The Reunited (7 page)

“Are you certain he’ll be satisfied with her?”

Glancing over at the man next to him, he shrugged. “She’ll do. He just wants a warm body for the most part. I’ve got my hands full with other matters. If he wants to be picky, the price will go up.”

A soft, warm little head butted his ankle and he smiled, knelt down, and scooped up Demeter. The cat snuggled into his arms as he scratched it under the chin. It was odd, how attached he’d gotten to the little thing. He’d originally gotten her for his last fiancée. He’d thought perhaps having a kitten to mother would make her stop her constant blathering about a family. It hadn’t. It had just made her that much more moon-eyed and tiresome.

He wondered what she thought of her new life now. He’d warned her more than once to stop it with the ceaseless prattling, but she hadn’t. He’d let his dick do the thinking with her. Grace had been lovely, there was no doubt about that, but she hadn’t been smart.

Ella was much more suitable.

He’d been considering discarding Grace anyway, but when he saw Ella, he’d simply known. It was like she’d been waiting for him.

So Grace was done away with. She was the property of one of his associates over in Dubai. She’d mentioned wanting to visit . . . well, she had that wish. And she’d never leave.

He kept the cat, of course.

Maybe he’d give Demeter to Ella.

As a wedding present.

Something to consider.

*   *   *

I
T
took all of Taige’s control not to react when Jillian broke contact. All of her control not to cry.

“I saw him, Mom,” Jillian whispered. There were tears in her blue eyes. Tears of horror . . . but behind the horror, there was rage. “I looked at him and I saw inside his mind and it’s . . . it’s awful. He buys and sells girls like they were books or shoes. He was going to marry one of them, but he got bored with her and he sold her. I could see inside his head and now all of that is trapped inside me and I can’t just . . . I can’t . . . I can’t . . .”

Her voice broke and Taige reached out, pulled Jillian against her. “Hush.” She rubbed her cheek against Jillian’s soft curls. “Hush now, baby. I understand. It will be okay, got me?”

“He won’t stop.” Jillian clutched at Taige desperately. “Even now, I can see him. He’s petting a cat and thinking about that girl he was gonna marry and he thinks it’s
funny
that she couldn’t take her cat when he sold her.”

Taige closed her eyes.

“It’s like they are just toys to him. He’s in my head all the time, and I can’t make him stop, because I can’t see him all the way . . . And even if I
could
, I’m . . .”

Jillian’s voice broke and she started to sob.

But Taige understood.

Just a kid.

She’d been there before.

She knew what it was like to have something awful trapped inside her mind, a knowledge that something bad was happening. Something terrible. Sometimes she’d tried to help. But even then she’d been a little older than Jillian was now. And none of it had ever been anything like this.

“It will be okay, baby,” Taige said quietly, easing back and gently forcing the girl’s face up. “Look at me . . . we got this. We can handle this, I promise.”

Jillian dashed away the tears and stared at her. “I’m just a kid. I know that. I’m just a kid. I don’t know what to do. But Taylor can fix this. You could fix it. Dez . . . all of you. You all can make things like this right.”

Tipping her head back, Taige stared at the ceiling, wanting to rage. This wasn’t fair . . . this was too much of a burden to place on a child. Too much of a burden to place on
her
child, who’d already suffered so much.

“Taylor can make it stop,” Jillian said, her voice soft and steady. “That’s why I wanted to come here. He knows the way to make it work. All of you know what to do. And I can do one thing that will help. One thing . . . I can do something that matters, too.”

The girl eased back, staring at Taige with eyes that burned.

And the courage in her young eyes was enough to lay Taige low.

*   *   *

I
T
was a good thing Cullen Morgan knew how to look before he swung, because the door opened to reveal Desiree . . . not Taylor. He smiled.

She didn’t smile back.

Maybe she saw something of what he felt on his face. Wouldn’t have surprised him. Keeping his smile firmly in place, he asked casually, “Can I come in?”

“Well, I’d say no, but then Taylor would just change my mind for me,” she drawled, stepping aside. “I don’t see any point in delaying the inevitable anyway.”

He arched a brow as he came through the doorway. Taylor was coming out of a sitting area to the right. Cullen stopped, still smiling his pleasant little
Hey, I mean no harm
smile.

Taylor didn’t look fooled. “I take it you and Jillian finally talked.”

“Oh. For hours.” Cullen watched from the corner of his eye as Dez disappeared through a door. “Speaking of talks . . . you had one with my wife . . . at our wedding. Recall
that
talk?”

Taylor grimaced, touched his throat. Cullen had found out after the talk quite some time later . . . the
talk
had mostly been on Taige’s part—she’d used her gift to all but choke Taylor after the man had been poking at Jillian too much. With a telepathic child, all it took was
loud
thinking. And Jillian was very, very receptive. “I recall something along those lines, yes.”

“You were told you weren’t recruiting her, as well. Recall that?”

“Yes.” Taylor inclined his head.

“Good.”

Five seconds later, Cullen was standing over the cocky, arrogant son of a bitch, his hand hurting like hell, and there was blood trickling from a cut on Taylor’s mouth.

To Cullen’s mind, it wasn’t enough blood. And Taylor didn’t look anywhere near scared as he got to his feet. His gaze was still blank, his face was still blank—the way he looked, he could have been out playing golf. He sure as hell didn’t look like somebody had just popped him one.

“You son of a bitch, you didn’t even try to move,” Cullen snarled.

“No.” Taylor stared at him, those cool blue eyes level and flat. “If I had a daughter, I’m pretty sure I’d feel the same as you.”

“You fucking bastard. You have no
idea
how I feel, how I
would
feel.”

“Cullen.”

“You know how I
feel
? You fucking robot, you
don’t
feel, that’s the problem,” he roared, ignoring the quiet voice coming from his left.

Taylor just stood there, hands at his sides, face blank. Cullen closed the distance between them, furious. Grabbing the man’s suit, he hauled him closer. “You too much of a pussy to fight me? You’ll drag kids into your world but you won’t face a man? Cowardly piece of shit.”

“Oh, now that’s it.” Two strong, slim hands pushed between them. Cullen wasn’t about to let go that easily.

“Back off,” he snarled.

And those cool, unfeeling blue eyes blazed with heat. Gently, Taylor nudged Dez off to the side. Not that she was in any mood to be nudged, but the man somehow managed it.

In a quiet, controlled voice, Taylor said, “You’re going to watch how you speak to my wife, or I’ll break you into so many pieces, they won’t have anything left to bury, you hear me?”

“Oh, now that’s all nice and sexy, Jones, but the wife can speak for herself.” Dez shoved between them once more. Her eyes hot with fury, she looked from Cullen to her husband. “And you better think again before you try to nudge me aside, buddy, because if you do it? You and me are going to box, you hear me?”

Taylor apparently didn’t. “You aren’t going to speak to her that way, Morgan.”

“Jones . . . you worry about him punching you. I’ll worry about how he speaks to me.” She wedged herself between and elbowed her husband in the gut until he moved back. Then she shoved against Cullen until he, too, fell back a step.

“Back off, Dez.”

“Don’t you go telling me to back off, Morgan. Not unless you want me to rearrange that pretty-boy face of yours, and trust me, right now I really want to do it,” she said, taking a step in his direction, her chin jerking up. “Oh, you’re an idiot, you know that? A first-class moron. He didn’t drag Jillian into shit, and if you know a damn thing about that daughter of yours, you could probably figure that out. She called
him
. He didn’t call her.”

“He’s using a
child
.”

“She’s not a child,” Dez said, shaking her head. “I know that hurts you and I’m sorry, but she hasn’t really been a
child
since the day she was kidnapped, and if you could let yourself admit it, you’d see the truth of it. You blind fool, what is she supposed to do—ignore the fact that she knows there are women out there . . . some of them as young as she is, being held prisoner? Girls that are going to be sold off to the highest bidder? Girls she can
help
? She’s got a nightmare trapped in her head. You want her to go crazy or something?”

“That’s enough, Dez.” Behind her, Taylor sighed heavily.

She swung her head around, glaring at her husband. “The hell it is. He wants to call you a coward, call you out for using his daughter, when that’s not what this is. She was brave enough to come to you, Jones. She’s got more courage than he does, for fuck’s sake.”

“It’s got nothing to do with courage,” Cullen growled. “And everything to do with protecting my
child
.”

“And how can you protect her from what’s haunting her?” Dez asked quietly. “Because I’ve got a good idea what she has trapped inside her head. You can’t chase those ghosts away. It’s not like it’s a monster hiding under her bed, for crying out loud. And it
sucks
, but you can’t fix this. You can’t. Neither can Taige. Hell, if you’d taken five seconds to ask Taige, she probably would have
told
you that.”

“Leave Taige out of this,” Cullen rasped.

Spinning away, he covered his face with his hands.
Some of them as young as she is . . . being held prisoner
 . . .

Daddy . . . I can’t ignore this . . .

She’d whispered that to him. On the plane, as they flew in from Alabama. He’d come, mostly because he’d wanted to hit Taylor and convince the son of a bitch to stay away from his daughter. From his little girl. Because he’d thought he could protect her . . .

They need me, Daddy . . .

“What exactly are you expecting her to do?” he demanded. “Jilly’s just a kid.”

SEVEN

N
O,
there hadn’t been any information in that forest of paper and file folders and pictures, but he’d picked up a few stray images from Dez’s brain.

A warehouse.

So Joss had left and was driving around.

Following his gut, he found himself in an area of town he doubted many tourists ever went. It was on the outskirts and he suspected it had seen better days. The warehouse had a For Sale sign on the side, but it had so much graffiti covering it, the only letters he could really make out were part of the
F
and the
L and E
.

Nothing back at the hotel had jumped out at him . . . except the images Dez had tried to keep trapped inside her brain.

They’d made his skin burn.

Made it hurt.

And it was even worse now.

There was death here.

He didn’t know how long ago it had happened, but people had died here and it tarnished the air, a vicious black stain that would never fully fade.

It was fucking cold, too. The lingering echo of those trapped here. Which was why the place was so heavily imprinted on Dez’s brain, why he’d followed the trail to it so easily. Probably all but infested with ghosts.

He couldn’t see them but he felt that eerie echo . . . heard it. Like somebody was whispering just behind him, but it went silent every time he turned around.

Circling around the warehouse, he came to a stop when he caught a glimpse of the moon glinting off the water somewhere in the distance.

It was one of the numerous lakes. No telling which one . . . He’d have to dig out a map just to figure it out. But for some reason, standing there and staring at it hit him like a fist.

A pang of deep, gripping sorrow. Joss could feel his damn throat closing up on him as the wave of grief struck him.

Cold danced along his skin. It was almost the way it hit him when he was picking up a ghost—except he had to have the right gift for that. He didn’t have the ability to see them right now. Sense them, maybe, but this . . . this was different.

Pain swelled inside him, stealing away the ability to breathe, to see, to think.

And still, Joss didn’t know what this was. What he was feeling. Under the weight of the grief, his shields trembled, shuddered.

The grief pressed closer. Weighed in heavier.

And he thought he heard the faintest echo of a sob. A woman’s sob—

Amelie—

Just thinking her name was like a crushing weight had been dropped on his heart, and he slumped, almost went to the ground. The sound of crying grew louder and louder . . .

And then, the loud, raucous blast of his phone sliced through the night, shattering whatever it was that gripped him.

*   *   *

T
HE
drive back to the hotel, thanks to traffic, took a good forty minutes, and Joss relished every single second of it. It had been Jones on the phone. The other psychic had arrived.

It was time for Joss to get his mind-fuck on.

Yippie ki-yay. Now if he could have stalled for another two hours. Gotten smashed. Yeah, shit-faced drunk might make this easier to get through, he thought as he stepped off the elevator.

The tension slammed into him, a brutal, double-fisted punch. All around, he could pick up on other thoughts and they were
everywhere
, but none were as chaotic as those coming from Taylor Jones’s room.

It wasn’t
thoughts
, either.

Wasn’t just tension . . . anger. Chaos. Fear. Worry. Regret. An ugly miasma that he didn’t even want to step into, but he had no choice.

Who in the hell had Taylor found to . . .

The door opened and he found himself face-to-face with a child.

“What the fuc . . .”

He bit his tongue to try and hold the cuss word back, tasted blood.

She smiled at him. Black curls fell in crazy corkscrews and spirals all over the place. Her eyes, a bright and vivid blue, practically glowed as she smiled at him.

She was a pretty kid. A memorable one, especially considering the wallop of the power he could feel coming from her.

“Hi, Joss!” She grinned at him, a smile that displayed a set of braces with purple rubber bands that matched the purple sweater she wore.

He’d never met that kid before in his life.

*   *   *

“Y
OU’RE
fu . . . shi . . .” Joss almost choked to keep from swearing in front of her—
again
. Judging by the look on the kid’s face, she knew exactly what he was thinking . . . she knew. She was amused. She wanted to laugh.

Ha, ha, kid. So glad I amuse you
, he thought sourly, looking away from her and glaring at Jones. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said.

Jones just stared back at him.

“You’re kidding,” Joss said, his voice getting rougher. Shoving back from the table, he stood up and stared at the girl, unable to believe he had to sync his mind to a
child’s
.

“You ever known me to have that much of a sense of humor, Crawford?”

Joss wanted to swear. No, what he really wanted to do was hit something, and then head out of there, find a bar, and have a few drinks. Instead, he continued to stare at the girl.

She was strong. He could feel the buzz of her in his mind, even through his shields. Strong, hell. That was kind of like calling a Category 5 hurricane
strong
. The power he sensed in her was devastating. But was she
controlled
? They hadn’t even started scraping at the surface of what he was supposed to be getting into, but anything that involved human trafficking was dangerous. He didn’t really want to get involved in that sort of shit when he had an uncontrolled gift—

“I’ve got more control than
you
do,” she said, wrinkling her nose at him.

Crossing his arms over his chest, he cocked a brow at her. “Yeah? Then you oughta know you shouldn’t go poking your fingers into my brain without asking me.”

“I can’t help that you think
loud
.”

“I
don’t
think loud,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

“You aren’t thinking quiet enough for me.” She didn’t look bothered by the glare.

It was a glare that normally made people back up about ten paces. She was either too young to have developed that common sense or she’d already figured out the basics of Joss Crawford—he was a mean-ass bastard, but certain groups were safe from him. Namely animals and small kids. They were about the only groups that were off his list.

“Jilly.”

The girl looked away and Joss felt a pressure he hadn’t even been aware of lift off his mind. Then, the girl looked sheepish, a red flush creeping up her neck as she stared at whoever had said her name.

Turning his head, Joss found himself staring at a ghost.

Taige
 . . .

“I’ll be a motherfucker.”

She slanted a narrow look at him, rueful humor glinting in her gray eyes. He grimaced and looked at the kid. “Um, sorry.”

The girl giggled.

Taige sighed and shook her head. “Long time, no see, huh, Crawford?” Then she looked back at the girl. “Jilly, sweets, you know that
everybody
sounds loud for you at first. Give him a break and work a little harder at blocking him out, okay?”

Jillian—

Taige—

Pieces of the puzzle started to click together, and he glanced around. Taige was married. Had a stepdaughter. Weird job a few years back—the kid had been gifted . . . shit, he hadn’t realized the girl was
that
gifted. The kid’s dad was a rich son of a bitch, if Joss recalled correctly.

Absently, he glanced around the room, although he didn’t really expect to see anybody. He would have felt another person . . . except, he hadn’t. There was a sixth person in the room. A man, about his age.

Joss hadn’t sensed him at all.

Instinctively, he tensed, because the guy was almost a void. A blank.

“Not many people can read him,” Jillian said.

He looked at the kid. She smiled at him, and there was something smug, yet . . . oddly endearing . . . about that smile. “He’s my dad.”

Sighing, he looked at Taige. They’d worked together a few times, and he knew she’d hear him. Hoping the
kid
wouldn’t, he pushed his thoughts to her.
Just how strong is she?

Taige stared at him.
Stronger than everybody in here, combined
.

Something that just might have been apprehension settled in Joss’s gut as he looked back at the girl. A Category 5 storm, indeed. “How good is your control? Really?”

She glanced at the table, then at Dez for a long minute before looking at him. “Well, there’s really only one way to find out, right?”

*   *   *

“C
ULLEN,
come on.” Taige laid a hand on his arm, ignoring everybody else. Taylor had already left. Joss was sitting at the table, slumped in a chair, looking half-asleep. Dez was sitting next to him, and Jilly was in the chair across from hers, sketching.

“Why can’t we be in here?”

Taige sighed. “If I’m in here, it’s going to interfere with what they are doing. And if you’re in here, it’s going to be a distraction—one they don’t need. Joss knows what he’s doing.”

“
I
don’t.” He stared at the table, where his daughter sat with her head bent over the sketchpad. “Taige, what in the hell is going on?”

“This is how she helps.” Taige held out a hand. “Do you trust me?”

Eyes the color of the ocean stared into hers. Then he looked back at their daughter.

“Baby . . . I love her. She’s my heart, and you know it. Would I
ever
do anything to hurt her?” Taige asked. If he didn’t know the answer to that, she thought it just might shatter something inside her. But then, the ache that had been starting to settle eased as he placed his hand in hers. God. Thank God.

As he followed her out into the hallway, Jillian looked up from her sketchbook, a sad look in her eyes.

“What’s going on?” Cullen asked once the door shut.

Taige sighed. She’d known he wasn’t just operating on blind faith. She didn’t blame him. She was a parent. She hadn’t given birth to Jillian, but that didn’t matter. She was that girl’s mother. If she had been in Cullen’s shoes, not knowing a damn thing about Joss, or what would happen . . .

“Joss is what Jones has classified as a mirror,” she said, glancing over to see the head of the FBI’s psychic task force—one that
technically
didn’t exist—leaning against the wall, his iPhone in hand, looking like he wasn’t aware of anything going on but what he was staring at on the screen.

She knew better.

“A mirror.”

“Yeah.” She reached up to gather her hair into a tail, smoothing the riotous curls back until they were somewhat manageable. It had been a crazy, tiring day. If she’d known this shit was coming, she’d have had the mess put into braids or something a few days ago. “His gift is . . . well. Weird. He doesn’t
have
a set one; what he does is mirror ours. They call it synching. He syncs to another psychic—or in this case, two—and he can pick up on their gifts. When he’s done in there, he’ll have all of Dez’s abilities and all of Jilly’s as well.”

It boggled her mind even thinking about it. Jillian, alone, had too much in her head. Taige didn’t know how the girl handled it and stayed
sane
. How was he going to handle Dez’s ghosts on top of that?

“All?” Cullen said, his lids flickering. That was the only reaction he gave.

“All.”

“And how long does it last?”

“Until he hooks up with another psychic—does another sync. It . . .” She frowned, glanced at Jones.

“Reboots. It’s a reboot. Wipes the previous gift, or gifts, from his system and he’s imprinted with the next gift.” Jones looked up, his eyes unreadable.

“Wow. He sounds like a fucking useful workhorse,” Cullen said, curling his lip.

“Indeed.” Taylor inclined his head, his face impassive.

Asshole.
He should have pummeled him a little harder. So what if he wasn’t fighting back?

“And what effect will this have on Jillian?”

Taige lifted a brow, a cool look entering her eyes. “Absolutely none.”

He stared at her.

She turned away. “I’ve worked with Crawford before. It was years ago when he was still newer at what he does, but he takes a gift in, and although it does a number on him, I didn’t feel a blessed thing. You should know better than to think I’d let her do anything that would hurt her. In any way.”

Cullen went to touch her shoulder, but she was already striding down the hall.

As she passed by Taylor, he touched her arm.

Cullen bit back a snarl as Taylor and Taige shared a long look before she pulled away and continued down the hall.

“Taige,” Cullen said.

“I’ll be back before they are done,” she said over her shoulder. “I need a few minutes.”

“Damn it, Taige.”

But she just kept on walking.

*   *   *

D
EZ’S
gift, Joss had dealt with before. He’d been imprinted with it and he’d done just fine. Didn’t like it, but the good news was, once he synced with somebody else, all her ghosts went away. He might pick up on those faint echoes, the way he had at the cemetery, the way he had at the warehouse, nothing major.

It was nothing like what Dez had to live with, though.

But he thought he’d rather have Dez’s gift, any day of the week, than live with what this kid had inside her all the time.

Endless whispers. Echoes of forgotten pain. Glimpses of forgotten pasts and yet-to-be-seen futures. All of it, she had all of that inside her head.

Where in the hell did she have room for her own thoughts?

As the weight of it all slammed into him, stretching his brain to the very limit,
he
was stretched as well; he fought to control his breathing, fought to control his heart rate, his fear.

And
her
fear.

Her terror was a living, breathing beast in his belly, a dragon growing in size that threatened to swallow him whole.

Meditation got him through these things, always, but it wasn’t doing him much good right now and he was clinging to consciousness by the skin of his teeth and it
still
wasn’t done.