The Missing

inside it, her bottled water, the book she’d been trying to read, her sunglasses. But Cullen was still sitting on the beach blanket, and she didn’t want to wait for him to get up, so she just left it. “I’ve got to get home.”

    “Hey . . .”

    She strode away, sand flying beneath her feet. The sand muffled the sound of his footsteps until he was right behind her. Before he could touch her, she turned around and stared at him. She lifted her chin insolently and demanded, “What?”

    “I didn’t mean . . . I’m . . .” Cullen seemed to fumble for the words. He reached up, scratched his head, squinted at her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry or piss you off or whatever got you so mad.”

    She wasn’t mad. She was humiliated. She tucked her chin against her chest and turned away. “It’s no big deal. I just got to get home.”

    “Why?” he asked bluntly.

    Taige glanced up at him. “Because I want to?”

    “If he really hates you, why would you want to go home?” And to that, Taige really didn’t have an answer. She stood there with a scowl on her face. He reached out and caught her bag. She tried to hold on to the straps for a few seconds, but he wasn’t letting go, either, and she wasn’t going to stand there and fight him over who got to carry it. Then he held out his other hand, wordlessly.

    Slowly, Taige put her hand in his, and he led her away. It never even occurred to her to ask him where they were going. Taige didn’t care.

    It was probably the most perfect night she could ever remember having. Or at least the most perfect night in years. They went into town, and they rode go-carts. They played in the arcade. They ate pizza and ice cream. And when he took her home, well past dark, he walked her to the door, and before he left her on the porch, he dipped his head to kiss her.

    Light and fast, just a butterfly touch. As he straightened up, Taige felt blood rush to her cheeks. She would have been more embarrassed, except she realized he was blushing a little, too.

    He walked off, and Taige turned around with a happy sigh. That lingering happy feeling stayed with her even as she opened the door and walked inside to hear one of her uncle’s recorded sermons booming from the living room. It stayed with her even as she showered and well into the night.

TWO

    Summer 1994

    “ I T happened again, didn’t it?”

    Taige stiffened involuntarily, only to relax when Cullen reached up, his hands resting on her shoulders as his thumbs dug into the knotted muscles of her neck. “What happened?” she said, hoping she could play dumb. She hated for him to know about her issues. She hated for him to know that she was such a damn freak.

    “Don’t give me that.” His hands tightened just a little, and she suspected he would have liked to shake her. He didn’t, though. Cullen never touched her like that. “I hate it when you lie to me.”

    “I’m not lying,” Taige hedged.

    “The hell you aren’t. You know what I’m talking about. You had another one of those weird dreams.”

    Cullen had found out about her dreams last summer. He’d been there with her late one night out on the beach when she fell asleep. She’d woken up choking for air. It had come on her hard and fast, and she had no time to worry about Cullen as she ran for the pool. It was past midnight, and the pools were closed, but it hadn’t kept the curious five-year-old from climbing over the gate so he could go swimming. His parents hadn’t even heard him leave, and that late, nobody had seen the little boy walking down the hallway all by himself.

    She hadn’t been able to hide it from Cullen any longer when the paper ran the story the next day on the front page, along with a headline, “Local Psychic Saves Another Child.” It had listed several of the other times when she had either helped save some kid from drowning or found them when they wandered off and got lost. Worse, it had listed some of the more grisly things that Taige would rather nobody know. The times when she found the bodies of murder victims, three different times, three people she hadn’t been able to help. Those were the ones that really made her feel like a useless freak.

    After he found out, Taige had been ready for him to either laugh at her or just walk away, although they’d spent most of that summer together. But he hadn’t walked off. He hadn’t laughed. And when he showed up at her house the next day, he’d walked in