urge to lean forward, grab Oz’s arm and shout at her.

Tell me! What have you seen?

Because Oz did see things.

Bits and pieces of things, and sometimes they didn’t make sense. Sometimes they were weird things, like lost wedding rings.

Other times, they were miraculous—like the location of a girl who’d been kidnapped more than thirty years earlier. Then there were the harder ones; victims who were already past help and all Oz’s people could do was bring them home so the family could say good-bye.

The words Oz had spoken to Linc came back to haunt Jay and she lifted her hands, dug the heels of her palms against her eyes.

No…

She didn’t want to be here for this. It was a cowardly thing.

She knew it, but she couldn’t help it. Some part of her wished she hadn’t ever come. If she hadn’t come, maybe Oz wouldn’t have seen what she’d seen. Maybe—

“Turn left,” Taige said, abruptly, her voice tight and strained.

And she rested a hand on Jay’s back, rubbed soothingly as she whispered mentally, “This was meant to happen, kid. Whatever is happening, it’s because it had to happen.”

Jay forced herself to sit up, looking around as the trees closed around them. They’d been on a heavily forested, narrow dirt road and Linc was forced to bring the Explorer to a stop. Taige squeezed her shoulder and then let go.

“Do you know what’s coming?” Jay asked, unable to keep the question trapped inside.

Taige paused, for just a second. Then she shook her head. As though they hadn’t been carrying on a silent conversation, Taige looked at the others up front. “We walk from here. It shouldn’t be far.”

“What are we looking for?” Linc asked, his voice hoarse, harsh.

“We’ll know it when we see it,” Oz said, her voice eerie. Almost…haunted.

We’ll know it when we see it…

Linc stopped in the middle of the narrow footpath.

Behind him, the trees were a tangle, vines and roots ready to trip the unwary. Foliage was a curtain that had obscured everything until they had rounded a bend.

Now this.

A few years ago, a tornado had hit a neighboring county and left a path of devastation in its wake. One town had been all but wiped off the map, leaving nothing but timber, rubble, twisted bits of metal and destroyed cars as a sign of its presence. What lay before him reminded him of that, only the damage was focused.

It covered roughly a fifty-foot area, circular.

In the dead center of that circle was a squared-off opening into the earth.

Dimly, Linc recognized it.

Some part of his brain even realized what that pit had probably been. A cellar at one point. Maybe there had been a house here. He had no idea.

He opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t force the words out.

They just wouldn’t come.

He cleared his throat and after two attempts, he finally managed to speak.

“What…” He closed his eyes and then tried again. “What is this?”

The thrashing of sound behind them had him whirling around, drawing the weapon he’d strapped on out of instinct.

When he recognized the face, he lifted it. It didn’t even faze him when he saw Chief Stephen Mays lift his own weapon in response. His son Blayne was with him, and the kid’s eyes wheeled around in his head, darting past the knot of people in the path to look at the hole in the earth.

“You.” Mays smiled, a twist of his lips. “You are trespassing, son.” That smile on his face took on a devious look as he shifted his attention to the women, all apparently unarmed. “All of you are trespassing. All armed. I’m defending my son, myself. You’re on my land.”

The air around him had been hot, muggy. Now, though, Linc felt icy, cold sweat dripping down his spine. He fought the urge to put his body in front of Jay’s. Nobody had drawn a weapon, so as far as Mays knew, they were unarmed, but Linc knew where this was going.

Jay had a weapon. He’d seen her put it on. A neat little baby Glock she’d settled in a holster at the small of her back. The belt she wore just looked like a studded leather belt, though, and she couldn’t draw without giving herself away, and the look in Mays’s eyes was one that whispered of the need for blood.

“They’re unarmed,” Linc said, his voice low, harsh.

Mays laughed. “The fuck if I care. That’s not the story I’ll tell when I report their deaths. You are on my property. Maybe some uppity-ass Feds will come sniffing around, but in the end, it will go down like this—you have made too many public threats against me, against my boy and you’ve got a gun pointed at us.” He jutted his chin at his son. “My boy will vouch for that. He’s scared to death. I’m protecting myself, my kid. You never should have come here, Dawson. Nobody will fight me on it. And you know it.”

He believed that, Linc realized. Dawson really did believe the shit he spouted. Stupidity? Arrogance? Nobody in the town would fight him, but an FBI agent, Jay, whoever the hell her boss was…that changed things.

But it wouldn’t matter if they were all dead.

Mays shifted his stance, smiling a little. “It’s too bad you had to bring the women into it, son.”

Linc tensed. If he went down, he didn’t give a fuck. His daughter was gone. He understood now. Oz had brought them here, to a place of death and destruction. He could die, knowing he’d given Jay a chance—and she’d take that chance, make the best of it. If he knew anything about her… Fuck, he wished he’d told her how he felt.

“You don’t really think we’re unarmed, do you?”

Fuck. He resisted the urge to snarl at Taige. Her voice low, amused. Full of dismissive mockery and it drew Mays’s attention away from Linc and directly to her.

Linc held his breath. But now Mays had the gun pointed at Taige.

In the next second, Linc felt like reality shifted sideways. Things happened that simply did not happen in his world.

Taige took a step forward.

Mays started to squeeze the trigger.

And the gun was ripped out of his hand.

Taige shot her hand out and caught it as it flew through the air.

She looked down at it, sighed.

Blayne started to babble, his eyes widening as the tall woman started toward him.

He went to jolt away and she shot out a hand, catching him.

Even though he stood taller than her by a good four inches and probably outweighed her by thirty pounds, when she touched him, he went still. “Daddy…Daddy!” He whimpered, going to his knees. “She’s…she’s one of them!”

Through it all, Mays was rigid, still. Like he couldn’t move at all.

Linc stared at him, hard. His face was going an odd shade of purple, and his throat appeared to be squeezed in and he made strange choking sounds, as though he couldn’t breathe.

“Most impressive,” Jay said, her voice a little stunned as she looked at Taige.

“The Force runs strong in my family.” Taige gave them a sour look over her shoulder before she looked back at the two in front of her. “Oz? Any idea what to do from here?”

“Yes.” Her face was remote as she turned and stared at the center of the clearing, trees smashed, uprooted, tossed aside like a careless giant had come through. “It’s time that we see what’s in the hole over there.”

She blinked, the fringe of her lashes falling over her eyes, and then she looked back at Mays and his son. “Agent Morgan, you probably need to let that piece of shit breathe before you kill him.”

“Do pieces of shit really require oxygen?” Taige asked. But she sighed.

Mays sucked in a breath of air and dropped to the forest floor. On his hands and knees, he stared up at them, his eyes ugly pools of hate. “Yeah, bitches. Go look in that pit over there. I dare you.”

Jay tensed.

She’d been aware of something, crawling and unearthly, prickling against her skin for the past few minutes. It had drawn her and repelled her all at once and the second they’d rounded that little twist in the path and came upon this circle of chaos, she’d wanted to back away with all haste.

There was something deadly here.

The instinct to leave might have come from that remnant instinct, some racial memory all humans had when they lay awake at night, certain that a predator lurked in the darkness.

There was a predator here.

Something that could kill.

The stink of death lingered in the air and she revised that.

Whatever was here had killed, and recently. It was a sickly, sour smell and she knew if she dared to look around, she’d find a body.

Please not DeeDee, please not DeeDee…

The hair on the back of her neck went on end and she saw Linc tense his muscles and right before he lunged, she moved, pushing herself between Linc and that circle of death. Somehow, she knew.

He couldn’t cross that line.

He couldn’t.

“Out of my way,” he growled, his hands coming up to grip her arms, peeling her away.

She set her feet, ready to take him down. She wouldn’t stop him for long. This was sheer desperation—

Then he wasn’t pulling her away any more. He was straining, jerking his hands. Although nothing touched him.

Taige’s face was tight, lines of strain fanning out from her eyes and mouth.

“How many can you hold?” Oz asked.

“Nobody else.” Taige looked at Jay. “Please tell me I won’t have to deal with you.”

Jay turned away. “I feel what’s over there. I’d just as soon live through…whatever this is.”

“Let me go,” Linc snarled, the muscles in his arms bulging as he strained at Taige’s unseen hold.

Mays laughed. It was a laugh of pure evil, something that made Jay’s skin crawl, and if her ears had started to bleed, it wouldn’t have surprised her.

She wanted to scrub the very sound of it from her soul, from her memory, but things couldn’t be unheard, couldn’t be unseen. Thanks, Principal Wood, she thought sourly. Buffy-lore had kept her sane once upon a time, and maybe the sarcastic quips would hold her steady for a few more minutes as she edged closer to that circle and tried to home in on the source of wrong.

Not wrong, some part of her brain whispered.

Broken.

That made her shiver and she wrapped her arms around her middle.

Broken. Full of fear.

“Go on, girl,” Mays whispered. “Go out there and see.”

“If you don’t shut up,” Taige said, her voice lethal, “I’m going to march you out there like a marionette and you can see.”

Jay didn’t turn to see his reaction. It was enough that he was silent.

A hand touched her arm.

She looked over, met Oz’s gaze.

Oz, her silvery eyes unreadable, slid her arm around Jay’s shoulders. “You’ll have to let me go in first.” The words were strangely stilted. “You’ll know once the threat has passed.”

Studying her boss’s face, Jay narrowed her eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Probably a lot of things.” Oz let it go with that oblique answer, shrugging. Then she closed her eyes, breathing in slow, deep breaths. Tension sloughed away.

Reluctant to disturb her when she understood how important it was to stay focused, Jay backed away. She came within a few inches of Linc, saw him still struggling against Taige’s control. In a low voice, she said, “Stop fighting. It won’t do any good and it’s going to exhaust Taige. We might need her yet.”

“Don’t fucking tell me—” Abruptly, he went silent.

Jay knew why.

Oz had crossed over that barrier, the one that marked the regular wooded area from the devastated land.

That one step had a wail rising in the air.

It brought to mind the cries of the dead. The screams of the damned. Her flesh crawled and she tensed as a piece of wood ripped up from the ground and came flying toward Oz. Oz hit the ground in a crouch, just a split second before it would have hit her. It went harmlessly into the trees a few yards to the right of where they’d been standing.

“What the fuck…” Linc whispered.

“I need to be on watch in case any of that comes our way,” Taige said, her voice stark. “Big guy, if I let you go, will you behave?”

Linc jerked his head around, staring at Taige.

Another piece of fallen debris, a branch as big around as Jay’s thigh, came flying through the air. “Jay!” Oz shouted.

Jay hit the ground. It wasn’t needed. Taige cried out and the branch stopped the second it crossed over that odd, eerie line.

“Will you fucking stay here?” she snarled, whipping her head around and glaring at Linc with pale, snapping eyes.

He stared at the branch, looked at Jay.

Then he closed his eyes and nodded.

Something here was dead.

He could smell it.

The scent of death was unique and unlike anything else.

A low, ugly voice split the air as Oz moved closer.

“Go. Away.” The snarl was barely human and he didn’t know what to think as Oz moved closer still. Maybe going away was the best thing.

She was only a foot away now and the piece of debris to go flying was the largest piece yet—it looked to be the top half of a tree trunk.

But it shook and swayed in the air and didn’t move more than five feet.

Oz stopped at the lip of the pit, staring down inside with a dispassionate look on her face.

“You’re tired, aren’t you?”

Whoever was down there just screamed.

The sound of it broke Linc’s heart. It fanned the flames of fury that rode inside him and he turned to look at Mays, at Blayne. Blayne’s Adam’s apple bobbed and he jerked his gaze aside. All the while, they’d been unable to move, but they’d watched the whole ordeal with rapt fascination, like they couldn’t tear their eyes away.

Freed now from the weird bonds that freaky-ass woman Taige had wrapped around him, he moved and crouched in front of Mays and Blayne, watching as Blayne went white, the blood draining out of his face bit by bit. “You need to know,” he said quietly. “Whatever happens here today, you two are going to pay for it. You’re going to suffer.”

Mays curled his lip. “Like you can do shit. You think they’re going to believe jack shit when this goes in front of a court of law? They’ll laugh at you. They’ll think we’re all crazy and nobody will believe shit.” He looked away for a second and then abruptly looked back and spat at him. “That’s what I think about you and your threats, son.”

Linc wiped the saliva away. Then, without blinking an eye, he shot out his hand, hauled Mays forward. Whatever Taige was doing to the evil piece of work, it wasn’t stopping Linc from touching Mays. “I’m not talking about a court of law,” he said, his voice low, raw. “I’m not a sheriff anymore and the law doesn’t tie my hands. You ran me out and maybe you did me a favor. The things I’m going to do to you are things you can’t even imagine.”

For the first time, he saw a flicker of fear in the man’s eyes.

It didn’t feel good, though.

He was just too fucking tired. Too heartsick.

He rose and turned, saw that Oz was kneeling by the lip of the pit. She’d swung a pack off her pack, he saw, and he watched as she unzipped it, then stared inside, a despondent look on her face.

She lifted her head, stared across the clearing at Taige.

Taige’s shoulders stiffened.

“I can’t reach her.”

Taige knew she wasn’t talking about the rope.

For the past ten minutes, Taige had been backing up Oz’s shields with her own, deflecting the power of a mind gone mad.

This, she thought bitterly, is what happens when one of us is broken.

A child.

Just a child.

Flicking a look at Linc, Taige looked back at Oz. “If she sees her father, it might break through. But she won’t recognize him if he just walks over. We have to get her out and he can’t cross over there. He’s too vulnerable.” Oz had sensed the attacks. Taige would sense them. Jay might, but Jay couldn’t deflect those attacks the way Taige could, couldn’t sense them as Oz did.

So hard to believe that the center of the devastation was a girl. Just a girl.

A girl who was like a nuclear weapon, ready to blow.

“What do we do?”

“I shield her.” Oz looked back into the pit. “I’ll have to knock her out while I’m doing it. You bring her out.”

Taige went rigid. That girl would feel anything Oz did and she’d react to the threat. “No,” she whispered.

“It’s the only solution. I’d hoped there’d be another. But I knew, in the end, this was how it would be. It was why I came down here.”

“Don’t!” Taige snarled, taking a step forward. “She’s going to kill you!”

Oz just flicked her eyes to Taige. Then she nodded. “I know.”

Chapter Ten

Jay knew, in the very moment Oz acted, what was happening.

Frozen in horror, she stared as Oz reached out.

Passive shields were just that—shields generally built around a child or injured psychic, completely harmless.

But just because something was harmless didn’t mean the psychic in question would see it as such.

As the energy mounted in the air, Jay knew the psychic hiding in that pit didn’t see anything passive.

She saw a threat.

Shoving her fist against her mouth to keep from crying out, she squeezed her eyes shut.

“What is she doing?” Sending the wild question to Taige, half hoping for an answer, not expecting one.

She got one.

But the answer made her want to sob.

“Killing herself,” Taige said, her voice blunt. “Trying to save somebody who is already lost.”

The psychic blast slammed into Oz with a hard blow, so hard even Taige and Jay felt the impact, like a sonic boom against their shields and Jay shuddered from it. A fine trickle of blood appeared from Taige’s nose, but she didn’t even seem aware. The men didn’t seem affected.

Oz swayed on her hands and knees.

And continued to craft shield after shield after shield.

The next psychic lob was weaker.

A broken cry, softer, came from the pit.

“Go away!”

“We’re here to help you,” Oz said, her voice thready.

There was a pause. “Help…me.” Something that might have been sense underscored into those words.

“Yeah.” Mays chuckled. “Here to help fuck you up!” His shout echoed all around.

Jay whirled around, drawing the Glock from the holster at her spine.

She lunged for him, roaring.

But it was too late.

The girl had heard him.

The clearing behind them turned into a maelstrom.

Oz was trapped inside.

“You fucking cocksucker!” Jay shoved the muzzle of the gun against the soft underside of his chin, her voice ragged, fury pulsing inside her. “You son of a bitch! Do you know what you did?”

He just stared at her, his eyes ugly. His body was rigid, tense with the need to move.

But he couldn’t.

That didn’t help.

Jay wanted him to move.

Wanted him to fight, so she could pound him bloody. “You can’t kill me,” he jeered. “FBI bitch.”

Jay bent her head, put her mouth to his ear. “Oh, silly boy. I’m not FBI…”

Oz’s scream cut through the air.

The maelstrom went silent.

A cold shudder went through Jay.

Slowly, she straightened. Staring down at Mays, she met that insolent, angry stare. Knowing what she’d find behind her, she went to stand. He started to sit, but before he made it halfway, she reversed the gun in her hand and brought it down across his temple.

Then she turned.

Oz lay in the clearing, her body broken, crumpled.

A huge branch, as thick around as Jay’s bicep, skewered her.

Jay started across the clearing.

Linc reached for her.

“It’s safe,” Taige said, her voice dull. “Oz did her job.”

Safe, Jay thought. Looking at the devastation around her, she wondered, how could they call this safe?

Oz’s eyes were dull, full of pain.

Jay caught her hand.

“Taige…”

“I’m here,” Taige said from behind Jay’s shoulder.

“Use…Jay.” Oz closed her eyes. “Empathic…link. Will help get through.” Blood trickled from her mouth. “She’ll…be okay. Just give her…time.”

She started to cough, blood flecking from her mouth. Then she looked around. “Dawson…where…?”

Jay looked up, saw Linc standing a dozen feet away. When their eyes met, he approached, reluctant, his eyes lingering on something off to the side. Not the pit. Something else. She glanced, saw the white of bone, understood.

He didn’t realize yet.

He didn’t know.

Her heart clenched.

“Yeah?” he asked, his voice harsh.

“Be…gentle with her.” Oz forced herself to smile. “She’ll need you…more than…you…”

A sigh rattled out of her.

Then Oz was gone.

Linc looked at her, his gaze lingering on her face.

Fuck.

It fell to her then.

She reached out, gently closed those insightful, silvery-blue eyes, eyes that would never again look through her and see all those secrets. Eyes that would never glitter with silent laughter or harden with unspoken threats.

Oz…gone.

It just didn’t seem right.

“Come on,” Taige said, holding out a hand. “Our job isn’t done.”

No. In a way, it was just beginning.

Jay let Taige help her up and then she turned to Linc.

She held out a hand to him. “Come.”

She stood too close.

To that pit.

He couldn’t look.

Whoever it was, he’d try not to hate him.

He understood, because somehow, somebody like Jay or Taige or even that eerie woman Oz had wound up here. And Mays had found him. Broken him. Tortured him.

Linc was going to try not to hate the kid—and he was almost certain it was somebody young down there, a teenager, maybe—because that voice he’d heard had almost sounded sane, for a brief moment before Mays had so cruelly taunted him.

Had almost sounded…not normal, exactly. More like the threads of sanity were just barely within reach.

But he also knew, with uncanny clarity, whoever it was, that person had killed. Not just Oz, but he’d seen two bodies in this clearing and he suspected at least one was Lem Clinton, missing a month now. Lem had been a hunter and an odd man, at best, wearing bright orange galoshes, a bright orange vest, regardless of whether it was hunting season or not. That bright orange was unmistakable. Even flecked with blood.

“No.” He backed away from that outstretched hand.

As she looked over to Taige, he fell into familiar routines. Now that Mays was unconscious, he helped himself to the man’s handcuffs. Stripped away the man’s weapons. Cuffed Mays to his son. Blayne started to babble. “I’m sorry, Sheriff Dawson, I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

Linc tuned him out. Just as he tuned out the low, quiet voices of Jay and Taige.

He’d just pretend he was the sheriff, doing what he knew best.

Processing a crime, because a crime had happened here.

A fucked-up crime, yes.

But a crime.

As long as he focused on the crime, he didn’t have to think…

“It’s easier this way,” Taige said, cutting Jay off. “He’ll think better once he sees her. I need her out before I bring her up.”

“Can you?” Jay gaped. “You saw what she did to Oz.”

“Oz doesn’t do what I do. She shielded. She’s doesn’t have offensive abilities.” Then Taige closed her eyes. “Didn’t. I do. Just…stay back. Okay?”

Stay back.

Stay back.

Brooding, Jay paced a small, tight circle, feeling like a caged tiger as she watched Taige work. Her heart leaped into her throat as the other woman gathered her power. There was a short, sharp scream and Jay prayed, like she’d never prayed, ready for the backlash. If this didn’t work, she’d have to drag Linc out of there, find somewhere they had a signal and put in a call to the FBI.

Surely Jones’s unit had somebody who could handle this.

Surely.

But there was no backlash and a second later, Taige looked at her, nodded. “She’s out. I’m going down.”

Jay didn’t even need to ask how because Taige pulled up a rope, something that had been neatly coiled in Oz’s bag.

The next few minutes were a blur and a buzz and she worked to rig up the rope to one of the still-standing trees outside the clearing, her heart pounding, grief ripping at her, exhilaration and terror giving her strength unlike any she’d ever known.

Soon…soon…

Taige came up first.

Then, the two of them together started to pull.

Her muscles ached.

Burned.

Pulling up an unconscious girl was so much harder than Taige, who’d been able to help bear the burden of her weight.

Time slowed to a crawl.

“Get her,” Taige said, the word coming through gritted teeth. “Hurry…she’s already waking up. She’s panicking.”

But she wasn’t watching either of them.

Her pale gray eyes were focused on Linc.

Linc, who had gone oddly still, his back to them. His hand on his weapon.

He wouldn’t watch.

He wouldn’t let himself blindly hate.

He wouldn’t attack and drag the answers out of whoever that was…

DeeDee wasn’t here.

He’d been so certain he’d find answers.

So certain.

But the two dead bodies were male.

One was Lem. The other was unidentifiable.

And DeeDee…still lost.

Hand on his weapon, he stared into the trees. Be patient…

Gentle.

Oz had told him to be gentle. He’d thought she meant with Jay. Had she meant whoever was in the pit? Could that be why he had to be gentle? To find the answers needed to bring DeeDee home and lay her to rest?

“Get her,” Taige said, her voice low and harsh.

He turned.

The first time he had seen DeeDee, a squalling infant with a head full of curls and eyes as blue as his own, he had been in love. She had owned him, from that first moment. Through his divorce with her mom, through the rocky trials of her teen years, that love had only strengthened. He could remember so many things—the gymnastics competitions, awards ceremonies, long-ass hours spent in Atlanta traffic so he could take her to a father-daughter dance.

Losing her had been like losing a limb. Maybe even his soul.

Now those blue eyes would never glare at him in defiance, would never glint in amusement or soften with joy as she discovered something new and amazing.

He felt broken inside, and Linc knew there was no fix for him. Even if he survived his quest to see those who had taken her from him pay, he would never heal. He didn’t think he wanted to.

As broken as he was, the last thing he needed to do was give his heart to anybody. That was why he had cut ties with Jay. That was why he should have sent her from him.

Now, as he turned, listening to those strained, low voices, he told himself he wouldn’t do anything to make Jay pull back more. He could be calm, could control himself. He could do that because she was trying to help. Trying so badly to help. Just then, she was hauling somebody up from that hellish pit and Taige reached out, caught the person who’d been trapped down there.

He should go over, he thought dully. Help.

But all he could think was that this person had been there when DeeDee…

No. He wouldn’t let himself think it through. Not yet.

He would stay here, safe, away from them. So that when Jay left, he didn’t tarnish her memories of him even more.

A harsh, keening sound escaped the thin, dirty bundle of bones. Unwittingly, he glanced over, watched as he…

No. A woman, he realized. Half naked, but he saw the strap of a bra, the curve of breast.

A woman.

They’d left a woman down there. Pity stirred inside his heart and he swallowed as the woman lifted her head, stared at him from under her lashes.

She looked at him with no recognition.

She looked at him with panic.

She looked at him in dazed confusion.

She looked at him with DeeDee’s eyes.

Reality slid sideways, for just one minute, and hope turned everything painful and shining and so very, very vivid.

He lunged for her.

“Fuck.” It came from one of the women, and then Jay rushed and cut him off. “Don’t,” she said, her hands gripping his arms. He snarled and went to shove her back.

DeeDee…that was all he could think.

DeeDee…

He came within ten feet and then something struck him full-force in the chest and sent him flying back. He never saw what it was, but it hit him with the force of a Mack truck and he hurtled back, smashing into a tree some fifteen feet away. The solid trunk of the oak was the only thing that kept him from flying even farther through the air, and he slid to the ground with a groan, darkness crowding in around him. For a few seconds, pain grabbed him, held him. And he couldn't even think.

“Shit.”

“That about sums it up,” Taige said, her voice grim and her eyes as cold as ice.

Taige and Jay stood in a careful perimeter around the girl. Jay had put her gun away, but she realized she might have to use it.

Please, God. Don’t make me do that…

It was the worst thing she could think of. This girl, broken by what had been done to her, was reacting out of an awful fear and an even worse panic. But the sheer, unadulterated power of her mind would be more than the two of them could control if they didn’t do something fast.

They needed her unconscious. Taige had hit her with enough force to send her into next week, but she’d somehow roused herself as they pulled her to the top. Instinct, Jay suspected. The same instinct that had kept her alive for all this time. She feared everything.

Jay could feel that fear and it practically laid her low.

“Ideas?” she asked Taige.

Taige’s mouth flattened to a thin, narrow line and she gave a simple shake of her head, then flicked her eyes to the right, where Linc had gone flying.

He was struggling to get to his feet now, watching them with something between shock, hope and horror. He was figuring it out. She hoped he was smart enough to stay where he was.

Jay took a deep breath and then looked back at the girl, crouched on the ground, shaking and looking around. She seemed more animal than human, and the chaos of her emotions clouded rational thinking.

Emotions.

Jay knew emotions.

Maybe that was the way to get in. The girl had known nothing but fear for so long. She had to tap into the part of her beyond emotion.

Easing her shields down, she let herself…feel. It wasn’t the same as reaching out on a psychic level. You could go fishing with a pole, or you could cast a net and hope. Jay was casting a net. And praying, hoping like hell.

“You wanted out,” she said, keeping her voice soft. “You prayed for it. Hoped. Then you gave up and just hoped you would die.”

There was no response to her words and the girl’s raging fear didn’t alter.

She continued to talk. She didn’t try to move closer. “You remember your name? It’s DeeDee. They had you for two months. You had to be very strong to survive that. You have to keep holding now…don’t give up now that you’re out…”

Time crawled by. Jay didn’t even know what she spoke of, only that she kept her voice low and soothing.

Linc stayed on the outside. Taige didn’t move. And Jay spoke…endlessly.

Abruptly, the girl’s eyes locked on Jay’s face and then she just sagged to the ground, her fingers curling into the soil as she clung for dear life.

As she started to sob, Jay moved in.

Taige tensed.

Jay shot her a warning look, careful not to let anything she felt or saw slip past her shields.

Taige relaxed, although her eyes remained wary.

Creeping across the ground, Jay sank down beside the girl, touched her arm.

DeeDee continued to shiver, to shake.

But she didn’t move.

None of that awful power slipped out of her.

Jay suspected it might be because it couldn’t.

DeeDee had drained herself.

Unloaded herself on Oz, and what little had remained, she’d used on her father.

It was going to take her a while to rebuild her strength.

That wasn’t a bad thing, considering they were dealing with the psychic equivalent of Hurricane Katrina.

He didn’t dare approach.

Linc stood where he was, frozen in place, while his mind worked to accept what, deep inside, he already knew.

It wasn’t until he heard the far-off but familiar noise behind him that he did anything.

Somebody was coming up the trail.

There were two people who knew about his daughter.

For reasons he couldn’t explain, he knew that the threat wasn’t Taige Morgan, or Jay, the woman who held his daughter’s head in her lap while DeeDee sobbed.

In a silent move, he placed himself behind Mays, gun drawn.

It was Mays’s sudden gasp that caught Taige’s attention and she was on her feet in the next breath, her own weapon, a sleek Sig Sauer P250. Her stance was steady, a two-handed grip that told Linc she knew how to use that weapon, and would. What puzzled him was the fact that she even bothered. Why didn’t she just pull that Jedi mind shit or whatever she did?

Didn’t matter. Linc pressed the muzzle of his gun to the sweet, soft spot at the base of Mays’s skull. “Get ready to die,” he said quietly.

Blayne was sobbing next to him.

“Always knew you was a coward. Ready to shoot an unarmed man in the back.”

If it would protect his daughter, he’d shoot a thousand men.

But it wouldn’t take a thousand. It would only take the one.

“You knew she was here,” he said. “All along.”

“She’s a fucking freak of nature,” Mays spat out. “And a killer. She killed Lem. I found him here, guts ripped out, and she was sitting down there babbling about how she kilt him. And then Royce Byrnes too. We brought him out here—he used to teach at the school, science shit, thought he could help us figure out how she was doing this, but she crushed his neck. Any time somebody got close, she killed them. We had to throw the food in because we knew we’d be next.”

Mays shot a dirty look over his shoulder, his movement limited. “You go on, you coward. Always knew you were too chicken shit to face me man to man.”

“You’d have to be a man for me to take you out like a man,” Linc said. He started to pull on the trigger. Next to him, Blayne lunged, using his body to shove his father out of the way.

“No!” the boy sobbed.

Linc swore, jerking the gun up, glaring at the boy.

“You…” Tears leaked out of his eyes. “You can’t. It’s my fault. I brought her out here. She ran away from me. Fell down there. I was…I would have hurt her. It’s my fault. I…” His eyes wheeled around in his head and he gasped, all but choking as he searched for the words. “I would have told somebody but I started having nightmares. It was like she was whispering to me. All the time. I started thinking I was going crazy. Maybe I didn’t do what I thought I did and none of it really happened. I came out here, to see if she was really here. And she…”

He stared at the pit blindly. “It was like she picked me up. Threw me. But she was still stuck down there.” Blayne looked back at Linc, his eyes wide, desperate. “I was so scared. I ran. Told my dad and he didn’t believe me. I brought him out here and she did the same thing to him. She didn’t throw him as far…maybe cuz she was tired, or he’s bigger. We haven’t gone close since. The…the others, I think they went too close. She…she…”

Blayne just ran out of steam and Linc bent down, grabbed the front of his shirt, hauled him up. “You’re not helping your case, son.” He spun around and slammed the boy against the tree, dragging Mays along. “You left my daughter down there. Alone. It’s been two months. Why is she even still alive?”

“I…” Blayne’s eyes were wide, stark on Linc’s face. “I brought her water. Food. I had to throw it in because when you get close, she hurts you. But I didn’t want her to starve.”

“You just wanted her to stay trapped.”

Blayne’s head hung low. “No. I just didn’t know how to get her out.” The nervous glance he sent his father had every last hair on the back of Linc’s neck standing on end.

“What?” Linc growled, shaking the boy.

Blayne went white.

“You’ll tell me now, son,” Linc said. “Or this starts all over again.”

“Dawson, you need to dial it back.” Taige’s voice was low and deadly.

He whipped his head to stare at her.

And just past her shoulder, he saw his daughter.

Her gaze was locked on them.

Or, more importantly, the Mays men, standing so very closely.

In the next moment, the trees parted behind them.

Jay didn’t know if the problem had gotten better or worse.

The skin along the back of her neck crawled.

She had thought DeeDee had completely drained herself.

Psychics could hit burnout and, considering how she’d been running herself on full throttle for so long, DeeDee should be running to flame out at any second. It wouldn’t surprise Jay if she hit rock bottom and was never able to so much as foresee a rainstorm.

But just then, none of that mattered.

Her gaze had locked on the Mays and that was the only thing that mattered.

It didn’t matter that Taylor Jones—Taige’s boss—and the cavalry had just pushed through the trees and it didn’t matter that Linc had lowered his gun.

It only mattered that DeeDee had focused on the men who had hurt her and in that moment, she was a locked, loaded weapon, ready to strike.

“Taige.”

“I can’t help.” Taige’s face was a mask of stone. “I’m about on empty. I’m about burned out from keeping everything under control earlier and I’m still…” Her eyes flicked toward DeeDee and then Mays. “One wrong move and this all goes to hell. I’m about done.”

Jay didn’t bother looking at the agents who stood there, watching with unreadable eyes, taking everything in.

With her heart hitching in her throat, she focused on DeeDee. “You need to pull it in, baby,” Jay said. “I know you want to hurt him and I understand. But you’ve already lost control and it’s time to start learning how to throttle it in.”

DeeDee just stared. It was like a cobra’s stare, fixed on prey and nothing else mattered.

No sign of anything else.

“DeeDee, if you hurt him, can you stop it after that? Look at who is standing next to him.” She willed the girl to see, willed the girl to feel something more than the pain. She dropped the shields she carried around her and let herself feel.

The girl’s lids flickered.

“It’s your dad. He’s lived and breathed for nothing else since you were born. Do you want to hurt him?”

DeeDee opened her mouth.

The words that came out were low and raspy, barely even human. “They hurt me.”

And she turned her head, focused on Jay. Jay fumbled for her shields, got them up just in time in time to catch what the girl had to show her without it tearing into her with jagged hooks.

The boy had raped her.

Fury and rage ripped Jay apart, even though she’d suspected. DeeDee had meted out her own form of justice, because she had shoved every bit of suffering she’d felt into the boy’s mind. No wonder he was so remorseful. Now he felt as she had felt.

Now he suffered as she had.

But the boy’s father…

Mays was unable to feel remorse. He lacked the ability because he didn’t care.

And when she’d reached out to touch his mind, she’d picked up on the most vile thoughts. He’d realized, too, what she was doing, and he’d taunted her. Pushed despicable images into her head. Raped her mentally, broke her that way. Every vile thought, every sickening fantasy he’d had, he’d let her be party to.

The problem was, though, he’d fucked himself.

DeeDee was too young, too inexperienced to realize the difference.

He hadn’t been showing her just fantasy.

“Yes,” Jay said, her voice trembling. “He hurt you. And he hurt others.”

“I know that. We can’t stop him.”

Jay looked over at him, and then at Taylor Jones. He inclined his head questioningly. “Yes, we can. I know a guy who can pretty much stop him in his tracks…and more, he can send his ass to jail.”

Those words didn’t matter, though.

What mattered was Mays looking at her, his lip curled, a sly look on his face.

“Son of a bitch,” somebody next to Jones whispered. Jay didn’t look to see who it was.

She reached out to DeeDee, but at that moment, it didn’t matter.

DeeDee went to her knees, screaming. “No, no, no!”

Taige snarled, her face ashen. She staggered, blood trickling from her nose.

Mays gasped, his head arching back.

And then there was a crack.

Taige hit the ground.

Jones and his men rushed forward.

One of the agents swore, glaring at the girl curled up on the ground. “Damn it! You can’t do that shit when there is another psychic linked with—”

“Shut up!” Jay snarled. She put herself between DeeDee and the unit from the Bureau. All that mattered now was protecting the girl. Taige was breathing, slow, even breaths, but she was breathing. She’d be okay, Jay knew in her gut.

DeeDee, though…

Linc appeared in front of her.

His face was stark, his eyes pure hell.

As he went to his knees, one hand reaching out, Jay shook her head. “Not yet,” she said softly. “We have to get her mind protected first.”

“I thought I was…what did you call it?”

“A null.” She smiled weakly. “You are. But your daughter is…unique.”

Chapter Eleven

It had been nearly six weeks since he had seen DeeDee.

Before he’d walked away in that clearing, if anybody had told him that when he found out that his daughter was alive, instead of grabbing her and holding her tight, he would then walk away from her, he would have told that person they were crazy. But then he realized just what was going on with his daughter.

Linc was a basic sort of guy. He believed in what he could see, what he could touch. He hadn’t ever really believed in such shit as psychic ability…and his daughter, his beautiful little girl was psychic. Apparently, she was such a strong psychic that her abilities could kill people.

He followed Taige Morgan down a long hallway. The walls were blue, meant to be peaceful and soothing, he supposed. There were lights on the walls, covered by rainbow bits of glass. The speakers were hidden, and the music that drifted from them was peaceful and lovely and yeah, he imagined it was soothing.

Everything here was meant to be soothing.

He wondered if DeeDee realized she was in a prison.

Oh, they had it prettied up. But he had seen the guards. They didn’t wear uniforms and, somehow, he suspected they were nothing like the sort of guard you’d find at any run-of-the-mill prison. Those people were like Taige. And…Jay.

Another woman he’d walked away from. No, actually, he’d pushed her away. His gut twisted and his heart ached. He’d pushed her away when she’d tried to come to him later that day and each time she’d tried to call, he’d hung up on her. Those first few days, he just hadn’t known how to handle what he was dealing with.

Then the calls had stopped coming and when he’d tried to get in touch with her, her home number had changed. At first, he’d resisted sending her an email because the words he had to say to her weren’t the sort of words you said so impersonally. He wanted to go and see her, but when he finally managed to go do that, the apartment where she’d told him she lived was vacant. It dawned on him that maybe that had been a false address. Not a lie, exactly, right? But the life she lived wasn’t the standard one and she’d given him shadows and shades of the truth.

He couldn’t even be angry about that because if she had told him the truth, he wouldn’t have believed her.

He had to be ready.

“You ready?”

Taige turned to look at him and realized that he still wasn’t ready. But if he waited until he was ready, then his life was never going to move forward.

He stared at the door just beyond Taige’s shoulder and nodded.

A faint smile curved her lips.

“No, you’re not.” Then she stepped aside. “Neither was Del. But she said she wasn’t ready to see you anyway.”

He blinked. “Del?”

“She said she couldn’t be DeeDee anymore. That the girl she’d been had died and she had to decide who she was going to be now. She started with a new name. She liked how Del sounded.”

“Del…” He closed his eyes, thinking yet again of that blue-eyed baby with a head of fuzzy curls, soft skin of the palest brown. Her mama was black and DeeDee was a mix of both of them. They’d named her Delilah Donelle Dawson—for both of their parents. They’d nicknamed her DeeDee, almost from the start. “Del. Sounds so grown-up.”

A hand touched his arm. He looked up, met Taige’s understanding eyes. “She’s not a child anymore. After what happened, there’s no way she can be. And I know this is hard for you, but she’d started losing her innocence even before, just because of her abilities.” Taige bit her lip, looking away. “I…look, I understand what you’re going through better than you can imagine.”

He snorted. “How can you?”

“You and I oughta sit down one day. I’ll tell you about my daughter.” Then she turned back to the door. “Now, you decide…either you’re ready to go through this door and see your daughter, face her with love, or you need to leave, because if you can only judge her, you don’t need to be here.”

It was in that moment that he remembered what Oz had said, in those moments before her silvery eyes had gone dark

Be gentle with her. She’ll need you…

He’d thought she was talking about Jay.

But it had been his daughter.

“I’ll never turn my back on my daughter,” he said quietly. “If that’s what you’re worried about, just stop.”

Del sat on the bed, staring out the window.

Some of the people here thought they were in a prison, locking them away from the world.

Del saw it differently.

It was locking the world away from her. At first it was to keep the world safe from her and it was necessary.

Sometimes the world was too big, too loud. She almost felt like little Clark Kent from the Man of Steel movie, where he heard everything, saw too much and couldn’t shut it off. It was a good thing she didn’t have that laser beam vision because if she had, she would have been doing some serious damage.

Bit by bit, day by day, the noise from everything else got quieter.

She could talk to people without going mad.

Taige came, every day.

Jay came, every day.

Neither of them battered her senses, and Taige worked with her on building shields that kept her mind from being flayed raw.

Jay worked with her on building shields that kept her from picking up every emotion that people threw out there.

And then others started to come.

A cold-eyed man who had been there in the forest.

He asked questions, a lot of them.

A black woman with dark, kind eyes—she’d introduced herself as Dez and asked about the voices Del heard.

Others came.

They gave her tests, asked questions.

They didn’t explain why and they tried to shutter their thoughts, but Del knew why they were there.

Trying to understand just what Del could do, whether she could ever be trusted.

Del couldn’t be trusted.

But she didn’t really want to be.

If they trusted her, she might be expected to leave here.

And she loved the blissful silence of this place.

Loved the serene, pale green walls of her room, and the endless blue that surrounded her when she went for walks outside the main buildings. They called the place the Osborne Foundation.

It sounded nicer than jail.

She was starting to think of it as home.

But she missed her dad. Missed her mom.

When his car came winding down the long street, she rested a hand against the window and hoped.

Had he come to see her?

Or was he just here to talk to them again? He came once a week. Mom had come with him twice and, the last time, she’d had to be carried away, tearfully sobbing.

Mom would never understand.

She’d have to lie to her mother, and Del understood that.

Mom wouldn’t understand not just what Del had gone through, but what Del had in her head.

Some people were just incapable of living with the truth.

Her mother was one of them. Del could handle that. But she wanted to see her parents, even as she feared it. She’d killed.

Now she had to look at her father with blood between them.

Even as she thought about it, she flinched.

Some of them had been innocent.

Once, while she’d been out wandering the grounds here, an agent had come to see Taige. They didn’t realize she’d seen them, and she wouldn’t tell them.

But she’d seen…and she would carry that conversation in her heart always.

“You can’t mean to train that girl. She’s a killer. She killed Oz. She killed two innocent people and she could have killed you.”

“She was terrified, and not in control. They’d almost driven her crazy. She’s being trained and once she’s trained, she won’t be the danger she was.”

The man had stared at Taige, incredulity written on his face. “So she was psycho—that means she gets away with it? Maybe we should just let the next typical killer get away with it when he butchers some kids. After all, most of the guys who go into a school to shoot it up do have some mental issues.”

“It’s not the same thing,” Taige had snarled. Then she’d looked up, seen Del standing near by. Del had a blank look on her face and her shields solidly up.

They had walked off to finish the conversation.

Taige had asked later if Del had heard anything. Del had just smiled vaguely. She was good at that.

No outright lies, but no firm answers, either.

It wasn’t until late that night that she’d gotten onto the tablet PC they’d given her that she was able to find out who Oz was.

Oz, a tall, striking woman with silvery eyes, hair going to silver…the woman who’d founded this refuge where Del had found some bit of peace.

Oz…a woman who had been laid to rest five and a half weeks ago, after receiving an injury, some freakish accident while tracking down evidence that the FBI had hoped would lead to the arrest of a serial rapist and murderer, one Chief Stephen Mays.

They’d come on the scene of the crime, according to the article, to find Mays dead and Elise Oswald impaled by a piece of wood.

Only some of it was a lie.

Over the next few weeks, bits and pieces of information were unearthed and it turned out that some of the nightmare images Mays had forced into her head weren’t just disgusting fantasies. He actually had hunted, stalked, brutalized women—sometimes in front of his son. A few years ago, he’d started crossing the line and actually killing them. Several of the girls who’d been kidnapped from town had been some of his first victims, their bodies discovered, thanks to the FBI team.

None of the articles held any mention of her.

Other than her mother and father, did anybody even realize she was still alive?

The people here knew, but they were…different. Like her.

Taige liked her and Jay liked her and they were trying to take care of her, help her, but the others…

She shivered, fear rushing in on her and, for the first time, this place really did feel like more of a prison.

She wanted to see her dad.

She wanted to have at least one person who cared about her outside of these four walls.

One person who wanted her well enough to leave. Even if she never actually managed to do it.

There was a knock at the door.

Her breath rattled in her throat and she huddled closer against the window. She didn’t even respond, just stared at the door, mentally preparing herself.

The door opened and when she saw Taige’s face, some of that tension drained out.

But then she saw her father step in behind her.

Once more terror grabbed her, held her tight.

He stared at her for a long, long moment.

Then he took a step forward and held out his arms.

Del didn’t even remember moving.

But she was caught up in his arms.

And she felt safe…loved. Once more.

Jay sat in the office.

The Osborne Foundation had been one of Oz’s more…personal sources of pride.

There were more than a few psychics in this world who were broken.

Once upon a time, Jay had been pretty damn close.

The psychics with an emotional gift could be fragile, and a girl who walks in on her father bent over her mother’s lifeless body—that’s an emotional blow in its own right. Her grief alone had all but devastated her.

But her grief, combined with his…it had been too much.

Oz had been the one to find Jay all those years ago. She’d been in rough shape, on her way to becoming a recluse, hiding inside her home, ready to flunk out of school because she couldn’t handle the interaction.

Oz had saved her.

Oz had saved a lot of people during her life.

In her death, she’d done what she could to make sure she’d be able to keep helping others.

The door opened.

She turned and looked at Taige.

“Your sugarpie is here.”

Jay fought the urge to leap up and tear off down the hall.

“My sugarpie?” she drawled.

Taige grunted and pulled out her phone. “Yeah. Your honey. The arm candy. That hot piece of man flesh. Whatever you want to call him.” She put the phone to her ear and closed her eyes. A minute later, a ghost of a smile curled her lips and she was quiet.

Five minutes passed before she put the phone down and looked back at Jay. “Why are you still here?”

“I get hot watching you listen to your messages.”

“Really? Cuz all of those were from Jilly. So you’re a sick puppy.”

Jay shrugged. “You know…you can leave. You’ve got a family. They need you.”

Taige looked out the window. “This place needs me too. I think Oz knew that.”

“Considering she named you her successor when you’ve never so much as worked for her company, I’d say you’re on to something.” Jay nibbled to the end of her pencil. A loose thread on one glove caught her eye. “What are you going to do about it?”

Taige blew out a breath. “I’ve been thinking about that…and I think what I need to do is relocate the offices.”

Jay blinked, then stared. Even as she started to protest, though, her heart started to race.

The foundation was located south of Atlanta. A lot closer to Hell than Texas was.

“Ah…what…makes you think that’s a workable idea?”

Taige pulled out a file from the tottering stacks on the desk. “The fact that it appears Oz was already looking into it.” She flipped it open and pointed to a sheet of paper with a neat stack of photos clipped to it. “This is the new office—or what I think she’d planned to be the new office. What I think she’d planned to do was open a smaller satellite here. What I’m planning to do is make this HQ and make the other the satellite. I can’t make my family move across the country. But I’ll sweeten the pot for those who can and are able to move. I’ve…well, the funds are there for me to do that.” She slid Jay a look. “Know anybody who’d be interested in helping me out there?”

Jay just made a little humming sound under her breath. “And this place?”

“Stands. As it is. Oz set it up to run smooth as silk and we’re needed only irregularly.” Taige eyed the files, rubbed her jaw. “The hardest part is going to be convincing my husband of all of this. But it can work. And I think…well. This is what I need to do.”

Then she leaned back and pinned Jay with a stare. “Speaking of guys and such. I advised him to keep the first visit short. It’s been twenty minutes. You might want to move.”

Jay thought about pointing out that she hadn’t said anything about wanting to see him.

But why lie?

She went through the back way and headed straight to his car in the visitor parking lot.

The visitor parking was small.

The Foundation was technically a hospital, but it held only five patients at a maximum.

No more than two visitors at any given time were allowed.

They only had three patients in residence now and one of them had no known family.

He was a sad sort of case, one that broke Jay’s heart.

Dr. Mel Grady, one of the doctors who worked for Jones’s unit with the Bureau, was the doctor for the Foundation, and she wasn’t particularly hopeful about the kid, either.

The third patient was…unpleasant. One of the psychics who didn’t see the harm in using her abilities however she chose. And she chose to mind-fuck people, repeatedly. She was a victim of some serious abuse from the time she was a baby and Grady was hoping therapy would reach her.

For now, their only choice was to keep her here where she couldn’t hurt anybody.

She had her own personal bodyguard, somebody who could deflect her abilities and keep her from using her talent against others. She did have family, but he was serving a twenty-year term for the abuse he’d heaped on her.

The only one who’d gotten any visitors at all was DeeDee—no, Del.

Just as Jay leaned her hips up against the hood of the car, Del’s most frequent visitor came outside, staring at his feet, his shoulders slumped, head bowed.

Linc Dawson looked completely worn out.

She wanted to wrap her arms around him, guide his head to her lap and just let him rest.

But every time she’d tried to give him comfort, he’d pushed her away.

When she’d tried to call, he’d refused to answer.

When she’d gone to his house, he hadn’t answered the door.

Now, here he was…and if he pushed her away this time, she’d have her answer.

In a number of ways.

She’d have that answer for Taige and she’d have the answer for herself too.

If he turned away this time, then she was done.

She knew the very moment he sensed her.

He hadn’t even looked up.

But he stopped in his tracks.

His shoulders tensed. Slowly, that slump left them. He sucked in a breath of air and she watched as tension rippled through him and, in the next moment, energy seemed to crash into him and the exhaustion died away, replaced by a taut, pulsating rush that had her catching her breath before he so much as lifted his head.

Twenty feet remained between them.

But his eyes caught hers, held hers and he stared at her, his gaze a palpable stroke against her senses.

She gripped the metal at her back. If she had superhero strength, that car would have the indentations from her fingers at this point. As Linc started to walk toward her, she had to remind herself that not only was breathing a good thing, it was kind of necessary.

The dull ache that had lived inside her for the past couple of months seemed to spread as he came to a stop a few feet away.

He didn’t say anything and the silence gnawed at her.

When in doubt, she thought, fall back on attitude.

It had gotten her through many, many things.

“I take it you saw Del,” she said.

His only answer was a short nod.

Sighing, she hooked her thumbs through her pockets and tried to figure out just what to say to him.

He echoed her posture unconsciously, rotating his neck like he’d been carrying a lot of tension there. She imagined he had. He was here every week, like clockwork, on Tuesdays at eleven. Once he’d been here with Del’s mother but that hadn’t gone over well. Now Del’s mother called daily, although none of them had told Del or Linc that. The calls weren’t going over well and the woman ranged from desperate to threatening and none of them could tell her the real reason Del was there.

Did they tell her that Del was a powerful psychic who could kill dozens if she left before she was ready?

Or did they tell her that Del didn’t want to leave?

Either of them were true, but neither of them were the truths the woman would listen to. It was even worse, though, that the woman had every right to be angry, worried, scared, frustrated. It was even worse when Del had screamed at her so loudly everybody in the Foundation had heard. “Get out…! You don’t understand and I can’t make you understand…just get out! I don’t want to see you!”

“She’s doing a lot better.”

Now, finally, a response. A faint smiled curled his lips and he nodded. “I know. I can see it.” Then he looked away. “She doesn’t want to leave, though. I asked her if she thought she was ready and she said didn’t ever want to leave here.”

Jay closed her eyes. “She can’t stay forever.”

“I can pay whatever—”

“It’s not that,” Jay said gently, shaking her head. Then she gave him a faint grin. “Although we will be billing you. The families and patients who can pay, we try to collect. This place is maintained through a trust, and through…unusual funding and endowments that Oz was able to set up. But the money won’t last forever so we’ll bill those who can pay.” She looked around, her gaze resting on the walkway that led to the watergardens not quite visible from where they stood. “We can only have five people here at a time. Usually there are two or three at any given time, but there will come a day when Del is able to maintain, and we’ll need her bed for somebody who is…broken. She won’t always be fragile. We can’t turn somebody away because she just feels safer here.”

“And what if she is never…not fragile?” he demanded, his eyes stormy and dark.

Jay stared at him. “The girl who was able to survive for two months in hell, alone, is too strong to not pull through this.”

“You…” He shook his head, looking away. “You can’t know that.”

“Yes. I can. I’ve seen the broken ones. Your daughter isn’t broken.” Jay looked down at her boots. “She’s bruised and battered, and she’s going to have a long fight ahead of her to deal with the guilt and all the memories, but she’ll get there.”

His silence stretched out, long and heavy. When she finally looked up at him, his gaze was shuttered. “The guilt.”

Jay inclined her head. “Yes. You and I both know that taking a life is nothing to be taken lightly. But she has three innocent lives that lie between her and Stephen Mays. Now, Mays is the one responsible—he turned her into a weapon, primed and ready to fire. But she was the weapon. She knows it.” Jay paused. “I know it…and so do you. You can’t help her if you refuse to acknowledge it.”

When he said nothing else, she pushed away from the car.

She paused by him, rose up on her toes. It felt like her heart was going to crack, just split straight down the middle with oozing, bitter blood spilling out of it. Then it would wither, turning into dust before the wind blew it away. In the end, there would be nothing of her heart that remained, save for a few bitter and awful and wonderful memories.

Pressing her lips to his cheek, she murmured, “She’ll get better. She just needs you. And you’ll get better…if you let yourself. Try to let yourself, Linc. Find a life beyond this.”

She hoped he would.

It would be lousy if both of them were trapped in some sort of holding pattern, forever caught in this twilight.

The scent of him rushed in and the need, the love she had for him swamped her. Part of her wished—the small, selfish part of her—that she’d stayed in Texas. If she’d stayed, she’d never have known just what it was she was missing. She’d already known she was falling in love with him and it had been like losing a limb when he cut her out of his life. If she hadn’t come here, hadn’t learned just what she was missing out on—not just the physical contact, so hard for her to find, but that connection…

Swallowing, she eased back down and forced a smile.

She’d lock herself in one of the meditation rooms, find some peace, some quiet.

Then—

Then what?

She was walking away.

As she took a step away, he shot out a hand, snagged the back of her jeans and jerked her to a stop.

“A kiss good-bye?”

She whipped around, twisting out of his hold and glaring at him.

“What?”

He advanced on her. “What was that?” he asked, growling at her. “Some sort of good-bye kiss? Is that what that was?”

“You already said good-bye,” she pointed out. She inclined her chin. “That was just—”

He caught her chin in his hand. “I take it back.”

She gaped at him. “You take it back?”

“Hell yes.”

“You can’t just take it back. What if I don’t want you now?”

He curved his free hand over her hip. “Is that what you’re saying?” Through the thin material of the skin-tight black shirt she wore, he could feel her. Her skin was hot, all but scalding him. And a fine buzz of energy seemed to snap between them. With his free hand, he cupped her face, brushed his thumb over her lower lip, watched as her green eyes clouded. “You don’t want me now.”

He bent, replaced his thumb with his mouth and she opened for him, her mouth a sweet, welcoming wonder. He licked at her, shuddered as she sucked at his tongue. Her arms came around his waist, her hands pushing under his shirt, her nails raking across his skin. Pulling back just a breath, he whispered, “If that’s your way of showing that you don’t want me, I can’t wait to see how you act when you do want me.”

She shoved at him and put a few feet between them. “You arrogant son of a bitch.”

As she started to pace, he resisted the urge to pull her back against him.

Abruptly, she stopped and whirled around, glaring at him. “You think I’m a fucking toy? You can push me away, then pull me back whenever it suits you?”

“You always suit me.” He rubbed his hands down his face and turned away, swearing under his breath. “Do you have any idea what a punch in the gut it was to have you show up when you did? If you had come to me any other time, I would have practically been begging you to stay. But…fuck. Everything in my life was a nightmare. My life was over, Jay. As it is…” He looked past her to the building where he’d left his daughter behind. Again. “It’s never going to be the same. I don’t know how I’m going to help her through this, and a few weeks ago, I don’t know if I could have looked at the rest of my life and seen anything but…” He stopped, laughed sourly. “I don’t think I could have looked at the rest of my life. I was having a hard time looking past the next day. I didn’t want to drag you down a few months ago when the only thing on my mind was revenge—and I won’t apologize for that. If you were any other woman, I don’t know if I could stand before you now and say I want to take a chance. But you are you…you understand what…you get Dee…Del. You get it.”

Jay stared at him. “I get it.” She came to him, reached up and curled a fist in his shirt. “I won’t say I’m okay with why you pushed me away the first time.” Then she let go of his shirt long enough to thump him in the chest. “I will say you are an ass for pushing me away the past few weeks.”

He caught her fist, lifted it to his lips. “I’m an ass. But I had to work it through. You know that.”

Jay sighed. Pressed her head to his chest. “Yeah. I get that.”

Slowly, he curled his arm around her. “So…are we going to do this? Give it a shot?”

“Hell no.” She lifted her head and wrapped her arms around his neck. “We’re going to do this. We’ll make it work…come Hell or high water. After all, considering what we had to go through just to get to here, everything else should be easy.”

“Hmmm.” He dipped his head, pressed his lips to hers. “Good point.”

About the Author

Shiloh Walker has been writing since she was a kid. She fell in love with vampires with the book Bunnicula and has worked her way up to the more…ah…serious works of fiction. She loves reading and writing just about every kind of romance. Once upon a time she worked as a nurse, but now she writes full-time and lives with her family in the Midwest. She writes romantic suspense and paranormal romance, and urban fantasy under the name J.C. Daniels. For more about Shiloh Walker, please visit her website: www.shilohwalker.com.

Also, check her out on Facebook: www.facebook.com/authorshilohwalker and Twitter: www.twitter.com/shilohwalker.

Look for these titles by Shiloh Walker

Now Available:

Talking with the Dead

Always Yours

For the Love of Jazz

Beautiful Girl

Vicious Vixen

Playing for Keeps

My Lady

The Redeeming

No Longer Mine

A Forever Kind of Love

The Hunters

The Huntress

Hunter’s Pride

Malachi

Hunter’s Edge

Grimm’s Circle

Candy Houses

No Prince Charming

Crazed Hearts

I Thought It Was You

Tarnished Knight

Locked in Silence

Grimm Tidings

Blind Destiny

Some scars cut right to the heart.

Beautiful Scars

© 2013 Shiloh Walker

Three years after her divorce, Chaili Bennett is over her ex. Her only problem now? Of the few men she’s dated since, no one “gets” her. Not like Marc Archer—a man who’s never seen her as more than a friend.

Marc Archer needs a date for a last-minute charity event, and he needs it fast. Not that women aren’t throwing themselves at his world-famous face and body, but sometimes it’s less messy—as in less personal—to use his sister Shera’s escort service.

The last woman on earth Marc expects to see in his sister’s office is Chaili. There’s something different about her, but nothing pleases him more when Shera sets them up. That simple date quickly evolves into much more as they both discover the other fills a deep, secret need they’ve shared with no one else.

Though Chaili insists one night is all she wants, Marc isn’t walking away now. Not until he discovers what put the shadows in her eyes. And the scars on her soul.

Warning:  This book involves soulful songs, soulful sex, a soulful singer and lots of heartbreak. But no worries, there’s a happy ever after.

Enjoy the following excerpt for Beautiful Scars:

He could have kept on playing, just for her. Forever. He’d forgotten how amazing it was to do this. Playing for himself was always good. Playing for his fans…yeah, he loved that.

But there was something magic about sitting there in the dark and playing for her.

It was almost like he could talk to her through the music, and even though she said nothing back, he could hear her answer just in the way she moved, the way she smiled.

And it had always been like this, he realized.

Chaili seemed to find almost the same pleasure in the music that he did.

That same little smile bowed her pretty mouth up and she swayed, one hand curled around the wine glass, the other tapping out a rhythm on her thigh.

He had an image of catching the hem of her skirt. Pushing it up. Okay…that wasn’t anything that had happened before tonight. But he had a feeling he’d be thinking hot and dirty thoughts about her for a long, long time after this. Hell, he was wondering why he hadn’t done it before.

Closing his eyes, he tried to focus back on the music, but he couldn’t block her out.

It was all there, twining through his mind. The raw, powerful vibe of the music. The song. The image of his hands on her thighs. Pushing that pretty skirt up. Catching the silken hose she wore and dragging them down, her panties…leaving her naked under that skirt. Then he’d play a little while longer. Just a little while, as he thought about her being naked under that elegant little white dress.

Get a grip, Marc. Or you’re going to lose it before you even get started…

Get started. Was he actually thinking of trying to do this…

Hell, yes.

He must have lost his mind somewhere in the time he’d seen her standing in the office of Escortè and when he’d started playing for her back at the party, but he had every intention of having a taste of her. Just once, he thought. They were friends, right? They could have a night of nice, friendly sex and then go back to being friends…

Yes, because that had worked so well before.

Stop it, man. This isn’t Lily. It won’t happen that way. And if you can’t get that through your head, you need to just take her home now, he told himself.

No. She wasn’t Lily.

And he’d be damned if he took her home just yet. Unless that was what she wanted.

Clearing his throat, he took the glass of wine from her. “Ah…are you wanting to head home or you wanna hang around a while?”

She slid him a smile as she took the glass of wine back. “Hey, you played me one song. That does not a concert make.”

Hot damn.

“‘Walking in Memphis’?”

She just smiled.

He rolled into it, watching her a little closer this time. She was looking at his hands again. Her face was flushed, although he didn’t think it was the wine. He’d had as much as she and it was just the one bottle. Couldn’t just be the wine, right?

She all but groaned as he launched into the one part that got to her, every damn time, right near the end.

His voice dropped, lower, rougher.

A shudder went through her and she grabbed the glass of wine, drank it down. They’d emptied the bottle and she wished she could blame the heat burning inside her on the wine, but it wasn’t that. It was him. Always him—

“What is it about you and that song?”

As the music faded, she jerked her head up, saw him staring at her.

She tried to shrug. It wasn’t the song, it was him. Something about the way he sang it, hell, the way he sang anything… She licked her lips and stared off into the distance, trying to figure out the right way to say something that wasn’t a lie, but didn’t leave her stripped bare.

A harsh groan reached her ears.

Startled, she looked at him, realized he was staring at her mouth.

Two seconds later, he was reaching for her.

Stunned, she couldn’t think. As his lips covered hers, she just couldn’t think.

Marc was kissing her.

Damn it.

Marc was kissing her—

Had she drank more wine than she’d thought?

“Open your mouth,” he snarled against her lips, a harsh, urgent command in his voice. “Give me your mouth.”

Dazed, she did just that, opened for him.

His arms came around her as his tongue stroked across the bottom of her lip, slowly, seductively…teasingly. Oh, hell. She was in trouble. Big, big trouble…

And she didn’t plan on doing anything to stop it, either. Not when he broke his mouth away to brush a line of stinging, hot kisses down her neck to her shoulder. Not when he stroked a hand up her thigh, the other cupping the back of her head.

Alarm, though, started to sound when he toyed with the fastening of her dress—alarm that would give way to terror if she let it.

Refusing to let that happen, she wiggled around until she was straddling his lap, her arms looped around his shoulders. Through the bodice of her dress, she felt the warmth of his breath, and when he pressed his mouth to her breastbone, she figured she needed to call a stop to this here and now. He didn’t know and she just couldn’t…

“Chaili…fuck, what have you got on under this skirt?”

When all eyes are on you, there’s nowhere to run…except the truth.

Behind Blue Eyes

© 2010 T.L. Schaefer

Crime-scene photographer Sara Covington hides behind her camera from the otherworldly ability that’s caused her nothing but grief her whole life. Yet denial doesn’t protect her when she runs across a serial killer with an aural signature she’s never encountered.

Suddenly she’s without a job and with nowhere to turn…except to an enigmatic, sexy-as-hell detective with a disquieting talent for seeing right through her defenses.

Brian Roney’s fascination with Sara compels him to bring her in on the case that ultimately gets her fired. Even though he senses her mutual attraction, something holds her back from stepping into his arms. He’s as determined to find out why she’s pushing him away as he is to keep her safe.

When the killer strikes again, Sara realizes the only way to stop the madman is come clean about her painful past—and embrace the gift she has so long denied. Before the grisly trail of bodies leads right to her doorstep.

Warning: A sexy alpha cop, a heroine with a past (and super spidey sense) and a maniac on the loose…what’s not to love?

Enjoy the following excerpt for Behind Blue Eyes:

With a weary sigh, Brian finally stood. “The uniform will stay right where he’s at until we know Burke has moved on to another city. It’s probably a waste of manpower, but we’ve got to be sure.”

I walked him to the door, admitting to myself he wasn’t going to make it over the threshold. My quotient for being scared was up, and I wanted Brian Roney…bad. Did I feel guilty about using him for my own satisfaction? Yeah, a bit, but I could guarantee he’d leave here smiling. So I took the step I’d been anticipating—and denying—since the day I met him.

He leaned in for a brief kiss, and I latched on with everything inside me. He let out a surprised grunt, then returned my passion, his tongue teasing mine as his hands grasped my hips and pulled me close.

I wound my arms around his neck and kissed him for all I was worth, running my fingers through the hair at his nape.

“Don’t send me home, Sara,” he breathed against my lips, moved down, caressed my cheek, then the underside of my jaw with tender, hot kisses.

“I’m not.” My breath hitched. My nipples pebbled against his strong, broad chest.

He drew back and searched my eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Damned straight.” I met his gaze as I moved a hand down, tracing the vee his shirt made.

And still he hesitated. Could I be so lucky? “Stop thinking so hard about it.” I brushed my lips across his before pulling back. “You’ve got condoms, right?”

He chuckled, back in his own happy space. “Let’s put it this way… I’ve had them in my pocket since the first time I laid eyes on you.”

My breath caught. A girl didn’t need much more than that, now did she?

I grinned and returned for a kiss…a repeat of the tease we’d shared far too often. He met me stroke for stroke, his tongue tangling with mine. The sensation lit a trail of fire that streaked across my body, bringing my nipples to an almost painful point, and low, sensual heat coiling in my core. This was going to be so very good.

I stood on my tiptoes so I could meet him mouth-to-mouth, unrestrained, and it was everything I’d remembered and fantasized about on the plane, in the hotel room. And yes, before that. He took my mouth wholly, as if kissing me could sustain him for the rest of his life. It was heady, and the moment I thought I had him pegged, he broke away and turned me so I couldn’t see him. He pulled me tight against him, and banded his arms around me from behind, his erection a long, hard promise of strength and pleasure against my back. His hands cupped my breasts, learning their weight and fullness. I melted against him, heart thumping in my chest, my breath coming in sharp little pants, and I lifted my arms, looping them around his neck, allowing him free access.

His thumbs brushed across my nipples, and I gasped as pleasure streaked through me, then his hands were moving, sliding beneath my blouse. He spanned my waist, fingers ducking beneath my waistband for a scant, teasing second before they drifted up to my breasts again.

I stopped breathing as his palms covered me and his mouth dropped to my nape, delivering tiny little nips that made me quiver, head to toe.

“The things I want to do to you aren’t legal in most states,” he breathed in my ear, his voice low, guttural. Completely, over-the-top sexy.

My body stiffened in reaction. In anticipation. No aura to overwhelm me, no reading what my partner was feeling in his gaze. This was going to be so good.

I spun in his arms and met his eyes, which had gone turbulent. “Yeah? I could say the same.” I grasped his hand, leading him to my bedroom.

It was the one room in my house he hadn’t seen, and I was proud of it, even if my brain was clouded by a desire so strong I was amazed I could see at all. It reflected the hidden me, decorated in scarlet and sage, eye-popping royal blue and creamy taupe. Since I’d come to Dallas, no other man had seen it; every other sexual liaison had been in neutral territory.

Would he even notice? Why the hell did I care?

But notice he did, standing stock-still in the doorway, his hands settling on my waist, pulling me back against him once again. “This is the real you, isn’t it?” He leaned in to lave my ear, sending thrills through my entire body. “It’s beautiful, just like you are. I imagine what you see when you look at the world. But know how I see you. You’re vibrant, a nexus of the colors that defies anything I could describe.” His hand rested possessively on my belly and his voice had gone gravelly. “And when you come, I imagine the expression on your face because I know you’ll be coming for me.”

He spun me around to face him, and the look on his face was anything but easy. It was predatory and utterly male. “Now strip. I want to see you naked.”

My breath clogged in my lungs at his audacity and how much it turned me on. How could he possibly know, I marveled, even as my body overruled rational thought. I’m a take-charge kind of girl when it comes to everything else, but in the bedroom, I want a man to lead, and somehow, some way, he’d intuited that. It’d taken me years to figure it out myself, yet he knew exactly how to play me in seconds. That knowledge made me impossibly hotter, wetter.

I locked gazes with him. Everything he made me feel was ours alone. No bombarding emotions, no aura to cloud my response, to anticipate his. My fingers shook as I pulled my blouse over my head, then loosened the clip at my nape.

He stood mere inches from me, eyes blazing as he watched each and every move I made.

My heart banged against my ribs. I stood in my bra and slacks, hair brushing against my shoulders, while he remained fully clothed, inspecting me.

“You’re even better than I imagined,” he breathed.

What he’d pictured, I couldn’t possibly conceive of until he began seducing me with his words. Not that he needed to.

“You’re lusher than I thought. You hide behind baggy T-shirts too often.” His hands settled on my hips. “You’re meant for tasting, for savoring all night long.” He dipped his head to my breasts. “But you don’t know that, do you, Sara?”

Any reply I might have made was completely annihilated by the sensation of his tongue on my lace-covered nipples. Instead I moaned. Not in surrender, but agreement.

His tongue flicked from one breast to another, his hands tightening against my hips until I was flush against him. He bowed me back as he loved my breasts, cradling me against his erection, rocking me gently until I thought I’d go insane. I began to fall into sensation and reached out blindly for something, anything to hold onto.

“Shhhh,” he murmured, his breath warm and hot against my breast. “I’ve got you, Sara. Remember that.” Then he was lifting me, settling me on the bed, his mouth still teasing my nipple even as his hands deftly unfastened my slacks, sliding them to the floor along with my panties.

His clever fingers teased my mons with feather-light touches as the pressure of his mouth increased and he applied his teeth. I jolted upward, into him, and felt him laugh against me.

“I knew you’d be like this, you know.” His voice was rough, needy, even though he was in complete control.

One big palm closed over my breast and squeezed as he dropped to his knees, his breath wafting in tiny little gusts along the inside of my thighs. His mouth covered me, tongue teasing me as one finger slid inside, then two, pumping in time to the delicious motion of his tongue.

I moaned, bowing on the bed as I grasped the bedspread in both fists as he devoured me. Pure, blinding fire flashed through me, setting every nerve ending ablaze, and I toppled.

Tender fingers unlatched my front-hook bra, and I jerked as his knuckles brushed across my nipples. Over the pounding of my heart and the rush in my head, I barely heard the rasp of his zipper, the crinkle of cellophane.

Then he was covering me, his mouth hot on mine, his big, wicked hands tilting my hips, and in one sleek move, he was inside me, sheathed to the hilt.

The Innocent

Shiloh Walker

For a woman he can’t touch, he’ll turn Hell inside out.

FBI Psychics, Book 2

There’s only one reason Jay Roberts would set foot in a middle-of-nowhere town like Hell, Georgia. She’s got a bone to pick with her sort-of boyfriend. They only met online, but things got hot and heavy before their cyber link went silent.

She’s here to get in his face for an explanation. But no touching. Her psychic abilities make physical contact…complicated. Yet something about this relationship made her think things would be different. She’s not in Hell twenty minutes before bad vibes have her skin crawling.

Corruption has stained the very fabric of Linc Dawson’s town, and now it’s stolen something very dear to him. The last thing he has time for is nursing Jay’s broken heart.

But Jay isn’t going anywhere. Not only because she’s not giving up on him, because she’s got access to the kind of backup nobody wants on their bad side. And Linc discovers the woman who’s afraid to touch him could actually be his best chance. At salvation, at hope, at life. Maybe even love…

Warning: This book contains a not-so-naive virgin, a pissed-off former cop, lots of frustration, if you know what I mean, and more trouble than either of them know what to do with.

eBooks are not transferable.

They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

Cincinnati OH 45249

The Innocent

Copyright © 2014 by Shiloh Walker

ISBN: 978-1-61922-077-5

Edited by Tera Kleinfelter

Cover by Angela Waters

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: March 2014
www.samhainpublishing.com

Table of Contents

- Dedication
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- About the Author
- Look for these titles by Shiloh Walker

- Also Available from Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

- Back Cover Copy

- Copyright Page