Priceless

was a softness to both sets of eyes that got under his skin, made him feel like a big bastard.
    With a sudden jerk, he threw the papers back on the table and let out a sharp gust of air. He never had trouble controlling his temper, but something about Adamson set him off, and she revelled in poking at him. Like it had become an Olympic Sport for her.
    He fingered the tracking device he’d brought home with him, thinking maybe he’d drive out past her place, but the thing had flicked off like it was wont to do. No amount of changing batteries, updating software, or switching out parts made a difference. He’d learned it would come back on line when it felt damn good and ready, and not a bloody second before.
    Reaching into the fridge, he pulled out a beer, paused and then put it back. Just in case he got a hit on the tracker.
    Sitting back at the table, he spread the file out, flipping through it a page at a time. The similarities in the cases Adamson managed to pull out of her hat on her own were more than a little suspicious. The kids would go missing without a trace, local law enforcement could do nothing, somehow the parents would track Adamson down, and they would pay her to find the kids. And on all the cases she’d been brought in on, she’d found the kids, though not always alive.
    And there was the rub. She had a better rate of success than any FBI agent, than the whole freaking agency! He slammed a fist onto the table and the tracking device lit up, blinking softly.
    Grabbing it, he smiled. She was heading south. This wasn’t the first time and the pattern was too obvious; someone in New Mexico was helping her, and it was time O’Shea met up with them both and had a chat with them.
    Grabbing his jacket and keys, he jogged out to his vehicle. The wind was picking up and it whistled through the alley alongside his house. With a couple of days off in a row, it was a good time for a road trip, and this way no one would be the wiser to his deviation from procedure.
    *-*-*-*
    The drive to New Mexico was uneventful. I sped like crazy, trying to catch time I didn’t have in the first place. I could feel India, feel her fear and confusion and, worse than that, her strength slipping away from her. Not like she was dying, but that her willpower was slowly being eaten away. Whoever had her was making a push to get her under their control. I couldn’t help but wonder if that was what happened to Berget. The two cases were too damn similar for my liking. The park, the time of day, the damn date—even down to the swing India had been on. The only difference I could see was Berget wasn’t a spirit seeker, which was what I thought India was. My hands were wet on the steering wheel from my sweat, as I continued to roll the two cases over in my mind. My lower back felt clammy, and I feared the worst. That this case would end the same way Berget’s had—in a death where I couldn’t even bring the body back to her parents for closure.
    I shook the thought away. No, I wouldn’t go there. Guilt rolled over me. I’d been so young, both in age and ability, that when Berget had been snatched, I didn’t know what I was doing. Still, I felt like it was my fault she was snatched, that I was somehow responsible for her going missing. It wasn’t hard for the detectives on the case to decide I was guilty, not when I tended to agree with them.
    “This time will be different,” I said, startling Alex out of a light doze. He cocked his head at me, then closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
    After what was etched into my bathroom mirror, I knew they, whoever they were, knew I was coming for her. They also knew all about Berget, so I had to be ready to face whatever they would throw my way. None of this was making me feel better, not one bit.
    Going as fast as I dared, only taking a short four hour nap when I could no longer keep my eyes open, I cut our driving time by an hour and a half, getting us into Roswell by four thirty in morning the next day. Or at least into the north side of the town.
    Despite the town’s reputation for UFO’s because of that one singular crash, there was actually very little supernatural activity in the area—unlike North Dakota, which had more than its fair share of the weird and the wild. There was only one place I would stay while in Roswell, and it was run by a very large ogre who wore a ring similar in make to Alex’s collar. In other words, he passed for human.
    The Landing Pad, an