* * *
OH, he was absolutely certain of that. A few quick strides had him by her side and he caught her hand, tugging her to a slower pace. “Don’t be in such a hurry.” Stroking his thumb along her wrist, he kept his expression relaxed even as he felt her tension skyrocketing. “If you look anxious or like you have a mission, that’s going to tip Moore off.”
“Moore…the kid or the mayor?”
“Both. But I’m more concerned about the mayor. I can probably talk him into showing us around the house, or
you
can—if I remember him right, he was an arrogant prick in school and he’ll be happy to show off whatever he has.” He paused and glanced down at her. “But don’t look like you’re on a mission, or it’s not going to happen. He wasn’t an idiot when I knew him—he’s not likely to be one now.”
“Too bad.” Dez blew out a breath. “Idiots are annoying but they are easier to manage. You can manipulate the hell out of them.”
True. There wouldn’t be any manipulating with Joshua. He mounted the broad brick steps, taking note of the small details—the security system, the solid oak door, and a series of complicated, although ornate, locks. The mayor took his family’s security seriously.
He pushed the doorbell, still stroking his thumb back and forth over Dez’s wrist, trying not to think. He’d devoted too much time to doing that. Couldn’t think. Not now. Not until this was done—
Anna…
an image of her flashed through his mind and the rage hit him, surging through him like a tidal wave. Rage and pain and grief—all this time.
Fuck
—
Cool hands touched his face. Soft lips pressed to his. “Taylor.”
Distantly, he heard the door open, but he couldn’t think. Couldn’t do anything but try not to break under the fury and the pain. Forcing himself to stare at Dez, and only her, he wondered if he could do this. Could he? Could he manage it? Could he make it?
“You can,” she whispered against his lips, and he wondered if he’d said the words out loud. “Just breathe. Just focus. Think about me right now. Think about this. We’ll help her, I swear.”
Pressing his brow to hers, Taylor gripped her waist and waited for the grief to level off, waited until he could breathe through the rage.
He heard somebody clearing his throat and slowly he lifted his head, found himself staring into an amused pair of dark blue eyes. They were familiar, he realized—Brendan’s eyes. But not so cold and lifeless. Arrogant as hell, but not cold, not evil.
Easing away from Dez, he reached for the control that had gotten him through the worst shit imaginable. It let him push aside everything else and meet Joshua Moore’s eyes with a smile. “Hello, Mr. Mayor.”
Joshua responded with a hearty laugh. To Taylor’s ears, it sounded just a little too hearty, a little too practiced, but then again, he’d always been the sort to look for things like that.
“Now, you can’t call me Mr. Mayor, Taylor. We go too far back. There’s a rule for that sort of thing, I’m sure.” He grinned at Taylor and then shifted his attention to Dez, giving her a wide, easygoing smile. “Hello, Ms. Lincoln. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Dez lifted a brow. “It sounds like my reputation has preceded me.”
“It’s a small town.” Joshua shrugged. He stepped aside and gestured for them to come in. “After everything you’ve done, how could anybody here
not
know your name? Come in, come in…”
Keeping an eye on Dez, Taylor followed her into the house, watching her. If there was anything here, she’d probably feel it fast, considering how everything here seemed to be affecting her so acutely.
And it was easier—the coward’s way, he knew, to focus on her, to think about her. Because she could keep his mind occupied. As long as he thought about her, he didn’t have to think about anything else. Right now, he
couldn’t
think about anything else.
* * *
IT was all but black.
Dez had to slam her shields up the second she stepped foot over the threshold; otherwise, she just might have collapsed. Even through her shields, she could feel the ominous, heavy weight of it pressing down on her. Okay…maybe it was a good thing she wasn’t generally a bloodhound, wasn’t one of the empaths. Yeah, they’d be more equipped to handle this, but what if she’d walked into this blind and wide open?
She didn’t know, but it might have sent her to her knees.
There was something so fucking wrong in this place.
Jackpot
. She followed along behind the mayor as he led them into a spacious living room and gestured toward a nice little recessed area with chairs gathered around a fireplace. It was flickering brightly, although there wasn’t a sound coming from it and she couldn’t smell any smoke. Electric, she decided, studying the flames. They looked almost real, but not quite. Yep, she was going to analyze the décor while her brain processed everything around her. One small chunk at a time—much less likely to go insane that way.
As Taylor came to a stop beside her, he rested a hand—possessive, protective, and reassuring all at once—at the small of her back. “I wouldn’t mind some coffee,” he said. “And Dez is a caffeine junkie.”
She glanced up at him and then at Joshua, realized he was watching them expectantly. He’d said something—shit. And she’d been completely out of it. So completely out of it.
Dredging up a smile, she met Joshua’s gaze. “Guilty. If you make it as strong as they do at the hospital, I’ll need cream and sugar, though.”
“Oh, I think I can do a sight better.” He smiled and gestured to the couch. “Sit, please. I wasn’t expecting to have any company. My wife is out with a few of her girlfriends, and my son…” He sighed and the practiced, professional smile faded, replaced by something real, something worried. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Well, Brendan’s out with his friends. Kid’s having a rough time of it lately. Very rough.”
Once they were alone, Dez moved farther into the room and gingerly settled on the edge of the couch, braced and ready to leap off in case anything bombarded her. She felt silly, but man, this place felt like a psychic bomb, ready to drop squarely on her head.
What she wouldn’t give to have better control over this sort of thing. She wasn’t used to this—she talked to ghosts, damn it. She wasn’t supposed to have all these outside stimuli coming at her. It was driving her nuts.
“You okay?” Taylor asked, his voice low and soft.
“Yeah.” She glanced up at him. “It’s just…off. Everything in here is off.” She glanced in the direction Joshua Moore had taken and murmured, “The man doesn’t have a lick of psychic talent, though. Or it would drive him nuts just being in here. He’d be a mental case.”
“That bad?”
“Worse.” She shivered, wondering just how many years of hatred, of
wrong
were stored up in here. It wasn’t a recent thing, though. Something recent—a few months, probably even a year or two—wouldn’t hit her like this. She could connect to emotions, but for it to hit her in such a way, the problems here must have pretty much infiltrated the very foundation of this house. All but given it a spirit, she realized. A soul, even though there was no life attached to it.
An angry, restless, cold one.
Hearing footsteps, she looked up. By the time Joshua came back in, carrying a tray loaded with mugs, she had managed to hide any signs of unease, but damn it—she wanted out of here.
“Good thing Jacqueline likes to entertain,” Joshua said, smiling as he set the tray down. “Otherwise, I’d be juggling three mugs of coffee and probably burning myself. Typical guy.”
“Are you?” She made herself smile. “What’s a typical guy, anyway? I mean, you’re a mayor, right? Most guys aren’t mayors.”
“It’s just a job.” He gave her a charming smile and shrugged. “And I assure you, I’m very typical. Unlike Taylor here. A small-town boy makes good and all. Look at you, Taylor. FBI. Although I guess I can see why.”
He looked down, focusing on the coffee. “Is it…well, does it help?”
Dez reached over and covered Taylor’s hand with hers. She opened her mouth to answer for him, but Taylor turned his hand around, squeezed her fingers lightly.
“Help?” he echoed. “No. Nothing helps. But if it stops other kids from losing their sisters…” His voice trailed off and he shrugged.
“I’d think that would help, though.” Joshua looked up, his darker gaze locking with Taylor’s lighter one. “Knowing you do something to keep some other kid from going through what you went through.”
“That’s making me a more altruistic person than I ever have been.” Taylor shook his head. “Nothing makes the pain stop. It fades; you learn to live with it. And yes, sometimes I can sleep easier knowing something I did will keep one more predator off the streets. But nothing really
helps
.”
“Maybe nothing is supposed to.” Dez squeezed his hand. “It’s still unfinished. For you. Not knowing anything—that leaves the wound raw and unhealed. You’ll start to heal once you know.”
I’ll give you that, I swear
. She lifted his hand to her lips and pressed a kiss to it, then looked over at the other man. “So…you two were friends in school?”
Joshua shrugged. “Not really.” He shot Taylor a quick glance. “The guy sort of got lost in his own world after…”
“I know about Anna,” Dez said softly.
He nodded. “Not surprising, considering everything I’ve heard about you two. Although…” Abruptly, he closed his mouth and shook his head.
“Although what?” Taylor’s voice was cool, his eyes narrowed slightly.
Joshua looked like he was going to brush the question aside.
Taylor didn’t get brushed aside; Dez could have told the man that. But apparently Joshua Moore had already figured that out.
“Well, it’s just that I’m sort of puzzled at the talk…and now I know for a fact it’s not talk.” He gave them a halfhearted smile. “I wouldn’t think such relationships would be allowed, with your jobs and all.”
Dez could feel the slow crawl of heat up her cheeks. Ducking her head, she reached out and grabbed a cup of coffee. Let him field this one, she figured. He was the one who insisted she sign the damn contract. He was also the one who’d kissed her. And the one who’d slept in her bed. And—
Chicken
.
She mentally groaned and tried to figure out just what she should say, although she couldn’t, for the life of her, find the words to even begin.
Taylor’s hand curved around her neck, his thumb stroking her skin lightly. Just that light touch relaxed her. Eased her.
“Joshua, it’s not really any of your damn business,” Taylor said, his voice easy and mild, although she could hear the edge of warning there. “But Dez works with me on a contract basis. She’s not a full-time employee with the bureau. Different rules apply.”
“The FBI takes freelance work?” Joshua lifted his eyebrows, glancing at Dez. “Just what sort of freelance stuff can one do for the FBI?”
She smiled at him and sipped her coffee. Over the rim of the mug, she studied him. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
He blinked and then did one of those laughs where he threw his head back, the sound of it ringing through the house. Considering how depressed, how
angry
the house itself seemed to be, the laugh felt like a mockery more than anything else, but Dez simply continued to smile at him.
“I guess I asked for that.” He sighed and shook his head. “And you’re right, it’s none of my business. So…why don’t I ask something that is. To what do I owe this pleasure, Taylor? Not that I mind the company or anything. But you’ve never been overly social.”
Taylor glanced at her. Dez smiled at Joshua, still not sure where to go with this. “I thought you said you weren’t friends in school.”
“We weren’t.” Taylor shrugged, laying a hand on her thigh and stroking absently. “Joshua is a couple years older. But we still knew each other.”
“Town this small, almost everybody knows each other.” The mayor grimaced. “At least it used to be that way. We’re growing, bit by bit. And you two haven’t answered me.” His eyes narrowed on her face, scrutinizing.
Sharp, this one. Yeah, she could see the arrogance, but he wasn’t stupid with it. Okay, so how to proceed? He wasn’t going to buy some ditzy
Oh, I just love your house…
Staring into those dark blue eyes, she leaned forward, her hands laced together. Dez opened her mouth—closed it.
Shit, Jones, help me out here…
Still staring at Moore, she opened her mouth again.
He lifted a brow at her. “Yes?”
And then, without even realizing what she was going to say, she heard the words coming out of her mouth. “It’s your son.”
“My…my son. Brendan?” He frowned and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. Shoving up out of his chair, he moved over to the fireplace. “What about him?”
“Brendan. I…well. I don’t know what all he’s been through, but I did hear that he’s close to Beau. I saw him earlier, and I was just worried about him.”
Joshua braced an arm on the mantel, staring down at the brick flooring in front of the fireplace. “You and me both.” He shot her a look over his shoulder, his eyes dark and stark in his face. For that moment, he didn’t look like anything other than a worried father. Tired, stressed, and angry. “He didn’t—shit, he didn’t do anything I need to apologize for, did he? He’s had some trouble before, but I thought we were past all of that.”
“He hasn’t done anything to me.” She shook her head. “He…he just seems so angry.”
Caution flickered in his eyes and a guarded expression fell across his face. “Like I’ve said, he’s had a rough time lately. He’s going to be angry. Besides, he’s a seventeen-year-old boy. How many of them
aren’t
angry at some point or another?”
“Of course.” She settled back on the couch and hoped she hadn’t just blown this, hoped she hadn’t just screwed this entire thing up. “It’s just he’s had a really rough time of it. Beau. Mark. And I heard he lost another friend not that long ago.”
His shoulders rose and fell as a harsh sigh escaped. “Tristan. Yeah. That was…rough. On the whole damn town, but especially on his folks, and those boys. They were tight, you know? Close. Especially him and Mark. Brendan was pretty beat up over it—I wanted him to talk to somebody but he kept telling me he’d be okay. He didn’t want to talk. Maybe I should have made him, but…well. Anyway.” He raked a hand through his hair and moved back to drop down on the couch, sighing. “Look, Ms. Lincoln—is it Ms.? Do I call you Special Agent?”
“How about Dez?” She shrugged. She wasn’t about to lie to him—she wasn’t an agent anymore.
“Dez.” He had that politician mask firmly in place once more. “I appreciate the concern about my son, and I can assure you I’ll talk with him. But you really didn’t need to come out here for this. I can’t imagine how much work you two have to do.”
Taylor smiled. “Not so much work. We’re not yet here in an official capacity.”
Biting back a smile, Dez looked over at him.
Not yet official
—damn, he was good. He’d managed to make it sound like they could get official at the drop of a hat.
Something flickered in the depths of the mayor’s eyes and Dez once more felt something brush against her shields—damn it, she was tired of this. She wanted her gift to go back to behaving the way it was
supposed
to behave—she liked speaking with just ghosts, thanks. She didn’t like feeling all the extra, all the time. It was exhausting. Too much emotion coming and it strained her to the very edge of her resources just to keep up with it.
“Not here officially, huh?” Joshua leaned back, those shrewd eyes of his locked on Taylor’s face, measuring, calculating. “I’m curious, then, why you two seem to be everywhere there’s trouble. Why you were there the night my son gave his statement—why you were reading all of the statements. If the FBI isn’t involved, why are you poking your nose in?”
“I was there because one of my people was involved in rescuing the victim,” Taylor replied, his voice cool. “I have an interest in it. This shouldn’t surprise you. And, for the record, I never claimed to be here representing anybody. If your police force makes that assumption—that’s on them.”
Joshua scowled. “Shit.”
Once more, he came out of his seat. Had a hard time being still when he was nervous, Dez decided. He shot her a look and even before he said anything, she
knew
what he was going to say—no psychic skills required.
“I know about you, you know,” he said softly. He stopped in the middle of the floor, legs spread apart, shoulders set. He had his hands in his pockets, head tipped slightly back. A guy braced for a fight, she decided.
“Do you?” She studied him, eased her shields open a bit, trying to pick something up from him. It was vague—just another one of those insubstantial little brushes against her shields, too vague for her to even define. “I’m curious about whatever it is you think you know.”
He snorted. “Why don’t you read my mind? Then we can discuss it.”
“Buddy, if you think that’s even close to original, you need to think again.” She sighed and leaned back, stretching her legs out in front of her. She crossed her ankles and rested her head against the plushly cushioned couch. “I can’t even recall how old I was the first time I heard something along those lines. Maybe seven or eight.”