The Missing

folded her hands at her waist and gave Taige a pious smile. “Really, Taige. What kind of a language is that? No good, God-fearing soul speaks that way.”

    “No good, God-fearing soul lets a man like my uncle put his hands on a child,” Taige said, her gut churning.

    But Penny just smiled. “The girl has the devil inside her. Just like her mama. Just like you. I failed with my daughter, just like Leon failed with you. We’re both stronger now. We’ll save my grandchild.”

    There was another part of Taige’s ability that really made her uncomfortable. Using it to cause physical harm left her riddled with guilt. But she doubted it would be much of an issue this time. She slammed into Penny’s mind with all the strength she had in her, and when the woman collapsed to the ground, silent, Taige smiled in satisfaction.

    She didn’t have a chance too often to use her handcuffs, but she still carried them, just like she carried the Bureau ID and just like she carried the Glock. And she was just as competent with the cuffs as she was with the gun, crouching down beside Penny’s unconscious body. “Help me sit her up,” she said to Cullen. He braced Penny’s body, while Taige cuffed her with her arms behind her back, looping them around the leg of the breakfast bar.

    Taige didn’t know how long Penny would be out. That little gift was unpredictable, and it wasn’t one she practiced much. It wasn’t one she could practice much, unless somebody volunteered to get psychically sucker punched. It could last a couple hours, a couple days, or, if Penny’s will was really strong, a matter of minutes.

    Thus the cuffs. It wouldn’t do to have Penny wake up and call Leon, alerting him to the fact that Taige and Cullen were coming for him. “Can you check her purse, see if she’s got a license or something? We need to find her house.”

ELEVEN

    IT was an older house, one that had withstood hurricanes, floods, and time. It sat by itself on a piece of land, and Taige’s gut churned with nerves as they approached. Training had kicked in, making her think. They had to approach on foot. If Leon heard them coming, he could do God only knew what to the poor kid he had with him.

    There was a chance that he’d know they were coming anyway, and not because of some warning from his Looney Tunes assistant, but because he’d sense Taige, the same way she could sense him. Hopefully, all the years of training and honing her gift would give her the advantage. She concentrated on muffling her presence, muffling Cullen’s. Cullen’s natural resistance to psychic energy was once more going to work in her favor. The anger inside him would normally alert any and every psychic within a mile range or more that he was coming, but his resistance muffled his emotions and his thoughts.

    Combined with Taige’s efforts, she thought they probably had him pretty much shut down.

    Still, it was risky going in like this. The team was coming. On the drive over, Taige’s phone had started to vibrate, and she read the message on the display. The team was en route with an ETA of thirty minutes. Jones must have had them on standby—hell, he had probably been following her with the damn GPS for days.

    It wouldn’t surprise her at all, and right now, she wasn’t even that irritated by it.

    The team would come in handy. Even if he managed to get past Taige and Cullen, there was no way Leon could evade some of Jones’s psychic bloodhounds. He had a couple of psychics working for him who made Taige’s abilities look like some hokey Gypsy fortune-teller at a county fair.

    They kept to the tree line, and Taige thanked God that it had been getting late when they got back to Gulf Shores. Now it was full night, and they had the cover of darkness to help conceal them as they crossed the empty, exposed field between the trees and the old farmhouse.

    It was quiet.

    She couldn’t hear any sign of life, but she could sense him. Closing her eyes, she focused on the trail Leon hadn’t bothered wiping clean. When she opened her eyes again, she started circling around the house, searching for . . .

    There.

    The doors to the storm cellar were closed but unlocked. The hinges squeaked, and in the silence of the night, they sounded terribly loud. Logically, she knew they weren’t all that loud, but still, she winced. Opening just one door, she ducked inside, and Cullen followed close on her heels.

    At the bottom of the steps was a door. It