The Missing

something was going to happen to her, Cullen. Did you know?”

    “She didn’t know!” Cullen shouted, shoving back from the chair. But then he looked down at the sketch pad and wondered if he knew what he was talking about. It was there, plain as day, sketched out with the talented strokes of Jillian’s charcoal pencil. “Oh, God.” The strength drained out of him, and he sank back down into his chair, covering his face with his hands and trying not to puke.

    She’d known. Somehow, some part of her had known, but Cullen hadn’t recognized it for the warning it had been. “You all found this the day she disappeared?” he asked, his voice rusty.

    “My agents were here with your father. They found it on her bed. She left it there, almost like she knew they needed to see it.”

    Cullen shook his head. “I don’t understand. I don’t get it.”

    Jones’s gaze fell away, and that polished, cool veneer left his face for just a second, letting Cullen see the man under the mask. “We’ve been working on identifying the bodies that were buried under the cabin where Taige Branch found Jillian,” Jones said softly. He pulled yet another piece of paper from his briefcase, but this one he didn’t offer to Cullen. “There are more than twenty bodies buried under there, and just about all of them are children or young teens. The first positive match came back yesterday.”

    Jones looked up and met Cullen’s eyes as he laid the page down on the table and pushed it toward Cullen. Almost afraid to look, Cullen shifted his gaze downward.

    Leslie King.

    Most of the jargon on the report was too medical in nature for Cullen to follow, but he saw one thing clearly enough: bones found at the crime scene in Otisco, Alabama, were positively confirmed as the remains of Leslie King, a child missing now for more than thirty years. It had been confirmed through DNA.

    “Shit.”

    Jones grimaced. “That was my first thought as well.”

    TAIGE read the report and looked up at Jones with unreadable eyes. “So why am I hearing this? You never officially put me on the case.”

    With that neutral, polite smile, Jones said, “Taige, you put yourself on the case all on your own.” He laid three other reports out. They were preliminaries as well, and staring at the names revealed nothing to Taige. She might as well have been reading a list of names out of the phone book.

    But he wouldn’t be here just to update her on the case. He would have done that on the phone or not bothered. Taking a deep breath, Taige reached out and touched one of the pictures that Jones had placed facedown.

    She didn’t even have to flip it over. It jolted down her back, and she hissed. Her instinct was to jerk her hand back and cradle it against her chest. It was almost like she’d touched a hot stove. Pain streaked through her, but instead of pulling back, she flipped the picture over and found herself staring at a young, dark face. He had a mischievous smile. Even as the pain swarmed her system, she was more aware of that smile than anything else.

    At least until she heard his scream.

    This time, the gray didn’t come and wrap her gently in its embrace. It was a violent possession, and she knew she’d be ill when it was over. But she was powerless to fight it, and she knew why Jones had brought the pictures instead of calling her. He’d been hoping for this.

    She fell into the boy’s head like a stone falls into water. Taige’s physical connection to herself grew weak, replaced by the one forged between herself and the boy. He lay on the floor, screaming and crying, begging for his mama. There was a man, but his face was distorted. Whether through fear or a child’s eyes, she didn’t know, but there was no way she would learn anything about the man that would help identify him.

    Pain streaked through her back as something struck her. The initial blow didn’t hurt so much; it was the fiery pain that came after. Even as lost inside the boy as she was, Taige knew what was happening. Somebody was beating him, not with their hands, but with a belt. A leather one, with a metal buckle. She had a few faint scars from the times when she’d been similarly whipped, and in the small part of her that was still cognizant, she didn’t know what she wanted more: to weep or to tear into something with her bare hands.

    Not something. Someone. Some ominous, faceless man who beat a small boy with a fury. And it was fury. It wasn’t some