The Missing

back of her hand along surfaces so she could have physical contact without adding her prints to the mess. Everything would be dusted for prints, and if they found hers among them, they’d rip her a new tail. It had happened before.

    Physical contact could strengthen her gift, and all she really needed was just a faint link. Not much, just a little. She could get a memory flash off something a killer had touched months, years earlier.

    But there was nothing. After the first two hours when she went crawling across the floor on her one good hand and her knees, Jones had told her to take a break. She hadn’t. She kept going, searching for something that couldn’t be found, and she had no intention of quitting.

    It was midnight before she finally acknowledged what most of the team had accepted hours ago. Taige would find no trace of the kidnapper here. There might be trace physical evidence—and oh, did she mean trace. So far, they hadn’t even found an eye-lash.

    And there wasn’t even a sliver of a psychic trail.

    She sat on the porch, numb inside, as she watched the crime scene techs going over the yard. More teams would have to be brought in.

    She wouldn’t be on hand for those, though. She’d done her part, done what little she could. The visions had showed her precious little this time, but it was a damn good thing she waited, because once the gray sucked her under this time, it hadn’t wanted to let go. Jones probably hadn’t enjoyed using that Taser on her, but she also doubted that it would give him any bad moments. The man was relentless, pitiless, and driven.

    Still aching from the Taser jolt, Taige stood off to the side and watched as they pried up for the first floorboard. Taige had told Jones the harsh, ugly truth: there was a graveyard of bones under the floorboards of the main cabin. And she had no idea how many bodies.

    Right now, she didn’t want to even see the first one. Turning on her heel, she left the house and went out onto the porch. The air out there was cooler, just a bit, and the stink of death wasn’t so strong. But she didn’t dare relax. Worn out, she sank down on the front steps and braced her elbows on her knees.

    She was so damned tired.

    Breathe, girl. Just breathe. One breath in. One breath out. She might not be able to sleep, but if she tried hard enough, maybe she could zone out for just a minute or two. Except every time she drifted just a little closer to a mindless state of rest, the screams would start again.

    “You ever going to stop being the Lone Ranger?”

    Taige managed to smile as Desiree Lincoln settled down beside her. If Dez wasn’t such a sweetheart, Taige could have hated her on the spot. Dez bore a startling resemblance to Halle Berry, and she almost always had a smile on her face. She worked with Jones’s unit, and technically, she was considered part of the crime scene investigative team. But Jones didn’t work with typical agents, plain and simple. Dez’s particular skill wasn’t the kind that Taige would have taken for all the wine and chocolate in the world. Dez made a connection with victims who had already died, and that was why she was here now.

    Dez glanced at the house and murmured, “I hear they think they’re going to find some bones.”

    Grimacing, Taige said, “Not some. A lot.” Inside, she could hear them working. It would be hours yet before they were ready for Dez, hours away from finding all the bodies. But Dez always liked to be there from the first.

    If Taige was right, the bones beneath the floorboards of the cabin were going to take a long time to sort out. Jones probably hoped Dez would help shorten that time frame. She probably would. Dez, like all of the people Jones had grabbed for his secretive unit, was damn good with her abilities. More, she had an ethereal way about her; all the death she dealt with rarely seemed to faze her. Taige had once asked her how she could do what she did and still seem so at peace.

    Dez had told her it was because by the time the victims came to her, they were all way past suffering. Then she’d smiled and told Taige it was easier that way. At that point, she couldn’t do anything to add to their pain; therefore, she couldn’t fail them.

    In their line of work, failure meant people died.

    “Scoot your skinny butt over, Lone Ranger. Tell me what’s going on in there.”

    Obligingly, Taige scooted over enough so Dez could sit down, and when Dez wrapped an arm around