The Missing

the bridge of his nose. As much a bastard as he was, Taige knew he believed in his job, and she had a feeling the little girl’s big blue eyes were bothering him as much as they bothered her. Touching that girl’s file, she had felt nothing. Staring at the girl’s picture, she’d felt nothing but a familiar sense of grief and guilt.

    Another child she wouldn’t be able to save. She knew, somewhere inside, that she wasn’t meant to save this one—this girl wasn’t hers—but even that knowledge didn’t help her guilt.

    Jones looked back down at the file in his hand and then back at her. “You’re tired,” he said after studying her face. “The last case was a bad one. Maybe if you get some rest today and try again tomorrow . . .”

    Taige shook her head. “It won’t do any good.” But she gestured toward the file. “Leave it if you want. I’ll try again, but it isn’t going to do any good. If you all find her, it won’t be because of me. I’m not going to get a thing.”

    That was how it worked for her. She’d long since come to accept it, and for the most part, she was even grateful for it. She knew people in the Bureau talked about her, had heard it said, “Branch doesn’t find dead ends. Just dead bodies.”

    Not always, thank God. But enough so that those lost lives had left a mark on her, each one adding to the mess of scars she carried in her heart. Sometimes she was amazed her heart still beat. If emotional scars left the same damage as physical scars, she would have died years ago.

    Jones threw the file on the coffee table, and Taige averted her eyes as one photo fell out. Staring at the girl’s face wouldn’t help anybody. As he headed for the door, she followed him. He opened the door and paused to look back at her, his practiced, semipolite mask back in place. “When can I count on you being ready to work?”

    She smirked at him. “You can’t. After all this time, you still seem to forget that I don’t really work for you, do I?” Then she shrugged and answered his question. “I need a few days at least. Maybe even longer. Four months is a long haul for me.”

    The skin around his eyes tightened, but he didn’t say anything, just nodded and left. He wasn’t her boss, but she did have a responsibility to the Bureau. Taige didn’t technically work for him; her official title was civilian consultant. Those responsibilities were something she never let herself forget, no matter how tired she got, no matter how bleak things became.

    She looked back at the table, and although she didn’t want to, she found herself staring at the picture of the girl’s smiling face. Things were looking especially bleak right now.

    ALTHOUGH Taige had told Jones it wouldn’t do any good, after lunch she made herself sit down and go through the girl’s file. Her name was Hannah Brewster. She was three years old, and she’d been at her sitter’s when her father showed up, assaulted the sitter, and then kidnapped the young girl. The sitter was still in ICU. One look at the extent of damage done to the twenty-year-old single mom, and Taige knew it was actually a miracle the young woman was still alive. Her own daughter had been at her dad’s for the weekend, and Taige couldn’t help but feel a little grateful for that. If the sitter’s daughter had been home, there might have been two kidnapping victims instead of one.

    She pored over the report, spent nearly thirty minutes staring at the file, willing herself to feel something. But there was nothing. When she connected with a case, it was instantaneous; sometimes she knew it was coming even before Jones contacted her. She’d feel a rush of adrenaline, and everything inside of her would seem to focus on the job.

    Sometimes all it took was a look at a picture or hearing the victim’s name, and it was like an invisible bridge formed between them, a road only Taige could see and follow. Other times, it was more complicated. Like Chicago. Chicago had been bad, but she had known it would be even before she accepted the job.

    “I’m sorry, Hannah,” she murmured. She touched her fingers to the girl’s face and hoped that Jones would have better luck with one of his other psychic bloodhounds. She wasn’t the only one, and she wasn’t even their best, she knew. But Taige had a talent with kids, so that was probably why he’d come to her first. But she wouldn’t be the only one he approached.

    Frustrated, she shoved all the