Authors: Shiloh Walker
Tags: #Contemporary, #Romantic Suspense, #Romance Suspense
The Missing (19 page)
Deep inside, she felt something wrench, almost like some rope was tied around her gut, and it had been jerked, pulling on her until she had no choice but to follow. “We need to head west now,” she said, opening her eyes. They were on a long, empty stretch of the I-65, heading north. There were no major inter-states for a good while, but it didn’t matter. They needed to go west, and they needed to do it now. Up ahead, she caught sight of an exit ramp.
Highway 940 wasn’t much more than a two-lane highway that would lead them to a town not really big enough to be called such. But that was where they needed to go. She pointed ahead. “Get off there.”
“What are we looking for?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know yet.”
A little bit of impatience edged into his voice as he asked, “Then how do you know we need to get off here?”
Taige bit back the pithy response that came instinctively and kept her voice calm as she said, “I know what I’m doing, Cullen. I’ve been doing it a long time, and I’m good at it. That’s why you came looking for me, right?”
Cullen blew out a sigh. He cut across the interstate, hitting the exit ramp and not slowing down until the very last second. It was midafternoon, but there wasn’t a car in sight on the highway as he turned left, punching the gas until the speedometer was edging up over seventy. He took the turns at a speed that would have made Taige nervous if she hadn’t been feeling the same uneasiness.
“Can you—” His voice broke off, and he shoved a hand through his hair. Taige glanced at him and saw that his hair was standing completely up on end.
Cocking a brow, she asked, “Can I what?”
“Has he hurt her?”
Sympathy and understanding flooded her. If Jillian had been hurt, Taige didn’t know what she’d say to him just then—he was already so tense. That calm mask he wore was just that, a mask. She’d dealt with distraught parents before, but Cullen—he was different. No matter how this ended, it was going to affect Taige in ways that no other case, no matter how heartbreaking, had done.
Part of her wanted to run and hide from that fact. This man had caused her enough heartbreak. It might seem infantile to some, still mooning over a man who had dumped her twelve years ago, but Cullen was the only man who had ever been able to get close to her. She hadn’t been interested in having that again, but the few times she decided maybe it was time to get back to life, even time to start having a life, the man she thought she might want turned out to be like glass to her, so transparent she either had to keep her mental shields in place or her thoughts were swamped with memories and emotions that weren’t her own.
None of those guys had been shallow. There had only been a few, and they’d all been pretty hot. All of them smart and decent guys. But one touch was all it had taken to shatter any hope of having a relationship. It just didn’t work trying to get with a man when she touched him and realized he was thinking about what kind of panties she wore.
It made it that much harder to look at Cullen now because it drove home the reminder of just how fricking perfect he’d been for her—and how little he’d loved her.
Even though she couldn’t read him, she could read his tension, and it was so thick and heavy in the car, it was choking her. Feeling his gaze on her, she closed her eyes and reached out.
Taige found her quicker this time, and adrenaline started to pound as she realized how close they were. Through the gray, she saw Jillian, and the girl was as Taige had seen her last time, three hours earlier. Dirty, pale, and still. Taige tried briefly to make a connection, but Jillian was sleeping, lost in a deep, deep sleep. Still, the brief surface connection she made was enough to let Taige know that Jillian hadn’t been hurt.
They would be in time—this time. Cautious, she expanded her search, looking for the man who had grabbed Jillian. The cabin was small, a couch that opened up into a bed, a kitchen with a minuscule, meticulously cleaned sink. Jillian lay behind the only door in the cabin, besides the main door at the front. That room disturbed Taige, way down deep.
It was a bathroom, but it wasn’t the kind of bathroom Taige would have expected to see. The room itself was large, nearly the same size as the other room that served as both kitchen and bedroom. The cot where Jillian lay was tucked up against a wall. The tiles were a bright, blinding white—almost everything was white. Everything but the cot itself, the sink and shower fixtures, and the shiny drain cover in the middle of the floor.
The floor sloped down in the middle.
The showerhead was the removable kind, the sort that came with a head that detached, but this thing looked industrial-grade, more like something used for power washing than personal hygiene. The hose itself was long, so long it could have spanned the entire width of the room.
Her belly churned as she examined the room as closely as she could through the gray’s connection.
Take me closer,
she commanded, but it wasn’t the room itself she wanted to observe.
Take me closer,
she commanded, but it wasn’t the room itself she wanted to observe.
She had to reach out, make a deeper connection.
A warning voice screamed at her from inside her skull, but she pushed forward, reaching out, out, out . . . The warning voice was suddenly drowned out by screams of the damned. Young voices, older voices, all of them screaming and begging for help as pain rained down on them like water. She heard the harsh crack of something striking flesh, a voice garbled, an ugly voice that turned her blood to ice.
Sliding farther and farther into that morass of pain, Taige panicked and jerked away, but it was too late. The screams forced themselves inside her head, echoing through her heart and soul.
Who are you . . . ? Who did this . . . ?
There was no voice, however, to answer. They were all long dead, and the man who had killed them had left nothing of himself behind for Taige to find.
She heard a strange rattling sound and then Cullen, shouting her name. Hands squeezed her arms brutally, and she realized Cullen was shaking her hard. So hard it felt like her teeth were rattling around inside her skull.
“Damn, Cullen,” she wheezed out. “Are you trying to shake my head off of my shoulders?”
His arms came around her, and now, as hard as he had been shaking her, he was holding her, a big hand cradling the back of her head and holding her tight against him. “Damn it, what was that? You looked terrified.”
Weak, she shoved against his chest, trying to get some air between them. He let go only to cup his hands around her face and stare at her. “What in the hell was that? Damn it, you started screaming, and you wouldn’t stop. I didn’t think you’d ever stop.”
Taige swallowed, and her raw throat rebelled. She looked at the digital clock on the dash: 2:59.
Her jaw dropped. “How long . . . ?”
“You closed your eyes about thirty minutes ago. You started crying,” he said softly, reaching up to wipe away tears she hadn’t even been aware of. “And about ten minutes ago, you started screaming. You started screaming, and you didn’t stop.” He pushed her hair back from her face. “What happened to Jillian?”
Taige shook her head, and he growled, “Don’t lie to me.”
She reached up and covered his hand with hers. “I’m not. Jillian’s not hurt. He’s not even there.”
HE would have driven right past the gravel road if Taige hadn’t tensed up, her back arching up off the leather seat. Her hand flew out and grabbed him. Short, neatly trimmed nails bit into his forearm. “Here.”
He didn’t see anything. He slammed on the brakes in the middle of the road and looked around him. “Here where? There’s nothing here.”
She pointed off the roadside, and through the high weeds, he saw the gravel road. He turned off the road and muttered, “Glad I didn’t go with that sedan.” The big Tundra ate up gas, but it took the rough, poor excuse for a road like a dream. As the road started to climb, he glanced over at Taige and saw she had worked forward, even with the seat belt on, so that she sat on the edge of the seat. She had her hands curled around the edge, knuckles gone white.
“Turn,” she said, her eyes closed. She didn’t open her eyes as she pointed to the right. It was another sorry road, more of a trail than anything, and it climbed up, up, and up.
There were no more turns, the road going up at such a high angle, it climbed up the side of the mountain. It kept going up until the ground leveled out. They were damned high. Cullen climbed out of the car and looked around, staring at the cabin in front of him. He noticed the generator, saw a huge water tank, an empty spot in front of the cabin where it looked like somebody parked regularly. But the cabin itself looked damned empty. As secluded as this place was, if somebody had been in that cabin, they would be at the door.
Or maybe not, Cullen thought. If the sick fuck who had taken his baby was inside that house, the last thing he would want to do was announce his presence to anybody. “Don’t suppose I can convince you to wait in the car, huh?” Taige asked as she came up to stand beside him. She’d put a holster on, and Cullen could see the butt of a gun peering out from under her right arm. With her weight resting lightly on the balls of her feet and a grim, intent look on her face, she looked as much a warrior now as she had that first summer when he’d watched her break through the waves like a mermaid, a drowning child in her arms.
“No. You can’t convince me to wait in the car.”
As one, they turned their attention back to the house. “Can you use that gun left-handed?”
“Almost as good as I can with my right hand,” Taige replied. She closed her eyes, and her shoulders lifted and fell as she took a deep, slow breath, followed by another. “But I don’t think I’m going to need it. She’s in there alone.”
“How can you be sure?”
Her misty gray eyes slid toward him, and Cullen blew out a breath. “Okay, dumb question.”
She rolled her shoulders, looking like she was getting ready to step into the ring with a professional boxer, but she didn’t look scared or even worried. She pulled the gun from the leather shoulder holster, palming it in her left hand.
“I thought you said he wasn’t here.” Instinctively, Cullen shifted and placed his body in front of hers. Pointless, considering she was the one with the weapon. A very mean-looking weapon at that, matte black, and she held it like it was part of her.
“I did. And I’m certain he isn’t.” Then she slid around him and planted herself squarely in front of him and gave him a hard look over her shoulder. “But I’ve been wrong before. Now, please, stay behind me. We’re both worried about your girl. Don’t make me worry about you, too.”
So I’m supposed to worry about you?
he wondered. But he kept the question behind his lips, and when she started to walk toward the house, he stayed exactly two steps behind her, close enough that he could grab her and throw her behind him if he had to.
he wondered. But he kept the question behind his lips, and when she started to walk toward the house, he stayed exactly two steps behind her, close enough that he could grab her and throw her behind him if he had to.
The door was locked. He watched as Taige tried to open it by shoving against it. It didn’t even budge. The door boasted three shiny, rather new-looking locks. She glanced at him and asked, “Don’t suppose you can pick locks, can you?”
Cullen scowled. “Hell, no. Can you?”
She lifted her casted hand and said, “One-handed? Hell, no.” She stepped back and studied the house. Cullen took her place and shoved against the door. It was like pushing against a brick wall. He took a step back and threw his weight into it, striking it with his shoulder, and it still didn’t give.
“Don’t bother. If he’s been using this as a place to keep his victims, he’s going to do his damnedest to keep people out. That door is probably reinforced, and those locks are heavy-duty.”
Cullen ignored her. If his little girl was on the other side of that door, the door could be made of titanium, and he’d find a way through it.
“Cullen.”
He heard the thud of footsteps on the porch, heard gravel crunch and the truck door open and shut. He glanced back as Taige came striding back toward the porch. His shoulder throbbed, and the door still felt as solid as a redwood.
The sound of glass shattering finally had him looking around. Taige stood in front of a small, narrow window. She had her left hand wrapped in what looked like a T-shirt, and she was using it to knock shards of glass from the window. She glanced toward him and shrugged. “I’m already bruised and battered enough,” she said.
As she unwound the T-shirt wrapped around her forearm and hand, he saw that she held her gun and had used it to break the window. Little shards of glass rained down as she dropped it onto the porch.
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