FBI Psychics: The Missing Part 12

Yeah. She knew that. But just because she knew a physical blow was sometimes the only way to bring her out, that didn't mean she had to like it. Her limbs shook with exhaustion as she climbed out of the car. Glancing at the brightly lit house, she asked, "Have they started looking under the floorboards yet?"

"No. There was a crawl s.p.a.ce, but somebody sealed it with concrete. We won't be able to do anything until we tear up the floorboards." He looked back at her and said, "There's nothing to be found in that house that will lead us to him, is there?"

Taige shrugged. "You'd be better to ask one of your precogs that, Jones. But I really don't think so. This guy, he's too careful."

With a bitter smile, Jones muttered, "We'd noticed. They've been keeping me updated.

We haven't found a single hair. Not a fingernail. The one thing we did find was a receipt under the refrigerator, dated three years back. It was from one of those old-fas.h.i.+oned cash registers, didn't have so much as an address on it. Just the date." Shaking his head, Jones said, "What are we supposed to do with a receipt? Nothing but prices, a date, and a total."

"No fingerprints, I a.s.sume?"

Jones's flat look was answer enough. Sighing, Taige shoved away from the car. Her head was pounding, her throat felt raw from screaming, and she wanted to sleep so badly, she almost hurt from it. But instead, she locked her legs and said, "Before they tear it up, I want to go over it once more, okay?"

He gestured to the house. "Be my guest." As she walked off, he called out, "You need to give me an official report, Taige."

"I wasn't here on Bureau business," she said over her shoulder.

Sliding in front of her, Jones blocked her path. "You look like h.e.l.l, Taige. You need some downtime."

Taige shook her head. "No, I don't. What I need is to find something that can lead me to the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who did this." Then she walked off, her head down and her gut already churning. "If you're smart," she muttered to herself, "you'll just stay out of this part."

But Taige hadn't ever claimed to be a genius. Once more, she walked back into that h.e.l.lish house, watching as the team went over everything with a fine-tooth comb. No, it was more detailed than that. They might as wel have used X-ray vision, because they peered between the cracks in the floorboards, they checked out the walls, they moved out the few appliances and took them apart.

She joined them, skimming the back of her hand along surfaces so she could have physical contact without adding her prints to the mess. Everything would be dusted for prints, and if they found hers among them, they'd rip her a new tail. It had happened before.

Physical contact could strengthen her gift, and all she really needed was just a faint link.

Not much, just a little. She could get a memory flash off something a killer had touched months, years earlier.

But there was nothing. After the first two hours when she went crawling across the floor on her one good hand and her knees, Jones had told her to take a break. She hadn't.

She kept going, searching for something that couldn't be found, and she had no intention of quitting.

It was midnight before she finally acknowledged what most of the team had accepted hours ago. Taige would find no trace of the kidnapper here. There might be trace physical evidence-and oh, did she mean trace. So far, they hadn't even found an eye-lash.

And there wasn't even a sliver of a psychic trail.

She sat on the porch, numb inside, as she watched the crime scene techs going over the yard. More teams would have to be brought in.

She wouldn't be on hand for those, though. She'd done her part, done what little she could. The visions had showed her precious little this time, but it was a d.a.m.n good thing she waited, because once the gray sucked her under this time, it hadn't wanted to let go.

Jones probably hadn't enjoyed using that Taser on her, but she also doubted that it would give him any bad moments. The man was relentless, pitiless, and driven.

Still aching from the Taser jolt, Taige stood off to the side and watched as they pried up for the first floorboard. Taige had told Jones the harsh, ugly truth: there was a graveyard of bones under the floorboards of the main cabin. And she had no idea how many bodies.

Right now, she didn't want to even see the first one. Turning on her heel, she left the house and went out onto the porch. The air out there was cooler, just a bit, and the stink of death wasn't so strong. But she didn't dare relax. Worn out, she sank down on the front steps and braced her elbows on her knees.

She was so d.a.m.ned tired.

Breathe, girl. Just breathe. One breath in. One breath out. She might not be able to sleep, but if she tried hard enough, maybe she could zone out for just a minute or two.

Except every time she drifted just a little closer to a mindless state of rest, the screams would start again.

"You ever going to stop being the Lone Ranger?"

Taige managed to smile as Desiree Lincoln settled down beside her. If Dez wasn't such a sweetheart, Taige could have hated her on the spot. Dez bore a startling resemblance to Halle Berry, and she almost always had a smile on her face. She worked with Jones's unit, and technically, she was considered part of the crime scene investigative team. But Jones didn't work with typical agents, plain and simple. Dez's particular skill wasn't the kind that Taige would have taken for al the wine and chocolate in the world. Dez made a connection with victims who had already died, and that was why she was here now.

Dez glanced at the house and murmured, "I hear they think they're going to find some bones."

Grimacing, Taige said, "Not some. A lot." Inside, she could hear them working. It would be hours yet before they were ready for Dez, hours away from finding al the bodies. But Dez always liked to be there from the first.

If Taige was right, the bones beneath the floorboards of the cabin were going to take a long time to sort out. Jones probably hoped Dez would help shorten that time frame. She probably would. Dez, like al of the people Jones had grabbed for his secretive unit, was d.a.m.n good with her abilities. More, she had an ethereal way about her; all the death she dealt with rarely seemed to faze her. Taige had once asked her how she could do what she did and stil seem so at peace.

Dez had told her it was because by the time the victims came to her, they were al way past suffering. Then she'd smiled and told Taige it was easier that way. At that point, she couldn't do anything to add to their pain; therefore, she couldn't fail them.

In their line of work, failure meant people died.

"Scoot your skinny b.u.t.t over, Lone Ranger. Tell me what's going on in there."

Obligingly, Taige scooted over enough so Dez could sit down, and when Dez wrapped an arm around her shoulder, she willingly accepted the silent offer of comfort. "Wasn't trying to be the Lone Ranger, Dez. I just couldn't wait."

"These poor babies calling you that hard?"

Taige shook her head. She shot a grim glance over her shoulder, staring inside the open door as Taylor barked out orders left and right. From time to time, he reached up and rubbed at the back of his neck. It was one of those rare times when the b.a.s.t.a.r.d actually seemed almost human. All this death was enough to do it, though. Even Dez looked a little grim, and for her, that was unusual. "It wasn't them that pulled me here; it was the girl."

"Hmmm. Yeah, the little cutie that was grabbed from Atlanta. You felt that?"

"Nope." She braced her arms on her knees and leaned forward. "It was her father."

Dez's midnight brows arched up. "Her father. Well, that's a different turn for you."

Taige grimaced. "Not exactly. I knew him. We . . . we sort of had this thing when we were younger." Exhaustion pressed down on her hard like a weight, but there was no way in h.e.l.l she was going to rest here. Those few minutes when she had tried to just zone out had been rough. Really going to sleep? That would be like walking willingly into h.e.l.l. All around her was the lingering touch of death. Even if her gifts didn't intrude on her sleep, the negative energy here sure as h.e.l.l would. She was going to have enough nightmares as it was. Taige had no intention of letting the sad, angry atmosphere of this place color those bad dreams any more than she had to.

"A thing, huh?" Dez smiled. "Saw his picture in the paper. He look as biteable in person as he is on paper?"

Biteable. Despite her exhaustion, she couldn't help but smile. "More so."

Feeling Dez's eyes on her, she looked back over her shoulder. The appraising look on the woman's face made Taige squirm. "So that's the deal."

"What?" Taige demanded defensively.

"I always wondered why you don't talk about guys. You're hung up on some s.e.xy boy from high school."

She didn't bother denying it. "It wasn't high school. His parents were loaded; they had a summer house close to where I grew up."

Dez made a face. "Oh, please tell me he wasn't some rich boy looking to p.i.s.s his folks off by dating a black girl."

Taige's face softened a little. "No. He wasn't like that. Cullen . . ." Her voice trailed off while she tried to figure out just how much she wanted to tell Dez. She hadn't discussed that last day with Cul en with anybody. Not even Rose before she died, and the good Lord knows, Rose had asked. And asked. And asked . . . Especially after-Oh, Taige, girl. Don't go there. She had enough s.h.i.+t inside her head without remembering that period in her life.

"He broke your heart."

"Yeah." Taige blew out a soft breath and rubbed her hands over her face. "Yeah, he did."

"So, speaking as your friend, should I totally hate this guy?"

Taige laughed. "Cullen isn't the kind of guy you can hate easily. G.o.d knows I certainly tried to hate him."

"So are you going to tell me what happened?"

Taige dropped her hands and stood up. Every muscle in her body screamed at her as she did it. She hurt so much that every movement was a small lesson in agony. Right now, the pain was a blessing. A sweet blessing, because it distracted her from the pain of her own memories. Blowing out a sigh, she said, "There's not all that much to tell, honey. He lost somebody-and I wasn't able to help."

She heard Dez moving up behind her and turned around, lifting her hands to ward Dez away. "Don't, Dez. Okay? I'm not up to this right now." I don't know if I'll ever be ready for it.

"You don't get to pick and choose who you are able to help, Taige. You know that."

She blinked away the tears stinging her eyes. "Yeah. I know that. Stil doesn't make it any easier when I can't help."

IT was nearly three a.m. before she got away from the crime scene. It probably would have been later if Dez hadn't pushed the issue. She'd taken a break from her gruesome job and was outside for some fresh air. While she was walking through the maze of yellow tape and portable outdoor lights, Dez saw Taige leaning against a plain black van.

Taige had been weaving on her feet, fighting to stay awake as the exhaustion weighed down heavier and heavier with each pa.s.sing second.

Dez had turned on her heel and stalked back into the house, grabbing Jones by the collar of his suit and jerking him away from the tech he was berating. "You want her to collapse out there?"

If Taige were an optimist, she could have said that him leaving the scene to drive her into town was a sign that he was human. But she knew better. He saw it as an opportunity to go find Jillian's dad-and Jillian. Which was how Taige had ended up in the waiting room of the county hospital. Jones had told her that she could get a hotel room and put it on her expense account, but since she didn't have a car, she was stuck waiting for him.

"a.s.shole," she muttered, watching his suited back disappear through the doors. The triage nurse at the desk hadn't wanted to let him back, but he'd flashed his identification from the FBI, and Taige had seen the woman's eyes round in surprise. A second later, the door was buzzed open.

If Taige hadn't been so bone tired, she would have followed him back. She wanted to check on Jillian, and she wanted to see Cullen, but it felt like she had cement blocks strapped to her feet. She'd fallen asleep in Jones's rented car on the way in, but that thirty minutes had done more damage than good.

Now, though, in the quiet of the predawn morning, sitting in an armchair that was covered with that easy-to-clean fake leather, she was almost comfortable. The chair was a little harder than she preferred, but at least it was better than the straight-backed chairs or benches that were in most emergency rooms. The only sounds were the low voices coming from the staff at the triage desk and a sniffling child. The little boy's face was flushed from a fever, and he had a nasty, deep cough that made Taige's chest hurt in sympathy.

The tired mom glanced at Taige, and Taige tried to smile back, but she was just so tired.

The little boy started to whimper again, and the mom automatically rocked him, singing softly: "You are my suns.h.i.+ne . . . my only suns.h.i.+ne . . ."

A sad smile curved Taige's lips. Her mother had used to sing that song to her.

"You make me happy . . . when skies are gray . . ."

Taige felt her lids drooping, and she tried to move around. Body was too heavy, though, and as her head fell forward, the woman's song echoed in Taige's mind.

"You'll never know, dear, how much I love you . . ."

Sleep didn't ease up on her as it had in the car. It sucked her under like a leviathan emerging from the depths of the ocean, grabbing her, and pulling her down deep and hard. Although the mom kept on singing, Taige heard nothing, saw nothing, just the black oblivion of deep sleep. How much time pa.s.sed as she slept, she didn't know. It could have been hours. It could have been minutes. Then the darkness eased, and she knew she wasn't alone anymore.

Still caught in the grip of sleep, Taige sensed Cullen's presence as he joined her in her dreams. He looked as exhausted there as she felt, standing at the door of the emergency room. He paused there, looked back over his shoulder like he didn't want to leave, and then he came forward, his steps slow, almost clumsy.

Straightening in the chair, she forced herself to smile at him. "How's Jillian?"

He shrugged. "Sleeping right now. They've got her on IVs. You were right. She was seriously dehydrated." A scowl darkened his face, and he murmured, "That boss of yours is an a.s.s. He wants to talk to her, but neither the doctor nor I are wil ing to let him wake her."

"Jones is definitely an a.s.s," she agreed, her forced smile fading away. "He will have to talk to her, Cullen. They need to know who hurt her." But even as she tried to explain that to him, she wondered why she bothered. In real life, she needed to deal with reality.

These were her dreams; she didn't have to be logical here.

A grimace twisted his mouth. "Yeah, I know. And if she can help, I want her to try. I don't want another parent to have to go through this kind of h.e.l.l if I can stop it. Just . . .

not yet."

"Have you talked to her?"

Cullen nodded. "She opened her eyes-"

Hands closed around Taige's shoulders and shook her. Stil trapped in the dream, she stared at Cullen's face, and he said something else, but it wasn't Cullen's voice. It was Jones. "d.a.m.n it, Taige, wake up. You know you shouldn't sleep here."

"Wha . . ."

She groaned and smacked at Jones's hands as he shook her again. Awake now, she squinted up at him and then looked at the clock hanging on the wall over his shoulder.

Ten a.m. She'd been under probably close to six hours. And she could tell, just by how stiff her body was. Sleeping in an armchair was always a bad idea. Groaning, she straightened up. Her stiffened muscles screamed at her, and she pressed a hand to her low back, scooting to the front edge of the cus.h.i.+on so she could stretch a little.

"What in the h.e.l.l are you still doing here?" Jones demanded.

Tired and cranky as h.e.l.l, she snarled at him, "Where am I supposed to be? You dump me here, and it's not like there's a yellow cab outside waiting to take me to the nearest Holiday Inn."

"There's a Motel 6 a few blocks down the road."

Shoving up off the chair, she got in his face and demanded, "What, you really think I was going to walk there or something? d.a.m.n, Jones, what bug crawled up your a.s.s this morning?"

His eyes narrowed. Sometimes, she knew, he wondered why in the h.e.l.l he tolerated her.

If she actually worked for him, he could discipline her for the att.i.tude she gave him. She mouthed off enough to know she could have been fired ten times over-if she were an employee. But since she was more of a freelance type, he didn't have that much authority over her, and he also knew that if he never asked for her help on a case again, she could care less. Took away a lot of his fun, she was willing to bet. Which made it all that much more fun for her.

His voice was pleasant as he said, "You know, Taige, one would think you could understand that I'm in a bind here. You broke procedure doing what you did. You could have endangered that girl even more. Maybe one of the bugs up my a.s.s, as you say, is because I'm trying to figure out how to keep you from getting into a world of trouble."

Taige snorted. "Oh, come off of it, Jones. You and I both know that what your superiors care about is results. Just like you and I both know that I'd never have gone to get her if I hadn't thought that was the best thing for her." She eased around him, searching for the coffee carafe she'd glimpsed last night. It was on a small table under the TV mounted to the wal . Taking one of the small foam cups from the table, she fil ed it half full and took a sniff. Strong. Stronger than she liked, and she had a feeling it would eat away the lining of her stomach if she drank too much.

But right now, she needed the caffeine. She added twice as much sugar as normal, and three times as much cream. Still, it was strong enough to make her blanch, and the caffeine hit her system with the force of a sucker punch. "d.a.m.n. These medical types make their coffee strong."

She turned around and met Jones's gaze. He was still scowling at her, and she gave him a sweet smile. "So why did you wake me up?"

He looked around and then jerked his head, a silent summons that she follow him. In the time since she had fallen asleep, the number of people waiting in the emergency room had gone up considerably. She made her way past two elderly patients in wheelchairs, a girl sitting doubled up in a chair, and a very, very pregnant woman as she followed Jones to the double doors by the triage desk.

The nurse buzzed the door, and as Taige walked by, she saw the dirty look the nurse shot at Jones's averted back. Yep, Taylor Jones made friends everywhere he went. He led her into a small office, one he'd obviously appropriated for his personal use. He gestured to a chair and told her to sit.

She didn't. She hated it when the b.a.s.t.a.r.d tried to throw his weight around with her. He dropped into his chair and gave her an irritated look. "Sit down, Taige. You need to give me your report, and you look like s.h.i.+t."

"My, you are in a bad mood. Cussing and everything," she said with a cheeky grin. She sipped at her strong, overly sweet coffee and added, "I'll stand."