The Missing (33 page)
Authors: Shiloh Walker
Tags: #Contemporary, #Romantic Suspense, #Romance Suspense
“You can’t hocus-pocus it open?”
Taige shook her head. “No. Any telekinetic gift I have is limited to living things. I can’t do jack with something inanimate.” A door lock was about as inanimate as it got.
“In that case, I’d love to break the door down.” He had a mean smile on his lips, and she suspected he’d like to break all sorts of things, a door being fairly far down on the list. But considering the real target of his rage wasn’t handy, he’d make do with the door. For now.
A shiver raced through her on the tail end of that thought.
Cullen was going to kill Leon.
She understood his murderous rage all too well, and she couldn’t blame him. She’d want to do the same thing, or worse, if she were in his place. Hell, she wasn’t even
in
his place, and she wanted to kill Leon.
in
his place, and she wanted to kill Leon.
But Taige was also aware of the consequences of that. Dicey situation here. She couldn’t blame Cullen, or rob him of his need to avenge his daughter and protect her, but she also wasn’t about to let him do something that could end up with his ass in jail.
He deserved better than that. Jillian deserved better.
The sound of a door being busted off its hinges jerked her out of her reverie, and she looked up, staring at the front door. The door was half off its hinges, and the wood of the doorjamb was busted, little splinters and slivers of wood littering the pretty white tile inside the house and the wooden planks of the porch. Cullen glanced back at her and then pushed the door completely open. For a minute, they both stood there in the doorway, looking into the house.
The walls were painted a soft, pale blue, almost soothing. The hardwood floors gleamed a mellow gold, and there was a pretty blue throw rug with an abstract, geometric pattern. That very first glance was of a well cared for, pretty new home. There was a big cross hanging on the wall at the end of the hall, painted a pristine white. Under it was a table, and there was a huge Bible on it that lay open.
That sight bothered her, very deeply bothered her. As pretty and warm as the house looked, it stank with a miasma of death and pain. The sight of a holy book inside this house was so wrong. If she could bear touching something that Leon had touched, she’d grab the Bible and get it out of there.
Instead, she looked away from it and stepped inside the house, scanning and cataloging every sight, every sound, every little memory flash. There were a damn lot of those. Too many. Some of them even dating back to his childhood. The entire house was stained with them, although he’d only lived there five years. This place, it might never be clean again.
Three feet inside the doorway, the first memory flash assailed her: a girl, older than Jillian had been, but not quite on the cusp of womanhood, with big, pretty blue eyes and a sweet smile.
The girl saw things. Heard things. Believed in ghosts. Her mother thought she had a devil inside her, and she’d brought the girl to Leon. That had been the beginning. It hadn’t happened here, but that girl, what he’d done to her, had left a mark on the man. She’d been his first, the first girl he’d tried to purify. The first girl he’d killed.
The first girl he’d raped. He’d killed her because of that rape, told her that she’d bewitched him, tempted him beyond what he could bear, and that her punishment for those sins was to die.
He hadn’t raped every child he’d kidnapped. Most of them, he had grabbed with only the intent to purify them of their unclean thoughts, of the demons that controlled them. Demons—that was how Leon explained away the gift. It was something from Satan, and he was only doing his duty as a man of God by destroying that demon. But destroying the demon, in Leon’s mind, required killing the infected soul.
It had been his own gift that led Leon to his victims. He’d considered it a sign from God, that sure and certain knowledge, but it had been a gift. An affinity for picking out the gifted people from the ungifted. He’d known when Taige was sent to live with him that she’d been gifted—another flash. Another. Another. They hit her like gunfire, one right after the other. Nights when he had gone into Taige’s bedroom and stared at her while she slept, thought of killing her.
“Why didn’t you?” she murmured, not even aware that she had spoken.
She drifted through the house, looking more like a ghost than anything, Cullen thought as he watched her. There was something eerie about the way she moved, more like gliding than walking. In the office, she stopped in front of the desk and held out a hand over it, her palm hovering just an inch away. She flinched. A harsh breath hissed out from between her teeth. “He knows that I found Jillian. He wants her back.”
Cullen’s blood turned to ice. “Is she . . .”
Taige shook her head. “She’s safe. He knows she has people watching her. And there’s another.” Her fingers flexed. She swallowed. Then, taking a deep breath, she laid her palm flat against the surface of the desk. “Oh, God . . .” The words fell from her lips in a soft, tormented moan. She slumped forward, her hair falling down to shield her face. “Damn it, Cullen. He has some other girl. I can see her face.”
“Is she okay?”
Taige started to shake. Her entire body trembled like a leaf, and a soft, keening moan escaped her lips. “I don’t know—damn it, I don’t know. Oh, shit. He’s hurting her. Damn it, he’s hurting her, and he loves it.”
Outside, they both heard the sound of a car approaching, moving fast down the gravel driveway. Taige flinched, jerked hard back into awareness, and she moved with Cullen to stare out the window as the beat-up, ancient station wagon came roaring up the lane. Woodenly, she pulled the phone from her belt and punched in a number. Jones answered, and Taige said, “I’m going to need a team down here, Jones.” She didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t mess with giving directions or an address. Her phone was GPS enabled, and he’d track her via the phone. Details were a waste of time and energy at this point.
After that short, terse message, she disconnected and then tucked the phone back into the holder at her waist. “It’s not Leon,” she said softly, although she didn’t recognize the car.
“Do we need to get the hell out of here?”
Technically, they had no business being in this house. There was no physical proof inside these walls, and there was no endangered child there, either. The answers that Taige had weren’t the kind that could be presented to a jury or a judge. By all means, she was violating Leon Carson’s rights, and if she had any sense, or a little less compassion, then they should definitely get the hell out of Dodge.
But Taige didn’t give a damn about Leon’s rights. She didn’t give a damn about technicalities, legalities, and the ins and outs of the justice system.
She cared about all the children who had died at her uncle’s hands, and she cared about stopping him.
“No,” she murmured in response to Cullen’s question. Shivering, she folded her arms across her middle and then rubbed her palms up and down her upper arms, trying to warm herself. “We came for answers. We’ll leave when we have them.”
But it wouldn’t take long.
Even from the distance, Taige could see the darkness that painted a dark, ugly void around the woman in the car. She stopped in front of the house and climbed out, paused to look at Cullen’s big black truck, and then she looked back at the house. Taige felt the impact of her gaze from there, although a hundred feet easily separated them. Taige could feel
him
.
him
.
Leon had left a mark on this woman. She could feel it as clearly as she had when she looked into the paramedic’s eyes earlier and realized who she was hunting. “It’s Penny Harding,” she said quietly. “My uncle’s assistant.”
Dragging in a deep breath, she closed her eyes and blocked the woman from her field of vision just long enough to ground herself. Leon had kept himself blocked from Taige, and she hadn’t helped by keeping her own blocks in place, reinforcing them any time she came close to Leon. His hatred of her had been the initial reason she’d shielded against him, and over the years, her own dislike of him had added to the urge to keep him out.
But there had been no attempt on Leon’s part to keep his emotions contained around Penny. And damn, but he must spend a lot of time with this woman, because his psychic presence had all but eradicated Penny’s personality. Muffled it, tamped it down, and kept it hidden under the force of his own.
It was a godsend.
Taige could follow a psychic imprint the same way a blood-hound could follow a scent. If Leon kept his presence muffled, there wouldn’t be much of a trail for her to follow.
But Leon acted on instinct. His gift, strong as it probably was, was untrained. He probably didn’t realize how much of himself he spilled into his home, onto people that spent a lot of time with him. He probably didn’t realize that unless he kept himself shielded all the time, he was going to leak all over somebody like Penny, somebody who spent their days seeing to his needs and running his errands and buying his groceries.
Penny was like a homing beacon and a journal all wrapped into one.
At least for somebody like Taige, somebody who read a psychic imprint. When Penny entered the house, as she drew nearer to Taige, it was like she was working pieces of a puzzle into place, and by the time they met up in the hallway, Taige had the answers. It left a hell of a lot more questions though.
Yes, Leon had another child.
Yes, he was someplace with the child right now.
But that was when the answers stopped and new questions began. Because it was a child Penny knew somehow, a child Penny had put into Leon’s hands, knowing what he’d do.
She’s got evil inside her, Leon. Bad, nasty evil. You need to purify her.
And as she said it, she’d stared at Leon with the blind devotion of a madwoman.
“Taige . . .” Penny gave Taige a puzzled look and glanced back the busted front door. “Do you know what happened to the front door?”
“I did it. Where is my . . . uncle?” The word left a nasty taste in her mouth, just saying it. How could somebody that evil be her blood? It was sickening.
“He’s out attending to the needs of his congregation,” Penny said. She frowned and cocked her head, studying Taige’s face. “You busted the door down?”
“Actually, that was me,” Cullen said from over her shoulder. “Where exactly is he attending these needs at?”
“I’m afraid that’s the business of Reverend Carson and his flock . . . Mr. . . . ?”
Cullen just grunted in response, giving her no answer. “Hmmm. You do know that you’ll need to pay for the damage, Taige. Honestly, what would your mother think? A civilized person simply comes back when there is somebody home.”
“It’s important, Penny.” Taige didn’t bother arguing with Penny about her civility or lack thereof. The woman clearly considered Leon a saint, so her judgment was definitely skewed.
“I see. Well, no. Not exactly.” Penny’s frowned deepened, and if her face dropped any more, she was going start resembling a hound dog, all mournful-eyed and sad-faced. “I just don’t understand what could be so important that you’d break down a door. Did he even know you were coming?” As she spoke, she headed down the hall into the kitchen, leaving Taige and Cullen to follow behind.
The kitchen was painted a cheerful yellow. The floor was bright blue, and the appliances so clean, they could have come straight off the showroom floor. Yet, like every other room in the house, it looked dark to Taige, like she was seeing it through a black veil.
Penny stood at a bright white breakfast bar, rifling through mail and sorting it. The woman was nervous; Taige could sense it, the acrid scent of fear and nerves. Even if she hadn’t had the memory flash just a few minutes ago, she would have realized there was something weird going on with Penny.
“Where is he?” she asked quietly, moving up behind Penny.
Penny, in the process of shuffling through the mail, looked at Taige over her shoulder, a confused smile. “I don’t know, Taige. I’m his assistant, but he doesn’t always feel the need to keep me informed of his daily schedule. The reverend is an important man. He doesn’t answer to the likes of me.”
“Then he can answer to me,” Taige said, her voice flat. “Where the hell is he?”
Penny’s mouth puckered up like Taige had just shoved a lemon into her face. “You really do need God’s good grace in your life, Taige. Speaking so, swearing, displaying an utter lack of humility and compassion.” She glanced at Cullen, and the look on her face probably wouldn’t have been much different if she’d run into a john and his whore. “And the company you keep.”
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