The Missing

the bathroom. Whatever had happened in there, she wasn’t going to let herself see just yet. But the main room, she would look there.

    Look for traces of the monster who’d done this.

    “ARE you ever going to learn to listen?”

    “I don’t work for you, remember?” Taige said as she glanced up from her focused study of the floorboards and wished she had some tools: a crowbar, a shovel, something. There was something under the floor of this house, and considering how edgy she was, considering the voices that continued to scream at her, she suspected she knew what it was.

    Bodies. How many, she had no clue, but their cries were a dull roar inside her head, and she had long since stopped trying to differentiate between individual voices. She tapped on one of the floorboards with the butt of her gun and said, “There’s something under here. I think he buried their bodies.”

    “Their?” Jones asked from the doorway, his bland, professional face falling away for a minute and letting her see some semblance of humanity. “Whose?”

    Shaking her head, she murmured, “I don’t know. But there are a lot of them. She wasn’t his first, Jones. Not by a long shot.”

    Shoving to her feet, she glanced around the plain, Spartan cabin. “There’s no sign of the owner here. No vehicle when we got here, no personal belongings—no imprints. I can’t sense anything from him. It’s almost like he doesn’t even exist.”

    “You can’t see his face?”

    Taige shook her head. “No. A glimpse of his hands, but there was nothing there to identify him beyond the fact that he’s male. Even his voice doesn’t sound real to me. It’s too ugly, too distorted.”

    Taylor scowled and stood aside, letting his team come in. The team that had arrived on the helicopter had been ordered to wait until he arrived now that they knew the girl was safe. Jones gestured to the floor and said, “Ms. Branch thinks there is something under the floorboards. See if there’s a crawl space or something for now. Let’s get to work. Ms. Branch, if you don’t mind . . .”

    He gestured to the open door. He said nothing else, but she got the picture loud and clear. Oooohhh . . . he was pissed. Smirking, she headed for the door. “What, can’t I stay and play with the big kids, Daddy?”

    “The big kids work for me, remember? You don’t.” He parroted her own words back at her as he followed her outside. Once they were on the porch, he said, “Fill me in, Taige. And don’t bother telling me that this wasn’t a Bureau case. The only reason you got here with him instead of with us is because he slipped away from his tail.”

    In a mockingly respectful tone, she replied, “Then maybe you should train your men better, boss.” Taige wrapped her arms around her belly and wished there was someplace she could sit down. She was damn tired, and her legs felt like wax. “Cullen Morgan is a private citizen with no training. If he can evade your agents, then you have a problem.”

    Jones’s eyes narrowed, and if Taige were actually an official part of his team, she just might have gotten a little nervous. He gave agents that look, and demotions came rolling along like a river. But she wasn’t part of his team, she wouldn’t ever be part of his team, and the most he could do was not send her any more cases.

    Which would suit her just fine.

    Taige wasn’t naive enough to actually think that would happen, though. She’d been trying to get him to fire her for the past five years—longer. Hadn’t happened yet, and she was under no illusions to think that might change any time soon.

    She waited for him to press the issue, but instead, he went off on another tangent. “I believe the two of you had some history.”

    Taige shrugged. “Long time ago. Had nothing to do with this beyond the fact that he suspected I could help. I haven’t seen him in years.”

    “Are you familiar with his daughter?”

    Rolling her eyes, Taige said, “Now didn’t I just say I hadn’t seen him in years? I didn’t even know he had a daughter. How can I be familiar with her?”

    Jones didn’t look terribly convinced. “So you don’t know anything about her abilities?”

    She didn’t bat a lash as she lied, “Nope.”

    Taige knew that nothing on her face had given her away, but she also knew that he hadn’t believed a word she’d said, either. It didn’t matter. She didn’t care if he believed her or not, and in another few