The Missing

closed around her left arm, and a concerned voice said, “Ma’am, are you okay?”

    All conscious thought fled. She lifted her gaze and stared at the stranger without seeing his face. The gray dropped down on her like a lead weight, and she could feel it pressing on her, crushing her. Only Cullen’s hand on her right arm and the stranger’s on her left kept her from hitting the ground.

    She saw faces.

    Dozens of faces flashed before her eyes. Grief-stricken parents, lost children, infuriated, frustrated law enforcement officials. Their thoughts formed a collective voice, and it echoed inside her mind in a refrain: Why?

    There was another question, just as loud, and it was one that Taige had asked more than once. Who? Until that moment, the answer had been unknown. But now there was a flicker of knowledge.

    Elusive, it danced away before she could fully understand it. Reflexively, she reached up, grabbed hold of the stranger standing in front of her. The connection—it had come from him. Tenuous at best, and if she faltered for just a second, it would slip away again. Instinct almost had her forcing her way inside the man’s thoughts, and she just barely managed to restrain herself, seeking instead to deepen that surface connection.

    This isn’t happening.

    But it was. There was no denying it. From the corner of her eye, she could see the man who’d unknowingly brought this on. He was a paramedic, about her age, about her height, and when he’d been a kid, he’d lost his older sister. The girl had been in that stage where adolescence gave way to adulthood. They’d looked a lot alike.

    The killer had seen the brother, seen him—and remembered the sister. Remembered killing her. The killer had relived those memories with a passion so intense it had left an imprint, like pressing his hand into fresh cement. And the cement, in this case, was the medic.

    Son of a bitch. He’d wiped all traces of himself clean, then he’d run into this man who bore such a strong resemblance to one of his victims. This man didn’t even realize he’d met his sister’s killer, however briefly. And the killer probably didn’t realize he’d left such a strong imprint, either.

    The little memory flashes, the psychic imprints worked to fall into place within her mind. All the answers danced just below the surface, moving closer and closer, shifting, realigning, until the answer was there.

    All but glaring at her. Taige moaned and sagged to her knees, jerking away from the two men trying to keep her upright. Tears burned in her eyes, and she buried her face in her hands. Warm hands came up and cupped her shoulders. Without looking, she knew who it was: Cullen. He knelt behind her, sliding his arms around her waist and pulling her back against him as her mind fought to accept the knowledge before her.

    Cullen’s warmth, his strength, surrounded her as she knelt on the ground and fought not to be sick. Fought not to cry. If she started, she wouldn’t stop for a good long while. There’d be time for tears later. But not now.

    Now she had to go. Had to find him and see if she’d really seen what she thought she’d seen.

    Reaching up, she covered one of Cullen’s hands with hers. “We need to go.”

    One hand smoothed across her shoulder to cup over her neck. “What’s going on, Taige? Where are we going?”

    “Back home. He’s there.”

    TAIGE wouldn’t speak to him.

    It was damned eerie having her sitting in the car with him right then, because she seemed more dead than alive. Her skin had a grayish cast, her mouth had a tight, pinched look to it, and she gazed out the windshield with an unblinking stare. Cullen doubted she saw anything, not the scenery whipping by and not the cars they passed as they sped south down the I-65.

    For the first hour, he’d tried to talking to her, but she hadn’t answered anything he’d asked. She wouldn’t speak at all. He shot the clock on the dashboard a glance. The damn thing hadn’t ever moved so slow. He was driving nearly ninety miles an hour. On occasion, a snarl in the traffic had him pulling out on the shoulder to drive, and he only hoped that if they got pulled over, Taige’s Bureau ID would get them out of trouble. Assuming she could focus enough.

    The miles seemed to drag by, even though he was driving so fast the scenery sped by at a blur. Finally, he saw the exit he needed for Highway 59, and he took it at sixty-five miles an hour. The two-lane