The Missing

his murderous rage all too well, and she couldn’t blame him. She’d want to do the same thing, or worse, if she were in his place. Hell, she wasn’t even in his place, and she wanted to kill Leon.

    But Taige was also aware of the consequences of that. Dicey situation here. She couldn’t blame Cullen, or rob him of his need to avenge his daughter and protect her, but she also wasn’t about to let him do something that could end up with his ass in jail.

    He deserved better than that. Jillian deserved better.

    The sound of a door being busted off its hinges jerked her out of her reverie, and she looked up, staring at the front door. The door was half off its hinges, and the wood of the doorjamb was busted, little splinters and slivers of wood littering the pretty white tile inside the house and the wooden planks of the porch. Cullen glanced back at her and then pushed the door completely open. For a minute, they both stood there in the doorway, looking into the house.

    The walls were painted a soft, pale blue, almost soothing. The hardwood floors gleamed a mellow gold, and there was a pretty blue throw rug with an abstract, geometric pattern. That very first glance was of a well cared for, pretty new home. There was a big cross hanging on the wall at the end of the hall, painted a pristine white. Under it was a table, and there was a huge Bible on it that lay open.

    That sight bothered her, very deeply bothered her. As pretty and warm as the house looked, it stank with a miasma of death and pain. The sight of a holy book inside this house was so wrong. If she could bear touching something that Leon had touched, she’d grab the Bible and get it out of there.

    Instead, she looked away from it and stepped inside the house, scanning and cataloging every sight, every sound, every little memory flash. There were a damn lot of those. Too many. Some of them even dating back to his childhood. The entire house was stained with them, although he’d only lived there five years. This place, it might never be clean again.

    Three feet inside the doorway, the first memory flash assailed her: a girl, older than Jillian had been, but not quite on the cusp of womanhood, with big, pretty blue eyes and a sweet smile.

    The girl saw things. Heard things. Believed in ghosts. Her mother thought she had a devil inside her, and she’d brought the girl to Leon. That had been the beginning. It hadn’t happened here, but that girl, what he’d done to her, had left a mark on the man. She’d been his first, the first girl he’d tried to purify. The first girl he’d killed.

    The first girl he’d raped. He’d killed her because of that rape, told her that she’d bewitched him, tempted him beyond what he could bear, and that her punishment for those sins was to die.

    He hadn’t raped every child he’d kidnapped. Most of them, he had grabbed with only the intent to purify them of their unclean thoughts, of the demons that controlled them. Demons—that was how Leon explained away the gift. It was something from Satan, and he was only doing his duty as a man of God by destroying that demon. But destroying the demon, in Leon’s mind, required killing the infected soul.

    It had been his own gift that led Leon to his victims. He’d considered it a sign from God, that sure and certain knowledge, but it had been a gift. An affinity for picking out the gifted people from the ungifted. He’d known when Taige was sent to live with him that she’d been gifted—another flash. Another. Another. They hit her like gunfire, one right after the other. Nights when he had gone into Taige’s bedroom and stared at her while she slept, thought of killing her.

    “Why didn’t you?” she murmured, not even aware that she had spoken.

    She drifted through the house, looking more like a ghost than anything, Cullen thought as he watched her. There was something eerie about the way she moved, more like gliding than walking. In the office, she stopped in front of the desk and held out a hand over it, her palm hovering just an inch away. She flinched. A harsh breath hissed out from between her teeth. “He knows that I found Jillian. He wants her back.”

    Cullen’s blood turned to ice. “Is she . . .”

    Taige shook her head. “She’s safe. He knows she has people watching her. And there’s another.” Her fingers flexed. She swallowed. Then, taking a deep breath, she laid her palm flat against the surface of the desk. “Oh, God . .