The Missing

“Action, sex, savvy writing, and characters with larger-than-life personalities that you will not soon forget are where Ms. Walker’s talents lie, and she delivered all that and more . . . This is a flawless five-rose paranormal novel and one that every lover of things that go bump in the night will be howling about after they read it . . . Do not walk! Run to get your copy today!”
—A Romance Review

“An exhilarating romantic fantasy filled with suspense and . . . star-crossed love . . . Action-packed.”
—Midwest Book Review

“Fast-paced and very readable . . . titillating.”
—The Romance Reader

“Action-packed, with intriguing characters and a very erotic punch,
Hunting the Hunter
had me from page one. Thoroughly enjoyable with a great hero and a story line you can sink your teeth into, this book is a winner. A very good read!”
—Fresh Fiction

“Another promising voice is joining the paranormal genre by bringing her own take on the ever-evolving vampire myth. Walker has set up the bones of an interesting world and populated it with some intriguing characters. Hopefully, there will be a sequel that ties together more threads and divulges more details.”
—Romantic Times

Books by Shiloh Walker

HUNTING THE HUNTER
HUNTERS: HEART AND SOUL
HUNTER’S SALVATION
THROUGH THE VEIL

THE MISSING

Anthologies

HOT SPELL
(with Emma Holly, Lora Leigh, and Meljean Brook)

PRIVATE PLACES
(with Robin Schone, Claudia Dain, and Allyson James)

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

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PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition / November 2008

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Walker, Shiloh.
The missing / Shiloh Walker.—Berkley Sensation trade pbk. ed.
p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-440-60827-8

1. Kidnapping—Fiction. 2. Women—Psychic ability—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3623. A35958M57 2008
813′ .6—dc22 2008030845

http://us.penguingroup.com

To my husband and kids . . . always. I love you.

To my readers, with all my thanks.

And to Sherry-Sherry, it’s not exactly blue.
Do you remember?

PART ONE

ONE

Summer 1992

“SHE’S a local.”

Cullen Morgan glanced toward Kip Wallace. Kip—who in the hell wanted to be called Kip? Then he shifted his attention back to her. Damn. She was something else. He’d seen her from a distance over the past three days, and she looked every bit as perfect up close as she did from far off. Her skin gleamed a warm, mellow gold, but judging by the thick curls and the exotic slant of her eyes, Cullen had a feeling the glowing color didn’t come from days spent on a beach slathering her skin with suntan oil. Although that was a picture.

She passed by him, and he smiled at her, but she never once looked in his direction. He continued to watch her as she walked down the beach. Her butt looked just about perfect in the cutoffs she wore. She wore a swimsuit, faded and serviceable, and Cullen decided that plain tank suit looked better on her than the bikinis he’d seen on more than half of the girls since he’d arrived at the Dunes.

The resort was nestled on a pristine stretch of white sand just a little west of the Florida-Alabama state line. Half of his friends were spending the summer in Cancun or in Europe, but Cullen’s parents were on a “togetherness” kick. They wanted a nice family vacation, so for the next two months they were staying in a little condo on the beach.

Wasn’t too bad. He had to do something with his parents two or three nights a week, and once a week his dad insisted he go fishing with him, but there were worse ways to spend the summer. Although if he didn’t have to deal with guys like Kip, he’d enjoy it more. Cullen’s parents had money, but it was a fairly recent thing. His dad was an accountant who’d made a couple of smart buys in the stock market, and he had a knack for turning ten dollars into a hundred. By the time Cullen was twelve, his parents had taken him out of public schools and sent him to private ones. Their summer vacations went from long weekends in Gatlinburg to month-long trips to England or an Alaskan cruise. Now his parents were talking about buying one of the condos going up along the beach.

“—to her first.”

Kip nudged him in the side, distracting Cullen from his study of the girl’s very nice ass. Scowling, Cullen glanced over at Kip. “What are you talking about?” Kip, with his perfectly cut blond hair, looked like he belonged on the beach. He looked like half of a whole, made to go with any one of the bleach blonde Barbies who strolled around. Cullen wished he’d go find one of the little Barbie dolls and leave him alone, so he could watch the babe in peace and quiet.

“I was asking you if you thought that I could get her phone number before you do.”

Cullen laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

Kip grinned. “Hell, no. Come on. Who can get her number first? You or me? Loser has to rummage up a six-pack for the bonfire Friday.”

Shaking his head, Cullen stood up and dusted the sand off the back of his swim trunks. “I don’t bet on girls. My mom would kill me. And I’m not going to try scoring some beer, either. My dad would kill me.”

Kip’s sneer had Cullen itching to knock it off his tanned, perfect face. “You always worry about what your parents would think?”

“No more than you always wonder what your friends think,” Cullen replied. He looked down the beach and wondered if he’d look like a loser if he went chasing her down the beach. But before he could make up his mind, he heard a familiar voice calling his name. Glancing back, he saw his dad standing on the boardwalk, tackle box and fishing reels in hand.

He looked back at the mystery girl, but she was nearly out of sight now. Shit.

TAIGE Branch could feel the weight of the boy’s eyes drilling into her back. Normally, she paid about as much attention to the tourists as she paid to the sand that got in her shoes. Something that was everywhere, something that was annoying, but nothing she was going to think about beyond that.

In turn, they could be obnoxious, rude, or friendly as could be. None of those traits appealed to Taige. She didn’t want friends, and she didn’t want some rich frat boy trying to cop a feel. But if she had to take her choice, she’d take the frat boy. Some boy feeling her up was a lot easier to deal with than friendliness. She had very little experience with friends. Wandering eyes and hands, she’d been dealing with those since she was fourteen. She handled it now in the same manner she’d used then, a quick stomp on the foot, a knee to his balls, or a jab in the throat.

The bleach blond was the typical kind she’d dealt with before, a privileged little brat with loaded parents, the kind of jerk who thought he could have anything he wanted, including some hot and heavy action with a local girl. He’d made a few passes at her since he’d arrived on the beach with his parents two weeks earlier, and she’d done what she always did: ignore him.

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