The Missing

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

    Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

    This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
    Copyright © 2008 by Shiloh Walker, Inc.

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. BERKLEY SENSATION and the “B” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

    PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition / November 2008
    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
    Walker, Shiloh.
The missing / Shiloh Walker.—Berkley Sensation trade pbk. ed.
p. cm.
    eISBN : 978-1-440-60827-8
    1. Kidnapping—Fiction. 2. Women—Psychic ability—Fiction. I. Title. PS3623. A35958M57 2008 813′ .6—dc22 2008030845
    http://us.penguingroup.com

To my husband and kids . . . always. I love you.

    To my readers, with all my thanks.
    And to Sherry-Sherry, it’s not exactly blue.
Do you remember?

PART ONE

ONE

    Summer 1992

    “SHE’S a local.”

    Cullen Morgan glanced toward Kip Wallace. Kip—who in the hell wanted to be called Kip? Then he shifted his attention back to her. Damn. She was something else. He’d seen her from a distance over the past three days, and she looked every bit as perfect up close as she did from far off. Her skin gleamed a warm, mellow gold, but judging by the thick curls and the exotic slant of her eyes, Cullen had a feeling the glowing color didn’t come from days spent on a beach slathering her skin with suntan oil. Although that was a picture.

    She passed by him, and he smiled at her, but she never once looked in his direction. He continued to watch her as she walked down the beach. Her butt looked just about perfect in the cutoffs she wore. She wore a swimsuit, faded and serviceable, and Cullen decided that plain tank suit looked better on her than the bikinis he’d seen on more than half of the girls since he’d arrived at the Dunes.

    The resort was nestled on a pristine stretch of white sand just a little west of the Florida-Alabama state line. Half of his friends were spending the summer in Cancun or in Europe, but Cullen’s parents were on a “togetherness” kick. They wanted a nice family vacation, so for the next two months they were staying in a little condo on the beach.

    Wasn’t too bad. He had to do something with his parents two or three nights a week, and once a week his dad insisted he go fishing with him, but there were worse ways to spend the summer. Although if he didn’t have to deal with guys like Kip, he’d enjoy it more. Cullen’s parents had money, but it was a fairly recent thing. His dad was an accountant who’d made a couple of smart buys in the stock market, and he had a knack for turning ten dollars into a hundred. By the time Cullen was twelve, his parents had taken him out of public schools and sent him to private ones. Their summer vacations went from long weekends in Gatlinburg to month-long trips to England or an Alaskan cruise. Now his parents were talking