The Missing

by Shiloh Walker

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.

  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.”

  “Hmmm.” Taige didn’t bother asking again. Instead, she reached out and grabbed Penny’s wrist. Pushing her way inside a person’s mind left a bad taste in Taige’s mouth. She wasn’t a mind reader, and she was damn thankful of that. A person’s thoughts were private, and they should remain that way.

  Using her gift like this left her feeling dirty and upset, because it was wrong. It wasn’t something she had to do much, thank God. Usually, she followed psychic imprints left in the environment. But while she couldn’t read minds, she could read imprints; fresh imprints were even clearer than a person’s thoughts, and what she picked up from Penny was as clear and detailed as a blueprint.

  Narrowing her eyes, Taige stared at Penny’s face.

  “He’s at your house.”

  Penny gasped and jerked against Taige’s hold, struggling to break free. “At your house—with your granddaughter.”

  Behind her, Cullen snarled, “Son of a bitch.”

  Sick, Taige let go of Penny’s hand, and the woman folded her hands at her waist and gave Taige a pious smile. “Really, Taige. What kind of a language is that? No good, God-fearing soul speaks that way.”

  “No good, God-fearing soul lets a man like my uncle put his hands on a child,” Taige said, her gut churning.

  But Penny just smiled. “The girl has the devil inside her. Just like her mama. Just like you. I failed with my daughter, just like Leon failed with you. We’re both stronger now. We’ll save my grandchild.”

  There was another part of Taige’s ability that really made her uncomfortable. Using it to cause physical harm left her riddled with guilt. But she doubted it would be much of an issue this time. She slammed into Penny’s mind with all the strength she had in her, and when the woman collapsed to the ground, silent, Taige smiled in satisfaction.

  She didn’t have a chance too often to use her handcuffs, but she still carried them, just like she carried the Bureau ID and just like she carried the Glock. And she was just as competent with the cuffs as she was with the gun, crouching down beside Penny’s unconscious body. “Help me sit her up,” she said to Cullen. He braced Penny’s body, while Taige cuffed her with her arms behind her back, looping them around the leg of the breakfast bar.

  Taige didn’t know how long Penny would be out. That little gift was unpredictable, and it wasn’t one she practiced much. It wasn’t one she could practice much, unless somebody volunteered to get psychically sucker punched. It could last a couple hours, a couple days, or, if Penny’s will was really strong, a matter of minutes.

  Thus the cuffs. It wouldn’t do to have Penny wake up and call Leon, alerting him to the fact that Taige and Cullen were coming for him. “Can you check her purse, see if she’s got a license or something? We need to find her house.”

  ELEVEN

  IT was an older house, one that had withstood hurricanes, floods, and time. It sat by itself on a piece of land, and Taige’s gut churned with nerves as they approached. Training had kicked in, making her think. They had to approach on foot. If Leon heard them coming, he could do God only knew what to the poor kid he had with him.

  There was a chance that he’d know they were coming anyway, and not because of some warning from his Looney Tunes assistant, but because he’d sense Taige, the same way she could sense him. Hopefully, all the years of training and honing her gift would give her the advantage. She concentrated on muffling her presence, muffling Cullen’s. Cullen’s natural resistance to psychic energy was once more going to work in her favor. The anger inside him would normally alert any and every psychic within a mile range or more that he was coming, but his resistance muffled his emotions and his thoughts.

  Combined with Taige’s efforts, she thought they probably had him pretty much shut down.

  Still, it was risky going in like this. The team was coming. On the drive over, Taige’s phone had started to vibrate, and she read the message on the display. The team was en route with an ETA of thirty minutes. Jones must have had them on standby—hell, he had probably been following her with the damn GPS for days.

  It wouldn’t surprise her at all, and right now, she wasn’t even that irritated by it.

  The team would come in handy. Even if he managed to get past Taige and Cullen, there was no way Leon could evade some of Jones’s psychic bloodhounds. He had a couple of psychics working for him who made Taige’s abilities look like some hokey Gypsy fortune-teller at a county fair.

  They kept to the tree line, and Taige thanked God that it had been getting late when they got back to Gulf Shores. Now it was full night, and they had the cover of darkness to help conceal them as they c
rossed the empty, exposed field between the trees and the old farmhouse.